TWELVE hours later Leo was on a plane.
Amer, more businesslike than she had ever seen him, had simply taken charge. She had been swept off to spend the night in a quietly exclusive hotel. And then this morning Hari Farah had arrived with her passport, tickets and instructions to accompany her to Dalmun.
Leo had not slept and she was feeling spaced out. Although Hari was exquisitely polite she regarded him with suspicion.
‘Where is Amer?’
‘He has some matters to arrange. Nothing of significance. But long-standing arrangements will need to be changed,’ said Hari smoothly, conveniently forgetting the acrimonious telephone call that had been in progress when he left the Mayfair house. The old Sheikh had not been at all pleased at his son’s news and was saying so at length.
Leo was too proud to ask any more. Anyway, there was no point in asking Hari the most burning question in her mind.
Why had Amer left her alone last night? She would have resisted to the point of violence if Amer had assumed that because he had decided for some reason of his own that it amused him to rescue her from her predicament, he was entitled to make love to her, of course. But she was disconcerted that he had not even tried.
So she allowed herself to be swept off to the airport, still in a daze from her sleepless night. Amer had managed a brief, courteous phone call this morning. But that was all.
‘What is he doing?’ she said to herself as much as Hari.
Hari did not answer. He was too polite. He could have said he wished he knew. In all the years he had known him he had never seen Amer like this.
He had even said so, during the dawn telephone calls.
‘Why are you doing this?’
‘I’m going to marry her,’ Amer replied.
Hari was grim. ‘Since when?’
‘Since she asked me.’
‘Since she—’ Hari was lost for words.
‘Well, to be honest since she dared me not to.’
‘You’re crazy,’ said Hari finding words came to mind after all. ‘And what’s more so is she.’
‘Oh no, she’s got very cold feet now.’
‘Cold feet? You mean she wants to back out and you won’t let her?’
‘That’s not a very romantic way of putting it,’ said Amer reproachfully.
‘Romantic! You are crazy.’ A thought occurred to Hari. ‘You’re not in love with her, are you?’
Amer hesitated. ‘She asked me to marry her,’ he said obstinately. ‘She’s not going to wriggle out of it.’
‘She’ll hate you,’ said Hari with gloomy satisfaction.
‘But she’ll learn not to go asking men to marry her because she’s lost her temper.’
Hari stared at Amer. ‘You’re not serious.’
Amer stared back, implacable.
‘You are serious. You can’t do this. Not just to teach the girl a lesson.’
‘I can do whatever I want,’ Amer said haughtily.
Hari despaired and said so. Amer was unmoved. Hari banged off to pack.
When he had gone, Amer’s arrogant smile died. He was not going to admit it to Hari but he knew that what he was doing was irrational.
At first she had just infuriated him, throwing out her challenging proposal like that as if he were negligible, a nothing in her life. He had needed, really needed, as he told her last night, to show her he was a man who did his own hunting. And made sure that every one else knew that she was his and no one else’s. Hell, he had even been jealous of her dictatorial old father.
But there was more to it than that. He wanted to treasure her, to make her feel safe; to make her feel wonderful. To make her look again as she had in his arms, bewildered by bliss. And he wanted it forever.
And if she didn’t want it, too bad! He straightened his shoulders. She would in time. If it was the last thing he did, he would make her want him as he wanted her.
Leo, in Hari’s charge after Amer’s polite and passionless phone call, had given up thinking. She told herself she did not want passion from Amer. Of course she did not. But the lack of it made her feel lost and even more bereft than her departure from home and job.
She hid it, allowing Hari to usher her into the first-class cabin and to probe—discreetly—into her relationship with his boss. Since she did not know what it all meant herself she did not give much for his chances of enlightenment.
‘I am just coming to Dalmun for a visit,’ Leo announced. ‘My mother thinks I need a holiday somewhere warm.’
She said it several times. It sounded increasingly hollow. Hari, however, was too polite to say so.
She was clearly exhausted. He let her snooze. Time enough to pass on some essential background information when she was more alert.
She woke when the cabin crew started to serve lunch.
‘I took the liberty of ordering for you,’ Hari told her. ‘You were sleeping so peacefully. But if you do not like anything, they will be only too happy to fetch you something else.’
‘I’m sure it will be fine,’ muttered Leo.
Awake at last, she wondered what on earth she was getting herself into. What she doing on this plane? How could she have let Amer el-Barbary take charge of her life like that? If she needed an exotic holiday why had she not gone to the Seychelles or Barbados on her own?
Because, said a cynical little voice inside her, nobody goes to the Seychelles or Barbados on their own. And Amer el-Barbary had not stopped to ask her permission.
‘I am sure you will find it interesting,’ Hari said diplomatically. ‘Er, what exactly has His Excellency told you about the country?’
His Excellency! Leo winced. Hari could not have said anything which made her realise how far away her world was from Amer’s. Or how little she knew about him really.
‘Nothing very much at all,’ she muttered.
Hari hid his dismay and embarked on a rapid thumbnail sketch.
‘It is very old. Dalmun City was on the frankincense road.’
Leo struggled to concentrate. It felt as if she were in the middle of a nightmare.
‘The frankincense road?’
‘It went along the edge of the desert,’ Hari explained. ‘In the monsoon season, traders sailed to India and even China. They brought back all sorts of things that people wanted in Europe. Silks, feathers, spices. The road developed to take exotic goods north to the markets.’
Silks, feathers and spices. Exotic indeed. And for all Amer’s Italian suits and Impressionist paintings, that was his real heritage. And she knew nothing of it at all.
Just because he could set her senses on fire, it did not mean that they had anything like enough to bridge that centuries-deep gap of culture. Leo felt very cold.
Hari ploughed on conscientiously. ‘At one time there were several cities strung out along the road where the merchants would stop and trade. Just ruins now, of course. That is where His Excellency got his interest in archaeology, of course.’
‘Amer is interested in archaeology? I didn’t know,’ said Leo, chalking up another failure of communication.
Unaware, Hari smiled reminiscently. ‘He has always been interested, since he was a child. It was the subject he studied at his English university. For a while he even threatened his father he would make it his profession.’ He laughed. ‘His father had not spoken to him for a year. But when he heard that, he summoned him to the Palace at once. But I’m sorry to bore you. His Excellency must have told you this already.’
The nightmare pressed closer. His Excellency, Leo was beginning to realise, had told her precisely nothing about himself.
‘N-no.’
Hari thought hard thoughts about Amer. How on earth was this woman going to deal with the seething politics of Dalmun without some background? It was like sending a tourist into the desert without a compass.
He set himself to repair the omission as best he could in the remaining hours of the flight.
Which was how Leo learned that Amer was the Sheikh’s only surviving son and expected to take up the reins of leadership eventually. His father was passionate and volatile, however, and Amer was no obedient cipher. So they lived in separate palaces, more often than not at odds with each other.
‘His Majesty is very—traditional,’ Hari said, choosing his words with care. ‘He does not like things to change. The ministers know that progress cannot be halted and that His Excellency recognises this. So they consult him on policy—but informally, if you follow me. Everyone looks to Sheikh Amer to persuade his father to improve things. But, of course, in the end it is always His Majesty’s decision.’
‘It sounds appalling,’ said Leo from the heart. ‘Responsibility without power. The pits. Especially if he is fond of his father.’
Hari looked at her in quick surprise. Not many of Amer’s friends had understood that. None of the girl-friends that he could remember had come anywhere near appreciating Amer’s dilemma. He suddenly felt a lot more hopeful.
‘You are so right,’ he agreed with enthusiasm. He became less correct. And a good deal less discreet. ‘It’s a real tightrope. His father is unpredictable. For example, last year he confined Amer to house arrest for a while when he refused to marry again.’
Leo froze.
Hari did not notice. ‘We were all afraid,’ he went on. ‘But then someone presented him with a wild caught saker falcon and he insisted that Amer went on a hunting trip with him to try it out. And when they came back, all their disagreements were forgotten. Amer was allowed to go to Egypt just as if they had never had a disagreement.’ He shrugged helplessly.
‘Was that when I met him?’ Leo said hollowly. ‘After he’d just come out of house arrest?’
‘Yes.’
‘And just because he did not want to marry again?’
Hari was rueful. ‘You must understand that there is a lot of tribal unrest in Dalmun. Officially we do not admit it but in practice there are several tribes—particularly some of desert Bedouins—who are dissatisfied with the part they are allowed to play in government. Amer wants to deal with this by negotiation but his father thinks that another family alliance is all that is needed.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Amer’s first wife came from a powerful border family,’ he explained. ‘They used to make trouble regularly. But ever since the marriage they have sided with His Majesty. Even after she died—’ He stopped. Leo had flinched. ‘What is it?’ he said in concern.
‘I didn’t know.’ Her mouth felt stiff. The words sounded strange. ‘How did she die? Was it recent?’
Hari was shocked. Damn it, what was Amer doing with this girl?
He said reassuringly, ‘It was years ago. Amer was still at university.’
‘What was she like?’
Hari shrugged. It was years since he had thought about the spoilt beauty that Amer had married.
‘I didn’t really know her. I was very young. She was very beautiful, very fashionable.’
Leo’s heart sank like a stone.
‘How did she die? Was she ill?’
‘No, nothing like that. It was an accident. She was thrown from a horse. Somewhere in France I believe.’
‘How terrible,’ she whispered.
Hari was startled. Then uncomfortable. ‘It was a long time ago,’ he said again. ‘I do not think Amer is still grieving. I’ve never heard him mention her.’
‘But he did not marry again,’ Leo said. ‘If it was so long ago you would have expected him to fall in love again, wouldn’t you?’
She could imagine all too vividly how the death of his young wife must have struck him to the core. She felt desolate at the thought.
Hari saw he had made a mistake and did not know how to retrieve it. He pushed a harassed hand through his hair.
‘Oh, he has not been short of love,’ he said unwisely. ‘There was just no reason for him to marry.’
Leo gave him a stricken look. He could have kicked himself.
‘Look,’ he said desperately, ‘don’t get the wrong idea. In Dalmun marriage is a strategic thing. For everyone involved. It is all very practical. Don’t start thinking of Amer as some tragic, grief-stricken hero. He isn’t.’
Leo did not answer.
So why had Amer accepted her vainglorious challenge? Why had he pursued her? She had thought she had the answer. Pride! But in that case why, when he had defeated her in every way there was, why was he still insisting that they were engaged in spite of her denials?
Well, now she had the answer to that, too. He did not want to make one of those practical, strategic marriages. Probably he was still in love with his tragically dead wife. He wanted her as high-class camouflage, to keep his father at bay when he pressed him to marry again.
Leo flayed herself with the thought.
Oh, there were other elements, of course. Amer, she knew by now, wanted to win any game he played. When she slipped away from Cairo without leaving him a message he must have felt for a moment that he had lost that game. He would not have tolerated that, hence the private investigators.
And there was sex of course. Leo’s experience might be limited. But she realised that the sexual current between her and Amer was powerful by any standards. He would not want to leave that unexplored. She shivered, remembering.
Hari said that Amer had not been short of love. She believed him—if love was what you called it. Those lazy, laughing kisses. The unhurried touch. Even that final glinting triumph. They all spoke of a man who knew exactly what he was doing. Skill like that, thought Leo wincing, only came with practice.
She could feel the heat in her cheeks. Oh it was effective, all right. It might not have much to do with love but a woman could forget that in the intoxication of those moments in his arms.
Her memories were too graphic. She banished them, resolutely. It was as well she did. Hari’s confidences had become crucial.
‘Everyone thought he would not marry again after all this time. Your news will be a great joy to everyone.’
Leo gaped. Hari smiled reassuringly and, quite unconsciously, added the final drop to her cup of despair.
‘His Majesty will come round in time. You’ll see.’
In London Amer was in his final and most important meeting. It was not one his father knew anything about, although both the Finance Ministry and the Department of Health had contributed to the paper under discussion. There were four men on the other side of the table.
‘It is all very well,’ said a dark, angry man. ‘But why is it taking so long?’
‘You know why, Saeed,’ said one of his companions patiently. ‘This time it will be different.’
‘Because Sheikh Amer will pretend that these things are needed for his excavation.’ The man was contemptuous. ‘Why is the truth not enough? Our people have poor water and no electricity. Dalmun is not a poor country. We have oil, minerals. And His Majesty buys racehorses and bits of foreign industry! It is an outrage.’
Privately Amer agreed with him. He was too loyal to his father to say so, however.
Instead he said soothingly, ‘Well, as you see from the papers in front of you, the electricity infrastructure will start to be installed next month. After that we start to implement the water conservation project.’
Saeed was not soothed. He was the only man in the room in flowing traditional dress. It kept tangling round the legs of the hotel chairs, as he kicked his feet in frustration.
He said mutinously, ‘We have been waiting too long. People have stopped believing Sheikh Amer’s promises.’
There was a chorus of protest from the other three. Saeed seemed to take confidence from it. He stopped wrestling with his robes.
‘I warn you,’ he said directly to Amer. ‘There will be action.’
Amer broke into the outcry.
‘What sort of action?’ he said softly.
Saeed’s expression became shifty. He shrugged. ‘They don’t tell me. I am too far away. But there will be something.’
‘Another kidnapping?’ Amer said lightly. ‘I’m told it’s starting to be offered as an exciting option for adventurous tourists.’ His eyes were watchful.
‘It is no joke to people who get sick from bad water,’ said Saeed hotly.
‘And I am not laughing at them,’ Amer said at once. ‘But is it sensible to deal with modern problems by thirteenth-century strategies?’
Saeed looked at him with dislike. ‘Maybe we should be more focused,’ he said mockingly.
Amer stiffened.
But Saeed’s colleagues shouted him down so loudly that Amer judged it diplomatic not to pursue the subject. He did not forget it, though. As soon as he came out of his meeting he called Dalmun with an urgent message.
And then he gave instructions to the crew of the private jet which had been on stand-by all day.
A car with screened windows met Leo at the airport. Hari assured her it was to protect them from the sun but Leo was not convinced. It felt as if she were being kept out of sight. Though, when it was Amer himself who insisted on her coming to his country, she could not imagine why. She said so.
‘Not at all,’ said Hari.
He was sweating silently. It was not the first time he had adapted the truth to suit Amer’s purposes. But, under Leo’s sceptical gaze, he found it amazingly difficult to sustain. The gorgeous Julie in Cannes had been a lot easier to deal with, he thought.
As instructed, he took her to Amer’s palace in the foothills.
‘You will be pleased with it,’ he said pleadingly. ‘Amer inherited it from his grandfather and he has kept it traditional. The sunken garden and the courtyard with the fountains are exactly as they have been for centuries. For the rest—well he put in electricity and some modern plumbing, that’s all.’
It was dark by the time they reached the palace. Pushing aside the curtains, Leo saw great wooden gates open silently. They were set in pale walls that must be twenty feet high, she thought.
‘It’s a fortress,’ she said, taken aback.
Just for a moment she thought she caught a glimpse of a mountain ridge against the starlit sky. But then they swept into the courtyard and there were too many people for her to concentrate on the landscape. They surrounded the car with greetings and offers of service.
In spite of the vocabulary Leo had picked up in Egypt, their Arabic was too rapid or too accented for her to follow. She turned to Hari. She had the feeling that all was not well. It made her feel helpless. She did not like it.
Hari assimilated the information fast and, although he hardly reacted at all, Leo was convinced that her suspicions were right.
‘What is it?’ she said in quick concern.
But he was smiling, saying it was nothing, a few administrative matters only. She would be tired after her journey. She would want to rest. A room had been prepared for her in the women’s quarters. Fatima, who spoke English, would show her the way and fetch her a light supper if she required it.
Leo smiled at Fatima, who had gentle eyes and was looking excited by their arrival. But all her instincts told her that something was wrong.
She said sharply, ‘Has there been a message from Amer?’
‘Yes indeed,’ said Hari. ‘He will be here tomorrow afternoon.’
Relieved to be able to tell the truth, he beamed at Leo. She distrusted him deeply. But he was right in one thing at least. After her sleepless night, and the conflicting emotions of the last twenty-four hours, she was exhausted.
So she let Fatima conduct her to a cool, vaulted room. The leaded windows looked out onto a skyline of palm trees. Above them, the stars seemed to quiver with the intensity of their light. A new moon curved like a scimitar slash above the horizon.
She opened the window and leaned out. The scent of the night rolled in at once. The smell was of heat and herbs she did not know. Leo suddenly felt very small and alien. And alone. She shivered.
There was a touch on her arm. She looked round, startled.
Fatima was offering her a small porcelain cup of some golden liquid. It was steaming. Her eyes were kind.
‘Sheikh Amer will be here tomorrow,’ she said comfortingly.
For no reason that Leo could think of, she found her eyes filling with tears. She dashed them away angrily. Tiredness, she thought. That was all it was. The mere presence of Amer—or anybody else for that matter—was not enough to make her feel at home in an alien land. That took time and patience and study; and depended entirely on the effort she put into it herself. Amer was irrelevant.
But it would clearly have been a waste of time to tell this to Fatima. So she shrugged and let herself be shown the beauties of the suite which the Sheikh had ordered to be prepared for her. Apart from the bedroom, there was a bathroom that could rival any she had seen in the most luxurious hotels in the world, a sitting room furnished with exquisitely carved furniture and strewn with jewel-coloured cushions, and a small roof terrace. The terrace was triangular and at its apex there was a statue of a falcon with its beak open.
‘When the wind blows, the falcon breathes,’ Fatima explained poetically. ‘There is a legend…’
But Leo’s eyelids were drooping. Fatima was sympathetic. She made sure that Leo had everything she needed and left.
Leo wanted to think but she could not. She fell into a bed. And a sleep too deep for dreams.
In the morning, of course, it was different. She awoke with a start, her heart pounding. At first she did not know where she was and the leaded lights in the window looked like prison bars. But then she saw the doors open to the terrace, with full daylight streaming in, and she remembered. She sank back among the pillows with a gasp of relief.
It was quickly succeeded by all the doubts that had beset her yesterday. Where was she? With the curtains closed she had not really been able to detect much of the route they had taken from the palace. Hari had taken charge of everything, including her passport. The prison analogy did not seem so far-fetched after all.
She pulled on yesterday’s clothes and went to look for someone, anyone. She needed to assert that it was she—not Amer and certainly not Hari—who was in charge of her life.
She found them easily enough. Asserting herself was more difficult. For one thing, everyone denied knowledge of Hari’s current whereabouts.
‘Perhaps he has gone to the airport to meet the Sheikh,’ Fatima suggested helpfully.
She was delighted to bring Leo food. She attended assiduously to her comfort. She showed her round the palace and its shaded gardens. And when Leo grew restive, she introduced her to a quiet scholarly man who laid out books and maps and the Sheikh’s archaeological finds for her admiration until Leo thought she would scream.
‘Look,’ she said dangerously, ‘I’m not interested in His Excellency’s leisure activities.’
‘I hope you don’t mean that,’ said a voice from the doorway. An amused voice. One, she now realised, that had whispered through her dreamless sleep.
She swung round and yelled at him, ‘Don’t you laugh at me. Don’t you dare laugh at me.’
Her quiet companion folded maps and retreated rapidly.
‘You’ve embarrassed Hussein,’ said Amer reproachfully.
Leo was shaking. With fury she told herself.
‘Never mind Hussein. Where is Hari? And what has he done with my passport?’ she burst out.
Amer blinked.
‘And welcome home to you, too,’ he said drily. ‘Yes thank you, the flight was quite pleasant.’
‘I don’t care what sort of flight you had,’ shouted Leo, thoroughly upset. ‘I want to get out of here.’
Amer sat down on the other side of ancient map table and folded his hands together into a pyramid. He regarded her thoughtfully. ‘Why?’
‘Why?’ Leo glared. ‘Isn’t it obvious? Nobody likes being held a prisoner.’
Amer remained calm.
‘And what has convinced you that you’re a prisoner?’
She made a despairing gesture. ‘I don’t know where I am. Nobody will tell me anything. They just say to wait for you. And they took my passport away.’ To her dismay, her voice choked on this last statement. She looked away.
‘I see.’ He sounded unforgivably calm. ‘Do you want to run away so soon?’
Leo rummaged in her trouser pocket for a handkerchief and failed to find one. She sniffed as unobtrusively as she could.
‘I want to be in control of my own affairs,’ she said when she thought she had mastered her voice again.
There was a pause which she could not interpret.
‘A modern woman,’ he teased. ‘My father will be shocked.’
Leo raised her head, arrested. ‘Your father?’
‘We are having dinner with him,’ Amer told her gravely.
Leo’s heart fluttered in her breast. ‘A-are we?’ she said, uncertain all of a sudden.
He gave her that terrible, tender, deceiving smile. ‘Unless you’d rather take your passport and go, of course.’
Leo wanted to demand her passport and sweep out of the room immediately. At the same time, she wanted him to take her in his arms and tell her that he loved her—and that he wanted her never to leave his side. It was not fair.
Amer sensed her dilemma, it seemed. He stood up and strolled over to an intricately carved cabinet. He opened a small drawer and extracted a little booklet. It was, Leo saw with indignation, not even locked. Amer tossed the passport across to her.
‘There you are, my darling. Your freedom, if you want it,’ he said with irony.
Leo caught it out of the air, like a starving monkey fielding falling fruit. She clutched it to her breast protectively. Amer’s irony deepened.
‘So am I to order the car to take you to the airport?’
To her own complete astonishment Leo heard herself say, ‘No.’
His eyes lifted; lit with a wicked light.
‘Ah.’
‘If your father is kind enough to ask me to dinner, it is only polite to go,’ she said with dignity.
‘Oh, absolutely,’ he said, smooth as silk.
She was sure her colour rose. To disguise it, she looked at her watch in her most efficient manner. ‘Of course, I shall need time to get ready. I’m not sure whether I’ve brought anything suitable to wear. I wasn’t expecting to come to Dalmun when I packed.’
He smiled. ‘I can advise you.’
Leo had a sudden vivid picture of him, inspecting the clothes that Fatima had unpacked for her this morning. Padding around in her bedroom, no doubt as if he owned it. Which of course he did. Her breathing quickened.
‘I think I can manage to sort something out on my own, thanks.’
Amer’s eyes danced. ‘But you will need advice on local conventions of dress.’
‘I’ll ask Fatima,’ Leo said firmly. She was sure her colour was hectic.
He laughed and flung up his hands in a gesture of surrender.
‘I will tell her that you are to borrow anything you require.’
Leo recoiled. ‘Borrow! From whom?’
Was he suggesting she wear his wife’s clothes? Was this where he told her about his wife at last? Suddenly she did not want to hear about his love for another woman.
He eyed her speculatively. ‘I have guests from time to time. We are out of town here. It is not always possible for them to buy what they need at a moment’s notice. So we keep a few spare clothes for visitors to borrow if necessary.’ He read her mind again. ‘Men as well as women,’ he added kindly.
This time there was no doubt. Leo flushed scarlet. She could feel it.
He laughed again, quite differently.
‘You look agitated. You should rest.’
‘On the contrary,’ she said with as much dignity as she could muster. ‘I slept too long.’
‘Then you have not recovered from the journey yet,’ he said imperturbably. ‘As I have not myself. Let us rest together.’
There was a shattering silence, broken only by the thump of her heart. Leo thought: He didn’t say that. He can’t have said that. He can’t think I’m here to fall into bed with him when he snaps his fingers.
But Hari had said, ‘He wasn’t short of love.’ And she had already fallen into bed with him, hadn’t she? It was no thanks to her that they were not already lovers in all the ways there were.
Amer held out his hand.
She said harshly, ‘You can’t be serious. That is such a cliché.’
He was not put out. ‘I merely suggest what we both want. Where is the cliché in that?’ The grey eyes were warm.
Leo closed her eyes against the allure. If she did not look at him, she would be able to stick to her resolve.
‘It’s feudal.’
‘And are you so modern?’
His voice was a caress. It set little shivers of desire rippling through every nerve ending. Oh, she could close her eyes and maybe her ears but he was in her bloodstream now and her whole body ached to turn to him. It wasn’t fair.
She said, ‘I don’t believe in casual sex.’
He said nothing. Cautiously Leo opened her eyes.
Amer had folded his arms and propped himself up negligently against the corner of the table. He did not try to touch her. But he looked as if he was happy to stay there and debate with her forever. Or until she gave in.
‘What sort of sex do you believe in?’ he said in an interested voice.
Leo was thrown off balance. As, no doubt, he had intended, though she did not realise that until too late. Mistakenly she tried to answer him.
‘Oh, when two people know each other. When they—’
‘We know each other,’ he murmured.
She glared. ‘When they have spent time together and know each other’s faults and reached a rational decision—’
He was disbelieving. ‘Rational?’
‘Of course.’
He shook his head. ‘You are even weirder than I thought. What has reason to do with love?’
‘Love,’ said Leo contemptuously.
‘Oh don’t modern women believe in love, either?’
‘We’ll leave my beliefs out of it.’
‘Running away again,’ he said softly.
Leo’s temper surged. ‘Are you trying to tell me that you brought me here because you love me?’ she flashed.
Amer stretched lazily. But his eyes were watchful.
‘Is it so impossible?’
‘You made me a prisoner,’ Leo pointed out. ‘Not very loving, that.’
‘But we are all prisoners when we love,’ Amer said soulfully.
Leo sent him a look of acute dislike.
‘Don’t keep talking about love. It makes me sick. You brought me here because you can’t bear to lose a game,’ she flung at him. ‘Any game, however trivial. And I was winning, wasn’t I? Until I got emotional and handed it to you on a plate.’
For a moment he did not answer. Then he said slowly, ‘You are a very untrusting woman.’
‘I’m a realistic woman. What grounds have I got for trusting you?’
Amer was rather pale. He unfolded his length from the carved table and came towards her.
He said, not laughing at all, ‘But I told you I would marry you.’
‘And you did not tell me that you had been married before,’ Leo flung back at him.
He stopped dead.
‘Is it true?’
All of a sudden, his eyes were quite opaque.
‘Yes.’
She shrugged, though her heart was screaming with pain.
‘My case proved, don’t you think?’
She walked out of the room. He did not try to stop her.