A Whisper of Disgrace

Oh, why hadn’t she turned the lights off?

Because you weren’t expecting a late-night visitor, that’s why.

‘You can try ignoring me if you want, Rosa, but I’m not going anywhere,’ persisted the voice. ‘And if you stretch my patience too far, then I may be forced to break down this door.’

What a caveman he was! Rosa racked her brain for some kind of response and decided to attempt an audacious piece of bravado. ‘And what if I’m not alone?’ she demanded. ‘Don’t you think you might be disturbing something—that I might want a little privacy?’

From the other side of the door, Kulal gritted his teeth as a slow rage began to build inside him. Bad enough that he was being forced to enter a union   with this tramp of a woman, but that she should dare to keep him waiting was intolerable!

‘Then I’d advise you to tell your paramour to get dressed and to get dressed quickly, since he might not enjoy facing me in my current mood.’

Rosa shivered at the forceful intent behind his words. She should have been shocked by his arrogance, but she was Sicilian and therefore she wasn’t a bit shocked. She was used to outrageously chauvinist behaviour within the Corretti clan itself, but this man was making the male members of her own overbearing family seem like absolute pussycats.

Reluctantly, she unlocked the key and opened the door, her senses assailed by the overpowering scent of jasmine from the darkened gardens as she stared at the man who was standing on her doorstep.

He was exactly as she remembered him. No, that wasn’t quite true. She’d spent the past two days trying to play him down in her imagination, telling herself that it had been her highly emotional state which had made her react to him in such an uncharacteristic way. Telling herself that he was nothing special, that he was just a man who was aware of his appeal to women and who played on it.

But she had been wrong. More than wrong. Because tonight, his undeniable sexiness was edged with something potent—something which suddenly made her feel innocent and fragile. He looked as if he meant business—and it wasn’t just the way he was dressed, in a dark and sombre suit, which emphasised his powerful physique. He looked as if he hadn’t shaved that day so that his dark jaw was faintly shadowed with stubble. It was a look which was essentially masculine and subtly modern, yet it didn’t match the expression in his black eyes. Because that was the antithesis of modern—it was darkly glittering and almost primitive.

She swallowed. ‘What do you want?’

‘A little courtesy might be a good place to start. I’d like to come in.’

To Rosa’s disbelief he didn’t bother waiting for her assent, just walked straight past her. ‘You can’t just barge in here like that!’ she protested.

‘Too late. I just did. So let’s not waste any more time with futile protestations. Shut the door like a good girl, will you? I want to talk to you.’

Fury came in many forms and the form which was visiting Rosa right then was making her speechless with a growing anger. Like a good girl, he had said—and hadn’t she run away from Sicily to escape precisely that type of patronising attitude? It took a moment or two before she could compose herself enough to suck in a deep breath and manage to turn it into an outraged question.

‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded.

‘Are you going to shut the door, or am I?’

She kicked it shut before she could ask herself why she wasn’t calling hotel security—if such a thing existed in this place—to have him ejected. Maybe because there seemed something distinctly unfinished between them—something which still needed to be said. But she wasn’t going to let him think that she was a pushover, even though her heart was now racing for a very different reason. She had behaved like a stupid fool the other night and she didn’t intend to do so again. ‘I didn’t think we had anything left to say to each other, after that man Mutasim bundled me into a taxi the other day.’

He didn’t appear to be listening to her for his eyes were trained on the closed door in the far corner of the room. ‘So is there some thwarted lover in there?’ he questioned softly. ‘Cowering in fear as he puts his clothes back on?’

For a moment Rosa was tempted to say yes, wondering if he would have the bravado to actually go in and confront some fictitious man. But deep down she knew the answer. Of course he would. She could tell from the tension in his powerful body that he was afraid of nothing. Or no one.

But then, neither was she, she reminded herself. Not any more. She’d spent her whole life being bossed around by autocratic men and being reined in by old-fashioned rules, and the new Rosa Corretti had no intention of continuing with that repressive tradition. So this Kulal—whoever he was—had better understand that, before she kicked him out of here for good.