Lexie froze, her widening eyes taking in his honed features.

His smile twisted into something close to cynicism. ‘But not if it goes against your principles.’

‘No—well—no,’ she stammered, barely able to articulate.

‘Then shall we try it?’ He took her startled silence for assent, and bent his head to claim her lips in a kiss that was surprisingly gentle.

At first.

But when her bones melted his arms came around her and he pulled her against his lean, powerful body—and all hell broke loose.

That cool, exploring kiss hardened into fierce demand and Lexie burned up in his arms, meeting and matching his frankly sexual hunger. Stunned by an urgent, voluptuous craving, she almost surrendered to the adrenalin raging like a bushfire through her.

She felt the subtle flexion of his body, and knew that he too wanted this—this headstrong need, mindless and sensuous. Desperately, she fought to retain a tiny spark of sanity as a bulwark against the white-hot sensations his experienced kiss summoned inside her.

Yet when he lifted his head and drawled, ‘Shall we go further down into the garden?’ it took every ounce of her will power to refuse.

In a ragged voice she muttered, ‘No.’

He let her go and stepped back. Embarrassed, shocked and angry with herself, she whirled and set off for the bright rectangles of light that indicated the doors onto the terrace.

‘One moment.’

Startled into stillness by the decisive command, she stopped and half turned.

He was right behind her. A long-fingered hand lifted to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, and somehow he managed to turn the simple gesture into a caress that sent more forbidden excitement drumming through her.

‘You don’t look quite so storm tossed now,’ he said, that sardonic smile tilting his lips again as he surveyed her face. ‘But a trip to the powder room is advisable, I think.’

‘I—yes,’ she said, forcing her voice into its usual practical tone. ‘Are you coming inside too?’

‘Not for a few minutes,’ he said gravely. ‘My body, alas, is not so easily mastered as yours.’

‘Oh.’ Hot faced, she took off to the sound of his quiet laughter behind her.

Rafiq watched her go, frowning as his aide-de-camp passed her in the doorway, the man’s presence breaking in on thoughts that weren’t as ordered as he’d have liked.

Dragging his mind away from Lexie’s sleek back and the gentle sway of her hips, he said abruptly, ‘Yes?’

‘Your instructions have been followed.’

‘Thank you,’ Rafiq said crisply, and turned to go inside. Then he stopped. ‘You noticed the woman who passed you on the way in?’

‘Yes, sir.’ When Rafiq’s brows lifted, the younger man expanded, ‘She is also under s—’ He stopped as Rafiq’s brows met over his arrogant nose. Hastily he went on, ‘She is staying at the hotel with Count Felipe Gastano.’

He stepped back as another man approached them, saying to Rafiq, ‘You’re leaving already, sir?’

Rafiq returned the newcomer’s smile. He respected any man who’d hauled himself up from poverty and refugee status, and this man—the CEO of the construction firm that had built the new resort—was noted for his honesty and philanthropy. ‘I’m afraid I must,’ he said. ‘I have an early call tomorrow.’

They exchanged pleasantries, but as Rafiq turned to go the older man said, ‘And you will consider the matter we discussed previously?’

‘I will,’ Rafiq told him with remote courtesy. ‘But I am unable to make the decision; there must be consultations with the council first.’

The older man said shrewdly, ‘I wonder if you will ever regret giving up the power your forebears took for granted?’

Rafiq’s broad shoulders lifted in a negligent shrug. ‘In the eyes of the world Moraze might be only a smallish island in the Indian Ocean. But its few-million citizens are as entitled to the privileges and responsibilities of democracy as any other free people, and if they don’t want them now they will soon enough. I am a practical man. If I hadn’t introduced self-government, power would eventually have been taken away—either from me or from one of my descendants.’

‘I wish all rulers were as enlightened,’ the other man said. He paused before adding, ‘I know my daughter has already thanked you for your magnificent birthday gift, but I must thank you also. I know how rare fire-diamonds are, and that one is superb.’

‘It is nothing.’ Rafiq dismissed his gift with a smile. ‘Freda and I are old friends—and the diamond suits her.’

They shook hands and Rafiq frowned, his mind not on the woman who’d been his lover until six months previously but on Alexa Sinclair Considine, with the gold-burnished hair and the steady gaze, and a mouth that summoned erotic fantasies.

And her relationship with a man he loathed and despised.

She was no longer in the room, Rafiq realised after one comprehensive glance around the large salon. And neither was Felipe Gastano.

CHAPTER TWO

UP IN the palatial bedroom, Lexie could still hear the faint sound of music. Moraze was as glorious as its discreet publicity promised—a large island, dominated by a long-extinct chain of volcanoes ground down by aeons of wind and weather to become a jagged range of mountains bordering a vast plateau area.

Just before landing the previous day Lexie had leaned forward to peer at the green-gold grasslands. She’d hoped for a glimpse of the famed wild horses of Moraze, only to sink back disappointed when lush coastal lands came into view, vividly patched with green sugar cane and the bright colours of flower farms.

Now, standing at the glass doors onto the balcony, she remembered that the island’s heraldic animal was a rearing horse wearing a crown. Her mind skipped from the horse to the man it signified, and she lifted her hands to suddenly burning cheeks.

That kiss had been scandalously disturbing, so different from any other she’d ever experienced that it had overwhelmed her.

Why? Yes, Rafiq de Couteveille was enormously attractive, with that compelling air of dangerous assurance, but she was accustomed to attractive men. Her sister Jacoba was married to one, and Marco’s older brother was just as stunning in a slightly sterner way. Yet neither of them had summoned so much as an extra heartbeat from her.

It wasn’t just his leanly aquiline features, boldly sculpted into a tough impression of force and power, that had made such an impression. Although Felipe Gastano was actually better-looking, he didn’t have an ounce of Rafiq’s dangerous charisma. She couldn’t imagine Felipe on a warhorse, leading his warriors into battle, but it was very easy to picture Rafiq de Couteveille doing exactly that.

Or she could see him as a corsair, she thought, heart quickening when her too-active imagination visualised him with a cutlass between his teeth as he swung over the side of a vessel…

According to the hotel publicity, in the eighteenth century the Indian Ocean had been the haunt of buccaneers. Moraze had been threatened by them, and had also used them in the struggle to keep its independence. Eventually the corsairs had been brought to heel, and Moraze’s rulers were at last able to give up the dangerous double game they’d been forced to play.

But no doubt the corsairs had left their genes in the bloodlines of the people of Moraze. Certainly Rafiq looked like a warrior—stern, hard and ruthless if the occasion demanded it.

However, fantasising about him wasn’t any help in dealing with her most pressing problem. Frowning, she stepped back inside. What the hell was she to do?

She wished she could trust Felipe to sleep on the sofa, but she didn’t. If she chose the bed, she suspected he might see it as an invitation for him to join her, and she did not want an undignified struggle when he finally decided to come up for the night.

Making up her mind, she pulled the light coverlet from the foot of the bed, grabbed a pillow, changed into cotton trousers and a shirt and curled up on the sofa.