Damon’s eyes narrowed on her face. “What about your mother?”
“What about her? She let him mold her into what he wanted her to be.” She grimaced. “I can’t remember her ever objecting to anything he said or did to me. He’d smashed her flat even before I was born.”
“She didn’t fight for you?”
“She couldn’t even fight for herself. She was a scared little mouse of a woman. I don’t know, maybe she even liked it. After my father died she promptly married another domineering man who keeps her firmly under his thumb.”
“Are you bitter against her?”
“No.” Then, as she met his gaze, she shrugged wearily. “I even tried to love her when I was a little girl, but there wasn’t anything there to love. She was like a shadow. His shadow.” She smiled with an effort. “Now are you satisfied? I’ve never seen such a curious man. You’ve asked so many questions lately, you must know me inside out.”
His eyes suddenly sparkled with mischief. “Inside out? There’s definitely a correlation. We started inside and—”
“I know exactly how we started,” she said quickly. She wanted no reminders at this moment of their days of glorious eroticism. She was too tense, too wired with memories she preferred to keep at bay. “I’m tired of playing chess. I think I’ll go see Selim and find out if the helicopter brought Michael’s picture books today.”
“They came. I took them to the villa this morning.” Damon stood up, gazing gravely at her. “Why are you running away?”
“I’m not running away. I’m just not in the mood to play chess right now.”
He frowned. “You’re edging away from me. Do you think I can’t tell? I know you now, Cory.”
“You should.” She laughed brittlely. “You’ve asked enough questions.”
“You didn’t have to answer them.”
“I didn’t mind answering before. It’s just …” She trailed off.
“It’s just that I’m getting too close,” he finished. “And you don’t allow anyone to do that, do you, Cory?”
“Everyone deserves a certain amount of privacy. I don’t put you through inquisitions.”
“Go ahead. I’m open to any question you want to ask.”
“That’s not the point.”
“The point is that you let me come so close and no closer. Right?”
Oh, dear, this was deteriorating into a full-fledged argument, and that wasn’t what she wanted at all. These last three weeks with Damon had been so warm and free from conflict that she’d wanted them to go on forever. She had found him to be a fascinating combination of impulsiveness, arrogance, and little-boy mischief. When she would feel as maternal with him as she did with Michael, she would suddenly see a flash of that stern, grave man she had glimpsed in the encampment of the El Zabor. But in all these weeks he had never once let his guard down to reveal that other, blatantly sensual Damon who was capable of sweeping her into an erotic storm. She had never dreamed Damon could be either so companionable or so gentle. Lately she had almost come to hope that he would relent and allow her to take Michael out of Kasmara. She drew a deep breath. “I don’t want to quarrel with you, Damon.”
“Is a quarrel too intimate for you?” Damon asked bitterly. “Maybe you’re afraid I’d violate your precious space?”
“Why are you so angry?” she asked, bewildered.
“I’m angry because you’re running away again and I thought—” He gazed at her with an expression mirroring anger, frustration, and disappointment. “Never mind. I guess I’m not a patient man.”
“So I’ve noticed.” For the first time in three weeks Cory was feeling uneasy. Damon was behaving most peculiarly. This wasn’t the companionable boy-man she had thought she had come to know. This was the Damon she had first met in New York. Stormy, autocratic, and volatile to a dangerous degree. “But sometimes we have to wait until matters come to a head.”
“Do we?” He smiled recklessly. “I always thought it was better to initiate than wait.” He started to turn away. “Will you have dinner with me tonight?”
“I was going to spend the evening at the villa.”
“Change your mind.” His smile deepened to beguiling sweetness. “Please.”
Warmth rippled through her in a honey-golden stream. “How can I resist? It’s not every day the Bardono says please.”
“It’s not every day that the Bardono wants his way so badly.” He turned to go. “I’ll make the arrangements.”
“Arrangements? Are we going somewhere? Won’t we have dinner here?”
He shook his head. “Not tonight. I have something special in mind.”
Before she could reply, he had turned and left the library.
“Good heavens, this is special.” Cory laughed as she stood up in the jeep to look at the small solitary black-and-gray striped tent that was dwarfed and surrounded by miles of golden dunes. “And it’s certainly different.” She stepped out of the jeep and looked ruefully down at her emerald chiffon gown. “However, I’m definitely overdressed. I should be wearing one of those robes I saw at the El Zabor encampment. What color do you think would be appropriate? I refuse to wear the blue, and the white or scarlet don’t really fit either.” She walked toward the tent, her high heels sinking into the sand with every step. “By the way, you should publish an edict banning that dress code. It’s like wearing brands.”
“But it makes it much simpler for the men of the tribe.” Damon’s eyes twinkled. “They know exactly what’s for the taking and what to leave alone. If Western societies drew such clear lines, there’d be much less misunderstanding.” He glanced away from her as he lifted the flap of the tent. “And I know exactly which color you should wear.”
“Really? Which?”
He didn’t seem to hear her. “Do you think it’s too hot to eat in here?” He gestured to the simple repast spread on a paisley silk cloth on the red and gold carpet. “I suppose we could try to transfer some of it outside.”
“With this wind blowing?” Cory shook her head. “I think we’d better stay inside. It will probably cool down once the sun sets.” She sat on the carpet and reached for the bottle in the ice bucket, uncorked it, and poured the wine into two glasses. “Besides, this is fun. I’ve never had a picnic supper in a shiekh’s tent in the middle of the desert. It makes me feel quite exotic.” She handed him his glass and lifted her own to her lips. “Very Lawrence of Arabia.”
He frowned. “That isn’t why I brought you here. I didn’t want you to see anything romantic in the setting.” He gazed around the stark simplicity of the interior of the tent. “That’s why I told them not to bring anything but the most sparse furnishings.”
Cory laughed. “I’m sorry if my reaction wasn’t what you hoped. I think its very simplicity makes the exotic factor stronger.” She lifted one of the aluminum tray covers. “What do we have here?” She sniffed. “Lamb, I think.”
“I don’t remember what I ordered.” His hand tightened on the stem of the glass. “It doesn’t matter.”
She glanced at him over her shoulder. “You invite a lady to dinner and it doesn’t matter what you feed her? How ungallant of you, Damon.”
He scowled. “It’s all gone wrong anyway. You weren’t supposed to think everything was so damned romantic.” He strode toward the tent entrance and threw open the flaps. A gust of hot wind immediately blew a thin veil of sand into the interior of the tent. “There’s a sirocco blowing, it’s close to a hundred degrees, and you still find everything peachy-keen.”
“You don’t have to sound so disgusted.” She carefully covered the tray to keep the sand from blowing onto the food and sat back on her heels. “I like to try new things, and luxury isn’t all that important to me.” She studied him thoughtfully. “You’re behaving most strangely, Damon.”
“I’m trying to be fair to you, dammit.” He tossed the wine in his glass onto the sand beside the tent and the red liquid first stained, and then was quickly covered by a new layer of windbl
own sand. “It’s important that you know my life isn’t only palaces. I sometimes spend months traveling among the El Zabor and live in tents like these. I get away to London and Paris occasionally and to the United States even more infrequently. I have the money to give you everything material you need, but I can’t promise you that I’ll ever be willing to permit you to leave me for any length of time.”
She gazed at him in shock, immediately followed by a swift surge of panic. “What are you getting at, Damon?”
“I want you to marry me,” he said haltingly, not looking at her. “It’s the only sensible solution. We have a son each of us wants and who loves us both now. In the last weeks you’ve seen that I’m not always a complete savage.” He stopped before adding awkwardly, “I think perhaps you might even have come to like me.”
Cory’s hand was trembling as she carefully set her glass on the carpet beside her. “Damon, I never thought—”
“I know.” He suddenly turned to face her. “Because you never let yourself think about it. You block it out of your mind just as you block me out.” He covered the few paces separating them and dropped on his knees beside her. His gaze held her own with desperate intensity. “You’ve liked these weeks we’ve spent together. I know you have. Stay with me, Cory.”
She quickly shook her head. “I have a career. I have a life of my own.”
“Make a new life.” He reached up to touch her hair with infinite gentleness. “I’ll help. I’d much rather you didn’t work and just stayed with me here at Kasmara, but there’s a television station in Marasef. You could work there and—”
“You have it all planned out,” she said dully. “In no time at all you’d have everything worked out exactly to your own satisfaction, wouldn’t you? Everything in order and in place.… Your place, Damon.”
The eagerness faded from his expression. “I hoped you’d think it would work out to your satisfaction too, Cory. I’d try very hard to make you happy.”
“Because it would resolve the relationship?” Her lips curved in a mirthless smile. “A very ‘sensible’ resolution according to the great Bardono. You get Michael and a wife who can please you in bed. What do I get?”
“You get Michael and a husband who can please you in bed,” Damon said quietly. “And a man who will try to be your friend all your life long, Cory.”
“You expect me to believe you? I know you, Damon. You’re one of the most autocratic men I’ve ever met. It’s bred into your bones. How long do you think it will take for you to forget all your good intentions and revert to form. A month? A year?”
Damon’s hand let go of her hair. “I expected that you would believe me. I needed you to believe me.”
“Well, I can’t.” The air in the tent seemed suddenly dense, smothering. She couldn’t stand it any more than she could stand the way Damon was looking at her. She jumped up. “There’s too much at stake. Michael and my career and—”
“Your precious independence,” Damon finished, his voice harsh.
“It is precious. You could never understand that.”
“I’d try.” He got slowly to his feet. “You never gave me a chance. You just jumped to the conclusion that I’m too much of a barbarian to realize what’s important to you.”
“I never said you were a barbarian.”
“You never said I wasn’t.” He smiled bitterly. “You were always careful to straddle the fence. It was much safer not to make any decision at all. But decisions have to be made, Cory. You can put them off only so long. How well I’ve learned that lesson.”
“I’ve made my decision.” Cory found herself backing away from him, trying to escape. “I told you it wouldn’t work.”
“I could make it work.”
“And smash Michael and me into the ground while you’re doing it?” She shook her head. “Oh, no, Damon.”
“I’d never do—” He shook his head. “I’m wasting my time, aren’t I? You won’t believe me no matter what I say.”
“There’s no use talking about it.” She didn’t want to talk or even think about it. The entire conversation was igniting an agony and panic that she didn’t want to feel. “It just wouldn’t work, Damon.”
“I’m not your father, Cory.”
“I know that,” she said in a low voice. “You’re a hell of a lot stronger.” She turned and walked toward the entrance of the tent. “I want to go back to the palace now. I don’t think either of us wants any dinner after this.”
“I’m not giving up, Cory.” He stood looking at her. “I want this marriage.”
“I told you—”
“I don’t care what you told me,” he interrupted roughly. His eyes glittered in his suddenly taut face. “This is right, dammit.”
“Because you decree that it’s right?”
“No, because we—” He drew a deep breath. “You’re not listening to me. You never hear what I’m trying to say to you.” He smiled bitterly. “I don’t know why I keep trying to convince you. I guess it’s time I stopped and began to play the role you handed me. There are rewards there too. Not the ones I wanted, but beggars can’t be choosers.”
Even through the emotional tumult she was experiencing, Cory was conscious of the aching pain beneath Damon’s bitterness. She suddenly wanted to reach out in comfort, to smooth away the pain as she had done once before. But to ease his pain she would have to leave herself more vulnerable and open than she had been since she was a child. She couldn’t do that. She was already too vulnerable to Damon. She forced her gaze away from him. “Can we go now?”
He looked at her a moment, and she could sense the violent emotions seething just below the surface of his control. “Yes.” He strode toward the entrance of the tent, passing her without a glance. Then he was outside and the wind was tearing at his dark hair and flattening his white shirt against his body with wild strength. He braced himself and stood there a moment as if enjoying pitting his own savage strength against the equally savage elements.
Watching him, Cory suddenly shivered with apprehension. At that moment he was like the sirocco. Strong, wild, enduring … and dangerous.
Then the moment was gone and he moved toward the jeep, glancing impatiently over his shoulder. “What are you waiting for? Let’s get the hell out of here.”
The Carrara marble sunken tub brimmed with fragrant bubbles and the water was just the right temperature. Liande had adjusted everything with her usual quiet efficiency before she left the suite.
Oh, yes, everything was always exactly right at the palace, Cory thought as she wearily leaned her head back against the foam headrest affixed to the corner of the tub.
It was strange how quickly she had become accustomed to the luxuries of Kasmara. It would probably be something of a culture shock when she got back to her tiny apartment in New York. But she wouldn’t be able to go back to that apartment, she realized abruptly. She would have to go apartment hunting now that Carter and Bettina would no longer be there to care for Michael. Michael would need a garden to play in and it would be necessary to be near a good school. There would have to be adjustments to both their lives. No more foreign assignments for her for at least a few years. Michael must be made to feel secure.
She was leaving Kasmara as soon as possible.
The decision didn’t really surprise her. It had been growing and blossoming ever since Damon had asked her to marry him this evening. She should have known Damon couldn’t be persuaded to her way of thinking. These last weeks had been a waste of time, she thought despondently. She should have been seeking a way to get Michael away from Damon. Instead, she had spent three weeks doing nothing but pleasantly drifting.
But they had been such sweet weeks, golden weeks, full of laughter and joy and— She swiftly blocked the thought. She mustn’t remember these weeks or she’d be the one to soften and be persuaded to Damon’s way of thinking. And that would be the first step back into the subjugation of her childhood.
She must not be hasty. There was p
lenty of time to consider the possibilities of getting away from Kasmara. She must be very careful, very clever, and be sure Damon was taken by surprise. A Damon on guard would be twice as hard to overcome.
She stood up, climbed the three wide steps, and reached for the towel on the free-standing rack beside the tub. She was thinking of Damon as an enemy again. The realization generated a poignant aching somewhere deep within her. The Damon she had known these past weeks had not been an enemy. He had been part mischievous boy, part Bardono, part vulnerable man with all a man’s doubts and uncertainties.
She tossed aside the towel, shrugged into her rose satin robe, and tied the belt at her waist. It was better if she thought of Damon as the enemy, she told herself. And, heaven above, it was certainly safer. She turned and went through the archway into the bedroom.
Damon was in her bed. The jade silken spread glowed softly against the bronze of his flesh and was pushed carelessly down until it barely covered his naked hips.
She stopped, feeling a tumult of emotion surge through her. She found surprise wasn’t one of them. She knew Damon well enough to know he’d meant it when he said he wouldn’t give up.
He smiled crookedly. “That was a long bath. I was getting so impatient, I was about to come in after you.” His voice lowered. “You remember how I hate to wait.”
She drew a deep breath and tried to stop the trembling attacking her limbs. The sexuality he had suppressed these last three weeks was now blatantly obvious in his narrowed green eyes, the dark triangle of hair thatching his muscular chest, his bold arousal evident beneath the sheet. He was lying on his side, his head resting on his hand, and he should have appeared lazy. He didn’t. He looked charged, electric, and yet at the same time almost catlike in his sensuality. “I remember. I suppose it would be stupid to ask what you’re doing here?”
“Very. It wouldn’t be worthy of you. You’re an intelligent woman. You know we closed one chapter and opened another this evening.”
“But we’ve already read this particular book.”