How was it possible for her to feel so hot and so cold at the same time, with her stomach churning with shocked fear and her head dizzy with even more shocked excitement?"Nothing to say? Perhaps, then, the lovers you’ve experienced in the past weren’t as satisfying as they might have been?’What was going on? How had the conversation managed to go from a businesslike discussion of Arni’s requirements to this? However it had happened, it certainly wasn’t kindly intended, Orla suspected.She took a deep breath and told him calmly, "I don’t think that this kind of conversation is appropriate, given our business relationship."She was doing it again. Arni could feel the heat of mingled anger and arousal beating up inside his body, threatening his self-control. He had no idea what it was about this woman that pushed against the boundaries of that control and threatened it so dramatically and with such speed, but he couldn’t deny any more that there was something about her that did. It act
"Ralapur reminds me of Jaipur," Orla told him."No," Chatura told her vehemently, immediately shaking his head. "Ralapur is better than Jaipur. Much better.’ He was laughing now, inviting her to share in his joke and his loyalty to his home.Orla waited until Chatura had gone before exploring her new quarters. The bedroom had a hugely ornate French empire-style bed, which looked as though it had been built and decorated specifically for the room, and the bathroom, reached via a door to one side of the bed, was virtually the same size as the whole of her open-plan living space in her London apartment, decadently opulent with a sunken bath and mirrored walls.Orla decided that these rooms had been created for a sexually active and sensual woman—a woman who had been a courtesan, surely, rather than a consort. Was that why he had given her this suite? as a reminder of what he considered her to be?She washed and changed quickly into a cotton top with short sleeves and a softly pleated ski
Arni watched Orla with the fabric merchant’s grandson, and, seeing the look on her face, wondered what had caused it. Why was he so curious about her? She meant nothing to him, and that was the way he intended things to stay.The fabric merchant was telling Orla that if she were to let him have some drawings and details of what she wanted, he could arrange to have some sample patterns made up for her. Orla handed the little girl back to her mother and reached for her notebook and the samples, swiftly selecting colors and patterns in the combinations she thought she would need. Her manner was now businesslike and focused.Arni observed that she had an easy rapport with people and a natural way of communicating with them. She respected their professionalism, and he could see that they in turn respected hers.It was very important to him that this new venture was not just a success, but that it achieved an almost iconic status as a leader in its field. His heritage and his blood demanded
The lanterns illuminating the hallway threw long, dark shadows across it. Orla would have given a great deal to hide herself in those shadows, and so escape from the tension between them, but she couldn’t let his accusation stand."I wasn’t flirting with him," she told him truthfully, defending herself.Of course you were. You were leading him on. Just like you—’ Arni stopped abruptly, but Orla knew what he had been about to say. He had been about to say just like she had led him on.Shame burned its brand on her pale skin, making her cheeks sting.She could not defend herself against that accusation. Her shame intensified.I expect the people who work for me and with me to reflect a proper professional attitude."I was being professional," Orla insisted.‘Yes, and it was perfectly obvious which profession it was you were representing.’Orla could feel nausea burning her throat and angry fear flooding her heart. She knew exactly what he was accusing her of being and which profession h
The sight of Arni walking towards her through the shadows was so unexpected that it shocked Orla into immobility for a few seconds before she struggled to her feet. His terse, ‘What are you doing?’ didn’t help.She told him, 'I wanted a closer look at the pattern on these tiles,’ she said, indicating the tiles forming the narrow footpath. And if you’ve come to find out if I’ve finished the layouts you wanted, then the answer is yes. At least in draft form. They’ll be on your desk before you leave tomorrow.’The words were a staccato burst of edgy defensiveness that fell away into sharp silence when Arni stepped out of the shadows. Automatically, she looked at him, and then couldn’t look away, her breath locking in her throat, her stomach tightening in response to what she could see. His torso and his feet were bare, as though... as though he had been in bed. Naked? Why was she thinking that? He could just have been relaxing. But something told her that Arni wasn’t the kind of man who
As though he had sensed that need, Arni bent his head, taking her nipple into his mouth with fierce impatience and drawing on it, so that she could feel the sharp pangs of her own desire seizing her whole body, causing it to convulse with longing.She was his. Arni could sense her body open to his, could already imagine what it would be like when she closed down on him as her orgasm possessed her and took him to his own pleasure. Just thinking about it made him ache so badly. Arni’s hand went to the fastening of his jeans. He wanted her so much, was so out of control with longing for her that he doubted he would have time to make it to bed, never mind anything else.Anything else? What the hell was happening to him? Arni never allowed himself to be out of control, and he certainly never had unprotected sex. But he had been about to do so.At first, when Arni pushed her away, Orla couldn’t understand or accept what was happening. She cried out in protest, her eyes wild with longing and
It had been three days since Orla had last seen Arni—three days in which she had had time to focus on her work and re-balance her own sense of self.Where another woman might have found it galling and humiliating to have a man walk away after having started to make love to her, Orla could only feel relieved that Arni had done so. She had been given a second chance to protect herself from her own weakness, and for that she could only be profoundly grateful.But being grateful wasn’t doing anything to ease the ache that had woken her from her sleep last night—and the night before, and the night before that. Orla stared grimly at her laptop screen, battling determinedly to will away such potentially dangerous thoughts. Was this the way her mother felt about the married man she had once told Orla was her father, whose desertion she claimed had pushed her into the arms of a series of other men?But then her mother had told her so many different stories, changing with her mood and her need
Arni acknowledged that Mumbai was its normal cosmopolitan self. Meetings overran into cocktail and dinner parties that went on into the early hours of the morning as the socialites of the city mingled with its movers and shakers.Tonight he was dining with a fellow entrepreneur, an Indian in his early fifties, originally educated in England, who had returned to Mumbai to take over a family business. Amongst the guests was a Bollywood actress who was currently trying to engage Arni's interest in something more intimate than dinner table conversation by asking him if he had yet visited the city's latest exclusive nightclub.She was very beautiful, with the kind of figure that could make a grown man cry, and her fingertips rested lightly on Arni’s suit-clad arm as she leaned closer to him to envelop him in a cloud of scent. For some reason, her movements were designed to be sensual and discreetly erotic, but for some reason they failed to stir his pulses. Her scent wasn’t the scent he wa