Chapter 200

Relief washed through her, chilling the heat of her earlier anger.

‘Yes, I can—and I do.’

Ignoring her protest, Arni insisted grimly, ‘Admit it. You were coming on to him so hard that you were oblivious to anyone and everything else—not that he was objecting. He was as eager to get you into his bed as you were to be there. That was patently obvious.’

‘That is not true, and I was not coming on to him,’ Orla denied truthfully again. ‘We were simply both being polite to one another.’ She was getting her courage back now that she had escaped the humiliation of him reminding her how passionately she responded to him. ‘Good manners are a highly valued trait in Indian society—something that Indian children are taught at their mother’s knee. As I should have thought you would know.’

The silence was suddenly alive with the kind of danger that brought up the small hairs on the back of her neck.

‘So you maintain that you were simply being polite, do you?’

‘Yes,’ Orla insisted.

‘By offering yours