Society Weddings by Sharon Kendrick, Kate Walker Read Free Book Online Page B

of the long, low couches which lay beneath the window.
    His lashes concealed the expression in his shuttered eyes, and his face had never looked more impossibly remote as he followed her movements.
    Rashid watched her. Her body was completely and decently covered now, but she still exuded an irresistible sensuality. A sensuality which had made him weak as he had never been weak before!
    His mouth tightened. ‘I think you owe me some kind of explanation, Jenna.’
    ‘I owe you nothing!’ she retorted hotly. Not now. She had paid her dues in full.
    A glimmer of humour—the very first she had seen since she had walked into his palace that day—briefly softened the hard, dark eyes. ‘You like to fight with me, don’t you?’ he observed softly.
    She shook her head. ‘No one ever fights with you.’
    ‘You do,’ he contradicted. ‘Jenna.’ His deep voice lingered on the syllables and made it sound like an erotic entreaty. ‘Why did you tell me that you had had a lover when it is now self-evident that there has been no one?’
    Except for you, she thought, with sad bitterness. And in the end she had blown it, so caught up with nerves as he had entered her that she had known no pleasure at all.
    ‘Do you really need to know?’ she asked wearily.
    ‘Yes.’
    She guessed that there was no point in evading this particular issue. What Rashid wanted, Rashid generally got—and why shouldn’t he know the truth?
    ‘It was a last desperate attempt to get out of marrying you,’ she said.
    He frowned as if had misheard her. ‘Desperate?’ he echoed incredulously. ‘You would go to such lengths not to marry me?’
    ‘That’s right.’ She nodded her head, spurred on by a determination that he should know the strength of her resolve. ‘I don’t want to marry you, be your wife. I told you that repeatedly, Rashid but, as usual, you wouldn’t listen! You ordered me over here in spite of my objections. You want your own sweet way and you’re determined to get it—just like you always do!’
    ‘You flatter me, Jenna,’ he said sarcastically.
    ‘No, I don’t—and what is more I never will! Everyone else around here does, and that’s half your trouble!’
    ‘Half my trouble?’ he repeated dangerously. ‘And just what is that supposed to mean?’
    ‘That you’re arrogant!’ she offered.
    Black brows were raised in imperious question, as if she had just rather stupidly stated the obvious. ‘And?’
    His lazy acknowledgement filled her with the courage to tell him what was really going on in her mind. ‘And I don’t want to marry an arrogant man! I don’t want the kind of marriage you are offering me!’ she declared. She saw him open his mouth to object, but she shook her head and carried on, not caring that no one ever interrupted Rashid! ‘When I get married, I want it to be as an equal!’
    ‘An equal?’ he repeated faintly.
    ‘Yes! It’s an interesting word, isn’t it, Rashid? One which I learnt in America! Go and look it up in the dictionary if you really don’t understand it!’
    ‘I think you forget yourself!’ he said tightly.
    ‘I think not!’ she contradicted, and for a moment her vulnerability and sense of regret were washed away by an overwhelming wave of power ! She was no longer bound by an ancient promise to him! She was free to say exactly as she pleased—and maybe some long-overdue home truths wouldn’t go amiss.
    ‘I don’t want the kind of marriage your parents had. All Quador men consider it to be their unquestionable right to…’ She clamped her lips together firmly.
    ‘To what, Jenna?’ he questioned silkily.
    As if he needed telling! She shivered with distaste. ‘To have mistresses!’
    ‘Mistresses?’
    Her pent-up anger and frustration exploded in a fit of temper she hadn’t seen in herself for a long, long time. ‘Oh, please don’t insult my intelligence by playing dumb with me, Rashid!’ she snapped. ‘I’m not stupid, and neither is everyone else! I read