Pride & Consequence Omnibus (8 page)

Jay turned back to the door, only to stop and turn again, to walk slowly towards the bed as through drawn there against his will.

Keira was lying on her side, clad in a pair of pyjamas that looked more suitable in design for a girl than a woman, and he could see quite clearly the tracks of her dried tears on her face, below telltale mascara smudges.

She’d been crying? Because of him?

Deep down within himself Jay could feel something, a sensation of emotional tightness and tension, as though something was breaking apart to reveal something else so sensitive and raw that he couldn’t bear to feel it.

What was it? Compassion? Pity? Regret? Why should he feel pain for her vulnerability and her tears?

Angry with himself, Jay turned away from the bed and left as silently as he had arrived.

Women used their tears in exactly the same way as they used their bodies: to get what they wanted. He wasn’t about to be taken in by such tactics.

* * *

Jay had gone and she was safe. Because without his presence she could not be tormented and tempted as she had been last night.

But Jay would come back, and when he did...

When he did things would be different, Keira promised herself grimly. She would have found a way to protect herself from her own weakness. It wasn’t her pride that was insisting that she did that. Given the chance, she’d have preferred to run from what Jay aroused in her rather than battle with it. But she simply did not have that freedom. Her contract tied her to the work she had taken on and through that to Jay, and she was not in a position to risk the financial implications of breaking that contract.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I
T
WAS
THREE
days since Keira had last seen Jay—three days in which she had had time to focus on her work and rebalance her own sense of self.

Where another woman might have found it galling and humiliating to have a man walk away, having started to make love to her, Keira could only feel relieved that Jay 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. Keira stared grimly at her laptop screen, battling determinedly to will away such potentially dangerous thoughts. Was this the way her mother had felt about the married man she had once told Keira 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 for the drugs on which she’d been dependent. Keira pushed her laptop away from her with an awkward panic-stricken movement that betrayed what she was feeling.

She was not like her mother. She was her own self—an individual who had the power of authority and choice over what she did. No man could make her choose to want him against her will. No man—but what about her own emotions? Emotions? What Jay had aroused within her had nothing to do with emotions. Her desire for him had been sexual, that was all. Nothing more. That was impossible. Just like desiring him in the first place had also been impossible?

Keira’s panic increased. She got up and went to the window, but looking down into the courtyard was a mistake. It might be bathed in sunlight now, but inside her head she could still picture it shadowed by moonlight, with Jay’s body and her own shadowed along with it. In those shadows they had touched and kissed, and she had—but, no—she must not think of that.

She had an appointment in half an hour, to meet up with the fabric merchant, who had telephoned her to tell her that her samples had arrived. He had offered to bring them to the palace, but Keira had told him that she would go to him.

She had fallen in love with the city, and readily used any excuse to see more of it. She felt so at home here, so at peace—or rather she would have if she hadn’t been dreading Jay’s return.

The city had been laid out in a geometric grid of streets and squares. From the main square, opposite the palace, a network of narrow pedestrian streets branched out from the straight ceremonial main road that led to the city’s main gates, along which in previous centuries the formal processions of maharajas and other dignitaries had passed.

It was these streets, with their stalls and artisan workshops, that fascinated Keira even more than the elegant palaces of the rich. Behind them lay the
bavelis
, the townhouses of the city’s original eminent citizens, each of them an individual work of art in its own right.

As always, the rich mingling of scents and sounds absorbed Keira’s attention. The sound of temple bells mingled with the laughter of children and the urgent cries of shopkeepers wanting to sell their merchandise.

Knowing she had time in hand, Keira made a detour from her destination that took her past the bazaar, famous for selling rose, almond, saffron and vetiver-flavoured sherbets. In the flower market workers were busy weaving garlands and making floral offerings for templegoers, and when she cut through the jewellery quarter of the bazaar Keira had to force herself not to be tempted to linger outside the shops of the
lac
bangle sellers.

These were the sights and sounds of Jay’s home—the place where he had been born, the place where his family had ruled for so many generations. Where his family still ruled. Jay wasn’t merely a successful and wealthy entrepreneur, he was also a member of one of India’s royal families. His brother was the Maharaja. It was no wonder that he had that air of arrogance and pride about him. No wonder that he believed he could command others to his will.

But it wasn’t the command of his royal status that she feared. Rather, it was the command of his essential sensuality—and he would have had that no matter what rank he had been born to, she suspected.

The merchant greeted her with great ceremony, bowing his head so much that Keira momentarily feared for the fate of his ornate turban. His daughter-in-law brought them tea, her sweet, shy smile echoing those of her children. She looked outstandingly pretty in her crimson and blue embroidered
ghaghara
gathered skirt, her
odhni
tucked into the waist of her skirt. She pulled the
odhni
round to drape it modestly over her head, her movements delicate and graceful, her hands and feet carefully patterned with henna.

When Keira saw the fabrics the merchant was spreading out on the floor in front of her she felt her heart skip a beat in delight. She studied the samples that were so excellently in tune with her own ideas, combining as they did tradition with a certain stylish modern twist.

‘My cousin would like to invite you to visit his factory, so that you can see more of their work,’ the merchant told her.

‘Go to his town?’ Keira queried excitedly ‘Oh, yes. I would love to.’

‘My cousin has a new designer, a man from your own country. He would like you to meet him so that you can discuss your requirements with him.’

Before Keira left the shop it was arranged that the merchant would contact his cousin, accepting his invitation on her behalf, whilst Keira would make arrangements via Jay’s servants for a car and a driver to be put at her disposal to take her to the fabric town.

If when Jay returned she had proper samples of the fabrics she wanted to use, having consulted directly with the designer and producer, it would surely prove to him that whilst he had been away she had been far too busy working to have any time to waste on thinking about him.

Keira was still desperately trying to convince herself that it was India itself that was responsible for the overwhelming of her defences: India, with its potent mystery and sensuality that thrummed in the air and filled the senses, stealing away reality and resistance. It was India that was responsible for the fact that she lay awake in her bed at night, trying to deny the ache spreading through her in slow waves of heat and need. India that somehow, like a magician, conjured up those unwanted and forbidden images inside her head, created those secret private mental films in which she and Jay lay together, their naked bodies veiled only by the sheer voile bed-hangings enclosing them in their own intimate world.

Yes, it was India that had the power to touch her senses and break through her defences. Not Jay himself, Keira reassured herself.

* * *

Mumbai was its normal highly charged cosmopolitan self, Jay acknowledged. With meetings overrunning 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 Jay’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 Jay’s suit-clad arm as she leaned closer to him to envelop him in a cloud of scent. 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 wanted to breathe in, her eyes weren’t amber but dark brown, and whilst her touch did nothing whatsoever for him, he only had to think about Keira’s touch for his body to react.

What nonsense was this? That one woman could quite easily be replaced by another was Jay’s personal mantra—one he adhered to strictly. Jay moved restlessly in his chair, oblivious to the disappointment of his companion as she recognised his lack of interest in her. There was only one explanation he was willing to accept for Keira’s unwanted intrusion into his thoughts, and that was quite simply that he ached for her because he had not brought their intimacy to its natural conclusion. If he had done so then he would not still be wanting her. That was all there was to it. Nothing more. Nothing more at all.

Jay was still repeating those words to himself several hours later, as he lay alone and sleepless in his bed in his hotel suite, the business documents he had intended to study left ignored on the bedside table.

Keira.

Jay closed his eyes, only realising his mistake when immediately his memory furnished him with a mental image of her in which her eyes burned dark gold with desire for him and her breath came in swift, unsteady little gasps of escalating arousal.

His own heartbeat picked up, hammering its message of need through his body.

He had been a fool not to take what had been on offer. She had probably had condoms to hand—women like her were always prepared.

The Bollywood actress had insisted on writing down her mobile number for him. He had two more days in Mumbai—could spend longer there if he chose. Longer? Since when did it take more than one night in bed with any woman to satisfy his desire for her? Wasn’t that why he had grown bored with the ritual of pretending to have to seduce a woman who had already made it plain that she was up for sex with him, taking her shopping for the present she had made it clear she expected, then finding that, like a tiger fed on tame game instead of having to hunt, his belly was full in the sexual sense, but his appetite was somehow not satisfied. It was no wonder that he had actually welcomed the celibacy that had become his only sleeping partner these last few months.

And wasn’t it in reality that very celibacy that was responsible for the white heat of his desire for Keira?

Keira. His thoughts had turned full circle, and his body now ached like hell. Jay threw back the bedcovers. Picking up the documents from the bedside table, he strode naked to the desk. He pulled on a robe and switched on his laptop, and proceeded to do what he could to blot Keira out of his thoughts by engrossing himself in some work...

* * *

‘Oh, I love this toile,’ Keira enthused as she studied the fabric sample in front of her, with its design of Indian palaces, monkeys, elephants and howdas printed in traditional single colours against the creamy white of the cotton background.

‘I designed it myself,’ Alex Jardine told her with a smile. ‘I had some original copperplate rollers for toile fabric I was lucky enough to pick up in an antique market in France years ago, and when I showed them to Arjun, here, and explained what I wanted to do, he was able to find me a craftsman to copy the rollers for us so we could create this toile. It’s one of four we’ve been experimenting with: two traditional, of which this is one, and two very contemporary designs.’

Keira nodded her head, fascinated by the designs.

‘We’re experimenting at the moment with charcoal, to black-dye the modern toile and give it a more edgy look,’ he continued.

From the moment she had stepped into the fabric factory Keira had felt as though she had stepped into her own private Aladdin’s cave. Bolts of fabrics of every hue imaginable were stacked to the ceiling, mouthwatering acid sherbet colours, rich traditional colours of crimson ruby, jade and emerald embellished with gold thread, sea and sky colours, and even pale creamy naturals. Her senses had fed on them as greedily as a child let loose in a sweet shop, and now she was every bit as giddy and dizzy as that child might have been, from consuming too many additives. She was on a high with the sheer intensity of her own rush of delight. And that delight was compounded by her sense of having met someone so much in tune with her own way of thinking in Alex.

At first sight she had felt slightly put off by him. Over six foot tall, with thick curly hair that reached down to his shoulders, he was dressed in white linen trousers, a loose linen shirt and with his feet bare. His voice was a languid ‘okay yah’ upper crust London drawl, and Keira had felt initially that there was rather too much of the
faux
hippie about him—so much so, in fact, that it was almost a theatrical affectation.

But then he had shown her his fabrics, his large hands as tender on them as though they were small children, his voice softening as he told her about their provenance and his own desire to keep his designs true to tradition whilst bringing in something unique and modern that was still ‘of India’, and Keira had been entranced and captivated.

‘I am hoping that we’ll be able to design something that has a bit of a Bollywood twist to it, but Arjun, here, thinks I’m being over-confident.’ Alex laughed as he smiled at the factory owner.

‘I just love what you’re doing,’ Keira told him. ‘And if it was up to me I’d be buying up everything for this new venture, but I don’t have that authority.’

‘We can supply you with samples and you can show them to His Highness Prince Jayesh,’ the factory owner was assuring her eagerly.

‘Arjun won’t let you leave until he’s heaped you with samples,’ Alex warned her, with a warm smile, reaching out to pluck a stray thread of cotton that had attached itself to the sleeve of her top as the factory owner hurried away for more samples.

Keira smiled back at him, unaware of the fact that Jay had just walked into the building and was standing watching the byplay between them with a glacier cold look in his eyes.

It was Alex who saw Jay first, his own gaze sharpening in recognition of what he could see in Jay’s eyes as he strode towards them.

‘There’s a very angry-looking alpha male heading this way,’ he told Keira drolly. ‘And he looks very much as though he thinks I’ve been trespassing on his private property.’

‘What?’ Puzzled, Keira turned round and then gave a small ‘oh’ of mixed comprehension and surprise as Jay bore down on them, her stomach churning out its message of acute physical awareness of him as her heart pounded erratically.