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‘He showed dignity in defeat and apologised with grace. And I felt sorry for him,’ she added with a small sigh. ‘He sees his own strength fading as yours grows stronger. It hurts him.’

      ‘And because of that you decided to forgive him?’

      ‘Well, no. But…’ Twisting around in his arms, Evie gazed up at him solemnly. ‘He is your father,’ she explained. ‘Which means that without him you would not have been born. Now…’ she continued, moving closer to the lean, hard length of his body. ‘Just think for a moment what that would mean to me. No you and me coming together like this,’ she said as her fingers began trailing across his silk-covered shoulders. ‘No one for me to love and be loved by. No fantastic sex on a starlit balcony…’

      ‘No, Evie,’ he groaned, catching hold of her fingers. ‘I—’

      ‘I know,’ she cut in. ‘You made this vow. But—tell me, Raschid, how much more proof does Allah need that you must truly love me, having just watched you marry me not once, but three times? And anyway,’ she went on before he could answer, ‘I have come up with a really ingenious strategy to get around your silly vow,’ she confided, reaching up to run the tip of her tongue along the rigid line of his jaw.

      ‘I seduce you…’ she whispered, freeing her captured fingers so she could slip the bootlace straps that were holding up her nightdress down her arms. ‘You don’t have to do a single thing, I promise you…’ Fine silk whispered to the ground around her bare feet.

      ‘This way, your honour remains firmly intact and I get what I want…’ she explained as her hands then became busy with the belt on his blue silk robe.

      She found warm, tight male flesh and pounced hungrily on it. Her body arched, stretched sensually then moved even closer until she was pressing herself to the full length of him.

      ‘You see,’ she breathed against his mouth, ‘you taught me well. I know all the right moves to make this work for us…’

      As she spoke one of her legs hooked itself around his leg, the pad of her bare foot stroking caressingly along a rock-solid calf muscle. The action brought her hips into more intimate contact with what was cradled between his hips.

      If he was fighting to withhold his response to this blatant bit of female provocation, he wasn’t being very successful, and Evie sighed with pleasure against his mouth as she moved softly against him.

      It took just two minutes to make him weaken, and another two to have him scoop her up in his arms and carry her inside. The bed waited—a wickedly decadent affair with silk sheets strewn with jewel-coloured cushions, which he settled them both down amongst.

      Then there were too many long, delicious minutes to count when he took over the seduction, drawing her down through layer after layer of pleasure until she lay, boneless, beneath him.

      ‘A thousand years from now,’ he murmured as he paused above her, his face a dark gold map of intense desire, ‘I will still remember this night.’

      ‘Why this night, in particular?’ Evie questioned curiously. They had done this many times before after all.

      ‘Because of—this,’ he muttered, reaching out to take hold of her hand and bringing it to his mouth. ‘Mine,’ he breathed, taking a biting grip on her wedding ring at the same moment that he entered her.

      It was such a possessive, pagan, passionate thing to do that Evie laughed as her long legs wrapped themselves around him so she could draw him in deeper.

      ‘Barbarian,’ she accused him.

      It never occurred to her to question the thousand-year memory he had just laid claim to. But that was because she didn’t need to. Kismet was like that—answered questions that most people would find absurd.

      The Spanish Husband

      Michelle Reid

      CHAPTER ONE

      CAROLINE was pacing the floor and becoming more agitated with each step that she took. She arrived at the window which led out onto the terrace, saw nothing of the beautiful view the elegant two-bedroom suite offered her of the famous Puerto Banus, and turned to pace back the way she had come, glancing impatiently at her watch as she did so.

      Nine o’clock. Her father had said seven o’clock. He had promised seven o’clock. ‘Just going for a stroll before I need to change for dinner,’ he’d said. ‘To check out the old place and see if it’s changed much since we were here last.’

      He loved Marbella. They’d used to spend most of their summers here once upon a time, so she’d understood his eagerness to reacquaint himself with the resort—but not his refusal to let her go with him.

      ‘Don’t be a pain, Caroline,’ he’d censured when she’d instantly started to get anxious. ‘I don’t need you to hold my hand. And I certainly don’t need a watchdog. Show a little faith, for goodness’ sake. Haven’t I promised to behave myself?’

      So she’d showed a little faith—and now look at her, she mocked herself bitterly. For here she was, pacing the floor like a worried mother hen with every nerve-end she possessed singing out a warning of trouble!

      He wouldn’t let her down—would he? She tried to reassure herself. He had been so firm, so needy for her to believe in him that he wouldn’t, surely, fall prey to his old weakness when he knew how important it was to them for him to remain strong?

      Then where is he? A very cynical voice inside her head taunted. He’s been gone for hours. And you know what he can get up to when left to his own devices for too long.

      ‘Oh, hell,’ she muttered as the agitation suddenly reached whole new levels, and, in tight and angry surrender to it, she snatched up her little black velvet evening bag and headed for the suite’s outer door.

      If she discovered that he had sneaked off to feed his damned habit then she would never forgive him! She vowed as she stabbed a hard finger at the lift call button then stood waiting impatiently for it to come. Things were bad enough already.

      More than bad enough, she groaned inwardly. Or she wouldn’t even be here, her father knew that! He knew how much she hated this place now, hated the whole morass of painful emotions it evoked.

      Seven years since their last visit, she recalled as the lift doors slid open. Seven years since they had been forced to leave beneath a dark cloud of pride-shrivelling humiliation and soul-destroying heartbreak, vowing never to return again.

      Yet here they were, not only back in Marbella but staying in the same hotel. And once again she was having to go and hunt her father out in the very last place on this earth she ever wanted to step foot in!

      The casino, she named it grimly as she walked into the lift. The wretched in-house casino, where she was all too aware of the damage her father could do in such a terrifyingly short space of time.

      And how long had he been missing? she asked herself as she pressed for the ground floor.

      Two hours at least.

      Her fingers stood out white against her black evening bag while she waited for the lift doors to shut. In two miserable hours he could lose thousands. Give him a whole night and he would, quite happily, lose his shirt!

      Like the last time.

      A wave of sickness suddenly washed over her, sending her slumping weakly against the lift wall just as the doors began to close. A hand snaked out, compelling the doors to open again, and she found herself quickly straightening as a tall dark man of Spanish descent, dressed in an impeccably tailored black dinner suit and bow tie, stepped lithely into the cabin with her.

      ‘My apologies for delaying you,’ he murmured in smoothly modulated English, swinging round to offer her a smile. A smile that instantly arrested when his eyes actually focused on her.

      ‘That’s okay,’ she replied, and quickly dropped her gaze so as not to encourage

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