Penny Jordan Tribute Collection. PENNY JORDAN
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action Petra was taking? What would she think of Blaize?
Snatching up her purse, Petra refused to allow herself to pursue such potentially unsettling thoughts.
The lobby of the hotel was the busiest Petra had seen it since her arrival. A large group of designer-clad women and their male escorts were standing by the entrance to the piano lounge and Petra’s eyes widened as she saw the jewellery the women were wearing.
Her own outfit was provoking a few assessing and appreciative female glances, as well as some much more openly male admiring ones, but Petra was unaware of them as she looked round anxiously for Blaize.
‘There you are. I was just about to come up and collect you.’
Whirling round, Petra rounded her eyes as she stared at Blaize. He was dressed formally in clothes she immediately recognised as being the very best in Italian tailoring, and which she knew must have cost a small fortune. No wonder more than one of the diamond-decked women were studying him with such open sexual interest!
On the wages he must earn there was no way he could possibly afford such clothes, Petra decided, which must mean…
She didn’t like the unpleasant cold feeling invading her stomach, or the lowering realisation that she was probably far from being the first woman to pay Blaize for his ‘services’—although of course the services she was paying him for were no doubt very different from those normally expected by his benefactresses.
‘What’s wrong? You look as though you’ve just swallowed something extremely unpleasant.’
His intuitiveness triggered a sharp spiral of warning.
‘I was just wondering what’s going to be on the menu tonight,’ she replied smoothly.
He might have caught her off guard this afternoon, but tonight was going to be different. This time she was going to make it plain to him that she was the one in charge of events and not him!
‘These days Zuran is renowned for the variety and standard of its restaurants, as you are about to discover.’
As he spoke he was guiding her across the foyer, one hand protectively beneath her elbow. Petra would have liked to pull away, to put some distance between them, but the crush of people in the lobby made it impossible, and besides, she firmly reminded herself, the whole point of being with him was that she was seen to be with him!
However, instead of heading for the exit, as she had expected him to do, Petra discovered that he was guiding her in the direction of the large glass doors that opened out into one of the formal garden courtyards, beyond which lay the largest of the network of canals which criss-crossed the complex.
‘I thought we were going out to dinner,’ she said, hanging back a little as two uniformed men held open the doors for them.
‘We are,’ Blaize told her, giving her a quizzical look as he ushered her outside. ‘What’s wrong?’ he teased her. ‘Did you think I was taking you out into the courtyard so that I could indulge in a little private tuition before we faced our public?’
He laughed softly, the hand which had been beneath her elbow suddenly grasping her upper arm and holding her so close to his own body that she could feel the laughter vibrating as they walked out into the heavy satin warmth of the indigo-dark night.
‘In a garden? Where anyone might see us. Oh, no… If that was my intention I would have taken you somewhere far, far more private…’
‘Like your official accommodation, you mean?’ Petra challenged him bitingly, determined not to let him think that she was in the least bit affected by what he was saying.
‘You remind me of a little cat, all sharp claws and defensive temper. Take care that you don’t tempt me to teach you how to purr with pleasure and use those claws only in the heat of passion…’
‘We aren’t in public, yet,’ was all Petra could think of to say in retaliation and she mentally blessed the darkness for concealing her hectically flushed face. ‘So you can save the practised seduction scenario until we are!’
They had almost crossed the garden now, and the canal lay in front of them. As they reached it Blaize raised his hand to summon one of the gondoliers waiting several yards away.
‘This isn’t the quickest way to reach the restaurant, but I think it is certainly the most… relaxing,’ he informed her in a soft murmur as the gondola was brought to a halt in front of them.
As Blaize helped her into the gondola Petra wondered helplessly if anything could possibly be more romantic—or more hackneyed!
Clever lighting had transformed the daytime appearance of the resort into a place of magic and mystery, designed to appeal to the senses. Strawberry-scented vapour floated over their heads in a pale pink cloud, and in the distance Petra could see and hear fireworks. As they passed the souq, a fire-eater performed for a watching group of teenagers whilst a ‘merchant’ loaded his wares onto a waiting camel train, causing Petra’s heart to give a small unsteady thump.
The one thing she wanted to do whilst she was in Zuran was take a trip into the desert. Her aunt might speak enthusiastically about shopping malls and the fabulous gold and diamond souq, but it was the desert that called most strongly to Petra in a siren song that whispered to her that to know it was her heritage.
Deep in her own private thoughts, she jumped when Blaize touched her arm. The gondola swung into an ornately decorated private landing from which a red carpet led towards a building so unmistakably Parisian in concept that Petra could only stare at it in bemusement.
Several other people were already standing in front of the entrance to the restaurant, and as she felt Blaize’s hands on her body when he helped her from the gondola Petra immediately tensed in rejection of the sexual intimacy, instinctively uncomfortable about other people witnessing it.
‘Don’t do that!’ she protested when Blaize bent his head and allowed his breath to graze intimately against her skin as he brushed her hair from her face. ‘The women who paid for your clothes might have enjoyed being pawed in public, but I don’t.’
The minute she had finished speaking Petra knew that she had gone too far. It was there in the sudden stiffening of his body and the glacial glitter in his eyes.
It was useless to try to explain that her own panic at her body’s helpless reaction to him had motivated her rash words—and besides, her pride would not allow her to do so. So Petra tensed and bent her head beneath the savage lash of his softly spoken retaliation.
‘For your information no woman has ever… ever… paid for my clothes. And as for your comment about “pawing”—be thankful that your innocence protects you from the consequences of such a comment—for now!’
In silence, but with her head held high, Petra turned towards the red carpet. Not for anything was she going to admit—even to herself—how much she longed for the protective warmth of Blaize’s hand beneath her elbow as she watched the other diners entering the restaurant, the men in their robes and their women couturier-clad and holding themselves with a proud elegance Petra secretly envied.
‘More wine?’ Blaize asked as their waiter hovered solicitously, holding the wine bottle. Immediately Petra shook her head and covered her still half-full glass with her hand. The meal they had just been served had been outstandingly good—with every mouthful Petra had been reminded of her first grown-up meal in Paris, a birthday treat from her parents. Everything from the decor and the whole ambience of the place, right down to the subtle perfume of the candles on the tables, replicated the chicest of Parisian restaurants, and Petra knew she would not have been surprised to hear French itself being spoken.
‘Coffee, then?’ Blaize was asking as he signalled her refusal to the hovering waiter.
Nodding her head, Petra warned herself that if she was not careful she might be in danger of falling for her own fiction, so well was Blaize playing the part of attentive and adoring lover. But then, of course, no doubt