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His mouth tight with distaste, Rafiq threw a hundreddollar note down on the table and rose to his feet to follow her.
Two
Rafiq was leaning against the wall when Tiffany emerged from the bathroom, his body lean and supple in the dark, well-fitting suit. He straightened and came toward her like a panther, sleek and sinuous.
Tiffany fervently hoped she wasn’t the prey he intended hunting. There were dark qualities to this man that she had no wish to explore further.
“I’m going to call you a cab.”
“Now?” Panic jostled her. “I can’t leave. My shift isn’t over yet.”
“I’ll tell whoever is in charge around here that you’re leaving with me. No one will argue.”
She assessed him. The hard eyes, the hawk-like features, the lean, whipcord strength. The way he had of appearing to own all the space around him. Yes, he was right. No one would argue with him.
Except her. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
Something flared in those unfathomable eyes. “I wasn’t intending to take you anywhere … only to call for a cab.”
“I can’t afford one,” she said bluntly.
“I’ll pay for your damned cab.”
Tiffany started to protest, and then hesitated. Why shouldn’t he pay for her fare? He’d never coughed up the service tip she needed. Though the disquieting discussion with Renate had made it clear that tips in this place required more service than just a little company over drinks. Renate was clearly going to end up in Sir Julian’s bed tonight. For what? A visit to the races tomorrow … and a wad of cash?
Tiffany had no intention of following suit. She’d rather have her self-respect.
Yet she couldn’t afford to be too proud. She needed every cent she could lay her hands on. For food and accommodation until Monday. If Rafiq gave her the fare for a cab, she could sneak out the back while he was organizing it and hurry to her lodgings on foot. It wouldn’t be dishonest, she assured herself. She’d earned the tip he’d never paid.
“Thanks.” The word almost choked her.
He was suddenly—unexpectedly—close. Too close. Tiffany edged away and suppressed the impulse to tell him to stick his money. Reality set in. The cab fare, together with the miserly rate for tonight’s work, which she’d be able to collect in less than ten minutes, meant she’d be able to pay for her accommodation and buy food for the weekend.
Relief swept through her.
All her problems would be solved.
Until Monday …
Over the weekend, she’d keep trying her father. Surely he’d check his e-mail, his phone messages, sooner or later? Of course, it would mean listening to him tell her he’d been right from the outset, that she wasn’t taking care of herself in the big, bad world. But at least he’d advance her the money to rebook her flights and she’d be able to get back to help her mom.
“I’d appreciate it,” she said, suddenly subdued. Tiffany halted, waiting for him produce his wallet.
“Let’s go.”
His hand came down on the small of her back and the contact electrified her. It was the humidity in the club, not his touch that had caused the flash of heat, she told herself as she tried to marshal her suddenly chaotic thoughts.
Her money.
“Wait—”
Before she could finish objecting he’d propelled her past the bar, through the spectacular mirrored lobby and out into the oppressive heat of the night. Of course there was a cab waiting. For a men like Rafiq there always were.
“Hang on—”
Ignoring her, Rafiq opened the door and ushered her in and all of the sudden he was overwhelming in the confined space.
“Where to?” he asked.
He’d never intended to hand her cash. And she hadn’t had the opportunity to collect her earnings, either.
“I didn’t get my money,” she wailed. Then it struck her that he shouldn’t be sitting next to her with his thigh pressed against hers. “You said you weren’t coming with me.”
“I changed my mind.”
His smile didn’t reach his midnight-dark eyes. Then he closed the door, dousing the interior light. Tiffany didn’t know whether to be relieved or disturbed by the sudden cloak of darkness. So she scooted across the seat, out of his reach, trying to ignore his sheer, overwhelming physical presence by focusing on everything she’d been cheated of. Food. Lodgings. Survival.
She could survive without food until Monday. It wouldn’t kill her. When she went back to the embassy she wouldn’t let pride stop her begging for a handout for a meal. But she needed a roof over her head.
“I’m not going to be able to get that money back.” She hadn’t worked out her shift. “I doubt they’ll take me back tomorrow now.” There were strict rules about telling the management when you were leaving—and with whom. Tiffany had thought it was for the hostess’s protection.
“You don’t want to work there—find somewhere else.” Rafiq murmured something to the cabdriver and the vehicle started to move.
Tiffany didn’t bother to explain that she didn’t have a visa to work in Hong Kong, that she’d only turned up at Le Club for the night as a casual waitress. Worry tugged at her stomach. “I need the money for those hours I spent there tonight.”
“A pittance,” he said dismissively.
Anger splintered through her. “It might be a pittance to you but it’s my pittance. I worked for that money.”
“And for what do you so desperately need cash? An overloaded credit card after frequenting the boutique stores at Harbor City’s Ocean Terminal?”
His drawling cynicism made her want to smack him. Instead she tried to ignore him and huddled down into the corner as far away from him as she could get in the backseat. He was so overbearing. So certain that he was right about everything. Assuming she was a shopaholic airhead. Making decisions for her about where she should work, about when she should go home.
God help any woman silly enough to marry him—he’d be a dictator. Maybe he was already married. The thought caused a bolt of shock.
What did she care whether he was married?
That fierce, dark gaze clashed with hers. “I’m waiting.”
Trying frantically to regroup, she said, “For what?”
“For you to tell me why you’re so desperate for money.”
Tiffany cringed at the idea of telling him. “It makes me sound stupid.”
He arched an eyebrow. “More stupid than working at Le Club?”
She supposed he was right. So she hauled in a deep breath and said reluctantly, “I was mugged yesterday morning. My passport was stolen and my credit cards and my cash.”
It was mortifying. How many times had she been told to keep one card and a copy of her itinerary and travel insurance separate from the rest? How she wished she had. It would have saved a lot of grief. And a host of I-told-you-you-wouldn’t-survive-alones from her father, when she finally managed to locate him.
“All that I had left was twenty Hong Kong dollars that I had in my pocket and I used that for last night’s accommodation.”
“How convenient.”
The mocking note in his voice made it clear Mr. Arrogant Know-all thought she was lying.
“You don’t believe me.”
The seat gave as he shrugged. “It’s hardly an original story. Although I prefer it to a fabricated tale about an ailing grandfather or a brother with leukemia.”
He thought she was angling for sympathy. She stared across the backseat in disbelief. “Good grief, but you’re cynical. I hope I never become like you.”
In the flash of passing lights she glimpsed a flare of emotion in his eyes. Then it vanished as darkness closed around them again. “And I hope, for your sake, that you are not as naive as you pretend to be.”
“I’m not naive,” Tiffany said, annoyed by the nerve he’d unwittingly struck. He sounded exactly like her father.
“Then come up with a better story.”
“It’s true. Do you think I’d voluntarily make myself look like such an airhead?”
“The helpless, stranded tourist might work on some.”
She glared at him under the cover of night.
His voice dropped to a rasp. “Perhaps I’m the fool. I find myself actually considering this silly tale—against my better judgment.”
“Well, thanks.” Her tone dripped affront.
Unexpectedly he laughed aloud. “My pleasure.”
The sound was warm and full of joy. The cab pulled up at a well-lit intersection and the handsome features were flooded with light. Tiffany caught her breath at the sudden, startling charm that warmed his face, and somewhere deep in the pit of her stomach liquid heat melted. For a heady fragment of time she almost allowed herself smile, too, and laugh at the ridiculousness of her plight.
Then she came to her senses.
“It’s not funny,” she said with more than a hint of rebellion.
Rafiq moved his weight on the seat beside her. “No, I don’t suppose it would be—if your story were true.”
Rafiq’s brooding gaze settled on the woman bundled up against the door. If she moved any farther away from him, she’d be in serious danger of falling out. Was she telling the truth? Or was it all an elaborate charade?
The lights changed and the vehicle pulled away from the intersection. “Don’t you have anyone you can borrow money from?”
She turned her head and looked out into the night. “No.”
Frowning now, Rafiq stared at the dark shape of her head and pale curve of her cheek that was all he could see from this perspective, highlighted every few seconds by flashes from passing neon signs.
“What about your friend Renate? Can’t she help you out?”
She gave a strangled laugh. “Hardly a friend. I only met her today. She lodges at the hostel I’m staying at.”
Aah. He started to see the light. “There’s no one else?”
She shook her head. “Not someone I can ask for money.”
Rafiq waited for a heartbeat. For two. Then three. But the expected plea never came.
“You’re traveling by yourself.” It was a statement. And it explained so much, Rafiq decided, the reluctant urge to believe her growing stronger by the minute.
Tiffany shifted, and he sensed her uneasy glance before she turned back to the window.
She’d be a fool to tell him if she was. Or perhaps this was part of an act designed to make him feel more sympathy for a young woman all alone and out of her depth.
Had he been hustled by an expert? To Rafiq’s disquiet he wasn’t certain. And he was not accustomed to being rendered uncertain, off-balance. Particularly not by a woman. A young, attractive woman.
He was far from being an impressionable youth.
Three times he’d been in love. Three times he’d been on the brink of proposing marriage. And each time, much to his father’s fury, he’d pulled away. At the last moment Rafiq had discovered that the desire, the sparkle, had burnt out under the weight of family expectation.
Rafiq himself didn’t understand how something that started with so much hope and promise could fizzle out so disappointingly as soon as his father started to talk marriage settlements.
“So how much money do you need?” He directed the question to the sliver of sculpted cheek that was all he could see of her face.
This should establish whether he was being hustled.
A modest request for only a few dollars to cover necessities and shelter until she could arrange for her bank to put her back in funds would make it easier to swallow her tale.
“Enough to cover my bed and food until Monday.”
Rafiq released the breath that he hadn’t even been aware of holding.
As head of the Royal Bank of Dhahara he was familiar with all kinds of fraud, from the simplest ploys that emptied the pockets of soft-hearted elders to complex Internet frauds. Tiffany would not be seeing him again, so this was her only opportunity to try stripping him of a substantial amount of money and she had not taken it. She was in genuine need. All she wanted—and she hadn’t even directly asked him for it yet—was a small amount of cash to tide her over.
This was not a scam.
The first whisper of real concern for the situation in which she found herself sounded inside his head. He had a cousin who was as close to him as a sister. He’d hate for Zara to be in the position that Tiffany was in, with no one to turn to for help. Rafiq knew he would make sure Tiffany would be looked after. “Tell me more.”
“Except …” Her voice trailed away.
Every muscle in his body contracted as he tensed, praying that his instincts had not played him false.
“Except … what?“ he prompted.
She averted her face. Even in the dark, he caught the movement as her pale fingers fiddled with the hem of the short, flirty dress. “I’m not sure that I’m going to have enough available on my credit card to pay for the changes to my flight.”
“How much?”
Here it was. Rafiq forced his gaze up from the distraction of those fingers. She’d just hit him with the big sum—a drop in the ocean to him if she’d but known it—and he couldn’t even see her face to read her eyes as his hopes that she was the real deal faded into oblivion. The tidal wave of anger that shook him was unexpected.
