Heather Graham (28 page)

They had been so engrossed and so secluded at their intimate table that Alex had noticed nothing past Ali’s handsome face. Now she realized that the woman who had taken the table cater-corner from theirs was watching them. No, not them—Dan. And Dan was staring back.

For no explicable reason Alex felt a shivering panic touch the base of her spine. She tried to assess the feeling, but it actually needed no assessment.

The small, chic brunette was probably the most beautiful woman Alex had ever seen. Her eyes were huge and blue, her cheekbones high, her face a perfect oval. She smiled slowly, and Alex thought miserably that she had never seen anyone do such a simple thing with such appealing sensuality.

“Excuse me,” Dan said suddenly.

Alex moved her eyes from the woman to Dan as he rose and approached the table. He bent low to speak to her, and her smile broadened, displaying deep, matching dimples in both cheeks.

There was suddenly a sharp grip on Alex’s frozen hand, and she turned then to Ali with surprise. She had forgotten he was sitting right across the table from her.

“She’s just an old friend,” Ali said softly. “Dan is being polite.”

“Old friend—or old flame?” Alex queried sweetly, forcing a casual smile to her lips.”

Ali shrugged. “All men have pasts.”

“D’Alesio certainly seems to.” Alex sipped her wine, amazed at the depth of jealousy that raged within her. Jealousy … and pain. But she had always known she was a fool to become involved with Dan. No strings. But Ali knew that she had become involved, and she couldn’t bear the look he was giving her now—one of empathy strangely combined with amusement and—pleasure! Ali was glad to see that she was upset because Dan was speaking intimately with another woman.

“Ali,” she said quietly, sipping her wine again and then running a finger idly around the rim of her glass. “Dan is most welcome to his past—and to his future. You of all people are aware of the circumstances regarding our …”

“Affair.” She had almost said “affair.” And of course that was all it was. But somehow she couldn’t say that word. And for some reason she was very ridiculously blushing crazily, because of course Ali was very aware that she and Dan had been sleeping together since that night in his palace.

“Our being together,” she finished a bit lamely. “Really, Ali, you have no need to look at me like that. I’m an adult. Quite old enough to know what I’m doing. And where I’m going when this—including Dan—is all over.”

“Do you, Alexandria?” Ali queried softly.

“Of course, Ali,” Alex said, and sighed, managing to sound quite exasperated. Then she gave Ali a brilliant smile and began idly chattering, carefully keeping her eyes from Dan and the brunette. She heard herself muttering something to him about how pathetic the dreams of the ancient pharaohs became when their sad-looking decayed remains were unshrouded and unwound and put on public display. “Ramses II, with colossi all over Egypt, lies in a room in a case with rows and rows of other mummies around him! Think how horrified he would be to see himself in such company!”

Ali laughed and responded, but they both knew the conversation was brittle. Alex kept trying not to glance toward the other table; she couldn’t help glancing in that direction now and then. And for all her mature logic, she felt as if she had been slammed against a brick wall as she watched Dan. His right hand was placed upon the back of the woman’s chair; his left hand was on the table, and his stance appeared very intimate. His brow was slightly furrowed as he spoke in reply to something, but Alex couldn’t begin to read the emotion in his jet eyes or tense features. The woman reached up with blood-red nails to touch his shoulder, and her fingers ran over the lapels of his dinner jacket.

Alex wanted to scream.

She tried to remember that she was talking to Ali. “The … uh … pharaoh, when alive, was referred to as the living king. When dead, he became the … uh … god king because it was believed he actually became Osiris—”

“Alex!” Ali interrupted, grinning. “Dan is being polite to an old friend, nothing more.”

“Ali!” Alex responded in kind. “I told you, it makes no difference to me.”

Ali had no chance to reply, as Dan chose that moment to return to their table. Alex wondered desperately how to appear polite and mildly interested in his friendship, not as if jealousy was eating away at her and she would dearly love to smash his face into his dinner.”

“Old friend?” she inquired sweetly as he slipped in beside her.

“Acquaintance,” he replied briefly.

She must have managed to sound nonchalant—perhaps too nonchalant. Because Dan didn’t say another word about the woman who still sat at the table near them. He launched into a discussion with Ali on the supplies they would need to procure when they reached Luxor.

Alex barely heard the words they exchanged. She felt her anger rising like lava in a volcano. She had no ties on him, but damnit, he was with her. And he had still excused himself—oh, politely, of course—to wander over to another woman. He hadn’t really done anything, her more logical sense told her. He had merely said hello to a woman—albeit a very beautiful, very sensual woman—and then returned to the table. He hadn’t left her stranded in the middle of the street.

She still wanted to kill him, and it was frightening, terrifying to think of how terribly involved she was to feel such pain. And she wasn’t normally jealous. She had trusted Wayne against all odds, because she had believed he loved her.

Dan did care for her. That was what hurt. They shared so much that was so special to her that was just a way of life to him.

“… be right back.”

Alex started guiltily as she realized Ali was talking to her and smiling. She watched him blankly as he left the table and then jerked as if she had been burned as Dan’s arm came around her shoulder.

“What in the world is the matter with you?” Dan demanded tensely.

“I … uh … I don’t feel like being mauled at the moment,” Alex replied, wincing inwardly as the words left her mouth.

“Mauled?” He lifted a querying brow.

“I’m sorry; I really want to be left alone.”

She was already wishing fervently that she could kick herself when he chuckled huskily, inclining his head to whisper in her ear. “Doctor, the lady is merely an old acquaintance. I don’t, I’m afraid, remember her name, and therefore an introduction would have been impossible.”

“You don’t even remember her name!”

“Alex, I said ‘acquaintance,’ not—”

“Are we ready?” Ali queried, appearing at the table again. “I think we’d best get back if we want to make an early start in the morning.”

“I’m definitely ready,” Alex murmured, moving swiftly to her feet. To her annoyance, Dan was right beside her, taking her arm with one of his unbreakable holds. Alex waited until they were out of the restaurant to whisper at him vehemently.

“I’d appreciate it if you would drop the vise grip now,” Alex hissed as they stepped into the Egyptian night.

Ali, behind them, suddenly exclaimed. “Allah be merciful! A full Egyptian moon. And tonight was made for trouble.”

“What?” Alex asked, trying to see what Ali was talking about, but Dan pulled her around and more tightly into his arms. “It is a full moon, sweetheart.” His voice was low and husky, yet she had the strange feeling it would carry on the night air. “It’s good luck to kiss beneath the Egyptian moon … did I ever tell you that?”

He claimed her lips in an outrageous kiss, one impossible to repel. Definitely a full moon, she thought irritably, and D’Alesio is turning into the werewolf of Cairo.

Still sizzling with righteous anger and certain he had lost his mind to so accost her when she was ready to kill him, Alex brought her hands against his chest. But his embrace was one of steel; he had no intention of letting her go. Neither did it seem possible to twist her lips from his, although it wasn’t quite a kiss. He was merely holding her—tensely. “Dan!” she said, her words muffled against his mouth.

“Alex!” A shocked plea suddenly sounded in the night. The strangled voice she heard was a familiar one. Very shocked, hurt, angry. Wayne’s voice.

She broke away from Dan. His eyes were holding hers with a demanding challenge. She met them with fury, attempting to twist out of his arms to see the man she hadn’t seen in a year, the ex-husband she had been so sure she had loved … would love again when the sudden tempest of her life left and reality returned.

Wayne.

And very vaguely Alex could hear Ali’s dry voice behind them. “What a surprise. …”

Dan released her abruptly, and she was able to turn.

Wayne, with a somewhat ghastly expression on his face, was standing before them. Alex searched desperately for something to say.

Dan took the initiative. “You must be Wayne Randall. Sorry we haven’t been able to return your calls. It’s been crazy, getting ready for the dig and gathering last-minute data.”

Wayne, his handsome face pale and sullen but knit into a tight mask of determination, ignored Dan. “Alex, I have to talk to you. D’Alesio, I need to speak with my wife alone—”

“Dan,” Alex began, trying to extricate herself from his grasp. “I really do need to talk to Wayne, to exp—”

“Sorry,” Dan said coolly, a grim smile whitening his lips, the jet of his eyes seeming to be a blowtorch that sizzled all it came in contact with. “Randall, she’s not your wife. Not anymore. And she’s with me. And I don’t intend to leave her in your keeping for two seconds. Now if you’ll excuse us—”

“No way, D’Alesio!” Wayne thundered furiously. His beautiful blue eyes were like ice chips as he suddenly took a wild punch at Dan.

Wayne was no fighter. He was a scholar, Alex thought sadly. Handsome, head in the clouds, tall, thin, his light hair constantly ruffled. He was no match for D’Alesio.

The punch almost hit Alex, and she suddenly found herself tossed into Ali’s arms.

“I’d stop there, Randall,” Dan, to his credit, warned.

Wayne was too berserk to stop. He aimed another punch, which Dan neatly sidestepped.

“Stop it!” Alex heard herself screech out.

“Ali, take her home,” Dan said absently, warily eyeing Wayne for his next move.

“Ali, you let go of me!” Alex demanded with reproach.

He wouldn’t have released her; not after Dan’s command. But it didn’t matter. Wayne made another lunge at Dan, and Dan finally struck back. Wayne landed on the sidewalk, rubbing his cheek without rising, but shouting out, “I’ll kill you, D’Alesio!”

“Sure,” Dan agreed absently, stepping past him and jerking Alex’s arm back from Ali.

Alex was furious. Dan had just proved that she meant no more to him than any other woman, just a possession. He was capable of being charming to any female of the species. She knew without a doubt that she needed to cling to her past. When the devastation of losing Dan befell her, she would need some dream to cling to. Her dream was Wayne. And he had tried to fight for her. Dan was just such a damn lug.

“You idiot!” she raged at Dan. “You might have hurt him! Let me go. I want to talk to him. Let me explain—”

“Not on your life, Doctor. You’re with me because you wanted to be. And I warned you it would be to the finish.”

“But I have to explain—” Alex was flailing at him, trying to break his grasp.

“Sorry, Doctor.”

He was pale beneath the bronze of his flesh; his eyes were a deep and furiously burning jet. His voice was calm, cool. But with his last words he shrugged and dipped, butting her midriff and tossing her over his shoulder, heedless of the passersby in the streets and the small audience they were drawing.

“We’re going back to our room, Doctor,” he murmured flatly.

He was halfway down the street as he uttered the words, despite her fervent, pounding protests.

To top it all off, she could still hear Wayne’s cursed threats in the background and, from closer behind them, Ali’s soft, delighted laughter.

C
AIRO, ALEX DECIDED BITTERLY
, was as much a man’s town as Abu Dhabi.

It was difficult to remember that just two hours ago she had traversed the same streets, strolling along pleasantly between Dan and Ali, watching with idle enchantment the people who crowded the streets: Arabians, Nubians, southern Europeans, the occasional Western tourist. And it was just as difficult to remember how cordially she was usually treated by Egyptian men—the hotel concierges, restaurateurs, merchants, curators, guides, taxi drivers—because not one of them thought a thing of Dan lugging her—protesting—through the streets. They all seemed to think it some form of vast amusement, even the one policeman they passed. He laughed the hardest.

Alex protested until they reached the doors of the Hilton. She wasn’t about to be carted through the lobby, and her whisper was both furious and vehement. “Put me down now, D’Alesio. I’ll walk right next to your side. Just don’t you dare bring me through that lobby like this.”

He hadn’t said a word during the entire walk; now he hesitated.

“I’m not going to run anywhere,” Alex hissed. “I know damn well Ali and his—his—friends are right behind us. And believe me, D’Alesio, I have a few choice words to say to you myself that I don’t particularly want heard by others!”

He set her down less than gently and gripped her elbow roughly. “As you wish. Let’s proceed through the lobby.”

Regaining her dignity as best she could. Alex lifted her chin and preceded him into the lobby, tightening her lips at the feel of the viselike grip of his fingers on her elbow.

They walked stone-faced and swiftly to the elevators. Ali was close behind them, but when the cage door opened, he stepped backward, offering Alex a dry smile. “I wouldn’t get in on this one for all the oil in the Persian Gulf!” he swore with a grimace.

“But—” Alex’s protest was cut off as the door eased closed. She was alone in the elevator with Dan. Why not? It was Dan she wanted to kill. But she had wanted Ali there. Because she did want to kill Dan, to rip him to pieces, and Ali might have been a stabilizing influence between them. And he would have stopped Dan from retaliating if she did go absolutely berserk and attempt to strangle him.