White Moon Black Sea (23 page)

She didn’t believe him. Well, she did and she didn’t. She believed that he would select something for her, but she wondered who would get the bill, He was all too generous and grand with his obsession for shopping and beautiful things. He was, after all, a gigolo, not a multimillionaire.

On the rue de Rivoli they window-shopped, and, just as they were about to cross the road to the Tuileries, he left her once again on the pavement, only this time to enter a small shop. He reappeared almost immediately and handed her, one by one, copies of the magazines he had seen on the plane with covers and articles about her prominently featured.

“I think you should tell me all about these, and how much this new career means to you, don’t you? Come, we can sit on a bench in the gardens. A synopsis will do. But before you tell me one word about yourself, I think you should know that whatever your life has been can make no difference to me, except that I might love you more.”

He disarmed her completely. Confronting her with the magazines was one thing. But the manner in which he did it was another. He was demanding that she reveal herself to him. How could he possibly know how difficult that was
for a woman who was used to holding back and giving nothing to a man? What he asked of her knocked her off balance. But what he promised her — the possibility of an even greater love than he claimed he already felt for her — cracked Tana Dabra’s protective armor against Rashid. It was not just the words that did it. There was something in his voice, a look in his eyes, the strength and bearing she felt when he directed her across the road, the warmth and energy, something akin to a healing power, she felt coursing through her from his hand on her elbow.

They found a bench overlooking the Seine, almost opposite the place where she had met Adam Corey and handed over to him the last shipment she had smuggled out of Ethiopia. She unconsciously placed her hand over the ruby she always wore, Adam’s gift to her, and she knew that she could fool herself no longer. Being a celebrity clothes hanger might keep her safe, might even be fun, but it would never be enough for her. Her country, the highlands of Ethiopia, the peasants who loved her and depended on her, wheeling and dealing in the money and high-stakes business world suddenly meant more then being safe from the poisoned tip of an umbrella, or a blast from a sawed-off shotgun fired at her from a fast-moving car.

And now there was Rashid and what he had to offer her. Love, romance, an erotic, adventurous sex life second to none, marriage. No man had ever offered her more. Was what he offered her true or false? How would she know? Experience was hardly on her side. Twice in her life Tana Dabra had met men who had made her feel she was more than a business asset, more than a sexual cripple, a mutilated female. And now, she had met one who instilled in her a sense of wholeness she had never known before. Though that could never compensate for the men who had exploited her mind and deprived her of a normal sexual life, it was something. More than something.

She looked at Rashid, and then at the glossy photograph of herself on the cover of the most famous of the fashion magazines. She suddenly could admit to herself that the ultraslim, extraordinarily long-armed and long-legged,
dusky woman, wearing a strapless black satin dress with a puff-ball miniskirt, standing in high-heeled, black satin shoes, was by anyone’s standards an unusually beautiful and erotic creature. She placed the magazine in his lap, along with
Time
, whose cover showed her dressed in her indigo-blue shift, her hair pulled back off her face and braided, looking every inch a royal Ethiopian with only hints of her erotic beauty. She remained silent for a few minutes as she thumbed through the other magazines. Then, moving away from Rashid on the bench, she placed the magazines between them. She turned on the bench to face him, and without another thought she told him her story.

Afterward she rose from the bench with a powerful need to walk, to feel the movement of her body, her arms and her legs swinging free, to feel her heart pump and the oxygen flow through her brain.

“Love? Marriage?” she asked suddenly. “What do a woman such as I and a luxury-loving paid lover such as you, a pair of adventurous libertines seeking the ultimate in sexual oblivion, know about such things?”

She smiled down at Rashid, who had not said a word during or after the telling of her story. She could read nothing in his face about what he thought, how he felt about her. She waited for a question, a reaction at least. Nothing. She turned on her heel and, ramrod straight, walked proudly and regally away from him.

She walked under a late-afternoon sun through the garden, taking great long strides, and for a few minutes he was mesmerized by the way she moved. He could feel his heart beating and that stirred him to move. He was on his feet, his heart swelling with love for this most extraordinary woman, the woman he would soon call his wife. He caught up with her and placed an arm around her shoulder. They walked a few paces, and then he stopped her and said, “I would say we know nothing about love and marriage. But what I do know is that we’ll find our way, and we are going to have it … together … you and I.”

12

T
hey crossed the Seine, walking over the Pont Neuf to the Left Bank, not stopping till they arrived at the Lipp. With every step they took, the thin thread that bound them to each other strengthened. They drank in the beauty of the city as if they were trying to quench some dreadful thirst. Every street, every house, every detail of architecture enchanted them, as if they had never seen the city before. And, with every step, a desire to be closer, to feel, to touch each other kept building in them. On the rue de Seine, Rashid pulled her into a narrow doorway. Slipping his hands under her jacket, he searched out her breasts and sighed with relief at being able to caress her. He placed his lips upon hers and they kissed, and he knew her need was as great as his when he felt her slender fingers intent below his belt. The sound of someone hurriedly descending the stairs behind the door was all that saved them from losing themselves to an embarrassing public display. They laughed as young lovers will at their boldness in love.

“ ‘There’s no fool like an old fool,’ that great cliché,” Rashid exclaimed. And they laughed at themselves and knew that it was a good sign that they could.

Over Kir Royals, sitting outside the Lipp and watching all of St.-Germaine des Prés go by, he surprised her with, “I, too, know Adam Corey. We’re friends. I am particularly close to his wife. I gave her away in marriage to him.”

There was a certain look that came into her eyes, and Rashid knew instinctively that there had been more than a business relationship. He was grateful to her that she had not mentioned that. It somehow made the coincidence that their lives should be intertwined easier to handle, especially since he had no intention of letting his wife-to-be know that he, Adam, and Mirella were involved in a three-sided
relationship that he most certainly would not give up or turn into a foursome.

“You know, you have rarely asked me a single question about myself,” he commented.

“Yes, I know.”

“I like that in you. What I like most is to be understood without having to talk about my feelings. That’s the way most men are, and there are very few women who understand it. You, like only a few other women I have met, make no demands for intimacy. I find the trait comfortable and easy to live with, and it makes me want to give the intimate side of myself to you.”

He kissed her hand, and she bent in toward him and kissed him on the cheek. She did understand. He wanted to say more to her about his admiration for the relaxed way in which she exposed herself to seeking sexual fulfillment, how together they would capitalize on her interest in eroticism, the qualities he sensed they shared. But there was no need. Their relationship was already ordained. They had identified themselves as sexy and fun. They recognized each other’s freedom, acknowledged flaws as well as perfections. Two people fascinated with being sexual, who wanted to get the best out of life. It suddenly came to him that here was a woman who understood evil, one who would allow him that streak of evil he cherished in himself. Tana Dabra was not a woman to shrink from walking the dangerous edge of things with him. He would never feel threatened, confused, or assailed by demands for honesty and openness from Tana Dabra insistent on some kind of fluent emotional exchange. It was the startling stoic silence of the soul she possessed that told him.

“Is there something you want to tell me, Rashid?”

“Not tell you, show you. Come on, let’s go.”

He clicked his fingers for several waiters, whom he greeted by name. Then, leaving a large bank note on the table, he rose, bringing Tana Dabra up with him. Almost before she realized it, she was swept into the backseat of a black Rolls-Royce, and it purred into the St.-Germaine des Prés traffic and headed for the Right Bank.

“Van Cleef & Arpels, Ahmed,” he ordered the driver, all
the time keeping his gaze on Tana Dabra. “I really do want to buy you a bauble. Allow me, give me that pleasure.”

“Rashid, every woman likes to receive a present. But can you afford it? Just please remember I can’t. I have heard that in the world of the toy-boy, the lady is usually made to pay the bills.” Suspicion glinted in her eyes. “The car and the driver, how did you manage them?” she asked.

“The doorman at Van Cleef’s.”

“Oh! For a moment I had the idea that the car and driver were yours.” She snuggled up close to Rashid, lifted his arm up, and draped it over her shoulder. “Hiring cars, top cars and drivers, to wander around Paris all day waiting for you, no wonder you have to charge such exorbitant fees.”

“I didn’t hire this car.”

“Oh!” she said distractedly as she slid her hands under his white silk knit jersey and caressed the hard flat of his stomach, his strong chest. He reacted at once to her touch and unbuckled his belt. Taking her hand by the wrist he slid it slowly down his body under the jersey until her fingers found his phallus. She wrapped them around it and caressed it and stroked it. Slowly and sweetly they both enjoyed her admiration of him. They saw it in each other’s eyes and felt it by the peace and calm they enjoyed in each other’s presence, the little extra race of passion that beat in their hearts.

“I didn’t have to, it’s mine.”

“And the driver?”

“Yes, and the driver.”

“Next you will be telling me that you’re not a gigolo, just another multimillionaire playboy.”

“Turkish playboy.”

She was only half paying attention to him and their conversation, he could tell because of the sexual tension in her voice and the caressing, always caressing fingers between his thighs. The tiny orgasms she was achieving by the mere touch of him in her hands she was trying to hide, he suspected, out of embarrassment for her hungry need for him.

“I stand corrected.”

“I’m afraid you haven’t got that quite right either. It is I
who am standing, you who has been corrected.” She squeezed him lightly in lazy recognition of his boyish joke. Slowly he removed her hands from him and kissed the palm of one and then the other. “Marvelous as that feels we had better stop now, or I will not be able to stop, and we are only several minutes from the Place Vendôme and Van Cleef’s.”

He lowered his head to kiss her passionately on the neck. Then he ran his hands up and down her long slender legs encased in sheer black stockings. He lifted one up into the air and extended it fully to kiss the ankle, and then he said, “I tried to find you. All these weeks since that night when you picked me up over a plate of
escargots
and were gone in the morning, leaving me with no way of finding you. I only
thought
I had fallen in love with you then. In the weeks when you had vanished from my life, I
knew
it to be true. You confirmed it for me when I saw you at the airport terminal. I carried on with my life when I couldn’t find you, but there was always a corner of my heart waiting for you to reappear, as I knew you would. Have no fear of the regime. They will never harm you. It was clever of you and Adam to protect you by making you a public figure. And, of course, as my wife you will be doubly protected. I am a very wealthy and powerful man, Tana Dabra, with an international reputation, and the means to keep you safe, even though you have never heard of me. How could you have? We have lived in different kinds of worlds. Now that we are together, I will help you in yours. All you have to do is love me and be happy in mine.”

Tana Dabra sat up and tried to unscramble her confusion about Rashid Lala Mustapha’s claims. She smiled at this handsome charismatic figure sitting next to her and grazed his cheek with her hand affectionately, unable to miss any opportunity to touch him.

Very well, Rashid, we can pretend that’s what you are for the remainder of the three days we have together, if it makes you happy, so long as you can afford such an extravagant fantasy. But it doesn’t matter.”

He began to laugh. “I am not a gigolo, Tana Dabra.”

“No, and you didn’t take ten thousand dollars from me
on the way from the airport terminal to service me for three days. If you want to play that game, I’ll go along with you, why not? But really, you don’t have to pretend you’re something you are not for my sake. I am having too good a time to care.”

Rashid rang Mirella from the car telephone as the Rolls crossed the Pont de la Concorde and spoke to her until the car drew up at the jeweler’s door. Rashid watched Tana Dabra’s face while he spoke to Mirella, and when he had completed his call was not surprised when she asked if the baby had been born. It hadn’t.

“You love that woman, Rashid, don’t you?”

“Yes, very much. She and one other. But I love them differently from the way I love you. And those relationships will never interfere with the one you and I will have. Are you going to be able to understand that, and learn to live with it? They need never cause us harm.”

“Strange as this may seem to you, yes, I believe I can.”

It was she who claimed Rashid’s hand now and kissed it and placed it over her heart. And that’s the way they were seated when the doorman opened the car door.

Tana Dabra was swept along on a wave of luxury and power that only the very rich are privy to. They walked through the shop dazzled by the jewels, and yet those were nothing, mere baubles. She learned quite quickly that anything under five hundred thousand dollars was termed a bauble by Rashid. In a private salon of eighteenth-century boiserie, sitting in comfortable Louis XIV chairs, they watched the treasures for them come out.

Only then did she begin to understand that Rashid really might not be a gigolo. It had not yet occurred to her that she had made an embarrassing mistake that he chose to go along with, all the time relishing her error. For the moment all she could see was that Rashid intended her to be his sparkling and glamorous wife.

She protested nervously as he selected some of the most beautiful jewels available in the world for his African beauty, falling more in love with her with every protestation she made.

“Rashid, I don’t have a wardrobe to warrant wearing
such jewelery. All I have are a few good dresses. I don’t even have a winter coat.”

“Must I supply a wardrobe to match these stones? Then we shall be here longer than I anticipated. We must first of all buy you the right earrings to go with Adam’s gift.”

“How did you know Adam gave me the ruby?”

“Adam and I have the same taste in many things. There are few men who would have purchased that necklace for you. He is one, and I am another.”

“You are not a gigolo,” she whispered.

“That’s what I have been telling you.”

“Rashid, what are you involving me in? Are you a master thief. Do you do movie-type scams? Oh, dear God, are we about to be arrested?” She was torn between anxiety and amusement.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll prove it to you.” When the managing director of the salon came into the room and shook hands with Rashid, Rashid asked him, “What is my credit standing with this company?”

The man looked puzzled. He smiled and said, “Well, Rashid, I don’t think we ever thought about amounts. I suppose I would have to say ‘unlimited.’ Yes, with us here, Rashid Lala Mustapha would have unlimited credit.”

A gold wine cooler was brought in at this point. Chilled champagne was poured into antique gold and crystal champagne flutes.

The interruption afforded Tana Dabra a moment to deal with the recognition that he really was a fabulously wealthy Turkish playboy. And that he had made a fool of her not once but twice. Rashid saw the fury come into her eyes. Her body tensed as she sat taller and straighter. Slowly she raised her chin and a regal haughtiness appeared. The cultivated, chic mannequin look dissolved into the touchy stare of an empress such as he had always wanted as part of his life.

Rashid saw the warmth Tana Dabra had for him evaporating, and an icy hardness crystalizing over the erotic fire that had burned in her for him. He could not allow that, and knew he must do something at once.

“Pierre, would you mind bringing the Dalrymple Diamond
up from the vault, along with anything else you think we might like. Only your most important stones, that’s what I want for this special occasion.”

As soon as the man was out of the room, Rashid went to Tana Dabra and sat on the end of the Boulle desk next to her. He placed a finger under her chin to turn her face to him as he said, “Your anger is a formidable thing, Tana Dabra, which is good, but not if it’s directed at me.”

She snapped her head away from his touch. In a flash he was off the desk and he pulled her out of the chair and into his arms. Inches apart they stared into each other’s eyes. Tears of anger filled hers, and she began to breathe rapidly. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and held her by it. She saw tears coming into his eyes, and she sensed the aura of the passion he felt for her surrounding them like an invisible sheer cloud. “Don’t ice me out. Don’t do this to us, kill what we have, out of petty pride and anger. We will never, either of us, do better than being together.” She felt his warmth and love melting her anger. She blinked back tears and listened to him tell her, “I’ll give you myself, and I’ll give you the world. But I’ll never ask forgiveness. I have always operated by the maxim, ‘Never complain, never explain.’”

Then he pulled her by the hair. His hand grasped gently, drawing her closer and closer until he saw the coldness in her eyes dissolve and he recognized once again erotic passion. He ever so lightly placed his lips upon hers. Slowly her arms went up over his shoulders and around his neck. She was helplessly slipping away from her proud self and back toward love. He was wrong to have taken advantage of her mistake. Her pride should demand that she crush him into the ground with insults and walk away from him, never to look back. But where was her pride? Being erotically besotted kills pride. Romantic seduction murders it. Tana Dabra forgot herself. From that moment on she helplessly concentrated on Rashid and persevered in making him happy by using him to satisfy her sexual hunger. Her attentions made him feel he was important. She was making the surest cast a woman can to net and keep her man, and she hardly recognized it. She sacrificed
her ego and won the man who haunted her dreams. He waited, still as a stone, until
her
lips pressed his and
her
kisses opened his lips. They found, yet again, a sexual hunger for each other that filled them with joy.