Istanbul Affair

by Joanna Mansell

  'We both need some sleep,' he said rather shortly.

  Amy glanced up at him, and saw that he was right. There were dark shadows of tiredness under his eyes, and she remembered that she had woken him last night, when she had had that nightmare.

  'I suppose that's my fault,' she muttered. 'I disturbed you when I had that bad dream.'

  'None of this is anyone's fault,' Benedict said, in the same terse voice. He got to his feet. 'Let's go back upstairs and get to bed. Tomorrow's going to be a difficult day and it isn't going to help Angeline if we're asleep on our feet.'

  Half an hour later, she was lying on her bed, staring into the darkness. Outside, the city was as noisy as usual, but it wasn't the mingled sound of voices and music and traffic that was keeping her awake.

  With a carefully suppressed sigh, Amy turned over and resolutely closed her eyes. She remembered, rather enviously, all those nights when she had simply clambered into bed and gone straight to sleep. Now she was beginning to wonder if she were ever going to sleep properly again.

  A long way into the night, though, her breathing slowed and became more even, her body relaxed, and she finally drifted off into the welcoming darkness.

  The stretch of deep, peaceful sleep didn't last for long, however. Soon she started dreaming again, muddled and confused dreams at first, but then they became more vivid—more frightening. Then the same nightmare that she had had last night began all over again.

  The dark shape, never clearly seen, started chasing her. Amy didn't know why she was so scared of it, she just knew that she had to get away. No matter how fast she ran, though, she couldn't escape from it. It stalked her; played with her. She ran faster still, heart pounding and legs shaking. And then, just when she thought she had finally got away, it loomed up in front of her and pounced on her…

  Amy let out a loud yell of pure fear, and woke herself up.

  She also woke up Benedict. He switched on the small lamp beside the bed, came over and frowned down at her.

  'Another bad dream?'

  'Yes,' she muttered. Then, seeing the look of disapproval on his face, she added defensively, 'I can't help having them. I know it's inconvenient and I keep waking you up, but there's really not much I can do about it.'

  'What was this one about?'

  'It was the same as the last one. Something dark and dangerous was chasing me.'

  One of Benedict's eyebrows gently rose. 'It sounds rather Freudian to me.'

  'And what exactly is that supposed to mean?' she snapped at him, tiredness and tension fraying her nerves.

  He shrugged. 'I'm no expert, but it's fairly common knowledge that that kind of dream is often caused by some sexual hang-up. The 'dark and dangerous' thing that's frightening you is the darker, wilder side of your own nature. If you suppress it when you're awake, or simply refuse to admit that it exists, it pops up and haunts you in your dreams.'

  'Thanks for the lecture,' Amy said coldly. 'I don't believe a word of it, but you obviously feel better now that you've found a rational explanation for my nightmare.'

  'It doesn't really matter whether or not I feel better about it,' Benedict pointed out. 'You're the one who's having the bad dreams. And my guess is that you're going to keep on having them if you won't try and sort out the underlying problem that's causing them.'

  'I don't have any problems!' Amy retorted furiously. 'At least, I didn't until you came into my life.'

  She stopped there very abruptly, realising what she had just said. Panic replaced the swift surge of temper. Perhaps he didn't hear what I said, she prayed silently. And if he did, please, please God, don't let him understand it.

  Benedict's dark gaze was resting on her assessingly, and Amy waited tensely for him to say something. She didn't breathe, didn't blink, didn't move a single muscle.

  In the end, though, he looked away again without saying anything. Then he got up and walked slowly over to the window.

  Amy let out the pent-up breath she had been holding. But she was careful to do it very quietly. One thing she was absolutely determined about: she wasn't going to make any more slip-ups like that!

  She slid off the bed, went into the bathroom, and splashed cold water over the flushed skin of her face. When she returned to the bedroom, Benedict was still standing by the window. As she came in, he turned to confront her, and the expression on his face was different from any she had seen there before.

  'I've decided that there really isn't any reason for us to go on sharing a room,' he said without preamble. 'I think it would be better if we booked a separate room for you tomorrow.'

  'Because I keep disturbing your sleep?' Amy said stiffly.

  'You're certainly beginning to disturb me,' Benedict replied in an unexpectedly soft voice.

  She stared at him. 'What do you mean by that?'

  'Nothing that you need to worry about. It's just that this is the first time in my life that I've shared a room with a woman without sleeping with her. At first, it was something of a novelty. But the novelty seems to be wearing off.'

  'You're sick of having me around?' Amy tried to control the sudden wobble in her voice, and was relieved that she seemed to have succeeded.

  'Not exactly. But having you around at night could become a problem, if it goes on for very much longer.'

  His face had become quite unreadable, now. And it was impossible to tell anything from his tone of voice.

  All the same, Amy's instincts clearly told her that it would be a good idea to put an immediate stop to this conversation. Instead, though, she found herself asking him another question.

  'What sort of problem?'

  'The usual kind,' he replied rather drily. 'I'm not used to living like a monk, but just recently I've been very celibate. It isn't something that I think I can keep up for much longer.'

  Amy forced her suddenly constricted throat to work. 'You'll be all right once you've got Angeline back again,' she forced herself to say.

  Benedict gave an odd smile. 'Believe it or not, I haven't slept with your cousin.'

  'You haven't?' The two words came out as an enormous gasp of surprise and relief. Realising how they must have sounded, she struggled hard to recover herself, although she didn't altogether manage it. 'But—why?' she couldn't stop herself from saying. Then she went bright red. 'Sorry,' she mumbled. 'I've no right to ask that question.'

  'I don't mind answering it,' he said, to her astonishment. 'The reason I didn't sleep with Angeline was because I didn't want to jump straight into a physical relationship with her. There were other things I wanted to know about her first—things which I thought might be more important.'

  'And were they?' she asked, her throat almost closing up completely as she waited tensely for his reply.

  'For a while, it seemed that they might be. Now, though, I'm not so sure.'

  'Why?'

  'I don't think I want to answer that question right now.' He shifted position slightly restlessly, as if he were suddenly finding this conversation uncomfortable. 'But I do think it would be a good idea if you booked into another room tomorrow.'

  'Because you want to sleep with me?' Amy blurted out. An instant later, she just couldn't believe that she had asked that question. How completely humiliating and embarrassing if he said no. And what on earth would she do if he said yes…?

  But Benedict simply gave another rather strange smile. 'I think that's one more question that would be better left unanswered for now,' he said.

  Amy couldn't leave it alone, though. It was like obsessively picking at a painful wound, knowing that it was going to make it worse, but quite unable to stop doing it.

  'It's because I look like Angeline, isn't it?' she said in a suddenly dull tone. 'We wouldn't be having this problem if I had dark hair, and was short or fat. I've become a sort of substitute for her. Something you'd like to play around with until you can get the real thing back again.'

  At that, Benedict's face altered and he took half a dozen steps towards her.
<
br />   'I don't play around with women. Not unless they want to be played with. Mutual fun and pleasure is fine. But I'm not interested in any other kind of games. And I was wrong when I told you that you looked like Angeline. You're not like her at all.'

  'Yes, I am,' Amy insisted. 'Our eyes are a different colour, that's all.'

  'Your hair is different,' Benedict corrected her. 'Paler, silkier, longer. Your face is more delicate, your eyes larger, your mouth softer. You're not quite so tall, not quite so thin. You walk more lightly, move more gracefully. You argue a lot more than she does, but your voice is less harsh—' He stopped there fairly abruptly, as if he had never meant to say all of that.

  Amy stared at him in astonishment. 'You've noticed all those things about me?'

  'It wasn't too difficult,' he said, a dry note returning to his voice. 'We've hardly spent any time apart for the last couple of days.'

  She was rather nervously biting her bottom lip, nevertheless. Where was all this leading? Not to any place where she wanted to go, she was sure of that! And certainly not to any place where it was at all wise to go. Amy forced herself to remember that men often said things they didn't mean in the dark hours of the night. Why should Benedict Kane be any different? He had suddenly realised that he wanted something-sex, fun, physical relief? Amy wasn't sure what it was. But, like all men, he would try to get it, if he could. And in the morning, all those soft words would be deliberately and conveniently forgotten.

  Her only advantage was that he didn't know yet how vulnerable she was. He had no idea that her own nerves and emotions had been in a complete turmoil ever since they had arrived in Istanbul. And she had to make very sure that he never found out!

  'Perhaps we could get that separate room right now,' she said bluntly.

  Benedict glanced at his watch. 'At three in the morning? I don't thing they'd appreciate it if we went down and demanded to change rooms!' His dark eyes studied her. 'Why are you so anxious to run away? Is it because of what I've said to you tonight?'

  'Of course not,' Amy denied vehemently. 'Anyway, it was you who suggested that I should get another room.'

  The corners of his mouth gave a slight twitch. 'I'm beginning to think that wasn't one of my better suggestions.'

  'I think it's very sensible,' she said firmly. 'We don't need to share a room any more.'

  His tone changed yet again. 'Perhaps I need to,' he said, and his voice had taken on an almost velvet texture.

  Amy looked at him warily. 'What do you mean by that?'

  He didn't answer her directly. 'Do you remember when I kissed you today?' he asked instead.

  She certainly did! She wasn't going to let him think those couple of kisses had been anything special, though. 'That was just play-acting,' she reminded him. 'A display that we put on for the benefit of the kidnappers, in case they were watching us.'

  'It was the nicest piece of play-acting that I can remember,' Benedict said softly.

  'Well, it meant nothing to me!' she retorted curtly. 'I'd forgotten all about it until you mentioned it.'

  'Then let me remind you how it went,' he murmured.

  His movements were as silky-smooth as his voice. And deceptively fast. His arms coiled round her, the warmth of his mouth closed over hers, and she didn't even remember seeing him move. Sheer panic began to gather inside Amy as she realised that this kiss was exactly like the one he had given her this afternoon. It seemed to touch all the dark, secret corners of her soul, and if just a kiss could do that, then what on earth would happen if she let it go any further?

  A little frantically, she began to wriggle in his arms, trying desperately to break free. He released her mouth for a moment, and his eyes, almost black now, suddenly blazed down at her.

  'Stop that,' he ordered.

  To her amazement—and disbelief—she immediately obeyed. Benedict muttered something in satisfaction, and then returned his attention to her mouth.

  This kiss was different, more intense, as if he had suddenly discovered that he wanted even more than he had thought. His tongue gently licked, as if he liked the taste of her, and his hands began to inch their way more intimately around her body.

  Amy was terrified by this new attack. She might just have been able to cope with a kiss. Anything more and she was drifting straight into the realms of pure danger.

  He doesn't want you, she reminded herself over and over with grim forcefulness. He's missing Angeline; and there hasn't been a woman in his bed for far too long. You're here, and he's hoping you're available. And if he goes on like this for much longer, you will be available, she told herself with a fresh rush of horror, as she realised that his fingers were exploring now with new intent. You've got to put a stop to this. Find some way of making him let go of you.

  But Benedict clearly didn't want to let go. One thumb lightly brushed the underswell of her breast, and although Amy gritted her teeth and swore to herself that she wasn't going to show the slightest flicker of response, he must have detected some faint reaction because he gave a small grunt of pleasure. Then his palm smoothly followed in the wake of his thumb, sliding over the soft, full flesh and provoking such a devastating trail of reaction in Amy that she very nearly gave up completely at that point. How could she possibly fight any of this? For the last couple of days, she had felt that he could pole-axe her with just a look. And right now, he was doing a lot more than looking!

  Benedict briefly released her mouth. 'Do you want to know something strange?' he said musingly.

  Amy wasn't at all sure that she did. Enough strange things had been happening lately. She didn't feel that she could cope with even one more.

  But he carried on speaking without waiting for her answer. 'When I kissed you this afternoon outside the Blue Mosque, for the first time in a very long time, I stopped thinking about Angeline. For those few minutes, it was as if she didn't even exist.'

  'But she does exist,' Amy reminded him in a taut, strained voice. 'She's been kidnapped, she's probably terrified, and she's relying on us to get her free. And we're not going to do that by behaving like this!'

  'All right,' he said, his own voice sounding remarkably relaxed. 'First, we get Angeline released. And then we deal with this.'

  'There isn't anything to deal with,' Amy insisted, stubbornly ignoring the fast, uneven beat of her pulses, that was telling her something very different.

  His dark gaze locked on to hers challengingly, but she refused to be browbeaten into admitting that she had lied. If she ever gave in and admitted how easily he could get to her, how even a couple of kisses could leave her nerves feeling totally shredded, then she would be finished.

  'I think that it's time we started thinking of Angeline and nothing else,' she said, staring straight back at him. 'It's totally selfish to get side-tracked by something like this, when she's still in such danger.'

  But Benedict refused to give up so easily. 'And what exactly is it that's side-tracking us?'

  'Nothing of any importance,' Amy shot back at once, hoping desperately that she was lying convincingly.

  He didn't look as if he had believed a single word she had said. To her utter relief, though, he began to move away from her, walking slowly back to the far side of the room.

  'Perhaps you're right,' he said in a low, thoughtful tone, almost as if he were talking to himself. 'Maybe this isn't a good time or the right place. We do seem to be getting our priorities rather mixed up.'

  Amy scurried back into bed and pulled the sheet tightly around her. 'I'm going to get a couple more hours of sleep,' she said in what she hoped was a very firm voice. 'And I think you'd better do the same. We're going to need all our wits about us when we keep that appointment at the Galata Tower.'

  This time, Benedict didn't answer her. Instead, he stared out of the window for a few minutes. Then he walked back to his own bed, stretched out and appeared to go to sleep.

  Amy didn't sleep, of course. She hadn't expected to. Her heart was still thumping erratically, and
she couldn't forget, even for a second, how she had felt when Benedict's hands had begun to roam over her, casually exploring.

  Except that that was the trouble. For him, it had just been a casual encounter. He had no idea that every time he came near her every single inch of her skin began to prickle in a primitive and uncontrollable response.

  The last couple of hours of the night crawled by, and the room at last began to lighten as the sun finally drifted back up into the sky. Both of them got up early, but they didn't say a word to each other as they showered and dressed.

  It was Benedict who finally broke the silence. He glanced at his watch, and then at her.

  'We might as well go down for breakfast. We've plenty of time. It won't take us long to walk to the Galata Tower.'

  'I don't think I feel very hungry,' Amy said in a low voice.

  A light frown crossed his face. 'You're not sulking because of last night, are you?'

  That made her head shoot up. 'Sulking?' she repeated, her green eyes briefly flaring.

  'Come to think of it, you've been behaving rather oddly for the last couple of days,' said Benedict, his frown deepening.

  'I certainly have not,' she denied at once. 'And I'm not sulking. I never sulk.'

  'Then why aren't you talking to me?'

  'You haven't said a word this morning, either,' Amy reminded him.

  'I got the impression that you didn't want me to.'

  'There are a lot of things that I don't want you to do,' she snapped edgily. 'But that doesn't usually seem to stop you!'

  He looked at her thoughtfully. 'We're talking about something else now, aren't we?'

  'Are we?' she retaliated in the same edgy tone. 'You tell me.'

  'I don't think I can,' he said after a short pause. 'I'm not sure that I understand what's going on here.'

  Amy's stomach gave a nervous flip. She didn't want him to understand! And she didn't want this conversation to go any further.

  'I think we should go down to breakfast,' she said shortly. 'We'll have to leave soon, for the Galata Tower.'

  'Are you trying to change the subject?'