‘I don’t want to cancel it, Tariq—I’m hosting in my apartment. There’s two bottles of white wine chilling in the fridge and we’re reading Jane Eyre.’
Damn Jane Eyre, he thought irreverently—but something about her resistance made his lips curve into a sardonic smile.
‘What about tomorrow night, then? Do you think you might be able to find a space in your busy schedule and have dinner with me then?’ he questioned sarcastically.
Her heart began thundering as she stared at him. Wasn’t that what she’d wanted all along? The cloak of respectability covering up the fact that they’d had sex without any of the usual preliminaries? Wouldn’t a civilised meal prevent their relationship from being defined by that one rather steamy episode—no matter what happened in the future? Because the chances were that they might decide never to have sex again. Maybe in a restaurant, with the natural barrier of a table between them and the attentions of the waiting staff, they could agree that, yes, it had been a highly pleasurable experience—but best kept as a one-off.
Isobel nodded. ‘Yes, I can have dinner with you tomorrow night.’
‘Good. Book somewhere, will you? Anywhere you like.’
His expression was thoughtful as he walked through to his inner sanctum. Because this was a first on many levels, he realised.
The first time he’d ever had sex with a member of his staff.
And the first time a woman had ever turned him down for a dinner date.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘THIS IS THE LAST kind of place I’d have thought you’d choose,’ said Tariq slowly.
Isobel looked up from the laminated menu, which she already knew by heart, and stared at the hawk-like beauty of the Sheikh’s autocratic features. ‘You don’t like it?’
He looked around. It was noisy, warm and cluttered. Lighted candles dripped wax down the sides of old Chianti bottles, posters of Venice and Florence vied for wall-space with photos of Siena’s football team, and popular opera played softly in the background. He could remember eating somewhere like this years ago as a student, at the end of a rowdy rugby tour. But never since then. ‘It’s...different,’ he observed. ‘Not the kind of place I normally eat in. I thought you might have chosen somewhere...’
‘Yes?’ Isobel raised her eyebrows.
‘Somewhere a little more upmarket. The kind of place you’d always wanted to go but never had the chance.’
Isobel put the menu down. ‘You mean somewhere like the Green Room at the Granchester? Or the River Terrace? Or one of those other fancy establishments with a celebrity chef, where you can only ever get a table at short notice if you happen to be someone? All the places you usually frequent?’
‘They happen to be very good restaurants.’
She leaned forward. ‘This happens to be a good restaurant, too—though you seem to be judging it without even trying it. Just because you don’t have to take out a mortgage to eat here, it doesn’t mean the food isn’t delicious. Actually, I thought you might like to try somewhere different and a bit more relaxing. Somewhere you aren’t known, since you often complain about rubbernecking people staring at you.’ She sat back in her chair again and shot him a challenge with her eyes. ‘But maybe you like being looked at more than you care to admit—and anonymity secretly freaks you out?’
He gave a soft laugh. ‘Actually, I’m rather enjoying the anonymity,’ he murmured, and glanced down at the menu. ‘What do you recommend?’
‘Well, they make all their own pasta here.’
‘And it’s good?’
‘It’s more than good. It’s to die for.’
His gaze drifted up to the curve of her breasts, which were pert and springy and outlined by a surprisingly chic little black dress. ‘I thought women didn’t eat carbs.’
‘Maybe the sorts of women you know don’t,’ she said, thinking about his penchant for whip-thin supermodels and feeling a sudden stab of insecurity. ‘Personally, I hate all those dietary restrictions. All they do is make people obsessed with eating, or not eating, and their whole lives become about denying themselves what they really want.’
Tariq let that go, realising that he was denying himself what he really wanted right at that moment. If it was anyone other than Izzy he would have thrown a large wad of notes down on the tablecloth and told the waiter that they’d lost their appetite. Then taken her back to his apartment and ravished her in every which way he could—before sending out for food.
He realised that he was letting her call the shots, and briefly he wondered why. Because he’d taken her innocence and felt that he owed her? Or was it because she worked for him and his relationship with her was about as equal as any he was likely to have?
‘Perhaps we’ll have a little role-reversal tonight. How about you choose for me?’ he suggested.
‘I’d love to.’ She beamed.
She lifted her head and instantly the waiter appeared at their table, bearing complementary olives and bread and making a big fuss of her. For possibly the first time in his life Tariq found himself ignored—other than being assured that he was a very lucky man to be eating with such a beautiful woman.
As he leant back in his chair he conceded that the waiter had a point and Izzy did look pretty spectacular tonight. For a start she’d let down her hair, so that corkscrew curls tumbled in a fiery cascade around her shoulders. Her silky black dress was far more formal than anything she’d ever worn to work, and it showcased her luscious curves to perfection. A silver teardrop which gleamed at the end of a fine chain hung provocatively between her breasts. And, of course, she had that indefinable glow of sexual awakening...
With an effort, he dragged his gaze away from her cleavage and looked into tawny eyes which had been highlighted with long sweeps of mascara, so that they seemed to dominate her face. ‘I take it from the way the waiter greeted you like a long-lost relative that you’ve been here before?’
‘Loads of times. I’ve been coming here since I first started working in London. It’s always so warm and friendly. And at the beginning—when I didn’t have much money—they never seemed to mind me spending hours lingering over one dish.’
‘Why would they? Restaurants never object to a pretty girl adorning their space. It’s a form of free advertising.’
Isobel shook her head. ‘Were you born cynical, Tariq?’
‘What’s cynical about that? It happens to be true. I’m a businessman, Izzy—I analyse marketing opportunities.’
She waited while the waiter poured out two glasses of fizzy water. ‘And did you always mean to become a businessman?’
‘As opposed to what? A trapeze artist?’
‘As opposed to doing something in your own country. Doing something in Khayarzah. You used...’
He frowned as her words trailed off. ‘Used to what?’
‘At school.’ She shrugged as she remembered how sweet he had been to her that time—how he’d made her feel special. A bit like the way he was treating her tonight. ‘Well, I hardly knew you at school, of course, but I do remember that one time when you talked about your homeland. You spoke of it in a dreamy way—as if you were talking about some kind of Utopia. And I suppose I sort of imagined...’
‘What did you imagine?’ he prompted softly.
‘Oh, I don’t know. That you’d go back there one day. And live in a palace and fish in that silvery river you described.’
‘Ah, but my brother is King there now,’ he said, his voice hardening as he acknowledged the capricious law of succession and how it altered the lives of those who were affected by it. ‘And Zahid became King very unexpectedly, which changed my place in the natural order of things.’
Isobel looked at him. ‘How come?’
‘Up until that moment I was just another desert sheikh with the freedom to do pretty much as I wanted�
�but when our uncle died suddenly I became second in line to the throne. The spare.’
‘And is that so bad?’ she prompted gently.
‘Try living in a goldfish bowl and see how you like it,’ he said. ‘It means you have all the strictures of being the heir, but none of the power. My freedom was something I cherished above everything else...’ Hadn’t it been the one compensation for his lonely and isolated childhood? The fact that he hadn’t really had to account for himself? ‘And suddenly it was taken away from me. It made me want to stay away from Khayarzah, where I felt the people were watching me all the time. And I knew that I needed to give Zahid space to settle into his Kingship in peace.’ There was a pause. ‘Because there is only ever room for one ruler.’
‘And do you miss it? Khayarzah, I mean?’
He studied her wide tawny eyes, realising that he had told her more than he had ever told anyone. In truth, his self-imposed exile had only emphasised his feelings of displacement, of not actually belonging anywhere. Just like the little boy who had been sent away to school. As a child he’d felt as if he’d had no real home and as an adult that feeling had not changed.
‘Not really,’ he mused. ‘I go back there on high days and holidays and that’s enough. There’s no place for me there.’
Isobel sipped her drink as the waiter placed two plates of steaming pasta before them. His last words disturbed her. There’s no place for me there. Wasn’t that an awfully lonely thing to say? And wasn’t that what she’d thought when she’d seen him lying injured in hospital—that he’d looked so alone? What if her instinct then had been the right one?
‘So you’re planning on settling down in England?’ she questioned, and then gave a nervous laugh. ‘Though I guess you already are settled.’
There was a brief pause as Tariq swirled a forkful of tagliatelli and coated it in sauce. But he didn’t eat it. Instead, he lifted his eyes to hers, a sardonic smile curving his lips. It was always the same. Or rather women were. Didn’t matter what you talked about, their careless chatter inevitably morphed into thinly veiled queries about his future. Because didn’t they automatically daydream about their future and wonder if it could be a match with his? Weren’t they programmed to do that, when they became the lover of a powerful alpha male?
‘By “settling down”, I suppose you mean getting married and having children?’ he questioned.
Isobel nodded. ‘I suppose so.’
Tariq’s lips curved. She supposed so! ‘The perfect nuclear family?’
‘Well—’
‘Which doesn’t exist,’ he interjected.
‘That’s a little harsh, Tariq.’
‘Is it?’ Black eyes iced into her. ‘You experienced one yourself, did you?’
‘Well, no. You know I didn’t. I told you that I never knew my father.’
‘And it left a gaping hole in your life?’
‘I tried never to think of it that way,’ she said defensively. ‘Holes can always be filled by something else. It may not have been a “normal” family life, but it was a life.’
‘Well, I never knew a “normal” childhood, either,’ he said, more bitterly than he had intended.
‘Can I...can I ask what happened?’
He stared at her, and she looked so damned sweet and soft that he found himself telling her. ‘My mother almost died having me, and after I was born she was so ill that she needed round-the-clock care. Zahid was that bit older, and a calmer child than me, and it was decided that my needs were being neglected. So they sent me away to boarding school when I was seven. That’s when I first came to England.’
Isobel frowned. She hadn’t realised that he’d been so young. ‘Wasn’t there anywhere closer to home you could have gone?’
He shook his head. ‘We have a completely different system of schooling in Khayarzah—it was decided that a western education would be beneficial all round.’ He read the puzzlement in her tawny eyes. ‘It meant that I would be able to speak and act like a westerner. More importantly, to think as a westerner thinks—which has proved invaluable in my subsequent business dealings. It’s why the Al Hakam company has global domination,’ he finished, with the flicker of a smile.
But, despite his proud smile, Isobel felt desperately sad for him, even though she could see the logic behind his parents’ decision. She had been the daughter of a school nurse and knew how illness could create chaos in the most ordered of lives. Sending away a lively little boy from his mother’s sickbed must have seemed like a sensible solution at the time.
Yet to move a child to live somewhere else—without any kind of family support nearby—and what did that child become? A cuckoo in the nest in his adopted country. And surely he must have felt like an outsider whenever he returned to his homeland? Tariq had spoken the truth, she realised. He didn’t have any place of his own—not in any true sense of the word. Yes, there were the apartments in London and New York, and the luxury houses on Mustique and in the South of France—but nowhere he could really call home. Not in his heart.
‘So you don’t ever want children of your own?’ she questioned boldly.
At this the shutters came down and his voice cooled. ‘Not ever,’ he affirmed, his gaze never leaving her face—because she had to understand that he meant this. ‘My brother has helpfully produced twin boys, and our country now has the required heir and a spare. So my assistance with dynasty-building is not required.’
A shiver ran down her spine as his unemotional words registered. Was that what he thought fatherhood and family life was all about...dynasties? Didn’t he long to hold his own little baby boy or girl in his arms? To cradle them and to rock them? To see the past and the future written in its tiny features?
She looked at his face in the candlelight. Such a strong and indomitable face, she thought, with its high slash of cheekbones, the hawk-like nose and wide, sensual mouth. But behind the impressive physical package he presented she had discovered a reason for the unmistakable sense of aloneness which always seemed to surround him.
Yet this notoriously private man had actually confided in her. Surely that had to mean something? That he trusted her, yes—but was there anything more than that. And was it enough for her to face risking her heart?
She drifted her eyes over his hands—powerful and hair roughened. On the white silk cuffs of his shirt gleamed two heavy golden cufflinks. She could see that they were Khayarzah cufflinks, with the distinctive silhouette of a brooding falcon poised for flight. And somehow the bird of prey reminded her of him. Restless and seeking...above the world, but never really part of it.
Had he seen her looking at them? Was that why his hand suddenly reached out and caught hold of hers, capturing her wrist in his warm grasp and making it seem tiny and frail in comparison? His thumb brushed over the delicate skin at her wrist and he gave a brief smile as he felt the frantic skitter of her pulse.
‘Stunned into uncharacteristic silence by my story, are you, Izzy?’
‘It’s some story,’ she admitted quietly.
‘Yes.’ He looked down at her untouched plate. ‘You’re not eating.’
‘Neither are you.’
‘Delicious as it looks, I’m not feeling particularly hungry.’
‘No.’
Across the candlelit table, their eyes met. ‘Perhaps some fresh air might give us a little appetite.’
Isobel blinked at him in bewilderment. ‘You want to go for a walk?’
His smile was wry. He’d forgotten that she had every right to be naïve, for she knew nothing of the games that lovers played... ‘Only as far as the car. I thought we could go to my apartment. There’s plenty of food there.’
Isobel’s heart began to pound as his lazy suggestion shimmered into the space between them. She hadn’t thought a lot beyond the meal itself. Somehow she had imagined that she mi
ght be going home alone to her little flat, as if the whole...sex...thing had been nothing but a distant dream. She’d told herself that would be the best for both of them, even if her commitment to the idea had been less than whole-hearted.
But then Tariq had opened up to her, taking her into his confidence. It had felt almost as intimate as when he’d been driving into her body. How could she possibly go home alone when she thought about the alternative he was offering her?
He was gesturing for the bill, seeming to take her silence for acquiescence, and the waiter was coming over to their table, his face creased in an anxious frown.
‘You no like the food?’ he questioned.
‘The food is delicious,’ Tariq replied, giving Isobel’s hand a quick squeeze. ‘I just find my partner’s beauty rather distracting. So we’ll just have the bill, please.’
Isobel saw the man-to-man look which passed between Tariq and the waiter, and for a moment she felt betrayed. Suddenly she had become someone else—not the woman who’d been frequenting this place for years, but someone dining with a man who was clearly way out of her league.
The waiter moved away, and Isobel tried to wriggle her fingers free. But Tariq wasn’t having any of it.
‘What’s the matter, Izzy?’
‘Just because you want to go to bed with me, it doesn’t mean you have to tell lies!’
‘Lies?’ he questioned, perplexed.
‘I am not beautiful,’ she insisted.
‘Oh, but you are,’ he said unexpectedly, and then he did let go of her hand. Instead, he moved to cup her chin, running the tip of his thumb over it. ‘Tonight you look very beautiful, sitting there, bathed in candlelight. I like your hair loose. I even like your eyes flashing with defiance. In fact, I can’t quite remember ever seeing a woman look quite as desirable as you do right now, and it’s making me ache for you. And you feel exactly the same, don’t you?’
Defiant in the Desert Page 23