by Lynne Graham
‘You drive me wild,’ Tariq said raggedly while she struggled to catch her breath.
But even breathing was a challenge with his expert hands on her and his mouth tugging at her tender nipples. The excitement built so fast, she was lost in it, moving against him, parting her thighs with a sighing cry at his first touch. The wanting had never been so strong before, had never absorbed her so utterly. Her heart was racing, she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t wait, couldn’t focus on anything but…
As Tariq sank into her in one forceful thrust, she rose against him with a driven moan of delight and what followed was the wildest pleasure she had ever known. Her heart pounding, she gave herself up to the raw excitement, wanting, needing, burning with greedy impatience and then surging so high she thought she might touch the sky in the grip of sweet ecstasy.
She surfaced back to the real world feeling glorious. Tariq was hugging her so tight, she didn’t know where she began or he ended and that felt good. Even better was the way he was looking at her with tawny eyes that had a slightly dazed quality. She smiled.
‘You are very special,’ he murmured intently.
‘So are you—’
‘I might never let you go free…’
She smiled like the Sphinx, all woman and smug.
‘Where do you think I am?’ Tariq purred on the phone.
There was something so very sexy about Tariq on the phone, Faye reflected in a state of blissful abstraction, something so very sexy about Tariq even when he was saying the most ordinary things. He had given her the portable phone so that they could talk during the day when he had to be away from her and arrange meetings like secret lovers. It never left her side. It was her substitute for him, her instant hotline to reassurance that she was the most desirable woman in Jumar. Only two weeks ago, she had been calling him a frog, she recalled sunnily, but her frog had turned back into a prince.
‘On the way home…?’ she prompted eagerly.
‘No.’
‘How long are you going to be?’ She sighed, face having fallen a mile.
‘Where are you?’
‘Outside…you’ll have to look for me.’
‘Could you doubt it?’ he murmured in a husky tone of promise that sent a quiver of response down her spine.
Faye set down the phone, her attention returning to the children. It was just about nap time, she decided. Having enjoyed a long and leisurely picnic lunch, they were sitting on the carpets spread beneath the shade of the trees. Hayat clutched at Faye’s arm to steady herself and planted a big soppy kiss on her cheek. Basma was already on her lap along with Rafi. When Tariq wasn’t around, Faye was always with the children. She knew he spent time with them early mornings and evenings and, being painfully conscious that Basma, Hayat and Rafi were really none of her business, she never, ever intruded at those hours in the nursery section of the palace.
Indeed, she had wondered once or twice if Tariq had any idea just how many hours a day she passed in their company, but as he had not chosen to open the subject she was wary of doing so herself. She could not forget the way he had cut her off the couple of times she had tried talking about Rafi, but she was sure that Rafi must have mentioned her to his big brother on at least a few occasions.
In any case, when she and Tariq were together, nothing else in the world existed. They were locked into an affair of passionate, single-minded intensity and she just felt plain and simple happy. True, if she let her mind stray in the direction of the dark cloud of future foreboding threatening in the back corner of her mind, she got scared because she was more in love with Tariq than she had ever been. But all the rest of the time, she was content to let tomorrow take care of itself.
In the dreaming mood she was in, it was a shock when the two servants clearing up the picnic debris suddenly dropped down on their knees. She glanced up and was astonished to see Tariq poised about ten feet away. He had said he wasn’t on his way home but he had been teasing her, she realised. What he had not said was that he had already arrived.
As he took in the tableau she made with the children gathered round her, Tariq could not conceal his astonishment. He dismissed the servants from his presence with a snap of his fingers. ‘Exactly when did you all become this friendly?’
Without the smallest warning, Rafi leapt off her lap and shouted something in Arabic that made Tariq freeze.
‘Stop it, Rafi,’ Faye urged in dismay.
Rafi flung himself back at her sobbing as if his heart were breaking.
‘It would appear that you have made yourself quite indispensable,’ Tariq pronounced with sardonic bite, watching the twins burst into tears in concert and clutch at Faye for security. ‘Accident or design?’
And with that cutting conclusion, Tariq swung on his heel and strode off.
‘What did you say, Rafi?’ Faye whispered shakily.
‘You’re my secret mama and if he takes you away, I’m going with you!’ Rafi sobbed into her shoulder, turning her face to the colour of milk.
CHAPTER NINE
FAYE found Tariq in one of the ground floor reception rooms.
‘Tariq…?’ she whispered apprehensively, stilling just inside the doorway.
Tariq swung round, lean, powerful face expressionless. ‘Did you contrive to soothe the mass hysteria my appearance provoked?’
Faye flushed miserably. ‘They’re all down for a nap now. Tariq…I never dreamt that Rafi was keeping the time I’ve been spending with him and the twins a secret from you and certainly not that he’s been thinking of me as his new mother.’
‘I can’t say I enjoyed being treated like the big bad wolf,’ Tariq murmured wryly. ‘Even by Basma and Hayat who usually greet me with smiles and giggles.’
‘And so they would have done this afternoon if they hadn’t been overtired and in the mood to be easily upset,’ she assured him. ‘This is all my fault.’
‘That is not how I would describe the situation.’ Tariq surprised her with a rueful laugh. ‘I had naturally noticed the pronounced improvement in my little brother’s behaviour but I had assumed it to be the result of the removal of his previous carers—’
‘No, that just left him more unhappy and confused and I think that may have been why he turned to me—’
Tariq sighed. ‘And then suddenly Rafi got happy and stopped his screaming tantrums and constant whinging practically overnight. To be frank, I was so deeply relieved by that development, I did not question the miracle. His behaviour had been a source of very real concern to me but I was hampered by the fact that he was brought up to fear me—’
‘And you were always having to tell him off too…I know and I understand. But now I can see that I’ve been horribly thoughtless and selfish,’ Faye muttered unevenly, her face taut with guilty regret. ‘I’ve let the children become too attached to me and that wasn’t fair to them.’
‘It’s quite amazing how well you have all bonded behind my back.’ His expressive mouth quirked.
‘If I’ve damaged your relationship with Rafi, I’m sorry.’
‘No. Rafi has been much more relaxed with me since he got his hooks into his secret mama—’
‘He’s a very affectionate child.’
‘And you’re a very affectionate woman. It is just most ironic that I should have been the last to find out that you were so fond of children.’
Accident or design? he had demanded out in the gardens. But what design could she have had in befriending the children? And then her colour climbed. Did he suspect that she was angling to be considered as a wife yet again? By weaseling her sneaky way into the children’s hearts and making it hard for him to end their relationship? She stiffened at that humiliating suspicion.
‘Even more ironic that I would never have dreamt of wheeling out Rafi as he was a few weeks ago and expecting any woman to warm to him,’ he commented, reaching for her curled tight hands and carefully smoothing her fingers straight to link them with his. ‘In fact, most women would have run a mile at t
he threat of Rafi as he was then but you have great heart—’
‘But not always a lot of sense…I didn’t take a long-term view.’
‘I don’t believe you have ever taken a long-term view of anything.’ Tariq stood there staring down at their linked hands as if they had become a source of deep and absorbing fascination to him. ‘I, on the other hand, tend to be very decisive in most fields but most fortunately not when it came to divorcing you…’
‘Divorcing me? When…when did you get around to it?’ she muttered tightly.
Tariq breathed in very deep and then breathed out again without saying anything. She looked up at him with strained eyes, noting the line of dark colour scoring his proud cheekbones.
‘Well…I actually didn’t,’ he finally stated curtly.
‘Oh…’ She was connecting with tawny eyes that could make stringing two sensible thoughts together the biggest challenge she had ever been called to meet.
‘There seemed no point in telling you that three weeks ago when I still believed that I would eventually seek that divorce. At first, I thought I would be merely raising false hopes and then I thought it might distress you—’
‘You actually didn’t divorce me?’ Faye was struggling a whole speech behind Tariq and a cold, clammy sensation was dampening her skin.
‘You’re still my wife…you have never been anything else.’
‘I think I’ve had too much sun.’ Her legs felt hollow and her tummy was churning.
Tariq urged her down onto the opulent sofa behind her. ‘You’ve turned white.’
Word by word what he had burst upon her was sinking in, but only slowly.
‘The day of the sandstorm, I agreed to a press announcement in which I claimed you as my wife. I really had very little choice. Once your presence in my life became a matter of public knowledge, I had to make a decision. Either I created a scandal that for ever soiled your reputation or I told the truth,’ Tariq said, still retaining a noticeably tight hold on her now nerveless floppy fingers as he sank down beside her.
‘The truth…you know, I thought you always told the truth,’ Faye whispered, for shock was settling in on her hard.
‘I have recently come to appreciate that the truth…once avoided…may be extremely hard to tell.’
Oh, how convenient, she almost said, thinking in a daze that, while her pathetic lies about her age had been held over her like the worst of sins, Tariq was now seeking to excuse himself for the same dishonesty. ‘You lied to me—’
‘No. I never once said that I had divorced you—’
‘But you knew that I believed we were divorced—’
‘Had you asked me direct, I would not have lied—’
‘But you said, “Not then” when I questioned you in the cave,’ she recalled shakily. ‘How did you contrive to explain a mystery wife coming out of nowhere?’
‘My family has never made our private lives a matter of public interest which is not to say that gossip, rumour and scandal do not abound,’ he admitted tautly. ‘However, I acknowledged that I made you my wife a year ago and it will be assumed, whether I like it or not, that I decided not to embark on our marriage while I was in mourning.’
‘Should do wonders for your image with the truly pious.’
‘That shames me.’ Tariq breathed harshly. ‘But it is not less than I deserve for setting in train a set of events which could only lead to disaster.’
Disaster? Of course, it was a disaster on his terms but not a disaster he would have to bear for long. Not with divorce being as easy as he had once informed her it was. All that she had not understood now became clear. ‘Our marriage was being celebrated at that reception I attended in the desert…and you never uttered one word and neither did anyone else! How come I didn’t guess?’
‘My people, and that includes my relatives, would not open a conversation with you or I unless you or I did so first. That is simply etiquette. In addition, brides do not normally exchange conversation with anyone other than their husbands. But at the outset of that day, I believed you would inevitably appreciate what was happening—’
‘And, my goodness, you were angry with me, furious at the position you had put yourself in,’ Faye condemned, suddenly pulling free of him and plunging upright. ‘That was our wedding night but you much preferred letting me think that I was your mistress being flaunted in front of everyone!’
‘To some degree that is true but common sense should have told you that I could not have behaved in such a way with any woman in Jumar other than my wife,’ Tariq pointed out.
‘Oh, I know exactly what was on your mind. You would have cut out your tongue sooner than give me the presumed satisfaction of knowing that I was your wife!’ Faye whispered bitterly. ‘Please take note that I am not feeling satisfaction.’
‘Faye?’ Tariq rested his hands on her shoulders and attempted to turn her back to face him.
She whirled round and shook free of him in disgust. ‘What an ego you have!’
Tariq reached out and hauled her back to him. ‘Stop it,’ he urged. ‘I have made mistakes and so have you but if you do not appreciate how much has changed between us in the last couple of weeks, I certainly do. I want you as my wife. I will be honoured to call you my wife—’
‘Since when?’ A derisive laugh was wrenched from her. She was so angry, so hurt, so bewildered, she was trembling. ‘All this time I’ve been your wife and I was the only person who didn’t know it. Once again you have made an absolute fool of me and I will never forgive you for that!’
Tariq closed both arms even tighter around her. ‘Only I know you didn’t know you were still my wife—’
‘You think that makes it any better…that I can’t even trust the man I’ve been sleeping with…that you’ve been playing some kind of mind games with me for your own amusement? No, I am flat out fed up with you and finished! So let go of me!’
‘No, not until I have made you see reason and you are in a calmer frame of mind—’
‘Calmer?’ Faye swung up her hand and dealt him a ringing slap across one high cheekbone. In the aftermath as his arms fell from her and he stepped back, she was as shaken as he was. Shocked by her own loss of control and that desire to physically attack a male who was protected by the laws of Jumar from such an offence.
In electric silence, he stared at her with fathomless tawny eyes.
‘So now you can have me thrown into a prison cell and be finally rid of me for ever!’ Faye launched at him in stricken conclusion before racing out of the room.
She didn’t even know where she was running for there was no place far enough where she could hide from the enormous pain he had inflicted. Blinded by tears, conscious he was following her and wanting desperately to be alone, she headed for the nearest staircase: a spiral of stone steps generally used only by the servants.
‘Faye!’ Tariq called from somewhere close behind her.
She half turned, forgetting she was on a spiral staircase, and suddenly one of her feet was trying to find a resting place in mid-air. With a strangled cry of fear, she tried to right her mistake but it was too late for she was already falling. Her head crashed against the wall. She felt the momentary burst of pain but it was soon swallowed up in the deep, suffocating darkness that enclosed her.
‘Just a stupid bump on the head, Rafi…I was really silly to run on those steps.’ Faye patted his small hand where it gripped her nightdress until she gradually felt him relax beneath her soothing. ‘I’m fine and glad to be out of hospital.’
‘Can I stay?’
‘Faye needs to rest for a while,’ Tariq murmured, bending down to scoop his little brother up into his arms. ‘You will see her later…that I promise.’
Faye would not look at Tariq. Having been knocked unconscious by her fall the day before, she had started coming round in the helicopter that had taken her to hospital in Jumar City. There she had been examined by three consultants in succession and had realised by Tariq’s explanation that
he had broken her fall and saved her from a more serious injury.
She had not looked at him when she had had to spend the whole of the previous night under observation by both the medical staff and Tariq. She had not even looked at him when he had reached for her hand at some stage of that endless night and begged her for her forgiveness. In fact, not looking at Tariq and just pretending with silence that he did not exist had become a rule set in stone for her survival.
As the door closed on Rafi’s reluctant exit, Tariq released his breath audibly. ‘Do you want me to leave?’
She squeezed her eyes tight shut and gave a jerky nod. The door opened with a quiet click and closed again. She couldn’t cry. She lay staring up at the ceiling. What did she have left to say to him? What could he have left to say to her? All that time she had been his wife but he had ignored that reality for the simple reason that he had had no intention of keeping her as his wife. It felt even worse for her to think that, in one sense, he had been right to do that. For what would have been the point of her knowing that she was still married to him when the divorce was still to be got through? From her point of view, it just would have meant going through the same agonies twice over.
Why on earth had he started talking nonsense about wanting her to remain his wife? That had seemed the unkindest cut of all, that he should feel so guilty he decided he ought to make that offer. Well, you can forget that option, Tariq ibn Zachir, she thought painfully. There was only one way out of their current predicament: divorce. No more shilly-shallying! Why the heck had he let them stay married throughout the previous year? A great emptiness spread like a dam inside her and her headache got worse but at some stage she still drifted to sleep.
When she wakened a couple of hours later, her headache had receded and she examined the blue-black bruise on her right temple. Fortunately her hair concealed the worst of it. After a bath and a late light lunch, she rifled her wardrobe for something to wear.
Her wardrobe was now gigantic: it filled an entire room. Only a week earlier, Tariq had shipped in dozens of designer outfits from abroad from which she had made selections. Dazzling, fabulous clothing such as she had only previously seen in magazines. Initially she had been hugely embarrassed by his generosity but the terrible temptation of seeing herself in such exquisite garments had overcome her finer principles. Tariq was accustomed to fashionable women who wore haute couture. What woman who loved him would have chosen to keep on appearing in the same frugal and plain clothing contained in her single small suitcase?