‘You think you can just pick people up and use them, move them around like pawns and then throw them off the board when you’ve finished with them?’ she raged.
Hashim listened, waiting patiently for the storm to pass. Let her rage be spent, and then afterwards let her see sense. Realise that what had passed between them had been magnificent and that to let it go would be a waste of the highest order. Why, he could take her upstairs to one of the magnificent bedrooms, where they could continue to take their pleasure. Her anger would soon be forgotten after a night in his arms!
‘Sienna—’
‘No!’ she said fiercely, pushing away from him and scrambling to her feet. She had seen the brief darkening of his eyes, and she might be new to this game but she knew exactly what it meant. And did she trust herself around him? No, she did not. Her spirit might be fighting all the way, but around Hashim her flesh was as weak as it could be.
She moved as far away from him as possible. There was no dignified way of adjusting her dress and her panties, but she did her damnedest, raking her fingers back through the hair which had tumbled in untidy tendrils all down the side of her long neck.
And at least she had the enjoyment of seeingHashim get to his feet and begin to rearrange his clothing, his face now tight with obvious displeasure and a simmering kind of anger. Or was it merely frustration?
She walked out into the hall, all the warmth and comfort and pleasure evaporating from her body like raindrops on a scorching pavement. And then she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and recoiled at the sight of her flushed cheeks and mussed hair—the definite look of someone who had been rolling around the place.
How could she? Oh, howcould she?
She picked up her handbag and a silken voice stopped her in her tracks.
‘Where do you think you are going?’ he questioned softly.
Composing her face, she turned round, and suddenly she didn’t carewhat he tried to threaten her with. Just let him try. Nothing could be worse than what she had just allowed to happen, despite all her supposedly good intentions. ‘Home,’ she said crisply. ‘Where else?’
‘You could come home with me.’
Sienna almost choked. ‘I’d rather spend the night in a lions’ cage! And anyway—I wouldn’t call a luxury hotel suite ahome ! It isn’t yours, it’s anonymous—just like this place. There’s nothing of you there, Hashim. A luxurious room with no soul. And that’s your life. Empty.’
For a moment a dark shadow passed across his heart. She dared to say this to him? To accuse him of an empty life? He, who had palaces and oil fields and people scattered all over the world who were eager to do his bidding? No woman had ever dared say such a thing to him. She was daring to look at him and speak to him as no woman ever had before…almost as hisequal . Again he felt the sensation of being on unfamiliar territory, and his mouth hardened in anger.
‘I forbid you to go!’
‘Well, you can’t. You don’t own me. You don’t even employ me any more. I’ve done what you asked and now I’m leaving.’
His eyes narrowed as he glanced around the carved wooden interior of the airy hall. ‘And what of this house and your obligation to it?’ he demanded.
‘It’s not my concern. Not any more.You sort it out! Here!’ And she flung the keys at him.
He caught them one-handed, realising that she meant exactly what she said. She was leaving! Walking out on him even though she had been sobbing out his name only moments before. And suddenly he was filled with a reluctant kind of admiration which only renewed the subtle throbbing of desire. ‘Has anyone ever told you how beautiful you look when you’re angry?’ he questioned softly.
‘Fortunately, most people have a more original line than that!’
‘But it is not finished yet, Sienna,’ he said evenly. ‘I tell you that quite unequivocably. You have but tasted the pleasures I can give you, and soon you will be greedy for more.’
‘Oh, but you’re wrong. So wrong.’ She stared at him. ‘After all, we’re even now. I deceived you, and now you’ve paid me back by deceiving me. We can call it quits. I just want to forget you and your fake party. In fact, I want to forget all about you.’
He shook his head and his mouth curved into a cruel smile. ‘You still don’t understand, do you, Sienna? Those are notmy wishes—and the Sheikh always hashis wishes fulfilled.’
He wasn’t listening to a word she said! Frustratedly, she turned away, and his dark laughter was still ringing in her ears as she slammed her way out of the front door, running down to where her beaten-up little wreck of a car was parked beside his smooth, dark sports model. And if she needed some concrete evidence of the insurmountable differences in their lives she had only to look at their two contrasting cars.
It’s over, she told herself fiercely.
So why did she look up into the driver’s mirror to see his tall dark figure, the silken pomegranate robes whispered by the breeze to caress that hard, honed body which had made such sweet and unforgettable love to her?
She turned the key in the ignition with an angry jerk. It was over.
CHAPTER NINE
HASHIMrang her. Repeatedly. Sienna kept the phone on ‘divert’, but once she picked it up without checking and heard his voice, and quietly terminated the connection with a trembling hand.
He sent her a cheque—such a grossly inflated cheque that the businesswoman side of her momentarily weakened, until she allowed her righteous fury to put it in an envelope and send it back to him. She supposed she could have torn it up—but returning it might help to get the message through loud and clear.
He even tried flowers—and for some reason those riled her more than anything. Howdared he think he could buy her off with a bunch of flowers?
‘They’re lovely,’ Kat said wistfully, sniffing at the lily-of-the-valley and freesia and roses.
‘Have them—they’re yours!’ And Sienna unceremoniously dumped the monster bouquet into her bemused lodger’s arms.
Her work, which had previously fulfilled her, suddenly seemed a chore, and her life felt like a punctured balloon, coloured grey. Kat had taken to asking if she was sickening for something, and Sienna knew that she really was going to have to snap out of it. She had a business to run and she couldn’t divert her phone for ever. And Hashim seemed to have got the message at last, since he had left her alone for nearly a week.
She was sitting in her minuscule office, trying to concentrate on an engagement party which seemed to mock her with its celebration of love, when the telephone on her desk rang. Tiny hairs on the back of her neck began to prickle as she heard a disturbingly familiar dark, silken voice, and she wavered for a second. She could hang up, of course—or she could have the courage to tell him to leave her alone. And she couldn’t keep running away for ever.
‘What can I do for you, Hashim?’ she questioned coolly.
‘Why have you failed to cash my cheque?’ he demanded.
‘Because I don’t want your money!’
‘Ah, Sienna,’ he purred, like a trainee lion cub. ‘Don’t you realise that resistance turns a man on?’
Especially a man who wasn’t used to being resisted. ‘That isn’t why I’m doing it,’ came her icy reply.
He knew that. As a ploy it would have failed, because he would have seen through it. As a genuine wish it excited him. Greatly. ‘I want to see you,’ he said softly.
Images of his dark mocking eyes swam into her unwilling memory. ‘Well, you can’t.’
Did she not realise that he could hear her breathless note of hesitation—and the reluctant longing which matched his own? His voice dipped into a mocking caress as he felt the hot, hard jerk of desire. ‘Then say it like you mean it.’
Sienna closed her eyes, but that only made it worse. Now the images were of a hard body entering hers with almost heartbreaking sweetness. ‘There’s no point,’ she said wildly.
‘On the contrary. There is every point. I have a proposition to put to you
.’
‘A proposition?’ Suspicion crept into her voice. ‘Planning another fictitious party, are you?’
He gave a low laugh. ‘Now, that’s an idea! Meet me and I’ll tell you all about it.’
‘Have you listened to a word I’ve been saying? I don’t want your phone calls or your flowers, and I certainly don’t want tosee you, Hashim!’
‘Yes, you do,’ he murmured. ‘You know that and I know that. You are unsettled and so am I. Why keep fighting it? Your work will suffer, for a start.’
And he was right, damn him! She had almost more work than she could reasonably cope with, and—ironically—no inclination to do it. It had taken every bit of concentration she had to prevent herself from sitting staring into space and thinking about the dark Sheikh, trying to school herself away from wanting him, but in reality…Oh, the reality was so different.
‘If I meet you, will you promise to leave me alone?’
He gave a wry smile. How had she managed to get so far with such an appalling sense of logic? ‘If that is what you desire,’ he said carefully.
Desire.What a dangerous and provocative word that was. Sienna clenched her fist as she felt the empty little tug of her heart. ‘Name a time and place.’
‘Now.’
‘Now?’
‘I am very close to your house. I will be waiting.’
‘Youare joking!’
‘What’s the matter, Sienna?’ he mocked. ‘Are you never spontaneous?’
She was wearing her oldest jeans and a T-shirt which one of the football team had given her at college. There was a rip at the hem and a stain on it which she thought might becrème de menthe , but she wasn’t entirely sure. She glanced in the mirror at her unwashed hair, which was caught back in a ponytail. Maybe if he saw her like this—the real, basic Sienna—then he would get the message.
‘Okay,’ she said slowly. ‘I’ll meet you.’
‘Five minutes,’ he clipped, and hung up.
Pausing only to brush her teeth, telling herself that she would have done the same no matter who she was meeting, she slid on a pair of old flip-flops and let herself out of the house, wondering where he was waiting.
She didn’t have to wonder for very long. A shiny limousine with tinted windows was parked at the end of the road—presumably because the road was so narrow it could go no further. In front of it and just to the rear were two leather-clad outriders on powerful motorbikes. It was like a scene straight out of a film, and Sienna could see a couple of curtains twitching as she walked towards it.
My neighbours will never look at me in quite the same way she thought, as a chauffeur stepped out of the driver’s seat and opened the door for her.
Telling herself that she could hardly be rude to Hashim’s employee, she had no choice but to slide into the soft-cushioned luxury of the back seat. It took a few seconds for her eyes to become accustomed to the dim light, but she could see Hashim sprawled negligently on the back seat, watching her.
Today he was wearing Western clothes—not a shimmer of soft silk in sight. An immaculately cut dark suit, with a snowy shirt and a tie which gleamed dully in the reduced light. Sienna could feel her heart begin to pound.
‘Nice of you to get out of the car yourself,’ she said.
‘I was thinking of your reputation.’
‘Liar.’
He laughed. ‘Your assessment of me is wholly and completely wrong, Sienna—my honesty has at times been described as almost brutal.’
Brutal. Yes. Therewas a brutal side to his nature. And yet it contrasted with the extraordinary gentleness he had displayed when she had lain so helplessly in his arms. She felt the drying of her lips, and as if he had read her thoughts he leaned forward and touched his mouth to hers in a barely-there kiss which started her senses sizzling.
‘Don’t,’ she said weakly.
The same cold skill and calculation which made him a world-class poker player made him kiss her for long enough to hear her sigh, and then he stopped and leaned back against the seat to study her. He pressed a button by his side and said something she did not understand. The car began its powerful acceleration.
‘Where are we going?’ she questioned, in alarm.
‘Just driving around—we will draw less attention to ourselves that way—this car tends to attract sightseers.’
‘Why don’t you travel in something less ostentatious, then?’ she questioned acidly.
‘Because I cannot,’ he said simply. ‘It needs to be bullet-proof.’
And—perhaps for the very first time—Sienna allowed herself to see the downside of his life. Hadn’t there been part of her which had somehow thought that the bodyguards which accompanied him were simply for show? As some kind of indicator of his power and lofty position? She had never actually stopped to think that someone might want toshoot him, and now that she had she found her stomach twisting over in anxiety.
‘Now, let us both be honest,’ he said quietly. ‘Can you do that?’
‘You don’t take any notice of me when I am.’
But he shook his head. ‘No, Sienna—I am talking aboutreal honesty. I do not mean that you should say what you feel youought to say, but what is truly in your heart.’
‘Then I’m at a disadvantage—foryou don’t have a heart!’
He paused, for it was not the first time this accusation had been flung at him. ‘Have you thought of me?’
She opened her mouth to say no—but something in his eyes stopped her. ‘Yes.’
He nodded his head. ‘And for me it is the same. I have thought of little else. The way you felt in my arms. You haunt me, Sienna—for I cannot forget the great gift which you gave to me.’
‘Which you took, you mean,’ she corrected him quietly. ‘You set me up and seduced me—as you had intended to do right from the start.’
‘Yes,’ he said bitterly. ‘Of that I am guilty—I robbed you of your greatest virtue. But I would not have done it had I known that you were innocent, and that innocence has changed everything.’ He paused, studying the lush fullness of her mouth, and when he spoke his voice was almost reflective. ‘What passed between us was not enough—not for me, nor for you. You were beautiful and responsive, but your initiation into the pleasures of the body should not be limited to a single session on a cold floor, our bodies not even naked.’
She was glad then for the dim light, for she began to blush and he saw. His eyes narrowed and she wondered if he was remembering—as she was—that very first blush such a long time ago. ‘It’s over,’ she said, aware of how lacking in conviction her words sounded. Was that because she didn’twant it to be over?
He thought how strange it was that a woman could still blush with innocence, even when that innocence was gone. ‘Ah, but that is where you are wrong,’ he whispered. ‘It is not over. Indeed, that was only the beginning.’
Sienna blinked, because suddenly the picture had shifted, changed focus. Was he asking her to be hisgirlfriend ? ‘What are you saying?’ she whispered.
‘You came to me untutored—a beautiful novice,’ he said huskily. ‘And yet, in a way, it was as new for me as it was for you.’ His black eyes glittered. ‘You see, I had never had a virgin before.’
He made himself sound like a jockey who had attempted a higher than usual jump, and his matter-of-fact words fractured the tiny flicker of hope which had begun to spark into life. But maybe that was a blessing, because the very word ‘virgin’ was charged with emotion—and emotion could, she realized, be character-changing in every sense of the word. It could make you weak when you most needed to be strong. ‘Am I supposed to be flattered by this remarkable statement?’
‘Yes,’ he said simply. ‘For I am admitting to you that I found the experience profoundly moving.’
As an admission it bordered on the arrogant, and if it had been anyone else then Sienna might have said so. But something stopped her. Maybe it was the look in his eyes. As if he had lifted away a veil and allowed her to see a whispe
r of contrition. And the unexpected glimpse of this gave him the fleeting shimmer of vulnerability, reminding her that deep down he was just a man—that all the rest was just packaging.
‘Go on,’ she said steadily. ‘I’m intrigued.’
‘I want to teach you everything there is to know about the art of love.’ His smile was edged with hunger. There was the briefest of pauses before he spoke again. ‘I want you to become my mistress,’ he said softly.
Sienna stilled.‘What?’
‘I am choosing you to become mistress to the Sheikh.’
He made it sound so…mechanical. ‘Is there a new vacancy, then?’ she questioned acidly. ‘Or will I be sharing the post?’
Exposed The Sheikh’s Mistress Page 9