‘Can I look for them?’
‘I certainly hope so.’
‘Kadir—’
Caitlin had opened her mouth to protest. She wanted to tell him to tread carefully. Not to promise things which might never happen and fill a small boy’s head with tales of snow leopards and warriors—but Kadir acted as if she hadn’t spoken. As if she had suddenly acquired invisibility.
‘Tell me, Cameron, do you play chess?’ he was saying.
Cameron shook his head. ‘I don’t know what that is!’
‘It’s a game. A game with kings and queens and knights. It is a game of strategy and plotting—both of which are very necessary if you wish to get on in the world and which I will teach you.’
‘Now?’
Kadir smiled. ‘No, not now. Now I think it is time for you to have something to drink, for you must be thirsty after your long journey and we have a lot to do this afternoon.’
As if on cue—which Caitlin supposed it was—the double doors opened and a beautiful young woman appeared, with Morag following close behind, looking curiously unfazed by this unexpected turn of events. The moment Cameron spotted his childhood nanny, he gave a squeal of pleasure, running straight into her waiting arms as she scooped him up.
‘Morag, Morag! I’m going to learn how to play chest!’
‘Chess,’ corrected Morag affectionately as she ruffled his hair.
‘My daddy is going to teach me how to play!’
‘Is he now?’
Morag looked across the room at Caitlin, a complicit look which obviously didn’t escape Kadir’s notice, for he drew his shoulders back and appeared to grow even more statuesque.
‘Morag, why don’t you and Cameron go with Armina?’ he suggested evenly. ‘I think she might have some Xulhabian candy for you to try with your drink. Have you ever eaten chocolate flavoured with rose petals and passionfruit?’
The sound of Cameron’s whooped delight would usually have warmed Caitlin’s heart, but her abiding emotion was one of vulnerability as he went off with Morag without a backward glance, leaving her alone with the man she was terrified of being alone with, for all kinds of reasons.
Not just because he had bonded with his son with an ease she hadn’t been expecting. Or because his interaction with Cameron had left her feeling strangely excluded. No, it was more basic than that. It was the discovery that she was far from immune to him, even after all this time.
She still wanted him. She still ached for him. Still lusted for his lips hard on hers and his arms tightly around her, making her feel as if she’d found a place she’d been searching for all her life.
Without doing a single thing, Kadir Al Marara was making her feel things she’d thought had died a long time ago.
Today he was wearing soft robes the colour of mercury—their bright, silvery hue contrasting with the darkness of his hair and making his eyes appear as impenetrable as a night without stars. Outwardly modest, the outfit covered his body from neck to foot, but no material in the world could have disguised the undeniable power of the muscular body which lay beneath. With an effort, she forced herself to meet his black eyes, though the faint spark she read in them suggested he was perfectly aware of what lay behind her silent scrutiny.
She cleared her throat. ‘I thought the meeting went very well.’
‘I thought so, too. Though perhaps you were hoping for a different outcome,’ he mused. ‘For Cameron to take an instant dislike to me and refuse to see me again, perhaps?’
She shook her head. ‘Of course not.’
‘Really?’ His dark brows shot upwards. ‘Wouldn’t it be easier all round if that were the case?’
She wasn’t going to argue with that—how could she, when just having him this close was sending her senses into a spin, so that she couldn’t think straight? For a moment she stared down at the rug, trying to concentrate on the precise patterns of cobalt and claret. Knowing it was wrong to feel like this and trying like mad to put a brake on her emotions. But when she looked up again she encountered a steely gleam of comprehension in the depths of his black eyes.
‘Yes,’ he observed. ‘Desire can be extremely inconvenient, can’t it, Caitlin?’
Her heart was pounding so loudly she was surprised he couldn’t hear it. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘Please. Do not insult my intelligence. I may not have seen you for five years but if I held a mirror up to your face, you would behold the expression of a woman who wants me to kiss her,’ he concluded softly.
‘How dare you?’ she said.
‘I dare because it is the truth,’ he breathed, and now his black eyes had grown smoky. ‘And what is the point in playing games? Be honest, Caitlin. If not with me, then at least with yourself.’
She shook her head and when she spoke, the words felt like rocks in her throat. ‘You seem to hold the truth in very high regard, but only when it suits you. Did your wife know what was going on the night you slept with me, Kadir?’ she croaked. ‘Maybe you even discussed it with her afterwards and gave me marks out of ten. I don’t know. I don’t have much knowledge of this kind of thing, but did you have what some people call an open marriage?’
CHAPTER FOUR
KADIR FROZE, FOR her choked and wounded words hurt and he had not expected them to hurt. Because his night with her and its aftermath had been nothing like her bald accusation about having an open marriage. In fact, she was so far off the mark it was almost funny, except that this was no laughing matter. And although he had ignored her earlier allegations of infidelity because he’d been angry about having been kept in the dark about his son, he realised he was going to have to explain himself.
But it wasn’t easy. Few people knew the truth about his late wife and there was very little on record—deliberately so. It had been hushed up by the palace both during and after her short and tragic life. Nobody would ever have dared ask the question which Caitlin Fraser had just asked and if they had, he would have shut down the conversation immediately, telling them it was none of their business and that nobody had the right to question the King.
Yet Caitlin did have the right. He could see that. She obviously perceived him as some kind of monster—perhaps with good reason, he conceded reluctantly—and that unsavoury character assessment could not be allowed to continue, not if his ambitions were to be realised. He needed her to revise her opinion of him but he must tread carefully if he wanted her to agree to his plan to allow Cameron to travel to Xulhabi.
Because that was the reason she was here today. The only reason.
‘It’s true that I was legally married when I had sex with you.’
‘You’ll have to do better than that, Kadir,’ she said coldly. ‘Surely all marriage is legal?’
He gestured towards one of the most comfortable chairs. ‘Won’t you sit down?’
‘I’d prefer to stand.’
‘Please,’ he said obdurately, for her face had grown very white and he felt a flicker of concern for her welfare. But despite her initial refusal, she sank into the chair and he thought how out of place she looked in this lavish setting, in her well-worn clothes. Yet there was something so gloriously accessible about her, too—for she possessed a luminous quality which transcended the faded jeans and heather-coloured sweater. Was it that jog to his memory which made him recall a similar sweater, peeled off to reveal a thermal vest beneath and the rare sound of his own laughter as he had wondered aloud how long it would take him to reach her bare flesh. Hadn’t he laughed more during those twelve hours than at any other time he could remember? He felt a sudden tension in his body as he acknowledged how seriously he had underestimated the earthy appeal of humour.
And perhaps Caitlin had sensed the unwanted erotic path of his thoughts. Perhaps that was why she suddenly thrust her chin forward with a look of pure challenge, her eyes flashing ice blue fire.
‘I’ve
asked you a straight question and I’d appreciate a straight answer,’ she snapped. ‘So please don’t bother concocting any lies just to spare my feelings.’
Kadir began to pace the priceless Persian rug, the walls of the huge salon suddenly feeling as if they were closing in on him. How long since he had examined this particular subject? How long since he had wanted to, or dared to? He shook his head. ‘It is difficult to know where to start—’
‘I don’t think it’s difficult at all,’ she said, her face taking on an intense expression, as if someone were digging a sharp object into her flesh but she was determined not to show how much it hurt. ‘I thought we were talking about your wife. That’s the woman you were married to on the night you had sex with me, in case you need me to jog your memory for you.’
Kadir recognised that he deserved her condemnation for what he had done, yet surely nobody could condemn him quite as ruthlessly as he had done himself. How many times had he woken in the middle of the night, plagued by the guilt of his actions—a guilt compounded by the realisation that he had been powerless to stop himself.
This woman alone had the power to override his will and his best intentions—and wasn’t that an ongoing threat which he needed to guard himself against?
He cleared his throat. ‘I think it’s important you understand some of my background before I get to the subject of marriage.’
‘In Scotland, that’s what we’d call time-wasting.’
‘I was brought up as the only child of the King in very turbulent times,’ he continued roughly. ‘As the sole heir to the throne, a strong sense of duty was instilled in me since birth. My destiny has hung heavy on my shoulders for as long as I can remember. It still does.’ He paused. ‘It is the tradition of Kings from the Al Marara bloodline to marry women of similar pedigree—’
‘Like breeding racehorses, you mean?’
He shot her a look. ‘Look, Caitlin, we aren’t going to get very far if you continue to be obstructive.’
The tone of his voice was suddenly censorious and Caitlin suspected it would have intimidated many people. But she was way beyond intimidation. Way beyond anything she recognised as normal behaviour. Instinctively, she realised she was fighting for something—she just didn’t know what it was.
‘All right. Go on,’ she said stonily, though she couldn’t imagine ever wanting to hear a story unfold less than she did this one.
‘My father had broken the mould of his ancestors, who had always married for duty. Instead, he married my mother for love.’ He bit the word out like a curse. ‘And paid a heavy price for it.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t want to go into details about my parents’ marriage, Caitlin. Suffice to say it wasn’t a happy one and certainly not one I ever wanted to emulate. I saw this thing called love as nothing but a trap—and one which I was determined never to fall into.’ He gave a bitter smile. ‘So when the time came for me to take a bride, I was perfectly willing to wed the princess who had been selected for me by the palace elders. To accept that we had much in common by virtue of our upbringing and royal blood, and to enter into the marriage wholeheartedly.’
‘And, was she beautiful?’ she asked suddenly.
Kadir narrowed his eyes, for it struck him as a highly irrelevant question. Until he remembered his last sighting of his mother and the way plastic surgery had transformed her into a monster he barely recognised. And wasn’t that what women were all about? he reminded himself bitterly. Shallowness and vanity, and a grotesque desire to stay young for ever?
‘Yes, she was beautiful,’ he said slowly, but felt no sympathy when Caitlin flinched.
You shouldn’t have asked me, he thought. You should never ask a question if you are unable to cope with an answer you don’t like.
‘But for me, the most important thing was that she wanted to be a royal queen and to be my wife. She was eager to embrace all the challenges which came with that role. Or so she told me.’
His words tailed off and he would have given any amount of gold from his vast vaults not to have continued with this conversation. But Caitlin was looking at him expectantly, those wide blue eyes stirring yet another forbidden memory, and he forced himself to plough on with his sorry tale instead of recalling how soft she had felt in his arms. ‘But the reality was that Adiya had no interest in ruling by my side. Nor in learning how to be a good wife and, in time, to produce children who could inherit my kingdom. She had but one interest...’
He couldn’t bring himself to continue and shook his head, afraid that the words might choke him.
‘Do you want to tell me what that is?’ questioned Caitlin, breaking the fraught silence. Only now her voice contained some of the gentleness which had lured him in so willingly the first time he’d met her—and didn’t that almost forgotten quality of sweetness tug painfully at his heart?
‘And that interest was drugs,’ he said baldly.
‘Drugs? Drugs?’ She stared at him at first with consternation and then with dismay. ‘You mean—’
‘I mean heroin, to be precise—although I understand she started off with cocaine,’ he supplied bluntly. ‘Don’t look so shocked, Caitlin. Did you think the west had some kind of monopoly on addictive substances? Apparently, one of her cousins gave it to her to try and she liked it. A lot.’
‘But didn’t you... I mean, didn’t you notice anything which might have made you suspicious, before you married her?’ she questioned, seeming to have forgotten her antipathy towards him, at least for the time being.
‘How could I?’ he demanded. ‘I had no experience of such things and our times together were limited because of propriety. Often she was veiled, her eyes downcast because of supposed modesty—at least that was my assumption, although afterwards I was to discover it was because the pupils of her eyes were like pinpoints and she wished to conceal that from me. Obviously, she was careful enough not to be really high during our chaperoned meetings before the marriage, but all such caution fled once the ceremony was over when I discovered I’d married a junkie.’
‘Oh, Kadir,’ she breathed. ‘What on earth did you do?’
‘What could I do? I wanted to help her, and for her to get better. I tried to ensure her supply was cut off, but somehow she always managed to get hold of more. I employed the finest addiction therapists in the world to treat her,’ he added bitterly. ‘But in order for someone to get better, they have to want to try. And Adiya didn’t. She liked it too much. She liked lying around in a chemically induced state of bliss.’ There was a pause and his words came out as a ragged whisper, as if the walls were listening. ‘Until one day she overdosed, then lay in a deep coma until she died.’
For a few seconds, Caitlin felt as if she had been robbed of the ability to move, but it wasn’t just that which made her feel as if her blood had turned to ice. Because Kadir’s face had grown so ravaged that she wanted to get up and go to him. To put her arms around him and comfort him. But she was so shocked she didn’t think she’d be able to get out of the chair and maybe that was a good thing, because it certainly wasn’t her place to offer him solace at a time like this. Her mind was spilling over with questions she wasn’t sure were wise to ask, but one was hovering like a dark spectre at the edge of a nightmare and refusing to be silenced.
‘So when you...when we...when we had sex together,’ she said haltingly, because she wasn’t going to try to make it sound like something it wasn’t, ‘was she—’
‘Adiya was already in a coma, yes, and had been for some time,’ he said harshly. ‘She had no idea that I was breaking our marriage vows, although I knew, of course. And I...’
His words tailed off and the bitterness and self-recrimination which had darkened his face were hard to witness. And despite Caitlin’s determination to remain impartial and not get sucked into some messy emotional quagmire, she couldn’t seem to let the subject go.
He didn’t correct her. Had she wanted him to? She bit her lip. Yes, of course she had.
‘Because only a very limited number of people knew about it,’ he told her heatedly. ‘Out of respect to Adiya’s family we kept the illness completely under wraps. Even her death and subsequent burial weren’t publicised, for the circumstances of her death would have carried with them too great a stigma for her family to bear, on top of her untimely death.’ He paused, and when he spoke his voice sounded raw. ‘And although I didn’t tell you the whole story, I never made you any promises I would be unable to keep, did I, Caitlin?’
‘You didn’t tell me you were a king.’
‘No, that’s true—but was that relevant? It wasn’t ever supposed to be anything other than a one-night stand—we agreed that at the time. It was supposed to be uncomplicated sex between two people. You even provided the condoms, if you remember.’
Caitlin’s cheeks flushed, because hadn’t that been another legacy from her own unhappy childhood? She had carried a pack of condoms in her purse since she was eighteen years old, because the thought of an unplanned pregnancy had been something she’d always feared and she was determined it would never happen to her. It had taken her another six years before she had opened that packet—maybe that was why they hadn’t worked, maybe they had been out of date. She shifted awkwardly as she took her mind back to that night. What had Kadir said as his hand had slid between her thighs and he’d flicked a provocative finger against her molten heat?
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