by Lynne Graham
‘My goodness,’ Tilda remarked helplessly. ‘It’s like walking into a time capsule.’
Rashad tensed. Presented with an enormous challenge and a tiny timeframe his staff had done their best, but had felt forced to concentrate on matters such as the plumbing, the electrical fixtures and the lack of air-conditioning.
‘Totally fascinating,’ she confided, craning her neck to admire an ancient hanging on the wall depicting a robed horseman waving a sword in the bloodthirsty heat of battle.
A servant appeared and fell to his knees in front of Rashad. He broke into a flood of apology, for Rashad had given a command that under no circumstances was he to be disturbed. The man laid a phone at his royal employer’s feet with an air of entreaty.
Rashad compressed his handsome mouth and repeated his instruction. A hundred and one matters, and a hundred and one people at court, in government and from abroad, demanded his attention every day-and he never, ever took a day off. But this particular day was different: he was with Tilda. Obviously he had not been firm enough in his command. He stepped over the phone.
‘Is there a problem?’ Tilda enquired, peering back at the hapless older man literally wringing his hands and muttering laments. ‘He seems a bit upset.’
‘Drama is the spice of life to my people.’
Angling her bright gaze back to Rashad, Tilda lifted her chin and finally said what had been simmering at the back of her mind for hours. ‘I didn’t tip off the press and I can’t imagine why you think I would’ve done.’
‘Many women revel in that sort of public attention. There are also those who choose to make money by selling personal information to the paparazzi.’
That inflammatory comeback tensed her narrow spine into rigidity and she decided to give him the response he deserved. She spun round, platinum-fair curls falling in silvery streamers round her exquisite face, her jewelled eyes hurling a challenge. ‘Actually I don’t plan to sell my story of what it’s like to be a prince’s concubine until I go home again.’
The atmosphere sizzled like oil heated to boiling point.
Dense black lashes sweeping low on his scorching golden gaze, Rashad strolled silently back to her, intrigued by her continuing defiance. ‘Perhaps,’ he murmured very softly, ‘you won’t want to go home again. I can be very persuasive.’
Tilda had wanted to annoy him and the tenor of his reply took her by surprise. ‘Of course I’ll want to go home again…I’ll be counting the days!’
‘Or you’ll be doing whatever it takes to hold my interest so that you can stay. Today you stop running away and start learning.’ A lean brown hand lifted to brush a straying strand of pale hair back from her cheekbone in a confident gesture of intimacy. She backed up against the cold solid wall, her breath catching in her throat. He traced the pouting cupid’s bow of her upper lip with his thumb and gently opened her mouth to graze the soft moist underside. Her legs went limp and stinging awareness made her nipples pinch into painfully tight buds. It was a fight to contain the wanton shock of fascination travelling through her.
‘I don’t run away,’ she told him frantically. ‘Ever!’
‘Once, you ran faster than a gazelle every time I got too close. I’m a hunter. I enjoyed the chase.’ Rashad let his forefinger dip sexily between her peach-soft lips and retreat again. He watched her pupils dilate and the slender white expanse of her throat extend as she tipped her head back in instinctive female invitation. ‘But you always wanted me. You may fight with me, but you are begging for my mouth right now.’
Her long brown lashes fluttered. It took enormous effort to concentrate again. Angry pain slashed through that mental fog because for a long, timeless moment she had craved the heat of his mouth on hers as badly as a life-giving drug. ‘I’m not begging,’ she muttered, forcing a laugh that sounded horribly strangled.
Rashad gazed down at her with a languorous heat that made her tremble. ‘Don’t worry-you will.’
Tilda braced a hand on the wall and pushed herself away from him with a lack of coordination that infuriated her. She was trembling, maddeningly aware of every fluid shift of his lithe, powerful body so close to hers. Her mind threw up a dangerous image of Rashad pushing her back against the wall with the passion that was so much a part of him, the passion he so rarely freed from restraint. The knot of tension in her pelvis tightened and she recognised it for the hunger it was. The fact that her hostility didn’t stop her responding to him shook her up badly.
Rashad shot her pale, taut profile a glittering appraisal and closed a shapely brown hand over hers. ‘Let me show you the harem.’
‘I can hardly wait.’ Although colour now mantled her cheeks, Tilda lifted her head high. She remembered his dark sense of humour so well. She remembered how he had once teased the life out of her. A sharp pang of regret gripped her for that lost time and had the effect of simply hardening her resolve.
‘I didn’t tip off the press,’ she told him afresh.
‘So you say.’ His audible indifference to such a plea incensed her.
‘And five years ago, I didn’t sleep with anyone else.’
Rashad expelled his breath in a long-suffering hiss. Why did she keep on reminding him of her infidelity? He did not want to be reminded. Why did she not appreciate that every denial merely acted as a prompt to unsavoury memories?
Mounting a vast stone staircase by his side and determined to ignore the discouraging silence that had met her valiant claim, Tilda swallowed hard. ‘I’d like to see the proof you said you had of my so-called misdemeanours.’
‘Some day I will let you see it.’ Rashad flashed her an impatient look. As she could have no idea how conclusive his proof was she was probably hoping to argue her way out of the evidence of her deceit. Unhappily for her, he had complete faith in the source of the information he had received.
‘Why not now?’
‘I have heard enough of your lies. Silence is preferable.’ His lean, darkly handsome face was resolute. ‘In time, I expect you to accept the futility of lying to me.’
Tilda yanked her hand forcibly free of his. ‘So you intend to make it impossible for me to defend myself. I’m damned if I do speak up and damned if I don’t. But why would any man want a lying, cheating gold-digger?’
Rashad made no answer. He refused to rise to the bait. He was beginning to appreciate that whenever she was most desperate to keep him at a distance she started fighting with him.
Aggrieved by his lack of response, Tilda murmured dulcetly, ‘Maybe you only like bad girls.’
At that crack, Rashad surveyed her with pure predatory appreciation. Where she was concerned that was true. When he looked at her, when he thought about her, her sins were never at the forefront of his mind. His desire ran too hot and strong to be denied. With her turquoise eyes as vivid as polar stars, she glowed with beauty and quicksilver energy. The ache at his groin came close to pain. Never had he felt such powerful need to possess a woman. Suddenly all his patience just vanished. He strode forward and swept her up off her feet and headed for his bedroom.
‘What the heck are you doing?’ Tilda launched at him in astonishment.
‘We’ve waited long enough to be together.’ Rashad thrust at a door with a broad shoulder to force it wider and kicked it shut in his wake.
Tilda spread a decidedly panicky glance round the echoing bedroom, which seemed to her to have very little else in it beyond the highly ornate four-poster bed that sat on a dais. ‘I thought I was going to get a tour of the harem!’
‘Some other day, when I have the strength to resist you.’ Rashad lowered her to the floor and stripped off her coat, an imprisoning hand splaying across the soft swell of her hips in case she dared to stray anywhere out of his reach. He bent his arrogant dark head, golden eyes smouldering over her like tiny flames, and tasted her soft full mouth.
It was as though every time he touched her he sent another brick flying out of her wall of defence, leaving her more at risk and less able to hold o
Rashad raised his head, luxuriant ebony lashes lifting to frame golden eyes alight with hunger. He eased her dress off her narrow shoulders and let it slide down to her feet in a heap. She was startled, for she had not realised that he had already unzipped the garment. Suddenly feeling very exposed in her flimsy bra and briefs, she wrapped her arms round herself.
‘Don’t embarrass me by acting as though you are shy,’ Rashad derided, long brown fingers enclosing her wrists to uncross her arms again. Such pretence from her hit the rawest of nerves and his annoyance with her was intense. ‘I hate anything false. Fake modesty leaves me cold. Why would I even want you to be a virgin?’
Tilda jerked back from him in a defensive movement. Why would I even want you to be a virgin? That scornful demand faded the pink from her cheeks. He recognised the hollow light in her clear eyes and, disturbed by that awareness, he reached for her again, determined to break through her resistance.
‘Did you think that pretence is what I want from you?’ Rashad demanded in a roughened undertone. ‘It was not my intention to cause you pain. But this time I want only what is real from you.’
Tilda was shaken that he had noticed that he had hurt her feelings, because she had believed she was better at hiding her feelings. He framed her face with his lean hands and took her mouth with ravishing sweetness and spellbinding sensuality. She stopped thinking and let her response take over. He curved her slender, unresisting body to his, drinking in the scent of her creamy white skin and the telling unsteadiness of her breathing. Lifting her onto the bed, he stood back to discard his tie and unbutton his shirt.
Her limbs felt heavy where they lay on the crimson silk spread and there was a liquid heat burning low in her belly. She could not take her eyes off the light golden slice of male torso he had revealed: muscle rippled across the solid wall of his chest as he took off the shirt, and black whorls of hair dusted his pectorals and arrowed down in a silken furrow across the flat slab of his stomach. Her mouth ran dry.
Rashad surveyed her with smouldering appreciation and the mattress gave under his weight. Tilda rolled away. Rashad laughed and hauled her back to him with easy strength. ‘You are so beautiful,’ he told her thickly, tasting her luscious mouth again, dipping his tongue between her parted lips with a dark sensuality that left her trembling. ‘You want me, too.’
She shut her eyes for fear that he could read that truth there. The tiny moments when he wasn’t touching her were already a torment. Like a doll, she was incapable of independent action and it was the very strength of her desire for him that kept her trapped. He pressed his hard, sensual mouth against the tiny pulse going crazy below her collar-bone and she gasped and arched her narrow spine. He pulled her back against him to unclasp her bra. A groan of male satisfaction sounded in his throat when her small, high breasts tumbled free. He teased the swollen pink peaks with skilful fingers, before he bent over her and used his mouth to toy with the straining buds. Every bitter-sweet sensation darted straight as an arrow to the hot damp pulse between her thighs and increased the ache there.
‘Rashad…oh, please…’
Rashad looked down at her with heavily lidded eyes, lashes so long they almost hit his superb cheekbones. Somewhere outside he heard the sharp crack of rifles releasing a hail of bullets and he frowned.
‘What’s that?’ she mumbled breathlessly, her fingers delving into the luxuriant depths of his black hair.
‘Someone has probably got married and the guards are showing their appreciation.’ Although that was the most likely explanation, Rashad was tense as only a former soldier could be in such circumstances. Then he heard the drone of aircraft. As he leapt off the bed and snatched up his shirt a jet flew overhead. Barely twenty seconds later, he heard the heavy whop-whop of more than one helicopter approaching.
‘Rashad? What’s happening?’ Tilda prompted apprehensively.
‘Get dressed.’ An urgent knocking sounded on the door. The noise was almost drowned out by the earsplitting whine of another jet flashing over the palace.
Rashad answered the door.
‘Please forgive the intrusion, Your Royal Highness,’ a senior manservant delivered anxiously, ‘but I have been asked to inform you that the Prime Minister is about to arrive. He most humbly requests an audience with you.’
Every scrap of colour in Rashad’s lean, strong face ebbed. He turned the colour of burnt ashes, because he could only think that something had happened to his father. For what other reason would the Prime Minister come to see him without having organised the visit in advance?
‘Rashad?’ Tilda pressed worriedly.
Rashad looked through her as if she had suddenly become invisible. At speed he donned his tie and jacket. ‘Do not on any account leave this room, or speak to anyone, until I return.’
CHAPTER SIX
RASHAD had only got as far as the landing when he recalled his mobile phone, which he had switched off, and he immediately put it on again. He cursed the selfish streak of recklessness that had caused him to ignore the phone’s demands barely thirty minutes earlier. Almost immediately, the ringtone sounded again and he answered it. Informed that his royal parent was waiting to speak to him, he was bewildered.
‘My son,’ King Hazar boomed on the line as if he were addressing a packed audience chamber, ‘I am overjoyed!’
‘You are in good health, my father?’ Rashad breathed in astonishment.
‘Of course.’
Rashad was still shaken by the fear that had seized him. ‘Then, why has the Prime Minister flown out to the desert to speak to me?’
‘The occasion of your marriage is of very great importance to us all.’
Rashad came to an abrupt halt at the head of the stone staircase. ‘My…marriage?’
‘Our people do not wish to be deprived of a state wedding.’
‘Who said that I was married, or even getting married?’ Rashad managed to ask in as level a voice as he could muster.
‘A journalist contacted your sister, Kalila, in London and showed her a photo taken at the airport. Kalila contacted me and e-mailed that picture of Tilda for us all to see. She is very beautiful and a magnificent surprise. I should have sat up and taken more notice the day I heard you were having the old palace refurbished!’
Rashad was thinking fast and realising that so many facts were already out in the family and public arena that he could not simply dismiss the story out of hand. He had been frankly appalled by the presence of the paparazzi at Heathrow-the rumours must have been flying around about his relationship with Tilda before he’d even got his jet off the ground in London! So much for discretion and privacy! He was even more taken aback by his father’s hearty enthusiasm at the news that his son had married a woman he had never met.
‘When you proclaimed that Tilda was your woman and required no visa, old Butrus almost had a heart attack until it dawned on him that you must already be married to her to make such an announcement. And, even had you not been-’ the king chuckled in the best of good humour ‘-according to the laws of our royal house once you declared Tilda yours before witnesses, it was a marriage by declaration. The statute that saved your grandfather’s skin was never repealed.’
Rashad found it necessary to lean back against the wall for support. A marriage by declaration-a law hastily trotted out to clean up the scandal after his licentious grandfather had run off with his grandmother with not the slightest intention of doing anything other than bedding her. It was still legal? He felt as if the bars of a cage were closing round him.
‘My father…’ Rashad breathed in deep.
‘As if you would bring any woman other than your intended bride into Bakhar!’ the older man quipped. ‘No man of honour would sully a woman’s reputation. I had only to hear Tilda’s name spoken and at once I knew she was your bride and that we had a wonderful celebration to arrange. Was she not the woman who gained your heart five years ago?’
As the king waxed lyrical on the subjects of true love and lifelong matrimonial happiness Rashad grew a great deal grimmer at his end of the phone. There might be sunlight beyond the window, but a giant dark cloud was now obscuring his appreciation of it. He had broken the rules only once and now he was to pay the price with his freedom. What insanity had seized him when he had taken the risk of bringing Tilda into Bakhar? It had been an act of utter recklessness and, in retrospect, he could not fathom what had driven him to the point of such incredible folly.
Rashad went downstairs to greet the Prime Minister and his entourage. He accepted hearty congratulations, elaborate greetings and compliments for his bride and the news that a two-day public holiday had already been declared at the end of the month to mark the occasion of his state wedding. He did not even pale when he was informed that formal announcements had been made on the state television and radio services and that bridal good wishes were pouring in from every corner of Bakhar.
It was a full hour before he was in a position to return to Tilda. He was still suffering all the outrage and disbelief of a male who had never put a foot wrong in his life, but now had made one fatal error. He had no doubt whatsoever that Tilda would be ecstatic at the news that she was not a concubine but a wife, and that at the very least they would have to stay married for a year.
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