by Penny Jordan
‘I wanted to talk with you about this claim made by your colleague that you are questioning the authenticity of Dhurahn’s borders,’ Vere announced coldly, without preamble.
His heart was thudding like blows on an anvil delivered with a heavy hand. It was anger that was responsible for the way he was feeling. Nothing else. There could not be any other reason. Gifted as he was with the keen eyesight that belonged to men of the desert, from where he had been standing he had seen her booking a flight to Khulua, thus confirming everything he had suspected.
Sam, though, was oblivious to what was going through Vere’s mind. All she could focus on was her own misery and the situation she was in. She had feared, of course, that as Dhurahn’s Ruler he would challenge her about James’s comment, but she had assumed that it would be in a more formal setting. She had thought that he would send for her, perhaps, and demand that she explain herself—rather than seek her out on his own, and in the privacy of her own quarters, where she was far too aware of him as a man to be able to concentrate on his status.
He was wearing that same fresh cologne he had been wearing before and it was distracting her, painting images into her thoughts that had no right to be there, and which were certainly not appropriate for their current meeting. She struggled to dismiss them and failed. She knew that if she let her concentration slip even for a second she would be remembering how it felt to be in his arms. And longing to be there again, despite what she knew? No, she denied immediately. But she knew she was lying to herself.
‘I have never questioned Dhurahn’s borders,’ she told him truthfully.
‘No? That was not the opinion of your colleague.’
She could see a glint of angry contempt in the gaze he was fixing on her. It drove her to defend herself.
‘I have never questioned Dhurahn’s borders, either publicly or privately.’ she repeated, determinedly and fiercely.
His anger wasn’t abating, and to her chagrin she heard herself continuing so weakly that she might just as well have been pleading with him for understanding.
‘I don’t think James realised how serious... That is to say, I think he was just making conversation...There is no valid reason why he should have said what he did.’
That wasn’t the truth, was it? she challenged herself inwardly—and guiltily. Although it upset her to think it, she suspected that James had wanted to get her into trouble, and had said what he had deliberately, because of his own personal and unadmitted agenda.
She could see, though, that this man would never believe she was merely an innocent victim, and that he wasn’t prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt. Not when she was pretty sure that he was already blaming her for another incident.
And did she think she was blameless there as well? Had she done everything she possibly could to avoid the intimacy they had shared? Had it all been down to him and him alone? Sam could feel her conscience prodding her. No, she didn’t think that. Not after the way she had felt and behaved. But equally, if she wasn’t blameless, then neither was all the blame hers either, was it? No matter how Prince Vereham al a’ Karim bin Hakar was choosing to act now.
‘James misunderstood what I was trying to say,’ she added, for further emphasis of her point—even though she already knew that he wasn’t really interested in giving her the opportunity to defend herself.
She could see that he was looking past her towards her computer, his frown deepening. For a moment, to her horror, she thought she might inadvertently have brought up one of the searches she had been doing on him, but when she glanced at the screen she was relieved to see that all it contained was her map of the source of the river.
He strode past her to focus on the screen.
‘This is the source of the Dhurahni river.’
It was a statement more than a question.
‘Yes,’ Sam agreed.
‘Why are you studying it? It flows quite plainly through Dhurahn, and only Dhurahn, and is therefore outside your remit for exploration and examination.’ His voice was clipped, his manner hostile.
‘Yes, I know,’ Sam was forced to admit.
‘So explain to me what this is all about.’
He wasn’t just hostile, he was furious as well, Sam recognised miserably. But her tormentor hadn’t finished.
‘Why exactly do you feel it necessary to question the Dhurahni River’s source?’ he continued angrily. ‘What are you hoping to prove, or gain. And why? What is the agenda behind this underhanded delving into something which has nothing whatsoever to do with you?’
Sam stared at him in horrified dismay.
‘No—please, you don’t understand,’ she protested ‘It isn’t like that. It was just that...that I couldn’t resist...’ She could feel her face starting to burn as she realised the danger she was getting herself into. ‘There’s something about underground rivers that is so fascinating—especially those that travel so far—and I...’
Vere looked at her.
‘It seems to me that you have a penchant for not resisting your own desires, Ms McLellan. Regardless of whether or not in doing so you are transgressing set boundaries.’
His words weren’t just meant to refer to the river, Sam knew, and her face burned even more uncomfortably.
‘There’s no law that says that a person can’t take an interest in natural phenomena,’ she told him, somehow managing to find the gritty courage to reply in his own subtle double-speak. There—let him make what he wanted of that! ‘Especially when I’m only doing it in my own time.’
Vere’s mouth hardened, but he didn’t say anything. It had been a mistake to let his emotions get the better of him. He had put her on her guard now, and it was unlikely that he was going to get her to admit that she was being paid to cause trouble for Dhurahn.
‘I don’t see why I shouldn’t be interested in the river,’ Sam continued determinedly. ‘It’s a vitally important resource for the area, after all, and I admit that I am curious about the fact that at some stage the course of the river appears to have been changed.’
‘As you’ve just acknowledged, you are perfectly well aware that the river, and whatever may have happened to it, lies within Dhurahn’s borders, and is therefore outside your mapping remit,’ Vere told her coldly.
‘Yes...’ Sam was forced to admit.
‘You are a professional cartographer. Don’t think I would be the only person to question this excuse of “curiosity” you have given me.’
He was surely far more angry than the situation merited. He was so angry, in fact, that she could almost feel his fury raising the temperature inside the tent, and Sam had no illusions about the extent of the trouble she was in. He had spoken of her having an agenda, but Sam believed that any agenda belonged to him and related to what had happened between them. Was he looking for an excuse to have her dismissed? Removed from the camp and thus his vicinity?
‘It is just curiosity. It is interesting, and—’ she began to insist, only to have him cut her off with his savage voice.
‘Interesting? To study and question something you have not been asked to involve yourself in—and I suspect using equipment and time that should have been used for something else? Interesting to whom, I wonder?’
He was losing it, Vere recognised. Going in a reckless headlong charge too far down a road that was strewn with potential hazards. But somehow he hadn’t been able to stop himself. And he knew why. Despite the fact that he both wanted and needed to believe that this woman wa
s someone he could not trust, against all the odds—against everything he had trained himself to think and be—something deep within him wanted to believe otherwise.
It was something he must root out and destroy.
Sam could feel the shock of his antagonism ricocheting through her. Despite the fact that he was wearing traditional Arab dress, any resemblance to some romantic image of a desert prince her imagination might once have conjured up collapsed like the fiction it was. Now that she was confronted with the reality, she could see a very twenty-first century, hard-edged and angry dominant male, ready to do battle for what he considered to be his. She suspected that if she didn’t do something, and soon, she was going to find herself out of a job.
‘I’m sorry if...if I’ve caused offence, or...or broken any rules.’ She forced herself to apologise, inwardly hating having to be so submissive. But she didn’t want to damage her career, and she wasn’t going to let him penalise her just because he regretted what had happened in Zuran.
Did he think she didn’t regret it even more? Did the sharp look he was giving her mean that he was aware that her apology might relate to more than her transgression over the possible diversion of the river?
‘Where exactly is this supposed alteration of the course of the river? Show me,’ Vere commanded, without making any response to her apology. He knew that he ought to be focusing on the plan he had made to win her over, instead of allowing his own revulsion at the thought that he might have revealed some vulnerability to her to drive his reactions.
He was standing far too close to her, Sam thought shakily, as she glanced at one of his hands on the back of her chair, and then at the palm of the other, flat on the small desk next to her computer.
She wasn’t obliged to do as he was demanding. She could ask him to leave. He was, after all, in her private quarters, and she wasn’t sure just how long her self-control could endure this sort of pressure.
As he himself had just pointed out, the information she had gathered was outside her working remit, and therefore she was under no obligation to share it with anyone. However, common sense told her that it would be extremely foolhardy of her to say as much. So, instead, she reached for her mouse and highlighted the area she had been examining, trying not to let her hand shake as she did so.
It was disconcerting having him stand half behind her and so close to her. More than disconcerting. She could feel the warmth of his breath against her skin as he leaned forward to take a closer look at the screen. It sent a frisson of unwanted sensual pleasure shivering over her skin, making her tense herself against its effect. She was aware, too, of the heat of his body and its maleness. And of the effect that maleness had already had on her. Was she aware of that, and the risk that came with it of humiliating herself a second time?
Sam was certainly conscious of the sharpness of the inner warning voice that was asking her that question, but at the same time another voice was whispering to her far more seductively that if she leaned back now her head would be resting against his shoulder, and then if he placed his hand on her shoulder he could turn her towards him...
Abruptly, something that was both a physical ache of longing and emotional anger against it jerked though her body and tightened. It was impossible for her to allow herself to feel and think like this. What had happened to her normal level headed common sense and dignity? It had been bad enough when she had been daydreaming about him, believing that he had shared her desire, but now she knew the truth her pride alone should be sufficient to stamp out any lingering feelings of physical longing she might have.
‘It’s here that I first noticed something,’ she told him, somehow managing to sound far more in control and professional than she felt as she indicated the darker markings that showed where the channel was. But did her voice sound as thin with tension to him as it did to her? Had he noticed that her arm was stiff from the effort it took her to keep it out of contact with him whilst she moved the mouse?
Vere could have sworn that he was only looking at the screen, but somehow he could also see the soft fullness of her mouth, and the way her lips parted as she drew in that small shallow breath. Her breasts lifted. Soft, naturally curved breasts that made a man ache to cup his hands around them.
Furious with himself for the direction his thoughts were taking, Vere took refuge in attack.
‘Do you seriously expect me to believe that a few scratches on a map are serious evidence of someone having tampered with the course of a river as fast-flowing as the Dhurahni?’ he derided.
‘These are GPS images,’ Sam reminded him, stung by his criticism. ‘Naturally they aren’t easy to read, especially to the untrained eye.’
She was rewarded with a swift annihilating glance.
‘I assure you that I am more than familiar enough with satellite images to be able to translate what these mean,’ he said coldly.
‘Then you will understand that the extent of the channel is much more defined when seen on the ground,’ Sam retorted firmly, determined to show him that she was not going to be bullied out of her professional opinion.
‘I am familiar with the source of the river, and I cannot say that I have ever noticed.’ Now his tone was coldly dismissive.
It was plain that he did not like what she was saying, Sam recognised.
‘Then perhaps you weren’t looking in the right place.’
Or maybe he hadn’t wanted to notice? Sam thought inwardly, wondering at the same time why this might be. After all, as he had said, both channels lay within the boundaries of Dhurahn, and it could not be disputed that the river ran exclusively through Dhurahn’s land. But in some ways that made the fact that she was sure it had been altered all the more fascinating—at least to her.
She could feel the faint draught as he released the back of her chair before striding past her, turning round abruptly to face her, and then saying sharply, ‘Maybe not.’
He was, Sam noticed, looking at his watch. She started to exhale unevenly in relief, assuming that he was about to leave, but instead to her dismay he informed her, ‘After the evening meal tonight we shall drive out to the source of the river. It is a three-hour drive, and we shall camp there overnight. In the morning you can show me this supposed channel, and then we can return before the heat of the day.’
‘No...’ Sam croaked, panic gripping her. Her reaction was an immediate and instinctive grab for self-protection.
‘What?’
It was plain from both his expression and the disbelief in his voice that he wasn’t used to having his orders questioned, Sam recognised, and now he was coming towards her.
Her panic increased, but shamefully now it was joined by another emotion—and this one was telling her that what she really wanted was for him to come even closer.
‘No,’ she repeated, denying her own emotions as much as his demand, as unwanted need threatened to swamp her protective panic. ‘Don’t come any closer...don’t... . don’t touch me.’
Wasn’t what she really meant, do touch me—oh, please, please do touch me, and keep on touching me for ever...?
He had come to an abrupt halt several feet away from her and was looking at her as though she were an insect that had crawled out from beneath a stone, Sam thought. As though she were something unclean.
‘Don’t touch you?’ he repeated, as though he could hardly believe she had spoken those words to him. ‘Do you dare to believe that I would wish to?’
Torn between angry pride a
nd stinging humiliation, Sam longed to have the kind of thick skin that would have enabled her to point out to him that there had been an occasion when he had done rather a lot more than merely touch her. But her own feelings of shamed guilt about the part she had played in that incident held her back, so instead she stayed silent. She wished she had not done so when he continued coldly, ‘Well let me assure you that you need have no fear on that account. And before you humiliate yourself by referring to a certain incident that does neither of us any credit, let me tell you that it is certainly something I intend to forget. I would advise you to do the same.’
‘There’s no need to advise me to do anything. I had already forgotten it, Your Highness,’ Sam lied through gritted teeth in fierce retaliation.
Her vehemence caught Vere off guard. He wasn’t used to being challenged in any way or by anyone—except occasionally Drax. The fact that she had done so, and with such furious passion, was an unfamiliar enough experience for him without the additional unwanted knowledge that it underlined the fact that this woman seemed to have the knack of reacting in a way that he just wasn’t prepared for. Even worse, she provoked him into behaving in a way that was totally out of character for him.
He had come in here with one purpose in mind, and that had been to get her off her guard enough for him to find a way to circumvent whatever it was the Emir was planning to do. Instead she had somehow or other forced him into a role that was a total surprise to him—and not a pleasant one either.
Vere did not like those kind of surprises. He liked to feel that he had the ability to read both situations and people well enough to be one step ahead of them, and thus prepared for what might happen. Sam’s stubborn refusal to fit into the mould he had cast for her was infuriating.