by Penny Jordan
Perhaps Tariq was asleep. Cue distracting mental image of him in bed, sheet pushed down to his hips, the warm sherry-gold of his skin satin-sleek, not just inviting but compelling her to reach out and touch it…
No! She didn’t wantthose kind of thoughts, thank you very much. What would she do if he assumed that her return was an invitation to him to continue where he had left off? Would she have the strength of will to resist him if he picked her up in his arms and carried her into the cool shadows of her bedroom and once there…?
Gwynneth breathed in, and then exhaled gustily. If she was really keen for it not to happen, why exactly was she lingering so lovingly over every small mental detail of a supposedly threatening seduction scenario? Anyone peeking into her mind right now would be forgiven for thinking she was actually building an image of something shewanted to happen, not stressing over something she didn’t.
Far better instead to imagine him standing in silence in the hallway, enjoying her distress. In silence, naked, a towel wrapped round his lower body…Oh, stop it! she told herself irritably.
Perhaps she should ring the bell one last time. She put her finger on the buzzer and pressed it hard.
Nothing. Nothing and no one. She leaned against the wall, feeling defeated.
Now what was she going to do? She was locked out of the apartment and instead of suggesting solutions her rebellious mind was playing games with her.
‘So what is to be done about this young woman who claims ownership of the apartment via her late father?’ The Ruler pursed his lips, and then remarked blandly, ‘She is of your father’s race, I understand?
Tariq’s eyes narrowed.
‘You are well informed, Greatest amongst the Great.’
The Ruler’s plump face creased into a wide smile. Tariq only used this mode of address when he wanted to be sardonic.
‘Our excellent Chief of Police, Saulud bin Sharif, felt obliged to give me a full report on the young woman.’ His expression became far more serious. ‘She must not be exposed to danger, Tariq.’
‘She will not be.’
The Ruler waited patiently, but Tariq was plainly not going to say any more about the young woman the Ruler had been told was as beautiful as the morning sunrise.
‘Excellent.’ He smiled again at his grim-looking young relative who, as a prince in his own right, was seated cross-legged on the divan opposite his own. Tariq’s height meant that the Ruler had to crick his neck to look up into his eyes.
A manservant was hovering close by with a coffee pot. Tariq covered his cup with the fluid movement of one long-fingered hand in an automatic gesture of denial, his mouth twitching slightly in disapproval when the Ruler reached for yet another sweetmeat.
‘My physician warns me of the dangers of too many sweet things, Tariq, but…’ The Ruler gave a small dismissive shrug.‘In Sha’ Allah,’ he said, fatalistically.
‘Your people need you to lead them into the future, and so do your sons,’ Tariq murmured quietly.
The Ruler looked at him, and then put down the sugar-dusted square of Turkish delight he had been about to put in his mouth.
‘It is when you make pronouncements such as that that I see your father in you the most, Tariq,’ he sighed.
‘There is nothing of him in me other than where he has left the physical marks of his fathering on me,’ Tariq answered grimly. Somewhere deep inside he still felt the pain turned to bitterness of his father’s desertion.
The Ruler shook his head patiently. ‘Your father was a highly intelligent and far-seeing man in many ways. He saw what my father had done, and showed me how I could build upon those things. I know he caused your mother and you great pain, and that I cannot condone, but many of the projects I have undertaken sprang from the seeds of his vision. In that I have much cause to be grateful to him. And much cause as well to be grateful for his bestowal on my household of his son. We should perhaps not blame him too much for not being able to adapt to our ways. Your mother, after all, refused to adapt to his.’
Tariq stared at him. ‘Heabandoned her.’
‘He left Zuran alone because your mother refused to leave with him—as she had agreed to do when they married,’ the Ruler corrected him quietly. ‘They agreed they would live in Zuran for some years, and then in Britain. But when the time came she went back on her word.’
‘That is not what she told me.’
‘Nevertheless, it is the truth.’
‘So why did she not say this to me?’
‘Maybe she thought you too young, or perhaps she feared that you might judge her. I know that he would have taken you with him had he not felt that it was best for you that you remain here. He was a man who had the heart of a nomad, a man whose work and nature made it impossible for him to settle long in one place. He left you with your mother out of love for you, Tariq.’
‘Why has this not been said to me before—by you if not by my mother?’
‘Sometimes awareness must wait upon events,’ the Ruler told him sagely, and then he inclined his head and clapped his hands, indicating that their meeting was over.
Tariq got to his feet with fluid ease, salaaming before leaving the room.
CHAPTER NINE
THERULERhad given him much to think about. But a deeper consideration of the unexpected revelations about his father would have to wait until another time. Tariq glanced at his watch and immediately lengthened his stride and increased his speed.
He had assumed, when he had seen Gwynneth standing in the street below the apartment block and frowning, that she had realised that she had left without either a key or any money, and so he had waited for her immediate return.
When she hadn’t come back he had toyed with the idea of going out and leaving her to a long, uncomfortable wait for his return, but an inbuilt sense of responsibility had stopped him from taking that kind of retaliatory action. Zuran’s temperatures topped forty degrees Centigrade at this time of year; she was British, and fair skinned, and she had gone out without anything to cover her exposed head and delicate skin. He wasn’t going to take the risk of her doing something foolish that might result in her suffering from heatstroke or worse because she couldn’t get into the apartment.
However, his good intentions had been undermined when he had received a telephone call from one of the Ruler’s secretaries, requesting his presence at the palace.
He had planned to keep the meeting as short as he possibly could, but his second cousin’s revelations about his own father had hijacked his intentions. It was now over four hours since he had left the apartment.
By the time he reached the doors to the palace used by family members, his car and driver were already there waiting for him, the bodywork of the black Mercedes polished to a dust-free gleam.
A uniformed palace guard opened the door for him and the cool silence of the air-conditioned interior embraced him. The imposing palm-lined dual carriageway that ran from the palace to the city had been modelled after London’s Mall, although here the wide grass verges had to be kept green with a complex under-soil watering system, and the colourful formal bedding provided by flowering annuals in London was provided here by a rich array of tropical shrubs and plants. Gilded lamp standards were decorated with mosaic-tiled framed images of the Ruler, and in the distance the gold-leaf dome of a mosque glittered in the sunlight.
His driver turned off the imposing Road of the Ruler into an equally wide but far busier thoroughfare. Beyond the dark-tinted car windows Tariq could see the glass exteriors of the many new office and apartment blocks lining the road. He was a member of the select private conglomerate that was responsible for financing a large proportion of them. Zuran City was booming, but the Ruler and his advisers were keeping its development under firm control.
Up ahead of him he could see the shimmer of the new resort complex, and beyond that the area out in the Gulf where men were working on the final stages of building new hotels and villas on land reclaimed from the sea to create the ma
gnificent Palm Island, its trunk the road connecting it to the shore and each palm leaf a long narrow spur of land complete with water frontage.
Tariq had a financial interest in this venture as well, the profit from which was projected to run into billions of dollars.
But it wasn’t his growing wealth that occupied his thoughts as the Mercedes sped along the private lane reserved for use by the Royal Family, and neither was it the unexpectedness of the Ruler’s revelations about his late father.
He instructed his driver to drop him off within walking distance of the apartment, oblivious to the eager female interest he was attracting as he slid on a pair of aviator sunglasses and emerged from the Mercedes to stride past the exclusive designer shops either side of the palm-lined street, the robe he had donned for the formality of his meeting billowing slightly in the warm breeze.
Gwynneth had been loath to leave the apartment block a second time without any money, and, given that the Zuran land registry office was too far away for her to walk there, she had decided that she had no alternative other than to wait for Tariq to return and let her into the apartment.
Always providing he did return.
Of course he would.
But what if he didn’t?
She had brought back from the shopping mall a free magazine, which she had now read from cover to cover several times. During the course of this inspection she had discovered that an apartment similar to her own was currently on sale for £500,000, confirming all her suspicions.Why had Tariq offered her a million pounds to give up her claim to this one?
The hum of the air-conditioning was making her feel drowsy. She sat down on the cool tiled floor and leaned back against the wall. Within minutes she was fast asleep.
Tariq frowned when he got out of the lift and saw her seated on the floor, leaning against the wall. She was asleep, her face pale and her hair tousled. There was a small smudge of shadow along her cheekbone, as though she had rubbed it in distress. There was a bottle of water on the floor beside her, along with a magazine, both bearing the logo of a mall complex. Such items were given free to visitors, and he guessed that she must have been there.
The sight of her disturbed him more than he wanted to admit—and not sexually this time. This time his feelings were far, far more dangerous than merely sexual, because this time they contained both concern for her and a strong desire to protect her—if necessary from herself.
He hunkered down beside her and spoke her name quietly. ‘Gwynneth.’
Gwynneth smiled in her sleep in acknowledgement of the familiar voice.
Tariq exhaled and lifted one hand to her face, to steady her in case she slipped, using the other to give her a small shake.
Gwynneth sighed luxuriously and turned her face into his hand, rubbing her cheek against it and making a soft purring sound.
Tariq’s fingers bit into her shoulder and abruptly Gwynneth woke up.
Tariq was crouching down on the floor next to her, his eyes on a level with hers. Her own widened, whilst colour burned up under her skin. She tried to look away from him, but her gaze was trapped as helplessly as though his had magnetised it.
‘How long have you been here?’ he asked curtly.
Gwynneth shook her head. Her muscles felt slightly stiff.
‘I don’t know. What time is it now?’
Her breath rattled in her lungs as he lifted his wrist and shot back the hem of his sleeve to reveal the tawny, sinewy strength of his wrist. How on earth could such a simple action, the mere sight of a plain watch encircling a man’s wrist, have this kind of effect on her?
‘Almost six p.m.’
‘I came back about three.’
Just over an hour after he had left.
‘I hadn’t intended to be gone so long. I realised after you’d gone that you hadn’t taken your key or any money.’
He wasapologising to her?
‘I had a meeting which I couldn’t not attend. Can you stand up?’
‘I’m twenty-six, not eighty-six,’ Gwynneth half joked. But nevertheless her semi-numbed legs, suffering the pins-and-needles burn of returning life, were glad of his help to support her as she struggled to stand up. He, of course, managed to uncoil himself from his hunkered-down position with enviable grace.
‘Have you had anything to eat today?’
She shook her head. She wasn’t sure she could cope with Tariq in this knight errant mood. It made her feel vulnerable, as though she was some kind of victim, and she didn’t like that.
‘So you haven’t eaten since breakfast?’ he demanded.
Gwynneth glared balefully at him as he unlocked the apartment door.
‘Actually, no, I haven’t. But there wasn’t any need because I wasn’t hungry. I had a big breakfast.’
‘A yoghurt?’
‘No one wants to eat much when it’s hot.’
‘No one?’ His mouth twisted sardonically. That was more like it, she decided gratefully. ‘By “no one”, presumably you mean the British?’ He was holding her arm, swinging her round to face him as he half dragged her into the hallway, pushing the door shut with one easy movement.
‘You don’t like us, do you?’ she demanded. ‘Why?’
‘Congratulations on your powers of analysis,’ Tariq told her sarcastically. ‘As to why—that is my own business. But I certainly do not like the morals the young women of your country—of your type—adopt.’
Gwynneth glared at him. ‘Do you know what?’ she told him acerbically. ‘You aren’t just a bigot, you’re a hypocrite as well.’
‘Be careful,’ Tariq warned her.
She was standing on that bridge again, Gwynneth knew. But she didn’t seem able to stop herself.
‘Of what? You? Why? In case you’re tempted to do some close-up research intomy morals? I wouldn’t, if I were you.’
‘Funny how sometimes a warning can sound more like an invitation,’ Tariq derided her, adding unforgivably, ‘You want me to take you to bed. We both know that.’
‘We both know no such thing!’ Gwynneth stormed back at him.
‘It’s the truth,’ Tariq insisted, with another dismissive shrug of those powerful shoulders.
‘I’ve never known any man as good at self-delusion as you!’
‘And you’ve known a lot of men, of course,’ he agreed smoothly.
Not in the Biblical sense, I haven’t,Gwynneth was tempted to tell him. But a small inner voice warned her that that was a step too far right now. He might have already refused to believe she was still a virgin, but the mood he was in at the moment he might be tempted toprove to her that she wasn’t. She knew he wouldn’t force her, of course—the problem was that he wouldn’t need to.
Hastily, she pointed out, ‘Less than six hours ago I walked out of here rather than go to bed with you. Remember?’
‘It was my decision not to proceed,’ Tariq countered coolly. ‘Whereupon you flounced out in a temper—no doubt expecting me to come after you and make you an offer you wouldn’t want to refuse.’
The offer she wouldn’t want to refuse from him would involve not money but a full bank account of sensual intimacy—a promise to pay in caresses and kisses that she could draw on whenever she felt the need.
Red-faced, Gwynneth shook herself free of her own dangerous thoughts.
‘I have to go away for a few days,’ Tariq told her abruptly. ‘I shall be leaving later tonight. I have some business matters to attend to.’ It was a four-hour drive at least to the valley, and he would normally have set out at dawn, but right now he ached for the solitude of the desert, with its infinite capacity to remind a man that his most basic struggle was that of survival. The desert was not a forgiving mistress; she made no allowances for human weakness in those who chose to embrace her. There, surely he would be able to see what he was experiencing for what it was—and that was a mere nothing. His desire for this woman whom he did not want to want was a minor inconvenience—a fire which would quickly burn itself out. He would
call for police protection to ensure Chad’s threats weren’t carried out, and forget all about her.
Tariq had turned away from her, leaving Gwynneth free to watch him with hugely agonised dark eyes. He was going. He couldn’t. He mustn’t. She wanted him to stay here with her—she wanted him to stay with her for ever.
Gwynneth hadn’t even realised she had made any sound at all until Tariq turned back to her, frowning as he demanded, ‘What’s wrong? You sound as though you are in pain.’
Her? In pain for him?
‘That wasn’t pain, it was relief,’ she fibbed recklessly.
He gave her a taunting smile.
‘I suggest that while I am away you give very serious thought to my offer to buy the apartment.’ He looked at his watch again. ‘It is now almost seven o’clock. I need to eat before I leave. I’m going to order in some food—for both of us.’