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Her teenaged brother, James, gave her an impressed look. ‘You can earn a fortune tax-free in the Middle East!’
‘Will you go to work on a camel every morning?’ her little sister, Megan, asked hopefully.
Her other sister, Katie, was more thoughtful and less easily convinced by the surface show of normality. As the sisters got ready for bed in the room they shared, the teenager’s blue eyes were troubled. ‘What was it like for you seeing Rashad again? Didn’t you just hate him?’
‘No, I got over all that a long time ago,’ Tilda whispered, not wanting to waken Megan.
‘But you’ve never really gone out with anyone since him.’
Turning her head to the wall, Tilda shut her eyes tight. ‘That’s nothing to do with Rashad. I mean, relationships aren’t for everyone,’ she muttered. ‘I’ve had a few dates—they just haven’t led anywhere.’
‘Because you’re not interested … the guys always are—’
‘I haven’t got time for a man.’
‘You had time for Rashad when he was around.’
Stinging tears foamed up behind Tilda’s lowered lids. She swallowed back the ache in her throat and told herself not to be so foolish. She then lay awake for half of the night fretting about how her family would manage a hundred and one different tasks without her help. She was also aware that she had to sort out Scott. Those twin concerns screened out the even bigger worry about how she would handle Rashad. The next morning she handed in her notice at work and when she had finished for the day she caught the bus to her stepfather’s house.
‘What do you want?’ Scott demanded menacingly on the doorstep.
‘If you ever try to take money from my mother again, I’ll report you to the police,’ Tilda told him. ‘If you threaten or hurt any member of my family, I’ll also go straight to the police, so leave us alone!’
The furious resentment with which the older man hurled a tide of abuse at her convinced her that her warning would scare him off. Like most bullies, Scott usually avoided people who fought back and concentrated his aggression on milder personalities.
She was waiting for another bus when her mobile phone went off.
‘I thought your stepfather was history,’ Rashad’s voice remarked with crystal clarity in her ear.
Surprise almost made Tilda jump a foot in the air. ‘I thought you were in New York!’
‘I am.’
‘So how do you know I’d been at my stepfather’s house?’
‘My security staff are superb at surveillance. I told you I would watch over you,’ Rashad drawled lazily. ‘Why were you visiting Morrison?’
Tilda cast a harried and cross glance up and down the street, which was as busy as most residential areas were at that time of the evening. But there was no sign of anyone paying her particular attention; if there had been she was in the right mood to give them a piece of her mind. ‘None of your business. I can’t imagine why you’re taking the trouble to put Nosy Parkers on my trail!’
‘Nothing is too much trouble when it comes to my favourite concubine.’ An unholy grin of amusement slowly curving his handsome mouth and putting his formidable cool reserve to flight, Rashad relaxed his lean, powerful body back into his office chair and listened to the line being cut with a furious click. There was a powerful buzz to his every exchange or encounter with Tilda. That truth disturbed him…
CHAPTER FIVE
THE car door of the Mercedes opened. The chauffeur bowed low and the bodyguards fanned out. Her heart beating very fast, Tilda climbed out and walked into the hotel, striving to appear indifferent to all the heads turning to look in her direction. The lift was held for her benefit. Moments later, she was ushered into an opulent suite and shown straight into a bedroom where a complete change of clothes awaited her.
Her palms were damp as she unbuttoned the jacket of the ordinary navy trouser suit she had worn. She undressed with great care. Leaving home had upset her and keeping up the cheerful front had been a challenge. It was her second visit to this London hotel. Her first had taken place over a week earlier, when a couple of hours had passed while she had been comprehensively measured for a new wardrobe. Both trips had been organised by an anonymous voice over the phone. She’d had to put on pressure to find out exactly when she would be flying out to Bakhar. From Rashad himself, she had heard not a word. While she was by no means keen for any unnecessary contact with him, that silence had done nothing to lessen her apprehensions about her future.
Tilda donned the cobweb-fine silk and lace lingerie. Each item was a perfect fit. She had never known anyone who wore stockings. She liked her underwear plain and comfortable, not designed to present the female body in a provocative way. The gossamer-thin bra and briefs offered nothing in the way of concealment. In spite of the warmth of the room she shivered. She slid into the beautifully made blue dress and eased her feet into the delicate high-heeled shoes. She was reaching for the matching light coat when the very expensive mobile phone lying on the bed rang.
After a moment of hesitation, she answered it. ‘Hello?’
‘Leave your hair loose,’ Rashad murmured huskily.
It was an effort to find her voice. ‘Right.’
‘The phone is yours. It enjoys enhanced security. Wear the jewellery. I’m looking forward to seeing you at the airport.’ Rashad rang off.
Moving with as much enthusiasm as an automaton, Tilda tucked the fancy phone into the designer handbag on the bed. A jewel box reposed on the dressing table. She flipped it open, anxious eyes widening at the sight of the dazzling platinum and diamond set pendant and drop earrings. Her hands all thumbs, she put the jewellery on. She unclasped her hair and reached for a comb. He had always loved her hair. A tremor ran through her slender length. At that instant she was tempted to hack her hair off to within a few inches of her scalp.
But how would her desert prince react? Suppose that hair was her main attraction in his eyes? Suppose he took one look at her shorn of her crowning glory and rejected her at the airport? It was not a risk she could afford to take. Her lovely face tightening, she tidied her hair and slid into the light coat. Her reflection in the mirror mocked her, for the conservative outfit adorned with the eye-catching jewellery was very stylish. On the surface she looked like a lady, she conceded bitterly, but both she and, more importantly, he knew that beneath the elegant restraint of her outer garments she was dressed like his favourite concubine.
She travelled to Heathrow in an enormous limousine embellished with tinted windows. She was walking through the airport terminal when someone called her name. She came to a surprised halt and turned her head and was instantly targeted by a blinding onslaught of flashing cameras borne by running people. In the commotion questions were shouted at her while the security team accompanying her banded round her in a protective huddle and urged her on.
‘How does it feel to be the Crown Prince’s latest lady?’
‘Turn this way, luv … let us get a shot of the sparklers round your neck!’
‘Are you flying out to meet the Bakhari royal family?’ A woman yelled, trotting alongside her and extending a microphone. ‘Is it true you first met when Prince Rashad was up at Oxford?’
Aghast at the attention and the intrusive interrogation, Tilda sped on almost at a run and kept her head bent down to discourage further photos being taken. Another couple of bodyguards came rushing up in support of their beleaguered colleagues and hastily ushered her out of the main concourse, down a corridor and into a private room.
Her dismayed eyes collided without warning with Rashad’s searing golden scrutiny. Although the austere classic lines of his lean, strong face bore his customary air of detachment, Tilda felt as jolted as if she had stuck her finger into a live electric socket: wrath emanated from him in a force field. He inclined his arrogant dark head in a clear signal for her to approach him. She would have preferred to stay where she was. On the other hand she did not want to run the risk of being ordered around in front of his staff, all of whom were clumped in a corner being careful to neither speak nor look in their direction.
‘I will deal with this matter after we board.’ Rashad’s low-pitched intonation somehow achieved the same stinging effect as the flick of a whip.
Tilda’s sense of intimidation was put to flight by a surge of annoyance. Here she was packaged and presented from head to toe and from the skin out as His Royal Highness had commanded. She had done exactly as she had been told. She had not put a foot wrong. What was the matter with him? Was he never satisfied? Her life promised to be hell for the duration of their relationship, she thought angrily. But she was quick to remind herself that the reward was that, within twenty-four hours, all immediate threat to the stability of her family would be eradicated.
She stole a grudging glance at Rashad from below her honey-brown lashes and her tummy flipped with an immediacy that infuriated her. He was breathtakingly handsome. Yet there was something more compelling than mere good looks in his lean, sculpted features, something that ensnared her and made her want to look again and again. Five years earlier, she had been hopelessly addicted to him and wildly in love. A deep pang of pain assailed her at that recollection and chilled her to the marrow. No, she promised herself staunchly, never again would she allow her more tender emotions to overwhelm her in Rashad’s radius. She could not afford to make herself that vulnerable again.
His private jet was large and the interior so sumptuous it took Tilda’s breath away. She sank into an extremely comfortable seat and braced herself for take-off while ruminating over what might have annoyed him. Was it the startling interest that the press had demonstrated in her at the airport? Well, that was scarcely her fault. He was a fabulously wealthy womaniser and royal into the bargain. The paparazzi adored him and tracked his movements round the globe. His social life filled gossip-page columns every month and occasionally even attracted headlines.
Soon after the plane had left the runway, Rashad undid his seat belt and rose from his seat with swift movements. ‘You may now answer my questions.’
Tilda, who had only flown a couple of times in her entire life, relaxed her white-knuckled grip on the arms of her seat and opened her eyes. ‘What is wrong?’ she asked, shaking her pale blond head in bewilderment. ‘I’ve done nothing and I already feel like I’m on trial.’
Rashad surveyed her with lustrous dark eyes of suspicion. He could not recall when he had last come so close to losing his temper. Her luminous turquoise eyes rested on him in seemingly innocent enquiry. But the very fact that she had contrived to home in on his one oversight and take advantage of it convinced him that once again she was acting.
‘Why did you tip off the press about our travel plans?’
Tilda blinked, letting the ramifications of that far-reaching question sink in. Outrage flashed through her. ‘Now just you listen here,’ she gasped, struggling to undo her seat belt with furious hands.
Rashad crouched down on a level with her. ‘No, you listen,’ he urged soft and low and deadly in warning. ‘If you shout, you will be overheard and you will embarrass my staff. Impertinence and discourtesy are much disliked in Bakhar.’
Fit to be tied, Tilda trembled with rage and chagrin. ‘You’re the only person who makes me feel like this—’
Rashad undid the seat belt that had defeated her with a deft flick of one hand and subjected her to the full assault of his stunning dark golden eyes. ‘You are strong-willed. I’m the only person who stands up to you.’
Tilda scrambled up and took herself over to the other side of the cabin. Her oval face flushed, she spun round again before he could remind her that it was rude to turn her back on him. ‘You’re also the only person who continually makes me the target of unjust accusations. Surely that is some excuse for a loss of temper?’ she whispered back at him vehemently, her hands balled into fists of restraint by her side. ‘I’ve never had any contact with the press. I haven’t a clue about how to go about tipping them off, either.’
Rashad dealt her a sizzling appraisal. ‘I cannot accept that. Five years ago the paparazzi barely knew of my existence and my association with you was never revealed in print. But today, even though I have never yet appeared in public with you, the paparazzi were waiting for your arrival. They have already identified you and made reference to our past acquaintance. Who else could have whetted their appetite with such details?’
‘How would I know? It wasn’t me!’ Tilda protested.
‘Sooner or later, you will have to tell me the truth,’ Rashad delivered with hard resolve. ‘Lies are at all times unacceptable to me.’
Tilda ground her teeth together. ‘I’m not lying to you. Why would I tip off the press? Do you think I’m proud of the reason why I’m allowing myself to be flown out to your country?’
‘Enough, ‘ Rashad shot at her in a warning growl, marvelling at her ability to stand there looking so exquisitely beautiful while she went for him like a spitting, clawing tigress. But he meant every word that he had spoken. He would not settle for lies. She had strength and intelligence. He was convinced that if he was tough enough with her, those virtues would rise nearer the surface.
Tilda picked a seat as far away from him as she could. Silence fell, and it was a silence laden with angry tension. A sun of impotent rage was rising inside her. According to him, everything that went wrong was her fault and now she couldn’t even shout at him. Where was the justice in that? How dared he blame her for the level of press interest in his fast-lane life with models and actresses? From where did he get the brass neck to continually take the moral high ground? In comparison she lived a life of unblemished virtue. So, she wasn’t perfect? So what! Was he?
Temper still simmering, Tilda shot him a furious glance. ‘Do you really think that I have any wish to be publicly known as your trollop?’
Rashad had to dig deep into his reserves to maintain silence in the face of such unbridled provocation. His trollop? He set his perfect white teeth together and flexed long, shapely brown fingers. Once the jet landed, his staff reappeared to disembark and Rashad was approached by his current senior aide, Butrus. A professor of law and an excellent administrator, the older man made a rather strained enquiry as to what designation he should place on Tilda’s visa to enter Bakhar.
Rashad’s anger, all the more powerful for being denied utterance, was still intense. Wrathfully impatient of the bureaucracy of petty detail that the royal family had always been exempt from, Rashad responded in his own language and with an unashamed resolution that none would dare to question. ‘She is my woman. She does not require a visa.’
Butrus froze, then went straight into retreat and bowed very low. An electric silence enveloped them all, his entire staff falling still. An almost imperceptible hint of colour demarcating his high cheekbones, Rashad realised that for the first time in his life he had shown his stormy emotions in public. As quickly, he decided that his candour might have shocked but it had not been a mistake. He closed a fierce hand over Tilda’s pale, delicate fingers. He could not possibly keep her a secret from those closest to him and, although he had not planned to make such a dramatic announcement, at least, he reasoned, nobody was now in any doubt about her non-negotiable status in his life.
‘You’re hurting my hand,’ Tilda stretched up on tiptoe to snap.
Rashad immediately loosened his possessive hold, but he did not let her go. She was his now, he thought with satisfaction. She was in Bakhar with him. He smoothed her crushed digits between a caressing forefinger and thumb and retained her hand in his. Taken aback by that response to her waspish complaint, Tilda looked up at him. A slow-burning smile slashed his beautiful mouth. Engulfed in that unexpected warmth, she felt dizzy and breathless.
Across the cabin, Butrus watched that visual exchange of smiles in sincere wonderment before hastily averting his attention from the display. All of a sudden he finally understood why the Palace of the Lions was being prepared for occupation and he was appalled by his misinterpretation of his royal employer’s meaning. How could he have been so foolish as to credit that the Crown Prince might defy the conventions to the extent of importing a foreign mistress? Instead, Prince Rashad had taken a refreshingly traditional path to matrimony, which would bring great joy to his family and the entire country of Bakhar. A marriage by declaration. Was it not truly typical of their heroic and fiercely independent prince that he should choose a bride and bring her home without any of the usual fuss? As soon as his employer had left the plane, Butrus got on the phone to break the happy tidings to King Hazar’s closest advisor, Jasim, and ensure that scandalous rumours could gain no ground whatsoever in the royal household. He was little disappointed by the discovery that the happy tidings were not quite the surprise he had envisaged.
Tilda was quite unprepared for the roasting heat of Bakhar midafternoon and briefly forgot that she was demonstrating her supreme disdain for Rashad by not speaking to him. ‘Is it always this hot?’
Even this faintest hint of criticism of the Bakhari climate made Rashad square his broad shoulders. ‘It is a beautiful day. There are no gloomy grey skies here in early summer.’
An air-conditioned limo pulled up and whisked them past a very large new airport terminal. The vehicle carried them only a couple of hundred yards before setting them down again beside a large white-and-gold helicopter. Boarding, she sat down on a fitted cream sofa and tried not to gape at the space and comfort surrounding her.
The panoramic view soon stole her attention. The helicopter followed a craggy line of mountains and flew over green fertile valleys before reaching the desert interior. Her first glimpse of the great ochre-coloured sand dunes rolling towards the horizon enthralled her. Far below she saw a camel train trekking out into the great emptiness and, once or twice, encampments of black tents. Children chased the shadow of the helicopter and waved frantically, and still the desert stretched like a vast, endless golden ocean ahead of them.
‘How much farther?’ she was finally moved to ask.
‘Another ten minutes or so.’ Rashad had instructed the pilot to give them a scenic grand tour and the flight had been much longer than necessary. Although he usually found a fresh sight of the country he loved an energising experience, he had barely removed his keen dark gaze from Tilda’s delicate, feminine profile. His hunger to possess her was stabbing at him like a knife.
He had watched while she knelt laughing on the seat and waved back at the Bedouin children with youthful enthusiasm. Joie de vivre, the French called it, and that sparkling quality of joy had once had enormous appeal for a male who had grown from a solemn little boy into a very serious young man. The emotion Tilda showed so freely had been a powerful source of attraction. Exasperation made him suppress those memories. The present, he told himself bleakly, was more relevant. Yes, she was very desirable. But had he not bought her into his bed? Where was the appeal in that? Or in her lies?
Picking up on the dry note in his rich dark drawl, Tilda went pink. She smoothed down her dress and sat down in a more circumspect fashion. ‘Will I be able to shout at you when we arrive wherever we’re going?’
‘No. I tell you what I want and you strive to deliver,’ Rashad reminded her with immense cool.
A little quiver of nervous tension rippled through Tilda for there was a shimmering golden light in his gaze. ‘What if I disappoint you?’
‘You won’t.’
Tilda sucked in a stark breath.
‘I think you’ll learn fast,’ Rashad murmured lazily.
Her face burning, Tilda turned her head away and saw an immense building perched on the rocky hillside directly ahead. The helicopter swooped in over the outer walls and landed. She stepped out into the fresh air, her fascinated eyes climbing the weathered battlements of the ancient gate tower ahead.
‘Welcome to the Palace of the Lions,’ Rashad intoned, feeling the pulse of his mobile phone as it sought his attention. He tensed and then reached into his pocket to switch it off. He had always taken his duties very seriously, and it was an act that cost him a tussle with his conscience, but he was determined not to be distracted from Tilda. For just a few precious hours he would forget his royal responsibilities.
Beyond the tower lay a yet more imposing entrance dominated by very tall carved doors. ‘It’s an incredibly old building,’ Tilda remarked, struggling not to be intimidated. ‘Is this where you live?’
‘It belongs to me but I have only stayed here occasionally. One of my ancestors built the palace. When our people were nomads this was the seat of power in Bakhar. My grandfather died, our main city grew in size and this building gradually fell into disuse.’
They passed into a vast echoing entrance hall. Light flickered and danced over the glinting reflective surfaces of the tiny coloured mirror tiles set into the intricately patterned ceiling. Tilda glanced through doorways and saw tantalising glimpses of rooms furnished in a highly exotic mix of Victorian and middle-eastern décor that dated back at least a century in style. The palace appeared to be well and truly stuck in a time warp.
‘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.’
