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“Perhaps you have met before, Doctor? When you were in Burquat during your studies?”
A sharp pain lanced Julia and she looked at Kaden, not sure what to say.
His mouth turned up in a parody of a smile and he drawled, “I seem to have some vague recollection. What year were you there?”
The slap of rejection was so strong it almost made Julia take a step back. The awful sense of isolation she’d felt when she’d left Burquat was as fresh now as twelve years ago. That this man could transport her so easily back to those painful emotions was devastating. Perhaps he could tell just how excruciating this was for her—hadn’t she all but thrown herself at him that last day? Perhaps he thought he was sparing her some embarrassment now?
She forced an equally polite and distant smile to her lips. “It’s so long ago now I can barely recall it myself.”
She switched her brittle-feeling smile to the other men. “Gentlemen, if you don’t need me for this discussion I’d appreciate it if you would excuse me. I just got back from New York this afternoon, and I’m afraid the jet lag is catching up with me.”
“Your husband is waiting for you at home? Or perhaps he’s here in the room?”
Shock at the bluntness of Kaden’s question slammed into Julia. How dared he all but pretend not to know her and then ask such a pointedly personal question? Her jaw felt tight. “For your information, Your Highness, I am no longer married. My husband and I are divorced.”
Kaden did not like the surge of emotion that ripped through him at her curt answer. He had had an image of her returning to a cosy home to be greeted by some faceless man and had felt a blackness descend over his vision, forcing him to ask the question. Even realising that, he couldn’t stop himself asking, “So why are you still using your married name?”
Julia’s face tightened. “I’m involved in various contracts and it’s simply been easier to leave it for the moment. I have every intention of changing it back in the future.”
It was as if Kaden was enclosed in a bubble with this woman. The other men went unnoticed, forgotten. Unbidden and unwelcome emotion was clouding everything.
At that moment Nigel, Julia’s boss, moved perceptibly closer to her, taking her elbow in his hand, staking a very public claim.
Only moments ago she’d welcomed his support and his tacit interest as a barrier. Now Julia chafed and made a jerky move away, causing Nigel’s hand to drop. She could feel his wounded look without even seeing it, and her head began to throb. The club’s director who still stood beside Kaden, was looking a bit bewildered at the obvious tension in the air, which was making a lie of the fact that she and Kaden claimed to barely know one another.
She knew she’d only been introduced as a polite formality. She wasn’t expected to take part in Nigel’s wooing of new donors. Her job started when they had to decide how those funds would be best used. If she’d known for a second that Kaden was due to be here this evening, she would have made certain not to come.
Determined to succeed this time, Julia stepped away from the trio of men on very shaky legs. “Please, gentlemen—if you’ll excuse me?”
Ignoring the dagger looks from Nigel, and the dark condemnation emanating from Kaden like a physical force, she turned on her heel and walked away. It seemed to take an age to get through the crowd. She was almost at the door when she felt a hand on her arm, but it didn’t induce anything more than irritation and she reluctantly turned to face Nigel. His handsome face was red.
“Are you going to tell me what that was all about?”
Once again Julia pulled her arm free and kept walking. “It was about nothing, Nigel. I’m tired and I want to go home, that’s all.”
She hoped the panic she felt at being there for one second longer than was absolutely necessary didn’t come through in her voice. She reached the cloakroom and handed in the ticket for her jacket, noticing a visible tremor in her hand.
“So you two obviously know each other, then? I’d have to be deaf, dumb and blind to fail to notice that atmosphere.”
Julia sighed. “We knew each other a long time ago, Nigel.” She turned and put on her jacket, which had just been handed to her, and pointed out gently, “Not that it’s any of your business.”
His face became mottled. “It is my business when the most potentially lucrative donor we’ve had in years could get scared off because he’s had some kind of previous relationship with my funds manager.”
Julia stopped and faced Nigel, forcing herself to stay civil. “I’m sure he’s mature enough not to let a tiny incident like this change his mind about donating funds to research. Anyway, it’s all the more reason for me to leave and stay out of your way.”
She turned to go and Nigel caught her hand. Gritting her teeth at his persistence, Julia turned back, her stomach churning slightly at the sweaty grip of his hand—so far removed from the cool yet hot touch from Kaden.
He was conciliatory. “Look, I’m sorry, Julia. Forgive me? Let me take you out to dinner this week.”
Julia fought back the urge to say yes, which would be the easy thing to do, to placate him. Seeing Kaden had upset any equilibrium she thought she might have attained since her divorce had become final. Since she had last seen him. And that knowledge was too frightening to take in fully.
She shook her head, “I’m sorry, Nigel. I have thought about it … and I’m just not ready for dating.” She pulled her hand from his and backed away. “I’m really sorry. I’ll see you tomorrow in the office.” Already she could imagine his sulky mood at being turned down and dreaded it.
She turned and walked quickly to the door. Her heart was hammering, and all she wanted was to escape to the quiet solace of her house where she could get out of her tailored dress and curl up. She wanted to block out the evening’s events and the fact that her past had rushed up to meet her with the force of a sledgehammer blow.
As soon as Julia had turned and walked away Kaden should have been putting her out of his mind and focusing on the business at hand, as he would have with any other ex-lover. But he wasn’t. He found that the urge to go after her was nigh on impossible to resist. Especially when that obsequious man who’d had the temerity to put his hand on her had followed her like a besotted lap dog.
Kaden made his excuses to the still bewildered-looking director of the club and forged his way through the crowd, ignoring the not so hushed whispers as he passed people by. His blood was humming. He felt curiously euphoric, and also uncultivated—like a predator in the desert, an eagle soaring high who had spotted its prey and would not rest until it was caught.
It was an uncomfortable reminder of how he’d felt from the moment he’d first met Julia, when sanity had taken a hike and he’d given himself over to a dream as dangerous as any opiate could induce. But this feeling was too strong to deny or rationalise.
The fact that she represented a lapse in emotional control he’d never allowed again only caught up with him when he reached the lobby and saw it was empty.
She’d disappeared.
So what was this desolation that swept through him? And what was this rampant need clawing through him to find her again? He was done with Julia. He’d been done with her a long time ago.
Disgusted with himself for this lapse, Kaden called up his security, determined to get out of there and do what he’d set out to do all along: forget that he’d ever seen Julia Connors—he scowled, Somerton—again.
He had no desire to revisit a time when he’d come very close to letting his heart rule his head, forgetting all about duty and responsibility in the pursuit of personal fulfilment. He didn’t have that luxury. He’d never had that luxury.
Julia could see the tube station entrance ahead of her, not far from the building she’d just left behind. The nighttime London air was unbearably heavy around her now, making a light sweat break out over her skin and on the nape of her neck under her hair. Thunder rolled ominously in the distance. A storm had been threatening all evening, and if she’d been in better humour she might have appreciated the symbolism. The clouds that had been squatting in the distance were now firmly overhead—low, dark and menacing.
What was making the weather feel even more ominous was the fact that she’d been having disturbing dreams of Kaden lately. Maybe, she wondered a little hysterically, she was hallucinating?
Hesitating for a moment, Julia stopped and looked back. But the building just sat there, innocently benign, lights blazing from the windows, laughter trickling out into the quiet street from the party. She shuddered despite the heat. She wasn’t going back now anyway. She couldn’t face Nigel again. Or Kaden’s coolly sardonic demeanour. As if nothing had ever happened between them.
Part of her longed to just jump in a cab, but her inherently frugal nature forbade it. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a sleek black shape slow to a crawl alongside her—just before she heard the accompanying low hum of a very expensive engine. At the same time as she turned automatically to look, lightning forked in the sky and the heavens opened. She was comprehensively drenched within seconds, but had become rooted to the spot.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion as she registered the Royal Burquati flag on the bonnet of the car. She noticed the tinted windows, and the equally sleek accompanying Jeep, which had to be carrying the ubiquitous security team.
As she stood there getting soaked, unable to move, Julia was helplessly transported back to a moment in the hot, winding, ancient streets of Burquat City, when, breathless with laughter, her hand clamped in Kaden’s, they’d escaped from his bodyguards into a private walled garden. There, he’d pushed her up against a wall, taken away the veil hiding her face, and kissed her for the first time.
It was only when the back door of the car opened near her and she saw the tall figure of Kaden emerge that reality rushed back. Along with it came her breath and her heartbeat, and the knowledge that she hadn’t been hallucinating.
The rain seemed to bounce off him, spraying droplets into a halo around him. The sky was apocalyptic behind him. And still that rain was beating down.
Julia backed away, her eyes glued to him as if mesmerised.
“Julia. Let me give you a lift.”
Her name on his tongue with that exotic accent did funny things to her insides. A strangled half-laugh came out of Julia’s mouth. “A lift?” She shook her head, “I don’t need a lift—I need to go home. I’ll take the tube.”
She dragged her gaze from his and finally managed to turn around. Only to feel her arm caught in a hard grip. Electric tingles shot up and down her arm and into her groin just as more lightning lit up the sky. She looked up at Kaden, who had come to stand in front of her. So close that she could see his jet-black hair plastered to his skull, that awesomely beautiful face. Those black eyes. Rain ran in rivulets down the lean planes, over hard cheekbones.
“What do you want, Kaden? Or should I address you by your full title?” Bitterness and something much scarier made her feel emotional. “You gave a very good impression back there of not knowing who I was. I’m surprised you even remember my name.”
Through the driving rain she could see his jaw clench at that. His black gaze swept her up and down. Then his hand gentled on her arm, and perversely that made her feel even shakier. With something she couldn’t decipher in his voice he said, “I remember your name, Julia.” And then, with easy solicitude, “You’re soaked through. And now I’m soaked. My apartment isn’t far from here. Let me take you there so you can dry off.”
Panic mixed with something much more hot and primal clutched Julia’s gut. Go with Kaden to his apartment? To dry off? She remembered the way his look had changed earlier to something ambiguous. It was a long time since she’d felt that curl of hot desire in her abdomen, and to be reminded of how this man had been the only one ever to precipitate it was galling. And that he could still make it happen twelve years on was even more disturbing.
She shook her head and tried to extricate her arm. “No, thank you. I don’t want to put you out of your way.”
His jaw clenched again. “Do you really want to sit on a tube dripping wet and walk home like a drowned rat?”
Instantly she felt deflated. She could well imagine that she did resemble a drowned rat. Mascara must be running down her cheeks in dark rivers. He was just being polite—had probably seen her and hadn’t wanted to appear rude by driving past. His convoy would have been far too conspicuous to go unnoticed.
“I can take a taxi if I need to. Why are you doing this?”
He shrugged minutely. “I wasn’t expecting to see you … it’s been a surprise.”
She all but snorted. It certainly was. She had no doubt that he’d never expected to see her again in his lifetime. And thinking of that now—how close she’d come to never seeing him again—Julia felt an aching sense of loss grip her. And urgency. She wouldn’t see Kaden after tonight. She knew that. This was a fluke, a monumental coincidence. He was just curious—perhaps intrigued.
He’d been her first lover. Her first love. Her only love?
Before she could quash that disturbing thought Kaden was manoeuvring her towards the open door of his car, as if some tacit acquiescence had passed between them. Julia felt weak for not protesting, but she knew in that moment that she didn’t have the strength to just walk away. Because meeting him again didn’t mean nothing to her.
He handed her into the plush interior of the luxury car and came around the other side. Once his large, rangy body was settled in the back seat alongside her he issued a terse command in Arabic, and the car pulled off so smoothly that Julia only knew they were moving because the tube station passed them in a blaze of refracted light through the driving rain.
Kaden sat back and looked over at Julia. He could see her long dark lashes. Her nose had the tiniest bump, which gave her profile an aquiline look, and her mouth …
He used to study this woman’s mouth for hours. Obsessed with its shape, its full lower lip and the perfect curve of its bow-shaped upper lip. He’d once known this profile as well as his own. Better.
She wore a light jacket, but the rain had made her clothes heavy and the V in the neckline of the dress was being dragged downwards to reveal the pale swells of her breasts. He could see a tantalising hint of the black lace of her bra, and evidence of her agitation as her chest rose and fell with quick breaths.
Rage at his uncharacteristic lack of control rose high. He’d fully intended to leave and put her out of his mind, but then he’d seen her walking along the street, with that quick, efficient walk he remembered. Not artful or practised, but completely sensuous all the same. As if she was unconscious of how sexy she was. He’d forgotten that a woman could be unconsciously sexy. Before he’d known what he was doing, he’d found himself instructing his driver to stop the car.
Sexual awareness stunned him anew. It shouldn’t be so overwhelmingly fresh. As if they’d hardly been apart. For a long time after she’d left Burquat Kaden had told himself that his inability to forget about her was because of the fact that she’d been his first lover, and that brought with it undeniable associations and indelible memories.
But he couldn’t deny as he sat there now, with this carnal heat throbbing between them, that the pleasure they’d discovered together had been more than just the voluptuous delight of new lovers discovering unfamiliar terrain. It had been as intensely mind—blowing as anything he’d experienced since. And sitting beside Julia was effortlessly shattering any illusion he’d entertained that he’d been the one to control his response to women in the intervening years. They just hadn’t been her. That knowledge was more than cataclysmic.
Julia could feel Kaden’s eyes on her, but she was determined not to look at him. When they’d been together he’d always had a way of looking at her so intently … as if he wanted to devour her whole. It had thrilled her and scared her a little in equal measure. His intensity had been so dark and compelling. She’d felt the lash of that dark intensity when it had been turned against her.
If she turned and saw that look now …
She raised her hand to her neck in a nervous reflex and felt that it was bare. The wave of relief that coursed through her when she realised what she’d just done was nothing short of epic. She always wore a gold necklace with the detail of an intricate love knot at its centre. It had been bought from a stall in the souk in Burquat. But its main significance was that Kaden had bought it for her, and despite what had happened between them she still wore it every day—apart from when she was travelling, for fear of losing it.
The only reason she wasn’t wearing it now was because she’d been in such a rush earlier, upon returning from the US, that she’d forgotten to put it back on. The knowledge burned within her, because she knew that it somehow symbolised her link to this man when no link existed any more. If he had seen the necklace—Her mind seized at the prospect. It would have been like wearing a badge saying You still mean something to me. And she was only realising herself, here and now, how shamefully true that was.
“We’re here.”
The car was drawing to a smooth halt outside an exclusive-looking building. A liveried doorman was hurrying over to open the car door, and before Julia knew it she was standing on the pavement watching as Kaden came to join her. The rain had become a light drizzle, and Julia shivered in clothes that felt uncomfortably damp against her skin, despite the heavy warmth of the night.
Kaden ushered Julia in through the open doors. The doorman bowed his head deferentially as they passed. Julia felt numb inside and out. Shock was spreading, turning her into some sort of automaton. Sleek doors were opening, and then they were standing in an opulently decorated lift. The doors closed again, and with a soft jolt they were ascending.
A sense of panic was rising as she stood in that confined space next to Kaden’s formidable presence, but before she could do anything the door was opening again and Julia was being led straight from the lift into what had to be the penthouse apartment. It was an old building, but the apartment had obviously been refitted and it oozed sleek modernity with an antique twist. It was decorated in understated tones of cream and gold, effortlessly luxurious. The tall windows showcased the glittering city outside as Kaden led her into a huge reception room and turned to face her.
Julia looked away from the windows to catch Kaden’s dark gaze making a leisurely return up her body. Heat exploded in her belly, and when his eyes met hers again she found it hard to breathe.
He backed away to an open door on the other side of the room and said coolly, “There is a bedroom and en suite bathroom through here, if you want to freshen up and get dry.”
Julia followed his tall form, feeling very bedraggled. She was aware of trailing water all over the luxurious carpet. He turned again at the open door, through which she could see a set of rooms—a smaller sitting room leading into a bedroom.
“I’ll have your clothes attended to if you leave them in the sitting room.”
Julia looked at him, and a curious kind of relief went through her. “You have a housekeeper here?”
Kaden shook his head, “No, but someone will attend to them, and I’ll leave some dry clothes out for you.”
How could she have forgotten the myriad silent servants who were always present to do the royal bidding, no matter what it was? Like erecting exotic Bedouin tents in the desert in a matter of hours, just for them. Her belly cramped. Still in a state of shock, she could only nod silently and watch as Kaden strode away and left her alone.
She walked through the opulent rooms until she came to the bedroom, where she carefully closed the door behind her, leaning back against it. She grimaced at herself. Kaden was hardly likely to bash the door down because he was so consumed with uncontrollable lust. She could well imagine that his tastes no longer ran to wet and bedraggled archaeologists.
Shaking her head, as if that might shake some sanity back into it, she kicked off her shoes and pushed away from the door. She explored the bathroom, which held a glorious sunken bath and huge walk-in shower. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and her eyes grew big. She did indeed look as if she’d been dragged through a hedge backwards and then hosed down with water. Her long blonde hair hung in rats’ tails over her shoulders and was stuck to her head. Mascara had made huge dark smudges under her eyes.
With a scowl at herself, she peeled off her drenched clothes. She got a towel from the bathroom to protect the soft furnishings and left them in the outer sitting room, half terrified that Kaden would walk back through the door at any moment. She scuttled back through the bedroom into the bathroom. With a towel wrapped around her she gave a longing glance to the bath, but stepped into the shower instead. Taking a bath in Kaden’s apartment felt far too decadent a thing to do.
As it was, just standing naked under the powerful hot spray of water felt illicit and wicked. To know that Kaden was mere feet away in another room … also naked under a hot shower … With a groan of disgust at her completely inappropriate imagination, Julia turned her face upwards. She resolved to get re-dressed in her wet clothes if she had to, and then get out of there as fast as she could.
Kaden had showered and changed into dry clothes, and now stood outside the rooms he’d shown Julia into. He dithered. He never dithered, but all he could see in his mind’s eye was the seductive image of Julia standing before him in those wet clothes. She should have looked like a drowned rat, but she hadn’t. That cool, classic English beauty stood out a mile—along with the delicate curves of her breasts, waist and hips.
The burning desire he’d felt in the car hadn’t abated one bit, and normally when he was attracted to a woman it was a straightforward affair. But this wasn’t just some random woman. This woman came with long silken ties to the past. To his heart. He rejected that rogue thought outright. She’d never affected his heart. He’d thought she had … but it had been lust. Overwhelming, yes, but just lust. Not love.
He’d learnt young not to trust romantic love. His father had married for love. But after his mother had died in childbirth with his younger sister his father had silently communicated to him that love only brought pain. It had been there in the way that his father had become a shadow of his former self, wrapped up in grief and solitude. Kaden had always been made very aware that one day he would rule his country, so he could never afford to let such frivolous emotions overwhelm him the way they’d taken over his father’s life.
Kaden’s father had married again, but this time for all the expected reasons. Practicality and lineage. Unfortunately his second wife had been cold and manipulative, further compounding Kaden’s negative impressions of marriage and love. Any halcyon memories he might have had of his mother and father being happy together had quickly faded into something that felt like a wispy dream—unreal.
Yet when Kaden had met Julia he’d been seduced into forgetting everything he’d learnt. Guilt weighed heavily on him even now. And that sense of betrayal. If he hadn’t seen her with that other man … if he hadn’t realised how fickle she was …
Kaden cursed himself for this sudden introspection.
In his hands he held some dry clothes. He knocked lightly and heard nothing. So he went in. The bedroom was dimly lit and the door to the bathroom was slightly open. As if in a trance he walked further into the bedroom and laid the dry clothes down on the bed. He’d picked up Julia’s wet clothes on the way through. Her scent hit his nostrils now and his eyes closed. Still the same distinctive lavender scent. A dart of anger rose up, as if her scent was mocking him by not having changed.
Before his mind could become clouded with evocative memories a sound made him open his eyes to see Julia, framed in the doorway of the bathroom, with only a towel wrapped around her body and another towel turban—like on her head. Steam billowed out behind her, bringing with it that delicate scent.
Lust slammed into Kaden like a two-ton lorry. Right in his solar plexus. Long shapely legs were bare, so were pale shoulders and arms. Kaden cursed himself for bringing her here. The last thing he needed right now was to be reopening doors best left shut.
He said, with a cool bite in his voice, “I’ll send these out to be dried.” He indicated the clothes on the bed, “You can change into these for now. They should fit.”
Julia’s eyes, which had widened on seeing him, moved to the clothes on the bed. He saw her tense perceptibly. She shook her head, a flush coming into her cheeks, and put out a hand. “I’ll change back into my own clothes and go home.”
An image of her walking out through the door made Kaden’s self-recrimination dissolve in an instant. He held the clothes well out of Julia’s reach. “Don’t be silly. You’ll get pneumonia if you put these back on.”
Julia’s eyes narrowed and she stretched her hand out more. “Really—I don’t mind. This wasn’t a good idea. I should never have agreed to come here.”
CHAPTER THREE
SILENCE thickened and grew between them. Julia couldn’t fathom what was going on behind those darker than dark eyes. And then Kaden moved towards her and she stepped back. Her heart nearly jumped out of her chest.
