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‘Until I’m at least thirty-five,’ said Rose with a look of fierce determination. ‘I’ll have achieved something by then, so I’ll be ready! And people live longer these days—it makes sense to put off getting married for as long as possible.’
‘Very romantic,’ said Lara.
‘Very realistic,’ commented Rose drily.
‘So why the talk of commitment—or, rather, the lack of it?’
Rose took a thoughtful sip of wine. She wasn’t really sure herself. Maybe because she didn’t want to be just another woman in a long line of discarded women.
But wouldn’t it just sound fanciful if she told Lara that Khalim had a dangerous power about him which both attracted and yet repelled her? And wouldn’t it sound weak if she expressed the very real fear that he could break her heart into smithereens? Lara would quite rightly say that she didn’t know him—but Rose was intuitive, more so than usual where Khalim was concerned. She knew that with a bone-deep certainty—she just didn’t know why.
She had been ‘in love’ just twice in her life. A university affair which had occupied her middle year there and then, in her early days in advertising recruitment—she’d dated an account executive for nine fairly blissful months. Until she had discovered one evening that he wasn’t really into monogamy.
She wasn’t sure whether it was her pride which had been hurt more than anything else, but from that day on she had been sensible and circumspect where men were concerned. She could take them or leave them. And mostly she could leave them…
‘Do you fancy going to see a film?’ asked Lara, with a glance at the kitchen clock. ‘There’s still time.’
Rose shook her head. What would be the point of going to a film if you knew for a fact that you wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything other than the most enigmatic face you had ever set eyes on? ‘No, thanks. I think I’ll take a shower,’ she said with a yawn.
Aware that he was being closely watched by his emissary, Khalim paced up and down the penthouse suite with all the stealth and power of a sleek jungle cat. Outside the lights of the city glittered like some fabulous galaxy, but Khalim was impervious to its beauty.
Whenever he was in London on business, which he usually arranged to coincide with Maraban’s most inhospitable weather—Khalim always stayed at the Granchester Hotel. He kept the luxurious rooms permanently booked in his name, though for much of the year they lay empty. They had been decorated according to his taste in a way which was as unlike his home in Maraban as it was possible to imagine. Lots of pale, wooden furniture and abstract modern paintings. But that was how he liked to live his life—the contrast between the East and the West each feeding two very different sides of his nature.
Once again, black eyes stared unseeingly out at the blaze of lights which pierced the night sky of London.
Eventually, he turned to Philip Caprice and held the palms of his hands out in a gesture which was a mixture of frustration and disbelief. He’d been bewitched by a pair of dazzling eyes so blue and hair so pale and blonde that he couldn’t shake her image from his mind. He had wanted her here with him tonight—on his bed and beneath his body. And he would fill her. Fill her and fill her and…he gave a groan and Philip Caprice looked at him in concern.
‘Sir?’ he murmured. ‘Is something the matter?’
‘I cannot believe it!’ Khalim stated bluntly and gave a low laugh. ‘I must be losing my touch!’
Philip smiled, but said nothing. It was not his place to offer an opinion. His role was to act as a sounding-board for the prince—unless specifically invited to do otherwise.
Khalim turned hectic black eyes towards his emissary, trying to forget her pale enchantment. He could feel the fever of desire heating his blood, making it sing like a siren as it coursed its way around his veins. ‘You are not saying anything, Philip!’
‘You wish me to?’
Khalim drew a deep breath, swamping down the unfamiliar feeling of having been thwarted. ‘Of course,’ he said coolly, and then saw Philip’s look of indecision. ‘By the mane of Akhal-Teke, Philip!’ he swore softly. ‘Do you think my arrogance so great, my ego so mighty, that I cannot bear to hear the truth from you?’
Philip raised his dark eyebrows. ‘Or my interpretation of the truth, sir? Every man’s truth is different.’
Khalim smiled. ‘Indeed it is. You sound like a true Marabanesh, when you speak like that! Give me your interpretation, Philip. Why have I failed with this woman, where never I have failed before?’
Philip intertwined his long fingers and spoke thoughtfully. ‘All your life you have had your every wish pandered to, sir.’
‘Not all.’ Khalim’s eyes narrowed dangerously as he mouthed the soft denial. ‘I learnt the rigours of life through an English boarding-school!’
‘Yes,’ said Philip patiently. ‘But ever since you reached manhood, little has been denied to you, sir, you know that very well.’ He paused. ‘Particularly where women are concerned.’
Khalim expelled a long, slow breath. Was he simply tantalised because for once something had eluded him? Why, some of the most beautiful women in the world had offered themselves to him, but his appetite had always been jaded by what came too easily. ‘Only one other woman has ever turned me down before,’ he mused.
‘Sabrina?’ said Philip softly.
Khalim nodded, remembering his easy acceptance of that. He tried to work out what was different this time. ‘But that was understandable—because she was in love with Guy, and Guy is my friend whom I respect. But this woman…this woman…’
And the attraction had been mutual. She had been fighting her own needs and her own desires, he knew that without a doubt. When he’d taken her in his arms, she’d wanted him with a fire which had matched his own. He’d been certain that he would make love to her tonight, and the unfamiliar taste of disappointment made his mouth taste bitter.
‘What is her name?’ asked Philip.
‘Rose.’ The word came out as if it were an integral line of the poetry he had learnt as a child. It sounded as scented-sweet and as petal-soft as the flower itself. But the rose also had a thorn which could draw blood, Khalim reminded himself on a shudder.
‘Maybe she’s in love with someone else?’ suggested Philip.
‘No.’ Khalim shook his head. ‘There is no man in her life.’
‘She told you that?’
Khalim nodded.
‘Maybe she just didn’t…’ Philip hesitated before saying ‘…find you attractive?’
Khalim gave an arrogant smile. ‘Oh, she did.’ He placed his hand over his fast-beating heart. ‘She most certainly did,’ he murmured, remembering the way she had melted so responsively against his body. And her reaction had not just been about chemistry—undeniable though that had been. No, hers had been a hunger sharpened and defined by the exquisite torture of abstinence.
As his had been. How long since a woman had excited him in this way? Since his father’s illness when much of the burden of responsibility for running the country had fallen onto his shoulders, there had been little time to pursue pleasure. And no woman, he realised, had ever excited him in quite this way.
Khalim swallowed. Her scent was still clinging to the silk of his robes. Unendurable.
‘I must take a bath,’ he ground out.
He had a servant draw him up a bath scented with oil of bergamot, and, once alone, he slipped off the silken robes, totally at ease in his nakedness. His body was the colour of deeply polished wood—the muscles honed so that they rippled with true power and strength.
It was a taut and lean body, though he had never stepped inside a gym in his life—that would have been far too narcissistic an occupation for a man like Khalim. But the long, muscular shaft of his thighs bore testimony to hard physical exercise.
Horse-riding was his particular passion, and one of his greatest sources of relaxation. He felt at his most free when riding his beloved Akhal-Teke horse across the salt flats of Maraban with the warm air rushing through his dark hair and the powerful haunches of the stallion clasped tightly between his thighs.
He lay back among the bubbles and let some of the tension soak from his skin, but not all—not by a long way. Rose Thomas and her pale blonde beauty were uppermost in his mind, and thoughts of her brought their own, different kind of tension. He felt the hardening of his body in response to his thoughts, and only through sheer determination of will did he suppress his carnal longing. But then, he had never once lost control over his body…
Should he woo her? he thought carelessly. Besiege her with flowers? Or with jewels perhaps? He rubbed thoughtfully at the darkened shadow of his chin. There wasn’t a woman alive who could resist the glittering lure of gems.
He smiled as he stepped from the circular bath and tiny droplets of water gleamed like diamonds on the burnished perfection of his skin.
He had no appetite. Tonight he would work on some of the outstanding government papers he had brought back with him from Maraban.
He slipped on a silken robe in deepest, richest claret and walked barefoot back through the vast sitting room and into the adjoining study, where Philip was busy tapping away at the word processor.
He looked up as Khalim came in.
‘Sir?’
‘Leave that, now,’ ordered Khalim pleasantly. ‘I have something else for you.’
‘Sir?’
‘Find out where Rose Thomas lives. And where she works.’
CHAPTER THREE
EVEN after an hour-long bath and drinking chamomile tea, Rose slept surprisingly little that night. Especially considering that she had had a long and heavy week at work the previous week and then gone out with Sabrina on her ‘hen-night’ a couple of nights before the wedding.
She tossed and turned for most of the night as an aching sense of regret kept sleep at bay.
And a pair of black eyes kept swimming into her troubled thoughts. Eyes which glittered untold promise, and a body which promised untold pleasure.
She rose late, and was just getting dressed when she heard Lara’s voice calling her name excitedly.
‘Rose! Quickly!’
‘I’ll be there in a minute!’
She pulled on an old pair of jeans and a simple pale blue T-shirt and walked into the sitting room, where Lara was clutching excitedly at the most enormous bouquet of flowers she had ever seen.
There were massed blooms of yellow roses, studded with tiny blue cornflowers, and the heady fragrance hit her as soon as she entered the room.
‘Wow!’ said Rose admiringly. ‘Lucky girl! Who’s the secret admirer?’
‘They aren’t for me, silly!’ choked Lara jealously. ‘It’s your name on the card—see.’
Her fingers trembling, Rose took the proffered card with a dawning sense of inevitability. She stared down at the envelope, and the distinctive handwriting which spelt out her name.
‘Well, aren’t you going to open it?’ demanded Lara. ‘Don’t you want to know who they’re from?’
‘I know exactly who they’re from,’ said Rose slowly. ‘Khalim sent them.’
‘You can’t know that!’
‘Oh, yes, I can.’ She gave a wry smile. ‘I may have had a few sweet and charming boyfriends, but not one who would spend this much on a bunch of flowers.’ But curiosity got the better of her, and she ripped the envelope open to find her hopes and her fears confirmed.
The message was beautifully and arrogantly stark.
‘The yellow is for your hair; the blue for the sapphire of your eyes. I will collect you at noon. Khalim.’
‘Oh, my goodness! How utterly, utterly romantic!’ squeaked Lara, who was busy looking over her shoulder.
‘You think so?’ asked Rose tonelessly.
‘Well, I’d be in absolute heaven if I got flowers like these from a man! And what a masterful message! You’d better get a move on!’
But Rose wasn’t listening. ‘What a cheek!’ she exploded as her eyes roved over the message again. ‘How dare he just assume that he can tell me a time and I’ll be meekly sitting here waiting, like a lamb to the slaughter?’
‘But you aren’t going out anywhere else today, are you?’ asked Lara in a puzzled voice.
‘That isn’t the point!’
‘Well, what is the point?’
‘The point is that I don’t want to go out with him!’
‘Don’t you? Honestly?’
Honesty was a bit more difficult. Rose had worked hard on her independence and her sense of self-possession—both qualities which she suspected Khalim could vanquish with the ease of a man who had sensual power untold at his fingertips.
‘A tiny bit of me does,’ she admitted, and saw Lara’s face go all mushy. ‘But the rest of me is quite adamant that he would be nothing but bad news!’
Lara sighed. ‘So what are you going to do? Tell him that to his face? Or just pretend to be out when he calls?’ She brightened a little. ‘I could go instead, if you like!’
Rose was unprepared for the shaft of jealousy which whipped through her with lightning speed. She shook her head. ‘I’m a realist,’ she said proudly. ‘Not a coward. If I turn Khalim down again, then he’ll just up the ante—and I am not prepared to be bombarded with charm and expensive trinkets.’
And wouldn’t he just wear her down anyway?
‘He’s the kind of man who thrives on the chase,’ she said slowly. ‘The kind of man who isn’t used to being rejected—it’s probably a first for him!’
‘So what, then?’
Little shivers of excitement rippled down Rose’s spine as a decision formed in her mind. ‘I’ll go,’ she said, in a voice which wasn’t quite steady. ‘And I’ll convince him that I’m not the sort of woman he wants.’
‘What sort of woman is that?’ asked Lara, mystified.
‘A temporary concubine!’ said Rose, and then, seeing Lara’s expression of mystification grow even deeper, added, ‘Someone who will live with him as his wife, until he tires of her, and then on to the next!’
‘You don’t sound as though you like him very much,’ said Lara thoughtfully.
And that was just the trouble. She didn’t. And yet she did. Though how could she form any kind of opinion about the man, when she didn’t really know him at all? She was simply sexually captivated by a man who exuded an animal magnetism which was completely foreign to her.
‘I’m going to go and get ready,’ she said, looking down at her faded jeans.
‘What shall I do with the flowers?’
At the door, Rose turned and smiled. ‘I’ll forgo the obvious suggestion! You keep them, Lara,’ she added kindly, and went back into her bedroom to change.
At least her wardrobe was adequate enough to cope with most things—even something like this. Her job meant that she had to look smart or glamorous whenever the occasion beckoned. Though an outing with a prince was so far outside her experience!
Still, a midday assignation was unlikely to call for much in the way of glitter, and she deliberately chose her most expensive and understated outfit. A demure shirt-dress in chalky-blue linen. It looked very English, she decided, and not in the least bit exotic. As she slid the final button into its hole she wondered whether that was why she had chosen it. To emphasise the differences between her pale restraint and his dark, striking beauty.
She swept her hair back and deftly knotted it into a French plait, and had put on only the barest touch of make-up before she heard the pealing of the front door bell. Drawing in a deep breath for courage and hoping that it might calm the frantic beat of her heart, Rose went out into the hall to answer it.
She pulled open the front door and saw that it was not Khalim who stood there, but a very tall dark-haired man dressed in an immaculate suit, his green eyes glittering with something akin to amusement as he looked down at her belligerent expression.
‘Miss Thomas?’ he asked smoothly.
