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Coming to terms with the realization that not only had she just hit someone for the first time her life but she’d chosen to be violent with someone who could probably have her arrested, Farrah looked at him blankly, mortified that she’d lost control and shocked by her own uncharacteristic behaviour. ‘Wife? You have a wife now?’
The possibility that he’d married someone in the five years since they’d met hadn’t entered her head, but of course he would have married. Even a man as commitment phobic as Tariq couldn’t avoid it for ever. It was his duty. Had she not recognized the pressures on him right from the start? Someone suitable and approved of by his wretched, interfering family. Why should she care? Why would it matter to her? She should pity the girl in question.
‘I don’t have a wife yet.’ His tone was silky smooth. ‘But you have led the conversation round to the reason for me being here this evening.’
‘You’re looking for a wife?’ Her tone was faintly sarcastic. ‘Then step back into the ballroom, Tariq. I’m sure they’ll be queuing up.’
‘They probably would be—’ he gave a dismissive shrug ‘—but there’s no need for me to look because the woman I intend to marry is standing in front of me.’ He inclined his dark head and his mouth hovered close to hers. ‘I’ve decided that I want you as my wife, Farrah. I have decided to marry you.’
CHAPTER TWO
FARRAH stood in shocked silence.
I want you as my wife…I have decided to marry you.
His words spun round and round in her head and when she finally spoke her voice was little more than a whisper. ‘Is this some sort of sick joke?’
Once, to marry him had been her dream. And he knew it. Was he taunting her with her naïvety?
‘As you well know, I have never found the prospect of marriage even remotely amusing.’ Ebony brows locked in a frown. ‘Why would you accuse me of joking?’
‘Because you can’t possibly be serious? We’ve had no contact for five years! And on the last occasion we were together—which, by the way, was when you told me that you could never marry a woman like me—’ she supplied helpfully, ‘you informed me that I was perfect mistress material but nothing else!’
Just saying the words aloud started her shivering again. You thought you’d recovered from something, she thought to herself as she tried to control her reaction, and then you realized that it had been there all along. Buried. Waiting to be uncovered.
People who said that time healed were lying. You made adjustments. You learned to live with things that you couldn’t change. But that didn’t mean that healing had taken place.
‘Actually, I was wrong. Five years ago you were too young and innocent to be perfect mistress material.’ Tariq studied her thoughtfully and he lifted a hand to touch her flushed cheek. ‘The perfect mistress should be sexually experienced and emotionally detached. You were neither.’
The colour in her cheeks deepened and she pulled away from him. ‘I’m not interested in your definition of the perfect mistress. It was a role I rejected, if you remember.’
He gave a slow smile. ‘Oh, I remember. You were holding out for a much larger prize.’
‘I made the mistake of thinking that our relationship meant something.’
‘It did. We were good together,’ he said smoothly. ‘And, had you come to my bed, you would have experienced the true meaning of the word “pleasure.”’
Her body heated with an explosive flash and she dragged her eyes away from the knowing gleam in his. ‘Had I come to your bed, I would have been a total idiot and would have discovered the true meaning of the word “regret.”’
He inhaled sharply. ‘I made you an extremely generous offer.’
‘Generous offer? Sorry, but I don’t see what’s generous about inviting someone to have sex with you.’ She’d loved him, for goodness’ sake. Passionately. Deeply. To the exclusion of all others. She’d believed he’d loved her. ‘You’re supposed to have a brilliant brain and a razor-sharp intellect but you know absolutely nothing about relationships or human emotions!’
‘Being my “mistress” as you so quaintly call it, would have come with significant perks.’
‘So basically you were offering me money in exchange for sex.’ Her voice was filled with derision. ‘There’s a word for that, Tariq, and it isn’t nice.’
His proud head lifted and the flash of his eyes was a reminder that he wasn’t accustomed to being challenged. ‘A marriage was not possible between us at that time.’
‘But now it is?’ She couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice but he didn’t react.
‘Five years is a long time. You were very young. Much can be forgiven.’
‘Maybe. But I’m not the one that needs forgiving here.’ She was guilty of nothing more than being gullible and the injustice of the situation stung her deeply. She forgot he was the ruling Sultan of an oil rich state and one of the most eligible and influential men in the world. To Farrah, Tariq al-Sharma was just the man who had hurt her. She saw no further than that. Cared nothing for appearances or protocol. ‘You were utterly ruthless, Tariq. When I refused your “generous offer”, my father and I were forced to leave the country.’
His expression revealed nothing. ‘In the circumstances, it was not appropriate for you to stay.’
She thought of the desert and the beaches. She thought of the golden temples and the dusty streets. She thought of the mysteries of the souk and she thought of those precious early morning walks on the beach, warmed by the hot, hot sun. She thought of the Caves of Zatua and the legend of Nadia and her Sultan. ‘For a short time it was my home. I loved it. Leaving was hard.’
But not as hard as it had been to leave Tariq.
She’d felt as though a huge part of her had been left behind in the desert. The only part of her that mattered. She’d believed that he loved her and the discovery that his feelings had been no more than sexual had shattered her fragile self-confidence.
‘If you truly loved my country then you will be only too happy to return.’
‘I will never return.’ For her, Tazkash was a place that would always be linked with him. A place where there were too many painful memories. ‘You’re being ridiculous and I refuse even to have this conversation with you. I’m not one of your subjects or even one of your adoring women.’ And there were plenty of those, she thought grimly. Women prepared to do just about anything to gain his attention.
‘Once, Farrah Tyndall,’ he said softly, the pad of his thumb brushing over the fullness of her lower lip, ‘once, you begged me to marry you. You couldn’t wait to climb into my bed. It was I who slowed the pace because you were so young. Once, you adored me.’
Her heart was thumping with rhythmic force against her chest. She didn’t want to be reminded of just how open and honest she’d been with him about her feelings. Most women played it cool. At the age of eighteen, in love with a staggeringly sexy man, she hadn’t understood the meaning of the word. How he must have laughed at her. ‘That was before I discovered that princes work better in fairy tales. Before I discovered what a cold, unfeeling bastard you are.’
His head jerked back and his dark eyes narrowed in a warning. ‘Be careful. I have always allowed you more leeway than most but no one speaks to me in such a way—’
‘Which just goes to show what an unsuitable wife I would make. I thought you’d already made that discovery for yourself but it’s good to remind you of that fact.’ She shrugged her bare shoulders out of his jacket and handed it back to him. ‘Thanks, but I don’t need this. I prefer to go inside to warm up.’
He couldn’t be serious about marrying her. Why would he be? She didn’t understand what game he was playing, but she knew she didn’t want to be a part of it.
Something flickered in his eyes. Something dangerous. ‘You will come with me. Now.’ It was an unmistakable command and she gave a slight shiver of reaction.
No one argued with Tariq—she should have remembered that. His authority was absolute. Once, his status alone had been sufficient to render her tongue-tied, but not any more. She’d had plenty of time to reflect on what had happened between them. And she’d grown up.
‘Why would I want to go anywhere with you?’ She forced herself to speak lightly. Forced herself not to betray the effect he had on her. ‘So that you can show me the way to paradise? I’ve been there once before, Tariq, and I think I must have taken a wrong turning because, frankly, it wasn’t up to much. Excuse me, I’m going back inside.’
Long bronzed fingers caught her wrist in a steely grip. ‘I wish to talk to you properly. In private.’
‘But I don’t wish to talk to you in private, or in public, come to that. Five minutes in your company has been enough to convince me that you haven’t changed one bit so take my advice and quit while you’re only slightly behind.’
His glance reflected barely contained frustration. ‘You will come with me.’
‘Why? Because you order it? I don’t wish to go anywhere with you so what are you going to do? Kidnap me?’
His dark eyes were suddenly veiled. ‘I hardly think such extreme measures will be required.’
She risked a glance at him and realized with a jolt that he was deadly serious. He wanted her. Why? She wondered desperately. Because she’d finally managed to reinvent herself? Because, on the surface at least, she’d turned into the woman her mother had always wanted her to be? ‘Do you really think I’m going to walk back into your arms?’
‘If you’re honest about your feelings, then yes. It’s still there. Farrah—’ he used his superior strength to hold her fast when she would have run ‘—you can feel it and so can I. And I’m offering you what you’ve always wanted. Don’t let a childish tantrum deprive you of your dream.’
Her heart thundered against her chest. ‘Even for a sultan, you are insufferably arrogant,’ she gasped, trying to ignore the tiny shockwaves that gripped her body. ‘And any dreams I might have had about you ended five years ago. You had your chance with me, Tariq, and you blew it. End of story.’
Far from being disconcerted, his eyes gleamed and she remembered too late that Tariq thrived on challenge. He was a man who hunted for obstacles just so that he could smash them down and prove his superiority.
‘I am willing to play this your way for a while, Farrah, while you get used to the idea that we are going to be together again. But as my future wife you must abide by a certain code of behaviour. I understand you are to take part in the charity fashion show imminently.’
Farrah stared at him blankly. The fashion show? She’d forgotten all about the fashion show. The only thing on her mind since he’d walked on to the terrace had been escape. From him and from her jumbled feelings. His reminder of her commitment to the charity made her heart drop. She wasn’t at all sure she could make it through another couple of hours, especially not in such a public way. Everyone would be looking at her. Including Tariq.
She opened her mouth to tell him that she was going to make her excuses but his eyes flashed dark and menacing, his ebony brows drawn together in a disapproving frown.
‘I forbid you to take part.’
‘You forbid—?’ The word made her temper simmer and suddenly she struck on a foolproof way of removing him from her life again. After all, wasn’t her ‘inappropriate behaviour’ one of the main reasons he’d cited for being unable to marry her? ‘You don’t want me to be in the fashion show, Tariq?’ Suddenly she realized that appearing in the fashion show would be the perfect way of guaranteeing his rapid exit from her life.
‘As my future wife, it would not be appropriate.’
‘Good, that settles it, then,’ she said sweetly as she twisted her arm free of his grip, ‘because I intend to do the fashion show. So perhaps you’d better look elsewhere for the wife you so desperately need, Your Excellency.’
He inhaled sharply, disbelief flickering in his dark eyes. ‘You persist in this ridiculous pretence that you’re not interested. Do you understand what it is that I am proposing?’
‘Proposing?’ She tilted her head and her eyes sparkled with anger. ‘Sorry, I didn’t actually hear a proposal. I heard you ordering and forbidding and doing all the things that you’re really, really good at. You’re going to have to go and find someone else to command, Tariq, because I’m not interested.’
Without giving him a chance to respond, she walked past his bodyguards, back through the ballroom and into the room where they were frantically preparing for the fashion show. Her heart was thumping, her hands felt clammy and she felt physically sick as she joined the other girls who were modelling that evening.
His wife?
Why would he say such a thing?
Why on earth would he suddenly be talking about marrying her after five years of silence? What was going on? And why did her body still respond even though she knew what sort of man he was?
Like all addictive habits, she thought gloomily, you always wanted what was bad for you. And Tariq was extremely bad.
‘Farrah, thank goodness!’ Enzo Franconi, the famous Italian designer, embraced her with relief. ‘We thought you’d gone home and I have the most spectacular dress for you to wear tonight. I predict that you will shine, you will positively dazzle, you will—’
‘No dress.’ Farrah’s tone was grim as she slipped off her shoes and yanked the pins out of her hair. ‘Are you showing any swimwear, Enzo?’ Her hair fell smooth and sleek down her back while Enzo gaped in astonishment.
‘Of course. But you never model swimwear. Always you refuse to dress in anything so revealing.’
Farrah’s mind was on Tariq. On his proposal of marriage. He couldn’t have been serious. It didn’t make sense. ‘Well, tonight I’m not refusing. I’ll wear whatever you’ve got—but preferably the most shocking, daring thing in your collection.’
She didn’t understand what the Desert Prince was doing here tonight. But there was one thing that she did know for sure. If she wore something revealing on the catwalk he wouldn’t be bothering her again. A man as traditional and conservative as Tariq appreciated subtlety and dignity and she was determined to offer neither. She was going to drive him away by being as unsuitable as it was possible to be.
‘I do have something—’ Enzo waved a hand in a gesture as nervous as it was excited ‘—but you would never agree to wear it.’
‘I’m sure it will be absolutely perfect.’ Perfect to send Tariq as far away from her as possible. Once he had seen her making a display of herself in public he would march out of the room and she could get on with her life.
Enzo prowled around her, unable to believe his luck. ‘On you—’ he clapped his hands and an assistant came running to his side ‘—it will look sensational. I predict that men will faint.’
‘Well, let’s hope so,’ Farrah said flatly, allowing Enzo’s assistant to unzip her dress, ‘and let’s hope that one man in particular bangs his head hard when he hits the floor.’
‘Who?’ Enzo lifted a wisp of material in bright peacock blue from the rail next to him and then did a double take. ‘Is that mud on your leg?’
‘What?’ She glanced down and blushed. ‘Oh—sorry—’ she scrubbed it clean with her finger and Enzo gave a soft smile.
‘You have been helping those children in the riding school again—’
Farrah glanced around her nervously to see who might be listening. ‘We had a little girl with cerebral palsy today,’ she whispered. ‘You should have seen her face when we put her on the horse, Enzo.’ This man was her friend, she reminded herself, one of the few people who she could trust with the secret of her real life.
‘Marvellous, cara.’ Enzo sighed and shook his head as he watched her remove the final traces of mud. ‘But did you have to bring the stables into the ballroom?’
‘I was held up so I changed in the car.’ Farrah gave a dismissive shrug and Enzo looked at her through narrowed eyes.
‘So now tell me why you are suddenly wearing a swimming costume. It is about a man, obviously. You wish to make him jealous, no?’
‘Jealous?’ Staring at the costume on the hanger, she shook her head in disbelief, wondering how so little material actually attached itself to the body. ‘No, I don’t want to make him jealous. I want to make him run.’
She didn’t want him in her life a second time.
Enzo frowned. ‘Then take my advice and do not wear this costume. There is not a man alive who will run having seen you dressed in this. You will find yourself with the opposite problem.’
‘You don’t know this man. Give it to me.’ Farrah held out a hand. ‘I’ll get changed behind the curtain.’
‘Farrah, tesoro—’ Enzo’s tone was dry as he relinquished the garment ‘—if you need to get dressed behind a curtain, then that is not the costume for you.’
‘If it serves its purpose then it will be fine.’ Dressed only in her underwear, she walked in bare feet into the makeshift cubicle. ‘Oh, and Enzo, ask someone to find me spectacular shoes. High heels. Really high heels.’
Enzo’s eyes gleamed and he kissed the ends of his fingers in a gesture of approval. ‘Almost, I feel sorry for this man.’
‘I don’t need you to feel sorry for him. I just need you to make me look shocking. I need to be unsuitable wife material.’ She jerked the curtain across and her courage faltered. What the hell was she doing? Adrenaline surged through her body, fuelling her determination to go through with her plan. Before reason could take over and she could change her mind, she removed her underwear and wriggled into the costume. ‘Enzo? Are you out there? This thing doesn’t fit—’
The designer pulled back the curtain and sighed. ‘Not like that—’ He stepped forward and made several adjustments that had Farrah blushing. ‘Better. Much better. And now this—’He flung a transparent filmy wrap over her shoulders and she looked at it with a frown.
‘I don’t want to cover up.’
‘This covers nothing,’ Enzo said dryly, his hands tweaking and coaxing the fabric until he was satisfied. ‘It is designed to draw the eye. To tempt and tease.’ He narrowed his gaze, nodded with approval and then snapped his fingers towards his assistant who was hovering at a discreet distance. ‘Shoes?’
Farrah gave a wry smile as she slipped her feet into a pair of designer shoes with delicate straps and vertiginous heels. ‘This is all going to be wasted if I fall off the shoes, break my neck and give myself two black eyes in the process.’
‘Never.’ Enzo frowned and stood back as the hairdresser took over. ‘Leave it loose. Yes. Like that. She looks sensational. I predict that the costume will be this season’s big seller.’ He glanced at Farrah with a smile. ‘You wear heels that high all the time. You will not fall.’
Farrah thought of the muddy riding boots in the back of the family limousine. ‘Not all the time.’
Finally Enzo was satisfied and he stood back with a nod. ‘It is perfect. You are perfect, and totally wasted in this life of yours.’
They shared a secret smile and impulsively Farrah leaned forward to give her friend a hug. ‘You’ve helped me so much,’ she whispered. ‘You taught me how to dress, how to walk, how to—’
‘Enough—’ Enzo waved a hand to stop her but there was pleasure in his smile. ‘I had good material to work with. You could be a model, cara.’
‘No, thanks.’ Farrah walked towards the entrance where the other girls were lining up and Enzo caught her arm.
‘Not like that! You are walking as if you are angry and out for revenge and I taught you better than that! Your eyes spark and your mouth pouts. You look as though you’re going to kill someone, not seduce them.’
