Эбби Грин – Desert Jewels: The Sheikh's Undoing / The Sultan's Choice / Girl in the Bedouin Tent (страница 16)

Time and time again she had told herself that any woman who went to bed with Tariq needed her head examined—and now she had done exactly that. Was she really planning to join the long line of women who had been intimate with him and then had their hearts broken into smithereens?

She stared at her grim-faced reflection in the mirror.

No, she was not.

She was going to have to be grown-up about the whole thing. Men and women often made passionate mistakes—but intelligent men and women could soon forget about them. She would go in to work this morning and she would show him—and herself—how strong she could be. She would surprise him with her maturity and her ability to pretend that nothing had happened.

So she resisted the urge to wear a new blouse to work, putting on instead a fine wool dress in a soft heathery colour and tying her hair back as she always did.

Outside it was a glorious day, and the bus journey into work should have been uplifting. The pale blue sky and the fluffy clouds, the unmistakable expectancy of springtime, had lightened people’s moods. The bus-driver bade her a cheerful good morning, and the security man standing outside the Al Hakam building was uncharacteristically friendly.

The first part of the day went better than she’d expected—but that was mainly because Tariq was away from the office, visiting the Greenhill Polo Club in Sussex, which he’d bought from the Zaffirinthos royal family last year.

She juggled his diary, answered a backlog of e-mails, and dealt with a particularly persistent sports journalist.

It was four o’clock by the time he arrived back, and Isobel was so deep in work in the outer office that for a moment she didn’t hear the door as it clicked open.

It was only when she lifted her head that she found herself caught in the ebony crossfire of his gaze. His dark hair was ruffled, and he had the faint glow which followed hard physical exercise. He looked so arrogantly alpha and completely sexy in that moment that her heart did a little somersault in her chest, despite all her best intentions. She wondered if he’d been riding one of his own polo ponies while he’d been down at Greenhill, and her imagination veered off the strict course she’d proscribed for it. She’d seen him play polo before, and for a moment she imagined him astride one of his ponies, his powerful thighs gripping the flanks of the magnificent glistening animal…

Stop it, she told herself, as she curved her lips into what she hoped was her normal smile. No fantasising—and definitely no flirting. It’s business as usual. It might be difficult to begin with, but he’s bound to applaud your professionalism in the end.

‘Hello, Tariq,’ she said, her fingers stilling on the keyboard. ‘Good day at Greenhill? I’ve had the Daily Post on the phone all morning. They want to know if it’s true that you’ve been making approaches to buy a defender from Barcelona. I think they were trying to trick me into revealing whether the football club deal is still going ahead. I told him no comment.’

Tariq dropped his briefcase to the floor and frowned. He’d been anticipating…

What?

A blush at the very least! Some stumbled words which would acknowledge the amazing thing which had taken place last night. Maybe even a little pout of her unpainted lips to remind him of how good it had felt to kiss them. But not that cool and non-committal look which she was currently directing at him.

‘I’ll make you a coffee,’ she said, rising to her feet.

‘I don’t want coffee.’

‘Tea?’

‘I don’t want tea either,’ he growled. ‘Come over here.’

‘Where?’

‘Don’t be disingenuous, Izzy. I want to kiss you.’

Desperately she shook her head, telling herself that she couldn’t risk a repeat of what had happened. He was dangerous. She knew that. If she wasn’t careful he would break her heart—just as he’d broken so many others in the past. And the closer she let him get the greater the danger. ‘I don’t want to kiss you.’

He walked across the office towards her, a sardonic smile curving his lips as he reached for her, his hand snaking around her waist as he pulled her close. ‘Well, we both know that’s a lie,’ he drawled, and he brushed his lips over hers.

Isobel swayed, and for a moment she succumbed—the way women sometimes succumbed to chocolate at the end of a particularly rigid diet. Her lips opened beneath his kiss, and for a few brief seconds she felt herself being sucked into a dark and erotic vortex as he pressed his hard body into hers. Her limbs became boneless as she felt one powerful thigh levering its way between hers, so that she gave an instinctive little wriggle of her hips against it.

Until common sense sounded a warning bell in her head.

Quickly she broke the contact and stepped away from him, her cheeks flushing. She cooled them with the tips of her trembling fingers. ‘D-don’t.’

‘Don’t?’ he echoed incredulously. ‘Why not?’

His arrogant disbelief only made her more determined. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’

‘Not to me.’

‘Because…because I don’t want to. How’s that for clarification?’

Tariq’s gaze ran over her darkened eyes and the telltale thrust of the taut nipples which were tightening against her dress. His lips curved into a mocking line as he transferred his gaze to her face. ‘Really?’ he questioned softly. ‘I think the lady needs to get honest with herself.’

Stung by the slur, but also aware of the contradictions in her behaviour, Isobel shook her head. ‘Oh, Tariq—please don’t look at me like that. I’m not saying that I’m not attracted to you—’

‘Well, thank heavens for that.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘For a moment I thought my technique might be slipping.’

‘I don’t think there’s any danger of that,’ she said drily. ‘But I’ve been thinking about last night—’

‘Me, too. In fact I have thought of little else.’ His voice softened, but the blaze in his black eyes was searing. ‘You’re now regretting the loss of your innocence? Perhaps blaming me for what happened?’

She shook her head. ‘No, of course I’m not blaming you. I’m not blaming anyone,’ she said carefully. ‘It’s just I feel I’m worth more than a quick fumble in the office—’

‘A fumble?’ he interrupted furiously. ‘This is how you dare to describe what happened between us?’

‘How would you describe it, then?’

‘With a little more poetry and imagination than that!’

‘Okay. That…that amazing sex we had, pressed up against the wall of your office.’ She sucked in a deep breath—because if she didn’t tell him what was bugging her then how would he know? ‘And you then treating me like a total stranger in the car before waltzing off to your fancy party at the embassy.’

Tariq narrowed his eyes with sudden comprehension. So that was what this was about. She wanted what all women wanted. Recognition. A place on his arm to illustrate their closeness—to show the world their togetherness. But wasn’t she being a little presumptuous, in the circumstances?

‘I didn’t touch you because I knew what would happen if I did—and I had no intention of walking into the party with the smell of your sex still on my skin. No.’ He shook his head as he saw her open her mouth to speak. ‘Let me finish, Izzy. It would have been inappropriate for me to take you to the party,’ he added coolly. ‘For a start, you weren’t exactly dressed for it.’

‘You mean I would have let you down?’

‘I think you would have felt awkward if you’d gone to a party in your rumpled work clothes, post-sex. Especially to a diplomatic function like that.’

‘I’m surprised you know the meaning of the word diplomatic,’ she raged, ‘when you can come out with a statement as insulting as that!’

‘I was trying to be honest with you, Izzy,’ he said softly. ‘Isn’t that what this is all about?’

His question took the wind right out of her sails. She supposed it was. She had no right to be angry with him just because he wasn’t telling her what she wanted to hear. If he’d come out with some flowery, untrue reason why he hadn’t taken her to the embassy, wouldn’t she have called him a hypocrite?

‘Maybe last night should never have happened,’ she said in a small voice.

Ignoring the sudden hardening of his body, Tariq thought about the mercurial nature of her behaviour. Last night she had been wild and today she was like ice. Was she testing him to see how far she could push him? She had turned away from him now, so that he got a complete view of her thick curls tied back in a ribbon and a dress he’d seen many times before. Nobody could accuse Izzy of responding to their lovemaking by becoming a vamp in the office. She was probably the least glamorous woman he’d ever met.

Yet the strange thing was that he wanted her. Actually, he wanted her more than he had done yesterday. The contrast between her rather unremarkable exterior and the red-hot lover underneath had scorched through his defences. The memory of how she had yielded so eagerly wouldn’t leave him. But it was more than a purely visceral response. Her freshness and eagerness had been like sweet balm applied to his jaded senses. Hadn’t she given him more than any other woman had ever done—surrendering her innocence with such eagerness and joy?