Sabrina Philips – The Desert King's Bejewelled Bride (страница 2)

Telling herself she had just got out of the wrong side of bed that morning, she flicked her head to the left as instructed, allowing her mass of thick, dark hair to fall over her shoulder, and berated herself for her overactive imagination. However, the moment she did so, she caught sight of something on the periphery of her vision. Or, more specifically, someone. A tall figure shrouded in darkness, set apart from everyone else.

Tamara felt her heart stop beating and rise like the bubble in a thermometer, lodging itself in her throat. Don’t be stupid, she told herself, unable to discern his face without altering her pose. It couldn’t be. He would never be here. It was probably just another potential client of Henry’s—a regular occurrence since Jezebel sales figures had gone through the roof. Yet, try as she might to rationalise the instinct which told her it was not just anyone, it was too overwhelming.

‘Lov-ing that flushed look of expectancy, Tamara. Keep at that angle.’

But Tamara wasn’t listening, for she had already turned her head. And, the instant she did, the air left her lungs as if someone had dealt a blow to her stomach.

Or her heart.

She would know that profile anywhere. The rugged, regal set of his features. The proud dark head. The autocratic posture of his tall, sculpted frame. That was what made her sure it was him. Other men might be as tall, their bodies just as athletically proportioned, but no one else stood like that. Head and shoulders above the rest, and not just literally. For he emanated an infuriatingly justified self-confidence. He knew that the moment he walked into a room, whether he was announced as Kaliq Al-Zahir A’zam, crown prince of Qwasir, or not, the particles in the air changed a little, so that every woman—no, every human being—was aware of the presence of a man who could not be ignored.

She swallowed and closed her eyes in disbelief, wishing that the heat spreading through her body would somehow make her invisible, camouflaged against the flames projected behind her. But she only felt herself growing more conspicuous, naked almost, beneath his dark, penetrating gaze.

Why on earth was he here? Had he some financial interest in Jezebel Cosmetics? It was one of the world’s most successful new brands, but since when did a sheikh need to dabble in the retail industry for extra cash? He bought racehorses like other people bought popcorn, for goodness’ sake—to liven up a little light entertainment. Tamara would have laughed at her own pathetic supposition if her heart wasn’t pulsating so wildly, and if all her attention wasn’t focused on looking anywhere but in his direction.

Why, then? Surely, after all this time, he hadn’t come to remind her what she was missing, as if she was a task that had finally got to the top of his royal to-do list? No, he had made it perfectly clear that he never wanted to see her again. There had to be some logical explanation.

‘All right, Tamara. Whilst the sight of your shivering side profile opens up a whole new realm of…possibilities, it rather detracts from the heat of the piece. Let’s call it a day.’

For once, Tamara was actually grateful to hear Henry’s voice. Plagued with curiosity though she was, the need to escape was greater. If she was quick, she could make a dash for her dressing room behind the main stage and leave by the back door. Because, no matter how unimaginable his reason for being here, never discovering it was preferable to facing her greatest regret head-on. It was bad enough that it had followed her around like a shadow all these years.

But quick, she soon discovered, had not been quick enough. For, as she slung on her jacket and hot-footed the short distance to her dressing room and flung open the door, it became apparent that he had been quicker.

‘Kaliq!’

She did not know why she drew a breath in surprise. If his purpose was to speak with her, she knew he would not let a little matter like her reluctance interfere with his plans. With one leg tossed casually over the other, his suspended foot working impatiently, he sat back in the chair positioned right in the middle of her dressing room as if it were a throne. Waiting.

Tamara dared not meet his eyes: close up was fifty times more dangerous than taking in that lethal gaze from a distance. She had never seen him outside of Qwasir itself, and it struck her now more than it ever had before just how exotic he looked—that olive skin, the opulence of his thick, black hair which, while cut short, had a definite wave that seemed to speak of wildness and control at the same time. Although he wore his dark, impeccably cut suit as if he had been born into it, seeing him in Western dress seemed only to enhance just how much an extension of the untameable desert he was.

She remained at the doorway, fighting the contradicting emotions inside her which fought for supremacy. One half hating him—the only man she had ever believed herself in love with—for waltzing through the door just when she had finally started to forget, the other half feeling as if she had just woken up from a dull and lifeless sleep and discovered it was the first day of spring. The recollection that she ought to have bowed in the presence of the crown prince and that her informal address no doubt broke a thousand codes of Qwasirian conduct came later, and was the easiest to dismiss. Though perhaps not for him, for his eyes flicked over her with such censure that she felt if she didn’t say something— anything—then the room would combust.

‘Believe it or not, I wasn’t expecting guests.’ Tamara made a point of looking at the clothes and make-up scattered around the room, hoping it explained the look of horror on her treacherously expressive face.

‘Don’t tell me that acting is another of your hidden talents,’ he drawled, eyeing the bouquet on her dressing table, which she had hastily plonked in water before the start of the shoot. ‘It can hardly be an unusual occurrence to find an admirer hovering in your dressing room, hmm?’

Tamara felt herself colour involuntarily at the insinuation, all the more so because blushing was a childhood tendency that until now she had thought she’d grown out of. The flowers were just a thank you from Mike, but she might have guessed that, to Kaliq, modelling and a lack of virtue were synonymous. Did he suppose she had a different admirer in here every day of the week? How little he knew.

‘Actually, it is—’

‘There is no need to play the innocent with me now, Tamara,’ he interjected.

‘Didn’t anyone ever teach you to allow a person to finish their sentence?’

Kaliq suddenly raised his head, as if the concept of someone correcting him was entirely alien and he needed to check he had heard correctly.

‘I was about to say that most people pay attention to the private sign on the door.’ The words rebounded in her head as soon as she had spoken them. Kaliq was many things, but he most certainly was not most people.

‘Privacy is not a luxury I’m well acquainted with.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Occupational hazard, as someone once pointed out to me.’

Tamara cringed as she recognised the words she had once spoken, even as a small, foolish part of her leaped that he remembered. Until she realised that in ignoring the sign he’d just proved that he still didn’t give a damn about anyone’s wishes but his own.

She stiffened. ‘And yet you were always so strict on matters of propriety, I seem to recall.’

‘Just as I recall you saying that you could never bear a life in the public eye. And yet now you are recognised the world over. It is funny, is it not, how things change?’ Kaliq feigned a puzzled look. ‘Or perhaps I was mistaken?’

He was never mistaken, and she knew it. He leaned back with amusement and awaited her response. Much as sitting here, hearing her try to defend herself made him want to crush the arms of the chair beneath his hands, he was enjoying himself.

He still got to her. He could see it in the flush of colour that had begun somewhere above the rounds of her breasts. It had risen between the ‘V’ created by her hastily slung on jacket and up that long, slender neck of hers, which reminded him of a bird at an oasis. And it had stained her cheeks almost from the moment she had walked in and found him here. When she had been trying to escape.

She would not escape. That much was certain. No matter how much she protested her innocence or faked a blush. He would show no restraint. For the boundary he had once forbidden himself to cross had now undoubtedly been torn. Yet, though he knew her virtue was lost, just looking at her sent flames of desire licking through his body. Even more surprisingly, he was overpowered by a greater need. To do this slowly. It was understandable, he supposed. He should have had her then. Though he had waited long enough, where would be the sense in not savouring the moment? Like an eagle who had spent a long night parched in the desert, why swoop in on the first sight of the perfect kill without care and precision? Better to hold back and wait for the slow, defined culmination of all that had gone before.