Читать книгу A Diamond For The Sheikh's Mistress - Эбби Грин - Страница 9
ОглавлениеALL KAT HEARD WAS, ‘Why did you disappear off the international modelling scene?’ For a moment she couldn’t breathe. The thought of letting exactly what had happened tumble out of her mouth and watching Zafir’s reaction terrified her.
She’d come a long way in eighteen months, but some things she wasn’t sure she’d ever be ready for...namely revealing to him the full reality of why she was no longer a model, or who she was now. The graceful long-legged stride she’d become famous for on catwalks all over the world was a distant memory now, never to be resurrected.
She breathed in shakily. Answer his questions and then he’ll be gone. She couldn’t imagine him wanting to hang around in these insalubrious surroundings for too long.
‘What happened?’ she said, in a carefully neutral voice. ‘You know what happened, Zafir—after all you’re the one who broke it to me that I’d been dropped from nearly every contract and that the fashion houses couldn’t distance themselves fast enough from the girl who had fallen from grace.’
Kat had been blissfully unaware of the storm headed her way. She’d been packing for her new life with her fiancé—filled with trepidation, yes, but also hope that she would make him proud of her... What a naive fool she’d been.
Zafir’s face darkened. ‘There were naked pictures of you when you were seventeen years old, Kat. They spoke pretty eloquently for themselves. Not to mention the not inconsequential fact of the huge personal debt you’d been hiding from me. And the real story of your upbringing—enabling a drug-addicted mother to find her next fix.’
Kat’s hands tightened on her cup as she remembered the vicious headline Zafir had thrust under her nose. It had labelled her ‘a white trash gold-digger.’ A man like Zafir—privileged and richer than Croesus—could never have begun to understand the challenges she’d faced growing up.
Kat felt a surge of white-hot anger but also—far more betrayingly—she felt hurt all over again. The fact that he still had this ability to affect her almost killed her. Feeling too agitated to stay sitting, she put down her cup and stood up, moving to stand behind the couch, as if that could offer some scant protection.
Zafir was sitting forward, hands locked loosely between his legs. He looked perfectly at ease, but Kat wasn’t fooled by his stance. He was never more dangerous than when he gave off an air of nonchalance.
‘Look,’ she said, as calmly as she could, ‘if you’ve just come here to re-enact our last meeting, then I can’t see how that will serve any purpose. I really don’t need to be reminded of how once my so-called perfect image was tarnished you deemed me no longer acceptable in your life. We said all we had to say that night.’
Her hands instinctively dug into the top of the couch as she remembered that cataclysmic night—stumbling out of Zafir’s apartment building into the dark streets, the pain of betrayal in her heart, her tear-blurred vision and then... Nothing but blackness and more pain, the like of which she hadn’t known existed.
Zafir stood up too, dislodging the sickening memory, reminding her that this was the present and apparently not much had changed.
‘Did we, really? As far as I recall you said far too little and then left. You certainly didn’t apologise for misleading me the whole time we were together.’
Struggling to control herself as she remembered the awful shock of that night, Kat said, ‘You saw that article and you looked at those pictures and you judged and condemned me. You weren’t prepared to listen to anything I had to say in my defence.’
Kat’s conscience pricked when she recalled how she’d always put off telling Zafir the unvarnished truth of her background. And as for the debt... She’d never wanted to reveal that ugliness, or the awful powerlessness she’d felt. Not to someone like Zafir, who set such an exacting standard for moral strength and integrity.
‘Dammit, Kat, you told me nothing about yourself—when were you going to reveal the truth? If ever?’ He shook his head before she could respond, and repeated his accusation of that night. ‘You were obviously hoping that I’d marry you before the sordid details came out and then you’d be secured for life even if we divorced.’
Kat felt breathless, and nausea rose inside her. ‘It wasn’t like that...’
Zafir looked impossibly stern. As unforgiving as he had been that night. He changed tack, asking her again, ‘Who is Kaycee Smith?’
Kat swallowed painfully, not remotely prepared for her past transgressions to be visited upon her again like this. ‘Kaycee Smith is the name on my birth certificate.’
A dark brow arched over one eye. ‘A pertinent detail missed by the papers?’
She refused to let Zafir do this to her again. Humiliate her. Annihilate her.
Kat tipped up her chin. ‘It was about the only thing they did miss.’
Thankfully, she thought now. Otherwise she would never have been able to fade away from view as she had.
‘We have nothing to say to each other, Zafir. Nothing. Now, get out—before I call the police and tell them you’re harassing me.’
Kat moved decisively from her spot behind the sofa towards the door, powered by anger and the tumult inside her, only to be stopped in her tracks before she reached it when Zafir asked sharply, ‘Why are you limping?’
Immediately the adrenalin rush faded, to be replaced with a very unwelcome sense of exposure. There was nothing to hold on to nearby and it reminded her of how vulnerable she was now.
She turned around slowly and realised that she was far too close to Zafir. Every part of her body seemed to hum with electricity. It was as if her libido had merely been waiting for his presence again, and now it was no longer dormant but very much awake and sizzling back to life.
His scent wound around her like a siren call to lean closer...to breathe in his uniquely male smell. It had always fascinated her—the mixture of earthy musk and something indescribably exotic which instantly brought her back to her first and last visit to Jahor, with its awe-inspiring palace on a hill overlooking the teeming ancient city on the edge of the ocean.
She’d felt so awed and intimidated at the prospect of becoming a Queen of that land, and yet deep within her she’d thrilled to the challenge. But when Zafir had deemed her unsuitable to be his wife she’d realised what a fool she’d been to indulge in such a fantasy. She was no Queen, and she had no right to the ache of loss that still had the power to surprise her when she wasn’t vigilant.
Her head snapped up. Zafir was still frowning. She moved back, aghast that her body could betray her like this. And then she remembered what he’d asked: Why are you limping?
Everything inside Kat recoiled from revealing herself to Zafir. The urge to self-protect was huge. He had no idea of the extent of the devastation in her life since she’d seen him—not all of which had to do with him. It also had to do with events totally beyond him.
But she knew that giving him nothing would only pique his interest even more, so reluctantly she said, ‘I was involved in a road traffic accident a while ago. I injured my leg and I was out of circulation for some time.’
Try at least a year, Kat thought to herself, and held her breath, praying he wouldn’t ask for more details.
Zafir looked at her assessingly. ‘Is that why you haven’t returned to modelling? And is that why you’re living like this? Because you still haven’t cleared your debts? You’re obviously recovered now though, and I can’t imagine the fashion world wouldn’t have renewed your contracts eventually, once the story had died down.’
Kat hid her reflexive flinch at ‘you’re obviously recovered now.’ But she wasn’t about to explain anything—not when Zafir was clearly no more ready to hear the truth now than he had been back then. And he was right—except when the fashion houses had come calling again she’d been in no position to consider going back...
Kat breathed out unsteadily. She avoided answering his questions directly and said, ‘I do some hand modelling, but that’s about it. And the waitressing.’
Zafir came closer, standing beside the chair. His gaze was far too keen on her and incisive. She could almost hear his brain working, trying to join the dots.
Kat just wanted him gone. He’d upended her world once before and she wouldn’t survive him doing it again.
‘Look,’ she said now, trying to hide the desperation in her voice, ‘did you really come here to rake over old ground, Zafir?’
She stopped and bit her lip as a dangerous thought occurred to her—perhaps in spite of everything he had come to listen to her side of the story? Even belatedly?
For a moment Kat felt something very delicate flower deep inside her, but after a moment Zafir shook his head and said curtly, ‘No. Of course not. That’s in the past and I’ve no wish to revisit it any further.’
Kat’s heart thumped. Hard. Of course he hadn’t come here to hear her side of things. Apparently she was as pathetically susceptible to this man as she’d ever been, and in spite of everything she’d been through that was somehow more devastating than anything else. She felt a dart of panic at the knowledge that time had done little to diminish her feelings or her attraction to him. If anything, everything felt more acute than it had before.
She forced out words through a tight jaw. ‘Then if you wouldn’t mind leaving? We had a past and you pretty definitively ruled out any future, so what more could there possibly be to say?’
She regretted asking the question as soon as she saw the calculating gleam come into those slate-grey eyes.
‘Our future is exactly what I’m here to talk about. A different future to the one previously envisaged, yes, but I don’t see why we can’t leave that in the past and move on.’
Kat’s insides tightened as if warding off a blow. ‘I’m not interested in discussing any kind of future or moving on with you, Zafir.’
* * *
Zafir’s jaw clenched and he had to consciously relax it. He wasn’t used to anyone talking to him like this—and he couldn’t remember Kat ever being so combative. But he couldn’t deny that somewhere deep inside him he thrilled to it. She had changed, and yet she was still intriguingly familiar. Achingly familiar. His whole body hummed with frustration to be so close and yet have her hold him at arm’s length and look at him as if he was an unwelcome stranger.
In truth, he hadn’t expected her to be so antagonistic towards him. He knew things had ended badly before, but she was the one who had kept the truth from him, clearly in a bid to avoid risking his commitment to marry her—which was exactly what had happened. Yet she was acting as if she was the injured party!
He cursed himself. He hadn’t planned on rehashing the past, but obviously it had been inevitable. But, as he’d said, he was done talking about the past now—it was time for him to lay out his plans for Kat. For them.
In spite of everything, and even though he knew there were a thousand reasons for him to turn and walk away from Kat and forget he’d ever seen her again, he couldn’t. Not now. But he assured himself that he could have what he wanted and get on with his life. And he fully intended to.
‘I’m not leaving until I’ve said what I came to say, Kat.’
Dismayed, Kat watched as Zafir illustrated his point by sitting down again. He was an immovable force, and she recognised that steely determination all too well. The last thing she wanted was for him to see how raw she felt, so she schooled her features and sat down opposite him, as if this visit wasn’t tearing her apart.
She looked pointedly at her watch and then back to him, ‘It’s getting late and I’ve got work early in the morning. I’d appreciate it if you could keep this short.’
Zafir inspected the bland expression on Kat’s face. For a moment he’d caught a glimpse of something much more fiery, but it was gone now. She seemed to be determined to treat him as if he was someone she hadn’t been intimately acquainted with. Soon, Zafir vowed, they would be intimately acquainted again, and she’d be moaning his name in ecstasy as her release threw them both over the edge and purged him of this ache.
He forced his mind out of his fantasies with effort and said, ‘Did you even listen to the proposition I sent your agent?’
Kat shook her head, a long tendril of hair dropping from the knot on top of her head to curl around her neck. Zafir wanted to undo her hair and let it fall in a luxurious curtain down her naked back, the way it had before. He gritted his jaw at the image. This was ridiculous—he could barely conduct a coherent conversation without X-rated images flooding his mind.
Calling on every ounce of control he possessed, he said, ‘What I’m proposing is a modelling assignment—’
He stopped and put up his hand as soon as he saw Kat’s mouth open, presumably to protest. She closed it again, her lush lips compressing into a tight line. Zafir ignored the pulse throbbing in his groin.
He tried another tack. ‘You might recall me telling you once about the famed missing jewel, the Heart of Jandor, the biggest red diamond in the world?’
Kat tensed opposite him, and then he saw a flush tinge her cheeks pink as if she too was remembering that moment—lying in her bed in Jahor, her limbs sprawled over his in sated abandon as he’d told her the story of the gem. He’d had to sneak into her rooms like a teenager, even though they’d been unofficially engaged at the time. His people would have been scandalised by such liaisons.
Kat had lifted her head from his chest and said huskily, ‘That’s so romantic... I hope they find it some day.’
Zafir could recall how a vague feeling of dread mixed with fear had washed over him on hearing the wistful tone in Kat’s voice, and how he’d felt the urge to say something, anything, to take the dreamy look from her eyes, to tell her that such a thing as romance had no place in his life. Duty trumped emotion. Always. There would be no room for romance when he became King and she was Queen.
But then she’d reached up and kissed him...and he couldn’t remember anything else.
‘I remember something...vaguely,’ she said tightly now, and Zafir desisted from arguing that she clearly remembered very well.
There was a curt edge to his voice after that memory. ‘They found the diamond recently, during an archaeological dig. It was a cause of much celebration and my people have seen it as a good omen for the future.’
Kat’s hands were clasped in her lap. ‘I’m very happy for you...and them...but I fail to see what this has to do with me.’
Zafir said carefully, ‘It has everything to do with you, Kat, because I’ve chosen you to be the model who will wear the diamond on our worldwide diplomatic tour to promote Jandor.’
* * *
The sheer arrogance of Zafir’s pronouncement rendered Kat speechless for a moment. And then she spluttered, ‘But that’s ridiculous. I’m working here. I have a life here. I have no intention of going anywhere with you.’
Zafir stood up, and as if she hadn’t spoken he said, ‘It’s a very select tour. The first function is the evening after tomorrow, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Then we and the diamond go to London, then Paris and then back to Jandor, where it will be put on permanent display.’
Kat stood up, quivering all over with volatile emotions. ‘There is no we in this, Zafir.’
‘If it had gone according to my plan, then, yes, I agree—I would have no need of you. But my chief aide came up with the idea of showing off the diamond in an infinitely more accessible way—instead of keeping it in a sterile environment, we will display it on a beautiful woman and have her meet and greet specially selected guests with us at each function, so that they can see how the gem really glows with a life force. It will bring the gem—and Jandor—alive.’
Kat folded her arms against the terrifying thought of people clamouring around her, too close, staring at her, pawing at her to get to the stone. One of the side effects of the accident she’d been involved in was that she felt claustrophobic in certain situations where she felt trapped.
She shook her head. ‘No way, Zafir. I’m not interested. And surely if this is to promote your country, then you should be using a model from Jandor.’
Kat saw the steely glint in Zafir’s eyes. It meant that he’d most likely anticipated every one of her arguments and was ready to counter them.
‘We don’t yet have a modelling agency in Jandor, but we do have aspiring fashion designers who are eager to showcase some of their designs during this tour. Also, I want someone who has the poise and grace of an experienced model—and they don’t come more experienced than you.’
Feeling desperate, she said, ‘There are a million models just as experienced as me—if not more.’ A hint of bitterness crept into her voice. ‘Models who don’t come with negative baggage. If I appear in public with you as Kat Winters, the press will have a field day and all those stories will get raked up again.’
Kat sent up silent thanks now that their break-up had occurred before the official public announcement of their engagement had been made.
‘Yes, they might,’ he conceded, ‘and I’ve considered that. But I have an excellent PR team, who will field any of the old stories and drown them out with this new one. Resurrecting Kat Winters to wear the most famous rediscovered gem in the world will be an irresistible story.’
Kat went cold inside as the full extent of Zafir’s cool calculation sank in. Her involvement would be purely to provide an angle. Something to fire up the headlines even at the expense of negativity. Everything Zafir was outlining was literally her worst nightmare. She felt panicky. She wasn’t prepared to step back into the world of Kat Winters again—not for anyone.
She shook her head. ‘The answer is no, Zafir. Now, please leave. I’m tired.’
But of course Zafir didn’t turn around to leave, much as Kat wished he would. Even as she felt the betraying hum of awareness that flowed like illicit nectar through her blood.
‘Obviously I wouldn’t expect you to do this for free, Kat. I would be willing to pay handsomely for one of the world’s most sought-after and elusive models. I’m well aware of the fees you once commanded, and as your credit history shows a lack of ability to hang on to your earnings, it looks like you’re not really in a position to turn down such a lucrative contract.’
He illustrated his point with a sweeping glance around her studio apartment.
Kat’s hands curled into fists. Of all the patronising—She stopped just as she was about to blurt something out. Something that would make those far too incisive eyes narrow on her and make him start asking questions again.
It was the last thing she wanted to bring up, but she had to. Maybe it was the thing that would finally push Zafir to leave. ‘Have you considered the speculation that would inevitably be sparked about us again?’
He waited a beat and then said, ‘Yes, I have, and I see no harm in it—not when it’s likely to be confined to the duration of the tour and then it’ll die away again.’
There was a rough quality to Zafir’s voice that sent a rush of awareness through Kat’s blood—as if her body was already reacting to some secret signal. For a moment she couldn’t really comprehend the way he was suddenly so watchful, but then it sank in with horrifying clarity.
‘You can’t seriously mean for us to—’ She stopped, afraid to speak the words out loud. Afraid to make herself look a fool again. Afraid she might be right.
Afraid she might be wrong.
‘Can’t seriously mean for us to what, Kat?’
Zafir moved closer and she was rooted to the spot. He stopped within reaching distance, the harsh lighting of her apartment doing nothing to leach away any of his sheer gorgeousness.
‘I can’t seriously mean for us to be together again?’
Kat looked at him, horrified and excited in equal measure. She half shook and nodded her head.
Zafir’s face suddenly took on a harsh aspect. ‘That’s exactly what I mean. I want you back in my bed, Kat. We have unfinished business. When you walked out—’
‘You mean when you cast me aside!’ Anger flooded Kat’s veins again, giving her the impetus to move back out of Zafir’s dangerous proximity, crossing her arms defensively over her chest.
‘We’re not going to rake over that ground again,’ Zafir said harshly. ‘Suffice it to say that our engagement might have been over—there was no way I could have presented you as my future Queen after those headlines and pictures—but our relationship didn’t have to be over.’
Shock mixed with affront, and hurt poured through Kat, making her tremble. She was back in time, standing before Zafir in far more luxurious surroundings saying incredulously, ‘You don’t love me.’
He’d slashed a hand through the air. ‘This isn’t about love, Kat. It’s never been about love. It’s about mutual respect and desire and the fact that I believed—mistakenly—that you were the perfect choice to be my wife and future Queen.’
‘Perfect...’ She’d half-whispered it to herself, never hating a word as much as she had then.
Her whole life she’d been told she had to be perfect. To win the next competition. To get the commercial over the other pretty girl. To get enough money to save her mother... Except she’d failed—miserably.
She’d looked at Zafir and said in a hollow voice, ‘Well, I’m not perfect, Zafir. Far from it.’
And she’d walked out, leaving her engagement ring on the hall table. And now she was glad—because clearly he would have demoted her from the position of future wife, but kept her in his life as his mistress.
And she’d never been further from perfect than she was right now.
‘Get out, Zafir, this conversation is over.’
But her words bounced off him as if an invisible shield protected him.
‘Think about what you’re turning down, Kat. A chance to restart your life and return to where you belong. Have you thought about what you’d be turning down?’
He mentioned a sum of money and it was literally life-changing. Kat felt her blood drain south.
He reached into an inside pocket and took out a card, holding it out to her. She unlocked her arms from her chest and took it reluctantly.
‘That’s my private number. I’ll be staying at my penthouse apartment. I’ll give you till tomorrow morning, Kat. If I don’t hear from you I will find someone else and you will never hear from me again.’
She looked at him and marvelled that she’d once believed that he loved her because he’d asked her to marry him. Because she’d always had a romantic notion that that was what people did when they loved someone, in spite of being brought up as the only child of a single parent with no clue as to her father’s whereabouts.
But Zafir’s motives had been so much more strategic than that. She’d been scrutinised and deemed suitable. Perfect. And now he was asking her to step back into a world that had chewed her up and spat her out. Not only that, he was asking her to lay herself bare to him again, to let him carve out the last remaining part of her heart that still functioned and let him crush it until there was nothing left.
Kat was stronger now than she’d ever been, considering the trials she’d faced in the past eighteen months, but she was still only human and she wasn’t strong enough for this. No matter how much money he was offering.
Without taking her eyes off Zafir’s, as if some small, treacherous part of her wanted to commit them to her memory, she held up the card and ripped it in half, letting the pieces fall to the floor.
‘Goodbye, Zafir.’
His eyes flashed and his jaw clenched. Kat could feel the waves of energy flowing like electricity between them, but after a tense moment he just stepped back and said, ‘As you wish. Goodbye, Kat.’
But to Kat’s dismay, when Zafir finally turned and walked out, picking up his overcoat as he did so, and when the door had shut behind him, the last thing she felt was triumph.
She found her feet moving towards the door instinctively, as if to rush after him and beg him not to go. She stopped in her tracks, shocked at the profound sense of loss that pervaded her whole body, and she wrapped her arms around herself as if that could hold back all the turmoil she was feeling.
Zafir had devastated her once before. She couldn’t let it happen again.
So she stayed resolutely where she was, and after she’d heard the sound of his vehicles leaving from outside the apartment she breathed in shakily and sank down onto the couch behind her.
She looked around her, as if seeing the space for the first time again. She’d grown used to the bare furnishings and the sparse décor. It was all she’d been able to afford after the accident and her lengthy rehabilitation, even though the largest part of her debt had finally been gone.
And the reason it had been gone was because once those pictures of Kat had gone public, her blackmailer—the photographer who had taken them in the first place—had had no further means with which to blackmail her. After all, everything he’d always threatened her with had come true—her career had imploded in spectacular style.
Perversely, Kat had been grateful to whoever had found and leaked the pictures, because they had freed her from a malignant threat she’d had no idea how to deal with.
On numerous occasions she’d wanted to confide in Zafir, but then she’d feel too intimidated, or too scared of his reaction. How could a man like him, who had grown up in such a rarefied world, possibly understand why she would do such a thing? The thought of revealing all that ugly poison had pulled her back from the brink each time.
And in the end hadn’t she been vindicated? She’d never forget the look of disgust and horror on his face as he’d confronted her with her past.
Kat stood up again, restless, as Zafir’s visit sank in properly. She told herself that it was his arrogance that still left her breathless, but really it was the knowledge that he still wanted her, and the even more shattering knowledge that she still wanted him. The core of her body felt hot and achy, and her blood felt thick and heavy in her veins.
Damn him.
She paced back and forth, and as she did so her eye snagged on something in the corner of the room and she stopped. Zafir hadn’t noticed them. Crutches and a folded-up wheelchair. She hadn’t needed the wheelchair for some time now, but she would never not need one to hand. And she’d always need the crutches.
To Kat’s shame, she knew that this was as much of a reason as any other as to why she’d all but pushed Zafir out through the door. Because she couldn’t bear for him to know what had happened to her. Because she couldn’t bear to think about the fact that, even if she was to ever be with Zafir again, he would not want to be with her.
Because she was irrevocably altered.
Kat picked up the crutches and went into her tiny bedroom. She took off her sneakers, undid her jeans and pulled them off, then stood in front of her mirror, inspecting herself critically.
At first glance Zafir might not notice anything different about Kat—after all she stood on two legs, and was the same height she’d always been, with the same straight back. But then she imagined his gaze travelling down and stopping on her left leg. Specifically on the prosthetic limb that now made up her lower left leg, with its mechanical ankle and fake foot.
Even now Kat couldn’t recall anything about the accident itself on that fateful night. She only knew that one minute she’d been crossing the street and the next she’d been waking up, a day later, in a hospital, with a doctor informing her that they’d had to amputate below the knee to save her leg—which was kind of ironic, considering half of it was now gone.
She’d had flashbacks however, since then, of regaining consciousness and realising that her foot was trapped under the heaviest weight. People had crowded around her but she hadn’t been able to move or speak. And then she’d slipped back into darkness.
That was why she got claustrophobic now.
Sometimes people gave her a second glance, but they soon dismissed her when they saw her slightly limping gait and figured this woman with darker hair and no make-up couldn’t possibly be the Kat Winters.
A ball of emotion lodged itself in Kat’s chest, and before she could stop them hot tears blurred her vision. But she dashed them away angrily as she sat down on her bed and set about removing her prosthetic limb with an efficiency born of habit.
It had been a long time since she’d indulged in self-pity. That had been in the dark early days, when she’d fallen down in many graceless heaps while trying to get to the bathroom during the night, when she’d hurled her crutches across the room in a rising tide of fury at the hand she’d been dealt. Or when she’d locked herself away for long days, sunk in such a black depression that she’d thought she might never emerge into daylight again.
It was her oldest friend, Julie, who was also her agent, who had finally saved her. And the local rehabilitation centre. It was there that she’d learnt how to deal with her new reality and had been able to start putting things into perspective after meeting a man who had lost both his legs in a war, and a woman who had lost an arm, and an endlessly cheerful little girl who’d lost her limbs after meningitis... They, and many more, had humbled her, and reminded her that she was one of the luckier ones.
And gradually she’d clawed her way out of the mire to a place of acceptance, where this was her new reality and she just had to get on with it. And she had been getting on with it, perfectly well, until a Zafir-shaped storm had blown everything up again.
Kat could be honest enough with herself to acknowledge that—as much as the accident and its consequences had made her feel as if her life had shrunk—she’d been living in a kind of limbo, taking one day at a time. The accident had been so catastrophic that she’d been able to block out that last night with Zafir for a long time, but recently it had been creeping back, as if now she was ready to deal with it...
Maybe he was right, whispered a coaxing voice. Maybe you do have unfinished business. Perhaps if you took on the assignment you could lay more than one ghost to rest.
The ghost of the relationship she’d thought she had with Zafir, but which had never really existed...only in her romantic fantasies.
The ghost of the Kat Winters she’d been before—in awe and intimidated by nearly everything and everyone around her in spite of her high-flying career, and by none more so than Sheikh Zafir Ibn Hafiz Al-Noury. The ghost of her mother’s death and the constant feeling of failure Kat had grown up with when she hadn’t been able to save a mother who hadn’t wanted to be saved.
The thought lodged in Kat’s head, and as much as she wanted to dismiss it out of hand she was afraid that she couldn’t go back to fooling herself that Zafir was firmly in her past. She’d been too scared to really look at the repercussions of what had happened between them, but seeing him again this evening had roused more than one dormant part of her.
Not least of which was the reawakening of her sexual awareness. It was terrifying. The prospect of intimacy and what it would mean now was something she’d found easy to bury deep inside her since the accident. If she’d thought about it at all, she’d imagined that it would be with someone gentle, kind...patient.
Zafir was a force of nature—above such benign human virtues. He didn’t have to deal with imperfection. He walked amongst the brightest, the best, the most beautiful. He was one of them.
Panic skittered up Kat’s spine. There was no way she felt ready to trust Zafir on an intimate level again with her new self.
Resolutely shutting her mind to that scenario, she thought again of that fateful night and their fight.
Her conscience pricked when she remembered rushing out of his apartment—had she been too hasty? But once she’d known that he didn’t love her, the last thing she’d wanted to do was try to defend herself to someone who had only ever seen her as some kind of a commodity.
That’s how her mother had seen her—as a means to make money, capitalising on her daughter’s beauty. Zafir had been no different—he’d all but admitted he’d only proposed because she’d fitted into his life on a superficial level and nothing more. It had driven home to Kat how much she hungered to be loved for her whole self.
But she had the sinking feeling that her secret wounds would remain raw until she confronted Zafir properly and forced him to listen to her side of the story behind those lurid headlines.
Not that she wanted anything more than that... The prospect of more made panic surge again even as her blood grew hot.
She would deny that her attraction to him was as strong as ever with every breath in her body—she had no intention of ever letting Zafir see her like this. She looked down at her residual limb and ran a hand over it almost protectively.
Yet even as she entertained the possibility of acquiescing to his demand—purely on a professional basis—she balked at the thought. The prospect of going back into that world and being scrutinised terrified her. And doing it all with Zafir by her side? Scrambling her brain to pieces? Making all the cold parts of her melt again after she’d spent so much time rebuilding her defences?
No way. She couldn’t. She wasn’t strong enough yet.
At that moment Kat caught sight of her reflection in the mirror as she sat on the bed. Her eyes were huge. She looked panicked and pale... Something inside her resisted that. She sat up straight and took in the full reality of who she was now. A damaged woman, yes, and less whole than she’d once been, but actually in many ways more whole than she’d ever been.
She’d always known on some level that she wasn’t prepared to hide away as Kaycee Smith for ever, and Julie had been putting more and more pressure on her to come out of her protective cocoon, to let herself be seen again.
And now Zafir was asking her to take on a modelling assignment. That was all. No, it’s not, whispered a snide voice, and Kat’s heart thumped in response. Zafir had wanted perfection before, and he’d rejected her because she’d fallen from grace. She would never give him a chance to do that to her again.
She thought of the sum of money he’d mentioned and realised with a churning gut that it would allow her to pay Julie back. Her friend had helped support Kat through not only the first six months of her rehabilitation, but since then too, because Kat had only had the most basic of insurance. But also—and maybe more important—she realised that she would be able to help the rehabilitation centre that had been so instrumental in her recovery.
The St Patrick’s Medical Centre for Traumatic Injuries was currently facing the prospect of closure due to lack of funds and resources. Kat would be in a position to give them enough money to avoid imminent closure until they could get back on their feet and raise more funds for their long-term future.
If she accepted Zafir’s job offer.
Her heart sped up with a mixture of terror and illicit excitement—if she said yes, then she could use it as an exercise to prove to herself just how ill-suited she and Zafir had always been, in spite of the insane chemistry between them. Never more evident than now. She was no longer a wide-eyed virgin being initiated into a world that had moved at a terrifying pace—too fast for her to shout, ‘Stop!’ and get off.
She was strong enough to take on Zafir and walk away with her head high.
Are you really, though?
Kat assured herself that, yes, she was.
This would be purely a professional transaction. Zafir would never touch her emotions again—or her body. He was the kind of man who relished the conquest, who relished making a woman acquiesce to him of her own volition, and she had no intention of acquiescing to an affair.
The walls Kat had had to build just to survive since the accident were impenetrable. He wouldn’t break through. She could do this.
She picked up her mobile from the table near the bed before she lost her nerve, focusing on anything but the terror she felt at the thought of what she was about to do. And how it would affect her life.
This wasn’t just about her. Not when she now knew she could put that money to good use. Vital use.
Zafir had made it clear that he would walk away, and if Kat knew anything about him it was that he meant what he said. He was a proud man. He wouldn’t ask again and he certainly wouldn’t beg.
As Kat dialled her friend’s number and waited for her to answer, she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror again. She scowled at her flushed face and the too-bright eyes that whispered that her decision had a lot less to do with altruism and more to do with something much darker and far more ambiguous deep inside her.
And then Julie answered and Kat had a split second to decide whether to take a step into a dangerous future or remain safe in the past.
