Читать книгу The Desert Sheikh's Captive Wife - Линн Грэхем, Lynne Graham - Страница 6

‘HAVE I met anyone whom I would like to marry?’ Rashad, Crown Prince of Bakhar almost laughed out loud as he considered his father’s gently voiced question. Engrained good manners, however, restrained such a blunt response. ‘No, I fear not.’

King Hazar surveyed his son and heir with concealed disquiet. His guilty conscience was pricked by the truth that he had been blessed by Rashad’s birth, for his son was everything a future monarch should be. His sterling qualities had shone like a beacon during those dark days when Bakhar had suffered under the despotic rule of Sadiq, Hazar’s uncle. In the eyes of the people, Rashad could do no wrong; he had endured many cruelties, but had still emerged a hero from the war that had restored the legitimate line to the throne. Even the rumours that the Crown Prince was regarded as a notorious womaniser abroad barely raised a brow, since it was accepted that he had earned the right to enjoy his liberty.

‘There comes a time when a man must settle down,’ King Hazar remarked with all the awkwardness of one who had never been anything other than settled in his habits. ‘And put aside more worldly pursuits.’

His lean and darkly handsome features grim, Rashad stared stonily out at the exquisite gardens that were his father’s pride and joy. Maybe when he was older he too would get a thrill out of pruning topiary, he reflected wryly. Although he had a great affection for the older man, father and son were not close. How could they have been? Rashad had been only four years old when he’d been torn from his mother’s arms and denied all further contact with his parents. In the following two decades, he had learned to trust nobody and keep his own counsel. By the time he had been reunited with his family, he had been an adult, a survivor and a battle-hardened soldier, trained to put duty and discipline above all other virtues. But on this particular issue he was not prepared to meet his father’s expectations.

‘I don’t want to get married,’ Rashad declared levelly.

King Hazar was unprepared for that bold response, which offered neither apology nor the possibility of compromise. Assuming that he had broached the subject clumsily, he said earnestly, ‘I believe that marriage will greatly add to your happiness.’

Rashad almost winced at that simplistic assurance. He had no such expectation. Only once had a woman made Rashad happy, but almost as quickly he had discovered that he was living in a fool’s paradise. He had never forgotten the lesson. He liked his freedom and he liked sex. In short he enjoyed women, but there was only one space for a woman to fill in his private life and that was in his bed. And just as, when it came to food, he preferred a varied diet, he had no desire to have any woman foisted on him on a permanent basis. ‘I’m afraid I cannot agree with you on that issue.’

The older man ignored the decided chill that laced the atmosphere and suppressed a sigh. He wished that he’d had the opportunity to acquire just a smidgeon of his son’s superior education and sophistication so that they might talk on more equal terms. Most of all he longed for the ability to deal with the son he loved with a wholly clear conscience, but unhappily that was not possible. ‘I have never known us to be at odds. I must have expressed my hopes badly. Or perhaps I took you too much by surprise.’

Rashad folded his wide sensual mouth. ‘Nothing you could say will change my mind. I have no desire for a wife.’

‘Rashad…’ His royal father was aghast at the stubborn inflexibility of that refusal, for his son was not known for his changeability. ‘You are so popular with our people that I believe you could marry any woman you chose. Perhaps you are concerned about the type of woman you might be expected to marry. It is my belief that even a foreigner would be acceptable.’

Brilliant dark eyes veiled and grim, Rashad had fallen very still at that reference to the possibility of a foreign bride. He wondered if the older man was recalling his son’s disastrous infatuation with an Englishwoman five years ago. The very suspicion of that stung Rashad’s ferocious pride. He and his father had buried the ill-fated episode without ever discussing it.

‘We live in a modern world. Yet you believe that I must behave exactly as you and my forefathers behaved and marry young to produce a son and heir,’ Rashad delivered with cool, crisp diction. ‘I do not believe that such sacrifice is necessary. I have three older sisters with a string of healthy sons between them. In the future, one of those boys might stand as my heir.’

‘But none of them have a royal father. One day, you will be king. Will you disappoint our people? What have you got against marriage?’ the older man demanded in bewilderment. ‘You have so much to offer.’

Everything but a heart and faith in womankind, Rashad affixed with inward impatience. ‘I have nothing against the institution of marriage. It was right for you but it would not be right for me.’

‘At least reflect on what I have said,’ King Hazar urged. ‘We will talk about this again.’

Having defended his right to freedom as resolutely as he had once fought for the freedom of the Bakhari people from a repressive regime, Rashad strode out through the vast ante-room beyond his father’s private quarters. It was thronged with senior ministers and courtiers, who bowed very low as he passed. One after another, guards presented arms and saluted as Rashad progressed through the ancient courtyards and corridors to his suite of offices.

‘Oh…I meant to surprise you, Your Royal Highness.’ A very attractive brunette with almond-shaped brown eyes and creamy skin, set off by a sleek coil of dark brown hair, straightened from the refreshments she had been setting out in the spacious outer office. In acknowledgement of his arrival, she bent low as did the staff, who had been engaged in answering the phones. ‘We all know that you often work so hard that you forget to eat.’

Although Rashad would have preferred privacy at that moment, the courteous formalities expected of a prince were second nature to him. Farah was a distant relation. With modest smiles and light conversation, Rashad was served with mint tea and tiny cakes. Evidently word of his father’s hope of marrying him off was out in the élite court circle of Bakhar, so Rashad did not make the mistake of sitting down and prolonging the exchange of pleasantries. He knew that the whole exercise was designed to impress him as to Farah’s suitability as a royal bride and hostess.

‘I couldn’t help noticing your alumni magazine, Your Royal Highness,’ Farah remarked. ‘You must be proud of having attained a first from Oxford University.’

His level dark deep set eyes shadowed. ‘Indeed,’ he said flatly, and dismissed her with a polite nod. ‘You must excuse me. I have an appointment.’

Having swept up the magazine she had drawn to his attention, Rashad entered his palatial office. He wondered how many previous issues he had ignored and left unread over the years. He had few fond memories of his time as a student in England. In defiance of that thought he leafed through the publication, only to fall still when the fleeting glimpse of a woman’s face suddenly focused his attention on one page and a photograph in particular. It was Matilda Crawford arriving at an academic function, her hand resting on the arm of a distinguished older man in a dinner jacket.

Rashad spread the magazine open on his desk with lean brown hands that were not quite steady. It was pure primitive rage, not nerves, that powered him. Matilda’s pale blond hair was pulled back from her face, and she was wearing a rather prim high-necked brown dress. But then, her natural beauty required no adornment: she had the fair hair, ivory skin and turquoise-blue eyes of a true English rose. His perfect white teeth gritted as he studied the caption below the photo. She was not named but her partner was: Professor Evan Jerrold, the philanthropist. A rich man—of course a rich man! No doubt another gullible sucker ripe for the plucking, Rashad thought with fierce bitterness and distaste.

He was exasperated that he was still sensitive to the sight of Tilda and the regrettable memories she roused. It had been, however, an unsavoury incident in his life and a reminder that he had human flaws. Five years earlier, Rashad might have been seasoned on the battlefield and idolised by his countrymen as a saviour, but his great-uncle Sadiq had succeeded in keeping him a virtual prisoner in Bakhar. Rashad had lived under constant threat and surveillance. He had been twenty-five years old by the time his father had been restored to the throne and he himself had been eager to take advantage of the freedom that had been denied him.

It had been King Hazar who suggested that Rashad complete his academic studies in England. Rashad might have inherited his mother’s intellectual brilliance and his father’s shrewdness but, in those days, he had had little experience of the ways of Western females. Within days of his arrival in Oxford, he had become infatuated with an outrageously unsuitable young woman.

Tilda Crawford had been a bar-girl, a one-time exotic dancer and a deceitful gold-digging slut. But she had told Rashad poignant stories about her bullying stepfather and her family’s sufferings at his hands. She had judged her audience well, Rashad acknowledged with derision. Brought up to believe that it was his duty to help those weaker than himself, he had flipped straight into gallant rescue mode. Duped by her beauty and her lies, he had come dangerously close to asking her to marry him. What a future queen that lowborn Jezebel would have made! The acid bite of the humiliation that had been inflicted on him still had the power to sting Rashad’s ego afresh.

He squared his broad shoulders and lifted his proud dark head high. It really was time to draw a line beneath the sleazy episode and consign his regrets to the past. Only now could he see that this feat could scarcely be achieved while the wrongdoers went unpunished. Without a doubt, the requirements of truth and decency had not been served by the dignified silence he had maintained. Indeed, had he not inadvertently made it easier for Tilda Crawford to go on to defraud other wealthy men? He might well save her elderly admirer from a similar trial, he thought with bleak satisfaction. Offenders should be called to account for their sins, not permitted to continue enjoying the fruits of their dishonesty.

Rashad studied the photo of Tilda again and marvelled at how much better he felt now that he had recognised where his ultimate duty lay. Action was required, not strategic withdrawal. He contacted his chief accountant to confirm that not a single payment had yet been received on the interest-free loan he had advanced to the Crawford family. He was not surprised to have his worst expectations fulfilled. He gave the order that the matter should be pursued with diligence. Powered by a strong sense of justice, he tossed the magazine aside.

Pushing the mass of her long blond hair back behind her ear, Tilda studied her mother, Beth, in total consternation and asked for a second time, ‘How much do you owe?’

The tear-stained older woman gazed back at her daughter with wretched eyes and repeated the figure shakily. ‘I’m sorry; I’m so sorry about this. I should’ve told you months ago but I couldn’t face it. I’ve been hiding my head in the sand and hoping all the trouble would go away.’

Tilda was in serious shock at the amount of money her mother confessed to owing. It was simply huge. Surely there was some mistake or misunderstanding? She could not imagine how Beth could possibly have got into that much debt. Who would have loaned her perennially cash-strapped parent so much money? How on earth could anyone ever have believed that Beth might repay such a vast sum? She reminded herself that interest charges could be very steep and began to ask more pertinent questions in an effort to establish how and when such a debt had originated.

‘When did you take out the loan?’

Beth wiped at her reddened eyes, but did not look directly at her daughter. ‘Five years ago…but I’m not sure you could describe it as a loan.’

Tilda was astonished that her mother could have kept it a secret for so long. But she could remember very well how much of a struggle it had been back then just to put food on the table. She was simply bewildered by Beth’s uncertainty about whether or not she had taken out a loan. ‘Can I see the paperwork?’

The older woman scrambled up and went into the very depths of a cupboard from which she withdrew a plastic container. She shot her daughter a sheepish glance. ‘I’ve had to hide the letters so that you and your brothers and sisters didn’t see them and ask me what they were about.’

As a sizeable pile of letters was tipped out onto the table Tilda swallowed back a groan of disbelief. ‘How long is it since you were last able to make a payment?’

Pushing her short fair hair off her brow in a nervous gesture, Beth sent Tilda an uneasy look. ‘I’ve never made a payment—’

‘Never?’ Tilda interrupted in dismay.

‘There wasn’t the money at first and I thought that I would start making payments when things improved,’ the small blonde woman confided, shredding a tissue between her trembling hands. ‘But things never did improve enough. There was always a bill or someone needing new shoes or bus fares…or Christmas would come along and I hated disappointing the children. They would go without so much for the rest of the year.’

‘I know.’ Leafing through the heap of unopened letters, Tilda breathed out and in again very slowly and carefully. She knew she dared not show how appalled she was by what she was finding out. Her mother was a vulnerable woman, prone to panic attacks. She needed her daughter to be calm and supportive. It was, after all, over four years since Beth had last left the house to face an outside world that had become so threatening to her. Agoraphobia, a fear of open spaces, had made Beth’s home her prison. But it had not stopped the older woman from working for her living. A whizz with a sewing machine, Beth had a regular clientele for whom she tailored clothes and made soft furnishings. Unfortunately, however, she did not earn very much.

‘Exactly how did you get the loan?’ Tilda prompted in confusion. ‘Surely nobody came to the house to offer you that much money?’

Across the table Beth worried at her lower lip with her teeth and shifted uncomfortably. There was a shamefaced look on her face. ‘This is the bit I really didn’t want to tell you. In fact, it’s why I felt I had to keep it all a secret. It made me feel so guilty and I didn’t want to upset you. You see, I asked Rashad for the money and he gave it to me.’

Every scrap of colour ebbed from Tilda’s oval face. With her flawless features stretched taut over her delicate bone structure, her turquoise-blue eyes seemed brighter than ever against her pallor. ‘Rashad…’ she repeated weakly, her heart sinking like a stone and shame grabbing her by the throat. ‘You actually asked him to help us out?’

‘Don’t look at me like that!’ Beth gasped strickenly, her unhappiness overflowing into tears. ‘Rashad once said that we all felt like part of his family, and that that’s how families always work in Bakhar—everyone looking out for everybody else. I was convinced he was going to marry you. I thought it was all right to accept his financial help.’

Tilda was aghast at an explanation that rang all too true from a woman as naïve as her mother was. When Rashad had visited her home he had appeared to like her large and boisterous family. In fact, it was only during those occasions that she had ever seen Rashad fully relax his guard. He had played rough-and-tumble games with her brothers, taught one of her sisters mathematical long division and read stories to the youngest. Unsurprisingly, her mother had become a huge admirer of his. Tilda had never had the heart to tell the older woman why and how she and Rashad had broken up. Pushing herself clumsily upright, Tilda walked over to the living room window. A busy road lay beyond the front garden of the semi-detached house, but Tilda was so lost in a tide of angry, painful thoughts that she was not aware of the traffic.

While she was very loyal to her mother she was cringing at what she had just learned. She was shattered to learn a full five years after the event that her relationship with Rashad had begat a financial angle that she had known nothing about! Surely that must have had a negative effect on Rashad’s view of her? She would have died a thousand deaths of shame had she known about that money at the time.

Rashad was fabulously wealthy and very generous. Had he simply taken pity on Beth? Or had he cherished a darker motive? Had he believed that money might make Tilda less nervous of surrendering her body to him? Had he intended it as the purchase price of her virginity? Her pride writhed at that sordid suspicion. Was she being hugely unfair to him? She thought that actions sometimes spoke louder than words. She had not slept with Rashad and he had ditched her without an ounce of compassion or decency.

‘I was desperate,’ Beth admitted in a stricken undertone. ‘I knew it wasn’t right but your stepfather had got us into such a mess with the mortgage payments. I was terrified that we were going to end up homeless.’

It took enormous effort but Tilda managed to close a mental door on the potent image of Prince Rashad Hussein Al-Zafar, with whom she’d had the poor taste to fall madly in love at the age of eighteen. That reference to her mother’s ghastly second husband helped to distract her. Scott Morrison had married Beth when she was a widow with two young children. On the surface a glib and handsome charmer, he had been a terrible bully, who had systematically robbed his stepfamily of their financial security. The birth of three more children and the stress of dealing with an unfaithful and dishonest husband had led to Beth’s panic attacks and her eventual diagnosis of agoraphobia.

‘When I asked Rashad for help, he said that he would buy the house and keep it in his name so that Scott couldn’t get his hands on it…’

Tilda whirled round, depth-charged by that information out of her recollections and back into the all-too-threatening present. On every front that admission came as a shock to Tilda. ‘Are you telling me that Rashad also owns this house?’ she gasped in horror.

‘Yes. At first that made me feel that we were all safe and secure!’ the older woman suddenly sobbed.

‘Why don’t you make a cup of tea while I take a look at some of these letters?’ Tilda suggested, hoping that that routine task would help her mother to calm down. Yet her own self-discipline was being equally challenged by what she had discovered. Although she was determined not to give way to a growing sense of panic, she could not stop Rashad’s name from rhyming and purring like a derisive echo at the back of her mind.

Eager to hide the fact that she was frantic with worry, Tilda sorted the mostly unopened letters into rough piles according to date. But flashes of memory kept on attacking her from all sides: Rashad, so breathtakingly handsome she hadn’t been able to take her eyes off him the first time she saw him; Rashad, the last time she had seen him, kissing another woman. Having dumped her, he had moved on with breathtaking speed. Her mind was quick to back away from that final recollection and she began reading the letters. Silence fell while she speedily absorbed their contents. Unhappily what she learned from the exercise was not good news.

To begin with, Rashad, or more probably his representatives in the matter, had engaged a London legal firm while ensuring that Beth received advice from another solicitor. The purchase price of the house had been fair. A further substantial amount of money had been advanced to settle several outstanding debts. Wincing as she totted up figures in her head, Tilda became more and more tense. If anything, her mother had underestimated the size of her debt. A contract that allowed for every eventuality had been signed. Her mother had been given a whole year to get her affairs in order before she was asked whether she wished to take out a mortgage to buy the house back or instead opt to pay rent as a tenant. Tilda came on a copy of the tenancy agreement that her mother had signed.

‘What made you decide to sign a tenancy agreement?’ Tilda queried dry-mouthed.

‘The solicitor came to see me here and I had to make a choice about what I was going to do.’

‘But you haven’t paid any rent, have you?’ her daughter prompted, having already seen a worrying missive that referred to rent arrears.

‘No. I couldn’t afford to.’ Beth eyed the younger woman fearfully.

‘Not even one payment?’ Tilda thought that there should have been enough income to at least pay the rent but, as quickly, blamed herself for not having taken more of an interest in the family finances.

‘No, not one.’ Beth would not meet her daughter’s troubled gaze, and Tilda wondered uneasily if there was something that she wasn’t being told.

‘Mum…are there any other problems?’ Tilda pressed.

Beth gave her a frightened look and shook her head. ‘Now that you’ve seen the letters, what do you think?’

Shelving the ESP that was giving her the suspicion there was something else amiss, Tilda knew she could not say what she thought about the letters. Her mother was a loving and caring parent, adored by every one of her five children. She was also extremely kind and hard-working, but when it came to dealing with money or problem husbands Beth was pretty much useless. By ignoring the letters, the older woman had acted as her own worst enemy. More recent missives had taken on the cold, clipped edge of threat. They were facing eviction from their home. Tilda felt as if spooky fingers were tightening round her lungs, for the challenge of delivering such terrifying news to her mother was at that moment beyond her. Beth was too frightened even to walk down the drive to the front gate, so how could she possibly cope with the awful upheaval and disgrace of being literally cast out on the street? And if she could not cope, how would it affect Tilda’s four younger siblings?

‘Tilda…’ Beth surveyed her daughter with a heavy heart ‘…I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you about this months ago, but I felt so guilty about having married Scott. Everything that’s gone wrong for us since then is my fault.’

‘You can’t blame yourself for marrying him. He didn’t show his true colours until after the wedding and now he’s out of our lives, so let’s not go back there,’ Tilda urged in a deliberately upbeat tone. ‘Stop worrying about this. I’ll look into it and see what I can sort out.’

The buzz of the doorbell sounded extraordinarily loudly in the strained silence.

Dismay tightening her features as she checked her watch, Beth flew upright. ‘That’ll be a customer. I’d better splash my face with some cold water!’

‘Go ahead. I’ll answer the door.’ Tilda was grateful for that timely interruption, for she did not want to be tempted into soothing her mother by offering empty assurances that everything would come all right. Even in the grip of shock as Tilda still was, she could see little prospect of a happy ending to her family’s predicament. After all, only repayment of the debt could settle it and they were all as poor as church mice.

Frustration hurtled through Tilda, who felt as if her brain was suffering from a stress overload. Why, oh, why, had she given up a steady job to pursue an academic qualification for three years? But the decision had made sense at the time, offering as it did the prospect of a career with eventual excellent earning potential. Unfortunately it meant that now she had no savings and had a large student loan to pay back. Even though she was currently working full time again in a position with good prospects, she was a junior member of staff and her salary was not generous.

Tilda found her former employer, Evan Jerrold, on the doorstep. Once again Evan had his arms wrapped round a fat roll of curtain fabric. The sight would have provoked a smile from Tilda on a normal day, because in old-fashioned parlance—and he was an old-fashioned man—Evan was sweet on her mother. After a chance meeting with Beth one day when he had given Tilda a lift into work, the older man had gradually become a regular visitor. For months now he had been dreaming up new furnishing projects that gave him ample opportunity to ask Beth to advise him on colour, fabric and style.

Tilda showed Evan through to her mother’s workroom at the back of the house. The kindly older man had originally encouraged Tilda to give up her office job and go to university. An academic, who had inherited a thriving family firm, Evan had ensured that Tilda always had a job there during her college vacations. Tilda went into the kitchen to gather up the letters and take them upstairs. She was thinking sadly that Evan, the survivor of a bitter and costly divorce battle, would run a mile once he heard about her mother’s financial embarrassments. But, in all probability, nothing more than friendship would have developed between Beth and Evan, anyway, Tilda told herself in exasperation. Since when had she believed in fairy tales?

Her own workaholic father, whom she barely remembered, had been knocked down and killed by a drunk driver when she was five years old. Her mother’s subsequent second marriage had been a disaster. Bullied and cowed by Scott, Beth had been in no fit state to protect her children. In Tilda’s last year at school, her stepfather had made her work at night in a sleazy club run by one of his cronies.

Tilda forced her straying thoughts back to the present and scolded herself for that momentary slide back into the past. What was needed was action, not time-wasting regret for facts that could not be changed! She reached for the phone and rang the number of the legal firm on the letterhead to ask for an appointment. Humble pleading on the score of extreme urgency won her a late-morning slot the next day. Having arranged several days’ leave from her current employment as an accounts assistant, she called her bank and asked how much money she would be allowed to borrow. Her worst fears were fulfilled when the loan officer pointed out that she had no assets and was still on probation in her current job. As she had never been a quitter she contacted three other financial institutions in the hope of receiving a more promising response before she accepted defeat on that issue.

The following day she put on a black trouser suit and caught a train to London. She made a punctual appearance at the imposing legal offices of Ratburn, Ratburn and Mildrop in the City. Ushered into the presence of an urbane, well-turned-out lawyer, she was tense and within minutes it seemed that every word she uttered was worthy only of a stony rebuttal.

‘I’m unable to discuss your mother’s confidential affairs with you, Miss Crawford.’ An explanation of Beth’s agoraphobia merely led to a further question. ‘Unless, of course, you have acquired power of attorney to speak and act on Mrs Morrison’s behalf?’

‘No…but I was once quite friendly with Prince Rashad,’ Tilda heard herself say, desperate to prove her credentials in some way and win a serious hearing.

The middle-aged lawyer dealt her a cool appraisal. ‘I am not aware that His Royal Highness is involved in this matter.’

Tilda became even tenser. ‘I appreciate that the loan was ostensibly advanced by a business called Metropolis—’

‘I cannot discuss confidential matters with a third party.’

Her full soft mouth compressed. ‘Then let me talk it over with Rashad direct. Please tell me how I can get in touch with him quickly.’

‘I’m afraid that’s not possible.’ Before she could pursue the point, the older man stood up to signify that the meeting was at an end.

Less than two minutes later, Tilda was back out on the street again. She was mortified by the reception she had received. She caught the bus to the opulent Embassy of Bakhar, where her request for a phone number or meeting with the Crown Prince was treated with a smiling but dismissive courtesy that gained her not a millimetre of access. The level of security and discretion that appeared to surround Rashad’s movements was daunting. Direct contact with him was clearly not to be had for the asking. Her only option was to leave her phone number, which would be passed on to his staff. Throughout her unsatisfactory visit, she was quite unaware of a bearded older man with silvering hair, who had left his office the moment he had seen her name pop up on his computer screen. A troubled frown on his stolid features, he watched her depart from his vantage point on the landing above.

Determined not to be beaten in her quest, Tilda went straight to the nearest library and used the Internet. She was initially infuriated by the discovery that Rashad was currently in London and yet nobody had been prepared to admit that. But when she noticed the date of the charity benefit he was to attend and realised that it was being staged that very day, it lent wings to her thoughts and her feet.

At the reception desk of the exclusive hotel where the benefit was being held, Tilda learned that admission was by invitation only. She paid for an eye-wateringly expensive soft drink so that she could sit in the hotel foyer. Sophisticated women in fashionable cocktail frocks walked in and out of the crowded ballroom. A door was propped wide to facilitate the exit of a man in a wheelchair, and Tilda caught a glimpse of a very tall, powerful male standing about thirty feet inside the room.

Her heart lurched as if she had suddenly been thrown high in the air without warning. It was Rashad, and there was something so achingly familiar in the proud angle of his dark head that she rose to her feet without being aware of it. Her attention roved from the crisp luxuriance of his cropped black hair to the bold lineaments of his strong profile. Below the bright ballroom lights, his skin had the rich sheen of gold, showcasing his well-defined black brows, a thin aristocratic blade of a nose and a fierce sensual mouth set above a hard, masculine jaw line. He was incredibly good-looking in a very exotic, un-English way. Back in the days when she had innocently dreamt of a future as an artist, she had drawn his face over and over again, obsessively attached to every detail of his hawkish features that might have been lifted from an ancient Berber hanging.

He was surrounded by a circle of people. She was willing him to turn his handsome head and notice her at the same moment that she registered that candy-pink female fingernails rested on his arm. For a split second she could not credit that she had not immediately seen the gorgeous brunette in her flimsy short dress flashing an intimate smile up at him. It was as though Tilda’s mind had censored that part of her view, only letting her see what she could handle. The last time she had seen Rashad in the flesh five years earlier he had also been with another woman, a sight that had ensured that an extra large dollop of humiliation had been added to her agonised sense of rejection.

Now, as then, pride and anger came to Tilda’s rescue. Just as her eyes swerved back onto him, Rashad finally looked in her direction. His keen, dark-as-ebony gaze was trained on her. Not a muscle moved on his lean, strong face. He blanked her as if she didn’t exist and her view was cut off as the door swung shut again. In shock at that lack of reaction, Tilda turned pale as death. She went back to Reception and asked to leave a message for Prince Rashad. She hovered while it was being delivered but the minutes ticked slowly past and no answer came back. She sat down again, hollow with physical hunger, for she had not eaten since early morning. But she had no option other than to wait. She dared not leave while there was still an ounce of hope that he might respond to her request for a meeting.

It was almost three hours before Rashad chose to make his departure. Several powerfully built Arab men emerged from the function room and fanned out in an advance guard before Rashad strode into view. He had fantastic carriage, moving with the grace of a prowling panther. His sinuous female companion had to almost run to keep up in her high heels. Tilda could not have broken through the tight cordon of security that kept lesser mortals at bay in the royal presence. She watched as the paparazzi outside flashed cameras and shouted questions. Rashad ignored them and moved down the steps.

‘Miss Crawford?’

A dark-skinned older man extended a card to her with a quiet nod and walked on out the door.

Blinking in surprise, Tilda studied the card, which contained an address and a time late the following afternoon. She sucked in a tremulous breath. Rashad was giving her the chance to plead her family’s case. But if she had not dutifully waited all those hours like a lowly supplicant for His Royal Highness’s attention, she would not have got the concession. Anger stirring afresh, she recognised how Rashad made her suffer: first the whip, then the reward—but only if appropriate humility was displayed.

Reclining back into the comfort of his limousine, Rashad thought about Tilda Crawford, defiantly clad in the sort of masculine clothes he had never liked. Why did she only dress up like that for his benefit? Nothing could detract from such striking natural beauty. Even with her mermaid’s mass of curling pale blond hair tied back, her turquoise eyes and the heart-shaped pout of her full pink mouth bare of cosmetic enhancement, she had held every male eye in her vicinity.

Rashad had enjoyed keeping her waiting. He knew what kind of woman she was and he would give no quarter when he dealt with her. In truth, being very tough came naturally to Rashad, who had found restraint and tenderness a much greater challenge. While engaged in picturing Tilda he discovered that a sense of unlimited power could also act as an aphrodisiac. The eager brunette by his side rested a slim, caressing hand on his lean, powerful thigh. With a languid forefinger Rashad depressed the button to screen the windows….