Desert Jewels: The Sheikh's Undoing / The Sultan's Choice / Girl in the Bedouin Tent

CHAPTER THREE

‘CAREFUL,’ warned Isobel.

‘Please don’t state the obvious,’ Tariq snapped, as he bent his head to avoid the low front door.

‘I was only trying to help,’ she protested, as he walked straight past her.

Stepping into the cluttered sitting room was no better, and Tariq quickly discovered that the abundance of overhanging beams was nothing short of a health hazard. ‘I’ve already had one knock to the head, and I don’t particularly want another,’ he growled. ‘Why is your damned ceiling so low?’

‘Because men didn’t stand at over six feet when these houses were built!’ she retorted, thinking that he had to be the most ungrateful man ever to have drawn breath. Here she was, putting herself out by giving him house-space for a week, and all he could do was come out with a litany of complaints.

But some of her exasperation dissolved as she closed the front door, so that the two of them were enclosed in a room which up until that moment she had always thought of as a safe and cosy sanctuary. But not any more. Suddenly it didn’t seem safe at all…

She felt hot blood begin to flood through her veins—because the reality of having Tariq standing here was having a bizarre effect on her senses. Had the dimensions magically shrunk? Or was it just his towering physique which dwarfed everything else around him?

Even in jeans and the soft swathing of a grey cashmere sweater he seemed to exude a charisma which drew the eye like nothing else. His faded jeans were stretched over powerful thighs and the sweater hinted at honed muscle beneath. Somehow he managed to make her cottage look like a prop from Toytown, and the thick and solid walls suddenly seemed insubstantial. Come to think of it, didn’t she feel a little insubstantial herself?

She remembered that uncomfortable feeling of awareness which had come over her in the hospital—when she’d looked down at him and something inside her had melted. It was as if in that moment she had suddenly given herself permission to see him as other women saw him—and the impact of that had rocked her. And now it was rocking her all over again. Something about the way he was standing there was making her heart slam hard against her ribcage, and an aching feeling began to tug at her belly.

Isobel swallowed, willing this temporary madness to subside. Because acknowledging Tariq’s charisma was the last thing she needed right now. Arrogant playboys were not number one on her list of emotional requirements. And even if they were…as if he would ever look at a woman like her.

She flashed him a quick smile, even as she became aware of the peculiar prickle of her breasts. ‘Look, why don’t you sit down and I’ll make you some tea?’

‘I don’t want any tea,’ he said. ‘But I’d quite like to avoid getting frostbite. It’s absolutely freezing in here. Give me some matches and I’ll light a fire.’

Isobel shook her head. ‘You aren’t supposed to be lighting fires. In fact, you aren’t supposed to be doing anything but resting. I can manage perfectly well—so will you please sit down on the sofa and put your feet up and let me look after you?’

Tariq’s eyes narrowed as her protective command washed over him. His first instinct was to resist. He wasn’t used to care from the fairer sex. His experience of women usually involved the rapid removal of their clothing and them gasping out their pleasure when he touched them. Big eyes clouded with concern tended to be outside his experience.

‘And if I don’t?’ he challenged softly.

Their gazes clashed in a way which made Isobel’s stomach perform a peculiar little flip. She saw the mocking curve of his lips and suddenly she felt almost weak— as if she were the invalid, not him. Clamping down the sudden rise of longing, she shook her head—because she was damned if he was going to manipulate her the way other women let him manipulate them. ‘I don’t think you’re in any position to object,’ she answered coolly. ‘And if you did I could always threaten to hand my notice in.’

‘You wouldn’t do that, Izzy.’

‘Oh, wouldn’t I?’ she returned fiercely, because now she could see a hint of that awful pallor returning to his face, and a horrifying thought occurred to her. Yes, her mother had been a nurse, and she had learned lots of basic first aid through her. She had managed to convince the hospital doctor that she could cope. But what if she had taken on more than she could handle? What if Tariq began to have side-effects from his head injury? She thought about the hospital leaflet in her handbag and decided that she’d better consult it. ‘Now, will you please sit down?’

Unexpectedly, Tariq gave a low laugh. ‘You can be a fierce little tiger at times, can’t you?’

Something about his very obvious approval made her cheeks grow warm with pleasure. ‘I can if I need to be.’

‘Okay, you win.’ Sinking down onto a chintzy and over-stuffed sofa, he batted her a sardonic look. ‘Is that better, Nurse?’

Trying not to laugh, Isobel nodded. ‘Marginally. Do you think you could just try sitting there quietly while I light the fire?’

‘I can try.’

Tariq leaned back against a heap of cushions and watched as she busied herself with matches and kindling. Funny, really—he’d never really pictured Izzy in a cottage which was distinctly chocolate-boxy despite the sub-zero temperatures. Not that he’d given very much thought at all as to how his assistant lived her life.

Stifling a yawn, he looked around. The sitting room had those tiny windows which didn’t let in very much light, and a big, recessed fireplace—the kind you saw on the front of Christmas cards. She was crouching down in front of the grate, and he watched as she began to blow on the flames to coax them into life. He found his eyes drawn to the denim skirt, which now stretched tightly over the curves of her buttocks.

He swallowed down a sudden, debilitating leap of desire which made him harden in a way he hadn’t been expecting. In five years of close contact with his highly efficient assistant he couldn’t remember ever noticing her bottom before. And it was actually a rather fine bottom. Firm and high and beautifully rounded. The kind of bottom which a man liked to cup in the palms of his hands as he…

‘What?’ Isobel turned round and frowned.

‘I didn’t…’ Tariq swallowed. What the hell was going on? Did bumps to the head make men lose their senses, so that they started imagining all kinds of inappropriate things? ‘I didn’t say anything.’

‘But you made a funny sort of noise.’ Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him. ‘Are you all right? Your eyes have gone all glazed.’

‘Are you surprised?’ Shifting his position, Tariq glared at her, willing his erection to subside. ‘I’ve just had to endure your driving.’

Isobel turned back to the now leaping flames, an unseen smile playing around her lips. If he was jumping down her throat like that, then there couldn’t be very much wrong with him.

She waited until the fire was properly alight and then went into the kitchen and made his favourite mint tea—bringing it back into the sitting room on a tray set with bone china cups and a jar of farm honey.

To her relief, she could see that he had taken her at her word. He’d kicked off his hand-made Italian shoes and was lying stretched out on the sofa, despite it being slightly too small to accommodate his lengthy frame. His thick black hair was outlined by a chintz cushion and his powerful thighs were splayed indolently against the faded velvet. It made an incongruous image, she realised—to see the über-masculine Sheikh in such a domestic setting as this.

She poured tea for them both, added honey to his, and put it down a small table beside him, her gaze straying to his face as she sat on the floor beside the fire. Tariq was known for his faintly unshaven buccaneering look, but today the deep shadowing which outlined the hard definition of his jaw made him look like a study in brooding testosterone.

Now it was Isobel’s turn to feel vulnerable. That faint butterflies-in-the-stomach feeling was back, big-time. And so was that sudden sensitive prickling of her breasts. She swallowed. ‘How are you feeling?’

His eyes narrowed. ‘Will you stop talking to me as if I’m an invalid?’

‘But that’s what you are, Tariq—otherwise you wouldn’t be here, would you? Just put my mind at rest. I’m not asking you to divulge the secrets of your heart—just answer the question.’

For the first time he became aware of the faint shadows beneath her eyes. She must be tired, he realised suddenly, and frowned. Hadn’t he woken her at the crack of dawn yesterday? Called her and known she would come running to his aid without a second thought—because that was what she always did? Safe, reliable Izzy, who was always there when he needed her—often before he even realised he did. It wasn’t an observation which would have normally occurred to him, and the novelty of that made him consider her question instead of batting it away with his habitual impatience.

Oddly—apart from the lessening ache in his head and the woolly feeling which came from his having been inactive for over a day—he felt strangely relaxed. Usually he was alert and driven, restlessly looking ahead to the next challenge. He was also constantly on his guard, knowing that his royal blood made him a target for all kinds of social climbers. Or journalists masquerading as dinner-dates.

Since his brother had unexpectedly acceded to the throne it had grown worse—placing him firmly in the public eye. He was bitterly aware that his words were always listened to, often distorted and then repeated—so he used them with caution.

Yet right now he felt a rush of unfamiliar contentment which was completely alien to him. For the first time in his adult life he found himself alone in a confined space with a woman who wasn’t intent on removing his clothes… .

‘I have a slight ache in my…’ he shifted his position as she tucked her surprisingly long legs beneath her and he felt another sharp kick of awareness ‘…head. But other than that I feel okay.’

The gleam in his black eyes was making Isobel feel uncomfortable. She wished he’d stop looking at her like that. Rather unnecessarily, she gave the fire a quick poke. ‘Good.’

Tariq sipped at his tea, noting the sudden tension in her shoulders. Was she feeling it too? he wondered. This powerful sexual awareness which was simmering in the air around them?

With an effort, he pushed it from his mind and sought refuge in the conventional. ‘I didn’t realise you had a place like this. I thought you lived in town.’

Isobel laid the poker back down in the grate, his question making her realise the one-sided quality of their relationship. She knew all about his life—but he knew next to nothing about hers, did he?

‘I do live in town. I just keep this as a weekend place—which is a bit of a luxury. I really ought to sell it and buy myself something larger than the shoebox I currently inhabit in London, but I can’t quite bring myself to let it go. My mother worked hard to buy it, you see. She lived rent-free at the school, of course, and when she retired she moved here.’ She read the question in his eyes, took a deep breath and faced it full-on. ‘She died six years ago and left it to me.’

‘And what about your father?’

All her old defensiveness sprang into place. ‘What about him?’

‘You never talk about him.’

‘That’s because you never ask.’

‘No. You’re right. I don’t.’ And the reason he never asked was because he wasn’t particularly interested in the private lives of his staff. The less you knew about the people who worked for you, the less complication all round.

But surely these circumstances were unusual enough to allow him to break certain rules? And didn’t Izzy’s hesitancy alert his interest? Arouse his natural hunter instincts? Tariq leaned back against the pillow of his folded elbows and studied her. ‘I’m asking now.’

Isobel met the curiosity in his eyes. If it had been anyone else she might have told them to mind their own business, or used the evasive tactics she’d employed all her life. She was protective of her private life and her past—and hated being judged or pitied. But that was the trouble with having a personal conversation with your boss—you weren’t exactly on equal terms, were you? And Tariq wasn’t just any boss. His authority was enriched with the sense of entitlement which came with his princely title and his innate belief that he was always right. Would he be shocked to learn of her illegitimacy?

She shrugged her shoulders, as if what she was about to say didn’t matter. ‘I don’t know my father.’

‘What do you mean, you don’t know him?’

‘Just that. I never saw him, nor met him. To me, he was just a man my mother had a relationship with. Only it turned out that he was actually married to someone else at the time.’

He narrowed his eyes. ‘So what happened?’

She remembered all the different emotions which had crossed her mother’s face when she had recounted her tale. Hurt. Resentment. And a deep and enduring sense of anger and betrayal. Men were the enemy, who could so easily walk away from their responsibilities, Anna Mulholland had said. Had that negativity brushed off on her only daughter and contributed to Isobel’s own poor record with men? Maybe it had—for she’d never let anyone close enough to really start to care about them.

‘He didn’t want to know about a baby,’ she answered slowly. ‘Said he didn’t want anything to do with it. My mother thought it was shock making him talk that way. She gave him a few days to think about it. Only when she tried to contact him again—he’d gone.’

‘Gone?’ Tariq raised his eyebrows. ‘Gone where?’

‘That’s the whole point—she never knew. He’d completely vanished.’ She met the look of disbelief in his eyes and shook her head. ‘It was only a quarter of a century ago, but it was a different kind of world back then. There were no computers you could use to track people down. No Facebook or cellphones. A man and his wife could just disappear off the face of the earth and you would never see them again.’

Tariq’s frown deepened. ‘So he never saw you?’

‘Nope. Not once. He doesn’t even know I exist,’ she answered, as if she didn’t care—and sometimes she actually managed to convince herself that she didn’t. Wasn’t it better to have an absent father rather than one who resented you, or didn’t match up to your expectations? But deep down Isobel knew that wasn’t the whole story. There was always a bitter ache in her heart when she thought about the parent she’d never had.

For a moment Tariq tensed, as an unwilling sense of identification washed over him. Her childhood sounded sterile and lonely—and wasn’t that territory he was painfully familiar with? The little boy sent far away from home to endure a rigid system where his royal blood made him the victim of envy? And, like her, he had never known what it was to be part of a ‘normal’ family.

Suddenly, he found his voice dipping in empathy. ‘That’s a pretty tough thing to happen,’ he said.

Isobel heard the softness of his tone but shook her head, determined to shield herself from his unexpected sympathy—because sympathy made you weak. It made regret and yearning wash over you. Made you start wishing things could have been different. And everyone knew you could never rewrite the past.

‘It is what it is. Some people have to contend with far worse. My childhood was comfortable and safe—and you can’t knock something like that. Now, would you like some more tea before it gets cold?’ she questioned briskly.

He could tell from the brightness in her voice that she wanted to change the subject, and suddenly he found he was relieved. It had been his mistake to encourage too much introspection—especially about the past. Because didn’t it open up memories which did no one any good? Memories which were best avoided because they took you to dark places?

He shook his head. ‘No thanks. Just show me which bathroom you want me to use.’

‘Right.’ Isobel hesitated. Why hadn’t she thought of this? ‘The thing is that there’s only one bathroom, I’m afraid.’ She bit her lip. ‘We’re going to have to…well, share.’

There was a pause. ‘Share?’ he repeated.

She met the disbelief in his eyes. He’s a prince, she reminded herself. He won’t be used to sharing and making do. But it might do him some good to see how the other half lived—to see there were places other than the luxurious penthouses and palaces he’d always called home.