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Henry grinned, showing two rows of yellowing teeth. ‘Oh, yes, Tamara’s a blessing to work with, not another ice-queen like most models these days, if you know what I mean.’ Henry winked at Kaliq as if they were in some sort of private men’s club and nodded to Tamara as if he had paid her a priceless compliment.
‘I know exactly what you mean,’ Kaliq replied, his words deliberate, sending an ominous chill from the nape of Tamara’s neck down to her tailbone. ‘In fact, I believe Tamara was just about to express her enthusiasm for the news that her next assignment will be working for me.’ He looked at her expectantly, but Henry cut in.
‘And who can blame her? The Jezebel girl modelling royal jewels—how’s that for publicity?’ He grinned smarmily all over his face and for the second time that day, and more vehemently than before, Tamara was overcome with the urge to slap him. So Kaliq had gone through Henry to get to her. This wasn’t—oh, God, this was the shoot in the Middle East that Emma had mentioned in passing and that she had been looking forward to?
‘Actually—’ her voice came out louder than she intended and suddenly both men’s eyes were upon her, one greedily, the other indifferently, as if this was a done deal ‘—what I was about to say is that—honoured though I am that you thought of me, Your Highness, I have no wish to accept your offer.’
If the scene had been drawn in a comic book, by the time Tamara’s sarcastic words had hit the air, steam would have been billowing from Henry’s ever-reddening ears. Oblivious to the atmosphere in the room that spoke of a past of which he knew nothing, he turned on Tamara as if she were a petulant child throwing a tantrum for no reason other than to irritate him.
‘You are contracted to Jezebel Limited and, since His Royal Highness has wisely organised this unique modelling opportunity through the company, I’m afraid your impetuous wants, or in this case won’ts, count for nothing.’
Henry guffawed as if he had made the joke of the year, and looked at Kaliq for approval, which didn’t come.
‘Everyone has a choice,’ she said, her voice low, looking directly at Kaliq. ‘Just because someone expects you to perform a certain duty does not mean you have to fall in line.’
For the first time she saw something like emotion flicker in Kaliq’s eyes. Good, she thought to herself, even if it was nothing more than wounded pride.
Henry moved bullishly towards her. ‘You turn this down and you kiss your contract with Jezebel goodbye, Tamara.’
Kaliq abruptly stood up between them, the sheer size of him forcing Henry to take a step back.
‘Thank you—Henry, is it? I am sure Miss Weston is just a little daunted by the enormity of the task. She is bound to be nervous about the proper behaviour—so unfamiliar to her— that will be required in Qwasir. Please leave us, I will put her mind at rest.’
Consumed with frustration that in one fell swoop Kaliq had branded her devoid of both integrity and the ability to stand up for herself, Tamara watched Henry reluctantly depart. She didn’t bother to listen for the sound of his footsteps walking away, for he viewed every chance of a bigger bonus for himself with even hungrier eyes than he ogled every woman who moved. She knew he would not let her determine one of the most lucrative and high profile deals of his career without eavesdropping, regardless of Kaliq’s dismissal. But she didn’t care. This was not about Henry.
This was about Kaliq, as far too many things in her life had already been. Turning her body back round purposefully, she came up against his with a start. In the split second she had turned away, he had silently homed in upon her like some deadly heat-seeking missile. For all the cover it offered her, she wished she had not primly fastened her jacket, her body now flooding with warmth as the distinctive, spicy scent of him filled her nostrils. Sandalwood. Amber. She shook herself. No, she would not forget her resolve just because his sex appeal was so damned potent.
‘You might have grown used to your position and your wealth ensuring that you have everything you desire, Kaliq, but, I promise you, you will not have me.’
She hadn’t meant it to come out like that. She took a step back, her cheeks growing an even brighter shade of crimson. There was no question of him wanting her. Even then she had been nothing to him but a row of ticks on a checklist of suitable attributes.
‘Come, Tamara, do not pretend that finding yourself in this position is not precisely what you truly desire.’ His eyes blazed with contempt. ‘The display of the royal jewels shall be televised worldwide. There will be dignitaries, royalty, the world’s social elite. Exactly the exposure you crave. There is no need to feign shyness.’
‘I signed a contract to Henry, not to you.’
His jaw tensed. ‘Yes. With your abandonment of morality also went shrewd judgement, it seems.’
‘And yet you are in cahoots with him yourself, to use me in any way that suits you. Are the two of you so different, I wonder?’
He did not rise to the bait. ‘What do you think?’ He looked at her with arrogant self-assurance. ‘I will pay what he pays you in a year for this one job. Turn me down and you lose both.’
Tamara knew that Kaliq’s fortune totalled more figures than would fit on the screen of most calculators, but she also knew that he didn’t make excessive offers just for the sake of it. He wanted this badly, and he had planned it like a chess player manoeuvring pieces on a board involving Henry to trap her. But the truth was that Henry and Kaliq were no more alike than a sewer rat and a mountain lion, and part of her, though she loathed the thought of the blackmail he proposed, wanted to look into his eyes and say yes. Because she and Mike could do so much good with that money. Because, if she took her personal feelings out of it, professionally, it was an incredible opportunity. And mostly because, even though it went against every word she had repeated like a mantra since walking away from this man, she had felt more alive these last ten minutes than she had done in years.
Tamara tore her eyes away from him and began to busy her hands tidying some of the clothes on the chair beside her. Looking at him was too dangerous. His smooth skin was as tempting as her favorite decadent chocolate dessert, his long lean hands reminded her of how he had once held her before him with so much tenderness and power. What would coming back from the dizzying heights of being a part of his world for a second time in her life do to her when he was so blatantly setting out to wound her?
‘You already have my answer. I am sure you will have no trouble finding someone else.’
‘I do not want anyone else.’
Tamara almost dropped the skirt she was folding and had to blink to stop her imagination running away with her, but he continued.
‘My father is unwell.’ His voice was uncharacteristically strained as he began to pace the floor. ‘The world’s press is full of the King’s impending demise, and the people of my country are ill at ease. I wish to distract them from his deteriorating health by showcasing Qwasir’s oldest and most precious treasure at a royal gala.’ She watched his face, like a poker player about to reveal his ace, and the cynicism in his tone returned. ‘Who better for the task than the model whose name is on everyone’s lips, who also happens to be the daughter of a former Qwasirian ambassador? The headlines will write themselves.’
Fighting against a pang of empathy which she could not give room to, Tamara drew in a ragged breath, heavy with new understanding. So that was it. She had read about King Rashid’s poor health and she understood just why his people would be unsettled, understood much more than she wished. Because the crown prince had to marry in order to inherit. Parading the jewels would convince them that he planned to take a bride, and soon.
So she was to be used as a pawn. How foolish to think he had enough of a heart for this to be personal. He wanted her as nothing more than a political diversion, like a magician’s assistant used to captivate his audience’s attention. She watched as he wandered over to the window, looking out at the busy London traffic. For an instant it surprised her that the outside world was still turning. It felt as if nothing existed outside this room, but this wasn’t about them—it was just a tactical manoeuvre. For some reason, acknowledging that seemed to allow her to push her emotions aside. This really was business, so why should she toss away her modelling contract because of him? Wouldn’t that be surrendering the freedom to live her life however she chose, when that was the one thing she had always fought for? Much worse, wouldn’t refusing make him think that a part of her, however small, regretted the past?
No, she wouldn’t let that happen. It was just a business trip like any other, and afterwards, aside from keeping her job, maybe she would finally be able to lay the shadow of the past behind her, to stop wondering if she’d made the right decision and know she had. For hadn’t the last fifteen minutes gone some way to proving it?
‘Model the jewels for one evening, for the sum of my annual Jezebel contract?’ she repeated, her tone as matter-of-fact as she could muster.
Kaliq turned from the window, his mouth a thin, hard line. So, contrary to whatever she had made him believe back then, she was no different. She could be manipulated by the promise of money and fame as easily as every other woman he knew. It just hadn’t been quite tempting enough to tie herself to only one man. But then she hadn’t been tied to him yet, had she?
‘Five days from today.’
For a minute she looked at him as if he was mad, convinced that not even he was capable of organising an event of such scope in less than a week, but then she realised. It was already all arranged, wasn’t it? He was just waiting for her to slot into place. Again. That annoyed her more than everything else about this whole set-up put together.
‘What if I refuse? You’ll just cancel the whole thing?’
He gave her a withering smile. ‘If I was not present, there would be no event. If you decide you would rather throw away your career than do a few hours’ work, I can assure you I will have no trouble finding a willing replacement.’
She looked at him stonily. Knowing he was right. Hating him for it.
He continued as if her agreement had never been in question. ‘Naturally, in the interim you will be required for a few other tasks—’ he ran his eyes over her in blatant sensual appraisal ‘—rehearsals for the event, et cetera. Aside from that, you may spend your time however you wish.’
Wishing myself anywhere else, no doubt, she thought, wondering what choice she had and attempting to loosen her shoulders. But she failed; every muscle in her body was too taut from the sheer thrill of being near him. No, five days in his company might not cure that, but at least now she was old enough now not to mistake his favourable blend of genes for something else entirely.
‘I will collect you from your apartment tomorrow, at eleven.’
Kaliq flexed his broad shoulders and moved towards the door. Tamara was not sure why she was surprised that he already knew where she lived, let alone why she had supposed he might stick around, if only to gloat. Of course not. To talk, to chat over dinner, perhaps, was far beyond the realms of what a future king would bestow upon her, for she was not to be treated as anything other than a portable window display. No, he was too cold, too ruthlessly efficient for that. Her submission today was just another detail he had executed with the same cool rationality he had used to discover where she was. Evidently she had already taken up too much of his precious time.
‘The sooner this is over, the better,’ she muttered under her breath, seeing no point in making herself heard.
His fingers were on the handle when she said it, but hear it he did. In a flash he had turned, his jacket flaring out behind him like some outlaw provoked, and suddenly his face was level with her own and far, far too close.
She could feel his warm breath with startling awareness on her lips. It sent a prickle of excitement down her neck, across her skin and to the straining tips of her breasts. He reached out one finger to touch her jaw, the softness of the gesture mocking as he tilted her chin upwards, his eyes dropping to her mouth.
‘Oh, I will make it better, Tamara,’ he drawled, as if he could sense the sexual frustration teeming beneath her skin. ‘Better than anything you’ve ever experienced before, and it will be soon.’
He moved his head a fraction closer, too close to think about anything but kissing him. Tamara closed her eyes and leaned in instinctively. But in one swift movement he dropped his finger from her chin and reached for her hand with his and, tantalisingly slowly, he raised it to his mouth.
Somehow, the gesture—masquerading as modest etiquette— felt so intimate that it had her legs almost buckling beneath her. The feel of his lips on her bare skin was far hotter than the studio lights had been, igniting a desire within her so unchecked it left her scared of what she might do next. He looked at her from beneath hooded lids with such intensity that she had to remind herself to breathe. She tore her gaze away from him.
‘Kaliq, this is business, nothing more.’ Her voice was husky, breathless.
He didn’t answer, but released the hand he had kissed, before running his fingers up her arm and resting his hand in her hair, his thumb reaching out to gently stroke her bottom lip. It took all the willpower she had not to taste it with the tip of her tongue. As he watched her eyes widen he raised the corner of his mouth in a wry smile.
‘I’m glad we agree. Unfinished business. But not for much longer.’
With that, he broke away from her and flung open the door, Henry scuttling in his wake and Tamara reeling.
CHAPTER THREE
IT WAS the kiss that did it. The kiss that she couldn’t drive from her mind. And for goodness’ sake it had only been his lips pressed to her hand! What the hell would she have been like if he had kissed any other part of her body?
Don’t even go there, she warned herself as she tossed aside the covers, through with trying to sleep. For even when tiredness had finally overtaken her, she had woken hot and breathless with images of her body pressed to his—for some pathetic reason wearing nothing but the damned sapphires—blazing through her mind.
Tamara sat up against the headboard, taking the weight of her hair in her hands and allowing the cool air to reach the damp nape of her neck as she stared into the darkness, feeling ashamed. She knew that what had passed between them had nothing to do with any genuine desire on his part; he had simply been using his natural ability to play to women’s fantasies to get what he wanted and it had worked. Until he had touched her she had at least felt marginally in control, but the split second that he raised her hand to his lips she was transported back seven years as if she had fallen through some gap in space and time, all self-protection stripped from her in the process.
But then actions spoke louder than words, didn’t they say? They were like a familiar scent that could recall another time and place in an instant. The minute he had touched her that way she was no longer the twenty-six-year-old model standing in her dressing room with her jacket buttoned fast around her, forced to make a choice that was doomed either way. No, when he’d raised her hand to his lips she was that wide-eyed teenager again, the world at her feet.
The girl she had been the summer she’d turned nineteen, when it had seemed her life was truly about to begin, she thought wretchedly. Because, although on paper it had always looked to be a life full of potential—the daughter of a West End actress and a great foreign diplomat, the reality had been nothing so sensational. Her father’s work abroad and her mother’s gruelling schedule had led them to divorce when she was still at junior school and, by the age of thirteen, boarding school had become the place she grudgingly called home. Though her father would send gifts galore from the places he’d visited, and her dorm was stacked full of her mother’s memorabilia, she would gladly have swapped them all for the odd family holiday or the chance to have done something more notable than sit her A levels and watch the Wimbledon finals with her school friends. And whilst they’d been happy choosing college courses and eyeing up the boys from the local school, Tamara had been restless, dreaming of finding her own place in the world. She certainly had no desire to remain in the classroom, or to repeat her parents’ failed attempt at love.
So when her father had announced that he wished her to visit him in the Middle East for a week, it had felt as if the door to her future had at last been flung open. As if finally she was on the cusp of…something. And Qwasir! She remembered rolling the word over in her mouth like an exotic delicacy for weeks before her ticket had even arrived, immersing herself in every book she could find on the country, noting down snippets of information as if they were bright keys to her future.
When the plane had finally touched down, she was not disappointed. Qwasir had not only met, but surpassed her wildest imaginings. From the minute she’d been met by the black royal-crested Jeep at the airport and driven through the town and out across the expansive desert landscape towards the royal palace, everything seemed full of so much colour, heat, life. As if all this time she’d been living in a rock pool and she had finally escaped into the wide, wide ocean.
Never more so than at the moment when the driver of the Jeep had led her through the enormous palace gates and asked Tamara to wait in the bright white marble atrium. It was such a maze of rooms and corridors that it put in her mind of the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, just asking to be explored.
Finding herself alone, Tamara had tiptoed towards the first doorway to the left, her eyes widening to discover a room full of glass display cases. It seemed to be a section of the palace open to public view. She wandered in, her eyes drawn to an original colour photograph of King Rashid and his late wife Sofia on their wedding day, an enlarged version of the black and white one she had so loved in her guidebook. Not because she had a penchant for all things bridal, but because of the look on Sofia’s face, as if in that instant she had discovered where she truly belonged. It was then that Tamara’s eyes had dropped to the glass case beneath the photo and widened in awe, for it contained the very necklace Sofia had worn in the picture, and which had been given more page-space in her guidebook than anything else—the famous A’zam Sapphires.
‘I’m afraid we’re closed for today.’
Tamara jumped at the discovery that she was not alone and swung round instantly to try to locate the origin of the deep voice that had seemed to come out of nowhere.
Leaning nonchalantly at the doorway was a man unlike any other she had seen before—and not just because of his Eastern dress. A man who stood as if not only she, but the whole world had turned to him. Who took her breath away and replaced it with heat and excitement.
‘I’m sorry it’s just—’ she turned back to the case guiltily ‘—it’s so beautiful I couldn’t help but look.’
His dark eyes narrowed. ‘They tend to have that effect— people not being able to help themselves. Which is why we only ever display a replica.’
Tamara looked puzzled for a moment. ‘Actually, I was talking about the photograph.’ His eyes widened, as if she had surprised him. ‘It’s a fascinating display. It must be a pleasure to work here.’
A look of amusement crossed his lips and she saw his expression visibly soften. ‘Indeed. And no doubt there will be time for you to continue your appraisal tomorrow, Miss Weston. In the meantime, let me show you where you will be staying.’ He inclined his head towards the door. ‘Your father sends his apologies that he is not here to meet you in person. He is still in a conference—on Qwasirian security.’ He raised his eyebrow ironically.
‘Tamara, please,’ she offered. ‘And, as it seems you already know, I am the daughter of James Weston. It’s a pleasure to meet you…?’ Tamara raised her eyebrows inquisitively.
‘We have a tradition in Qwasir that guests and hosts share nothing but names until they have shared food together,’ he offered in explanation, gesturing for her to follow him, though the slight curl of a smile at the corner of his mouth belied the severity of his tone.
‘I had read that was so,’ Tamara said equally levelly, though mischief was dancing in her eyes, ‘but since you had already broken that tradition by surmising so much about me, I thought perhaps you were hoping I was unaware of the custom.’
He whipped his head round in shock and Tamara instantly wondered whether her quick-wittedness had offended him. But, as she raised her head anxiously, his eyes glittered back in amused challenge.
‘Very well,’ he said, facing her head-on and extending his hand to her, ‘I am Kaliq Al-Zahir A’zam, and my father is King Rashid of Qwasir. Welcome to our palace.’
The crown prince!
Tamara felt instantly that she should drop into a reverent curtsy, but she was too overwhelmed and embarrassed to move. Of course he was royalty! Who else would be capable of giving off that aura of magnificence unlike any she had ever felt before? Though she knew that her father resided in a wing of the palace, she hadn’t anticipated that she would come into contact with the A’zam family herself. According to the books she had read, the crown prince spent most of his time studying abroad. She didn’t think he’d just be meandering round the palace where he might be mistaken for—oh, God, had she really supposed he was a museum steward?
Tamara blushed and extended her hand quickly in return, and was almost as shocked by the bolt of electricity his touch sent through her body as by the revelation of who he was. She bowed her head. ‘It is an honour to meet you.’
To her surprise, she thought she heard him exhale wearily, but though it took every effort, she dared not look up.
But, to her astonishment, he lowered his head until her light blue eyes met the rich darkness of his. ‘Kaliq, please.’
His gaze was too enthralling to hold. She turned away. ‘I am sorry. I didn’t expect… I didn’t know what to expect.’
‘You are not quite what I was expecting either.’
Tamara’s eyes moved down over her pink and white gingham dress, her heart sinking. No doubt he must be used to women dropping at his feet immediately, either covered reverently in swathes of beautiful fabric, or buffered to such perfection that they resembled a female form of himself. She failed on both accounts.
‘You misunderstand me, Tamara,’ he said, slowing raising her hand to his lips, her eyes growing wider and her heart beating faster the closer he got. ‘I find it very rare that I am surprised by anything of late. I had forgotten what a pleasure it is.’
It was then—as his lips touched her flesh—that Tamara suddenly raised her head and something passed between them. Something indescribable. That felt as old and unique as the treasures in that room, yet new and so much more precious.
For in that one statement and the glance that had followed, her feelings of unworthiness, her fear at having the wrong words, the wrong clothes, of being a world away from him, disappeared on the spot. As he gazed back at her she realised that underneath all that she was just a woman and he was just a man who might long to be something other than he was as much as she did, no matter how much colour his world held to her.
Had held to her then, Tamara corrected inwardly as she flicked on her bedside lamp. Not any more. Because, whatever she had once thought, she couldn’t have got it more wrong. And the incredible week that had followed—the hours they had spent talking about anything and everything whilst her father was working, the life-changing day when he had taken her to the new school he’d had built and made her see how misguided she had been to think of her years of education as restrictive, hearing about his studies in Europe with his best friend Leon, encouraging her hopes to do the same—none of it had been about open-mindedness or respect at all. He had made her believe that the world was her oyster, and then tried to confine her to another rock pool, just different from the one she’d started in.