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She would do well to try and remember that. Yesterday in her dressing room she ought to have known better than to allow herself to feel anything, she thought bleakly as she watched a tiny moth flit into the bulb of her bedside lamp again and again. At the very least she ought to have been capable of masking her emotions, as she did every day in front of the camera, even if she couldn’t help surrendering to them at night.
Tamara picked up her mobile phone to check the time. Six-twenty a.m. One new message. She drew in a deep breath, her nerves on edge, but it was from Emma, Henry’s assistant. She told herself to feel relieved.
Henry says PLEASE be on time for Prince A’zam. Good
Luck. Emma xxx
As she read the words, she imagined herself waiting obediently in her hallway at eleven o’clock. The thought made her grimace. Surely there was another way to see this through. A way which didn’t make her feel as if she’d already lost…
It was not, Tamara discovered, particularly easy to book a last minute flight, nor accommodation in the middle of the desert at half past six on a Tuesday morning, but the challenge at least gave her the satisfaction of doing something rather than just sitting there, passively awaiting her fate. She felt relieved knowing that this way she could see the job through and hang on to her independence without the distraction of Kaliq’s formidable presence every time she turned around.
With the sun still low in the sky, she wheeled her suitcase down the steps from her flat. The flat she was still renting, even though she had saved enough for a deposit. Her landlord was happy to sell it to her, but she still couldn’t bring herself to commit, even though it had plenty of good points. Like the fact it was just a short walk to the train station, which thankfully linked directly with the airport.
But just as she turned out of the gate to begin that familiar route, she caught sight of a low-slung vehicle with tinted windows on the opposite side of the street. Despite its understated metallic black bodywork, it looked as conspicuous as a panther in the Arctic. It was large and sleek, and she knew it was not the kind of car her neighbours could even afford to hire, let alone own. Please, she prayed to herself, let Penny downstairs have finally bagged her rich boss who she was always harping on about.
‘Raring to go, Tamara?’ The silky drawl that cut through the stillness of the morning as she reached the bottom of the steps made her jump, but the surge of adrenaline immediately turned to anger.
‘Is stalking another pursuit you consider a royal right, along with blackmail, Kaliq?’ she bit out, not bothering to stop walking.
‘Just keeping an eye on what’s mine.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ She stopped then, but didn’t turn around, trying to ignore the way the endless expanse of cool morning air seemed to have grown claustrophobic with the throb of sexual awareness.
‘You are my employee now, are you not? Since you have a tendency for not knowing what’s good for you, I thought I’d make sure you didn’t do anything stupid. It seems it was a precaution worth taking.’
‘Then you’re mistaken. I never go back on my word. Nor do I consider leaving early for an assignment to be stupid, do you?’
‘My mistake indeed,’ he whispered slowly as he came up behind her. ‘I should have guessed that you were dying to start peeling off your clothes.’
‘You didn’t mention that I would be required to remove any clothes. I would appreciate it if you could clarify what is required of me, if my duties are not to be as I was initially informed.’
‘I think you know perfectly well what is required of you.’
She swung round then. The slanted smile on his face read that he was keeping score and it was one-nil to him.
‘I agreed to model some old jewels. Assuming that is what you mean, I think we understand each other.’
She saw a nerve work at his jaw and visualised a score board depicting one-all.
‘You make it sound as if what I ask you to do makes a difference to your answer, Tamara. I hardly think you need to pretend your standards are so exacting.’
God, he really was from the Dark Ages! It wasn’t as if she posed for page three, for goodness’ sake—she’d never been photographed in anything less than what most people wore to the supermarket in summer, and usually a lot more. But then he was trying to get her, wasn’t he?
‘I wasn’t pretending any such thing,’ she answered coolly. ‘What you ask of me simply makes a difference to how much I charge.’
‘And how much do you charge, Tamara, for say—one night?’
Tamara glowered at him. ‘Sex may be written into the contract of every other one of your female employees, Kaliq, but it is not in mine.’
‘What makes you think it needs to be written in,’ he purred, ‘when you know it goes without saying?’
Tamara felt a wave of heat rush over her, which threatened to drag her mind back to the place it had been in the early hours of the morning, but she tore herself away from his mesmerising look of intent, turned on her heel and began to walk down the street.
‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’
‘To catch my train.’
‘Then clearly, Tamara, you are not charging enough.’ Kaliq reached out and caught hold of her arm, spinning her round to face him.
‘Public transport may be an alien concept to you, Your Highness—’ Tamara shook out of his grip as she motioned towards the costly vehicle on the opposite side of the street ‘—but I can assure you it is a perfectly adequate means of travel.’
‘But why have adequate, Tamara, when you can have the best?’ He drawled, ‘My private jet is waiting.’
‘As is my charter flight and city accommodation.’
Kaliq looked utterly exasperated. ‘You think it is safe for a young woman to travel and stay alone in Qwasir?’
‘If it wasn’t, I would imagine the crown prince would have bigger concerns than hanging around here just to make sure he had someone to wear a necklace four days from now.’
Kaliq’s eyes darkened. ‘It is a fact of life that our cultures are different, Tamara.’
Tamara nodded and reached for the handle of her case once more. ‘You would do well to remember it. See you there.’
‘I’m afraid not, Tamara.’
‘What the hell does that mean?’
‘It means I require you in one piece for what I have in mind. Travelling in my transport and staying in my palace have just been added to the list of what is required of you. Now, get in the car.’
CHAPTER FOUR
AS TAMARA sank back into the obscenely comfortable seat and looked out at the mushroom-like clouds below, she told herself she was glad. After all, having to put up with his prehistoric demands for the duration of this assignment was one of the reasons why she’d agreed to it. For what could be more cathartic than to return home a week from now, knowing for certain that she could never have endured him?
She ought to be glad that he was making it so easy for her—that he was giving her every opportunity to harden her heart, to adopt the ice-cool, businesslike demeanour that Henry had described as customary in every other model he knew. Yet nothing about this felt easy.
Maybe it was because she hadn’t expected him to act in that cool manner himself. From the minute they had set foot on his private jet, he had positioned himself at the opposite end of the flight deck and immersed himself in a briefcase full of paperwork as if she were nothing more than a piece of excess baggage which didn’t fit in the hold. The few times he had looked up he had glanced straight through her, as if she had ceased to exist.
But then that was how he worked, wasn’t it? Oh, yes, her every mile-high whim would be catered for by his staff, but the minute she fell in line with his plans she ceased to matter to him. Because nothing mattered to him except his precious crown, she thought wretchedly. Until now she had been in danger of forgetting that.
Of forgetting that night.
Tamara squinted out at the view, the clouds becoming less dense and the yellow-brown hue of the desert landscape below just starting to become visible. The sight made her ball up the thin jumper she had been wearing and place it between her head and the window, pretending she wanted to sleep. The reality was she simply wanted to block out the view. To block out the memories.
It had been at the end of her stay in Qwasir—though leaving was something she had not allowed herself to contemplate— when the two of them and his aide had ridden across that desert at dusk. Kaliq had been insistent that she experience the annual masked festival in the tiny mountain village near the royal palace. She suspected she would have nodded in wide-eyed awe at whatever he’d suggested, but knowing that for one night no one would be able to recognise him as the crown prince had particularly delighted her. Perhaps because she’d grown tired of dodging the press whenever she was with him—ten times worse than the intrusion she had experienced on the few occasions a year she spent time with her mother. Perhaps because she’d wanted to forget exactly who he was.
For in Tamara’s eyes, his title had seemed detached from him, like a middle name rarely used. To her, he was the man who’d taught by example to defy what was expected, who’d made her recognise that she had been short-sighted, ungrateful even, to have been disappointed with her experiences in life so far, and who had encouraged her to pursue her dreams the way no one else ever had. Almost more startling, he’d made her want to venture into territory that—unlike everyone else her age—she had never wanted to sample before. She’d wanted him physically. To explore him—have him explore her. And, though he’d insisted it was necessary that they travel with an aide, the smouldering look in his eyes had seemed to say that the feeling was mutual.
So when, after a night of drinking the dark, spicy local drink and dancing anonymously amongst the jovial crowds, they’d left in the early hours of the morning with his aide nowhere in sight, Tamara’s heart thrilled at the thought of being alone with him. Had he engineered it on purpose? She’d felt sure that he had. Though she didn’t know what that meant in the long-term, it didn’t seem to matter. Because, for the first time in her life, instead of wondering where she might be going, she could think only of the here and now. Of her body pressed to his back, the sounds of the festival dying away and their breathing perfectly in time as they’d ridden over the hilltop to the incredible sight of the sun rising over the sand dunes. It had felt as if the thermostat which had been keeping her feelings at bay had just gone up in flames.
‘Please, Kaliq, let’s stop for a moment, it’s so perfect.’
Kaliq didn’t answer, but suddenly through the half-light she saw that they were making their way downwards to a small gap in the mountainside, his horse Amir now slowing to a walk.
Hesitantly, Kaliq dismounted and raised his arms to lift her from his stallion. He looked, she thought, rather as if he were considering waging war against himself.
He moved away from her, looking out towards the rising sun. ‘We should really get back to the palace. It is late.’
‘Or perhaps we are just up early; it depends how you look at it.’
‘You should be asleep.’ His face was solemn.
Tamara frowned. Usually he delighted in the habit she had of turning everything he said on its head. She followed his serious gaze, to the tip of gold shimmering on the horizon, and then back to his face. ‘You think I would rather be asleep than here, with you?’
‘No, Tamara.’ He shook his head, his expression taut. ‘I think your father trusted me to show you my country. He did not ask that I find myself alone in the desert with you in the early hours of morning. It is not right.’
Right? Nothing had ever felt more right in her entire life. What was he saying—that she was nothing more to him than a puppy he had been given to walk, but this was past his agreed hours?
‘I am not a child, Kaliq. In a month I may be travelling through Europe, next year university, who knows? Do you suppose I will never find myself alone with anyone then?’
A muscle tensed at his jaw.
Tamara continued. ‘If I am taking up too much of your precious time then I will quite gladly continue to show myself around. I did not know it had been such a chore.’
‘You think I say it is not right because being with you is a chore?’ His voice seemed to echo off the sand dunes. He reached out his hand for hers, his thumb slowly beginning to draw hypnotic circles in her palm, shaking her to the core. ‘It is not right because…because when I am with you I wish to kiss you. When we are in public, propriety prevents me, but when we are alone—’
She looked up at him, her eyes growing wide, her stomach doing somersaults.
‘When we are alone, kalilah, I have to rely on my own self-control.’
He made it sound like a curse, but something in Tamara was soaring obliviously, her arms reaching playfully around his neck, one corner of her mouth lifting into a daring smile. ‘I thought self control was your forte.’
‘I thought so too—’ his voice was almost a groan that sounded like defeat as he guided her body closer ‘—until I met you.’
Unable to tear her eyes away from him, Tamara watched as his liquid brown gaze dropped to her lips and then, suddenly, decisively, his mouth followed. But the moment it did she was unable to focus on anything. Because if she thought Qwasir had surpassed her wildest expectations it was nothing compared to the long-awaited sensation of his mouth on hers. Gently exploring, testing, the tip of his tongue finding hers and flicking over it, teaching her the true meaning of anticipation. A feeling so new and so longed for that she wasn’t sure she ever wanted it to end.
Until something brought her back to where they were. The sound of hooves. On sand. Approaching. Suddenly Kaliq let go of her and stepped back as if he had just discovered she was infected with some contagious disease. Tamara spun round to see his aide on horseback, squinting through the sliver of sunlight from a distance.
‘Forgive me, Your Highness,’ he called, stilling at the point they must have come into view, ‘I missed you leaving and then…when I saw Amir I thought perhaps you were in trouble.’
‘No trouble, Jalaal, thank you.’ His voice was husky but level.
Jalaal nodded and turned without question.
Tamara frowned as Kaliq moved towards Amir. So he had not instructed his aide to leave them alone on purpose, and he certainly hadn’t dismissed him on her account now. No, he fully intended to leave. Tamara drew in a ragged breath. Was Jalaal discovering that the crown prince had human desires like anyone else so terrible? Was desiring her so regrettable full stop?
‘Don’t tell me, Kaliq, it is right that we should be getting back.’ Her voice was sarcastic. ‘After all, tomorrow I’ll be gone.’
Kaliq looked at her blankly. Down at the sand beneath his feet. Then out at the round sun shimmering on the horizon.
Like a gem.
Then suddenly a look came over his face unlike any she had ever seen before. As if he had just been handed a key to a door without a keyhole, and he wasn’t entirely sure whether to leave it be or barge the door right down.
‘Well?’ she asked, her hands on her hips, looking at him and then at Amir.
And then he turned back to her quickly, as though her impatience had made up his mind.
‘Tamara, will you marry me?’
Tamara stared in disbelief at the doubtful expression on his face and half-laughed, wondering if she had missed the joke.
‘Marry you? Why? Because your aide just caught us alone together?’
Kaliq’s mouth hardened. ‘No.’
‘Then why?’ she asked softly, her voice barely more than a whisper.
‘You wish me to list the reasons why? Is it not obvious?’ He flexed his hand, then closed it again. ‘Because you are exceptionally beautiful, and a virgin. Because you are the daughter of the ambassador, and you have shown great respect for my country in your own right. And because—as you know—I must marry in order to inherit the kingdom.’ He paused as if to be sure there was no reason he had omitted and, to her consternation, she realised it was the first time in the last ten minutes she had seen him look utterly certain—there was not. ‘Is that clear enough?’
‘Perfectly.’ Tamara felt as if her heart were a hologram and with the rising of the sun the light had made it cease to exist completely. For in one succinct sentence he had just listed all the reasons why she might be a suitable future queen, but none of the reasons why he might want her to become his wife.
Suddenly she knew that they had been worlds apart all along.
The truth was that this week had been a test of her suitability. It had nothing to do with encouraging her to pursue her dreams or to defy expectations—it had been a double bluff. He had cared about nothing but his precious duty all along.
And though she had fallen for him, though to say no would be to lose the one thing that had ever made her feel truly alive, to say yes would be to sacrifice the life she had only just begun to live. For how could she spend the rest of it trapped in a marriage to a man who didn’t love her? That could only ever end the way her parents’ marriage had—with a painful and bitter divorce splashed across the newspapers.
‘Well?’ he said, mocking her earlier impatience. ‘What do you say to wearing the sapphires, Tamara?’
Tamara took a deep breath. ‘I can’t marry you Kaliq.’
Kaliq straightened indignantly as the sun rose high above their heads, the mystical glow of half light beginning to fade away.
‘May I ask why?’
Is it not obvious? She wanted to retort in kind, but her pride forbade her. For how could she reply that it was because he did not love her, when to admit she loved him—when she had only known him for one week—was crazy. As ridiculous as saying yes to a man who had only proposed because she was the virgin daughter of an ambassador, and because he needed a wife in order to inherit his kingdom. And how better to escape the real reason than to answer as if she had simply been offered the job of queen, rather than asked the one question in the world that ought to have been motivated by love but which held none at all?
‘Because I wish to be free,’ she whispered brokenly, ‘to live my life out of the spotlight yours attracts.’
Kaliq looked up from the final paragraph of the international trading treaty as the plane began its descent to his homeland, and his heart settled. It had consumed almost all his waking hours for the past few weeks and, finally, it was finished. He felt all the pleasure of a plan just as he had calculated—well reasoned and considered after days of deliberation—the way his plans always were.
Always, except once. His eyes roamed to Tamara, willing himself to feel the same sense of satisfaction as she sat there compliantly in exactly the way he had intended, but his mind only filled with scorn for his younger self. That idea then had come impetuously, irrationally, awkwardly. Had presented itself as an ill-timed but doable solution to satiate both his lust and fulfil his duty.
But then there had been nothing rational about his thoughts from that very first day he had met her, when he had known, unequivocally and inconveniently, that she was both innocent and the most desirable woman he had ever encountered. Less rational still had been that night when it had occurred to him that not only was she leaving, but that it was inevitable that on her travels she would meet some other man who would have no qualms about robbing her of her virtue. He’d wanted her, with an ache unlike any he had ever known. Yet to have taken her would have made him no better than some other man himself and, as a proud descendent of the A’zam tribe who had first civilised Qwasir, that had been out of the question.
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