The Call of the Desert

“Perhaps you have met before, Doctor? When you were in Burquat during your studies?”

A sharp pain lanced Julia and she looked at Kaden, not sure what to say.

His mouth turned up in a parody of a smile and he drawled, “I seem to have some vague recollection. What year were you there?”

The slap of rejection was so strong it almost made Julia take a step back. The awful sense of isolation she’d felt when she’d left Burquat was as fresh now as twelve years ago. That this man could transport her so easily back to those painful emotions was devastating. Perhaps he could tell just how excruciating this was for her—hadn’t she all but thrown herself at him that last day? Perhaps he thought he was sparing her some embarrassment now?

She forced an equally polite and distant smile to her lips. “It’s so long ago now I can barely recall it myself.”

She switched her brittle-feeling smile to the other men. “Gentlemen, if you don’t need me for this discussion I’d appreciate it if you would excuse me. I just got back from New York this afternoon, and I’m afraid the jet lag is catching up with me.”

“Your husband is waiting for you at home? Or perhaps he’s here in the room?”

Shock at the bluntness of Kaden’s question slammed into Julia. How dared he all but pretend not to know her and then ask such a pointedly personal question? Her jaw felt tight. “For your information, Your Highness, I am no longer married. My husband and I are divorced.”

Kaden did not like the surge of emotion that ripped through him at her curt answer. He had had an image of her returning to a cosy home to be greeted by some faceless man and had felt a blackness descend over his vision, forcing him to ask the question. Even realising that, he couldn’t stop himself asking, “So why are you still using your married name?”

Julia’s face tightened. “I’m involved in various contracts and it’s simply been easier to leave it for the moment. I have every intention of changing it back in the future.”

It was as if Kaden was enclosed in a bubble with this woman. The other men went unnoticed, forgotten. Unbidden and unwelcome emotion was clouding everything.

At that moment Nigel, Julia’s boss, moved perceptibly closer to her, taking her elbow in his hand, staking a very public claim.

Only moments ago she’d welcomed his support and his tacit interest as a barrier. Now Julia chafed and made a jerky move away, causing Nigel’s hand to drop. She could feel his wounded look without even seeing it, and her head began to throb. The club’s director who still stood beside Kaden, was looking a bit bewildered at the obvious tension in the air, which was making a lie of the fact that she and Kaden claimed to barely know one another.

She knew she’d only been introduced as a polite formality. She wasn’t expected to take part in Nigel’s wooing of new donors. Her job started when they had to decide how those funds would be best used. If she’d known for a second that Kaden was due to be here this evening, she would have made certain not to come.

Determined to succeed this time, Julia stepped away from the trio of men on very shaky legs. “Please, gentlemen—if you’ll excuse me?”

Ignoring the dagger looks from Nigel, and the dark condemnation emanating from Kaden like a physical force, she turned on her heel and walked away. It seemed to take an age to get through the crowd. She was almost at the door when she felt a hand on her arm, but it didn’t induce anything more than irritation and she reluctantly turned to face Nigel. His handsome face was red.

“Are you going to tell me what that was all about?”

Once again Julia pulled her arm free and kept walking. “It was about nothing, Nigel. I’m tired and I want to go home, that’s all.”

She hoped the panic she felt at being there for one second longer than was absolutely necessary didn’t come through in her voice. She reached the cloakroom and handed in the ticket for her jacket, noticing a visible tremor in her hand.

“So you two obviously know each other, then? I’d have to be deaf, dumb and blind to fail to notice that atmosphere.”

Julia sighed. “We knew each other a long time ago, Nigel.” She turned and put on her jacket, which had just been handed to her, and pointed out gently, “Not that it’s any of your business.”

His face became mottled. “It is my business when the most potentially lucrative donor we’ve had in years could get scared off because he’s had some kind of previous relationship with my funds manager.”

Julia stopped and faced Nigel, forcing herself to stay civil. “I’m sure he’s mature enough not to let a tiny incident like this change his mind about donating funds to research. Anyway, it’s all the more reason for me to leave and stay out of your way.”

She turned to go and Nigel caught her hand. Gritting her teeth at his persistence, Julia turned back, her stomach churning slightly at the sweaty grip of his hand—so far removed from the cool yet hot touch from Kaden.

He was conciliatory. “Look, I’m sorry, Julia. Forgive me? Let me take you out to dinner this week.”

Julia fought back the urge to say yes, which would be the easy thing to do, to placate him. Seeing Kaden had upset any equilibrium she thought she might have attained since her divorce had become final. Since she had last seen him. And that knowledge was too frightening to take in fully.

She shook her head, “I’m sorry, Nigel. I have thought about it … and I’m just not ready for dating.” She pulled her hand from his and backed away. “I’m really sorry. I’ll see you tomorrow in the office.” Already she could imagine his sulky mood at being turned down and dreaded it.

She turned and walked quickly to the door. Her heart was hammering, and all she wanted was to escape to the quiet solace of her house where she could get out of her tailored dress and curl up. She wanted to block out the evening’s events and the fact that her past had rushed up to meet her with the force of a sledgehammer blow.

As soon as Julia had turned and walked away Kaden should have been putting her out of his mind and focusing on the business at hand, as he would have with any other ex-lover. But he wasn’t. He found that the urge to go after her was nigh on impossible to resist. Especially when that obsequious man who’d had the temerity to put his hand on her had followed her like a besotted lap dog.

Kaden made his excuses to the still bewildered-looking director of the club and forged his way through the crowd, ignoring the not so hushed whispers as he passed people by. His blood was humming. He felt curiously euphoric, and also uncultivated—like a predator in the desert, an eagle soaring high who had spotted its prey and would not rest until it was caught.

It was an uncomfortable reminder of how he’d felt from the moment he’d first met Julia, when sanity had taken a hike and he’d given himself over to a dream as dangerous as any opiate could induce. But this feeling was too strong to deny or rationalise.

The fact that she represented a lapse in emotional control he’d never allowed again only caught up with him when he reached the lobby and saw it was empty.

She’d disappeared.

So what was this desolation that swept through him? And what was this rampant need clawing through him to find her again? He was done with Julia. He’d been done with her a long time ago.

Disgusted with himself for this lapse, Kaden called up his security, determined to get out of there and do what he’d set out to do all along: forget that he’d ever seen Julia Connors—he scowled, Somerton—again.

He had no desire to revisit a time when he’d come very close to letting his heart rule his head, forgetting all about duty and responsibility in the pursuit of personal fulfilment. He didn’t have that luxury. He’d never had that luxury.

Julia could see the tube station entrance ahead of her, not far from the building she’d just left behind. The nighttime London air was unbearably heavy around her now, making a light sweat break out over her skin and on the nape of her neck under her hair. Thunder rolled ominously in the distance. A storm had been threatening all evening, and if she’d been in better humour she might have appreciated the symbolism. The clouds that had been squatting in the distance were now firmly overhead—low, dark and menacing.

What was making the weather feel even more ominous was the fact that she’d been having disturbing dreams of Kaden lately. Maybe, she wondered a little hysterically, she was hallucinating?

Hesitating for a moment, Julia stopped and looked back. But the building just sat there, innocently benign, lights blazing from the windows, laughter trickling out into the quiet street from the party. She shuddered despite the heat. She wasn’t going back now anyway. She couldn’t face Nigel again. Or Kaden’s coolly sardonic demeanour. As if nothing had ever happened between them.

Part of her longed to just jump in a cab, but her inherently frugal nature forbade it. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a sleek black shape slow to a crawl alongside her—just before she heard the accompanying low hum of a very expensive engine. At the same time as she turned automatically to look, lightning forked in the sky and the heavens opened. She was comprehensively drenched within seconds, but had become rooted to the spot.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion as she registered the Royal Burquati flag on the bonnet of the car. She noticed the tinted windows, and the equally sleek accompanying Jeep, which had to be carrying the ubiquitous security team.

As she stood there getting soaked, unable to move, Julia was helplessly transported back to a moment in the hot, winding, ancient streets of Burquat City, when, breathless with laughter, her hand clamped in Kaden’s, they’d escaped from his bodyguards into a private walled garden. There, he’d pushed her up against a wall, taken away the veil hiding her face, and kissed her for the first time.

It was only when the back door of the car opened near her and she saw the tall figure of Kaden emerge that reality rushed back. Along with it came her breath and her heartbeat, and the knowledge that she hadn’t been hallucinating.

The rain seemed to bounce off him, spraying droplets into a halo around him. The sky was apocalyptic behind him. And still that rain was beating down.

Julia backed away, her eyes glued to him as if mesmerised.

“Julia. Let me give you a lift.”

Her name on his tongue with that exotic accent did funny things to her insides. A strangled half-laugh came out of Julia’s mouth. “A lift?” She shook her head, “I don’t need a lift—I need to go home. I’ll take the tube.”

She dragged her gaze from his and finally managed to turn around. Only to feel her arm caught in a hard grip. Electric tingles shot up and down her arm and into her groin just as more lightning lit up the sky. She looked up at Kaden, who had come to stand in front of her. So close that she could see his jet-black hair plastered to his skull, that awesomely beautiful face. Those black eyes. Rain ran in rivulets down the lean planes, over hard cheekbones.

“What do you want, Kaden? Or should I address you by your full title?” Bitterness and something much scarier made her feel emotional. “You gave a very good impression back there of not knowing who I was. I’m surprised you even remember my name.”

Through the driving rain she could see his jaw clench at that. His black gaze swept her up and down. Then his hand gentled on her arm, and perversely that made her feel even shakier. With something she couldn’t decipher in his voice he said, “I remember your name, Julia.” And then, with easy solicitude, “You’re soaked through. And now I’m soaked. My apartment isn’t far from here. Let me take you there so you can dry off.”