Desert Affair

‘I…’

Lydia struggled with the tangle of feelings that had knotted high up in her throat, choking off speech.

‘I…’ she tried again, her voice croaking rawly. ‘I… Oh, please! Wait!’

In her mind, the last word was a wild, desperate cry, one that would have brought confused, irritated, and just plain curious looks her way from every other waiting passenger. But what actually came out was a weak, uncertain whisper, one that broke in the middle.

And one that she was sure he couldn’t have heard. It seemed that way at first because for the space of several jolting heartbeats he didn’t seem to react. He certainly didn’t pause, and the impetus of his anger was such that the force of his movement took him well away from her, almost into the middle of the room, before he came to an abrupt halt and slowly, very, very slowly, turned back to face her again.

‘What did you say?’

‘I said…’

Lydia swallowed hard because she wanted this to sound so very different from that first, frantic call.

‘I said, please wait. Please don’t go.’

One jet-black brow lifted in sardonic interrogation and his handsome head inclined slightly to one side in apparent thoughtful consideration of the situation.

‘You’ve changed your mind?’

‘I—changed my mind.’

Better to let him think that. Better to let him believe that she had had second thoughts than to let him know what she had known all along. That there was no way she could have let him just walk out of her life as suddenly as he had walked into it.

But it had been only when he had actually moved away from her and her heart had cried out in distress at being abandoned like this that she had realised how much she had wanted him to stay.

‘You changed your mind—and you want—what?’

‘I’d like you to stay. And talk…’

Still he didn’t move.

‘And perhaps have that drink you suggested. After all…’

She tried for an airy tone, waved a hand in the direction of the windows against which the snow now swirled in wild, blustering eddies, the view of the runways, the waiting planes totally obliterated from sight.

‘Clearly neither of us is going anywhere soon. We might as well spend the time here together as apart. The hours always drag so much when you’re waiting.’

Her voice faltered, going up and down embarrassingly as she stared into his stony, set face and met no response.

Was the man waiting for her to beg? She wouldn’t! She had more pride! And yet if he turned away again…

‘Please won’t you join me?’

Still he waited one more nicely calculated minute. Just long enough to stretch out her screaming nerves even more, to twist them into hard, painful knots of tension. Then as suddenly as he had turned away he swung back, covering the short distance between them in a few swift, confident strides.

It was like seeing a sleek black panther coming towards her, Lydia thought, struggling to push away uneasy visions of herself as the prey and this man very definitely in the role of predator.

But then he turned on her a smile of such supercharged charm that it would have melted an iceberg. One that left her feeling as if the weak, ineffectual barriers she had been trying to build up against him had shattered into splinters, falling hopelessly at her feet.

‘I’m glad you changed your mind,’ he said, the unexpected warmth of his tone so unlike the icy harshness of moments before that it rocked her sense of reality, making her wonder for a second if she was even talking to the same man. ‘I hate waiting. I have no patience at all.’

‘Me too,’ Lydia admitted. ‘I was bored out of my head already. And it looks as if we’re in for a long delay. Do you think any of those planes are going anywhere today?’

The glance he turned in the direction she indicated was brief to the point of indifference and her heart jumped on a thrill of delighted confusion as his ebony gaze came back to her face and fastened on it fixedly.

‘I doubt it.’

His shrug dismissed the matter from his thoughts, his obvious lack of concern intensely gratifying to her uncertain self-esteem. After long, lonely months of feeling unwanted and rejected, the glow of appreciation that burned like fiery coals deep in the darkness of his eyes was a balm to her wounded pride.

‘But it is no matter. We won’t care how long we have to wait. We won’t notice the time.’

‘No…’

It was all she could manage because it was happening again. The warm sensuality of his tone had dried her throat, leaving her lips parched so that she had to slide her tongue over them to ease the discomfort. And as she saw that intent, black gaze drop to follow the small betraying movement she felt its force as if it were an actual touch on her skin, and shivered secretly in response.

The need for that touch to be a reality sent a wave of hunger through her that drained the strength from her legs so that she had to sink down suddenly onto the nearest chair. It was either that or give herself away completely by falling in a ridiculously weak heap right at his beautifully shod feet.

‘Won’t you sit down too?’ she managed.

And it was as he came down beside her that a new feeling hit. A disturbing, scary sensation that made her feel as if something wet and icy had slowly slithered down the sensitive length of her spine.

She was suddenly totally and inexplicably convinced that her life would never be the same again. That the whole of her future was bound up with this man and there was no way she could break free at all.

CHAPTER TWO

‘SO, WHAT shall we talk about?’

Lydia had to force herself to drag her thoughts back from the disturbing paths they were determined to follow. She had already let this man rattle her far too easily. It was time she got back in control of the situation! Seeing him as the ruler of her fate, indeed! He was just a new acquaintance. A stunning, fascinating, lethally good-looking one, admittedly, but just a man for all that.

But then her eyes met the dark, deep set ones of the man beside her and the description ‘just a man’ once more became totally inadequate.

‘Where should we begin?’

‘Names would be a good place to start.’

She aimed for crisp matter-of-factness and was pleased to note that she actually managed to come close.

‘We haven’t even introduced ourselves yet. I’m Lydia Ashton.’

She held out her hand as she spoke, feeling better now that things were back on a more regular footing.

‘And you are?’

A worrying glint of something that looked like amusement gleamed in his eyes but he followed her lead impeccably.

‘Amir Zaman,’ he said in that beautiful voice, the slight accent deepening on the words.