Passion

Her teenaged brother, James, gave her an impressed look. ‘You can earn a fortune tax-free in the Middle East!’

‘Will you go to work on a camel every morning?’ her little sister, Megan, asked hopefully.

Her other sister, Katie, was more thoughtful and less easily convinced by the surface show of normality. As the sisters got ready for bed in the room they shared, the teenager’s blue eyes were troubled. ‘What was it like for you seeing Rashad again? Didn’t you just hate him?’

‘No, I got over all that a long time ago,’ Tilda whispered, not wanting to waken Megan.

‘But you’ve never really gone out with anyone since him.’

Turning her head to the wall, Tilda shut her eyes tight. ‘That’s nothing to do with Rashad. I mean, relationships aren’t for everyone,’ she muttered. ‘I’ve had a few dates—they just haven’t led anywhere.’

‘Because you’re not interested … the guys always are—’

‘I haven’t got time for a man.’

‘You had time for Rashad when he was around.’

Stinging tears foamed up behind Tilda’s lowered lids. She swallowed back the ache in her throat and told herself not to be so foolish. She then lay awake for half of the night fretting about how her family would manage a hundred and one different tasks without her help. She was also aware that she had to sort out Scott. Those twin concerns screened out the even bigger worry about how she would handle Rashad. The next morning she handed in her notice at work and when she had finished for the day she caught the bus to her stepfather’s house.

‘What do you want?’ Scott demanded menacingly on the doorstep.

‘If you ever try to take money from my mother again, I’ll report you to the police,’ Tilda told him. ‘If you threaten or hurt any member of my family, I’ll also go straight to the police, so leave us alone!’

The furious resentment with which the older man hurled a tide of abuse at her convinced her that her warning would scare him off. Like most bullies, Scott usually avoided people who fought back and concentrated his aggression on milder personalities.

She was waiting for another bus when her mobile phone went off.

‘I thought your stepfather was history,’ Rashad’s voice remarked with crystal clarity in her ear.

Surprise almost made Tilda jump a foot in the air. ‘I thought you were in New York!’

‘I am.’

‘So how do you know I’d been at my stepfather’s house?’

‘My security staff are superb at surveillance. I told you I would watch over you,’ Rashad drawled lazily. ‘Why were you visiting Morrison?’

Tilda cast a harried and cross glance up and down the street, which was as busy as most residential areas were at that time of the evening. But there was no sign of anyone paying her particular attention; if there had been she was in the right mood to give them a piece of her mind. ‘None of your business. I can’t imagine why you’re taking the trouble to put Nosy Parkers on my trail!’

‘Nothing is too much trouble when it comes to my favourite concubine.’ An unholy grin of amusement slowly curving his handsome mouth and putting his formidable cool reserve to flight, Rashad relaxed his lean, powerful body back into his office chair and listened to the line being cut with a furious click. There was a powerful buzz to his every exchange or encounter with Tilda. That truth disturbed him…

CHAPTER FIVE

THE car door of the Mercedes opened. The chauffeur bowed low and the bodyguards fanned out. Her heart beating very fast, Tilda climbed out and walked into the hotel, striving to appear indifferent to all the heads turning to look in her direction. The lift was held for her benefit. Moments later, she was ushered into an opulent suite and shown straight into a bedroom where a complete change of clothes awaited her.

Her palms were damp as she unbuttoned the jacket of the ordinary navy trouser suit she had worn. She undressed with great care. Leaving home had upset her and keeping up the cheerful front had been a challenge. It was her second visit to this London hotel. Her first had taken place over a week earlier, when a couple of hours had passed while she had been comprehensively measured for a new wardrobe. Both trips had been organised by an anonymous voice over the phone. She’d had to put on pressure to find out exactly when she would be flying out to Bakhar. From Rashad himself, she had heard not a word. While she was by no means keen for any unnecessary contact with him, that silence had done nothing to lessen her apprehensions about her future.

Tilda donned the cobweb-fine silk and lace lingerie. Each item was a perfect fit. She had never known anyone who wore stockings. She liked her underwear plain and comfortable, not designed to present the female body in a provocative way. The gossamer-thin bra and briefs offered nothing in the way of concealment. In spite of the warmth of the room she shivered. She slid into the beautifully made blue dress and eased her feet into the delicate high-heeled shoes. She was reaching for the matching light coat when the very expensive mobile phone lying on the bed rang.

After a moment of hesitation, she answered it. ‘Hello?’

‘Leave your hair loose,’ Rashad murmured huskily.

It was an effort to find her voice. ‘Right.’

‘The phone is yours. It enjoys enhanced security. Wear the jewellery. I’m looking forward to seeing you at the airport.’ Rashad rang off.

Moving with as much enthusiasm as an automaton, Tilda tucked the fancy phone into the designer handbag on the bed. A jewel box reposed on the dressing table. She flipped it open, anxious eyes widening at the sight of the dazzling platinum and diamond set pendant and drop earrings. Her hands all thumbs, she put the jewellery on. She unclasped her hair and reached for a comb. He had always loved her hair. A tremor ran through her slender length. At that instant she was tempted to hack her hair off to within a few inches of her scalp.

But how would her desert prince react? Suppose that hair was her main attraction in his eyes? Suppose he took one look at her shorn of her crowning glory and rejected her at the airport? It was not a risk she could afford to take. Her lovely face tightening, she tidied her hair and slid into the light coat. Her reflection in the mirror mocked her, for the conservative outfit adorned with the eye-catching jewellery was very stylish. On the surface she looked like a lady, she conceded bitterly, but both she and, more importantly, he knew that beneath the elegant restraint of her outer garments she was dressed like his favourite concubine.

She travelled to Heathrow in an enormous limousine embellished with tinted windows. She was walking through the airport terminal when someone called her name. She came to a surprised halt and turned her head and was instantly targeted by a blinding onslaught of flashing cameras borne by running people. In the commotion questions were shouted at her while the security team accompanying her banded round her in a protective huddle and urged her on.

‘How does it feel to be the Crown Prince’s latest lady?’

‘Turn this way, luv … let us get a shot of the sparklers round your neck!’

‘Are you flying out to meet the Bakhari royal family?’ A woman yelled, trotting alongside her and extending a microphone. ‘Is it true you first met when Prince Rashad was up at Oxford?’

Aghast at the attention and the intrusive interrogation, Tilda sped on almost at a run and kept her head bent down to discourage further photos being taken. Another couple of bodyguards came rushing up in support of their beleaguered colleagues and hastily ushered her out of the main concourse, down a corridor and into a private room.

Her dismayed eyes collided without warning with Rashad’s searing golden scrutiny. Although the austere classic lines of his lean, strong face bore his customary air of detachment, Tilda felt as jolted as if she had stuck her finger into a live electric socket: wrath emanated from him in a force field. He inclined his arrogant dark head in a clear signal for her to approach him. She would have preferred to stay where she was. On the other hand she did not want to run the risk of being ordered around in front of his staff, all of whom were clumped in a corner being careful to neither speak nor look in their direction.

‘I will deal with this matter after we board.’ Rashad’s low-pitched intonation somehow achieved the same stinging effect as the flick of a whip.

Tilda’s sense of intimidation was put to flight by a surge of annoyance. Here she was packaged and presented from head to toe and from the skin out as His Royal Highness had commanded. She had done exactly as she had been told. She had not put a foot wrong. What was the matter with him? Was he never satisfied? Her life promised to be hell for the duration of their relationship, she thought angrily. But she was quick to remind herself that the reward was that, within twenty-four hours, all immediate threat to the stability of her family would be eradicated.

She stole a grudging glance at Rashad from below her honey-brown lashes and her tummy flipped with an immediacy that infuriated her. He was breathtakingly handsome. Yet there was something more compelling than mere good looks in his lean, sculpted features, something that ensnared her and made her want to look again and again. Five years earlier, she had been hopelessly addicted to him and wildly in love. A deep pang of pain assailed her at that recollection and chilled her to the marrow. No, she promised herself staunchly, never again would she allow her more tender emotions to overwhelm her in Rashad’s radius. She could not afford to make herself that vulnerable again.

His private jet was large and the interior so sumptuous it took Tilda’s breath away. She sank into an extremely comfortable seat and braced herself for take-off while ruminating over what might have annoyed him. Was it the startling interest that the press had demonstrated in her at the airport? Well, that was scarcely her fault. He was a fabulously wealthy womaniser and royal into the bargain. The paparazzi adored him and tracked his movements round the globe. His social life filled gossip-page columns every month and occasionally even attracted headlines.

Soon after the plane had left the runway, Rashad undid his seat belt and rose from his seat with swift movements. ‘You may now answer my questions.’

Tilda, who had only flown a couple of times in her entire life, relaxed her white-knuckled grip on the arms of her seat and opened her eyes. ‘What is wrong?’ she asked, shaking her pale blond head in bewilderment. ‘I’ve done nothing and I already feel like I’m on trial.’

Rashad surveyed her with lustrous dark eyes of suspicion. He could not recall when he had last come so close to losing his temper. Her luminous turquoise eyes rested on him in seemingly innocent enquiry. But the very fact that she had contrived to home in on his one oversight and take advantage of it convinced him that once again she was acting.

‘Why did you tip off the press about our travel plans?’

Tilda blinked, letting the ramifications of that far-reaching question sink in. Outrage flashed through her. ‘Now just you listen here,’ she gasped, struggling to undo her seat belt with furious hands.

Rashad crouched down on a level with her. ‘No, you listen,’ he urged soft and low and deadly in warning. ‘If you shout, you will be overheard and you will embarrass my staff. Impertinence and discourtesy are much disliked in Bakhar.’

Fit to be tied, Tilda trembled with rage and chagrin. ‘You’re the only person who makes me feel like this—’

Rashad undid the seat belt that had defeated her with a deft flick of one hand and subjected her to the full assault of his stunning dark golden eyes. ‘You are strong-willed. I’m the only person who stands up to you.’

Tilda scrambled up and took herself over to the other side of the cabin. Her oval face flushed, she spun round again before he could remind her that it was rude to turn her back on him. ‘You’re also the only person who continually makes me the target of unjust accusations. Surely that is some excuse for a loss of temper?’ she whispered back at him vehemently, her hands balled into fists of restraint by her side. ‘I’ve never had any contact with the press. I haven’t a clue about how to go about tipping them off, either.’