The Sultan's Virgin Bride

‘Of course.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘You’re rarely out of the press. Designers fight to have you wear their clothes on the red carpet. If you wear a dress, then it sells.’

And how sad was that? Farrah mused, producing a false smile designed to indicate that such an ‘accolade’ mattered to her. In truth, the thought that people regarded her—her—as a fashion icon was as ridiculous as it was laughable. Almost as laughable as the idea that Tariq had noticed and cared.

He was a man who negotiated peace settlements and billion dollar oil deals. It was hard to believe that he could be genuinely interested in something as superficial as the contents of her wardrobe, but she’d long since resigned herself to the fact that her priorities seemed to be different from those of almost everyone else on the planet. She cared about different things.

But, thanks to her mother, she’d learned to stay quiet about her real interests. Had learned to play the game she was expected to play and she played it now, lifting her chin, hiding behind the image she’d created for herself. She watched his eyes narrow as he studied her expression.

‘You’ve developed poise, Farrah. And elegance.’

And duplicity. She was the master of pretence. Concealing her frustration behind another smile, she wondered why it was that everyone was so obsessed with how she looked on the outside. Didn’t anyone care about the person behind the glitter? Wasn’t anyone interested in who she really was?

Memories, painful and hurtful, twisted inside her.

For a short blissful time she’d thought Tariq was interested. She’d thought he cared. But she’d been wrong.

And his rejection had been the final spur for her to reinvent herself. To finally become the woman her mother had always wanted her to be. At least for part of the time. For the rest of the time she led an entirely different life. The life she wanted to lead. A life that few knew about.

A life she had absolutely no intention of sharing with Tariq.

‘I’m glad you approve,’ she said smoothly, stepping aside so that she could walk past him. ‘And now I need to go and—’

‘You’re not going anywhere.’ Without hesitation, he caught her round the waist and jerked her towards him. She lifted a hand in an instinctive gesture of defense, but it was too late. Her body had felt the hard brush of his thighs and responded instantly.

She shook her head to clear the clouds of dizziness and sucked in a lungful of air but even that was a mistake because the air contained the delicious, erotic scent of him and the clouds around her brain just grew denser.

Struggling to find the control that she was so proud of, she held herself rigid in his arms. ‘Why would you suddenly seek me out? I can hardly believe you find yourself short of female company.’

‘I’m not short of female company.’

His cool statement shouldn’t have caused pain but it did and she dragged her eyes away from her involuntary study of his dark jaw.

‘Then go and concentrate your attentions on someone who’s interested,’ she suggested, squashing down memories of past humiliation. ‘I’m not. And I want you to let me go.’

The tension between them was overwhelming. ‘If you’re not interested,’ he said silkily, ‘why is your heart pounding against mine?’

Farrah decided that if there was anything worse than feeling this way, it was knowing that he was aware of her reaction. ‘I don’t like being held against my will,’ she said frostily, a flash of anger in her eyes as she looked at him. ‘And I don’t like the way you use power and control to get your own way. I don’t respond to bullying.’

‘You think I’m bullying you?’ His tone was lethally soft, his mouth only a breath away from hers. ‘That’s strange, because I let go of you the moment you requested that I do so, but you haven’t moved an inch, Farrah. Your body is still against mine. Why is that? I wonder.’

She gave a soft gasp and stepped back, realising that he was telling the truth. He was no longer holding her.

‘I think what holds us together is sexual chemistry,’ he murmured, a self-satisfied look in his eyes as he lifted a hand to her flushed cheek, ‘the way it always did. Which proves I was right to seek you out.’

From somewhere, she found her voice. ‘Why would you do that? What possible reason could you have for seeking me out?’

A man like Tariq did nothing on impulse. His schedule was punishing. Every moment of his day was planned in minute detail. Even when they’d been together, she’d had problems getting to see him. It was extremely unlikely that he would have been at an event like this without a purpose.

Was she that purpose? And if so, why? What did she have that he could possibly want?

There was a brief silence while he studied her beneath distractingly thick dark lashes. ‘Five years is a long time. You were young and impulsive. You had no knowledge of my country or culture. It was, perhaps, inevitable that there would be problems between us. Misunderstandings.’

The injustice of his remarks stung her and her spine stiffened.

She’d been young, yes. A few weeks past her eighteenth birthday. Impulsive? Probably. But she’d also been ruthlessly manipulated by those around him, those who professed to be close to him. She’d been well and truly flattened by palace politics.

‘I don’t want to talk about the past and I’m not interested in your opinion, Tariq.’ Her voice was flat. ‘It was a long time ago and we’ve both moved on.’

‘I don’t think so.’ His eyes, dark as night, slid down her slender frame and he reached out and lifted her right hand. ‘You still wear my ring.’

The ring.

With something approaching horror her gaze slid to the sparkling dramatic stone. The ring had been the embodiment of all her girlish dreams and even when their relationship had fallen apart she hadn’t been able to bring herself to take it off.

Cursing herself for being so sentimental, she snatched her hand away from his. The ring was exquisitely beautiful. A diamond so rare and perfect that she’d fallen in love with it on sight. As she had with the man who had given it to her. ‘Actually, Tariq, I wear it to remind me that men bearing extravagant gifts are not to be trusted.’

An indulgent smile spread across his bronzed features. ‘Fool yourself if you wish, laeela, but not me. Strong feelings are not so easily extinguished. There are some things that remain unaffected by the passage of time.’

Like pain, she thought dully.

‘Just go, Tariq.’ Her heart was beating frantically and the shivering started up again. ‘If you want closure for what happened between us, then you have it. But go, and leave me alone to live my life.’ She was fine, she told herself firmly. Really, she was absolutely fine.

‘Closure. Such an American word.’ He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘You should not walk around in the night air, half undressed. You will catch a chill.’

Before she could anticipate his intention, he shrugged his shoulders out of his jacket and draped it around her bare shoulders.

Once again she was enveloped by the familiar masculine scent and her senses swam.

He leaned closer to her, his breath warm on her cheek. ‘I did not come here to seek closure, Farrah. That is not the reason that I’m here tonight.’ His voice was a soft, seductive purr and she flattened herself against the cold, hard stone of the balcony that skirted the terrace.

‘Then why are you here? Can we get to the point so that I can go back into the ballroom?’ He was standing too close to her. She felt stifled. Suffocated. And she didn’t want to wear the jacket. It was too intimate. Too much a part of him.

But, before she could remove it, he closed in on her, the width of his shoulders ensuring that he was the focus of her gaze. She could no longer see the ballroom or the bodyguard. She could no longer see the terrace. All she could see was glittering dark eyes and a hard, sensual mouth that knew how to drive a woman to distraction. And she’d forgotten about the jacket.

‘Tariq—’His name was a plea on her lips and his own mouth curved slightly in acknowledgment of that plea. He could see everything, she thought desperately. He knew everything. Her thoughts. Her feelings. The strange buzz in her body. He had access to all of it.

‘As I said, there are some things that the passage of time doesn’t change. It is still there between us,’ he said softly, lifting a hand and brushing her cheek gently with his fingers. ‘That is good.’

His touch made her nerve endings tingle and her mind flickered to the rumours that abounded. It was said that there was nothing that Tariq al-Sharma didn’t know about women. That he was a skilful lover. The best.

She’d never been given the opportunity to find out.

‘There is nothing between us.’ From somewhere deep inside her, she found her voice. ‘You killed it, Tariq.’

His smile hovered somewhere between self satisfied and amused. ‘Denial is useless when the body speaks so clearly.’

‘You want my body to speak clearly? Fine.’ Goaded by the expression on his face, she lifted a hand and slapped him hard across the cheek. From the darkness of the terrace bodyguards surged forward but Tariq halted their progress with a smooth lift of his hand, his eyes locked on hers in incredulous disbelief.

‘You believe in living dangerously, laeela. But I forgive your reaction because I understand the depth of feeling that inspired such a move on your part.’ The brief flare of anger in his dark eyes subsided, to be replaced by something slumbrous and infinitely more dangerous. ‘There was always heat between us. And, despite what you may think, I don’t want a meek, submissive wife.’