The Sultan's Virgin Bride

She’d learned that he was ruthless and cynical and that their personalities and expectations just didn’t match.

‘You expect me to believe that you engineered this?’ She threw her head back and laughed. ‘Tariq, you were at such pains to be rid of me five years ago that I know that cannot possibly be true. I was unsuitable, remember? You were ashamed of me.’

Just as her mother had been ashamed of her.

‘You were young.’ His tone was cool. ‘I’ve watched you with interest over the years.’

Her eyes widened in shock. ‘Watched me?’

‘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.’

Coming to terms with the realization that not only had she just hit someone for the first time her life but she’d chosen to be violent with someone who could probably have her arrested, Farrah looked at him blankly, mortified that she’d lost control and shocked by her own uncharacteristic behaviour. ‘Wife? You have a wife now?’

The possibility that he’d married someone in the five years since they’d met hadn’t entered her head, but of course he would have married. Even a man as commitment phobic as Tariq couldn’t avoid it for ever. It was his duty. Had she not recognized the pressures on him right from the start? Someone suitable and approved of by his wretched, interfering family. Why should she care? Why would it matter to her? She should pity the girl in question.

‘I don’t have a wife yet.’ His tone was silky smooth. ‘But you have led the conversation round to the reason for me being here this evening.’

‘You’re looking for a wife?’ Her tone was faintly sarcastic. ‘Then step back into the ballroom, Tariq. I’m sure they’ll be queuing up.’

‘They probably would be—’ he gave a dismissive shrug ‘—but there’s no need for me to look because the woman I intend to marry is standing in front of me.’ He inclined his dark head and his mouth hovered close to hers. ‘I’ve decided that I want you as my wife, Farrah. I have decided to marry you.’

CHAPTER TWO

FARRAH stood in shocked silence.

I want you as my wife…I have decided to marry you.

His words spun round and round in her head and when she finally spoke her voice was little more than a whisper. ‘Is this some sort of sick joke?’

Once, to marry him had been her dream. And he knew it. Was he taunting her with her naïvety?

‘As you well know, I have never found the prospect of marriage even remotely amusing.’ Ebony brows locked in a frown. ‘Why would you accuse me of joking?’

‘Because you can’t possibly be serious? We’ve had no contact for five years! And on the last occasion we were together—which, by the way, was when you told me that you could never marry a woman like me—’ she supplied helpfully, ‘you informed me that I was perfect mistress material but nothing else!’

Just saying the words aloud started her shivering again. You thought you’d recovered from something, she thought to herself as she tried to control her reaction, and then you realized that it had been there all along. Buried. Waiting to be uncovered.

People who said that time healed were lying. You made adjustments. You learned to live with things that you couldn’t change. But that didn’t mean that healing had taken place.

‘Actually, I was wrong. Five years ago you were too young and innocent to be perfect mistress material.’ Tariq studied her thoughtfully and he lifted a hand to touch her flushed cheek. ‘The perfect mistress should be sexually experienced and emotionally detached. You were neither.’

The colour in her cheeks deepened and she pulled away from him. ‘I’m not interested in your definition of the perfect mistress. It was a role I rejected, if you remember.’

He gave a slow smile. ‘Oh, I remember. You were holding out for a much larger prize.’

‘I made the mistake of thinking that our relationship meant something.’

‘It did. We were good together,’ he said smoothly. ‘And, had you come to my bed, you would have experienced the true meaning of the word “pleasure.”’

Her body heated with an explosive flash and she dragged her eyes away from the knowing gleam in his. ‘Had I come to your bed, I would have been a total idiot and would have discovered the true meaning of the word “regret.”’

He inhaled sharply. ‘I made you an extremely generous offer.’

‘Generous offer? Sorry, but I don’t see what’s generous about inviting someone to have sex with you.’ She’d loved him, for goodness’ sake. Passionately. Deeply. To the exclusion of all others. She’d believed he’d loved her. ‘You’re supposed to have a brilliant brain and a razor-sharp intellect but you know absolutely nothing about relationships or human emotions!’

‘Being my “mistress” as you so quaintly call it, would have come with significant perks.’

‘So basically you were offering me money in exchange for sex.’ Her voice was filled with derision. ‘There’s a word for that, Tariq, and it isn’t nice.’

His proud head lifted and the flash of his eyes was a reminder that he wasn’t accustomed to being challenged. ‘A marriage was not possible between us at that time.’

‘But now it is?’ She couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice but he didn’t react.

‘Five years is a long time. You were very young. Much can be forgiven.’

‘Maybe. But I’m not the one that needs forgiving here.’ She was guilty of nothing more than being gullible and the injustice of the situation stung her deeply. She forgot he was the ruling Sultan of an oil rich state and one of the most eligible and influential men in the world. To Farrah, Tariq al-Sharma was just the man who had hurt her. She saw no further than that. Cared nothing for appearances or protocol. ‘You were utterly ruthless, Tariq. When I refused your “generous offer”, my father and I were forced to leave the country.’

His expression revealed nothing. ‘In the circumstances, it was not appropriate for you to stay.’

She thought of the desert and the beaches. She thought of the golden temples and the dusty streets. She thought of the mysteries of the souk and she thought of those precious early morning walks on the beach, warmed by the hot, hot sun. She thought of the Caves of Zatua and the legend of Nadia and her Sultan. ‘For a short time it was my home. I loved it. Leaving was hard.’

But not as hard as it had been to leave Tariq.

She’d felt as though a huge part of her had been left behind in the desert. The only part of her that mattered. She’d believed that he loved her and the discovery that his feelings had been no more than sexual had shattered her fragile self-confidence.

‘If you truly loved my country then you will be only too happy to return.’

‘I will never return.’ For her, Tazkash was a place that would always be linked with him. A place where there were too many painful memories. ‘You’re being ridiculous and I refuse even to have this conversation with you. I’m not one of your subjects or even one of your adoring women.’ And there were plenty of those, she thought grimly. Women prepared to do just about anything to gain his attention.

‘Once, Farrah Tyndall,’ he said softly, the pad of his thumb brushing over the fullness of her lower lip, ‘once, you begged me to marry you. You couldn’t wait to climb into my bed. It was I who slowed the pace because you were so young. Once, you adored me.’

Her heart was thumping with rhythmic force against her chest. She didn’t want to be reminded of just how open and honest she’d been with him about her feelings. Most women played it cool. At the age of eighteen, in love with a staggeringly sexy man, she hadn’t understood the meaning of the word. How he must have laughed at her. ‘That was before I discovered that princes work better in fairy tales. Before I discovered what a cold, unfeeling bastard you are.’

His head jerked back and his dark eyes narrowed in a warning. ‘Be careful. I have always allowed you more leeway than most but no one speaks to me in such a way—’

‘Which just goes to show what an unsuitable wife I would make. I thought you’d already made that discovery for yourself but it’s good to remind you of that fact.’ She shrugged her bare shoulders out of his jacket and handed it back to him. ‘Thanks, but I don’t need this. I prefer to go inside to warm up.’

He couldn’t be serious about marrying her. Why would he be? She didn’t understand what game he was playing, but she knew she didn’t want to be a part of it.

Something flickered in his eyes. Something dangerous. ‘You will come with me. Now.’ It was an unmistakable command and she gave a slight shiver of reaction.

No one argued with Tariq—she should have remembered that. His authority was absolute. Once, his status alone had been sufficient to render her tongue-tied, but not any more. She’d had plenty of time to reflect on what had happened between them. And she’d grown up.

‘Why would I want to go anywhere with you?’ She forced herself to speak lightly. Forced herself not to betray the effect he had on her. ‘So that you can show me the way to paradise? I’ve been there once before, Tariq, and I think I must have taken a wrong turning because, frankly, it wasn’t up to much. Excuse me, I’m going back inside.’

Long bronzed fingers caught her wrist in a steely grip. ‘I wish to talk to you properly. In private.’

‘But I don’t wish to talk to you in private, or in public, come to that. Five minutes in your company has been enough to convince me that you haven’t changed one bit so take my advice and quit while you’re only slightly behind.’

His glance reflected barely contained frustration. ‘You will come with me.’

‘Why? Because you order it? I don’t wish to go anywhere with you so what are you going to do? Kidnap me?’

His dark eyes were suddenly veiled. ‘I hardly think such extreme measures will be required.’

She risked a glance at him and realized with a jolt that he was deadly serious. He wanted her. Why? She wondered desperately. Because she’d finally managed to reinvent herself? Because, on the surface at least, she’d turned into the woman her mother had always wanted her to be? ‘Do you really think I’m going to walk back into your arms?’

‘If you’re honest about your feelings, then yes. It’s still there. Farrah—’ he used his superior strength to hold her fast when she would have run ‘—you can feel it and so can I. And I’m offering you what you’ve always wanted. Don’t let a childish tantrum deprive you of your dream.’

Her heart thundered against her chest. ‘Even for a sultan, you are insufferably arrogant,’ she gasped, trying to ignore the tiny shockwaves that gripped her body. ‘And any dreams I might have had about you ended five years ago. You had your chance with me, Tariq, and you blew it. End of story.’

Far from being disconcerted, his eyes gleamed and she remembered too late that Tariq thrived on challenge. He was a man who hunted for obstacles just so that he could smash them down and prove his superiority.

‘I am willing to play this your way for a while, Farrah, while you get used to the idea that we are going to be together again. But as my future wife you must abide by a certain code of behaviour. I understand you are to take part in the charity fashion show imminently.’

Farrah stared at him blankly. The fashion show? She’d forgotten all about the fashion show. The only thing on her mind since he’d walked on to the terrace had been escape. From him and from her jumbled feelings. His reminder of her commitment to the charity made her heart drop. She wasn’t at all sure she could make it through another couple of hours, especially not in such a public way. Everyone would be looking at her. Including Tariq.

She opened her mouth to tell him that she was going to make her excuses but his eyes flashed dark and menacing, his ebony brows drawn together in a disapproving frown.

‘I forbid you to take part.’

‘You forbid—?’ The word made her temper simmer and suddenly she struck on a foolproof way of removing him from her life again. After all, wasn’t her ‘inappropriate behaviour’ one of the main reasons he’d cited for being unable to marry her? ‘You don’t want me to be in the fashion show, Tariq?’ Suddenly she realized that appearing in the fashion show would be the perfect way of guaranteeing his rapid exit from her life.

‘As my future wife, it would not be appropriate.’

‘Good, that settles it, then,’ she said sweetly as she twisted her arm free of his grip, ‘because I intend to do the fashion show. So perhaps you’d better look elsewhere for the wife you so desperately need, Your Excellency.’

He inhaled sharply, disbelief flickering in his dark eyes. ‘You persist in this ridiculous pretence that you’re not interested. Do you understand what it is that I am proposing?’

‘Proposing?’ She tilted her head and her eyes sparkled with anger. ‘Sorry, I didn’t actually hear a proposal. I heard you ordering and forbidding and doing all the things that you’re really, really good at. You’re going to have to go and find someone else to command, Tariq, because I’m not interested.’

Without giving him a chance to respond, she walked past his bodyguards, back through the ballroom and into the room where they were frantically preparing for the fashion show. Her heart was thumping, her hands felt clammy and she felt physically sick as she joined the other girls who were modelling that evening.

His wife?

Why would he say such a thing?

Why on earth would he suddenly be talking about marrying her after five years of silence? What was going on? And why did her body still respond even though she knew what sort of man he was?

Like all addictive habits, she thought gloomily, you always wanted what was bad for you. And Tariq was extremely bad.

‘Farrah, thank goodness!’ Enzo Franconi, the famous Italian designer, embraced her with relief. ‘We thought you’d gone home and I have the most spectacular dress for you to wear tonight. I predict that you will shine, you will positively dazzle, you will—’

‘No dress.’ Farrah’s tone was grim as she slipped off her shoes and yanked the pins out of her hair. ‘Are you showing any swimwear, Enzo?’ Her hair fell smooth and sleek down her back while Enzo gaped in astonishment.

‘Of course. But you never model swimwear. Always you refuse to dress in anything so revealing.’

Farrah’s mind was on Tariq. On his proposal of marriage. He couldn’t have been serious. It didn’t make sense. ‘Well, tonight I’m not refusing. I’ll wear whatever you’ve got—but preferably the most shocking, daring thing in your collection.’