The Arabian Mistress

Her tummy muscles clenched. She had forgotten quite how tall Tariq ibn Zachir was and how dynamic his presence. He stilled like a lion on the prowl. Magnificent, hugely confident, his silent grace of movement one of his most noticeable physical attributes. In the sunlight he was a golden feast of vibrant masculinity. His luxuriant black hair shone. His tawny skin glowed with health and his stunning bronze eyes gleamed like precious metal, both brilliant and unreadable. Indeed, he was quite staggeringly beautiful and it was an appalling challenge for Faye not to stare at him. Her mouth ran dry, a slow, painful tide of pink creeping up to dispense her pallor. Her heart hammered against her breastbone so hard she could barely catch her breath.

‘I appreciate your agreeing to see me so quickly,’ Faye muttered dry-mouthed.

‘Unfortunately, I haven’t much time to spare. I have a charity polo match to play in an hour’s time.’

Tariq came to a halt at the stone table by the pool and leant back against it. He angled his arrogant head back and studied her with a bold, all-male intensity that made her feel horribly self-conscious. His expressive mouth quirked. ‘Surely Percy did not advise you to wear trousers to this meeting? Or is that sad outfit supposed to be a plea for the sympathy vote?’

At that all too accurate crack about her stepfather, Faye turned as red as a beetroot and stammered. ‘I c-can’t imagine why you should think that.’

‘Don’t play innocent.’ Tariq gave her that advice in a tone as smooth as glass. ‘I had a surfeit of the blushing virgin act last year. I should have smelt a rat the instant you ditched it and appeared in a plunging neckline but, like most men, I was too busy looking to be cautious.’

Writhing with chagrin under such fire, some of which she knew to be justified, Faye snatched in a stark breath of the hot, still air. ‘Tariq…I very much regret what happened between us.’

Tariq dealt her a slow smile which chilled her to the marrow for it was not at all the charismatic smile she recalled. ‘I’m sure you do. It could not have occurred to you then that your precious brother would soon be locked up in a prison cell in Jumar.’

‘Of course, it didn’t.’ Faye took that comment at face value, striving to be grateful that he had rushed them straight to the crux of the matter. She curled her hands together. ‘But you like Adrian. You know that he’s been gaoled through no fault of his own—’

‘Do I?’ Tariq broke in softly. ‘Is our legal system so unjust? I had not thought so.’

Recognising her error in appearing to criticise that system, Faye said hastily, ‘I didn’t mean that. I was only pointing out that Adrian hasn’t done anything criminal—’

‘Has he not? Here in Jumar it is a crime to leave employees and tradesmen unpaid and clients with buildings that have not been completed according to contract. However, we are wonderfully practical in such cases.’ His shimmering smile was no warmer than its predecessor. ‘To regain his freedom, Adrian has only to satisfy his creditors.’

‘But he’s not able to do that…’ As she was forced to make that admission, Faye’s discomfiture leapt higher still. ‘Adrian sold his home to start up the construction firm. He plunged everything he had into the venture—’

‘And then lived like a king while he was here in my country. Yes, I am familiar with the circumstances in which your brother’s business failed. Adrian himself was foolish and extravagant.’

As Tariq completed that brief but damning indictment, Faye lost colour. ‘He made mistakes…yes, but not with any bad or deliberate intent—’

‘Surely you have heard of the principle of criminal irresponsibility?’ Indolent as a sleek jungle cat sunning himself in the sweltering heat that she was finding unbearable, Tariq surveyed her. ‘Tell me, why did you send me this?’

That switch of subject disconcerted Faye almost as much as his complete lack of emotion. The last time she had seen Tariq he had been hot with dark fury and outrage. Now she focused on the ring in the extended palm of his lean brown hand and her tummy twisted. He tossed the ring into the air where it caught the sun and glittered, exercising the strangest fascination over her. Catching it again with deft fingers, he then tossed the ring with speaking carelessness down onto the stone table where it finally rattled into stillness.

‘Were you hoping that I might have some sentimental memory of the day I put that ring on your finger?’ Tariq asked with cold derision.

Faye studied his superb riding boots until they blurred beneath the fierceness of her gaze. A wave of deep shame enveloped her and roused a terrifying lump in her throat. How very hard it was to accept that he had caused her such immense pain yet deprived her of any real right of complaint. True, he had misjudged her, but he could hardly be blamed for that when her own stepfather had tried to blackmail him. Nonetheless, unjust as it might be, Faye hated Tariq for believing that she was as calculating and mercenary as Percy Smythe.

‘Tell me…’ Tariq continued with awesome casualness, ‘…do you think of yourself as my wife or as my ex-wife?’

Reacting to that light and, to her, inappropriate question as if it was the cruellest of taunts, Faye’s pale head flew up and mortified pink warmed her cheeks afresh. ‘Hardly. At the time you made it very clear that that wedding ceremony was a charade! I know all too well that I was never your wife.’

His dense black spiky lashes lowered over dark deep-set eyes for once unlit by any lighter hue. ‘I was curious to find out how you regarded yourself.’

‘I’m only here to discuss Adrian’s position—’

‘Adrian doesn’t have a position,’ Tariq interposed without hesitation. ‘The law has already dealt with him and only repayment of his debts can free him.’

He was like a stranger. Neither courteous nor sympathetic, neither interested nor perturbed. This was Tariq as she had never known him. Hard, distant, forbidding. Terrifyingly impersonal. A male whose cool authority of command was so engrained that it blazed from him even in casual clothing. Faye’s slim hands closed in tight on themselves. ‘But surely you could do something…if you wanted to…’

‘I am not above the law,’ Tariq stated, ice entering his rich dark drawl.

Her desperation grew. ‘But, even so, you can do exactly as you wish…isn’t that what being a feudal ruler is all about?’

‘I would not interfere with the laws of my country. It is a grave insult for you to even suggest that I would abuse the trust of my people in such a way!’ Hard golden eyes struck hers in a look of strong censure.

Faye tore her shaken gaze from his and tried not to cringe. She fully understood that message but did not want to accept it. Even though she was standing in partial shade, she was perspiring and wilting in the suffocating heat that he seemed to flourish in. But knowing that she undoubtedly only had this one chance to speak up on her brother’s behalf, she persisted. ‘Adrian can’t work to pay off his creditors from inside a prison cell—’

‘No, indeed, but how is it that you and your stepfather find yourself so poor that you cannot rescue him?’

‘Percy used up all his surplus cash trying to save Adrian’s business. And don’t tell me that you weren’t aware of that.’ Faye could not conceal her bitterness at the brick-wall reception she was receiving. It was now clear that, even before she’d approached him, Tariq had known all the facts of her brother’s case but had already decided not to interfere. ‘I’m only here begging you to find some way to help my brother because I have nowhere else to turn.’

‘You have yet to explain why I should wish to help Adrian.’

‘Common decency…humanity…’ Faye muttered shakily. ‘Officer and a gentleman?’

Tariq elevated an aristocratic dark brow. ‘Not where your self-seeking, dishonourable family is concerned.’

‘What can I say to convince you that—?’

‘Nothing. You can say nothing that will convince me. Tell me, were you always this obtuse? Or was I so busy looking at your angelic face and divine body that I failed to notice a pronounced absence of brain cells?’

His ruthless mockery lashed red into her tense, confused face. ‘I don’t know what you’re getting at—’

‘Why don’t you just ask me under what terms you might persuade me to settle Adrian’s debts?’

‘You settle them?’ Faye studied Tariq in bewilderment. ‘That idea never even occurred to me—’

That disclaimer fired an even more sardonic light in his level gaze. ‘We’re running out of time. So I shall use plain words. Give yourself to me and I will buy your brother out of trouble. There…it is very simple, is it not?’

Her lips parted. Give yourself to me. Her dark blue eyes huge, she stared back at him in disbelief.

Tariq absorbed her reaction with a cynical cool that sent her shock level into overdrive. ‘Sex in return for money. What you once used as a bait to set a trap for me but failed to deliver.’

Hot, sticky and stunned by that blunt condemnation, Faye raised her hand to tug at the constricting collar of her blouse. A trickle of perspiration ran down between her breasts. His keen gaze rested there and then whipped up to connect with her shaken eyes. The charged sexuality of that knowing look scorched her sensitive skin like a taunting flame. A helpless flare of response gripped her taut body without warning. Thought had nothing to do with the sudden ache in her breasts, the throbbing tautness of her nipples or the curl of dark secret heat darting up between her thighs.

Appalled self-loathing trammelling through her, Faye dropped her head, fighting and denying the physical sensations which threatened to tear her inside out. She needed to think, she had to concentrate for Tariq could not possibly mean what he was saying. This could only be a cruel power play at her expense. At the same time as he let her know that he would not lift a finger to help Adrian, he was trying to punish her for the past. Punish her with humiliation.

At that energising thought, Faye lifted her head high again. Her fine-boned features were pink but stiff with angry, injured pride. ‘Obviously it was a mistake to ask you for this meeting.’ Struggling to keep her voice level, she thrust up her chin. ‘Whatever you may think of me, I don’t deserve what you just said to me.’

A caustic smile slashed Tariq’s lean, powerful face. ‘What a loss you have been to the film world! That look of mortally offended reproach is quite superb.’

‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself!’ Undaunted by the incredulous blaze that flamed in his spectacular eyes, Faye gave him a scornful glance. Spinning on her heel, she stalked back out of the courtyard without lowering herself to say another word.

CHAPTER TWO

FAYE shot like a bullet back into the crowded concourse again, cannoned off someone with a startled apology and backed away into one of the pillars.

She was in shock. She knew she was. But she was furious to find that her eyes were awash with tears and she couldn’t see where she was going. Gulping back the thickness in her throat, she whirled round to the back of the pillar and struggled to get a grip on herself again. What was she? Some wishy-washy wimp all of a sudden?

‘Allow me to offer you refreshment…’ an anxious male voice proffered.

Frowning in surprise because she recognised that voice, Faye parted her clogged eyelashes and focused on the polished shoes of the little man standing in front of her. Latif, Tariq’s most senior aide, whom she had met in passing on several occasions the year before. Slowly she lifted her bent head. Latif bowed so low that she got a great view of his bald patch. Indeed she honestly thought he was trying to touch his toes and could not immediately grasp what on earth he was doing until it occurred to her that the older man might well be granting her a tactful moment in which to compose herself.

‘Latif…’

‘Please come this way…’

Latif led her through a door and across a hall into a charming reception room furnished in European style. Grateful for the blessed cool of the air-conditioning there, Faye collapsed down on a silk-upholstered sofa and dug into her bag in search of a tissue.

The reserved older man stayed by the door at a respectful distance and Faye averted her attention from him. Latif was kind. He had seen her distress and brought her here to recover in privacy and, unfortunately for him, good manners forbade leaving her alone.

Jingling with jewellery and barefoot, a procession of maids carrying trays entered the room. One by one they knelt at her feet to serve her with coffee and proffer cakes and sticky confectionery. Beneath her astonished scrutiny, they then backed away across the whole depth of the room with downbent heads before exiting again. Presumably all visitors, many of whom would naturally be VIPs, were treated with such exaggerated attention and servility but it made Faye feel extremely uncomfortable.

‘I believe the heat may have made you feel unwell.’ As Faye finished the bittersweet coffee in the tiny china cup, Latif broke the silence with exquisite tact. ‘I hope you are feeling better now.’

‘Yes, thank you…’ Faye bit at her lower lip and then took the plunge for she had not the slightest doubt that the discreet older man knew all about Adrian’s predicament. ‘Have you any idea how I can help my brother?’

‘I would suggest that a second approach might be made to Prince Tariq tomorrow.’

So much for inspired advice from an inside source! Faye tried not to release a humourless laugh. Surely Latif could not have the foggiest clue of what had passed between her and Tariq? Give yourself to me. Pretty basic, that. No room for misunderstanding there. She was still shattered that Tariq could have made such a suggestion to her. It was barbaric.

Yet no sooner had she made that judgement than an unwelcome little voice spoke up from her conscience. Hadn’t she once offered herself to Tariq in no uncertain terms? Hadn’t she once made it quite clear that she’d been willing to sleep with him? And hadn’t she then got cold feet when she’d seen how that unwise invitation had altered his attitude to her? Without a doubt, Tariq now saw her as the most shameless tease! Tears lashed the back of her eyes again. Wasn’t it awful how one mistake could just lead to another and another? From the instant she had departed from the values she had been raised to respect, she had learnt nothing but hard lessons.

Eager now to leave the Haja, Faye rose to her feet. ‘Thank you for the coffee, Latif.’

‘I will send a car again for you tomorrow, if I may.’

‘I’d be wasting my time coming again.’

‘The car will remain at your disposal for the whole day.’

Latif evidently wanted her brother released from prison, Faye decided. Why else was he getting involved behind the scenes? She returned to the hotel in the same style in which she had departed. As she crossed the foyer, slight shoulders bowed with exhaustion, Percy emerged from the bar to intercept her.

‘Well?’ he demanded abrasively.

‘All I got was…was an improper proposition.’ Faye could not bring herself to look at her stepfather as she admitted that but she hoped that that honesty would satisfy him and save her from an interrogation. Percy was a bully. He had always been a bully. Just then, she did not feel equal to the challenge of standing up to him.

‘So what?’ Percy snapped without hesitation. ‘You’ve got to do whatever it takes to get Adrian home!’

Once again, Faye was shocked. But as she hurried into the lift and left her stepfather fuming, she asked herself why. Percy had never had much time for her. It had been naïve of her to believe that he might be angry on her behalf. For Percy, the bottom line was Adrian. And shouldn’t that be her bottom line as well?

Knowing it was past time that she ate something, Faye rang room service and ordered the cheapest snack on the menu. Then she made herself face facts. But for her, Adrian would not have got to know Tariq and would never had thought of setting up business in Jumar. It was also her fault that Tariq now regarded her and her brother in the same light as their stepfather. Like it or not, she had put Tariq into a compromising position where Percy was able to threaten him. Her foolish infatuation, her lies and her immaturity had led to that development. Adrian was suffering now because Tariq despised and distrusted all of them. Who could ever have imagined that from one seemingly small lie, so much grief could have flowed?

Faye swallowed hard. When she had first met Tariq, she had pretended to be twenty-three years old, sooner than own up to being a month short of her nineteenth birthday. Tariq’s subsequent outrage at the lies she had told had been extreme and succinct. She might as well have set out to trap him for the end result had been the same. Retreating from recollections that still made her writhe with guilt, Faye returned to the present and the grim prospect of what she ought to try to do next to help her brother…

That evening, her stepfather came to her hotel room again but she opened the door on the chain and said she wasn’t well. It wasn’t a lie: she was so tired, she felt queasy. In her bed she lay listening to the evocative call of the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer at the mosque at the end of the street. With her conscience tormenting her, she got little sleep.

At half-past eight the following morning, wearing a loose dress in a pale lilac print, Faye climbed into the limousine which Latif had promised would be waiting. The day before she had made serious errors with Tariq, she now conceded, newly appraised humility weighing her down. She had tried to save face by talking only about Adrian. But, mortifying as it was to acknowledge, Tariq had good reason to think she was a brazen hussy, who had set him up for a sleazy blackmail attempt. Perhaps an open acknowledgement of that reality, a long overdue explanation and a sincere and heartfelt apology would take the edge off Tariq’s animosity. Maybe he would then consider loaning Adrian the money he needed to settle his debts and let bygones be bygones…

This time the limo whisked her round to a side entrance at the Haja fortress where Latif greeted her in person. Quiet approval emanated from the older man.

Ushered straight into a large contemporary office, Faye breathed in deep and straightened her shoulders. Sleek and sophisticated in a pale grey business suit of exquisite cut that moulded his broad shoulders, lean hips and long powerful legs, Tariq was standing by the window talking on a portable phone. He acknowledged her arrival with the merest dip of his handsome dark head.

Taking the seat indicated by Latif, who then withdrew, Faye focused on Tariq. His classic profile stood out in strong relief. She watched the long, elegant fingers of his free hand spread a little and then curl with silent eloquence as he spoke. Memories that hurt assailed her and she dragged her attention from him and folded her hands together on her lap to stop them trembling.

But she remained so aware of his disturbing presence that she was in an agony of discomfiture. She knew that lean bronzed face almost as well as her own. The slight imperious slant of his ebony brows, the spectacular tawny eyes that had such amazing clarity, the narrow bridge of his aristocratic nose dissecting hard high Berber cheekbones, the strong stubborn jawline, the passionate but stern mouth.

Only the day before, she had felt the humiliating pull of his magnetic physical attraction. Her soft full mouth compressed. That had unnerved and embarrassed her. But he had caught her at a weak moment. That was all. She was no longer an infatuated teenager, helpless in the grip of her own emotions and at the mercy of galloping hormones and foolish fantasies. She had got over him fast. She might not have dated anyone since but that was only because he had truly soured her outlook on men.

‘Why are you here?’

Shot from her teeming thoughts without due warning, Faye jerked. Then she lifted her head and tilted it back. ‘I believe I owe you an explanation for the way I behaved last year.’

‘I need no explanation.’ Derision glittered in Tariq’s steady appraisal. ‘Indeed I will listen to no explanation. If you think I’m fool enough to give you a platform for more lies and self-justification, you seriously underestimate me—’

In one sentence thus deprived of her entire script, Faye breathed, ‘But—’

‘It’s very rude to interrupt me when I’m speaking.’

Faye flushed but she was already so tense that her temper sparked. ‘Maybe you would just like me to lie down like a carpet for you to walk on!’

‘A carpet is inanimate. I prefer energy and movement in my women.’

Her humble and penitent frame of mind was already taking a hard beating. Cheeks scarlet at that comeback, Faye nonetheless tried afresh. ‘Tariq…I need to explain and apologise. You wouldn’t give me the chance to explain at the time.’

‘If that is your only reason for being here, I suggest you leave. Sly words and crocodile tears won’t move me. The very thought of your shameless deceit rouses my temper.’

Faye swallowed hard. ‘OK…you have the right to be angry—’

‘Grovelling insincerity makes me angry too,’ Tariq incised even more drily. ‘Cut the phony regrets. I made you an offer yesterday and that’s why you’re here now. Only a tramp would accept a proposition of that nature, so stop pretending to be a sweet, misunderstood innocent!’

Faye, who usually had the mildest temper in the world, was appalled to feel a river of wrath surge like hot lava inside her. She rose from her seat in an abrupt movement. ‘I won’t tolerate being called a tramp! What do you call a man who makes such an offer to a woman?’

‘A man with no illusions…a man who disdains hypocrisy.’

Faye trembled. ‘My goodness, you insult me with a proposition no decent woman would even consider and then you turn round and you flatter yourself from your pinnacle of perfection—’

‘You are not a decent woman. You lie and you cheat and there is nothing you would not do for money.’

‘That is not true…it all started because I told a few stupid white lies and I know it was wrong but I was crazy about you—’

‘Crazy about me?’ Tariq flung back his arrogant dark head and laughed out loud, the sound discordant in the thrumming atmosphere. ‘You let me go for a mere half million pounds. You were so blinded by greed, you were content to settle for whatever you could get!’

Almost light-headed with the force of rage powering her, Faye now fell back a step and gaped at him. ‘I let you go…for half a million pounds? What the heck are you trying to accuse me of doing now?’

Tariq centred his brilliant golden eyes on her, his beautiful mouth hard as granite. ‘You were a cheap bride, I’ll give you that. You may have come with no dowry but I was able to shed you again for a pittance.’

Faye was no longer sure her wobbling knees would hold her upright and she dropped down into the chair again, all temper quenched. Evidently, Tariq had handed over money to somebody, money she knew nothing about. She did not have to think very hard to come up with the name of the most likely culprit. ‘You gave money to Percy…?’ She swallowed back a wail of reproach at that appalling revelation.

‘I gave it to you.’

And like a flash in the darkness, Faye finally recalled the envelope which Tariq had flung at her feet after their fake wedding that dreadful day. Did he recall that he had been talking in Arabic at the time? Didn’t he realise that she had naively assumed that their marriage certificate had been in that envelope? And when she had finally stumbled out of the Embassy of Jumar, heartbroken and with her pride in tatters, she had thrust the envelope at Percy in revulsion and condemnation. ‘Are you satisfied now that you’ve wrecked my life? Burn it…I don’t want to ever be reminded of this day again!’

How many weeks had it been before she’d finally forced herself to see her stepfather again and ask for the certificate in the hope that he had not after all destroyed it? She had believed that she might need that certificate to apply for an annulment in case the extraordinary ease of Jumarian divorce was not actually recognised by English law. But Percy had laughed in her face when she’d mentioned that fear.