Passion

Rashad was dimly surprised to register that he was enjoying himself. She was the only woman who had ever dared to raise her voice in his vicinity or tried to argue with him. Once that trait had thoroughly irritated him but now he recognised it for the novelty and the weakness it was. His self-discipline absolute, he elevated a winged ebony brow in mocking encouragement. ‘Is that so?’

‘Of course it is.’ Tilda pushed a trembling hand through the silky stray curls clinging to her warm forehead. ‘For some reason you’ve put together a whole nasty scenario that didn’t happen. There was never any plan to get money off you.’

‘So … why, in your considered opinion, am I half a million pounds poorer from having known you?’

When Rashad mentioned that particular sum, consternation knocked the breath and the temper out of Tilda. ‘Half … a million pounds?’ she whispered shakily.

‘The sale of the house will recoup some of that loss and the property has at least appreciated as an asset,’ Rashad drawled with a complete calm that she found extremely threatening. ‘But I assume the rent will never be paid and as for the loan—’

‘It can’t all come to half a million pounds!’ Tilda gasped strickenly.

‘Rather more. That is a conservative quote,’ Rashad delivered drily. ‘I’m surprised that you haven’t already worked out the exact amount. I seem to recall that you have a head for figures as good as any calculator.’

Her soft full mouth pursed for she could recognise an insult no matter how well veiled it was. ‘But I haven’t had access to all the documentation involved.’

‘In your role as innocent bystander, naturally not,’ Rashad slotted in with an unconcealed derision as frank as a shout of disbelief. ‘No matter, I intend to reclaim the debt in full.’

Realising that events were running on without her, Tilda was in a panic. ‘You mustn’t. If you were willing to give us more time—’

‘Until the next millennium?’

‘Why do you have such a low opinion of me?’ Frustration pounded through Tilda, her eyes bright with angry incomprehension again. ‘I understand that my family comes out of this looking like freeloaders, but when you won’t even let me explain why—’

Intent dark golden eyes, heavily enhanced by spiky black lashes, slammed coolly into hers. ‘Let’s stick to business.’

‘OK. In one more year I hope to be fully qualified as an accountant.’

Rashad raised a brow in surprise. ‘How novel … when you were with me, all you could talk about was being an artist.’

It was on the tip of her tongue to point out that the need to earn a living and help her mother raise her siblings had soon put paid to that prospect. She had had to give up her place at art college and find a job instead. But that was not a sacrifice she had ever questioned or regretted.

‘I have the ability to earn a decent salary and start paying back what is owed,’ Tilda swore with an urgency that betrayed the depth of her concern.

‘You have an English saying. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Promises are not of interest to me. If you have nothing more concrete to offer, one might wonder why you went to so much trouble to bring about this meeting,’ Rashad drawled, soft and smooth as silk. ‘At least, if I didn’t know you I might wonder. Knowing you as I do, however, I suspect that you hoped to use your sex appeal as a bargaining chip.’

Tilda was so hugely taken aback by that unjust accusation that her soft mouth opened and shut again. Her coat and her boots covered her head to toe and she wasn’t even wearing make-up. There was nothing provocative about her outfit. How did he think she should have presented herself? With a paper bag over her head and her body wrapped in a sack? Pure outrage lit her luminous blue-green gaze. ‘How dare you suggest that?’

‘But that’s what you do. Five years ago you were very careful to withhold your body and play the virgin card to keep me interested.’

Absorbing those words, Tilda breathed in so deep she was vaguely surprised that she didn’t spontaneously combust in front of him. ‘So this is what you call sticking to business, is it?’

Grim dark golden eyes clashed with hers. ‘But I was a business proposition as far as you were concerned. You set out to rip me off.’

Tilda snatched in a jerky breath. ‘That’s outrageous!’

‘But true, nonetheless, and if you haven’t come here to settle the outstanding debt or at least tender a substantial part of it, why are you here?’ Rashad enquired very drily.

Her hands clenched into tight fists of restraint for she recognised how he had backed her into a corner and cut off every avenue of escape. If she told the truth and admitted that she had hoped to awaken his compassion by explaining her mother’s circumstances, she would vindicate his accusation about her telling sob stories for profit. Her even white teeth set together. ‘I hoped that you would give us more time to pay.’

Rashad strolled soundlessly towards her, his pronounced elegance of carriage contriving to hook her attention against her will. But then the very first thing that she had ever noticed about Rashad was the fluid, impossibly sexy grace of his every physical movement. At that memory a tiny betraying little quiver darted through her tummy, tensing her every muscle with defensiveness.

‘On what basis would I grant a request for more time?’ Rashad drawled lazily. ‘I’m a businessman. If you can’t raise the money now, there is little chance that you could produce it in the near future.’

‘You weren’t behaving like a businessman when you commented on the fact that I didn’t sleep with you five years ago!’ Tilda suddenly shot at him, fed up of playing the game solely by his rules. ‘You are totally biased against me!’

Rashad strolled closer. He was so much taller that Tilda felt overshadowed by his proximity. ‘Don’t waste my time trying to distract me from the issue. I will ask you again—why are you here?’

A faint aromatic hint of sandalwood caught at Tilda’s throat and her nostrils and threatened to send her spiralling down into a rich tide of recollection. She was trying to avoid meeting his dark golden gaze, but she could feel his scrutiny and it was as if heat pulsed wherever his brilliant eyes chose to rest. Her mouth tingled, her slender throat tightened. A languorous heaviness was seeping up through her lower limbs, coiling in her belly and sending fingers of awareness darting through her small full breasts.

‘For goodness’ sake, you know why I’m here,’ she argued half under her breath. Being that close to him made her feel dominated and she took a swift step back.

Every imperious line of his lithe hard body taut with command and impatience, Rashad was determined to strip her bare of her manipulative pretences. He closed the distance between them again. ‘From my point of view it would appear that you have approached me with nothing to offer but yourself.’

Hot pink flooded her cheeks and she was startled into a swift upward glance. She was so conscious of his potent authority and strength that she continued to back away from him without even being aware of what she was doing. ‘What on earth is that supposed to mean?’ she queried half an octave higher.

‘I don’t think you’re that naïve.’

Taut with wrathful incredulity as he confirmed that he meant what she had assumed he could not possibly dare to suggest, Tilda stared up at him, turquoise eyes bright as jewels. ‘Are you suggesting that I would try to offer you sex?’ she gasped.

Cynical amusement filled Rashad, for she acted the affronted virgin with such perfection. ‘In the absence of any other option, what else is there?’

At that cruelly mocking confirmation, the anger inside Tilda just cut loose of her restraint and she tried to slap him. But unfortunately her victim had far faster responses and he caught her wrist in midair. ‘No … I don’t tolerate tantrums!’

‘Let go of me!’ Tilda gritted in a tempest of fury at having been both insulted and denied any right of reprisal.

‘Not until you calm down.’ Rashad retained a firm hold on her narrow wrist. He was angry with her but there was a dark, insidious excitement beginning to stir, as well. A desire for what he had once been denied, he told himself harshly. Yet why should he censure himself for what were only natural promptings? He had a powerful libido and she was a very beautiful woman. A mere seventy years earlier, his grandfather had enjoyed a harem of concubines. For a split second, Rashad allowed himself to imagine what it would be like to have Tilda Crawford entirely at his disposal at any hour of the day. His alone. The images that assailed him were so compellingly evocative that they were dispelled only with the greatest difficulty.

‘I said—let go!’ Tilda was so mad at being held captive like a disobedient child that she attempted to kick him. As he evaded that new potential angle of assault she yanked herself free with a suddenness that sent her careening into the piece of furniture behind her. With a yelp of dismay she fell over the coffee-table and landed on her behind on the other side of it with a loud thump.

‘Is it not time that you learned how to control your temper?’ With smouldering dark golden eyes, Rashad surveyed her lying in tumbled disarray on his office carpet. He strode forward, reached down and pulled her upright again in one easy motion. ‘Are you hurt?’

‘No.’ Stiff with shame and embarrassment at her loss of control in the presence of the enemy, Tilda shook her head. She tried to make herself apologise and, unfortunately, the words were strangled at the back of her throat. At that moment she hated him with a passion. Yet she had only to connect with his brilliant gaze for a heartbeat to feel the stark rise of yearning that slaughtered her pride.

Rashad studied her lush raspberry-pink mouth and remembered the soft sweet taste of it. He allowed his imagination full sway while he asked himself why he should not turn fantasy into fact. Tilda at his disposal. Unleashed from his habitual rigid self-discipline, fierce arousal licked like blazing flames of fire at his lithe, muscular frame. Almost as quickly he reached a decision.

He would indulge himself with her. He would indulge his every desire with her until he was sated of that pale blonde perfection.

Why should he not take her? Would it not be the natural justice that he was entitled to claim? Why should he consider the question of honour with a woman of her reputation? He knew what she was. Somewhere he still had the security file that had destroyed his youthful illusions. While he had been with her, she had lied to him, deceived him and slept with other men. Rashad had learnt to his cost that fine principles were a serious weakness and a handicap around Tilda Crawford.

Startlingly aware of the buzz in the tense atmosphere, Tilda was trembling. As she took a step back her hips hit the wall and she braced her slim shoulders against it, gathering up her courage. ‘I wasn’t offering you sex,’ she told him defensively.

Rashad surveyed her with glittering intensity. ‘It’s the only thing you have to give that I want.’

The silence pulsed and vibrated.

‘Are you mad?’ Barely able to credit that Rashad could admit that shocking truth to her without betraying even a glimmer of shame, Tilda sucked in a shuddering breath. ‘I refuse to believe that you’re serious! Sex in return for money? How can you insult me to that extent?’

‘Most women consider my attentions an honour. The choice is yours.’ His stunning golden gaze narrowed to a smouldering glitter, Rashad let a long brown forefinger push up her chin so that their eyes could meet. ‘Make the right choice and you will discover that I can make repayment the sweetest of pleasures.’

Tilda was even more taken aback when that low-pitched forecast made her mouth run dry and butterflies break loose in her tummy. She could not dredge her attention from his lean, strong face or the shimmering gold of his stare. He lowered his arrogant dark head and a pulse beat like a drum pounded through her, leaving every inch of her tense as a drawn bow with anticipation. A little voice told her to move away, raise a hand to keep him away from her, even angle her head back out of reach. She heard the voice but she stayed put, controlled by much more powerful influences. His mouth came down on hers in a slow, languorous tasting that unleashed a host of sensations that she had forced herself to forget. It was a ravishingly potent kiss. Her breasts felt full and constrained by her clothing. A shivery little frisson of wicked delight ran through her slender figure and stirred a deep ache of hunger between her thighs.

Reacting to that shattering response with horrorstricken recoil, Tilda pulled back and spluttered, ‘No, thank you very much! Once burnt, twice shy!’

Stunning eyes veiled, Rashad surveyed her with satisfaction.

‘So you can still kiss up a storm!’ Tilda launched at him furiously. ‘But you should be ashamed of yourself for treating me like this!’

Rashad consulted the rapier thin designer watch on his wrist and murmured with smooth regret, ‘I have another appointment now. Your time is up.’

‘Oh, don’t you worry—I’m going all right!’ Tilda spun on her heel and hauled open the door with a perspiring palm.

Rashad sent her a sardonic smile. ‘You really couldn’t expect me to fall for the same fairy stories this time around.’

Her oval face red as fire, Tilda stalked out.

CHAPTER THREE

TILDA got on the train back to Oxford. She was in shock. Everything about her meeting with Rashad had shaken her up. Not least the manner in which she had reacted to that kiss! Her passionate physical response to him had coursed through her like a river in flood and she was furious with herself. Evidently loathing Prince Rashad Hussein Al-Zafar was no defence whatsoever against his persuasive sensuality. What did that say about her intelligence or her self-control?

In that field, Tilda conceded angrily, absolutely nothing had changed in five wretched years. Rashad had still only to touch her to set her on fire with longing. But nobody knew better than Tilda that it was a kind of weakness that could lead to disaster. Her family history bore that out. Her mother, Beth, had only been nineteen when she had fallen pregnant with Tilda and had had to get married in a hurry. Beth’s woes had not ended there for her husband had resented his new family obligations. An ambitious young lawyer, he had been a neglectful husband and an uninterested parent. Five years later, Beth had become a widow and an easy mark for Scott Morrison’s promises of undying devotion. Madly in love, Beth had conceived her third child just a few months into the relationship and had rushed back into marriage with seriously unhappy results.

Tilda suppressed a sigh. Although she felt guilty acknowledging it, she had tried to learn by her mother’s mistakes and had resolved that no man would ever be allowed to come between her and her wits, or her education, for that matter. In the early teenage years she had had little interest in boys. Scott’s bullying, drinking and womanising had put her off the entire male sex, while she had done what she could to support her mother and help out with the younger children.

At eighteen years old, she had been in her last year of school. When Scott had told her that he had fixed her up with part-time work as a waitress in a nightclub managed by one of his seedy friends she had been incensed, for she had already had a weekend job in a supermarket. Unfortunately whenever Tilda had dared to defy Scott, he had taken his temper out on the rest of her family, who had been much less able to stand up to him. Within a week the continual arguments and her mother’s distress had vanquished Tilda’s resistance. While dutifully agreeing with Beth that, yes, she would earn more money, she had known that the extra hours and late nights would scarcely be conducive to the intensive studying she had been doing for her final exams.

From the outset Tilda had hated the attention that her looks had drawn from the customers. The club had attracted slick, high-earning professionals and wealthy students and spoilt young men who had drunk too much and thought the female staff were fair game. Tilda had soon realised why the manager only seemed to hire waitresses who were more than ordinarily attractive. Some of them had regularly slept with the clientele in return for gifts or cash and their liberal ways had encouraged custom.

Tilda had worked there only a fortnight before she had first seen Rashad. His supple, sexy aura as he had descended the stairs had caught her eye first. When he had turned his head and locked dark golden eyes with hers, she had literally stopped breathing. Mentally it had been like running into a solid brick wall and seeing stars. She had found it impossible not to keep gazing around to see where he was, or to steal another transfixed glance at him. Every time she had looked, she had found that he was looking, too, and, even though that had embarrassed her, she had been helpless to resist temptation.

A big dark-haired guy had approached her towards the end of that evening. ‘Fancy coming to a party tonight?’ he asked, his foreign accent roughening his pronunciation.

‘No, thanks,’ she said flatly, turning away.

‘I’m Leonidas Pallis and I have a friend who wants to meet you.’ He dropped a card and a hundred pound note down on the tray she was holding. ‘Party kicks off around midnight. That should cover your cab fare.’

‘I said, no, thanks.’ Her cheeks scarlet, Tilda thrust the banknote back at him and walked away.

Soon afterwards, a waitress called Chantal came over to speak to her. ‘You really riled Leonidas. Don’t you know who he is? He’s the grandson of a Greek tycoon and he’s absolutely loaded. He gives incredible tips and throws amazing parties. What’s your problem?’

‘I’m just not interested in mixing with the customers outside working hours.’ Tilda could also have mentioned that she had school the next day, but the manager had banned her from admitting that she was still a schoolgirl as he had said it might give the club a bad name.

When she emerged into the car park at closing time, a surprising number of vehicles were still there. She heard a vigorous burst of male laughter. Her heart sank when she spotted the Greek guy drinking from a bottle and leaning up against the bonnet of a Ferrari with his mates. Then she saw Rashad straightening up and moving towards her. Something very like panic gripped her but her feet were frozen to the spot. He was so stunningly handsome she was mesmerised by the clean, hard-boned lines of lean dark features.

‘I’m Rashad,’ he murmured softly, and he extended his hand with a formality that took her entirely by surprise.

‘Tilda,’ she breathed, just touching his lean brown fingers.

‘May I drive you home?’

‘I get a lift with one of the other girls.’

Unexpectedly, Rashad smiled as if such an explanation was perfectly acceptable to him. ‘Of course. It is very late. Will you give me your phone number?’

That charismatic smile threatened her defences and she battened down the hatches, terrified of what he was making her feel. ‘No, sorry. I don’t date club members.’

The following evening the club manager, Pete, cornered her. ‘I hear you blew away our new royal VIP last night,’ he accused.

‘Royal?’ Tilda parroted, wide-eyed.

‘Prince Rashad, the heir to the throne of Bakhar and a string of oil wells.’ Pete dealt her an angry look. ‘Our two best customers—Leonidas Pallis and Sergio Torrente—brought him in. Those guys are minted, too. They spend thousands here and I don’t want any stupid little girl offending them. Is that clear?’

‘But I haven’t done anything.’

‘Do yourself a favour. Smile sweetly and give the prince your phone number.’

Pete changed the table rota so that, on her next shift, Tilda was serving the VIP table. Now that she knew who Rashad was, she noticed his thickset bodyguards trying unsuccessfully to stay in the background. Uneasily aware of his royal status, she tried very hard to put him out of her mind. But he dominated her every thought and response. It was as if an invisible wire attached her to him, so that she noticed his every tiny move. In comparison with him, his companions were immature. He seemed to be the only one of the group graced with morals or manners. He didn’t drink to excess, he didn’t fool around, he was always courteous. He was also absolutely, totally gorgeous and it did not escape her attention that every girl in the place had her eye on him.

The night she tripped and dropped a tray of drinks, everything changed. While his rowdy mates laughed at the spectacle she made, Rashad sprang to his feet and immediately helped her up from the floor.

‘You are unhurt?’

Her hand trembled in his and she connected with brilliant dark eyes enhanced by luxuriant ebony lashes.

‘When you fell my heart stopped beating,’ he breathed in a raw undertone.

That was the moment she went from being infatuated with his vibrant dark good looks to falling head over heels in love with him, but she still pulled her hand free with muffled thanks and hurriedly walked away. She saw it as being sensible and protecting herself from a broken heart. What future was there in loving a guy who was only a temporary visitor to her country and, even worse, destined to be a king? His two friends approached her later that evening. Making it clear that the shy stolen glances that betrayed her attraction to Rashad had not passed unnoticed, Leonidas and Sergio virtually accused her of being a tease.

‘How much do you want to go out with him?’ Leonidas demanded contemptuously, peeling off notes from the thick wad in his wallet.

‘You’re not rich enough!’ Tilda snapped in disgust.

She went home in tears that night only to find her stepfather, Scott, drunkenly upbraiding her mother with the club manager, Pete’s, complaint that Tilda had an unfriendly attitude towards the customers. The next weekend Pete told her that she had to stand in for one of the cage dancers who had called in sick. She refused. Threatened with the sack and worn down by what felt like everybody’s criticisms, she gave way, reasoning that the bikini-style outfit exposed no more than she would have revealed at the swimming pool. She persuaded herself that nobody really looked at the dancers except as gyrating bodies that added to the club atmosphere.

When Rashad arrived, a birthday cake was brought in for his benefit. Tilda still recalled the instant when he had registered who was dancing in the cage: the shock and consternation, the distaste he had been unable to hide. In the same moment cage dancing had gone from being what Tilda had told herself was essentially harmless to the equivalent of dancing naked and shameless in the street. When Rashad studiously averted his attention from her as though she were putting on an indecent display, she fled from the cage and refused to get back into it again. Chantal later revealed that Tilda had been set up.

‘It’s the prince’s twenty-fifth birthday. Sergio and Leonidas thought it would be a laugh to get you into the cage. They paid Pete to fix it for them.’

Tilda never did tell Rashad that truth. Telling tales about his best friends wouldn’t have got her very far. Instead, she blamed herself for not having had the guts to tell Pete where to get off. Eyes red from tears, she put on her uniform and got on with her usual waitressing. Already promised a full-time summer job at the firm owned by Evan Jerrold, she consoled herself with the prayerful hope that she would not be serving drinks for much longer. Unhappily, however, new employment would mean that she was unlikely to ever see Rashad again.

When she finished her shift, she emerged from the club to find the weather was wet and unseasonably cold, and that the girl who usually gave her a lift had gone off to a party without telling her. Shivering while she was trying to call a cab on her mobile, she tensed when a silver Aston Martin Vanquish pulled up in front of her with a throaty growl. Rashad sprang out and studied her in silence across the bonnet and she knew he wouldn’t ask anything of her because he had asked before and she had said no. He was too proud to ask again. Tears made her eyes smart; she still felt so utterly humiliated that she had let herself be pressed into dancing in the cage.