Passion

As Rashad walked round the bonnet and reached out to open the passenger door one of his bodyguards skidded up at speed to do it for him and prevent him from lowering himself to such a mundane task.

‘Thanks,’ she said gruffly and got in. At that moment she was not aware of having made a decision. She just couldn’t muster the mental resistance to walk away from him again. She told herself that if she kept things as light as though it were a holiday romance she wouldn’t get hurt.

‘You’ll have to tell me where you live,’ Rashad murmured as calmly as if she had been getting into his car every night for months.

‘Happy birthday,’ she said in a wobbly voice, as the excessively emotional surge of tears was still threatening her composure.

At the traffic lights he reached for her hand and almost crushed it within the fierce hold of his. ‘In my country we stopped putting people in cages when slavery was outlawed a hundred years ago.’

‘I shouldn’t have agreed to do it.’

‘You did not wish to?’

‘Of course not—apart from anything else, I’m not a dancer.’

‘Don’t do it again,’ Rashad told her with innate authority and instantly she wanted to do it again just to demonstrate her independence. She had to bite her lip not to respond with the defiance that she had acquired to hold her own with her stepfather.

And so it began: a relationship that attracted a great deal of unwelcome comment from others. Leonidas Pallis made it clear that he regarded her in much the same light as a call-girl. Sergio Torrente, the sleek, sophisticated Italian who completed the trio of friends, seemed equally disdainful of Tilda’s right to be treated with respect, but was not quite so obvious about revealing the fact. Had she been less green about the strength of male bonding, she might have realised then that with such powerful enemies her relationship with Rashad was utterly doomed to end in tears.

As the hateful Leonidas Pallis put it, ‘Why can’t you keep it simple?’ Tilda heard him ask Rashad this during a night out. ‘Boy meets girl, boy shags girl, boy dumps girl. You don’t romance waitresses!’

As her revolting stepfather put it: ‘Well, you can thank me for getting you the job that’s about to make your fortune. Tell him you like cash better than diamonds.’

Offered the chance to rent a room in a student house for the summer, she grabbed it to escape Scott and quit working at the club. At the same time she started her temporary job in the accounts department at Jerrold Plastics. The weeks that followed were the happiest but also the stormiest of her life, because Rashad laid down the law as if he were her commanding officer and did not adapt well to disagreement. She was challenged to keep his hands off her, but whenever passion threatened to overcome prudence she backed off fast. She was a virgin, well aware that she came from a very fertile line of women, and she was totally terrified of getting pregnant. She honestly believed, too, that keeping serious sex out of the equation would lessen the pain when Rashad returned to Bakhar.

Tilda was yanked out of those unsettling recollections only when the train pulled into the station. While she queued for the bus, she began putting the recent knowledge she had gained into those memories and she winced at the picture that began to emerge. Although she had had no idea of it, there had been a whole hidden dimension to her relationship with Rashad. That financial aspect encompassed, not only the embarrassing level of her family’s indebtedness, but also a seemingly brazen reluctance on her family’s part to pay rent or pay off the loan. Was it any wonder that over time Rashad had become suspicious of her motives and decided that all along she must have been a gold-digger out for all she could get?

Sex … It’s the only thing you have to give that I want. Still outraged by that declaration, Tilda could find no excuse for him on that score. Obviously that was all he had ever wanted from her and the brutal way he had ditched her had spelt out the same message. She was proud of the fact that she had not slept with Rashad five years earlier. But just as swiftly the false courage of offended pride and anger started to wane in the face of reality. When she began walking down the road where she lived her steps got slower and slower as she neared her home. After all, what had she achieved? She had got nowhere with Rashad. He was tough, resolute and ruthless. Emotion never got in the way of his selfdiscipline.

Sadly, the strength, intellect and tenacity that she had once admired also made Rashad a lethally effective opponent.

Tilda was wrenched from her reflections by the startling sight of her former stepfather climbing into his beat-up car outside her home. As the older man had never demonstrated the smallest interest in maintaining contact with Katie, James and Megan, his three children by her mother, Tilda was taken aback. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked in dismay.

‘Mind your own bloody business!’ Scott Morrison told her, his heavy face flushed with aggression below his thinning blond hair.

Seriously concerned, Tilda watched him shoot his vehicle back out onto the road. Why had he been visiting the house? He had come at a time when her mother would be alone. She went straight into Beth’s workroom. Her mother was sobbing and the room was in turmoil. Curtains were heaped on the floor in a tangle and a chair had been turned over. Perhaps most telling of all, the older woman’s purse lay open on the ironing board with only a few coins spilling out of it.

‘I bumped into Scott outside. Has he been taking money off you again?’ Tilda asked baldly.

Beth broke down and, piece by horrible piece, the whole story came tumbling out. When Scott had found out several years earlier that Rashad was the current owner of the house, he had accused Beth of defrauding him of his share of the property. Ever since then Beth had been living in fear of Scott’s visits and giving way to his threats and demands for money. While she soothed the distraught older woman, Tilda’s anger grew for she finally understood why Beth had found it impossible even to pay rent. From behind the scenes, Scott Morrison had still been bleeding Tilda’s family dry.

‘Scott got what he was entitled to when the divorce settlement went through the court. He has no right to anything more. He’s been telling you lies. I’m going to get the police, Mum—’

‘No, you can’t do that.’ Beth gave her a look of horror. ‘Katie and James would die of shame if their father was arrested—’

‘No, they’d die of shame at what’s been going on here, what you’ve been putting up with on their behalf! Silence protects bullies like Scott. Don’t you worry … I’ll sort him out,’ Tilda swore, furious with herself for not even suspecting what had been going on behind all their backs. The divorce had not gotten rid of Scott after all and working for a living had never been his way.

She was hanging her coat below the stairs when she noticed that the post had arrived. She tensed at the sight of the familiar brown envelope and scooped it up. Yes, just as she had feared it was yet another missive from Rashad’s solicitors. Taking a deep breath, she tore it open. Nervous perspiration broke out on her brow as she realised what the letter was. It was a written notice asking her mother to leave the house within fourteen days. As the rent was in arrears the landlord, it stated, would go to court seeking possession at the end of the month.

Tilda took the letter upstairs. She just could not face giving it to her mother at that moment. From the window she watched her sisters, seventeen-year-old Katie and nine-year-old Megan, walking up the drive in their school uniforms. James was shambling along in their wake, a tall gangling boy of fourteen, who had still to grow into his very large feet and deep bass voice. Her brother, Aubrey, currently in his fourth year of studying medicine, would be home later. Tilda was deeply attached to all of her siblings. They had gone through so much unhappiness when Scott had been making their lives hell but they had stayed close. They were good kids, hard-working and sensible. What would losing their home mean to them? Everything. It would shatter her family, because Beth’s agoraphobia would ensure that the older woman could not cope. When Beth fell apart at the seams, what then? Aubrey would probably drop out of med school and Katie would find it impossible to study for her A-levels.

There was only one way out, only one way of protecting her family from the horror of being put out on the street: Rashad.

Rashad … and sex. It would most probably be a major disappointment to Rashad, whose womanising exploits filled endless pages in the tabloid newspapers, to discover that Tilda did not possess a single special sexy talent to offer in the bedroom. Nothing but ignorance. It would serve him right, Tilda reflected, tight-mouthed. Even so, common sense urged that she would have to ensure that he wrote off all the debts and the house as well before it dawned on him that she really wasn’t worth the sacrifice of that much money. She shuddered, shame enveloping her from head to toe. She would be selling herself like a product in return for cash.

She reminded herself that if she hadn’t been so fearful of heartache and pregnancy, she would have ended up in bed with Rashad while she had been dating him. But it would have been different back then, because she had truly loved him and had certainly believed that he had more feelings for her than he had finally demonstrated. Would she be able to have sex just for the sake of it? Presumably other women did. There was no point being over-sensitive to the reality that she really had no choice if she wanted to protect the people she loved from having their lives devastated.

Standing by the window, she called Metropolis Enterprises on her mobile and asked to speak to Rashad. Various very well-trained personnel tried to head her off and make her settle for much smaller fry. She persisted with the reminder that she’d had an appointment with the prince earlier that day and added that he would be very annoyed if he did not receive her personal call.

Rashad was in a meeting when the message flashed up on his BlackBerry. Tilda. A slow, chilling smile curved his wide, handsome mouth as he took the call in his office. So, the fish was biting. He felt like a shark about to attend a banquet. She was his. Finally his to enjoy. At his leisure in a place of his choosing and for as long as he wanted her. He would make all the rules and she would really, really hate that. His brilliant dark golden eyes gleamed with anticipation. He pictured her greeting him when he returned from a long trip abroad and knew instantly where he would accommodate her. Somewhere where her talent for infidelity could not possibly be exercised. A discreet location where she had nothing to do but devote herself to being his sexual entertainment. He could think of no place more suitable than his late grandfather’s desert palace.

‘How may I be of assistance?’ Rashad drawled smoother than the most expensive silk in tone.

Instantly Tilda wanted to reach down the phone and slap him, for she knew that he knew exactly why she was ringing. She swallowed her pride with difficulty. ‘I’m willing to accept your offer.’

‘What offer?’

Her short upper lip dampened with perspiration. ‘You said it was the only thing I had to offer that you wanted.’

‘Your body,’ Rashad filled in gently, savouring every syllable. ‘You. We’ll have to meet to discuss the rules.’

‘What rules?’ she protested. ‘I just want to know that that eviction order won’t proceed.’

‘Meet me tomorrow afternoon at my town house.’ He quoted the address and a time. ‘We’ll sort out the details of our future association. You’ll be living abroad. I can tell you that now.’

As Tilda parted her lips to argue with that alarmingly unexpected assurance, Rashad concluded drily, ‘It will be as I say.’

At that juncture he terminated the call. He would not compromise on any point. The rules would not be negotiable. Everything would be as he wanted it to be. The sooner she learned that and accepted it, the better.

CHAPTER FOUR

EVAN JERROLD brought his elegant Jaguar car to a halt in the exclusive London residential square. ‘Good luck,’ he said cheerfully.

‘Thank you.’ Tilda opened the passenger door of the luxury vehicle with a sense of relief, since telling lies made her uncomfortable. Evan had offered her a lift when her mother had mentioned that Tilda was heading to London that afternoon. Asked why she was taking time out of work, Tilda had told the first fib that had occurred to her—that she was attending a job interview. It had then occurred to her that the excuse of a new job could well be the perfect cover, if Rashad stuck to his insistence that she travel abroad.

‘Now remember I’ll give you an excellent reference. I’ll call back in an hour because you may be finished by then,’ Evan told her.

Tilda was embarrassed. ‘There’s no need.’

The older man gave her a wry smile. ‘If I have to drop you home again, it’ll give me another excuse to see your mother. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that her spirits are very low just now.’

Clambering out of the car, Tilda almost winced at his insight, grateful that her siblings were less perceptive. She mounted the steps to the imposing front door, nerves leaping through her like jumping beans that couldn’t settle.

‘Tilda!’ Evan called after her. ‘You forgot your bag.’

Tilda hurried back down the steps to take it from him, apologising and thanking him in one urgent breath. Admitted to the town house by a manservant, she was shown to a seat in the large stylish hall. She wondered if Rashad’s household staff still routinely greeted his every appearance on bended knee, touching their very brows to the floor in the need to demonstrate respect to the heir to the throne. A couple of minutes later, a bearded older man with greying hair appeared and came to a sudden halt at the sight of her, an expression of surprise skimming his thin intelligent face. With a scrupulously polite dipping of his head in acknowledgement of her presence, he walked past her and went out.

Tilda was ushered upstairs into a very grand drawing room. She was pleased to note that the manservant bowed rather than knelt. ‘Miss Crawford, Your Royal Highness.’

Rashad surveyed her with dark eyes as cold as Arctic ice. Clad in a casual grey hooded jacket and black trousers, she should have looked ordinary. But the unassuming clothes simply accentuated her beauty and the slender grace of her figure. Several irrepressible curls were already springing loose above her brow with a silvery fair abundance that hinted at the full glory of her hair when it was worn loose. Memories stirred and, with the image, a surge of arousal, which he rigorously sought to control.

‘Take a seat,’ Rashad told her huskily.

Eyes bright as slivers of pure turquoise above cheekbones stung pink by the spring breeze, Tilda shot him an edgy glance. Once again he was formally dressed in a superb charcoal-grey business suit teamed with a white shirt and a cobalt-blue silk tie. He looked amazingly handsome. And grim. Well, that was at least familiar, she told herself in an effort to gain control of herself. Rashad in censorious mode was nothing new to Tilda. When she had been dating him, she had sometimes felt as if he was putting her through a meticulous self-improvement programme. Feeling uncomfortably warm, she unbuttoned her jacket, removed it and sat down stiffly in an armchair.

‘It was tasteless to allow your current lover to bring you here,’ Rashad said with derision, ‘but very much in line with the kind of childish defiance I expect from you.’

Tilda drew in some oxygen to steady herself and focused on his hand-stitched shoes. Childish? She reminded herself of the eviction order and of the vast amount of money outstanding and told herself that a few insults wouldn’t hurt her. On the other hand, wrong assumptions had to be righted. ‘Evan is old enough to be my father. I once worked for him. That’s all.’

Rashad dealt her an unimpressed appraisal. ‘You attended an academic dinner with him and he’s a wealthy man.’

‘How did you know about that dinner? He’s a family friend and he needed a partner for the event. His bank balance doesn’t come into it.’ Her eyes were bright with the anger and resentment firing through her tense body.

‘I appreciate that you really don’t like me and have a very low opinion of me. So please explain—what am I doing here?’

‘Look in the mirror,’ Rashad advised without hesitation.

Tilda had somehow expected him to contradict her when she had accused him of not liking her. His failure to do so shook her and she could not silence the words that sprang to her lips. ‘What sort of a guy wants to have a relationship with a woman he dislikes?’

‘Define relationship.’

Discovering that she was suddenly super-sensitive to his every word and potential putdown, Tilda coloured to the roots of her pale hair. She got the message: his sole interest in her was physical. ‘You mentioned rules,’ she framed curtly, studying her tightly linked hands, telling herself that she needed to grow a thicker skin.

‘No other men. I expect total fidelity.’

Tilda was so outraged by his self-assurance as it came at her like a bolt from the blue that she leapt to her feet. ‘What the heck do you think I am? I’ve never been unfaithful to anybody!’

Rashad vented a harsh laugh of disagreement. ‘I know you slept with other men while you were with me five years ago!’

Tilda blinked and then focused unbelieving turquoise eyes on his lean, vibrant face. Hauteur and fierce reserve were etched in every angular line of his startlingly handsome features. She registered in dismay that there could be no doubt that he actually believed what he was saying. ‘I can hardly credit that you’re accusing me of something so despicable! Why would you choose to believe something like that about me? I mean, for goodness’ sake, why would I be seeing you and carrying on with other guys at the same time?’

‘I was purely a business proposition.’

Her hands knotted into fists of frustration. ‘So why didn’t I grab you the first chance I got?’

‘Playing hard to get made me keener.’

Tilda appreciated that he had long since explained any inconsistencies in her behaviour to his own satisfaction. He had made the cap fit even if it didn’t belong to her. ‘I did not sleep with anyone else while I was with you … what is your problem, Rashad? I was in love with you!’ she launched back at him, angry with him and angry with herself for feeling cut to the bone by his demeaning misconceptions. She had found it hard enough to deal with the idea that he thought her avaricious, but to learn that he also thought she was a slut had to be the ultimate slap in the face.

‘So you wanted me to believe.’

‘Who are these men I’m supposed to have slept with?’ she demanded furiously.

‘I see no point in rehashing your past misdemeanours.’ The twist of his wide, sensual mouth had more than a hint of disdain.

Undaunted, Tilda lifted her chin to a pugnacious angle. ‘Whereas I’m happy to rehash them, because the allegations you have made are completely untrue!’

‘I’m bored with this discussion. It’s ancient history.’ Rashad rested forbidding dark eyes on the animated oval of her face, wondering what she hoped to achieve with her futile protestations of innocence. ‘Naturally I have seen the proof of those allegations.’

‘Well, I want to see that proof!’

‘That is not possible. Nor am I prepared to argue with you on this issue.’

Tilda was trembling with vexation. ‘You can’t confront me with accusations of that nature and then deny me the right to respond.’

His dark gaze narrowed and flashed a hard golden challenge. ‘It is my belief that I can do whatever I want. If you don’t like it that way, you are of course free to leave.’

Tilda was so wound up that she was on the brink of tears of fury. The dark, intimidating power of him faced her like a solid stone wall as implacable as his expression. He would not back down or compromise. His potent strength had been honed by experiences that were tougher than any she would ever know. Pinning her taut lips together, Tilda made her stiff knees bend and she lowered herself slowly back into the armchair. It was an acknowledgement of defeat that savaged her pride, but she knew that if she staged a pitched battle with him she would lose. And so, unhappily, would her family. Rashad was convinced she was a gold-digging trollop and he had evidently thought that way about her for a long time. No longer did she need to marvel at the brutality with which she had been dumped, she reflected bitterly. Whether she liked it or not, she would have to save her defence for a more promising moment. Pale as milk, and with the effort that self-discipline demanded, she folded her hands together.

‘Rules,’ she prompted woodenly.

‘You make an effort to please me.’

Tilda dared to lift her head. ‘Would you care to elaborate on that?’ she pressed shakily.

‘No half measures. I tell you what I want and you strive to deliver,’ Rashad specified silkily. ‘In where you live, in what you wear, in how you behave, in everything that you do.’

A Stepford wife without the wedding ring, Tilda thought in horror. A living, breathing puppet with a puppeteer pulling her strings at every turn. She was aghast at the prospect of Rashad taking control of her life to that extent, but not at all surprised by his expectations, for telling people what to do and how to do it came very naturally to the future King of Bakhar. Unfortunately doing as she was told when it was Rashad doing the telling did not come naturally to Tilda. While she had no problem accepting authority in other areas of her life, a rebellious demon of resentment had ignited inside her five years ago whenever Rashad had laid down the law.

‘I … I thought you just wanted to sleep with me,’ Tilda muttered in a small tight voice. ‘Why do you have to make such a production out of it?’

‘Pleasure deferred has a keener edge.’ Rashad noted the fact that her thin fingers were digging convulsively into the fabric of the garment folded across her lap. She was all worked up and could not hide the fact. It did not fit his image of her and it troubled him.

Why do you have to make such a production out of it? He marvelled at that gauche comment and the implication that sex on her terms was nothing worth getting excited about. But how likely was it that so experienced a woman could also be that naïve? Most probably she was trying to manipulate him again and win his sympathy. Was anything about her real? Was her every expression and word part of an act designed to deceive? Once, she had played the innocent so well, pulling back from his passion to ensure that he lived in a torment of unslaked desire for her. That recollection roused the blazing anger and bitterness that he had kept taped down for five long years. He had wanted her as he had never wanted any woman—before or since.

‘Whatever,’ Tilda mumbled, loathing the level coolness of Rashad’s intonation, wondering what had happened to the markedly conservative streak that had once set him apart from his much more liberal companions. No doubt, such sensitive and civilised niceties had long since bitten the dust beneath the tidal wave of uninhibited sexual licence he had been enjoying ever since he had left her. How dared he accuse her of infidelity when he had betrayed her? She hated him for dragging her pride in the dust. She hated him for judging her unfairly, for his determination to have the last word. She really, really hated him.

‘On the other hand, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t give me a preview of what I can expect from you,’ Rashad declared, the rich, dark timbre of his accented drawl smoother and softer than the most exclusive silk.

Her silvery fair head raised, jewelled eyes locking to his with instant consternation. ‘A … a preview?’ she parroted unevenly.