Desert Prince, Defiant Virgin

by Kim Lawrence

  She was, he mused, staring at that mouth, nothing like any woman he had ever kissed. She had nothing to recommend her beyond neatness, a conniving nature and a sexy—actually very sexy—mouth, and he had done worse to help a friend.

  The Mouse, perhaps sensing his study, suddenly stopped gazing at Tariq and turned her head, the action briefly causing her gaze to collide with his cold, hostile stare.

  He watched with clinical detachment, the guilty colour rise up her slender neck until her small face was suffused with heat.

  His lip curled in contempt as he smiled and watched her literally recoil before she looked away. At least she now knew that there was someone who was not fooled by her meek and mild act.

  Tariq was still wearing the dark formal suit that he had been wearing at dinner, but his tie now hung loose around his neck.

  Molly closed the door and motioned him to a chair. She perched on the edge of the big canopied bed suspecting her cotton pyjamas looked totally incongruous against the silken opulence, much the same way as she looked totally incongruous and out of place in the palace.

  Some of the awkwardness and wariness she felt in Tariq’s presence had dissipated over the past couple of weeks but she still couldn’t totally relax around him.

  She got the impression that he too was still feeling his way. Which wasn’t that surprising given this relationship was still very new for them both. Fortunately Khalid, with his naturally outgoing nature, had not been similarly stilted and Molly felt much more at ease in his company.

  Tariq, tall and lean, took the chair, turned it round, then straddled it, resting his hands on the back as he looked across at her. Molly realised that Beatrice had not been exaggerating when she had told her that her husband was not a man who felt any need to fill silences. Molly, impatient to know the reason for his visit, stifled her impulse to demand an explanation.

  ‘I have not disturbed you? You were not asleep?’

  She shook her head and there was another lengthy silence while she wondered some more why he had come.

  ‘Khalid is concerned he might have offended you.’

  Molly’s bewilderment was genuine. ‘Why would he think that?’

  ‘He introduced you to Tair as Beatrice’s friend.’ For once Tariq had not been pleased to see his cousin and he had been hard put not to show his lack of enthusiasm for the extra dinner guest. ‘He is afraid,’ he explained, ‘that you might mistake his reasons for not revealing your true identity.’

  Tariq’s voice receded into the distance as an image rose in Molly’s head of the tall man with the electric blue eyes who had arrived at dinner looking dusty but remarkably good considering he had apparently just made an emergency landing at the airport after flying through an unexpected dust storm.

  ‘The families are connected, loads of intermarriage. He’s a cousin and heir to the throne of Zabrania.’ Beatrice had explained the stranger’s presence in a quiet aside to Molly while the men spoke together in a bewildering mixture of rapid Arabic, French and English.

  ‘He has blue eyes!’ Deep cerulean blue, the most intense shade that Molly had ever seen.

  ‘You noticed?’

  Hard not to!

  ‘Apparently blue eyes crop up every so often in the Al Sharif family. There’s a nice story about that, according to family legend. How true it is, I don’t know, but they say a Viking got lost way back when. Rumour has it he got a bit too friendly with a royal princess and since then the blue eyes pop up every few generations. Tair is quite a looker, isn’t he?’

  Vaguely aware of Beatrice’s amusement but totally unable to control her own expression, Molly closed her mouth with an audible snap and lowered her gaze, wondering if it was the incredible level of testosterone circulating in the room that was responsible for her erratic heartbeat.

  ‘Really…?’ she said, adopting a look of wide-eyed, exaggerated innocence. ‘I hadn’t noticed.’

  Her humour was a little shaky, though Beatrice seemed not to notice, responding to the husky irony with an appreciative chuckle.

  Molly’s gaze was drawn back to their dinner guest.

  Not notice! There was no way women hadn’t been noticing this man from the moment he began shaving, a task that the shadow on his firm angular jaw suggested he had not performed since at least that morning.

  Casting a covert look at the newcomer through her lashes, she noted the rest of his skin was the shade of vibrant gold and blemish-free if you discounted a fine white scar that began just beneath one razor-sharp cheekbone and terminated at the corner of his wide, mobile and almost indecently sensual mouth.

  Actually there was no almost about it—his mouth was indecent. The maverick thoughts that popped into her head when she looked at it certainly were!

  His strongly delineated brows were the same raven shade as his hair, which looked like black satin and touched the collar of the open-necked shirt he wore. Under the layer of red dust the shirt might be the same colour as his eyes, though she doubted it—that unique shade of blue was not one that would be easy to duplicate.

  Fortunately nobody seemed to notice her compulsion to look at him as her eyes roamed across the angles and strong planes of his face. She was staring, but how could she not? Beauty was a term that people flung around casually but here was someone who actually merited the description, although not in a Hollywood type of way. The newcomer had looks that affected the onlooker on a much earthier and more primal level.

  Or maybe it’s just me, she thought.

  It was a worrying thought, but she doubted her reaction was unique. She doubted any woman would not be inclined to stare open-mouthed when they saw the six feet four inches of lean muscle and hard sinew that was Tair Al Sharif. He really was the most extraordinary-looking man Molly had ever seen.

  But the prim voice in her head reminded her that looks were not everything.

  It was something her father, thinking he was being kind, had told her frequently as she grew up beside two stepsisters who were as beautiful as they were lovely-natured. Sometimes, Molly reflected, it would have been easier if Rosie and Sue had been mean and nasty. At least then she could have been jealous without feeling guilty. And there was something much more romantic about being oppressed and exploited by mean stepsisters than spoilt and indulged and told you were lovely inside.

  Only last month Rosie had offered her a makeover when she had wailed in frustration that she’d prefer to be lovely on the outside and happily exchange ten points of her impressive IQ for another inch on her flat chest.

  She snapped out of her reverie and drew herself back to the present to respond to Tariq. ‘I completely understand why Khalid said what he did. Please tell him not to worry. However, I don’t think the prince…’ She stopped, realising this did not narrow the field much in the circles she was currently moving in, where princes were pretty thick on the ground! She gave a rueful grin as she added, ‘Your cousin—I don’t think he likes me much.’

  The grin died as she recalled sensing, feeling, his extraordinary and unbelievably eloquent eyes upon her.

  ‘Tair?’ Tariq said, shaking his head. ‘You must be mistaken. He does not know you. Why should he dislike you?’

  Good question, but Molly knew there had been no ambiguity about the message she had seen in those glittering azure depths.

  Having never in her life inspired any strong feelings in gorgeous-looking men—obviously they remained oblivious to the fact she was lovely inside—to have someone looking at her with that level of hostility and contempt had been quite disturbing.

  His face floated into her mind gain; she tried to expel the image but it lingered. It was a face with a ‘once seen never forgotten’ quality. Even if you wanted to forget the golden skin stretched over hard angles and intriguing hollows, the sensual mouth and searing blue stare.

  ‘You must have been mistaken, Molly.’

  ‘I expect so,’ she said, already wishing she had not introduced the subject. But no matter what Tariq said she
knew she was not mistaken—Tair Al Sharif could not stand the sight of her.

  Not that she was going to lose any sleep over his opinion of her. As first impressions went she hadn’t taken to him either.

  ‘If it will make you feel better I will explain our relationship to him straight away.’

  ‘There’s really no need.’ She wondered if the flicker she saw in her brother’s eyes was relief. The possibility shouldn’t have hurt, but it did. ‘And I’d actually prefer if you didn’t.’

  On a practical level she knew the searing dislike she had read in the Arab prince’s face was not going to alter just because he knew she was Tariq and Khalid’s English half-sister.

  No, it had been loathing at first sight.

  Besides, there were some people you didn’t want to like you, and he was one of them, she decided. She mentally ticked off the qualities that made him undesirable—off-the-scale arrogance, no sense of humour, and he was in love with himself. The last seemed a reasonable assumption to Molly, who reasoned a person who looked at that face in the mirror every day would have to be just a little fond of himself.

  ‘It is up to you, Molly, but what I came to say to you is that it is not a relationship that we are ashamed to acknowledge, quite the contrary…though,’ Tariq conceded with a grimace, ‘obviously it would be difficult to go public because…’

  ‘This isn’t easy for your father.’

  Tariq looked grateful for her understanding of the situation. ‘It was hard for him when our mother left…He is a proud man and the scandal of a divorce in our society, the gossip and stories, left its mark.’

  It had been hard for Tariq too, but this was something Molly had not appreciated until very recently.

  ‘Your father has been very kind to me and I wouldn’t do anything to embarrass him. I’m not about to go public. I promise you I won’t breathe a word to a soul. If anyone asks I’m Bea’s friend.’

  It was not a hard promise to make, as the level of hospitality she had received from the king had touched her deeply. However, she realised it could not be easy for him to have his ex-wife’s child as a guest.

  Molly knew enough about Zarhat culture to recognise that when Tariq had touched on the subject of the royal divorce he had, if anything, been downplaying the situation, yet the king had welcomed her into his home when many in his position might not have even wanted reminding of her existence.

  Her solemnity as she made her vow of silence brought an affectionate smile to Tariq’s face ‘I appreciate that, Molly. But you do know that Khalid and I would both have been proud to have introduced you as our sister tonight.’

  Warm moisture filled Molly’s amber eyes as emotion clogged her throat. ‘Really…?’

  ‘You can doubt this?’ he asked, before a spasm of self-condemnation twisted his dark features. ‘Of course you can. Why would you not after I have ignored you for the past twenty-four years? If you had told me to go to hell it would have been what I deserved.’

  A grin spread across Molly’s face as she flicked away a strand of waist-length hair that had drifted across her face. It was still slightly damp from the shower. ‘The way I recall it I pretty much did just that.’

  The reminder of that meeting brought a rueful grin to his face.

  ‘If it wasn’t for Beatrice coming to see me I wouldn’t be here now,’ she said frankly.

  It was true. When the half-brother who had ignored her since birth had suggested they should get to know one another, her response had been to angrily reject his overtures. What did she need with a brother who she knew had caused their mother so much heartache by refusing any contact with her after her second marriage to Molly’s father?

  They were strangers and Molly had been happy for it to stay that way; she’d wanted nothing to do with him.

  Why would she?

  She owed Tariq nothing. He hadn’t just ignored the fact she existed, he had pressured Khalid, whom she had seen and adored as a small child before their mother’s premature death, to reject her too.

  It had been a visit in person from Beatrice pleading her husband’s case that had persuaded her to accept the invitation.

  Molly had come prepared, almost wanting, to despise this brother, but to her amazement after a slightly rocky start she had found herself liking Tariq.

  ‘And you are glad you did come?’

  Molly uncurled her legs from underneath her as she lifted her chin and scanned the lean dark face of the brother she still barely knew. ‘Very glad,’ she admitted huskily.

  Tariq smiled and got to his feet. ‘And you will think about what I have said?’

  ‘I will,’ she promised, walking with him to the door.

  ‘Tariq!’

  Standing framed in the doorway, he turned back.

  ‘I do understand, you know…why you wouldn’t come and visit Mum when she was alive.’

  She hadn’t always. As a small child the only thing she had understood was the desperate hurt in her mother’s eyes when the eldest son she had been forced to leave behind when she’d divorced the King of Zarhat had not accompanied his brother for the arranged visit.

  It had not crossed her mind at the time that Tariq had been hurting too and perhaps feeling betrayed that the mother he had loved had chosen her freedom over her sons.

  ‘Dad told me, when he knew I was coming here, how she never stopped feeling guilty about leaving you and Khalid, but she knew you would be safe and loved. She always knew that your place was here.’

  ‘And hers was not.’

  There was no trace of criticism in Tariq’s manner but Molly felt impelled to defend the choice their mother had made.

  ‘She must have been very desperate.’

  Molly could only imagine the sort of unhappiness that would make a woman make that choice. She knew nothing about the strength of maternal bonds, but something deep inside her told her that to leave a child would be like ripping away part of yourself and you’d walk around with that awful emptiness the rest of your life.

  Without being judgemental, Molly really couldn’t imagine a situation where she would make the same decision.

  ‘But she knew you and Khalid would be well cared for and I think me being here would have made her very happy.’

  Without a word Molly stepped into arms that opened for her and the years of rejection and anger melted away.

  ‘God, look at me, I’m crying,’ she said as she emerged from a crushing brotherly hug. She wiped the moisture from her face with one hand and pushed back her hair with the other.

  ‘Go on,’ she sniffed. ‘Or Beatrice will be sending out the search party.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  FROM where he was standing, Tair witnessed the embrace and heard Molly’s parting warning. He could feel the anger burning inside him like a solid physical presence.

  He stayed where he stood concealed in the shadows until the echoes of Tariq’s footsteps on the marble floor died away. Then he began to walk towards the door that had just closed, his long stride filled with purpose.

  A muscle clenched in his firm jaw as he imagined her in the room feeling pleased with herself because nobody suspected her game. Her mask was good, he conceded, but he had seen through her disguise.

  There was no effort involved in recreating in his head the image of her standing in the doorway.

  He had barely recognised the mouse minus the glasses and with her hair hanging loose to her narrow waist like a silken screen. The light streaming from the bedroom had acted like a spotlight shining through the fine fabric of her demure night-clothes, revealing every dip and curve of a slender but undeniably female form. Female enough to cause a lustful surge of his own undiscriminating hormones.

  Who would have guessed, other than Tariq, that under the baggy top there was that body?

  He stopped a few feet from the door and forced himself to think past both the memory of those small plump breasts and his anger—the two seemed inextricably linked in his head—and took a deep breath, fo
rcing the fury boiling in his veins to a gentle simmer.

  To confront her would give him pleasure of a sort, but what would it achieve? Other than to watch her struggle as she tried to explain away what he had seen. She would have her work cut out, Tair thought. He was not a man to jump to conclusions, but in this instance he felt he was fully justified to assume the worst.

  However, what he had witnessed showed how deeply she had her unvarnished claws into Tariq, and threats from him were not going to make her back off. Him barging in might even have the opposite effect and actually make the situation worse. Right now the situation was retrievable, but if the affair became public knowledge…?

  He needed to think. He needed to think about this like any other problem. He needed to analyse the problem, decide what he wanted to happen and then choose how he was going to make it happen.

  Tair inhaled deeply, then released the breath slowly. With one last look at the door he turned and strode away in the opposite direction to the one his cousin had taken.

  Tariq, who had been walking across the courtyard, stopped when he saw his cousin. ‘Tair!’

  Tair stepped towards him thinking, You idiot, as he smiled. Tariq looked exhausted. Perhaps guilt made him lie awake at night?

  He too had lain awake the previous night, but he was not feeling any effects from the lack of sleep; he was actually feeling quite pleased with himself.

  Some might consider his plan reckless, but Tair preferred to think of it as inspired.

  ‘I’m glad I bumped into you.’

  The relief he saw on the other man’s face struck Tair as darkly ironic.

  ‘Actually—’ Tariq, his brow furrowed, glanced down at the watch on his wrist ‘—you could do me a favour. I don’t suppose you would take a message to Molly for me?’

  Tair inclined his head to indicate his willingness to help out and thought that this was working out much better than he’d anticipated.

  It wasn’t very often the victim of a scam actively helped facilitate the scheme. Not that he had a lot of personal experience with scams, and this was one being perpetuated with the most altruistic of motives. He didn’t expect that Tariq would immediately he able to make the differentiation, though obviously when he had come to his senses he would appreciate his good fortune.