by Kim Lawrence
‘Yes, they arrive for her every day. She does have a sweet tooth, but she gives most of them away to Azil, who has many sisters.’
Tariq’s brows lifted. Sayed was smiling. He had never seen Sayed smile before, and it was a bit like seeing a granite rockface suddenly grin—slightly unnerving.
‘Why are the…Rajoubs…?’
‘Yes, sir—the Rajoubs. They are a very respectable family. They have a small shop on the—’
Unable to conceal his impatience, Tariq cut across the older man. ‘Why is this respectable family sending Miss Devlin cakes?’
‘They feel grateful after she saved the little boy.’
Tariq sat down and lifted a hand to his head. It wasn’t aching yet, but he felt it was probably only a matter of time. ‘I think, Sayed, that you had better start at the beginning.’
He managed to stay silent until Sayed had finished.
‘So, to summarise, you allowed Miss Devlin to leave the palace?’
‘I did not have the authority to stop her, and I wanted to avoid a diplomatic incident…’
‘Diplomatic…?’ Tariq shook his head, ‘No, don’t tell me. I’m still trying to unravel the facts I have. You allowed her to wander around the streets…’ He could imagine what havoc her red hair and smiles had created.
‘I was with her.’
Tariq brushed aside the defence. ‘To wander around the streets, throw herself in front of moving traffic to save a child, and become lifelong friends with his entire family?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes? Is that all you have to say?’
‘She is a very friendly young lady, sir, and very quick-witted.’
Tariq stared at the older man. It seemed impossible, but was that a note of reproach in Sayed’s voice…?
He had returned expecting to find at best that the woman had got the message, given up and gone home, at worst that she would be here, but considerably subdued by her lonely wait.
Now it seemed she had been busy rushing around the city playing heroine, and making the most loyal and trusted members of his house hold fall under her spell!
‘I suppose my father has invited her to dinner while I was away?’
Sayed responded seriously to the sarcasm. ‘The King has not left his apartments.’
Tariq nodded. The King had not left his apartments for two years, but that was not a concern he could deal with now. Now it seemed wise to focus on the Beatrice Devlin problem. He had clearly underestimated his adversary.
‘Right, Sayed—do you think you can relay a message to Miss Devlin for me?’
Sayed bowed his head.
‘Ask her to meet my brother at the pool in half an hour.’
‘I did not know that Prince Khalid had returned.’
‘He hasn’t. And, Sayed…?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Will you please take that disapproving look off your face?’
CHAPTER FIVE
WHEN Beatrice finally located the indoor pool Khalid was already in the water, swimming with a rhythmic strength that suggested he was a lot fitter than she had ever thought.
She slipped off her sandals and looked around. Khalid, unaware of her presence, continued to swim up and down the Olympic-sized pool with metronomically precise strokes, barely causing a ripple in the water. As she watched he reached the far end, where a waterfall tumbled into the water, and, barely pausing, flipped over like a seal and continued.
Impressive!
Almost as impressive as this place.
Beatrice tilted her head back to gaze in awe at the vaulted ceiling, stained glass alternated with moulded panels, richly deco rated with vibrant golds and blues. The same colours were echoed in the mosaic under foot. The palms and lush exotic vegetation that towered overhead looked startlingly green against the azure backdrop.
After a week in the royal palace she’d just about run out of superlatives.
Dropping her towel on a chair, she padded to the water’s edge; the water looked incredibly inviting. Squatting down, she trailed her fingers in the water just as Khalid’s fingers touched the edge.
‘I’m impressed,’ she admitted as his dark head lifted. The smile on Beatrice’s lips faded dramatically as she found herself looking into sardonic silver-flecked dark eyes that did not belong to Khalid.
The teasing smile that had tugged her lips upwards evaporated, and she almost fell over in her haste to move away as the swimmer heaved himself out of the water in one supple motion.
Eyes wide and shocked, Beatrice watched as Tariq shook his head, sending a shower of droplets into the air, some of which struck her hot skin. Then he dug his fingers in his saturated sable hair and pushed it back from his face. His skin gleamed like beaten copper, his face glistening under the water droplets that appeared as tiny crystals on the ends of his long sooty eyelashes.
‘S…sorry—I didn’t know you…’ Her voice trailed off, the hot colour rising up her neck as her eyes ignored all the frantic instructions coming from her brain. Her gaze flickered downwards and the breath snagged in her throat as a wave of heat washed over her fair skin.
It had always been obvious that Tariq was in pretty marvellous physical condition, but just how marvellous had been left to her wilful imagination. Now she knew her imagination had lagged way behind reality.
Whatever else Tariq was, he was totally magnificent! His body long and grey hound-lean, shoulders broad, chest and shoulders deeply muscled, his belly wash board-flat. He carried no excess flesh to blur or conceal the taut, perfectly muscled delineation of his body.
‘Sorry—I didn’t know…’
He arched a sardonic brow and it was a moment before she could retrieve her line of thought. ‘I th…thought…’
You’re not here to act like a blushing virgin with a crush, Bea. Just pull yourself together. He’s got a body—it’s not as if you didn’t already know.
She took a deep sustaining breath and counted silently to ten before she spoke again.
‘I was meant to meet Khalid. He…’ Her voice trailed to a whisper as things inside her quivered. His black swim shorts had slipped an inch to reveal a thin line of skin a paler shade of gold than the rest of his torso. For some reason she couldn’t take her eyes from that narrow strip of skin, or the fine line of dark hair that vanished like a directional arrow under the waist band.
‘I sent the message.’
‘You did?’ Trying to kick-start her brain, which was like trying to think through cotton wool, Beatrice dragged her eyes back to his face.
‘Are you not going to swim? You look as if you could do with cooling down.’
Beatrice’s chin came up with a snap. As her gaze clashed with his mocking stare she felt her temper fizz into life—the man knew exactly what he was doing to her, she thought furiously. But then he would, wouldn’t he? He’d probably been turning women into drooling idiots all his adult life.
Fortunately she was not about to lose her objectivity and her focus just because he was one of those men who projected a sexual aura. Like you’ve met so many, Bea!
‘For a self-confessed gold-digger you blush awfully easily,’ he observed, his voice harsh.
Did she cultivate the habit to make men feel more tender and protective towards her? he wondered cynically.
Biting her lip and cursing her fair skin, and the childish habit she had never grown out of, Beatrice lifted a hand to her burning cheek.
‘I’m not used to the heat.’
‘Don’t get any idea you’ll have time to acclimatise…’
‘If you’re not careful I might get the idea you don’t like me.’ Beatrice smiled, pleased when he responded to her provocative pout with a heavy frown.
‘You are not the sort of woman that men like; you’re the sort of woman that men want. But, as you must know, the novelty soon wears off.’
The insult was as calculated as the sneer that tugged the corner of his mobile lips upwards, and her eyes sparkled with anger.
‘And do you want me?’ The moment the words were out of her mouth Beatrice wished them unsaid. The air between them crackled with a sexual tension that hung heavy between them.
One dark brow elevated to a satirical angle. ‘Is that an invitation?’
The heat flared even hotter in her cheeks. ‘I already have a lover.’
The reminder caused anger to flash like a silver flame in his spectacular eyes. ‘He’s not here,’ he reminded her.
‘But he’s worth ten of you! And I didn’t say I was a gold-digger, you did—which was a judgement you made even before you met me, you smug, sanctimonious bully!’
His incredulous intake of breath was audible. ‘You dare speak to me in this manner?’
Beatrice gave a shrug, calculated to aggravate this self-important Prince and disguise the illicit shudder of excitement that had rippled through her body. ‘Looks like it, doesn’t it? What are you going to do? Throw me in jail…?’
A secure mental facility, she decided, might be more appropriate for a person who got a thrill from goading a man this dangerous!
‘Do not tempt me,’ he advised grimly.
‘And, just for the record, it wasn’t an offer.’ She flicked him with a look of icy contempt and added, as much to convince herself as him, ‘I wouldn’t touch you if you were the last man alive!’
Tariq’s gaze drifted from her stormy face down wards, over her body concealed in the billowing floaty folds of an ankle-length robe, and he found himself wondering how far the rosy glow on her translucent skin extended. Did that pink encompass all her soft pale curves and every inch of her silky skin?
There was a very simple way to discover the answer. They were close enough for her perfume to tease his nostrils, close enough for him to reach out and tug the tie at her waist, pull the gown off her shoulders and—
Beatrice stepped back, startled, when without warning he turned and dived back into the pool, his entry so smooth there was no splash, just a slow, spreading ripple across the water and then nothing…
Tariq reached the bottom of the pool before he began to swim, skimming the tiled floor as he headed towards the opposite end of the Olympic-length pool.
His actions had not been inspired by a desire for exercise but by an urgent need to cool off in a way he had not experienced since he was a teenager. It had been jump in the pool or grab the woman and find out how she would taste by letting his tongue sink between those sinfully provocative lips.
His lack of discrimination and control disgusted Tariq. Khalid, he reflected grimly, would not have stood a chance against this woman!
The thought should have made him feel sympathy for his smitten, lovesick brother, but as he thought of Khalid’s hands on that lush body, his mouth on those lips, the physical temptation his little brother had succumbed to and enjoyed, he felt no tug of empathy. Instead he experienced a shameful and irrational rage.
He swam until his lungs burned and then kicked for the surface. Even the cool water and his oxygen-hungry lungs had not totally extinguished the lustful ache in his groin.
‘Did you hear me? The last man alive!’ Beatrice had yelled at the spreading ripple in the water.
Stringing together a series of colourful insults, she began to pace the floor at the pool’s edge, waiting for him to come up so that she could tell him exactly what she thought of him.
Only he didn’t.
Could a person stay down that long? Or had he…? She shook her head, dismissing the creeping concern as ludicrous. The wretched man was probably doing it deliberately—trying to spook her.
And it was working. With each passing second her anxiety in creased. There was total silence in the pool-room—besides the rasping sigh of her own breathing and the faint hum of the filtration system.
Get a grip, Bea, she told herself. You’re letting your imagination get the better of you.
Any second now his dark head was going to break the surface, and she was going to tell him exactly what she thought of him.
People drowned in pools every day of the week.
Not people as fit as Tariq.
All the same… She dropped down on her knees, peering into the water, but the glare from the sun made it impossible for her to see beneath the mirrored blue surface.
She leapt to her feet, genuine fear in her face as she fought her way out of the ankle-length kaftan she had put on over her bikini.
She was an adequate rather than accomplished swimmer, and Beatrice’s dive into the pool was not the thing of beauty Tariq’s had been. Having swallowed water when she hit the surface, it took her a few moments and several gasps to fill her lungs before she swam in the general direction of the spot where he had vanished beneath the water.
Tariq surfaced at the far end and hauled himself from the water. He pulled his hand through his dark hair again and scanned the room with narrowed eyes. It was empty. Beatrice was gone. The groove above his masterful nose deepened. She hadn’t struck him as the type who would duck a fight, or flee at the first sign of opposition.
Conscious of an irrational sense of anticlimax, he picked up a towel from a pile on a chair and headed for the changing room.
He had taken a couple of steps when she broke the surface, gasping. Between splutters, she began screaming for help.
It took him seconds to reach her.
‘Relax!’ he instructed tersely when she began to struggle, lashing out wildly as he slipped an arm across her chest. ‘Don’t fight me, you little fool,’ he said, taking her face between his hands. ‘You’ll drown us both.’
Beatrice, breath less and exhausted, looked at him and then did something that surprised them both. She burst into tears and wrapped her arms around him, hiding her face in his neck.
‘You’re alive,’ she said, her voice muffled by her tears and his damp skin.
‘Not for much longer if you don’t let go.’ He was very conscious of her female curves insinuated against him, the smooth silkiness of her wet skin where it made contact with his. Her body plastered to his felt warm and soft, the essence of femininity.
Beatrice, too relieved to be embarrassed, took her hands from around his neck, feeling an odd reluctance as she did so. Then, expelling a long, shuddering sigh, she lifted her head from his shoulder.
Tariq’s arms remained around her ribcage, supporting her weight in the water. Their faces were level as she looked at him, her wide emerald eyes swimming. Through the mist she didn’t see the expression of something akin to shock that chased across his lean features.
The water had plastered her hair to her face and washed all trace of her make-up away, barring a dark rim around her eyes which made them appear enormous. Minus the make-up and the attitude, she looked very much younger and very vulnerable.
The misplaced tenderness he was shocked to feel stir inside him brought another harsh frown to his broad brow, and he clenched the fingers he had been about to smooth the strands of hair from her face with. This was the last woman in the world who needed protecting!
‘Are you an imbecile? What did you think you were doing? If I hadn’t been here…’
Beatrice’s relief that he was alive vanished the moment she digested his harsh comment. For sheer irrationality he took first prize!
‘If you hadn’t been here I wouldn’t have been trying to save you. Searching the bottom of a pool is not actually my idea of a good time.’
‘You were trying to save me?’
The flash of his white teeth and his scornful laugh were like flames to dry tinder.
‘Insane, I know!’ she grunted as, hands flat on his chest, she tried to push him away.
She would have succeeded if the arm looped around her hadn’t tightened like an iron band around her waist, securing her reluctantly to his side.
‘But look at it from my point of view,’ she said gritting her teeth and glaring at him. ‘If you’d managed to kill yourself while you were playing “See How Long I Can Hold My Breath” they’d probably have charged me wit
h homicide!’
‘You’re crying!’ Amazement at this discovery could be heard in Tariq’s voice as he watched the tears that seeped from her luminous eyes fall and mingle with the moisture already on her porcelain-smooth face.
‘Don’t worry—I’m not about to fall apart, despite the provocation. I always cry when I’m mad.’ And this man seemed capable of making her madder than anyone she had ever met.
‘I’m guessing Khalid has never heard you shriek,’ he said with a grimace.
The grimace was more connected to the effort it took for him to wrench his eyes from her heaving bosom than the damage to his eardrums. ‘Are you always this irrational and emotional?’ Maybe only when she was slippery and wet? And half naked. But he was actually trying hard not to think about that.
‘Pardon me if I come ever so slightly unglued at the thought of dead people—even you.’
He gave a grunt that sounded almost like a laugh, though there was no humour evident in his expression as he sternly advised her to stop thrashing around.
‘I’m quite capable,’ she began, when she realised his intention of towing her to the side.
He silenced her with a look.
Beatrice struggled to hold the gaze of those pewter-flecked eyes. She even considered arguing, but decided on balance that discretion might be the more sensible alternative to valour, as she wasn’t totally sure she was capable of getting to the side herself after all.
When they reached the side he reached down, put a hand under her foot and boosted her up. Floundering, and feeling about as elegant as a beached whale, Beatrice pulled herself onto the tiled surface and lay there, with her feet in the water and her cheek pressed against the tiled surface.
‘Get up.’
She sensed him standing over her, opened one eye and said, ‘Leave me alone. I’ve just had a near-death experience.’
With what she considered to be a heart less laugh, he snorted. ‘Don’t be so dramatic. You were never in any real danger.’
Beatrice, still breathing hard, rolled onto her back and squinted up at the dark outline of him looming over her. ‘So you’re the expert on near-death experiences?’ She closed her eyes and muttered, ‘I wish I’d let you drown.’
