‘Thank you.’
Lara was still away filming and so the flat was empty and mercifully tidy and she found herself thinking about the time when she had turned up with Khalim to find total chaos. Remembered the rather fastidious look of horror which had darkened his handsome face, and the resulting decision for him to find them somewhere to live.
Just stop remembering, she told herself fiercely. Stop it!
‘Would you like some coffee, Philip? Or tea, perhaps?’
He shook his dark head. ‘Thank you, but no.’
He seemed, she thought, a trifle uncomfortable. What was the purpose of his visit? she wondered. ‘What can I do for you, Philip?’ she asked pleasantly.
‘Khalim has sent me.’
She bit her lip. ‘H-how is he?’
‘He’s sad, of course—but coping magnificently, just as you would expect.’
‘Yes.’ Of course he was. Swallowing down her pain, she said, ‘So what is the purpose of your visit here today, Philip?’
Philip nodded thoughtfully, as if her reaction was not the one he would have anticipated. ‘He asked me to bring you this.’ He opened up his briefcase and withdrew a slim, dark leather box and handed it to her.
Rose stared down at it. ‘What is it?’
‘Why don’t you open it, and see?’
Caution told her to give it straight back to him, but that old devil called curiosity seemed to be guiding her actions instead. With miraculously unshaking hands, she opened the clasp.
Inside was a necklace, although the word seemed oddly inadequate for the magnificent piece of jewellery which dazzled at her from its navy-velveted backdrop.
A necklace of sapphires and diamonds which blazed with unmatchable brilliance, and, at the very centre of the piece, a single deeper blue sapphire, the size of a large walnut.
Rose lifted her eyes to his, her face pale and her voice now trembling. ‘Wh-what is the p-purpose of this?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’
‘Not to me it isn’t, no. Why is he sending his emissary with expensive baubles? To sweeten me up? Is that it? To induce me to fall in with his wishes?’
‘He doesn’t want it to be over, Rose.’
‘Well, it is over,’ she said stubbornly. ‘It has to be. I thought I made that clear. I’m not prepared to become his part-time mistress, Philip—I told him that unequivocably. So perhaps you’d like to give this back to him, and tell him that pieces of jewellery, no matter how gorgeous, will not change my mind.’ And she snapped back the clasp and handed it back to him.
Philip stared down at the proffered case for a long moment before he took it. ‘You won’t change your mind?’ he asked slowly.
She shook her head, but with the pain again came the sense of liberation, and of dignity. ‘I can’t. Tell him that. And tell him not to contact me again—that’s best for both our sakes.’ She kept her voice steady. ‘Tell him to make a happy life for himself in Maraban, and I will endeavour to do the same for myself in England.’
Philip nodded. ‘He will not be pleased.’
‘I didn’t imagine for a moment that he would be. And please tell him not to mistake my resistance for enticement.’ She gave a heavy sigh. ‘I’m trying to be practical, Philip, for both our sakes.’ And my heart is too fragile. If I stop it now, I will survive, she thought. And so will he. If I let it continue in the cloak-and-dagger way of being his foreign mistress, then I risk it breaking into a thousand pieces.
‘Do you have any message for him?’
She longed to ask Philip to tell him that she loved him, and that she would never stop loving him—but wouldn’t that give him the power to try and wear her down? And who knew how long she would be able to resist that?
She nodded. ‘Just wish him luck, Philip. Tell him to make Maraban great.’
Philip looked as though he wanted to say something else, but clearly thought better of it. He dropped the case into his briefcase and gave a brief, courteous smile.
‘That was never in any doubt,’ he said. ‘It is his personal happiness which is precarious.’
So he wanted it all. A wife in Maraban and a mistress in London. She remembered something that Khalim had once said to her, and shrugged. ‘And that, I’m afraid, Philip—that goes with the territory.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THERE were swathes of dark green holly leaves, their blood-coloured berries gleaming as Rose looped them through the bannister of the sweeping staircase which dominated the hallway of her parents’ farmhouse.
‘There!’ She stood back to admire her handiwork and turned to where her brother was standing holding all the pins and tacks. ‘What do you think, Jamie?’
‘Perfect,’ smiled her brother.
‘And you like the tree?’
He stared for a moment at the huge conifer which stood next to the hatstand. She had festooned it with silver and gold baubles and tied scarlet ribbons around the ends of all the branches. ‘Perfect,’ he said again, and narrowed his eyes thoughtfully at her. ‘You seem happier these days, Rose.’
She hesitated for a moment. Did she? Then appearances could be very deceptive. Because even though most of the time she did feel, if not exactly happy, then certainly more contented than before—the pain of losing Khalim could still come back to haunt her and tear at her heart with an intensity which had the power to make her feel weak and shaking.
She shrugged. ‘Well, it’s been over a year now since…’ Her voice tailed off. To say the words made it real, and so much of her wished that it were nothing but some cruel fantasy.
‘Since lover-boy went back to Maraban?’
She frowned. ‘There’s no need to say it in quite that tone, Jamie.’
‘What way is that? The disapproving way in which any brother would speak if their sister had had her heart broken by a man who should have known better?’
Rose sighed. ‘I keep telling you—he didn’t exactly have to kidnap me! I knew exactly what I was getting into, I just—’
‘Expected that the end result might be different?’ he prompted softly.
Well, no. Of course she hadn’t, not really. She had hoped, of course she had—because hope was part of the human condition, even when deep down you knew that to hope was useless.
She shook her head. ‘I gave up hoping a long time ago, Jamie. Let’s leave it, shall we? What time are Mum and Dad getting back?’
‘Their train gets in at three, and I said I’d go and collect them from the station. Though it beats me why anyone in their right mind should choose to go Christmas shopping in London, on Christmas Eve!’
Rose smiled. ‘It’s a family tradition, remember? And I like traditions! Now I think I’ll go and hang some greenery round the fireplace. Want to help me?’
Jamie grinned. ‘I think I’m all spent out where decorating activities are concerned! I might just go and put a light under that pot of soup. Going to have some with me, Rosie?’
‘No, thanks. I had a late breakfast.’
‘You are eating properly again now, aren’t you?’
‘I never stopped!’
‘That’s why when you turn sideways you could disappear?’
She forced a smile. ‘I’m not thin, Jamie—just slimmer than I used to be.’
‘Hmm. Well, Mum is planning to feed you up on Christmas pudding—be warned!’
‘Can’t wait!’
She went into the sitting room and sat down on the floor to begin tying together the greenery she had brought in from the garden.
Hard to believe that they would soon be into a new year, but maybe the brand-new start would give her the impetus she needed to get on with her life. Really get on with her life.
She had made changes. Had switched from Headliners to another, smaller agency—where the different faces and different clients had forced her to concentrate on work, instead of dwelling on the darkly handsome face she missed with such an intensity.
And she had sold her flat in Notting Hill, too. She had bought somewhere
slightly smaller and in a less fashionable area of London, which meant that she no longer needed to take in a lodger.
She didn’t have to pretend to be feeling good in front of a flatmate now that she lived on her own. And if she felt like a quiet evening in, reading or watching television, then there was no one to nag her about going out and meeting people. She didn’t want to meet people. Especially not men. She had known very early on that Khalim would be an impossible act to follow, and in that her instincts had not failed her.
Somewhere in the distance, she heard the chiming of the doorbell, and because she was up to her ears in stray bits of conifer she hoped that Jamie might answer it. She heard the door open, and then murmurings.
‘Rose!’
She blinked at the rather urgent quality in Jamie’s voice. ‘What is it?’
‘You have a visitor.’
She looked up to see Jamie framed in the doorway of the sitting room, his face white and tense, a look of something approaching anger hardening his mouth.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.
‘It’s him!’
‘What is?’ she questioned stupidly.
‘Khalim!’ he whispered. ‘He’s here. Right now. Waiting in the hall.’
The world span out of control and she felt all the blood drain from her face. ‘What does he want?’ she whispered back, in a voice which did not sound like her own.
‘To see you, of course!’ Jamie glowered. ‘You don’t have to see him, you know, Rose! I can send him away, if that’s what you want.’
And wouldn’t that be best?
She had done everything in her power to eradicate him from her memory in the intervening year since she had last seen him. She had been largely unsuccessful in this, it was true, but it hadn’t been through a lack of trying. Wouldn’t seeing him again just reopen all those old wounds, making the original injury even worse than before?
But how could she not see him—when her heart was banging fit to burst at the thought that he was here? Now.
She stood up and brushed some spray fronds of greenery from the front of her jeans. ‘No, I’ll see him, Jamie,’ she said quietly. ‘Will you send him in, please?’
In an effort to compose herself, she walked over to the window and looked out at the stark winter landscape which seemed to mirror the icy desolation of her emotional state.
She heard him enter the room. That unmistakable footfall.
‘Rose?’ came the deep and slightly stern entreaty from behind her.
Heart hammering, Rose forced herself to face him, and when she did her breath caught in her throat with longing.
He looked…
Oh, but he looked perfect—more perfect than any man had a right to look. And he was not wearing one of the immaculate suits he usually wore when he was in Europe—instead, he was dressed in the flowing, silken robes of Maraban. The ebony eyes were gleaming with some unspoken message and his face was as stern and as fierce as she had ever seen it.
Sabrina’s heart turned over with love and longing as she stared into the unfathomable glitter of his eyes, but she prayed that her face didn’t register her feelings.
Why was he here?
‘Hello, Khalim,’ she said, in a voice which she didn’t quite recognise as her own.
He thought how pale her face was, so that the blue eyes seemed to dominate its heart-shaped frame with their unforgettable dazzle. And how fragile she looked, too—the jeans he remembered looking slightly loose on the waist, and around the swell of her bottom. ‘Hello, Rose,’ he said softly.
She drew a deep breath. ‘How did you find me?’
He gave a brief, hard smile. It had been clear that she had not wanted him to find her. She had changed her job and changed her flat—no, the message to stay away had been quite clear. ‘It was not difficult.’ He shrugged.
Not for him, no—of course it wasn’t. ‘Did you get Philip to search for me?’ she mocked.
‘What did you expect me to do?’ he retorted. ‘Scour the pages of the telephone directory myself? Running a country takes up almost all of my waking hours, Rose.’
‘Of course. I shouldn’t have been so flippant.’ Her voice trembled. ‘H-how is Maraban?’
‘Lonely,’ he said with the brutal honesty which seemed to come so easily around her.
She quashed the foolish flare of hope which leapt in her heart. She had never allowed fantasy to get in the way of reality where he was concerned, and she wasn’t about to start now. ‘Oh? So no suitable bride been found for you yet?’
‘No,’ he agreed equably, because the waspish way she asked that question told him that maybe her message of wanting him to stay away had been ambivalent. That maybe she still cared. ‘No wife.’
‘But not through lack of trying, I imagine?’
He was not going to tell her lies, nor to play games with her. ‘That’s right.’ He allowed his mind to briefly dwell on every available high-born Maraban woman who had been brought before his critical eye. And how every doe-eyed look of submission had only emphasised the equality he had shared with Rose.
‘But none of them came up to your exacting standards, Khalim?’
‘Not one.’ He smiled. ‘That’s why I’m here today.’
She reminded herself of what his terms had been before he’d left, and they would not have changed—why should they when the circumstances were exactly the same as before?
‘Would you mind making yourself a little clearer?’
He owed her this. The unadorned truth. The only words which would express the only thing which mattered.
‘I love you, Rose.’
The words rang in her ears. Alien words. Secretly longed-for but inconceivable words…words from which she would never recover if they weren’t true. She met the lancing black stare and her heart began to pound. Because it didn’t matter what logic or common sense told her—Khalim would not use words like that if he didn’t mean them. Why would he?
Khalim narrowed his eyes as he watched the wary assessment which had caused a frown to appear between the two delicate arches of her eyebrows. Had he imagined that she would fall straight into his arms the moment that those words were out of his mouth?
‘Shall I say it again?’ he questioned softly. ‘That I love you, Rose. I have always loved you. I shall love you for the rest of my days, and maybe beyond that, too.’
She shook her head distractedly. It didn’t matter—because fundamentally nothing had changed. ‘I can’t do it, Khalim,’ she whispered. ‘I just can’t do it.’
Black brows knitted together. ‘Do what?’
‘I can’t be your mistress—I just can’t—because it will break my heart.’ Maybe if she appealed to his innate sense of decency, he might go away and leave her alone. Stop tempting her into breaking every rule in the book. She sucked in a huge, shuddering breath. ‘You see, I love you, too—I love you in a way I didn’t think it was possible to love.’
‘And that’s a problem, is it?’ he asked gently.
‘Of course it’s a problem! I can’t say I’m not tempted to become your mistress—of course I am! I’ve ached and ached for you since you went back to Maraban, and just when I thought I might be getting over it—’
‘Are you?’ he questioned sternly. ‘Getting over me?’
The truth was much more important than remembering not to pander to his ego. ‘No, of course I’m not,’ she admitted. And she didn’t think she ever would. ‘But what chance do I have if we become lovers again? I’ll just get sucked in, deeper and deeper, and then sooner or later there will be a Maraban woman who you will want to make your wife—’
‘Never!’ he said flatly.
‘You can’t say that!’
‘Oh, yes, I can,’ he corrected resolutely. ‘There is only one woman who I could ever imagine making my wife. One woman who I have every intention of making my wife, and that woman is you, Rose. It only ever has been you.’
She stared at him in disbelief, telling herself tha
t she had not heard him properly. Words of love and commitment she had only ever listened to in her wildest dreams. And dreams didn’t come true—everybody knew that. ‘You can’t mean that.’
He smiled then as he heard the loving tremble in her voice. ‘Yes, I can, Rose. I have the agreement of my government to make you my bride just as soon as the wedding can be arranged.’
She longed to touch him, to run her fingertips with reverent wonder along the sculpted perfection of his face, but she was scared. ‘But why the change of heart?’
He shook his head. ‘No change of heart, my darling—that has remained constant since the first time I ever laid eyes on you. The difference is that my advisors have come to realise that a happy man makes a good ruler.’ The stark, beautiful truth shone like ebony fire from his eyes. ‘And I cannot ever be a happy man without you by my side. Come to me, Rose, come and kiss me, and make my world real once more.’
She didn’t need to be asked twice—she was across the room and in his arms, and as he buried his lips in the flaxen satin of her hair she discovered that he was shaking as much as he was.
‘Khalim,’ she said brokenly.
‘Sweet, sweet, beautiful Rose—my Rose, my only Rose,’ he murmured against its scented sweetness, and she raised her face to his in wonder as she read the look of love on his face.
He bent his head to kiss her, and an intense feeling of emotion threatened to rock the very foundations of his world.
They were breathless when the kiss ended, and Rose lifted her hand up, traced the sensual outline of his lips with her finger.
‘They don’t mind? They honestly don’t mind you taking a Western woman for your bride?’
His shrug was rueful. ‘The more traditional element of the court were distinctly unimpressed, but the hand of my father guided events—even beyond his death.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Do you remember he asked to meet you?’
‘Yes, of course I do!’
‘He had sensed my distraction since meeting you and wanted to know why. And when he met you, he understood perfectly.’ He paused. ‘Afterwards he commented on your similarity to my great-great-grandfather’s true love.’
Surrender to the Sheikh Page 17
