He stirred and stroked an errant spill of hair away from her flushed face, levering himself up onto his elbows to stare down at her. ‘What would you say if I told you that today was one of the best days of my life? As was yesterday, and the day before that.’
‘I’d say you were being too smooth for your own good.’
He smiled, pulling her closer and burying his mouth in her hair. ‘Come to Italy with me, Cat,’ he said. ‘One last trip abroad, together. That’s all.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘You know why not. Because it’s a bad idea.’ Half-heartedly, she tried to disentangle herself from his arms. ‘And will you please stop looking at me with that little-boy look? Because it isn’t going to work.’
‘Cat.’
He even made saying her name sound erotic and she could feel her resolve slipping. And suddenly she felt too overwhelmed with conflicting emotions and lingering pleasure to be able to resist him any longer. And why keep resisting something she really wanted to do?
‘A few days,’ she said. ‘That’s all. And after that I’m leaving.’
His eyes glittered as he stroked his hand over her bottom. ‘Of course you are.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE ITALIAN COUNTRYSIDE was beautiful in a take-your-breath-away kind of way but Murat barely noticed the lush green hills swathed with silvery olive trees, or the distant glimmer of the lake. Instead, his attention was focused on the woman beside him and a deep sense of feeling thwarted filled him, as his powerful cavalcade of cars moved through the Italian countryside.
With her mahogany hair gleaming and her body perfectly still, she wasn’t behaving as he’d expected her to behave. As he wanted her to behave—especially now that she had finally given in to his desire that she accompany him to Umbria.
During the flight from London she had kept him at a distance. In every way. She had been polite, yes. Each comment he’d made had been answered with a studied courteousness, although he noticed that she had initiated no conversation of her own. She had picked up a book and started to read and although the book had now been put away in her handbag, it made no difference. He didn’t like being ignored by a woman—especially not one who had previously been so attentive. Who had behaved like a wildcat that last time they had made love...
With her hands lying clasped on her lap and her simple blue dress seeming to echo her muted mood, he couldn’t remember her ever looking quite so serene, nor so beautiful.
Tightly, his hands clenched into fists where they lay on top of his tensed thighs. Was it because the end was in sight that he found himself wanting her more than ever? Or had her own accusation contained more than a kernel of truth? Was it a case of his competitive nature governing him as it had always governed him—driven by the knowledge that he was rarely refused anything, by anyone?
Yet deep down he recognised that it wasn’t quite that simple. The woman she had become since she’d discovered his secret courtship had been like the Cat he’d fallen for. The feisty beauty who had blown him away within seconds of meeting her. Who had looked at the powerful potentate standing in that humble Welsh hotel and spoken to him as if he were...
An equal?
Maybe.
This past weekend, she had been like a butterfly fluttering in out of the sunshine in order to be admired and yet somehow managing to remain tantalisingly aloof. Suddenly, everything had been on her terms. She had kept him guessing. Waiting. She had made him feel uncertain in a way which was totally new to him. And in the time it had taken before she had finally let him back into her arms, he had felt as if he were going out of his mind.
He shook his head in consternation, for he was not given to self-analysis. From childhood, he had been taught to be ruthless and strong. He had been told that his role was to protect and to provide for his country; to sublimate his own desires in the pursuit of those goals. It had been drummed into him that his destiny was to rule with resilience and never appear vulnerable. And that had been the maxim he had embraced all his life.
He had seen less war than his father, mainly because he didn’t share the dead king’s unquenchable lust to conquer new territories, and because he had preferred to use the intricate skills of international diplomacy rather than force. But Murat had seen his own fair share of battle. Etched into his memory was that terrible clash with insurgents at Port D’Leo, when his two most senior commanders had been slain before his eyes. He remembered holding the hand of one of the men, as his lifeblood had seeped like liquid rust into the hot, desert sand. He remembered the choked words which the soldier had asked Murat to take back to his wife: words of regret that he would not live to see his unborn child. And Murat could still recall his own guilt that he had been powerless to save them.
He thought back to his spartan childhood. Of the loneliness of his life in the palace and of the powerful father who had never been there for him, nor for any of his family. Any snatched hours spent with his son had been spent teaching him weaponry and horsemanship, and drumming into him that women could weaken a man and sap his essential strength.
But Murat could never remember being shown affection by the man who had sired him. Even his mother’s love had been diluted by her long, depressive illness, when she would sit staring at the blank wall of her sitting room, rather than engaging with Murat or his sister.
And wasn’t that the truth about human emotion—that you could never rely on it? He thought of his friend Suleiman, the person to whom he had once been closer than to anyone in the world, and the man Murat had relied upon to give his sovereign one hundred per cent unswerving loyalty.
Yet Suleiman had let the wiles of a woman twist him away from that loyalty and devotion, hadn’t he? He had taken the woman destined to be Murat’s bride and had made her his own. And although Murat had now forgiven his oldest friend, he still felt the bitter twist of pain when he remembered how his blood brother had betrayed him.
And that was why he had always kept his heart steeled against an emotion which some men called love, but which Murat saw as nothing but trouble. Human hearts could not be trusted, nor relied upon—and ‘love’ was the most unreliable emotion of all. Far better to stay clear of the clutches of something which had the power to destroy much of what it touched.
‘Hadn’t you better tell me about this meeting?’ Catrin said, her voice breaking his thoughts as she crossed one leg over the other.
It was difficult to concentrate on anything other than the toned gleam of her ankles, but Murat did his best. ‘Well, Niccolo you have, of course, already met.’
‘Yes.’ There was a pause. ‘And is he bringing the lovely Lise with him?’
‘He didn’t say.’ His gaze slid over her. ‘Will you have a problem with that, if he does?’
She shrugged. ‘It’s not my place to have a problem with it. And anyway, she was only telling the truth. If it hadn’t been for Lise, I might still be stumbling around in the dark. Maybe I should be grateful to her, for making me face up to the truth and to see our relationship for what it really is...was,’ she corrected hastily. ‘Who else is coming?’
‘Alekto Sarantos,’ he said. ‘We met him once in Paris, if you remember?’
Memory was a road Catrin didn’t want to take, but sometimes someone planted you on that super-fast highway and there wasn’t a thing you could do about it. She recalled a man with ebony hair and extraordinary blue eyes. Alekto had been surrounded by women, looking more like a rock star than a businessman. But he had seemed almost bored by the adoration of the women surrounding him, as if he would rather be anywhere else than at the city’s most glitzy party.
Unlike her, who had been revelling in every glorious moment. It had been like a dream come true. The most romantic city in the world. With Murat.
Her heart gave a painful wrench as she remembered tick
ertape cascading from the ceiling at midnight, and the Sultan laughing as he brushed the streams of paper from her face, before bending his head to kiss her.
‘I remember,’ she said, swallowing down the lump in her throat.
She bent her head to stare at her hands, because anything was better than having to look into his hard, hawk-like face and meet the black gleam of his eyes. Every time she looked at him she wanted to touch him. And every time she touched him, it would just make their inevitable parting all the harder. That was a certainty which had been growing all day.
She had realised her mistake in agreeing to come here from the moment she’d stepped onto the plane, discovering that it was all too easy to slip back into the role of being Murat’s consort. It had suddenly dawned on her that she needed to put some kind of distance between the two of them in order to protect herself, which was why she had pulled back a little during the flight. But it hadn’t been easy to remain neutral—not when the Sultan was behaving with such attentiveness towards her.
‘Look up there,’ he said suddenly. ‘We are approaching the Gardinello estate.’
She looked out of the window to where an elaborate pair of wrought-iron gates was opening to let them through. Their car moved slowly up a steep incline, before coming to a halt outside an ochre-tinted farmhouse. Catrin stepped out into a sunny courtyard filled with pots of tumbling white flowers, where a cat lay sleeping peacefully beneath the shade of an olive tree. Tiered gardens were planted with cypress and cherry trees and she breathed in the heady scent of sun-warmed herbs, and flowers.
‘Look behind you,’ said Murat softly.
She turned round to see olive groves and vineyards and a sprawling orchard of fruit trees. There was the glimmer of an infinity pool and, beyond that, the mirrored expanse of Lake Trasimeno. Suddenly, she found herself filled with a powerful sense of yearning, fuelled by the beauty of her surroundings and by the strength of her feelings for the man who stood beside her.
Sliding on her sunglasses, she tried desperately to regain some of her lost equilibrium—trying to focus on the mundane rather than the impossible. Everywhere she looked she could see activity. Their cases were being removed from the car by people whose names she would probably never know and inside the house there would be yet more people preparing food and ensuring that all the Sultan’s needs would be met. Bodyguards were moving swiftly towards the forested area which bordered the top of the estate, presumably to check that the fences were secure. She saw them muttering into their cell phones as they scaled the green bank. With something of a shock, she realised she’d grown used to this life of being guarded and protected—and in a funny kind of way she was even going to miss that.
‘Where are the others?’ she asked.
‘They’re arriving later.’
Her eyes met his. ‘How much later?’
‘Does it matter? I want some more time alone with you, Cat. And ultimately, I want you to change your mind about leaving me.’
‘That isn’t going to happen.’ She bit her lip. ‘And you’re not making this very easy for me.’
‘That was never my intention.’ His black eyes gleamed. ‘Did you really think it would be?’
She gave a short laugh. Of course she hadn’t. She’d watched him enough in the past during countless dinners with business colleagues, when he’d been at his manipulative best. Murat would always use whatever method was best suited to make sure he always got exactly what he wanted. ‘No. If I’d stopped to think about it, I should have guessed that you would do exactly this.’
‘So why not just relax and try to accept it? Come and I’ll show you around, and let’s see if the beauty of the Italian countryside won’t wipe some of that tension from your face.’
Her palms felt clammy and her head felt light as she realised he was doing that thing he did so well. That dominant, masterful thing which made her just want to...to what? To go back to being the compliant person she’d been before—the one he’d used to leave at home like an ornament, while he’d courted his royal princess?
But she followed him along the gravelled paths which interweaved the different levels of the gardens, because what else was she going to do? Her canvas sneakers sank into the dusty summer grass and the warm sunshine seeped into her skin. And even though she’d started out by feeling completely strung out, it was perhaps inevitable that some of the tension would leave.
It felt peculiar to be walking alongside him like this—the future forgotten, while they enjoyed the beauty of the Italian gardens. The sunlight glinted off his hair and from time to time she glanced up at him, forcing herself to walk just far enough away to avoid touching him.
She was relieved when they arrived back at the main farmhouse, though less so when he showed her into a cool and shuttered room which commanded a spectacular view over the distant hills. She stared at the amazing view outside, because anywhere was better than glancing at the huge bed which dominated the room.
Murat shut the door and the walls seemed to close in on her as he came towards her, with that dark look of lust which was so achingly familiar.
‘I want you, Cat,’ he said. ‘I want you so badly that I can hardly think straight.’
And she wanted him, too.
She wanted him in a way which made her heart burn and her body ache. She wanted to let him blot out every nagging thought and fear with his kiss. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t pretend—not any more. If he made love to her now, then wouldn’t she be in danger of blurting out how much she loved him—making herself even more vulnerable in the process?
She’d been guilty of playing a part when she lived with him and if she wasn’t careful she was going to find herself doing the same thing again. Oh, it might be a different part, but it would still involve hiding the real Catrin.
Because how could she continue to have sex with him and yet behave as if nothing had changed? As if fleeting pleasure had the power to blot out the dark reality of losing him. Wasn’t it likely that the more she gave to him, the emptier it would leave her?
She stared at his hard, warrior’s face and his hard, warrior’s body. Murat was a hard man, through and through. He wouldn’t be weeping into his pillow when their affair ended. Oh, he might experience a brief pang of regret and maybe even a few moments of nostalgia, but then he would get on with his life. His powerful life as Sultan, in which there had never been room for a second-rate commoner like her.
‘I can’t do it, Murat,’ she said quietly. ‘Not any more.’
‘What are you talking about?’
She took a step back, terrified that she would be swayed by his proximity. Afraid that if he remained within touching distance then she might just ignore the voice of reason which was demanding to be heard, and instead crawl into his arms, like a small animal seeking sanctuary.
She met his eyes. ‘I can’t have sex with you any more. I thought I could just carry on the way we were, until it was time for me to leave, but I was wrong. I can’t.’
‘But what has happened to make you act this way?’ he demanded. ‘We made love in London just before we came here—so what the hell has changed during a two-hour flight?’
She licked her lips, knowing that she couldn’t keep hiding her emotions away. That if she wanted him to understand, then she was going to have to tell him how she was feeling.
‘I have,’ she said. ‘I’ve changed. And I’ve realised that it hurts too much to know we’re living on borrowed time. Every kiss we share is like a protracted goodbye. Every time you touch me, it makes me feel...diminished.’
‘Diminished?’
She saw his eyes narrow and guessed he would be filing her words away under psychobabble. But that didn’t matter. She no longer had to impress him or try to be his perfect woman. All she had to do was to remain true to herself.
‘Yes, diminished.’
<
br /> He was shaking his dark head. ‘I don’t understand you, Cat,’ he bit out, his voice filled with frustration.
‘And you don’t need to. When we leave here we won’t ever have to see each another again. My role in your life is over. I shouldn’t...’ For a moment, she stopped. Was that why people hid behind lies so often, because the truth was too painful to confront? ‘I shouldn’t have agreed to come, but since I have I’ll do what’s expected of me. I’ll play your perfect hostess one more time—but I can’t be intimate with you again. From now on, this relationship has to be platonic. It...hurts too much to be anything but platonic. So if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to unpack and then shower. I need to get ready for when your guests arrive.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
BENEATH A JASMINE-COVERED pergola, the long table was laid with heavy silver and crystal, which gleamed golden in the candlelight. Desperately trying to concentrate on the beauty which surrounded her, Catrin sipped from her glass of water. Overhead, bright stars glittered—and occasionally one would shoot through the indigo sky in a blurred silvery trail so fast that if you blinked you would miss it. They had eaten tiny cheese soufflés followed by giant prawns and now they were lingering over the peach sorbet, which a young Italian woman had just served to them.
She sat back and listened to the discussion which was currently taking place between the three men, but in truth she wasn’t really paying much attention to the subject of wind farms.
It hadn’t been the easiest of days, but she didn’t think even Murat would deny that it had been a successful one. They had greeted their guests as a united couple. Somehow they had managed to disguise the brooding tension which had sprung up, following that heated confrontation in the bedroom earlier.
Alekto Sarantos had come by private jet from the Greek island of Santorini, and was accompanied by a sinewy redhead called Suzy, who was clinging to his arm as if she couldn’t bear to let him go. Catrin thought she could understand why, since the Greek billionaire was as gorgeous as she remembered from Paris.
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