‘Murat,’ she croaked.
There was a short silence as he stared at her and, although he seemed to be swimming in and out of focus, the shock on his face was almost palpable. Did she look that bad? She supposed she did. She hadn’t washed her hair in days and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. Her jeans felt looser than they used to and her T-shirt was crumpled and creased.
‘You’re sick!’ he accused, as if she’d done something wrong.
‘No. I’m fine.’ It was unfortunate that she chose just that moment to produce another of those horrible, hacking coughs.
Black eyes raked over her. ‘You don’t look fine to me. Or sound it.’
‘That’s none...’ She coughed again, putting her hand over her mouth, which made her words come out all muffled. ‘None of your business.’
There was a brief silence while Murat noted her flushed cheeks and dull eyes and he felt a sharp pang of something he didn’t recognise. He hadn’t seen her for weeks. Not since she’d left him in Italy and he’d woken up and reached for her and found the other side of the bed empty. And hadn’t he completely lost it at that moment? Hadn’t he run outside and threatened to sack every one of his bodyguards for failing to hear her leave? He had been beside himself with worry and fear until word had reached him that somehow she had managed to get herself to Rome airport, where she’d caught a scheduled flight back to London.
And now she was standing in front of him and nothing was how he’d thought it would be. Had he thought her face would light up when she saw him again? That she’d admit that running out on him had been the biggest mistake she’d ever made?
Because if that was the case, he had been badly wrong.
She was staring at him suspiciously—the way an animal did when it was backed into a corner—and she looked terrible. Her hair was plastered to the side of her hot cheeks and there were angles on her face where there hadn’t been angles before.
‘Let me in, Cat,’ he said grimly. ‘Please.’
Catrin flinched, knowing she ought to refuse, but she opened the door anyway. It was pointless to engage in a battle you stood no chance of winning and she was too weary to try. He had come all this way—had stepped outside his usual luxurious habitat to find himself in the staff quarters of a Welsh seaside hotel. She could hardly turn him away.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘But please keep the noise down. Some of my colleagues are on night duty and some might still be asleep. I don’t want you making some kind of racket and waking them up.’
Murat’s mouth hardened as he stepped inside the room. It was clean but it was also very cramped, and he thought how bare it looked. Why, even the servants at his palace in Qurhah had better accommodation than this. On a small dressing table, he could see that over-sized hairbrush she always used to rake through her thick hair, along with a framed photograph of her and her sister. As always, there was an open book on a locker beside the narrow bed and, on the wall, an ugly notice warning inhabitants what to do in case of fire.
Finishing his brief reconnoitre, he returned his gaze to her face but he could do absolutely nothing about the sudden protective clenching of his heart. She looked as if a light breeze might be enough to make her float away.
He walked over to the small window and looked out onto a yard filled with bins, before turning back—his black eyes narrowed in question. ‘Why did you run out on me in Italy like that?’
‘You know the answer to that question—so please don’t insult my intelligence by pretending you don’t. I went because I needed to get away and I didn’t want to have to ask your permission. I’m a free agent now and I look after myself.’
‘You didn’t think I’d be worried?’
‘Funnily enough, your reaction wasn’t the biggest thing on my mind. For once, it wasn’t about you, Murat. It was about me.’ The effort of saying so much had tired her out and she sat down on the bed and leaned back against the pillows. ‘What are you doing here?’
Once again, he swept his gaze over the small room, countering her question with one of his own. ‘Why have you come back to Wales?’
‘Because of...family reasons.’ Rather defensively, she stared at him. ‘I like it. It’s a decent enough hotel and quite adequate for my needs. How did you find me?’
‘A person can always be found.’
‘That doesn’t answer my question.’
‘The answer isn’t important. I have means at my disposal—you know that. What matters is why you’re here.’ His black eyes narrowed. ‘What kind of family reasons?’
She shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Yes, it does.’
She had forgotten about his stubborn nature and autocratic determination to get his own way. She’d forgotten that, a few minutes in his company, she would be longing for him to hold her in his arms again. She pushed a strand of hair away from her hot cheek and met the question which was lancing from his eyes.
And why was she resisting telling him? Wouldn’t the truth kill off any residual dreams of romance for good—and send him running from here at the speed of light? Was that what she was secretly afraid of?
Catrin felt a sudden rush of nerves constricting her throat as the inevitable moment of revelation approached. If only she were somebody different, it might not have mattered. If she’d been one of those high-born aristocratic women with bishops and artists in her lineage, then an eccentric relative would have been perfectly acceptable.
But she wasn’t.
She was just ordinary Catrin Thomas, who always dreaded this moment more than any other. She hated the shame and the pity which always hardened people’s eyes when they found out. And she would have given anything not to see it in Murat’s.
‘My sister asked me to come back to Wales to help with my mother, who is...sick.’
A frowning look of consternation crossed over his face. ‘Then why on earth didn’t you just say so?’
She didn’t answer for a moment.
‘Cat?’
‘Because it’s not the kind of illness you want to shout from the rooftops,’ she said. ‘My mother is...’
‘Your mother is what?’ Murat prompted and now his voice sounded almost gentle and, in an awful way, that made it worse. She didn’t want him being gentle, or understanding or any of those things he wasn’t supposed to be. She wanted him to be hard and stern and autocratic, because surely that would help prepare her for the revulsion which he’d be unable to disguise when eventually she told him.
‘She’s an alcoholic.’
Her bald words sounded brittle and sour, and it took a moment or two before she could bear to look into his eyes. And when she did they were hard. Hard as unpolished chips of jet. Just as she’d known they would be all along.
‘Explain,’ he said curtly.
Her clenched fingers wouldn’t seem to stop shaking. ‘It doesn’t require much in the way of explanation. My mother is a drunk. She...she drinks in a way that other people don’t. She doesn’t know when to stop, or, rather, she can’t stop. She’s one of those people for whom one sip is too many, and a million not enough. She can’t...’ She shrugged, trying to do the acceptance thing again. But sometimes acceptance was difficult when it made you face what was breaking your heart. She drew in a deep breath and it was only with an effort borne out of years of practice which stopped her voice from breaking down completely. ‘She can’t help herself. She loves to drink, but one day it will k-kill her. She’s been on yet another binge. It started weeks ago—that’s why I came back from Italy so suddenly. And living closer means that I can help out when there’s another catastrophe—which seems to be most of the time.’
He didn’t speak at first and when he did his words were so quiet that she had to strain her ears to hear them.
‘I see.’
‘You�
�re shocked,’ she said numbly.
‘Of course I’m shocked—but mainly because it’s such a startling thing to discover at this stage of knowing you. I’m wondering why you never told me any of this before,’ he said. His black gaze bored into her. ‘Why not, Cat?’
Wearily, she lifted her palm to her hot brow in a failed attempt to cool it down. ‘Because we didn’t have that kind of relationship, did we? Our pillow talk never really got personal. Your life in Qurhah was completely separate and mine in Wales was the same. You never asked me questions about my past and I guess I liked it that way.’
But she knew that wasn’t the whole truth and something inside tugged at her conscience. Made her want him to see things as she had seen them. ‘Plus we mustn’t forget that you’re a sultan,’ she continued hoarsely. ‘And I was afraid.’
Her words tailed off and he looked at her.
‘What were you afraid of?’
Once she wouldn’t have dreamed of telling him this. When she was trying to be that perfect woman who never wanted to bring any stress into his life. When she was trying to be what she thought he wanted her to be. But now she was free. She might be relatively poor and worried sick about the future, but at least she was free to speak her mind.
‘I was afraid you would dump me if you found out.’
He gave a short laugh. ‘You really think I’m that shallow?’
‘I think maybe sultans are forced to be shallow.’ She gave another hacking cough. ‘Otherwise why choose a bride just because she happened to be a royal virgin? A sultan certainly couldn’t ever marry a woman whose mother might turn up drunk, w-with bottles of liquor clinking in a brown paper bag.’
Murat didn’t answer. Not at first. He was too busy absorbing the significance of what she had told him. But currently her words were of far less concern than the wild light which was filling her eyes with a strange green fire—so that her skin looked as if it was bathed in an unearthly glow.
Walking over to the bed, he leaned over to put the back of his hand on her forehead, frowning as her teeth began to chatter. ‘What have you been doing to yourself, Cat? You’re sick.’
She coughed again and this time her whole frame was wracked with paroxysms. ‘It’s just a cold.’
‘It is not just a cold. It’s a damned fever.’
‘Whatever.’ Cat could feel the light touch of his hand on her clammy brow as new waves of dizziness swept over her. Suddenly, the chattering was making her teeth hurt and she felt as if ice had started creeping around her veins. She started trying to pull the duvet out from beneath her but her fingers were fumbling too much. ‘I’m c-cold.’
‘You are not cold,’ he said grimly. ‘You are burning up.’
‘I want the duvet.’
‘Not now, Cat,’ he said. ‘Stop fighting. Let me deal with this.’
His soft command lulled her as it had lulled her so often in the past. Her head fell back against the lumpy pillow and her weighted eyelids began to close, until she felt his fingers at the fly of her jeans and her eyes flew open.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’
‘You think I’m so desperate that I’d take advantage of a sick woman?’ His voice was bitter; his mouth a contemptuous slash. ‘Let me assure you that I have nothing but your welfare in mind right now—and it’s clear that, while you may have been helping care for your mother, you certainly haven’t been looking after yourself.’
She wanted to tell him not to bother, but she couldn’t. All she could do was lie there like a piece of meat on a block as he began to undress her, like some awful parody of the way he had undressed her countless times before. But there was no softness or appreciation in his touch now. She was aware of him tugging at her zip and slithering the jeans down over her hot thighs in a way which was almost clinical.
And suddenly, she was too woozy to care. Even when he peeled off her T-shirt and one of her breasts brushed against his palm as if it had been programmed to do so. Through the haze of her growing fever, she sensed his momentary hesitation. As if he was remembering how once he would have dragged his thumb across her bra to incite the puckering nub.
But he withdrew his hand as if he had accidentally plunged it into a pit of snakes. And it hurt to think that now he was repulsed by her, when once he hadn’t been able to get enough of her.
Feeling like an unwanted sacrifice, Catrin lay there in her bra and pants, while Murat withdrew his phone from his pocket and began to speak in rapid Qurhahian.
CHAPTER TEN
CAT SWAM IN and out of a strange and swamping fever which seemed to have taken her prisoner. She remembered feeling cold. Freezing cold. But she was forced to curl up into a foetal position, because Murat was stubbornly refusing to let her cover herself with the duvet.
Murat?
Was she delirious?
No. It seemed she was not. Her eyes flickered open to see the hawk-like Sultan sitting beside her bed, his dark body very still and watchful. Murat was in her room. He was filling the tiny space as if it were his right to be there.
‘Why are you still here?’ she heard herself mumble at some point. ‘Didn’t I tell you to go?’
‘You did. Repeatedly. But I’m here and this is where I’m staying. Looking after you, if you must know—since you seem incapable of taking care of yourself.’
‘I don’t need you,’ she muttered.
‘It’s not up for discussion, and I’m not going anywhere until you’re better. Better get used to it, Cat.’
He was so bossy, she thought crossly. He was making her drink water when she didn’t want to drink anything—glasses and glasses of the stuff. And he was wringing out that little flannel she kept draped over the small sink. Wringing it out in cold water and making her yelp as he rubbed the icy cloth over her protesting skin.
Some time, through the awful pounding which had resumed inside her head, she heard someone knocking at the door and then a low conversation taking place in a language she recognised instantly as Qurhahian. And that was when Murat walked over to the bed, holding a small and golden phial, which he lifted to her lips.
‘Drink this,’ he commanded.
Through bleary eyes, she gazed at him suspiciously. ‘Is it some sort of poison?’
‘You think I’d feed you poison?’
‘Nothing about you would surprise me.’
‘Drink it, Cat,’ he said gently. ‘It’ll make you feel better.’
But it didn’t. It made her feel worse. Thick and viscous, it clung to her throat and was so bitter that she would have spat it out if Murat hadn’t held her lips together and forced her to swallow.
‘Don’t do that,’ she said from between gritted teeth.
‘Then drink it.’
‘It tastes disgusting! Like carpet slippers!’
‘Not a taste I am familiar with. So why not close your eyes and pretend it’s something else? What would you like it to taste like, habibti?’
He was luring her into the realm of fantasy as he’d done so often in the past, and Catrin screwed her eyes against the light and the pain and the awful ache in her heart. He used to call her habibti when he was making love to her. Habibti when he was stroking her hair...
‘I’d like it to taste like warm, buttered toast,’ she said, thinking of a book she used to read as a child beneath the bedclothes, while her mother was crashing around downstairs. She remembered how comforting it had been to escape into the land of fantasy. How the books had allowed her to forget the harsh reality of her real life. Her voice grew dreamy. ‘Or hot chocolate with marshmallows and cream, and chocolate sprinkles on the top.’
‘What else?’ he prompted, his voice very gentle again.
‘Turkish delight by the Christmas tree,’ she continued. ‘And snow falling outside and making everything silent.’
By the time she’d finished speaking, all the liquid was swallowed and her eyelids were growing heavy. Through the flickering curtain of her quivering eyelashes, she could see the watchful gleam of his black eyes.
‘I’m tired now,’ she said.
‘Then sleep.’
She did. One minute she was drenched in sweat and the next she felt as if she were floating outside her body, looking down on the tiny room. While all the time, Murat sat beside her bed, like some granite-faced sentry. The only time he moved was when she needed to use the bathroom and he shrugged her into the robe which was hanging on the back of the door and carried her along the corridor. But she was too woozy to care about the unexpected intimacy of even that.
Afterwards he took her back to her room and laid her on the bed and she looked up at him as he smoothed back her matted hair. She could feel that stupid great flare of love welling up inside her and wondered why it hadn’t left her, as she had been praying so hard for it to do. But he had been kind to her, hadn’t he? More than kind. And kindness could be seductive too—the most seductive thing in the world.
‘Thank you,’ she said, and fell into a deep sleep.
When she awoke it must have been morning, because a chill grey light was coming in through the windows and Murat hadn’t moved from the chair he’d been sitting in. He didn’t even appear to have slept, for his gaze was sharp and alert as soon as she opened her eyes. Only the new beard at his jaw and the dark shadows hollowing his cheeks gave any indication that he must have been there for hours.
And she was lying there in her bra and pants!
Surreptitiously, she reached down for the duvet and hauled it over herself and saw him give a flicker of a smile.
‘This is the bit where you say “what happened?”,’ he said, handing her a glass of water.
Seduced by the Sultan Page 10
