of her case once more. ‘You would do well to remember it. See you there.’
‘I’m afraid not, Tamara.’
‘What the hell does that mean?’
‘It means I require you in one piece for what I have in mind. Travelling in my transport and staying in my palace have just been added to the list of what is required of you. Now, get in the car.’
CHAPTER FOUR
AS TAMARA sank back into the obscenely comfortable seat and looked out at the mushroom-like clouds below, she told herself she was glad. After all, having to put up with his prehistoric demands for the duration of this assignment was one of the reasons why she’d agreed to it. For what could be more cathartic than to return home a week from now, knowing for certain that she could never have endured him?
She ought to be glad that he was making it so easy for her—that he was giving her every opportunity to harden her heart, to adopt the ice-cool, businesslike demeanour that Henry had described as customary in every other model he knew. Yet nothing about this felt easy.
Maybe it was because she hadn’t expected him to act in that cool manner himself. From the minute they had set foot on his private jet, he had positioned himself at the opposite end of the flight deck and immersed himself in a briefcase full of paperwork as if she were nothing more than a piece of excess baggage which didn’t fit in the hold. The few times he had looked up he had glanced straight through her, as if she had ceased to exist.
But then that was how he worked, wasn’t it? Oh, yes, her every mile-high whim would be catered for by his staff, but the minute she fell in line with his plans she ceased to matter to him. Because nothing mattered to him except his precious crown, she thought wretchedly. Until now she had been in danger of forgetting that.
Of forgetting that night.
Tamara squinted out at the view, the clouds becoming less dense and the yellow-brown hue of the desert landscape below just starting to become visible. The sight made her ball up the thin jumper she had been wearing and place it between her head and the window, pretending she wanted to sleep. The reality was she simply wanted to block out the view. To block out the memories.
It had been at the end of her stay in Qwasir—though leaving was something she had not allowed herself to contemplate— when the two of them and his aide had ridden across that desert at dusk. Kaliq had been insistent that she experience the annual masked festival in the tiny mountain village near the royal palace. She suspected she would have nodded in wide-eyed awe at whatever he’d suggested, but knowing that for one night no one would be able to recognise him as the crown prince had particularly delighted her. Perhaps because she’d grown tired of dodging the press whenever she was with him—ten times worse than the intrusion she had experienced on the few occasions a year she spent time with her mother. Perhaps because she’d wanted to forget exactly who he was.
For in Tamara’s eyes, his title had seemed detached from him, like a middle name rarely used. To her, he was the man who’d taught by example to defy what was expected, who’d made her recognise that she had been short-sighted, ungrateful even, to have been disappointed with her experiences in life so far, and who had encouraged her to pursue her dreams the way no one else ever had. Almost more startling, he’d made her want to venture into territory that—unlike everyone else her age—she had never wanted to sample before. She’d wanted him physically. To explore him—have him explore her. And, though he’d insisted it was necessary that they travel with an aide, the smouldering look in his eyes had seemed to say that the feeling was mutual.
So when, after a night of drinking the dark, spicy local drink and dancing anonymously amongst the jovial crowds, they’d left in the early hours of the morning with his aide nowhere in sight, Tamara’s heart thrilled at the thought of being alone with him. Had he engineered it on purpose? She’d felt sure that he had. Though she didn’t know what that meant in the long-term, it didn’t seem to matter. Because, for the first time in her life, instead of wondering where she might be going, she could think only of the here and now. Of her body pressed to his back, the sounds of the festival dying away and their breathing perfectly in time as they’d ridden over the hilltop to the incredible sight of the sun rising over the sand dunes. It had felt as if the thermostat which had been keeping her feelings at bay had just gone up in flames.
‘Please, Kaliq, let’s stop for a moment, it’s so perfect.’
Kaliq didn’t answer, but suddenly through the half-light she saw that they were making their way downwards to a small gap in the mountainside, his horse Amir now slowing to a walk.
Hesitantly, Kaliq dismounted and raised his arms to lift her from his stallion. He looked, she thought, rather as if he were considering waging war against himself.
He moved away from her, looking out towards the rising sun. ‘We should really get back to the palace. It is late.’
‘Or perhaps we are just up early; it depends how you look at it.’
‘You should be asleep.’ His face was solemn.
Tamara frowned. Usually he delighted in the habit she had of turning everything he said on its head. She followed his serious gaze, to the tip of gold shimmering on the horizon, and then back to his face. ‘You think I would rather be asleep than here, with you?’
‘No, Tamara.’ He shook his head, his expression taut. ‘I think your father trusted me to show you my country. He did not ask that I find myself alone in the desert with you in the early hours of morning. It is not right.’
Right? Nothing had ever felt more right in her entire life. What was he saying—that she was nothing more to him than a puppy he had been given to walk, but this was past his agreed hours?
‘I am not a child, Kaliq. In a month I may be travelling through Europe, next year university, who knows? Do you suppose I will never find myself alone with anyone then?’
A muscle tensed at his jaw.
Tamara continued. ‘If I am taking up too much of your precious time then I will quite gladly continue to show myself around. I did not know it had been such a chore.’
‘You think I say it is not right because being with you is a chore?’ His voice seemed to echo off the sand dunes. He reached out his hand for hers, his thumb slowly beginning to draw hypnotic circles in her palm, shaking her to the core. ‘It is not right because…because when I am with you I wish to kiss you. When we are in public, propriety prevents me, but when we are alone—’
She looked up at him, her eyes growing wide, her stomach doing somersaults.
‘When we are alone, kalilah, I have to rely on my own self-control.’
He made it sound like a curse, but something in Tamara was soaring obliviously, her arms reaching playfully around his neck, one corner of her mouth lifting into a daring smile. ‘I thought self control was your forte.’
‘I thought so too—’ his voice was almost a groan that sounded like defeat as he guided her body closer ‘—until I met you.’
Unable to tear her eyes away from him, Tamara watched as his liquid brown gaze dropped to her lips and then, suddenly, decisively, his mouth followed. But the moment it did she was unable to focus on anything. Because if she thought Qwasir had surpassed her wildest expectations it was nothing compared to the long-awaited sensation of his mouth on hers. Gently exploring,
