golden colour, adding to her all-American, girl-next-door appeal, but in reality she’d made a mockery of that image.
He put down his cup. ‘So, Kat, what happened? Why did you disappear off the international modelling scene and who is Kaycee Smith?’
ALL KAT HEARD WAS, ‘Why did you disappear off the international modelling scene?’ For a moment she couldn’t breathe. The thought of letting exactly what had happened tumble out of her mouth and watching Zafir’s reaction terrified her.
She’d come a long way in eighteen months, but some things she wasn’t sure she’d ever be ready for...namely revealing to him the full reality of why she was no longer a model, or who she was now. The graceful long-legged stride she’d become famous for on catwalks all over the world was a distant memory now, never to be resurrected.
She breathed in shakily. Answer his questions and then he’ll be gone. She couldn’t imagine him wanting to hang around in these insalubrious surroundings for too long.
‘What happened?’ she said, in a carefully neutral voice. ‘You know what happened, Zafir—after all you’re the one who broke it to me that I’d been dropped from nearly every contract and that the fashion houses couldn’t distance themselves fast enough from the girl who had fallen from grace.’
Kat had been blissfully unaware of the storm headed her way. She’d been packing for her new life with her fiancé—filled with trepidation, yes, but also hope that she would make him proud of her... What a naive fool she’d been.
Zafir’s face darkened. ‘There were naked pictures of you when you were seventeen years old, Kat. They spoke pretty eloquently for themselves. Not to mention the not inconsequential fact of the huge personal debt you’d been hiding from me. And the real story of your upbringing—enabling a drug-addicted mother to find her next fix.’
Kat’s hands tightened on her cup as she remembered the vicious headline Zafir had thrust under her nose. It had labelled her ‘a white trash gold-digger.’ A man like Zafir—privileged and richer than Croesus—could never have begun to understand the challenges she’d faced growing up.
Kat felt a surge of white-hot anger but also—far more betrayingly—she felt hurt all over again. The fact that he still had this ability to affect her almost killed her. Feeling too agitated to stay sitting, she put down her cup and stood up, moving to stand behind the couch, as if that could offer some scant protection.
Zafir was sitting forward, hands locked loosely between his legs. He looked perfectly at ease, but Kat wasn’t fooled by his stance. He was never more dangerous than when he gave off an air of nonchalance.
‘Look,’ she said, as calmly as she could, ‘if you’ve just come here to re-enact our last meeting, then I can’t see how that will serve any purpose. I really don’t need to be reminded of how once my so-called perfect image was tarnished you deemed me no longer acceptable in your life. We said all we had to say that night.’
Her hands instinctively dug into the top of the couch as she remembered that cataclysmic night—stumbling out of Zafir’s apartment building into the dark streets, the pain of betrayal in her heart, her tear-blurred vision and then... Nothing but blackness and more pain, the like of which she hadn’t known existed.
Zafir stood up too, dislodging the sickening memory, reminding her that this was the present and apparently not much had changed.
‘Did we, really? As far as I recall you said far too little and then left. You certainly didn’t apologise for misleading me the whole time we were together.’
Struggling to control herself as she remembered the awful shock of that night, Kat said, ‘You saw that article and you looked at those pictures and you judged and condemned me. You weren’t prepared to listen to anything I had to say in my defence.’
Kat’s conscience pricked when she recalled how she’d always put off telling Zafir the unvarnished truth of her background. And as for the debt... She’d never wanted to reveal that ugliness, or the awful powerlessness she’d felt. Not to someone like Zafir, who set such an exacting standard for moral strength and integrity.
‘Dammit, Kat, you told me nothing about yourself—when were you going to reveal the truth? If ever?’ He shook his head before she could respond, and repeated his accusation of that night. ‘You were obviously hoping that I’d marry you before the sordid details came out and then you’d be secured for life even if we divorced.’
Kat felt breathless, and nausea rose inside her. ‘It wasn’t like that...’
Zafir looked impossibly stern. As unforgiving as he had been that night. He changed tack, asking her again, ‘Who is Kaycee Smith?’
Kat swallowed painfully, not remotely prepared for her past transgressions to be visited upon her again like this. ‘Kaycee Smith is the name on my birth certificate.’
A dark brow arched over one eye. ‘A pertinent detail missed by the papers?’
She refused to let Zafir do this to her again. Humiliate her. Annihilate her.
Kat tipped up her chin. ‘It was about the only thing they did miss.’
Thankfully, she thought now. Otherwise she would never have been able to fade away from view as she had.
‘We have nothing to say to each other, Zafir. Nothing. Now, get out—before I call the police and tell them you’re harassing me.’
Kat moved decisively from her spot behind the sofa towards the door, powered by anger and the tumult inside her, only to be stopped in her tracks before she reached it when Zafir asked sharply, ‘Why are you limping?’
Immediately the adrenalin rush faded, to be replaced with a very unwelcome sense of exposure. There was nothing to hold on to nearby and it reminded her of how vulnerable she was now.
She turned around slowly and realised that she was far too close to Zafir. Every part of her body seemed to hum with electricity. It was as if her libido had merely been waiting for his presence again, and now it was no longer dormant but very much awake and sizzling back to life.
His scent wound around her like a siren call to lean closer...to breathe in his uniquely male smell. It had always fascinated her—the mixture of earthy musk and something indescribably exotic which instantly brought her back to her first and last visit to Jahor, with its awe-inspiring palace on a hill overlooking the teeming ancient city on the edge of the ocean.
She’d felt so awed and intimidated at the prospect of becoming a Queen of that land, and yet deep within her she’d thrilled to the challenge. But when Zafir had deemed her unsuitable to be his wife she’d realised what a fool she’d been to indulge in such a fantasy. She was no Queen, and she had no right to the ache of loss that still had the power to surprise her when she wasn’t vigilant.
Her head snapped up. Zafir was still frowning. She moved back, aghast that her body could betray her like this. And then she remembered what he’d asked: Why are you limping?
Everything inside Kat recoiled from revealing herself to Zafir. The urge to self-protect was huge. He had no idea of the extent of the devastation in her life since she’d seen him—not all of which had to do
