is the right decision and it will not be one which I give you cause to regret,’ Jasim asserted softly.
‘You know very well that you might as well have turned a gun on me when you warned me that you could easily have flown Sami out of the country today without me!’ Elinor snapped, compressing her soft mouth into an indignant line.
Yet Elinor also appreciated that, although Jasim was a ruthless, heartless rat, she still had unresolved feelings for him, feelings composed of maybe fifty per cent resentment and distrust, forty per cent sexual fascination and ten per cent hope for a fairy-tale happy ending in which he fell madly, deeply, hopelessly in love with her. But, as her late mother had taught her to have little faith in happy endings, she wasn’t about to hold her breath on that score.
She went home and drew up lists of things she had to do before she could leave London for Quaram and she sat up late discussing events and making plans with her friends. The next morning she quit her job and Jasim insisted on taking Sami and her shopping for clothing more suited to a hot climate. She was startled by the number of outfits he deemed necessary and increasingly perturbed by his evident knowledge of what women liked in the wardrobe department.
‘You’ve had an awful lot of women in your life, haven’t you?’ she opined, while he calmly selected garments that were displayed by a team of sales personnel for their appraisal and announced that he thought she suited bright colours like green and blue.
‘I have a certain amount of experience,’ Jasim responded with measured cool. ‘But it would not be appropriate for me to discuss that side of my life with you.’
Her fingers curled into talons, her nails marking her palms with sharp little crescents. She hated the idea of him ever having been with another woman and felt sick at the concept of him being intimate with anyone else but her. Registering just how confused her emotions were around him, she felt her discomfiture increase. ‘I didn’t say I wanted to discuss it precisely. But the way you swept me off my feet—literally—at Woodrow the first day we met was educational,’ she murmured soft and low. ‘With hindsight I can see I was dealing with an expert womaniser.’
‘You’re entitled to your own opinion on that score,’ Jasim remarked without heat, refusing to argue the point in public.
While it was true that Jasim had enjoyed many women, he was not ashamed of the fact. His affairs had always been discreet and conducted on candid terms. He had learned that most women were delighted to give him their company and sexual pleasure in return for a glittering social life and expensive gifts. Sex had never been complicated for him, but he was beginning to suspect that sex within marriage might well prove to be his biggest challenge yet. He glanced at Elinor, noting the tension still etched into her delicate profile. In his extensive experience all women loved to be spoiled. Not unnaturally, he had assumed that a major shopping trip would lift her mood and please her.
But the pursuit had failed to work its usual magic. It was slowly dawning on him that he had very little idea what went on inside Elinor’s head. She gave him wildly conflicting signals. What was the matter with her? Why did he please her less than he pleased other women, who were enthralled and eager to reciprocate when he expressed an interest? Why was she sitting beside him watching the parade of beautiful designer garments with the expression of a puritan invited to an orgy? Sudden devilment gleamed in his dark deep-set eyes. If that was her attitude, he should meet her expectations head-on …
Frustration was filling Elinor to overflowing. As usual, Jasim had ignored her questions and slammed a door shut in her face and he was raising barriers to keep her at a distance. He didn’t want her to know him any better. Evidently her role was to be more Sami’s mother than a wife to Sami’s father. It was an assumption that was to take a thorough beating at their next port of call—a highly exclusive lingerie boutique filled with tiny frilly pieces of satin, silk and lace that shocked Elinor to her unadventurous core. While she stood frozen with mortification by his side, Jasim examined what was on offer and made generous selections of frivolous items of underwear that Elinor could not even imagine wearing. She was outraged by his nerve. How dared he make such intimate purchases on her behalf?
Temper bubbling up in her like a natural spring, Elinor dealt him a furious appraisal when they were back inside the limousine.
‘I wouldn’t be seen dead dressed in underwear of that sort!’ she snapped at him.
Unholy amusement turned his dark brown gaze to simmering gold chips of enticement in the lean dark lineaments of his handsome face. ‘Such lingerie would certainly provide a novel look for your departure from the world … but I would much prefer to see you wear them while you were very much alive and kicking, so that I could show you my appreciation.’
‘Never in this lifetime!’ Colour ran like a betraying banner as high as Elinor’s hairline as she recoiled from that riposte and the hot masculine appraisal that accompanied it. As if he was already imagining her prancing about a bedroom in those minuscule confections of satin and lace, designed to enhance and display the female body for a man’s gratification!
Jasim skated a teasing forefinger down over the back of her tautly clenched hand. ‘Never is a long time, aziz. Who can tell what the future holds?’
Elinor snatched away her hand. ‘Certainly nothing of that nature, I assure you!’ she rebutted furiously, squirming from the suspicion that he was accustomed to provocative displays in the bedroom and trying to encourage her to make an effort in the same direction.
Blissfully unaware of the tension in the air, Sami tugged off a sock and chuckled while he explored his bare toes. Elinor compressed her lips. Not for worlds would she have admitted that the promise of Jasim’s appreciation lit a wicked little flame of longing inside her, while the prospect of dressing down in wispy nothings for his benefit had a decadent allure that carried sudden shocking appeal for her starved senses.
Instead she sensibly concentrated her mind on the packing she still had to do and the wisdom of getting Sami to bed soon to compensate for the early hour of their departure the following morning. Tomorrow she would be arriving in a foreign country and she knew that she would need all her wits about her as well as a good deal of adaptability to handle that challenge …
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘YOU wish to know what you should wear to meet my father?’ Jasim echoed with a frown of surprise. ‘He won’t take fright at the sight of your legs, if that’s what you mean. There is no dress code, although I would aim at the conservative.’
Elinor vanished back into a small cabin on Jasim’s private jet where she had been rifling through a suitcase, and wished she had made her mind up about what to wear before she travelled. Jasim certainly wasn’t much help! With a sigh she shook out a blue silk dress and jacket, light enough to keep her cool and plain enough in style to suit any occasion. Sami was fast asleep in his sky cot, all the nonsense drummed out of him after an energetic and noisy hour of play with his father. Elinor was still shaken by the recollection of Jasim, careless of the damage he might be causing to his immaculate and beautifully tailored designer suit, getting down on his knees to play hide-and-seek around the seats in the main cabin with his enthusiastic son. It was obvious to her that Jasim already had a huge wow factor for Sami. Without any encouragement from her they were bonding like mad.
The diamond ring on her wedding finger caught her attention and she stiffened. It was the very ring with which Murad had once proposed to her mother, and which she had recently sold. Jasim had returned the magnificent diamond cluster, together with the wedding ring that he had given her, when she’d boarded the jet, insisting that she start wearing both.
‘But
