in the humming silence while a buzz of excitement unlike anything she had ever experienced trailed along her nerve endings like a taunting touch.
His breath warmed her cheek and she focused on his strong sensual mouth, the surge of heat and warmth between her thighs going crazy. Desire was shooting through her veins like adrenaline and she didn’t understand it, couldn’t control it either, any more than she could defy the temptation to rest up against him, palms spread across his chest to absorb the muscular strength of his powerful frame and remain upright. Eyes wide, she stared up at him, trembling with anticipation and he did not disappoint her. On the passage to her mouth his lips grazed the pulse quivering in her neck and an almost violent shimmy of sensation shot down through her slight length. His hand sliding down to her waist to steady her, he circled her mouth with a kiss as hot as a blowtorch. The heat of his passion sent a shock wave of sexual response spiralling down straight into her pelvis.
Raja only lifted his head again when Hermione’s noisy assault on his ankles became too violent to ignore. ‘Call off your dog,’ he urged her huskily.
Grateful for the excuse to move, Ruby wasted no time in capturing her snarling pet and depositing her back in the living room. Her hands were shaking. Nervous perspiration beaded her upper lip. Ruby was in serious shock from finally feeling what a man had never made her feel before. She was still light-headed from the experience, and her temper surged when she caught Raja studying her intently. Consumed by a sense of foolishness, she was afraid that he might have noticed that she was trembling and her condemnation was shrill. ‘You had no right to touch me!’
His lustrous dark eyes glinted like rapier blades over her angry face. ‘I had no right but I was very curious,’ he countered with a studied insolence that pushed a tide of colour into her cheeks. ‘And you were worth the risk.’
A moment later he was gone and she closed the door, only just resisting the urge to slam it noisily. She was still as wound up as a clock spring. Men didn’t speak to Ruby in that condescending tone and they rarely, if ever, offered her provocation. Invariably they tried to please her and utilised every ploy from flattery to gifts to achieve that end. Raja, on the other hand, had subjected her to a cool measuring scrutiny and had remained resolutely unimpressed and in control while she fell apart and she could only hate him for that: she had shown weakness and susceptibility, he had not.
Her phone rang at eleven when she was getting ready for bed.
‘It’s Raja.’ His dark drawl was very businesslike in tone and delivery. ‘I hope you’re prepared to move quickly on this as time is of the essence.’
Taut with strain and with her teeth gritted, for it was an effort to be polite to him with her pride still stinging from that kiss that she had failed to rebuff, Ruby said stiffly, ‘That depends on whether or not you’re prepared to stand by my terms.’
‘You have my agreement. While I make arrangements for our marriage to take place here—’
‘Like soon…now? And we’re to get married here?’ Ruby interrupted, unable to swallow back her astonishment.
‘It would be safer and more straightforward if the deed were already done before you even set foot in Ashur because our respective representatives will very likely quarrel about the when and the where and the how of our wedding for months on end,’ the prince informed her wryly. ‘In those circumstances, staging a quiet ceremony here in the UK makes the most sense.’
Infuriatingly at home giving orders and impervious to her tart comments, Raja advised her to resign from her job immediately and start packing. Ruby stayed out of bed purely to tell Stella that she was getting married. Her friend was stunned and less moved than Ruby by stories of Ashur’s current instability and economic hardship.
‘You’re not thinking about what you’re doing,’ Stella exclaimed, her pretty face troubled. ‘You’ve let this prince talk you round. He made you feel bad but, let’s face it, your life is here. What’s your father’s country got to do with you?’
Only forty-eight hours earlier, Ruby would have agreed with that sentiment. But matters were not so cut and dried now. Ashur’s problems were no longer distant, impersonal issues and she could not ignore their claim on her conscience. In her mind the suffering there now bore the faces of the ordinary people whose lives had been ruined by the long conflict.
Ruby compressed her generous mouth. ‘I just feel that if I can do something to help, I should do it. It won’t be a proper marriage, for goodness’ sake.’
‘You might get over there and find out that the prince already has a wife,’ Stella said with a curled lip.
‘I don’t think so. He wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t needed.’
Unaccustomed to Ruby being so serious, Stella pulled a face. ‘Well, look what happened to your mother when she married a man from a different culture.’
‘But Mum was in love while I would just be acting out a role. I won’t get hurt the way she did. I’m not stuffed full of stupid romantic ideas,’ Ruby declared, her chin coming up. ‘I’m much tougher and I can look after myself.’
‘I suppose you know yourself best,’ Stella conceded, taken aback by Ruby’s vehemence.
Ruby couldn’t sleep that night. The idea of marrying Najar’s Prince still felt unreal. She could have done without her friend’s honest reminder that her mother’s royal marriage had gone badly wrong. Although Ruby knew that she had absolutely no romantic interest in Raja and was therefore safe from being hurt or disappointed by him, she could not forget the heartbreak her mother had suffered when she had attempted to adapt to a very different way of life.
At the same time the haunting images Ruby had seen of the devastation in Ashur kept her awake until the early hours. The plight of her father’s people was the only reason she was willing to agree to such a marriage, she reflected ruefully. Even though she was being driven by good intentions the prospect of marrying a prince and making her home in a strange land filled her to overflowing with doubts and insecurity.
In recent years she had often regretted the lack of excitement in her life, but now all of a sudden she was being confronted with the truth of that old adage: Be careful of what you wish for….
THE SALESWOMAN DISPLAYED a ghastly, shapeless plum-coloured suit that could only have pleased a woman who had lost interest in her appearance. Of course it was not the saleswoman’s fault, Ruby reasoned in growing frustration; it was Raja’s insistence on the outfit being ‘very conservative and plain’ that had encouraged the misunderstanding of what Ruby might be prepared to wear at her wedding.
‘That’s not me, that’s really not my style!’ Ruby declared with a grimace.
‘Then choose something and quickly,’ the prince urged in an impatient aside for he was not a patient shopper. ‘Show some initiative!’
Raja did not understand why what she wore should matter so much. After all, even in her current outfit of faded jeans and a blue sweater she looked beautiful enough in his opinion to stop traffic. Luxuriant honey-blonde hair tumbled round her narrow shoulders. Denim moulded her curvy derrière and slim thighs, wool cupped the swell of her pouting breasts and emphasised her small waist. Even unadorned, she had buckets of utterly natural sex appeal. As he recognised the swelling heaviness of arousal at his groin his lean dark
