hopes and dreams for what might have been now crumbled before his eyes like desert dust as he realised his mistake. He had believed her to be the woman he wanted her to be, not the woman she really was. He had been sucked in by her beauty and her air of innocence. Oh, what a fool he had been!
‘Yes, I’ve seen them!’ he grated, remembering that he had been about to introduce her to his family! That he had actually been entertaining thoughts of her as a future bride. Fool!
‘Hashim—please—it isn’t how it looks,’ she said desperately.
She had agreed to do the calendar as a one-off to get her mother the operation she’d needed. Her mother had been crippled with pain and facing ruin, and the badly needed operation had been expensive. It had been an unconventional way to get the money, yes—but the only way which had been open to her at the time. And surely if Hashim realised how desperate she had felt. How hopeless her mother’s predicament...
‘Please, Hashim...I can explain—’
‘What? How you came to be rubbing your breasts and simulating orgasm?’ he cut in brutally, but despite his disgust he nevertheless felt the hard leap of desire. For even though their existence destroyed any future between them, he was not hypocritical enough to deny that they were magnificent photographs. ‘You think that there is any acceptable explanation for that?’ he snapped.
‘It isn’t—’
But his rage was such that he barely heard her. ‘On the head of my camel you are a magnificent actress—I commend you for that! You have succeeded in fooling me. And you have lied to me,’ he added bitterly, remembering the way she had told him that she was a virgin—and that she loved him.
‘I did not lie to you! I just...’ She looked at him and shrugged her shoulders helplessly. ‘Couldn’t think of the right time to tell you.’
‘But there would never have been a right time! In my culture, such conduct from the consort to the Sheikh would be utterly repellent—surely you must have known that?’
Sienna stared at him. Of course she had. Was that another reason why she had buried it away? As if by doing that she could pretend it had never happened? So that she wouldn’t have to face the repercussions of her actions? Could carry on living in her little fantasy world with Hashim—untouched by the past and untroubled by the future? But had she ever imagined that the outcome would be any different from this? That there would be some magical, fairy-tale solution despite what she’d done?
No. Hashim would never forgive her.
The reality of seeing the contempt in his black eyes was almost too much to bear, and Sienna stood up and picked up her shoes, her hair falling down over her face, concealing her pain from him.
But she paused by the door, lifting her gaze to his, unable to suppress the tiny flicker of hope which stubbornly refused to die.
‘Is that it, then, Hashim? Is it...over?’
‘Over?’ His mouth hardened, for he wanted to wound her. To hurt her as she had hurt him. To destroy her dreams as she had destroyed his. ‘I think you forget yourself. Did you ever expect that it would be anything other than a very temporary diversion?’ he questioned imperiously. ‘For I am the Sheikh and you are but a commoner.’ His made his final thrust.
‘A true commoner.’
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