into him and his head lowered to hers.
She only became aware when the hot brand of his mouth seared hers, plundering and demanding, forcing her soft lips apart so that his tongue could snake out between her small teeth and suck hers deep. Jamilah had no defence. Desire burned up through her like a living flame and hurled her into the fire.
It was shocking how well her body remembered his touch—and how hungry she was for it. His hands on her back felt so wonderful. Even more so when they went lower and cupped her buttocks through the fine silk of her dress. He pulled her up and into him, where she could feel the hardening ridge of his desire, and with a soft mewl of frustration she arched against him, wanting more. Burning up with it. It was as if no time had passed at all.
And all the while their mouths clung feverishly, as if taking a first long drink of water from an oasis in the desert. It was only when Salman pulled her in even closer that an insidious image inserted itself—that of a red-haired woman being held in his arms, being made love to in exactly the same way.
Suddenly as cold as ice, Jamilah wrenched her head away and pulled free. She stood apart, aghast at how out of control she felt and how hard she was breathing.
‘Stay away from me, Salman. There is nothing between us. Nothing. And there never was. You said it yourself. It was just a fling, and I’m not in the market for another one.’
She whirled around, her dark blue silk dress billowing about her as she stalked to the doors, praying he wouldn’t stop her again. And then she turned back. ‘You had your chance. You won’t get another one. And for your information I’ve called out plenty of names in ecstasy since you, so don’t think what happened just now was anything special.’
Salman watched Jamilah stalk back into the party and for a moment an almost unassailable wave of despair washed over him. Seeing her again had provoked a maelstrom of emotions within him—emotions he’d not felt since he’d last seen her. He sagged back against the wall, his legs suddenly weak as he registered how intoxicating it had been to kiss her, hold her in his arms.
How familiar. And how necessary it had been—as necessary as taking another breath. It was as if no time had passed. He wanted her with something close to desperation. On that thought he resolutely stood to his full height again. He’d already seduced her and then rejected her. He had no right to want her again. He never wanted women after he’d had them. So why should she be different?
His mouth was a grim line as he followed her back into the party. He hoped that she’d been telling the truth when she’d claimed those numerous lovers, because then it would mean that his impact on her had been minimal, and he could ignore the fact that he thought he’d seen vulnerability and hurt in those stunning blue eyes.
Jamilah knew her parting words to Salman had been a cheap shot, but they’d felt good for a moment—even if they weren’t remotely true. Giving up any pretence of wanting to stay at the party, within an hour she had changed, her face scrubbed clean, and was in her Jeep and heading back to Merkazad.
Eventually she had to pull over on the hard shoulder of the motorway when tears blurred her vision too much. She rested her head on her hands on the steering wheel. She had to concede that she’d been hopelessly naïve in having thought she could remain unscathed after seeing Salman—and, worse, after kissing him, which she was sure had been nothing more than his cruel experiment to see how she still hungered for him.
On some level she’d never been able to believe how he’d turned into such a cruel and distant stranger that day.
She ruthlessly stopped her thoughts from deviating down a self-indulgent path where she’d try to find justification for Salman’s behaviour. He was cold and heartless—he always had been. She’d just been too naïve to see it before.
She’d often speculated if the cataclysmic events that had once taken place in Merkazad had anything to do with Salman’s insularity and darkness. Years before Merkazad had been invaded by an army from Al-Omar, which had been against its independence. Salman, his brother and their parents had been locked up in the bowels of the castle for three long months. It had been a difficult time for the whole country, and must have been traumatic for Nadim and Salman, but Jamilah had been just two at the time—far too young to remember the details.
Years after their liberation she’d always been the one allowed to spend time with Salman, when he hadn’t even let his own brother or parents near. He’d never said much, but he’d listened to her inconsequential chatter—which had developed into tongue-tied embarrassment as she’d grown older. Yet he’d never made her feel uncomfortable. He’d even sought her out the day he left Merkazad for good. She’d been sixteen and hopelessly in love. He’d touched her cheek with a finger, such a wealth of bleakness in his eyes that she’d ached to comfort him, but he’d just said, ‘See you around, kid.’
It was that bond that she believed had flared to life and blossomed over those three weeks in Paris. And yet if she believed what Salman had said to her there—and why wouldn’t she?—it had all been a cruel illusion. She had to get it through her thick skull that there could be no justification for Salman’s behaviour, and after tonight she had to draw a line under her obsession with him.
CHAPTER TWO
Present day.
SHEIKH SALMAN BIN KALID AL SAQR looked at the shadows of the rotorblades of the helicopter as it flew across the rocky expanse below him. They undulated and snaked like dark ribbons over the mountaintops, and when he looked further he could already see minarets and the vague outlines of the buildings of Merkazad—and the castle, where he was headed. His home and birthplace. He was coming back for the first time in ten years. Ten long years. And he felt numb inside.
He could remember the day he’d left, and the blistering argument he’d had with his older brother Nadim, as if it had happened yesterday, despite every attempt he’d made to block it out in the interim. They’d been standing in Nadim’s study, from where he’d been running the country since the tender age of twenty-one. His older brother’s responsibility had always struck fear into Salman’s heart because he’d known he would never have been able to bear it.
Not because of a lack of ability, but because at the age of eight he’d borne a horrific responsibility for his own people that he’d never spoken about, and since that time he’d cut Merkazad and everyone associated with it out of his heart.
As if to contradict him a memory rose up of Jamilah—the kinship he’d always felt with her, the way that for a long time she’d been the only person he could tolerate being near him and, in Paris, the ease with which he’d allowed her to seduce him to a softer place than he’d inhabited for as long as he could remember. If ever. And then the way he’d callously told her that it had been nothing, that she’d imagined them having some sort of bond. His skin prickled at being reminded of that now, and with ruthless efficiency he pushed it aside and focused on that moment with his brother again.
‘This is your home, Salman!’ his brother had shouted at him. ‘I need you here with me. We need to rule together to be strong.’
Salman could remember how dead he’d felt inside, how removed from his brother’s passion. He’d known that day would be his last in Merkazad. He was a free man. Since he’d been that eight-year-old boy, since the awful time of their incarceration, he’d felt aeons older than Nadim. ‘Brother, this is your country now. Not mine. I will forge my own life. And I will not have you dictate to me. You have no right.’
He’d been able to see the struggle that
