refused to rise further to the bait and focused instead on the streets of Paris, the daily life she’d found so entertaining beginning around them. As the car moved silently, like a predator stealing her away, she glanced up at the magnificent buildings. Then the chic cafés that she’d always promised herself she’d visit passed before her, teasing her with all she hadn’t yet done.
It didn’t seem possible that this man had managed to turn her life upside down again. Worse still was the fact that she’d given him all the ammunition he’d needed, by telling him about Claude. He wouldn’t have had any kind of lever if she’d said nothing. She should have just refused to go back with him. Insisted on a divorce.
‘Not long enough,’ she said quickly, her tone flippant. ‘I just wish our next meeting had been for the purpose it should have been for—to arrange a divorce.’ She turned to look at his face and tried not to pay any attention to the way her body reacted to being so close to him. Those childish dreams of passion and happy endings needed to be stamped out once and for all—and quickly.
‘Things have changed.’ He leant forward in the seat, coming too close to her, serving only to increase her irritation. His heady aftershave, potent within the confines of the car, caused her heartbeat to accelerate rapidly. She couldn’t allow him to affect her like this, to turn her insides to molten lava with just a look. She had to maintain control.
‘It’s you who came to find me, Kazim. It’s you who needs me.’ She injected a steely edge into her voice, wondering why she’d ever agreed to his demands—but instantly reminded herself of Claude. This could be his only chance to get the treatment he needed. So, for Claude, she would go. She would protect her foolish heart and keep her distance from Kazim. It was the only option she could see right now.
He sat back, the movement drawing her from her thoughts, and she watched as he reached inside his jacket pocket for his phone. What was wrong with him? He couldn’t even give her his full attention.
‘No, Amber, it is you who needs me. You want funds for the child’s operation and, deep down, you must want to please your family, to build bridges. You need this marriage as much as I do.’
She clenched her teeth, biting back the retort. How could he think she wanted to please her family after they’d disowned her? There was no going back; they’d made that quite clear. ‘I don’t have a family, thanks to you.’
He looked at her and a question sparked in his eyes but he said nothing, his silence goading her, making her press home her point.
‘You saw to that when you sent me back to them. They were so horrified and ashamed that you’d turned your back on me, they sent me to England.’ But England hadn’t quite been the punishment intended. She’d met distant relations of her grandmother’s and there had gained the strength to move to Paris, a city that had always entranced her.
It still hurt like hell to think of her father’s proud face, barely able to conceal his disappointment. Her marriage, he’d told her, hadn’t achieved anything but disgrace as far as he was concerned. If her husband had turned her away after one night, her father had raged, then he too had no option but to send her away.
Amber looked at the passing streets, the impressive Eiffel Tower as it rose skywards above the city. She hadn’t even made it there, let alone the galleries and museums. But she hadn’t expected to be leaving so soon.
‘They shouldn’t have done that.’ Kazim finally spoke, his voice velvety-smooth yet hard-edged, and she reluctantly dragged her gaze from the beautiful city. ‘Your father got what he wanted out of our union. His lands are now very prosperous.’
She shook her head. ‘You don’t understand, Kazim.’
‘What is there to understand?’ His expression hardened as he looked at her before returning his attention to his phone. Seconds later he spoke into the phone in his native tongue and, like a chant, it wound its way around her, tugging at her memories. It took her back to the days when she’d been happy, the long lazy days of childhood spent in her father’s homeland, Quarazmir, to a time when all had been right in her world. At least until she’d been sent to boarding school in England to enable her to learn more of her English heritage, something her father had insisted upon and her mother had fought hard against.
Amber pushed those thoughts aside as Kazim finished his call, slipped the phone back inside his jacket pocket and looked at her. ‘The jet is ready and waiting. We shall be there in little more than an hour.’
‘An hour? I thought we were going to Barazbin.’ Confusion pushed aside her daydreams of times long since passed, sharply bringing the present into focus.
‘I am on my way to England. I have business to conclude before returning to Barazbin.’
Shock ricocheted through her like a pinball. He hadn’t come to Paris especially for her. He’d just stopped off on his journey as if she was nothing more than an irritating loose end that needed tying up. Anger quickly followed the shock and she clenched her fingers tightly in her lap, her nails biting into her palms.
‘You should have told me. I could have made better plans for leaving.’ Or not left at all. Then she remembered Claude and what he stood to gain from her deal with this devil. Guilt tore through her once again. She was doing this for Claude and Annie, not for herself and never for Kazim. As soon as she could, she would leave Barazbin and her marriage behind.
‘What plans would they have been? To slip away, assume a new identity and take on another job in an equally unsavoury establishment?’ Although his deep voice was courteous there was an underlying patronising kick in it.
She blushed. He’d guessed her thoughts but she kept her voice light, trying to provoke a reaction from him, to shake his rigid composure. ‘Would you rather I had told everyone who I was?’
‘No.’ His voice was brusque as she sat forward again. ‘But be warned, Amber. If this episode in your life gets out and threatens all I’m trying to achieve in Barazbin, you will pay dearly.’
‘Now we are getting to the bottom of it all.’ She smiled sarcastically at him. ‘Just what is it you are trying to do—apart from blow my life to pieces again? Why exactly am I, the woman you married and turned your back on in one night, so necessary?’
Just when she thought she was about to unravel the mystery of Kazim’s sudden intrusion into her life, the car stopped. The private jet looming above them brought reality hurtling at her.
She was about to leave with Kazim—a man who had dismissed her from his life so coldly. She had no idea when she would return to Paris, but one thing she was sure of was that she would not be staying in Barazbin long.
* * *
‘We’re here,’ Kazim said, grateful for their timely arrival at the airport. He’d nearly let things slip, nearly told her she was not only of paramount importance to his succession to the throne, but crucial in a deal he was making—a deal to secure peace to his people, a deal very important to him. It was his duty to return to Barazbin with her. A duty he intended to fulfil, whatever obstacles he had to remove.
He’d always wanted to help the nomadic tribes, previously his father’s venture. Now it was time for Kazim to step aside from his successful oil company and take up the position he’d been born to. Duty called and that call was becoming increasingly more insistent.
In an effort to forget a life he’d been forced to forgo,
