jacket and handed it back to him. ‘Thanks, but I don’t need this. I prefer to go inside to warm up.’
He couldn’t be serious about marrying her. Why would he be? She didn’t understand what game he was playing, but she knew she didn’t want to be a part of it.
Something flickered in his eyes. Something dangerous. ‘You will come with me. Now.’ It was an unmistakable command and she gave a slight shiver of reaction.
No one argued with Tariq—she should have remembered that. His authority was absolute. Once, his status alone had been sufficient to render her tongue-tied, but not any more. She’d had plenty of time to reflect on what had happened between them. And she’d grown up.
‘Why would I want to go anywhere with you?’ She forced herself to speak lightly. Forced herself not to betray the effect he had on her. ‘So that you can show me the way to paradise? I’ve been there once before, Tariq, and I think I must have taken a wrong turning because, frankly, it wasn’t up to much. Excuse me, I’m going back inside.’
Long bronzed fingers caught her wrist in a steely grip. ‘I wish to talk to you properly. In private.’
‘But I don’t wish to talk to you in private, or in public, come to that. Five minutes in your company has been enough to convince me that you haven’t changed one bit so take my advice and quit while you’re only slightly behind.’
His glance reflected barely contained frustration. ‘You will come with me.’
‘Why? Because you order it? I don’t wish to go anywhere with you so what are you going to do? Kidnap me?’
His dark eyes were suddenly veiled. ‘I hardly think such extreme measures will be required.’
She risked a glance at him and realized with a jolt that he was deadly serious. He wanted her. Why? She wondered desperately. Because she’d finally managed to reinvent herself? Because, on the surface at least, she’d turned into the woman her mother had always wanted her to be? ‘Do you really think I’m going to walk back into your arms?’
‘If you’re honest about your feelings, then yes. It’s still there. Farrah—’ he used his superior strength to hold her fast when she would have run ‘—you can feel it and so can I. And I’m offering you what you’ve always wanted. Don’t let a childish tantrum deprive you of your dream.’
Her heart thundered against her chest. ‘Even for a sultan, you are insufferably arrogant,’ she gasped, trying to ignore the tiny shockwaves that gripped her body. ‘And any dreams I might have had about you ended five years ago. You had your chance with me, Tariq, and you blew it. End of story.’
Far from being disconcerted, his eyes gleamed and she remembered too late that Tariq thrived on challenge. He was a man who hunted for obstacles just so that he could smash them down and prove his superiority.
‘I am willing to play this your way for a while, Farrah, while you get used to the idea that we are going to be together again. But as my future wife you must abide by a certain code of behaviour. I understand you are to take part in the charity fashion show imminently.’
Farrah stared at him blankly. The fashion show? She’d forgotten all about the fashion show. The only thing on her mind since he’d walked on to the terrace had been escape. From him and from her jumbled feelings. His reminder of her commitment to the charity made her heart drop. She wasn’t at all sure she could make it through another couple of hours, especially not in such a public way. Everyone would be looking at her. Including Tariq.
She opened her mouth to tell him that she was going to make her excuses but his eyes flashed dark and menacing, his ebony brows drawn together in a disapproving frown.
‘I forbid you to take part.’
‘You forbid—?’ The word made her temper simmer and suddenly she struck on a foolproof way of removing him from her life again. After all, wasn’t her ‘inappropriate behaviour’ one of the main reasons he’d cited for being unable to marry her? ‘You don’t want me to be in the fashion show, Tariq?’ Suddenly she realized that appearing in the fashion show would be the perfect way of guaranteeing his rapid exit from her life.
‘As my future wife, it would not be appropriate.’
‘Good, that settles it, then,’ she said sweetly as she twisted her arm free of his grip, ‘because I intend to do the fashion show. So perhaps you’d better look elsewhere for the wife you so desperately need, Your Excellency.’
He inhaled sharply, disbelief flickering in his dark eyes. ‘You persist in this ridiculous pretence that you’re not interested. Do you understand what it is that I am proposing?’
‘Proposing?’ She tilted her head and her eyes sparkled with anger. ‘Sorry, I didn’t actually hear a proposal. I heard you ordering and forbidding and doing all the things that you’re really, really good at. You’re going to have to go and find someone else to command, Tariq, because I’m not interested.’
Without giving him a chance to respond, she walked past his bodyguards, back through the ballroom and into the room where they were frantically preparing for the fashion show. Her heart was thumping, her hands felt clammy and she felt physically sick as she joined the other girls who were modelling that evening.
His wife?
Why would he say such a thing?
Why on earth would he suddenly be talking about marrying her after five years of silence? What was going on? And why did her body still respond even though she knew what sort of man he was?
Like all addictive habits, she thought gloomily, you always wanted what was bad for you. And Tariq was extremely bad.
‘Farrah, thank goodness!’ Enzo Franconi, the famous Italian designer, embraced her with relief. ‘We thought you’d gone home and I have the most spectacular dress for you to wear tonight. I predict that you will shine, you will positively dazzle, you will—’
‘No dress.’ Farrah’s tone was grim as she slipped off her shoes and yanked the pins out of her hair. ‘Are you showing any swimwear, Enzo?’ Her hair fell smooth and sleek down her back while Enzo gaped in astonishment.
‘Of course. But you never model swimwear. Always you refuse to dress in anything so revealing.’
Farrah’s mind was on Tariq. On his proposal of marriage. He couldn’t have been serious. It didn’t make sense. ‘Well, tonight I’m not refusing. I’ll wear whatever you’ve got—but preferably the most shocking, daring thing in your collection.’
She didn’t understand what the Desert Prince was doing here tonight. But there was one thing that she did know for sure. If she wore something revealing on the catwalk he wouldn’t be bothering her again. A man as traditional and conservative as Tariq appreciated subtlety and dignity and she was determined to offer neither. She was going to drive him away by being as unsuitable as it was possible to be.
‘I do have something—’ Enzo waved a hand in a gesture as nervous as it was excited ‘—but you would never agree to wear it.’
‘I’m sure it will be absolutely perfect.’ Perfect to send Tariq as far away from her as possible. Once he had seen her making a display of herself in public he would march out of the room and she could get on with her life.
Enzo
