her wild fears had proved stronger than his young courage.
‘You’re just like the Kaljuks!’ she accused him at last. ‘You want to stop me doing anything except stay at home and have babies!’
Two weeks later she learned from Sami that Salah was in Parvan, fighting alongside Prince Omar and the Cup Companions. The agonizing pain in her heart told Desi the truth of her own feelings, but there was no way to tell Salah now.
Desi had felt utterly helpless. She had destroyed something precious, and now that she saw her mistake, there was no way back.
Before she could think what to do, Leonard J. Patrick came to town.
Leonard J. Patrick was the hot North American modelling agent. He had a nose for what he called raw star quality. When he came gunning for Desi, her future was practically guaranteed: supermodel status, celebrity, stardom. And just then, it seemed like the answer.
He swept Desi off to the best consultants on the continent, gave her a movement coach and a personal trainer. He created a signature look for her.
Desirée. Leo launched her with fanfare, and his nose wasn’t mistaken.
Sometimes she had the feeling, almost too deep to reach, that just because others envied her didn’t mean the life was right for her. She ached for Salah with a need so deep it burned her.
Salah’s been wounded.
Standing by an ocean, plugging one ear against the music and laughter floating from the balcony above the exclusive stretch of beach, Desi had stumbled and almost fallen, as if the ricochet from the bullet had hit her.
‘Wounded? How?’
‘He was leading the charge on a Kaljuk position,’ Sami sobbed out. ‘Baba’s trying to find out more. We think he’s in a field hospital…’
‘A friend of mine has been wounded in the Parvan-Kaljuk War,’ Desi told Leo. ‘I have to go there. Please don’t take any more bookings for me right now.’
But hard as he tried, Leo never managed to make space in her booking calendar…
‘He’s back in Central Barakat,’ Sami told her, sobbing with a mixture of relief and grief. ‘He’s in the best hospital, Uncle Khaled says. Oh, God, Desi, it’s his head!’
Desi sent a card, a cute one with a patched-up teddy bear. Too shy to say all that was in her heart, she wrote only a few lines. If he answered, when he answered, she would be braver. She knew he would answer.
If he could…
At night she dreamed of him. She dreamed he was lost somewhere in the darkness, needing her, calling her name. But she couldn’t find him, and when she opened her mouth to call, she had no voice.
‘He’s out of danger,’ Sami reported, after three nightmare weeks. ‘They’ve taken him home, my aunt is nursing him there now.’
At last a letter came with a Barakati stamp. She knew, she knew it could only be from Salah, and she knew, too, that now she would have the courage to face Leo and tell him what she must: her life here was over. This was not the life for her. She belonged with Salah.
She tore it open in all innocence, her heart wide open.
It was short. Her eyes ran over the few lines, grief clawing at her even before she took in the meaning. Why do you write me? What can we be to each other now? You betrayed your honour. A man must marry a woman of honour, or regret his foolishness all the rest of his life.
Chapter Nine
THE moonlight coming through the fan of coloured glass over the door threw shadows of red, blue and green onto her face as Desi pulled open the door and stepped out onto the balcony. All was still. Moonlight bathed the courtyard, was reflected from the smooth surface of the pool below, bright against the black water, shimmering a little as wind dusted across its surface. The tree rustled, touched by the same soft wind.
A sleepy bird asked the time. A night insect clicked and buzzed in the tumbled greenery.
The wind pressed the silk of her nightshirt against her body, the moon outlining in white gold everything the wind revealed. Wind and Moon conspiring in the revelation of beauty.
No wonder the pagans worshipped them, he thought, when they grant such favours as this.
She shivered, as if sensing his presence, but did not turn to the shadows where he stood waiting.
He had known she would come. True desire would always draw the desired. Desirée. The nightingale sang for the rose…the rose gave up her perfume to the night.
The moon rode fat and heavy in the sky, a few days to the full. Desi leaned on the parapet and looked up to where the dome glowed purple. The palace looked so different in moonlight. Mysterious, its beauty shadowed.
She had loved him so much. She had forgotten just how much. Made herself forget. But he had not killed her love. No, her love had survived that brutality. She had had to kill it by her own hand. Deliberately, so as to be able to live. It was the only way she knew to survive.
Or believed she had killed it. Tonight she understood that her love was a river driven underground, but no less a raging torrent for being secret. Now it flooded up from the fertile earth of her being, smashing its way into the light, gaining strength from the years of being suppressed.
Hot tears stung her eyes. ‘Salah,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, Salah.’
And in that breath he was there, hard and real, his strong arms wrapping her in a sudden, fierce embrace against his naked chest.
‘I knew you would come,’ he growled, and even as she protested, his lips came down hard and possessive on hers. He kissed her until her protest was a moan of deliverance, until the hand that pressed against him melted into submission against his chest, moved up around his neck. Then he swept her up in his arms and carried her back through the doorway to the tumbled bed.
He laid her down among the tossed sheets, but did not take his mouth from hers for a moment. With one hand he tore off the sarong that was the only garment he wore, releasing his hot, hard flesh to press against her thigh as he flung himself against the length of her.
He was consumed with need. He was a fool, but this had been inevitable from the moment he saw her. Her power over him had only increased with time and absence, though he had believed it would be otherwise. Now memory was conspiring with her beautiful sensuality to bring him down.
But at least he would take her with him: she, too, was lost…
Never had she met such ferocity in a kiss. His lips devoured her, setting fire to her blood. He had laid her on the bed and stretched his long body beside her, and still his mouth did not let her go.
One hand caressed and held her throat, pushed at the silk collar, the heat of flesh on flesh. Then there was the high shriek of a tear, and cool air breathed over her breast, for a moment before the fire of his hand clasped her and stroked her.
Her flesh was scorched by the burning need in his touch. Her body arced under his kiss and lifted hungrily against the hungry palm enclosing her breast.
His hand slipped from her breast then, moved against her back, her stomach, her hip, discovering and defining at the same time. Then his hand moved to her thigh, and he cupped her sex with ferocious possession. She melted as if that statement of ownership alone would be enough to bring her to the peak.
He began to stroke her, his fingers hot and strong and knowing, and her body lifted wildly to the pleasure of his touch. She whimpered with pleasure and yearning, the sounds he remembered, and still he did not lift his hungry mouth, but drank in those little mews like wine.
She opened her mouth wider then, as pleasure climbed in her, and he thrust his tongue into the warm hollow, till the double assault left her sobbing with pleasure.
His