talking about hiring someone—a model—someone who will actually wear the jewel and come with us on the tour. Someone who will walk with us among the guests at each function, so they can appreciate the jewel’s full beauty, see how it lives and breathes—just like Jandor’s beauty.’
Zafir looked at Rahul for a long moment. This was why he’d hired the younger man after all—to inject new blood into his father’s archaic council.
The idea had merit, and Zafir assessed it in seconds. However he was about to dismiss it for various reasons—not least of which were to do with security—but just as he opened his mouth to speak an image exploded into his head, turning his words to dust.
He immediately turned away from the younger man, for fear that something would show on his face. All he could see was her, lying on a bed, with her long, sinuous limbs and her treacherously hypnotic beauty, naked but for the jewel that nestled between her high, full breasts. It would glow fiery red against that perfect pale skin.
As red as his blood—which wasn’t simmering now. It had boiled over.
He’d allowed the floodgates to open, and right at that moment Zafir knew there was only one way to rid himself of this ache and move on. And he had to move on. His country depended on it.
Zafir’s mind reeled as the idea took root and embedded itself deep inside him. Was he really considering revisiting the past and the one person he’d vowed never to think or speak of again?
A spurt of rebelliousness and something much more ambiguous ignited inside him.
Why not?
This could be the perfect opportunity to sate his desires before he committed to his full responsibilities and the people of Jandor owned him completely. And there was only one woman Zafir wanted.
She owed him, he told himself grimly. She’d lied to him. She’d betrayed him by not revealing her true self, her true nature. She’d walked out of his life eighteen months ago and he hadn’t had enough of her. She’d left him aching and cursing her.
The fact that he’d once considered her suitable to be in his long-term future was a reminder that was unwelcome. This time when he took her he would know exactly who she was. And he would feel nothing but lust and desire. He would have her long legs wrapped around him again and he would sink deep enough inside her to burn away this irritating lingering lust.
He turned back to Rahul, who was looking nervous again.
‘Sire, it was just a—’
Zafir cut him off. ‘It was a brilliant suggestion and I know exactly who will be our model.’
Rahul frowned. ‘Who, Sire?’
Zafir’s pulse thundered in his veins. ‘Kat Winters—the American supermodel. Find out where she is. Now.’
A week later, Queens, New York
Zafir observed her from the back of his car, with the window rolled down. He couldn’t quite believe his eyes—that Kat Winters was working in a busy midrange restaurant in Queens. But, yes...one of the world’s arguably most beautiful women was currently wearing skinny jeans and a white T-shirt with a black apron around her small waist. Her hair was piled up in a messy knot on her head and there was a pencil stuck through it, which she was now fumbling for as she took an order.
Everything in Zafir recoiled from this very banal scenario—except it wasn’t disgust he was feeling, seeing her again. It was something much hotter and more urgent. Even dressed like this and without a scrap of make-up she was exquisite. A jewel such as she could not be hidden in a place like this. What the hell was she doing here? And what the hell was she doing going under another name—Kaycee Smith? And how dared she refuse to even consider the offer he’d sent to her via her agent?
Her agent had sent back a terse response:
Kat Winters is no longer available for modelling assignments.
Please do not pursue this request.
No one refused Zafir. Or warned him off. Least of all an ex-lover.
He issued a curt instruction to his driver now, and his window rolled up silently as he got out of the car and stretched to his full height of six foot four. He recalled Kat in vertiginous heels, the way it had put her mouth well within kissing distance. The way her added height had aligned their bodies so perfectly. He watched her walk away from the table and grimaced when he saw she was wearing sneakers.
Not for long, he vowed as he moved forward to the door of the restaurant. Soon she would be in heels again, and soon that lush mouth would be his again. All of her would be his again.
He had no idea what she was playing at, with this meek little game of being a waitress, but he was certain that once she heard what he had to say she’d be demonstrating her gratitude that he was prepared to give her another chance to be in his life and in his bed again, even just for a few brief weeks, in the most satisfactory way.
* * *
‘Kat.’
It took a second for the significance of that word to sink in. No one here called her Kat. They called her Kaycee. And then there was the voice. Impossibly deep. And the way Kat had been pronounced, with the flat inflection that had always made it sound exotic. And authoritative—as if her name was a command to look at him, give him her attention.
It took another second for the realisation to hit her that there was only one person who could have spoken.
With the utmost reluctance, vying with disbelief, she looked up from the countertop.
Zafir.
For a moment she simply didn’t believe it. He couldn’t be here. Not against this very dull backdrop of a restaurant in Queens. He inhabited five-star zones. He breathed rarefied air. He moved in circles far removed from this place. This man was royalty.
He was a King now.
And yet her agent had told her only a couple of days ago that he’d asked for her, so she should have been prepared. But she’d blocked out any possibility of this happening. And now she was sorry, because she wasn’t remotely prepared to see the man she’d loved with such intensity that it had sometimes scared her.
She blinked, but he didn’t disappear. He seemed to grow in stature. Had he always been so tall? So broad? But she knew he had. He was imprinted on her brain and her memory like a brand. The hard-boned aristocratic features. The deep-set dark grey eyes that stood out against his dark olive skin. The thick dark hair swept back off his high forehead. That perfect hard-muscled body without an ounce of excess fat, its power evident even under a suit and overcoat.
He was clean-shaven now, instead of with the short beard he’d worn when she’d known him, and it should have made him look somehow less. But it didn’t. It seemed to enhance his virility in a way that was almost overwhelming.
She hadn’t even realised she’d spoken his name out loud until the sensual curve of those beautifully sculpted lips curved up slightly on one side and he said, ‘You remember my name, then?’
The mocking tone which implied that it was laughable she could have possibly forgotten finally broke Kat out of her dangerous reverie and shock. He was here. In her space. The man she’d had dreams and nightmares about meeting again now that her life had changed beyond all recognition.
In her nightmares he looked at her with disgust and horror, and to her mortification she woke up crying more often than not. Her dreams were no less humiliating—they were X-rated, and she’d wake up sweating, believing for a second that she was still whole...still his.
But she was neither of those things. Not by a long shot.
Her pulse quickened treacherously, even though his presence heralded an emotional pain she’d hoped had been relegated to the past but which she was now discovering not to be the case.
She spoke sharply. ‘What are you doing here, Zafir? Didn’t you get my agent’s message?’