first set eyes on him. If she could have imagined her perfect man, it would have been Rafiq. Long, muscled legs, broad shoulders, and a chest that had been like a magnet for her innocent hands.
She would glide them around him, and he’d wrap her in his arms and tell her that she was the most beautiful woman in the world and that he would love her for ever…
Pain sliced through her, deep and savage, old wounds ripping open so jaggedly that she had to bury her face in her hands and cover her mouth to stop herself from crying out. What was the point of bringing it all back? It was so long ago, and times had changed.
Except Rafiq hadn’t. He was magnificent. A man in his prime.
A man who hated her.
‘Is something wrong?’
His voice tangled with her thoughts, and she opened her eyes to see that they had left the city behind. Only the occasional home or business lined the bitumen highway out of the city, the landscape giving way to desert as they headed inland.
Two days she must spend in his company, and he had to ask if something was wrong? What did he think? ‘I’m fine,’ she answered softly. There was no point saying what she really thought or what she really felt. She’d learned that lesson the hard way.
‘You don’t look fine.’
She bit her lip, refusing to face him, gathering her robes a little tighter around herself, resenting the fact he wouldn’t just let her be. It was true she would feel better if he wasn’t right there next to her, brooding and magnificent at the same time. And she would feel much better if the air didn’t carry the faint hint of his cologne, seductive and evocative. But right now she was stuck with both, and there wasn’t one thing she could do about it but survive. And if there was one thing Hussein had taught her to be good at, it was survival.
‘I am sorry to offend.’ She folded her hands in her lap and sat up straighter against the leather upholstery, watching the desert speed by.
What had happened to her? This was not the Sera he knew. Or had she always been destined to turn into this bland, cowering shadow of a woman? Had her character been flawed from the very beginning and he’d been lucky to escape from her clutches when he had? Would he now be regretting it if she hadn’t found a higher-ranking, more wealthy target to get her claws into? Wouldn’t that be ironic? He was a prince now. What would that have meant to a woman who had married for wealth and prestige? Maybe there was another reason for her to look so sullen—mourning the big fish she had inadvertently thrown back and that had got away.
He sat back in his seat, the Arabic music the driver had found on the radio weaving patterns through his mind, giving birth to yet another unsatisfactory line of thought.
For, whatever troubled her, and however her mind worked, she was closing him out again, fleeing from him in mind and spirit as surely as she had fled from him in the stone passageway. Was this her tactic, then, to stay silent in the hopes he would leave her alone?
Not a chance.
He hadn’t dragged her out here simply so she could cower in a corner and pretend he wasn’t here.
‘How long have you been with my mother?’
He caught her sigh, felt her resignation and more than a hint of resentment that she would not be able to avoid answering his questions, and was simultaneously delighted that his tactic was working and annoyed at her reaction. Was it such a chore for her to be with him? Such an imposition? Once upon a time she would have turned and smiled with delight at the sound of his voice. She would have slid her slender hands up his chest and hooked them around his neck and laughed as he spun her slim body around, laughed until he silenced her laughter with his kisses.
Once upon a time?
Since when did nightmares start with ‘once upon a time’?
‘How long?’ he demanded, when she took too long to answer.
Tentatively she turned her head towards him, her gaze still hovering somewhere around his knees. ‘A year. Maybe a little longer.’
‘I didn’t see you at Xavian’s—Zafir’s—wedding. But you must have been in the palace then.’
‘I chose not to go.’
‘Because I was there?’
Her eyes flicked up to his. Skittered away again just as quickly.
‘Partly. But my h…Hussein’s family were also in attendance. And some of his associates. It was wiser for me to keep my distance.’
He wondered why she had hesitated over calling him her husband. But if he was honest he was more annoyed that it wasn’t his presence that had kept her away. ‘You don’t get on with them?’
She seemed to consider his question for a while, sadness welling in her eyes. ‘It is easier for all concerned if I remain in the background.’
He took it as confirmation. ‘And so my mother took you in.’
She nodded, the long dark curve of her lashes fluttering down. She was all about long lines, he realised. Always had been. Still was. The long sweep of her lashes, the smooth line of her high cheekbones and the sweeping curve to her jaw, the generous symmetry of her lips.
And maybe for now the rest of her was hidden under her voluminous robe, but he remembered how she looked. How she felt under his hands and the way she moved. Though the robe covered her completely, he knew she was little changed from those days.
His head rocked back, his hands raking through his hair as he was overcome by the sheer power of the memories of the past.
She could have been his. She should have been. She had already been part of him, as much a part of him as breathing, and he could have had her—all of her. Oh, God, and he’d been tempted…so tempted. And in the end only the vow he’d made had held him back.
Because she’d been so perfect. And he’d wanted everything to be right for her. He’d wanted everything to be as perfect as she was. And for that reason he had not touched her that way. Not until their wedding night, when they could be united for ever. Legally and morally.
Body and soul.
A wedding night he had wanted and planned and longed for with all his heart. A wedding night they had never had.
Because she’d given herself to someone else first.
God, what kind of madness had made him think he was ready to face again the woman who’d done that to him?
He brought his head back down on an exhale, opened his eyes and saw her watching him, her dark eyes so filled with concern that his fingers stalled in his hair. Damn it, he didn’t want her sympathy! He let his hands drop into his lap.
Her eyes followed the movement, a frown marring her perfect brow. ‘Are you all right?’
And it took him a breath or two until he was sure he was back in control, until he’d clamped down on the memories of heated kisses and shared laughter, of silken skin and promises of for ever that had come surging back in such a tidal force of emotion, the feelings that had lain buried for so long under a concrete-thick layer of hatred.
‘Jetlag,’ he lied, his voice coarse and thick, and designed to close off all conversation as he turned away to stare unseeingly out of his window.
CHAPTER FOUR
TWO hours out of Shafar the cars turned off the highway, heading along a sandy track through the desert. They would meet up with the narrow coast road much further on, where the track met the coastline, and where their camp should be ready for them if they needed to stop.
The going was tougher here, and the cars ground their way over the uneven and sometimes deeply rutted track, their passengers bouncing upon the upholstery as the car jolted them around. Far ahead they could just make out