flashed him a furious glance. “It’s all very well for you, sitting in your control box.”
He laughed, his eyes dancing, teasing, enjoying his control. “Are you a virgin, Sarah?”
“That’s none of your business!” she cried, futilely willing the rush of hot blood to her face to recede.
“Just curious. You’re so uptight…”
“There’ve been plenty of men interested in me.”
“Was the interest returned?”
She thought of the “precious” young men her mother had lined up as “catches” for her before she’d left London. Compared to Tareq al-Khaima they were bloodless boys. She was swimming with a shark in these waters. Which raised the question of how many willing women he’d gobbled up along the way.
“Let’s talk about you,” she said defiantly.
“By all means. What do you want to know?”
“No doubt you’ve had quite a love-life.”
“A little correction there. I don’t think love has ever entered into it. Desire, certainly. Satisfaction, yes. Mutual pleasure definitely attained…”
“All right!” she cut him off, disturbed by the images running through her mind. “Let’s say sex-life.”
“Ah, yes. Well, I can’t deny having had considerable experience.”
The smile lurking on his mouth was tauntingly sensual. Sarah could feel her blood heating up again. She had no difficulty in believing he was a very sexy man when he put his mind to it. If he put his mind to it with her…but it would be madness to succumb even if she did wonder what it might be like with him. Where could it lead? He was a sheikh, tied to a culture that was very foreign to her.
“Won’t it put other women off, having me tagging along with you everywhere?” she commented archly, wondering if he’d looked down the track to see the consequences of his decision.
“Not at all. You’d be surprised,” he said cynically.
He was right. Even marriages didn’t stop some people from going after what they wanted.
“What about your family? It could give them the wrong impression.”
His mouth curled with some private satisfaction. “They will think what I tell them to think. Where my family is concerned, it suits me very well to have you with me, Sarah.”
His ruthless streak was showing again. This time it piqued her curiosity. “Why?” she asked, wondering if he was at odds with them.
He weighed the question, his eyes regarding her speculatively. Eventually he said, “My background is similar to yours…a broken marriage, my mother returning to England, the agreement that I be educated there at Eton and Oxford. It got me out of the way for my father’s second wife and the family they had together.”
No wonder he had been sympathetic to the child she had been, cut adrift between two worlds and not really belonging to either. He really had understood and possibly empathised with her sense of apartness, her loneliness, the feeling of being a shuttlecock in an adult game that sought only personal gratification.
“The difference is…the complication is…I’m my father’s eldest son, despite my mixed heritage,” he said sardonically. “The sheikhdom had to pass to me when he died.”
“Did you want it?”
A flash of ruthless possessiveness in his eyes. “I was entitled to it.”
And no one was going to take that away from him, Sarah interpreted.
“Though the truth is…I am not in tune with my people. For years now, my uncle has ruled in my absence while I maintain a diplomatic role. It has suited us both very well. But circumstances change. My oldest half-brother will soon marry the daughter of a very powerful family. Ahmed and Aisha make a formidable coupling. If they work against me, it could stir some political instability. My uncle is pressing for me to marry a woman of his choice to cement my position.”
Sarah inwardly recoiled against the concept of an arranged marriage although she knew it was done and accepted in eastern cultures. For Tareq, it would seem the most sensible decision to make.
“You don’t want that?” she queried.
A flash of steely pride. “No one dictates my life anymore, Sarah.”
She could well believe it!
“Naturally I will be attending my half-brother’s wedding. And you’ll be with me. It neatly disposes of any machinations my uncle might have in mind.”
So Tareq had a purpose for her. Sarah could see it was very convenient for him to have a woman on tap who’d agreed to stay with him for a year. No possibility of a refusal to accompany him. No running away, no matter how sticky the situation.
The bargain he’d offered her suited him on many levels.
“I suppose you’ll want us to pretend to be…” lovers teetered on her tongue and she quickly withdrew it as a possibly dangerous suggestion. “…closer than we really are in front of your family.”
Amusement sparkled. “I don’t think any pretence will be necessary.”
Did he mean to seduce her before then? Sarah’s heart flipped over. Her whole body started churning as she remembered how he’d measured her desirability. Then, when he’d offered the bargain, she’d stood like a mesmerised idiot, letting him touch her. Had that assured him he could make her willing?
“You’ll soon get bored with me, you know,” she fired at him, hating the thought he was confident of arranging everything his way. She might have agreed to being his companion but she wasn’t his slave!
His amusement broke into a laugh that tap-danced all over Sarah’s nervous system. “I can’t remember when I’ve felt so challenged by a woman. But you could be right. A year is a good test.”
A year…
God help her!
She turned to look out the window again, knowing more now but not exactly comforted by the knowledge. They were passing by familiar Werribee landmarks. Soon she would be saying goodbye to all this, leaving the safe little world where she had been closeted for two years.
Her heart began to ache. She would miss Jessie and the boys. Though Tareq was right. They were Susan’s children, not hers. All the same, it didn’t mean she couldn’t love them…her half-sister and half-brothers. They were the only family she had.
Tareq had capitalised on her feeling for them.
She was risking herself for their sake and they’d probably never know. Not that it mattered. She knew. Regardless of what happened to her, something good had been achieved. Jessie and the twins would not become the flotsam of a broken family.
Like her.
Like Tareq.
Except no one in their right mind could think of Tareq al-Khaima as flotsam.
AS THE LIMOUSINE came to a halt in front of the house, Sarah saw Jessie zoom along the veranda in her electric wheelchair, heading for the series of ramps that would bring her down to the road. She could go almost anywhere on the property in the custom-made chair, the powered base giving it a four-wheel suspension and amazing mobility. the novelty of seeing a stretch limousine at close quarters was not about to be missed.
Jessie wasn’t the only one whose curiosity and interest were aroused. The foreman’s wife came to the veranda railing, watching as the chauffeur opened The passenger door. Sarah waved to her as she stepped out, determined on acting