accent. And—Lara didn’t know whether she was being simply fanciful—didn’t its deepness and richness remind her of Darian’s voice?
‘Khalim?’
‘Hello, Lara.’
He sounded wary, and Lara couldn’t blame him. He was married to her best friend Rose, and loved her with a fierce and unremitting passion, but he had spent his life being propositioned and pursued by countless other women. Why wouldn’t he be suspicious that Lara had decided to contact him in a way which had been specifically meant to exclude Rose?
‘I know you’re probably wondering why on earth I’m ringing you, and I hardly know how to begin.’
He made no helpful sound. There was merely silence from the other end of the phone. It would have been better to tell him this face to face—but he was hardly going to jump on a plane to England on her say-so, just as she was hardly likely to fly to Maraban at a moment’s notice.
‘Khalim, you know I was working at the Embassy while someone was off sick?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Well…well, one morning this…this letter arrived.’ Lara began to speak, scarcely knowing what it was that she said, because the words seemed to come tumbling out of their own accord and she realised just how much she must have bottled it all up. It was incredible, but as the story unfolded it began to sound more real. She told him that she had found Darian, and that she had met him, deliberately and blushingly skating over the graphic details of their meeting.
‘And that’s it, really,’ she finished, and the sense of a burden shared gave her a brief feeling of lightness. ‘I’m sure that this man Darian Wildman is your half-brother.’
There was a short silence. She could imagine Khalim turning the incredible words over and over in his mind, choosing his own answering words carefully, as he always did—because men like Khalim could not risk misinterpretation, not even by friends.
When he spoke there was no emotion in his voice. ‘You cannot be certain of this, Lara.’
‘I know. I only know what I’ve found.’ She paused. ‘He…he looks like you.’
This time there was a reaction.
‘But he is half-English, you say?’
‘Yes, he is.’ Lara closed her eyes as she remembered the golden eyes and the dark and tawny body, that autocratic air and undeniable sense of solitude which Khalim always carried about him, which Darian shared. ‘But he is unmistakably related to you,’ she finished softly. ‘I am convinced of that.’
Khalim said something rapid in Marabanese.
‘He could be a clever fraud,’ he bit out. ‘An impostor.’
‘How can he be? He knows nothing of the claim,’ argued Lara. ‘Nor anything of the letter.’
‘You hinted at nothing?’
‘Not a thing.’
‘Why, Lara?’ asked Khalim softly. ‘Why did you say nothing to this man of such a momentous discovery?’
‘Because…because…’ Her words trailed off as she recognised that a kind of betrayal had occurred—but surely an inevitable one? ‘Because my first loyalty is to you.’
‘Thank you,’ he said simply. ‘The question is what we do about it now.’
‘Some people might ignore it. Throw the letter away and pretend it never happened. Carry on just as before.’
‘Could you ignore it, Lara?’
Doubt and uncertainty prevailed. Her body still ached from Darian’s lovemaking, her senses were still full of him, her mind unable to banish the image of his hard, mocking mouth softened by her kisses.
‘If you asked me to, then I suppose—’
‘No!’ He cut into her troubled words. ‘Your hesitation does you credit. I would not ask you to ignore it, nor could I ignore it myself—for the hand of fate is at work here. Predestination,’ he mused. ‘Sometimes friend and sometimes foe, but unable to be ignored or avoided. We cannot pretend something has not happened because something has—and because of it—things are for ever changed.’
‘Y-yes,’ said Lara falteringly, and she felt the strangest feeling of foreboding tiptoeing its way up her spine as she repeated his words. ‘For ever changed.’
There was a short silence, and then, unexpectedly, he asked, ‘Do you like him, Lara?’
Lara stared straight ahead. ‘Like’ him? Like did not seem to be a verb that one would apply naturally to a man like Darian Wildman. It seemed much too bland an assessment. And how could she possibly be objective about a man who had been the most wonderful lover she had ever encountered and yet also the most unsatisfactory? But it had only been unsatisfactory from an emotional point of view, and she had only herself to blame. You should not fall headlong into the arms of a man if you could not cope with the fact that he might reject you.
For there had been no word from Darian—not since he had dropped her off at her apartment two nights ago and dropped a perfunctory kiss on her lips that had felt as cold as ice, as different from his hot-blooded kisses when he was making love to her as it was possible to imagine.
But he wasn’t making love to you, said that same, cruel voice which had been tormenting her non-stop. He was simply having sex with you.
‘I’ll give you a ring,’ he had said, but it had sounded casual, and she suspected that he had intended it to do so. He had waited until she was safely inside her front door and then driven off, his powerful car sounding like a fighter jet as it had roared away.
Lara had hoped—like a foolish holder-on to romantic dreams—that perhaps he might have rung her first thing the next morning, told her that it had been beautiful and that he wished he was waking up next to her. Except she suspected that both those things would have been a lie, and something deep down told her that Darian Wildman might be all kinds of things a woman should steer clear of, but dishonest was not one of them. He would speak the truth, she recognised painfully, no matter how much that truth might hurt.
‘I hardly know him,’ she answered now, and her own honesty had the power to hurt, too.
She still didn’t quite believe that she had let him make love to her so quickly. Lara was no prude, but she worked in an industry which was notorious for its fickle sexual values, and up until now she had always fiercely guarded her reputation. Her lovers had been few, and not one of them had lived up to her unrealistically high expectations—until now. But there again never before had she allowed herself to be seduced with such ease, and then to experience such intense and unforgettable pleasure in the arms of a man she barely knew.
So what did that say about her? Maybe she was one of those people who could only be physically fulfilled if there was no true and lasting intimacy. Just like Darian, she recognised, with a sudden sinking sense of insight.
‘Lara,’ said Khalim urgently, ‘I will have to meet him.’
‘But how? And, more importantly, where?’
‘Rose is pregnant,’ Khalim said thoughtfully. ‘And must not be worried. If Darian were brought out to Maraban—’
‘Khalim,’ Lara interrupted, completely forgetting that he was not used to being interrupted, ‘I don’t think you quite understand—he isn’t the sort of man who could be brought anywhere, not unless he was in full agreement.’ A bit like you, she wanted to add, except that it was glaringly obvious. ‘And what are you going to do? Ring him up and mention that you might be related and would he please fly out to Maraban so that you can check him out?’
‘Then I will have to come to London,’ said Khalim slowly. ‘And you must arrange for me to meet him, Lara.’
But how? thought Lara as she slowly put the receiver