‘Our baby,’ she fired back. ‘And my stepfather? What are you going to do about him? No one’s safe while he’s roaming free.’
‘Your stepfather has been returned to jail where he belongs, and he won’t be coming out of prison ever again, once my investigators have shared their information.’
Lucy was stunned into silence. She couldn’t believe that her stepfather’s tyranny was at an end. It meant she was free, and her mother was safe. Tadj had accomplished the seemingly impossible, by lifting a lifetime of fear and dread from her shoulders. ‘It’s really over?’ she whispered as she marvelled at this fact.
‘And always will be from now on,’ Tadj confirmed. ‘I wish you’d told me from the start.’
‘We hardly knew each other,’ she pointed out. ‘I wouldn’t burden you with that on the first day we met.’
‘All the same, I wish you had,’ Tadj told her.
‘How can I ever thank you?’ she asked.
‘I’ll think of something,’ he promised with one of his dark, unreadable looks. ‘But now you’d better get ready for the party. That’s one way you can repay me tonight.’
By keeping up a good front, Lucy thought, longing for more as Tadj added, ‘Call your mother. Let her know the good news, and then get ready. I’ll return to collect you in half an hour.’
‘Half an hour,’ Lucy agreed tensely, knowing the phone call would take up every moment of that time.
* * *
What Lucy could never have expected was that several women would approach the tent just as she had tearfully ended the call to her mother and offer to help Lucy get ready for the party. It was impossible not to succumb to their warmth and friendliness. The way they had welcomed her to their community reminded Lucy of her first day at the laundry, where she’d made so many new friends. Just like them, these women were full of advice on how to wear her hair, and what make-up to put on. Language wasn’t a barrier as several of them spoke English fluently.
‘You should grow your hair,’ one of the women insisted, and when Lucy asked why, she was told that a lover liked to run his fingers through long hair, while another, bolder woman, suggested other uses, when it came to teasing a man into a state where he would agree to anything. Lucy laughed with them, and said that her hair would have to do, and that whatever help they gave her, she would never be glamorous as they were. In Lucy’s opinion, their exotic sloe-eyed beauty completely eclipsed her own Celtic complexion with its peppering of freckles. This statement was greeted by a chorus of disagreement, but what would Tadj think? she wondered when one of the women had directed her to a full-length mirror. Gone was the utilitarian outfit she had arrived in, and in its place was a two-piece of such exquisite workmanship she felt like a queen.
Queen for a night, Lucy reflected ruefully as the women tweaked and smoothed the delicate fabric of her trousers and matching tunic. There wasn’t much they could do with her short haircut other than to place a single hibiscus blossom behind her ear.
So, hang me, I’m excited, she thought, imagining Tadj’s expression when he saw her all dressed up for the party. Even after everything that had happened between them, the prospect of spending time with the sometimes forbidding Emir of Qalala made her face burn and her body sing hallelujah in four-part harmony.
‘You look beautiful,’ one of the older woman told her. ‘The Emir won’t be able to resist you.’
‘He’ll fall in love with you,’ another insisted.
Lucy’s shoulders slumped. Somehow, she doubted that.
‘You’re ready, I see.’
She whirled around to find Tadj standing behind her. He was silhouetted in the opening of the tent, backed by the blaze of countless campfires, and the sight of him dressed in traditional desert garb was enough to convince her that Lucy Gillingham was indeed a lost cause. Her pulse was racing, while her body was going crazy in the presence of her all-powerful fantasy desert Sheikh made all too heart-stoppingly real. In a simple black tunic, with loose-fitting trousers and a headdress wrapped around his fiercely handsome face, this desert king was sex on two hard-muscled legs. She was smitten all over again.
Love swelled inside her. As did doubt. The power of his presence was undeniably formidable, but did Tadj respect her as the mother of his child, or was she a convenient womb, to be dismissed as soon as their baby was safely delivered? For a woman who had seized control of her life and had been steering it in a steady and constant direction for some time now, it was unnerving to know that this was one situation over which she had no control.
Lucy’s stepfather had been a problem, which Tadj had dealt with in his usual incisive way. She wouldn’t be troubled again. Even after everything they’d been through, he wouldn’t change a thing, Tadj concluded as he stared past the group of smiling women to the only woman who could turn his life upside down. Lucy looked stunning tonight, though he’d put her on show, and had expected her to behave a certain way, and that while she was vulnerable and her life was under the microscope. To her credit, she hadn’t let him down. It remained to be seen how she would handle tonight’s raw desert gathering.
Lucy proved to have a natural friendly way with everyone. How could he have forgotten that? he wondered, remembering her many friends at the laundry as he took in the crowd that had gathered around her on cushions in front of the open fire. With one of the older women acting as Lucy’s unofficial interpreter, he wondered if the questions would ever end, though she fielded all of them with grace and humour, which was more than he deserved.
She felt his gaze on her, and stared at him in a way that made him want to join her immediately, but it was time for him to receive the fealty of the heads of tribes. He felt her continuing interest as he did this, and briefly wished he could offer Lucy more, but, until the law of the land was changed, Qalala expected him to make a politically advantageous marriage, and to please his people that would have to be soon.
When the formalities were over, he stripped off his top. Lucy seemed surprised when he dumped it onto the cushion next to her.
‘Are we about to give a practical demonstration of my place in your world?’ she asked discreetly.
Her words made him instantly hard, but he shot her a look, to warn her not to try his patience. No one addressed the Emir of Qalala in front of his people in a disrespectful way. ‘I am preparing for the games,’ he informed her.
Pulling her head back, she gave him one of her looks. ‘Didn’t I just say that?’
‘The desert games,’ he said patiently, though a betraying twitch of his lips might have given him away. No one could make him laugh at himself like Lucy.
‘Indeed,’ she said, flinching when someone handed him a sabre. ‘Don’t cut yourself with that.’
‘I’ll try not to,’ he assured her. Dipping at the waist, he brought his mouth close to her ear. ‘Rest assured, no one has lost their life at one of these gatherings yet.’
‘There’s always a first time,’ she said brightly.
His warning look was completely wasted, though she did have the good grace to look alarmed when one of the tribesmen brought up his horse.
‘Is that thing even safe to ride?’
With a brief ironic glance, he leapt onto the back of his black stallion. ‘We shall see,’ he murmured.
‘Just remember,’ she sa
id, springing up and grabbing the bridle, ‘you’ve got responsibilities now.’
‘You’re beginning to sound like a wife,’ he commented as he wheeled his horse around.
‘And you’re the very spit of a delinquent husband,’ she yelled after him as he galloped away.
He should be angry, but he wanted Lucy too much to be impatient with her for long, and, with the heat of competition on him, he was keen to get these games over with, and turn lust into reality. Whatever the outcome, Lucy would be in his bed tonight, where he’d be sure to make her pay, and in the most pleasurable way imaginable, for her unadulterated cheek.
Stay safe, you stubborn son-of-a-she-wolf, Lucy thought, clenching her fists with anxiety as she watched Tadj line up with the other riders, all of whom were mounted on spirited horses. There were women in the mix, she noticed with interest. So why was she sitting by the fireside? She was a damn good rider, and had been happy on horseback since her father had strapped her into a basket saddle on an old Shetland pony when she could barely walk. And these desert games weren’t so much violent as skilful, she decided as a huge cheer went up. Riders raced down a torchlit track in pairs towards a gourd hanging from a pole. That was exactly the type of game she’d played with her friends. The first jockey to cut the gourd and return to the start line was the winner. Her gaze flashed to the pony lines, where several likely-looking animals stood waiting...