Tariq stilled in surprise and then the beginnings of an amused smile tugged at the corners of his beautiful mouth. ‘Wait and see.’
And the roses began arriving the next day. White roses every day, white roses that filled the house with their rich perfume. No card but she knew, of course she knew, they were from him and she dreamed away every hour, leapt every time the phone rang, but it took him a week to call her.
‘Tell him you’re booked up!’ Lizzie printed on the phone pad when she realised Faye was speaking to Tariq.
Faye gave her sister-in-law an agonised look. At the shortest possible notice, she would have walked barefoot all the way to London in a thunderstorm to see Tariq!
‘I’m sorry, I can’t make it…’
Perhaps another time, Lizzie mouthed at her to repeat and made shocking faces at her until she did so.
‘You’ve got a lot to learn, kiddo.’ Her sister-in-law groaned when Faye was in tears after Tariq rang off without having suggested an alternative. ‘If you want to be kissed off after one date, go ahead and show him how keen you are!’
Only four years older than Faye, Lizzie thought it was all a terrific laugh. When Tariq called Adrian and invited the entire family out to dinner instead, it was also Lizzie who took her husband aside before they went out the following evening to warn Adrian not to drop Faye in it with Tariq about her age.
‘I don’t like the fact you’ve lied at all.’ Adrian looked at his hot-faced sister with surprise and strong disapproval.
‘Give it a rest, Adrian.’ Percy backed Faye up and startled her. ‘It’s not like this little flirtation is likely to go anywhere, is it? Not with him being a royal prince. Let your sister enjoy herself. If a squeaky clean night out for the whole flippin’ family is this bloke’s idea of a hot date, what have you got to worry about?’
In the weeks which followed, Faye worked very hard at telling herself that there was no future in any relationship with Tariq but it did not stop her falling head over heels in love with him. Indeed, realising just how much she loved him soon made her feel very vulnerable and increasingly desperate. Once his father died, she was convinced that she would be ditched and forgotten about because Tariq would be spending more time in Jumar than abroad. Believing that her time with him was running out, believing she was never going to love anyone the way she loved him, she reached an impulsive decision that subsequently proved to be the biggest mistake of her life.
It was so ironic, Faye reflected in mortification as she returned to the present in the tranquil beauty of the Muraaba palace: a year ago, Tariq had sounded so utterly shocked when she’d invited him to spend the night at her home and made it clear that they would be quite alone there. But it was really his own fault that her stupid and unwise invitation had not led to any actual intimacy.
Nervous as she had been, she had tried to create a special ambience for a romantic evening with the man she had loved. The very last thing she had wanted was a guy who showed up late and crushed her tender naïve expectations by saying things like, ‘I won’t be staying all night. I never do when I am with a woman.’
Or: ‘Why must we eat now? I am more likely to be hungry after sex than before it.’
And finally: ‘How many other men have you done this with?’
At what had to have been the ultimate put-down for a virgin, Faye had spilled wine all over herself, burst into floods of tears and raced upstairs. Sticky and reeking of alcohol, she had got into the shower to wash. When she had returned to her bedroom, wrapped only in a bath towel, Tariq had been waiting there. Mere minutes later, Percy had walked in on them and the trap as such had snapped shut without her even appreciating the fact for she had fled back to the bathroom in embarrassment and Tariq had left the house by the time she’d emerged again.
Faye closed her eyes and literally flinched from her memories. What a total idiot she had been to throw herself at Tariq like that! Carried away by her own imagination, she had begun behaving as if she were involved in some great tragic love affair. She had refused to see that that affair as such had existed only in her own head. The humiliating truth was that, in spite of a series of incredibly romantic outings, Tariq had never mentioned love. Indeed, apart from a few light kisses and a little discreet hand-holding, she might well have been a platonic friend. So it was hardly surprising that, after such minor flirtation, Tariq had been pretty taken aback when she’d suddenly chosen to surrender to her own far more passionate inclinations and asked him to spend the night with her! Resting back against the comfortable cushions, Faye slowly drifted to sleep on uneasy acknowledgements that still filled her with pain and deep, deep chagrin.
Faye woke up, dimly conscious of motion, of being too warm, yet of feeling strangely secure in the arms that held her. Arms?
‘Be still…’ As she stirred Tariq’s dark deep-timbred drawl sounded, commanding even when quiet, she noted without surprise.
‘What…wh-where?’ Her eyes opened in the same instant as he laid her down on a comfortable yielding surface. She had a hazy impression of a big sunlit room but the recognition of the reality that she was on a huge canopied bed hit her with more striking effect. At incredible speed, she reared up off the pillows and flipped backwards off the bed again, landing upright like a trained gymnast.
From the far side of the mattress, Tariq surveyed her with transfixed golden eyes. Then he shook his dark head slightly as if he was questioning what he had just witnessed.
‘Lucky fall…’ Faye was furious and embarrassed by her own instinctive and childish reaction. The couple who had looked after her late mother had at one time been circus performers. As a child, with a brother who was frequently ill and a parent who had bad days too, Faye had spent a lot of time with Pearl and Stan. To keep her amused, the kindly couple had taught her some of their skills.
His aristocratic brows drew together. ‘How…and why did you do that?’
How? She didn’t want to answer that for there was nothing very cool or sophisticated about circus tricks in the bedroom. But her heart hammered, her mouth running dry on that second question. Why? Why did he have to be so gorgeous? Why did her rebellious brain throw up a mental image of them entwined in loverlike intimacy on that silk-draped decadent bed? Lust, her conscience told her in reproof, while her gaze rested on his lean, powerful face and, without her seeming volition, widened to take in inch by appreciative inch his long, lithe, muscular physique. The heat she despised sparked a licking, taunting flame in her pelvis. She reddened, shifted her feet, pressed her thighs together in a desperate effort to quench that treacherous response.
‘You frightened me,’ she condemned on a sudden brain-wave, hoping to shift the focus of the dialogue from her acrobatic talents.
‘How did I frighten you?’ Tariq threw his proud dark head back, a level challenge etched in his darkly handsome features.
He was fairly leaping for the red herring she had proffered. But, in a sense, it was true that he frightened her, Faye acknowledged ruefully. However, it was her own lack of control she feared and his power over her. She just looked at him and he sent her traitorous body haywire. Intelligence didn’t get a look-in. She did not need to ask herself why she had turned herself into a lying pushover a year ago!
‘Under no circumstances would I ever hurt a woman.’ As Tariq made that declaration, feverish colour scored his hard cheekbones.
It was extraordinary but he made her feel guilty. Faye backed away from the bed and moved her hands in a rueful dismissive motion. ‘I don’t want to be here and you know that—’
Tariq now viewed her with steady cool. ‘You made the choice.’
‘Between a rock and a hard place?’
‘Welcome to how I felt on the day of our wedding. Trapped like an animal!’ Tariq spelt out, shocking her with that allusion. ‘No choice but to accede to the lesser evil of marrying you. My father was dying. You knew that. What a comfort it would have been for him to learn in his last week of life that his son and heir had
been exposed in some English tabloid as the sordid seducer of a teenage girl!’
Her lashes lowered, her lovely face bled free of colour. ‘But you didn’t—’
‘I need no reminder of that fact.’ Venting a derisive laugh, Tariq strolled forward to capture both her hands in his. He tugged her to him as easily as if she had been a doll. ‘What are the odds of my letting you go untouched a second time? A billion to one?’
The atmosphere sizzled. Tension curled her every nerve-ending. ‘Tariq…’
He released her hands and framed her flushed cheekbones with splayed fingers instead. Molten gold eyes inspected her with hungry precision. His intense gaze enthralled her. She breathed in brief rapid bursts. Excitement was shivering through her in delicious little waves. Excitement was rising in her as fast as her body temperature. Excitement that literally consumed every rational thought.
One hand pushing into her hair, he ran a sensual forefinger along the line of her full lower lip, watched her pupils dilate, her moist pink lips part. And then he met that invitation with the hot devouring hunger of his mouth. For her, the effect was instant conflagration. Every skin cell charged up on the passion he had never shown her before and just went wild. Her hands slid beneath his suit jacket, found silk shirt, clawed it away, finally reached skin, warm, smooth skin covering hard whipcord muscles. She felt him shudder against her, all potent male power and promise, and she melted with liquid longing.
Tariq moulded his hands to the feminine curve of her hips and hauled her closer still, crushing her sensitised breasts to the hard wall of his chest. Low in her throat she moaned acquiescence to the plunging penetration of his tongue. On fire, she gasped, shivering violently, out of control, mindless…ecstatic. With a driven groan, Tariq dragged her back from him.