She picked up her mobile from the table near the bed before she lost her nerve, focusing on anything but the terror she felt at the thought of what she was about to do. And how it would affect her life.
This wasn’t just about her. Not when she now knew she could put that money to good use. Vital use.
Zafir had made it clear that he would walk away, and if Kat knew anything about him it was that he meant what he said. He was a proud man. He wouldn’t ask again and he certainly wouldn’t beg.
As Kat dialled her friend’s number and waited for her to answer, she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror again. She scowled at her flushed face and the too-bright eyes that whispered that her decision had a lot less to do with altruism and more to do with something much darker and far more ambiguous deep inside her.
And then Julie answered and Kat had a split second to decide whether to take a step into a dangerous future or remain safe in the past.
CHAPTER THREE
ZAFIR STOOD AT the window of his penthouse study and looked out over Manhattan, sparkling under the autumn sun, with Central Park in the distance. He was trying not to acknowledge the sense of triumph and satisfaction rushing through his blood, but it was hard.
Along with it, though, had come something far more contradictory—a kind of disappointment—and Zafir realised that it was because when he’d walked away from Kat last night she’d seemed so resolute. And, as much as it had irritated him intensely, he’d admired it on some level. It was rare to find anyone going against him in anything—especially since he’d become King.
He recalled getting into his car last night and how stunned he’d been that she’d turned him down. And then how he’d had to physically restrain himself from instructing his driver to turn around so that he could go back to Kat’s apartment and shatter that cooler than cool reception by reminding her
in a very explicit way of just how good it had been between them. How good it could be again.
And yet before 8:00 a.m. this morning his personal phone had rung and it had been her agent, confirming that Kat had decided to take on the assignment after all.
At this very moment she was with her agent and his legal advisors, signing the contract, and then she was due to spend the rest of the day and tomorrow in preparation for the tour with a team of stylists. Rahul would go through the itinerary with her and make sure her passport and travel documents were in order for when they left the United States.
So her cold stonewalling and reluctance last night had been an act. Much like the act she’d fooled everyone with when he’d first met her, projecting a false persona of someone who was honest and hard-working, making the most of the opportunities presented to her.
She’d been honest, at least, about coming from a poor background—which in Zafir’s eyes had only made her more commendable. She’d epitomised the American dream of grit and ambition and achieving success no matter what your circumstances were.
But in actual fact her story had been a lot darker and murkier. She’d had a huge personal debt she’d never revealed—in spite of commanding eye-wateringly high fees as one of the most in-demand models of her time. She’d had a drug-addicted mother, no father to speak of, and barely any education. Not to mention the coup de grâce—those provocative pictures taken when she was only seventeen years old, apparently in a bid to make money so her mother could score her next fix.
Even now when Zafir thought of those explicit pictures he felt his vision cloud over with a red mist and his hands curl to fists in his pockets. Kat had been so young, and yet she’d looked at the camera almost defiantly. The rage he’d felt towards the person behind the camera had scared him with its intensity. But what he’d felt towards Kat had been much more complicated—anger, disappointment. Protectiveness. Betrayal.
When he’d confronted her with the headlines due to hit the news stands within hours, he’d wanted to hear her say that she’d been an unwilling victim, so that he could apportion blame to someone else and not her... But she’d agreed with him that she was not perfect. That she was flawed. And then she’d walked out of his apartment and disappeared, leaving him with a futile anger that had corroded his insides as he’d gone over it in his head again and again, trying to make sense of how he could have been so naive...
It had made him doubt if she’d even been a virgin, or if that had been part of an elaborate ruse to attract his jaded interest. Certainly her innocence had shocked him at the time when she’d admitted it; he’d believed virgins in their twenties to be as mythical as unicorns, and it had dissolved some of Zafir’s very cynical defences.
And yet in spite of that history he was bringing her back into his world. Because he had to have her. Zafir’s jaw clenched. He did not like being at the mercy of desires he couldn’t control. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he’d been her first lover, making his connection to her feel somehow more primal...
But, he reasoned to himself, now he knew all Kat’s secrets. Now he knew that she was suitable only to sate this fever burning in his body. He would never put her on a pedestal again, or imagine for a second that she could be the woman who would stand alongside him in front of his people.
* * *
Kat took in her reflection in the floor-length mirror. At that moment she was almost glad that Julie had had to leave her with the team of stylists and hair and make-up artists and go back to work. She needed to be alone right now.
She was dressed from head to toe in a black velvet sleeveless haute couture gown with a deep vee that ran almost down to her navel, exposing more skin than she had in years. Her hair was pulled back in a rough chignon. The heavy make-up felt strange on her face after not wearing any for so long. And she was wearing heels—albeit only two-inch heels.
Her critical gaze travelled down her body and she lifted up the bottom of the dress. Her breath caught. To the untrained eye her legs looked absolutely normal. As they’d always looked.
In the place of her habitual prosthetic limb was the cosmetic one that Julie had insisted on Kat being fitted for some months ago. It had been specially made for her in a factory in the UK, in a bid to show Kat that perhaps embarking on more than hand modelling was possible, but this was the first time she’d put it to use. And luckily the fit was still fine.
Kat looked down. It was remarkable. Her toenails were painted. She could even see veins. No one would notice a thing. A bubble of emotion rose up from her chest and she looked up again, letting the dress fall back, blinking her eyes rapidly to get rid of the sudden and mortifying onset of tears.
She was slightly ashamed of how overcome she felt to see herself like this, when she’d never expected to see herself like this again. When she’d thought she’d closed the door firmly on her old life. When she’d told herself that she’d never really felt a part of that world.
And yet here she was, feeling such a mix of emotions that it only proved to her that she was more tied to her old life than she’d realised.
A sharp rap sounded on the door to the bedroom in the lavish suite where she’d been changing into countless outfits and she called out hurriedly, ‘Just a second.’
No doubt the stylists were eager to see the dress on her, as it was the one she’d wear on the first night of the tour, chosen for its clean lines so that the diamond would be shown to its best advantage.