She sensed just as much as she saw his mental retreat. It was there in the yawn, the way he hadn’t been tender, or kissed the top of her head, or told her that it had been amazing. But there were still things she needed to know. She had allowed herself to be seduced, and in so doing she had momentarily veered off course, but she needed to know one thing above all else.
‘How old are you?’
Darian was rarely surprised by a woman, particularly after he had just had sex with her; women tended to be predictable in their reactions to fast physical intimacy—they either acted as if you were about to start choosing the ring, or they started asking unanswerable questions like, Do you still respect me? But this was the last question he had been expecting.
Was it a Why aren’t you married yet? kind of question? And would other inevitable questions follow—like why had he never settled down before and didn’t he ever want children? The last drop of pleasure evaporated in an instant, like rain splashing onto a sunbaked pavement. ‘Thirty-five. Why?’
She felt the walls close in, and it had nothing to do with the odd, cold note which had entered his voice.
Thirty-five!
Which made him exactly the same age as Khalim. Or, rather, it probably made him older—because surely Khalim’s father would not have had a lover straight after he was married? And the repercussions of that just didn’t bear thinking about.
Suddenly something which had been almost abstract was brought into harsh and painful reality, and she knew that this was a responsibility too much to bear alone.
She had to tell someone, but it could not be Darian.
Not yet.
She ran her fingertips over his chest, her blood running icy-cold in her veins.
‘I think I’d better go home now,’ she said.
He only just resisted a sigh of relief. ‘Okay,’ he agreed. ‘I’ll get dressed and then I’ll drive you.’
‘I can get a taxi.’
‘I said I’d take you,’ he said, in a tone which broached no argument.
Lara thought that she would have preferred to take a cab, alone with the reality of what a huge mistake she had just made.
Because the fact that he hadn’t tried to talk her out of leaving told its own story.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THERE was a click on the line and Lara waited, as she had been waiting on and off for the past two days—but of course it was never going to be an easy matter to get through to Prince Khalim of Maraban. Despite the fact that phone lines to the mountain kingdom were notoriously unreliable, and the fact that she counted herself as his friend, Lara was pragmatic enough to realise that no one ever really became close to such a powerful and enigmatic figure. Certainly not close enough to just pick the phone up, get connected immediately and say Hi!
And she still hadn’t worked out exactly what she was going to say to him when he finally answered anyway.
‘Hello?’
It was unmistakably Khalim’s voice—deep, with the slightest 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.