He shrugged. ‘I would have thought that extremely unprofessional behaviour on his part.’
‘I hardly think that you’re in any position to pass judgement on flirting,’ she murmured.
Tariq drummed his fingers against one tense thigh. It was not the response he’d been expecting. A firm assertion that the doctor had been wasting his time would have been infinitely more desirable. Isobel was resolutely single, and that was the way he liked it. It meant that she could devote herself to his needs and be there whenever he wanted her.
‘I thought you only told him all that stuff about taking me to your cottage to get him off my back,’ he objected.
‘But that would have been dishonest.’
‘Do you always have to be so damned moral?’
‘One of us has to have morals.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Is that supposed to be a criticism?’
‘No, Tariq,’ she answered calmly. ‘It’s merely an observation.’
He stared at her set profile and inexplicably began to notice the way the pale spring sunshine was picking out the lights in her hair, turning it a glowing shade of amber. Had the doctor also noticed its subtle fire? he wondered. Would that explain his behaviour? ‘I don’t know why you’re dragging me out to the back of beyond,’ he said, ‘when I can rest perfectly well at home.’
‘In central London?’ She gave a dry laugh. ‘With the press baying at your door like hounds and all your ex-girlfriend
s lining up to offer to come and mop your brow for you? I don’t think so. You’ll be much safer at my cottage. Anyway, it’s a done deal. I’ve informed the office that you’ll be incommunicado for a week, and that all calls are to come through me. Fiona in the PR office is perfectly capable of running things until we get back. I’ve had your housekeeper pack a week’s worth of clothes, which are being couriered down. And I haven’t told anybody about your exact whereabouts.’
‘My brother—’
‘Except for your brother,’ she concurred, remembering the brief conversation she’d had earlier that day with the ruler of Khayarzah. ‘I telephoned the palace and spoke to the King myself—told him that you’re on the mend but that you needed to recuperate. He wanted you flown to Khayarzah, but I said that you would be fine with me.’ She shot him a glance. ‘That was the right thing to do, wasn’t it?’
‘I suppose so,’ he answered moodily, but as usual she had done exactly the right thing. The last thing he needed was the formality of palace life—with all the strictures that came with it. He’d done his level best to escape from the attendant attention which came with being the brother of the King—a role which had been thrust on him when his brother had suddenly inherited the crown. A role which had threatened his freedom—something he had always guarded jealously. Because wasn’t his freedom the only good thing to have emerged from the terrible isolation of his childhood?
He fixed her with a cool and curious stare. ‘You seem to have it all worked out, Izzy.’
‘Well, that’s what you pay me for.’ She glanced in the driving mirror and let a speedy white van overtake them before starting to speak again. ‘Do you want to tell me what happened? About why one of the most careful drivers I know should crash his car?’
Tariq closed his eyes. Wasn’t it frustrating that a split-second decision could impact so dramatically on your life? If he hadn’t been beguiled by a pair of blue eyes and a dynamite body then he wouldn’t be facing the rather grim prospect of being stuck in some remote cottage with his assistant for a week.
‘I went for dinner with a woman,’ he said.
‘No—’ Isobel started to say something and then changed her mind, but Tariq seized on her swallowed words like a cat capturing a mouse.
His thick lashes parted by a fraction. ‘No what, Izzy?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Oh, but it does,’ he answered stubbornly.
‘I was about to say no change there. You having dinner with a woman is hardly remarkable, Tariq. Blonde, was she?’
‘Actually, she was.’ Reluctantly, his lips curved into a smile. Sometimes Izzy was so damned sharp he was surprised she didn’t cut herself. Maybe that was what less attractive women did—they made up for their shortcomings by developing a more sophisticated sense of humour. ‘But she wasn’t all she seemed to be.’
‘Not a transvestite, I hope?’
‘Very funny.’ But despite the smile which her flippant comment produced Tariq was irritated with himself. He had been stressed out, and had intended to relax by playing poker until the small hours. He hadn’t really been in the mood for any kind of liaison, or the effort of chatting someone up. But the woman had been very beautiful, and he’d found himself inviting her for a late dinner. And then she had started to question him. Wanting to know the kind of things which suggested that she might have done more than a little background research on him.
Tariq had some rules which were entirely his own.
He didn’t like being interrogated.
He didn’t trust people who knew too much about him.