Khalim nodded.
‘Maybe she just didn’t…’ Philip hesitated before saying ‘…find you attractive?’
Khalim gave an arrogant smile. ‘Oh, she did.’ He placed his hand over his fast-beating heart. ‘She most certainly did,’ he murmured, remembering the way she had melted so responsively against his body. And her reaction had not just been about chemistry—undeniable though that had been. No, hers had been a hunger sharpened and defined by the exquisite torture of abstinence.
As his had been. How long since a woman had excited him in this way? Since his father’s illness when much of the burden of responsibility for running the country had fallen onto his shoulders, there had been little time to pursue pleasure. And no woman, he realised, had ever excited him in quite this way.
Khalim swallowed. Her scent was still clinging to the silk of his robes. Unendurable.
‘I must take a bath,’ he ground out.
He had a servant draw him up a bath scented with oil of bergamot, and, once alone, he slipped off the silken robes, totally at ease in his nakedness. His body was the colour of deeply polished wood—the muscles honed so that they rippled with true power and strength.
It was a taut and lean body, though he had never stepped inside a gym in his life—that would have been far too narcissistic an occupation for a man like Khalim. But the long, muscular shaft of his thighs bore testimony to hard physical exercise.
Horse-riding was his particular passion, and one of his greatest sources of relaxation. He felt at his most free when riding his beloved Akhal-Teke horse across the salt flats of Maraban with the warm air rushing through his dark hair and the powerful haunches of the stallion clasped tightly between his thighs.
He lay back among the bubbles and let some of the tension soak from his skin, but not all—not by a long way. Rose Thomas and her pale blonde beauty were uppermost in his mind, and thoughts of her brought their own, different kind of tension. He felt the hardening of his body in response to his thoughts, and only through sheer determination of will did he suppress his carnal longing. But then, he had never once lost control over his body…
Should he woo her? he thought carelessly. Besiege her with flowers? Or with jewels perhaps? He rubbed thoughtfully at the darkened shadow of his chin. There wasn’t a woman alive who could resist the glittering lure of gems.
He smiled as he stepped from the circular bath and tiny droplets of water gleamed like diamonds on the burnished perfection of his skin.
He had no appetite. Tonight he would work on some of the outstanding government papers he had brought back with him from Maraban.
He slipped on a silken robe in deepest, richest claret and walked barefoot back through the vast sitting room and into the adjoining study, where Philip was busy tapping away at the word processor.
He looked up as Khalim came in.
‘Sir?’
‘Leave that, now,’ ordered Khalim pleasantly. ‘I have something else for you.’
‘Sir?’
‘Find out where Rose Thomas lives. And where she works.’
CHAPTER THREE
EVEN after an hour-long bath and drinking chamomile tea, Rose slept surprisingly little that night. Especially considering that she had had a long and heavy week at work the previous week and then gone out with Sabrina on her ‘hen-night’ a couple of nights before the wedding.
She tossed and turned for most of the night as an aching sense of regret kept sleep at bay.
And a pair of black eyes kept swimming into her troubled thoughts. Eyes which glittered untold promise, and a body which promised untold pleasure.
She rose late, and was just getting dressed when she heard Lara’s voice calling her name excitedly.
‘Rose! Quickly!’
‘I’ll be there in a minute!’
She pulled on an old pair of jeans and a simple pale blue T-shirt and walked into the sitting room, where Lara was clutching excitedly at the most enormous bouquet of flowers she had ever seen.
There were massed blooms of yellow roses, studded with tiny blue cornflowers, and the heady fragrance hit her as soon as she entered the room.
‘Wow!’ said Rose admiringly. ‘Lucky girl! Who’s the secret admirer?’
‘They aren’t for me, silly!’ choked Lara jealously. ‘It’s your name on the card—see.’