The pleasure was replaced by alarm. ‘It needn’t be over, Rashid,’ she said urgently. ‘You know that.’
Yes, he knew that. She could be his for the taking, whenever and wherever he wanted. Jenna need never know, need never find out—he had countless people who would cover for him without question. It would be almost expected of him to behave as his father had done.
But he shook his head. ‘It is over, Chantal,’ he said roughly, and indicated the jewellery with a casual wave of his dark-skinned hand. ‘Take your time. Choose the one which pleases you most, and I will arrange to have the remainder collected by Abdullah.’
She nodded and stared at him. ‘So that’s it?’
‘You knew that this would happen some day. It was as inevitable as the dawn which follows night. So let us have no regrets, and let us remember the past with affection.’ He glanced down at the costly timepiece which gleamed so palely gold against his dark wrist. ‘It is time for me to leave. My plane is waiting.’
She nodded, and abruptly turned away from him. ‘Goodbye, chéri,’ she whispered, but he heard the hint of tears in her voice.
‘Goodbye, Chantal,’ he said softly.
He was almost at the door when she halted him with a word.
‘Wait!’
He turned around, but he didn’t need to look into her face to know what was coming next.
‘If ever—ever—you change your mind, you know that I’ll be here for you, Rashid.’
He gave a hard smile. ‘Goodbye, Chantal,’ he repeated, and without another word he turned on his heel and left her apartment.
CHAPTER THREE
AS SOON as Jenna emerged from the plane the blazing temperature of Quador hit her, and it was like being punched in the face by a blazing fist.
The flight had been mildly eventful merely for the fact that as soon as she had arrived at Kennedy Airport she had been upgraded to first class, and it didn’t take a genius to guess who was behind that.
She had started to protest, but then her words had tailed away uselessly and she had seen the check-in girl looking at her with ill-disguised curiosity, as if wondering who in their right mind would object to flying home in unadulterated luxury on Quador Airlines.
Abdullah, Rashid’s chief aide, was standing on the Tarmac waiting for her, next to the dark-windowed car which bore Rashid’s distinctive crest, and he bowed his head respectfully as she approached. Though not before she had seen the small triumphant gleam in his eyes.
He knows! she thought. He knows the purpose of my visit! But Abdullah was very much of the old school of courtier, and she suspected that he thought Rashid was long overdue in taking a bride for himself.
‘Did you have a pleasant flight?’ he asked courteously, as the powerful car was waved straight through all the normal barriers without question.
‘A wonderful, smooth flight,’ replied Jenna truthfully. She certainly wasn’t about to start enlightening Abdullah about the nervous churning in her stomach as she had contemplated what she was about to do.
Rashid’s palace was situated in an isolated spot just outside the main city of Riocard itself, its solitary location necessary for grim and practical reasons. There had been several assassination attempts on Rashid’s father, and on his predecessors too, and Jenna wondered whether Rashid had also been a target for the many fanatics who would wish to rule Quador themselves.
She turned her head to look out through the window, unprepared for the leap of distress in her heart which her thoughts caused. But she reasoned that just because she had no wish to marry the man that did not mean she would wish to see him hurt.
Rashid hurt! Jenna gave a wry smile. It seemed as unlikely and as incongruous an idea as trying to imagine Rashid being celibate!
The palace itself was centuries old, with formal terraces and magnificent pillars carved with figures of Rashid’s ancestors. The grounds had been modelled on a larger scale of some beautiful English country-house garden, and the well-tended lawns were almost indecently green. A large and decorative rectangular pond glittered back the reflection of the blazing sun and Jenna found herself wishing that she could trail her fingertips through its soothing coolness.
The car slid smoothly through the vast, ornate gates which were guarded by lynx-eyed men who carried poorly concealed guns and Jenna shivered, looking around at the formal security with new eyes. If it seemed like a different world, then that was because it was, and she had grown accustomed to, grown to love, the freedom and ease of her life in America.
‘The Sheikh is waiting for you in his private apartments,’ said Abdullah. ‘I suggest that we do not keep him waiting.’
Suggestion, indeed! It was nothing but a smoothly broached command, and Jenna nodded, feeling a little like the sacrificial lamb going to the slaughter.
She mounted the curving marble staircase with a growing feeling of dread, and even the sight of the exquisite mosaics in every hue of blue imaginable, the priceless chandeliers which hung in crystal waterfalls from the ceiling, could do little to quell her fears. She had always loved the palace, but today it looked like nothing more than a gilded prison.
The guard outside Rashid’s apartments pushed open the heavy door.
‘Your case will be brought from the car for you,’ murmured Abdullah, and he raised his eyebrows. ‘You have travelled lightly, I note.’