For ten years she had felt nothing, suppressed all her desires and wishes and needs until she was sure they were banished for ever. And now, instead of serene and cool and calm, she felt hot and agitated, her skin tingling in places she’d thought long since devoid of feeling, as if all the emotions and unrecognised desires of the past ten years were welling up to engulf her in one tidal wave of emotion.
She was like that teenager all over again—the girl who had fallen head over heels in love with a tall, golden-skinned Qusani, with piercing blue eyes and a magnetism that had bound her to him from the first instant they’d met.
Even then she’d felt this way around him—this heightened sense of awareness, as if he was caressing her without even touching her. But why, more than ten years on, should he still affect her this way? It wasn’t as if she was still in love with him.
And she gasped, a new realisation slamming through her like a thunderbolt.
She couldn’t be!
Surely there was no way?
She squeezed her eyes shut, prayed she was mistaken. She was taken aback, that was all—taken aback at his sudden reappearance. Thrown off-balance at their forced proximity these last few hours.
It could be nothing more than that, surely?
For once before she had lost him; once before she had seen him go. And once before it had all but ripped her heart from her chest.
Soon he would return to his business in Australia and she would watch him leave once again.
No, she could not love him. She dared not.
Oh, no, please not that!
But there came no denials, no safety ramp to save her as the brakes failed on her reason. Instead came only the constant thrum beat of her heart, pounding out what she had denied for so many years, what she had hoped to suppress for ever.
She loved him.
The rest of the journey down the mountainside passed in a blur, a jumble of confused emotions and tangled thoughts. None of them helping. None of them sorting out the morass that had become her mind. But at least Rafiq left her to her despair. She could not have handled conversation when her mind was in such turmoil, her thoughts in such disarray, disbelief the only continuous thread. They’d stopped at the campsite before she’d even realised.
It was Rafiq who opened her door, his blue eyes moving to a frown as he took in her startled face. ‘What’s wrong?’ he growled.
She blinked and took a deep breath of the warm sea air, unlatching her seat belt, realising that even by merely drifting off she had annoyed him. Although maybe sleep was what she needed? Maybe it would make some sense out of the tangle of her thoughts.
And then she put her hand in his to climb down, and felt the charge like a shockwave up her arm. She gasped, and his eyes snagged hers, and the hungry gleam in his eyes told her that he’d felt it too.
So much for making sense.
She moved away as soon as she could, putting distance between them, confused when she saw the drivers already unloading things from the back of the car. Other servants who had stayed at the camp today were coming to assist, making long shadows against the tents in the light of the torches. She was further confused when she detected the aroma of lamb mixed with herbs on the breeze.
‘How long are we stopping?’ she asked, as she stood on a dune overlooking the long, pristine beach, under a sky emblazoned with stars. But they did not hold her attention—not when she became more concerned as more and more was unloaded from the car.
‘Until morning. We are camping here again overnight.’
She turned, surprised to find that he was so close, surprised even more by his answer. She’d hoped they’d be back in the palace tonight. She’d hoped she’d be once again tucked away in her room in the Sheikha’s apartments, where she could lie in her bed and try to forget about Rafiq all over again. But another night out here with him, after what he’d told her…
Would he kiss her tonight? Here in the camp? Was that his intention, before she could be tucked safely away in his mother’s quarters at the palace?
She swallowed. She remembered last night, when he’d hijacked her peaceful swim at the end of the beach and refused to give her back her abaya. She remembered the way his eyes had seared a trail over her skin—how it had made her breasts come alive, her senses buzz and quicken with expectation. No way would she risk that tonight! For tonight she wouldn’t trust herself to coolly walk away.
‘I thought you wished to return to Shafar as soon as possible once the deal was done.’
‘It is not safe to drive through the desert at night with only one vehicle.’ He raised an eyebrow, the flickering torches turning his golden skin to red, making him look more dangerous than ever. ‘Some might say it is not safe even to drive through the desert during the day.’