‘You like my home I think, Jane Smith?’
She’d almost forgotten he was there and Jane turned to find Zayed looking at her, his expression intense and somehow approving, and she wished he wouldn’t do that. Why make his voice go all soft and caressing, so that each word was brushed over her skin like velvet? And why make his eyes gleam as if she’d just said something wonderful, instead of stating the very obvious—which was that the place where he lived was the stuff of fairy tales to most normal folk.
‘I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that the rose-gold palace is a place of beauty,’ she said stiffly, but her attempt to try to put the atmosphere on a more normal footing seemed to have horribly backfired. Because instead of his coming back at her with a flippant response and displaying enough of his usual arrogance to remind her of just why she couldn’t stand him—his black eyes were gleaming with something which looked like curiosity.
‘What made you such a fierce woman?’ he questioned quietly.
‘I’m only fierce with certain people.’
‘Like me?’
‘Like you,’ she conceded.
‘And why is that?’
And all the answers she could have given suddenly failed to compute. His proximity was so distracting that she forgot all about the way she’d had to toughen up and grow an extra skin, in order to make everyone else’s life easier. Suddenly, her reasons for being fierce in these circumstances became the ones she was trying not to think about. Like how sensual his lips looked and what it would be like to be kissed by them. And how his muscular body was making her picture all the erotic texts she’d been studying last week. Suddenly she felt fragile. As if one breath of his would be strong enough to make her topple over...straight into his arms.
Glaring at him, she clutched the strap of her handbag even tighter. ‘You don’t want to know why,’ she said. ‘My personality is completely irrelevant.’
‘Oh, but I do,’ he demurred silkily. ‘And what is more, I intend to find out. How else are we going to pass the time?’
She didn’t answer. She didn’t dare. All she could do was turn her head to stare fixedly out of the window because it was easier than looking into the flashing black temptation of the Sheikh’s eyes.
CHAPTER FIVE
AT FIRST ZAYED thought he must be seeing things.
As the harp-like music of the chang heralded the bride’s entrance he could do nothing but stare in disbelief. For a moment he thought that someone must have put an imposter in her place—for surely this could not be Jane walking towards him with her glittering crown of emeralds, clutching a bouquet of fragrant roses which had been gathered from the palace garden
s soon after dawn?
Her jewel-encrusted wedding dress was modest in design for it covered every inch of her body, yet since ancient times the traditional royal bridal gown had been intended to showcase the female form in all its glory and to tempt the King who would be leading her to his bedchamber later that evening. He swallowed. And it did. By the bright moon in the heavens, it did.
Clinging like melted butter to the curve of her breasts, it emphasised a surprisingly tiny waist before falling in heavy swathes from the bell-like shape of her hips. He felt the instinctive hardening of his body in response. The heated rush of blood to his groin. Who would ever have guessed that Jane Smith possessed such a dynamite body beneath the drab and shapeless outfits she normally favoured?
His eyes narrowed against the dazzling light of the throne room because her physical transformation didn’t stop with her clothes. Sweet moon in the heavens, no, it did not. Zayed felt as if he’d been trying to read a book with the curtains closed—only to pull aside those drapes to find the words revealed with startling clarity. He realised he’d only ever seen her with her hair caught up in a tight bun and not wearing any make-up. But today...
Today...
Her amber eyes had been darkened with kohl pencil so they looked moody and sensual and about three times their normal size. Her lips were stained a deep berry-red and as he stared at them he wondered why he’d never noticed those sensual cushions before. Was not such a mouth designed to have a man cover it with kisses—before putting it to work over an erect and aching shaft to lick him to fulfilment? And as for her hair... He shook his head slightly, because running his fingers through the hair of a fertile woman was surely one of the most abundant pleasures known to man and up until that moment he had been unaware of Jane Smith’s crowning glory. Instead of being constrained by an ugly bun, it tumbled down in a honeyed fall, caught back from her cheeks by two emerald clips, which helped secure the golden veil floating behind her like a diaphanous ray of sunshine.
The sharpness of the lust which rushed through him was all the more powerful because it was unexpected. He could feel it in the heat of his blood and the throb of his groin. And she was not looking at him...didn’t that also fire up this sudden and inconvenient hunger? He was used to women looking at him with flirtation and desire sparking from their eyes, not for their heavy eyelids to be demurely lowered, shielding him from their expression and keeping him at a distance. As she reached him, those eyelids opened fractionally and once again he was struck by the beauty of her amber eyes, which today gleamed like darkest gold.
But beauty—like desire—was the most fleeting of life’s gifts and Zayed’s hunger was replaced by a twist of pain as she came to stand beside him. Because no matter how much you rationed painful memories, sometimes you couldn’t prevent them from bombarding the mind, no matter how hard you tried. Wasn’t it natural that he should remember his mother on a day like today? And wasn’t it also natural for him to reflect bitterly that if she had not allowed herself to be swayed by the pernicious blend of hormones they called love, she might still be alive...
And he would not have to carry the burden of her death.
Guilt shafted through him but he was glad of its rapier-like plunge to his heart—because it helped clarify his thoughts and put things in perspective. Who cared if this was a bogus marriage? Not him. If his people secretly longed for the fairytale version of a royal wedding, then they were destined to be disappointed. Before the year was out they would need to accept that this marriage would be over—and it would be many years before he repeated such an unwanted exercise. His eyes were clear; his mind made up.
This was nothing but a means to an end.
As Jane reached his side he held out his hand for hers and noted the tremble of her fingers. Was she nervous? Or was she, like him, wondering how they were going to endure a night together—when the whole deal was that sex was off the menu? Until five minutes ago, he had barely given their impending night of chastity more than a fleeting thought—but suddenly he could sense a danger which simply had not occurred to him before.
What if his lust for her continued, or grew? What if this inconvenient desire demanded satisfaction?
His mouth flattened. He could not allow it to. No matter how much—or how inexplicably—this former plain Jane tempted him, he could not have her.
‘Okay?’ he made himself ask as she reached him.