Monarch of the Sands

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‘And you don’t think it’s slightly suspect behaviour?’

‘Why should I? Maybe I’m not as suspicious as you are! Maybe I like to think the best of people! And Simon loves me!’

‘Does he?’

Frankie stilled as something in his sombre tone iced her skin with a terrible sense of foreboding. ‘Of course he does.’

‘How much do you think he loves you?’

‘What kind of a question is that?’ She eyed him warily. ‘Enough to want to marry me.’

There was, he realised, no diplomatic way to do this. No way of telling her which wasn’t going to hurt her. ‘I wonder,’ he said quietly.

‘Will you please stop talking in riddles? What do you wonder?’

There was another pause. Like the split-second pause before a marksman fired a bullet from a gun. And then he spoke. ‘He’s got another woman.’

Frankie’s heart began to pound. ‘What did you say?’ she whispered.

‘Simon’s got another woman. There’s someone else.’

She shook her head, her fingers flying to her cheeks. ‘No! You’re making it up!’

‘Why would I do that?’

‘I don’t know!’

Her face had gone completely white and she swayed so that Zahid’s hand automatically went out to steady her, his body tensing. Had he been so brutal with the facts that she was about to faint? Wasn’t he supposed to have been diplomatic? Protective? Surely there was a way he could have told her which wouldn’t have made her face looked so bleached and transparent.

Uttering a short curse in his native tongue, he bent and scooped his arms underneath her knees, despite her ineffectual protests to push him away. And as the firmness of her young body imprinted itself on his mind he was aware of the blood in his own veins growing hot and heavy. He could feel the curved definition of her thighs beneath his fingers, the soft weight of her breast as she slumped against his chest—and he felt a wave of guilty pleasure as he carried her into the house.

Some of her strength must have returned because by the time he had deposited her on the old sofa in the sitting room, she had begun half-heartedly punching against his chest—and he let her. He crouched down in front of her, holding his palms up in front of him—like a man trying to quieten a fractious horse. ‘Francesca—’

Her hands fell like stones into her lap. ‘Go away!’ she whispered.

‘You don’t want the truth?’

‘It isn’t true! Why would he want someone else when he’s engaged to me?’ But mightn’t that explain why Simon had been so unbelievably cautious about making love to her? Was it really nothing to do with respect for the old-fashioned morals she’d been brought up to believe in? Had the truth of it been that all along he had another woman and didn’t find Frankie attractive after all—makeover or no makeover?

‘You want proof?’ he demanded.

Recovering some of her composure, Frankie sat up. ‘Yes, I want proof! Except you probably haven’t got any, have you? This is all because he got a bit drunk and you’re making a value judgement because you don’t think he’s good enough for me!’

‘Damned right he’s not,’ he said grimly, rising to his feet and going outside to retrieve a package from the passenger seat of his car, before carrying it back inside—still hoping that she might have changed her mind and just take his word for it. But one look at her face when he returned—a mutinous expression written on it that he’d never seen before—and Zahid knew that there was no alternative but to show her.

Reluctantly, he pulled out a series of black and white photos and silently handed them to her.

With fingers which felt frozen and a heart which was numb, Frankie looked down at the glossy images in her hands.

There was Simon, locking his car—an innocent enough shot, but if she looked a bit more closely Frankie could see someone standing in the doorway of a house, waving to him. A rangy blonde wearing one of those skirts which only just about covered her knickers.

The next image showed Simon warmly embracing the same woman and Frankie sought refuge in yet more denial.

‘She might just be his sister, or a relative,’ she croaked.

‘Really?’ questioned Zahid as she pulled out the third photo. ‘Pretty close family, if that’s the case.’