At first she’d looked on in dazed bewilderment, her soft brown eyes brimming with disbelief. His conscience had smitten him like a hot branding iron across his already burning ribs.
Then, when she’d taken her measure of the ‘new’ Tahir, scorn and pride had made her lift her head and meet his jibes levelly. She’d looked regal and aloof and utterly lovely, confirming his belief that this was for the best.
But that hadn’t stopped him craving her, like an addict needing just a little more. A smile, a touch, a caress. It had been hell, drawing her displeasure instead of her embraces with his arrogant nonsense.
Yet it was no more than he deserved.
He hadn’t even thought of protection! Of pregnancy.
At the last moment, as the camel driver announced he was ready to go, Tahir cornered her. She’d decided to stay another few days. To study the skies, she’d said.
To lick her wounds, he was sure.
This was his last chance to talk to her.
‘Annalisa.’ Her head jerked up. She’d already said her goodbye, brief and stilted.
Her eyes widened and a flash of emotion warmed them for a moment. Her lips trembled open. In surprise or doubt?
Tahir clamped his hands behind him, battling the urge to reach for her. To soothe the hurt he’d inflicted. His voice when he found it was rougher than he’d intended.
‘If there are consequences from last night…’ His words petered out as the shocking image of Annalisa, blooming with good health and ripe with his child, blasted his mind.
‘Impossible.’ She shook her head. ‘There won’t be consequences.’
Tahir hadn’t been born yesterday. If she tried to convince him she’d been taking contraceptives on the off-chance she’d let a stranger seduce her, she’d never succeed.
‘If you’re pregnant…’ his voice dropped on the word ‘…I want you to tell me.’ He held her defiant gaze so long that eventually she looked away. ‘You can reach me via the palace.’
Silence. He cupped her chin, pulling her round to face him. The contact sizzled and he could almost swear he heard electricity crackle and spark as her eyes clashed with his.
How he wanted her! Even now, on the brink of farewell, his body swayed forward and his hand tightened on her soft skin. Hunger gnawed at his belly, eclipsing even the burning pain that encircled his torso at every breath.
The temptation was almost too strong. Just one taste.
He dropped his hand as if burned. Took a step away.
‘Promise me you’ll let me know if—’
‘So you can fund an abortion?’ This time there was only scorn in her flashing eyes. She looked proud and dismissive as she eyed him up and down. ‘There won’t be any consequences. But if there were,’ she hurried on before he could speak, ‘I’d tell you.’
He nodded and turned away.
Minutes later he was seated on a camel. Its extreme motion, rocking perilously forwards then back as it rose to its feet, seemed expressly designed to torture a man with damaged ribs and a pounding head.
At least it took his mind off the contempt he’d seen in Annalisa’s eyes.
The camels swayed out of the oasis, each step sending pain screaming through him. Even so, he mustered the willpower to turn and see Annalisa for the last time.
He needn’t have bothered. She hadn’t waited to watch him go. She’d already disappeared from view.
By the time they reached the coast Tahir was barely clinging on. Travelling through the heat of the day hadn’t been sensible. If he’d been fit, perhaps, but with his injuries each kilometre was torture. The pain wrapping round his torso worsened and his head swam.
But he’d needed to get away while his determination held good. Before he did anything stupid like scooping her close and kissing her senseless.
He was surprised and grateful when his guide called a halt in a small fertile valley. They were still several hours from the capital, but Tahir could feel the last of his stamina draining away and he had no wish to slide off the camel in an ignominious heap.
It was only as they stopped in a pool of blessed shade that he realised the grove wasn’t empty. A four-wheel drive and an ambulance were parked there.
He shot a questioning glance at his guide, already standing beside his mount.
For the first time his dour companion met his gaze directly, watching as Tahir’s camel settled, lurching him sickeningly first one way then another.
‘I called for assistance when we got within mobile phone range,’ he said. ‘Annalisa insisted.’ His unblinking stare radiated disapproval. If he was a friend of Annalisa’s he wouldn’t have missed the undercurrents between her and Tahir.