‘I gave it to you.’
And like a flash in the darkness, Faye finally recalled the envelope which Tariq had flung at her feet after their fake wedding that dreadful day. Did he recall that he had been talking in Arabic at the time? Didn’t he realise that she had naively assumed that their marriage certificate had been in that envelope? And when she had finally stumbled out of the Embassy of Jumar, heartbroken and with her pride in tatters, she had thrust the envelope at Percy in revulsion and condemnation. ‘Are you satisfied now that you’ve wrecked my life? Burn it…I don’t want to ever be reminded of this day again!’
How many weeks had it been before she’d finally forced herself to see her stepfather again and ask for the certificate in the hope that he had not after all destroyed it? She had believed that she might need that certificate to apply for an annulment in case the extraordinary ease of Jumarian divorce was not actually recognised by English law. But Percy had laughed in her face when she’d mentioned that fear.
‘Don’t be more dumb than you can help, Faye,’ her stepfather had sneered. ‘That wasn’t a legal marriage! It wasn’t consummated and he repudiated you straight after the ceremony. Your desert warrior was just saving face and trying to protect himself with some mumbo-jumbo. Why else did he insist it took place in private in the embassy?’
Percy had followed that up with the explanation that embassies fell under the legal jurisdiction of the countries they belonged to, rather than that of the host country. Faye had felt too mortified by her own obvious ignorance to counter his charge of ‘mumbo-jumbo’. An Arab gentleman dressed just like a Christian vicar had presided over the first part of that ceremony but he had spoken only in Arabic and there was no denying that Tariq himself had called their wedding a complete charade.
Repressing that slew of memories, Faye focused her be-mused thoughts back on the cheque which Tariq had said was in that envelope she had blithely surrendered. She closed her eyes in stricken acknowledgement of yet another insane act of foolishness on her part. She had handed a cheque for half a million pounds to Percy Smythe! But if the cheque had been made out to her, how on earth had he cashed it? For she had not the slightest doubt that it must have been cashed!
‘Tariq…I didn’t know that envelope had a cheque in it.’ Her taut temples were pounding out her rising stress level. ‘I don’t know why you would have chosen to give me money either.’
The silence stretched and stretched.
Overwhelmed by guilty self-loathing and the most drowning sense of sheer inadequacy, Faye stared into space. No wonder Tariq ibn Zachir thought she was a trollop. No wonder he believed that she had conspired with her stepfather to set him up for blackmail. No wonder he was so certain that she was greedy for money. What had Percy done with that half million pounds? Percy, who had been outmanoeuvred in his blackmail attempt by Tariq’s announcement that he would marry Faye. Whatever, that huge sum of money was evidently long gone.
‘I can’t believe that you would want a woman with such low moral standards,’ Faye said finally.
‘You’ll be a novelty.’
‘A woman who doesn’t want you?’ Faye was past caring about how she sounded. Here she was guilty as charged it seemed on every count. Guilty of serial stupidity. Guilty of being a teenager madly in love and doing all the wrong things in her efforts to make him love her back. She had done a marvellous job on him, hadn’t she? Thanks to her own lies, he thought she was the most dishonest brazen hussy he had ever met!
‘Is that a challenge?’
Faye gave him a dulled look. Tariq gazed back at her with a sizzling force that penetrated her veil of numb defeat. ‘No!’
‘You will be my mistress for as long as I want you.’ Tariq surveyed her as if he had just stamped a brand of ownership on her, his male satisfaction unconcealed.
Seriously unnerved by that statement of intent, Faye leapt back out of her seat again, her hands clenched into fists. ‘You can’t still want me…you never wanted me that much to begin with! This is just a giant ego-trip. It’s mindless revenge—’
‘Not mindless. I never act without forethought.’ Tariq stretched out an imperious hand. ‘Come here…’
Faye went into retreat rather than advance. Shark-infested water might as well have separated them. ‘I didn’t say I agreed.’
‘Then make your mind up.’
Faye folded her arms in a defensive movement. ‘Adrian?’
‘He goes home to England on the first available flight.’
Faye shook her head, tried to still the nervous tremor in her lower limbs. ‘I’m not what you think I am. I can’t imagine being any man’s mistress. I won’t fit the bill—’
‘You underestimate yourself.’
Tariq extended his hand again, glittering golden eyes fixed to her with intimidating cool and expectancy.
‘If you think I’m going to come running every time you snap your imperious fingers—’
‘Sooner or later, you will. I have immense patience.’
That quiet confidence took Faye wholly aback and froze her to the spot. ‘You’re crazy…’
A slight smile curved his lips. ‘You’re scared.’
‘Like heck I am…I’m just fed up with all this nonsense!’
The smile acquired amusement, veiled eyes resting on her slight, taut frame with an intimate intensity she could feel as surely as if he had touched her. ‘I didn’t sleep last night. I couldn’t s
leep, not even after a couple of cold showers. I knew you were mine then.’
‘But you…you hate me!’ Faye slung back at him in vehement protest.
‘Hate? Too strong a word.’ Tariq strolled closer like a hunter set on closing in for the kill but doing so at his own leisure. ‘Is that why you look sick with fright? Is that fertile imagination of yours throwing up images of gothic whips and chains? Do you really think I would inflict a single bruise on that perfect skin of yours? You’ll cry out with pleasure, not pain, in my bed.’
Faye was so mortified by that assurance, she whirled away from him. It was a mistake. He closed his arms round her and turned her back to him. With one hand, he loosened the clasp at the nape of her neck and cast it aside. Gazing down at her with scorching golden eyes, he threaded long fingers through her long pale blonde hair and tugged her head back in a gentle motion.
‘Tariq—’
‘You want me.’ A lean hand pressed to the shallow indentation of her rigid spine and curved her into intimate contact with his long muscular thighs.
Suddenly it was a challenge to talk and breathe at the same time. She stared up at him, trying to hold herself rigid but awesomely conscious of the all-pervasive strength of his powerful physique. ‘No—’
‘You’re trembling—’
‘I’m cold!’ Faye scarcely knew what she was saying any more. That close to Tariq, her mind was a sea of confusion and her own physical reactions took over.
‘Cold?’ Tariq lowered his proud dark head, his breath fanning her cheek, the evocative timbre of his low-pitched drawl sentencing her to stillness. ‘Who are you trying to fool?’
Feeling weak as water, Faye mumbled, ‘Please…’
‘Please what?’ Tariq brought his wide sensual mouth within inches of hers and somehow made her lips part in invitation, her very breath catching in her throat, her slender length instinctively stretching up to his to get still closer. ‘Tell me, please, what?’
The scent of him enveloped her like a sneak invasion by an aphrodisiac. So familiar, so special, so…him. Her nostrils flared, head spinning on a released flood of sensuous recall from the past, heat forming in her pelvis, breasts lifting and swelling within the constriction of her cotton bra. It was as if her whole body were burning and melting from inside out, a blind sense of fevered anticipation enthralling her, pitching her high.