The Arabian Mistress

‘If I had taken my anger out on your stepfather…had I allowed myself within ten feet of him, I would have killed him with my bare hands. And not for the blackmail attempt but for turning you into something so much less than you might have been!’

The savage chill of sincerity in those words took her aback. In the rushing silence which followed, she listened to him undressing. She squirmed over to the far edge of her side of the bed and reached a determined resolve. From that very moment she swore she would not think again about their disastrous wedding day, their marriage which she had not even known existed in reality, or the fact that he might have divorced her since then. She had wasted a whole year of her life on endless regrets and now she had said sorry as well, so that was that. Finito!

The mattress gave beneath his weight. The lights went out.

A tiny betraying sniff escaped her as she opened her mouth to snatch in a ragged breath.

Tariq invaded her side of the bed without warning. ‘Let me hold you—’

‘No!’ she snapped. ‘Can’t I even be miserable on my own?’

‘Not when you are making me miserable too.’ Tariq groaned, tugging her into his strong arms, tightening his hold on her when she made a squirming attempt to snake free. ‘I will not touch you. We can be miserable together. Just lie still.’

The heat and solidarity of his big powerful frame crept into her stiffness like a sneak invasion. Slowly the tension leeched out of her. ‘You know…the first I heard about that dreadful plane crash last year was today,’ she heard herself whisper, for she felt that really she ought to say something on that subject.

Tariq tensed.

‘I’m really sorry. Your father, your stepmother… The whole year must have been a nightmare for you to get through.’

‘Surely the crash was mentioned on the British news?’

‘I’m sure it was but six months ago my life was in total upheaval,’ Faye confided ruefully. ‘The house was being sold and I was seeing to all the packing and looking for somewhere to live. That’s probably how I missed out on hearing about the crash. You mentioned your stepmother’s death soon after I arrived here but I had no idea there were other relatives of yours involved—’

‘Which house was being sold?’ Tariq interrupted.

She frowned. ‘What do you mean by which?’

‘Your brother’s home or yours?’

‘Adrian lived in army quarters: he didn’t own his house and when he quit the army he had to get out of it. I’m talking about the house where we grew up—’

‘But why was it sold?’

Faye sighed. ‘Adrian and I joint-owned it but it was too far out of London to suit Lizzie and him, so I agreed to the sale… I told you that he put the proceeds into starting up his business—’

‘But I didn’t realise that you had sacrificed your own home. How could you let your stupid brother sell the very roof over your head?’ Tariq demanded rawly.

‘Please don’t call Adrian stupid, Tariq,’ she muttered, very uncomfortably for it had occurred to her more than once over the years that her big brother, much as she loved him, was not the brightest spark on the block.

‘But where have you been living since then?’

‘I got a bedsit near where I work…although I don’t suppose I’ll have a job when I get back because I was only supposed to be away a few days—’

‘What is a bedsit?’

‘Are you serious?’ She smiled in the darkness, thinking that there was no good reason why Tariq should understand what a bedsit was. She was probably the very first person he had met who lived at the poorest end of the rental market. She described her accommodation.

‘You must share a bathroom with strangers?’ Tariq demanded, aghast.

‘Not all of us at the same time,’ she pointed out, trying to suppress a giggle.

‘I assumed you were living with your stepfather or your brother.’

‘Adrian has his own family…and he came over here with them,’ she reminded him. ‘As for Percy, he only contacted me again when Adrian went into prison. You know it would break Percy’s heart if he knew we had actually been married for real. You’re lucky you divorced me…’

‘Go to sleep…’ A sliver of raw tension she could feel had entered Tariq’s stillness but exhaustion was settling in on Faye and winding her down like a clock. Muffling a yawn, she surrendered to gravity and rested her head on his shoulder, marvelling that they were talking again and wondering if that was the result of her resolve to totally detach herself from their past.

Tariq was gone when she woke up at seven the next morning. As her seeking hand found nothing but emptiness beside her, she jerked in dismay at the sound of something moving about what sounded like below the bed. Sitting up with a start, she was just in time to see Rafi scramble out in his pyjamas, bounce up and shout, ‘Boo! Did I scare you? Did I scare you?’

‘Yes…what time is it?’

Rafi clambered up on the bed and landed himself on her lap. ‘Can we have a picnic today?’

‘Maybe.’

‘I like you…’

‘Please let me go back to sleep,’ Faye begged.

Rafi climbed in below the sheet and snuggled up to her like a tadpole wriggling in itching powder, bony little knees and elbows jabbing in the small of her back. She swallowed a long-suffering groan. ‘Did you see Tariq leaving?’

‘I saw his helicopter.’ Rafi imitated the noise at deafening pitch and sat up to start whirling his arms round and round at the same time. ‘I won’t go in a helicopter…it might fall out of the sky and go bang and die my brother—’

‘Oh, Rafi…Tariq will be fine. Tariq is a wonderful pilot.’ Faye groaned and, giving up on sleep, she flipped over and began tickling him until his giggles and hers rose to such a level that Shiran came running in to see what was happening.

She thought Tariq might come back that night but he did not. It was the afternoon of the following day before he reappeared. After enjoying a riotous couple of hours playing in the gorgeous terraced gardens that climbed the hillside, Rafi and the twins had been taken inside for a nap. Hot and sticky following such activity, Faye had taken advantage of the departure of the servants. Having kicked off her shoes, she was paddling in the wide shallow basin of a secluded fountain in a shaded arbour. The sensation of that cool water lapping her overheated skin felt like total bliss. Holding her dress up to her knees to prevent the hem from getting splashed, she kicked up water, watching the droplets sparkle in a shard of sunlight strong enough to pierce the hanging dark pink foliage of the spreading casuarina tree above her.

When she lifted her head, it was a considerable shock to see Tariq poised on the lush manicured grass only a dozen feet from her. His dark golden eyes flared over her comical look of dismay and glittered with rampant amusement. A devastatingly attractive smile flashed across his wide, sensual mouth and her heart hammered so hard in reaction to that charismatic charge, she felt dizzy and just kept on staring at him.

‘You make a charming and refreshing picture,’ he murmured huskily, moving forward and extending a lean hand to grasp hers and assist her back out of the basin.

‘You were laughing—’

‘Laughter has been painfully thin on the ground over the past thirty-six hours,’ Tariq confided, retaining his hold on her slim fingers and gazing down at her with a mesmerising intensity that whipped colour into her already warm cheeks. ‘I sat up half the night listening to two obstinate old men arguing about grazing rights that neither need. But now it seems worth it for I’m with you sooner than I had hoped.’

‘My shoes…’ Faye mumbled, her wide eyes stealing over him in greedy little bursts that she could not resist, taking in the exquisitely tailored pale beige suit that sheathed his very tall and powerful frame, lingering on the full spectacular effect of a colour that accentuated his black hair and sun-bronzed skin. It was no use. He still just took her breath away. Although she had sworn to be cooler than an ice cube, she cou

ld not shake the conviction that he was the most drop-dead gorgeous male alive.

‘Never mind your shoes…although you are inconveniently small without them.’ Banding both arms round her as he made that teasing comment, Tariq drew her close, lifting her up against him and draping her arms round his shoulders. ‘Cling…’

‘I don’t cling,’ she said tightly, shutting the allurement of him out with lowered eyelashes, fighting the urge to grab him and hold him tight and sink into the gloriously familiar scent and feel of him.

‘Please…’

‘You’re wasting your time…’

He hoisted her higher with a strength that disconcerted her and bent his proud head to press his mouth against the tiny pulse beating out her tension just below her collarbone. Jolted by that unexpected approach, she let her head fall back, felt a river of liquid heat forge a path through her thrumming body and loosed a choky little moan.

‘Am I?’ Tariq strode over to the stone bench below the tree and sank down, keeping her trapped in his arms. He gazed down at her, a wolfish grin forming on his beautiful mouth. ‘I want to spend my time with you.’

‘Well, I suppose I signed up for it,’ Faye muttered grudgingly, maddeningly conscious of him with every wretched fibre of her being.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘I’m your mistress. Spending time with you is hard to avoid.’

Tariq tensed and then breathed in slowly, lean, strong features taut. ‘I have considered what you said the other night. It’s possible that I have misjudged you to some extent—’

‘It was Percy who made off with your half million—it serves you right too!’ Faye told him squarely. ‘You must’ve made the bank draft out to him—’

‘Naturally. I believed you would still be living with him and he would be taking care of your needs—’

‘Look, Percy never looked after me in his life and he hardly ever lived with us either, aside of the occasional weekend. He didn’t even look after my mother. He just paid people to do it for him—’

‘This is not the picture of the happy united family you gave me when I first met you—’