The Desert Bride

‘Refuses to allow...?’ Fatima sounded dazed, which Bethany could well understand since the woman obviously believed that she was here by free choice. ‘You do not want to be here? You do not want to marry Razul? I cannot believe this—’

‘Nevertheless it is the truth!’ Bethany broke in fiercely. ‘I want absolutely nothing to do with him. I had no idea that Razul intended to bring me here or even that he was a married man—’

‘Ah...’ Fatima’s pouting little mouth slowly set into a coldly malicious smile of comprehension. ‘This is why you wish to leave him.’

Bethany flushed hotly. ‘Only one of the many reasons,’ she stressed curtly.

‘If you truly wish to leave, I can easily get you out of the palace,’ Fatima informed her, with a glinting little smile. ‘The old women in our family still hide themselves behind the veil when they go out. Who could tell what lies beneath the chador?’

‘I would be very grateful for your help—’

‘I will make the arrangements.’

The brunette yanked open the door and loosed a terse volley of Arabic on Zulema, who was waiting outside. The girl cowered and then fell down on her knees, trembling as if she was terrified. With a most unlikeable air of malicious satisfaction Fatima walked out, leaving Bethany alone. What a bitch, Bethany couldn’t help thinking, and then she bent her head, asking herself what right she had to stand in judgement. This was not her world—oh, no, indeed, this was not her world, and the sooner she was out of it again, the happier she would be, she told herself fiercely.

Bethany was lying on a divan, glancing abstractedly through a glossy magazine, when she caught a disturbing glimmer of movement in the reflection of a tall mirror to one side of her and turned her head. Shock shrilled through her, her breath escaping her in a sudden hiss as she shot to her feet.

‘Try not to scream...’ Razul sent her a smile of raw amusement that acknowledged her astonishment. ‘These are the women’s quarters, and in honour of your reputation I should not be here—’

‘Damn right...you shouldn’t be!’ Bethany spluttered breathlessly. ‘How the hell did you get in here?’

‘SAS training. I crossed the roof and dropped down onto the balcony.’

She hadn’t heard a sound but then he had always moved with the silent prowl of a natural predator. ‘You could have broken your stupid neck!’ she snapped. ‘What do you want?’

‘Obviously I should have come at night and brought the chocolates,’ Razul sighed with lazy mockery. ‘You do not have a romantic bone in your body, Dr Morgan.’

Bethany flinched, her facial muscles tightening.

‘But we can work on that problem together. You ask why I am here... and I am tempted to ask, Are you joking?’ Razul drawled. ‘You retreated at speed from a serious discussion.’

‘I made my feelings quite clear,’ Bethany said shakily.

Razul shoved his hands into the pockets of his well-cut trousers and elbowed back his jacket, displaying the solid breadth of his chest and the taut flatness of his stomach, not to mention the now sleekly defined lines of his lean, muscular thighs. Colour ran up into her cheeks, her tongue sliding out to moisten her dry lips in a darting motion.

Eyes of vibrant gold flicked to her, catching her in the act of appraisal, and his innately sensual mouth curved with instantaneous recognition. Dense ebony lashes screened his eyes down to a smouldering sliver, returning her gaze with earthy masculine amusement. ‘When you have not got the restraint to prevent yourself from visually ravishing me, how am I to accept these extraordinarily confused feelings you insist that you have made clear?’

Another tide of hot pink surged up beneath her fair skin. ‘I was not—’

‘You were,’ Razul slotted in silkily. ‘You watch me as I watch you. Green light...but then red stop-light. It infuriates me...and right at this moment it makes me want to throw you down on that bed and release that promise of passion again, until you sob against the exquisite torture of my lovemaking and beg me for that ultimate fulfilment. After that experience I seriously doubt that you will again offend my hearing with the lie of your lack of interest.’

Standing there, wordlessly entrapped by the dark, in

tensely passionate lure of him, Bethany was pretty doubtful too. Her colour fluctuating wildly, she backed away from him, her skin hot and tight as it stretched over her quivering nerve-endings in involuntary response to the electrifying sizzle of raw sexual awareness now churning up the atmosphere.

‘I don’t deny that...that there’s a certain attraction between us,’ she heard herself confess between gritted teeth, feeling herself under threat and ready to make that one concession if it held him at bay.

‘This is very sudden,’ Razul derided.

‘I b-beg your pardon?’

‘You finally admit the truth, but it is no longer enough.’

Rampant frustration filled her. ‘What point is there, then, in admitting such a truth?’

‘A crumb from the table when I want the whole loaf?’ His sensual mouth hardened as he sent her a swingeing look of scorn. ‘I want everything you have to give...and then more. I do not stand at your door like a humble suitor. I will take what you seek to deny me. I will possess you as you have never been possessed, and when it is over you will never forget me...this I promise you!’ he swore in a biting undertone that sent tiny chills of fear rippling down her rigid spine.

She had thought that finally acknowledging that attraction would satisfy him. Instead, for some reason, that admission had inflamed him. ‘What could we possibly have in common?’ she demanded starkly.

‘You are innocent indeed if you do not know that there are more exciting things between a man and a woman than similarity.’

‘No! I know all about that kind of excitement!’ Bethany slung the assurance at him in disgust as she spun away, her entire body thrumming with the strength of her emotional turmoil. ‘And it’s not for me.’

She was painfully well acquainted with the sort of violent sexual attraction which could spring up between radically different people. It had happened between her parents. Her irresponsible, utterly self-centered and vain father had waltzed in and out of her childhood as and when it had suited him: when another relationship had broken down, when he’d been short of money, out of work or simply wanting home comforts for a while. He had been far too clever to get a divorce. And her loving mother had kept on opening the door, forgiving, trusting, always ready to hope again that this time he would be different and he would stay.