The Desert Sheikh's Captive Wife

‘Tilda?’ Rashad strode out onto the terrace, looking spectacularly handsome in a lightweight beige suit. ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you.’

‘I didn’t know you were back. I was enjoying the view.’ Tilda registered that his lean bronzed features were unusually grave.

‘Would you come inside? We have to talk,’ Rashad told her.

Tilda got up slowly and smoothed down her skirt with uncertain hands. She had a tight, nervous feeling in her tummy. ESP was telling her that something was wrong, seriously wrong. She entered the room that Rashad used as an office. He lounged back against the edge of the desk, brilliant dark eyes resting reflectively on her.

‘You know, for some reason, I feel like a misbehaving kid called into the headmaster’s office,’ Tilda confided tightly.

‘Take a seat,’ Rashad murmured gently.

Tilda sat down, but her back stayed poker-straight, because she knew she was not imagining the tense atmosphere.

‘I’m going to ask you something and I would like you to be honest. What is your opinion of me as a husband?’

Tilda blinked and then opened her eyes very wide. ‘S-seriously?’ she stammered.

‘Seriously.’

‘Why are you asking me?’

‘Indulge me just this once.’

‘Well…you’re marvellous company, even tempered…and patient. Great in bed.’ Her face burned as Rashad elevated a questioning aristocratic brow that suggested she was barking up the wrong tree with her comments. ‘Generous, thoughtful, fair.’

‘I sound like a saint and I am not. You must be more candid and mention my faults.’

‘I didn’t say you had any faults,’ Tilda disclaimed instantly, feeling that she was being steadily backed into a corner for some reason that she had not yet contrived to comprehend. ‘Apart from being too clever for your own good sometimes.’

Rashad lifted a sheet of paper from the desktop and held it up for her to see. Tilda blenched, for it was the same photocopied picture of a woman dancing in a cage that Scott had sent her before. ‘Where did you get that from?’

‘Your mother forwarded it with your post. There was nothing on the envelope that indicated that it might be confidential, and it was opened by one of my staff, who thought it was a party invitation.’

Tilda extended her hand for the page and read the words below. ‘Next instalment due,’ it said, alongside Scott’s phone number and address.

‘It’s been dealt with,’ Rashad informed her quietly.

But shock and apprehension had made Tilda feel light-headed and sick, and she startled him as much as she startled herself at that moment by bursting into floods of tears.

Astonished and dismayed, Rashad lifted her out of the seat with a groaned apology. He smoothed her hair back from her damp brow. ‘I think this may qualify as a too-clever-for-my-own-good moment,’ he breathed rawly. ‘I didn’t intend to upset you. That was the very last result I wanted.’

‘What did you expect when you showed me that horrible picture?’ Tilda gasped chokily as he passed her a tissue and she mopped up. ‘I was hoping I’d never have to see it again!’

Rashad banded his arms round her. ‘You wouldn’t have had to see it, if you had come to me with the first demand.’

Tilda stiffened and finally dared to look up at him. ‘How do you know about that?’

‘I saw Scott last night. That’s where I was yesterday. Naturally, the instant I saw that picture, I knew that it could only have been sent to you as a form of threat. I confronted Morrison. There are no photos in existence of you dancing that night at the club.’

‘Are you certain of that?’

‘Yes,’ Rashad confirmed. ‘If he had had a genuine photo of you, he would have copied that, instead of using a stranger’s on a photocopy.’

Tilda flushed. ‘I suppose I should have thought of that.’

‘It was an amateur effort to extort money. He wasn’t clever enough to use a computer to fake a photo of you. It has been a very distasteful experience for you nonetheless. What was the first letter like?’

‘The same picture was used,’ she admitted tautly.