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A little quiver of nervous tension rippled through Tilda for there was a shimmering golden light in his gaze. ‘What if I disappoint you?’
‘You won’t.’
Tilda sucked in a stark breath.
‘I think you’ll learn fast,’ Rashad murmured lazily.
Her face burning, Tilda turned her head away and saw an immense building perched on the rocky hillside directly ahead. The helicopter swooped in over the outer walls and landed. She stepped out into the fresh air, her fascinated eyes climbing the weathered battlements of the ancient gate tower ahead.
‘Welcome to the Palace of the Lions,’ Rashad intoned, feeling the pulse of his mobile phone as it sought his attention. He tensed and then reached into his pocket to switch it off. He had always taken his duties very seriously, and it was an act that cost him a tussle with his conscience, but he was determined not to be distracted from Tilda. For just a few precious hours he would forget his royal responsibilities.
Beyond the tower lay a yet more imposing entrance dominated by very tall carved doors. ‘It’s an incredibly old building,’ Tilda remarked, struggling not to be intimidated. ‘Is this where you live?’
‘It belongs to me but I have only stayed here occasionally. One of my ancestors built the palace. When our people were nomads this was the seat of power in Bakhar. My grandfather died, our main city grew in size and this building gradually fell into disuse.’
They passed into a vast echoing entrance hall. Light flickered and danced over the glinting reflective surfaces of the tiny coloured mirror tiles set into the intricately patterned ceiling. Tilda glanced through doorways and saw tantalising glimpses of rooms furnished in a highly exotic mix of Victorian and middle eastern décor that dated back at least a century in style. The palace appeared to be well and truly stuck in a time warp.
‘My goodness,’ Tilda remarked helplessly. ‘It’s like walking into a time capsule.’
Rashad tensed. Presented with an enormous challenge and a tiny timeframe his staff had done their best, but had felt forced to concentrate on matters such as the plumbing, the electrical fixtures and the lack of air-conditioning.
‘Totally fascinating,’ she confided, craning her neck to admire an ancient hanging on the wall depicting a robed horseman waving a sword in the bloodthirsty heat of battle.
A servant appeared and fell to his knees in front of Rashad. He broke into a flood of apology, for Rashad had given a command that under no circumstances was he to be disturbed. The man laid a phone at his royal employer’s feet with an air of entreaty.
Rashad compressed his handsome mouth and repeated his instruction. A hundred and one matters, and a hundred and one people at court, in government and from abroad, demanded his attention every day-and he never, ever took a day off. But this particular day was different: he was with Tilda. Obviously he had not been firm enough in his command. He stepped over the phone.
‘Is there a problem?’ Tilda enquired, peering back at the hapless older man literally wringing his hands and muttering laments. ‘He seems a bit upset.’
‘Drama is the spice of life to my people.’
Angling her bright gaze back to Rashad, Tilda lifted her chin and finally said what had been simmering at the back of her mind for hours. ‘I didn’t tip off the press and I can’t imagine why you think I would’ve done.’
‘Many women revel in that sort of public attention. There are also those who choose to make money by selling personal information to the paparazzi.’
That inflammatory comeback tensed her narrow spine into rigidity and she decided to give him the response he deserved. She spun round, platinum-fair curls falling in silvery streamers round her exquisite face, her jewelled eyes hurling a challenge. ‘Actually I don’t plan to sell my story of what it’s like to be a prince’s concubine until I go home again.’
The atmosphere sizzled like oil heated to boiling point.
Dense black lashes sweeping low on his scorching golden gaze, Rashad strolled silently back to her, intrigued by her continuing defiance. ‘Perhaps,’ he murmured very softly, ‘you won’t want to go home again. I can be very persuasive.’
Tilda had wanted to annoy him and the tenor of his reply took her by surprise. ‘Of course I’ll want to go home again…I’ll be counting the days!’
‘Or you’ll be doing whatever it takes to hold my interest so that you can stay. Today you stop running away and start learning.’ A lean brown hand lifted to brush a straying strand of pale hair back from her cheekbone in a confident gesture of intimacy. She backed up against the cold solid wall, her breath catching in her throat. He traced the pouting cupid’s bow of her upper lip with his thumb and gently opened her mouth to graze the soft moist underside. Her legs went limp and stinging awareness made her nipples pinch into painfully tight buds. It was a fight to contain the wanton shock of fascination travelling through her.
‘I don’t run away,’ she told him frantically. ‘Ever!’
‘Once, you ran faster than a gazelle every time I got too close. I’m a hunter. I enjoyed the chase.’ Rashad let his forefinger dip sexily between her peach-soft lips and retreat again. He watched her pupils dilate and the slender white expanse of her throat extend as she tipped her head back in instinctive female invitation. ‘But you always wanted me. You may fight with me, but you are begging for my mouth right now.’
Her long brown lashes fluttered. It took enormous effort to concentrate again. Angry pain slashed through that mental fog because for a long, timeless moment she had craved the heat of his mouth on hers as badly as a life-giving drug. ‘I’m not begging,’ she muttered, forcing a laugh that sounded horribly strangled.
Rashad gazed down at her with a languorous heat that made her tremble. ‘Don’t worry-you will.’
Tilda braced a hand on the wall and pushed herself away from him with a lack of coordination that infuriated her. She was trembling, maddeningly aware of every fluid shift of his lithe, powerful body so close to hers. Her mind threw up a dangerous image of Rashad pushing her back against the wall with the passion that was so much a part of him, the passion he so rarely freed from restraint. The knot of tension in her pelvis tightened and she recognised it for the hunger it was. The fact that her hostility didn’t stop her responding to him shook her up badly.
Rashad shot her pale, taut profile a glittering appraisal and closed a shapely brown hand over hers. ‘Let me show you the harem.’
‘I can hardly wait.’ Although colour now mantled her cheeks, Tilda lifted her head high. She remembered his dark sense of humour so well. She remembered how he had once teased the life out of her. A sharp pang of regret gripped her for that lost time and had the effect of simply hardening her resolve.
