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‘All that I want from you, believe me.’ Tilda would not look at him again for she had little faith in what she was saying even though pride had demanded that she say it. She wanted him with every fibre of her being but she would not let herself sink to the level of sleeping with a man who assumed he might have to pay her for his pleasure. He was his own worst enemy, she thought painfully. A few pleasing words, even a fleeting reference to the beauty of the desert sunset, and he could have had her for nothing. But flattery and romantic allusions to sunsets had never been Rashad’s style.
‘It will be as you wish. I have work to do. Excuse me,’ Rashad responded with scrupulous politeness.
The door closed and the silence folded in. She expelled her breath in a long jagged surge. Her fingers lifted to the reddened and tingling contours of her lips and something like a sob tugged at her vocal cords, forcing her to grit her teeth and fight for self-control.
She dined solitarily later that evening in a state dining room with superb marble walls and floor. She ate everything that was put in front of her and tasted nothing. What had gone so badly wrong between herself and Rashad that he could think she was so cheap? Why was he so convinced that she had gone with other men behind his back? He was logical, intelligent. What was the proof of her infidelity that he evidently considered irrefutable? She knew that for the sake of her self-esteem she had to find out.
Sitting there alone, she remembered how madly in love with Rashad she had once been. She recalled cherished memories of fun, sweetness and passion. Once, a car had backfired in the street. Assuming that it was gunfire, Rashad had thrown her to the ground and protected her with his body. The sheepish expression on his face in the aftermath had been comic, but she had been touched to the heart to realise that, at a moment when he had honestly believed that he was in danger, he had instinctively put her safety before his own.
Nobody had ever really tried to look after Tilda before and, although she had scoffed at the idea, she had liked it because, for too long, she’d had to be the strong one in her family and look out for everyone else’s interests. She had leant on Rashad and found him wonderfully supportive, even while the power of her passion for him had terrified her as much as it excited her. Determined not to be hurt, she had believed that she was in full control of her emotions. Then, out of the blue, he had dumped her and all her proud illusions had crumbled faster than the speed of light.
One day everything had seemed fine, the next it had been over. Rashad had arranged to take out her for a meal. She had sat waiting for him to pick her up. Time had crept on and he hadn’t arrived, hadn’t phoned, either. She had tried to call him on his mobile and there had been no answer. The next day, frantic with worry that something had happened to him, she had called round at the house he had rented and his staff had refused her entry. No explanation, no apology, nothing. Believing that in some way she must have offended him, she had gotten angry then and had decided to sit him out. For several days she had lived in denial of her growing misery until, one evening, when she just hadn’t been able to bear being without him any longer, she had found out from a friend where he was and had gone in search of him.
The party had been at Leonidas Pallis’s apartment. Through the crush, she had seen Rashad on a sofa with a sinuous redhead wrapped round him. Rashad, who supposedly didn’t like such public displays of intimacy, had been kissing the girl. Something had died inside Tilda and all her proud pretences had fallen apart as she had fought her passage back to the exit. She had been convinced that he had ditched her and replaced her with a more sexually available girlfriend. There had been a desperate irony to the fact that it had been only then that she had fully appreciated how much she loved him.
As Tilda let herself recall the terrible hurt of Rashad’s betrayal five years earlier, her chin came up. No way was she going to give Rashad the chance to put her through those agonies again! She might still be drawn to him like a stupid moth to a candle flame, but that didn’t mean she had to surrender to her weakness or let him suspect that it existed. Events had made them more equal, she told herself bracingly. She was trading co-operation rather than sex in return for the debts he had written off. At least being partners in a pretend marriage left her with some dignity and he was already discovering that he could not treat a wife like a concubine.
Tilda straightened her slight shoulders, turquoise eyes luminous with purpose. She might not feel as though they were married but, goodness, she intended to be the perfect wife in public. By the time she left Bakhar, Prince Rashad Hussein Al-Zafar and his family would feel that
he was losing a woman who had been an absolute solid gold asset to him. And not if he offered her a million pounds, not even if he begged on his knees, would she stay with him!
CHAPTER EIGHT
IN THE privacy of his office, Rashad watched the film footage for the third time. The camera, obviously wielded by a man hopelessly enthralled with Tilda’s exquisite face, followed her every move at a children’s concert. In front of a camera she was a natural and highly photogenic, and the Bakhari media industry had succumbed to their first bout of celebrity fever. When his sisters had taken Tilda shopping in Jumiah, the traffic had been brought to a standstill because interest in Tilda had been so great that drivers had abandoned their cars to try and catch a glimpse of her in the flesh.
Alarmed by the size of the crowds that had swiftly formed that morning, Rashad had wasted no time in tripling the size of Tilda’s protection team. He had also put a more experienced man in charge of her security. She was incredibly popular. He ran the footage of the concert again and absorbed the lingering shots of his wife’s radiant smile, her relaxed warmth with the children and the interest she showed in everyone she spoke to. Her intelligence and charisma attracted much admiring comment. Tilda might now look like a beautiful fashion queen, but when a toddler left a sandy handprint on her dress she just laughed and brushed herself down. In less than a month she had become the best-known face in Bakhar, next to his father’s and his own.
So, who was it who had said that the camera never lied? Was this the same woman who had once deceived him, extracted money from him and slept with other men? Was the fact that she still hadn’t slept with him ongoing evidence of the existence of that other unscrupulous persona? Was she simply a fantastic actress? Was she giving the people what they wanted, just as she had once played the innocent for his benefit? After all, he was willing to concede her innocence was what he had wanted most when he’d first met her. Then, he had been too idealistic to desire a succession of different women in his bed. What he had wanted most was a wife. Tilda had struck him as a pearl beyond price and he had put her on a pedestal.
Lean, powerful face grim, Rashad froze Tilda’s image on screen. The woman in the film was a more adult version of the girl he remembered and he was deeply disturbed by the fact. Second time round, armed with the knowledge of her greed and promiscuity, he had expected to easily detect her insincerity and her other flaws. But Tilda was contriving to keep her dark side remarkably well hidden from him and from the whole of Bakhar. Few people were all bad or all good, he reminded himself impatiently. Wasn’t it possible that she had seen the error of her ways and changed them? How could he doubt her guilt even for a moment? For wasn’t that what was really bothering him? He had so far failed to match the woman enchanting everyone with her charm with the greedy, scheming wanton she was supposed to be at heart.
In a sudden movement Rashad straightened to his full height and unlocked the safe. He had to go right to the back of it to find the slim security file he sought. Put together by a British private detective, it was written in English. Rashad remembered what a battle he had had to understand that language on the day he’d read it and shock had made his brain freeze. He still felt queasy just looking at the cover of the file with her name on it. He reminded himself that it had come to him direct from an impeccable source. He felt that he needed to read it again, but he believed it would be unduly disrespectful to Tilda to even open that unsavoury file now, two days before their wedding.
His tension eased, his brilliant gaze simmered gold. The day after tomorrow, Tilda would be one hundred per cent his. She would have no grounds to complain of medieval laws and customs. There could be no suggestion that their union was anything other than legal and above-board. A wolfish smile of satisfaction slashed his wide, sensual mouth. Aware that he needed her co-operation before their state wedding made them the most married couple in Bakhar, he had played a waiting game of restraint. But restraint had its limits: his bride would lie in his bed on their wedding night.
The phone rang to inform him that Tilda’s family were about to arrive. Rashad glanced at the file still in his hand and thrust it into his briefcase. Determined to award her mother and siblings every courtesy and frankly curious to meet them all again, Rashad left his office to be at Tilda’s side. He had not actually been invited to be so, but he was prepared to rise above that small slight.
Tilda wrapped her arms exuberantly round Katie and Megan and had she had a third arm she would have hugged her brother James, as well, who gave her hair an affectionate tug and stepped back out of reach with a laughing complaint when she tried to hug him. Aubrey was shaking his head over the astonishing splendour and size of the palace.
‘So much for the accounting job you mentioned!’ Katie teased. ‘Here you are decked out in designer gear, living in the lap of luxury and about to marry the love of your life. Obviously you took one look at each other and went overboard again. The only thing that stops it all being perfect is Mum not being here with us.’
Tilda sighed in agreement. ‘I know. She’s ecstatic that I’m getting married to Rashad but really sad she can’t be here with us.’
‘Mum is a lot happier and less nervy,’ the youthful blonde confided. ‘Aubrey thinks that having to miss your wedding might be just what it takes to push her into getting the professional help she needs.’
Having chatted to her parent regularly on the phone since leaving home, Tilda was well aware that Beth was in a much healthier and stronger frame of mind since she had been able to stop worrying about her debts. Stress, Tilda thought ruefully, might well have made her mother’s condition worse. An end to Scott’s threatening visits would also have helped.
‘Rashad!’ Megan suddenly yelled and tore across the room, only to fall still in sudden uncertainty several feet from the male she had once idolised.
Laughing at that noisy and enthusiastic welcome, Rashad strode straight up to the girl and bent down to speak to her.
‘He’s, like, totally the fairy-tale prince.’ Katie rolled admiring eyes and groaned. ‘So handsome, likes kids, always polite and charming. I mean, why the heck did you two ever break up? A silly row?’
‘Something like that.’
‘There’s something that you should know. Remember the reporters cornering you at the airport?’ Katie murmured uneasily. ‘That was James’s fault and he feels awful about it.’
‘How on earth could it have been James’s fault?’ Tilda questioned.
