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Ella rose from her seat and led the way into the little-used dining room, turning only when she reached the head of the table to look back at him, her chin set at a mutinous angle as he thrust the door firmly shut behind him. He was going to do it; she knew he was going to do it. He was going to ask the one unforgivable question.
Zarif released his breath on a slow hiss. ‘Is it true?’
There he was, bang on target, she thought crazily, almost drunk with the sudden rush of anger and disappointment that he could, for even one moment, credit such wild and fantastic stories about her. ‘Which bit? The insatiable desire for sex and the latest kink? Or the sex parties?’ she questioned tightly. ‘Choose your answer...it’s all the same to me.’
Taken aback by her boldness, Zarif shot her an incredulous appraisal, his strong jawline hardening. ‘Don’t take that attitude with me. I have the right to ask.’
‘No, you don’t have any rights over me. I’m not married to you yet. You didn’t question my past when you had the opportunity and I didn’t question you about yours either... It’s a little late in the day to start changing your mind now.’
His ridiculously long black lashes screened his gaze and a dark flush rose to accentuate the exotic line of his high cheekbones. Something she had said had really hit home hard with him but unfortunately she didn’t know which part of her brave speech had struck him like an arrow hitting a bullseye. Indeed she only grasped that she had, for once, inexplicably achieved the feat of putting Zarif out of countenance.
‘Unhappily I do not have the freedom to overlook a wife’s colourful past. I have too many other considerations to take into account, not least the royal status I would be granting you,’ Zarif bit out, lean tanned hands clenching into fists by his side. He could give her up; of course he could give her up if he had to. He could revisit the idea of putting her in the Dubai apartment though, couldn’t he? The choking tightness banding his chest receded just a little, comforted by that reflection.
What was she playing at? What the heck was she playing at? Ella asked herself in sudden disconcertion because with a few defiant, well-chosen words she could easily blow her parents’ rescue plan right out of the water and she had no wish to do that. But Zarif had disappointed her expectations, demeaning and offending her by asking her that inexcusable question.
Is it true?
But she could see his point; she could really see and understand his point. Vashir was a conservative country and a scandal-besmirched queen would be about as welcome there as snow in the desert. Jason had played a blinder, she thought painfully, for how could she possibly defend herself against such accusations? Didn’t mud always cling to such victims? But, hell roast it, she was nobody’s victim and certainly not her greedy brother’s!
‘Surely you had my lifestyle checked out before you proposed?’ Ella prompted, because it would have struck her as incredibly reckless of him to have proposed without first assuring himself of her continuing suitability and she refused to believe that Zarif had a single reckless bone in his body. ‘Surely you already know the answer to your own question?’
‘Regrettably not. I had no thought of marriage in mind when we met at the hotel,’ Zarif admitted stonily, furious that she wasn’t giving him a straight answer.
‘My goodness, that was very irresponsible and quite unlike you,’ Ella told him in dulcet surprise, her golden head tilting to one side as if she was taking special note of that fact.
His dark-as-molasses eyes flamed tawny gold, his outrage at her mockery unconcealed. ‘Answer me!’ he instructed her rawly, his tone cracking like a whip in the smouldering silence.
‘Exactly what sort of a past did you think I might have?’ Ella enquired in a brittle voice, striving not to yield an inch at the intimidating mien of granite-hard purpose and authority that had hardened his darkly handsome face. He could be tough but she could be tough too when it came to self-defence.
‘Nothing out of the ordinary. Obviously I’m not expecting you to be a virgin. I assume you’ve had the usual adult experiences and I have no desire to pry any more intimately than that into your past. But that,’ Zarif breathed with harsh emphasis, ‘would be my personal outlook. In my public role I have to take into account my people and what they expect from their royal family. We are an old-fashioned people and my family is expected to set high standards. I would also like to know how all this got into the hands of the press.’
‘Family photos appeared in that article... Mum and I think that Jason sold the story.’
Zarif frowned in disbelief. ‘Jason has done this to you?’
‘You seem surprised. But Jason is burning with resentment and bitterness right now. He’s not going to profit in any way from our marriage and that has enraged him.’
‘I had assumed he would take the benefits to your parents into account.’
Ella rolled her eyes at that principled view. ‘My brother has a vengeful streak. Since you’re cut from the same cloth, you should understand that.’
Fresh outrage roared through Zarif. ‘In no way can you compare me to your brother!’
‘Blackmailing me into marrying you to get me into bed is revenge,’ Ella informed him shortly. ‘Maybe you still think it’s a big thrill and an honour for me but I don’t feel the same way.’
‘You still haven’t answered my question about the veracity of that newspaper story,’ Zarif reminded her with stubborn grit, furious that she had labelled his generosity as blackmail when he saw it as something else entirely.
‘Because...really, you don’t deserve an answer,’ Ella condemned with an angry bitterness she couldn’t hide. ‘And you should be ashamed that you even asked. You knew me three years ago. Can you really credit that I’ve changed that much?’
A forbidding edge hardened Zarif’s jawline. ‘I have lived long enough to accept that people do change in unexpected ways. Events can make people act out of character,’ he pointed out flatly, refusing to yield an inch on that score for he himself had once behaved in such a way.
‘I bow to your superior knowledge, but choosing not to marry you three years ago didn’t push me into trying out the lifestyle of a porn queen,’ Ella declared with licking scorn, blue eyes mutinously bright. ‘I’ve never heard of Matt Barton before, never even met him. I suspect he’s someone Jason paid to malign me as, being my brother, it would be odd for Jason to have made sexual allegations against me and it would also have meant exposing the fact that he sold me down the river in the first place.’
A small tithe of the tension holding Zarif rigid eased. ‘You’ve never even met the man who is referred to as your ex-boyfriend?’ he pressed. ‘You’re saying the whole story is a lie? Don’t tell me that just to impress me because I will investigate this matter further.’
‘Right at this moment,’ Ella proclaimed, tossing back her head so that rumpled golden hair tumbled in glossy disarray round her shoulders, ‘I haven’t the smallest desire to impress you.’
‘But you do need to ensure that our wedding goes ahead,’ Zarif reminded her in a roughened undertone because he was noticing that the well-washed cotton of her pyjama jacket was snagging on her pointed nipples, vaguely delineating the firm, full curves of the breasts he longed to explore. He swallowed back a curse, infuriated by his loss of focus and the suspicion that he was behaving like a sex-starved teenage boy.
