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‘For me?’ Sylvie repeated faintly, aware that Arkim hadn’t really answered her question.
His face was expressionless, and it made Sylvie think of the passionate intensity he’d shown in bed only a few hours before. It suddenly felt like a long time ago. Not hours.
‘Yes, for you,’ Arkim reiterated. ‘The helicopter will take you to the international airport in B’harani, where one of my staff will meet you and see you on to a plane back to France. I’m taking the Jeep back to the castle as I’ve some business to attend to there before I return to Europe.’
When she said nothing, feeling cold inside, and as if she’d been hit with a bat, Arkim asked almost accusingly, ‘Did you think we could stay here for ever?’
Yes, came a rogue voice. And Sylvie felt like such a fool. She’d been weaving daydreams and fantasies out of something that didn’t exist. This oasis and what had happened here was as much of a mirage as the kind a dying man in the desert might see through the heat waves in the distance. For ever unreachable.
She forced herself to look Arkim in the eye. ‘No, of course not.’
His voice was stark, stripped of anything remotely soft. ‘This can’t ever be anything more than what’s happened here. You do know that, don’t you?’
Sylvie felt her old cynical walls—badly battered and crumbled—start to resurrect themselves. What Arkim really meant was, You didn’t really think I’d ever want to be associated with you outside of this remote outpost, did you?
She couldn’t believe she’d let herself fall so hard and so fast for someone who would only ever hold her in mediocre esteem. Who had only seduced her as a form of retribution. And she’d been fully complicit.
‘Of course I know that, Arkim.’ She tried to inject as much nonchalance into her voice as possible.
She felt brittle. If someone so much as brushed past her now she might shatter. She stepped back—out of the pull Arkim exerted on her with such effortless ease.
‘I should pack my things. I don’t want there to be any delay when the helicopter gets here.’
‘Mariah will bring you some lunch.’
Sylvie forced a smile. ‘That’s considerate—thank you.’
She turned and walked away before he could see the rise of tumultuous emotions within her. Anger and hurt and self-recrimination. She should have left when she had the chance. She should have protected herself better. She should have known that he would just drop her from a height when he was done with her... She just hadn’t expected it to be so soon, so cold, and so brutal.
A month later, London...
Arkim stood at his office window, gazing out on a scene of unremitting grey skies and rain. An English summer in all its glory.
He realised, somewhat moodily, that he seemed to be spending an inordinate amount of time looking out of his window across the iconic cityscape, with an inability to focus.
Since he’d come back to London he’d been braced for the fallout from his very public humiliation. But, to his shock and surprise, when he’d requested a debriefing from his PR team he’d been informed that there was no discernible fallout. Yes, he’d lost some business initially, and the tabloid reports in the immediate aftermath had been bruising. Stocks had fallen sharply, but it had been very temporary. And ultimately not damaging.
Arkim was not a little stunned to realise that in the wake of his ruined wedding, the world hadn’t stopped turning. The reputation he’d spent so long building up hadn’t crumbled to pieces, as he’d feared. Many more scandals had come and gone. He was already old news. People couldn’t care less if he’d really slept with Sylvie Devereux.
The deal with Grant Lewis had been signed off on, and the old man appeared to feel no rancour towards Arkim, despite what had happened. Lewis had been in straits far more dire than he’d led anyone to believe, and his eagerness to keep the deal on the table only reminded Arkim of how eroded his well-worn cynicism had become. Lust for power and wealth trumped even scandal.
A hum of ever-present frustration pulsed in his blood. Despite his best efforts to resist the urge, he’d had his team checking the papers and media daily for any news of Sylvie, but to all intents and purposes she’d vanished back into her life.
An image of her face, wide open and smiling, her skin lightly golden from the sun and dusted with freckles, came back to him so vividly that he sucked in a breath.
An ache had settled deep into his being from the moment he’d watched her helicopter take off from the oasis that day and it hadn’t subsided. The truth could no longer be ignored or denied. He still wanted her.
In the last month he’d been to functions with the most beautiful women in the world, and they’d left him cold. Dead inside. But all he had to do was conjure up a memory of Sylvie—that day in the pool—and he was rewarded with a surge of arousal. About which he could do nothing unless he wanted to regress to being the age of fourteen in a shower stall.
The intercom sounded from his desk and Arkim welcomed the distraction, turning around. ‘Yes, Liz?’
‘There’s a young lady downstairs to see you...’
Even before Arkim could ask her name, blood was rushing to his head and heat to his groin.
‘Who did you say?’ He had to ask, after his assistant had said the name. Surely he’d misheard—?
‘Sophie Lewis...your...er...ex-fiancée.’
