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Isobel turned back to the now leaping flames, an unseen smile playing around her lips. If he was jumping down her throat like that, then there couldn’t be very much wrong with him.
She waited until the fire was properly alight and then went into the kitchen and made his favourite mint tea—bringing it back into the sitting room on a tray set with bone china cups and a jar of farm honey.
To her relief, she could see that he had taken her at her word. He’d kicked off his hand-made Italian shoes and was lying stretched out on the sofa, despite it being slightly too small to accommodate his lengthy frame. His thick black hair was outlined by a chintz cushion and his powerful thighs were splayed indolently against the faded velvet. It made an incongruous image, she realised—to see the über-masculine Sheikh in such a domestic setting as this.
She poured tea for them both, added honey to his, and put it down on a small table beside him, her gaze straying to his face as she sat on the floor beside the fire. Tariq was known for his faintly unshaven buccaneering look,
but today the deep shadowing which outlined the hard definition of his jaw made him look like a study in brooding testosterone.
Now it was Isobel’s turn to feel vulnerable. That faint butterflies-in-the-stomach feeling was back, big-time. And so was that sudden sensitive prickling of her breasts. She swallowed. ‘How are you feeling?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Will you stop talking to me as if I’m an invalid?’
‘But that’s what you are, Tariq—otherwise you wouldn’t be here, would you? Just put my mind at rest. I’m not asking you to divulge the secrets of your heart—just answer the question.’
For the first time he became aware of the faint shadows beneath her eyes. She must be tired, he realised suddenly, and frowned. Hadn’t he woken her at the crack of dawn yesterday? Called her and known she would come running to his aid without a second thought—because that was what she always did? Safe, reliable Izzy, who was always there when he needed her—often before he even realised he did. It wasn’t an observation which would have normally occurred to him, and the novelty of that made him consider her question instead of batting it away with his habitual impatience.
Oddly—apart from the lessening ache in his head and the woolly feeling which came from his having been inactive for over a day—he felt strangely relaxed. Usually he was alert and driven, restlessly looking ahead to the next challenge. He was also constantly on his guard, knowing that his royal blood made him a target for all kinds of social climbers. Or journalists masquerading as dinner-dates.
Since his brother had unexpectedly acceded to the throne it had grown worse—placing him firmly in the public eye. He was bitterly aware that his words were always listened to, often distorted and then repeated—so he used them with caution.
Yet right now he felt a rush of unfamiliar contentment which was completely alien to him. For the first time in his adult life he found himself alone in a confined space with a woman who wasn’t intent on removing his clothes....
‘I have a slight ache in my...’ he shifted his position as she tucked her surprisingly long legs beneath her and he felt another sharp kick of awareness ‘...head. But other than that I feel okay.’
The gleam in his black eyes was making Isobel feel uncomfortable. She wished he’d stop looking at her like that. Rather unnecessarily, she gave the fire a quick poke. ‘Good.’
Tariq sipped at his tea, noting the sudden tension in her shoulders. Was she feeling it too? he wondered. This powerful sexual awareness which was simmering in the air around them?
With an effort, he pushed it from his mind and sought refuge in the conventional. ‘I didn’t realise you had a place like this. I thought you lived in town.’
Isobel laid the poker back down in the grate, his question making her realise the one-sided quality of their relationship. She knew all about his life—but he knew next to nothing about hers, did he?
‘I do live in town. I just keep this as a weekend place—which is a bit of a luxury. I really ought to sell it and buy myself something larger than the shoebox I currently inhabit in London, but I can’t quite bring myself to let it go. My mother worked hard to buy it, you see. She lived rent-free at the school, of course, and when she retired she moved here.’ She read the question in his eyes, took a deep breath and faced it full-on. ‘She died six years ago and left it to me.’
‘And what about your father?’
All her old defensiveness sprang into place. ‘What about him?’
‘You never talk about him.’
‘That’s because you never ask.’
‘No. You’re right. I don’t.’ And the reason he never asked was because he wasn’t particularly interested in the private lives of his staff. The less you knew about the people who worked for you, the less complication all round.
But surely these circumstances were unusual enough to allow him to break certain rules? And didn’t Izzy’s hesitancy alert his interest? Arouse his natural hunter instincts? Tariq leaned back against the pillow of his folded elbows and studied her. ‘I’m asking now.’
Isobel met the curiosity in his eyes. If it had been anyone else she might have told them to mind their own business, or used the evasive tactics she’d employed all her life. She was protective of her private life and her past—and hated being judged or pitied. But that was the trouble with having a personal conversation with your boss—you weren’t exactly on equal terms, were you? And Tariq wasn’t just any boss. His authority was enriched with the sense of entitlement which came with his princely title and his innate belief that he was always right. Would he be shocked to learn of her illegitimacy?
She shrugged her shoulders, as if what she was about to say didn’t matter. ‘I don’t know my father.’
‘What do you mean, you don’t know him?’
‘Just that. I never saw him, nor met him. To me, he was just a man my mother had a relationship with. Only it turned out that he was actually married to someone else at the time.’
He narrowed his eyes. ‘So what happened?’
She remembered all the different emotions which had crossed her mother’s face when she had recounted her tale. Hurt. Resentment. And a deep and enduring sense of anger and betrayal. Men were the enemy, who could so easily walk away from their responsibilities, Anna Mulholland had said. Had that negativity brushed off on her only daughter and contributed to Isobel’s own poor record with men? Maybe it had—for she’d never let anyone close enough to really start to care about them.
