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‘I have never denied that.’
‘Oh,’ she said, her voice frustrated as she turned round and marched towards a room where he could see a fire blazing.
He followed her into a room which had none of the ornaments the English were so fond of cramming into their country homes. There were no china dogs or hangings made of brass. No jumbled oil paintings of ships which hinted at a naval past. Instead, the walls were pale and contrasted with the weathered beams of wood in the ceiling. The furniture was quirky but looked comfortable and the few contemporary paintings worked well, though in theory they shouldn’t have done. Whoever owned this had taste, as well as money.
‘Whose cottage is this?’ he questioned.
‘My lover’s.’
He took a step forward, so that his shadow fell over her defiant features. ‘Please don’t jest with me, Sara. I’m not in the mood for it.’
‘How do you know I’m jesting?’
‘I hope you are. Because if I thought for a moment that you had been intimate with another man—then I would seek him out and tear him from limb to limb.’
As she heard his venomous but undoubtedly truthful words Sara swallowed, reminding herself that it wasn’t a question of Suleiman being jealous. He had only uttered the threat out of loyalty to the Sultan.
She wished he hadn’t turned up and yet if she’d stopped to think about it for more than a second—she must have known he would follow her. If Suleiman took on a task, then Suleiman would see it through. No matter what obstacles were put before him, he would conquer them. That was why the Sultan had asked him—and why he was so respected and feared within the desert nations.
She had driven here without really thinking about the consequences of her action, only about her urgent need to get away. Not just from the dark certainty of her future, but from this man. The man who had rejected her, yet could still make her heart race with desire and longing.
But his face was as cold as a stone mask. His body language was tense and forbidding. Suleiman’s feelings towards her had clearly not changed since the night he’d kissed her and then thrust her away from him. She swallowed. How could she bear to spend hours travelling with him, towards a dark fate which seemed unendurable?
‘It’s my boss, Gabe Steel’s cottage,’ she said. ‘And how did you find me?’
‘It wasn’t difficult,’ he said. ‘You forget that I have tracked down quarry far more elusive than a stubborn princess. Actually, it was your sudden unexpected consent to my plan which alerted my suspicions. It is not like you to be so acquiescent, Sara. I suspected that you would try to give my men the slip so I hid outside the side entrance to your office block and followed you to the car park.’
‘You hid? Outside my office block?’
‘You find that so bizarre?’
‘Of course I do!’ Her heart was hammering in her chest. ‘I live in England now and I live an English life, Suleiman. One where men don’t usually lurk in shadows, following women who don’t want to be followed. Why, you could have been arrested for trespass—especially if my boss had any idea that you were stalking me.’
‘Unlikely—for I am never seen if I do not wish to be seen,’ he said arrogantly. ‘You must have known it was a futile attempt to try to escape, so why do it, Sara? Did you really think you could get away with it?’
‘Go to hell!’
‘I’m not going anywhere and certainly not without you.’
She hated the ruthless tone of his voice. She hated the unresponsive look on his hard face. Suddenly she wanted to shake him. To provoke him. To get some sort of reaction which would make her feel as if she was dealing with a real person, instead of a cold block of stone. ‘I was waiting here,’ she said deliberately. ‘For my lover.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘And why not?’ she demanded. ‘Am I so repulsive that you can’t imagine that a man might actually want to take me to bed?’
For a moment Suleiman stilled, telling himself that he wouldn’t fall into the trap she was so obviously laying for him. She was trying to rile him. Trying to get him to admit to something he was not prepared to admit. Even to himself. Concentrate on the facts, he told himself fiercely—and not on her blonde-haired beauty, or her soft curves which nature must have invented with the int
ention of sending any man crazy with longing.
‘I think you know the answer to that question—and I’m not going to flatter your ego by answering it. Your desirability has never been in question, but you seem to imply that your virtue is.’
‘What if it is?’ she challenged, her voice growing reckless. ‘But I don’t have to explain myself to you and I’m certainly not going to take orders from you. Do you want to know why?’
‘Not really,’ he said, in a bored tone.
‘I think you might.’ She licked her lips in a cat-got-the-cream expression and then smiled. ‘It might interest you to know that in between your invasion of my office and following me here, I have spoken to a journalist.’
There was a pause. Suleiman’s eyes narrowed. ‘I hope that’s a joke.’
