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Her lashes fluttered up on bewildered green eyes. ‘You’re asking me to leave Strathcraig with you?’
Shahir wondered why it was that he was finding it difficult to come to the point. ‘I’m asking you to continue being my lover.’
Kirsten sucked in a startled breath and attempted to master her astonishment. ‘But—’
‘Hear me out before you speak. I have an apartment in London. You can live there until you have had the time to choose a new home, of your own. I’ll buy you that home and take care of all your needs.’
Shock was rippling through Kirsten as she understood what he was offering her—shock, and the beginnings of anger. ‘You really don’t have any respect for me, do you? Is that because I work as a cleaner? Or because I went to bed with you before we even got as far as a first date?’
Disconcerted by the unexpectedly volatile response, Shahir murmured flatly, ‘Respect doesn’t come into this—’
‘I noticed! Well, I may have behaved in a very stupid manner today, but I do know the difference between right and wrong! And I may not be a virgin any more either,’ Kirsten conceded with fierce discomfiture, ‘but there is no way I’m about to turn into some cheap floozy you keep for sex!’
Shahir sprang upright. ‘That is a distortion of the facts.’
‘For someone who doesn’t like lies you can be very imaginative with the truth,’ Kirsten muttered bitterly.
‘That could be because I very much want you to become a part of my life.’
‘No, you don’t!’ Her eyes were hot with unshed tears but she was quivering with furious pain. ‘You think I’m not good enough for anything but sharing a bed with. That’s fine. Don’t you dare think I care about that. But feeling as you do about me, you should have stayed well away from me!’
With that emphatic accusation, and almost blinded by tears, Kirsten snatched up her clothes, fled through to the bathroom and slammed shut the door. She would have liked a shower but was afraid of getting her hair wet. Even so, she was desperate to make good her escape and get back to work. Having made do with a hurried wash at the vanity unit, she dragged her clothes on over skin that was still damp.
Who would ever have thought that he would invite her to be his mistress? She must have been all right in bed, she reflected painfully. He would not want a repeat performance otherwise. He wouldn’t want to offer her a house either. How could he have dared to talk of her becoming part of his life when it was so obvious that all he was interested in sharing with her was sex? When he would essentially be keeping her in return for the use of her body?
That offer was so horribly humiliating. Yet what else had she expected from him? She had not looked before she had leapt. How could she have any kind of normal relation ship with a prince? The enormous gulf between them could never be bridged. That was why she should not have slept with him. Playing by the rules and keeping her distance would have protected her. Now her body had an intimate ache that she knew she would never forget.
She suppressed the sob clogging up her throat. She wanted so badly to relive that wonderful moment of togetherness when he had held her close before it all began to go wrong. But that was impossible.
Her home life had been destroyed by her father’s violence. Now continuing to work at the castle would feel equally unsustainable. She did not want to see Shahir again. She did not want to work for him in any capacity either. What had once seemed like honest employment would now feel demeaning, she conceded unhappily. Somehow—and soon—she had to find a way to leave the farm and find another job.
Dragging in a shuddering breath of oxygen, she rested her damp brow against the wooden door and then opened it again.
Shahir was pacing the sitting room, his lean, darkly handsome features taut and grave. A heartbeat after Kirsten’s flight from his presence, his intelligence had kicked back in and cold logic had prevailed. His perfectly orchestrated and rational existence had gone off the rails and crashed at spectacular speed. He was a disciplined man, and he was not accustomed to finding himself in the wrong, but he had too much integrity to deny the obvious. In retrospect he was sincerely appalled by his own unscrupulous behaviour.
Had he been more disturbed by the news of Faria’s nuptials than he was prepared to admit? He saw that it had suited his purpose to give credit to Pamela Anstruther’s sleazy suggestion that Kirsten was promiscuous. And he felt it unpardonable that that slur had made Kirsten seem more accessible and his own desire for her more acceptable. Only now that sanity and clear judgement had been restored did Shahir recognise that nothing could excuse his having become intimate with an employee.
Yet even that was not a fair appraisal of his misconduct, Shahir acknowledged bleakly. He had taken unprincipled advantage of a virgin—a naive and vulnerable young woman who should have been able to rely on him for support during a troubled period in her life. Instead he had betrayed her trust, and acted in a way that had increased her distress. He could not evade responsibility for the damage that he had caused. And suggesting that she become his mistress had been an even more distasteful act on his part. He was ashamed, and he knew what honour demanded of him in restitution.
Kirsten lodged in the doorway like a nervous fawn, ready to run for the undergrowth at the first sign of threat. ‘I’m sorry…I need my overall.’
As she hastened across the room, her eyes screened by her lashes, and stooped to pick up the garment, Shahir addressed her. ‘Kirsten, I have to talk to you.’
Kirsten refused to look at him. She was holding herself together, but only just managing, and she would have died rather than break down in front of him. ‘You don’t need to say anything at all. I bet you’ll be relieved to hear that I don’t expect to be working here for much longer. In fact I won’t even be living at Strathcraig any more.’
‘I am not relieved to hear those facts. Where are you planning to go?’ Shahir demanded with a frown.
‘I have plans.’
‘Plans are not enough. Don’t allow what happened between us to persuade you into making an impulsive decision. You are suffering a lot of strain right now, and I am aware that I have made the situation worse.’
Pride brought up Kirsten’s chin, and she tossed her head. ‘Actually…I was coping fine until you suggested that I could enjoy a dazzling future as a whore!’
His superb cheekbones were prominent below his bronzed skin, and faint colour accentuated the proud slant of them. ‘I will not attempt to defend myself. I should not have made such a suggestion.’
Flustered by the unexpected admission of fault on his part, Kirsten found it easier to concentrate on putting her overall back on, and then she rushed into the tense silence to break it. ‘That’s all right…forget it. By the way, I never did say thank you for that magazine you got me.’
‘What magazine?’
