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One glimpse of Shahir’s mystified expression was sufficient to tell Kirsten that she had made yet another embarrassing mistake. He had not been responsible for leaving that magazine in her pigeonhole—and why on earth had she assumed that he had? Wishful thinking? Her cheeks burned.
‘Never mind…Look, we’ve got nothing more to say to each other,’ she muttered hurriedly.
‘In that you are mistaken. I owe you an explanation for my behaviour.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Please…’
The sound of that unfamiliar word on his lips allied to the terrible strain in the atmosphere made her eyes sting with tears. She could feel his remorse, and it was as sharp as her own. Oddly enough, his regret at what had happened between them hurt her more than his suggestion that she become his mistress.
She stole a brief glance at him from below her lashes. He was breathtakingly handsome. She remembered his mesmerising smile, the golden sheen of his skin against the white bedlinen, the warmth and the feel of him below her fingertips. Guilty pleasure almost consumed her, and a tiny twist of wicked heat sparked.
She tore her attention away from him in deep shame. Why could she not control her mind and her body?
‘I will order coffee.’ Shahir was determined to bring a more civilised note to the proceedings.
‘No…please, let’s just get this over with.’
Shahir studied her pale perfect profile in frustration. Suddenly it was as though she was locked away from him in a place he couldn’t follow. Even when she had been forced to look in his direction he had felt as though she could not quite see him.
‘I hate to see you so unhappy. Matters may well have gone awry today because we were both too preoccupied with other events in our lives to be thinking clearly.’
Her attention caught, she glanced at him. ‘Other events?’
‘Your father had struck you, and I…’ His beautifully modelled masculine mouth clenched as he steeled himself to make a personal admission that did not come easily to a male of his reserve. ‘I too had some reasons to be disturbed. This morning I learned, quite by accident, that a woman who was important to me had become another man’s wife.’
Kirsten could feel the blood draining from below her skin. She dropped her head and stared a hole in the magnificent rug beneath his polished leather shoes. His confession had hit her like a body-blow
. It had come out of nowhere and he might as well have plunged a knife into her heart. A woman important to him? Obviously he was referring to a woman whom he loved. Yet it seemed almost unimaginable to Kirsten that Prince Shahir could have fallen in love and met with rejection.
Yet he had just told her so. He loved someone else. That thought steadily blocked out every other: Shahir’s heart belonged to someone else.
The new awareness blazed a burning, wounding trail of pain across Kirsten’s very soul. He loved another woman and, unable to have her, had taken Kirsten to bed instead. She had been a stop-gap, a distraction, a consolation prize. She felt sick with hurt and humiliation.
‘What’s her name?’ she asked shakily.
Shahir had not been prepared either for the lengthy silence that followed his admission or for what he deemed to be the irrelevant question. His ebony brows pleated and his answer was reluctant. ‘Faria…’
‘You didn’t need to tell me about her.’ Kirsten could not help wishing that he had remained silent, for in telling her the truth he had lacerated her pride and filled her with a hollow sense of anguish.
‘There was a need. I’m not in the habit of behaving as I did today. I took advantage of you and I wish to redress that wrong.’ His lean, strong face was set in hard lines of resolve. ‘In this situation there is only one way in which I can do that.’
‘I don’t understand. What’s done is done.’
‘Marry me,’ he murmured levelly. ‘Marry me and become my wife.’
Kirsten parted her lips to vent a shaken laugh, but no sound came out. Involuntarily focusing on him, she met dark golden eyes as steady as they were serious. ‘But that’s the craziest thing I ever heard…’
‘It is not. This is not a liberal community, and you are not from a home where sex outside marriage is deemed acceptable. Naturally you are upset by what has happened between us, and you have a right to be. In taking advantage of your trust when you were in an emotional frame of mind I acted with dishonour.’
‘But to propose marriage to me…’ Words failed her.
She was stunned by the turnaround in his attitude. It was, however, beginning to sink in that his conduct towards her must have been very much out of character. Yet that acknowledgement only made her more painfully aware of his love for Faria. He must have been thinking of Faria when he took her in his arms, and that hurt.
‘Why not? Sooner rather than later I must marry someone.’
‘But surely not just anyone?’ she framed shakily.
