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Isobel swallowed. ‘Bath okay?’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘You didn’t bother telling me that you don’t have a shower.’
‘I guessed you find out soon enough.’
‘So I did,’ he growled. ‘It’s the most ancient bathroom I’ve used in years—and the water was tepid.’
‘Don’t they say that tepid baths are healthier?’
‘Do they?’ He looked around. ‘Where’s your TV?’
‘I don’t have one.’
‘You don’t have a TV?’
Isobel shot him a defensive look. ‘It isn’t mandatory, you know. There’s a whole wall of books over there. Help yourself to one of those.’
‘You mean read?’
‘That is what people usually do with books.’
With a short sigh of impatience, Tariq wandered over to examine the neat rows of titles which lined an entire wall of her sitting room.
The only things he ever read were financial papers or contracts, or business-related articles he caught up with when he was travelling. Occasionally his attention would be caught by some glossy car magazine, which would lure him into changing his latest model for something even more powerful. But he never read books. He had neither the time nor the inclination to lose himself in the world of fiction. He remembered that stupid story he’d read
at school—about some animal which had been abandoned. He remembered the tears which had welled up in his eyes when its mother had been shot and the way he’d slammed the volume shut. Books made you feel things—and the only thing he wanted to feel right now were the tantalising curves of Izzy’s body.
But that was a bad idea. And he needed something to occupy his thoughts other than musing about what kind of underwear a woman like that would wear beneath her rather frumpy clothes.
In the end he forced himself to read a thriller—grateful for the novel’s rapid pace, which somehow seemed to suck him into an entirely believable story of a one-time lap dancer successfully nailing a high-profile banker for fraud. He was so engrossed in the tale that Izzy’s voice startled him, and he looked up to find her standing over him, her face all pink and shiny.
‘Mmm?’ he questioned, thinking how soft and kissable her lips looked.
‘Supper’s ready.’
‘Supper?’
‘You do eat supper?’
Actually he usually ate dinner—an elegant feast of a meal—rather than a large spoonful of glossy rice slapped on the centre of an earthy-looking plate. But to Tariq’s surprise he realised that he was hungry—and he enjoyed it more than he had expected. Afterwards Izzy heaped more logs on the fire, and they sat there in companionable silence while he picked up his novel and began to race through it again.
For Tariq, the days which followed his accident were unique. He’d been brought up in a closeted world of palaces and privilege, but now he found himself catapulted into an existence which seemed far more bizarre. His nights were spent alone, in an old and lumpy bed, yet he found he was sleeping late—something he rarely did, not even when he was jet-lagged. And the lack of a shower meant that he’d lie daydreaming in the bath in the mornings. In the cooling water of the rather cramped tub he would stretch out his long frame and listen to the sounds of birds singing outside the window. So that by the time he wandered downstairs it was to find his Titian-haired assistant bustling around with milk jugs and muesli, or asking him if he wanted to try the eggs from the local farm.
For the first time in a long time he felt relaxed—even if Izzy seemed so busy that she never seemed to stop. She was always doing something—cooking or cleaning or dealing with the e-mails which flooded in from the office, shielding him from all but the most necessary requests.
‘Why don’t you loosen up a little?’ he questioned one morning, glancing up from his latest thriller to see her cleaning out the grate, a fine cloud of coal dust billowing around her.
Izzy pushed a stray strand of hair from out of her eyes with her elbow. Because action distracted her from obsessing about his general gorgeousness, that was why. And because she was afraid that if she allowed herself to stop then she might never get going again.
What did he expect her to do all day? Sit staring as he sprawled over her sofa, subjecting her to a closer-than-was comfortable view of his muscular body? Watch as he shifted one powerful thigh onto the other, thus drawing attention to the mysterious bulge at the crotch of his jeans? A place she knew she shouldn’t be looking—which, of course, made it all the more difficult not to. She felt guilty and ashamed at the wayward path of her thoughts, and began to wonder if he had cast some kind of spell on her. Suddenly the clingy behaviour of some of his ex-lovers became a little more understandable.
Her nights weren’t much better. How could they be when she knew that Tariq was lying in bed in the room next door? Hadn’t she already experienced the disturbing episode of him wandering out of the bathroom one morning with nothing but a small towel strung low around his hips?
Tiny droplets of water had clung to his hard, olive-skinned torso, and Isobel’s heart had thumped like a piston as she’d surveyed his perfect physique. She’d briefly thought of suggesting that perhaps he ought to be using a bigger towel. But wouldn’t that have sounded awfully presumptuous? In the end, she had just mumbled, ‘Good morning …’ and hurried past him, terrified that he would see the telltale flush of desire in her cheeks.
Almost overnight the cool neutrality she’d felt towards her boss had been replaced with new and scary sensations. She felt almost molten with longing whenever she looked at him—yet at the same time she resented these disturbing new feelings. Why couldn’t she have felt this sharp sense of desire with other men? Decent, reliable men? The kind of men she usually dated and who inevitably left her completely cold? Why the hell did it have to be him?
‘Izzy?’ His deep voice broke into her disturbed thoughts. ‘Why don’t you sit down and relax?’
