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‘Perhaps something cold would help ease it—reduce the swelling?’
‘Good idea.’ He pushed himself upright with a speed and satisfaction that scraped her tight nerves painfully raw. ‘Then we might actually be able to get on the road—get out of here.’
Did he have to make it so plain that all that mattered to him was their getting on their way? She must have been totally deluding herself thinking that he might actually respond to her as she was reacting to him. Daft idea. Stupid—crazy idea! Just what would a man like Karim—like Crown Prince Karim Al Khalifa—find of any interest in someone like her? Someone in tatty jeans and a sweater, her hair unstyled and usually just left to fall free. Someone who was happier with books and paintings than the clubs and bars her friends were fascinated by.
Someone who must wear her naiveté and ignorance where the opposite sex was concerned like a brand on her forehead. And show it in every unguarded move, every artless look. A man like Karim would be seen with sophisticated glamorous women. He would be like Nabil who, even though he was so much younger, had already been spotted with beautiful models or actresses. He had the freedom to play the field. To sow his wild oats before tying himself down to the arranged marriage that had been planned for them both.
‘Peas,’ she said abruptly, her uncomfortable thoughts not giving her room to think of anything extra to make it less stark, less brusque. ‘Freezer...’
That was no better but at least she waved her hand in the direction of the kitchen. And at least he followed her vague gesture, moving away so that she had time to catch her breath, fight to bring her heart rate under control.
‘Wrapping a bag of frozen peas around it might work.’ He didn’t need the explanation, was already opening the freezer door and rummaging through the bags and containers in there.
‘If I have any peas...’
A sudden thought struck her and she couldn’t control her response, unable to hold back the giggle that bubbled up in her chest.
‘What is it?’
He didn’t sound as irritable as before. In fact there was actually a softening warmth in his tone. Or was she just deceiving herself, wanting to hear it?
‘What are you laughing about?’
‘I can’t believe that we are struggling to find a packet of frozen peas when there is all that ice and snow outside! Can’t you just fill a plastic bag with the stuff and wrap that around my ankle?’
‘It might work—but—ah!’ He pounced on something inside the freezer. ‘Not peas—but I’m sure sweetcorn will have exactly the same effect. You have so little food in the freezer,’ he said as he came back to crouch down by the settee again. ‘Barely enough to feed a bird.’
‘I was running it all down, getting ready to move away from here—to Rhastaan— Ouch!’
He had dumped the frozen bag on her ankle with a surprising lack of finesse, nothing like the powerful and contained grace of movement he had showed up to now.
‘Did that hurt?’
Frantically, Clemmie shook her head, afraid that he would replace the chill of the frozen vegetables with that disturbing and dangerous warmth of his hands, the unsettling feel of his touch.
‘No—just the cold! It was a shock. But I’m sure it will help—’
‘It had better. We need to get out of here.’
It was as if the few moments it had taken him to hunt through the freezer had pushed the ice into his soul and turned it hard and glacial all over again. But more likely the truth was that she had been letting her imagination run away with her when she had thought she’d heard that unexpected streak of warmth that had softened his tone.
‘You’re not still thinking of leaving tonight? You’re mad! Have you ever tried driving in conditions like this?’
‘I have lived—and driven—in Europe before.’
But not in a snowstorm like the one raging outside, Karim had to admit to himself. Under normal circumstances, he would stay right where he was. But these were not normal circumstances. There was nothing normal about the situation he had been put in, first by his father, then Nabil—and now Clementina.
And there was nothing normal about his reaction to her. The soul-twisting, gut-wrenching, brutally carnal hunger this woman woke in him.
Hell and damnation!
Karim pushed himself to his feet and swung away from watching her as she clamped the bag of frozen sweetcorn around her ankle. He couldn’t bear to see the way the colour had left her cheeks and then unexpectedly flooded right back into them again. The way she was still worrying at the softness of her lip and, worst of all, the unexpected vulnerability in her eyes. Each one of those responses would twist at his gut. Taken together, they were lethal to his self-control.
Stupid, stupid, stupid! Karim told himself as he headed for the door. He should know better—he did know better. But knowing and convincing himself that this was not going to happen was getting harder with each thundering beat that made his pulse thud at his temples.
He hadn’t had a woman in a long time. Too long. Another thing that was part of the mess that his life had become in the past six months. The upside down and inside out version of the existence he had once had. And that was nothing like it would ever be again.
Perhaps the time spent outside, trying to get the car going again would give him a much-needed dose of reality. Certainly, the cold of the wind and snow should have the effect of an icy shower to cool the heat of his blood. Permanently, he hoped. When he had looked into Clementina’s eyes and seen the bruised pansy darkness there, the heat that had flooded his senses had been a form of madness that had sent his brain into meltdown.
It had been strong enough to make him forget for a moment just who she was, and why he was here. It had made him realise just how much he had pushed aside his own needs to deal with other things.
And those needs had now come rushing back in the form of the one woman who was the last person on earth he should feel those things for.
The snow whirled wildly into his face as he opened the door, making him grimace, bring up his hands against the onslaught. He could barely see through the white curtain but he had no intention of turning back. The exercise and the fight against the cold were the only possible antidote he could think of to the frustration that was burning up inside him.
How much longer was he going to be?
Clemmie could not fight against the restlessness that had assailed her since Karim had disappeared out of the door and let it slam behind him. She needed to know what was happening, when they might get on the road. The evening had started to gather in, filling the room with darkness, but when she had tried to get up to switch on more lights, the pain in her ankle had had her sinking back on to the settee with a cry of distress. But if things got any worse, she was going to have to try again. The cold was beginning to fill the air too and she was starting to feel uncomfortably chilled just sitting here.
She was just about to try to push herself to her feet again when the front door banged open and Karim appeared in the hallway. A Karim who looked more like a moving snowman than anything human, his jacket was so piled up with snow and his hair plastered against the strong bones of his skull by the damp.
‘At last!’ she said.
She pushed herself up in her seat as he stood on the doormat, stamping his feet to clear them of the clinging snow.
‘Are we on our way?’
It was inevitable they must be. That was what he had come for—to collect her and take her back to Rhastaan. She wouldn’t—couldn’t let the painful clenching of her stomach make her think of how it felt to be starting out on this journey, heading for the life she hadn’t chosen but she had known must come to be hers. And leaving behind the only true member of her family she had ever known. Her father didn’t count. He had only seen her as a pawn in his political manoeuvrings and her mother had walked out on her without a glance back.
‘Shall I get my coat?’
If her voice went up and down unnaturally then surely he would think it was because she was struggling to get to her feet. Even she didn’t understand the sudden change in her heartbeat, the skittering of her pulse as she took in the stark contrast between the white of the snow and the dark power of the rest of Karim’s body, the heavy silhouette of his frame in the doorway, illuminated by the one hanging light.
‘No.’
It was stark and cold, biting as harshly as the wind that sneaked down the hall, taking even more of the minimal warmth from the room so that she shivered in more than physical response. What had happened to the man who had laughed with her over the pack of frozen sweetcorn?
‘But I thought...’
‘Don’t think,’ Karim snarled.
He pulled off the snow-laden jacket, tossed it aside, stamping his feet again with a sound that echoed ominously in the silence.
‘And don’t say another word—not unless you can come up with some clever idea as to how we can get the heap of scrap you call a car to move more than a metre or two.’
