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Talking. That might do it. Talk about anything—anything but sex. Think about anything but sex. And then when he was out of here he would find the nearest, most willing woman and lose himself in her. It might take more than one but at least he could have fun trying.
Now, what had they been talking about? The cottage and the fact that she had come here—running away from her duty.
‘So why didn’t you tell anyone where you were—and that you’d be back?’
It was the last thing Clementina had been expecting. She had been sure that he had something else on his mind, something that had brought that black scowl to his face, tightened the muscles in his long body until they made him stand as if he was ready for a fight.
‘Leave another note like the one I left you?’
Broad shoulders shrugged off her challenge, her shaky defiance seeming to bounce off those taut muscles.
‘I doubt very much that I’d have been believed. And then...’
But no, that was going too far. He already knew where she had been last night. The address was obviously filed away in some database on his computer, along with the trail that the tracking device had followed to Mary’s house. If she let anyone suspect that Harry existed, that he had been adopted after her mother’s unexpected death, then it would be the easiest thing to hunt down 3 Lilac Close and...
Following his example, she tossed the bread and cheese down on to her plate and pushed it aside, unable to think of eating any more. What she was doing would protect Harry—and Mary and Arthur. It would give them the future that she couldn’t hope for herself. She had signed the cottage away to the Clendons and she could only hope that they, and especially Harry, would love it as much as she had.
‘Yet you left me a note—and expected it to be believed.’
And even now she was still asking herself why. Not why she had left it. That had been the only honourable thing she could do. She couldn’t just have taken off out of here without leaving some communication that said she was coming back, that the future that was all mapped out for her was one she accepted—she had to accept.
But she didn’t quite know why she had thought that it mattered particularly to leave it for him—and that he would believe she had meant it.
‘But you didn’t really believe me—did you?’ she challenged. ‘You didn’t need to, for one thing—you had that tracking device on my car. You could have come and picked me up at any point.’
‘I could—but you seemed to be having such fun.’
‘Fun that isn’t part of my royal duties...’
The words faded away from her tongue, leaving her mouth dry and tight.
‘I was having...you saw?’
Karim didn’t condescend to give her an answer, but his total stillness told her all she needed to know.
‘You followed me!’
He didn’t even blink.
‘I came here to fetch you back to Rhastaan. It is my duty to make sure that you arrive there safely and in time for the wedding ceremony.’
Something in the word ‘safely’ caught on a raw edge of Clemmie’s nerves, making her frown in uncertainty. But there was something else that had slid into her mind, something that now seemed to explode in a shock reaction.
‘You followed me—you saw where I was—you saw I was...h-having fun.’ So had he seen Harry too? Had he looked through the window and seen the obvious affection she had for the little boy and he for her? Could he now tell someone...?
‘But you didn’t fetch me from there. You watched and then you came back here and waited for me to come home. Why?’
‘I have been asking myself that too.’
‘And how have you answered it?’
Another of those expressive shoulder shrugs but this time it was not just dismissive. Instead she would have said that it had a touch of uncertainty about it except that uncertainty was not something she could possibly associate with Karim in any way.
‘I wanted to see what would happen.’
‘But if I hadn’t come back—if I’d stayed or moved on somewhere else... No, don’t answer that!’
She caught the gleam of something disturbing and dangerous in that rough-hewn face. Something that the flickering candlelight made even more worrying as it cast shadows across his stunning features. She knew what would have happened if she’d tried anything else. He would have come after her like the hunting cat she’d imagined him to be earlier, and when he’d caught up with her...
Something cold and nasty slid down her spine at just the thought of what would have happened then. But, in the same moment, her pulse also jumped at the image of him coming after her, hunting her down, making her his.
Oh—that was stupid! Quite the most impossible image! If this man hunted her down, it was only to collect her and take her back to another man—to her prospective bridegroom. And he was only doing that because of this strongly felt sense of duty that he kept harping on about. Did she need any further evidence that he had never considered her as a person in all this, but only as the ‘target’, the errant princess he must return to her arranged marriage, no consideration as to whether she was willing or not coming into it?
‘Tell me something...why is it that you are here—? Yes, I know you’ve told me that you’ve come to escort me back to Nabil. But why you? Surely there must be other security men—other people you could have sent to fetch me.’
Other security men who wouldn’t have disturbed her as much as this man did. Who wouldn’t have sparked off these wild, sensual fantasies that had been plaguing her ever since Karim had walked into her life.
‘Why you?’
She’d touched on some raw nerve there; the change in his face, in his stance, gave it all away. He swung towards the windows, pulling the curtains closed on the night with a rough, jerky movement. With the reflected light of the snow shut out, the small room seemed even darker and more confined, claustrophobically so, and Karim’s lean muscular body filled the space with a sense of power that it seemed impossible the tiny cottage could contain. Clemmie didn’t know if the tiny hairs at the back of her neck had lifted in apprehension or excitement. She only knew that it suddenly seemed as if the heat from the fire couldn’t reach her and she was shivering in shock and reaction.
‘My father had promised Nabil’s family that he would make sure you reached Rhastaan safely. He owed them that, after Nabil’s father had saved his life once in a helicopter accident. It was a matter of honour.’
And that honour meant more than any consideration of the person he was dealing with. The need to get her back to Rhastaan overriding anything else.
‘But he has been taken ill—heart problems—that meant he had to hand the task over to someone else.’
And that was all she was. ‘The task’ who would be handed over like a parcel that needed delivery. If he had stabbed a knife between her ribs he couldn’t have wounded her more.
‘And only you could keep that honour? You don’t have the loyalty of your own security team?’
If she’d picked up her glass of water and flung it in his face, he couldn’t have reacted more sharply. It was as if she was watching a metal door slamming closed behind his eyes, shutting her off from everything in his thoughts, blanking out his expression completely.
‘You don’t!’
The realisation was sharp, shocking like a stab of light into her mind and closing off her throat, taking her breath with it.
‘You can’t trust your own men.’
Her voice came and went like a radio with faulty tuning and the strength seemed to be draining from her legs, seeping away from her, leaving her trembling with shock.
‘My father’s men.’ Karim’s tone was flat, totally deadpan, his face mirroring his expressionless response. ‘Or, rather, one—as far as we know for now. We found that he was working for Ankhara.’
Ankhara. The man whose very name was a threat to her own security, who was determined to prevent the marriage to Nabil from going ahead. Who wouldn’t let a mere woman stand in the way of his ruthless ambition.
Surely the room couldn’t have got so very much colder in the space of several uneven heartbeats? The fire in the hearth was burning brighter than ever but the heat didn’t seem to be reaching out to her. Instead she was chilled right through to the bone.
‘And he was the one who was supposed to come and fetch me?’
A brusque, curt nod was his only answer, not a word being spoken.
‘So you came instead of him.’
To make sure that the job was done properly. Because of that sense of honour he had referred to. The cold that was creeping through her body was there because of her own fault. Somewhere along the line, weakly, foolishly, she had allowed herself to think, to dream, however briefly, that there was the possibility that Karim had come to protect her specially. That he had cared just a little bit because—because it was her? What sort of foolishness had she let creep into her thoughts, making her feel that she mattered? At least to him. But the truth was that she mattered to no one.
