The Call of the Desert (7 page)

Julia backed away again at his crude words, shaking
her head this time, eyes horrifically glued to Kaden. “I told you, it wasn’t like that.”

She realised in that moment that she’d not ever known this man. And with that came the insidious feeling of worthlessness she’d carried ever since she’d found out she was adopted and that her own birth mother had rejected her. She wasn’t good enough for anyone. She never had been …

To this day Julia couldn’t actually remember walking out of that room, or the night that had followed, or the journey to the airport the next day. She only remembered being back in grey, drizzly autumnal England and feeling as though her insides had been ripped out and trampled on. The feeling of rejection was like a corrosive acid, eating away at her, and for a long time she hadn’t trusted her own judgement when it came to men. She’d locked herself away in her studies.

Her husband John had managed to break through her wall of defences with his gentle, unassuming ways, but Julia could see now that she’d fallen for him precisely because he’d been everything Kaden was
not.

When she thought of what had happened last night, and Kaden’s cool assertion that he would see her later—exactly the way a man might talk to a mistress—nausea surged again, and this time Julia couldn’t hold it down. She made it to the toilet in time and was violently ill. When she was able to, she stood and looked at herself in the mirror. She was deathly pale, eyes huge.

What cruel twist of fate had brought them together like this again?

And yet even now, with the memory of how brutally he’d rejected her still acrid like the bile in her throat, Julia felt a helpless weakness invade her. And, worse,
that insidious yearning. Shakily she sat down on the closed toilet seat and vowed to herself that she would thwart Kaden’s arrogant assumption that she would fall in with his plans. Because she didn’t know if she could survive standing in front of him again when he was finished with her, and hearing him tell her it was over.

K
ADEN
sat in his car outside Julia’s modest-sized townhouse. He was oblivious to the fact that his stately vehicle looked ridiculously out of place in the leafy residential street. His mind and belly were churning and had been all day. Much to his intense chagrin he hadn’t been able to concentrate on the business at hand at all, causing his staff to look worried. He was
never
distracted.

He’d struggled to find some sense of equilibrium. But equilibrium had taken a hike and in its place was an ever-present gnawing knowledge that he’d been here before. In this place, standing at the edge of an abyss. About to disappear.

Kaden’s hand tightened to a fist on his thigh. He was not that young man any more. He’d lived and married and divorced. He’d had lovers—many lovers. And not one woman had come close to touching that part of him that he’d locked away years before. When Julia had turned and walked out of his study.

He shook his head to dislodge the memory, but it wouldn’t budge. That last meeting was engraved in his mind like a tattoo. Julia’s slate-grey eyes wide, her cheeks pale as she’d listened to what he’d said. The burning jealousy in his gut when he’d thought of her with that
man. It had eclipsed even his grief at his father’s death. The realisation that she was fallible, that she was like every other woman, had been the start of his cynicism.

Most mocking of all though—even now—was the memory of why he’d gone looking for her on that cataclysmic night of his father’s death. Contrary to his father’s repeated wishes, Kaden had insisted that he wanted Julia. He’d gone to find her, to explain his absence and also to tell her that he wanted her to be his queen some day. That he was prepared to let her finish her studies and get used to the idea and then make a choice. Fired up with love—
or so he’d thought
—he hadn’t been prepared for seeing her entangled in that embrace, outside in the street, where anyone could have seen her.
His woman.

He could remember feeling disembodied. He could remember the way something inside him had shrivelled up to nothing as he’d watched her finally notice him and start to struggle. In that moment whatever he’d felt for her had solidified to a hard black mass within him, and then it had been buried for good.

Only a scant hour later, when Kaden had sat by his dying father’s bed and he had begged Kaden to “
think of your country, not yourself
”, Kaden had finally seen the future clearly. And that future did not include Julia.

It had been a summer of madness. Of believing feelings existed just because they’d been each other’s first lover. He’d come close to believing he loved her, but had realised just in time that he’d confused lust and sexual obsession with love.

As if waking from a dream, Kaden came back to the car, to the street in suburban London. He looked at the townhouse. Benign and peaceful. His blood thickened
and grew hot. Inside that house was the woman who stood between him and his future. On some level he’d never really let her go, and the only way he could do that was to sate this beast inside him. Prove that it was lust once and for all. And this time when he said goodbye to her she would no longer have the power to make him wake, sweating, from vivid dreams, holding a hand to his chest to assuage the dull ache.

Julia felt as if she was thirteen all over again, with butterflies in her belly, flushing hot and cold every two seconds. She’d heard Kaden’s car pull up and her nerves were wound taut waiting for the doorbell. What was he doing? she wondered for the umpteenth time, when he still didn’t emerge from the huge car.

Then she imagined it pulling away again, and didn’t like the feeling of panic
that
engendered. She’d vacillated all day over what to do, all the while knowing, to her ongoing sense of shame, that she’d somewhere along the way made up her mind that she wasn’t strong enough to walk away from Kaden.

By the time she’d returned from work, with a splitting headache, she’d felt cranky enough with herself for being so weak that she’d decided she
wouldn’t
give in so easily. She would greet Kaden in her running sweats and tell him she wasn’t going anywhere. But then she’d had an image of him clicking his fingers, having food delivered to the house and staying all night. She couldn’t forget the glint of determination in his eye that morning. And the thought of having him here in her private space for a whole night had been enough to galvanise her into getting dressed in a plain black dress and smart pumps.

The lesser of two evils was to let him take her out.
She’d thank him for dinner, tell him that there couldn’t possibly be a repeat of last night, and that would be it. She’d never see him again. She was strong enough to do this.

She’d turned away from her furtive vigil at the window for a moment, so she nearly jumped out of her skin when the doorbell rang authoritatively. And all her previous thoughts were scrambled into a million pieces. Her hands were clammy. Her heart thumped. She walked to the front door and could see the looming tall, dark shape through the bubbled glass. She picked up her bag and cardigan and took a deep breath.

When she opened the door she wasn’t prepared for the hit to her gut at seeing a stubble-jawed Kaden leaning nonchalantly against the porch wall, dominating the small space. He obviously hadn’t shaved since that morning, and flames of heat licked through her blood. He was so intensely masculine. He was in the same suit—albeit with the tie gone and the top button of his shirt open.

His eyes were dark and swept her up and down as he straightened up. She tingled all over. Julia wished she’d put her hair up, it felt provocative now to have it down. Why had she left it down?

Kaden arched a brow. “Shall we?”

Julia sucked in a breath and finally managed to move. “Yes …” She pulled the front door behind her, absurdly glad that Kaden hadn’t come inside, and fumbled with the keys as she locked it. Kaden was waiting by the door of the car and helped her in. His hand was hot on her bare elbow.

The car pulled off smoothly and Julia tried to quell her butterflies. Kaden’s drawling and unmistakably amused voice came from her right.

“Are we going to a funeral?”

She looked at him and could see him staring pointedly at her admittedly rather boring dress. She fibbed. “I didn’t have time to change after work.”

His eyes rose to hers and he smiled. “Liar,” he mocked softly.

Julia was transfixed by that smiling mouth, by the unbelievably sensuous and wicked lines. Her face flamed and her hand moved in that betraying reflex to her throat. She stopped herself just in time. She felt naked without his necklace. It was the first time she’d not worn it at home. Her hand dropped to her lap, and to hide her discomfiture she asked, “Where are we going?”

To her relief Kaden released her from his all too intent gaze and looked ahead. “We’re going to the Cedar Rooms, in the Gormseby Hotel.”

Julia was impressed. It was a plush new hotel that had opened in the past few months, and apparently there was already a year-long waiting list for the restaurant. Not for Kaden, though, she thought cynically. They’d be tripping over themselves to have him endorse their restaurant. Yet she was relieved at the idea of being in a public place, surrounded by people, as if that would somehow help her resist him and put up the fight she knew she must.

Kaden was struggling to hang on to his urbanity beside Julia. Her dress was ridiculously boring and plain, but it couldn’t hide her effortless class, or those long shapely legs and the enticing swell of her bosom. Her hair was down, falling in long waves over her shoulders, and she wore a minimum of make-up. Once again he was struck that she could pass for years younger. And
by how beautiful she was. She had the kind of classic beauty that just got better with age.

The minute she’d opened the front door her huge swirling grey eyes had sucked him into a vortex of need so strong that he’d felt his body responding right there. Much as it had in that crowded room last night. A response he’d never had to curb for any other woman, because he’d always been in strict control.

With Julia, though, his brain short-circuited every time he looked at her. It only fired up his assertion that this was just lust. With that in mind, and anticipating how urgent his desire would be by the time they got to dessert, he made a quick terse call in Arabic from his mobile phone.

By the time they were on their desserts Julia had given up trying to maintain any kind of coherent conversation. The opulent dining room was arranged in such a way that—far from being surrounded by the public—she and Kaden were practically in a private booth. And it was so dark that flickering candles sent long shadows across their faces. It was decadent, and not at all conducive to remaining clear-headed as she’d anticipated.

Their conversation had started out innocuously enough. Kaden had asked her about her career and why she’d taken the direction she had. She’d explained that her passion for fund distribution had grown when she’d seen so much misused funding over the years, and she’d seen it as the more stable end of archaeology, considering her future with a husband and family. To her surprise his eyes hadn’t glazed over with boredom. He’d kept looking at her, though, as if he wanted to devour
her. Desperately trying to ignore the way it made her feel, she’d asked him about Burquat.

It sounded like another country now—vastly different from the more rigidly conservative one she’d known. Once again she was filled with a rush of pride that his ambition was being realised.

Scrabbling around for anything else to talk about, to take the edge off how intimate it felt to be sitting here with him, Julia said, “I saw something in the papers about drilling your oil-fields. There seems to be great interest, considering the world’s dwindling oil supplies.”

“We’re certainly on the brink of something huge. Sultan Sadiq of Al-Omar is going to help us drill the oil. He has the expertise.”

“Is that part of the reason why he’s marrying Samia?” Julia felt a pang of concern for Kaden’s younger sister. From what she remembered of her she was no match for the renowned playboy Sultan.

Kaden’s mouth tightened. “It’s a factor, yes. Their marriage will be an important strategic alliance between both our countries.”

Kaden sat back and cradled a bulbous glass of brandy. He looked at Julia from under hooded lids. She felt hunted.

“So … your boss—Nigel. Are you seeing him?”

Julia flushed, wondering what kind of woman Kaden had become used to socialising with,
sleeping
with. She swallowed. “No, I’m not.” Not sure why she felt compelled to elaborate, she said, “He’s asked me out, but I’ve said no.”

“You’ve had no lovers since your husband?”

Julia flushed even hotter and glared at Kaden. “That’s
none of your business. Would you mind if I asked
you
if you’ve had any lovers since your divorce?”

He was supremely relaxed, supremely confident. He smiled. “I have a healthy sex life. I enjoy women … and they enjoy what I can give them.”

Julia snorted indelicately, her imagination shamefully providing her with an assortment of images of the sleek, soignée women she’d seen grace his arm over the years. “No doubt.” And then something dark was rising up within her, and she said ascerbically, “I presume these women are left in no doubt as to the parameters of their relationship with you, much as you outlined to me this morning?”

Kaden’s face darkened ominously. “I took your advice a long time ago. Women know exactly where they stand with me. I don’t waste my breath on platitudes and empty promises.”

For some perverse reason Julia felt inexplicably comforted. As if Kaden had just proved to her that no woman had managed to break through that wall of ice. And yet … how would
she
know? She was the last woman in the world he would confide in. And she was obviously the last woman in the world who could break through the icy reserve she’d seen that last evening in Burquat.

She realised then just how provocative the conversation was becoming, and put down her napkin. “I think I’m ready to go now.”

Kaden rose smoothly to his feet and indicated for Julia to precede him out of the booth. With his head inclined solicitously he was urbanity incarnate, but Julia didn’t trust it for a second. She knew the dark, seething passion that hummed between them was far from over.

When they reached the lobby Julia turned towards
the main door, her mind was whirring with ways to say goodbye to Kaden and insist on getting a taxi. At the same time her belly was clenching pathetically at the thought of never seeing him again. Kaden caught her hand and her mind blanked at the physical contact. She looked up at him, and that slow lick of desire coiled through her belly. She cursed it—and herself.

“I’ve booked a suite here for the night.”

Julia straightened her spine and tried to block out the tantalising suggestion that they could be in bed within minutes. “If your aim is to make me feel like a high-class hooker then you’re succeeding admirably.”

Kaden cursed himself. Never before had he lacked finesse with a woman. He wanted Julia so badly he ached, and he’d booked the room because he’d known he wouldn’t have the restraint to wait until he got back to his apartment or her house. But she was as stiff as a board and about as remote as the summit of Everest. He had a good idea that she had every intention of walking away from him. He didn’t like the dart of panic he felt at acknowledging that.

Julia watched Kaden’s face. It was expressionless except for his jaw clenching and his eyes flashing. A dart of panic rose; to willingly spend another night with this man was emotional suicide.

“Kaden, I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but I came here tonight to have dinner with you. I do not intend repeating what happened last night. There’s no point. We have nothing to say to each other.”

In a move so fast her head spun, he was right in front of her. He said roughly, “
We
may have nothing to say to each other, but our bodies have plenty to say.”

He put his hands on her arms and pulled her close.