The Sheikh's Undoing (12 page)

‘By “settling down”, I suppose you mean getting married and having children?’ he questioned.

Isobel nodded. ‘I suppose so.’

Tariq’s lips curved. She
supposed
so! ‘The perfect nuclear family?’

‘Well—’

‘Which doesn’t exist,’ he interjected.

‘That’s a little harsh, Tariq.’

‘Is it?’ Black eyes iced into her. ‘You experienced one yourself, did you?’

‘Well, no. You know I didn’t. I told you that I never knew my father.’

‘And it left a gaping hole in your life?’

‘I tried never to think of it that way,’ she said defensively. ‘Holes can always be filled by something else. It may not have been a “normal” family life, but it was a life.’

‘Well, I never knew a “normal” childhood, either,’ he said, more bitterly than he had intended.

‘Can I … can I ask what happened?’

He stared at her, and she looked so damned sweet and soft that he found himself telling her. ‘My mother almost died having me, and after I was born she was so ill that she needed round-the-clock care. Zahid was that bit older, and a calmer child than me, and it was decided that my needs were being neglected. So they sent me away to boarding school when I was seven. That’s when I first came to England.’

Isobel frowned. She hadn’t realised that he’d been so young. ‘Wasn’t there anywhere closer to home you could have gone?’

He shook his head. ‘We have a completely different system of schooling in Khayarzah—it was decided that a western education would be beneficial all round.’ He read the puzzlement in her tawny eyes. ‘It meant that I would be able to speak and act like a westerner. More importantly, to think as a westerner thinks—which has proved invaluable in my subsequent business dealings. It’s why the Al Hakam company has global domination,’ he finished, with the flicker of a smile.

But, despite his proud smile, Isobel felt desperately
sad for him, even though she could see the logic behind his parents’ decision. She had been the daughter of a school nurse and knew how illness could create chaos in the most ordered of lives. Sending away a lively little boy from his mother’s sickbed must have seemed like a sensible solution at the time.

Yet to move a child to live somewhere else—without any kind of family support nearby—and what did that child become? A cuckoo in the nest in his adopted country. And surely he must have felt like an outsider whenever he returned to his homeland? Tariq had spoken the truth, she realised. He
didn’t
have any place of his own—not in any true sense of the word. Yes, there were the apartments in London and New York, and the luxury houses on Mustique and in the South of France—but nowhere he could really call
home
. Not in his heart.

‘So you don’t ever want children of your own?’ she questioned boldly.

At this the shutters came down and his voice cooled. ‘Not ever,’ he affirmed, his gaze never leaving her face—because she had to understand that he meant this. ‘My brother has helpfully produced twin boys, and our country now has the required heir and a spare. So my assistance with dynasty-building is not required.’

A shiver ran down her spine as his unemotional words registered. Was that what he thought fatherhood and family life was all about …
dynasties?
Didn’t he long to hold his own little baby boy or girl in his arms? To cradle them and to rock them? To see the past and the future written in its tiny features?

She looked at his face in the candlelight. Such a strong and indomitable face, she thought, with its high slash of cheekbones, the hawk-like nose and wide, sensual
mouth. But behind the impressive physical package he presented she had discovered a reason for the unmistakable sense of
aloneness
which always seemed to surround him.

Yet this notoriously private man had actually confided in her. Surely that had to mean
something?
That he trusted her, yes—but was there anything more than that. And was it enough for her to face risking her heart?

She drifted her eyes over his hands—powerful and hair roughened. On the white silk cuffs of his shirt gleamed two heavy golden cufflinks. She could see that they were Khayarzah cufflinks, with the distinctive silhouette of a brooding falcon poised for flight. And somehow the bird of prey reminded her of him. Restless and seeking … above the world, but never really part of it.

Had he seen her looking at them? Was that why his hand suddenly reached out and caught hold of hers, capturing her wrist in his warm grasp and making it seem tiny and frail in comparison? His thumb brushed over the delicate skin at her wrist and he gave a brief smile as he felt the frantic skitter of her pulse.

‘Stunned into uncharacteristic silence by my story, are you, Izzy?’

‘It’s some story,’ she admitted quietly.

‘Yes.’ He looked down at her untouched plate. ‘You’re not eating.’

‘Neither are you.’

‘Delicious as it looks, I’m not feeling particularly hungry.’

‘No.’

Across the candlelit table, their eyes met. ‘Perhaps some fresh air might give us a little
appetite
.’

Isobel blinked at him in bewilderment. ‘You want to go for a walk?’

His smile was wry. He’d forgotten that she had every right to be naïve, for she knew nothing of the games that lovers played … ‘Only as far as the car. I thought we could go to my apartment. There’s plenty of food there.’

Isobel’s heart began to pound as his lazy suggestion shimmered into the space between them. She hadn’t thought a lot beyond the meal itself. Somehow she had imagined that she might be going home alone to her little flat, as if the whole …
sex
… thing had been nothing but a distant dream. She’d told herself that would be the best for both of them, even if her commitment to the idea had been less than whole-hearted.

But then Tariq had opened up to her, taking her into his confidence. It had felt almost as intimate as when he’d been driving into her body. How could she possibly go home alone when she thought about the alternative he was offering her?

He was gesturing for the bill, seeming to take her silence for acquiescence, and the waiter was coming over to their table, his face creased in an anxious frown.

‘You no like the food?’ he questioned.

‘The food is delicious,’ Tariq replied, giving Isobel’s hand a quick squeeze. ‘I just find my partner’s beauty rather distracting. So we’ll just have the bill, please.’

Isobel saw the man-to-man look which passed between Tariq and the waiter, and for a moment she felt betrayed. Suddenly she had become someone else—not the woman who’d been frequenting this place for years, but someone dining with a man who was clearly way out of her league.

The waiter moved away, and Isobel tried to wriggle her fingers free. But Tariq wasn’t having any of it.

‘What’s the matter, Izzy?’

‘Just because you want to go to bed with me, it doesn’t mean you have to tell lies!’

‘Lies?’ he questioned, perplexed.

‘I am
not
beautiful,’ she insisted.

‘Oh, but you are,’ he said unexpectedly, and then he did let go of her hand. Instead, he moved to cup her chin, running the tip of his thumb over it. ‘Tonight you look very beautiful, sitting there, bathed in candlelight. I like your hair loose. I even like your eyes flashing with defiance. In fact, I can’t quite remember ever seeing a woman look quite as desirable as you do right now, and it’s making me ache for you. And you feel exactly the same, don’t you?’

‘Tariq!’

‘Don’t you?’

She met the mocking gleam in his ebony eyes. ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

‘So pick up your handbag and let’s get out of here—before I do something really crazy like hauling you to your feet and kissing you in front of the entire restaurant. Now, that really
would
provide fodder for the tabloids.’

She was trembling with anticipation as they went outside, where Tariq’s chauffeur-driven car was sitting purring by the kerb. Climbing into its sumptuous interior, she waited for him to pull her into his arms. To kiss her as she so badly wanted to be kissed.

But he didn’t. In fact he slid his body as far away from her as possible, and when he saw her turn her head he
must have read the disappointed expression in her eyes because he shook his head.

‘No, Izzy,’ he said sternly. ‘Not here and not now. I think we have demonstrated the wilder side of passion, and I think I’ve made it clear that once I start touching you all bets seem to be off. Tonight we will have the slow burn of anticipation and I will show you just how pleasurable
that
can be.’

Even when they reached his apartment he simply laced his fingers in hers and led her along the long corridor to his bedroom. Once there, with dexterous efficiency, he began to slide the clothes from her body. Only this time he hung her black silky dress over the back of a chair and did not tear off her panties.

When at last she was stripped bare, he peeled back the silken throw which covered his bed and laid her down on it.

‘I want to see you naked,’ he murmured appraisingly, as his gaze travelled slowly down the length of her body.

She watched as he undressed, the breath dying in her throat. His body was taut and magnificent—and he made no attempt to hide the heavy length of his arousal. But when at last he was completely naked, and maybe because he felt the trembling of her body, he frowned.

Smoothing back the cascade of Titian curls, he looked deep into her eyes. ‘You are nervous?’

‘A little.’

‘But there is no reason to be,
habiba
.’ He brushed his mouth over hers. ‘For tonight there will be no pain—only endless pleasure.’

She gave herself up to his kiss at last, glad to lose herself in its seductive power. And grateful, too, for the clamour of her senses, which responded instantly to
his expert touch and drove all nagging thoughts from her mind.

It was only afterwards that they came back to haunt her. When all passion was spent and they were lying there, Tariq’s hand splayed possessively over the damp fuzz of curls at her thighs and her head slumped against his shoulder.

No pain, he had said—only pleasure.

But he had been talking about the physical pain of having surrendered her virginity to him. Not the infinitely more powerful pain she suspected might be about to be inflicted on her heart.

T
HE
office door clicked quietly shut, and Tariq’s distinctively soft voice whispered over Isobel’s senses.

‘So what has it been like without me,
kalila?
Did the office grind to a halt without me? More importantly … did you miss your Sheikh while he was away?’

Isobel looked up from her work, trying to steel herself against the impact of seeing Tariq for the first time in almost a week. Having to fight back the urge to do something stupid—like leaping up and throwing herself into his arms.

He’d been to New York on business, and along the way had taken delivery of a new transatlantic jet. He’d also announced the expansion of the Al Hakam Bank in Singapore, but was still refusing to confirm reports that he was in the process of buying the famous ‘Blues’ football team. Consequently, his face had been pictured on the front pages of the financial press—and Isobel had secretly pored over them whenever she had a spare moment. It had felt slightly peculiar to look at the hard and handsome face which stared back at her amid the newsprint. And to realise that the man with the hawk-like features and noble lineage was actually her lover.

Now he leaned over her desk, a vision of alpha-sexiness
in a dark grey suit and pristine white shirt. His olive skin made him look as if he had been cast in gold, and his black eyes gleamed as they surveyed her questioningly.

‘Tariq,’ she said slowly, laying down her pen and putting the churned up feeling in her stomach down to his tantalising proximity. ‘You know perfectly well that the office always runs smoothly in your absence. In fact, there’s a quiet air of calm around the place. People are that bit more relaxed when the big boss isn’t around.’

He gave a slow smile as he loosened his tie and dropped it in front of her like a calling card. She sounded as unruffled as she always did when she spoke to him in the office—her cool air of composure barely slipping. Why, nobody would guess that the last time they’d seen each other she had been giving him oral sex in the back of his darkened limousine. Demonstrating yet another new-found sexual skill which she seemed to have adopted with her usual dexterity.

And he had reciprocated by sliding his fingers beneath her skirt and bringing her to a shuddering orgasm just moments before he’d left the car to catch his flight to JFK.

Yet to look at her now she seemed light-years away from his fevered and erotic memory of her. She looked restrained and efficient—almost
prim
.

To Tariq’s surprise, any fears he’d had that she would become cloying or demanding had not been realised. Despite being such a sexual novice, Izzy seemed to have no problems juggling her dual roles as his lover and PA, and was as discreet as anyone in his position could have wished for.

He frowned. The only downside was that she seemed
to be getting underneath his skin in a way he hadn’t anticipated. By now he should have been growing a little bored with her—because that was his pattern. Once the gloss of new sex had worn off, predictability tended to set in—and three weeks was usually long enough for him to begin to find out things about a woman which irritated him.

But Izzy was different, and he wasn’t quite sure why. Might it be because she knew him better than almost anyone? Working so closely with him over the years had given her glimpses of the private person that he would never have allowed another to see. Sometimes it felt as though she had already stripped away several layers to see the man who lay beneath. Was that what gave sex with her its extra dimension of closeness? Or was it just the fearless way she responded to him? The way she looked straight into his eyes while he was deep inside her? As if she wanted to see into his soul with those big tawny eyes of hers. Sometimes it unsettled him and sometimes it did not—but it always excited him.