EMMA DARCY’s life journey has taken as many twists and turns as the characters in her stories, whose international popularity has resulted in over sixty million book sales. Born in Australia and currently living in a beachside property on the central coast of New South Wales, she travels extensively to research settings and increase her experience of places and people.

Initially a French/English teacher, she changed careers to computer programming before marriage and motherhood settled her into a community life. A voracious reader, the step to writing her own books seemed a natural progression and the challenge of creating exciting stories was soon highly addictive.

Over the past twenty-five years she has written ninety-five books for Mills & Boon, appearing regularly on the Waldenbooks bestseller lists in the USA and in the Nielsen BookScan Top 100 chart in the UK.

Australia
In Bed with a Sheikh
The Sheikh’s Seduction
The Sheikh’s Revenge
Traded to The Sheikh
Emma Darcy

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

The Sheikh’s Seduction

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The Sheikh’s Revenge

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Traded to The Sheikh

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Endpages

Copyright

The Sheikh’s Seduction

CHAPTER ONE

“MY NAME IS Sarah Hillyard. My father trains racehorses in Australia…”

The artless words of a twelve-year-old child.

A child he’d liked and remembered seven years later when he’d come to choosing a trainer in Australia.

Sheikh Tareq al-Khaima shook his head in self-derision. Stupid to have let a sentimental memory influence his judgment. He’d hired Drew Hillyard, entrusted him with the progeny of some of the best bloodlines in the world, and the man had proved to be a cheat and a crook, wasting what he’d been given in favour of sure money, bribe money.

It was an effort to remain civil, sitting beside him in the Members’ Stand at Flemington Racecourse, waiting for the Melbourne Cup to be run. Recognised as one of the great races on the international calendar, The Cup was a prize coveted by trainers and owners. It made reputations. It sealed a horse’s fame. It was the return on an investment.

If Firefly won today, Drew Hillyard might earn himself another chance. If Firefly lost, the trainer could kiss Tareq’s string of thoroughbreds goodbye. The moment of truth was fast approaching. The horses were being boxed, ready for the start of the race.

“He should run well,” Drew Hillyard said reassuringly.

Tareq turned to Sarah’s father. The older man’s brown curly hair was streaked with lustreless grey and cut so short, the ringlets sat tightly against his scalp. His dark eyes were opaque, as though he’d fitted blinds over the windows of his soul. The memory of Drew Hillyard’s daughter flashed into Tareq’s mind-a glorious mop of burnished brown curls framing a fascinating face with eyes so dark and brilliant he’d loved watching them. He didn’t want to even look at her father.

“Yes, he should,” he answered, and returned his gaze to the track. Firefly had been bred from champion stayers. If he’d been trained properly he should eat this race. He should, but Tareq wasn’t banking on it. None of the horses he’d placed in Drew Hillyard’s stables had lived up to their breeding. The initial promise of the first two years had been whittled away by sly corruption.

Susan Hillyard claimed his attention. “Did you place a bet on Firefly, Tareq?”

He looked at her, wondering if she knew the truth. Drew Hillyard’s wife—second wife—was a thin, nervous blonde. With every reason to be nervous, Tareq thought darkly. “I never bet, Mrs. Hillyard. It’s performance that interests me. On every level. I like to see my horses fulfil the promise of their bloodlines.”

“Oh!” she said and retreated, her hands twisting worriedly in her lap.

Sarah’s stepmother.

My father’s marrying again. Since my mother’s made her home here in Ireland now, she’s arranged for me to go to boarding school in England. So she can more easily visit me, she says. I get to go home to my father in the summer break.

A lonely, disillusioned child, her world torn apart by divorce. Tareq wondered what had become of her, where she was. Not here at Flemington. He’d looked for her, curious to see the woman she’d grown into. He was tempted to ask about her but revealing a personal interest went against his grain in this situation. Sarah, the child, was a piece of the past, eleven years gone. Comprehensively gone after today, if Firefly failed.

A roar went up from the crowd, signalling the start of the race. Tareq stood with the rest of the people around him, binoculars lifted to his eyes. The commentator’s voice boomed over the loudspeakers, whipping up excitement. Tareq focused all his attention on the horse that had brought him here, a magnificent stallion who’d be worth his weight in gold if he won.

He was poetry in motion, well positioned for the early part of the race and running with a fluid grace and ease that was exciting to watch. He took the lead at the halfway mark and streaked ahead of the field. Too soon, Tareq thought. Yet he held a gap of three lengths into the last hundred metres. Then he visibly flagged, other horses catching him and sweeping past to the finishing post. Eighth. Respectable enough in a class field of twenty-two horses, people would say. Except Tareq knew better.

“Ran out of puff,” Drew Hillyard said, his weatherbeaten face appropriately mournful with disappointment.

“Yes, he did,” Tareq coldly agreed, knowing full well that a properly trained champion stayer did not run out of puff.

“Want to accompany me down to talk to the jockey?”

“No. I’ll have a word with you after the last race.”

“Fine.”

He and his wife left. Tareq was glad to see the back of them though he’d have to confront them later.

“Do you want me to do it?”

The quiet question came from his oldest friend, Peter Larsen. They’d been through Eton and Oxford together and understood each other as well as any two men could. It was Peter who had investigated Drew Hillyard’s notable failure to make champions of champions. The paper evidence left no doubt as to the reason behind the obvious incompetence. To top it all, Drew Hillyard had even sacrificed a chance at the Melbourne Cup.

Tareq shook his head. Peter had saved him trouble on innumerable occasions but this wasn’t usual business. “I was fool enough to choose him. He’s mine, Peter.”

A nod of understanding.

Drew Hillyard had broken a trust.

That was always personal.

CHAPTER TWO

SARAH HELPED HER little half-sister to bed. Jessie had grown strong enough to move her legs herself but she was tired, her energy spent on all the anticipation, excitement and disappointments of the day. The latter had dragged her spirits right down and there was nothing Sarah could say to cheer her up.

Despite sitting glued to the television for hours before and after the running of the Melbourne Cup, Jessie hadn’t seen the sheikh, whom she’d imagined in flowing white robes. Sarah had suggested he would probably be in a suit. Not a well-received comment. To Jessie’s mind, a sheikh wasn’t a sheikh unless he wore flowing white robes. Either way, the television had failed to put him on display.

And Firefly had lost. After looking as though he might take out The Cup for most of the race, the stallion had faltered with the finishing post in sight. A flood of tears from Jessie. She’d loved Firefly from the moment she’d first clapped eyes on the beautiful colt and she’d desperately wanted him to win.

“Mummy didn’t call,” she now grumbled, adding another disappointment to her list of woes.

Sarah tried to excuse the oversight. “It would be a busy day for her, Jessie, what with having to entertain the sheikh and everything. They’ve probably gone out somewhere.”

Big blue eyes mournfully pleaded the injustice of it all. “It’s not fair. Daddy’s had the sheikh’s horses for four years and this is the first time he’s come to Australia and I didn’t even get to see him.”

Neither did I, Sarah thought ruefully. Though it wasn’t so important to her. Just curiosity to see what he looked like after all these years. Funny how some childhood memories remained vivid and others faded away. She’d never forgotten Tareq al-Khaima, nor his kindness to her over that first lonely Christmas in Ireland with her mother.

He’d been a young man then, immensely wealthy and strikingly handsome. Everyone at her mother’s house parties had wanted to know him. Yet he’d noticed a forlorn child, eaten up with the misery of feeling like the leftover, unwanted baggage from her mother’s first marriage, best out of sight and out of mind. He’d spent time with her, giving her a sense of being a person worth knowing. It was her only good memory from being twelve.

“Maybe there’ll be a photograph of him in the newspaper tomorrow,” she offered as consolation.

“I bet there isn’t.” Jessie stuck to gloom. “There hasn’t been one all week.”

Which had been surprising with the Spring Carnival in full swing and the social pages packed with photographs of visiting celebrities. Either the sheikh was not partying or he was camera-shy for some reason.

“And he’s not coming to Werribee to see his other horses, either. Daddy told me he’d only be at Flemington.”

“Well, the sheikh owns horses all around the world, Jessie.” He’d been buying them in Ireland when she’d met him. “I don’t suppose any particular string of them is special to him.”

She wondered if he remembered her. Unlikely. Too brief a connection, too long ago. It was just one of those coincidences in life that Tareq’s agent had assigned the sheikh’s horses in Australia to her father to train. There’d been nothing personal in the deal.

“He came to see Firefly race,” Jessie argued.

“That’s because the Melbourne Cup is special.” Having settled her half-sister comfortably, Sarah stroked the wispy fair hair away from the woeful little face and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “Never mind, love. I’m sure your mother will tell you all about the sheikh tomorrow.”

Disgruntled mumbles.

Sarah ignored them as she made sure everything was right for Jessie; the electric wheelchair in the correct position for easy use when she needed to go to the bathroom, the night-light on, a glass of water on the moveable tray. It was amazing the amount of independence the little girl managed now. In fact, Sarah knew she really wasn’t needed here at Werribee anymore. It was time to move on with her own life. Once the Spring Carnival was over, she would broach the matter with Susan.

Having completed her check list, Sarah moved to the door and switched off the overhead light. “Goodnight, Jessie,” she said softly.

“Mummy didn’t call and she promised she would.”

The final petulant comment on a day that had not delivered its promises.

Sarah quietly closed the door on it, privately conceding Jessie had cause to feel let down. Her mother should have called. That had been a real promise, not a wish or a hope. Real promises should be kept.

Sarah grimaced at the thought as she moved along the hall to the twins’ room. It was so hopelessly idealist in this day and age where keeping promises was a matter of convenience. Wasn’t her whole life an illustration of not being able to count on them? It was about time she accepted the real world.

She looked in at the boys. Her seven-year-old half-brothers were fast asleep. They looked as innocent as babes, mischief and mayhem cloaked with peaceful repose. The problem with children was they were innocent. They believed in promises. When disillusionment came it hurt. It hurt very badly.

Mummy didn’t call…

The words jogged memories of another Melbourne Cup day. She’d been ten, the same age as Jessie, and left behind at Werribee in the care of the foreman’s wife. Her mother hadn’t called, either. She’d been too busy with Michael Kearney, planning to leave her husband and daughter and go off to Ireland with the promise of becoming the fourth wife of one of the wealthiest men in the horse world.

Her mother had made good on that promise, and when Michael Kearney had chosen wife number five, the divorce settlement had been astronomical. It had certainly helped make the ex-Mrs. Kearney an attractive proposition to an English Lord. Sarah could safely say her mother had never looked back after leaving Werribee. She’d been appalled when her daughter had rejected “the chances” lined up for her, returning to Australia to help with Jessie.

Sarah didn’t regret her decision. It was strange how far away that life in England seemed now. The question was…where to go from here? She wandered into the living room, curled up on the sofa and gave the matter serious consideration.

She’d always loved books. They’d been her escape from loneliness, her friends and companions, doors that opened other worlds for her. She’d had her mind set on getting into some career in publishing. Maybe her degree in English Literature would still hold her in good stead there, though she had no work experience and probably openings at publishing houses were few and far between. Still there was no harm in looking for a position.

Melbourne? Sydney? London?

She instinctively shied from going back to England.

A new life, she thought, one she would make on her own. Though how best to do it kept her mind going around. When the telephone rang it startled her out of a deep reverie. She leapt to pick up the receiver, glancing at her watch simultaneously. Close to nine-thirty.

“The Hillyard Homestead,” she rattled out.

“Sarah…I promised to call Jessie. Is she still waiting?”

Susan’s voice was strained. She didn’t sound herself at all. But at least she hadn’t forgotten her daughter. “No, she was tired,” Sarah answered. “I put her to bed at eight. Do you want me to see if she’s awake?”

“No, I…I just thought of it and…oh, Sarah…” She burst into tears.

“Susan, what’s wrong?”

Deep, shuddering breaths. “I’m sorry…”

“It’s okay. Take it easy,” Sarah soothed, trying to contain her own fast-rising anxiety. “Try to tell me what’s happened.” Please, God! Not another dreadful accident!

“The sheikh…he’s taking all his horses away from your father.”

“Why?” It made no sense. Unless…“Surely not because Firefly didn’t win the cup?”

“No. There’s…there’s more. The past two years…but you know what they’ve been like, Sarah. It was hard for Drew to keep his mind on the job.”

What was she justifying? Had her father mismanaged the training?

“It’ll ruin us,” Susan went on, her voice a wail of despair. “It’ll make other owners uneasy. You know reputation is everything in this business.”

“I don’t understand.” She’d been too busy with Jessie to take an active interest in what was happening with the thoroughbreds in her father’s stables. “What is the sheikh’s complaint?”

“It’s all about…about performance.” She broke into tears again.

“Susan, put Dad on. Let me talk to him,” Sarah urged.

“He’s…he’s drinking. There’s nothing we can do. Nothing…”

Not if you’re drunk. Sarah bit back the retort, knowing it was useless. All the same, her father’s growing habit of hitting the bottle could be at the root of this problem. It was all very well to seek relief from stress but not if it led to shirking responsibilities.

“Tell Jessie I’ll call her tomorrow.”

The phone went dead.

No point in holding the receiver. She put it down. The living room suddenly felt cold. If her father was ruined, if that sent him further along the path of drinking himself into oblivion…what would happen to his and Susan’s marriage? What would happen to the children? It was always the innocent ones who were overlooked.

Sarah shivered.

Did Tareq al-Khaima realise what effect today’s decision would have? Did he care? How bad was the situation?

Sarah shook her head helplessly. She had no idea to what extent her father had failed in giving the sheikh satisfaction.

But she did know the circumstances behind his failure.

Tareq had been sympathetic to her once. If he remembered her…if she could get him to listen…

It was worth a try.

He was staying at the Como Hotel. She remembered her father mentioning it. If she went there as early as possible tomorrow morning…

Anything was worth a try to stave off disaster.

CHAPTER THREE

SARAH GLANCED ANXIOUSLY at her watch. The drive into the city had taken over two hours. The morning was slipping away from her. It was almost eight o’clock and she was still locked in Melbourne traffic. A sleepless night and a heavy weight of worry wasn’t doing much for her judgment on which were the faster transit lanes, either.

She’d left Werribee as early as she could but not as early as she would have liked. It had taken time to instruct one of the stable hands in the house routine so he could look after the children until the foreman’s wife could come. It wasn’t the best arrangement but this was an emergency situation.

Her main fear was the possibility she was already too late to make any difference to Tareq’s decision. He may have acted yesterday, lining up another trainer to take his horses. Or he could be at Flemington right now, discussing business. The Spring Carnival wasn’t over yet. It was Oaks Day tomorrow. Many owners gathered with trainers at the racetrack at dawn each morning, watching the form of favoured horses.

On top of which, even if Tareq was at his hotel, there was no guarantee he would see her. Or talk to her. Let alone listen to what she had to say. All Sarah could do was hope and pray for a chance to change his mind before his decision became irreversible.

When she finally reached the Como Hotel, she did a double take. Despite its being in South Yarra, outside the main city area, she had expected a big, plush, ostentatiously luxurious establishment, the kind of place one automatically associated with oil-wealthy sheikhs. The Como was relatively small, almost boutique size. Sarah hoped it meant Tareq was more approachable.

She found a parking station just off Chapel Street, left the jeep there, and walked back to the hotel.

The moment she entered it, the decor screamed class—quiet, exclusive class—marble floors, black leather sofas, floral arrangements worthy of being called exquisite modern art. It might not be ostentatious luxury but it was just as intimidating to anyone who didn’t belong to the privileged people.

Sarah could feel herself bridling against its effect and mentally adopted a shield of untouchability to carry her through gaining entry to Tareq’s presence. She knew from experience with her mother’s high-strata world that her appearance would not be a critical factor. The dark brown corduroy jeans and fawn skivvy would pass muster anywhere these days. The wind had undoubtedly tossed her unruly curls but that didn’t matter. Neither did the fact she wore no make-up. “Being natural” could be just as fashionable as designer clothes.

The concierge directed her to the reception area, around to the left and down a flight of steps, privacy from the street effectively established. One elegant freestanding desk was apparently enough to serve the guests. The woman behind it smiled invitingly. Sarah willed her to be obliging, too.

“I’ve come to call on Sheikh Tareq al-Khaima. Is he in?”

“Yes, Ma’am. Whom should I say is calling?”

“If you’ll just give me his suite number…”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. That’s against our security rules. I can call up to his suite for you. What name should I give?”

Security. Of course. This place was probably as tight as Fort Knox—no unwanted visitors allowed past the steel doors of the elevator. “Sarah Hillyard,” she stated flatly, resigning herself to the inevitable. If Tareq didn’t want to see her, she couldn’t force him to.

Her nerves knotted as the call was made and the message passed on. There seemed to be a long hesitation before an answer was given. Sarah’s tension eased slightly when the receptionist smiled at her, indicating no problem.

“He’s sending Mr. Larsen down to fetch you. It should only be a minute or two, Miss Hillyard.”

“Fetch me?”

“There’s a special key for the executive floor. The elevator won’t take you up without it.”

“Oh! Thank you.”

Relief poured through her. Past the first hurdle. Though Mr. Larsen, whoever he was, might prove to be another barrier. She wondered how big Tareq’s entourage was. He wouldn’t have come alone to Australia and might well have taken over the whole hotel. Such information hadn’t been of interest to her until now and it was too late to ask her father or Susan for more facts.

When the steel doors opened, a tall, fair-haired man, impeccably dressed in a silver-grey suit, emerged from the elevator. His face was thin and austere; high cheekbones, long nose, small mouth, and very light eyes. He looked to be in his early thirties and carried an air of lofty authority. He inspected Sarah as though measuring an adversary; a swift, acute appraisal that left her highly rattled.

One eyebrow was slightly raised. “Miss Hillyard?”

“Yes. Mr. Larsen?”

He gave a slight nod and waved her into the elevator. No smile. His eyes were a silver grey like his suit. Very cold. He didn’t speak as he used a key to set the compartment in motion, nor did he acknowledge her in any way as they rode upwards. Sarah felt comprehensively shut out from this man’s consciousness.

Fighting another rise of tension, she inquired, “Have you been with Sheikh Tareq al-Khaima for a long time, Mr. Larsen?”

He looked directly at her, his mouth curling slightly. “You could say that.”

Oxford accent. Upper-class English. “Are you a friend or do you work for the sheikh?” she asked, needing to place him.

“I’m his trouble-shooter. Are you trouble, Miss Hillyard?”

A hatchet man, she thought. “Am I seeing him or you?”

“The sheikh will see you personally.”

The man’s superior manner provoked her. “Then I hope I’m trouble, Mr. Larsen.”

“Brave words, Miss Hillyard.”

And probably foolish. Getting anyone close to Tareq offside was hardly good politics.

Mr. Larsen turned away, though not before Sarah saw a flicker of amusement in the light grey eyes. A chill ran down her spine. This man’s amusement would undoubtedly be aroused by the anticipation of seeing someone cut to pieces. It did not augur well for her meeting with Tareq. But at least she was seeing him, which gave her a chance at persuasion.

Sarah clung to that reassurance. The elevator stopped. Mr. Larsen led her along a corridor, stopping at a door on which he knocked before using a key to open it. Poker-faced once more, he ushered Sarah into a suite full of light.

The blinds had been lifted from two huge picture windows, allowing a spectacular view over the city. Tareq stood at the window. Although his back was turned to her and he was anonymously clothed in a navy blue suit, Sarah had no doubt who it was. The thick black hair, dark olive skin, his height and build, brought an instant wave of familiarity, despite the passage of years between their meetings. Yet Sarah was just as instantly aware of something different.

She remembered him as carrying an air of easy selfassur-ance, confident of who he was and what he wanted from life. To a child who felt no security about anything, it had seemed quite wonderful to be like that. Now she sensed something more, a dominant authority that didn’t bend.

Perhaps it was in the square set of his shoulders, the straightness of his back, the quality of stillness telegraphing not only total command of himself, but command of the situation. Even the plain dark suit implied he needed no trappings to impress himself on anyone. He didn’t have to do anything. He certainly didn’t have to turn to her need to appeal to him.

Her formidable escort had followed her into the suite and shut the door behind them. He waited, as she did, for Tareq to acknowledge their presence. Waiting for the entertainment to begin, Sarah thought, and wondered if she should take the initiative and greet Tareq. The silence seemed to hum with negative vibrations, choking off any facile words.

“Did your father send you, Sarah?”

The quiet question had a hard edge to it. Without moving, without so much as a glance at her, Tareq had spoken, and Sarah suddenly realised he was standing in judgment. she sensed his back would remain turned to her if her answer complied with whatever dark train of thought was in his mind. She didn’t know what he expected to hear. The truth was all she could offer.

“No. It was my own idea to come to you. If you remember, we met in Ireland when…”

“I remember. Did your father agree to your coming here?”

Sarah took a deep breath. Tareq al-Khaima was not about to be swayed by reminiscences. He was directing this encounter and she had no choice but to toe his line.

“I haven’t even spoken to my father. Nor seen him,” she answered. “I was at Werribee yesterday, looking after the children. Susan, his wife, phoned last night. She was terribly distressed…”

“So you’ve come to intercede for him,” he cut in, unsoftened.

“For all of them, Tareq. It doesn’t just affect my father.”

“What do you intend to offer me to balance what he’s done?”

“Offer?” The concept hadn’t occurred to her. No way could she compensate for whatever had been lost. ‘I…I’m sorry. I have no means to pay you back for…for my father’s mismanagement.”

“Mismanagement!”

Her heart leapt as he swung around. The vivid blue blaze of his eyes shot electric tingles through her brain, paralysing her thought processes. Her whole body felt caught in a magnetic field. Her stomach contracted. Goose bumps broke out on her skin. She couldn’t even breathe. Never in her life had she felt such power coming from anyone. She was helpless to do anything but stare back at him. His gaze literally transfixed her.

The initial bolts of anger transmuted into laser beams. It felt as though he was peeling back the years, remembering how she’d been at twelve, then piling them on again, rebuilding the woman she was now, studying her, seeing if she measured up to whatever he thought she should be.

Sarah struggled to reclaim her mind. He had changed. The shock of such blue eyes—an inherited gene from His English mother—against his dark complexion still held fascination but she saw no kindness in them, nothing to encourage hope. His strikingly handsome face had matured into harder, sharper lines, his softer youthfulness discarded. She knew him to be thirty-four, yet he had the look of a man who wielded power at any level and commanded respect for it. He was armoured, in every sense.

His mouth suddenly curved in a half-smile. “How can dark chocolate shine so brightly?”

They were the teasing words he’d used about her eyes the morning he’d invited her to ride with him on her stepfather’s estate in Ireland, she on a pony, he on a thoroughbred stallion. Sarah floundered in a wash of memories. She had no reply to the remark, any more than she’d had then.

“You haven’t learnt any artifice, Sarah?” he asked.

The abrupt change to a more personal line of conversation confused her. “I don’t know what you mean.”

The half-smile took on a cynical twist. “You’re a grown woman, yet I still see the child. The same rioting brown curls. The same appealing face, bare of make-up. Clothes that are nothing more than clothes. Perhaps that was intentional. Artifice in lack of artifice.”

She blushed at his dissection of her appearance and hated herself for letting him make her feel gauche. “Look! This isn’t about me,” she implored.

“The messenger always carries many messages,” he stated, his eyes mocking her assertion. “You’re a beautiful young woman. Beautiful women usually know and use their power.”

His gaze dropped to her breasts, making Sarah acutely conscious of the stretch fabric of her skivvy hugging their fullness. Then he seemed to mentally measure her waist, the wide leather belt she wore undoubtedly aiding his calculation. The curve of her hips and the length of her legs were inspected, as well, much to Sarah’s growing embarrassment.

His appraisal of her feminine power increased her awareness of the strong sexual charisma which, at twelve, she’d been too young to recognise in him. It was certainly affecting her now, so much so it prompted the realisation he was probably used to women throwing themselves at him. Wealth alone was considered an aphrodisiac. With his looks…

An awful thought occurred to her. When Tareq had asked what she intended to offer him, had he imagined a proposition involving sexual favours? Was he summing up her desirability in case she took that line of persuasion?

Sarah almost died of mortification. She wouldn’t even know how to go about it. Men hadn’t featured largely in her life, none in any intimate sense. As for Tareq…she was losing all her bearings with him.

“The question is…how grown up are you?” he mused, the glitter of speculation in his eyes discomforting Sarah even further.

“I’m twenty-three,” she replied, fervently wishing everything could be more normal between them. She remembered feeling safe with Tareq all those years ago. She didn’t feel safe now.

“I know how old you are, Sarah. Your age doesn’t answer my questions.”

“I told you…this isn’t about me.”

“Yes, it is. It’s very much about you. How long have you been at Werribee?”

Was this a chance to start explaining? “Two years,” she answered, and it was as though she’d slapped him in the face.

She physically felt his withdrawal from her. There was the merest flicker in his eyes, a barely visible tightening of his jawline, no other outward sign. he remained absolutely still, yet she felt every thread of connection with her being ruthlessly cut.

“So…you’ve been assisting your father,” he said coldly.

Sarah realised he’d just cloaked her with her father’s sins, whatever they were. “Not with the horses. I’ve had nothing to do with them,” she rushed out. “I’ve been helping with Jessie. She’s ten years old, Tareq. My little half-sister. And she’s a paraplegic.”

A muscle in his cheek contracted.

Sarah plunged on, wanting him to understand the background. “Two years ago, Susan was terribly ill, being treated for breast cancer. Then Jessie was injured and Susan couldn’t cope. There were the boys, too…”

“Boys?”

“My half-brothers. Twins. They’re seven now but they were only five when I came back to Werribee to help.”

“You were asked to do so?”

“No. Susan wrote about Jessie.”

“Where were you then?”

“London. I’d just finished my finals at university.”

“And you dropped everything to help them?”

He made it sound incredibly self-sacrificing but it wasn’t. “I’ve always loved Jessie. How could I not come when she had to face never walking again?”

He frowned. “You stayed with her…all this time.”

“I was needed.” It was the simple truth.

His eyes bored into hers and she felt the reconnection. It was a weird sensation, as sharp and quick as a switch being thrown, making her nerves leap and jangle, an invasion she had no control over.

“The child belongs to its mother, Sarah,” he said quietly. “She is not the answer to your loneliness.”

Her heart pumped a tide of heat up her neck and into her cheeks; burning, humiliating heat. He knew too much about her. He was plucking at her most vulnerable chords. It had felt good to be needed. And wanted.

Her reluctance to cut herself off from those feelings had influenced her choice to stay in her father’s home longer than was strictly necessary, but she did realise it was time to move on. Though this latest disaster confused the issue.

“I can’t desert them now. Don’t you see?” she pleaded. “My father will be ruined if you take your horses away. What will happen to the children?”

“It is not your responsibility,” he retorted harshly. “Your father brought this outcome upon himself.”

“Did he? Did he?” she cried, and plunged into a passionate defence. “Was it his fault his wife got cancer? Was it his fault Jessie was crippled? There were astronomical medical bills and the house had to be renovated to accommodate a handicapped child, a special suite built on with all the aids for Jessie to learn to be independent, a special van bought to transport her. There were so many adjustments to be made, and the continual cost of physiotherapy, masseurs…Do you wonder that my father was distracted from doing his job properly?”

Sarah was out of breath from the frantic outpouring of words. Her eyes clung to Tareq’s, begging understanding. If he could see through her so easily, couldn’t he see this, too?

Or did he see an ongoing problem?

“But things are better now,” she hastily declared. “Susan’s been cleared of the cancer. She’s fine. No trace of secondaries. And Jessie has made fantastic progress. It’s amazing how much she’s learnt to do for herself. The boys have become good at helping her, too. So you see…my father no longer has so many worries on his mind. He could concentrate on the training if you’ll just give him another chance.”

Her plea seemed to be falling on deaf ears. There was no visible reaction to it on Tareq’s face, no trace of sympathy. She needed some response, some hint of whether he was reconsidering his stance or not.

His brick wall silence tore at her nerves. It went on for an agonising length of time. Sarah fought against a mounting sense of defeat. Was there anything more she could say that might touch him?

“Leave us, Peter.”

The quiet command startled her into jerking her head around. She’d forgotten the presence of Mr. Larsen behind her. He was still there, a witness to everything that had been said. His gaze was locked on Tareq, the chilling light eyes slightly narrowed, as though trying to discern the reason behind the command, or perhaps sending a silent warning that a witness was a wise precaution against trouble.

Whatever he thought, he left without a word, not even glancing at Sarah. The door clicked shut after him, emphasising the continued silence and making Sarah intensely aware she was alone with Tareq. She spun her attention back to him, fighting a rush of inner agitation. Her heart beat chaotically as he started walking towards her.

“You fight very eloquently on your father’s behalf,” he said, though he didn’t look impressed. “I find that quite remarkable since he didn’t fight for you. He gave you up, freeing himself to marry again without any encumbrances and have this family you care so much about.”

“Whatever my father’s shortcomings, the children are innocent,” she argued, inwardly quailing as Tareq came closer and closer. “It’s more for their sake that I’m asking you to reconsider your decision.”

He stopped so close she had to tilt her head back to look up at him. His eyes burned into hers with mesmerising intensity. “And if I don’t reconsider, you are willing to give them more devoted service. More of your time,” he said, stroking her cheek with feather-light fingertips as though seeking to get under her skin and feel all she was.

Sarah’s legs turned to jelly. His nearness was overpowering, his touch insidiously weakening both her mind and body. She’d never experienced anything like it in her life. Movement was beyond her. She could hardly think.

He raked back some curls and tucked them behind her ear, his eyes simmering into hers, holding them captive to his will. “I like your giving heart, Sarah. It’s a rare thing in today’s world.”

She swallowed hard, trying to rid herself of the constriction in her throat. “Can’t you give, too, Tareq?”

“Perhaps.”

“You were once kind to me,” she pleaded.

“And I’ll be kind to you again, though you may not appreciate the form it comes in.”

“What do you mean?”

“A bargain, Sarah. You want me to give your father another chance. I want something in return.”

She literally quaked. He was still fiddling with her hair, winding curls around his fingers, tying her to him. It took all her willpower to force out the words, “What is it you want?”

“For the length of time it takes for your father to prove he can be trusted to do his best by my horses, you will stay with me. Let us say…you will be a hostage to his conscientious efforts to redeem himself.”

Dear God! He did mean to tie her to him! Sarah tried to rally her wits out of their state of shock. “You mean…like a prisoner.”

“No need to be so grim. You can be my travelling companion…my social secretary…”

Euphemisms for current mistress? Or was her imagination running riot, along with her hormones?

“Staying with me should not be a hardship,” he assured her. “I’ll pay you a generous salary for your devoted service.”

“Like what?” Sarah’s mind was spinning, unable to decide what was real or unreal. How devoted was the service to be?

“What did your father pay you for all the hours you gave to his family?”

She flushed. “It’s my family, too.”

“Two years of unpaid labour, Sarah? Two years of putting your life on hold with nothing to show at the end of it?”

“Is there a price on love, Tareq?”

“Oh, yes.” A taunting twist of his mouth mocked her naivety. “There’s always a price. You’ve been paying it. And you’d pay more. So make up your mind as to where it’s best paid, Sarah. You continue to give yourself to your family with potential ruin on their doorstep, or you give yourself to me, securing the second chance you’ve been pleading for.”

“Why does it have to be this way?” she cried. Why did he want her with him?

“It’s a question of trust,” he answered, a relentless beat in his voice. “I don’t trust your father. He betrayed the confidence I placed in him. If you trust him to come good on another chance, you have nothing to fear from this bargain and a lot to gain.”

That was the crux of it. Testing her trust in the trust she was asking him to give. She saw the hard ruthlessness in his eyes and knew there was no mercy in him. If he didn’t get the performance he wanted, he would extract compensation, one way or another.

Her mind was in chaos. What if her father didn’t pull himself together and apply himself to fulfilling Tareq’s expectations? On the other hand, having stared ruin in the face, surely the prospect of being handed another chance would sober him up. Sarah didn’t—couldn’t—place much store in his caring for what might happen to her, but his love for his other children had always been much in evidence.

And the plain truth was, they didn’t need her so much as they needed each other. She’d only ever been an extra, waiting in the wings to be called on. Now that Jessie was capable of managing herself, there was no real reason to stay. The best she could do for them was to give them the chance Tareq was offering.

His hand slid from her hair and travelled around her jawline to cup her chin. “Tit for tat, Sarah. I risk my horses. You risk yourself. Is it a deal?”

A two-way gamble. Put like that, his proposition was understandable. Reasonable. But it was difficult to hang on to reason, swamped as she was by the sexual current coursing from the touch of his hand, sensitising her skin and making a mash of her insides. She didn’t feel safe with him.

Yet without him, Jessie and the twins wouldn’t be safe. Innocent victims. As she had been. Sarah couldn’t let that happen. She stared into the diamond-hard blue eyes of Tareq al-Khaima and willed him to be honourable.

“All right. I’ll do it,” she said decisively.

The flash of satisfaction she saw curled her stomach.

Could she trust him to keep his word?

There was no guarantee.

Only risk.

CHAPTER FOUR

TAREQ WAS NOT slow in acting on Sarah’s decision. There was no time given for second thoughts. He moved straight to the telephone, leaving Sarah to listen as he set up his side of the bargain.

“Peter, call Drew Hillyard. Tell him his daughter, Sarah, is here with me. Due to her special pleading, I am inclined to change my decision and leave my horses with him.”

This apparently evoked some expostulation from his trouble-shooter. Whatever was said made no difference to Tareq. He calmly resumed speaking.

“I’m sure you’ll think of a way to put an effective stop to that. Just get Hillyard here, Peter. As soon as possible. We’ll hear him out first, then move to break the link. From both sides.”

Another pause. Sarah wondered what link they were talking about.

“Sarah has agreed to act as surety. She’ll be coming with me when I fly out tonight. You’ll have to stay behind and wrap this up, Peter.”

Tonight! Sarah moved shakily to an armchair and sat down, dizzied by the speed at which her life was about to change. She stared out the window at the view of the city. Where would she be this time tomorrow?

“Tell Hillyard to bring his wife with him. Best to get everything settled in one hit.”

The receiver clicked down.

“Sarah, have you eaten anything this morning?”

She turned blankly to the man who would direct everything she did from now on. He frowned at her, picked up the telephone again and proceeded to order a selection of croissants, muffins, and a platter of cheese and fruit. Having finished with room service, he considered her thoughtfully.

“You’re not going faint on me, are you, Sarah?” he asked. “You’ve stood up bravely so far.”

Brave words, Miss Hillyard… She wondered what Peter Larsen thought of her now. Trouble. Definitely trouble. For some reason the thought gave her satisfaction.

A spark of pride made her answer, “I’m not getting cold feet if that’s what’s worrying you.”

“Good!” He moved purposefully to the kitchenette beyond the dining suite. “Coffee or tea?”

Surprised at his intention to serve her, she asked, “Shouldn’t I be doing that?”

He laughed, a soft ripple of private amusement. “I’m being kind. Which do you prefer?”

No point in arguing. “Coffee, thank you. With milk.”

She watched him make it and bring it to her, noting he seemed more relaxed. Her own tension had eased, whether from the release of having carried through her purpose, or from the weird sense of having her fate taken out of her hands, she didn’t know. Maybe she was suffering some aftermath from the shock of hard decision-making. Whatever the reason, she felt oddly detached, even when Tareq came close, placing her coffee on the low table in front of her and settling on the sofa nearby.

“You said we’d be flying out tonight. Where are we going?” she asked, trying to get some bearings on what would be her new life.

“The U.S.”

She’d never been there. It might have been an exciting prospect under normal circumstances, but she seemed to be anaesthetised to all feeling at the moment. Shock, she decided. She’d been bombarded by the unexpected and driven to accept it. Recovery time was obviously needed.

She sipped her coffee. Tareq watched her, not with the highpowered intensity she had found so disturbing. It was more a clinical observation. It didn’t touch her inner self. Since he appeared disposed to answer questions, she tried to think of what she needed to ask.

“Will I get to say goodbye to the children?” Already they seemed distant to her. It was as though she had stepped from one world into another.

“Yes,” he assured her. “All going well at the meeting with your father, you and I will proceed to Werribee.”

“I drove here in a jeep,” she remembered.

“Your stepmother can drive it home. You will come with me in my car. There’ll be time for you to pack your belongings and take your leave of Jessie and the twins.”

“While you wait for me.”

“Yes.”

A hostage isn’t allowed to roam free, she thought. I’m tied to him. So why aren’t I feeling a sense of bondage?

Because it doesn’t feel real. Not even this conversation seems real. Sooner or later reality will kick in again and then I’ll feel it. In the meantime, talking filled the emptiness.

“Jessie wants to meet you,” she prattled on. Strange irony. Was Tareq a benefactor or a curse? “She watched for you yesterday, hoping to see you featured on television, but you weren’t. She was very disappointed.”

“Then I’ll make up for the disappointment by meeting her this afternoon,” he said smoothly.

“You’ve got the wrong clothes on,” she told him. “A sheikh is supposed to wear sheikh clothes.”

He smiled. “I’m afraid I don’t have them with me. Will the person do?”

The smile made him even more magnetically handsome. “I’m sure Jessie will be impressed.” As she herself had been at twelve…impressed and flattered to be given his attention. Perhaps he was always kind to children. They made it easy. They didn’t question so much.

Her mind flitted forward, away from the past and on to the future. “I guess I’m to have Peter Larsen’s ticket on the plane tonight.”

He shook his head. “There are no tickets, Sarah. I have my own plane.”

Of course. A private luxury jet, no doubt. She was moving up in the world. Like her mother. Only to a higher strata again. That should amuse her but it didn’t. “Will we be accompanied by many people?”

“I prefer to travel lightly. Only Peter came with me on this trip.”

Which meant she would be alone on the plane with Tareq. Though not quite alone. There would have to be a pilot, a steward, perhaps a co-pilot for such a long flight. Whatever… there would be no getting lost in a crowd. Was she to be his closest associate?

“Peter Larsen implied he’d known you a long time.”

“Since school days at Eton.”

So Mr. Larsen was very upper-class English. Sarah wondered if he knew her second stepfather. “I presume you trust him,” she said a little cynically.

“Yes. He’s never given me reason not to.”

A question of trust…

“How long do you expect it to take…for my father to prove himself to you?”

He eyed her speculatively. “Did you watch the running of the Melbourne Cup yesterday, Sarah?”

“Yes. On television.”

“Then you must have seen with your own eyes that Firefly did not run the distance he should have been trained for.”

She frowned, remembering how the horse had tired. “I thought the jockey had misjudged his run.”

“No, it was more than that. The horse wasn’t up to the distance and he should have been.”

Firefly…

A suspicion wormed into Sarah’s mind.

Jessie still loved the horse…but what did her father feel about it?

“I’ll have Firefly entered in the Melbourne Cup next year,” Tareq went on. “If he runs as well as he should…”

“You can’t expect him to win!” Sarah cried in alarm, a rush of agitation smashing the odd numbness that had claimed her. “No one can guarantee a winner in the Melbourne Cup. The favourites hardly ever win.”

“I agree,” Tareq answered calmly. “As long as it’s a fine effort for the distance I’ll be satisfied.”

A year of her life. Then her fate—the fate of her family—hung on Firefly’s performance. Dear God! She had to talk to her father, make sure he understood. If he had some prejudice against the horse, he had to bury it or they would never get to the other side of this bargain.

A knock on the door.

Tareq rose to answer it. The timing was fortunate. Sarah struggled to contain a surge of panic. She had to remain calm, confident. Tareq was far too perceptive. He would pounce on any hint of a problem with Firefly, and if he pursued the truth and found out what had been hushed up, he might decide he had no grounds for even the tenuous trust Sarah had pleaded for.

It was room service arriving. The ordered food was set out on the coffee table. Tareq tipped the waiter and saw him out. “Try to eat, Sarah. We have a long day ahead of us,” came the sensible advice.

She had absolutely no appetite. Her stomach was in turmoil. Nevertheless, eating precluded any dangerous conversation so she started with the fruit which was relatively easy to slide down her throat. Melon, strawberries, fresh pineapple…she picked and nibbled, using up time.

Satisfied she was well occupied, Tareq moved back to the telephone on the desk and made a series of calls. Sarah didn’t listen to what was spoken. Her thoughts were too loud, clamouring over each other. What if she didn’t get the opportunity to be alone with her father? Would Tareq tell him what the test of his training was to be?

Suddenly there were many ifs and buts. Sarah fretted over them until it struck her that her father might actually prefer to be rid of Tareq’s horses, however crazy it was in a professional sense. Although he had held on to them after Jessie’s accident, being paid for their training, he might have had no heart in their doing well. Maybe even taking some dark satisfaction out of making sure they didn’t.

Yet surely that was at odds with a trainer’s character…the drive to win, to get the best results, to chalk up enviable records. On the other hand, it could explain her father’s drinking bouts. She had put them down to stress, though perhaps she had mistaken the cause of stress…a mind divided against itself.

It seemed stupid to have had Firefly not running the distance, with his owner—a man as astute and as knowledgeable about horses as Tareq—watching his failure to perform. Yet…weren’t there people who wanted to be caught, wanted whatever they were doing to end?

She should have waited to discuss the issue with her father. She should have…

Her heart jumped at another knock on the door.

Her father?

She leapt to her feet, spinning around to face…Peter Larsen…as Tareq admitted him to the suite. The two men stood murmuring to each other. With a muddle of anxiety running rampant in Sarah, the question shot from her lips.

“Did my father agree to the meeting?”

It startled both men into turning to her. Her heart kicked into a gallop. She concentrated on Peter Larsen. He was responsible for making the arrangements. His sharply inquisitive gaze told her nothing. He seemed more interested in pegging her into a newly revised slot than answering her question.

“Why wouldn’t he agree, Sarah?”

It was Tareq who spoke, drawing her attention to him, and once again the power of the man came at her full bore, his eyes like electric probes, making her whole body quiver inside. How was she going to cope with this man when he could affect her like this? He’d caught her so off-guard she was hopelessly stumped for an answer. Her frantic mind finally seized on one.

“Pride. You fired him yesterday. He might be angry about me interceding on his business. I didn’t think about him so much as…”

“He’s here. In Peter’s suite,” Tareq stated, removing her uncertainty. His face took on a ruthless cast as he added, “If he doesn’t agree to my terms, I’ll be a very surprised man. Don’t concern yourself with contingency plans, Sarah.”

He was set on the bargain. He wanted it to happen. He would make it happen. She could see it in his eyes. And she had the prickly feeling it had nothing to do with horses anymore. It had to do with her.

“Tell the Hillyards I’m on my way, Peter,” he said, nodding to the man who needed no other signal to do the sheikh’s bidding. “Sarah, it’s best you wait here while we settle this business with your father.”

She tore her gaze from him and stared at the door closing behind Peter Larsen, wanting to snatch him back, wanting the orders altered.

“Have you changed your mind?” Tareq asked quietly.

She flashed him an anguished look. “I want to be in on the discussion with my father. I might have done wrong…”

“Then it’s up to him to say so. You have done your part. The choice is now his.”

Cool, clear reason. Yet she sensed the fire of purpose in Tareq and knew instinctively it wouldn’t be deterred by anything. Tentacles of fear started weaving through her, clutching at her heart and mind. What had she set in motion? Where would it end?

“Speak now if you prefer not to go through with this, Sarah. I won’t take it kindly if you try to back out after I’ve made a settlement with your father.”

She took a deep, deep breath.

The equation was the same.

The future security of the children was at stake.

“As you said, it’s up to my father. If he agrees, my agreement stands.”

Again the flash of satisfaction in his eyes, curling her stomach.

“This may take some time. Please be at ease here. Use whatever facilities you like. Treat the suite as your own.”

He left her to stew over what was transpiring between the two parties.

It was over an hour before he came back, an hour of agitated pacing, of sick turmoil, of swinging through so many emotions, Sarah felt like a limp rag when he re-entered the suite. She could tell nothing from his expression. It was guarded, controlled, yet he carried an aura of success.

“Well?” she challenged, on painful tenterhooks as to the outcome.

“I believe we’ve come to a clear and mutual understanding. Your father will continue training my horses. He and your stepmother would like to speak to you, Sarah. If you’ll come now…”

It was done.

Really done.

The next year of her life belonged to Tareq al-Khaima. He might not be dressed in traditional clothes but Sarah had no doubt he was a sheikh through and through, born to rule, used to dictating his own terms, determined that his will be carried out.

The only question left was…what was his will where she was concerned? Her soul trembled at the thought of finding out that reality.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE STRETCH LIMOUSINE heightened Sarah’s awareness of what life with Tareq was going to be like. She sat beside him on a lushly cushioned, blue velvet seat, every luxury at hand—cocktail bar, television, radio, telephone—and tinted windows around them, forming a cocoon of privacy from the ordinary world. Even the chauffeur, having been given directions to the Hillyard farm at Werribee, was removed from them by a glass partition.

Tareq dominated her space, dominated her thoughts, dominated her every sense.

Her gaze was pulled again and again to the hands resting on his thighs; long-fingered, brown-skinned, elegantly formed yet suggesting a tensile strength capable of catching and holding anything they wanted to. The future of her family was in those hands now, and she was within very personal reach of them any time he chose to make physical contact.

Her nostrils kept picking up the subtle scent of some male cologne. She hadn’t noticed it in the hotel but in the close confines of the car, it intruded enough for her to try to define it, thinking it might define the man. Like the navy suit he wore, it was classy, understated, yet tantalising in suggesting something primitive overlaid with especially tailored sophistication.

Her ears were constantly alert for any movement from him, a shift towards her, a recomposure of himself. He seemed to have mastered the art of utter stillness, which made Sarah extremely conscious of her own little outbreaks of nervous fidgeting.

He hadn’t touched her since he’d drawn her into consenting to the bargain. He didn’t need to. He knew she was now tied to him by honour and integrity. She could feel his touch on her heart and mind and soul.

In her mouth was the sweet-bitter taste of what he had drawn from her father on her behalf, whether by threat or persuasion or simple instruction, she didn’t know. Susan’s tearful gratitude she could accept as a natural response, but her father’s halting speech had been a raw exposure of hidden hurts, intensely embarrassing.

It had touched on feelings they had never talked about, never acknowledged, and because nothing of that ilk had ever been said between them before, Sarah had difficulty in deciphering what was sincere or simply forced out of the situation. She couldn’t help thinking of the Christmas in Ireland where she’d spilled too much to Tareq…a kind stranger she’d never expected to meet again…a man who was acutely, dangerously perceptive.

“Did you tell my father to say those things to me?” she blurted out, wanting to know how pervasive Tareq’s influence had been in that last painful scene at the hotel.

Out of the corner of her eyes she saw his head turn towards her. Sarah had to summon up her courage to look directly at him, needing to maintain a protective shield around herself while she held his gaze.

“What things, Sarah?” he asked, the powerful blue eyes scanning for cracks in her hastily erected defences.

“About not letting me down again.”

“You think he didn’t carry any guilt over abandoning you to your mother’s whims when you were twelve?”

“Did you make him feel guilty, Tareq?”

A slight shrug. “Perhaps I tapped at his conscience in explaining why you felt you could approach me personally…the past connection between us.”

“You must have laid it on thick,” she accused.

He was completely unabashed. “Sometimes it’s very beneficial, very sobering, for people to be faced with the consequences of the decisions they make.”

There was a hard glint of ruthlessness in his eyes.

Her father had certainly been sobered up by the time she’d walked into Peter Larsen’s suite. His alcoholic bender the night before had left him looking drawn and haggard, his eyes redrimmed, but he’d spoken with convincing determination about making good on this second chance. Having accepted Tareq’s terms, whatever they were, he could hardly do anything else. He’d undoubtedly been made to face that his career in training was on the line.

It was the second part of his speech she questioned. He’d moved straight on to expressing-openly expressing—his regret in failing her as a father; his realisation that he’d selfishly accepted her ongoing assistance to his family, thinking only of their need instead of seeing she was putting her own life on hold; his hope that her new position with Tareq al-Khaima would be a door to a lot of opportunities for her; and finally, his fervent vow to live up to her good faith in him and be there for her if she ever called him in need.

They had to be lines fed to him by Tareq. Under duress. Although it was possible her father had taken them to heart. Either way, it was too late for a real rapprochement between them. Tareq was taking her away.

“I didn’t have much evidence of his caring for you, Sarah,” Tareq remarked, reading her thoughts with disquietening ease. His mouth quirked. “And what good is a hostage without a strong value of caring? I thought it worthwhile to add an appropriate load of guilt.”

Questions answered.

Sickened by his logic even as she recognised its truth, Sarah dropped her gaze and turned her face to the side window. They were out of the city and travelling through the countryside to the place she thought of as home. Except it had ceased being her home eleven years ago when her status had changed to occasional visitor. More recently she’d been the live-in family help. But she didn’t belong there. She didn’t belong anywhere.

Which had probably made it easy for Tareq to claim her with no one to protest, no one to fight for her. She was on her own. But that didn’t mean she was a pushover for anything he wanted. Her hands curled into determined fists. If he made unreasonable demands on her she would fight him.

Without looking at him, she asked, “What are the duties of a travelling companion?”

“To travel with me.” His tone was lightly amused.

Her nails dug into her palms. “Nothing else?”

“Oh, I daresay we’ll come to various little accommodations.”

“Like what?”

“You can unclench your hands. I’ve never taken an unwilling woman to bed with me.”

Smarting at his knowingness, she flashed him a furious glance. “It’s all very well for you, sitting in your control box.”

He laughed, his eyes dancing, teasing, enjoying his control. “Are you a virgin, Sarah?”

“That’s none of your business!” she cried, futilely willing the rush of hot blood to her face to recede.

“Just curious. You’re so uptight…”

“There’ve been plenty of men interested in me.”

“Was the interest returned?”

She thought of the “precious” young men her mother had lined up as “catches” for her before she’d left London. Compared to Tareq al-Khaima they were bloodless boys. She was swimming with a shark in these waters. Which raised the question of how many willing women he’d gobbled up along the way.

“Let’s talk about you,” she said defiantly.

“By all means. What do you want to know?”

“No doubt you’ve had quite a love-life.”

“A little correction there. I don’t think love has ever entered into it. Desire, certainly. Satisfaction, yes. Mutual pleasure definitely attained…”

“All right!” she cut him off, disturbed by the images running through her mind. “Let’s say sex-life.”

“Ah, yes. Well, I can’t deny having had considerable experience.”

The smile lurking on his mouth was tauntingly sensual. Sarah could feel her blood heating up again. She had no difficulty in believing he was a very sexy man when he put his mind to it. If he put his mind to it with her…but it would be madness to succumb even if she did wonder what it might be like with him. Where could it lead? He was a sheikh, tied to a culture that was very foreign to her.

“Won’t it put other women off, having me tagging along with you everywhere?” she commented archly, wondering if he’d looked down the track to see the consequences of his decision.

“Not at all. You’d be surprised,” he said cynically.

He was right. Even marriages didn’t stop some people from going after what they wanted.

“What about your family? It could give them the wrong impression.”

His mouth curled with some private satisfaction. “They will think what I tell them to think. Where my family is concerned, it suits me very well to have you with me, Sarah.”

His ruthless streak was showing again. This time it piqued her curiosity. “Why?” she asked, wondering if he was at odds with them.

He weighed the question, his eyes regarding her speculatively. Eventually he said, “My background is similar to yours…a broken marriage, my mother returning to England, the agreement that I be educated there at Eton and Oxford. It got me out of the way for my father’s second wife and the family they had together.”

No wonder he had been sympathetic to the child she had been, cut adrift between two worlds and not really belonging to either. He really had understood and possibly empathised with her sense of apartness, her loneliness, the feeling of being a shuttlecock in an adult game that sought only personal gratification.

“The difference is…the complication is…I’m my father’s eldest son, despite my mixed heritage,” he said sardonically. “The sheikhdom had to pass to me when he died.”

“Did you want it?”

A flash of ruthless possessiveness in his eyes. “I was entitled to it.”

And no one was going to take that away from him, Sarah interpreted.

“Though the truth is…I am not in tune with my people. For years now, my uncle has ruled in my absence while I maintain a diplomatic role. It has suited us both very well. But circumstances change. My oldest half-brother will soon marry the daughter of a very powerful family. Ahmed and Aisha make a formidable coupling. If they work against me, it could stir some political instability. My uncle is pressing for me to marry a woman of his choice to cement my position.”

Sarah inwardly recoiled against the concept of an arranged marriage although she knew it was done and accepted in eastern cultures. For Tareq, it would seem the most sensible decision to make.

“You don’t want that?” she queried.

A flash of steely pride. “No one dictates my life anymore, Sarah.”

She could well believe it!

“Naturally I will be attending my half-brother’s wedding. And you’ll be with me. It neatly disposes of any machinations my uncle might have in mind.”

So Tareq had a purpose for her. Sarah could see it was very convenient for him to have a woman on tap who’d agreed to stay with him for a year. No possibility of a refusal to accompany him. No running away, no matter how sticky the situation.

The bargain he’d offered her suited him on many levels.

“I suppose you’ll want us to pretend to be…” lovers teetered on her tongue and she quickly withdrew it as a possibly dangerous suggestion. “…closer than we really are in front of your family.”

Amusement sparkled. “I don’t think any pretence will be necessary.”

Did he mean to seduce her before then? Sarah’s heart flipped over. Her whole body started churning as she remembered how he’d measured her desirability. Then, when he’d offered the bargain, she’d stood like a mesmerised idiot, letting him touch her. Had that assured him he could make her willing?

“You’ll soon get bored with me, you know,” she fired at him, hating the thought he was confident of arranging everything his way. She might have agreed to being his companion but she wasn’t his slave!

His amusement broke into a laugh that tap-danced all over Sarah’s nervous system. “I can’t remember when I’ve felt so challenged by a woman. But you could be right. A year is a good test.”

A year…

God help her!

She turned to look out the window again, knowing more now but not exactly comforted by the knowledge. They were passing by familiar Werribee landmarks. Soon she would be saying goodbye to all this, leaving the safe little world where she had been closeted for two years.

Her heart began to ache. She would miss Jessie and the boys. Though Tareq was right. They were Susan’s children, not hers. All the same, it didn’t mean she couldn’t love them…her half-sister and half-brothers. They were the only family she had.

Tareq had capitalised on her feeling for them.

She was risking herself for their sake and they’d probably never know. Not that it mattered. She knew. Regardless of what happened to her, something good had been achieved. Jessie and the twins would not become the flotsam of a broken family.

Like her.

Like Tareq.

Except no one in their right mind could think of Tareq al-Khaima as flotsam.

CHAPTER SIX

AS THE LIMOUSINE came to a halt in front of the house, Sarah saw Jessie zoom along the veranda in her electric wheelchair, heading for the series of ramps that would bring her down to the road. She could go almost anywhere on the property in the custom-made chair, the powered base giving it a four-wheel suspension and amazing mobility. the novelty of seeing a stretch limousine at close quarters was not about to be missed.

Jessie wasn’t the only one whose curiosity and interest were aroused. The foreman’s wife came to the veranda railing, watching as the chauffeur opened The passenger door. Sarah waved to her as she stepped out, determined on acting as naturally as possible in the circumstances. The startled look at Sarah’s arriving in such style turned to awed wonder as Tareq emerged from the car.

“Sarah!”

Jessie’s cry of surprise claimed attention. The little girl was also staring goggle-eyed at Tareq, the chair halted several metres away as she took in the man accompanying her older half-sister.

Sarah was momentarily tongue-tied, not having prepared what to say to Jessie. Tareq had dominated her thoughts during the trip here. Now the moment was upon her, she instinctively seized his arm and drew him forward with her. Since this was his doing, let him handle it.

“Jessie, remember how disappointed you were not seeing the sheikh yesterday? Well, here he is…Sheikh Tareq al-Khaima!”

“Really?” Incredulity was almost instantly mixed with excitement and pleasure, lighting up her face and dismissing all her woes. “You came out to see me?”

“Sarah told me about you, Jessie,” he answered, smiling indulgently and offering his hand. “You’ll have to forgive the suit. I don’t wear robes outside my own country.”

“Oh!” Jessie blushed. Her small hand was gently enfolded in his. “That’s all right. You look…well, sort of like a royal prince anyway,” she said in an admiring rush. “And the car is fantastic!”

“Would you like to see inside?” Tareq invited.

“I’d love to!”

Sarah realised she was still hanging on to Tareq’s arm. She quickly released it as they moved to make room for Jessie to manoeuvre her chair into position beside the car. It was crazy to have seized on closeness to him for some kind of reassurance. Yet he was good with Jessie. Faith…if it could be called that…in his kindness to children had been justified.

“That’s a great machine you’re driving,” he remarked, watching her zip the chair around the passenger door which he’d opened for her viewing.

“It’s the Rollerchair Trail Blazer,” she proudly informed him.

He grinned. “Well, I’d have to say it blazes, Jessie.”

She laughed. “You mean the colours. Dad got them specially for me. I reckoned with a red seat and a yellow frame, everyone would see me coming.”

“Couldn’t miss,” he agreed. “It’s a brilliant combination. I’m afraid this car is fairly dull in comparison.”

“No, it’s not,” Jessie insisted, peering in at the plush interior.

“Would you like to have a ride in it with me? I could lift you in and strap you up and sit beside you, showing you everything while the chauffeur drives us around.”

“Yes, please,” Jessie cried, thrilled at the prospect. “Wait till I tell the twins about this!” she crowed at Sarah.

Her arms went trustingly around Tareq’s neck as he gently scooped her out of the electric chair, no hesitation at all, despite his being a virtual stranger. Somehow his innate strength of personality and self-assurance evoked confidence in him. Sarah, too, had accepted his trustworthiness when she’d been a child. She wished it could be the same now.

“Sarah, will you move my chair out of the way, please?”

She operated the toggle switch with the ease of long practice, reversing the chair to a safe distance. Jessie had no compunction in instructing Tareq how best to settle her on the seat of the car and he showed no discomfort with her disability, chatting away naturally while he settled her as promised.

“Perhaps you’d let the lady on the veranda know what Jessie and I are doing,” he said to Sarah as he straightened up, hard blue eyes turning the request into a command.

Only then did she begin to understand there was purpose in his kindness. They’d come to collect her passport and possessions, and he was diverting Jessie while the real business was done. “Of course,” she answered, forcing a smile. “Enjoy the ride, Jessie.”

“Aren’t you coming, too?” came the slightly plaintive plea.

Tareq answered for her. “Sarah has other things to attend to, Jessie. She’ll be busy for a while. I was hoping, after our drive, you’ll show me what you’ve got in the special rooms your father had built for you. If there’s anything more like your Trail Blazer…”

Jessie giggled. “It’s the best. But there is some other clever stuff I can show you.”

A master manipulator, Sarah thought, as she left them to head up to the house. Though it had to be conceded he was making the situation less harrowing for her, keeping Jessie happily occupied and probably setting up an understanding of why Sarah would be going with him instead of staying at the farm.

The foreman’s wife stood at the top of the steps to the veranda, her gaze darting between Sarah and the limousine. Ellie Walsh and her husband had been working for the Hillyards since Sarah was a child. Ellie was in her forties, a tall spare woman with a no-nonsense attitude. She invariably wore a shirt and jeans and kept her hair cut in a short, boyish style. Practicality was her byword.

“What’s going on?” she asked as Sarah started up the steps.

The limousine was moving off. Sarah smiled to relieve any worry. “Jessie has just made the acquaintance of Sheikh Tareq al-Khaima. He’s treating her to a bit of high life in his car.”

“The sheikh!” Shock and alarm crossed Ellie’s face. “Has he come about his horses?”

It was obvious she knew the training wasn’t up to par. Probably everyone who worked here knew but none of them wanted to be unemployed.

“Everything’s all right, Ellie.” Sarah could only hope it would be. “The sheikh has offered me a position and I’m taking it. I’m here to pack and say goodbye.”

Ellie was dumbfounded, her fears about the future frozen in the face of such unexpected news.

“Susan is on her way home. She’s got the jeep and will be collecting the boys from school,” Sarah went on. “I really appreciate your minding Jessie at such short notice today…”

“No problem,” Ellie muttered. “You’re really going with the sheikh, Sarah?”

“Yes. It’s an opportunity to widen my horizons again.”

Ellie shook her head, still stunned at the turn of events. “The children will miss you.”

“I’ll miss them, too, but…” She shrugged. “…I can’t stay here forever.”

“I guess not,” came the weak rejoinder. “Well, I’ll leave you to it. I wish you luck, Sarah.” She gave a funny laugh. “Mind you don’t end up in a harem.”

It was a possibility for the duration of the brother’s wedding, Sarah thought ironically, though she had the strong impression Tareq didn’t hold much with tradition. In any event, taking a wife was not on his agenda. Squashing the issue of marriage was.

Having seen Ellie on her way, she went into the house to set about uprooting herself again. It was difficult to keep depression at bay as she dragged her million-miler suitcase out of the storage cupboard and set it on her bed, ready for another packing, another move. She’d made a personal home of the room Susan had given her and it hurt to look at one more part of her life which was now over.

Her gaze mournfully skimmed the colourful collection of soft toys she’d knitted while sitting with Jessie. They were lined up on top of her chest of drawers, waiting to go to the boys’ school fete. A stack of library books was on her bedside table, some of them destined to be left unread. Photographs depicting Jessie’s progress were glue-tacked to the frame of the mirror on her dressing table. No point in taking them. They belonged here.

Sarah fiercely concentrated on what had to be taken…clothes, toiletries, important documents. The sooner her packing was accomplished, the better, she told herself, and set about tackling her clothes first. Most of them were leftovers from her student days, hardly a suitable wardrobe for the high life, but Sarah shrugged off that problem. If Tareq wanted her dressed differently he could pay for it. She hadn’t exactly applied for the position of his companion.

A shiver of trepidation ran down her spine. Would he think he was buying her if she let him pay for clothes? He obviously didn’t have any high expectations of women, viewing those who’d been in his life as nothing more than sexual partners. Willing sexual partners. When he’d said he’d never felt so challenged by a woman, did he mean because she wasn’t offering herself to him?

Sarah shook her head, trying to dismiss the rising anxieties.

Stupid to keep worrying about the future. The decision was made. Whatever the outcome of a year with Tareq, she had to take it in her stride and let it flow past her. It was one thing she used to be good at, letting things flow past her.

It had been different with Jessie and the twins. Her involvement with them had been so easy, natural…an uncomplicated love, given and returned. Sarah hoped it would always be the same with them. All going well, they would still be here next year when she returned with Tareq for the Melbourne Cup.

Her packing was well under way by the time Jessie returned with Tareq. She stood still, listening to the high excited voice leading her important visitor down the hall to her especially equipped domain. There was no pause outside Sarah’s door. Jessie had to be still in ignorance of her half-sister’s imminent departure.

Almost an hour later, Sarah took her luggage out to the veranda. The chauffeur collected it and stowed it in the limousine. Susan and the boys still hadn’t arrived. Sarah waited outside until she caught sight of the jeep approaching the gate into the property, then steeling herself for the inevitable leave-taking, she walked quickly into the house and straight to Jessie’s suite.

A swell of emotion broke past her guard as she knocked on the door. Tears stung her eyes and her chest was so tight, the deep breaths she forced herself to take were painful. Keep it bright, keep it simple, and make it quick, her mind dictated. It would be easier that way, easier for everybody. Having blinked back the tears, she pasted a smile on her face and opened the door.

Why her gaze went first to Tareq, she didn’t know. It was Jessie she had to face, yet somehow he dominated even this parting scene…sitting in the chair she usually sat in, commanding attention simply by being in this room. He looked at ease, yet she felt the driving force behind his kindly facade and her heart quailed at what she had invited upon herself in accepting his bargain.

The electric chair hummed into life. Sarah tore her gaze from Tareq and looked anxiously at Jessie, now turning away from the desk where she’d obviously been showing Tareq some of her sketches. She had a real gift for drawing, a talent Sarah had encouraged her to develop since it was not dependent on two active legs. One day it might lead her into a rewarding and fulfilling career.

“You can sit on my bed, Sarah,” she invited, her little face still glowing with excitement. “Are you all packed, ready to go with Tareq?”

The knowledge and the ready acceptance in the question jolted Sarah. “I…yes. The chauffeur put my luggage in the car,” she answered weakly, searching for and finding no sign of distress in the child. “I know it’s sudden, Jessie, but…”

“Oh, you couldn’t miss out, Sarah,” came the eager urging. “You’ll have a wonderful time with Tareq.”

“You don’t mind my going?” It amazed her, disturbed her that Jessie seemed to care so little about losing her.

“Gosh, Sarah! It’s not as if everybody’s sister gets asked to travel with a sheikh.” She looked absolutely entranced with the idea. “You’re so lucky!”

“Yes, aren’t I?” she agreed, trying to inject some enthusiasm into her voice.

She darted a glance at Tareq as she sat on the bed, wondering if he’d brainwashed Jessie into thinking he was sweeping Sarah off on a magic carpet. The look he returned telegraphed very clearly he left nothing to chance when he wanted his purpose achieved. Sarah knew she should feel grateful he’d removed any trauma from the situation. Instead, she felt cheated, as though he’d wiped out the value of her involvement with her family.

“I’ll be thinking of you all the time,” Jessie went on. “Promise you’ll send me postcards of wherever you go, Sarah?”

“Of course I will.” Her inner stress eased a little at this evidence of wanting a continuing connection.

“I’m going to get a big map of the world and put it on my wall. Every time I get a postcard from you, I’ll stick in a pin of where you are so I’ll only have to look at it to know and think of you there. Isn’t that a good idea?”

One of his? “I’ll be thinking of you, too, Jessie. I hope you’ll write to me.”

“I’ll write you very special letters, Sarah.”

This declaration was accompanied by a secretive smile which she shared with Tareq. His smile in response indicated a conspiratorial arrangement. Sarah hoped Tareq wouldn’t conveniently forget his part of it once they were away from here. She didn’t want Jessie disillusioned by broken promises. On the other hand, she couldn’t argue with the ideas he’d implanted. It seemed he had gone out of his way to ensure she remained a presence in her family, however far away she was.

“I’ll look forward to hearing all your news, Jessie,” Sarah said in warm encouragement. “You must write me news of the boys, too.”

She giggled, delighted with the plans concocted with Tareq. “It’s going to be such fun!”

The eruption of noise in the house heralded the twins’ approach. They burst into Jessie’s room, two hyperactive bundles of trouble with wild, curly hair and big brown eyes, determined on finding the sheikh and seeing him for themselves. Jessie performed the introductions and both boys looked their fill of the man, somewhat daunted by his powerful presence.

“Mum said you’re taking Sarah with you,” Tim spoke up, showing his misgivings about this arrangement.

“Sarah is ours,” Tom stated belligerently.

“Sarah will always be yours,” Tareq answered, smiling his assurance. “She’s your sister and she loves you. Coming with me won’t make any difference to how she feels about her family.”

“But I don’t want her to go away.”

“Don’t be a baby, Tom,” Jessie cried in exasperation. “Sarah’s a grown-up and she hasn’t had any time for grown-up things with us. You’ve got to be fair.”

Another one of Tareq’s ideas?

“Do you want to go, Sarah?” Tim asked.

“I do need to do something more with my life, Tim,” she answered, “though I’ve loved being here with you.”

“Who’s going to tell us bedtime stories?” Tom demanded.

“I will,” Susan said from the doorway. “And I think you should thank Sarah for giving you so much of her time instead of making her feel bad about leaving you.”

“We didn’t mean to make you feel bad, Sarah,” Tim rushed out. “We want you to be happy.”

“Well, she’ll be real happy with Tareq,” Jessie declared, giving her younger brothers a supremely smug look. “I went for a ride in the stretch limousine!”

The boys instantly set up a clamour to be taken for a ride, too. Tareq good-humouredly agreed, inviting Jessie to lead them out to the car. She had a lovely time, playing Queen Bee, escorted by the sheikh who had apparently taken on the guise of fairy godfather.

“Will you be happy with him, Sarah?” Susan asked, scanning her anxiously as they trailed after the limousine party.

“I expect it will be an experience,” she returned dryly.

Susan shook her head fretfully. “You’ve done so much for us. I don’t know what to say…except thank you.”

“Try to keep Dad off the bottle, Susan.”

“I think Tareq has taken care of that. Your father got caught up in doing things he really hated and now he’ll be free of it, thank God!”

The passionate relief in Susan’s voice piqued Sarah’s curiosity. She stopped walking and stayed her stepmother from following the others off the veranda. “I’m not sure I understand,” she said, her eyes sharply questioning.

Susan looked intensely discomfited. “Never mind. Better that you don’t. Drew needs to save some pride. He feels bad enough it was you who got Tareq to give him a fresh start. He won’t let you down on this, Sarah.”

“It’s not just me. It’s the family,” Sarah retorted, frustrated by Susan’s evasion. There were some things more important than pride and she tried to press them home, given this was her last opportunity to do so. “I’d hate to see you and Dad break up.”

She shook her head. “I’d never leave your father. We’ve been through so much. He stood by me when I was hopelessly incapacitated. I’d stand by him through anything, Sarah. Don’t worry about us. We’ll get over this hump and turn it all around.”

Faced with such faith and determination, Sarah didn’t have the heart to question further. Marriage was a private business to the two people involved and nothing she said would make any difference anyway. It certainly hadn’t in the past.

They remained on the veranda, watching Tareq directing the final show for the day. The limousine took off for another spin around the property, carrying three exuberant children and the man who held all their lives in his controlling hands for the next, testing year.

“I’m sorry you were so messed around by the divorce, Sarah,” Susan said, apparently stirred into an awareness of where her stepdaughter was coming from in the previous conversation.

“Not your fault,” Sarah replied dismissively. Sympathy had not been around when she’d needed it and hindsight sympathy only made the omission worse.

“I could have offered to keep you here with us. But I didn’t,” came the regretful admission.

Sarah had had a gutful of guilt from her father. She didn’t want it from Susan, too. “Water under the bridge,” she said curtly.

“I want you to know you’ll always be welcome here. Any time. For as long as you want.”

Too late, Sarah thought with rueful irony. A debt was owed now. People were uncomfortable with debts. It colored the flow of natural feelings. Though not with the children. They would never know. Nevertheless, it would lie between her and their parents, denying her the closeness she would have liked.

“Thank you,” she said, acknowledging the offer which had been sincerely made, however unlikely it was to be taken up. Tareq was about to dominate her life for the next twelve months. Perhaps longer if…her heart clenched with a sense of ominous urgency as she turned to her stepmother. She’d almost forgotten the most critical thing of all!

“Please tell Dad to do his best with Firefly, Susan. It’s important. Tell him from me it’s terribly important if he doesn’t want to let me down.”

Tareq might have freed her father from his self-made stress, but Firely’s performance was her passport to freedom.

“I’ll tell him,” Susan replied.

“You won’t forget?” Sarah pressed.

“I promise.”

Promises…she’d had a gutful of them, too…broken ones.

The limousine came back.

Her time here was up.

The children were happy to say goodbye…hugs and kisses and well wishes. Sarah settled on the plush seat beside Tareq. The chauffeur closed the door, the last separating act. She watched her family waving her off as the limousine moved away from them. There was no point in her waving. They couldn’t see her. She was behind tinted windows, cut off from them, enclosed in Tareq’s world.

“Thank you for making it easy,” she said stiffly.

“Was it easy?”

She grimaced, her eyes drawn to his by the gentle probe for honesty. “Yes and no.”

He nodded, understanding her ambivalence. There was both comfort and disquiet in his understanding so much. Recalling his skill at manipulating everyone today, Sarah was goaded into making one stand on principle.

“I appreciate your…graciousness…in the circumstances. But if you’ve made promises to Jessie, please keep them, Tareq.”

The blue eyes held hers, unperturbed, unwavering. “I never make promises I don’t intend to keep.”

Sarah suddenly felt foolish for raising the matter. Everything he’d said today indicated he set a lot of store by trust. In his life it was probably as precious a commodity as it was in hers.

“Then you will let me go if Firefly runs well next year,” she said, wanting him to voice that promise in undeniable terms.

She felt the power behind his eyes intensify, boring into her, flooding her veins with tingling heat, enmeshing her mind with threads of entanglement that would never let go unless he willed it.

“You will be freed…from being a hostage.”

His words rang hollowly in her ears, rendered meaningless by vibrations of a much more personal connection. Sarah knew in her bones she would never be free of Tareq, even given the lifting of the hostage tie, even given he didn’t want her with him beyond that time.

The impression he’d left on her twelve-year-old mind was still with her, and that had only been a week of her life. How much stronger would it be after twelve months?

“Why are you doing this to me?” It was a cry of protest, wrung from the depths of her being.

He didn’t question it. He didn’t pretend he didn’t know what she meant. “You think you don’t touch me, Sarah? What am I doing here?” His eyes glittered with a reckless pleasure in the challenge. “We shall travel this road together until I know all of it.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

SARAH DIDN’T WANT to get out of bed. The moment she woke she remembered what was ahead of her today—the trip to Silver Springs, being at Tareq’s side amongst other people—and the now familiar tightening of nerves around her stomach made her feel sick.

Ten days she’d been with him—another three hundred and fifty-five to go—and at this rate of personal upheaval, she was not going to survive the distance. It was difficult enough, coping with the tension of her position when she and Tareq were alone together. The thought of others looking on, questioning the relationship, speculating, as they surely would, stirred an intense inner violence. She wanted to hit out at something but there was nothing to hit out at, nothing of any substance.

Tareq could not have been more gentlemanly towards her, more considerate. There was no physical touching she could object to, no unseemly words she could hang him on. It was the constant waiting and expectation of something more to come from him that had her on edge.

Worse was her growing obsession with the man, the insidious attraction she couldn’t control, the tug-of-war between denial and desire, the awful, vulnerable sense of being powerless to stop what was happening to her.

Unless she reneged on their bargain and left him.

Which was impossible.

She’d given her word. And Tareq was ruthless enough to withdraw the agreement with her father if she failed to keep it. There was no escape and he knew it. He had all the time in the world to make his move on her. If he chose to.

We shall travel this road together until I know all of it.

With those relentless words beating through her mind, Sarah turned over, punching her pillow for the lack of anything else to punch. Her gaze fell on the lush tropical garden in the courtyard beyond the double glass doors of her bedroom. She’d forgotten to pull the curtains last night. Not that it mattered. The guest suite she’d been given was completely private, even to the courtyard outside. She couldn’t accuse Tareq of intruding on this space, yet the knowledge it was his house and he was in it with her, was constantly intrusive.

This past week on the west coast of Florida should have been heaven, a vacation in a warm sunny climate, one of the most handsome and wealthiest men in the world intent on giving her pleasure, making no demands on her whatsoever except to relax and enjoy herself. It had turned into a hell of ever-increasing awareness. Of him. Of herself.

Her mind flitted over the procession of events, tracing the progress of her torment. The plane trip to the States hadn’t been too bad. Perhaps emotional and physical exhaustion had drawn a protective curtain around her. Tareq had been solicitous of her comfort, coaxing her to eat and drink at various intervals during the flight, but she’d managed to put him at a distance from her, sleeping a lot, watching videos, reading magazines. He’d let her be, not pushing his company on her.

After they’d landed at Fort Myers, she’d focused on external things, looking at where they were going, asking questions about what they were passing. They’d driven through a fabulous estate development comprising dozens of magnificent homes and luxurious condominiums set on perfectly landscaped and beautifully maintained lawns and lakes and gardens, three golf courses, neighbourhood pools and gyms and tennis courts, a private beach and marina facing onto the Gulf of Mexico. It had surprised her to learn it was one of Tareq’s property investments, another mind-boggling sample of the wealth at his disposal.

“Have you come to check on it?” Sarah had asked.

“Not particularly. I kept one of the houses facing the beach for myself. It’s a convenient base for this time of year. People come to spend the winter months here.”

Only very rich people, the kind who mixed in his league.

“And it’s not far from Ocala. Handy for looking at the horses on the ranches around there. I’ve been advised there’s a couple of yearlings that might interest me.”

“So we’re here on business.”

“A short vacation first.” Blue eyes smiling warm kindness. “You need it.”

Kindness with a purpose…always a purpose behind everything Tareq did.

The first day…arriving at this fantastic house with its impact of glorious space; huge airy rooms, tall ceilings, lots of glass, the decor in all shades of sea colours; pale blues and greens, white tiles on the floor, rugs patterned with sea-shells, wicker furniture…a beach house, but on such a luxurious scale it seemed a misnomer to Sarah. Being given her own suite and meeting the couple who took care of everything—Rita and Sam Bates—created a comfort zone. For the first day.

The second day had actually been fun, bicycling around the estate, trying out the pool and hot tub, discovering the wonderful taste of stone crabs, a special delicacy of the area served by Rita that night. Seeing Tareq stripped to a minimal swimming costume had been slightly unnerving but not overly disturbing. She could still concentrate on other things at that point.

The third day he’d taken her on an exhilarating air-boat ride over the Everglades, skimming the seemingly endless grassy marshes, seeing the fascinating bird life and alligators, amazingly a nest of baby ones. She had enjoyed it, though she’d become very conscious of Tareq watching her enjoyment, gleaning some private pleasure in it.

She had the sense he had forgotten what uncomplicated joy was like and was relearning it from her. It had made her feel good, useful, of some positive value, giving him something that had been lost from his life.

The next day there’d been a rapid escalation of good feelings. Too rapid. It reminded her of sugar candy being spun around a stick. One was so entranced with the fairy floss, the stick supporting it was lost in a cloud of pink.

Tareq had taken her to Smallwood’s Store and she’d wandered around the historic trading post, fascinated by all the relics of the past which had once been sold to the pioneers of the Everglades, coming in their boats which they tied to the piers of the old wooden structure at waterside. Furs and plumes were traded here for food and cloth and all manner of household goods from lamps to treadle sewing machines, medicine, books, every kind of working tool. The place was a treasure chest of past lives and Sarah revelled in the experience of stepping back in time.

Tareq had seen it all before but he wasn’t bored, wasn’t the least bit impatient with her journey of discovery. He shared the knowledge he’d picked up from reading local books, fed her interest, indulged her fascination, and watched her with a warmth that kept getting under Sarah’s skin.

There was something very intoxicating about approval. She’d had so little of it in her life. Yet she found herself wary of its bestowal from Tareq, not quite trusting it, looking for the purpose behind it. Was Tareq subtly plumbing her unfulfilled needs and wants to establish a deeper tie with him?

I don’t think any pretence will be necessary.

Better if the woman he used for confronting his uncle was very convincingly stuck on him.

The fifth day they’d spent on the beach. The sand was gritty with broken-up shells. They lay on loungers shaded by umbrellas, swam in the relatively warm waters of the gulf, picnicked from a hamper Rita had prepared for them. It should have been a blissfully relaxing day, if only Sarah had been able to keep her eyes off Tareq.

She couldn’t help it. In clothes the man was strikingly handsome. Virtually naked, for hours on end, lying beside her, walking in and out of the water, towelling himself, his physical beauty was almost mesmerisingly addictive, compelling her gaze to linger on his perfectly proportioned and powerfully muscled body. More disquietening was the desire to touch. His skin gleamed like rich, bronze satin and it was a continual strain to clamp down on the impulse to reach out and graze her fingers over it.

He caught her watching him slap oil around the calves of his long, strong legs. “Want some?” The blue eyes twinkled teasingly, knowingly, shaming her with the realisation he had to be aware of his effect on the opposite sex and she was proving no different from any other woman.

“No. I’m fine, thank you,” she’d answered stiffly.

He’d returned to his task, smiling to himself, and there was still a little curve on his lips when he lay back down on the lounger, his eyes closed to her. Was he amused that she couldn’t stop herself from being attracted to him? Satisfied it was beyond her control? Or was she being hopelessly neurotic, reading a connection to her into a smile which might simply be expressing gratification in a lazy, sensuous day.

Sarah’s gaze slid down over his taut stomach and fastened on the very male bulge at his crotch. She felt a point of sexual heat start burning between her own thighs and quickly turned away from him, squirming both physically and mentally from the wild desire to know what he was like as a lover, to feel that body intimately engaged with hers. She’d never actually lusted over a man before. It made her uncomfortably conscious of her own body, as well as his.

On the sixth day they’d gone fishing with Captain Bob, which had been another new and exciting experience until she’d had the misfortune to hook a very big fish on her line. She wasn’t strong enough or practised enough to reel it in. Tareq had stood behind her, his arms around her waist, one hand helping to hold the rod in its holster, the other closed over hers on the handle of the reel, showing her how to play the fish on the line.

It wasn’t a sexual embrace, merely a supportive one, yet it blew away all Sarah’s concentration on what she was supposed to be doing. It was Tareq who eventually landed the fish. All she remembered was his breath warming her ear as he gave instructions, the strength of his fingers pressing on hers, the electric excitement coursing through her body from the contact with his, the sudden scorching hunger to feel everything he could make her feel.

When he moved away, admiring the catch netted by Captain Bob, Sarah was left trembling violently, shocked by the snaking intensity of sexual need which was still writhing through her. She dropped shakily onto the closest bench seat and stared at the fish, caught no matter how much it struggled. Like her, she thought, only Tareq was still playing her on his line.

“Let it go,” she’d croaked, then fiercely challenged the quizzical look from Tareq. “I want it released.”

“Your fish,” he conceded, nodding to Captain Bob.

It wasn’t really hers. He’d caught it. Perhaps that was why she felt such a savage surge of satisfaction, watching it swim free again, a silver flash in the water, escaping the painful confusion of being pulled into a different, alien world.

On the seventh day, Tareq had casually announced he was taking her shopping for clothes.

Defiance had leapt off her tongue. “No!” The thought of parading a range of outfits for Tareq’s approval, having his eyes measuring their effectiveness, how well each garment fitted her figure…her stomach had cramped. She couldn’t bear it.

Tareq had frowned at her vehemence. “I thought you would enjoy it.” His frown had deepened. “There is also the matter of feeling at ease when we start mixing with others, Sarah.” A quiet, gentle reasoning. “Inevitably, you will suffer considerable scrutiny as my companion. Critical scrutiny.”

Resentment at her enforced position had spilled out. “And you’d prefer me not to look the little brown mouse at your side.”

His eyes had sparked with amusement. “You’re more a lioness than a mouse. Protecting your cubs.”

His reminder of the children made this even more a cat and mouse game to Sarah. Except Tareq wasn’t a mere cat. He was a dangerous, dark, and very sleek panther, prowling around her, waiting to pounce, keeping her in almost intolerable suspense.

“It is irrelevant to me how you are dressed, Sarah,” he’d declared. “My main concern was to protect you from the bitchiness of other women. However, if you feel armoured enough against their barbs…”

She wasn’t. She knew she’d hate being looked down upon, hate looking like a fish out of water. “I do need some new clothes,” she’d admitted grudgingly, then in a proud show of independence, had added, “It’s just that I want to go shopping by myself, choose them myself, and pay for them myself.”

To her intense relief he had let her do precisely that…after the embarrassment of having to accept the thirty thousand dollars he put in her credit account, a three months’ advance on the salary he’d arbitrarily decided upon.

“But I don’t do anything!” she’d protested.

“That’s for me to judge,” he’d answered.

Recognising the futility of arguing, Sarah, nonetheless, had no intention of frittering away anything like that amount on clothes. Sam Bates had driven her to Naples, a shoppers’ paradise with its many fashion boutiques, and she’d managed to find quite a few bargains amongst end of season stock that had been marked down.

Temporarily freed from the turmoil Tareq stirred, Sarah had enjoyed acquiring a range of clothes she felt really good in, assuring herself she didn’t have to be competitive. As long as she was confident in her appearance, she’d be fine. Though she did wonder if Tareq was as uncaring about it as he said.

“Pleased with what you’ve bought?” he’d asked on her return to the house, eyeing the shopping bags with interest.

“Do you want to be shown?” she’d challenged.

He’d laughed, shaking his head. “I’ll see soon enough.”

But there’d been something—a cynical glint in his eyes?—that had made Sarah suddenly feel there’d been a purpose in letting her go shopping alone, a test in giving her so much spending power. The sense of being weighed on everything she did had her swinging from fierce belligerence—why should she care what he thought of her?—to sick panic, because she did care.

It was crazy to crave his good opinion, crazy to crave what could only be a self-destructive liaison with him. There might be physical satisfaction—even intense pleasure—in experiencing his sexual expertise, but there’d be humiliation, too, knowing she was letting down the ideals she’d clung to for so long. All the same, she hadn’t known how strong carnal desire could be…its raging demands, its dreadful distraction, its power to pervert any normal thinking.

Sarah closed her eyes to the brilliant light of this new day, wishing she could shut Tareq out as easily. Maybe it would be easier with the company of other people around them, drawing his attention away from her. Looking at the horses he wanted to see had to be a diversion, too. The trip to Silver Springs might be less of an ordeal than she’d initially thought.

After all, she didn’t know the people she’d be meeting. What they thought about her didn’t really matter. Here today, gone tomorrow. Tareq was the unavoidable constant. Somehow she had to learn to live with the way he affected her.

A knock on the door. “Sarah?” His voice calling out.

Her eyes flew open. Her heart catapulted around her chest. She had to work some moisture into her mouth before answering. “Yes?” It came out high-pitched and quivery. He hadn’t entered her suite all the time they were here. Was that about to change?

“There’s a letter from Jessie. Do you want to come and read it?”

So much for her fevered imagination! On a wave of sheer delight, Sarah leapt out of bed, thrust her arms into her light silk wraparound to cover up her satin slip nightie, and raced to the door. She’d bought and sent postcards to Jessie and the twins but they couldn’t have received them yet. It was a lovely surprise to get a letter so soon.

Her face was lit with happy anticipation as she opened the door, her smile spontaneous as she held out her hand for the expected envelope. Tareq grinned at her, his eyes taking in her dishabille and obviously savouring the lack of restraint apparent in her appearance. In sharp contrast, he was immaculately groomed and freshly clothed in body-hugging blue jeans and a white and navy Lacoste sports shirt.

Fighting a prickling sense of vulnerability, Sarah stared pointedly at his empty hands. “You said…”

“Tousled hair becomes you.”

Was he checking how she looked first thing in the morning? Her teeth clenched. It was a non-effective action in stopping the rush of heat to her face. “Tareq…” she bit out.

“The letter came in on E-mail. You’ll have to read it off the monitor screen in my study.”

“E-mail?”

“Much quicker than the postal service.”

Incredulity billowed over her confusion. “Jessie’s using E-mail?”

“It’s not difficult once you’ve learnt how. Follow me and I’ll show you.”

He set off, taking it for granted she would do as he dictated. Sarah hesitated, torn between having her curiosity immediately satisfied and wanting to bolt back into her bedroom and get properly dressed so she wouldn’t feel at such a disadvantage. the drawcard of modern technology won over fears that seemed silly with Tareq’s back already turned to her. Tying her belt firmly to prevent her gown flying apart, she trailed after him to the study which was furnished with every form of communication.

Tareq waved her to the swivel chair at his desk. The monitor screen above a computer keyboard glowed invitingly. Sarah could hardly believe her eyes as she sat down and began reading the printed script.

Dear Sarah,

I bet this surprises you. I’m writing this on my very own computer. It came the day after you left and a tutor has been showing me how to use it. I can do drawings on it, too, and colour them any way I want. If I don’t like one colour, I can use my mouse to change it to another colour. Isn’t that marvellous? And so quick. Tareq said it would be a lot of fun and it is. It’s the best present. Please thank him for me…

Her mind spun in shock. Her gaze jerked up to the man standing beside her. “You bought Jessie a computer? And lessons?”

He nodded. “Children take to computers very quickly. Here she is, up and running already,” he said, clearly pleased with her progress.

“But why?” The extravagance of the gesture stunned her, even as she recalled the conspiratorial smiles he and Jessie had swapped, and his insistence that he kept the promises he made.

“I took you away,” he answered with devastating simplicity. “This puts Jessie in easy touch and has the added benefit of keeping her well occupied. It’s a great educational tool for a handicapped child.”

Dear God! She had thought him ruthlessly manipulative while all the time he’d been thinking and planning how to help a crippled little girl over the absence of her big sister and give her something good to go on with.

“I’ll show you how to reply once you’ve finished reading,” he offered matter-of-factly.

She couldn’t read. Her eyes were blurred with tears. She shook her head helplessly.

“Sarah?” He gently tilted her face up, his eyes questioning her distress.

“It’s so kind…so generous,” she choked out.

His mouth twisted into a self-deprecating grimace. “A bit of thought, an order given, and the cost meaningless to me. Nothing compared to the two years you gave.”

“I love her.” Reason enough to give anything.

“I know. After what happened to you as a child, it amazes me you didn’t lose the capacity to love.” He tenderly brushed his knuckles across her cheek. “I’m glad you didn’t.”

Her heart contracted at the sense of enticing possibilities hovering. “Did you lose your capacity to love?” she whispered, the softness of the moment prompting the impulsive question, the wish to reach into the inner man and know what he was truly made of.

Then suddenly the moment wasn’t soft anymore. His hand dropped from her face, erasing the warmth. A hardness glazed his eyes. She could almost hear the armour he wore being locked into place. No cracks.

“Let’s say it was whittled away very effectively,” he answered sardonically. “To the point where I prefer horses to people. Horses are always beautiful. You can establish an empathy with them. And on the whole, they run true to form.”

The cynical comment drove her to protest. “But you cared about Jessie.”

“I always try to balance what I give and what I take, Sarah. I pride myself on playing fair.”

“By whose rules?” she flared, afraid that what he might take from her could never be given back.

He laughed. “My own, of course. In the end, we have to live with ourselves so it’s best to stay true to what we personally believe is right.”

It was a sobering reminder of what she knew in her heart. Somehow she had to steel herself against the temptations inherent in being with Tareq al-Khaima. There was no love on offer, only bargaining chips. If she didn’t stay true to herself…yet what was true? Since she’d been with Tareq, a Sarah she hadn’t known before was emerging, a stranger with needs that swamped common sense.

While Tareq—damn him!—was always in control.

“You don’t need to stay. I know how to use E-mail,” she said curtly, focusing her eyes on the screen again.

“Very well.”

His withdrawal hurt, which was utterly stupid since she’d more or less asked for it. She tried to ignore the thud of his footsteps, concentrating fiercely on the words Jessie had written to her.

Please thank him for me…

She hadn’t.

“Tareq…” She spun the chair around to face him.

“Yes?”

He paused in the study doorway, half turning to look back, so supremely composed, so arrogantly confident, so totally self-contained, so frustratingly untouchable, it stirred a wilful streak in Sarah that furiously dismissed the danger of courting trouble. He touched her whenever he felt like it. She wanted to know how he’d react if she touched him, if he’d still keep his armour intact.

Her feet sped across the room. Her hands lifted to splay over his chest. She went up on tiptoe. “A thank you from Jessie,” she said, and kissed his cheek.

The next instant her hands were trapped by his, preventing their removal. Her palms were forcibly pressed to his body heat, transmitters for a sensory power that charged up her arms and exploded through her body, making every cell tingle with awareness of imminent and possibly cataclysmic change. His eyes blazed, scouring her soul of the petty vengefulness that had driven her, searing it with white-hot needs her mind could not even begin to encompass.

She stared back, helplessly caught in the thrall of his power, fearful of what she had triggered so heedlessly. She felt herself begin to tremble, shaken by the whirlwind of sensation beating through her. Her heart seemed to be thumping in her ears. Her breasts were swelling, tightening. A heavy, dragging feeling in her thighs was transforming into a melting heat.

Most shocking of all, he saw…he knew…and he said, “Don’t tempt the devil unless you want to play with fire, Sarah.”

Harsh, challenging words. No intent to seduce. No forcing anything. Demanding an unequivocal decision from her. And her memory spewed out the words…I’ve never taken an unwilling woman to bed with me.

Living by his rules…

Dear God! What were hers? How could they be so easily lost, overwhelmed? In sheer panic she clutched at safety. The alternative was too frightening.

She swallowed hard and forced out the one weak excuse for her behaviour she had. “I was only thanking you.”

“Were you?”

Her skin burned.

The searing fire in his eyes slowly retreated to a mocking simmer. “So be it then. Consider me thanked.”

He carried her hands down to her sides, released them, then walked away…a man of rigid principle.

Sarah was left feeling bereft…foolish…relieved. The truth was scorched indelibly on her brain. She could and had tapped into a furnace of feeling that would swallow her up if she opened the door to it. Touching was very different to loving, powerful but extremely perilous and not to be played with. Unless she wanted to be completely consumed by Tareq al-Khaima.

Surely that would be the ultimate madness.

Or would it be the ultimate experience?

CHAPTER EIGHT

TAREQ CURSED HIMSELF for being a quixotic fool. He could have taken her then. He could have spun her into a sexual thrall so fast, resistance wouldn’t have occurred to her. Instead, his body was screaming against the restraint he’d imposed on it.

For what? She wanted her curiosity satisfied. She wanted to know what he’d be like as a lover. She was so transparent…

And so was her innocence, he reminded himself savagely.

He headed out to the pool, stripped off and dived in, threshing through the cool water for several lengths, using up the explosive energy that had been denied its natural outlet. When he finally paused for breath, the needling tension had gone but he was still at war with himself.

He’d thought to give Sarah a good slice of life while he had the satisfaction and pleasure of knowing her in every sense. A fair exchange, he’d reasoned. She’d get to experience all she’d been missing out on and he’d enjoy giving her pleasure, showing her the world, being her teacher.

She was different to the women who usually peopled his life and he’d wanted to savour the difference. The bitter irony was the very difference that appealed to him, defeated the purpose he’d started out with.

It was cruelly obvious her loving heart would attach more to sexual intimacy than the physical satisfaction he had in mind. If he took advantage of her vulnerability, how would they both feel about it afterwards? She’d already suffered a miserable pile of disillusionment in her life. He had a gutre-coil to adding another heap of it.

Yet he wanted her, wanted the full experience of her. He was so damned jaded, her freshness had a compelling appeal and with her giving nature, her artless honesty, whatever he had with her would be very special. He knew it and he wanted it more than anything he’d wanted for a long, long time.

So what the hell was he to do?

The quandary was killing him.

He had to find some way around it.

CHAPTER NINE

THE CALM AFTER the storm, Sarah thought ironically, sitting through breakfast with Tareq. His usual gentlemanly manner had been resumed without the slightest suggestion of strain. Sarah worked hard at holding a natural approach to today’s activities, asking about the ranch they would be visiting, the horses that interested him, the people who owned them.

She fixed their names in her mind—Jack and Miriam Wellesly-Adams—suspecting the double-barrelled surname represented an amalgamation of two very wealthy families. She’d taken her cue from Tareq, dressing casually in jeans, a black pair which had a matching battle jacket she could wear if the afternoon turned cool. Her lime green polo-necked top went well with it. Since no critical comment was forthcoming from Tareq, Sarah concluded she was suitably attired, regardless of her hostess’s fashion standards.

Although dinner this evening was somewhat trickier. She and Tareq were to be overnight guests. “Classy casual,” he’d advised when she’d asked him what to pack for it. How classy and how casual were left undefined. Sarah hoped her new lemon pants-suit fitted the requisites.

Cluttering her mind with superficial details kept more fretful thoughts at bay. Sarah almost managed to pretend she felt no tension at all. Logic insisted that as long as she didn’t touch Tareq, he would respect whatever distance she chose to hold. Pouncing was not on his agenda. He was playing a waiting game. Though if she let herself think about that, her nerves would start screaming again.

She was glad when it was time to go. She wanted to put the confrontation in his study behind her, a long way behind her, physically as well as mentally. Once they were on the road she could immerse herself in the role of travelling companion and hopefully find lots of distractions.

Tareq surprised her.

A gleaming red Cadillac convertible was sitting outside the house and Sam Bates was loading their overnight cases in the trunk. Sarah stopped and stared. They’d been riding around in a silvery grey BMW all week. This car had certainly not been in evidence. Anyone would have to be blind not to see such a flamboyant vehicle.

“Where did that come from?” The question spilled from her lips.

“I hired it for this trip,” came the matter-of-fact reply.

Sarah shook her head. It made no sense to her. Tareq spared no expense on his comfort and convenience but she didn’t have him tabbed as a show-off sort of playboy. The red Cadillac convertible shouted Look at me! I’m king of the road! She tore her gaze from the glittering, extrovert attraction of the car and searched Tareq’s eyes for the purpose he had to have for it.

“Why?” she asked.

He grinned, totally disarming her and sending a flock of butterflies through her stomach. “For fun,” he answered and held out the keys to her. “I thought you’d enjoy driving it.”

“Me? But I can’t, Tareq. I’ve never driven on the wrong side of the road.”

He laughed. “Here it’s the right side. And you won’t find it a problem on the highway. You just drive along in a lane as you do at home.”

She was torn between caution and temptation. “What if I make a mistake?”

“I’ll be right beside you with advice and instructions.” Still she hesitated. “It will be much safer if you drive.”

“Safe, Sarah?” His eyes sparkled a teasing challenge. “How very boring! Haven’t you ever thought it might be fun to drive such a car with the sun on your face and the wind in your hair and the wheel in your hands?”

“Of course I have.”

“So be brave. Take a risk. Do it. At least once in a lifetime.”

She took the keys, took the risk and did it, embracing the exhilaration of zooming along the highway at the controls of a flashy convertible because it was fantasy-fun and such an extraordinary experience might never come her way again. For a while driving demanded all her concentration, but once she was accustomed to the car and the different use of the road, her mind started niggling at Tareq’s motives again.

Was this another test?

Had she grabbed too quickly at the once-in-a-lifetime thrill which he had the means to provide? Seduction could come in many guises and unlimited wealth was a powerful lure. Scorning the offer of driving this extravagant toy might have been a more principled stand than accepting it. She didn’t want him to think he could buy her.

On the other hand, he could be measuring her capacity to dare against the instinct for safety. He had made it seem wimpish to refuse. Perhaps he thought she’d wimped out this morning after kissing him and was seeing if she would take a risk on something she found sensually attractive.

On reflection, Sarah had to dismiss that idea. He would have arranged the hiring of this car beforehand, probably yesterday. All the same, there had to be some purpose behind getting it for her to drive. She certainly didn’t believe it was the whim of a moment.

“What made you think of doing this for me, Tareq?” she asked, darting a glance at him.

She saw the beginning twitch of a smile but had to return her gaze to the road. Since it was impossible to watch for any changes of expression and be a responsible driver at the same time, she tried to listen for telling nuances in his tone of voice.

“It’s one of life’s innocent pleasures. I wanted you to have it.”

“Why?” Was it completely innocent?

“Why not? I could do it. Therefore I did.”

Like the computer for Jessie. But there’d been a reason for that. Sarah felt uncomfortable being the focus of his spending power. “You said this morning you try to balance what you give and take…”

“And you wonder if I’m giving you an innocent pleasure so I can take a wicked one.” Dry amusement.

Her heart fluttered. “I’d rather know the price if there is one,” she rushed out, wanting the truth, needing to know how he thought of her.

“No price, Sarah.”

The flat, unequivocal statement left no ground for more questioning, yet she felt frustrated, wishing he would explain himself instead of letting her seethe in ignorance.

“Surely there can be prizes in being with me,” he said quietly.

It sounded like an appeal. Sarah darted a glance at him. He caught it, jolting her with the intensity of feeling in his eyes; a disturbing cocktail of desire and a dark, personal damnation. She wrenched her gaze back to the road, struggling with the sense of having hit unexpected turbulence.

“You don’t have to show me the prizes,” she said, thinking they were undoubtedly balanced by penalties.

“Knowing them is part of our journey together. Only in knowing everything does a choice become clear.”

“What choice do I have in our journey?” she tossed at him.

He laughed. “A multitude of them. All the time you are choosing how much to give me, how much to keep to yourself, how much you will take from me.”

She flushed at the accuracy of the perception.

“It is interesting, is it not?” he teased.

“I’m glad you find it so,” she grated, feeling she was being directed through hoops for his entertainment.

“Come now, Sarah. Wouldn’t you say it puts an exquisite edge to our involvement with each other? We are not bored, either of us. Finding the right pieces of the jigsaw and fitting them together is exciting.”

There had to be thousands and thousands of pieces of him. She imagined he would put her together in his mind much faster. “Well, I guess once you have the full picture, boredom will set in,” she said dryly.

“Or will it be satisfaction?” he mused. “A picture of rare beauty can give endless satisfaction.”

Beauty was in the eye of the beholder, Sarah thought, wondering just how demanding Tareq’s eye was. “You may find the picture flawed.”

“Flaws can have an individual charm. They can be more endearing than perfection.”

Sarah sighed. She was no closer to knowing him and she resented his way of seeking knowledge of her. “I don’t like the feeling of being tested.”

“Were you not doing the same to me when you kissed me this morning?” he countered sardonically.

It was true in a way. Yet it had been more a driven impulse than a calculated plan. Testing him? She pondered the concept and decided it was alien to her. She wasn’t cold-blooded enough to work out the equations and act on them as ruthlessly as Tareq did. Maybe that was something she had to learn if she was to survive a year with him intact.

“Be honest with me, Sarah,” he urged, steel gloved in the softly persuasive tone of voice. “Was it not an experiment to test your touching power?”

Sarah instinctively recoiled from such cold, clinical terms. “Not in the way you mean,” she protested painfully. “I was trying to reach out to you. To whatever it is you keep to yourself. I guess…in the light of how you reacted…that was very silly of me.”

He made no comment. His silence dragged on for so long it grew heavy with a host of mulled-over variations of what he left unspoken. Sarah glanced at him but he wasn’t looking at her. He appeared sunk in deep thought, his face an expressionless mask as he brooded behind it. For a few moments she exulted in the possibility his calculations had been upset. Then she realised there was nothing to be gained by it anyway. He was probably re-working his jigsaw to accommodate a rogue piece. Or maybe he was realising she didn’t fit and would never fit into the picture he wanted.

She drove on in a miserable haze of despondency. Gone was the exhilaration of driving a convertible. The car ate up the miles just as every other kind of car did, moving from point A to point B.

“We’re getting close to Ocala,” she said matter-of-factly. “Is the exit to Silver Springs clearly sign-posted?”

“I’ll point it out to you when it comes up,” he assured her, alertness instantly galvanised.

The interstate highway had not exactly been a scenic route. However, once they’d turned off it and were heading towards Silver Springs, the beautiful countryside lifted Sarah’s spirits. They passed one magnificent ranch after another; all of them with expensive railing fences enclosing pastures that looked like perfectly mown green lawns, picture postcard settings for the thoroughbred horses grazing in them. Even the grass verges on either side of the road looked mown, incredibly tidy if not. Wonderful trees, pleasingly placed, provided ready shade.

Such superbly maintained properties bespoke long-held wealth, used lavishly over generations. It was strange, comparing them to Michael Kearney’s estate in Ireland and her father’s farm in Australia…the amazing contrasts in style and form. What she was seeing here seemed distinctly American, with just as high a priority placed on appearance as on performance. Such attention to detail was truly marvellous.

The homesteads were just as breathtaking, mansions on a huge scale, fascinating in their stunning architecture. When Tareq pointed out their destination, Sarah couldn’t help gasping. The Wellesly-Adams home could have graced one of the old Southern plantations; rows and rows of wonderful white columns, two storeys high, with verandas decorated by gloriously ornate, white lace ironwork.

The house alone seemed to offer a veritable Eden to explore and Sarah confidently anticipated ready distraction from Tareq and the stress of resolving their differences. There was no warning of a serpent within who would poison any peace of mind for her.

Their host and hostess could not have been more friendly and charming in greeting their arrival. Tareq and Sarah were graciously ushered into the vast foyer, basking in Miriam and Jack Wellesly-Adams’ warm welcome. Then down a staircase designed for dramatic entrances, came a female cobra, all primed to strike.

“Tareq, darling…”

She was thirty-something with the patina of long-practised polish; long, gleaming blonde hair, a dazzling mouthful of white, white teeth, a sexy, sinuous body encased in orange lycra-satin shirt and slacks, belted brilliantly with graduated gold chains, gold bangles on her arms, gold hoops in her ears, gold slippers on her feet, but no gold ring complementing her orange fingernails.

“Dionne…this is a surprise!” Tareq responded. “Is Cal with you?”

“Hadn’t you heard, darling? Cal and I separated months ago. When Dad and Mimsy said you were coming today, I couldn’t resist flying down from New York to say hello.”

She fell on him…kiss, touch, feel…busy hands and pouty lips…saying hello with neon lights flashing I’m available and I’d just love to climb into your jeans.

Sarah hated watching her in action. Tareq had warned her nothing stopped some women and she knew it. They just waltzed in and staked their claim. But the black violence ripping through Sarah’s heart had nothing to do with reason. A primitive possessiveness was raging through her. She wanted to fly at the woman, tooth and claw, and fling her away from Tareq. She wanted to scream he belonged to her!

Above the frenzy of her feelings rose a sense of shock, of dawning horror. How could she care so much! The only tie she had to Tareq was that of being his hostage, and he had no tie to her at all. This obsession with him had to stop.

Yet she couldn’t stem the tide of revulsion she felt at his failure to push Dionne away from him. He did absolutely nothing to stop the woman drooling over him. He didn’t care. And that hurt. It hurt so much Sarah tried telling herself his laissez-faire attitude meant nothing.

She had witnessed such licentious greetings many times at her mother’s parties. People on the high society circuit took such liberties for granted. It was part of the game of keeping irons in the fire and a keen eye on the main chance. Do I want this? Well, I’ll just keep it warm in case I do.

Her stomach cramped. If Tareq thought like that…

“And who have we here?” Dionne trilled, snuggling herself around Tareq’s arm as she judged it time to give some scant acknowledgment to his travelling companion. Her feline green eyes skated over Sarah, summing up the competition and dismissing it.

“Good heavens, darling! So young! Have you taken to escorting schoolgirls around the world?” Tinkling amusement. Flirty eyes. “No wonder you requested separate bedrooms.”

“Dionne, you are embarrassing Sarah,” her father chided, though he smiled indulgently at his darling daughter.

“Not at all,” Sarah cut in, seething over the putdown. “Though perhaps Tareq…” she shot him a chilling, blackeyed blast “…might now take the time to introduce us.”

The coolly delivered reprimand amused him. He unhitched himself from the clinging blonde and stepped slightly aside, using his now-freed arm to gesture from one to the other. “Sarah, this is Dionne Van Housen, Jack and Miriam’s daughter, and until recently, the happy wife of a good friend of mine.”

Dionne pouted playfully at him. “If Cal had made me happy, darling, I wouldn’t have left him.”

“That could be a comment on expectations being too high, Dionne,” he said dryly. “May I introduce Sarah Hillyard, who was, indeed, a schoolgirl when I first met her, but that was eleven years ago. Happily, for me, time has moved on.”

“Hillyard…Hillyard…should I know the name?” Dionne quizzed, prompting for Sarah’s level of importance on the social register.

Tareq shrugged. “Unlikely. Michael Kearney was Sarah’s stepfather during her teenage years. Her mother is now married to the Earl of Marchester.”

Sarah burned with humiliation at being so labelled, as though her connection to the men in her mother’s prize pile lifted her onto a more acceptable level. It revolted her even further that Tareq should feel the need to blow up her importance. Wasn’t she good enough for him as she was?

“An earl! Doesn’t that make your mother a countess?” Miriam Wellesly-Adams exclaimed, very favourably struck by this relationship with the English aristocracy.

She pounced on Sarah with the avid eagerness of milking a marvellous jackpot for all it was worth. Which neatly left Tareq to the eager come-ons of the snaky daughter all during the elaborate lunch, served in what was called the conservatory annexe.

Sarah hated every minute of it. Politeness demanded she answer her hostess’s insistent and persistent questions on the English upper class, but she silently vowed never to suffer being put in such a position again. It was horribly false. Everything felt horribly false. How could a man feel the desire Tareq had shown her this morning, then toy with another woman? Where was the honesty in that?

Or maybe, since she hadn’t made herself available, he simply and cynically took what was. After all, Sarah would keep. He had a whole year to play his game with her.

The luncheon dragged on. Tareq divided his time between talking horses with his host and responding to Dionne’s demands for attention. The orange fingernails caressed his arm so often, Sarah began to wish they’d draw blood. It would serve Tareq right. She wanted him to feel as rawly wounded as she did.

It was almost four o’clock when they rose from the table, their host having suggested a visit to the stable yards was now timely. The offer to be transported by jeep was declined by Tareq who insisted a stroll would be more to his liking. A master of manipulation when he wanted to be, he persuaded Dionne into riding in the jeep with her parents and singled out Sarah as his walking companion.

Which suited Sarah just fine. It gave her the opportunity to lay down a few accommodations he could make for her in future. A hostage didn’t have to be dragged everywhere. She was determined on loosening the tie with him. She had to for her own sanity.

As soon as the jeep was on its way, she dug her heels in and opened fire. “If you want to sleaze on with Dionne Van Housen, then count me out. I’ll wait in my room until dinner.”

Tareq turned to face her, one eyebrow raised in mocking amusement. “Sleaze on?”

“I find it disgusting. She’s not even divorced from your good friend, Cal, yet, and you’re letting her lech all over you.”

“Since I’ve accepted the hospitality of her parents, what would you have me do, Sarah?”

“Oh, don’t give me that excuse!” Her eyes blazed contempt for it. “You think I haven’t been faced with stuff like that from my mother’s high-flying crowd? It’s easy enough to take a step back, offer your hand and maintain some personal dignity. The message gets across that liberties aren’t welcome.”

A smile twitched at his mouth. “Thank you for the lesson.”

She huffed her exasperation. “You don’t need lessons in handling people. And you don’t need me as a spectator for your little peccadilloes.”

He laughed. “I’m not the least bit interested in Dionne. But it is interesting that you have such a strong reaction against her liberties with me.”

The urge to slap his self-satisfied face was so strong, Sarah swung on her heel and marched off down the road to the stable yards, the other option of going to her room driven from her mind by the need to walk off the violence sizzling through her. Him and his damned jigsaw, fitting the pieces together! She was a human being, not bits of cardboard, and she would not be moved around for his entertainment!

He strolled along beside her, reforging the link she was desperately trying to repel. “From henceforth I shall keep other women at a distance,” he declared. “Better now?”

“Better if you leave me out of these social occasions,” she shot at him. “You don’t value my company. Why bother with it?”

“If I didn’t value it I wouldn’t have sought your company for this walk. You have no reason to be jealous, Sarah.”

“It has nothing to do with jealousy,” she lashed out in seething fury. “It’s a matter of pride. I do not like being escorted by a man who lets himself be a target for loose women right in my face.”

“If you were indifferent to me, Sarah, it wouldn’t matter. And with some women, other priorities would keep them silent and tolerant.”

“Well, stick to them if that’s what you expect,” she raged. “I don’t want to be with you anyway. You’re a snobby pig.”

“Ah! If this relates to my name-dropping, that was a ploy to cut dead any further patronising remarks.”

“I don’t care about patronising. People can be as patronising as they like and as far as I’m concerned it reflects badly on them, not me.”

“It can still be upsetting.”

“Oh, sure!” she mocked. “You’re talking to a survivor of a toffee-nosed British boarding school where I was an Australian nobody. And let me tell you, Tareq al-Khaima, I don’t need a name to prop me up as a person. I am me, no matter what I’m called, and if that’s not good enough for you, then park me somewhere else when you want to mix with others.”

“I’m delighted to be corrected on that point,” he said quietly. “Such strength of character is so rare I wouldn’t dream of parking you anywhere except beside me.”

She shot him a baleful look. “Don’t you ever, ever, attach me to Michael Kearney or the Earl of Marchester again. They don’t turn me into something better. They diminish me.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry I did that to you, Sarah.”

His agreement and apology stole the momentum of her fury. However, it didn’t stop the sick churning of being with him and not being able to reach the heart of the man. Why did she care so much? How had he got to her so deeply? He shouldn’t be able to do this to her when his caring was so insultingly shallow it didn’t even begin to comprehend where she was coming from.

The all too transient pleasure of driving a convertible…

Protecting her from being patronised…

Luxuries on tap…

What good were they when her most innermost needs craved what he was incapable of giving? He could keep his damned prizes for being with him in future! She wouldn’t take any of them.

“I don’t like you, Tareq,” she stated bluntly, hugging in her hurt and wishing the intensity of feeling he stirred would go away.

“Perhaps, when you finish re-educating me, you’ll like me better,” he answered, a touch of whimsy in his voice.

It vexed her that he could take it so lightly while she was a torn up emotional mess. “Try being consistent,” she muttered, shooting him a resentful glare. “Try being honest!”

He smiled at her…flooding her mind and heart and soul with the sweet, seductive warmth of approval and admiration, dazzling her with the beauty of it, the strength of it…tying her even more inexorably to him because he gave it.

CHAPTER TEN

TAREQ ROAMED AROUND the sitting room of their hotel suite, pondering the situation as he waited for Sarah to finish dressing and emerge from her bedroom. This diplomatic visit to Washington had been scheduled long before he’d gone to Australia. Cancelling was out of the question. Sarah had to understand that Washington was an entirely different playground to Florida. Here, a united front had to be presented, regardless of what she felt towards him.

This dinner tonight marked the start of their public appearances and comment would flow from them. Sarah had to be brought into line with what needed to be projected…therein presenting Tareq with a tricky challenge since she had a mind of her own which was still set against him. Nevertheless, word of their togetherness would be relayed to his uncle and mixed messages would not put an effective block on the canny old man’s political manoeuvrings.

It would have been so much simpler if they’d become lovers by now. Then staying at the embassy, which was his usual practice, would have established the relationship in the eyes of the staff, thereby making it very quickly known. As it was, taking up residence in the Oval Suite at the Willard-Continental was almost as good. It implied a desire for privacy in which to enjoy a new intimacy. Though he was fast coming to the conclusion there might never be physical intimacy with Sarah.

He’d really muddied his slate over that stupid business at Silver Springs. Letting Dionne Van Housen play with a flirtation had served as a distraction from his frustration, but it had cost him dearly, turning him into a lesser man in Sarah’s eyes. An unlikeable man. And while he admired her high standards of integrity, they drew a line he found he couldn’t cross. Not with an easy conscience.

Tareq shook his head self-mockingly. It was crazy, trying to live up to what she wanted him to be, yet he was doing it as best he could. The funny part was, it gave him a real buzz to win a smile from her, to feel warmth seeping past her guard. He liked being with her even if it was only company and conversation. He liked the purity of her thinking, the directness of her honesty. In that way, she was still the child he’d remembered.

Which put him into even more conflict.

The urge to look after her quarrelled with the constant desire to reach out and take her, make her his for as long as it worked for them. Yet as much as he told himself he’d be good for her, he couldn’t quite dismiss the possibility he might end up hurting her. Badly. And hurting Sarah would be like hurting a child.

Don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep.

If she equated sex with a promise of love…a promise of commitment…

He couldn’t lie to her.

Which left what…being honourable?

Tareq was grimacing at this unpalatable line of logic when Sarah made her entrance to the sitting room. Her appearance brought his pacing to an abrupt halt. It blotted out everything else on his mind. It shot a bolt of fire to his loins. It flipped his heart.

She looked utterly, stunningly beautiful, a picture of style and elegance, and so gut-wrenchingly sexy Tareq didn’t trust himself to move. One step towards her and he’d be hauling her off to bed like a caveman.

“Will I do?” she asked, slowly pirouetting to give him the full effect of her outfit.

A long tunic made of some soft, clinging fabric moulded every line and curve of her figure like a second skin. The high round neckline and long sleeves accentuated the effect of a total body covering stretched around her flesh to faithfully outline her femininity. It was overwhelmingly sensual yet undeniably modest. Youthful.

The green floral pattern on a background of pure white had the fresh appeal of spring, and this was highlighted by a single white silk flower, perched on one shoulder, close to the curve of her throat. No jewellery to diminish the effect.

The tunic was slit on both sides to mid-thigh, and she wore long white satin trousers underneath it, giving an Eastern flavour to the outfit, making it even more alluring.

“Well?” she prompted, her eyes uncertain, seeking approval.

Her vulnerability pierced his heart. His plans—everything he’d thought in coming to some solution that would suit him—suddenly seemed terribly wrong. There was no clear course except…to protect her. Even from himself.

He took a deep breath, banking down the fire within. She was waiting for an answer. He should let her go…out of his too complicated life…yet deep inside him screamed a need to keep her with him.

“Perfect!” he declared—a perfect torment of seductive innocence.

“I know it’s right for me,” she said artlessly. “I loved it from the moment I tried it on when I went shopping in Naples. But is it right for tonight?”

She would stand out like a spring flower amongst hothouse roses, Tareq thought, and the imagery instantly inspired the only course for him to take…if he was to keep her in his life…a bit longer anyway…long enough to make sense of everything.

“Perfect!” he repeated, smiling reassurance as he walked towards her. “You look so very lovely, I consider it an honour to be escorting you tonight.”

She flushed at the compliment, pleasure warming her eyes.

He lifted one of her hands to his lips and bestowed a soft kiss of homage. Gallantry was not dead. Tareq had just resurrected it.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

London

14th December

Dear Jessie,

It hasn’t snowed here yet but the weather people are forecasting a white Christmas in England. It’s bitterly cold outside, much colder than Washington and New York. Lucky for us, Tareq’s house in Eaton Place has good central heating. I do miss the sun, though. I guess I was spoiled by the two weeks we had in Florida.

SARAH STARED AT the words on the computer monitor screen and was struck by the sheer inanity of bumbling on about the weather. It was what people did to evade touching on anything more sensitive. It filled in space that couldn’t be filled with anything else. Certainly not the truth. Impossible to confide the truth to a ten-year-old child.

The acute sense of loneliness that she’d hoped to allay by writing to Jessie became more acute. She was hopelessly in love with Tareq al-Khaima and there was no one she could talk to about how she felt, no one she could turn to for advice. Certainly not her mother.

The day after arriving in London she’d telephoned Marchington Hall to ask that the clothes she’d left there in storage be sent to her. Amongst them were her good cashmere cape and some classic woollens that never went out of fashion.

“What number did you say in Eaton Place?” her mother had queried.

Sarah had repeated it and the Countess of Marchington had gloatingly pounced. “I know that address. It’s Tareq al-Khaima’s residence. What are you doing there, Sarah?”

There was no point in denial. Her mother was like a ferret when it came to finding out what she wanted to know about noteworthy people. “I met up with Tareq in Australia and he invited me to travel with him. I’m his guest at the moment,” Sarah had rattled out, trying to make it all sound blithely innocent.

“What a clever girl you are! Do try to hang on to him, darling. He’s fabulously wealthy. And so gorgeous!”

The avid note in her voice had been enough to turn Sarah off saying anything more. Everything within her recoiled from having what she felt tarnished by her mother’s values. She’d swiftly ended the call, though she suspected her mother would now plot a meeting to check out the possibilities. That had to be blocked at all costs. It would be hideously embarrassing and humiliating.

Sarah gritted her teeth against a rise of bitterness and forced her mind back to the letter.

Washington…the word leapt out at her from the screen. She’d sent Jessie postcards of the White House, Arlington Cemetery, the Ford Theater where President Lincoln had been shot, the Air and Space Museum which had housed so many marvels from the first plane flown by the Wright Brothers to the Apollo space capsule carrying models of the astronauts; all the places she had visited during the day when Tareq was busy with meetings. But the nights…

It had been both daunting and exciting accompanying Tareq to the dinners and parties where his VIP status was awesomely in evidence. He was courted by politicians, lobbyists, diplomats, not to mention their wives who were very solicitous of his pleasure. No one mentioned horses or property developments. The oil markets and Middle East politics were the hot topics and Tareq handled them with an authoritative ease that demonstrated another dimension of the man.

He handled everything masterfully, from fending off fawning women to rescuing Sarah from sticky questions and ensuring she was not exposed to problems or unpleasantness by the simple but effective measure of not allowing anyone to take her from his side. Even pre-arranged places at tables were rearranged to accommodate his insistence on their not being separated.

It was stamped on every mind that Sarah Hillyard was to be respected as Sheikh Tareq al-Khaima’s companion and under his protection and woe betide anyone who put a foot wrong with her or slighted her in any way. His manner to her was courteous, gentlemanly, above reproach in word and deed. In short, he treated her like a princess and subtly forced others to do the same.

It made her feel cosseted, valued, cared for as though she was precious to him. This was heightened by his air of possessiveness. Only he took her arm. Only he rested a light hand on her waist. Only he danced with her. It was heady stuff for Sarah who found it more and more difficult to keep her feet on the ground.

At first she had thought Tareq was treating her as he believed she wanted to be treated, a cynical display of his reeducation. But there was nothing even slightly sardonic in his behaviour towards her. Then she had reasoned Washington was a hotbed of political gossip and Tareq’s public performance was probably being reported to the embassy which served his country and thus back to his uncle. Perhaps she was being convincingly set up as the woman in his life so she would come as no surprise at his half-brother’s wedding.

All she absolutely knew was Tareq eased off the act in private, remaining polite and considerate but holding a distance she could not cross. Some nights he parted very abruptly from her. Other nights he questioned her closely—Had she enjoyed herself? Was she interested or bored? Would she prefer not to be involved with such company?—and she had the chilling sense of more pieces being fitted into his jigsaw of her. What struck her more painfully than anything else was that once they were alone together, there was no physical touching, absolutely none.

Exhilaration…frustration. Sarah swung from one to the other like a yo-yo. She needed the daytime away from Tareq to regain some equilibrium. Yet still he shadowed her every hour. If she wasn’t thinking of the evening before or the evening to come, she was thinking of what to share with him of her sight-seeing activities, how to be companionable while covering up the ever-constant desire of wanting more from him.

The same pattern had been repeated in New York, although there the meetings and dinners had been with bankers and the talk had revolved around the money markets. More new clothes had become a necessity. The between seasons outfits she had purchased in Naples simply didn’t suit the New York winter and she was very conscious of not letting Tareq down in company.

They had flown to England a week ago, taking up residence in this house, and in some ways it had proved the most difficult time for her. There was nothing new about the city of London to distract her, no social engagements taking up the evenings, nothing to busy her in the house since a married couple looked after everything. And highlighting her failure to reach into Tareq’s heart, was Peter Larsen, the person who knew him better than anyone.

The trusted trouble-shooter was already in London when she and Tareq had arrived. Whether he had flown directly to England from Australia, Sarah didn’t know and didn’t ask. Peter Larsen practised British reserve and discretion to the nth degree. He never spoke of business in front of her, despite spending most of each day at Eaton Place, either in this office which she presently occupied, or in the library where he was currently closeted with Tareq, discussing some business strategy.

He shared lunch with them, was unfailingly polite to her, and kept his own private life extremely private. The only personal thing Sarah knew about him was he owned an apartment overlooking the Thames.

She couldn’t say she disliked him. He gave her no reason to. But she deeply envied the easy rapport between him and Tareq. Sometimes they talked in a kind of shorthand, their understanding so closely attuned, a look or a gesture conveyed more of a message than words.

Since the incident with Dionne Van Housen, Tareq had given Sarah no cause to be jealous of other women, but she was jealous of what he shared with Peter Larsen. Their communication didn’t miss a beat and the bond of trust was so strong neither ever paused to question it. Somehow it turned her into an outsider, despite being in the same room as them.

Sarah heaved a despondent sigh and dragged her attention back to the letter she had started. She had no heart for it but she tried to find something more to say.

I’m glad the parcel from New York arrived safely and the twins had such fun at school with the Statue of Liberty hats.

The symbol of freedom. Would she ever feel free of Tareq, even when the year was over? She hoped her father was making the best of a fresh start because she was surely paying for it.

The office door opened, startling Sarah out of her reverie. Peter Larsen stepped into the room, carrying a file of papers. He paused, frowning slightly as he saw her occupying the chair in front of the computer. Sarah leapt up, gesturing an apology as she sought to excuse herself.

“I was writing to Jessie. I hope you don’t mind my being here while you were with Tareq.”

He shrugged. “As I understand it, you have the freedom of the house, Miss Hillyard. Do continue your letter if you so desire.”

“I don’t want to be in your way.”

“I have only to return this file to the cabinet and then I’ll be leaving.” He surprised her by asking, “How is Jessie?”

“Fine! Looking forward to Christmas.”

He smiled. Actually smiled. “Such a bright little girl. She took to the computer like a duck to water. I liked her very much. Say hello to her from me.”

Sarah was quite stunned by this unexpected crack in Peter Larsen’s customary reserve. “Yes, I will,” she answered, dazedly watching him cross the room to the filing cabinet before it occurred to her to remark, “I didn’t know you’d met her.”

He answered matter-of-factly as he took a set of keys from his trouser pocket, unlocked the cabinet and pulled out a drawer. “I made a point of it after my last meeting with your father. Mainly to check her progress, see that the tutor was doing his job well and Jessie was happy with what she was learning.” He glanced at Sarah, smiling again. “She insisted on demonstrating her new skills to me so I could tell Tareq how good she was.”

A child like Jessie could bring warmth out of a stone, Sarah thought. Hoping this was an opportunity to milk Peter Larsen of more information on her family, she asked, “How long ago was this?”

“Just before I flew out,” he replied, inserting the file in the drawer. “First of December.”

Sarah totted up the time he’d spent in Australia after she and Tareq had left. Four weeks. Which seemed an excessive amount.

“Was my father holding up okay?” she asked anxiously. “I mean…were you satisfied he was doing the right thing by the horses and everything?”

“I was satisfied your father had every good intention, Miss Hillyard.” He gave her a sympathetic look. “You must know that only time will bring results.”

“Yes. of course. It was just…I was worried about Firefly…and his poor performance in the Melbourne Cup.” She cast around for a way to ask if her father had displayed any particular attitude towards the prize horse.

“It’s been taken care of, Miss Hillyard. I saw to it personally. There’ll be no more trouble coming from that quarter,” Peter Larsen quietly assured her, then proceeded to relock the cabinet.

Sarah’s concerns were far from answered. Had Peter Larson taken Firefly to another trainer? But that would defeat the test of Firefly’s performance at the end of the year.

“How has it been taken care of?” she cried. “I don’t see how…”

“Miss Hillyard, it’s quite irrelevant how.” There was a ruthless cast to the face Peter Larsen turned to her. “Rest assured the bookmaker who was squeezing your father has been convinced that any further attempt at dirty dealing with Tareq’s horses would be very bad business. Extremely bad business.”

Sarah’s mind was reeling. All her assumptions were knocked in a mushy heap and what was emerging was too repulsive to accept. Dread clutched her heart, yet she had to ask, had to look at the can of slimy worms Peter Larsen had opened up. She could barely get her voice to work. The words came out faintly, strained through a welter of emotional resistance to hearing an even more damning statement.

“Are you saying my father threw races for a bookmaker?”

The satisfaction in the light silvery eyes blanked into shock. “Tareq didn’t tell you?”

Sarah felt the blood draining from her face. “It wasn’t just loss of heart and…and stress…”

“But you must know,” he argued, more to himself than to her. “Surely Tareq asked me to leave so he could tell you in private how far your father had abused his trust…”

He was recalling the morning at the Como Hotel, the fateful morning when the bargain had been struck. It rushed back on Sarah, too. “Why did he keep it from me? If my father was crooked…taking bribes…”

Peter Larsen passed a hand across his face, muttered something vicious to himself, then recomposed his expression to impervious reserve. “I do beg your pardon, Miss Hillyard. It seemed reasonable to set your mind at rest.”

“Please…I want to know…”

“You must excuse me. I have been unforgivably indiscreet.”

It was true then. Had to be. It was written all over Peter Larsen as he strode from the room, tight-faced, stiff-backed, patently appalled at what he had let slip to her. He’d almost certainly go straight to Tareq and relay what he’d done. And then what?

Sarah felt sick. Tareq’s words came spinning back to her…a matter of trust. Trust abused beyond trusting again. And Tareq knew it. Had known all along while she’d pleaded a case for lenience, for understanding, for mercy on a man who, unbeknownst to her, had criminally cheated him.

He’d sent Peter Larsen out of the hotel room right at the moment when he should have revealed the truth. If he had gone ahead and done it, as Peter had assumed, the result would have been…Sarah concentrated hard on thinking back, remembering her state of mind. The truth would have swept the mat out from under her feet, would have smashed any grounds for giving her father a second chance. She would have died of shame and given up, faced with her father’s crooked dealings with a bookmaker.

But Tareq hadn’t wanted that result. He had posed the bargain, pressing her to accept, using his knowledge of her, using everything at his command to get her to accept.

For what purpose?

In the light of all that had followed in these past six weeks with him, Sarah still didn’t know. Tareq had her so confused, it was driving her crazy wondering what he wanted of her. She was sick to death of his testing and teasing and tantalising behaviour. She wanted answers. And she was going to get them.

Now!

CHAPTER TWELVE

SARAH DIDN’T BOTHER knocking. Nothing was going to stop her from having a showdown with Tareq. She opened the library door and marched in, breathing fiery determination.

Peter Larsen swung around, opening a clear view of his employer friend, seated at the splendid mahogany desk he favoured. Sarah ignored the trusted trouble-shooter, her gaze fastening directly on the sharp blue windows to Tareq al-Khaima’s unfathomable soul.

“I want to talk to you. Alone. And without delay,” she stated, unshakably intent on getting her own way. Tareq was not going to dominate this encounter!

He rose from his chair, languidly unfolding to his full height, insufferably confident of controlling everything. “Thank you, Peter,” he said, not the slightest trace of any acrimony in his tone. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Of course there was no cause for Tareq to be upset by the indiscretion, Sarah savagely reasoned as Peter Larsen took swift leave of them. the bargain had been struck and there was no going back. Tareq was sitting pretty on whatever he was sitting on. Except he wasn’t sitting anymore. He was strolling around the desk. By the time the door behind Sarah was closed, he was propped casually against the front edge of the desktop, perfectly at ease.

The urge to smash his smooth facade raged through Sarah. How many deceptions was he juggling in the super-clever mind behind that handsome face? The feeling of being a pawn in a game she was not allowed to see put a violent edge on her churning emotions.

“I wouldn’t have asked you to cover up criminal activity,” she hurled at him. “If I’d known my father was intentionally cheating you, I would not have come to you at all.”

“But you still would have wanted what you did achieve, Sarah,” came the perfectly chosen pertinent reply. “Your father given a chance to redeem himself, and the security of the children assured as far as it can be.”

In other words, everything else should be considered irrelevant. Sarah dug in her heels. “And just how far have you gone to achieve that, Tareq? How far do you go to get what you want?” she demanded heatedly.

He replied with calm logic, completely unruffled. “I find that people usually listen to reason when the profit and loss are laid out to them. Irrefutable facts do have impact.”

“You withheld facts from me,” Sarah pointed out, her eyes flashing resentment at his cavalier way of doing what suited him with her.

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” he said with heart-twisting simplicity. “You were innocent, Sarah.”

But she was hurt, hurting non-stop from his keeping things from her and his arbitrary withdrawals that drove her into a deep trough of frustration. This confrontation wasn’t really about her father. It was about attitude and honesty and the direction of this journey they were supposed to be taking together.

“I’m not a child, Tareq,” she protested. “I’d rather be faced with the truth than be protected from it.”

The moment the words were out, Sarah was struck by the realisation that Tareq had been treating her like a child all along, a grown-up one to some extent, but still to be indulged and protected as though she were a complete innocent.

“What good would it have done?” he asked.

“I don’t need you to make judgments for me. Nor decisions,” she retorted, smarting over how many things had been arranged for her—without discussion—by her self-appointed keeper. “It’s so intolerably patronising!”

“Sarah…” he chided.

“Don’t use that tone of voice to me,” she exploded, hating the sense of being relegated to some lesser level of understanding. “What right do you think you have to take over my life as though you know best?”

That stopped him from giving his soothing little smile. His eyes glowered, some dark emotion climbing over sweet reason. “I have tried to do my best by you, Sarah,” he growled. “If you don’t appreciate it…”

“Why don’t you try appreciating I can think for myself?” she retaliated, cutting off his self-serving argument, finding it so intensely provocative, she stormed off around the room, savagely muttering, “Doing his best for me. Doing his best. Doing his best.”

It didn’t matter that it was probably true. It was what a parent said to a child. Her frustration with their relationship boiled over. She glared at him—this man who held himself back from her while subtly laying siege to her heart—and the need to strip him of his formidable control clawed through her.

“You obviously see me as a little girl to be pampered and given treats,” she mocked, her hands flying around in scornful gestures. “Never mind that I’m twenty-three years old and a hardened survivor. I’m probably still twelve in your mind.”

That straightened him up from the desk and whipped some tension through him. A primitive satisfaction zinged through Sarah. She wished she could rip his clothes off, get right down to the naked truth of how he felt about her. The remembered image of his almost-bare physique played through her mind, stirring a wanton excitement, a wild desire to goad him into action, any action that involved touching.

“You are being ridiculous!” he said tersely.

“Am I? You don’t credit me with a woman’s needs, a woman’s feelings, a woman’s desires. ‘Don’t play with fire, Sarah,’” she mimicked. “Just stand by and watch the sophisticated grown-ups like Dionne Van Housen play with it because they understand it and you don’t.”

His face darkened with an angry rush of blood and Sarah exulted in having reached and plucked a sensitive chord. It flashed through her mind she wasn’t being completely fair, but she was on a wild, non-stop roller-coaster, her nerves screaming with frustration, heart pumping with rushes of adrenalin, thoughts careering down the track he had chosen for her, the track that kept her at arm’s length from him.

“Then there was Washington,” she plunged on, gesticulating with mocking emphasis as she interpreted his actions. “Trotting me out like a young debutante, protecting me from other men, saving me from any little awkwardness, watching over me like a father.”

His mouth compressed.

To Sarah, it denoted she’d hit the nail on the head and she heedlessly hammered it further, furious he’d denied her the maturity she knew she could lay claim to. “You even dictated when I should go to bed, saying goodnight when it suited you. Same in New York. And here, of course, you’ve had the relief of adult company with Peter Larsen. It’s a wonder you haven’t given me dolls to play with.”

“Are you quite finished with this absurd tantrum?” Tareq demanded, his eyes glittering with barely suppressed anger.

Tantrum…

The word stopped Sarah in her tracks. She shuddered in revulsion. A child threw tantrums. She had delivered a tirade of truth. Close enough to truth anyway. For Tareq to interpret it as a tantrum…

She drew in a deep breath. Her eyes stabbed him with daggers of pain as she made the only decision she could make. Then with all the passion of her womanhood, she replied, “I’m finished with you, Tareq. Since you treat me as though I haven’t reached the age of consent, our bargain is null and void and I am out of here!”

Having flung down the gauntlet she turned her back on him and marched to the door.

“Wait!” he thundered.

“What for?” she flung back at him, throwing out dismissive hands. “I don’t need another father. I’ve already had three. Between them they’ve done a fine job of ripping away any innocent illusions I might have had about life, so you don’t have to worry about me being hurt. Henceforth I am a cynical woman of the world who doesn’t believe in anybody.”

She twisted the knob and pulled the door open. Before she could step out of the library an arm reached past her and slammed the door shut. Startled, she did nothing to stop the strong brown hand from dropping to the knob and activating the locking device. Her mind grasped the consequence though, and in the next instant she was whirling around to contest it, rebellion rampaging through her heart.

“I will not be your prisoner!” she yelled, her hands slamming against Tareq’s broad chest in violent rejection of any more domination from him.

“Shut up!” he retorted fiercely.

The shock of it snapped her eyes up to his.

“You want raw truth?” he demanded, his voice harsh, his nostrils flaring, the windows to his soul revealing chaotic conflict. “I’m a man with a man’s needs. And those needs don’t come wrapped in finer feelings. How ready are you to accept that, Sarah?”

Dark turbulence enveloped her, sucking the strength from her mutiny, swirling around her thwarted desires, fanning them into a ferment of need, tearing at the feelings that had made being with him a torment, transforming them into something more intense, overwhelming, flooding her with a warm, liquid weakness, and she knew she would accept anything of him. Anything…

Somehow he saw what was happening to her, recognised it, and his arms swept her strongly against him, and the tremulousness inside her gathered a hunger for his strength. She pressed closer, her hips against his, needing, wanting, her hands sliding up over his shoulders, around his neck, her breasts pushing into soft, no hard, harder contact with the pulsing wall of his chest, pursuing the need, the want as a whirlwind of beating, throbbing sensation travelled through her.

The storm in his eyes was rent by a blaze of blue lightning, electrifying the air, tingling her skin, her lips, jolting her heart. Her mouth fell open, gasping for breath. Her mind seized on the image of his face, his beautifully sculptured face, coming nearer, nearer to hers. Her fingers raced into his hair, clutching, grasping, pulling his head nearer still. Every atom of her energy was focused on drawing him to her, reaching into him.

Then his mouth covered hers, softly at first, gently, tenderly, holding back the fire she’d seen and sensed and invited, but the heat of his lips, the caress of his tongue, the excitement of touch and taste whirled her into a passionate searching for all he would give of himself. Her whole body seemed to soar with exultation as he abandoned softness, driven to a wild exploration that eclipsed hers with its ardent, urgent hunger to know, to feel, the wanting a sweet, fierce, nearly desperate need, crying out to be satisfied more fully, more deeply.

Kissing was not enough. Kissing was an anticipatory intimacy, a tantalising promise, a binding beginning to the journey towards the togetherness she craved.

He moved her back against the door, holding her there between his thighs, the burgeoning thickness, hardness of his arousal stroking across her stomach in a rhythmic swaying as his mouth continued to devour hers, the need of a man implicit, raw, demanding to be met. His hands moved quickly, skilfully, stripping her of blouse and bra, dragging off his shirt, freeing flesh to meet flesh, heated with feverish excitement.

Then he was kissing her breasts, his tongue circling the nipples, teasing them into needful erection, and Sarah threw back her head, arching to push for more acute sensation, the need of a woman surging through her, concentrating fiercely on the hot attachment of his lips, sucking, dragging an intense stream of pleasure through her body, her flesh pulsing to his pumping mouth, his hands stroking her thighs, rolling down her trousers, fingers smoothing her stomach, thrusting through moist curls to the core of heat, cupping it, taking possession of the wet softness.

Sarah closed her eyes and gave herself up to the sweet chaos of sensation, forgetting everything, all sense, all caution, all care, wanting only to feel. She had no idea how Tareq accomplished the rest of their undressing. Her entire physical existence was turned inwards to the hunger he fed with his skilful touching, the seductive, exquisitely pleasurable invasion of hand and mouth.

Only when he picked her up and carried her did she realise she was naked, both of them naked, and the sensuality of skin against skin was another wonderful intimacy. He lay her on the soft Persian carpet in front of his desk and she feasted her eyes on him as he knelt over her, such powerful maleness poised to mate with her, and her body was crying out for him, longing to feel him there in the place that was made for him.

She lifted her arms and he came into them, kissing her mouth, slowly, tenderly, as she felt him pressing against her, beginning to fill the opening to her charged, innermost self. Her whole body quivered in waiting. She moved, urging him on, thrusting for the fullness of him inside her. His hands slid beneath her, holding, moulding her buttocks and she felt him enter, slowly pushing further, growing, and she had the amazingly voluptuous sensation of opening before him, spilling the essence of herself around his passage, muscles pulsing, drawing him in.

She heard herself cry out sharply when he stopped. But it was only a pause to negotiate a barrier neither of them wanted. A pinprick of pain and it was past, trailing in the wake of deep, deep pleasure as he sank into ecstatic union with her, and she curled her legs around him to hold him in, savouring the sense of him being captured, possessed by her, a prisoner enveloped, held in a sea of intense bliss.

His mouth took hers in a long passionate entanglement, making the possession his, and she surrendered to it, letting him do as he willed because it didn’t matter. Only the togetherness mattered. And he led her on a journey she had never taken before, a wild, plunging ride of ever-increasing excitement, rising to an exhilarating peak, falling only to rise again, on and on, a tumult of sensation, tumbling endlessly, spreading out into ever-widening, powerful circles, faster, faster, drawing her into a vortex that spiralled towards a brilliance she couldn’t quite reach.

Frantically she thrust at him, pulling him with her, needing his help, arching her body to drag him into it, a fierce compulsion driving her, driving him, and there was thunder in her ears, white-hot needles piercing her body, painplea-sure screaming for release, and she needed it, needed it, him with her, riding the crest of…and there it was, an explosion of exquisite sweetness bursting through her like a supernova, and she was floating in an incredible free fall, swimming in waves of love, her heart thumping a paean of joy, her mind filling with the wonder of it, her body sinking into blissful quiescence.

She opened her eyes and Tareq was looking at her, drinking in the soft glow of her repletion, knowing he had put it there, a tender triumph in his eyes. “This I can give you,” he said, his voice low, throaty, husking over feelings that were inexpressible.

Gently he stroked her cheek, traced the desire-swollen fullness of her lips, kissed them, kissed her eyelids shut again. Then with a long, hissing sigh, he gathered her to him, lifting her as he moved aside to lie on the carpet, using his body to cushion hers, holding her to the warm closeness of intimate contact.

He stroked her hair, her back, languorous caresses that kept her sensually aware of both herself and him. Sarah was lost to everything else. He was her world. She rose and fell to the rhythm of his breathing. The drum of his heart echoed her own. She wanted for nothing. He had given, was still giving, more than she had ever imagined he would.

“Is it enough?” he asked, his voice oddly strained.

It stirred her sluggish mind out of its comfortable haze of pleasure. He had fulfilled her needs, but she simply did not have the experience to know if he was completely satisfied. What if she had been hopelessly inadequate in returning his lovemaking? Should she have been more active towards him instead of being so utterly enthralled by her own feelings? Did he feel short-changed?

“Do you want more?” she asked in reply, her heart fluttering at the thought she had failed him.

His hands splayed possessively over the pit of her back. He gave a funny little laugh. “More and more and more. I would take all you would let me have, Sarah. Until there is no more.”

She smiled, comprehending that he was pleased with what they’d shared and he was looking beyond the moment, further down the path they had taken today.

“Yes,” she agreed, anticipating the filling in of all that had been missing in her knowledge of him. “I want that, too.”

He sighed, his whole body relaxing underneath hers. “So be it then,” he murmured. His arms enfolded her, wrapping her tightly to him as he turned them both onto their sides. His eyes locked onto hers, a glitter of purpose in their dark blue depths. “You stay with me of your own free will,” he stated, commanding her assent.

“Yes,” she answered, thinking he was dismissing the hostage arrangement and making it a purely personal decision to stay with him, not for her father, not for Jessie and the twins, for herself alone, because she wanted to. “Yes,” she affirmed more emphatically.

The glitter flared into the all-consuming blaze of desire she had seen weeks ago when he had challenged her willingness to accept it. Now it was unleashed on her and she revelled in it, meeting his mouth, kissing him as avidly as he kissed her, sealing the new bargain between them.

She didn’t realise that being lovers was all he had in mind, didn’t realise the pact she’d just made had limits, didn’t realise promises would not be given because too much stood in the way of their being kept.

She loved him and felt loved by him.

It was more than enough.

At this moment in time.

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