Zarif's Convenient Queen. Lynne Graham

eyes settling on her with predatory force and shocking her into sudden silence, ‘think about what you are saying and what you are asking me for. Some form of forgiveness which, as I have already stated, is out of the question in this case? Or are you asking me to throw away more money on your family?’

      Standing there, Ella turned very pale, shame and anxiety combining to stir nausea in her tummy. Her tongue was glued to the roof of her mouth. She absolutely got his point and she could not bring herself to outright ask him for money to aid her parents because that seemed so very wrong, indeed quite outrageous in the circumstances. For the first time she questioned why she had approached him in the first place and why she had allowed Jason to influence her attitude. Surely, had she taken the time to think things through, she would have recognised that to ask Zarif for further financial help would be indefensible?

      ‘I’m just asking you to show some compassion, not for Jason or me but for my parents,’ she completed limply, too mortified to even make an attempt to meet his slashing gaze, knowing that it would only intensify her awareness of the weak and humiliating role she had allowed her brother to browbeat her into accepting. For an instant, she almost burst into speech about her parents’ current health problems, but compressed her lips on the conviction that playing a thousand violins to invite Zarif’s pity would only shame her and her family more.

      ‘Nicely put,’ Zarif countered with sardonic bite, his dark eyes glittering like jet knives, so shrewd was the stab of his incisive gaze. ‘You know how wealthy I am and like many other people I have met you expect me to come to the rescue. And I would have to ask you, especially when you have the audacity to ask me to go against my principles, what am I to receive in payment?’

      The suffocating tension was convulsing Ella’s dry throat. She turned away, dropped down into her seat again and lifted her coffee cup like a tiny shield. ‘In payment? Anything I can offer,’ she muttered unevenly, knowing she had nothing to offer but gratitude and seriously embarrassed by that reality.

      ‘Are you offering me sex?’ Zarif enquired lazily.

      And for a split second in receipt of that shocking question Ella wondered if she would agree to such a belittling act of intimacy if it could magically return her parents’ lives to normal. The answer came fast and forthright in her mind. And colour surged across her cheeks and ran up in a tide of pink to her hairline while her coffee cup rattled on the saucer as her hand trembled.

      ‘I can get sex anywhere whenever I want,’ Zarif derided.

      ‘I wasn’t going to offer it,’ Ella told him with as much dignity as she could muster, her teeth gritting on his arrogant self-assurance. Nevertheless, she suspected that he was simply stating the situation as it was. He was exceptionally good-looking and shockingly rich even without considering the kick it would give some women to bed a reigning king. She was quite sure that willing women formed queues for the privilege of getting him into bed and her staunch conviction that he was a virtually irresistible package only incensed her more.

      Surprisingly for a male so well aware of the high currency value of sex, Zarif believed Ella because he couldn’t credit that a truly sophisticated woman would still blush the way she did. But the imagery in his mind was far from sophisticated and he knew from the intensely male burn of his rapidly awakening libido that if she had offered, he would have said yes and to hell with whether or not such ignoble behaviour would be beneath him!

      That discovery shook him because while sex was easily available to Zarif and an appetite he could not ignore, he had never viewed it as a special or even greatly prized pleasure. But for some reason when he looked at Ella Gilchrist his body hummed with the expectation of extraordinary pleasure because it was the passion in her volatile nature that had drawn him to her from the first. He crushed that exciting fantasy at source, reminding himself that he needed a wife and a child much more than he needed a passionate mistress.

      On that thought, he stiffened, unable to overlook the reality that had she said yes when he asked her to marry him he most likely would have been a father again by now. All the old dark anger and bitterness he had buried stirred deep inside him once more, razor-edged thoughts of his unresolved desire for her taunting his ferocious pride.

      He had never wanted a woman as much as he had once wanted Ella Gilchrist and she was the only woman he had ever desired whom he had not enjoyed. Perhaps that was the secret of her persistent attraction, he reasoned with inherent self-loathing at the concept of such a personal weakness, and it would naturally follow that familiarity would soon breed contempt. That conviction soothed him, offering as it did the promise that in the future he would forget about her and the way she had once adversely affected him. Life was too short for regrets and ‘what ifs’. He would get bored with her. He always got bored in the end because women could be very predictable. She would be his very last rebellion against the staid and respectable married future that awaited him. He would have some fun and then he would do his duty by settling down again with a wife and having children, he swore to himself.

      ‘That’s unfortunate,’ Zarif responded in reply to her proud declaration that she had not been offering him sex. ‘Because what you say you would not offer is the only thing that I want from you.’

      Extreme disconcertion slithered through Ella while she mentally unpicked his words several times to persuade herself that she had not misunderstood his meaning. He was telling her that he still found her attractive and that the only thing he wanted from her was sex? How dared he admit that with such smooth and utterly shameless cool? Heat warmed her cheeks afresh and speared down between her breasts as she bit back furious words of reproach and fought to breathe normally.

      ‘I can’t believe you can say that to me.’

      ‘Duplicity would be of little use to you at this point,’ Zarif countered quietly. ‘Whatever else I may be guilty of, you can trust me to always tell you the truth.’

      For an instant, Ella froze, recalling the last unforgettable occasion when he had told her the truth that he did not love her and would never love her: a hauntingly savage moment that had coloured her every memory of him with pain and a deep sense of humiliation. She had often thought that lies would have been kinder, only then she would have married him and ultimately would have ended up being very unhappy.

      ‘I want you in my bed,’ Zarif admitted with unblemished cool. ‘In return I would ensure that your parents’ financial status is restored to what it was before Jason’s mismanagement ruined their security.’

      I want you in my bed. A tingling sensation curled like a tongue of flame low in her pelvis and Ella shifted uneasily on her seat, trying not to imagine what it would be like to share Zarif’s bed. Wide-eyed and hot inside skin that suddenly felt tight over her bones, she focused on the undoubtedly handmade leather shoes on his feet and kept her ready tongue clamped firmly between her teeth. She was fighting her own natural instincts harder with every second that passed. She could have asked him if he was joking and instantly rejected such a shocking proposition. She could have made a scene and stormed out in an impressive temper. But Ella had a strong streak of caution and practicality and she was all too well aware that Zarif al-Rastani was the only possible individual in a position to help her family.

      ‘That’s immoral,’ she declared half under her breath, unable to resist making that accusation. ‘You’re inviting me to sell myself to you.’

      ‘I’m offering you the only rescue bid you’re likely to receive. It is for you to choose whether or not you will accept my proposition,’ Zarif contradicted, shutting out every protest emanating from his clean-living conservative soul and refusing to listen. One final act of rebellion, he reminded himself doggedly. And didn’t she deserve it for the games she had played three years back when she had lured him in with the promise of her passion and her beautiful body and falsely encouraged him to believe that she genuinely cared for him?

      ‘How long would you envisage this...arrangement lasting for?’ Ella prompted, her voice high and tight with strain for she could barely credit that after three years apart she could even be having such a conversation with him.

      ‘A year...’ Zarif murmured, disconcerted by the speed with which