The Desert King's Bejewelled Bride. Sabrina Philips

then, she was no different. She could be manipulated by the promise of money and fame as easily as every other woman he knew. It just hadn’t been quite tempting enough to tie herself to only one man. But then she hadn’t been tied to him yet, had she?

      ‘Five days from today.’

      For a minute she looked at him as if he was mad, convinced that not even he was capable of organising an event of such scope in less than a week, but then she realised. It was already all arranged, wasn’t it? He was just waiting for her to slot into place. Again. That annoyed her more than everything else about this whole set-up put together.

      ‘What if I refuse? You’ll just cancel the whole thing?’

      He gave her a withering smile. ‘If I was not present, there would be no event. If you decide you would rather throw away your career than do a few hours’ work, I can assure you I will have no trouble finding a willing replacement.’

      She looked at him stonily. Knowing he was right. Hating him for it.

      He continued as if her agreement had never been in question. ‘Naturally, in the interim you will be required for a few other tasks—’ he ran his eyes over her in blatant sensual appraisal ‘—rehearsals for the event, et cetera. Aside from that, you may spend your time however you wish.’

      Wishing myself anywhere else, no doubt, she thought, wondering what choice she had and attempting to loosen her shoulders. But she failed; every muscle in her body was too taut from the sheer thrill of being near him. No, five days in his company might not cure that, but at least now she was old enough now not to mistake his favourable blend of genes for something else entirely.

      ‘I will collect you from your apartment tomorrow, at eleven.’

      Kaliq flexed his broad shoulders and moved towards the door. Tamara was not sure why she was surprised that he already knew where she lived, let alone why she had supposed he might stick around, if only to gloat. Of course not. To talk, to chat over dinner, perhaps, was far beyond the realms of what a future king would bestow upon her, for she was not to be treated as anything other than a portable window display. No, he was too cold, too ruthlessly efficient for that. Her submission today was just another detail he had executed with the same cool rationality he had used to discover where she was. Evidently she had already taken up too much of his precious time.

      ‘The sooner this is over, the better,’ she muttered under her breath, seeing no point in making herself heard.

      His fingers were on the handle when she said it, but hear it he did. In a flash he had turned, his jacket flaring out behind him like some outlaw provoked, and suddenly his face was level with her own and far, far too close.

      She could feel his warm breath with startling awareness on her lips. It sent a prickle of excitement down her neck, across her skin and to the straining tips of her breasts. He reached out one finger to touch her jaw, the softness of the gesture mocking as he tilted her chin upwards, his eyes dropping to her mouth.

      ‘Oh, I will make it better, Tamara,’ he drawled, as if he could sense the sexual frustration teeming beneath her skin. ‘Better than anything you’ve ever experienced before, and it will be soon.’

      He moved his head a fraction closer, too close to think about anything but kissing him. Tamara closed her eyes and leaned in instinctively. But in one swift movement he dropped his finger from her chin and reached for her hand with his and, tantalisingly slowly, he raised it to his mouth.

      Somehow, the gesture—masquerading as modest etiquette— felt so intimate that it had her legs almost buckling beneath her. The feel of his lips on her bare skin was far hotter than the studio lights had been, igniting a desire within her so unchecked it left her scared of what she might do next. He looked at her from beneath hooded lids with such intensity that she had to remind herself to breathe. She tore her gaze away from him.

      ‘Kaliq, this is business, nothing more.’ Her voice was husky, breathless.

      He didn’t answer, but released the hand he had kissed, before running his fingers up her arm and resting his hand in her hair, his thumb reaching out to gently stroke her bottom lip. It took all the willpower she had not to taste it with the tip of her tongue. As he watched her eyes widen he raised the corner of his mouth in a wry smile.

      ‘I’m glad we agree. Unfinished business. But not for much longer.’

      With that, he broke away from her and flung open the door, Henry scuttling in his wake and Tamara reeling.

      CHAPTER THREE

      IT WAS the kiss that did it. The kiss that she couldn’t drive from her mind. And for goodness’ sake it had only been his lips pressed to her hand! What the hell would she have been like if he had kissed any other part of her body?

      Don’t even go there, she warned herself as she tossed aside the covers, through with trying to sleep. For even when tiredness had finally overtaken her, she had woken hot and breathless with images of her body pressed to his—for some pathetic reason wearing nothing but the damned sapphires—blazing through her mind.

      Tamara sat up against the headboard, taking the weight of her hair in her hands and allowing the cool air to reach the damp nape of her neck as she stared into the darkness, feeling ashamed. She knew that what had passed between them had nothing to do with any genuine desire on his part; he had simply been using his natural ability to play to women’s fantasies to get what he wanted and it had worked. Until he had touched her she had at least felt marginally in control, but the split second that he raised her hand to his lips she was transported back seven years as if she had fallen through some gap in space and time, all self-protection stripped from her in the process.

      But then actions spoke louder than words, didn’t they say? They were like a familiar scent that could recall another time and place in an instant. The minute he had touched her that way she was no longer the twenty-six-year-old model standing in her dressing room with her jacket buttoned fast around her, forced to make a choice that was doomed either way. No, when he’d raised her hand to his lips she was that wide-eyed teenager again, the world at her feet.

      The girl she had been the summer she’d turned nineteen, when it had seemed her life was truly about to begin, she thought wretchedly. Because, although on paper it had always looked to be a life full of potential—the daughter of a West End actress and a great foreign diplomat, the reality had been nothing so sensational. Her father’s work abroad and her mother’s gruelling schedule had led them to divorce when she was still at junior school and, by the age of thirteen, boarding school had become the place she grudgingly called home. Though her father would send gifts galore from the places he’d visited, and her dorm was stacked full of her mother’s memorabilia, she would gladly have swapped them all for the odd family holiday or the chance to have done something more notable than sit her A levels and watch the Wimbledon finals with her school friends. And whilst they’d been happy choosing college courses and eyeing up the boys from the local school, Tamara had been restless, dreaming of finding her own place in the world. She certainly had no desire to remain in the classroom, or to repeat her parents’ failed attempt at love.

      So when her father had announced that he wished her to visit him in the Middle East for a week, it had felt as if the door to her future had at last been flung open. As if finally she was on the cusp of…something. And Qwasir! She remembered rolling the word over in her mouth like an exotic delicacy for weeks before her ticket had even arrived, immersing herself in every book she could find on the country, noting down snippets of information as if they were bright keys to her future.

      When the plane had finally touched down, she was not disappointed. Qwasir had not only met, but surpassed her wildest imaginings. From the minute she’d been met by the black royal-crested Jeep at the airport and driven through the town and out across the expansive desert landscape towards the royal palace, everything seemed full of so much colour, heat, life. As if all this time she’d been living in a rock pool and she had finally escaped into the wide, wide ocean.

      Never more so than at the moment when the