Desert Sheikhs Collection: Part 1. Jane Porter

know nothing of my father. Absolutely nothing.’

      ‘No.’ Khalim paused for a moment. ‘Your mother was an air stewardess?’

      ‘Up until I was born.’ Darian’s mouth twisted in derision. There had been no mention of her employment in the letter. ‘You’ve had me checked out!’ he accused softly.

      Khalim nodded. ‘But of course.’ He paused. ‘She flew to the Middle East regularly.’

      And the missing piece of the jigsaw which had always eluded him began to hover tantalisingly over the gap in Darian’s memory. His mother had spoken of his father maybe once, perhaps twice. He had been a good man, she had said, but a man who was not free and was certainly not in a position to support them. Darian had assumed that his father was married, had noted his mother’s reluctance to talk about him and her distress whenever the subject was brought up.

      Children soon learnt to make life easy for themselves. When to pry and when to leave well alone. He had accepted her reticence, just as he had accepted that he looked different from the other children. Darian had been focused on the future, on getting out of the poverty of his upbringing. Whoever his father had been he was not a real figure, not in terms of having any influence in his life, and so Darian had simply closed the door on all his questions.

      There had been nothing about him in the papers his mother had left after her death, though at the time it had crossed his mind that now he was in a position to seek out his father without causing his mother distress. But Darian had decided to let sleeping dogs lie, asking himself what end it would serve if he went on such a quest—other than to unsettle him. Why pursue a man who had never felt the need to know his son?

      But now the past had been dropped before his eyes, falling like a heavy pebble into a pond, its ripple-like effects spreading down through the ages—and for the first time a very important question did occur to him.

      He turned again to look at Lara, where she stood as still and as frozen as a statue. ‘So what does Lara have to do with all this?’

      She had been wondering when he would get around to asking. Lara spoke before Khalim had the chance to defend her. She would not shrink from the truth, not any more.

      ‘I was the one who first read the letter,’ she said quietly. ‘I was working at the Embassy at the time and it came into my hands.’

      ‘When?’

      She heard the raw anger in that one stark word, and flinched. ‘Almost a month ago.’

      A different jigsaw now, and these pieces slotted into place with insulting ease. He looked directly into her blue eyes and gold accusation flooded over her in a hot, sizzling shower. ‘You came looking for me,’ he seethed slowly.

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘You chased the job as the face of Wildman.’ His dark lashes shuttered by a fraction. ‘Didn’t you?’

      ‘Yes.’

      The lashes moved again, and now there was an odd expression in the strange and beautiful eyes, the cold, cruel smile which glittered over her. She knew what the next accusation would be almost before he had a chance to form the words, and her gaze begged him not to ask it—not here and now and in front of Khalim. But he ignored the silent plea, his voice taking on a bitter, hard timbre she had never heard before.

      ‘Is that why you slept with me, Lara?’

      Lara glanced at Khalim, who was observing and listening to the fraught interrogation session in interested silence. Only the faintest elevation of his eyebrows indicated that he had registered Darian’s final damning question, but Lara knew that Marabanese men knew the value of silence. He would not interfere in something which did not concern him. She was on her own here.

      ‘I don’t think that now is an appropriate time to discuss this—’

      ‘Oh, don’t you?’ His sarcastic words sliced through her half-formed sentence like a knife through butter. ‘I don’t really think that you’re fit to be the judge of what is or is not appropriate, Lara!’

      He remembered the way her vulnerable blue eyes had made him soften and melt, and then made love to her in a way which had blown his mind, and he cursed silently at his blind stupidity. Of course she would be adept at pulling heartstrings—she would know every trick in the book, about how to behave and how to manipulate. She was a god damned actress, wasn’t she?

      He sucked in a deep breath. His rage and his retribution with her could wait. He turned his head towards Khalim again.

      ‘So why are you here?’

      ‘To see you,’ said Khalim simply. ‘To see whether it was true.’

      ‘But you can’t, can you?’ drawled Darian. ‘You can’t tell just by looking?’

      ‘Oh, yes, I can,’ demurred Khalim quietly. ‘I saw it as soon as you entered the room today. You have the blood of a true Marabanesh running in your veins.’

      Something in the way he said it made a small shiver of something unknown snake its way down Darian’s spine. Not fear—no, he had never felt fear, nor would he ever give in to the false and futile pressure of fear. Something else—something which momentarily made him feel as if things were edging out of his control. But he deliberately blocked the feeling, substituting it instead with the strength and single-mindedness for which he was known.

      ‘Even if I have—so what?’ he challenged, in a low, deep voice. ‘It doesn’t change my life—how can it? So do not worry, Sheikh—the secret will remain just that. You can go back to your kingdom safe in the knowledge that my life is fulfilled and complete. I have no need of your wealth or power and I will make no claim on it. I give you my word.’

      Khalim’s eyes narrowed into icy black shards. ‘You have no wish to see Maraban?’ he demanded, as if Darian had raised a fist and hit him.

      Again that tantalising feeling. As if some scarcely heard and hypnotic music were luring him to run away and dance. Darian shook his head, furious with himself for such a bizarre flight of fancy.

      ‘You must come as my guest,’ continued Khalim.

      The two men stared at one another.

      ‘Why?’ demanded Darian simply.

      Lara thought again how peculiar it was to have Khalim spoken to like that, and for him to accept it.

      ‘I should like to get to know you better,’ answered Khalim. ‘Man of my blood.’

      If Darian had heard a statement like that even an hour ago he would have given a sardonic laugh. It was not the kind of thing men said to one another—not in his world. But something had inexplicably changed. This whole crazy and bizarre situation was linked to a past of which he knew nothing, and it was that fact which troubled him.

      His past.

      But the past held no interest for him, he reminded himself. Life lay with the present and the future. His life was here, and it was good.

      He shook his head. ‘No. I can’t see the point.’

      Khalim smiled then. ‘Can’t you?’ he questioned softly. ‘Can you just let me walk away today, Darian, and turn your back on the opportunity I am offering you? To discover Maraban and in so doing perhaps discover a little of yourself?’

      It was a tantalising proposition, and Darian felt the hard, pounding beat of excitement. He was not into the ‘self-discovery’ so popular in the modern world. He considered such things an indulgent waste of time. And yet…

      Would he be left with a whispering feeling of regret if he turned this opportunity down? He turned his head slowly to look once again at Lara. Her face was pale now, all the roses fled. All he could see were the twin sapphires of her eyes, sparkling blue but wary, almost afraid.

      And afraid you should be, he thought grimly.

      His lips curved into another slow, cruel