Desert Sheikhs Collection: Part 1. Jane Porter

air and smile the smile of a contented man.

      She had listened to the way he devoured facts about the country from Khalim, asking him this and asking him that, nodding his head as he absorbed as much of its history as was possible. Even the food they were served and the different drinks—he tried each and every one, and savoured them with the air of someone who had never really tasted before.

      Last night, in bed, she had dared broach the subject of what might have been.

      ‘Does it hurt?’ she’d said softly. ‘Or make you angry to think your mother had to struggle to survive when all this wealth was here for the taking?’

      There was silence, so that for a moment she wondered whether or not he had heard her. Or overstepped the mark, perhaps, by trying to delve into his innermost thoughts.

      Darian stared at the ceiling. He had been thinking about it a great deal, knowing that he had to come to terms with certain things or he would be unable to move on. If circumstances had decreed it, then he would have led a very different life.

      ‘The question is whether or not Makim knew that she was pregnant,’ he said slowly. ‘Whether he refused to stand by her—that would make a difference to the way I felt.’

      She stroked at his temple. ‘And is there no way of finding out?’

      ‘Oh, yes. He kept diaries. Khalim told me.’

      ‘So read them! Find out.’

      ‘There’s a fifty-year rule about opening them,’ he said slowly. ‘Or at least it’s fifty years before they can be brought into the public domain.’

      So he would never know, or at least not until he was an old man, when the knowledge would no longer matter as much as it mattered now. ‘Oh, Darian,’ she said softly, and kissed his cheek.

      Sometimes she was so damned soft and tender that he felt as weak as water, and Darian liked to feel strong. He turned over onto his elbow and concentrated on her pink and white naked body instead. ‘Oh, Darian—what?’ he questioned sulkily.

      She remembered thinking fleetingly that he always put barriers up—that he went only so far before the shutters came down. But then he had made love to her in a way which made her misgivings melt away with the sureness of his touch, and afterwards she had cried softly, and she wasn’t quite sure why.

      She stood watching now as he talked to Khalim, their heads bent and deep in low conversation, excluding her completely.

      ‘Lara, I will have the jet prepared for you,’ said Khalim, straightening up.

      She looked directly into the golden eyes which were trained on her watchfully. Make it easy for him, thought Lara. No bitterness, nor regrets, no tears or recriminations. Let it be a fond memory, something to warm him during the long, cold Maraban nights, until he finds another woman to replace me.

      She nodded. ‘I shall leave as soon as possible,’ she said.

      ‘How soon is soon?’ demanded Darian.

      Khalim glanced at his watch. ‘You can be airborne within the hour.’

      That quickly? Her head swam. But wasn’t anything possible for the Sheikh of Maraban? That didn’t even leave them time for one last, loving goodbye.

      ‘I’ll go and pack,’ she said, noticing that Darian didn’t attempt to change her mind for her.

      She went back to their room, looking sadly at the rumpled sheets, which would normally have been changed while they were at dinner so that they would return to a neat and pristine bed for another night of long lovemaking.

      It wasn’t enough, she thought sadly. It had been too brief and all too beautiful, and then snatched away by chance and circumstance.

      The door opened and her expression of regret quickly changed to one of acceptance. She would not burden him with her sadness, nor leave him remembering her face all crestfallen. And maybe in a way this was for the best. Ending naturally at its height rather than leaving her with a sour taste when it faded away, or he tired of her.

      But inside her heart was breaking into a million pieces.

      She clipped the suitcase closed and smiled. ‘There!’

      Darian looked at the tumble of dark, silken curls, the brittle way she was smiling at him. Something had changed. He knew it and she knew it, too. Yet wasn’t it human nature to want things to stay exactly as they were?

      ‘I don’t want you to go, Lara.’

      But Lara recognised that his words were inadequate, spoken only because it was the ‘right’ thing to say at a time like this. She shook her head. ‘You need me to go, Darian. There is stuff here for you to do, and my presence isn’t helping.’

      ‘Yes.’ There was silence for a moment, and when he spoke his voice was heavy. ‘You know, I can’t promise you anything, Lara. Not even whether or not I’ll see you again.’

      ‘I know that.’ Her eyes were very bright, but her voice was steady. ‘And neither should you. This has all been a very strange experience—perhaps it’s best that we put it down to just that…an experience.’

      She was moving away from him, and unexpectedly he felt a wrench. He reached out his arms to her, but she shook her head and turned away. If he touched her she would dissolve with the tears which were threatening to fill her eyes—and why leave him with that as an enduring vision?

      ‘I’d better get going,’ she said brightly. ‘Can’t keep Khalim waiting, can we?’

      But he kissed her on the airfield, in full view of Khalim and servants and flight attendants and all. He brought his lips down on hers in a hard, almost punishing kiss, as if he wanted to physically imprint himself on her and leave her with a memory of him which no one else would ever be able to match.

      But he hadn’t needed to kiss her to do that.

      CHAPTER FOURTEEN

      THE first thing Lara saw on her return to England was her face—only for a moment she didn’t quite recognise it, for it was magnified to sixty-eight times its normal size, the blue eyes staring moodily down at her from a giant hoarding as her taxi drove out of Heathrow.

      For a minute she blinked, disconcerted.

      She had forgotten all about the job—the means she had used to get to Darian in the first place, which had ended up, ironically, with her winning the contract.

      It was strange to see your features so enlarged. She looked all eyes—their sapphire-blue colour blinding—but there was a haunted, almost distracted quality to her smile, and she knew why.

      It was the very first shot, and it had been taken just after he had put the shawl around her shoulders, when she had been disarmed by the soft and solicitous gesture. She was wearing the chiffon dress and holding the phone to her ear, and there was a dazed, almost dreamy expression on her face. It looked like the expression of a woman in love, but that was crazy. You couldn’t fall in love that quickly could you?

      She supposed that depended on what your definition of love was. Maybe she should settle for having been blown away by the man—a feeling which had subsequently grown. Now she was back in England and he was over in Maraban she was missing him already.

      ‘That ain’t you, is it?’ asked the taxi driver, cocking his head at the poster and then turning slightly to snatch a glance at her.

      ‘Yes, it is.’

      ‘Cor! Nice work if you can get it!’ he enthused, and he screwed his nose up. ‘Pay much, does it?’

      It paid well, though not half as well as most people imagined. But in the end she had been the one who paid, and she had paid with her heart.

      There was a light on in the apartment when she arrived home, and she didn’t even have the energy or the inclination to fish around in her bag for her keys, just jammed