The Desert Prince's Mistress (15 page)

She seemed to understand, just as Khalim said she would. I like her very much. She says to send you her love.

She typed,
Send mine back,
and waited, but that was it.

E-mailing could be a frustrating form of communication, she was coming to realise. One of you had to break it off first, and she could have sat writing to him all day. It wasn’t as good as seeing him in the flesh, but it was a damned sight better than nothing.

And, in a way, it was another way of getting to know him—by the written word. It was rewarding and it was
sweet to discover that she could make him laugh with some of the things she wrote—as he did her.

Christmas came and went and there was no present or card—but then they didn’t celebrate Christmas in Maraban, and she didn’t want a token anything from him. There was only one thing she really wanted, and that was the man himself.

But he sent her a sweet e-mail on Christmas Eve, reminding her to leave a mince pie for Santa and a carrot for the reindeer, and Lara went off happily to her parents’ farmhouse, sighing as she hung up her stocking, knowing exactly what—or who—she would love to find inside on the following morning, pleased to lose herself in the messy, noisy chaos of a family Christmas.

But as a frozen January slipped into an even icier February, the e-mails became less frequent and when they did come they usually began with an apology.

Sorry I haven’t written for so long, but Khalim has been inducting me into the way of State Ceremonies
.

Lara strove to reassure him.

It doesn’t matter. Honestly. It’s just lovely to hear when you do have time
.

And then, one evening, Jake took her to task.

She had just trailed into the sitting room when he looked up from his film script and pulled a face.

‘War just started, has it?’ he questioned acidly. ‘No, let me guess—you haven’t heard from Lover-Boy!’

‘Leave it, Jake.’

‘No, Lara—I will not leave it. How long are you going to continue living in a half-world? Happy when he
writes—which is hardly ever—and miserable as sin when he doesn’t?’

‘He’s been busy with Khalim,’ she said miserably.

‘Busy being an international playboy, probably,’ said Jake darkly. ‘It beats me why Khalim seems to have taken such a shine to him.’

And she couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t. She shrugged instead. ‘I love him, Jake,’ she said simply.

‘Well, it doesn’t look like he loves you back,’ said Jake brutally. ‘Better get used to it.’

Lara turned away, biting her lip and willing away the tears which were making her eyes swim. But deep down she knew he was right. She wasn’t living, not really, or if she was it was in a fantasy world, just waiting for him to e-mail or recalling things he had said, things he had done—reading far too much into a remembered gesture or word.

Nothing had changed. He hadn’t promised her anything then and he still hadn’t, only now distance seemed to be asserting its natural power. The e-mails were fading away, and so, probably, were his memories of her.

Better join the real world again, Lara, she told herself.

That was what she did. She went to parties with Jake and fixed a bright smile of determined enjoyment on her face.

‘That’s my girl,’ he murmured fondly. ‘Pretend you’re happy and one of these days you’ll turn around and find that you actually are.’

She had to trust him on that one.

She needed a break, and a heavensent opportunity came in the shape of a weekend visit to her parents’ farmhouse. It was their wedding anniversary and they were having a family party to celebrate. Lara hadn’t been down since Christmas, and she was looking forward to seeing all her nephews and nieces. At least they wouldn’t ask questions
she would rather not answer about Darian—simply because she hadn’t told them anything about him.

It was easier that way.

It began to snow as she left London, and the weather deteriorated still further on the way down, with great flurries of white flakes falling down endlessly from a gunmetal-grey sky. By the time she arrived she was frozen.

Her mother opened the door to her, looking anxious. ‘Thank heavens you’re here!’ she exclaimed as an icy wind blew swirling snowflakes all around the hall. ‘Come in and sit by the fire!’ Then she frowned. ‘And then, my girl, you are going to get some food inside you!’

Why did people keep trying to feed her up? Didn’t they realise that food wouldn’t fill the aching emptiness inside? ‘Lovely,’ she said obediently.

They had just finished a blow-out roast lunch and the noise levels had reached crescendo point. The table was a mass of crumpled napkins and half-eaten pudding, and one of her brothers-in-law was passing around some port which nobody really needed. Lara had her nephew sitting chubbily on her lap, attempting to build a little plastic aeroplane, when Lara’s father frowned at his wife.

‘Did you hear something outside?’

She smiled, fingering the gold necklace he had bought her like a newlywed. ‘No, dear!’

‘Maybe it’s the lorry the necklace probably fell off the back of!’ hiccuped the brother-in-law who had drunk the most port.

‘Will you please shut-
up
, Jeremy?’ demanded his wife.

The front doorbell chimed loudly and Lara’s father frowned again.

‘Not expecting anyone, are you, darling?’

Lara’s mother shook her head. ‘Today? And in
this
weather? Of course not.’

There was a pause, and Lara was filled with the strangest, giddiest sense of expectation.

‘Better go and answer it, hadn’t you?’ she said, her heart beating so fast that her words sounded strangled.

Both her sisters turned and looked at her, both sets of eyebrows raised in identical sisterly question.

Even the children were silent.

They heard the door open and the sound of Lara’s father speaking to someone, then a low, murmured reply. Ten expectant faces were turned towards the door of the dining room, listening as two pairs of footsteps approached.

‘Wassamatter, Arnie La-La?’ demanded her nephew, and Lara realised that she was gripping onto him very tightly indeed, instinct and a deep sense of hope and longing telling her who the caller might be.

She wanted it to be…but surely it couldn’t…it just couldn’t…

The world stood still and her heart clenched tightly in her chest as she stared straight up into a pair of rueful golden eyes, vaguely aware of her sisters both sitting bolt upright, making twin sounds of disbelief.

Well, she felt a bit like that herself—he looked so gorgeous. Strong and tall and lean as he stood there, just looking at her. She could scarcely think straight and her hands felt clammy.

‘Darian,’ she breathed.

‘Hello, Lara,’ said Darian softly.

T
HERE
was another pin-drop silence, and Lara wasn’t surprised—because the sight of Darian standing in her parents’ beautiful old farmhouse was slightly surreal—as if they had all been taking part in a black and white film and somebody had just stepped in in full Technicolor.

He wore jeans, and beneath a battered leather jacket was a warm, soft sweater, just like the one he had been wearing the first time she’d seen him. His hair was all ruffled, and sprinkled with snowflakes, and his skin looked even more vibrant and glowing than usual, his eyes shining with health and vitality.

Lara’s mother coughed. ‘Er, aren’t you going to introduce us, Lara?’

‘Yes, do, Lara,’ said Heather, her oldest sister, in a voice which couldn’t disguise her restrained excitement.

‘This is Darian Wildman,’ said Lara breathlessly. ‘He’s a…he’s a friend of mine.’

The golden eyes gleamed in silent challenge.

‘Won’t you sit down, Darian?’ said Lara’s mother mildly, as if men who looked like Hollywood film stars suddenly appeared in her dining room every day of the week. ‘And have some tea? Or I could probably rustle you up some lunch if you haven’t already eaten.’

He smiled at her, and Lara watched her mother melt. ‘I’d like that very much, Mrs. Black, but I wonder if first I could have a few words with Lara? In private?’

‘Of course.’ She looked at her daughter. ‘Lara?’

Lara rose to her feet on legs which felt as if they had
suddenly been transformed into jelly. ‘Let’s go into the sitting room,’ she said unsteadily.

The fire was blazing and there was a photo album lying open on one of the sofas. An empty champagne bottle was upended in the bin and there was crumpled wrapping paper from the anniversary presents lying waiting to be hurled on the fire. It looked messy and warm and homely.

Outside the window, the scene was startlingly white and beautiful, and Darian released a slow sigh as he turned to look at Lara properly, dressed in palest cream, her hair all loose around her shoulders, looking like a winter wonder herself. ‘Lara,’ he said softly.

Her heart was beating very fast. ‘How the hell did you find me?’

‘Jake told me where you were.’

‘He
did
?’

‘Eventually.’ It had been like trying to extract blood from a stone, Darian remembered with a kind of grim admiration. ‘He didn’t want to. Gave me a great long lecture on how wonderful you were and how he wasn’t going to stand by and see you hurt—but in the end I asked him whether you would be happier to see me than not, and then he told me where you were.’ His eyes were very clear—clear and golden. ‘So are you, Lara? Happy to see me?’

‘I’m not sure how I feel,’ she answered truthfully, because she didn’t yet know why it was he had come.

He looked at the way her dark lashes were half lowered. ‘You look very beautiful,’ he observed softly.

‘Thank you.’ She let the lashes flutter up, cautious and wary. She felt as if she was skating on ice, without knowing how thin it was.

‘But you’ve lost weight!’ he accused softly.

She ran her eyes over the shadows and angles of his gorgeous face. ‘Well, so have you!’

‘I’ve been in the saddle every morning, riding through inaccessible parts of Maraban—what’s your excuse?’

She didn’t answer that. She didn’t have to. She wasn’t going to tell him that she had missed him and been pining for him, because that way she risked too much. Too much hurt if he told her, as she suspected he was about to, that he was going to stay in Maraban. That his life was there.

But if that was the case…

‘Why are you here, Darian?’

‘Can’t you guess?’

Oh, but guessing was a dangerous game. She knew what she hoped, but she dared not risk saying it. What if her dreams were way off mark? Would that not just put him in the awful position—for him and for her—of having to reject her? But he’s here, a little voice reminded her. He is
here.
‘I’m not a mind-reader.’

‘Aren’t you?’ The last time he had made love to her he had thought she could see into his very soul. And he hers. God, it seemed like a lifetime ago now, and in a way maybe it was. ‘Come over here, Lara,’ he said, in a low, soft voice. ‘You’re a long way away from me.’

It was only a few steps, but it felt like a million, and Lara’s feet took her slowly towards him like a child learning to walk for the first time. That was exactly how she felt. Unsure and uncertain and a tiny bit afraid.

He put his hand up and touched her cheek, saw her eyelashes briefly flutter down to shield her eyes, and when she opened them again they were bright. And wary.

‘Why have you come here?’ she whispered again.

‘Because…’ He searched for the right words, and wondered why they were so hard to find. Maybe because he wasn’t used to saying what was really on his mind. And in his heart. ‘I’ve…missed you.’

‘Have you?’ Her heart leapt in her chest. It wasn’t the biggest declaration in the world, but maybe because of that
it felt more real, more solid. For Darian was not a man to use words he did not mean.

He nodded.
Tell her how much.
‘Very much.’

It had been an entirely new sensation, one that he had tried at first to deny and then to rationalise his way out of—until he had realised that there
was
no way out, that for the first time in his adult life there was no template to follow. This was all very new to him, and exciting, and kind of scary.

His eyes gleamed very gold. ‘Actually—very, very much.’

She could tell that he was choosing his words carefully, and the flicker of hope became a little steadier. ‘Well, I’ve missed you, too.’

‘Have you, now?’ He smiled, but he saw how huge her eyes seemed in her face. She looked all wary, on edge. Fragile, as if she might just crumple up or dissolve. He felt a fierce rush of protectiveness and it took him by surprise—but why should it have done, when he stopped to think about it? Hadn’t he been exactly that during that chaste first night together in Maraban? ‘Don’t you think we ought to sit down?’

She was pleased to, because her legs were feeling as wobbly as her emotions. They sat, side by side on the sofa, to the left of the roaring blaze, and while part of her longed for him to take her into his arms and kiss her the other part of her was enjoying his almost Victorian restraint. Passion was easy, but emotion wasn’t. Not for Darian. Passion could be something to hide behind, and he wasn’t attempting to.

She turned to him. His eyes looked different, she thought, as though he had seen something new—and maybe he had. ‘So tell me about Maraban,’ she said softly. ‘What was it like in the desert?’

Darian’s eyes narrowed. He realised that her focus was
absolutely right, though maybe that shouldn’t have surprised him. Another woman might have wanted to talk about herself, about them, but Lara didn’t. Had she sensed that his whole life and his whole perspective had changed? That change had somehow arisen out of the amazing experiences he had lived through, in the desert especially?

‘It was just the two of us,’ he began, his eyes narrowing with memory, taking him right back to the way it had been. ‘Oh, there were guards stationed further down the mountain, of course, but in effect it was just me and Khalim. We rode, and we walked, and we talked. We did a lot of talking. We lit fires—it was
bloody
cold. The snows had set in, so we had to take food with us.’

‘Not too much of it, judging by the look of you,’ she said wryly.

‘No.’ He smiled. ‘I guess it must almost have qualified as fasting.’

‘And fasting is cleansing,’ she observed, remembering the yoga course she had signed up for, until she had found sitting around saying ‘Om’ a bit boring and dropped out. ‘Isn’t it?’

‘Very.’ It had been the first time that he had ever really stopped, slowed down, really given himself time to think and to smell the roses. To look at his life and put it into some kind of perspective. ‘Khalim offered me a place there,’ he said slowly.

She had guessed that this might happen, had been mentally prepared for it, but even so it was still a shock. ‘What kind of place?’

‘To rule the western region of Maraban. To publicly acknowledge me as his brother—to legitimately make me…’ He laughed. It sounded so bizarre—hell, it
was
bizarre—but that didn’t mean it wasn’t happening. ‘Prince Darian of Maraban.’

Lara nodded. Heady stuff, being offered your own king
dom. Darian had influence and relative power in England, but nothing could compare to that. ‘What did you say?’

He nodded slightly. She was perceptive indeed. She had not made any assumption about what his answer had been. ‘I told him no.’

‘My God,’ she breathed. ‘Was he angry?’

He shook his head. ‘I think he was relieved, in a way. He made the offer out of filial loyalty, because he felt that it was right, and that only confirms what a remarkable man he is.’

‘But why did you refuse it?’

For the first time he touched her. Picked up her hand and examined it, stroking the tip of his finger reflectively over the palm. It was both tender and yet curiously erotic, and Lara trembled. Was it still pretend tenderness, or was it real this time?

He felt her tremble and stopped stroking. Not yet, he thought. Not yet.

‘I refused it because we are both strong men, and you cannot have two strong men governing side by side—it might work well as an ideal, but the reality of two such mighty egos clashing would be explosive!’

Yes, she could see that. ‘But weren’t you tempted?’

‘By power?’ he questioned slowly, and she nodded. ‘For about a nano-second.’ He looked very reflective for a moment, then gave a wry smile. ‘But I could envisage the repercussions, should I accept such an offer. Maraban is Khalim’s by birth as well as by blood. He knows his country more intimately than anyone. To bring in a man who is only half Marabanese would be to weaken the throne, supply subversive factions with a legitimate cause to revolt.’

‘That’s remarkably far-sighted of you,’ she observed. ‘Lesser men would have grasped at the chance of such power, no matter what the consequences, but not you.’

‘No,’ he agreed. ‘Not me. Because lately I have learned too much to ever disregard what the consequences might be.’

There was a pause, and this time the silence had about it a quality which made Lara still, some instinct telling her that what he was about to say would be profound.

‘And Khalim and I read his…
our
,’ he amended, with a wry smile, ‘father’s diaries.’

Lara looked at him in astonishment. ‘I thought you said there was a fifty-year rule preventing that?’

‘So there is, but as Khalim rather arrogantly announced—why make the laws if you can’t break them occasionally, too! Though they will still not be made public until the allotted time.’ There was a pause. ‘Makim knew nothing about my mother’s pregnancy,’ he told her quietly. ‘That much was clear. He mentions her with great affection, but nothing more than that. It appears to have been a very passionate affair which had consequences of which he knew nothing.’

‘And that makes a difference, doesn’t it?’ she questioned slowly. ‘To you?’

He traced the line of her lips with the tip of her finger. ‘Yes, it does. Of course it does.’ He smiled. ‘It means that I was not rejected nor forgotten by the Sheikh, nor denied a heritage that was truly mine. He simply didn’t know anything about me.’

He tilted her face so that their eyes collided, blue with gold. ‘But that’s enough about Maraban.’ His voice was soft now. ‘I came here to talk about something quite different—something more important still.’

Her heart had begun to race. ‘Oh?’

Once more he picked his words with care, recognising their significance and knowing how important it was that she believed them.

‘I want to tell you why I came back,’ he said simply.

‘Oh?’

This was hard, to just come right out and say it, but he knew that he had to. For both their sakes. ‘I never felt complete before, Lara.’ He hesitated, trying to make sense of it. For her. And for him, too. ‘Maybe that’s the way it always is when you don’t know what your true parentage is. And knowing is one thing, but seeing is something else. Seeing really
is
believing. When I tasted some of the life in Maraban, saw my father’s home and land and the way he must have lived his life, I felt in a way as if I had come home.’

He paused, remembering how Khalim had told him that to feel deeply made you more of a man, not less. But it went against the grain with Darian. Old habits died hard. He had grown up believing that it was a sign of weakness to express your feelings. Yet now he recognised the importance of saying what he really meant, not hiding behind the tough, macho exterior which had been his childhood protection.

‘When you discover your identity—you come home. You’re at peace with yourself—at least in theory.’

She raised her face to his. ‘I…I don’t understand.’

It had taken him a little while, too. ‘I found the peace which comes with knowing what my roots are, but I had lost something, too—the something that makes everything in life worthwhile. The something that makes living wonderful and the world an empty place if it isn’t there.’ He felt the thaw around a heart which had always been hard and tough and cold. It was like taking a leap into the unknown, he thought. Unexplored, uncharted territory—which took more courage to confront than any barren and inhospitable Maraban desert.

‘Love, Lara,’ he said simply. ‘I found you, and I found love, and when you went away something was missing.
You’d struck a hammer-blow to my heart and it made me realise how much I wanted you in my life.’

‘Oh, Darian,’ she whispered, her voice faint, her blood pounding a symphony inside her head, weakened with pleasure and a sense of wonder. ‘Darian.’

He smiled. ‘But it wasn’t the first time I’d felt that way.’ His voice softened. ‘I experienced it the first time I lay in your arms, but it scared the hell out of me. I put it down to the fact that we’d just had amazing sex. It made me feel vulnerable, you see, in a way I wasn’t used to feeling. It’s what made me not ring you.’ He sucked in a deep breath. ‘But I was blinding myself to the truth—then and later.’