Nigel was babbling excitedly about something as he steered her away, but she couldn’t even hear him above the din of chatter and the clink of glasses. People were making the most of the gratis champagne reception. Julia craved that sweet oblivion, but it was not to be.
With dread trickling into her veins and her belly hollowing out, she could already see where they were headed—towards someone at the back of the room, near the terrace. Someone with his back to them: tall, broad and powerful. Thick ebony-black hair curled a touch too much over the collar of his jacket, exactly the way it had when she’d first met him.
Like a recalcitrant child she tried to dig her heels into the ground, but Nigel was blithely unaware, whispering confidentially, “He’s an emir, so I’m not sure how you have to address him. Maybe call him Your Highness just in case. It would be such a coup to interest him in the foundation.”
In that split second Julia had a flashback to when she’d met Kaden for the first time. She’d only been working on the dig for a couple of weeks, had still been getting used to the intense heat, when a pair of shoes had come into her line of vision. She’d barely looked up.
“Don’t step there. Whoever you are. You’re about to walk on top of a fossil that’s probably in the region of three thousand years old.”
The shoe had hovered in mid-air and come back down again in a safer spot, and a deep, lightly accented voice had drawled seductively, “Do you always greet people with such enthusiasm?”
Julia gritted her teeth. Since she’d arrived she’d been the object of intense male interest and speculation. She was under no illusions that it was most likely because she was blonde and the only female under fifty on the dig. “If you don’t mind, I’m in the middle of something here.”
The shoes didn’t move and the voice came again, sounding much more arrogant and censorious. “I do mind, actually—I am the Crown Prince and you will acknowledge me when I speak to you.”
She’d completely forgotten that the Emir was due to visit with some important guests that day—and his son. Dismay filling Julia, she put down her brush and finally looked up, and up, and up again, to see a tall, broad figure standing over her. The sun was in her eyes so all she could make out was his shape—which was formidable.
Taking off her gloves, she slowly stood, and came face to face with the most handsome man she’d ever seen in her life. Robes highlighted his awe-inspiring height and broad shoulders. He wore a turban, but that couldn’t hide the jet-black hair curling down to his collar, or the square cut of his jaw. The most mesmerising dark eyes.
Feeling more than a little overwhelmed she took off her hat and held out her hand …
“And this is Dr Somerton, who you just heard. As our funds manager she’s been instrumental in making sure that funding reaches our digs all over the world.”
Past merged into present and Julia found that she was holding out her hand in an automatic response to the introduction. She was now facing Kaden, and much as she’d have loved to avert her gaze he took up a lot of space, completely arresting in a dark suit with a snowy-white shirt open at the neck, making him stand out from the men in the crowd who were more formally dressed. He looked darker, and infinitely more dangerous than any other man there.
There was no such thing as sliding towards middle age with a receding hairline and expanding gut for him. He oozed virility, vitality, and a heady, earthy sexual magnetism far more powerful than she remembered. There was not a hint of softness about him, or his face. He was all lean angles. The blade of his slightly crooked nose highlighted a sense of danger and a man in his vigorous prime. She remembered the day he’d got that injury, while playing his country’s brutal national game.
Her heart squeezed as she recalled that moment and saw the new harshness stamping the lines of his face. She wondered how long it had been there. Her eyes slid down helplessly … his mouth hadn’t changed. It was as sensual as she remembered, with its full lower lip and the slightly thinner, albeit beautifully shaped upper lip. She’d used to love tracing that line with her finger. Heat flared in her belly. And with her tongue. It was a mouth which held within it the power to inspire a need in the most cynical of women to make this man hers.
The strength of that need washed through Julia, and dismay gripped her. She couldn’t still want this man—not after all these years. Her hand hovered in mid-air as the moment stretched out between them. He was looking at her as intently as she was looking at him, but it was no consolation. There was no polite spark of recognition, only an extreme air of tension. He knew her, but clearly did not relish meeting her again.
Julia realised that just as his big hand enveloped her much smaller one, and a million and one sensations exploded throughout her body.
Far too innately civilised to be deliberately rude and ignore Julia’s hand, as he perversely longed to do, Kaden reached out to take it. He instinctively gritted his jaw against the inevitable physical contact but it was no good. At the first touch of his fingers to that small, soft hand he wanted to slide his thumb with sensual intent along the gap between her thumb and forefinger in a lover’s caress. He wanted to curl his fingers around her palm and feel every delicate bone.
He wanted to relearn this woman in an erotic way that was so forceful it set off a maelstrom of biblical proportions inside him. And somewhere in his head he wondered when had just shaking a woman’s hand ever precipitated such an onslaught of need.
A voice answered him: about twelve years ago, in the searing heat of the afternoon sun amongst dusty relics, when this same woman had stood before him with a shy smile on her face, her hand in his. And, much to his chagrin, Kaden felt his intention to walk away and forget he’d seen her again dissolve in a rush of lust.
CHAPTER TWO
A MINOR earthquake was taking place within Julia’s body, and Kaden seemed loath to let her hand go—about as reluctant as she was for him to let it go. The realisation shamed her, and yet to her horror she couldn’t seem to muster up the energy to extricate her hand from his. She noticed the look in his eyes change to something ambiguous, and every cell in her blood jumped and fizzed in reaction.
An emotion which felt awfully poignant and yearning was threatening. She struggled to remember where she was, and with whom, but it was almost impossible. The reality that it was Kaden in front of her was too much to take in. All she could do was react.
As suddenly as Julia had registered the changed intensity in Kaden’s gaze locked onto hers it was gone, and his eyes moved to take in their companions. Julia had forgotten all about them. Her hand was dropped as summarily as if he had flung it away from him, and a dark cloud of foreboding seemed to blot out the sultry evening just visible through the open patio doors. She shivered in response, and wanted to hug her arms around her body.
Nigel was saying nervously, “His Royal Highness the Emir of Burquat,” and Julia was wondering a little hysterically if she should be curtseying. She didn’t trust her voice to speak and then Kaden’s black gaze was back on her.
“Dr Somerton.”
His voice was so achingly familiar that she longed to be able to hold onto something for balance, only dimly registering the cool tone.
A small anxious-looking man with a red face was beside Kaden. Julia recognised him as the director of the club. He was talking, but his voice seemed to be coming from far away,
“Perhaps you have met before, Doctor? When you were in Burquat during your studies?”
A sharp pain lanced Julia and she looked at Kaden, not sure what to say.
His mouth turned up in a parody of a smile and he drawled, “I seem to have some vague recollection. What year were you there?”
The slap of rejection was so strong it almost made Julia take a step back. The awful sense of isolation she’d felt when she’d left Burquat