‘What got into me?’ she questioned and her voice was shaking with rage. ‘I’ll tell you exactly! Lise says you’ve been actively seeking a bride. In fact, that you’ve been interviewing one over this past month. In Zaminzar. Meeting with some beautiful princess.’
‘Cat,’ he said warningly. ‘Not here.’
‘Yes! Right here. Right now. No wonder you got so defensive when I started talking about Zaminzar earlier.’ She could feel the bile rising in her throat and suddenly there was no holding it back. ‘I’m curious to know what form of interviewing technique you were using with this beautiful princess. Were you having sex with your bride-to-be, Murat, just before coming to London to have hot sex with me?’
MURAT FELT HIS hackles rising as he stared into Cat’s angry face because he wasn’t used to being challenged—not by her. Not by anyone. And especially not in full earshot of his driver.
Yet he wondered realistically how much longer he could have kept this a secret. The entire desert community had been buzzing with the latest attempt to marry off one of its most eligible bachelors and there were plans for yet more meetings in the pipeline. It felt like a heavy burden of guilt he’d been carrying around for too long and, in some perverse way, didn’t he almost welcome its arrival?
‘Did you?’ she was saying, in a reckless tone he’d never heard her use before. ‘Have sex with her before you came to me?’
In the shadowed light of the car, he could see her lips trembling and he felt a brief, sharp pang of guilt. But behind the screen sat his driver and next to him a bodyguard and, although they’d all been trained to turn a blind eye to the Sultan’s private life, he had no intention of discussing his sex life in front of any of them.
‘Let’s talk about it when we get back.’
‘I want to talk about it now.’
‘I said, no, Cat,’ he snapped. ‘How dare you berate me with all the finesse of a common fishwife? I am not having this conversation with you in public and providing some kind of sideshow for the benefit of my staff. So you’d better hold back your questions until we get home—because I don’t intend to answer any of them.’
Deliberately, he turned his head away, the imperious wave of his hand reinforcing his intention not to respond. He told himself that she had overstepped the mark, but his determination to turn away from her stemmed from more than anger at her insubordination.
The truth was that he didn’t want to have to look at her reproachful expression, nor to anticipate where this conversation was heading—because he suspected he wouldn’t like the answer. He told himself that he was doing the only thing a man in his position could do. He was thinking of his country. Of his bloodline—one of the longest and most noble of all the desert states. He thought of his people—of the deprivations they had known. He thought of his land’s chequered and bloody history, and his mouth hardened.
He knew what he had to do because duty had been drummed into him from the moment he had been old enough to understand the meaning of the word. He knew that he needed to take a royal bride and to produce a male child, as his father had done—and his father before him. He needed to pave the way for the Al Maisan dynasty to continue into time immemorial.
In theory, such a task should have been easy. He was now thirty-six and ready for the responsibilities of fatherhood, in a way he had never been ready before. The princess of Zaminzar—Aleya was her name—was beautiful and cultured. She could speak four languages and her comely hips looked as if they could bear him many sons. She ticked many of the right boxes, as they often said in the west. Some, but not all.
Yet even though this latest attempt had failed, there would be others—and he would not feel guilty about something which Cat had always known would happen. He was the Sultan, carrying out the role expected of him, and he would not be reprimanded by his mistress!
They sat in simmering silence until the car reached his apartment and the atmosphere during the elevator ride to the penthouse was similarly tense. As soon as he’d shut the apartment door, he saw Cat kicking off her high heels and hurling them across the room before turning on him, her face contorted with anger.
‘The truth, Murat,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘I want the truth.’
For the first time Murat felt an unfamiliar wave of uncertainty about how to handle her, because Cat didn’t do angry. Cat did sweet and willing and compliant, and if she had been her usual sweet and accommodating self he might have...
Might have, what?
Was he really fooling himself that he could have talked or kissed his way out of this?
Angry himself now, he walked into the sitting room and stared out of the window at the faint sprinkle of stars which glittered above the treetops.
‘Murat?’ she said, from behind him. ‘Are you going to answer my question?’
He turned before she had a chance to compose herself and he saw on her face something which speared at his conscience like a rusty blade. Because despite everything—the unmistakable flare of hope was alive in her beautiful eyes. And didn’t they say that hope was the one thing which every human being clung to, no matter what the circumstances?
She wanted him to tell her that the interfering girlfriend of Niccolo Da Conti had been wrong. She wanted him to tell her that it had all been a mistake. That he was not seeking any woman other than her.
Except that he couldn’t.
He couldn’t lie to her.
He had always told her the truth.
He looked her squarely in the eye. ‘What exactly do you want to know?’
He could see her momentary hesitation—as if she recognised that there could be no going back from this. So don’t ask me, he prayed silently. Let me take you to bed and kiss away the questions. Let’s forget tonight ever happened and just enjoy what is within our grasp.
‘Have you been seeing someone you’re intending to marry?’
He made an impatient movement with his hands. ‘My whole adult life has been spent meeting prospective wives,’ he said. ‘You know that. I’ve explained it to you. I told you about Princess Sara. I told you all about the others—the ones I deemed unsuitable.’
‘That’s just a clever way of avoiding my question. A simple yes or no will suffice.’ She licked her lips, as if playing for time. ‘Have you been courting another woman?’
There was a pause.
‘I’ve been in discussion with the King of Zaminzar’s daughter, yes,’ he said eventually. ‘With a view to marriage, yes again.’
‘And did you...did you sleep with her?’
Her question was so quiet that he had to strain his ears to hear it and Murat glowered in response. He wondered if she was aware that she was severely testing his patience, and that he would not be interrogated like a common thief. Yet once again something in her green eyes smote at his conscience and he found himself shaking his head.
‘No, I did not. And I am shocked that you should ask me such a question when I’ve told you that I never sleep with more than one woman at the same time.’
‘You’re shocked?’ she echoed and then shook her head. ‘You are unbelievable, Murat. Unbelievable.’
Murat could feel the slow smoulder of rage building up inside him and he let it come. He let it heat up his blood and his skin, the way it did just before he rode into battle. Because rage obliterated pretty much everything else, and it was much easier