“Or will it be satisfaction?” he mused. “A picture of rare beauty can give endless satisfaction.”
Beauty was in the eye of the beholder, Sarah thought, wondering just how demanding Tareq’s eye was. “You may find the picture flawed.”
“Flaws can have an individual charm. They can be more endearing than perfection.”
Sarah sighed. She was no closer to knowing him and she resented his way of seeking knowledge of her. “I don’t like the feeling of being tested.”
“Were you not doing the same to me when you kissed me this morning?” he countered sardonically.
It was true in a way. Yet it had been more a driven impulse than a calculated plan. Testing him? She pondered the concept and decided it was alien to her. She wasn’t cold-blooded enough to work out the equations and act on them as ruthlessly as Tareq did. Maybe that was something she had to learn if she was to survive a year with him intact.
“Be honest with me, Sarah,” he urged, steel gloved in the softly persuasive tone of voice. “Was it not an experiment to test your touching power?”
Sarah instinctively recoiled from such cold, clinical terms. “Not in the way you mean,” she protested painfully. “I was trying to reach out to you. To whatever it is you keep to yourself. I guess…in the light of how you reacted…that was very silly of me.”
He made no comment. His silence dragged on for so long it grew heavy with a host of mulled-over variations of what he left unspoken. Sarah glanced at him but he wasn’t looking at her. He appeared sunk in deep thought, his face an expressionless mask as he brooded behind it. For a few moments she exulted in the possibility his calculations had been upset. Then she realised there was nothing to be gained by it anyway. He was probably re-working his jigsaw to accommodate a rogue piece. Or maybe he was realising she didn’t fit and would never fit into the picture he wanted.
She drove on in a miserable haze of despondency. Gone was the exhilaration of driving a convertible. The car ate up the miles just as every other kind of car did, moving from point A to point B.
“We’re getting close to Ocala,” she said matter-of-factly. “Is the exit to Silver Springs clearly sign-posted?”
“I’ll point it out to you when it comes up,” he assured her, alertness instantly galvanised.
The interstate highway had not exactly been a scenic route. However, once they’d turned off it and were heading towards Silver Springs, the beautiful countryside lifted Sarah’s spirits. They passed one magnificent ranch after another; all of them with expensive railing fences enclosing pastures that looked like perfectly mown green lawns, picture postcard settings for the thoroughbred horses grazing in them. Even the grass verges on either side of the road looked mown, incredibly tidy if not. Wonderful trees, pleasingly placed, provided ready shade.
Such superbly maintained properties bespoke long-held wealth, used lavishly over generations. It was strange, comparing them to Michael Kearney’s estate in Ireland and her father’s farm in Australia…the amazing contrasts in style and form. What she was seeing here seemed distinctly American, with just as high a priority placed on appearance as on performance. Such attention to detail was truly marvellous.
The homesteads were just as breathtaking, mansions on a huge scale, fascinating in their stunning architecture. When Tareq pointed out their destination, Sarah couldn’t help gasping. The Wellesly-Adams home could have graced one of the old Southern plantations; rows and rows of wonderful white columns, two storeys high, with verandas decorated by gloriously ornate, white lace ironwork.
The house alone seemed to offer a veritable Eden to explore and Sarah confidently anticipated ready distraction from Tareq and the stress of resolving their differences. There was no warning of a serpent within who would poison any peace of mind for her.
Their host and hostess could not have been more friendly and charming in greeting their arrival. Tareq and Sarah were graciously ushered into the vast foyer, basking in Miriam and Jack Wellesly-Adams’ warm welcome. Then down a staircase designed for dramatic entrances, came a female cobra, all primed to strike.
“Tareq, darling…”
She was thirty-something with the patina of long-practised polish; long, gleaming blonde hair, a dazzling mouthful of white, white teeth, a sexy, sinuous body encased in orange lycra-satin shirt and slacks, belted brilliantly with graduated gold chains, gold bangles on her arms, gold hoops in her ears, gold slippers on her feet, but no gold ring complementing her orange fingernails.
“Dionne…this is a surprise!” Tareq responded. “Is Cal with you?”
“Hadn’t you heard, darling? Cal and I separated months ago. When Dad and Mimsy said you were coming today, I couldn’t resist flying down from New York to say hello.”
She fell on him…kiss, touch, feel…busy hands and pouty lips…saying hello with neon lights flashing I’m available and I’d just love to climb into your jeans.
Sarah hated watching her in action. Tareq had warned her nothing stopped some women and she knew it. They just waltzed in and staked their claim. But the black violence ripping through Sarah’s heart had nothing to do with reason. A primitive possessiveness was raging through her. She wanted to fly at the woman, tooth and claw, and fling her away from Tareq. She wanted to scream he belonged to her!
Above the frenzy of her feelings rose a sense of shock, of dawning horror. How could she care so much! The only tie she had to Tareq was that of being his hostage, and he had no tie to her at all. This obsession with him had to stop.
Yet she couldn’t stem the tide of revulsion she felt at his failure to push Dionne away from him. He did absolutely nothing to stop the woman drooling over him. He didn’t care. And that hurt. It hurt so much Sarah tried telling herself his laissez-faire attitude meant nothing.
She had witnessed such licentious greetings many times at her mother’s parties. People on the high society circuit took such liberties for granted. It was part of the game of keeping irons in the fire and a keen eye on the main chance. Do I want this? Well, I’ll just keep it warm in case I do.
Her stomach cramped. If Tareq thought like that…
“And who have we here?” Dionne trilled, snuggling herself around Tareq’s arm as she judged it time to give some scant acknowledgment to his travelling companion. Her feline green eyes skated over Sarah, summing up the competition and dismissing it.
“Good heavens, darling! So young! Have you taken to escorting schoolgirls around the world?” Tinkling amusement. Flirty eyes. “No wonder you requested separate bedrooms.”
“Dionne, you are embarrassing Sarah,” her father chided, though he smiled indulgently at his darling daughter.
“Not at all,” Sarah cut in, seething over the putdown. “Though perhaps Tareq…” she shot him a chilling, blackeyed blast “…might now take the time to introduce us.”
The coolly delivered reprimand amused him. He unhitched himself from the clinging blonde and stepped slightly aside, using his now-freed arm to gesture from one to the other. “Sarah, this is Dionne Van Housen, Jack and Miriam’s daughter, and until recently, the happy wife of a good friend of mine.”
Dionne pouted playfully at him. “If Cal had made me happy, darling, I wouldn’t have left him.”
“That could be a comment on expectations being too high, Dionne,” he said dryly. “May I introduce Sarah Hillyard, who was, indeed, a schoolgirl when I first met her, but that was eleven years ago. Happily, for me, time has moved on.”
“Hillyard…Hillyard…should I know the name?” Dionne quizzed, prompting for Sarah’s level of importance on the social register.
Tareq shrugged. “Unlikely. Michael