Wrapping herself in the generous white bathrobe she’d found hanging behind the door, she moved back into the bedroom, freeing her hair from its tidy French pleat to let it tumble in buttery blonde waves down to her shoulders as she went.
The knock on the door made her gasp. It was after midnight, and she could only surmise that it was perhaps a maidservant, wanting to find out what time she would be down for breakfast.
Drawing the edges of the voluminous robe together more securely, and tightening the belt, she drew back the door—only to be confronted by the tall, imposing figure of Zahir. In the corridor behind him all the lamps were turned down low, and the soft lighting created an even stronger warrior-like cast to his handsome features—particularly his eyes. They seemed to burn with the intensity of stoked flame as he stared down at her.
‘My apologies for calling on you so late … As I told you earlier, something took me away from the palace for a while and I have only just returned.’
Clutching the sides of her robe tightly to her chest, Gina hardly knew what to think, never mind say. It didn’t help that she was trembling from head to foot.
‘May I step inside for a moment?’
Silently, she held the door wide, then closed it behind him. Glancing round the beautifully appointed room, Zahir sniffed the air and smiled. The gesture reminded her of the first time they had met in the Husseins’ garden. The kindness she’d seen in his eyes then had prevented her from being afraid of him. But right now it wasn’t kindness she saw reflected. There was an edge about him tonight that made her wary.
‘You have been taking a bath?’
‘I had no idea that you were Sheikh Kazeem Khan. It was such a shock to learn that it was you.’ Her voice had a distinct quiver in it. ‘I know it was three years ago, but I take it you haven’t forgotten me?’
‘Of course I haven’t forgotten!’ His glance was pained, his deep, resonant voice clearly irritated. ‘Did you think I could ever forget that night? But to discover that the antiquities expert I hired in London is you is not exactly a delight to me. No, it is not. How could it be when you deceived me so callously?’
Twisting her hands in front of her robe, Gina felt like crying. ‘Deceived you … how?’
‘I fell in love with you that night … I thought you felt the same. I counted the days until you would return. You promised you would. When you told me on the phone that you had changed your mind, that returning was not realistic and you preferred to focus on your career, how do you think that made me feel? It was like a bomb exploding in my face!’
‘It wasn’t just because I wanted to focus on my career. My mother died unexpectedly just a couple of days after she was taken into hospital … I told you, remember? My father needed me to stay at home after that … to give him some support. We were both grieving … I hardly knew what I was doing. Kabuyadir seemed like a dream …’
Observing the harshness of Zahir’s expression, Gina decided right then wasn’t the time to tell him that her father had pleaded with her to stay in the UK and focus on her career in memory of her mother … told her that she shouldn’t trust that life in Kabuyadir, living in a strange culture with a man she barely knew, could yield something better. Gina had buckled under the pressure of guilt and responsibility and agreed to stay, even when it had meant denying her desire to return to Zahir and the extraordinary passion they’d shared.
Now she was reeling at his confession that he’d fallen in love with her. There was a big part of her that could hardly believe such a handsome, charismatic man could truly have cared for her like that. To hear him say the words after all this time, compounding what a colossal mistake she’d made in not coming back to him, was like having her insides scraped raw with a sharpened blade.
‘Whatever happened, clearly you thought my regard for you wasn’t important enough to make you come back to Kabuyadir. Knowing that, I wonder that you have decided to return now three years later? If I had known that you were the antiquities expert I’d hired to research the jewel I would have taken steps to prevent your coming and hired someone else. My secretary Masoud would normally have acquainted me with such details, but he was suddenly taken ill and had to return to his family, otherwise I would have realised.’
‘So … how are we to proceed from here on? Do you want me to act as though I never met you before?’
He abruptly turned away for a moment, as if to gather his thoughts. The sudden motion made the midnight-blue jalabiya he wore swirl round his leather-booted calves. ‘What I want … what I wish … is that you had vanished off the face of the earth, if you want to know the truth! Then I wouldn’t have to deal with the fact that you live and the possibility that you have chosen some other man to spend your life with rather than me.’
Gina gasped at the bitterness and passion she heard in his voice. ‘There is no other man, Zahir … there never was. That’s the truth.’
When he turned his gaze on her again his eyes regarded her with such disdain that she curled up inside. Somehow, no matter how hard she tried, she seemed to have great difficulty in inspiring love in the people closest to her.
‘It is of no account to me any more. It is all too late now.’
Distressed and dry-mouthed at the bleakness in his tone, she darted out her tongue to moisten her lips. She wrapped her arms tightly round herself to subdue the pain that vibrated inside. ‘Why didn’t you tell me who you were?’ she asked quietly. ‘Have you any idea how hard it is for me to see you again and discover that you’re practically a—a king?’
‘I was not the ruler of Kabuyadir when we met. I knew I would inherit the mantle of Sheikh when my father died—I was trained to do so from a boy—but I was still just Zahir when we were together. I had thought to share some carefree time with you before that happened. When we met that night at the Husseins I, too, was grieving. My mother had died just a month before. To meet you and feel the way I did so instantly … it gave me hope—hope that life would get better despite my losing my beloved mother. However, you declined to come back to me. Just days after I spoke to you on the phone my father’s health started to rapidly deteriorate, and he too died. Any prospect of carefree time had gone. I was now Sheikh of the kingdom and my life would never be the same again.’
Gina’s heart contracted with sorrow at what Zahir had suffered. No wonder her decision not to return had hit him like a hammer-blow. ‘So you’ve ruled this kingdom for three years? Did you marry?’
The taste of the question was bitter on her tongue, but Gina desperately needed to know the answer. She had kept her promise to her father and for the past three years had totally dedicated herself to work. There had been no other man in her life since that night with Zahir—she’d even acquired a reputation as ‘uptight and frigid’ with some of her less than gracious male colleagues. To think that Zahir might have married and relegated their precious time together to the far corners of his mind, rarely to be recalled or examined except maybe to remind himself of how deceitful she’d been in turning him down, stung worse than a thousand cuts.
‘No. I did not.’
Her heart missed a beat. ‘Why not?’
He folded his arms, immediately drawing Gina’s hungry gaze to the impressive width of his chest. ‘When it comes to marriage, a man in my position has a duty to marry for the utmost strategic and dynastic benefit. Believe it or not the neighbouring kingdoms are not exactly overflowing with available and eligible women. That is why I have not married yet.’
Falling silent for a moment, Gina couldn’t help dwelling on one disturbing flaw in Zahir’s reasoning. Lifting her troubled blue glance to his, she breathed in deeply. ‘What