* * *
Zafir’s heart was beating double time as he carried Darcy over to the sumptuous couch in the drawing room. In his wildest dreams he’d never thought to have the opportunity to hold her again like this. When he’d banished her from his sight over four years ago he’d sworn he wouldn’t even think of her. But something had told him even then that he was lying. The beautiful face that he’d always likened to his vision of an angel was etched on his heart, whether he wanted it to be or not.
As he helped lower her gently onto the sofa’s plumped-up cushions it was no easy task, when her bewitching perfume kept infiltrating his senses and he noted that her extraordinary blue eyes still had the ability to dazzle him more than ever.
But he would be a fool if he forgot for even an instant that this woman had cruelly betrayed him. If their relationship had progressed he would have given her everything—not least his undying love and devotion—but she had thoughtlessly ruined it all by fooling around behind his back and making a play for his own brother.
Her behaviour was beyond belief. Pretending devotion was clearly just a game to her. With her angelic face and no doubt practised feminine wiles, likely she could twist any man who took her fancy round her little finger and have her way. His brother Xavier had warned him more than once what she was capable of—although Zafir knew his notoriously charming sibling was apt to bend the truth from time to time.
But blood was thicker than water, he told himself and how could he not believe what he’d seen with his very own eyes?
In the aftermath of that shocking incident Xavier had wasted no time in giving him further details of what Darcy was really like, saying he’d seen the way she operated at the bank the family owned long before Zafir had appeared to run the head office in London.
The cruel scene he’d witnessed had brought an end to all his hopes. He’d found Darcy in a heated embrace with Xavier.
Her features had radiated her shock and dismay when he’d suddenly surprised them by coming into the room, and immediately she’d denied any wrongdoing. Instead she’d insisted that she’d been trying to get away from Xavier, not willingly embracing him! That in truth Zafir’s brother had been harassing her—had been doing so for months. It was he who should be penalised, not her...
‘Tell the housekeeper to get a drink for my unexpected visitor.’ After addressing Rashid, Zafir turned back immediately, to keep Darcy in his sight—although under the circumstances it would take nothing less than a miracle for her to be able to run away. ‘What is your preference, Miss Carrick? Tea or coffee?’
The glance he gave her was neither friendly nor particularly polite. He wasn’t going to grant the woman any dispensation—that was for sure. Aside from her previous misdemeanours, she had now made an unbelievable attempt to break into his house.
‘Neither.’
It was hard not to be moved by the look of anxiety he saw reflected in the blonde’s vivid blue eyes and, strangely, it bothered Zafir more than it should have. Was she honestly not concerned that he might call the police and prosecute her for trespass? There was no reason why he shouldn’t, he told himself. No matter what had gone on between them in the past, he certainly didn’t owe her any allegiance.
‘I—I just want to know what you intend to do about all this,’ she said nervously.
‘Forgive me for interrupting, Your Highness,’ Dr Eden interjected firmly as he came and stood by the sofa where Darcy was lying. ‘But, whatever you decide to do, I’d advise that we get Miss Carrick to the hospital first, so that her injury can be X-rayed.’
Coming out of the stupor he’d fallen into while gazing at Darcy, Zafir nodded abruptly. Retrieving his mobile phone from the inside pocket of the Arabian khandoura he wore, he accessed the number of one of London’s most exclusive private hospitals to which he had a direct line. Glancing back at his visitor as he requested an ambulance, he had a sudden notion that she might be going into shock. She was definitely looking a little flushed, and her eyelids had fluttered closed as though she barely had the strength to keep them open.
‘Dr Eden.’ He authoritatively addressed the medic. ‘I must ask you to take Miss Carrick’s temperature. It is my opinion that she looks more than a little unwell.’
‘Do not be too concerned, Your Highness,’ the doctor reassured him. ‘It is quite a natural reaction for a person to feel faint after an accident, but I will gladly do as you ask.’
‘Good.’
A short time later, satisfied with the doctor’s assurance that Darcy’s rise in temperature was not significant enough to be worried about, Zafir waited impatiently for the ambulance to arrive. In turn, their patient had become particularly quiet. She was clearly lost in a mysterious landscape of her own.
He had no idea what she might be thinking. Once upon a time he wouldn’t have had to speculate. He had been as intimately attuned to her thoughts and feelings as any man in love could be, and he still carried the grief of her betrayal like a suppurating wound that would never heal.
The sound of an ambulance siren pierced the room’s growing preternatural stillness, and it had the same impact as a lightning bolt flashing outside.
As Zafir hurried across the oak floor, with Rashid behind him, he called out over his shoulder to the doctor. ‘Keep a watch on Miss Carrick. Don’t let her out of your sight!’
‘What do you think I’m going to do? Perform some kind of magic trick and make myself disappear? I wish,’ Darcy grumbled sarcastically.
Zafir didn’t waste time with a response. He was already at the door, throwing it wide in order to hurry out into the hallway. Addressing the man at the front door, who introduced himself as the chief paramedic, he guided him and the two other crew members into the drawing room. Darcy was resting her back against the curve of the elegant couch, as though it had taken the strain off of the accident, but in spite of her little outburst just now she wasn’t able to hide the fact that she was worried.
So was Zafir. Right then, he honestly didn’t know what he was going to do about the consequences of her fall from his garden wall or her startling reappearance into his life. In truth, he was still knocked sideways at seeing her again. And as yet he hadn’t decided whether to prosecute her or not. Most people in his privileged circle wouldn’t hesitate to throw the book at her.
Hadn’t he learned that she wasn’t to be trusted? people would say. That she was nothing but a sly opportunist...a Jezebel.
He could almost hear the condemning words echo round his brain. Wasting no more time in deliberating—that would have to wait until they had the X-ray results—he instructed the paramedics to do what they had to do and transport her into the ambulance.
She was wearing jeans, a deep blue woollen sweater and a short mustard-coloured jacket. And as the paramedics expertly lifted her slender frame onto a stretcher Zafir observed that she’d grown a little thinner since he’d seen her last. Had she been eating properly?
He remembered that she’d often lose her appetite when she was stressed, and even though he knew he shouldn’t give a jot if something was troubling her, knew that Darcy was nothing to him any more, he gruffly declared, ‘I will accompany my guest to the hospital.’
‘Of course, Your Highness,’ the paramedic responded. ‘Just to reassure you, I think it’s going to be a very straightforward procedure. The young lady will soon be as right as rain again—you’ll see.’
He was a slightly overweight, cheerful-looking man of forty-plus, with a receding hairline—one of those dependable sorts that the great British public would probably describe as ‘the salt of the earth’. And, oddly, Zafir was reassured—at least for a minute or two.
* * *
When the attentive medical