‘Eleonora...’ Zarif murmured, his rich as dark chocolate deep drawl dancing down her spine like the brush of ghostly fingers from the past. He did not have a definable accent because he had learned English from his British grandmother.
Her throat convulsed. ‘Zarif...’ she responded, struggling to push his name past her lips.
Zarif surveyed her with razor-edged intensity, luxuriant black lashes covertly veiling his acute gaze. He’d had an antique storybook as a child, which featured a lovely pale-haired princess imprisoned in a tower, and had once idly wondered if that had been the mysterious source of his one-time obsession with Ella Gilchrist. She was a beauty of the pure English Rose type with her translucent porcelain skin, bright blue eyes and long waving hair that had the depth and gloss of rich golden honey. Slim and of medium height, she had surprisingly lush curves for her slight frame and she moved as gracefully as a dancer. He scrutinised her soft bee-stung pink mouth and his body betrayed him with an immediate reaction. Anger stirred along with the indignity of the prickling heaviness of arousal at his groin.
She had always contrived to look natural, unadorned, untouched. His even white teeth ground together at that improbability. It had probably only ever been part of the demure fawn act she had staged for his benefit in the days when he had been that credulous and impressionable with the female sex, he reflected with angry resentment.
Time would have moved on for her in any case, just as it had done for him, and he refused to think further along that line because it would cross the bitter defensive boundaries he had raised inside his mind. After all, it was purely due to Ella Gilchrist’s power over him that Zarif had later betrayed every principle he had once respected, and he still reeled from any recollection of the mistakes he had made and the very large dent inflicted on his once stainless sense of honour. She had embarked on a dangerous power game with him. She had played him like a fish on a line, vainly determined to get the ego boost of having royalty propose marriage to her without ever considering acceptance as a viable possibility.
He had considered the matter many times and believed that was the only practical explanation for her behaviour.
‘Won’t you sit down?’ Zarif invited smoothly, his outer assurance absolute. ‘Then you can tell me how I may be of assistance.’
So, Zarif was going to play dumb, Ella reckoned uncomfortably and then wondered if she was being unjust. Was it possible that he hadn’t a clue about the situation her family was in?
She settled into a high-backed, opulently upholstered armchair and went straight to the heart of the subject. ‘Until this week, I had no idea that three years ago you gave Jason a very large loan.’
‘It was not your concern,’ Zarif fielded without skipping a beat.
Ella stiffened defensively. ‘But I wish it had been,’ she fenced back, refusing to be intimidated by his powerful presence. ‘Giving Jason a million pounds without any form of supervision was the equivalent of putting a fox in charge of a hen coop.’
Zarif compressed his handsome mouth. ‘You are not very loyal to your brother.’
‘I wonder how loyal you would feel towards one of your brothers if his wheeling and dealing had plunged your father’s firm into bankruptcy and left your parents facing homelessness. Right now, I’m worried about them, not about my brother,’ Ella spelt out combatively.
A gleam of surprise lightened Zarif’s spectacular eyes for it had been a very long time since anyone had addressed him with such a pronounced lack of respect. Indeed the last to do so had probably been her and he was both aggravated and yet strangely entertained by her boldness. It was a complete novelty in his world, where almost every word addressed to him was wrapped in flattery and a desire to ingratiate and please. His jaw line squared. ‘I was not aware that your parents were involved in this debacle.’
‘They were very much involved the moment Jason became a partner in Dad’s firm. My father was so proud that his son was joining the family business that he gave Jason a completely free hand,’ Ella explained heavily.
‘My business manager has already presented me with a file covering his investigation into how the loan was utilised,’ Zarif revealed gently.
‘So, really it wasn’t very nice of you to ask how you might be of assistance when I arrived!’ Ella shot back at him with spirit. ‘You were being facetious at my expense.’
‘Was I?’ Zarif quipped, scanning the animated expressiveness of her exquisite face, which openly brandished every emotion she experienced. He was convinced he could now read her like a children’s book and recognise her angry resentment and mortification that she should be put in the position of pleading her unworthy brother’s cause.
Zarif, in point of fact, had very few illusions about his former friend’s character. Long ago, Zarif had slowly been repelled by the traits he saw in Jason and would have dropped the friendship much sooner had it not been for the draw of Ella’s presence in the same house. His dark gaze hardened when he thought of the day it had all ended and the persistent bite of his indignation and dissatisfaction stung his ferocious pride afresh, tensing his spectacular bone structure and settling the charismatic curve of his mouth into a hard stubborn line. She had humiliated him, insulted his country and his people and outraged him beyond forgiveness but torture would not have persuaded him to admit that reality.
‘I think so,’ Ella told him squarely, noting the way his long dark lashes shadowed his cheekbones when he glanced down at her, seeing his handsome dark head take on a familiar angle, recalling how he had once listened to her with just that attitude. Unnerved by the memory and the overpowering urge to stare and eat up his heartbreaking gorgeousness without restraint, Ella glanced furiously in the direction of the window like someone calculating the chances of her escape.
Unbelievable as it now seemed, she had once loved Zarif with her whole heart and soul, she recalled painfully. She would have done absolutely anything for him and in return he had hurt her very badly, inflicting a wound and an insecurity that even the passage of three long years had failed to eradicate. Even so, it had been a novel experience to discover that a marriage proposal could actually be wielded like an offensive weapon.
‘When I gave that loan to Jason, it was in the true spirit of generosity,’ Zarif countered with quiet assurance. ‘He was devastated by the loss of his employment and your parents were equally upset on his behalf. I genuinely wanted to help your family.’
‘That may be so,’ Ella conceded uncomfortably, because he seemed sincere, ‘but nothing is ever that simple. Jason needed another job more than he needed that cash. The loan just tempted him into dangerous fantasies about building his own business empire.’
‘As well as the settling of his personal debts, which was dishonest and in direct conflict with the terms on which the loan was made,’ Zarif sliced in calmly, cold censure of such behaviour etched in his lean bronzed features. ‘Your brother squandered the bulk of the money on frivolous purchases, which included a new Porsche and a personalised Range Rover. I will not write off the debt and forgive it. It would be against my principles to overlook what amounts to fraudulent behaviour.’
‘That is all very well, but what about my parents’ position in all this?’ Ella demanded emotively. ‘Do they deserve to suffer for Jason’s mistakes?’
‘That is not for me to answer,’ Zarif responded without expression. ‘They raised Jason, taught him their values. They must know their son best.’
‘No.’ Ella challenged that view with vehement force. ‘They only know the man they wanted him to be, not the man he actually is! At this moment, my mother and father are distraught at what Jason’s done.’
An untimely knock on the door at that instant of high tension heralded the appearance of a waiter with a tray. Ella closed her lips and breathed in deep to master her tumultuous emotions. Coffee was served in fine china cups, cakes proffered. Any appetite Ella might have had following her scratch meals in recent days had been killed stone dead by