‘I JUST wanted to check that you got home okay. The party at the Embassy went on longer than I thought. In fact it was a bit of a bore. I should have stayed right where I was and carried on with exactly what I was doing.’ There was a pause before the distinctive voice deepened. ‘I’ll see you in the office tomorrow, Izzy.’
With an angry jab of her finger Isobel erased the message on the answer-machine and made her way out to her tiny kitchen; where the morning sunshine was streaming in. It was a strangely unsatisfying message from the man she’d given her virginity to—Tariq must have left it late last night, after she’d gone to bed. But what had she expected? Softness and affection? Tender words as an after-sex gesture? Why would he bother with any of that when she’d practically begged him to have sex with her?
She stared at the piece of bread which had just popped out of the toaster and then threw it straight into the bin. She wasn’t in the mood for breakfast. She wasn’t in the mood for anything, come to think of it, except maybe crawling right back under the duvet and staying there for the rest of the week. She certainly wasn’t up for going into work this morning to face her boss after what had happened in the office last night.
She closed her eyes as a shiver raced over her skin, scarcely able to believe what she’d done. Taken complete leave of her senses by letting Tariq have wild sex with her, pressed up against the wall of his office. After years spent wondering if maybe she didn’t have the sexual impulses of most normal women, of wondering if her mother had poisoned her completely against men, she had discovered that she was very normal indeed.
Behind her eyelids danced tormenting memories. Was that why she’d behaved as she had? Because a lifetime of longing had hit her in a single tidal wave? Or was it simply because it was Tariq and subconsciously she’d wanted him all along?
She shuddered. She’d been like a woman possessed—urging him on as if she couldn’t get enough of him. It had been the very first time she’d ever let a man make love to her, and she’d been so greedy for him that she hadn’t wanted to wait. She felt the dull flush of shame as she acknowledged that she hadn’t even been ladylike enough to hold out for doing it in private—in a bed!
Yet she knew what kind of man he was. Hadn’t she seen him in action often enough in the past? She’d lost count of the times she’d been dispatched to buy last-minute presents for his current squeeze—or bouquets of flowers when he was giving chase to a new woman.
And what about when he started to cool towards the object of his affections, so that he became positively arctic overnight, usually three to four weeks into the ‘relationship’? She’d witnessed the faint frown and the shake of his head when she mouthed the name of some poor female whose voice was stuttering down the telephone line as she asked to speak to him. She’d even seen him completely cold-shoulder one hysterical blonde who’d been lying in wait for him outside the Al Hakam building. Then had had his security people bundle her into a car and drive her away at speed. Isobel remembered watching the woman’s beautiful features contorted with rage as she glared out of the back window of the limousine.
Time and time again she had told herself that any woman who went to bed with Tariq needed her head examined—and now she had done exactly that. Was she really planning to join the long line of women who had been intimate with him and then had their hearts broken into smithereens?
She stared at her grim-faced reflection in the mirror.
No, she was not.
She was going to have to be grown-up about the whole thing. Men and women often made passionate mistakes—but intelligent men and women could soon forget about them. She would go in to work this morning and she would show him—and herself—how strong she could be. She would surprise him with her maturity and her ability to pretend that nothing had happened.
So she resisted the urge to wear a new blouse to work, putting on instead a fine wool dress in a soft heathery colour and tying her hair back as she always did.
Outside it was a glorious day, and the bus journey into work should have been uplifting. The pale blue sky and the fluffy clouds, the unmistakable expectancy of springtime, had lightened people’s moods. The bus-driver bade her a cheerful good morning, and the security man standing outside the Al Hakam building was uncharacteristically friendly.
The first part of the day went better than she’d expected—but that was mainly because Tariq was away from the office, visiting the Greenhill Polo Club in Sussex, which he’d bought from the Zaffirinthos royal family last year.
She juggled his diary, answered a backlog of e-mails, and dealt with a particularly persistent sports journalist.
It was four o’clock by the time he arrived back, and Isobel was so deep in work in the outer office that for a moment she didn’t hear the door as it clicked open.
It was only when she lifted her head that she found herself caught in the ebony crossfire of his gaze. His dark hair was ruffled, and he had the faint glow which followed hard physical exercise. He looked so arrogantly alpha and completely sexy in that moment that her heart did a little somersault in her chest, despite all her best intentions. She wondered if he’d been riding one of his own polo ponies while he’d been down at Greenhill, and her imagination veered off the strict course she’d proscribed for it. She’d seen him play polo before, and for a moment she imagined him astride one of his ponies, his powerful thighs gripping the flanks of the magnificent glistening animal…
Stop it, she told herself, as she curved her lips into what she hoped was her normal smile. No fantasising—and definitely no flirting. It’s business as usual. It might be difficult to begin with, but he’s bound to applaud your professionalism in the end.
‘Hello, Tariq,’ she said, her fingers stilling on the keyboard. ‘Good day at Greenhill? I’ve had the Daily Post on the phone all morning. They want to know if it’s true that you’ve been making approaches to buy a defender from Barcelona. I think they were trying to trick me into revealing whether the football club deal is still going ahead. I told him no comment.’
Tariq dropped his briefcase to the floor and frowned. He’d been anticipating…
What?
A blush at the very least! Some stumbled words which would acknowledge the amazing thing which had taken place last night. Maybe even a little pout of her unpainted lips to remind him of how good it had felt to kiss them. But not that cool and non-committal look which she was currently directing at him.
‘I’ll make you a coffee,’ she said, rising to her feet.
‘I don’t want coffee.’
‘Tea?’
‘I don’t want tea either,’ he growled. ‘Come over here.’
‘Where?’
‘Don’t be disingenuous, Izzy. I want to kiss you.’
Desperately she shook her head, telling herself that she couldn’t risk a repeat of what had happened. He was dangerous. She knew that. If she wasn’t careful he would break her heart—just as he’d broken so many others in the past. And the closer she let him get the greater the danger. ‘I don’t want to kiss you.’
He walked across the office towards her, a sardonic smile curving his lips as he reached for her, his hand snaking around her waist as he pulled her close. ‘Well, we both know that’s a lie,’ he drawled, and he brushed his lips over hers.
Isobel swayed, and for a moment she succumbed—the way women sometimes succumbed to chocolate at the end of a particularly rigid diet. Her lips opened beneath his kiss, and for a few brief seconds she felt herself being sucked into a dark and erotic vortex as he pressed his hard body into hers. Her limbs became boneless as she felt one powerful thigh levering its way between hers, so that she gave an instinctive little wriggle of her hips against it.
Until