‘Your virtue?’ Tadj commented with amusement. ‘I didn’t know that was on offer.’
‘It isn’t,’ she said with a steely look.
‘Shame,’ he murmured, but with humour tugging at his mouth.
‘Okay,’ she said, decision made. She trusted herself to act sensibly if she accepted his invitation, and it was the opportunity of a lifetime. ‘I have decided to come to the party tonight.’
‘Excellent.’
Tadj’s wolfish smile sent tremors to all her erogenous zones, to the point where she almost missed him adding, ‘No tiaras. It’s just a casual get-together.’
‘Between billionaires?’ she suggested.
‘Between you and me,’ he corrected her.
All she had to do was laugh it off and walk through that door. She need never see him again. Life would return to normal. But normal could be boring, and Tadj was right about adventure beckoning, but only if the adventure was on her terms.
‘Don’t you be late,’ she warned. ‘It’s cold at night, standing in this doorway.’
WHAT HAD SHE DONE? What had she done? How had she allowed herself to be talked into this? Wicked eyes blazing into hers hadn’t helped, Lucy reflected later as she got ready in her small bedsit above the laundry. Nor had feeling as if Tadj and she had known each other longer than it took to drink a couple of cups of coffee. But now was not the time to reflect on why it was possible to feel like that about someone, and not about others. Her decision to go to the party had been made, and she had no intention of skulking in her room, or asking her friends to send Tadj away when he arrived. It would be fascinating to discover how the other half lived, and she could report back to her friends at the laundry.
The only remaining problem was what to wear. She had one decent dress; a cheap sale-rail spectacular she still wasn’t entirely sure was her colour. Red hair and freckles didn’t always blend well with bright red, especially when the weather turned her skin blue with cold. She’d only worn it once, to the Christmas party when everyone made an effort for the sake of the elderly owner of the laundry. Miss Francine went to so much trouble for them, it was the least they could do.
So... Tadj was older than she was, and obviously more sophisticated, and much richer, suggesting he’d be used to women in designer clothes. Too bad, she thought as she plucked the dress from its hanger. He’d pressed her to accompany him tonight, so he’d have to put up with her dress being a bit too short and too tight. The sale rail didn’t offer custom made.
Tadj must be around early thirties, she thought. She was twenty-three, and definitely not glamorous, or sophisticated. Or successful...not yet. But she could keep a roof over her head, which was something to be proud about, and she had the best of friends, which was more important than anything else. And she had no intention of putting out for the price of a gourmet meal, let alone a date on board the flashiest vessel in the harbour, Lucy determined, firming her jaw. A polite thank-you note would have to be enough, she concluded as a noisy group of excited friends, having spied on her from inside the laundry while she was negotiating with Tadj, burst into the room.
‘So?’ they chorused, nearly deafening her as they gathered around. ‘You’ve been seen.’
‘Really?’ She acted daft.
‘With the best-looking man on King’s Dock,’ one of them confided with a jerk of her head to her friends.
‘Hmm.’ Staring heavenwards, Lucy pretended to think about this. If she’d had more experience of men, maybe she could have joked along with her girlfriends, but somehow Tadj was special—unique in her experience—and she didn’t want to exchange banter concerning him while the tender green shoot of a first meeting was still so fragile. ‘I did meet someone who works in security,’ she admitted frankly. ‘He bought me coffee, and that’s all there is to it.’
‘So you won’t be seeing him again?’ her friends pressed, exchanging knowing glances with each other.
‘I didn’t say that. What?’ she demanded when her girlfriends started to laugh.
‘It’s not what you’re telling us, but what you’re not telling us,’ one of them insisted. ‘Unless, of course, you really don’t know?’
‘Don’t know what?’ She’d been warm and safe here, and surrounded by friends since the day she’d arrived. Had she thrown all that away for the sake of a wicked smile and mocking eyes?
‘Didn’t the guy tell you his name?’ one of her closest friends prompted.
‘His name is Tadj. He doesn’t have to hide anything,’ Lucy insisted.
But did he? she wondered. The spear of anxiety had returned, and with it thoughts of her vicious gangland thug of a stepfather, who was currently serving a lengthy term in prison for his crimes. He had plenty to hide, and could still charm the pants off anyone who didn’t know his reputation, and who met him for the first time.
‘Tadj,’ another friend prompted, breaking into Lucy’s troubled thoughts. ‘Did this Tadj have a surname?’
It was a relief when Tadj’s stunningly attractive face swam into Lucy’s mind, completely eclipsing the evil mask of her stepfather. ‘I don’t think so,’ she murmured as she racked her brains. ‘First names are enough at a first encounter over coffee.’
‘Did he tell you about his job?’ another friend pressed.
‘Yes—security. I already told you.’
Her stepfather had eyes like a shark, black, dead and cold, she remembered, without a flicker of expression in them. There was no evil in Tadj’s eyes. He could look a bit fierce at times—all right, most of the time—but there was also good humour and warmth. And, of course, the sexual heat that flared off him. Better not to think about that now.
More friends had joined them, and her tiny room was overcrowded. Miss Francine was known locally as the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, because of her generosity towards the women she hired. The bedsits she let out for a peppercorn rent might be cramped and old-fashioned, but, for women seeking sanctuary, not even the finest five-star hotel could compare.
‘So, I’ve been seen with a man,’ Lucy accepted with a good-humoured shrug, making a joke of it as she stared around.
‘With the Emir of Qalala, no less,’ her best friend informed the rest.
Lucy froze like a child playing statues. ‘What did you say?’
She had heard perfectly well, but...the Emir of Qalala? Tadj was the Emir of Qalala?
She tried and failed to process the information. And what was she supposed to say now? I’m a dope—I didn’t recognise him? I didn’t read the papers today? I don’t watch local TV? All true, unfortunately.
‘Oh, come on—potential Emira,’ her friends coaxed. ‘Tell us what the Emir is really like...’
‘I’m afraid I don’t know,’ Lucy admitted. ‘He seems nice enough.’
‘And as hot as hell,’ one of her friends put in to an agreeing chorus of raunchy suggestions.
‘Might have been,’ Lucy conceded.
‘His photograph is all over the news,’ another friend insisted, in a tone that said she should have known. ‘And nice doesn’t begin to describe him.’
‘Sex on two hard-muscled legs,’ someone else shouted out.
‘With a body made for sin,’ another drooled as she thrust a magazine