‘Why don’t you tell me about them?’
‘I’m okay with their work,’ she admitted, hearing in her voice that she had made it sound like a lie.
‘Expand a little,’ Raffa encouraged, pouring a glass of water for her.
How much did he want to know? She had never discussed her parents’ work with anyone outside the family before. How could she, when she could never take a man home to ‘meet the family’, knowing that any boyfriend would only end up as a lab rat to be quizzed and evaluated by her sex therapist parents before being added to their latest batch of trial statistics.
‘Do you know my parents’ work?’
‘I know their work well,’ he said, as casually as if her parents ran a market garden. ‘They’re world-renowned academics; it would be hard not to.’
He wasn’t mocking her, as so many others had. He was genuinely interested, she realised.
‘I never forget we are all products of our background, to some extent, and so it’s only natural for me to be curious about your formative influences.’
‘And about whether I can talk of them without embarrassment?’ she said bluntly. ‘I’m proud of my parents’ achievements.’ She was. They had helped so many people. Except for her, of course. But it went without saying that that had never been on the cards.
‘So you’ve grown up in a loving family?’
‘Absolutely. My parents may seem unconventional to some people, but they always put me first and were very good role models.’
Raffa eased back, appearing to consider this. She was overheating. It was the first time she had talked so openly about a side of her life that, for all the sex talk round the dinner table, was repressed. In spite of the casual way her parents discussed intimacy, she had never found it possible to open up. Her parents had heard it all before, she had reasoned when she was younger, and she knew it would only embarrass them to realise what a failure their daughter was in an area in which they specialised.
‘You’re very lucky,’ Raffa said. ‘Tragically, I never knew my parents.’
His manner prevented further discussion, and she respected his silence. What she had so reluctantly revealed was insignificant by comparison to what Raffa had just told her. It was so totally unexpected she sat stunned for a moment. They had both opened up—perhaps more than they had intended to. How often did that happen? Casey wondered.
‘That’s why this country means so much to me.’ Raffa’s eyes were burning with passion. ‘I am investing everything I have, everything I am, in the future of A’Qaban. I have trained my whole life for this moment.’
Raffa’s words moved her deeply and her own concerns paled into insignificance. But he didn’t need her to be ‘moved’, he needed action—and she was confident she could give him exactly what he wanted if he would give her the chance.
‘I’ll support you in any way I can,’ she assured him. ‘We’re going to make a success of this.’
Raffa stood up, preparing to leave. ‘Why do I believe you, Casey Michaels?’
‘Because I haven’t let you down yet?’ The wry tug of her lips acknowledged that she hadn’t been tested yet either. But she would come through for him. She savoured the moment her hand remained in Raffa’s warm, secure grip. She would run this auction for him and his charity and make it work—whatever it took.
Releasing her hand, Raffa shot a look at his no-nonsense steel watch. This was the signal that brought their informal lunch meeting to a close. There was a subtle change in him, she thought, as if he had returned everything to a strictly business footing. Which it always had been for him, she reminded herself.
They left the club with Raffa’s security guards falling into silent formation behind them. Some people outside on the pavement braved the guards’ stern, forbidding faces to call out in support of their new young leader. As Raffa paused to acknowledge these salutations Casey thought how fine the line was between success and disaster. She had so very nearly been sent home on the next plane, and now she had been given a task that exceeded even her wildest expectations.
‘Am I walking too fast for you?’ Raffa turned to look for her.
‘No, this is just fine,’ she said, hurrying after him. Tilting her chin at a determined angle, she assured him, ‘Don’t you worry, I’ll keep up…’
Casey shivered with awareness as Raffa held the car door for her. She passed close enough to feel his energy and inhale his cologne. Her parents had told her that it would take a certain type of man to end Casey’s self-imposed chastity. And she had no doubt Raffa was that type of man. But imagining anything would happen between them was shooting for the stars, and she was certain that this wasn’t what her serious-minded parents had had in mind for her.
‘I have a question for you,’ he said as they settled in the car.
She had to shake her mind free of the illusory promise of erotic instruction at his hands and focus carefully. He would be a master of the art. Raffa had that sort of promise in his eyes. Shake it off!
‘Yes?’
‘If you had to live in A’Qaban, Casey, could you?’
She gave him her honest thoughts. ‘I’d have to—at least until I was confident my side of the operation over here was running smoothly.’
‘But could you?’ he repeated.
She resisted the lure of Raffa’s firm, sensual lips, only to lock in combat with his stare. ‘I’ll live anywhere I must in order to give the most to my job.’
‘Wouldn’t your parents miss you?’
‘Of course they would, and I’d miss them dreadfully—but, as they quote Kahlil Gibran to me non-stop, I’m guessing they’d be a little bit pleased for me too.’
‘Khalil Gibran? The Lebanese-American author and philosopher?’ His dark eyes lit with remembered pleasure. ‘Do you remember the quote?’
‘Of course I do.’ She smiled. ‘“You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.”’
There was a moment of stillness and then Raffa nodded his head, reminding Casey that he’d been forced by tragedy to be both bow and arrow.
As he started the engine she noticed the scar on his face for the first time. It ran from just below his eye to the corner of his mouth, and must have been the result of a serious injury. She guessed it was a legacy of his time in the Special Forces, and wondered how hard that had been for Raffa, with no family to anchor him. He had hinted at some catastrophe in his youth, and she guessed it must have denied him the love she’d known.
She was gaining in confidence all the time, Casey realised, and a lot of that was due to Raffa. It was time to remind herself that he was a king, and that she was growing far too interested in him.
Too interested? She could so very easily fall in love with a man with whom she seemed to share many of the same goals, Casey realised with a jolt, as Raffa released the brake and turned the wheel in the direction of her hotel.
* * *
Having furnished her with an inventory of the items she would have to sell, Raffa left Casey at the door to her suite.
‘And I have how long to do this?’ she said, fingering the thick sheaf of paper.
‘Forty-eight hours.’
‘Forty-eight—’ She almost choked, but remembered it was crucial to remain positive and clear-headed if she was to have a chance of doing this. ‘Forty-eight hours,’ she repeated. Her thoughts might be tumbling