Raj’s slightly swollen and very sensual mouth compressed, dark eyes glittering with angry regret. ‘I will not make excuses for myself but I assure you that this will not happen again. Go to sleep, Zoe. You are safe.’
Since she didn’t have much choice, Zoe turned away and snaked back to her own side of the bed, defensively turning her back to him. She had only herself to blame for the way she felt, she thought unhappily. She had told him she wasn’t interested in sex, had shown him her fear and, in return, he had sworn not to touch her. Naturally he was angry that he had broken that pledge. Sixth sense told her that Raj didn’t usually break promises and probably didn’t think much of those who did. But he had warned her earlier that he found her attractive and their current circumstances of false intimacy and mutual dependence only made resistance more difficult.
But for the first time in her life, Zoe had wanted a man and she knew that she wasn’t likely to forget the crazy buzz of excitement that he had unleashed inside her. She, she reflected in mortification, had been more tempted than he was because he had quickly called a halt.
And what had she wanted to do?
To her eternal shame, she had wanted to snatch him back and make him keep on kissing her and, not only that, in the back of her mind she had been well aware that she craved more than that. Somehow, and she really didn’t know how or when it had happened, she was finally ready to try sex, to experiment, but there was no room for sex in their agreement, particularly in a marriage destined to last only a few months.
When she wakened in the morning, Raj was gone, but one of her suitcases sat in a prominent position near the bed. With a smile of relief, she got up and went to open it before going to freshen up. Clad in light cotton trousers and a pink top, teamed with glittery sandals, she found breakfast awaiting her on her return. She was really hungry and tucked in with appetite, although she was no fan of the yogurt drink included, reckoning it was probably one of those healthy options that she rarely enjoyed.
She walked out of the tent and an explosion of utterly unexpected colour greeted her. A field of flowers stretched before her and she walked in amongst the colourful blooms in wonderment at such a floral display in so seemingly inhospitable a landscape.
‘Zoe...stay where you are!’ Raj shouted at her, incensed to see her outside and unprotected and wandering with a toddler’s absence of caution.
‘What on earth—?’ she began, glancing up from the pink, purple and mauve blooms she was studying as she crouched.
But Raj, black curls shining, was sheathed in jeans and a T-shirt and already striding towards her, careless of the flowers he crushed beneath his feet, clearly untouched by the beauty of the scene. He scooped her up bodily in his arms, exclaiming in Arabic. ‘And what the hell are you wearing on your feet?’ he then demanded incredulously.
‘Sandals!’ she snapped. ‘You stood on the flowers of an asphodelus fistulosus and it was the only one in this mass of bugloss.’
‘There are scorpions and snakes, lying in the shade below the flowers!’ Raj bit out, startling her. ‘Here you wear only proper footwear that protects you.’
‘Oh... OK.’ Zoe nodded, recognising concern and superior knowledge when she saw it. ‘I didn’t know...but the flowers were so beautiful.’
Raj carried her back to the tent, thinking that he would never forget that first glimpse of her in that sea of flowers, white-blonde hair falling to her waist and glittering like highly polished platinum in the sunlight, and those huge green eyes blinking dazedly up at him as he lifted her, full of shock and incomprehension of the risk she had taken. He had trod on pretty flowers and it had bothered her. She was sensitive, also possibly a little ditzy to walk out thoughtlessly into what could be a very hostile environment. But it was his duty to take care of her, watch over her, his job to protect. And the enormity of such a responsibility sat heavy on his shoulders for an instant because he had never been responsible for another human being before.
Nor did he want to be responsible, he told himself staunchly. He would take care of her to the best of his ability without ever forgetting that she was not truly his wife and he refused to think of her as such. Zoe was a short-term prospect, not a keeper. He would be ice, he would remain impervious to her charms. He was not about to complicate things by getting too involved with her. He had hard limits and he would observe them, retaining softer feelings, if he could even experience such emotions again, for his future real wife. There would be none to waste on Zoe, even if she looked adorable posed amidst flowers. What an asinine thought that was! He surely had more sense than that, enough intelligence to keep his distance, he instructed himself bitterly; he had learned his lesson with Nabila.
Innocent didn’t mean she was a virgin. He would never believe a woman’s word on that score again! Cute didn’t mean trustworthy. Nabila had lied like a trooper and he had not recognised her deceit. Adorable definitely didn’t mean loveable. Cute and adorable were words that should never feature in his vocabulary because caring about the wrong woman hurt like hell and he wasn’t revisiting that mistake for anybody!
WITHIN AN HOUR a brief flight in the helicopter returned them to the palace.
Zoe walked through an ancient porticoed entrance and instantly felt as though she had been transported into another world and another time. An awe-inspiring giant hallway full of pillars and elaborately tiled walls greeted her as well as a wealth of fawning servants, some of whom were in actual tears welcoming Raj back to his home. Brushing off their blandishments with palpable embarrassment, Raj hurried her on into the building while a cohort of attentive staff fell in behind them.
‘My father has placed us in the oldest part of the palace, which is...unfortunate,’ he told her in a clipped undertone. ‘It is, however, where the Crown Prince always has his apartments, so I cannot fault him for following tradition.’
‘Why’s it unfortunate, then?’ she queried uneasily, even while her eyes fled continually to her surroundings. She was enthralled by the exotic quality of the internal courtyard gardens she espied from the stairs and the fabulous views out over the desert, not to mention the stonework, the domed roofs and the stern palace guards, dressed as though they had stepped out of a medieval painting, armed with swords and great curved knives. The palace was everything she had dreamt of when first coming to Maraban but far more grand and mysterious than she had naïvely expected.
‘Only one bedroom has been prepared for us,’ Raj breathed curtly, his strong jaw line clenching. ‘It will be difficult to give you privacy.’
‘We’ll manage,’ Zoe told him with an insouciance she could not have contemplated before meeting him in the flesh. She knew in her very bones that she could trust Raj, believed that he would never try to force her into anything, but when she pondered that conviction, she was challenged to understand why she had such faith in him. He’d shown her empathy, tenderness, kindness the night before, she reminded herself ruefully.
‘That is very generous of you but not strictly within our agreement,’ Raj pointed out, refusing to be soothed.
‘Can’t be helped,’ Zoe murmured, breathless from trying to keep up with his long stride as he traversed long corridors at speed and mounted flights of stone stairs with lithe ease. ‘This is a very large building.’
‘But not modernised,’ Raj retorted grimly, throwing wide a door before a hovering servant could reach for it and guiding her into a simply vast room in which a bed hunched apologetically in one corner.
‘Plenty of space though!’ Zoe carolled like Job’s comforter.
The remainder of her cases were already parked along with the one that had travelled out to the desert encampment. A maid glided up and tilted one suggestively, looking eager to unpack, while Raj stalked across