The Arabian Mistress

Her humble and penitent frame of mind was already taking a hard beating. Cheeks scarlet at that comeback, Faye nonetheless tried afresh. ‘Tariq…I need to explain and apologise. You wouldn’t give me the chance to explain at the time.’

‘If that is your only reason for being here, I suggest you leave. Sly words and crocodile tears won’t move me. The very thought of your shameless deceit rouses my temper.’

Faye swallowed hard. ‘OK…you have the right to be angry—’

‘Grovelling insincerity makes me angry too,’ Tariq incised even more drily. ‘Cut the phony regrets. I made you an offer yesterday and that’s why you’re here now. Only a tramp would accept a proposition of that nature, so stop pretending to be a sweet, misunderstood innocent!’

Faye, who usually had the mildest temper in the world, was appalled to feel a river of wrath surge like hot lava inside her. She rose from her seat in an abrupt movement. ‘I won’t tolerate being called a tramp! What do you call a man who makes such an offer to a woman?’

‘A man with no illusions…a man who disdains hypocrisy.’

Faye trembled. ‘My goodness, you insult me with a proposition no decent woman would even consider and then you turn round and you flatter yourself from your pinnacle of perfection—’

‘You are not a decent woman. You lie and you cheat and there is nothing you would not do for money.’

‘That is not true…it all started because I told a few stupid white lies and I know it was wrong but I was crazy about you—’

‘Crazy about me?’ Tariq flung back his arrogant dark head and laughed out loud, the sound discordant in the thrumming atmosphere. ‘You let me go for a mere half million pounds. You were so blinded by greed, you were content to settle for whatever you could get!’

Almost light-headed with the force of rage powering her, Faye now fell back a step and gaped at him. ‘I let you go…for half a million pounds? What the heck are you trying to accuse me of doing now?’

Tariq centred his brilliant golden eyes on her, his beautiful mouth hard as granite. ‘You were a cheap bride, I’ll give you that. You may have come with no dowry but I was able to shed you again for a pittance.’

Faye was no longer sure her wobbling knees would hold her upright and she dropped down into the chair again, all temper quenched. Evidently, Tariq had handed over money to somebody, money she knew nothing about. She did not have to think very hard to come up with the name of the most likely culprit. ‘You gave money to Percy…?’ She swallowed back a wail of reproach at that appalling revelation.

‘I gave it to you.’

And like a flash in the darkness, Faye finally recalled the envelope which Tariq had flung at her feet after their fake wedding that dreadful day. Did he recall that he had been talking in Arabic at the time? Didn’t he realise that she had naively assumed that their marriage certificate had been in that envelope? And when she had finally stumbled out of the Embassy of Jumar, heartbroken and with her pride in tatters, she had thrust the envelope at Percy in revulsion and condemnation. ‘Are you satisfied now that you’ve wrecked my life? Burn it…I don’t want to ever be reminded of this day again!’

How many weeks had it been before she’d finally forced herself to see her stepfather again and ask for the certificate in the hope that he had not after all destroyed it? She had believed that she might need that certificate to apply for an annulment in case the extraordinary ease of Jumarian divorce was not actually recognised by English law. But Percy had laughed in her face when she’d mentioned that fear.

‘Don’t be more dumb than you can help, Faye,’ her stepfather had sneered. ‘That wasn’t a legal marriage! It wasn’t consummated and he repudiated you straight after the ceremony. Your desert warrior was just saving face and trying to protect himself with some mumbo-jumbo. Why else did he insist it took place in private in the embassy?’

Percy had followed that up with the explanation that embassies fell under the legal jurisdiction of the countries they belonged to, rather than that of the host country. Faye had felt too mortified by her own obvious ignorance to counter his charge of ‘mumbo-jumbo’. An Arab gentleman dressed just like a Christian vicar had presided over the first part of that ceremony but he had spoken only in Arabic and there was no denying that Tariq himself had called their wedding a complete charade.

Repressing that slew of memories, Faye focused her be-mused thoughts back on the cheque which Tariq had said was in that envelope she had blithely surrendered. She closed her eyes in stricken acknowledgement of yet another insane act of foolishness on her part. She had handed a cheque for half a million pounds to Percy Smythe! But if the cheque had been made out to her, how on earth had he cashed it? For she had not the slightest doubt that it must have been cashed!

‘Tariq…I didn’t know that envelope had a cheque in it.’ Her taut temples were pounding out her rising stress level. ‘I don’t know why you would have chosen to give me money either.’

The silence stretched and stretched.

Overwhelmed by guilty self-loathing and the most drowning sense of sheer inadequacy, Faye stared into space. No wonder Tariq ibn Zachir thought she was a trollop. No wonder he believed that she had conspired with her stepfather to set him up for blackmail. No wonder he was so certain that she was greedy for money. What had Percy done with that half million pounds? Percy, who had been outmanoeuvred in his blackmail attempt by Tariq’s announcement that he would marry Faye. Whatever, that huge sum of money was evidently long gone.

‘I can’t believe that you would want a woman with such low moral standards,’ Faye said finally.

‘You’ll be a novelty.’

‘A woman who doesn’t want you?’ Faye was past caring about how she sounded. Here she was guilty as charged it seemed on every count. Guilty of serial stupidity. Guilty of being a teenager madly in love and doing all the wrong things in her efforts to make him love her back. She had done a marvellous job on him, hadn’t she? Thanks to her own lies, he thought she was the most dishonest brazen hussy he had ever met!

‘Is that a challenge?’

Faye gave him a dulled look. Tariq gazed back at her with a sizzling force that penetrated her veil of numb defeat. ‘No!’

‘You will be my mistress for as long as I want you.’ Tariq surveyed her as if he had just stamped a brand of ownership on her, his male satisfaction unconcealed.

Seriously unnerved by that statement of intent, Faye leapt back out of her seat again, her hands clenched into fists. ‘You can’t still want me…you never wanted me that much to begin with! This is just a giant ego-trip. It’s mindless revenge—’

‘Not mindless. I never act without forethought.’ Tariq stretched out an imperious hand. ‘Come here…’

Faye went into retreat rather than advance. Shark-infested water might as well have separated them. ‘I didn’t say I agreed.’

‘Then make your mind up.’

Faye folded her arms in a defensive movement. ‘Adrian?’

‘He goes home to England on the first available flight.’

Faye shook her head, tried to still the nervous tremor in her lower limbs. ‘I’m not what you think I am. I can’t imagine being any man’s mistress. I won’t fit the bill—’

‘You underestimate yourself.’

Tariq extended his hand again, glittering golden eyes fixed to her with intimidating cool and expectancy.

‘If you think I’m going to come running every time you snap your imperious fingers—’

‘Sooner or later, you will. I have immense patience.’

That quiet confidence took Faye wholly aback and froze her to the spot. ‘You’re crazy…’

A slight smile curved his lips. ‘You’re scared.’

‘Like heck I am…I’m just fed up with all this nonsense!’

The smile acquired amusement, veiled eyes resting on her slight, taut frame with an intimate intensity she could feel as surely as if he had touched her. ‘I didn’t sleep last night. I couldn’t sleep, not even after a couple of cold showers. I knew you were mine then.’

‘But you…you hate me!’ Faye slung back at him in vehement protest.

‘Hate? Too strong a word.’ Tariq strolled closer like a hunter set on closing in for the kill but doing so at his own leisure. ‘Is that why you look sick with fright? Is that fertile imagination of yours throwing up images of gothic whips and chains? Do you really think I would inflict a single bruise on that perfect skin of yours? You’ll cry out with pleasure, not pain, in my bed.’

Faye was so mortified by that assurance, she whirled away from him. It was a mistake. He closed his arms round her and turned her back to him. With one hand, he loosened the clasp at the nape of her neck and cast it aside. Gazing down at her with scorching golden eyes, he threaded long fingers through her long pale blonde hair and tugged her head back in a gentle motion.

‘Tariq—’

‘You want me.’ A lean hand pressed to the shallow indentation of her rigid spine and curved her into intimate contact with his long muscular thighs.

Suddenly it was a challenge to talk and breathe at the same time. She stared up at him, trying to hold herself rigid but awesomely conscious of the all-pervasive strength of his powerful physique. ‘No—’

‘You’re trembling—’