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The Call of the Desert
ABBY GREEN
Consumed by the heat of the desert Twelve years ago Julia lost her heart to Sheikh Kaden in the scorching Burquati desert. Sizzling nights in the sand dunes under a blanket of stars made it seem as if they were the only two people in the world. Until bitter betrayal destroyed everything…Julia meets Kaden again by chance – although the cynicism in his eyes and the sharp suit covering his powerful body make the Sheikh virtually unrecognisable. Julia knows she shouldn’t ignore the warning shadows of their past, but Kaden’s earthy sexual magnetism makes the call of the desert utterly overpowering…
‘I thought the storm was over.’
With a move so smooth she didn’t even feel it happening Kaden had put his hands on her arms and pulled her closer. Their bodies were almost touching.
‘I think the storm is just beginning.’
For a second confusion made Julia’s head foggy. She couldn’t seem to be able to separate out his words. And then she realised—when she saw how hot his gaze had become and how it moved down to her mouth. Desire was stamped onto the stark lines of his face and Julia’s heart beat fast in response. Because it was a look that had haunted her dreams for ever.
Desperately trying to fight the waves of need beating through her veins, she shook her head and tensed, trying to pull back out of Kaden’s grip.
‘Kaden, no. I shouldn’t be here … We shouldn’t have met again.’
Kaden shook his head, and a tiny harsh smile touched his mouth. ‘From the moment we stood in front of each other in that room the possibility of this has existed.’
Bitterness rang in Julia’s voice. ‘The possibility of this stopped existing twelve years ago in Burquat—or have you forgotten what happened?’
About the Author
ABBY GREEN got hooked on Mills & Boon
romances while still in her teens, when she stumbled across one belonging to her grandmother in the west of Ireland. After many years of reading them voraciously, she sat down one day and gave it a go herself. Happily, after a few failed attempts, Mills & Boon bought her first manuscript.
Abby works freelance in the film and TV industry, but thankfully the four a.m. starts and the stresses of dealing with recalcitrant actors are becoming more and more infrequent, leaving her more time to write!
She loves to hear from readers, and you can contact her through her website at www.abby-green.com. She lives and works in Dublin.
Recent titles by the same author:
THE SULTAN’S CHOICE
SECRETS OF THE OASIS
The Call
of the Desert
Abby Green
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
This is for India Grey, Natalie Rivers
and Heidi Rice—I couldn’t do this job without any of
you, and it wouldn’t be half as much fun. Thank you.
(My phone company also extends its thanks
for keeping them in business.)
CHAPTER ONE
“THE Emir of Burquat. His Royal Highness Sheikh Kaden Bin Rashad al Abbas.”
Kaden looked out over the thronged ballroom in London’s exclusive Royal Archaeology Club. Everyone was staring at him and a hush had descended on the crowd, but that didn’t bother Kaden. He was used to such attention.
He walked down the ornate marble steps, one hand in his trouser pocket, watching dispassionately as people were caught staring and turned away hurriedly again. Well, to be more accurate, the men turned away and the women’s looks lingered—some blatantly so. Like that of the buxom waitress who was waiting at the bottom of the stairs to hand him a glass of champagne. She smiled coquettishly as he took the glass but Kaden had already looked away; she was far too young for his jaded heart and soul.
Ever since he’d been a teenager he’d been aware he possessed a certain power when it came to women. When he looked in the mirror, though, and saw his own harsh features staring back at him, he wondered cynically if all they felt was the seductive urge to wipe away that cynicism and replace it with something softer. He had been softer … once. But it was so long ago now that he could hardly remember what it had felt like. It was like a dream, and perhaps like all dreams it had never been real.
Just then a movement on the other side of the room caught his eye, and a glimpse of a shiny blonde head among all the darker ones had his insides contracting. Still. Even now. He cursed himself and welcomed the sight of the club’s managing director hurrying towards him, wondering angrily why he hadn’t yet mastered such arbitrarily reflexive responses to the memory of something that had only ever been as flimsy as a dream.
Julia Somerton’s heart was palpitating, making her feel a little dizzy.
Kaden.
Here.
In the same room.
He’d descended the stairs and disappeared into the throng of people, despite his superior height. But that first image of him, appearing in the doorway like some sleek, dark-haired god, would be etched on her retina for ever. It was an image that was already carved indelibly onto her heart. The part of her heart that she couldn’t erase him from, no matter how much she tried or how much time passed.
She’d noted several things in the space of that heart-stopping split second when she’d heard his name being called and had looked up. He was still as stupendously gorgeous as he’d been when she’d first met him. Tall, broad and dark, with the exotic appeal of someone not from these lands—someone who had been carved out of a much more arid and unforgiving place. He’d been too far away for her to see him in any detail, but even from where she’d stood she’d felt the impact of that black gaze—eyes so dark you could lose yourself for ever. And hadn’t she once?
Some small, detached part of herself marvelled that he could have such an effect on her after all this time. Twelve long years. She was a divorcеe now, a million miles from the idealistic girl she’d once been. When she’d known him.
The last time she’d seen Kaden she’d just turned twenty—weeks before his own twentieth birthday. Something she’d used to tease him mercilessly about: being with an older woman.
Her heart clenched so violently that she put a hand to her chest, and one of her companions said with concern, “Julia, dear, are you all right? You’ve gone quite pale.”
She shook her head, and placed her drink down on a nearby table with a sweaty hand. Her voice came out husky, rough, “It must be the heat … I’ll just get some air for a minute.”
Blindly Julia made her way through the crowd, pushing, not looking left or right, heading for where patio doors led out to a terrace which overlooked manicured gardens. She only vaguely heard her colleague call after her, “Don’t go too far—you’ve got to say your piece soon!”
When she finally reached the doors and stepped out, she sucked in huge lungfuls of air. She felt shaky and jelly-like—at a remove from everything. She recognised shock. It was mid-August and late evening. The city air was heavy and oppressively warm. The faintly metallic scent of a storm was in the atmosphere. Huge clouds sat off in the distance, as if waiting for their cue to roll in. The garden here was famous for its exotic species of plants which had been brought back by many an adventurer and nurtured over the years by the dedicated gardeners.
But Julia was blind to all that.
Her hands gripped the wall so hard her knuckles shone white in the gathering twilight. She was locked in a whirlpool of memories, so many memories, and they were as bright and as painfully bittersweet as if it had all happened yesterday.
Ridiculously tears pricked her eyes, and an awful sense of loss gripped her. Yet how could this be? She was a thirty-two-year-old woman. Past her prime, many people would say, or perhaps coming into it, others would maintain. She felt past her prime. The day she’d flown away from the Emirate of Burquat on the Arabian Peninsula something inside her had withered and died. And even though she’d got on with her studies and surpassed her own dreams to gain a master’s degree and a doctorate, and had married and loved her husband in her own way, she’d never truly felt again. The reason for that was in the room behind her, a silent malevolent presence.
God, she’d loved him so much—
“Dr Somerton, it’s time for your speech.”
An urgent voice jarred her out of the memories. Dredging up strength from somewhere deep inside her, from a place she hadn’t needed to visit in a long time, Julia steeled herself and turned around. She was going to have to stand up in front of all these people and speak for fifteen minutes, all the while knowing he was there, watching her.
Remembering?
Perhaps he wouldn’t even remember … Perhaps he’d struggle to place her in his past. Her mouth became a bitter line. He’d certainly had enough women to make her blur into the crowd—not to mention a marriage of his own. She hated to admit that she was as aware of his exploits as the next person on the street who read the gossip rags on their lunchbreaks.
Maybe he’d wonder why she looked familiar. Acute pain gripped her and she repressed it brutally. Perhaps he wouldn’t remember the long nights in the desert when it had felt as if they were the only two people in the world underneath a huge blanket of stars. Perhaps he wouldn’t remember the beautiful poignancy of becoming each other’s first lover and how their na?ve lovemaking had quickly developed beyond naivetеe to pure passion and an insatiable need for one another.
Perhaps he wouldn’t remember when he’d said to her one night: “I will love you always. No other woman could ever claim my heart the way you have.”
And perhaps he wouldn’t remember that awful day in the beautiful Royal Palace in Burquat when he’d become someone cold and distant and cruel.
Reassuring herself that a man like Kaden would have consigned her to the dust heap of his memories, and stifling the urge to run from the room, Julia pasted a smile on her face and followed her colleague back into the crowd, trying desperately to remember what on earth she was supposed to talk about.
“Ah, Sheikh Kaden, there you are. Dr Julia Somerton is just about to speak. I believe she used her research in Burquat for her masters degree. Perhaps you met her all those years ago? She’s involved in fundraising now, for various worldwide archaeological projects.”
Kaden looked at the red-faced man who’d forced his way through the crowd to come and join him, and made a non-committal response. The man was the managing director of the club, who had invited him with a view to wooing funds out of him. Kaden was trying to disguise the uncomfortable jolt of shock to hear the name Julia. Despite the fact that he’d never met another Julia in Burquat, he told himself that there might have been another student by that name and he wouldn’t have necessarily been aware, considering his lack of interest in all things archaeological after she’d left.
This was his first foray back into that world and it would be ironic in the extreme if he was to meet her. She had been Julia Connors, not Somerton. Although, as an inner voice pointed out, she could be married by now. In fact, why wouldn’t she be? He had been married, after all. At the memory of his marriage Kaden felt the usual cloud of black anger threaten to overwhelm him. He resolutely pushed it aside. He was not one to dwell on the past.
And yet one aspect of his past which had refused to dissolve into the mists of time was facing him right now. If it was her. Unaccountably his heart picked up pace.
A hush descended over the crowd. Kaden looked towards the front of the room and the world halted on its axis for a terrifying moment when he saw the slim woman in the black cocktail dress ascending the steps to the podium. It was her. Julia. In a split second he was transported back to the moment when he’d realised that, because of lust, he’d placed her on a pedestal that she had no right to grace. And only that realisation had stopped him making the biggest mistake of his life.
Shaking his mind free of the disturbingly vivid memory, Kaden narrowed his eyes on Julia. Her voice was husky; it had caught him from the first moment they’d met. She’d been wearing a T-shirt and dusty figure-hugging jeans. Her long hair had fallen in bright tendrils over her shoulders. A safari-style hat had shaded her face from the sun. Her figure had been lithe and so effortlessly sensual he’d lost the power of speech.
If anything she was more beautiful than that first day he’d seen her. Time had hollowed out her cheeks, adding an angularity that hadn’t been there before. She’d only been nineteen. Her face had still held a slight hint of puppy-plumpness. As had her body. From what he could see now, she looked slimmer, with a hint of enticing cleavage just visible in the V of her dress. In fact there was a fragility about her that hadn’t been there before.
She was a million miles from that first tantalising dusty image he held in his mind’s eye; she was elegance personified now, with her long blonde hair pulled back into a low ponytail. The heavy side parting swept it across her forehead and down behind one ear. Her groomed appearance was doing little, though, to stop the torrent of carnal images flooding Kaden’s mind—and in such lurid detail that his body started to harden in response.
He would have anticipated that she’d have no effect on him. Much like any ex-lover. But the opposite was true. This was inconceivable. He had to concede now, with extreme reluctance, that no woman since this woman had exerted such a sensual hold over him. He’d never again lost control as he had with her—every time.
And he’d never felt the same acrid punch of jealousy to his gut as when he’d seen her in another man’s arms, with another man’s mouth on hers, tasting her … feeling her soft curves pressed against him. The vividness of that emotion was dizzying in its freshness, and he fought to negate it, too stunned by its resurgence to look too closely into what it meant.
This woman had been a valuable lesson in never allowing his base nature to rule his head or his heart again. Yet the years of wielding that control felt very flimsy how he was faced with her again.
More than a little bewildered at this onslaught of memories, and irrationally angry that she was here to precipitate them, Kaden felt his whole body radiate displeasure. Just then a rumble of laughter trickled through the gathered crowd in reaction to something she’d said. Kaden’s mouth tightened even more, and with that tension making his movements jerky he said something about getting some air and stalked towards the open patio doors.
As soon as Julia’s speech was over he was going to get out of there and forget that he’d ever seen her again.
Julia stepped down off the dais. She’d faltered during her speech for long seconds when she’d noticed Kaden head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd, at the back of the room like a forbidding presence, those dark eyes boring through her. And then with an abrupt move he’d moved outside. Almost as if disgusted by something she’d said. It had taken all her powers of concentration to keep going, and she’d used up all her reserves.
To her abject relief she saw her boss at the fundraising foundation come towards her. He put a hand to her elbow and for once she wasn’t concerned about keeping distance between them. Ever since her divorce had come through a year ago Nigel had been making his interest clear, despite Julia’s clear lack of encouragement. Tonight, though, she needed all the support she could get. If she could just get through the rest of the relentless schmoozing and get out of there perhaps she could pretend she’d never seen Kaden.
Nigel was babbling excitedly about something as he steered her away, but she couldn’t even hear him above the din of chatter and the clink of glasses. People were making the most of the gratis champagne reception. Julia craved that sweet oblivion, but it was not to be.
With dread trickling into her veins and her belly hollowing out, she could already see where they were headed—towards someone at the back of the room, near the terrace. Someone with his back to them: tall, broad and powerful. Thick ebony-black hair curled a touch too much over the collar of his jacket, exactly the way it had when she’d first met him.
Like a recalcitrant child she tried to dig her heels into the ground, but Nigel was blithely unaware, whispering confidentially, “He’s an emir, so I’m not sure how you have to address him. Maybe call him Your Highness just in case. It would be such a coup to interest him in the foundation.”
In that split second Julia had a flashback to when she’d met Kaden for the first time. She’d only been working on the dig for a couple of weeks, had still been getting used to the intense heat, when a pair of shoes had come into her line of vision. She’d barely looked up.
“Don’t step there. Whoever you are. You’re about to walk on top of a fossil that’s probably in the region of three thousand years old.”
The shoe had hovered in mid-air and come back down again in a safer spot, and a deep, lightly accented voice had drawled seductively, “Do you always greet people with such enthusiasm?”
Julia gritted her teeth. Since she’d arrived she’d been the object of intense male interest and speculation. She was under no illusions that it was most likely because she was blonde and the only female under fifty on the dig. “If you don’t mind, I’m in the middle of something here.”
The shoes didn’t move and the voice came again, sounding much more arrogant and censorious. “I do mind, actually—I am the Crown Prince and you will acknowledge me when I speak to you.”
She’d completely forgotten that the Emir was due to visit with some important guests that day—and his son. Dismay filling Julia, she put down her brush and finally looked up, and up, and up again, to see a tall, broad figure standing over her. The sun was in her eyes so all she could make out was his shape—which was formidable.
Taking off her gloves, she slowly stood, and came face to face with the most handsome man she’d ever seen in her life. Robes highlighted his awe-inspiring height and broad shoulders. He wore a turban, but that couldn’t hide the jet-black hair curling down to his collar, or the square cut of his jaw. The most mesmerising dark eyes.
Feeling more than a little overwhelmed she took off her hat and held out her hand …
“And this is Dr Somerton, who you just heard. As our funds manager she’s been instrumental in making sure that funding reaches our digs all over the world.”
Past merged into present and Julia found that she was holding out her hand in an automatic response to the introduction. She was now facing Kaden, and much as she’d have loved to avert her gaze he took up a lot of space, completely arresting in a dark suit with a snowy-white shirt open at the neck, making him stand out from the men in the crowd who were more formally dressed. He looked darker, and infinitely more dangerous than any other man there.
There was no such thing as sliding towards middle age with a receding hairline and expanding gut for him. He oozed virility, vitality, and a heady, earthy sexual magnetism far more powerful than she remembered. There was not a hint of softness about him, or his face. He was all lean angles. The blade of his slightly crooked nose highlighted a sense of danger and a man in his vigorous prime. She remembered the day he’d got that injury, while playing his country’s brutal national game.
Her heart squeezed as she recalled that moment and saw the new harshness stamping the lines of his face. She wondered how long it had been there. Her eyes slid down helplessly … his mouth hadn’t changed. It was as sensual as she remembered, with its full lower lip and the slightly thinner, albeit beautifully shaped upper lip. She’d used to love tracing that line with her finger. Heat flared in her belly. And with her tongue. It was a mouth which held within it the power to inspire a need in the most cynical of women to make this man hers.
The strength of that need washed through Julia, and dismay gripped her. She couldn’t still want this man—not after all these years. Her hand hovered in mid-air as the moment stretched out between them. He was looking at her as intently as she was looking at him, but it was no consolation. There was no polite spark of recognition, only an extreme air of tension. He knew her, but clearly did not relish meeting her again.
Julia realised that just as his big hand enveloped her much smaller one, and a million and one sensations exploded throughout her body.
Far too innately civilised to be deliberately rude and ignore Julia’s hand, as he perversely longed to do, Kaden reached out to take it. He instinctively gritted his jaw against the inevitable physical contact but it was no good. At the first touch of his fingers to that small, soft hand he wanted to slide his thumb with sensual intent along the gap between her thumb and forefinger in a lover’s caress. He wanted to curl his fingers around her palm and feel every delicate bone.
He wanted to relearn this woman in an erotic way that was so forceful it set off a maelstrom of biblical proportions inside him. And somewhere in his head he wondered when had just shaking a woman’s hand ever precipitated such an onslaught of need.
A voice answered him: about twelve years ago, in the searing heat of the afternoon sun amongst dusty relics, when this same woman had stood before him with a shy smile on her face, her hand in his. And, much to his chagrin, Kaden felt his intention to walk away and forget he’d seen her again dissolve in a rush of lust.
CHAPTER TWO
A MINOR earthquake was taking place within Julia’s body, and Kaden seemed loath to let her hand go—about as reluctant as she was for him to let it go. The realisation shamed her, and yet to her horror she couldn’t seem to muster up the energy to extricate her hand from his. She noticed the look in his eyes change to something ambiguous, and every cell in her blood jumped and fizzed in reaction.
An emotion which felt awfully poignant and yearning was threatening. She struggled to remember where she was, and with whom, but it was almost impossible. The reality that it was Kaden in front of her was too much to take in. All she could do was react.
As suddenly as Julia had registered the changed intensity in Kaden’s gaze locked onto hers it was gone, and his eyes moved to take in their companions. Julia had forgotten all about them. Her hand was dropped as summarily as if he had flung it away from him, and a dark cloud of foreboding seemed to blot out the sultry evening just visible through the open patio doors. She shivered in response, and wanted to hug her arms around her body.
Nigel was saying nervously, “His Royal Highness the Emir of Burquat,” and Julia was wondering a little hysterically if she should be curtseying. She didn’t trust her voice to speak and then Kaden’s black gaze was back on her.
“Dr Somerton.”
His voice was so achingly familiar that she longed to be able to hold onto something for balance, only dimly registering the cool tone.
A small anxious-looking man with a red face was beside Kaden. Julia recognised him as the director of the club. He was talking, but his voice seemed to be coming from far away,
“Perhaps you have met before, Doctor? When you were in Burquat during your studies?”
A sharp pain lanced Julia and she looked at Kaden, not sure what to say.
His mouth turned up in a parody of a smile and he drawled, “I seem to have some vague recollection. What year were you there?”
The slap of rejection was so strong it almost made Julia take a step back. The awful sense of isolation she’d felt when she’d left Burquat was as fresh now as twelve years ago. That this man could transport her so easily back to those painful emotions was devastating. Perhaps he could tell just how excruciating this was for her—hadn’t she all but thrown herself at him that last day? Perhaps he thought he was sparing her some embarrassment now?
She forced an equally polite and distant smile to her lips. “It’s so long ago now I can barely recall it myself.”
She switched her brittle-feeling smile to the other men. “Gentlemen, if you don’t need me for this discussion I’d appreciate it if you would excuse me. I just got back from New York this afternoon, and I’m afraid the jet lag is catching up with me.”
“Your husband is waiting for you at home? Or perhaps he’s here in the room?”
Shock at the bluntness of Kaden’s question slammed into Julia. How dared he all but pretend not to know her and then ask such a pointedly personal question? Her jaw felt tight. “For your information, Your Highness, I am no longer married. My husband and I are divorced.”
Kaden did not like the surge of emotion that ripped through him at her curt answer. He had had an image of her returning to a cosy home to be greeted by some faceless man and had felt a blackness descend over his vision, forcing him to ask the question. Even realising that, he couldn’t stop himself asking, “So why are you still using your married name?”
Julia’s face tightened. “I’m involved in various contracts and it’s simply been easier to leave it for the moment. I have every intention of changing it back in the future.”
It was as if Kaden was enclosed in a bubble with this woman. The other men went unnoticed, forgotten. Unbidden and unwelcome emotion was clouding everything.
At that moment Nigel, Julia’s boss, moved perceptibly closer to her, taking her elbow in his hand, staking a very public claim.
Only moments ago she’d welcomed his support and his tacit interest as a barrier. Now Julia chafed and made a jerky move away, causing Nigel’s hand to drop. She could feel his wounded look without even seeing it, and her head began to throb. The club’s director who still stood beside Kaden, was looking a bit bewildered at the obvious tension in the air, which was making a lie of the fact that she and Kaden claimed to barely know one another.
She knew she’d only been introduced as a polite formality. She wasn’t expected to take part in Nigel’s wooing of new donors. Her job started when they had to decide how those funds would be best used. If she’d known for a second that Kaden was due to be here this evening, she would have made certain not to come.
Determined to succeed this time, Julia stepped away from the trio of men on very shaky legs. “Please, gentlemen—if you’ll excuse me?”
Ignoring the dagger looks from Nigel, and the dark condemnation emanating from Kaden like a physical force, she turned on her heel and walked away. It seemed to take an age to get through the crowd. She was almost at the door when she felt a hand on her arm, but it didn’t induce anything more than irritation and she reluctantly turned to face Nigel. His handsome face was red.
“Are you going to tell me what that was all about?”
Once again Julia pulled her arm free and kept walking. “It was about nothing, Nigel. I’m tired and I want to go home, that’s all.”
She hoped the panic she felt at being there for one second longer than was absolutely necessary didn’t come through in her voice. She reached the cloakroom and handed in the ticket for her jacket, noticing a visible tremor in her hand.
“So you two obviously know each other, then? I’d have to be deaf, dumb and blind to fail to notice that atmosphere.”
Julia sighed. “We knew each other a long time ago, Nigel.” She turned and put on her jacket, which had just been handed to her, and pointed out gently, “Not that it’s any of your business.”
His face became mottled. “It is my business when the most potentially lucrative donor we’ve had in years could get scared off because he’s had some kind of previous relationship with my funds manager.”
Julia stopped and faced Nigel, forcing herself to stay civil. “I’m sure he’s mature enough not to let a tiny incident like this change his mind about donating funds to research. Anyway, it’s all the more reason for me to leave and stay out of your way.”
She turned to go and Nigel caught her hand. Gritting her teeth at his persistence, Julia turned back, her stomach churning slightly at the sweaty grip of his hand—so far removed from the cool yet hot touch from Kaden.
He was conciliatory. “Look, I’m sorry, Julia. Forgive me? Let me take you out to dinner this week.”
Julia fought back the urge to say yes, which would be the easy thing to do, to placate him. Seeing Kaden had upset any equilibrium she thought she might have attained since her divorce had become final. Since she had last seen him. And that knowledge was too frightening to take in fully.
She shook her head, “I’m sorry, Nigel. I have thought about it … and I’m just not ready for dating.” She pulled her hand from his and backed away. “I’m really sorry. I’ll see you tomorrow in the office.” Already she could imagine his sulky mood at being turned down and dreaded it.
She turned and walked quickly to the door. Her heart was hammering, and all she wanted was to escape to the quiet solace of her house where she could get out of her tailored dress and curl up. She wanted to block out the evening’s events and the fact that her past had rushed up to meet her with the force of a sledgehammer blow.
As soon as Julia had turned and walked away Kaden should have been putting her out of his mind and focusing on the business at hand, as he would have with any other ex-lover. But he wasn’t. He found that the urge to go after her was nigh on impossible to resist. Especially when that obsequious man who’d had the temerity to put his hand on her had followed her like a besotted lap dog.
Kaden made his excuses to the still bewildered-looking director of the club and forged his way through the crowd, ignoring the not so hushed whispers as he passed people by. His blood was humming. He felt curiously euphoric, and also uncultivated—like a predator in the desert, an eagle soaring high who had spotted its prey and would not rest until it was caught.
It was an uncomfortable reminder of how he’d felt from the moment he’d first met Julia, when sanity had taken a hike and he’d given himself over to a dream as dangerous as any opiate could induce. But this feeling was too strong to deny or rationalise.
The fact that she represented a lapse in emotional control he’d never allowed again only caught up with him when he reached the lobby and saw it was empty.
She’d disappeared.
So what was this desolation that swept through him? And what was this rampant need clawing through him to find her again? He was done with Julia. He’d been done with her a long time ago.
Disgusted with himself for this lapse, Kaden called up his security, determined to get out of there and do what he’d set out to do all along: forget that he’d ever seen Julia Connors—he scowled, Somerton—again.
He had no desire to revisit a time when he’d come very close to letting his heart rule his head, forgetting all about duty and responsibility in the pursuit of personal fulfilment. He didn’t have that luxury. He’d never had that luxury.
Julia could see the tube station entrance ahead of her, not far from the building she’d just left behind. The nighttime London air was unbearably heavy around her now, making a light sweat break out over her skin and on the nape of her neck under her hair. Thunder rolled ominously in the distance. A storm had been threatening all evening, and if she’d been in better humour she might have appreciated the symbolism. The clouds that had been squatting in the distance were now firmly overhead—low, dark and menacing.
What was making the weather feel even more ominous was the fact that she’d been having disturbing dreams of Kaden lately. Maybe, she wondered a little hysterically, she was hallucinating?
Hesitating for a moment, Julia stopped and looked back. But the building just sat there, innocently benign, lights blazing from the windows, laughter trickling out into the quiet street from the party. She shuddered despite the heat. She wasn’t going back now anyway. She couldn’t face Nigel again. Or Kaden’s coolly sardonic demeanour. As if nothing had ever happened between them.
Part of her longed to just jump in a cab, but her inherently frugal nature forbade it. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a sleek black shape slow to a crawl alongside her—just before she heard the accompanying low hum of a very expensive engine. At the same time as she turned automatically to look, lightning forked in the sky and the heavens opened. She was comprehensively drenched within seconds, but had become rooted to the spot.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion as she registered the Royal Burquati flag on the bonnet of the car. She noticed the tinted windows, and the equally sleek accompanying Jeep, which had to be carrying the ubiquitous security team.
As she stood there getting soaked, unable to move, Julia was helplessly transported back to a moment in the hot, winding, ancient streets of Burquat City, when, breathless with laughter, her hand clamped in Kaden’s, they’d escaped from his bodyguards into a private walled garden. There, he’d pushed her up against a wall, taken away the veil hiding her face, and kissed her for the first time.
It was only when the back door of the car opened near her and she saw the tall figure of Kaden emerge that reality rushed back. Along with it came her breath and her heartbeat, and the knowledge that she hadn’t been hallucinating.
The rain seemed to bounce off him, spraying droplets into a halo around him. The sky was apocalyptic behind him. And still that rain was beating down.
Julia backed away, her eyes glued to him as if mesmerised.
“Julia. Let me give you a lift.”
Her name on his tongue with that exotic accent did funny things to her insides. A strangled half-laugh came out of Julia’s mouth. “A lift?” She shook her head, “I don’t need a lift—I need to go home. I’ll take the tube.”
She dragged her gaze from his and finally managed to turn around. Only to feel her arm caught in a hard grip. Electric tingles shot up and down her arm and into her groin just as more lightning lit up the sky. She looked up at Kaden, who had come to stand in front of her. So close that she could see his jet-black hair plastered to his skull, that awesomely beautiful face. Those black eyes. Rain ran in rivulets down the lean planes, over hard cheekbones.
“What do you want, Kaden? Or should I address you by your full title?” Bitterness and something much scarier made her feel emotional. “You gave a very good impression back there of not knowing who I was. I’m surprised you even remember my name.”
Through the driving rain she could see his jaw clench at that. His black gaze swept her up and down. Then his hand gentled on her arm, and perversely that made her feel even shakier. With something she couldn’t decipher in his voice he said, “I remember your name, Julia.” And then, with easy solicitude, “You’re soaked through. And now I’m soaked. My apartment isn’t far from here. Let me take you there so you can dry off.”
Panic mixed with something much more hot and primal clutched Julia’s gut. Go with Kaden to his apartment? To dry off? She remembered the way his look had changed earlier to something ambiguous. It was a long time since she’d felt that curl of hot desire in her abdomen, and to be reminded of how this man had been the only one ever to precipitate it was galling. And that he could still make it happen twelve years on was even more disturbing.
She shook her head and tried to extricate her arm. “No, thank you. I don’t want to put you out of your way.”
His jaw clenched again. “Do you really want to sit on a tube dripping wet and walk home like a drowned rat?”
Instantly she felt deflated. She could well imagine that she did resemble a drowned rat. Mascara must be running down her cheeks in dark rivers. He was just being polite—had probably seen her and hadn’t wanted to appear rude by driving past. His convoy would have been far too conspicuous to go unnoticed.
“I can take a taxi if I need to. Why are you doing this?”
He shrugged minutely. “I wasn’t expecting to see you … it’s been a surprise.”
She all but snorted. It certainly was. She had no doubt that he’d never expected to see her again in his lifetime. And thinking of that now—how close she’d come to never seeing him again—Julia felt an aching sense of loss grip her. And urgency. She wouldn’t see Kaden after tonight. She knew that. This was a fluke, a monumental coincidence. He was just curious—perhaps intrigued.
He’d been her first lover. Her first love. Her only love?
Before she could quash that disturbing thought Kaden was manoeuvring her towards the open door of his car, as if some tacit acquiescence had passed between them. Julia felt weak for not protesting, but she knew in that moment that she didn’t have the strength to just walk away. Because meeting him again didn’t mean nothing to her.
He handed her into the plush interior of the luxury car and came around the other side. Once his large, rangy body was settled in the back seat alongside her he issued a terse command in Arabic, and the car pulled off so smoothly that Julia only knew they were moving because the tube station passed them in a blaze of refracted light through the driving rain.
Kaden sat back and looked over at Julia. He could see her long dark lashes. Her nose had the tiniest bump, which gave her profile an aquiline look, and her mouth …
He used to study this woman’s mouth for hours. Obsessed with its shape, its full lower lip and the perfect curve of its bow-shaped upper lip. He’d once known this profile as well as his own. Better.
She wore a light jacket, but the rain had made her clothes heavy and the V in the neckline of the dress was being dragged downwards to reveal the pale swells of her breasts. He could see a tantalising hint of the black lace of her bra, and evidence of her agitation as her chest rose and fell with quick breaths.
Rage at his uncharacteristic lack of control rose high. He’d fully intended to leave and put her out of his mind, but then he’d seen her walking along the street, with that quick, efficient walk he remembered. Not artful or practised, but completely sensuous all the same. As if she was unconscious of how sexy she was. He’d forgotten that a woman could be unconsciously sexy. Before he’d known what he was doing, he’d found himself instructing his driver to stop the car.
Sexual awareness stunned him anew. It shouldn’t be so overwhelmingly fresh. As if they’d hardly been apart. For a long time after she’d left Burquat Kaden had told himself that his inability to forget about her was because of the fact that she’d been his first lover, and that brought with it undeniable associations and indelible memories.
But he couldn’t deny as he sat there now, with this carnal heat throbbing between them, that the pleasure they’d discovered together had been more than just the voluptuous delight of new lovers discovering unfamiliar terrain. It had been as intensely mind—blowing as anything he’d experienced since. And sitting beside Julia was effortlessly shattering any illusion he’d entertained that he’d been the one to control his response to women in the intervening years. They just hadn’t been her. That knowledge was more than cataclysmic.
Julia could feel Kaden’s eyes on her, but she was determined not to look at him. When they’d been together he’d always had a way of looking at her so intently … as if he wanted to devour her whole. It had thrilled her and scared her a little in equal measure. His intensity had been so dark and compelling. She’d felt the lash of that dark intensity when it had been turned against her.
If she turned and saw that look now …
She raised her hand to her neck in a nervous reflex and felt that it was bare. The wave of relief that coursed through her when she realised what she’d just done was nothing short of epic. She always wore a gold necklace with the detail of an intricate love knot at its centre. It had been bought from a stall in the souk in Burquat. But its main significance was that Kaden had bought it for her, and despite what had happened between them she still wore it every day—apart from when she was travelling, for fear of losing it.
The only reason she wasn’t wearing it now was because she’d been in such a rush earlier, upon returning from the US, that she’d forgotten to put it back on. The knowledge burned within her, because she knew that it somehow symbolised her link to this man when no link existed any more. If he had seen the necklace—Her mind seized at the prospect. It would have been like wearing a badge saying You still mean something to me. And she was only realising herself, here and now, how shamefully true that was.
“We’re here.”
The car was drawing to a smooth halt outside an exclusive-looking building. A liveried doorman was hurrying over to open the car door, and before Julia knew it she was standing on the pavement watching as Kaden came to join her. The rain had become a light drizzle, and Julia shivered in clothes that felt uncomfortably damp against her skin, despite the heavy warmth of the night.
Kaden ushered Julia in through the open doors. The doorman bowed his head deferentially as they passed. Julia felt numb inside and out. Shock was spreading, turning her into some sort of automaton. Sleek doors were opening, and then they were standing in an opulently decorated lift. The doors closed again, and with a soft jolt they were ascending.
A sense of panic was rising as she stood in that confined space next to Kaden’s formidable presence, but before she could do anything the door was opening again and Julia was being led straight from the lift into what had to be the penthouse apartment. It was an old building, but the apartment had obviously been refitted and it oozed sleek modernity with an antique twist. It was decorated in understated tones of cream and gold, effortlessly luxurious. The tall windows showcased the glittering city outside as Kaden led her into a huge reception room and turned to face her.
Julia looked away from the windows to catch Kaden’s dark gaze making a leisurely return up her body. Heat exploded in her belly, and when his eyes met hers again she found it hard to breathe.
He backed away to an open door on the other side of the room and said coolly, “There is a bedroom and en suite bathroom through here, if you want to freshen up and get dry.”
Julia followed his tall form, feeling very bedraggled. She was aware of trailing water all over the luxurious carpet. He turned again at the open door, through which she could see a set of rooms—a smaller sitting room leading into a bedroom.
“I’ll have your clothes attended to if you leave them in the sitting room.”
Julia looked at him, and a curious kind of relief went through her. “You have a housekeeper here?”
Kaden shook his head, “No, but someone will attend to them, and I’ll leave some dry clothes out for you.”
How could she have forgotten the myriad silent servants who were always present to do the royal bidding, no matter what it was? Like erecting exotic Bedouin tents in the desert in a matter of hours, just for them. Her belly cramped. Still in a state of shock, she could only nod silently and watch as Kaden strode away and left her alone.
She walked through the opulent rooms until she came to the bedroom, where she carefully closed the door behind her, leaning back against it. She grimaced at herself. Kaden was hardly likely to bash the door down because he was so consumed with uncontrollable lust. She could well imagine that his tastes no longer ran to wet and bedraggled archaeologists.
Shaking her head, as if that might shake some sanity back into it, she kicked off her shoes and pushed away from the door. She explored the bathroom, which held a glorious sunken bath and huge walk-in shower. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and her eyes grew big. She did indeed look as if she’d been dragged through a hedge backwards and then hosed down with water. Her long blonde hair hung in rats’ tails over her shoulders and was stuck to her head. Mascara had made huge dark smudges under her eyes.
With a scowl at herself, she peeled off her drenched clothes. She got a towel from the bathroom to protect the soft furnishings and left them in the outer sitting room, half terrified that Kaden would walk back through the door at any moment. She scuttled back through the bedroom into the bathroom. With a towel wrapped around her she gave a longing glance to the bath, but stepped into the shower instead. Taking a bath in Kaden’s apartment felt far too decadent a thing to do.
As it was, just standing naked under the powerful hot spray of water felt illicit and wicked. To know that Kaden was mere feet away in another room … also naked under a hot shower … With a groan of disgust at her completely inappropriate imagination, Julia turned her face upwards. She resolved to get re-dressed in her wet clothes if she had to, and then get out of there as fast as she could.
Kaden had showered and changed into dry clothes, and now stood outside the rooms he’d shown Julia into. He dithered. He never dithered, but all he could see in his mind’s eye was the seductive image of Julia standing before him in those wet clothes. She should have looked like a drowned rat, but she hadn’t. That cool, classic English beauty stood out a mile—along with the delicate curves of her breasts, waist and hips.
The burning desire he’d felt in the car hadn’t abated one bit, and normally when he was attracted to a woman it was a straightforward affair. But this wasn’t just some random woman. This woman came with long silken ties to the past. To his heart. He rejected that rogue thought outright. She’d never affected his heart. He’d thought she had … but it had been lust. Overwhelming, yes, but just lust. Not love.
He’d learnt young not to trust romantic love. His father had married for love. But after his mother had died in childbirth with his younger sister his father had silently communicated to him that love only brought pain. It had been there in the way that his father had become a shadow of his former self, wrapped up in grief and solitude. Kaden had always been made very aware that one day he would rule his country, so he could never afford to let such frivolous emotions overwhelm him the way they’d taken over his father’s life.
Kaden’s father had married again, but this time for all the expected reasons. Practicality and lineage. Unfortunately his second wife had been cold and manipulative, further compounding Kaden’s negative impressions of marriage and love. Any halcyon memories he might have had of his mother and father being happy together had quickly faded into something that felt like a wispy dream—unreal.
Yet when Kaden had met Julia he’d been seduced into forgetting everything he’d learnt. Guilt weighed heavily on him even now. And that sense of betrayal. If he hadn’t seen her with that other man … if he hadn’t realised how fickle she was …
Kaden cursed himself for this sudden introspection.
In his hands he held some dry clothes. He knocked lightly and heard nothing. So he went in. The bedroom was dimly lit and the door to the bathroom was slightly open. As if in a trance he walked further into the bedroom and laid the dry clothes down on the bed. He’d picked up Julia’s wet clothes on the way through. Her scent hit his nostrils now and his eyes closed. Still the same distinctive lavender scent. A dart of anger rose up, as if her scent was mocking him by not having changed.
Before his mind could become clouded with evocative memories a sound made him open his eyes to see Julia, framed in the doorway of the bathroom, with only a towel wrapped around her body and another towel turban—like on her head. Steam billowed out behind her, bringing with it that delicate scent.
Lust slammed into Kaden like a two-ton lorry. Right in his solar plexus. Long shapely legs were bare, so were pale shoulders and arms. Kaden cursed himself for bringing her here. The last thing he needed right now was to be reopening doors best left shut.
He said, with a cool bite in his voice, “I’ll send these out to be dried.” He indicated the clothes on the bed, “You can change into these for now. They should fit.”
Julia’s eyes, which had widened on seeing him, moved to the clothes on the bed. He saw her tense perceptibly. She shook her head, a flush coming into her cheeks, and put out a hand. “I’ll change back into my own clothes and go home.”
An image of her walking out through the door made Kaden’s self-recrimination dissolve in an instant. He held the clothes well out of Julia’s reach. “Don’t be silly. You’ll get pneumonia if you put these back on.”
Julia’s eyes narrowed and she stretched her hand out more. “Really—I don’t mind. This wasn’t a good idea. I should never have agreed to come here.”
CHAPTER THREE
SILENCE thickened and grew between them. Julia couldn’t fathom what was going on behind those darker than dark eyes. And then Kaden moved towards her and she stepped back. Her heart nearly jumped out of her chest.
He pointed out silkily, “But you did come. What are you afraid of, Julia? That you won’t be able to control yourself around me?”
A few seconds ago she’d seen a look of something like cool distaste cross his face, and yet now he was acknowledging the heat between them. Baiting her. Her heart was thumping so hard she felt sure it would be evident through the towel wrapped around her.
A long buried sensation rushed through her like a tangible force—what it had felt like to have his naked body between her legs, thrusting into her with awesome strength.
For a moment she couldn’t breathe, then she said threadily, “Just give me my clothes, Kaden. This really isn’t a good idea.”
But Kaden ignored her, was already stepping back and away, taking her clothes with him and leaving the fresh ones on the bed. She looked at them. Jeans and a delicate grey silk shirt. Rage filled her belly at being humiliated like this.
She indicated the clothes with a trembling hand. Too much emotion was coursing through her. More than she’d felt in years. “I won’t wear your mistress’s cast-offs. I’ll walk out of here in this towel if I have to.”
Kaden turned. He was silhouetted in the doorway, shoulders broad in a simple white shirt. Black trousers hugged his lean hips. Julia hadn’t even noticed his still damp hair. She’d been so consumed by his overall presence.
He said, with a flash of fire in his eyes, “Be my guest, but there’s really no need. Those clothes belong to Samia. You remember my younger sister? You’re about the same size now. She’s been living here for the last couple of years.”
Immediately Julia felt petulant and exposed. She blushed. “Yes, I remember Samia.” She’d always liked Kaden’s next youngest sister, who had been bookish and painfully shy. Before she could say anything else, though, he was gone and the door had shut behind him.
Defeated, Julia contemplated the clothes. She took off the towel and put them on. There were even some knickers still in a plastic bag, and Julia could only figure that someone regularly stocked up Samia’s wardrobe. The jeans were a little snug on her rear and thighs, and she felt extremely naked with no bra under the silk shirt. Her breasts weren’t overly large, but they were too big for her to go bra-less and feel comfortable. There wasn’t much she could do. It was either this or dress in the robe hanging off the back of the bathroom door. And she couldn’t face Kaden in just a robe.
She went back into the bathroom and dried her hair with the hairdryer. It dried a little frizzy, but there was not much she could do about that either. And, anyway, it wasn’t as if she wanted to impress Kaden, was it? She scowled at the very thought.
Fresh resolve to insist on leaving fired her blood, and she picked up her shoes in one hand and took a deep breath before emerging from the suite, steeling herself to see Kaden again. When she did emerge though, it was to see him with his back to her at one of the main salon windows, looking out over the view. Something about his stance in that moment struck her as acutely lonely, but then he turned around and his sardonic visage made a mockery of her fanciful notion.
She hitched up her chin. “I’ll get a taxi home. I can arrange to get my clothes from you another time.”
Kaden’s hand tightened reflexively on the glass he held. He should be saying Yes, I’ll call you a taxi. He should be reminding himself that this was a very bad idea. But rational thought was very elusive as he looked at Julia.
Her hair drifted softly around her narrow shoulders. Like this, with the veneer of a successful, sophisticated woman stripped away, she might be nineteen again, and something inside him turned over. The grey silk shirt made the grey of her eyes look smoky and mysterious. He could remember thinking when he’d first met her that her eyes were a very icy light blue, but he had then realised that they were grey.
The silk shirt left little to the imagination. Her bare breasts pushed enticingly against the material, and under his gaze he could see her nipples harden to two thrusting points. His body responded forcibly. The jeans were too tight, but that only emphasized the curve of her hips and thighs. He wanted her to turn around so he could see her lush derri?re. She’d always had a voluptuous bottom and generous breasts in contrast to her otherwise slender build.
Heat engulfed him, and he struggled for the first time in years to cling onto some control. Once again when it came to it … he couldn’t let her go.
Julia was on fire under Kaden’s very thorough inspection. “Please …” She wasn’t even really aware of what she was saying, only that she wanted him to stop. “Don’t look at me like that.”
He smiled and went into seduction mode. “Like what? You’re a beautiful woman, Julia. I’m sure you’re used to having men’s eyes on you.”
Julia flushed at the slightly narrowed dark gaze, which hinted at steel underneath the apparent civility. The memory of what had happened just before she’d left Burquat flashed through her head and brought with it excoriating heat and guilt. And nausea … Kaden’s eyes had been on her in her moment of humiliation. Even now she could remember the way that man had pulled her so close she’d felt as if she were suffocating, when all she’d wanted— She slammed the door on that memory.
She shook her head, “No, actually, I’m not. And this is not appropriate. I really should be leaving. So if you’ll just call me a taxi …?”
Kaden smiled then, and it was the devil’s smile. She sensed he’d come to some decision and it made her incredibly nervous.
“What’s the rush? I’m sure you could do with a drink?”
Julia regarded this suddenly urbane pillar of solicitude suspiciously. Her shoes were unwieldy in her hand. She felt all at once awkward, hot, and yet pathetically reluctant to turn and never see Kaden again. That insidious yearning arose … the awareness that tonight was a bizarre coincidence. Fate. Surely the last time she would ever see him?
As much as she longed to get as far away as possible from this situation, and this man, a dangerous curiosity and a desire for him not to see how conflicted she was by this reunion made her shrug minutely and say grudgingly, “I suppose one drink wouldn’t hurt. After all, it has been a long time.”
He just looked at her. “Yes, it has.” Hardly taking his eyes from hers, he indicated a bottle of cream liqueur on the sideboard and asked, “Do you still like this?”
Julia’s belly swooped dangerously. He remembered her favourite drink? She’d only ever drunk it with him, and hadn’t touched it in twelve years. She nodded dumbly and watched as his large, masculine yet graceful hands deftly poured the distinctive liquid. He replaced the bottle on the sideboard and then came and handed the delicately bulbous glass to Julia.
She took it, absurdly grateful that their fingers didn’t touch. Bending her head, she took a sniff of the drink and then a quick sip, to disguise the flush she could feel rising when the smell precipitated a memory of drinking it with Kaden one magical night in his family’s summer palace by the coast. It was the night they’d slept together for the first time.
For a second the full intensity of how much she’d loved him threatened to overwhelm her. And he’d casually poisoned those feelings and in one fell swoop destroyed her innocent idealism. Feeling tormented, and wondering if this avalanche of memories would ever go back into its box, she moved away from Kaden’s tall, lean body, her eyes darting anywhere but to him.
She sensed him move behind her, and then he appeared in her peripheral vision.
“Please, won’t you sit?”
So polite. As if nothing had happened. As if she hadn’t given him her body, heart and soul.
Slamming another painful door in her mind, Julia said quickly, nervously, “Thank you.”
She followed him, and when he sat on a plush couch, easily dominating it, she chose an armchair to the side, putting her shoes down beside her. She was as far away from him as she could get, legs together primly. She glanced at him to see a mocking look cross his face. She didn’t care. This new Kaden intimidated her. There was nothing of the boy she’d known. They’d both just been teenagers after all … until he’d had to grow up overnight, after the death of his father.
Now he was a man—infinitely more commanding. She’d seen a glimpse of this more formidable Kaden the last time they’d spoken in Burquat, but that had been a mere precursor of the powerful man opposite her now.
Julia felt exposed in her bare feet and the flimsy shirt. It was too silky against her bare flesh. Her nipples were hard, tingling. She hadn’t felt this effortlessly aroused once during her marriage, or since she’d been with Kaden, and the realisation made her feel even more exposed. She struggled to hang on to the fact that she was a successful and relatively sophisticated woman. She’d been married and divorced. She was no na?ve virgin any more. She could handle this. She had to remember that, while he had devastated her, he’d been untouched after their relationship ended. She’d never forget how emotionless he’d been when they said goodbye. It was carved into her soul.
Remembering who the clothes belonged to gave her a moment of divine inspiration. With forced brightness she asked, “How is Samia? She must be at least twenty-four by now?”
Kaden observed Julia from under hooded lids. He was in no hurry to answer her question or engage in small talk. It was more than disconcerting how right it felt to have her here. And even more so to acknowledge that the vaguely unsettled feeling he’d been experiencing for what felt like years was dissipating.
She intrigued him more than he cared to admit. He might have imagined that by now she would be far more polished, would have cultivated the hard veneer he was used to in the kind of women he socialised with.
Curbing the urge to stand and pace out the intense conflict inside him as her vulnerability tugged at his jaded emotions, Kaden struggled to remain sitting and remember what she’d asked.
“Samia? She’s twenty-five, and she’s getting married at the end of this week. To the Sultan of Al-Omar. She’s in B’harani for the preparations right now.”
Julia’s eyes widened, increasing Kaden’s levels of inner tension and desire. He cursed silently. He couldn’t stand up now even if he wanted to— not if he didn’t want her to see exactly the effect she had on him. He vacillated between intense anger at himself for bringing her here at all, and the assertion that she would not be walking out through his front door any time soon.
Kaden was used to clear, concise thinking—not this churning maelstrom. It was too reminiscent of what had happened before. And yet even as he thought that the tantalising prospect came into his mind: why not take her again? Tonight? Why not exorcise this desire which mocked him with its presence?
“The Sultan of Al-Omar?” Julia shook her head, not liking the speculative gleam in Kaden’s eyes. Blonde hair slipped over her shoulders. She tried to focus on stringing a sentence together. “Samia was so painfully shy. It must be difficult for her to take on such a public role?”
An irrational burst of guilt rushed through Kaden. He’d seen Samia recently, here in London before she’d left, and had felt somewhat reassured by her stoic calm in the face of her impending nuptials. But Julia was reminding him what a challenge this would be for his naturally introverted sister. And he was surprised that Julia remembered such a detail.
It made his voice harsh. “Samia is a woman now, with responsibilities to her country and her people. A marriage with Sultan Sadiq benefits both our countries.”
“So it is an arranged marriage, then?”
Kaden nodded his head, not sure where the defensiveness he was feeling stemmed from. “Of course—just as my own marriage was arranged and just as my next marriage will be arranged.” He quirked a brow. “I presume your marriage was a love match, and yet you did not fare any better if you too are divorced?”
Julia hid the dart of emotion at hearing him say he would marry again and avoided his eye. Had her marriage been a love match? In general terms, yes—it had. After all, she and John had married willingly, with no pressure on either side. But she knew in her heart of hearts that she hadn’t truly loved John. And he’d known it too.
Something curdled in her belly at having to justify herself to this man who had haunted her for so long. She looked back at him as steadily as she could. “No, we didn’t fare any better. However, I know plenty of arranged marriages work out very well, so I wish Samia all the best.”
“Children?”
For a moment Julia didn’t catch what Kaden had said it had been uttered so curtly. “Children?” she repeated, and he nodded.
Julia felt another kind of pain lance her. The memory of the look of shame on her husband’s face, the way he had closed in on himself and started to retreat, which had marked the beginning of the end of their marriage.
She shook her head and said, a little defiantly, “Of course not. Do you think I would be here if I had?” And then she cursed herself inwardly. She didn’t want Kaden analysing why she had come. “My husband—ex-husband—couldn’t … We had difficulties … And you? Did you have children?”
That slightly mocking look crossed his face again, because she must know well that his status as a childless divorcee was common knowledge. But he just shook his head. “No, no children.”
His mouth had become a bitter line, and Julia shivered minutely because it reminded her of how he’d morphed within days from an ardent lover into a cold stranger.
“My ex-wife’s mother suffered a horrific and near-fatal childbirth and stuffed my wife’s head with tales of horror and pain. As a result Amira developed a phobia about childbirth. It was so strong that when she did discover she was pregnant she went without my knowledge to get a termination. Soon afterwards I started proceedings to divorce.”
Julia gave an audible gasp and Kaden saw her eyes grow wide. He knew how it sounded—so stark. His jaw was tight with tension. How on earth had he let those words spill so blithely from his mouth? He’d just told Julia something that only a handful of people knew. The secret of his ex-wife’s actions was something he discussed with nobody. As were the painstaking efforts he’d made to help her overcome that fear after the abortion. But to no avail. Eventually it had been his wife who had insisted they divorce, knowing that she could never give him an heir. She hadn’t been prepared to confront her fears.
Kaden’s somewhat brutal dismissal of a wife who hadn’t been able to perform her duty made a shiver run through Julia. The man she’d known had been compassionate, idealistic.
To divert attention away from the dismay she felt at recognising just how much he’d changed, she said quickly, “I thought divorce was illegal in Burquat?”
Kaden took a measured sip of his amber-coloured drink. “It used to be. Things have changed a lot since you were there. It’s been slow but steady reform, undoing the more conservative laws of my father and his forebears.”
A rush of tenderness took Julia by surprise, coming so soon after her feeling repelled by his treatment of his wife. Kaden had always been so passionate about reform for his country, and now he was doing it.
Terrified that he would see something of that emotion rising up within her, Julia stood up jerkily and walked over to the window, clutching her glass in her hand.
She took in the view. Kaden had told her about this apartment, right in the centre of London. Pain, bittersweet, rushed through her. He had once mentioned that she should move in here when she returned to college in London—so that he could make sure she was protected, and so she would be waiting for him when he came over. But those words had all been part of his seductive patter. Meaningless. A wave of sadness gripped her.
She didn’t hear Kaden move, and jumped when his deep voice came from her right, far too close. “Why did you divorce your husband, Julia?”
Because I never loved him the way I loved you. The words reverberated around her head. Never in a million years had she imagined she would be standing in a room listening to Kaden ask her that question.
Eventually, when she felt as if she had some measure of control, she glanced at him. He was standing with one shoulder propped nonchalantly against the wall, looking at her from under hooded lids. With one hand in his pocket, the glass held loosely in the other, he could have stepped straight out of a fashion magazine.
He looked dark and dangerous, and Julia gulped—because she felt that sense of danger reverberate within her and ignite a fire. She tried to ignore the sensation, telling herself it was overactive hormones mixed in with too many evocative memories and the loaded situation they were now in. She looked back out of the window with an effort. She felt hot and tingly all over, her belly heavy with desire.
“I … we just grew apart.” She shook her head. “It seemed like a good idea, but it never really worked. And our difficulty with having children was the last straw. There wasn’t enough to keep us together. I’m glad there were no children. It wouldn’t have been the right environment to bring them into.”
Julia had never told Kaden that she was adopted, or about her own visceral feelings on the subject of having children. She’d never told anyone. It was too bound up in painful emotions for her. And perhaps she hadn’t told him for a reason—because on some level she’d been afraid of his judgement, and that what they shared hadn’t been real. She’d been right to be afraid.
She was aware of tension emanating from Kaden and didn’t want to look at him, afraid he might see the emotion she felt she couldn’t hide. Her face always gave her away. He was the one who had told her that as he’d held her face in his hands one day …
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