‘If you allow me to take Kazim back to Ingledean, I promise I will bring him back to Qubbah for regular visits,' Erin said in a quieter tone. ‘You deliberately deceived me about your father's state of health, and if you continue to prevent me from taking Kazim I will appeal to the King. I can't believe he asked you to lie about him. He is an honourable man, and I'm sure he would not stoop to "playing dirty",' she added, recalling Zahir's unashamed confession that he would go to any lengths to get his own way.
Zahir felt his anger ignite at her implication that she believed his father to be honourable but that he, Prince Zahir bin Kahlid al Muntassir, lacked that most valued virtue. ‘I suggest that you keep away from my father-unless you want to suffer the full force of my anger,' he growled furiously. ‘Despite what you think, the King is no longer physically strong. He hates anyone to know it, and has only allowed me to take on some of the workload of running the kingdom after considerable persuasion. I will not allow him to be troubled by a hot-tempered, violent gold-digger,' he continued in that same hard voice, ignoring Erin's outraged gasp. ‘At Ingledean I offered you a considerable sum of money to give up Kazim.'
‘Money that I refused,' Erin said sharply. ‘I agreed to bring him myself, in good faith, believing that it was only for a short visit.'
‘But Kazim is happy here, and you cannot deny that. If you return to England alone and sign over full custody of him to me I will treble the offer I made to you.'
Nausea surged in Erin's stomach, and her face twisted as she swallowed the bile in her throat. How could she possibly be so attracted to this man? It was said that the eyes were the mirrors of the soul, and Zahir's eyes were cold and so pitiless that she shivered.
‘You don't get it, do you?' she grated, her throat feeling as if someone had taken a piece of sandpaper to it. ‘I wouldn't part with Kazim if you offered me the moon and the stars and the whole world. Kazim is my son. You can keep your filthy money-he is not for sale!' She jumped to her feet, breathing hard at his assessment of her character as a hot-tempered, violent gold-digger. Oh, she was hot-tempered, all right-and as for violent! Acting on impulse, she snatched up the heavy paperweight on his desk and flung it at him. ‘I hate you-do you hear me?' And she hated herself more, for her humiliating fixation with him.
Her anger intensified when he caught the paperweight with insulting ease and set it carefully back down on the desk. ‘I honestly think you could be insane. You're certainly unbalanced,' he hissed, his eyes flashing fire as he closed in on her. ‘As for hating me … ' His laugh grated on her raw nerves and his mouth curved into a cynical smile as he watched her step back until her legs hit the edge of the chaise longue and she realised she had no way of escaping him. ‘Our mutual dislike of each other is not in dispute, Erin-but neither is the sexual hunger that torments us both. I know from the dark shadows beneath your eyes that you didn't sleep last night, and I know what kept you awake-because I too tossed and turned between the sheets and fantasised about doing this … '
CHAPTER FIVE
ZAHIR'S dark head swooped and his mouth sought hers with unerring precision. His tongue skilfully traced the contours of her lips, but she twisted her head and braced her hands against his chest, despair sweeping through her when her senses reacted to the sensual heat of his body and the subtle musk of his cologne. She could not let him kiss her-not again, no way, never!
‘You're mistaken,' she muttered. ‘I don't feel anything for you-and the only reason I didn't sleep last night is because I'm desperate to take Kazim and leave here.'
‘Liar,' Zahir drawled lazily. One hand cupped her chin and forced her head up while the other anchored in her hair to hold her fast. ‘You assure me you want to leave, but your body tells a different story.' He trailed his eyes down her body to the visible peaks of her nipples straining beneath her blouse and gave a satisfied smile.
She looked so prim and proper in the high-necked blouse and long skirt she'd worn for her meeting with the King, but her demure appearance only inflamed his hunger for her. He knew damn well that her air of innocence was an illusion, and he preferred his lovers to be confident and experienced rather than timid virgins, but when she blushed and stared at him with her huge, faintly stunned grey eyes he felt a primitive need to claim her as his woman and his alone, to make love to her with such fierce passion that she acknowledged him as her master.
‘I know what you want, Erin.' His voice had thickened and his warm breath fanned her earlobe, sending a shiver of delicious sensation down Erin's spine. ‘You want me to strip the clothes from your body, spread you beneath me and take you hard and fast, drive us both to the edge of reason and the very heights of sexual ecstasy.'
‘No!' She valiantly tried to shut her ears to his seductive voice, to shut her mind to the stark images in her head that his whispered words evoked. His fingers tightened on her chin, forcing her head round so that he could claim her mouth, and with a strength born of desperation she kicked him hard on the shin. ‘I'd rather go to bed with a rattlesnake than with you.'
He swore savagely and loosened his grip-but only momentarily. ‘You vicious little vixen-it's time you were tamed,' he growled, catching her around the waist when she tried to dart past him, and pushing her down onto the chaise longue. He immediately covered her body with his own, his weight pinning her to the cushions, and the feel of his rock-hard erection jabbing into her belly caused liquid fire to pool between her thighs.
‘Let me up, you barbarian.' She beat her fists on his shoulders until he captured her wrists in one of his big hands and forced her arms above her head so that she could inflict no further damage.
‘If my father knew what a wildcat you are, I'm sure he would not be so eager for me to marry you,' Zahir muttered grimly.
The shocked silence that followed his astounding statement was shattered by the sound of Erin's hysterical laughter. ‘Your father wants us to marry? And you say I'm insane? Why on earth would he make such a ridiculous suggestion?' she demanded, refusing to be cowed when he glared down at her, his eyes glittering with anger.
‘For Kazim's sake, of course-what other reason could there be?' Zahir's jaw hardened when he recalled his lunch-time conversation with his father, during which the King had referred to Erin's statement that she had no plans to marry again. She'd vowed to devote herself to Kazim, and as Zahir had pledged to be a father to the little boy a marriage of convenience between him and his brother's beautiful young widow seemed highly sensible-and indeed his duty.
Besides, it was time he settled down, King Kahlid had pressed, when Zahir had muttered something along the lines of ‘over my dead body'. He was thirty-six, and in a few years from now, perhaps less, would be the interim ruler of Qubbah. He needed a wife-and who better for him to marry than the mother of the future heir of the kingdom?
Nothing would sway the King from his belief that marriage between his remaining son and his dead son's widow was an excellent plan, and Zahir's hints that Erin might not be quite as saintly as she appeared had brought only a heavy frown from his father.
‘I am convinced that her love for the boy is genuine, and that is all that matters,' King Kahlid had stated, with a finality that had ended further argument.