‘Cover yourself,' he growled, looking away from her while she dragged her blouse over her breasts with trembling fingers. ‘The answer to your request to take Kazim to England is a resounding no,' he ground out harshly. ‘His place is here. But yours is not. I suggest that for both our sakes you go back to the house on the moors that you worked so hard to acquire.'
He swung away from her, his conscience prickling as he thought of Kazim. The little boy loved Erin and regarded her as his mother. Would it be fair to separate him from the woman who had cared for him since he was a couple of months old? Zahir thought back to when his own mother had left Qubbah, to how desperately he had missed her and longed for her to return, and his heartbreak when he learned that she was never coming back. How could he allow Kazim to suffer the same sense of abandonment that had haunted what had remained of his childhood after his mother had gone?
But Kazim was younger than he had been, he reassured himself. He would soon forget Erin. He would have to, Zahir decided. Because the alternative was for her to remain at the palace indefinitely, and his hormones would go into meltdown.
He strode over to the door, but could not resist looking back at her. His desire for her had escalated to an agonising craving that was beyond anything he had ever felt for any other woman. She was forbidden to him while she remained Faisal's widow-but if she was his wife he would have exclusive rights to her exquisite body.
Marrying her would solve a number of problems-not least his unbearable sexual frustration, he acknowledged grimly as he turned his back on her and slammed out of the room. But was he really prepared to sacrifice his freedom and marry a woman he had good evidence was a gold-digger simply because he was desperate to take her to bed?
Erin scrambled to her feet and stared after Zahir's retreating form. Reaction was setting in: her legs were shaking and she felt sick with humiliation. She didn't know what was worse-being caught making love with Zahir by his personal assistant, or the look of utter contempt in Zahir's eyes when he had stared down at her half-naked body, spread before him like a concubine awaiting her master.
She couldn't stay here for another day, another hour, she thought wildly, burying her face in her hands in an effort to blot out the images of Zahir's hands on her body. The memory of his intimate caresses made her cheeks flame. Her first ever orgasm had been mind-blowing, but she shuddered when she recalled how she had sobbed and writhed in his arms. She would rather die than have to face him again.
‘I have to get away from here,' she muttered to the empty room, and then gave a startled cry when a voice from behind her replied.
‘I think that would be a most wise course of action,' Omran murmured, stepping into Zahir's office and closing the door behind him. As usual he was excruciatingly polite, but behind his deferential smile Erin caught an insolent gleam in his eyes, and she blushed when his knowing gaze slid over her dishevelled hair and swollen mouth. ‘His Highness Prince Zahir's interest in you is merely a temporary aberration,' he continued silkily. ‘You can never be more than his mistress. One day he will marry a highborn Arab bride, and then your position here at the palace will be untenable. It is perhaps better if you leave now.'
Erin gave a tight smile. ‘You really know how to make a girl feel good about herself, Omran,' she muttered sarcastically.
Zahir's personal assistant was almost as high and mighty as his employer-and that was saying something. She was tempted to tell him of the King's suggestion, that Zahir should marry her, just to wipe the smug smile off his face. But what was the point? she thought dispiritedly. Omran clearly believed she was less worthy of his royal master's attention than a pile of camel dung-a belief no doubt shared by Zahir himself.
‘How can I leave?' she queried miserably. ‘The palace guards tail my every move.' She broke off, thinking of the guard she had accidentally punched on the nose. It had not been the most edifying moment of her life, and it was small wonder that Zahir had accused her of being unbalanced. He was a royal prince, born into unimaginable wealth, and he could have no comprehension of her deprived childhood, during which she'd learned early on to fight to survive.
‘The guards are under orders to protect young Prince Kazim. They have no interest in you if he is not with you,' Omran told her bluntly. ‘The road from the palace leads across the desert to the capital, Al Razir. There is a fleet of four-by-fours parked in the courtyard in front of the staff quarters.'
Startled, Erin stared at him, her heart thumping. Omran was offering her a chance to escape-but he did not realise that she would never leave Kazim behind. ‘Where would I find the keys to one of those cars?' she whispered.
In reply Omran walked over to Zahir's desk, pulled open a drawer and calmly took out a set of keys. ‘This conversation never took place,' he murmured as he dropped them into her hand, and before Erin could utter another word he had turned-his long robes billowing behind him-and swept from the room as silently as a snake in the grass.
A few hours later Erin glanced in the rearview mirror of the four-by-four, hardly able to believe that she was not being chased across the desert by palace guards. She was amazed that her plan to smuggle Kazim out of the palace had worked so well, but guessed that Omran had had something to do with the absence of the guards who usually patrolled the fortress gates.
She had done it-she was free. All she had to do now was somehow locate the British Embassy and beg them to send her and Kazim home.
‘Where we going, Erin?' Kazim's voice piped up from the rear seat.
‘We're driving to the town, and maybe later we'll go on an aeroplane again. Would you like that?'
The toddler nodded his head vigorously, and she was assailed by guilt. He was so trusting-an innocent pawn caught up in a battle between two people who loved him-and, much as she despised Zahir, she had to admit that he seemed to adore the little boy almost as much as she did. She knew too that Kazim hero-worshiped his uncle. How was she going to explain to him that Zahir was not coming back to England with them? Was she really acting in his best interests-or her own?
Soon the walls of the fortress were no longer visible, and the desert seemed vast and intimidating. The sun was sinking below the horizon, and the streaks of gold and red that stained the sky were fading to purple as night fell with surprising swiftness. Erin's palms were clammy as she gripped the steering wheel. She switched on the headlights and stared intently through the windscreen. Omran had said that Al Razir was ahead, but he hadn't mentioned that the road forked, and she had no idea which way to go. It had to be straight on, she reasoned. She had no recollection of turning from one dusty track to another on the way to the palace, but if she was honest the journey to Zahir's home had been an endless blur of sand.
After driving for another half an hour it became obvious that she had taken the wrong road. The lights of Al Razir should surely be visible by now, but instead the blackness was thick and oppressive, and the road had changed from a reasonably flat surface to a narrowing track which twisted tortuously between boulders that loomed out of the dark. She was lost, and the only thing to do was turn around and go back to the fork where the road had separated, Erin decided, fighting her feeling of panic.