Seduced by the Sultan(49)

                ‘I don’t need you,’ she muttered.

                ‘It’s not up for discussion, and I’m not going anywhere until you’re better. Better get used to it, Cat.’

                He was so bossy, she thought crossly. He was making her drink water when she didn’t want to drink anything—glasses and glasses of the stuff. And he was wringing out that little flannel she kept draped over the small sink. Wringing it out in cold water and making her yelp as he rubbed the icy cloth over her protesting skin.

                Some time, through the awful pounding which had resumed inside her head, she heard someone knocking at the door and then a low conversation taking place in a language she recognised instantly as Qurhahian. And that was when Murat walked over to the bed, holding a small and golden phial, which he lifted to her lips.

                ‘Drink this,’ he commanded.

                Through bleary eyes, she gazed at him suspiciously. ‘Is it some sort of poison?’

                ‘You think I’d feed you poison?’

                ‘Nothing about you would surprise me.’

                ‘Drink it, Cat,’ he said gently. ‘It’ll make you feel better.’

                But it didn’t. It made her feel worse. Thick and viscous, it clung to her throat and was so bitter that she would have spat it out if Murat hadn’t held her lips together and forced her to swallow.

                ‘Don’t do that,’ she said from between gritted teeth.

                ‘Then drink it.’

                ‘It tastes disgusting! Like carpet slippers!’

                ‘Not a taste I am familiar with. So why not close your eyes and pretend it’s something else? What would you like it to taste like, habibti?’

                He was luring her into the realm of fantasy as he’d done so often in the past, and Catrin screwed her eyes against the light and the pain and the awful ache in her heart. He used to call her habibti when he was making love to her. Habibti when he was stroking her hair...

                ‘I’d like it to taste like warm, buttered toast,’ she said, thinking of a book she used to read as a child beneath the bedclothes, while her mother was crashing around downstairs. She remembered how comforting it had been to escape into the land of fantasy. How the books had allowed her to forget the harsh reality of her real life. Her voice grew dreamy. ‘Or hot chocolate with marshmallows and cream, and chocolate sprinkles on the top.’

                ‘What else?’ he prompted, his voice very gentle again.

                ‘Turkish delight by the Christmas tree,’ she continued. ‘And snow falling outside and making everything silent.’

                By the time she’d finished speaking, all the liquid was swallowed and her eyelids were growing heavy. Through the flickering curtain of her quivering eyelashes, she could see the watchful gleam of his black eyes.

                ‘I’m tired now,’ she said.

                ‘Then sleep.’

                She did. One minute she was drenched in sweat and the next she felt as if she were floating outside her body, looking down on the tiny room. While all the time, Murat sat beside her bed, like some granite-faced sentry. The only time he moved was when she needed to use the bathroom and he shrugged her into the robe which was hanging on the back of the door and carried her along the corridor. But she was too woozy to care about the unexpected intimacy of even that.