Seduced by the Sultan(51)

                ‘It was nothing.’

                ‘Yes, it was.’ She tried to concentrate on the situation as it was, rather than what she wanted it to be. She suddenly realised why he’d once told her that he wasn’t in the habit of seducing virgins. Their dreams are still intact. And hers had been, hadn’t they? No matter how hard she’d tried to convince herself that she didn’t do the dream stuff—she could see now that she had been deluding herself. She’d believed that she was immune to emotion because she had wanted to believe it and because it had allowed her to buy a ticket into his life. He’d wanted a no-strings affair and she’d convinced herself that she was happy to go along with that. But maybe at heart she was just a woman who’d been longing for him to commit to her all along.

                ‘I’m very grateful for all you’ve done, but I won’t take up any more of your time,’ she said, watching him squeeze out a teabag. ‘There must be something important needing your attention.’

                ‘I can take care of my own timetable, Cat,’ he said, handing her a mug of tea. ‘I want you to tell me about your mother.’

                She felt her cheeks growing red. ‘I told you everything last night.’

                He shook his head. ‘Not really. You spoke in terms of a problem, but not in terms of a solution. Has she ever tried rehab?’

                ‘Rehab’s expensive.’

                ‘So that’s a no?’

                ‘Of course it’s a no!’ she bit back. ‘We’re ordinary people, Murat. Where do you suppose we could find that kind of money?’

                His eyes didn’t leave her face. ‘You could have asked me.’

                ‘But that would have involved telling you—and I didn’t want to tell you, for reasons you can probably understand.’

                ‘I’d like to meet her,’ he said suddenly.

                ‘Well, you can’t.’

                ‘What are you so scared of, Cat?’

                Surely even he knew the answer to that. She didn’t want to see the disgust on his face when he saw just how sordid her home life had been. And it wasn’t fair of him to want to intrude on her life like this. Because this wasn’t what happened in their particular relationship. They had separate lives. Separate futures.

                Yet as she saw a familiar look of determination glinting from his eyes, she wondered what she was trying to protect herself from. She didn’t have to try to impress him any more. It was over. It didn’t matter how many of her dark secrets he discovered, did it?

                ‘If you want to meet my mother then we’ll go and meet her,’ she said. ‘When did you have in mind?’

                ‘How about now?’ His gaze searched her face. ‘That is, if you’re feeling well enough.’

                Her throat constricted. ‘She won’t be expecting us. She won’t have had time to tidy the place up.’ She said the words as if she came from a normal house. As if she had the kind of mother who had ever bothered tidying up.

                ‘I don’t care,’ said Murat. ‘And before you say anything, I’d actually enjoy making an impromptu visit for once. Do you have any idea what usually happens when I plan a trip somewhere? How entire rooms are repainted and new furniture bought?’

                ‘You’re unlikely to get anything like that at my mother’s house,’ she said flippantly. ‘You’ll be lucky to get fresh milk, let alone fresh paint.’