And definitely no more kissing. She touched a finger to her lips, wondering how a man who could be so hard and cold could feel so gentle and warm...
She shook her head to banish the thought. Oh, no. She wouldn’t go making that mistake again. If she hadn’t been holding Atiyah, she didn’t know how it might have ended.
Liar. She knew exactly how.
On her back.
Or in the shower.
No! She could not afford to think of that night in Sydney. That was in the past, when they had been nothing more than strangers in the night. Things were different now. She had a job to do and she would show him that he could not just click his fingers to get his way. If she achieved nothing else before she left, she would show him that he could love Atiyah.
She gave her hair and make-up a final check before adding a slick of neutral lip gloss. There, cool and professional on the outside at least, just the way she needed to be for this meeting. She wouldn’t let him rattle her today. Besides, she was too happy to be rattled. Because Atiyah had smiled.
Rashid was already seated at the table reading some papers when she approached. The sun was still low enough not to cause them any grief, but there was the promise of heat in the air. He glanced up disapprovingly. ‘Haven’t you got anything else to wear?’
Tora sighed as she sat down. If she’d thought that his opening up to her a little last night might have made his attitude towards her less adversarial, she was wrong. The walls between them were up again, not that she was about to let him spoil her good mood. ‘Good morning to you, too. I trust you slept well.’
He grunted as a waiter appeared, laying a napkin across her lap and fetching a dish with yoghurt and fruit before enquiring if she’d like tea or coffee. She smiled and asked for coffee, waiting for it to be poured while all the time she was aware of the man opposite simmering where he sat.
‘It’s a beautiful morning,’ she said, when the waiter had departed.
‘You can’t expect to wear—’ he nodded disdainfully in the direction of her clothes, ignoring what she’d said ‘—that every day.’
Tora looked down at her clothes, at her short-sleeved shirt and skirt, both fresh and, as far as she knew it, baby-spew free. ‘What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?’
‘Nothing, if you’ve got a thing about those boring shirts you probably call a uniform. For the record, I don’t.’
‘You’re wearing a shirt.’ Although, to be fair, it was one hell of a lot sexier than hers, the white cotton so fine she could see his skin tone and the darker circles of his areolae where the fabric skimmed his chest. Damn. She looked away and concentrated on her coffee.
‘Couldn’t you find something more appropriate?’
‘It’s a funny thing,’ she said with a smile, refusing to be pulled into Rashid’s dark cloud of a mood, ‘but, for some strange reason, I seem to have left all my resort wear at home. Go figure.’ She shrugged. ‘Besides I actually like my uniform. It’s comfortable, practical and it scares men away—well, it usually scares men away...present company excepted, of course.’ Her friend Sally had always joked that she’d worn her uniform as a form of self-defence against unwanted attention, and she wasn’t right exactly, but it generally didn’t bring Tora too much interest from the opposite sex. ‘Men aren’t supposed to like bookish-looking women. Come to think of it, did you miss that memo?’
He scowled. ‘What’s got you so cheerful?’
‘You mean aside from seeing you?’ she said, smirking as she sipped her coffee, savouring the heady aroma of the spiced brew, before she continued, ‘Red letter day. Atiyah smiled this morning. Maybe you should try taking a leaf out of her book some time.’
‘She smiled,’ he said, frowning a little. ‘Is that good?’
‘It’s better than good, it’s great. It’s the first smile I’ve seen her give. You want her to be happy, don’t you?’
‘Of course,’ he said, with as much conviction as if the concept had never occurred to him. And then he nodded and his eyes softened. ‘Of course, yes, I want her to be happy.’
‘There you go,’ she said, feeling that he was not the lost cause he made out and that he would overcome whatever was holding him back from embracing his new role. ‘I swear, you won’t be able to resist falling in love with her when she smiles at you. I wish I’d brought her now, so you could see for yourself.’
He looked at a loss for what to say next, as if once again he was in unfamiliar territory. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘you’re supposed to be the wife of the Emir. You can’t wear that every day—you’d look ridiculous. Kareem told me last night he’d organised an entire wardrobe of clothes for you.’
‘Oh.’ Is that what that was about? She’d opened the door to the walk-in wardrobe last night wondering where she could stash her suitcase and found it bursting at the seams with garments. Robes of silk and the finest cottons and in all the colours of the rainbow. And she’d shut the door again because they obviously weren’t hers and found another place to leave her case. She picked up her spoon to try her yoghurt.
Rashid glanced at his watch. ‘What did you want to talk to me about?’
Right. She put her spoon down again. Clearly this wasn’t a breakfast meeting where one actually expected to eat breakfast. In spite of her good mood, her heart gave a little trip at having to broach the subject again. But there was no point beating about the bush. She pulled a folded paper from her pocket. ‘Here are the bank details for you to transfer the funds.’
He took it, checking the details before his eyes flicked back to hers. ‘Not your account?’
‘It’s a trust account for a firm of solicitors.’ Matt’s solicitors, she thought, biting her lip. Damn. She really wanted nothing to do with Matt or his cronies, but it would just have to do for now.
‘A trust account?’ His eyebrows raised, he cast his eyes over her shirt again. ‘You know, you’re much more interesting that that uniform lets on. But then, we already knew that.’ He put the paper down on his others. ‘So, was there anything else?’
‘You’ll do it?’ she said, hardly believing it would be that simple after the grief he’d given her on the plane. ‘Today?’
His eyes narrowed, as if they were trying to find a way inside her to gain the answers he wanted, but still he said, ‘It will be done today. Was that all?’
‘Not quite,’ she said. ‘There is one more thing. I’d like Internet access. I see it’s password protected.’
‘You wish to Tweet that you’re now sheikha of Qajaran?’
She grimaced. ‘Hardly. I need to contact my work and let them know there’ll be a delay in me getting home so they can start reallocating assignments.’ And tell Sally the funds are on their way. But he didn’t need to know that.
‘I’ll have Kareem arrange it. Just be careful what you send from the palace.’
‘Of course, I will.’
‘Then,’ he said, collecting his papers as he rose to his feet, ‘if there’s nothing more, I’ll leave you to it. Enjoy your breakfast.’
Rashid had indigestion but it had nothing to do with what he’d eaten. He strode through the palace towards the library he’d chosen last night with Kareem for his office, his stomach complaining the entire way. Cursing Tora the entire way.
Because he still had to make the biggest decision of his life and, with her around, he couldn’t think straight.
And it didn’t seem to matter how much he tried to block her out and tell himself that she was irrelevant, she was there, alternately smiling, needling or offering him sympathy.
He shook his head as he walked down the long passageways. Why had he told her what he had last night? His past was his business, nobody else’s. It was not the kind of thing he shared with anyone, let alone a woman he’d picked up in a bar.
But then, that was not all she was. Tora was much more than a casual pick-up.
She was his sister’s carer.
And now she was his wife, even if in name only.
And he wanted her despite all his claims and words to the contrary, wanted her like there was no tomorrow. Last night was proof enough of that. He’d been blind with desire and she’d come willingly into his kiss, only stopping when Atiyah had protested.
He’d beaten himself up at the time, thinking he was the one at fault, but when he’d thought about it much later, in the long hours when sleep had eluded him, he’d realised that she’d made no effort to push him away before Atiyah had cried—she’d been as much a participant in that kiss as he had been—which proved to him that he wasn’t the only one feeling this way. Feeling this need.
It wasn’t just one-sided. There was still unfinished business between them.
So why was he fighting it? What point was there to erecting walls between them, when they seemed so futile and no wall had yet stopped him from wanting her?
Maybe it would be better to deal with the problem head-on, rather than pretending it didn’t exist. Sleep with her. Get it out of his system so he could at least think straight.