Awakened by Her Desert Captor (11 page)

The tunic was matched with close-fitting trousers in a beautiful soft cotton material. They too were embroidered with gold. And then Halima was placing a gossamer-light matching shawl around her shoulders. Soft flat shoes completed the outfit.

Sylvie caught sight of herself in a mirror and sucked in a breath. Her hair stood out vibrantly against the light colours of the clothes. She looked...not like herself—but perversely
more
like herself in a way she'd never seen before.

Halima tweaked Sylvie's shawl over her head, and then they were walking down the corridor. She felt a little like a bride being walked to face her fate.

Sylvie chastised herself for being so compliant. Of course she wanted to leave. Of course she had no intention of going off to this admittedly, intriguing-sounding oasis with a man who felt nothing for her and yet made her body come alive in a way that made her want to descend with him into a pit of fire.

She was going to tell Arkim she had no intention of—

All her thoughts faded to nothing when they rounded the corner into the main hall and Sylvie saw Arkim waiting for her.

CHAPTER SIX

H
E
SIMPLY
TOOK
her breath away. It was as if she'd never seen him before. He was so tall and exotic, in a long dark blue tunic. Still stern...

It made her yearn for things: to see him smile, unbend. To know more about him. Dangerous things.

The staff left their bags between two Jeeps and melted away into the shadows. Sylvie was aware that this was the moment when she should make it absolutely clear that she had no intention of going with Arkim to this oasis. But she was rooted to the spot—caught and mesmerised by those obsidian eyes.

There was an intense silent conversation happening between them. He was issuing a direct challenge with that fathomless gaze. A challenge that she felt in every pulsing, throbbing beat of her blood. A challenge of the most sensual kind. A challenge to step up and own her femininity in a way she'd never done before. A challenge to go with him.

She felt giddy...breathless. The palms of her hands were damp with perspiration that had nothing to do with the heat.

It came down to this: did she want this man enough to throw her self-respect to the winds and risk the bitter sting of self-recrimination for ever? Did she want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he was right? That ultimately she couldn't resist him? And did she want to risk the worst kind of rejection?

He moved, and her breath hitched at the sheer grace and beauty of his masculinity. He stopped in front of her. She could see the tension in his form and on his face. It made something inside her soften, uncoil. Closer, like this, he was infinitely more seductive, less formidable. And infinitely harder to resist.

‘There are two Jeeps behind me.'

Sylvie had seen them. She nodded.

‘The one on the left will take you back to the airfield where we landed the other day—if you want it to. The one on the right is the one I'm taking to the oasis. I told you last night that we'd both be leaving, but I've decided to stay. I want you to stay with me, Sylvie. I think there are things about you that I don't know...that I want to know. And I want
you
. This isn't about the past or the wedding any more. I've made my point. This is about...
us
. And it's been about us since the moment we met.'

His mouth twisted.

‘Perhaps our failing all along has been that we didn't pursue this attraction at the time. If we had we wouldn't be standing here now.'

Sylvie's chest contracted with a mixture of volatile emotions. ‘Because you'd be married to my sister? That's heinous—'

His finger against her lips stopped her words. He looked disgusted. He took his finger away, but not before Sylvie had the strongest urge to take it into her mouth.

‘No. I
never
would have pursued your sister with marriage in mind if we had had an affair.'

Affair.
The word hit her hard. Arkim didn't need to clarify the fact that Sylvie would never in a million years be a contender for marriage or a relationship.

Right now she felt very certain that she would be getting into the Jeep on the left. But then his mouth softened into those dangerously sensual lines and he slid a hand around her neck, under her hair. Suddenly she couldn't think straight.

‘If we don't do this...explore our mutual desire...it'll eat us up inside like acid. If you're strong enough to walk away, to deny this, then go ahead. I won't come after you, Sylvie. You'll never see me again.'

She wanted to pour scorn on Arkim's words. The sheer
arrogance
! As if she
wanted
to see him again! She should be pulling away from him and saying
good riddance
. But there was a quality to his voice... Something almost...rough. Pleading. And the thought of never seeing him again made her want to reach out and grip the material of his tunic in her fist. Not walk away.

God.
What did that mean? What did that make
her
?

Arkim took his hand away and stepped back. Sylvie almost reached out for him. She teetered on the cliff-edge of a very scary and precipitous drop into the unknown. His words seduced her:
There are things about you that I don't know...that I want to know.

A fluttering started low in her belly. Nerves, excitement. The thought of going with him...getting to know him more...letting him be intimate with her...was terrifying. But the thought of leaving...going back to her life and not knowing him...was more terrifying.

Sylvie's gut had been guiding her for a long time now—taking her out of the toxic orbit of her stepmother and her father's black grief at the age of seventeen—and it was guiding her towards the Jeep on the right-hand side before she could stop herself.

Arkim displayed no discernible triumph or sanctimony. He just held the passenger door open for her to get in, closed it, and got in at the other side. Sylvie was aware of the staff re-materialising, to put their bags in the back of the Jeep, and once that was done Arkim was pulling away and out of the castle.

She tried to drum up a sense of shame for her easy capitulation but it eluded her. All she felt was a fizzing sense of illicit anticipation.

Endless rolling desert and blue skies surrounded them. It should have been a boring landscape but it wasn't. And the silence that enveloped them was surprisingly easy as Arkim navigated over a road that was little more than a dirt track.

Eventually, though, Sylvie had to say the words beating a tattoo in her brain. She looked at him, taking in his aristocratic profile. ‘Halima told me you've never brought anyone else to the castle.'

His hands tightened on the steering wheel momentarily and his jaw twitched. ‘No, I haven't taken anyone else there.'

She hated it that she cared, because it meant nothing, and the feeling of exposure after having mentioned it made her say frigidly, ‘I should have guessed that you'd prefer to keep this...
situation
well out of the prying gaze of the media. The last thing you want is to be publicly associated with someone like
me
.'

Arkim glanced at Sylvie, and she was surprised to see his mouth tip up ever so slightly at one side. ‘I think our association became pretty public when you broke apart the wedding and claimed that I'd spent the night in your bed.'

She flushed. She'd conveniently forgotten that. She never had been a good liar. Afraid he'd ask her again about her motive for doing such a thing, she said hurriedly, ‘This oasis—it's yours?'

Arkim finally looked away again to the road—but not before Sylvie's skin had prickled hotly under his assessing gaze. ‘Yes, it's part of the land I own. However, nomads and travellers use it, and I would never disallow them access as some others do. It's really their land.'

There was unmistakable pride in Arkim's tone, and it made Sylvie realise that, whatever their tangled relationship was, this man was not without integrity.

Genuinely curious, she asked, ‘What's your connection to Al-Omar?'

Arkim's jaw tightened. ‘This is where my mother is from—hence my name. The land belonged to a distant ancestor. She grew up in B'harani; her father was an advisor to the old Sultan, before Sadiq took over.'

‘And do you see any of your family here?'

Before he'd even answered Sylvie might have guessed the truth from the way his face became stern again.

‘They disowned my mother when she brought shame on the family name—in their eyes. They've never expressed any interest in meeting me.'

Sylvie felt a surge of emotion and said quietly, ‘I'm sorry that she had to go through that. She must have felt lonely.'

How bigoted and cruel of them, to just leave her. But she didn't think Arkim would appreciate any further discussion on the subject, or hearing her saying she felt sorry for him.

She looked out of the window and took the opportunity to move things on to a less contentious footing. ‘It is beautiful here...so different to anything I've ever seen before.'

There was a mocking tone to his voice. ‘You don't miss the shops? Clubs? Busy city life?'

She immediately felt defensive. ‘I love living in Paris, yes. But I actually hate shopping. And I work late almost every night, so on the nights I
do
have off the last thing I want to do is go out to a club.'

Arkim seemed to consider this for a moment. Then he settled back into his seat and angled his body towards her, one hand relaxed on the wheel and the other on his thigh.

‘So tell me something else about yourself, then... How did you end up in Paris at seventeen?'

Sylvie cursed herself. She'd asked for it, hadn't she? By changing the subject. She looked at him and there was something different about him—something almost conciliatory. As if he was making an effort.

Because he wants you in his bed.

She ignored the mocking voice. ‘I left home at seventeen because I was never the most academic student and I wanted to dance.'

She deliberately avoided going into any more detail.

‘So why not dance in the UK? Why did you have to go to Paris? Surely your aspirations were a little higher?'

Arkim sounded genuinely mystified instead of condemning, and Sylvie felt a rush of emotion when she remembered those tumultuous days. Her hands clenched into fists in her lap without her realising what they were doing.

Suddenly one of his hands covered hers. He was frowning at her. ‘What is it?'

Shocked at the gesture, she looked at him. The warmth of his hand made her speak without really thinking. ‘I was just remembering... It was not...an easy time.'

Arkim took his hand away to put it on the wheel again, in order to navigate an uneven part of the road. When they were through it, he said, ‘Go on.'

Sylvie faced forward, hands clasped tightly in her lap. She'd never spoken of this with anyone—not really. And to find that she was about to speak of it now, to this man, was a little mind-boggling.

Yet even
his
judgement could never amount to the self-recrimination she felt for behaving so reactively. Even though she couldn't really regret it. She'd learnt so much about herself in the process.

‘As is pretty obvious, my stepmother and I don't get on. We never have since she married my father. And my father... Our relationship is strained. I rebelled quite a bit—against both of them. And Catherine, my stepmother, was making life...difficult for me.'

‘How?' Arkim's voice was sharp.

‘She wanted me to be sent to a finishing school in Switzerland—a way to get rid of me. So I left. I went to Paris to find some old contacts of my mother's. I'd always wanted to dance, and I'd taken lessons as a child... But after my mother died my father lost interest. And when Catherine came along she insisted that dance classes weren't appropriate. She had issues with keeping my mother's memory alive.'

That was putting it mildly. Her father had had issues too, and his had had more far-reaching consequences for Sylvie. Her stepmother was just a jealous, insecure woman. She'd never known Sylvie well enough for her rejection to really hurt. But her father
had
known her.

‘So you took off to Paris on your own and started working at the revue?'

Sylvie nodded and settled back into her seat, the luxurious confines of the vehicle making it seductively easy to relax a little more. ‘I had about one hundred pounds in my pocket when I met up with Pierre and found a home at the revue. I had to pay my way, of course. He let me take dance classes, but only if I cleaned in my spare time.'

‘You took no money from your father?'

Sylvie glanced at Arkim's frown and slightly incredulous expression and wondered why she was surprised at his assumption that she would have. ‘No, I haven't taken a penny from my father since I left home. I'm very proud of the money I make—it's not much, but it's mine and it's hard-earned.'

He schooled his expression. This information put everything he knew about Sylvie on its head and pricked his conscience. It was so completely opposite to everything he'd always assumed about her: that she was a trust fund kid, petulant and bored, seeking to disgrace her family just because she could. It sounded as if she'd sought refuge in Paris out of rebellion, yes, but also because she'd more or less been pushed away.

Very aware of that direct gaze on him, he said a little gruffly, ‘You should rest for a bit—it'll take another hour or so to get there.'

Sylvie's eyes flashed at his clear dismissal of the subject, but gradually the tense lines of her body relaxed and she curled her legs up on the seat. Her head drifted to one side, long red hair trailing down over her shoulder.

Her lashes were long and dark against her cheeks. She wore no make-up, and Arkim noticed a smattering of small, almost undetectable freckles across the bridge of her nose. Had that been the sun? Because he didn't remember seeing them before. They gave her an air of innocence that compounded the naivety he'd seen in her dancing.

His chest felt tight. He looked back to the desert road, feeling slightly panicked. He shouldn't have indulged his base desire like this. He'd already behaved completely out of character by bringing her to Al-Omar in the first place—like some medieval overlord. He should have called the helicopter and got them both back to civilisation. He'd made his point—he'd demonstrated his anger.

But his hands gripped the steering wheel tight and he kept on driving. Because he wasn't ready to call it quits, to let her go. And she'd made a very clear choice to stay, and the triumph he'd felt in that moment still beat in his blood. Why would he turn back now, when they could exorcise this lust between them and get on with their lives?

* * *

‘We're here.'

Sylvie opened her eyes and looked out of her window, straightening up in her seat as wonder and awe filled her. Maybe she was still dreaming? Because this was paradise. They were surrounded by lush greenery—greener than anything she'd ever seen before.