The Sultan's Virgin Bride. Sarah Morgan

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      ‘Marvellous, cara.’ Enzo sighed and shook his head as he watched her remove the final traces of mud. ‘But did you have to bring the stables into the ballroom?’

      ‘I was held up so I changed in the car.’ Farrah gave a dismissive shrug and Enzo looked at her through narrowed eyes.

      ‘So now tell me why you are suddenly wearing a swimming costume. It is about a man, obviously. You wish to make him jealous, no?’

      ‘Jealous?’ Staring at the costume on the hanger, she shook her head in disbelief, wondering how so little material actually attached itself to the body. ‘No, I don’t want to make him jealous. I want to make him run.’

      She didn’t want him in her life a second time.

      Enzo frowned. ‘Then take my advice and do not wear this costume. There is not a man alive who will run having seen you dressed in this. You will find yourself with the opposite problem.’

      ‘You don’t know this man. Give it to me.’ Farrah held out a hand. ‘I’ll get changed behind the curtain.’

      ‘Farrah, tesoro—’ Enzo’s tone was dry as he relinquished the garment ‘—if you need to get dressed behind a curtain, then that is not the costume for you.’

      ‘If it serves its purpose then it will be fine.’ Dressed only in her underwear, she walked in bare feet into the makeshift cubicle. ‘Oh, and Enzo, ask someone to find me spectacular shoes. High heels. Really high heels.’

      Enzo’s eyes gleamed and he kissed the ends of his fingers in a gesture of approval. ‘Almost, I feel sorry for this man.’

      ‘I don’t need you to feel sorry for him. I just need you to make me look shocking. I need to be unsuitable wife material.’ She jerked the curtain across and her courage faltered. What the hell was she doing? Adrenaline surged through her body, fuelling her determination to go through with her plan. Before reason could take over and she could change her mind, she removed her underwear and wriggled into the costume. ‘Enzo? Are you out there? This thing doesn’t fit—’

      The designer pulled back the curtain and sighed. ‘Not like that—’ He stepped forward and made several adjustments that had Farrah blushing. ‘Better. Much better. And now this—’He flung a transparent filmy wrap over her shoulders and she looked at it with a frown.

      ‘I don’t want to cover up.’

      ‘This covers nothing,’ Enzo said dryly, his hands tweaking and coaxing the fabric until he was satisfied. ‘It is designed to draw the eye. To tempt and tease.’ He narrowed his gaze, nodded with approval and then snapped his fingers towards his assistant who was hovering at a discreet distance. ‘Shoes?’

      Farrah gave a wry smile as she slipped her feet into a pair of designer shoes with delicate straps and vertiginous heels. ‘This is all going to be wasted if I fall off the shoes, break my neck and give myself two black eyes in the process.’

      ‘Never.’ Enzo frowned and stood back as the hairdresser took over. ‘Leave it loose. Yes. Like that. She looks sensational. I predict that the costume will be this season’s big seller.’ He glanced at Farrah with a smile. ‘You wear heels that high all the time. You will not fall.’

      Farrah thought of the muddy riding boots in the back of the family limousine. ‘Not all the time.’

      Finally Enzo was satisfied and he stood back with a nod. ‘It is perfect. You are perfect, and totally wasted in this life of yours.’

      They shared a secret smile and impulsively Farrah leaned forward to give her friend a hug. ‘You’ve helped me so much,’ she whispered. ‘You taught me how to dress, how to walk, how to—’

      ‘Enough—’ Enzo waved a hand to stop her but there was pleasure in his smile. ‘I had good material to work with. You could be a model, cara.’

      ‘No, thanks.’ Farrah walked towards the entrance where the other girls were lining up and Enzo caught her arm.

      ‘Not like that! You are walking as if you are angry and out for revenge and I taught you better than that! Your eyes spark and your mouth pouts. You look as though you’re going to kill someone, not seduce them.’

      Farrah wondered what he’d say if he knew how close to the truth he was. She was angry. Angry and hurt.

      ‘This costume is about being a woman.’ Enzo gave her a slow smile. ‘Your eyes should say “look at me”, your mouth should say “kiss me” and your walk should say—’

      ‘Yes, all right,’ Farrah interrupted him quickly. ‘I think I get the message.’ She sucked in a deep breath and tried to calm herself.

      After all, wasn’t that an even better way of displaying her anger to Tariq? For a man like him, displaying herself in such a public place would be enough to make him stalk towards the exit without a backward glance in her direction.

      The music pulsed and she took her position near the entrance to the catwalk.

      Tariq was in for a shock.

      Still coming to terms with the fact that his first ever proposal of marriage had met with a decidedly unenthusiastic response, Tariq lounged in his seat in brooding silence, waiting for the fashion show to begin.

      It was typical, he mused with growing tension, that she should refuse to turn down an opportunity to flaunt herself in public. It was one of the reasons that their relationship had floundered in the first place. He’d been able to see too much of the mother in the girl. The exact details of Sylvia Tyndall’s early death had been kept out of the press, but her incessant wild partying had supported the rumours that her death had been linked with drugs or alcohol or possibly a mixture of the two.

      If anything, Farrah appeared to have grown even more like her mother over the years.

      His long fingers drummed a slow, steady rhythm on the table as he pondered their encounter on the terrace.

      All traces of the innocent girl he’d met on the beach had gone. But why should that surprise him? The young girl who’d captivated him so completely had been nothing more than an illusion. At that particular point in his life he’d been jaded and unsettled and he’d been ensnared by her fresh, unspoiled enthusiasm for life. He’d enjoyed her sense of humour and unguarded response to him. She’d appeared to be refreshingly unaware of her own breathtaking beauty. He’d found her to be modest and even a little shy. Uninterested in material things or in glamorous social gatherings.

      But events had proved him wrong on so many counts.

      Everything had changed from the moment they’d moved from the desert to his palace.

      Gone had been the respectable mode of dress and the caring attitude. In its place a woman who’d appeared to care for nothing except her appearance. A woman who’d gone to enormous efforts to shock those around her. A woman who’d wanted to do nothing but party.

      In a sense that had made her easier to deal with because he’d been dealing with women like her for almost all of his life. Women who played games. Women who traded beauty for other, more tangible, benefits, from extravagant gifts to an excellent marriage.

      He skimmed a glance СКАЧАТЬ