The Sultan's Virgin Bride. Sarah Morgan

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      She had to get away.

      Farrah stood in a dark corner of the terrace overlooking the manicured grounds. The rain had long since stopped and the August night was warm and muggy, but she was shivering like a whippet. She ran her hands up and down her arms in an attempt to warm herself but it made no difference. The chill was deep inside her. If there had been any way of leaving without her absence being noted she would have done so because to stay in the same room as Tariq bin Omar al-Sharma was nothing short of agony.

      She hadn’t even known he was in the country.

      Had she known, she would have stayed at home, she would have gone abroad, she would have dug a hole and hidden—anything other than risk finding herself face to face with him. Especially with no warning. No chance to prepare herself mentally for the anguish of seeing him again.

      One glance from those exotic dark eyes and she’d turned into a schoolgirl again. An awkward, wide-eyed, besotted teenager, weighed down by more insecurities than she could count.

      She hadn’t been good enough for him.

      He’d taken her fragile, fledgling self-confidence and ground it into the dust. Misery and humiliation mingled inside her and she wanted to curl up in a dark corner and hide herself away until she was sure he’d flown back to Tazkash.

      People always said that you could leave your past behind, but what were you supposed to do when your past had his own fleet of private planes and could follow you anywhere?

      Dinner had proved a long drawn out ordeal, an exercise in restraint and endurance, as she’d talked and laughed in a determined attempt not to reveal her distress to her companions. And all the time she’d been aware of him.

      Fate had seated her with her back to him and yet it had made no difference. She’d been able to feel the power of his presence. Feel his dark gaze burning into her back. And in the end, unable to sit a moment longer, she’d made her excuses and slipped outside.

      It was odd, she thought dully, that however much you changed yourself on the outside, the inside stayed the same. No matter how glossy the outside, inside lay all the old insecurities. Inside she was still the same gawky, awkward, overweight girl who didn’t look right, wasn’t interested in the right things and was a massive disappointment to her glamorous mother.

      Memories of her mother intensified her misery and she lifted a shaking hand to her throbbing head. It had been six years since her mother’s death, but the desperate desire to please, to make her mother proud, still lingered. She felt herself unravelling and suddenly she knew how Cinderella must have felt as the clock struck midnight. If she didn’t escape then all would be revealed. People might catch a glimpse of the real Farrah Tyndall and she owed it to her mother’s memory not to let that happen. She needed to go home, where she could be herself, without witnesses.

      She heard laughter from the ballroom and then footsteps, a purposeful masculine tread, and she stiffened her shoulders, trying to make clear from her body language that she sought neither company nor conversation.

      ‘It’s unlike you to miss a party, Farrah.’

      His voice came from behind her, deep, silky and unmistakably male, and everything in her tensed in response.

      Once she’d loved his voice. She’d found his smooth, mellifluous tones both exotic and seductive.

      She’d found everything about him exotic and seductive.

      They called him the Desert Prince and the name had stuck, despite the fact that he’d been the ruler of Tazkash for the past four years and was now Sultan. And, Prince or Sultan, Tariq bin Omar al-Sharma was a brilliant businessman. Fearless and aggressive, as Crown Prince he’d transformed the fortunes of a small, insignificant state and turned Tazkash into a major player in the world markets. As Sultan he’d earned the respect of politicians and business institutions.

      He spoke and people listened.

      Now the sound of his voice transported her to the very edge of a panic attack.

      Part of her wanted to ignore him, wanted to deny him the satisfaction of knowing that she even remembered him, and part of her wanted to turn and hurt him. Hurt him as much as he had hurt her with his cruel rejection.

      Fortunately she’d been taught that it was best never to reveal one’s true feelings and her tutor in that lesson had been Tariq himself. He was a man who revealed nothing. She was ruled by her emotions and he was ruled by his mind.

      She’d shown. He’d mocked. She’d learned.

      Remembering the harsh lesson, she turned slowly, determined to behave as if his presence meant nothing more than an unwarranted disturbance. They were as different as it was possible for two people to be. And he’d made it painfully clear that she didn’t belong in his world.

      ‘Your Highness.’ Her voice was stiff and ferociously polite and she was careful not to look directly at him. To look into those eyes was to risk falling and she had no intention of falling. A glance behind him told her that they were alone on the terrace although she saw a bulky shadow in the doorway, which she took to be that of a bodyguard. They were never far from him, a constant reminder of his wealth and importance. ‘I find it warm in the ballroom.’

      ‘And yet you are shivering.’ With an economy of movement that was so much a part of the man, he stepped closer and panic shot through her.

      Her throat dried and her fingers tightened around her jewelled evening bag, although why, she had no idea. The richest, most eligible man in the world was hardly likely to be planning to steal her possessions. And anyway, she thought dully, he’d already stolen the only part of herself she’d ever valued. Her heart.

      Determined to send him on his way, she glanced up and immediately regretted the impulse.

      His shockingly handsome face was both familiar and alien. When she’d known him, at the beginning at least, she’d always seen humour and warmth behind the cool exterior that he chose to present to the world. It hadn’t taken her long to realise that she’d seen what she wanted to see. Looking at him now, she saw nothing that wasn’t tough and hard.

      ‘Let’s not play games, Your Excellency.’ She was proud of herself for keeping her voice steady. For behaving with restraint. ‘We find ourselves at the same event and that is an unhappy coincidence for both of us, but that certainly doesn’t mean we have to spend time together. We have no need to pretend a friendship that we both know does not exist.’

      He looked spectacular in a formal dinner jacket, she thought absently. As spectacular as he did dressed in more traditional robes. And she knew him to be equally comfortable in either. Tariq moved between cultures with the ease and confidence that others less skilled and adaptable could only envy.

      He was totally out of her league and the fact that she’d once believed that they could have a future together was a humiliating reminder of just how naïve and foolish she’d been.

      An expensive dress and a slick hairstyle didn’t make her wife material as he’d once cruelly pointed out.

      Tariq had never met her mother, which was a shame, she thought miserably, because they would have had plenty in common, most notably the belief that she didn’t fit into the glittering society they both frequented.

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