Desert Sheikhs Collection: Part 1. Jane Porter

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СКАЧАТЬ IT’S beautiful,’ said Lara softly. She leaned over the balcony and gazed out. The mist of earlier had cleared, and now the lights of the city sparkled like precious gems against the navy velvet of the night sky. ‘Just beautiful.’

      Darian eased the cork from a bottle of wine and watched the way the breeze ruffled her dark silken hair, so that it fluttered behind her like a banner. ‘Yes,’ he agreed slowly.

      For once he had been wrong—imagining it would take more than a little persuasion to get her to come back here with him tonight. The prickle of anticipation he had felt—that here was a woman who might make him fight a little—had been replaced by the much more familiar feeling of slightly jaded anticipation, but not jaded enough to stem the rising tide of desire.

      ‘Some wine?’ he drawled.

      Lara turned round. He had removed his jacket and he looked relaxed, almost domesticated. Behind him, the brightly illuminated room looked like the stage-set of a play, with he the hero of the piece.

      Or the villain.

      Her heart thudded. ‘I thought you promised me coffee?’

      ‘I did. But how about a little wine first? You hardly drank a thing in the restaurant.’

      A faintly bored note came into his voice, as if her inference that he was trying to push alcohol on her was offensive.

      ‘But I’ll go and make coffee if you’d prefer.’

      ‘No. Actually, I’d love some wine,’ she said truthfully. Perhaps wine might make her stop feeling like a woman who had never been invited into a man’s home before. She wasn’t such an innocent! She crossed her arms over her chest and rubbed them up and down her bare arms. ‘Brrrr! It’s freezing.’

      ‘Go inside. Make yourself at home.’

      She felt his eyes on her as she made her way back into a sitting room which was a byword for luxury. This was crazy, she thought. She had spent her life being watched, sometimes on stage and sometimes by the camera, and usually she managed it with aplomb—easily becoming the person the director wanted her to be.

      And maybe that was the problem here—that she was being herself. Only she was discovering an unwelcome and unfamilar nervousness in the company of a man who intrigued and attracted and disturbed her, compounded by what she had read in the letter.

      Darian followed her into the room, tipping just a tiny amount of the rich red wine into two crystal glasses while she sat down primly on one of the giant leather sofas.

      He noticed the way she pressed her knees tightly together as he handed her the glass. Did she always do this? he wondered. Send out such beguiling and conflicting messages? She had agreed very quickly—too quickly—to come home with him, and there was a not-so-subtle subtext to deals like that. If you didn’t want a man to make a pass at you, then you did not go back to his apartment late at night on a first date.

      Darian was used to knowing the score. To women quickly and blatantly letting him know that they wanted him. It happened so frequently that it was just par for the course, as natural as breathing for him—he had never had to fight for a woman in his life, though sometimes he had idly wondered what it might be like to have to do so.

      He was instinctive enough to know that the attraction between he and Lara was mutual, but only up to a point. Because now there was a wariness about her, almost a shyness, which seemed to contradict her innate sensuality. And mystery and contradictions were always fascinating, he acknowledged with a slow ache of awareness as he sat down on the sofa—just far enough away not to threaten her, but close enough to smell the soft scent of lilac which drifted from her pale skin. Close enough to touch…

      Lara sipped her drink, but her throat felt tight and she had to force down a mouthful of the smooth, rich wine. ‘Lovely,’ she remarked politely.

      ‘So where were we?’ He put his glass down on the coffee table and half turned to look at her, a small smile playing around the edges of his mouth. ‘Ah, yes, your tender heart was melting at the thought of my underprivileged upbringing.’

      With a shaky hand she put her glass down next to his. ‘Don’t make fun of me.’

      ‘Is that what I was doing?’ he murmured.

      ‘That or patronising me,’ she answered quietly. ‘You don’t have to talk about your childhood if you don’t want to.’

      Liar! Liar! But her words had exactly the desired effect. By telling him he didn’t have to talk, he immediately began to relax—although had she known that on some deep, gut-level? That here was a man who would not be forced into telling anything about himself—and the only way to get information about him was to appear not to care?

      ‘And poor doesn’t mean unhappy,’ she continued coaxingly.

      He gave a low, mocking laugh. ‘That’s the fairytale version, spoken with the voice of someone who has absolutely no idea what material deprivation is like.’

      ‘You can’t know that!’ she protested.

      ‘True,’ he agreed. ‘But I’m right, aren’t I?’ The golden eyes flickered over her lazily. ‘Let me guess—you grew up in the country? A stable family life with brothers and sisters? Fresh air and exercise and three meals a day? A pony in the stable and dogs barking when you came home from school?’

      Lara froze, then swallowed, and the tiptoeing of fear began to shiver its way down her spine. ‘That’s…that’s bizarre. Well, except for the brothers bit—I have two sisters and they are much older. And my father was away a lot. But the rest is correct.’ Her blue eyes were as big as saucers as she looked at him. ‘How could you possibly have known?’

      ‘About the country?’ Some things you didn’t need to be told. He reached his hand out and lightly touched her cheek. ‘It’s written all over you. Skin like this wasn’t made in a city.’

      Was that a trace of wistfulness in his voice, or was she imagining it? ‘W-wasn’t it?’

      ‘No.’ He let one of his fingers drift over skin that felt like satin. ‘You’re a real milk and honey girl!’

      Lara found the compliment shockingly satisfying—almost as gratifying as the all too brief contact when he had touched her, making her want him to touch her again. She shook her head slightly, trying to remember why she was here.

      ‘Very good. Ten out of ten,’ she said lightly. ‘Your turn now.’

      ‘Isn’t this supposed to be a guessing game?’ he mocked.

      ‘Well, I know you grew up in the city.’ Lara drew a deep breath and decided to go for broke. ‘I’d say that you are an only child and that your parents were…separated.’

      There was an odd pause. ‘Is it really that obvious?’ he questioned, and a slightly bitter note came into his voice. ‘Do I have one-parent family written all over me?’

      Lara felt guilty, but she managed not to show it. ‘Not at all,’ she said hastily. ‘It’s more a case of working things out from the information available. Putting bits in, like a jigsaw. The area you mentioned doesn’t really conjure up a cosy family scene, with roses round the door.’

      ‘As СКАЧАТЬ