Desert Sheikhs Collection: Part 1. Jane Porter

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СКАЧАТЬ voice sounded like grit being poured onto melting snow. ‘Let me see the letter.’

      It was a definite command, thought Lara, wondering how Khalim would react. But he simply nodded as he withdrew the letter from the breast pocket of his suit, almost as though he had been anticipating this request.

      Darian’s eyes scoured over it disbelievingly, but there was no doubt that the words were written in his mother’s hand. ‘She died two years ago,’ he said slowly.

      ‘Yes. As you will read, the letter was not intended to be opened during her lifetime.’ Khalim’s black eyes glittered. ‘And, as you will also read, she claims that my late father, Makim, was indeed your father, too.’

      His eyebrows were elevated in question, and the statement he had made was so utterly bizarre that Darian wondered if perhaps he was in the middle of one of those dreams which were so real that you mistook them for reality. Maybe in a minute he would wake up.

      But even as he answered he was aware of the first glimmerings of unease. ‘I know nothing of my father. Absolutely nothing.’

      ‘No.’ Khalim paused for a moment. ‘Your mother was an air stewardess?’

      ‘Up until I was born.’ Darian’s mouth twisted in derision. There had been no mention of her employment in the letter. ‘You’ve had me checked out!’ he accused softly.

      Khalim nodded. ‘But of course.’ He paused. ‘She flew to the Middle East regularly.’

      And the missing piece of the jigsaw which had always eluded him began to hover tantalisingly over the gap in Darian’s memory. His mother had spoken of his father maybe once, perhaps twice. He had been a good man, she had said, but a man who was not free and was certainly not in a position to support them. Darian had assumed that his father was married, had noted his mother’s reluctance to talk about him and her distress whenever the subject was brought up.

      Children soon learnt to make life easy for themselves. When to pry and when to leave well alone. He had accepted her reticence, just as he had accepted that he looked different from the other children. Darian had been focused on the future, on getting out of the poverty of his upbringing. Whoever his father had been he was not a real figure, not in terms of having any influence in his life, and so Darian had simply closed the door on all his questions.

      There had been nothing about him in the papers his mother had left after her death, though at the time it had crossed his mind that now he was in a position to seek out his father without causing his mother distress. But Darian had decided to let sleeping dogs lie, asking himself what end it would serve if he went on such a quest—other than to unsettle him. Why pursue a man who had never felt the need to know his son?

      But now the past had been dropped before his eyes, falling like a heavy pebble into a pond, its ripple-like effects spreading down through the ages—and for the first time a very important question did occur to him.

      He turned again to look at Lara, where she stood as still and as frozen as a statue. ‘So what does Lara have to do with all this?’

      She had been wondering when he would get around to asking. Lara spoke before Khalim had the chance to defend her. She would not shrink from the truth, not any more.

      ‘I was the one who first read the letter,’ she said quietly. ‘I was working at the Embassy at the time and it came into my hands.’

      ‘When?’

      She heard the raw anger in that one stark word, and flinched. ‘Almost a month ago.’

      A different jigsaw now, and these pieces slotted into place with insulting ease. He looked directly into her blue eyes and gold accusation flooded over her in a hot, sizzling shower. ‘You came looking for me,’ he seethed slowly.

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘You chased the job as the face of Wildman.’ His dark lashes shuttered by a fraction. ‘Didn’t you?’

      ‘Yes.’

      The lashes moved again, and now there was an odd expression in the strange and beautiful eyes, the cold, cruel smile which glittered over her. She knew what the next accusation would be almost before he had a chance to form the words, and her gaze begged him not to ask it—not here and now and in front of Khalim. But he ignored the silent plea, his voice taking on a bitter, hard timbre she had never heard before.

      ‘Is that why you slept with me, Lara?’

      Lara glanced at Khalim, who was observing and listening to the fraught interrogation session in interested silence. Only the faintest elevation of his eyebrows indicated that he had registered Darian’s final damning question, but Lara knew that Marabanese men knew the value of silence. He would not interfere in something which did not concern him. She was on her own here.

      ‘I don’t think that now is an appropriate time to discuss this—’

      ‘Oh, don’t you?’ His sarcastic words sliced through her half-formed sentence like a knife through butter. ‘I don’t really think that you’re fit to be the judge of what is or is not appropriate, Lara!’

      He remembered the way her vulnerable blue eyes had made him soften and melt, and then made love to her in a way which had blown his mind, and he cursed silently at his blind stupidity. Of course she would be adept at pulling heartstrings—she would know every trick in the book, about how to behave and how to manipulate. She was a god damned actress, wasn’t she?

      He sucked in a deep breath. His rage and his retribution with her could wait. He turned his head towards Khalim again.

      ‘So why are you here?’

      ‘To see you,’ said Khalim simply. ‘To see whether it was true.’

      ‘But you can’t, can you?’ drawled Darian. ‘You can’t tell just by looking?’

      ‘Oh, yes, I can,’ demurred Khalim quietly. ‘I saw it as soon as you entered the room today. You have the blood of a true Marabanesh running in your veins.’

      Something in the way he said it made a small shiver of something unknown snake its way down Darian’s spine. Not fear—no, he had never felt fear, nor would he ever give in to the false and futile pressure of fear. Something else—something which momentarily made him feel as if things were edging out of his control. But he deliberately blocked the feeling, substituting it instead with the strength and single-mindedness for which he was known.

      ‘Even if I have—so what?’ he challenged, in a low, deep voice. ‘It doesn’t change my life—how can it? So do not worry, Sheikh—the secret will remain just that. You can go back to your kingdom safe in the knowledge that my life is fulfilled and complete. I have no need of your wealth or power and I will make no claim on it. I give you my word.’

      Khalim’s eyes narrowed into icy black shards. ‘You have no wish to see Maraban?’ he demanded, as if Darian had raised a fist and hit him.

      Again that tantalising feeling. As if some scarcely heard and hypnotic music were luring him to run away and dance. Darian shook his head, furious with himself for such a bizarre flight of fancy.

      ‘You must come as my guest,’ continued Khalim.

      The two men stared at СКАЧАТЬ