Annie West - Desert Jewels

He studied her wide tawny eyes, realising that he had told her more than he had ever told anyone. In truth, his self-imposed exile had only emphasised his feelings of displacement, of not actually belonging anywhere. Just like the little boy who had been sent away to school. As a child he’d felt as if he’d had no real home and as an adult that feeling had not changed.

‘Not really,’ he mused. ‘I go back there on high days and holidays and that’s enough. There’s no place for me there.’

Isobel sipped her drink as the waiter placed two plates of steaming pasta before them. His last words disturbed her. There’s no place for me there . Wasn’t that an awfully lonely thing to say? And wasn’t that what she’d thought when she’d seen him lying injured in hospital—that he’d looked so alone? What if her instinct then had been the right one?

‘So you’re planning on settling down in England?’ she questioned, and then gave a nervous laugh. ‘Though I guess you already are settled.’

There was brief pause as Tariq swirled a forkful of tagliatelli and coated it in sauce. But he didn’t eat it. Instead, he lifted his eyes to hers, a sardonic smile curving his lips. It was always the same. Or rather women were. Didn’t matter what you talked about, their careless chatter inevitably morphed into thinly veiled queries about his future. Because didn’t they automatically daydream about their future and wonder if it could be a match with his? Weren’t they programmed to do that, when they became the lover of a powerful alpha male?

‘By “settling down”, I suppose you mean getting married and having children?’ he questioned.

Isobel nodded. ‘I suppose so.’

Tariq’s lips curved. She supposed so! ‘The perfect nuclear family?’

‘Well—’

‘Which doesn’t exist,’ he interjected.

‘That’s a little harsh, Tariq.’

‘Is it?’ Black eyes iced into her. ‘You experienced one yourself, did you?’

‘Well, no. You know I didn’t. I told you that I never knew my father.’

‘And it left a gaping hole in your life?’

‘I tried never to think of it that way,’ she said defensively. ‘Holes can always be filled by something else. It may not have been a “normal” family life, but it was a life.’

‘Well, I never knew a “normal” childhood, either,’ he said, more bitterly than he had intended.

‘Can I…can I ask what happened?’

He stared at her, and she looked so damned sweet and soft that he found himself telling her. ‘My mother almost died having me, and after I was born she was so ill that she needed round-the-clock care. Zahid was that bit older, and a calmer child than me, and it was decided that my needs were being neglected. So they sent me away to boarding school when I was seven. That’s when I first came to England.’

Isobel frowned. She hadn’t realised that he’d been so young. ‘Wasn’t there anywhere closer to home you could have gone?’

He shook his head. ‘We have a completely different system of schooling in Khayarzah—it was decided that a western education would be beneficial all round.’ He read the puzzlement in her tawny eyes. ‘It meant that I would be able to speak and act like a westerner. More importantly, to think as a westerner thinks—which has proved invaluable in my subsequent business dealings. It’s why the Al Hakam company has global domination,’ he finished, with the flicker of a smile.

But, despite his proud smile, Isobel felt desperately sad for him, even though she could see the logic behind his parents’ decision. She had been the daughter of a school nurse and knew how illness could create chaos in the most ordered of lives. Sending away a lively little boy from his mother’s sickbed must have seemed like a sensible solution at the time.

Yet to move a child to live somewhere else—without any kind of family support nearby—and what did that child become? A cuckoo in the nest in his adopted country. And surely he must have felt like an outsider whenever he returned to his homeland? Tariq had spoken the truth, she realised. He didn’t have any place of his own—not in any true sense of the word. Yes, there were the apartments in London and New York, and the luxury houses on Mustique and in the South of France—but nowhere he could really call home . Not in his heart.

‘So you don’t ever want children of your own?’ she questioned boldly.

At this the shutters came down and his voice cooled. ‘Not ever,’ he affirmed, his gaze never leaving her face—because she had to understand that he meant this. ‘My brother has helpfully produced twin boys, and our country now has the required heir and a spare. So my assistance with dynasty-building is not required.’

A shiver ran down her spine as his unemotional words registered. Was that what he thought fatherhood and family life was all about…dynasties? Didn’t he long to hold his own little baby boy or girl in his arms? To cradle them and to rock them? To see the past and the future written in its tiny features?

She looked at his face in the candlelight. Such a strong and indomitable face, she thought, with its high slash of cheekbones, the hawk-like nose and wide, sensual mouth. But behind the impressive physical package he presented she had discovered a reason for the unmistakable sense of aloneness which always seemed to surround him.

Yet this notoriously private man had actually confided in her. Surely that had to mean something? That he trusted her, yes—but was there anything more than that. And was it enough for her to face risking her heart?

She drifted her eyes over his hands—powerful and hair roughened. On the white silk cuffs of his shirt gleamed two heavy golden cufflinks. She could see that they were Khayarzah cufflinks, with the distinctive silhouette of a brooding falcon poised for flight. And somehow the bird of prey reminded her of him. Restless and seeking…above the world, but never really part of it.

Had he seen her looking at them? Was that why his hand suddenly reached out and caught hold of hers, capturing her wrist in his warm grasp and making it seem tiny and frail in comparison? His thumb brushed over the delicate skin at her wrist and he gave a brief smile as he felt the frantic skitter of her pulse.

‘Stunned into uncharacteristic silence by my story, are you, Izzy?’

‘It’s some story,’ she admitted quietly.

‘Yes.’ He looked down at her untouched plate. ‘You’re not eating.’

‘Neither are you.’

‘Delicious as it looks, I’m not feeling particularly hungry.’

‘No.’

Across the candlelit table, their eyes met. ‘Perhaps some fresh air might give us a little appetite.’

Isobel blinked at him in bewilderment. ‘You want to go for a walk?’

His smile was wry. He’d forgotten that she had every right to be naïve, for she knew nothing of the games that lovers played…‘Only as far as the car. I thought we could go to my apartment. There’s plenty of food there.’

Isobel’s heart began to pound as his lazy suggestion shimmered into the space between them. She hadn’t thought a lot beyond the meal itself. Somehow she had imagined that she might be going home alone to her little flat, as if the whole…sex…thing had been nothing but a distant dream. She’d told herself that would be the best for both of them, even if her commitment to the idea had been less than whole-hearted.

But then Tariq had opened up to her, taking her into his confidence. It had felt almost as intimate as when he’d been driving into her body. How could she possibly go home alone when she thought about the alternative he was offering her?

He was gesturing for the bill, seeming to take her silence for acquiescence, and the waiter was coming over to their table, his face creased in an anxious frown.