LITMIR.BIZ

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the men in her mother’s prize pile lifted her onto a more acceptable level. It revolted her even further that Tareq should feel the need to blow up her importance. Wasn’t she good enough for him as she was?

      “An earl! Doesn’t that make your mother a countess?” Miriam Wellesly-Adams exclaimed, very favourably struck by this relationship with the English aristocracy.

      She pounced on Sarah with the avid eagerness of milking a marvellous jackpot for all it was worth. Which neatly left Tareq to the eager come-ons of the snaky daughter all during the elaborate lunch, served in what was called the conservatory annexe.

      Sarah hated every minute of it. Politeness demanded she answer her hostess’s insistent and persistent questions on the English upper class, but she silently vowed never to suffer being put in such a position again. It was horribly false. Everything felt horribly false. How could a man feel the desire Tareq had shown her this morning, then toy with another woman? Where was the honesty in that?

      Or maybe, since she hadn’t made herself available, he simply and cynically took what was. After all, Sarah would keep. He had a whole year to play his game with her.

      The luncheon dragged on. Tareq divided his time between talking horses with his host and responding to Dionne’s demands for attention. The orange fingernails caressed his arm so often, Sarah began to wish they’d draw blood. It would serve Tareq right. She wanted him to feel as rawly wounded as she did.

      It was almost four o’clock when they rose from the table, their host having suggested a visit to the stable yards was now timely. The offer to be transported by jeep was declined by Tareq who insisted a stroll would be more to his liking. A master of manipulation when he wanted to be, he persuaded Dionne into riding in the jeep with her parents and singled out Sarah as his walking companion.

      Which suited Sarah just fine. It gave her the opportunity to lay down a few accommodations he could make for her in future. A hostage didn’t have to be dragged everywhere. She was determined on loosening the tie with him. She had to for her own sanity.

      As soon as the jeep was on its way, she dug her heels in and opened fire. “If you want to sleaze on with Dionne Van Housen, then count me out. I’ll wait in my room until dinner.”

      Tareq turned to face her, one eyebrow raised in mocking amusement. “Sleaze on?”

      “I find it disgusting. She’s not even divorced from your good friend, Cal, yet, and you’re letting her lech all over you.”

      “Since I’ve accepted the hospitality of her parents, what would you have me do, Sarah?”

      “Oh, don’t give me that excuse!” Her eyes blazed contempt for it. “You think I haven’t been faced with stuff like that from my mother’s high-flying crowd? It’s easy enough to take a step back, offer your hand and maintain some personal dignity. The message gets across that liberties aren’t welcome.”

      A smile twitched at his mouth. “Thank you for the lesson.”

      She huffed her exasperation. “You don’t need lessons in handling people. And you don’t need me as a spectator for your little peccadilloes.”

      He laughed. “I’m not the least bit interested in Dionne. But it is interesting that you have such a strong reaction against her liberties with me.”

      The urge to slap his self-satisfied face was so strong, Sarah swung on her heel and marched off down the road to the stable yards, the other option of going to her room driven from her mind by the need to walk off the violence sizzling through her. Him and his damned jigsaw, fitting the pieces together! She was a human being, not bits of cardboard, and she would not be moved around for his entertainment!

      He strolled along beside her, reforging the link she was desperately trying to repel. “From henceforth I shall keep other women at a distance,” he declared. “Better now?”

      “Better if you leave me out of these social occasions,” she shot at him. “You don’t value my company. Why bother with it?”

      “If I didn’t value it I wouldn’t have sought your company for this walk. You have no reason to be jealous, Sarah.”

      “It has nothing to do with jealousy,” she lashed out in seething fury. “It’s a matter of pride. I do not like being escorted by a man who lets himself be a target for loose women right in my face.”

      “If you were indifferent to me, Sarah, it wouldn’t matter. And with some women, other priorities would keep them silent and tolerant.”

      “Well, stick to them if that’s what you expect,” she raged. “I don’t want to be with you anyway. You’re a snobby pig.”

      “Ah! If this relates to my name-dropping, that was a ploy to cut dead any further patronising remarks.”

      “I don’t care about patronising. People can be as patronising as they like and as far as I’m concerned it reflects badly on them, not me.”

      “It can still be upsetting.”

      “Oh, sure!” she mocked. “You’re talking to a survivor of a toffee-nosed British boarding school where I was an Australian nobody. And let me tell you, Tareq al-Khaima, I don’t need a name to prop me up as a person. I am me, no matter what I’m called, and if that’s not good enough for you, then park me somewhere else when you want to mix with others.”

      “I’m delighted to be corrected on that point,” he said quietly. “Such strength of character is so rare I wouldn’t dream of parking you anywhere except beside me.”

      She shot him a baleful look. “Don’t you ever, ever, attach me to Michael Kearney or the Earl of Marchester again. They don’t turn me into something better. They diminish me.”

      “You’re right. I’m sorry I did that to you, Sarah.”

      His agreement and apology stole the momentum of her fury. However, it didn’t stop the sick churning of being with him and not being able to reach the heart of the man. Why did she care so much? How had he got to her so deeply? He shouldn’t be able to do this to her when his caring was so insultingly shallow it didn’t even begin to comprehend where she was coming from.

      The all too transient pleasure of driving a convertible…

      Protecting her from being patronised…

      Luxuries on tap…

      What good were they when her most innermost needs craved what he was incapable of giving? He could keep his damned prizes for being with him in future! She wouldn’t take any of them.

      “I don’t like you, Tareq,” she stated bluntly, hugging in her hurt and wishing the intensity of feeling he stirred would go away.

      “Perhaps, when you finish re-educating me, you’ll like me better,” he answered, a touch of whimsy in his voice.

      It vexed her that he could take it so lightly while she was a torn up emotional mess. “Try being consistent,” she muttered, shooting him a resentful glare. “Try being honest!”

      He smiled at her…flooding her mind and heart and soul with the sweet, seductive warmth of approval and admiration, dazzling her with the beauty of it, the strength of it…tying her even more inexorably to him because he gave it.

CHAPTER TEN

      TAREQ ROAMED AROUND the sitting room of their hotel suite, pondering the situation as he waited for Sarah to finish dressing and emerge from her bedroom. This diplomatic visit to Washington had been scheduled long before he’d gone to Australia. Cancelling was out of the question. Sarah had to understand that Washington was an entirely different playground to Florida. Here, a united front had to be presented, regardless of what she felt towards him.

      This dinner tonight marked the start of their public appearances and comment would flow from them. Sarah had to

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