He’d thought of her all day. He’d thought of making love to her, and he’d thought of her desperation and regret at what had happened between them, and he’d felt an overwhelming ache of emotions. A tangle of sentiments he had no idea how to shake loose. They were as foreign to him as they were unwelcome.
“Is it Mastepha?” Samir pushed, his expression concerned.
His sister. Why did he have this unshakable sense that she was involved in Miranda’s attempted theft? It did Mastepha a disservice, if she were innocent, for only the cruellest of people would invite theft in a country such as Fasiya.
“Has something happened to her?”
Radiz’s lips formed a grim frown. “How would I know? I have no information on my sister.”
“Then it must be this prisoner I have heard the servants discussing?”
Radiz looked at his cousin sharply. Beneath his broad, muscled chest, his heart was hammering like a drum. “What are they saying of her?”
Samir frowned at Rad’s unusual reaction, but continued without delay. “That she is very beautiful. My valet described her as seraphim of the desert, with white skin and hair and eyes like ice chips.”
Rad’s heart turned over in his chest at the description, but he didn’t react. “What else are they saying?”
Samir’s smile was knowing. “That you are taken with her.”
Radiz closed his eyes in frustration. “I am not taken with her.”
Samir held two hands up, in a gesture of surrender. “I am only telling you what I have heard, Rad. Of course I know you better than that. For you to get involved with someone accused of theft is beneath you, and I told my valet such.”
“Fine,” he agreed curtly. Radiz dove under water and kicked away from Samir, to the other end of the pool. He spun beneath the surface and kicked back in the other direction, only rising for air once he’d touched the opposing wall.
“If she is as beautiful as they say, perhaps I should go and introduce myself.”
Radiz clenched his hands into fists beneath the water. “And why would you do that, Samir?”
His smile was rich with amusement. “She is English, and I’m the closest thing to an Englishman we have on hand. Perhaps I could go and make her feel more at home.”
“You will not approach her,” Radiz retorted swiftly, his voice ice cold. “She is off limits to you.”
Samir’s laugh was good-natured. “Careful, Radiz. Reactions like that will get people believing that you are interested in her.”
Radiz looked at his best friend, but saw only Miranda. Her innocent eyes, wide apart, as he propositioned her. Her long blonde hair scooped into that plait she wore. Her lips, pouting and pink, soft and distracting. He groaned softly and dragged his fingers through his wet hair. “I am… interested in why she broke into Mastepha’s apartment. And how she did it and managed to raise only one alarm.”
“Why did you bring her here though? Surely the facilities at the old prison would be far more suitable for someone accused of such a crime.”
Radiz shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “I may send her back there, when I am finished interrogating her.” His black eyes pierced Samir’s curious gaze. “I need to know, Sam. I need to know if she is connected with Mastepha. I would forgive anyone almost anything, if it brought me word of my sister.”
Sam nodded, comprehension dawning. “Then let me talk to her. She may be more inclined to open up to someone a little less… intimidating than you and your henchmen.”
Radiz turned away from Samir, looking once more towards the bedroom that housed Miranda. Soon she would have his note. Would she be angry, or relieved, that he had opted to stay away? Was her body craving his touch as he was hers?
He stroked through the water again, swimming two lengths before coming to a stop near Samir. “I appreciate the offer. If I’m unable to make progress in the next few days, I may take you up on it.”
“Sure, Rad. Let me know.”
Samir let the matter drop, and moved on to topics that were far less troubling to Radiz. He listened, using only a small part of his brain to respond appropriately. The rest of his mind was caught up with the business of contemplating Miranda. The seraphim of the desert.
It was only later that night that he had cause to berate himself for his stupidity. He remembered the call she’d made using his phone, and reached for it in one quick gesture. Impatiently, he scrolled through the call list until he came down to the number he did not recognise. A British landline. He punched it with his finger and waited for it to connect. His foot tapping beneath the desk was the only sign that he was feeling a wave of frustration at any further delay.
“Yeah?” A man’s voice answered, but it was difficult to hear above the din of what sounded like an enormous party in the background.
“Who is this?”
A pause, punctuated by some kind of maudlin wailing. A song, but not music, in Radiz’s opinion.
“You called me, buddy. Who is this?”
“A friend of Miranda’s,” he said finally.
Another pause. “Yeah? And?”
Another voice mumbled out of earshot of the phone, and then the man was back. “Look, mate, I’ve got to go. I haven’t seen Mirry in weeks. Try her mobile.” He disconnected the call before Radiz could say anything else.
It was a dead end.
Miranda lifted her arms above her head, and stretched her fingers to the intricately patterned ceiling. A breeze was coming in from the desert. Thick and warm, it glided over her skin, kissing goosebumps onto her sensitised flesh. It was as though Radiz was touching her, and not the lonely night wind. She dropped her hands back to her side and turned her attention back to the book she was studying.
While the collection of works in her room was meagre, there had been a single textbook in English that detailed the history of the capital city. Miranda had spent most of the day poring over it, if only to keep herself from thinking about Radiz, Steph, and the situation stupidly walked right into.
Thinking of her best friend brought a rueful smile to her lips. Steph would be livid if she knew what had happened to Miranda, and for this reason, Miranda knew she could never tell her. Especially not now, while in the last stage of her pregnancy. And probably not ever, because Radiz’s treatment of Miranda would certainly be the death knell to the already tenuous sibling relationship.
The sound of the door opening made her heart leap, as she turned with the certainty that it would be Radiz, returning to see her. Radiz, returning to make love to her. To pleasure her in a way she’d never imagined possible.
It was not, though.
A small woman with black hair and caramel skin entered the room. Looking at her, it was difficult for Miranda to guess at her age, but if forced, she would have said somewhere in her late twenties.
The woman’s black eyes skidded to Miranda and then glossed past, without so much as a blink. Miranda wasn’t surprised. The Sheikh’s staff were trained not to notice him, and not to see what he didn’t want seen. Miranda was one of those items he clearly wished to keep invisible.
Which was galling to her.
“Hello,” she spoke, ignoring the kernel of self-consciousness that the flimsy outfit brought her. After all, Radiz had chosen the ridiculous assortment of lingerie, so why should Miranda mind if the servants gossiped about her appearance? She would not be around long enough to care about what they said, anyway.
The woman’s eyes flew back to Miranda, but they were laced with indecision. It made Miranda smile, and she walked towards her.
“Do you speak English?”
The woman’s eyes, round and almost as black as an onyx stone, stayed on Miranda’s face. Finally, she nodded, then walked across the floor. She lifted a hand, and Miranda saw that she held a note in it.
Miranda took the folded paper and opened it. I have been detained. Do not expect me; I will come if it suits.
He did not add his name. And why did he need to? Of course the letter was from
Radiz. The disappointment she thought she’d felt earlier was entirely eclipsed by this new wave of loneliness. She swallowed past a pained lump in her throat and screwed the note up tight in her hands. When she looked at the servant, her expression was carefully neutral.
“What is your name?”
The woman stayed silent, and Miranda smiled more broadly. “Oh, come on, I’m only asking your name.”
The woman was torn. Finally, she looked towards the door, then smiled cautiously at Miranda. “I am Assarena.”
“Assarena,” Miranda repeated with a small nod. She extended a slender hand. “I’m pleased to meet you.”
Assarena stayed quiet, once more, earning a small laugh from Miranda.
“I don’t want to delay you from your job. But I haven’t seen another soul all day. Do you have time to, I mean, to talk?”
Assarena looked at the door again, then back at Miranda. Her accent was thick, like Radiz’s “A few minutes,” she said, finally. “But just a few.”
Miranda exhaled a breath she hadn’t even known she’d been holding, then looked down at her skimpy outfit. “I’m sorry about this,” she grimaced. Miranda had no phobias about her body. She had always been small and slender; often, she’d wished for more curves and a little more to grab onto. And while the negligee was reasonable revealing, it was no worse than a bathing costume. Nonetheless, she didn’t want the obviously conservative Assarena to take fright, and so reached for a pale pink coloured blanket from the end of the bed. She wrapped it around her shoulders, and smiled at the other woman.
“Tell me about yourself,” she invited, settling herself into an armchair and indicating with a nod of her head that the servant should sit. Assarena moved towards the chair, but stopped short of actually sitting in it.
“There is nothing to tell, madam. I am sorry, I should not be talking to you.”
Miranda nodded, and curled her legs up beneath her. “I don’t want to get you in trouble, of course.”
“Thank you, madam.” Assarena began to move back to the door, but Miranda forestalled her.
“Is there a phone or computer I might be able to use?”
Assarena turned, her expression showing obvious surprise. “I’m sorry, madam, that is up to His Highness. If he has not provided those things for you, I cannot.”
Miranda dug her fingernails into her palms in frustration. “Then what does he expect me to do in here?” She clasped her hands in her lap and stared at Assarena. It was not the servant’s fault, but the reality of the situation was finally sinking into Miranda.
She was afraid for the first time since coming with Radiz to his palace.
“Would you like me to speak to His Highness’s staff? To see if a message can be passed to him?”
Miranda frowned. Is that what she wanted? Would he come to her then? “Yes. I would like that.”
Assarena stepped closer to Miranda. “What would you like me to ask?”
Miranda thought about it. She wanted to be able to email people. Namely, Steph, but also her university lecturers. She was on track for a top academic honour at the end of the term, and her sudden absence would completely derail that. Mind you, so would a lifetime in a Fasiyan prison cell. She bit down on her lip as she ran through her options.
Was there any point in asking her gaoler for kindness? She knew from Steph that he was ruthless when it suited him to be. Would he get pleasure from withholding something she needed? Something she wanted? She screwed up her face and spun away with a guttural sound of desperation. “Never mind.”
“Madam?” Assarena queried uncertainly.
“It doesn’t matter,” Miranda clarified. “It was a silly idea. Forget I asked. I don’t need anything.”
She stared out at the inky black sky with eyes that were blurred by tears. She waited until she heard the door click shut and then wandered, unseeing, to the small balcony that extended from her room. The desert air was still warm, but the breeze was now carrying the heat of the day away, leaving in its place the magically refreshing cool that desert nights were renowned for. She leaned forward, propping her chin in her palms, on top of the railing.
The palace grounds were enormous. In one direction, she could see a golf course, bathed in milky moonlight. In another, a formal looking garden, with neatly squared hedges and spiky bushes in between.
Mastepha had said Fasiya was beautiful, and it was. But Miranda couldn’t enjoy the scenery. Not when her body and mind were completely at odds. She wanted to be furious at Radiz, but she wasn’t. How could she be? She’d wanted him with a soul-destroying clutch of need. If they had met in any other circumstances, she still would have felt the same. She still would have wanted to make him her first lover. She’d never desired another man in that way. She’d never looked at a guy and felt her insides clench. Even now, her pulse was simmering with remembered pleasure.
Sex with Radiz had exceeded every expectation Miranda had held. Not that she’d spent a lot of time thinking about it in the past, but she’d had a vague idea it might feel nice. It had certainly not been nice. It had been mind-blowing. Literally perception altering. Everything she had known before Radiz no longer made sense. The world was a different place. Brighter, somehow, but also far more terrifying.
But what if he hadn’t enjoyed himself? After all, she was waiting for him, dressed in the ridiculous negligees he’d organised for her, desperate to feel him move inside of her once more, and he’d sent a note instead.
She reached up and scooped her hair into a loose bun, tucking the ends of it back in on itself to keep it in place. In the distance, she could hear something that sounded like the ocean. Or swimming. Water, in any event, lapping and splashing. How nice it would be to dip into a pool on a balmy evening such as this. Better, in the middle of the sun-drenched day. Frustration coiled inside of her, and impatience too.
If theirs had been a normal relationship, she would have stormed to his bedroom and seduced him. Straddled his muscular waist and welcomed him back to her core, where she now suspected he belonged.
She moaned softly at the foolish notion. No one belonged with another person. Not in that way, at least. Maybe once they’d spent time falling in love, and growing dependent on one another… yes. That was different. Physical longing was nothing but a chemical reaction.
It could even be normal, Miranda thought hopefully, to crave someone in this manner. If Radiz had made her feel like this, when she hated him in so many ways, surely someone nice and kind would inspire a similar reaction.
Slightly mollified, she padded back inside, and moved towards the bathroom. A soak in the bath would help. At the very least, she might be able to remove the lingering scent of Radiz from her body.
Then she’d feel better.
Then she’d be able to stop thinking about him.
Chapter Four
Miranda wondered if she was going crazy. Another day and night with no word from Radiz, and she knew for a fact that he was no longer interested in her. After all, if he felt what she did, there was no way he’d be staying away. Only the certainty that her door was locked and guarded had stopped Miranda from rampaging through the palace in search of the man whose body had driven hers to such depths of wild pleasure.
She ran her fingers over the black silky night gown, enjoying the softness beneath her touch. It was one of the only floor length pieces in the collection, though a slit on one side came right up to the top of her thigh.
The food Assarena had brought was delicious, but Miranda had long given up feeling hungry. At least, not for food. She wanted one thing. She craved one man. And the desperate longing was sending her into a complete tailspin.
In the back of her mind, she knew she should be furious. That she should be attempting to garner help from one of her guards, or servants. At best, she knew she should be concerned about the fact she was being held prisoner in a foreign country, accused of a very serious crime. A crime that she had, in fact, committed. But she did not want to think about
any of those things. She couldn’t. Not when almost her whole thought process was singularly engaged on the dissection of the one and only night she’d spent with Radiz.
She pushed the plate away and stood, a restless force making her limbs ache to run. It was not yet nine o’clock, and she was not tired, but with nothing else to do, she moved across to the king size bed and lay down in the middle of it.
Memories of Radiz flooded her, like flames dousing her skin. She gripped the pillow and pulled it over her head, to muffle a scream, then pitched the pillow across the room. It landed, with a thud, against the wall of Radiz’s chest.
“Oh!” Miranda pushed up onto her elbows, and stared across at him. Her heart was pounding like a runaway freight train, so hard and fast she thought it might leap across the room and into his arms, as she was desperate to do.
She didn’t though. However tempted she might be, the last shred of pride she had kept her where she was. Lying in bed. She narrowed her eyes as she stared at him, taking in every detail of his appearance. He was wearing a long white robe, as he had been the first time she’d met him. Was it the same one he’d used to bind her wrists? She sat up and unconsciously rubbed her fingers across her forearms, her blue eyes refusing to cower from his gaze.
She was about to say something, or to at least attempt to formulate a sentence, when Radiz strode across the room, removing his robe as he went, so that it dropped to his feet at the foot of the bed.
Naked before her, splendid and glorious, he stared down at her as he unfurled a condom over his arousal. His expression briefly flicked with something like anger, and then he brought his body over hers, his arms like trunks on either side of her head as he pinned her to the bed with his weight. He kissed her on the lips, hard and fast, his tongue a demanding invasion in her warm mouth. He used a hand to lift her night gown, and groaned at the sight of her body beneath.
He plunged into her, and Miranda cried out hoarsely at the pleasure his invasion brought. Her whole body began to shake as he moved, and her hands dug into his back. She was scratching him and she didn’t care. She climaxed almost immediately; then again, the two days before had been a sort of torturous foreplay. A desire and readiness brought on by a combination of abstinence and graphic dreams.