Kitabı oku: «The Santina Crown Collection», sayfa 4

CHAPTER FOUR

FOUR o’clock. Another couple of hours or so and they’d be touching down in Mumbai. He might as well get some sleep, Ash acknowledged as he closed down his laptop and then made his way to the jet’s bedroom, not bothering to turn on the light as he headed for the bathroom where he stripped off his clothes and then stepped into the shower. Emerging from it he dried himself and then pulled on one of the two thick towelling robes that hung on the inside of the bathroom door.

This time he did switch on the bedroom light and then froze in disbelief as he saw what—or rather who—it revealed.

‘Sophia! What the …’

The angry sound of Ash’s voice brought Sophia out of her shallow sleep to struggle into a sitting position as she clutched the bedclothes around her naked upper body, and wished that her heart was not hammering so fast.

‘I’m sorry, Ash,’ she apologised immediately. ‘I was going to come and tell you that I was here but you were talking to someone and then I was so tired that I must have fallen asleep.’

This was the last thing he needed right now, Ash thought. In the intimacy of the cabin he could smell the scent of her skin, lush and warm, subtly demanding that his male senses respond to it as nature had designed them to do.

‘You’ve done this deliberately, haven’t you?’ he accused her. ‘Even though I told you that I couldn’t help you. I don’t like having my hand forced, Sophia.’

Sophia bristled. How dare he accuse her of that kind of subterfuge and deceit. ‘You’re wrong,’ she snapped. ‘I’m not trying to force your hand. I came to the airport thinking I’d be able to get a scheduled flight to London but all the normal flights were cancelled because of the number of guests arriving for the party on their own private jets. When the girl at the airport said that yours would be the first to leave I just—’

‘You just got on board? Have you any idea of the diplomatic reverberations your behaviour is going to cause? And not just with your father. How do you think your husband-to-be is going to react to the news that you’ve disappeared with another man within hours of your engagement to him being announced?’

‘He will never be my husband. Never. I wish this was any plane but yours, Ash, I really do, but I had no choice. I will not let my father sacrifice me for his dynastic ambitions. All I want is to get to London. I’ve got my passport. After your plane puts down in Mumbai you need never have anything to do with me again. In fact, I don’t want you to. I thought you were someone special, Ash, a true hero, and someone I could turn to, but you aren’t. Stupid of me when I already knew the danger of putting my faith in you and then being rejected as a result.’

He knew immediately what she was alluding to and her criticism stung.

‘You offered me your virginity and I refused it for your own sake as much as anything else. You were sixteen. To have taken your innocence from you would have been dishonourable.’

They shouldn’t be having this conversation. It took him too close to a dangerous place he didn’t want to be.

‘All I want from you is a lift to Mumbai,’ Sophia told him. ‘No one need know that I left the island with you.’

‘You’re damned right they don’t because the truth is that you did not leave with me. And why London?’

‘I’ve got friends there.’

She was avoiding looking at him, causing Ash to demand curtly, ‘Friends, or a man? A lover who—’

‘No!’ Sophia denied truthfully. Please don’t let Ash ask her if she was really sure those so-called friends would welcome her and help her, she prayed, because the honest answer was that she didn’t know.

Now that the shock of being woken up by Ash’s angry voice was abating, another and far more dangerous awareness was spreading quickly through her body and that was the realisation that under that robe he had tied so carelessly Ash was probably completely naked. Why should that either concern or disturb her? She didn’t want him any more.

And yet she couldn’t remove her gaze from where the robe gaped as he paced the cabin floor with angry strides. She could see the shadow where the dark line of hair that bisected his body started to broaden out after it had crossed the taut plain of his belly. Once and only once she had attempted to trace that line, but then she had only got as far as the waistband of the jeans he had been wearing. Now … She was suddenly finding it very difficult to swallow, Sophia realised, and even more difficult to drag her gaze away from Ash’s body.

‘By rights I ought to instruct my captain to turn this plane round and—’

‘No!’ So great was her panic that Sophia didn’t stop to think as she launched herself towards Ash, reaching out to grasp his arm, her eyes brilliant with fear and pleading as she looked up into his, totally oblivious to the fact that her anxious movement towards him had dragged down the bedding that had been protecting her nudity.

Her breasts were everything he had known they would be, Ash thought, her waist every bit as narrow and her hips every bit as lusciously curved. The tiny bikini pants she was wearing were somehow more a provocation highlighting her sex than a means of covering it. Deep down inside him a truth that refused to be ignored was surging through him. Whether he liked it or not, he wanted her.

In the soft light of the room her skin glowed, her tan contrasting with the white bedding, the lush sensual promise of her body emphasised by the almost monastic and starkness of the decor. Until now he hadn’t realised just how much the clinical decor reflected the emotional emptiness of his life. Now, though, the sight of Sophia’s near-naked body with its ripe readiness for sex had the effect on him of tightening an already-too-coiled spring of needs and desires that had tormented him all evening.

The plane dropped several feet, catching Sophia off guard as she struggled to pull up the sheet to cover her nakedness, her breath escaping from her lungs in a soft gasp as the movement of the plane threw her towards the edge of the bed.

Instinctively Ash reached out to stop her from falling. Instinctively, and disastrously, because it was her naked body he was now holding and his own was reacting to that fact. He had to let her go. He had to leave this cabin, but instead he was moving closer to her.

This couldn’t be happening. It must not be happening, Sophia told herself. But it was too late. It was happening, and somehow it seemed that her treacherous body wanted it to happen even though that should have been impossible.

He shouldn’t be doing this. He didn’t want to be doing this, Ash told himself, but he was, the lean darkness of his hand cupping one of her breasts whilst his lips feathered tiny tormenting kisses around the nipple of the other.

She wanted to deny him, to stop him, to tell him that this must not happen, but like a sealed jar of sweetly potent honey-infused wine exposed to the sun’s heat, the seal on her emotions and needs melted beneath his touch, leaving the sweet wine of her own desire to spill hotly through her veins.

Where did it come from, this instinct that was pure and intense? After all, she had no past experience of this kind of intimacy, no matter what others might think. But now, it had her reaching out to clasp Ash’s head between her hands to hold him to her breast whilst her body arched, her head thrown back in an agonised delirium of a desire she wanted to reject but couldn’t. A wild febrile urgency possessed her.

Her nipples, sensitised by his touch, and the shockingly fierce tug of his mouth, were sending almost violent spasms of erotic raw need to every part of her body, but most of all to the trembling aching heart of her sex. The pulse that sprung up there was growing more insistent, more urgent, more demanding, with every touch of Ash’s hands and mouth. It was as though, deep within her, the womanhood she had told herself she had guarded so assiduously for the man who would love her and take away the pain Ash’s rejection had caused her was pushing against the bonds of her virginity, swelling and softening, pulsing with its female need for the man arousing it so intensely.

Ash groaned. She was everything he had never allowed himself to imagine that she would be and more. Now, with the iron denial he had been trying all evening to forge around his desire for her to seal himself off from it, broken apart by the strength of that desire, he had no need to imagine what it would be like to give in to the lure of her, because he was already doing it.

She smelled of vanilla and almonds, her flesh dew-damp from her own arousal, the dark crowns of her nipples hard eager tellers of female need. He parted her thighs with his hand, caressing their sensitive inner flesh, his own body responding to her shudder of reaction and soft moan of impatient need. He was hard and ready, the head of his erection swollen and taut. Her briefs had bows at the sides which he unfastened with a tug. Her sex was bare to his gaze and touch, her Brazilian wax revealing its delicate shape. He was just reaching out to part its neatly folded outer lips when there was a knock on the cabin door and it started to open.

There was barely time for him to thrust the sheet over Sophia’s nakedness and conceal his own body with the robe he was still wearing before the steward was in the room, his eyes widening as he apologised and started to back out, telling him that the captain wanted him to know that strong head winds meant that their flight would be delayed by fifteen minutes or so.

An icy cold revulsion every bit as all-consuming as his desire had been earlier gripped him. How could he have behaved as he had?

‘You’d better get dressed,’ he told Sophia without looking at her as he started to move away from her. They dressed in silence before moving out into the cabin.

What on earth had possessed her? Sophia felt sick with shock and disbelief, unable to say a word.

Eventually the captain announced that they were coming in to land. Ash hadn’t spoken to her once since they had left the bedroom, and Sophia hadn’t wanted him to. She was still in shock and bitterly angry with herself for her own behaviour.

His curt warning, ‘Seat belt,’ broke the silence between them, and had her fumbling with the straps, the colour crawling up under her skin as she caught the look that the hovering steward was giving her. He might not have seen her naked body thanks to Ash’s prompt action but he knew exactly what had been happening; his look told her that.

In the past when men had given her that lustful knowing look she had been protected from it by the truth that only she knew—namely that no man had ever touched her intimately or shared her bed—but now thanks to her own betrayal of herself she had no defence against it. And there was no one to protect her from the pride-savaging pain of that. No one. For the rest of her life now she would know and remember how she had let herself down by succumbing to a … a need she had believed she had conquered years ago, Sophia acknowledged as the plane came in to land.

It would be a long flight to London, and she hoped that she wouldn’t have to wait too long at the airport before beginning it.

She looked at her watch. At home people would be waking up, and her maid would be discovering that her room was empty and that her bed hadn’t been slept in. Her stomach churned, but now more than ever she knew that she could not marry the Spanish prince her father had chosen for her.

Ash was unfastening his seat belt and standing. Automatically Sophia did the same.

‘My case …’ she began when Ash headed towards the door that the steward was just beginning to open for them.

‘Leave it,’ Ash told her curtly as he indicated that she was to precede him to the now-open door. ‘The steward will attend to it.’

‘But I want to get on the first flight I can …’ Sophia began, only to come to an abrupt halt, her face paling as she looked out of the door of the plane and saw the camera crews and photographers jostling for position at the bottom of the steps. Paparazzi.

Obviously irritated by the fact that she wasn’t moving Ash came up behind her and then stopped himself, cursing under his breath as he saw the press waiting for them below.

‘I suppose this was your idea. Run away in secret and then let the world know what you’ve done,’ he told her angrily.

‘No. It’s got nothing to do with me,’ Sophia defended herself, but she could see from the look Ash was giving her that he didn’t believe her.

There no escape for them, Ash recognised. To retreat back into the plane now would only increase the gathered press’s hunger for their photographs. They had no option other than to try to outface them.

‘Come on.’ He took a firm hold of her arm.

No matter how much she might long to persuade herself that Ash’s hold on her arm was protective it just wasn’t possible, Sophia acknowledged miserably. Not after she had seen the anger in his eyes.

As they neared the bottom of the steps the waiting reporters started firing a barrage of far-too-intimate questions at them, demanding, ‘Is it true that the two of you are an item and that you’ve left a fiancé behind on Santina?’

‘Have you any comment to make on the fact that you’ve spent the night together?’

‘Does King Eduardo know that the two of you are together?’

‘Are you together, or is the princess going to go back to her fiancé?’

‘Did you enjoy your in-flight entertainment, Your Highness?’

The last comment given with a knowing leer as a camera was lifted to catch her expression was too much for Sophia’s control. She turned towards Ash, instinctively seeking his protection as she clung to his arm and turned her face into his chest.

‘Thanks, darling,’ the photographer called out. ‘Great shot.’

‘So I was right. You did engineer this,’ Ash accused Sophia in a savage undertone. ‘Have you no sense of dignity or shame? What do you think it’s going to do to your own reputation, never mind your father’s and your fiancé’s, when this … this circus of predators splash their photographs all over the world? Or don’t you care?’

‘I didn’t do anything.’ Sophia tried to defend herself, her voice catching on a small hiccup of misery. She was trembling as much with the hurt of Ash not believing her as with the anxiety caused by the unexpected and unwanted presence of the press. She was, of course, used to being besieged by the press; she was even used to them asking her very intimate questions about her personal life and the men she dated, but then she had had the protection of knowing that no matter what they chose to believe and publish none of it was true. Now, though, things were different. Now she had been seen with Ash in a very intimate situation, indeed. ‘Why would I? I don’t want my father to know that I’m here. I don’t want him to know anything until I’m safely in London.’

‘Well, no one else could have organised it.’ Ash only began to frown as out of the corner of his eye he saw the steward sidling up to one of the reporters who handed him a fat envelope, whilst the steward glanced furtively over his shoulder.

It looked very much as though Sophia was telling the truth, Ash had to admit, but there was no time to question the steward now or, in fact, to do anything that would draw further press attention to them, he decided.

‘This way,’ he instructed Sophia, still holding her arm as he pushed his way through the crowd, almost dragging her with him as he headed for the waiting limousine.

‘What’s this for?’ Sophia demanded when she saw it. ‘I need to be in the airport sorting out my flight to London.’

‘And I need to be in my office for a very important meeting,’ Ash countered, ‘which is where we’re going right now, unless of course you want me to leave you to be eaten alive by the press. We can sort out your onward flight later.’

The thought of being abandoned by Ash to deal with the ever-hungry-for-gossip paparazzi had Sophia getting into the waiting limousine without another word of protest.

The car was soon speeding through the city streets. Sophia had never visited Mumbai or India before, although she’d always wanted to—and not just because the subcontinent was Ash’s home. She was genuinely interested in what she could see beyond the car windows and couldn’t help turning to Ash and murmuring, ‘Everything’s so colourful and vibrant. It makes everywhere else I’ve been seem pale and uninteresting.’

They’d come to a halt in the traffic and out of nowhere a boy appeared with a bucket of water and proceeded to clean the car’s front windows, despite the driver’s dismissive wave for him to stop.

A tender smile softened Sophia’s face. Thin and wiry, the boy gave her a wide smile, his brown eyes sparkling when he realised that Sophia was watching him, and quickly came round to her side of the car.

Watching her as she dug into her handbag, Ash felt something he didn’t want to acknowledge catching on his emotions.

Nasreen had thoroughly disliked the poor of India, and had made no attempt to conceal her contempt for them.

‘Here you are.’ He dug into his own pocket for some change, knowing that she would not have any Indian currency.

The car had started to move again.

‘Oh, make him stop, Ash, so that I can give the boy the money,’ Sophia begged, giving Ash a smile nearly as warm as the one she had given the boy when he did as she asked.

It would be unbelievably easy for a man to be seduced by the warmth of such a smile, Ash acknowledged. And by Sophia herself, as well? He shrugged as the question arose, knowing full well as he did so just how much his body was still aching from the denial he had imposed on it.

They were out of the centre of the city now and travelling on a road along a sea-facing promenade. On the other side of the road Sophia was surprised to see that the buildings had a distinctly art-deco flavour to them, but before she could ask Ash about this they were climbing along another road into what Sophia could see was a very exclusive-looking residential area filled with expensive modern apartment blocks.

Sophia wasn’t totally surprised when the limousine came to a halt outside one building that looked even more expensive than the rest.

‘My case,’ she reminded Ash, avoiding the hand he held out to her to help her from the car. She simply did not dare to touch him, not with every bit of her still aching with longing for him.

‘The driver will have it sent up to the apartment,’ Ash told her. He looked at his watch, mindful of his appointment. It shouldn’t take too long for him to organise a suitable flight to London for Sophia. He could, of course, have left her to fend for herself but that wasn’t Ash’s way. He had been brought up with a strong sense of responsibility towards his heritage and a duty to those who depended on him. That was part of the role into which he had been born as maharaja.

When he had children, a son, an heir—as he must—he would make sure that whilst that child understood the duties that went with the privilege and the wealth he would inherit, he would not be burdened by them. A child needed to be allowed to be a child. And between parent and child there needed to be love, as well as mutual respect. As an orphan he had missed out on that love, but even having parents did not guarantee it. Sophia was the proof of that.

Sophia. There he was allowing himself to feel sympathetic towards her again. His footsteps ringing out on the cool marble of the floor to the foyer of the apartment building, Ash paused to turn round to look at her.

Her dark hair was softly tousled, her face free of makeup, her eyes dark and luminous with curiosity as she studied her surroundings. Her lips parted slightly.

To his chagrin, desire, raw and fierce, and definitely unwanted, kicked through him, causing him to turn away from her as he told her curtly, ‘The lift is this way.’

Reluctantly Sophia followed Ash. She’d have preferred it if he’d simply left her at the airport to make her own arrangements to board the first available flight for London. The lift, like the building itself, was very modern in glass and steel, and Sophia wasn’t surprised when she followed Ash into his apartment to discover a large open-plan living space with a whole wall of glass and a terrace beyond it, both with panoramic views. Nor did the decor of cool whites, charcoal greys and strong matt black surprise her, either. It was all so very masculine. Like Ash himself? A dangerous twist of sensation ached low down in her body.

‘Sit down. I’ll organise some breakfast.’

‘I’m not hungry,’ Sophia refused. ‘All I want is to get to London. I wanted you to leave me at the airport and not bring me here—’ She broke off as her mobile chirruped the arrival of a message, her body tensing. They’d know at home by now that she wasn’t there.

Ash had left her and she was on her own in the room. She reached for her phone, seeing immediately that the text she’d received was from Carlotta.

OMG, Sophia, her sister had written, what were you thinking? You being caught in bed with Ash is all over the internet. And I mean all over. There are reporters here and they’re grilling Father about you joining the mile-high club with Ash. He didn’t answer them, of course. He just stormed out the room. He’s really angry, Soph. And humiliated. I hope it was worth it. In my experience, though, it never is.

Quickly Sophia deleted the message, her fingers trembling and her heart pounding.

In the kitchen of Ash’s apartment the television was on showing a bulletin from a local English-speaking news channel. The sight of his own face on the screen had Ash stopping to watch.

A reporter was explaining that following the press discovery of Ash and Sophia together on his jet an announcement had just been put out by a spokesperson for the Santina royal family to say that, regrettably, when Princess Sophia had informed her father that he was about to be asked for her hand in marriage, he had been unaware of her whirlwind love affair with the Maharaja of Nailpur and had assumed that she was referring to another royal suitor.

The matter had now been clarified however, and the king was pleased to announce that Princess Sophia was engaged to be married to the maharaja.

Leaving the kitchen abruptly Ash returned to the living room of the apartment, reaching for the control to reveal the concealed TV screen.

‘I’ve found a flight with a seat on it but it doesn’t leave until this evening,’ Sophia told him. She’d have preferred an earlier flight and it went against her pride to have to accept Ash’s hospitality for longer than she wanted.

‘Watch this,’ he commanded grimly, ignoring her words as he switched on the TV which was running a weather bulletin.

‘What—?’ Sophia began, but Ash shook his head.

‘Wait,’ he said tersely.

For what felt like a small eternity Sophia stood in silence in front of the TV screen, not daring to move because of Ash’s grim manner, and then she heard the news reader’s announcement.

‘There is sad news to report for Mumbai’s matchmakers because today the King of Santina has announced that his daughter the Princess Sophia is to marry the Maharaja of Nailpur.’

With a growing sense of disbelief and horror Sophia watched and listened as the news item Ash had seen earlier was repeated.

Only when it had finished did she turn to Ash and tell him shakily, ‘You’ll have to speak to him, Ash, and tell him—’

‘I shall certainly have to speak to him, and the sooner, the better, but he obviously felt he had no other choice,’ said Ash coldly. ‘There’s only one person responsible for this situation, Sophia, and that person is you. You put yourself on my plane.’

There was nothing she could say to refute that, no matter how much she might wish to. Ash was opening his smartphone. He looked so grimly angry that for the first time in her life Sophia felt that she was facing a man who was even more formidable than her father. Far more formidable, in fact. This was Ash the maharaja, Ash the leader and the ruler of his people. This was an Ash who instinctively she knew would stop at nothing to defend the probity and honour of his royal role, and a quake of very real apprehension made her tremble inwardly.

The speed with which his call was put through to King Eduardo told Ash that the king had been expecting it. Indeed it was Ash’s opinion that the royal spokesperson had given the statement he had specifically to ensure that Ash did contact the king.

‘Ash.’ The older man’s voice was harsh and Ash suspected the use of his own first name intended to make him a supplicant for the king’s forgiveness rather than an equal.

‘Highness.’ Ash still responded formally, though. ‘There has obviously been a misunderstanding.’

‘A misunderstanding?’ Anger grated through the king’s voice. ‘There’s no misunderstanding about the fact that you have publicly shamed this family and Sophia’s fiancé.’

‘I understand your anger, Your Highness, but I can assure you that nothing happened that either you or Sophia’s fiancé need be concerned about.’ Ash spoke crisply whilst Sophia listened, white-faced and feeling far more distressed than she wanted to admit to.

Was it because of that, because of what he could see in her agonised expression, that he told her father in a more conciliatory tone, ‘The truth is that Sophia was overwhelmed by the unexpectedness of your announcement of her engagement. In a moment of panic she boarded my plane unbeknownst to me, intending to make her way to London. An impulsive, ill-thought-out action, I acknowledge, but without any intention of causing anyone embarrassment.’

‘And you discussed this together in bed on board your plane, did you? Do you take me for a complete fool? Sophia may not want to get married but she has no choice. And that’s her own fault. She’s never out of the gossip columns, with her name linked to a different man every week, and now this.’

Her father was speaking so loudly and angrily that Sophia could hear what he was saying. Her face burned, and she might be hurting inside but she wasn’t going to defend herself. Her father didn’t understand her, he never had.

‘Well, there’s only one thing to be done now,’ said King Eduardo. ‘You must marry her yourself, and as quickly as possible. Unless and until you do, she will no longer be considered a member of this family. If you don’t marry her then I shall disown and disinherit her. She’s brought more than enough shame and trouble on this family. The only way she can redeem herself now and put a stop to this appalling gossip is by marriage to you.’

There was a sharp click as the king ended their call without giving Ash the opportunity to reply.