The Sheikh's Prize by Lynne Graham

to put our marriage behind me,’ Saffy admitted with quiet dignity as she began moving back to the door with obvious intent. ‘But since I didn’t know about the fund, it hardly matters now. I’m just relieved you’ve managed to sort it out. Now, if that’s all you have to say—’
    ‘No, it’s not all. I have something else I wish to discuss.’
    Saffy froze in her tracks and slowly turned back to him. ‘If it’s anything to do with the recent past, it’s unwelcome and I don’t want to hear it.’
    Zahir regarded her with glittering dark golden eyes. ‘Tough,’ he told her. ‘I’m here and you’ll listen.’
    ‘Look, that kind of attitude may go down well in Maraban but it leaves me cold!’
    ‘But I don’t...leave you cold,’ he affixed as if she might be in some doubt as to his meaning.
    A flush of pink washed from her long slender throat up in a wave of burning mortification, for to have him throw that in her face was an affront of no mean order. ‘I’m not listening, Zahir... I’m going to show you out. I want you to leave.’
    Instead he stalked towards her like a prowling jungle cat cornering a prey. ‘No, you don’t. You’re being stubborn. You don’t like the tables being turned but you put this ball into my court—’
    ‘No, I didn’t!’ Saffy exclaimed in angry vexation.
    ‘You came to me willingly—’
    ‘I said I wasn’t going to talk about this!’ Saffy flung back at him furiously.
    Zahir sent the door behind her crashing shut with an imperious shove of one strong hand. ‘I have a proposition I want you to consider—’
    ‘No... no. ’ Saffy whipped up her hands to press them against her ears in desperate defiance. ‘I’m not listening. You’ve got nothing to say that I could want to hear.’
    Zahir grabbed her hands and yanked them down, retaining a firm hold on her wrists. ‘I’ve already bought you an apartment here in London. You’ll move out of this one into it and I will visit you there whenever I am free...’
    As simple shock winged through Saffy in a tidal wave her hands went limp in his grasp and she stared up at him wide-eyed with astonishment and no small amount of incredulity. ‘An apartment? What on earth are you suggesting?’
    ‘That you leave your current lover and become mine,’ Zahir spelt out with barely leashed ferocity. ‘I don’t want you here with him. I don’t care what arrangement you have. I will only come to you if you are mine alone!’
    Saffy blinked rapidly, processing his words in disbelief. ‘You’re insane. Five years ago, you divorced me and cast me off like an old shoe you’d outgrown!’ she condemned rawly. ‘And now you’re asking me to be your mistress?’
    Brilliant dark eyes narrowed and he freed her hands. ‘That’s an emotive label and rather outdated.’
    ‘And yet you’ve got the nerve to suggest such a demeaning relationship might suit me?’ Saffy hissed at him furiously.
    ‘Yes, I have the nerve,’ Zahir declared in a driven undertone, his accent very thick. ‘I want you to the edge of madness but I won’t share you with other men.’
    ‘My goodness,’ Saffy said in a sharp and brittle voice. ‘Was I that good in the tent?’
    ‘Stop it,’ Zahir urged harshly, stroking a stern finger across her parted lips, leaving a tingle in the wake of his warning. ‘Don’t reduce us both to that level with that tongue of yours. There is no sin in us indulging ourselves in pleasure. Who would it harm? We would be discreet. I would spend as much time with you as I can find to spare.’
    But Saffy was still stunned by what he was proposing. A mistress? A kept woman in the background of his life, a dirty secret? Her? He had to be kidding. Her pride and independence would never allow her to accept such a relationship. Of course, how could he know that? At eighteen she had been loving, clingy and needy and that was probably how he still saw her. Back then marriage and a man she loved had been the zenith of her