The Call of the Desert Read Free Page A

forgotten all about them. Her hand was dropped as summarily as if he had flung it away from him, and a dark cloud of foreboding seemed to blot out the sultry evening just visible through the open patio doors. She shivered in response, and wanted to hug her arms around her body.
    Nigel was saying nervously, “His Royal Highness theEmir of Burquat,” and Julia was wondering a little hysterically if she should be curtseying. She didn’t trust her voice to speak and then Kaden’s black gaze was back on her.
    “Dr Somerton.”
    His voice was so achingly familiar that she longed to be able to hold onto something for balance, only dimly registering the cool tone.
    A small anxious-looking man with a red face was beside Kaden. Julia recognised him as the director of the club. He was talking, but his voice seemed to be coming from far away,
    “Perhaps you have met before, Doctor? When you were in Burquat during your studies?”
    A sharp pain lanced Julia and she looked at Kaden, not sure what to say.
    His mouth turned up in a parody of a smile and he drawled, “I seem to have some vague recollection. What year were you there?”
    The slap of rejection was so strong it almost made Julia take a step back. The awful sense of isolation she’d felt when she’d left Burquat was as fresh now as twelve years ago. That this man could transport her so easily back to those painful emotions was devastating. Perhaps he could tell just how excruciating this was for her—hadn’t she all but thrown herself at him that last day? Perhaps he thought he was sparing her some embarrassment now?
    She forced an equally polite and distant smile to her lips. “It’s so long ago now I can barely recall it myself.”
    She switched her brittle-feeling smile to the other men. “Gentlemen, if you don’t need me for this discussion I’d appreciate it if you would excuse me. I just gotback from New York this afternoon, and I’m afraid the jet lag is catching up with me.”
    “Your husband is waiting for you at home? Or perhaps he’s here in the room?”
    Shock at the bluntness of Kaden’s question slammed into Julia. How dared he all but pretend not to know her and then ask such a pointedly personal question? Her jaw felt tight. “For your information,
Your Highness
, I am no longer married. My husband and I are divorced.”
    Kaden did not like the surge of emotion that ripped through him at her curt answer. He had had an image of her returning to a cosy home to be greeted by some faceless man and had felt a blackness descend over his vision, forcing him to ask the question. Even realising that, he couldn’t stop himself asking, “So why are you still using your married name?”
    Julia’s face tightened. “I’m involved in various contracts and it’s simply been easier to leave it for the moment. I have every intention of changing it back in the future.”
    It was as if Kaden was enclosed in a bubble with this woman. The other men went unnoticed, forgotten. Unbidden and unwelcome emotion was clouding everything.
    At that moment Nigel, Julia’s boss, moved perceptibly closer to her, taking her elbow in his hand, staking a very public claim.
    Only moments ago she’d welcomed his support and his tacit interest as a barrier. Now Julia chafed and made a jerky move away, causing Nigel’s hand to drop. She could feel his wounded look without even seeing it, and her head began to throb. The club’s director who still stood beside Kaden, was looking a bit bewildered at theobvious tension in the air, which was making a lie of the fact that she and Kaden claimed to barely know one another.
    She knew she’d only been introduced as a polite formality. She wasn’t expected to take part in Nigel’s wooing of new donors. Her job started when they had to decide how those funds would be best used. If she’d known for a second that Kaden was due to be here this evening, she would have made certain not to come.
    Determined to succeed this time, Julia