She was here to observe her father and ultimately make herself known to him. Liyah had not come to the Chatsfield London to ogle a Zeena Sahran prince.

Aaliyah Amari did not ogle anyone.

The door in front of her swung open. The unexpectedness of it, even though she’d been the one to knock, further emphasized how disconnected from her normal self Liyah was.

Wearing a dark apricot kameez embroidered around the neck and wrists with pale yellow thread, the emir’s personal housekeeper clasped her hands in front of her and bent her head forward. “Miss Amari, how may I be of service?”

“I wanted to make sure you and the emir’s other female traveling companions have found your accommodations acceptable.”

“Very much so.” The older woman stepped back and indicated Liyah should enter her room. “Please, come in.”

“I do not want to take you from your duties.”

“Not at all. You must share a cup of tea with me.”

With no polite way to decline, and frankly not inclined to do so, Liyah followed the other woman to the small sofa on the other side of the deluxe room. As much as it might bother her, Liyah could not deny her fascination with the emir.

At least, not to herself.

The Middle Eastern tea service Liyah had purchased on behalf of the hotel—along with the ones for the sheikh and his fiancée’s suites—sat in the center of the oval coffee table.

Miz Abdullah-Hasiba poured the fragrant hot drink from the copper-and-glass pot into the short, narrow matching cups with no handles. “This is a treat.”

“Yes?”

The housekeeper nodded with a smile. “Oh, yes. We do not travel with glassware as it is too easily broken.”

“Naturally.” Liyah waited for the housekeeper to take a sip before following suit, enjoying the sweetened warm beverage and the bittersweet memories it evoked.

Her mom had insisted on beginning and ending each day with a cup of mint tea augmented by a touch of honey.

“Nevertheless, the Chatsfield is the first hotel on the emir’s current European travel itinerary to have thought to provide the traditional tea service.”

“They will only be found in your room, the emir’s suite and that of his fiancée, I’m afraid.”

The older woman smiled. “Your grasp of our culture is commendable. Most hotel staff would have put the tea set in the room for the emir’s secretary.”

Liyah did not shrug off the praise, but neither did she acknowledge it. She was more aware of the Zeena Sahran culture than the average Brit or American, but anyone observant would have taken note that the housekeeper had been booked in the most deluxe room beside the emir’s fiancée’s suite.

“His secretary is actually junior office staff, I believe,” Liyah observed.

“She is. The emir follows the old ways. By necessity, his personal administrative assistant is Duwad, a male.”

“Because your emir cannot work late hours in his suite with a woman, married or otherwise,” Liyah guessed.

“Precisely.”

“So, this is a business trip?” Very little had been said in the media about the nature of the emir’s current travel plans.

“For the most part. Melech Falah insisted Emir Sayed enjoy a final European tour as it were before taking on the mantle of full leadership of our country.”

“The king intends to abdicate the throne to his son?” She’d read speculation to that effect, but nothing concrete.

“One might consider that a possible course of events after the royal wedding.”

Liyah approved the other woman’s carefully couched answer and did not press for anything more definite. “Our head of housekeeping was scandalized at the thought of booking a separate floor for a sheikh’s harem.”

“Ah. She assumed he would be bringing a bevy of belly dancers to see to his needs, no doubt.”

“That may have been her understanding, yes.” Liyah herself had assumed something similar, if not quite so fanciful when first told of the harem.

The Zeena Sahran housekeeper laughed softly. “Nothing so dramatic, I am afraid. The emir is ever mindful of his position as a betrothed man.”

Not sure she believed that, but having very little practical experience with men and none at all with their sex drives, Liyah didn’t argue. She did know the rooms she’d prepared had all been for different female staff members of the prince’s entourage.

Most of the rooms that would ultimately be occupied were slated to house the emir’s fiancée and her mostly female traveling companions. Her brother was supposed to be accompanying her, as well, and had booked a suite on the presidential level near the emir’s.

Not quite as grand, it was nevertheless impressive accommodation.

After a surprisingly enjoyable visit with Hasiba—as she insisted on being called—in which the housekeeper managed to convey unspoken but clear reservations toward the future emira of Zeena Sahra, Liyah left for a meeting with the concierge.

He and his staff expected her input on a finalization of entertainment offerings to make to the sheikh over the next two weeks.

* * *

Liyah came out of the royal suite, pleased with the care the chambermaid assigned to the emir’s rooms had taken.

The vases of purple iris―the official flower of Zeena Sahra―Liyah had ordered were fresh and perfectly arranged. The bowls with floating jasmine on either side of the candelabra on the formal dining table did not have a single brown spot on the creamy white blossoms.

The beds were all made without a single wrinkle and the prince’s tea service was prepped for his late-afternoon repast.

She headed for the main elevator. While staff were encouraged to use the service elevator, she was not required to do so. The busiest time of day for housekeeping and maintenance usually coincided with light use on the guest elevators.

So, as she’d done at her hotel in San Francisco, Liyah opted to use them when she wasn’t carrying towels or pushing a cleaning cart. Something she rarely had to do in her position as lead chambermaid, but not outside the realm of possibility.

The doors slid open with a quiet whoosh and Liyah’s gaze was snagged by espresso-brown eyes.

The emir stared back, his expression a strange mixture of surprise and something else she had very little experience interpreting. “Miss Amari?”

“Emir Sayed.” She dipped her head in acknowledgment of his status. “I was just checking on your suite.”

“The service has been impeccable.”

“I’m glad you think so. I’ll be sure and pass your kind words on to your suite’s housekeeping staff.”

He inclined his head in regal agreement she doubted he was even aware of.

She waited for him to step out of the elevator, but he did not move. His security detail had exited first with a smooth precision that came off as a deeply ingrained habit, followed by the emir’s administrative assistant and the junior secretary.

They all waited, as well, for their sheikh to move.

Only he didn’t.

He pressed a button and the doors started to close. “Are you coming?” His tone implied impatience.

Though she didn’t know why. Her brain couldn’t quite grasp what he was doing on the other side of the doorway. If he was going back down again, wouldn’t his security be on the elevator with him?

One thing she did know: she wasn’t about to commit the faux pas of joining the emir. “Oh, no. I’ll just go to the service elevator.”

“Do not be ridiculous.” He reached out and grabbed her wrist, drawing shocked gasps from his staff and an imprecation in the Zeena Sahran dialect of Arabic from his personal bodyguard.

Liyah had little opportunity to take that in as she was pulled inexorably into the elevator through the shrinking gap between the heavy doors.

They closed behind her on another Arabic curse, this one much louder and accompanied by a shocked and clearly disapproving, “Emir Sayed!”

“Your Highness?”

“There is no reason for you to take another elevator.”

“But your people...shouldn’t you have waited for them?”

His elegant but strong fingers were still curled around her wrist and he showed no intention of letting her go. “I am not accustomed to being questioned in my actions by a servant.”

The words were dismissive, his tone arrogant, even cold, but the look in his eyes wasn’t. She’d never heard of brown fire before, but it was there in his gaze right now.

Hot enough to burn the air right from her lungs.

Nevertheless, her professional demeanor leaned toward dignified, not subservient. By necessity, she pulled the cool facade she’d perfected early in life around her with comfortable familiarity.

“And I am not used to being manhandled by hotel guests.” She stared pointedly at his hold on her wrist, expecting him to release her immediately.

It wasn’t acceptable in the more conservative culture of Zeena Sahra for him to touch any single woman outside his immediate family—and that did not include cousins—much less one that was a complete stranger to him.

However, his hold remained. “This is hardly manhandling.”

His thumb rubbed over her pulse point and Liyah had no hope of suppressing her shiver of reaction.

His heated gaze reflected confusion, as well. “I don’t understand this.”

He’d spoken in the dialect of his homeland, no doubt believing she wouldn’t know what he was saying. She didn’t disabuse him of the belief.

She couldn’t. Words were totally beyond her.

For the first time in her life, she craved touch worse than dark chocolate during that most inconvenient time of the month.

“You are an addiction,” he accused, his tone easy to interpret even if she hadn’t spoken the Zeena Sahran dialect fluently.

Suddenly embarrassed, wondering if she’d done something to invite his interest and reveal her own, she pulled against his hold. He let go, but his body moved closer, not farther away, the rustle of his traditional robes the only sound besides their breathing in the quiet elevator.

With shock she realized there was no subtle sound of pulleys because he’d pushed the stop button.

She stared up at him, her heart in her throat. “Emir?”

“Sayed. My name is Sayed.”

And she wasn’t about to use it. Only she did, whispering, “Sayed,” in an involuntary expulsion of soft sound.

Satisfaction flared in his dark eyes, a line of color burnishing his cheekbones. For whatever reason, the emir liked hearing his name on her lips.

He touched the name badge attached to her black suit jacket. “Amari is not your name.”

“It is.” Her voice came out husky, her throat too tight for normal speech.

“Not your given name.”

“Aaliyah,” she offered before her self-protection kicked in.

“Lovely.” He brushed the name tag again and, though it was solid plastic, she felt the touch as if it had been over bare skin. “Your parents are traditionalists.”

“Not exactly.” Liyah didn’t consider Hena’s decision to make an independent life for herself and her illegitimate daughter traditional.

Hena had simply wanted to give Liyah as many connections to the country of her mother’s birth as she could. Hena had also said she’d wanted to speak hope for her daughter’s life every time she used her name, which meant high exalted one.

It was another example of the deceased woman’s more romantic nature than that of her pragmatic daughter.

Liyah doubted very much if Gene Chatsfield had anything to do with naming her at all.

“Your accent is American,” Sayed observed.

“So is yours.”

He shrugged. “I was educated in America from the age of thirteen. I did not return to Zeena Sahra to live until I finished graduate school.”

She knew that. His older brother’s tragic death in a bomb meant for the melech had changed the course of Sayed’s life and his country’s future.

Further political unrest in surrounding countries and concerns for their only remaining son’s safety had pushed the melech and his queen to send Sayed to boarding school. It wasn’t exactly a state secret.

Nor was the fact that Sayed had opted to continue his education through a bachelor’s in world politics and a master’s in management, but having him offer the information made something strange flutter in Liyah’s belly.

Or maybe that was just his nearness.

The guest elevators at the Chatsfield were spacious by any definition, but the confined area felt small to Liyah.

“You’re not very western in your outlook,” she said, trying to ignore the unfamiliar desires and emotions roiling through her.

“I am the heart of Zeena Sahra. Should my people and their ways not be the center of mine?”

She didn’t like how much his answer touched her. To cover her reaction she waved her hand between the two of them and said, “This isn’t the way of Zeena Sahra.”

“You are so sure?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“So you have studied my country.” He sounded way too happy about that possibility.

“Don’t take it personally.”

He laughed, the honest sound of genuine amusement more compelling than even the uninterrupted regard of the extremely handsome man. “You are not like other women.”

“You’re the emir.”

“You are saying other women are awed by me.”

She gave him a wry look and said dryly, “You’re not conceited at all, are you?”

“Is it conceit to recognize the truth?”

She shook her head. Even arrogant, she found this man irresistible and had the terrible suspicion he knew it, too.

Unsure how she got there, she felt the wall of the elevator at her back. Sayed’s body was so close his outer robes brushed her. Her breath came out on a shocked gasp.

He brushed her lower lip with his fingertip. “Your mouth is luscious.”

“This is a bad idea.”

“Is it?” he asked, his head dipping toward hers.

“Yes.” Was this how it had begun with her mother and father? “I’m not part of amenities.”

No wonder Hena had spent so much effort warning Liyah against the seductions of men.

“I know.” His tone rang with sincerity.

“I don’t do elevator sex romps,” she clarified, just in case he didn’t get it.

Something flared in his dark gaze and Sayed stepped back, shaking his head. “I apologize, Miss Amari. I do not know what came over me.”

“I’m sure you’re used to women falling all over you,” she offered by way of an explanation.

He frowned. “Is that meant to be a sop to my ego or a slam against it?”

“Neither?”

He shook his head again, as if trying to clear it.

She wondered if it worked. She would be grateful for a technique that brought back her own usual way of thinking, unobscured by this unwelcome and unfamiliar desire.

She did not know what else he might have said or how she would have responded because the telephone inside the elevator car rang. She opened the panel the handset resided behind and answered it.

“Amari here.”

“Is the sheikh with you?” an unfamiliar voice demanded, and she wondered if Christos Giatrakos, the new CEO himself, had been called to deal with the highly unusual situation.

A shiver of apprehension skittered down her spine, until she realized that the tones had that quality that implied a certain age.

“Yes, the emir is here,” she forced out, realizing in kind of a shocked daze that she might well be speaking to her father for the first time.

“Put him on.”

“Yes, sir.”

She reached toward Sayed with the phone, the cord not quite long enough. “Mr. Chatsfield would like to speak with you.”

Sayed came closer and took the handset, careful not to touch her in the process.

She retreated to the other side of the elevator where she was forced to witness the one-sided conversation. Very little was actually said beyond the fact there was no problem and they would be arriving at the lobby level in a moment.

Even with her tendency to shut down, Liyah would have felt the need to explain herself, not so the emir of Zeena Sahra. If she had not witnessed his moment of shocked self-realization, she wouldn’t believe he was discomfited in the least by their situation.

True to his word, the elevator doors were opening on the lobby level seconds later. Both the emir’s personal bodyguard and Liyah’s father were waiting on their arrival.

The conspicuous absence of anyone else to witness their exit from the elevator said more than words would have what everyone thought had been happening in the stopped elevator.

Offended by assumptions about her character so far from reality, Liyah walked out with her head high, her expression giving nothing of her inner turmoil away.

Making no effort to set her boss’s mind at rest in regard to Liyah’s behavior, the emir barely acknowledged Gene Chatsfield before waving his bodyguard onto the elevator with an imperious “Come, Yusuf.”

“In my office,” her father said in frigid tones as the elevator doors swished to a close.

The following ten minutes were some of the most uncomfortable of Liyah’s life. Bad enough to be dressed down by the owner of the Chatsfield chain, but knowing the man was her father, as well, had intensified Liyah’s humiliation at the encounter.

The short duration of her time in the elevator with the sheikh and her obvious lack of being mussed had saved her from an even worse lecture. However, Liyah had been left in no doubt that she was never to ignore hotel policy of employees vacating the main elevators when guests entered again.

Definitely not the moment in which to make herself known to Gene Chatsfield as the daughter he’d never met.

* * *

Sayed woke from a very vivid dream, his sex engorged and his heart beating rapidly.

It was not surprising the dream had not been about his fiancée. He had known Tahira, the daughter of a neighboring sheikh, since their betrothal when she was a mere infant. He had been thirteen and on the brink of leaving for boarding school in the States.

His feelings toward her had not changed appreciably since then.

The uncomfortable but also unsurprising reality was that the dream had centered on the beautiful Aaliyah Amari he’d met his first day in London. And thought about incessantly since.

He’d seen her in passing twice, once before the elevator incident and once since then. Both times his attention had been inexorably drawn to Aaliyah, but she’d done her best to pretend ignorance of his presence on the most recent occasion.

Understandably.

Nevertheless, even after the briefest collision with her emerald-green gaze, electric shocks had gone straight to his instant erection. And he’d almost stumbled.

Him.

Accused of being made of ice more than once, his disturbing reaction to this woman who had no place in his life bothered Sayed more than he wanted to admit. The elevator incident was still firmly in the realm of the inexplicable, no matter how much he’d tried to understand his own actions in the matter.

Sheikhs did not pant after chambermaids, not even those with additional responsibility. Aaliyah was of the servant class. He was an emir. He could not even consider an affair with her if he were so inclined.

Regardless, while Sayed had not been celibate for his entire adult life, he had been for the past three years.

Once Tahira had reached the age of majority and their betrothal had been announced officially, his honor demanded he cease sexual intimacy with other women. No one else seemed to expect it of him, but Sayed didn’t live according to any viewpoint but his own.

However, his celibacy might well explain the intense and highly sexual dreams. Three years was a long time to go without for a thirty-six-year-old man who had been sexually active since his teens.

The knowledge that his sexual desert would end in a matter of weeks after he married Tahira gave him little comfort.

He could no more imagine taking the woman he still considered a girl, despite her twenty-four years, to bed than he could countenance giving in to his growing hunger for Aaliyah Amari.

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The Chatsfield Collection Books 1-8

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