Czytaj książkę: «Defiant in the Desert»

CHAPTER ONE

‘THERE’S A MAN downstairs in Reception who says he wants to see you.’

‘Who is it?’ questioned Sara, not bothering to lift her head from the drawing which was currently engrossing her.

‘He wouldn’t say.’

At this Sara did look up to find Alice, the office runner, staring at her with an odd sort of expression. Alice was young and very enthusiastic, but right now she looked almost transported. Her face was tight with excitement and disbelief—as if Santa Claus himself had arrived early with a full contingent of reindeer.

‘It’s Christmas Eve afternoon,’ said Sara, glancing out of the window at the dark grey sky and wincing. No snow, unfortunately. Only a few heavy raindrops spattering against the glass. Pity. Snow might have helped boost her mood—to help shift off the inevitable feeling of not quite fitting in which always descended on her at this time of year. She never found it easy to enjoy Christmas—which was one of the main reasons why she tended to ignore the festival until it had gone away.

She pushed a smile to the corners of her mouth, trying to pick up on Alice’s happy pre-holiday mood. ‘And very soon I’m going to be packing up and going home. If it’s a salesman, I’m not interested and if it’s anyone else, then tell them to go away and make an appointment to see me in the new year.’

‘He says he’s not going anywhere,’ said Alice and then paused dramatically. ‘Until he’s seen you.’

Sara put her purple felt-tip pen down with fingers which had annoyingly started to tremble, telling herself not to be so stupid. Telling herself that she was perfectly safe here, in this bright, open-plan office of the highly successful advertising agency where she worked. That there was no reason for this dark feeling of foreboding which had started whispering over her skin.

But of course, there was...

‘What do you mean—he’s not going anywhere?’ she demanded, trying to keep her voice from rising with panic. ‘What exactly did he say?’

‘That he wants to see you,’ repeated Alice and now she made another face which Sara had never seen before. ‘And that he craves just a few minutes of your time.’

Craves.

It was a word which jarred like an ice cream eaten on a winter day. No modern Englishman would ever have used a word like that. Sara felt the cold clamp of fear tightening around her heart, like an iron band.

‘What...what does he look like?’ she asked, her voice a croaky-sounding husk.

Alice played with the pendant which was dangling from her neck in an unconscious display of sexual awareness. ‘He’s...well, he’s pretty unbelievable, if you must know. Not just because of the way he’s built—though he must work out practically non-stop to get a body like that—but more...more...’ Her voice tailed off. ‘Well, it’s his eyes really.’

‘What about his eyes?’ barked Sara, feeling her pulse begin to rocket.

‘They were like...black. But like, really black. Like the sky when there’s no moon or stars. Like—’

‘Alice,’ cut in Sara, desperately trying to inject a note of normality into the girl’s uncharacteristically gushing description. Because at that stage she was still trying to fool herself into thinking that it wasn’t happening. That it might all be some terrible mistake. A simple mix-up. Anything, but the one thing she most feared. ‘Tell him—’

‘Why don’t you tell me yourself, Sara?’

A cold, accented voice cut through her words and Sara whirled round to see a man standing in the doorway of the office. Shock, pain and desire washed over her in rapid succession. She hadn’t seen him for five long years and for a moment she almost didn’t recognise him. He had always been dark and utterly gorgeous, gifted with a face and a mind which had captured her heart so completely. But now...

Now...

Her heart pounded.

Something about him had changed.

His dark head was bare and he wore a custom-made suit instead of his usual robes. The charcoal jacket defined his honed torso just as well as any folds of flowing silk and the immaculately cut trousers emphasised the endless length of his powerful thighs. He had always carried the cachet which came from being the Sultan of Qurhah’s closest advisor, but now his natural air of authority seemed to be underpinned with a steely layer Sara had never seen before. And suddenly she recognised it for what it was.

Power.

It seemed to crackle from every pore of his body. To pervade the serene office environment like high-voltage electricity. It made her wary—warier than she felt already, with her heart beating so fast it felt as if it might burst right out of her chest.

‘Suleiman,’ she said, her voice unsteady and a little unsure. ‘What are you doing here?’

He smiled, but it was the coldest smile she had ever seen. Even colder than the one which he had iced into her the last time they’d been together. When he had torn himself away from her passionate embrace and looked down at her as if she was the lowest of the low.

‘I think you can probably work that one out for yourself, can’t you, Sara?’

He stepped into the office, his clever black eyes narrowing.

‘You are an intelligent woman, if a somewhat misguided one,’ he continued. ‘You have been ignoring repeated requests from the Sultan to return to Qurhah to become his wife. Haven’t you?’

‘And if I have?’

He looked at her, but there was nothing but indifference in his eyes and, stupidly, that hurt.

‘If you have, then you have been behaving like a fool.’

His phrase was coated with an implicit threat which made her skin turn to ice and Sara heard Alice gasp. She turned her head slightly, expecting to see horror on the face of the trendy office runner, with her pink-streaked hair and bottom-hugging skirt. Because it wasn’t cool for men to talk that way, was it? But she saw nothing like horror there. Instead, the bohemian youngster was staring at Suleiman with a look of rapt adoration.

Sara swallowed. Cool obviously flew straight out of the window when you had a towering black-haired male standing in your office just oozing testosterone. Why wouldn’t Alice acknowledge the presence of a man unlike any other she had probably met? Despite all the attractive hunks who worked in Gabe Steel’s advertising empire—didn’t Suleiman Abd al-Aziz stand out like a spot of black oil on a white linen dress? Didn’t he redefine the very concept of masculinity and make it a hundred times more meaningful?

For her, he had always had the ability to make every other man fade into insignificance—even royal princes and sultans—but now something about him had changed. There was an indefinable quality about him. Something dangerous.

Gone was the affection with which he always used to regard her. The man who had drifted in and out of her childhood and taught her to ride seemed to have been replaced by someone else. The black eyes were flat and cold; his lips unsmiling. It wasn’t exactly hatred she could see on his face—for his expression implied that she wasn’t worthy of an emotion as strong as hate. It was more as if she was a hindrance. As if he was here under sufferance, in the very last place he wanted to be.

And she had only herself to blame. She knew that. If she hadn’t flung herself at him. If she hadn’t allowed him to kiss her and then silently invited him to do so much more than that. To...

She tried a smile, though she wasn’t sure how convincing a smile it was. She had done everything in her power to forget about Suleiman and the way he’d made her feel, but wasn’t it funny how just one glimpse of him could stir up all those familiar emotions? Suddenly her heart was turning over with that painful clench of feeling she’d once thought was love. She could feel the sink of her stomach as she was reminded that he could never be hers.

Well, he would never know that. He wouldn’t ever guess that he could still make her feel this way. She wasn’t going to give him the chance to humiliate her and reject her. Not again.

‘Nice of you to drop in so unexpectedly, Suleiman,’ she said, her voice as airy as she could manage. ‘But I’m afraid I’m pretty busy at the moment. It is Christmas Eve, you know.’

‘But you don’t celebrate Christmas, Sara. Or at least, I wasn’t aware that you did. Have you really changed so much that you have adopted, wholesale, the values of the West?’

He was looking around the large, open-plan office with an expression of distaste curving his carved lips which he didn’t bother to hide. His flat black eyes were registering the garish tinsel which was looped over posters depicting some of the company’s many successful advertising campaigns. His gaze rested briefly on the old-fashioned fir tree, complete with flashing lights and a glittering star at the top, which had been erected as a kind of passé tribute to Christmases past. His expression darkened.

Sara put her fingers in her lap, horribly aware that they were trembling, and it suddenly became terribly important that he shouldn’t see that, either. She didn’t want him to think she was scared, even if that moment she was feeling something very close to scared. And she couldn’t quite work out what she was afraid of—her, or him.

‘Look, I really am very busy,’ she said. ‘And Alice doesn’t want to hear—’

‘Alice doesn’t have to hear anything because she is about to leave us alone to continue this conversation in private,’ he said instantly. Turning towards the office junior, he produced a slow smile, like a magician producing a rabbit from a hat. ‘Aren’t you, Alice?’

Sara watched, unwillingly fascinated as Alice almost melted under the impact of his smile. She even—and Sara had never witnessed this happen before—she even blushed. In a single moment, the streetwise girl from London had been transformed into a gushing stereotype from another age. Any minute now and she might actually swoon.

‘Of course.’ Alice fluttered her eyelashes in a way which was also new. ‘Though I could get you a cup of coffee first if you like?’

‘I am not in the mood for coffee,’ said Suleiman and Sara wondered how he managed to make his refusal sound like he was talking about sex. Or was that just her projecting yet more stupid fantasies about him?

He was smiling at the runner and she was smiling right back. ‘Even though I imagine that yours would be excellent coffee,’ he purred.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! Alice buys coffee from the deli next door,’ snapped Sara. ‘She wasn’t planning on travelling to Brazil and bringing back the beans herself!’

‘Then that is Brazil’s loss,’ murmured Suleiman.

Sara could have screamed at the cheesy line which had the office runner beaming from ear to ear. ‘That will be all, thanks, Alice,’ she said sharply. ‘You can go home now. And have...have a happy Christmas.’

‘Thanks,’ said Alice, clearly reluctant to leave. ‘I’ll see you in the new year. Happy Christmas!’

There was complete silence for a moment while they watched the girl gather up her oversized bag, which was crammed with one of the large and expensive presents which had been handed out earlier by Gabe Steel, their boss. Or rather, by his office manager. But it was only after her footsteps had echoed down the corridor towards the lift that Suleiman turned to Sara, his black eyes hard and mocking.

‘Quite the little executive these days, aren’t you, Sara?’

Sara swallowed. She hated the way he said her name. Or rather, she hated the effect it had on her. The way it made her want to expel a long and shuddering breath and to snake her tongue over lips which had suddenly grown dry. It reminded her too much of the time he had kissed her. When he had overstepped the mark and done the one thing which had been forbidden to him. And to her.

The memory came back as vivid and as real as if it had happened only yesterday. It had been on the night of her brother’s coronation—when Haroun had been crowned King of Dhi’ban, a day which many had thought would never come because of the volatile relations between the desert states. All the dignitaries from the neighbouring countries had attended the ceremony—including the infamous Sultan of nearby Qurhah, along with his chief emissary, Suleiman.

Sara remembered being cool and almost non-committal towards the Sultan, to whom she was betrothed. But who could blame her? Her hand in marriage had been the price paid for a financial bail-out for her country. In essence, she had been sold by her father like a piece of human merchandise!

That night she had barely made eye contact with the powerful Sultan who had seemed so forbidding, but her careless attitude seemed to amuse rather than to irritate the potentate. And anyway, he had spent most of the time locked away in meetings with all the other sultans and sheikhs.

But Sara had been eager to be reunited with the Sultan’s emissary. She had been filled with pleasure at the thought of seeing Suleiman again, after six long years away at an English boarding school. Suleiman, who had taught her to ride and made her laugh during those two long summers when the Sultan had been negotiating with her father about a financial bail-out. Two summers which had occupied a special place in her heart ever since, even though on that final summer—her marital fate had been sealed.

During the coronation fireworks, she had somehow managed to manoeuvre herself into a position to watch them with Suleiman by her side. The crowds had been so huge that nobody had noticed them standing together and Sara was thrilled just to be in his company again.

The night was soft and warm, but in between the explosions and the roar of the onlookers the conversation between them was as easy as it had always been, even if initially Suleiman had seemed startled by the dramatic change that six years had wrought on her appearance.

‘How old are you now?’ he’d questioned, after he’d looked her up and down for a distractingly long moment.

‘I’m eighteen.’ She had smiled straight into his eyes, successfully hiding the hurt that he hadn’t even remembered her age. ‘And all grown up.’

‘All grown up,’ he had repeated slowly, as if she’d just said something which had never occurred to him before.

The conversation had moved on to other topics, though she had still been conscious of the curious expression in his eyes. He had asked her about her life at boarding school and she’d told him that she was planning to go to art school.

‘In England?’

‘Of course in England. There is no equivalent here in Dhi’ban.’

‘But Dhi’ban isn’t the same without you here, Sara.’

It was a strangely emotional thing for Suleiman to say and maybe the unexpectedness of that was what made her reach up to touch her fingertips to his cheek. ‘Is that in a good way, or a bad way?’ she teased.

A look passed between them and she felt him stiffen.

The fireworks seemed to stop—or maybe that was because the crashing of her heart was as deafening as any man-made explosion in the sky.

He caught hold of her hand and moved it away from his face, and suddenly Sara could feel a terrible yearning as he looked down at her. The normally authoritative Suleiman seemed frozen with indecision and he shook his head, as if he was trying to deny something. And then, almost in slow motion—he lowered his head to brush his lips over hers in a kiss.

It was just like all the books said it should be.

Her world splintered into something magical as their lips met. Suddenly there were rainbows and starlight and a deep, wild hunger. And the realisation that this was her darling, darling Suleiman and he was kissing her. Her lips opened beneath his and he circled her waist with his hands as he pulled her closer. She clung to him as her breasts pressed against his broad chest. She heard him groan. She felt the growing tension in his body as his hands moved down to cup her buttocks.

‘Oh, Suleiman,’ she whispered against his mouth—and the words must have broken the spell, for suddenly he tore himself away from her and held her at arm’s length.

For a long moment he just stared at her, his breathing hard and laboured—looking as if he had just been shaken by something profound. Something which made a wild little flicker of hope flare in her heart. But then the look disappeared and was replaced with an expression of self-contempt. It seemed to take a moment or two before he could speak.

‘Is this how you behave when you are in England?’ he demanded, his voice as deadly as snake poison. ‘Offering yourself as freely as a whore when you are promised to the Sultan? What kind of woman are you, Sara?’

It was a question she couldn’t answer because she didn’t know. Right then, she didn’t seem to know anything because her whole belief system seemed to have been shattered. She hadn’t been expecting to kiss him, nor to respond to him like that. She hadn’t been expecting to want him to touch her in a way she’d never been touched before—yet now he was looking at her as if she’d done something unspeakable.

Filled with shame, she had turned on her heel and fled—her eyes so blurred with tears that she could barely see. And it wasn’t until the next day that she heard indulgent tales of the princess weeping with joy for her newly crowned brother.

The memory cleared and Sara found herself in the uncomfortable present, looking into Suleiman’s mocking eyes and realising that he was waiting for some sort of answer to his question. Struggling to remember what he’d asked, she shrugged—as if she could shrug off those feelings of humiliation and rejection she had suffered at his hands.

‘I hardly describe being a “creative” in an advertising agency as being an executive,’ she said.

‘You are creative in many fields,’ he observed. ‘Particularly with your choice of clothes. Such revealing, western clothes, I cannot help but notice.’

Sara felt herself stiffen as he began to study her. Don’t look at me that way, she wanted to scream. Because it was making her body ache as his gaze swept over the sweater dress which came halfway down her thighs, and the high boots whose soft leather curved over her knees.

‘I’m glad you like them,’ she said flippantly.

‘I didn’t say I liked them,’ he growled. ‘In fact, I wholeheartedly disapprove of them, as no doubt would the Sultan. Your dress is ridiculously short, though I suppose that is deliberate.’

‘But everyone wears short skirts round here, Suleiman. It’s the fashion. And the thick tights and boots almost cancel out the length of the dress, don’t you think?’

His eyes were implacable as they met hers. ‘I have not come here to discuss the length of your clothes and the way you seem to flaunt your body like the whore we both know you are!’

‘No? Then why are you here?’

There was a pause and now his eyes were deadly as they iced into her.

‘I think you know the answer to that. But since you seem to have trouble facing up to your responsibilities, maybe I’d better spell it out for you so that there can be no more confusion. You can no longer ignore your destiny, for the time has come.’

‘It’s not my destiny!’ she flared.

‘I have come to take you to Qurhah to be married,’ he said coldly. ‘To fulfil the promise which was made many moons ago by your father. You were sold to the Sultan and the Sultan wants you. And what is more, he is beginning to grow impatient—for this long-awaited alliance between your two countries to go ahead and bring lasting peace in the region.’

Sara froze. The hands which were still concealed in her lap now clenched into two tight fists. She felt beads of sweat break out on her brow and for a moment she thought she might pass out. Because hadn’t she thought that if she just ignored the dark cloud which hung over her future for long enough, one day it might just fade away?

‘You can’t mean that,’ she said, hating her voice for sounding so croaky. So get some strength back. Find the resources within you to stand up to this ridiculous regime which buys women as if they were simply objects of desire lined up on a market stall. She drew in a deep breath. ‘But even if you do mean it, I’m not coming back with you, Suleiman. No way. I live in England now and I regard myself as an English citizen, with all the corresponding freedom that brings. And nothing in the world you can do or say will induce me to go to Qurhah. I don’t want to marry the Sultan, and I won’t do it. And what is more, you can’t make me.’

‘I am hoping to do this without a fight, Sara.’

His voice was smooth. As smooth as treacle—and just as dark. But nobody could have mistaken the steely intent which ran through his words. She looked into the flatness of his eyes. She looked at the hard, compromising lines of his lips and she felt another whisper of foreboding shivering its way down her spine. ‘You think I’m just going to docilely agree to your plans? That I’m going to nod my head and accompany you to Qurhah?’

‘I’m hoping you will, since that would be the most sensible outcome for all concerned.’

‘In your dreams, Suleiman.’

There was silence for a moment as Suleiman met the belligerent glitter of her eyes, and the slow rage which had been simmering all day now threatened to boil over. Had he thought that this would be easy?

No, of course he hadn’t.

Inside he had known that this would be the most difficult assignment of his life—even though he had experienced battle and torture and real hardship. He had tried to turn the job down—for all kinds of reasons. He’d told the Sultan that he was busy with his new life—and that much was true. But loyalty and affection for his erstwhile employer had proved too persuasive. And who else possessed the right amount of determination to bring the feisty Sara Williams back to marry the royal ruler? His mouth hardened and he felt the twist of something like regret. Who else knew her the way that he did?

‘You speak with such insolence that I can only assume you have been influenced by the louche values of the West,’ he snapped.

‘Embracing freedom, you mean?’

‘Embracing disrespect would be a more accurate description.’ He drew in a deep breath and forced his lips into something resembling a smile. ‘Look, Sara—I understand that you needed to...what is it that you women say? Ah yes, to find yourself.’ He gave a low laugh. ‘Fortunately, the male of the species rarely loses himself in the first place and so such recovery is seldom deemed necessary.’

‘Why, you arrogant piece of—’

‘Now we can do this one of two ways.’ His words cut through her insult like a honed Qurhahian knife. ‘The easy way, or the hard way.’

‘You mean we do it your way, rather than mine?’

‘Bravo—that is exactly what I mean. If you behave reasonably—like a woman who wishes to bring no shame onto her own royal house, or the one you will embrace after your marriage to the Sultan—then everyone is happy.’

‘Happy?’ she echoed. ‘Are you out of your mind?’

‘There is no need for hysteria,’ he said repressively. ‘Our journey to Qurhah may not be an expedition which either of us would choose, but I don’t see why we can’t conduct ourselves in a relatively civilised manner if we put our minds to it.’

‘Civilised?’ Sara stood up and pushed herself away from the desk so violently that a whole pile of coloured felt-tips fell clattering to the ground. But she barely registered the noise or the mess. She certainly didn’t bend down to pick them up and not just because her skirt was so short. She felt a flare of rage and impotence—that Suleiman could just march in here as if he owned the place. Start flexing his muscles and telling her—telling her—that she must go back and marry a man she barely knew, didn’t particularly like and certainly didn’t love.

‘You think it’s civilised to hold a woman to a promise of marriage made when she was little more than a child? A forced marriage in which she had no say?’

‘Your father himself agreed to this marriage,’ said Suleiman implacably. ‘You know that.’

‘My father had no choice!’ she flared. ‘He was almost bankrupt by that point!’

‘I’m afraid that your father’s weakness and profligacy put him in that position. And let us not forget that it was the Sultan’s father who saved him from certain bankruptcy!’

‘By demanding my hand for his only son, in return?’ she demanded. ‘What kind of a man could do that, Suleiman?’

She saw that her heartfelt appeal had momentarily stilled him. That his flat black eyes had narrowed and were now partially obscured by the thick ebony lashes which had shuttered down to veil them. Had she been able to make him see the sheer lunacy of his proposal in this day and age? Couldn’t he see that it was barbaric for a woman of twenty-three to be taken back to a desert kingdom—no matter how fabled—and to be married against her will?

Once Suleiman had regarded her fondly—she knew that. If he allowed himself to forget that stupid kiss—that single lapse which should never have happened—then surely there still existed in his heart some of that same fondness. Surely he wasn’t happy for her to enter into such a barbaric union.

‘These dynastic marriages have always taken place,’ he said slowly. ‘It will not be as bad as you envisage, Sara—’