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The Sheikh's Heir
Sharon Kendrick
Unexpected Baby Shock for Sheikh and Jackson Party-Girl!Unconfirmed sources report that celebrity wedding planner Ella Jackson is pregnant! Currently single, Miss Jackson caused quite a stir at her sister’s high-profile, royal-studded party last month, where she tossed a glass of vintage champagne over Sheikh Hassan Al Abbas following a very public argument.What happened in private is anybody’s guess and certainly the palace haven’t officially confirmed that Miss Jackson was seen leaving the Sheikh’s opulent suite the morning after the party…Could this Cinder-Ella beat her sister to a royal title…and a royal heir?
‘Maybe you decided your night with me was so hot that you wanted a repeat of it. I wouldn’t blame you if you did.’
‘I try never to make the same mistake twice, Hassan. Any other suggestions?’
Dark clouds drifted into his mind. ‘Or our ill-judged liaison has left us with something other than regrets.’
She stared at him, because didn’t his words make what she was about to tell him even more difficult? ‘That’s the most cold-hearted description I’ve ever heard,’ she whispered.
Her lack of denial unsettled him but Hassan kept his nerve. ‘That’s because I am a cold-hearted man, Ella. Be in no doubt of that. And I haven’t come here to play guessing games. What is it that you want to say to me?’
‘That you’re right!’ She swallowed as she forced out the bitter truth. She looked into the narrowed black eyes and spoke in a low voice. ‘I’m having a baby, Hassan.’
Dear Reader (#ua56f4d1c-67c1-5038-aa52-e1ddfcac7a01),
One hundred. Doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I still can’t believe that’s how many books I’ve written. It’s a fabulous feeling but more fabulous still is the news that Mills & Boon are issuing every single one of my backlist as digital titles. Wow. I can’t wait to share all my stories with you - which are as vivid to me now as when I wrote them.
There’s BOUGHT FOR HER HUSBAND, with its outrageously macho Greek hero and A SCANDAL, A SECRET AND A BABY featuring a very sexy Tuscan. THE SHEIKH’S HEIR proved so popular with readers that it spent two weeks on the USA Today charts and…well, I could go on, but I’ll leave you to discover them for yourselves.
I remember the first line of my very first book: “So you’ve come to Australia looking for a husband?” Actually, the heroine had gone to Australia to escape men, but guess what? She found a husband all the same! The man who inspired that book rang me up recently and when I told him I was beginning my 100
story and couldn’t decide what to write, he said, “Why don’t you go back to where it all started?”
So I did. And that’s how A ROYAL VOW OF CONVENIENCE was born. It opens in beautiful Queensland and moves to England and New York. It’s about a runaway princess and the enigmatic billionaire who is infuriated by her, yet who winds up rescuing her. But then, she goes and rescues him… Wouldn’t you know it?
I’ll end by saying how very grateful I am to have a career I love, and to thank each and every one of you who has supported me along the way. You really are very dear readers.
Love,
Sharon xxx
Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing and awesome 100th book! Sharon is known worldwide for her likeable, spirited heroines and her gorgeous, utterly masculine heroes.
SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition, describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring her often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…
The Sheikh’s Heir
Sharon Kendrick
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Max Campbell, for ensuring that my iPhone
plays more than one Beatles song.
Contents
Cover (#ueebae89a-2340-5e43-998c-d78721bc9c98)
Back Cover Text (#u614edbbc-a472-5416-85a9-57bcae544f17)
Dear Reader (#u3cbcd4d8-9fad-53e2-926e-4e1cedcb3355)
About the Author (#ud526c3ee-46b3-5799-afd2-933853743efe)
Title Page (#u8e1a96bf-df67-509b-bf84-143b06823989)
Dedication (#uab96156f-12c4-5ba0-abfa-b5cf9718f67a)
CHAPTER ONE (#ua2a448ab-bfb5-59a6-9f0d-a7af5e99dc92)
CHAPTER TWO (#u33428e30-5f84-58de-8850-e0d788a9333e)
CHAPTER THREE (#uc13abdf9-99da-5d03-b70c-6836e033ca08)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ua56f4d1c-67c1-5038-aa52-e1ddfcac7a01)
WOULD this damned party never end?
In the softly lit anteroom of his friend’s palace, Sheikh Hassan Al Abbas let out an irritated breath and turned to the man standing a few deferential paces away from him.
‘Do you think there’s any chance I could just slip away and leave them to get on with it, Benedict?’ he demanded, knowing only too well how his loyal English aide would respond.
There was a pause. ‘Your absence would almost certainly be noticed, Your Highness,’ answered Benedict carefully. ‘Since you are one of the most esteemed guests present. And furthermore it would offend your oldest friend if he knew that you could not be bothered to stay to wish him happiness on the night of his engagement.’
Hassan’s fists clenched against the unaccustomed lounge suit which clothed his hard body, hating the strictures of collar and tie. He wished he was wearing soft and silken robes against his naked skin. That he was galloping free on his horse, with the warm desert wind blowing against his face. ‘And what if I believed deep in my heart that such a wish would not only be futile but hypocritical?’ he iced back. ‘That I think Alex is about to make the biggest mistake of his life?’
‘It is often difficult for two men to see eye to eye when it comes to the subject of women,’ answered Benedict diplomatically. ‘Particularly regarding the subject of marriage.’
‘It’s not just his choice of fiancée I don’t agree with!’ Hassan said, unable to contain the frustration which had been growing inside him since his oldest friend, Prince Alessandro Santina, had announced that he was to marry Allegra Jackson. ‘Though that is bad enough. Even worse is that he has abandoned the woman to whom he has been betrothed since he was born! A woman of noble birth, who would make a far more suitable bride.’
‘Perhaps his love is too strong to be—’
‘Love?’ interrupted Hassan, and now he could feel the bitter lump which had risen in his throat like a ball of nails. A brief yet undeniable pain clenched at his heart. For didn’t he know better than anyone that ‘love’ was nothing but an illusion which could wreck lives with its seductive power?
‘Love is nothing more than a fancy name for lust,’ he bit out. ‘And a ruler cannot allow himself to be guided by the stir of his loins or the beat of his heart. He must put duty before desire.’
‘Yes, Highness,’ said Benedict obediently.
Hassan shook his head in disbelief, still unwilling to accept that his high-born friend had let his standards dip so low. ‘Did you realise that Alex’s future father-in-law is some grubby ex-footballer with a long list of wives and mistresses he has been publicly unfaithful to?’
‘I had heard something along those lines, Highness.’
‘I cannot believe that he is willing to marry into such a disreputable family as these Jacksons! Did you see the way they were behaving at the ball? It turned my stomach to watch them quaffing champagne as if it was water and making fools of themselves on the dance floor.’
‘Highness—’
‘This woman Allegra cannot possibly become the wife of a Crown Prince!’ Angrily, Hassan slammed the flat of his hand against an adjacent table and its delicate frame juddered beneath the contemptuous force. ‘She is a tramp—just like her mother and her sisters! Did you witness the spectacle which brought me seeking refuge in here, when the sister with the voice of a crow stormed the stage and attempted to sing?’
‘Yes, Highness, I saw her,’ said Benedict softly. ‘But the Crown Prince has made up his mind that he will marry Miss Jackson, and I doubt whether even you will be able to change it. And should you not now return to the ballroom before your absence is commented upon?’
But Hassan was not listening—at least, not to his aide. He raised a hand for silence, his ears straining for the whispering of a sound. His body tensed. Had he heard something? Someone? Or had the recent harsh months spent in battle meant that he suspected danger lurking everywhere? Yet he could have sworn that the room had been empty when he’d come searching for an escape.
‘Did you hear something?’ he questioned as he felt the instinctive pricking of his skin.
‘No, Highness. I heard nothing.’
There was a brief silence before Hassan nodded, feeling some of the tension ease from his body as he allowed himself to be reassured by his aide. This might be the worst party in living memory, but at least security was tight. ‘Then let us return to this mockery of a reception. Let me see whether I can find anyone tolerably attractive enough to dance with.’ He gave a sardonic laugh. ‘A woman who is the very antithesis of Allegra Jackson and her vulgar family!’
With this, the two men swept from the softly lit room, while from her hiding place behind a carved chest in a corner of the vast chamber, Ella Jackson wished that she could open her mouth and scream with rage and frustration.
How dare he?
Waiting for a few moments to check that he really had gone, she stretched limbs which were cramped from sitting still for so long. Greedily, she sucked great gulps of air into her lungs because she’d had to keep holding her breath in case she was discovered. For a moment back then, she’d been sure he was going to find her. And something told her that she was lucky not to have been discovered by that arrogant beast of a man who had been so insulting—not just to Allegra and Izzy, but to the entire Jackson family.
The other man had called him ‘Highness’—and judging from the way he’d been calling all the shots, he had certainly sounded royal. His voice had been deep and faintly accented—not the kind of voice you heard every day. It had also sounded bossy and proud. Could that have been the powerful sheikh everyone had been banging on about? The groom-to-be’s oldest friend, who had been expected at tonight’s party and anticipated with the same kind of breathless excitement which might have greeted a movie star?
Uncomfortably, Ella rose to her feet. The beads of her elaborate dress were pressing painfully into her skin and her wild tangle of curls was desperately in need of a session with the hairbrush. She would have to do something drastic to repair her appearance before she thought about returning to the general scrum which was her sister Allegra’s engagement party to the Crown Prince of the Santina royal family. Even though she would have happily given a month’s salary not to have gone back into that ballroom.
Wasn’t it ironic that she had slipped away from the party for precisely the same reason as the sheikh? The moment her sister Izzy had staggered onto the stage to sing, Ella’s heart had hit her boots and she’d wanted to curl up and die. She loved Izzy. She did—but why did she have such a penchant for making a complete fool of herself? Why sing in public when you had absolutely zero talent?
Ella had slunk into this darkened anteroom and instinct had made her crouch down behind the concealing bulk of the chest when she’d heard the sound of approaching footsteps. There had been the sound of the door quietly clicking shut and then someone uttering a short, terse expletive. And that’s when she had heard the damning words of the accented man as he had torn her family to shreds.
Yet hadn’t he only been speaking the truth? Her father did have a long list of women he’d been intimate with. He had two ex-wives at the last count, and one of those he’d married twice. Plus all the mistresses on the side—some of whom were reported in the newspapers and some whom he’d managed to hush up.
Hadn’t her own mother’s life been blighted by her hopeless longing for a man who seemed to be incapable of any kind of fidelity? Her sweet, foolish mother, who’d never been able to see any fault in her errant husband, which was why she had been his bride twice over. And why she let him treat her like a complete doormat.
If ever Ella had needed to know how not to conduct a relationship, she’d never needed to look any further than the example set by her own parents. And hadn’t she vowed that she would never, ever let a man make a fool of her like that?
She reached down and picked up her handbag, extracting the wide-toothed comb which was the only implement which could ever come close to taming her soft but wayward curls. Dare she risk putting a brighter light on in here?
Why not? The outrageously opinionated sheikh didn’t sound as if he was in any danger of coming back. He was probably subjecting some ‘tolerably attractive’ woman to a dance. Poor her, Ella thought with a genuine trace of sympathy. Imagine dancing with someone who had an ego as big as his—why there would be barely any room left on the dance floor!
She clicked on a light which illuminated the regal splendour of the vast antechamber and hunted around until she found a mirror recessed in one of the alcoves. Stepping back, she surveyed herself with critical eyes.
Her silver-beaded dress was a little on the short side but it was extremely fashionable—and such a look was essential in Ella’s line of work. Her rather flashy clients expected her to reflect their values, to make a statement and not fade quietly into the background. As a party planner catering to the nouveau-riche end of the market, Ella had decided to cash in on her family’s notoriety by working for the kind of people who had plenty of money, but very little in the way of generally accepted ‘taste.’
She’d quickly learnt the rules. But then, she was a quick learner—it came with the territory of being a survivor, of having lived with scandal and notoriety for most of her life. If a glamour-model bride wanted to arrive at her wedding in a dazzling diamante coach, she expected the woman organising the event to dazzle in a similar way. So dazzle Ella did. She’d got that down to a fine art. With her trademark slash of scarlet lipstick accentuating her wide mouth, she wore the on-trend clothes which so impressed her clients. She turned heads when she needed to.
But all that was for show. She kept the real Ella locked away where no one could find her. Or hurt her. Underneath the dazzling exterior, when she was dressed down and chilled out at home, it was a different story. There she could be the person her family had always teased her for being. Bare of makeup, wearing old jeans and a T-shirt—sometimes with paint underneath her fingernails. She wished she was there right now, instead of having to endure the longest evening of her life. A night she would never have believed could happen.
A member of her family was marrying into one of the Mediterranean’s oldest and most revered royal families—and the knives were out. Hadn’t she just heard for herself, via the arrogant sheikh, how the entire Jackson clan were being judged and found wanting? Weren’t the sly eyes of various members of the press watching every move they made, to report with glee how ill-equipped the Jacksons were to mix with the aristocracy?
Well, Ella would show them. She would show them all. Their cruel comments wouldn’t get to her because she wouldn’t let them. She bit her lip, for once feeling vulnerable about the charges which were always levelled at her and her siblings. She worked hard for her living—she always had done—and yet her Jackson surname made people pigeonhole her. They thought she just lay around all day, drinking champagne and generally whooping it up, and yet nothing could be further from the truth.
Raking the comb through her red-brown curls, she checked for any stray smudges of mascara and then applied a final, defiant coat of scarlet lipstick.
There.
Her dangling earrings were swaying in a sparkling cascade and even her blue eyeshadow had bits of glitter in it. Her shiny armour was firmly in place and she was ready to face the braying masses. Let anyone dare try to patronise her!
The sound of music and chatter grew louder as she clattered along the marble corridor in her new shoes. In glossy black patent, with towering silver heels which were wonderfully flattering to the legs, they were a fashionista’s dream and an orthopaedic surgeon’s nightmare. But they made her walk tall and stand straight and tonight she needed that more than anything.
The ballroom was crowded and noisy and Ella’s eyes skimmed the dance floor. The place was packed. Royals mingled with minor television stars, and one-time Premier League footballers who’d worked with her dad were propping up the bar. She could see various members of her family partying away with enthusiasm. Rather too much enthusiasm. Her father was downing a flute of champagne, her mother hovering nearby with an ever-hopeful smile on her face. Which meant that she was worried he was going to get drunk. Or make a pass at someone young enough to be his daughter.
Please don’t let him get drunk, thought Ella. And please don’t let him make a pass at someone else’s girlfriend. Or wife.
There was her sister Izzy dancing, grinding her hips in a way which made Ella turn away with embarrassment. Knowing there was no point in trying to reason with her wayward sibling, she redirected her gaze to the dance floor. Her heart suddenly beginning to pound as her eyes came to rest on a man whose exotic looks marked him out from everyone else.
She blinked. In a room which wasn’t exactly short on the glamour quotient, he drew the eye irresistibly. And yet he looked totally out of place among the glittering throng and she couldn’t quite work out why. It wasn’t just that he was taller than any other man there or that his muscular body was all hard, honed muscle. He looked hungry. Like he hadn’t eaten a decent meal in months. Ella’s gaze roved over his face. A cruel face, she thought with a sudden shiver. His black eyes seemed devoid of emotion and his sensual mouth was curved into a cynical smile as he listened to his blonde dance partner as she lifted her chin to chatter to him.
Ella’s heart missed a beat. It was him. Instinct told her so. The man who had been so unspeakably rude about her family when she’d been hiding in the anteroom. The man she had silently cursed as being arrogant and judgemental. And yet now that she’d seen him, she couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away from him.
His olive skin gleamed, as if he’d been cast from some precious metal, instead of flesh and blood. She watched as a beautiful redhead brushed past him, saw the way he automatically glanced at her bursting décolletage without missing a beat.
He was danger and sexuality mixed into one potent masculine cocktail—the kind of man most people’s mothers would warn you to steer clear of. Ella felt a debilitating kick in her belly, as something deep inside her responded to him. As if on some instinctive level, she had discovered something she hadn’t even realised she’d been looking for.
He raised his head then and she saw the way he stilled. The way his black eyes narrowed as he moved his gaze around the ballroom until at last it came to alight on her.
Like a hunter, she thought.
Ella felt as if she had been caught in a dark yet blinding spotlight. She could feel herself flush—a slow heat which started at the top of her head and seemed to work its way right down to her toes. Had he known she’d been staring at him? Look away, she urged herself furiously. Look away from him right now. But she couldn’t. It was as if he had cast some powerful spell over her which was making it impossible for her to tear her gaze away.
From across the dance floor, his black eyes grew slightly amused as their overlong eye contact was maintained. A pair of ebony brows were raised at her in arrogant question, and when still she did not move, he bent to whisper something into the blonde’s ear.
Ella was aware of the woman turning and glaring at her and of the man with the black eyes beginning to walk towards her. Run, she urged herself. Get away from here before it’s too late.
But she didn’t run. She couldn’t. It was as if she’d been turned into a tree and was rooted to the spot. Now he was almost upon her, and his physical presence was so overwhelming that she felt the breath dry in her throat. His shadow moved over her as he approached, enveloping her—and suddenly it was as if every other person in the crowded ballroom had ceased to exist.
There was a pause while he let his eyes rove unashamedly over her face and then her body, just as he’d done when the big-breasted redhead had passed him by.
‘Have we met somewhere before?’ he questioned.
Ella didn’t have to hear his deep, accented voice to know that she had been right. It was him. The opinionated man who’d been so rude about her family. She’d already decided that he was proud and arrogant, but she hadn’t expected this level of charisma. Nor for him to have such an overwhelming effect on her that she could barely think straight. And she needed to think straight. Now was not the time to demonstrate that her tingling body seemed to have taken on a greedy life of its own. All she needed was to remember his unforgettable insults.
‘Not until now,’ she said, injecting a noncommittal note into her voice and hoping it sounded convincing.
Hassan’s eyes flicked over her, interested at the play of emotions on the Madonna-like oval of her face. She had been staring at him as if she’d like to rip his clothes off with her teeth! Not an uncommon reaction from a woman, it was true—and she was pretty enough for him to have given the idea a moment’s consideration. But her initial hungry look had been replaced by one of wariness and suspicion. He felt the faint prickle of hostility emanating from her, and that was novel enough to arouse his interest.
‘Are you sure about that?’ he murmured.
She thought how incredibly well he spoke English, despite the sexily accented voice. It seemed to whisper over her skin with its velvet caress, and inexplicably she started wondering what it would be like to have that voice murmur sweet nothings in her ear. ‘Positive,’ she replied coolly.
‘Yet you were staring at me as if you knew me.’
‘Aren’t you used to women staring at you, then?’ she questioned innocently.
‘No, never happened to me before,’ he drawled sardonically, wondering what was making her blow so hot and cold. He looked at the provocative scarlet gleam of her lips and felt a sudden rush of desire. ‘What’s your name?’
Ella wished that her breasts would stop tingling and likewise the molten throb of lust deep in her belly. She didn’t want to feel like this about a man who had talked about her family in a way which had made them all sound like some sort of gutter animals. She stared at him, defying him to contradict her. ‘My name is … Cinderella.’
Hassan gave a slow smile. ‘Is it now?’ So she wanted to play, did she? Well, that was fine by him. He liked games—particularly of the flirty, sexual nature. And particularly with nubile young women with glossy, red lips and firm bodies which had been poured into a shiny silver dress which emphasised their every willowy curve. As a child, the only female role models he’d known had been servants and as an adult he had discovered that women were usually predatory and nearly always beddable.
He felt the sudden beat of anticipation as he looked at her. ‘Then I think the fairy tale must have just come true, Cinderella,’ he said. ‘Because you’ve just met your prince.’
It was the corniest line Ella had ever heard and yet, somehow, it worked. For some insane reason it made her want to smile—a little I’m-so-pleased-with-myself sort of smile to accompany the embarrassing rise of colour to her cheeks.
But she didn’t fall for meaningless chat-up lines, did she? Hadn’t she learnt—from the humiliating example set by her own father—that men spent their lives saying things to women that they didn’t mean? And hadn’t she vowed never to become one of those women who drank up worthless compliments and then let their hearts get broken as a result?
Drawing back her shoulders, she stared at the exotic-looking man, pleased that she’d worn such ridiculously high heels which meant that their eyes were almost on a level. ‘So you’re a real live prince, are you?’
‘Indeed I am.’ For a moment, Hassan felt a flicker of impatience, acknowledging his own obstinacy. He didn’t like being recognised for his royal blood and yet he found it faintly irritating when his regal status was not alluded to. He wasn’t expecting her to curtsey—which was a good thing, since she clearly had no intention of doing so!—but a little deference surely wouldn’t have gone amiss? Surely she could have allowed a small amount of awe to creep into an English accent which he found oddly difficult to place. ‘In fact, I am a sheikh,’ he expanded proudly. ‘My name is Hassan, and I am a prince of the desert.’
‘Wow!’
Hassan’s eyes narrowed. Was that sarcasm he had heard tingeing her voice? Surely not. People were always impressed by his sheikhdom, indeed being ravished by a sheikh seemed to be the number-one sexual fantasy among most of the Western women he met. Yet the uncertainty of her response fired his blood into a slow, pulsing heat. The cat-like slant of her blue eyes was very appealing and he felt another kick of lust as he imagined those eyes growing opaque in time to the powerful thrust of his body. He swallowed, for his groin had grown exquisitely hard in conjunction with his thoughts.
‘And now I think we are supposed to dance,’ he said unevenly. Slowly, he allowed his gaze to travel all the way down her legs to where her feet were encased in a pair of toweringly high stilettos. ‘Before you run off as the clock strikes midnight, and leave one of those gravity-defying and very sexy shoes behind.’
Ella’s heart hammered. Of course she knew the shoes were sexy—you didn’t wear heels this high because they were comfortable. But it came as something of a shock to hear him come right out and say so like that. There was something very blatant about his remark. It made her feel … weird…. As if she was something she wasn’t. As if she’d worn them so that an arrogant sheikh might look at her legs with unashamed appraisal. And she had certainly not done that.
Every instinct she possessed was screaming out to her to get away from him. But even as the adrenalin pumped around her body, wasn’t there a contrary instinct urging her to do precisely the opposite? Didn’t she have some insane desire for him to take her into his arms and pull her against his powerful body to see whether he felt as good as he looked?
‘I’m not really that into dancing,’ she said truthfully.
‘Ah, but that’s because you’ve never danced with me,’ he drawled as he took her by the hand and led her onto the dance floor. ‘Once you have, you’ll change your mind. You’ll become an instant convert, believe me.’
Ella swallowed. What an arrogant boast to make! Now was the moment for her to wrench her hand away from the firm grip of his fingers and walk away from him and these confused emotions she was experiencing.
So why was she letting him lead her to a spot where the overhanging chandeliers spilled their fractured diamond spangles onto the glossy dance floor? Because she liked his touch, that was why. It was that simple and that complex and it was doing strange things to her. Making her feel light-headed and excited. Making her heart race as if she had just endured an hour’s hard workout at the gym.
She felt a brief flash of shame but still she didn’t move. And she knew she was about to betray her family by dancing with a man who despised them.
Without warning, Hassan took her into his arms and his presence enveloped her, just as his shadow had done earlier. His body felt as warm and as hard as she’d imagined and she moved closer to him, as his hands splayed possessively across her back.
Remember all those things he said about your family, she reminded herself dazedly. About Izzy sounding like a crow and them all being nothing but tramps.
And yet it was difficult to remember the insults when he was holding her in his arms like this. Difficult to do anything other than melt against him.
‘You smell beautiful,’ he murmured. ‘Of summer meadows in the sun.’
With an effort, Ella lifted her head to stare at the proud jut of his jaw. ‘What do sheikhs know of summer meadows?’
‘Plenty. When I was a boy, I used to come and visit Alex and sometimes we would go to England, to play the polo at which we both excelled. It was there that I learned that the smell of newly mown grass was one of the most seductive smells in the world.’ He smiled against her hair. Particularly if there was a nubile and willing female lying in it, with most of her clothes undone.
Ella could now feel the gentle caress of his fingertips on her bare skin and she knew she had to stop this before it went any further. Before his sexy voice and sure touch made her do anything else she regretted. Turning her face up, she flashed him a smile which was completely insincere. ‘You must have been amazed to find someone tolerably attractive to dance with among all these women here tonight,’ she observed. ‘Should I be flattered?’
Hassan frowned at the unexpected change of topic, some subtle emphasis in her words nudging at a faint memory. ‘Perhaps you should.’ He moved his hand to allow his fingers to tangle briefly in the spill of curls which danced around at the base of her waist. ‘Though I imagine that flattery is something you’re quite used to.’
The easy compliment slipped off his tongue and it helped fuel her indignation. Ella wriggled a little in his arms. ‘Are you always this predictable when you talk to women?’
‘Predictable? You want me to be a little more original, do you, Cinderella?’ he questioned, feeling the provocative thrust of her beaded breasts pressing into his chest. ‘But that would be exceedingly difficult with someone who looks like you. What can I tell you that countless men haven’t said before? You must be bored with hearing that your eyes are the blue of a summer sky. Or that your hair is so lustrous that if I moved a little closer, I’d swear I’d be able to see my face in its reflection.’
He positioned his head as if he intended to do just that, but instead he found that his eyes were closing and that he was breathing her in and pulling her against his body. And that suddenly he wanted her very much. It had been, he realised achingly, a long time since he’d held a woman in his arms. Particularly a woman who sent out messages as conflicting as this one …
Ella felt his arms tighten around her and was appalled at how much she wanted to sink further into that embrace. To feel the beat of his heart and to listen to those admiring comments which he probably said to every woman and which meant precisely nothing.
‘Hassan,’ she said, realising how thready her voice sounded. But why wouldn’t it sound like that when he had just splayed his hands so proprietarily over her back? She was wearing a dress which left a lot of skin on show. Skin to which he now had access. She felt the almost imperceptible caress of his fingers and she shivered with a strange kind longing. She had to stop this.
‘Or the most beautiful pair of lips I’ve ever seen. Tell me, does that lipstick come off when a man kisses you and does it taste of roses, or berries?’
‘Hassan,’ she said again, more weakly this time.
‘Mmm? I like it when you say my name. Say it again. Say it as if you want to ask me a big, big favour and let me see if I can guess what that favour might be.’
With an effort, she ignored the shockingly erotic command and pulled away from him so that she could see his reaction. ‘What do you think of the bride-to-be?’
A look of displeasure crossed his face as the sensual mood was broken by her unexpected question. For a moment back then, he’d almost forgotten where he was—and he did not care to be reminded. ‘I don’t think you want to know,’ he said, an unmistakable note of finality in his voice warning her that he did not wish to pursue the topic.
‘Oh, but I do,’ argued Ella. ‘I’m fascinated to hear your opinion. I’m sure it’ll be really enlightening.’
He drew back. She was enchanting in her own way, but he thought that she was in danger of overstepping the mark. Didn’t she realise that if he wanted a subject closed, then it was closed? Immediately. And that persisting with her girlie questionnaire to test out his views on marriage—which was clearly what this was all about—would put a complete dampener on the rest of the evening? Because if he told her the truth—that marriage was not for him—wouldn’t her beautiful scarlet lips inevitably crumple with disappointment?
He wanted to dance with her, to feel the softness of her skin and the press of her flesh against his. If she continued to please him, then he might later take her to his bed, but she must quickly learn that his word was law.
‘I think that the less said about the bride-to-be, the better, don’t you?’ he drawled dismissively.
‘No, I don’t, actually.’ Ella saw the spark of warning glittering in the depths of his black eyes and a sudden, heady power infused her. Was he so spoiled that he was used to people just falling in with his wishes every time he snapped his fingers? Yes, he probably was. She recalled the words of his aide. The smarmy way he had tried to talk him round. Ugh! She leaned forward, her voice probably not as low as it should have been but her rage was so profound that she didn’t care. ‘But then you’ve probably exhausted the topic since you’ve already said quite a few nasty things about Allegra, haven’t you?’
He stiffened. ‘I beg your pardon?’
He had relaxed his hold on her and Ella took the opportunity to step away from the distraction of his touch, staring fearlessly into the ebony glitter of his eyes. ‘You heard me,’ she said. ‘But perhaps you’re suffering from some sort of short-term memory loss and need me to remind you of the things you said. Shall I do that?’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
Ella began to count the facts off against her fingers. ‘Let’s see, you think she’s highly unsuitable and that Alex shouldn’t be marrying her. Didn’t you describe her as a “tramp”—just like her mother and sisters? And didn’t you say that you considered the whole Jackson family far too “vulgar” ever to be related to the Crown Prince of Santina?’
‘Where the hell did you hear all this?’ he demanded.
‘I notice that you don’t deny it!’ she accused, her voice growing louder as several of the other dancers turned their heads to see what was going on. She could see the dawning light of recognition in his eyes and she leapt in for the final thrust, a fierce protectiveness sweeping over her as she thought of her wayward family. ‘You delivered your damning verdict on people you have never met, didn’t you? And then you left to find someone “tolerably attractive” to dance with. And that someone just happened to be me!’
There was a split second of a pause before his eyes narrowed as he looked at her. ‘You’re one of the Jacksons?’ he guessed.
‘Oh, bravo, Sheikh Hassan! Prince of the desert! It took you long enough to work it out, didn’t it? Yes, I’m one of the Jacksons!’
Resisting the desire to show her just how speedy his responses could be, he glared at her. ‘You were eavesdropping in the anteroom!’
‘And if I was?’
‘Eavesdropping!’ he repeated contemptuously. A slow anger began to build inside him as he met the defiant light in her blue eyes. But in truth, he was furious with himself for not having followed his own instincts. He had thought that he’d heard something, and yet he had allowed himself to be convinced otherwise. And wasn’t that lazy and dangerous behaviour from a king, especially one who had just left behind a war zone? Was he getting complacent now that he was away from the battlefields?
He lowered his voice to an angry hiss. ‘That’s exactly the kind of vulgar attitude I would have expected from a family such as yours, and one which completely vindicates my belief about your general unsuitability to be mixing in royal circles. I rest my case.’
It wasn’t so much the hateful things he was saying which made Ella’s blood boil, but the sanctimonious way he was saying them. As if he was in the right and she was in the wrong! As if he was allowed to say what he pleased and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. Her blood was pounding in her veins as she felt her rage rise, and an odd kind of hurt and frustration come bubbling to the surface.
People were staring at them quite openly now, but she didn’t care.
‘Unsuitability?’ she declared. ‘I’ll show you unsuitability if you want!’ Almost without thinking, she grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing waitress and tossed it over his dark, mocking face before turning to push her way through the throng of openmouthed spectators.
CHAPTER TWO (#ua56f4d1c-67c1-5038-aa52-e1ddfcac7a01)
FOR a moment Hassan was frozen into shocked immobility, scarcely able to believe what had just happened. The impudent minx of a Jackson girl had thrown champagne over him!
Angrily, he wiped both cheeks, aware that people were staring at him, their voices beginning to rise in excited chatter above the brief, stunned silence which had followed their very public row. But he barely paid them any attention. He was too busy watching the tottering sway of ‘Cinderella’ Jackson’s silver-clad bottom as she moved through the ballroom, as swiftly as her ridiculously high heels would allow.
He could see his bodyguard fixing him with a questioning look, as if seeking permission to go after her and give her a crash course in royal protocol. But Hassan gave a decisive shake of his head as a cold realisation crept over him.
How dare she humiliate him in such a way? And in public! Why, if a man in his own country had done such a thing, he would have been thrown immediately into the city jail!
His mouth hardening into a grim line, he began to follow her, his long stride quickly covering the distance between them. Now he was close enough to hear the clatter of her high heels on the marble floor and see the gleam of light as it highlighted the curve of her silver-beaded bottom. He saw her glance over her shoulder, her blue eyes widening when she saw him behind her, and a brief sensation of anticipation rippled over his skin as she increased her speed.
Silently, he pursued her, pleased when she briefly hesitated between two corridors—one wide and one narrow. She wouldn’t have a clue where she was going, he thought with satisfaction, whereas he knew well the labyrinth network of passageways which comprised the Santina palace. Hadn’t he and Alex played hide-and-seek in them often enough when they were children?
She chose the narrower passage and he continued to shadow her, knowing that he could easily have caught up with her there and then but he was enjoying the thrill of the chase too much to want to end it. It was like being back in battle, his senses honed and heightened as he pursued his quarry….
Only when the main body of the palace had retreated and the corridors were bare of servants did he surge forward. She whirled round as he backed her into a corner, her breath coming in short little pants. Her abundant curls were spilling down over the silver dress, one thigh was pushed forward as if to showcase its honed perfection, and he thought that he had never seen a woman look so wild and so wanton.
‘Got you,’ he said, his voice a triumphant murmur, but he didn’t touch her.
Ella stared at him, her heart pounding so hard that it felt as if it was about to leap out of her chest. She was hot and out of breath. Running in these heels had been a stupid thing to try to do because her feet now felt as if they were on fire. What had possessed her to react like that? To dare to chuck a drink over a man who was now towering above her looking like the devil incarnate, a patch of his pristine white shirt clinging wetly to his chest. A man who was different from every other man she’d ever met. Well, she had done it, and now she just had to keep her nerve.
‘You don’t scare me!’ she blurted out, but she wondered how convincing her words were as she met emptiness of his eyes.
‘Don’t I?’ Hassan leaned in a little. ‘Then maybe I need to try a little harder. Most people would be pretty scared of my reaction if they’d done what you’ve just done.’ He observed her rapid breathing which was causing the silver beads over her breasts to shimmer in a provocative sway. And suddenly it was difficult to remember just why he was so angry. He swallowed, so unbearably turned on that for a moment he could not speak. ‘That was some scene you created back there.’
Ella told herself that she ought to tread carefully. That she was dealing with someone who had danger written all over him. Someone who she, with her laughable lack of experience, didn’t have a clue how to deal with. The voice of reason was telling her to try to make it right between them, yet the apology she knew she really ought to make stayed stubbornly unspoken. For how could she forget those harsh things he’d said?
‘Who cares about a scene?’ she questioned stubbornly.
He met the defiance in her ice-blue eyes. ‘Clearly you don’t, but then you don’t have any reputation to wreck, do you?’
Actually, she did. She’d worked hard to build her own business and she survived on the income it provided. But the irony was that causing a scene with the sheikh was likely to bring new customers flocking to her, instead of taking their custom elsewhere. The fact that she was even mixing with royals would be great publicity. A bit of scandal never seemed to affect her client base. Hadn’t she noticed a definite growth in business whenever her father’s face was splashed all over the papers, no matter how dodgy the story? ‘And you do, I suppose?’
‘Of course I do!’ he snapped. ‘I am the ruler of a desert kingdom and my word is law. In fact, I make the laws.’
‘Wow! Mr. Powerful,’ she mocked.
Her insolence was turning him on almost as much as it was infuriating him. He felt a muscle working in his cheek and an even more insistent throbbing at his groin. ‘And I have people who look up to me who will not enjoy reading that their king had champagne flung at him by a brazen English nobody.’
‘I should have thought that people would have been used to your flings by now!’ she returned, and for one brief moment she thought she saw the edges of his lips tilt in the beginning of a smile. But it quickly disappeared and so did her small moment of triumph as she reminded herself that this man was the enemy. ‘Anyway, you should have thought about that before you started laying into my family.’
‘By telling the truth, you mean?’
‘It’s not—’
‘Oh, please, spare me the empty defence!’ His eyes took on a look of challenge. ‘You’re denying that your father is no stranger to the bankruptcy court? Or that your sister’s awful singing brought the house down, but not in a good way? Or that the Crown Prince has dumped his long-term girlfriend and fiancée in order to marry your other sister?’
Ella gritted her teeth. ‘If only there was another waitress nearby, I’d happily upend another drink all over you!’
‘Would you now?’ He tilted his head to one side and studied her. ‘And do you make a habit of resorting to playground tactics?’
‘Only if I’m forced to deal with the class bully!’ Ella stared at him with growing bewilderment. Why did she feel this overpowering sense of frustration which was making her want to pummel her fists against the solid wall of his chest? ‘Actually, I’ve never done anything like that before.’
‘No? You just thought you’d make an exception for me, did you?’ He stared at her, wanting to crush her rosy lips beneath his. Wanting more than that. Wanting to feel the soft surrender of her body as it gave itself up to the hard dominance of his own. ‘I wonder why?’
The arrogant flick of his gaze made her skin grow heated. ‘Because you’re overbearing, overopinionated and ridiculously traditional? Could that give you some sort of clue? You spout such outdated and macho comments that it’s obviously made me react to you in an uncharacteristically primitive way!’ Raking her fingers back through the wayward spill of her curls, she glared at him. ‘And you obviously haven’t got a clue what the modern world is like.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘You think that I am a stranger to the modern world?’
Suddenly, Ella wasn’t sure what she thought. Not any more. Not when he was staring at her so intently and every cell in her body was responding to that black-eyed scrutiny. Her senses seemed to be short-circuiting her brain, but there was one thing she was certain of. He’d just lumped her in with the rest of her family and he seemed stubbornly unrepentant about doing it. Maybe it was time he discovered how it felt to be treated as if you were simply a stereotype, instead of an individual.
She met the challenge in his eyes with one of her own. ‘Yes, I think you’re a stranger to the modern world! How can you not be? How can you know how most people live if you’re stuck in some remote desert country where you probably travel round by camel and sleep in a tent?’
For a moment Hassan could scarcely believe his ears. Camel? It was true that his most recent months had been spent on horseback as he had battled to settle the long-running dispute on the borders of his country. But although much in his life involved the ancient and the traditional, he had also insisted on embracing every new technology, for he recognised that there could be no real progress without it. He thought about his fleet of cars, the state-of-the-art aircraft and the engineers he employed to search for ever more eco-friendly alternative travel.
‘Now you insult my land,’ he observed furiously. ‘And thus my honour.’
‘As you did mine!’
He met the rebellious gleam in her blue eyes. ‘I said nothing which isn’t true. Whereas you have just passed judgement on my homeland without knowing a single thing about it.’
‘Well, that’s tough. Deal with it. And now, if you wouldn’t mind stepping out of the way, I’d like to leave.’
Hassan tensed. Was it her continuing defiance which made something inside him tighten? Something which had been tightening ever since he’d first started dancing with her and felt her soft and fragrant body in his arms.
Women never answered him back like this. They usually went out of their way to accommodate him. They didn’t hurl champagne at him and then storm away, wiggling their silver bottom in a provocative movement which was designed to ensnare his fast-hardening body. For all her professed disdain of him and all he stood for, there was an undeniable sexual charge sparking through the air between them. It had been there from the outset and nothing they’d said or done had diminished it. He could read her hunger in the darkening of her eyes and in the flagrant thrust of her nipples as they pushed against the tiny silver beads of her dress.
He felt urgent sexual desire fire him up, heating his blood with its insistent throb. He’d barely been a week back from battle when he had flown here to Alex’s party and the contrast between this glittering event and the months of arid hardship could not have been greater.
Warfare put many pressures on a man and perhaps the greatest of those was the absence of sex. For so long now he had sublimated his fierce sexual appetite in battle that it had become almost habitual. In some ways he welcomed it, for not only did it channel his energy into fighting, it also made him feel powerful. It gave him strength to know that he could subdue the weaknesses of the flesh. Yet how could he have forgotten what it felt like to be in thrall to his senses? And how could he not but thank a fate which had conspired to put him alone with a beautiful and eager young woman?
He looked around. The corridor was empty and bare of staff. Should he take her here and risk discovery? Or simply give her a taste of what would inevitably follow—the teasing brush of his lips over hers, the butterfly caress of his fingers over her jewel-covered breasts?
Yet he recognised that this tumble-haired brunette was a challenge, and that only fuelled his hunger, for he loved to conquer and to tame. That was his default mechanism. A way of inflicting control onto a life which had been filled with chaos.
Now that his anger had dissipated, there remained only desire. He remembered her defiance and the way she had struck him and his heart began to thunder. How it would please him to see her subdued. To hear her begging him to enter her, her fiery spirit temporarily silenced by her hunger for him!
His eyes were drawn downwards to see the way she had wriggled a restless-looking foot and he gave a slow smile, for he could read women as well as he could read his beloved falcons when he raced them over the desert skies.
‘Your feet are aching,’ he observed softly.
Ella’s eyes widened, momentarily disarmed by the lazy question in his. Had he read her mind? And what was it about this quiet corner of the palace which made her feel as if they had been suddenly cloaked in a quiet intimacy, so that she responded to him frankly? ‘My shoes are killing me,’ she admitted.
‘Then take them off. Isn’t that what Cinderella is supposed to do?’
The words were faintly erotic and Ella opened her mouth to protest, but when she thought about it, why not? Loads of women shed their shoes at parties. Some even secreted a pair of pumps in their bag. She made as if to bend but before she could move Hassan was there before her, crouching down to slide off both her high heels with a dexterity which made her think he might have done that kind of thing before. Briefly, he ran a thumb across her cramped toes and they gave an appreciative little wriggle before he put them down to meet the delicious coolness of the marble floor.
He straightened up, his black eyes mocking as they looked at her. ‘Better?’
Ella nodded. Sure, her feet now felt comfortable and free, but stupidly she was missing his touch. Because hadn’t it felt like some kind of delicious intimacy to have the sheikh’s fingers on her toes? She forced a smile.
‘Much better,’ she said.
He handed her the shoes. ‘Are you heading back to the party?’
Hooking her fingers through the glittery slingbacks, she shook her head. She couldn’t possibly go back now, and not just because she had left the ballroom in such dramatic circumstances. She just couldn’t face any more of this wretched partying, supposedly celebrating an engagement which nobody seemed happy about. Except for the happy couple, presumably.
‘No. I think I’ll call it a night. I need to organise a car to get back to my hotel.’
‘I’ll walk you back to the main entrance.’
Ella’s heart raced as fear and desire fused into a molten ache at the base of her belly. It was something to do with the way he was looking at her, her sudden awareness of how close he was. Close enough for her to be able to inhale his distinctly masculine scent, just as he’d done on the dance floor. And to remember him sliding the shoes from her feet like some old-fashioned fairy tale, in reverse. Because wasn’t the prince supposed to put the shoe on? She felt the rapid thunder of her heart. ‘No, honestly. I’ll be fine.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘You know where you’re going, do you?’
For the first time she became aware of her surroundings, of the dim silence of the cool corridor, in a network of passageways which all seemed to look exactly the same. She suddenly realised that there were no sounds of revelry drifting towards them and that they must be miles away from the other guests. But then she’d run like the wind, hadn’t she? Running to escape him wearing too-high heels which explained her aching feet and why she now found herself in some unknown corner of a strange palace.
Should she brazen it out? Tell him that she’d find her own way back and she didn’t need his help, thank you very much? That would be the most sensible thing. To walk away with her pride intact, and with some sort of uneasy truce having been reached between them. ‘I’ll be fine.’
‘Are you sure? It’s a bit of a maze. And I’d hate to think of you wandering around in circles for hours.’
‘But a maze which you can negotiate with the ease of a born navigator, I suppose?’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘As it happens, I do have a superb sense of direction, but I also happen to know the palace well. I used to spend a lot of time here with Alex when we were children.’
Ella’s fingers tightened around the straps of her shoes. It was strange to imagine this towering man with the cruel face ever having been a child. Had he told her that to emphasise his own royal credentials, reinforcing the fact that her family were simply arriviste social climbers?
Yet as she met the mockery in his black eyes, she realised that maybe she should do the grown-up thing and accept his offer. The last thing she wanted was to spend hours walking around this cavernous place and wandering into some part of the palace which was out of bounds.
She need never see him again—except, presumably, at the wedding, when her sister would marry his friend. And surely it would be better to part on cordial terms, particularly after she’d thrown champagne all over him. In fact, it was surprising and rather reassuring that he seemed to have forgotten all about that.
This time her smile was wider, even if it didn’t feel exactly joyful. But then joy wasn’t a word you really associated with a man whose eyes were so hard and so black they looked as if they’d been made from some rare, cold stone. ‘In that case, yes, please. I wouldn’t mind being pointed in the right direction.’
Hassan allowed a brief smile to curve the edges of his lips. ‘Let’s go,’ he said softly, knowing instantly the route he was about to take.
They made no sound as they moved through the high-ceilinged passage, but Ella was so aware of him that she didn’t take in any of the spectacular surroundings. For once, the ornate decor was completely overshadowed by Hassan himself. Without the added inches of her heels, his height and his breadth were almost intimidating. Did he always dominate his surroundings and the people in them? she wondered.
His question broke into her muddled thoughts. ‘How long are you staying on the island?’
‘I’m flying back to London tomorrow.’
‘After lunch?’
Ella shrugged, dreading the thought of yet another formal meal while people looked down their noses at her and her family. She’d been hoping to escape and slip back to England straight after breakfast but from what she understood attendance at the lunch seemed to be mandatory. She was quickly learning that you weren’t allowed to say no to royals. ‘Yes.’
Hearing the note of heavy resignation in her voice, Hassan glanced down at her. She wasn’t doing anything he had expected her to do. He’d expected a little more gratitude that he’d forgiven her for her shocking display of temper, and the seductive removal of her shoes would usually have guaranteed that by now she’d be glancing up at him from beneath her lashes and flirting like crazy. But she was doing no such thing. Instead her gaze seemed fixed firmly ahead of her, like a runner who had their eyes on the finish line. Like someone longing to reach their destination.
Was she?
Or was she just trying to dampen down the desire which had been so apparent since they’d first set eyes on each other? He let his eyes linger on her body as she moved. The shimmer of her silver dress was enhancing her willowy frame and the thick gleam of her dark hair made him want to run his fingers through it. And somehow her bare toes, with their gleam of silver polish, were much sexier without the stilt-like shoes he’d just removed. He felt a renewed stab of lust.
‘So would you like a glass of champagne before you leave?’ he questioned. ‘Or is that just asking for trouble?’
‘Champagne?’ It was the hint of unexpected humour in his voice which made her waver, until she reminded herself of her dramatic exit from the ballroom. She stared up at him, her hair shimmying around her face. ‘But I don’t want to go back to the party.’
‘I know. But since we’re right by my own suite, I thought you might like to see it.’ His lips curved into a smile. ‘Especially as it happens to contain some fabulous paintings.’
It was ironic that he seemed unwittingly to have hit on the one thing designed to make her heart beat faster and yet Ella’s one feeling was one of disappointment. It seemed that all men were predictably similar, whether they were desert princes or hedge fund managers. ‘As in, “Come up and see my etchings,” I suppose?’ she questioned sarcastically. ‘Gosh, you really do need to take a refresher course when you’re trying to chat up a woman!’
‘I had no idea that I was dealing with such an expert in chat-up lines,’ he murmured. ‘Or perhaps you just don’t like beautiful paintings?’
She heard the subtle put-down. There was that judgement of his all over again. Did he think she was too common to appreciate anything of beauty, that a Jackson would only ever enjoy some mindless pap on TV, or flicking through an undemanding glossy magazine? The anger which she’d thought had been extinguished now began to simmer once more. But infuriatingly, it was manifesting itself in the prickle of her breasts and a soft, melting feeling at the fork of her thighs. It was making her throat dry just to look at him, and her heart fluttered madly. ‘Or perhaps I just don’t like strange men coming on to me with sexual innuendo?’
‘Ah, Cinders, Cinders,’ he mocked as he watched the battle between her provocative words and her blossoming body. And wasn’t it echoing the same battle which was taking place in his own? ‘I was simply talking about art, yet all you seem to want to talk about is sex. And just what is your real name, by the way?’
‘It’s Ella,’ she said, her head spinning. ‘And will you please stop twisting everything I say? I don’t want to talk about sex!’
‘Neither do I,’ he agreed unexpectedly. ‘Since talking about it is a complete waste of time.’
Before she properly realised what he was going to do, he had pulled her into his arms. Pulled her right up close to his aroused body and, with a thrill of shocked recognition, she was letting him. An urgent kind of hunger overwhelmed her as she felt the weight of his hands at her back. The touch of his fingers on her bare skin was as electric as it had been on the dance floor and it had precisely the same sizzling effect on her. Only this time they weren’t in a crowd with the curious eyes of the other dancers on them. This time they were dangerously alone.
She opened her mouth to say something but by then his curiously empty eyes had begun to blaze into life as he lowered his head towards her. And then it was too late.
His lips came down to meet hers and Ella’s mouth opened of its own volition, and she found herself unwillingly lost in the most sensational kiss of her life.
CHAPTER THREE (#ua56f4d1c-67c1-5038-aa52-e1ddfcac7a01)
ELLA swayed as Hassan kissed her, his arms tightening around her so that every hard sinew of his powerful frame seemed to be imprinted indelibly on her body. She could feel the pricking of her breasts and their sudden aching heaviness as they pressed against him. And she could feel the coiling heat which was building inside her, pooling in an erotic, silken warmth at the juncture of her thighs.
The thunder of her heart played a backing-track as his lips explored hers and she sank against him. Yet even as his tongue slid inside her mouth and her eyelids fluttered to a close she knew that something wasn’t right. Through a haze, she tried to remember just what that something was, but her greedy body seemed intent on pushing all sane thoughts from her mind. The blood pooling in her breasts and at her groin was denying her brain the vital fuel it needed in order to think clearly. But how could she think clearly when she was feeling like this?
She gasped as Hassan caught hold of her breast, his big hand splaying with arrogant possession over its hardening swell. Against the finely beaded surface, he teased the already-aching nipple with his finger, and at that split second she remembered the source of her discomfort.
She hated him.
And he hated her.
He was supposed to be showing her the way out of the palace … and instead he had her pressed up against some cool palace wall where he seemed intent on having hot and urgent sex with her.
So why wasn’t she pushing him away and professing outrage at his seduction? Why was she winding the arm which wasn’t holding her shoes around his neck and breathing urgent little sounds of encouragement?
Because she’d never felt like this before.
Never imagined that a woman could feel like this when a man kissed her. As if this was what her body had been invented for. Her one previous sexual experience now just seemed a mockingly bland rehearsal for this rapid awakening which was making her blood fizz.
But it was wrong. It was very, very wrong.
‘Hassan.’ With an effort, she tore her mouth away from his as her high heels nearly slipped from her fingers onto the floor. ‘This is … absolutely … crazy ….’ She thought how weak her voice sounded. As if he had somehow sapped all her strength and resolve.
‘Don’t break the spell, Cinderella,’ he warned unsteadily, pushing open the door to his suite. Pulling her inside, he kicked the door shut, before taking her into his arms and beginning to kiss her again, as if that might obliterate any objections she might have.
And it was working, wasn’t it? It didn’t seem to matter that she was in the bedroom of a man who was a virtual stranger—a dark and empty-eyed sheikh who had spoken about her family with the cruel lash of his tongue. Such was his skill that he melted away every single doubt beneath the practised caress of his lips. His hands stroked their way down over her body as he kissed her, until her nerve endings were raw with desire and she was moving restlessly in his arms.
Her skin felt heated, her body on fire. She groaned when he cupped her breast again, his thumb brushing negligently against the bead-covered nipple. Why couldn’t he touch her bare skin instead, she wondered distractedly when, as if he’d read her thoughts again, he reached out and peeled down the flimsy bodice of her dress.
He leaned back a little to survey her, the way people did in art galleries when they wanted to get a better look at a painting. His eyes seemed to devour her breasts and she felt the skin tighten and tingle beneath that fierce black scrutiny.
‘Do you always go braless?’ he questioned unsteadily.
She wanted to tell him that the fashionable dress had made the wearing of a bra impossible but somehow the words seemed to have lodged in her throat.
‘But then again, why would you ever cover up anything so beautiful as these pert little breasts?’ he continued as he grazed a lazy thumb over one hardening nub. ‘I like the fact that they are so instantly accessible. That they are within easy reach of the curl of my tongue.’
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Sharon Kendrick
Unexpected Baby Shock for Sheikh and Jackson Party-Girl!Unconfirmed sources report that celebrity wedding planner Ella Jackson is pregnant! Currently single, Miss Jackson caused quite a stir at her sister’s high-profile, royal-studded party last month, where she tossed a glass of vintage champagne over Sheikh Hassan Al Abbas following a very public argument.What happened in private is anybody’s guess and certainly the palace haven’t officially confirmed that Miss Jackson was seen leaving the Sheikh’s opulent suite the morning after the party…Could this Cinder-Ella beat her sister to a royal title…and a royal heir?
‘Maybe you decided your night with me was so hot that you wanted a repeat of it. I wouldn’t blame you if you did.’
‘I try never to make the same mistake twice, Hassan. Any other suggestions?’
Dark clouds drifted into his mind. ‘Or our ill-judged liaison has left us with something other than regrets.’
She stared at him, because didn’t his words make what she was about to tell him even more difficult? ‘That’s the most cold-hearted description I’ve ever heard,’ she whispered.
Her lack of denial unsettled him but Hassan kept his nerve. ‘That’s because I am a cold-hearted man, Ella. Be in no doubt of that. And I haven’t come here to play guessing games. What is it that you want to say to me?’
‘That you’re right!’ She swallowed as she forced out the bitter truth. She looked into the narrowed black eyes and spoke in a low voice. ‘I’m having a baby, Hassan.’
Dear Reader (#ua56f4d1c-67c1-5038-aa52-e1ddfcac7a01),
One hundred. Doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I still can’t believe that’s how many books I’ve written. It’s a fabulous feeling but more fabulous still is the news that Mills & Boon are issuing every single one of my backlist as digital titles. Wow. I can’t wait to share all my stories with you - which are as vivid to me now as when I wrote them.
There’s BOUGHT FOR HER HUSBAND, with its outrageously macho Greek hero and A SCANDAL, A SECRET AND A BABY featuring a very sexy Tuscan. THE SHEIKH’S HEIR proved so popular with readers that it spent two weeks on the USA Today charts and…well, I could go on, but I’ll leave you to discover them for yourselves.
I remember the first line of my very first book: “So you’ve come to Australia looking for a husband?” Actually, the heroine had gone to Australia to escape men, but guess what? She found a husband all the same! The man who inspired that book rang me up recently and when I told him I was beginning my 100
story and couldn’t decide what to write, he said, “Why don’t you go back to where it all started?”
So I did. And that’s how A ROYAL VOW OF CONVENIENCE was born. It opens in beautiful Queensland and moves to England and New York. It’s about a runaway princess and the enigmatic billionaire who is infuriated by her, yet who winds up rescuing her. But then, she goes and rescues him… Wouldn’t you know it?
I’ll end by saying how very grateful I am to have a career I love, and to thank each and every one of you who has supported me along the way. You really are very dear readers.
Love,
Sharon xxx
Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing and awesome 100th book! Sharon is known worldwide for her likeable, spirited heroines and her gorgeous, utterly masculine heroes.
SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition, describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring her often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…
The Sheikh’s Heir
Sharon Kendrick
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Max Campbell, for ensuring that my iPhone
plays more than one Beatles song.
Contents
Cover (#ueebae89a-2340-5e43-998c-d78721bc9c98)
Back Cover Text (#u614edbbc-a472-5416-85a9-57bcae544f17)
Dear Reader (#u3cbcd4d8-9fad-53e2-926e-4e1cedcb3355)
About the Author (#ud526c3ee-46b3-5799-afd2-933853743efe)
Title Page (#u8e1a96bf-df67-509b-bf84-143b06823989)
Dedication (#uab96156f-12c4-5ba0-abfa-b5cf9718f67a)
CHAPTER ONE (#ua2a448ab-bfb5-59a6-9f0d-a7af5e99dc92)
CHAPTER TWO (#u33428e30-5f84-58de-8850-e0d788a9333e)
CHAPTER THREE (#uc13abdf9-99da-5d03-b70c-6836e033ca08)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ua56f4d1c-67c1-5038-aa52-e1ddfcac7a01)
WOULD this damned party never end?
In the softly lit anteroom of his friend’s palace, Sheikh Hassan Al Abbas let out an irritated breath and turned to the man standing a few deferential paces away from him.
‘Do you think there’s any chance I could just slip away and leave them to get on with it, Benedict?’ he demanded, knowing only too well how his loyal English aide would respond.
There was a pause. ‘Your absence would almost certainly be noticed, Your Highness,’ answered Benedict carefully. ‘Since you are one of the most esteemed guests present. And furthermore it would offend your oldest friend if he knew that you could not be bothered to stay to wish him happiness on the night of his engagement.’
Hassan’s fists clenched against the unaccustomed lounge suit which clothed his hard body, hating the strictures of collar and tie. He wished he was wearing soft and silken robes against his naked skin. That he was galloping free on his horse, with the warm desert wind blowing against his face. ‘And what if I believed deep in my heart that such a wish would not only be futile but hypocritical?’ he iced back. ‘That I think Alex is about to make the biggest mistake of his life?’
‘It is often difficult for two men to see eye to eye when it comes to the subject of women,’ answered Benedict diplomatically. ‘Particularly regarding the subject of marriage.’
‘It’s not just his choice of fiancée I don’t agree with!’ Hassan said, unable to contain the frustration which had been growing inside him since his oldest friend, Prince Alessandro Santina, had announced that he was to marry Allegra Jackson. ‘Though that is bad enough. Even worse is that he has abandoned the woman to whom he has been betrothed since he was born! A woman of noble birth, who would make a far more suitable bride.’
‘Perhaps his love is too strong to be—’
‘Love?’ interrupted Hassan, and now he could feel the bitter lump which had risen in his throat like a ball of nails. A brief yet undeniable pain clenched at his heart. For didn’t he know better than anyone that ‘love’ was nothing but an illusion which could wreck lives with its seductive power?
‘Love is nothing more than a fancy name for lust,’ he bit out. ‘And a ruler cannot allow himself to be guided by the stir of his loins or the beat of his heart. He must put duty before desire.’
‘Yes, Highness,’ said Benedict obediently.
Hassan shook his head in disbelief, still unwilling to accept that his high-born friend had let his standards dip so low. ‘Did you realise that Alex’s future father-in-law is some grubby ex-footballer with a long list of wives and mistresses he has been publicly unfaithful to?’
‘I had heard something along those lines, Highness.’
‘I cannot believe that he is willing to marry into such a disreputable family as these Jacksons! Did you see the way they were behaving at the ball? It turned my stomach to watch them quaffing champagne as if it was water and making fools of themselves on the dance floor.’
‘Highness—’
‘This woman Allegra cannot possibly become the wife of a Crown Prince!’ Angrily, Hassan slammed the flat of his hand against an adjacent table and its delicate frame juddered beneath the contemptuous force. ‘She is a tramp—just like her mother and her sisters! Did you witness the spectacle which brought me seeking refuge in here, when the sister with the voice of a crow stormed the stage and attempted to sing?’
‘Yes, Highness, I saw her,’ said Benedict softly. ‘But the Crown Prince has made up his mind that he will marry Miss Jackson, and I doubt whether even you will be able to change it. And should you not now return to the ballroom before your absence is commented upon?’
But Hassan was not listening—at least, not to his aide. He raised a hand for silence, his ears straining for the whispering of a sound. His body tensed. Had he heard something? Someone? Or had the recent harsh months spent in battle meant that he suspected danger lurking everywhere? Yet he could have sworn that the room had been empty when he’d come searching for an escape.
‘Did you hear something?’ he questioned as he felt the instinctive pricking of his skin.
‘No, Highness. I heard nothing.’
There was a brief silence before Hassan nodded, feeling some of the tension ease from his body as he allowed himself to be reassured by his aide. This might be the worst party in living memory, but at least security was tight. ‘Then let us return to this mockery of a reception. Let me see whether I can find anyone tolerably attractive enough to dance with.’ He gave a sardonic laugh. ‘A woman who is the very antithesis of Allegra Jackson and her vulgar family!’
With this, the two men swept from the softly lit room, while from her hiding place behind a carved chest in a corner of the vast chamber, Ella Jackson wished that she could open her mouth and scream with rage and frustration.
How dare he?
Waiting for a few moments to check that he really had gone, she stretched limbs which were cramped from sitting still for so long. Greedily, she sucked great gulps of air into her lungs because she’d had to keep holding her breath in case she was discovered. For a moment back then, she’d been sure he was going to find her. And something told her that she was lucky not to have been discovered by that arrogant beast of a man who had been so insulting—not just to Allegra and Izzy, but to the entire Jackson family.
The other man had called him ‘Highness’—and judging from the way he’d been calling all the shots, he had certainly sounded royal. His voice had been deep and faintly accented—not the kind of voice you heard every day. It had also sounded bossy and proud. Could that have been the powerful sheikh everyone had been banging on about? The groom-to-be’s oldest friend, who had been expected at tonight’s party and anticipated with the same kind of breathless excitement which might have greeted a movie star?
Uncomfortably, Ella rose to her feet. The beads of her elaborate dress were pressing painfully into her skin and her wild tangle of curls was desperately in need of a session with the hairbrush. She would have to do something drastic to repair her appearance before she thought about returning to the general scrum which was her sister Allegra’s engagement party to the Crown Prince of the Santina royal family. Even though she would have happily given a month’s salary not to have gone back into that ballroom.
Wasn’t it ironic that she had slipped away from the party for precisely the same reason as the sheikh? The moment her sister Izzy had staggered onto the stage to sing, Ella’s heart had hit her boots and she’d wanted to curl up and die. She loved Izzy. She did—but why did she have such a penchant for making a complete fool of herself? Why sing in public when you had absolutely zero talent?
Ella had slunk into this darkened anteroom and instinct had made her crouch down behind the concealing bulk of the chest when she’d heard the sound of approaching footsteps. There had been the sound of the door quietly clicking shut and then someone uttering a short, terse expletive. And that’s when she had heard the damning words of the accented man as he had torn her family to shreds.
Yet hadn’t he only been speaking the truth? Her father did have a long list of women he’d been intimate with. He had two ex-wives at the last count, and one of those he’d married twice. Plus all the mistresses on the side—some of whom were reported in the newspapers and some whom he’d managed to hush up.
Hadn’t her own mother’s life been blighted by her hopeless longing for a man who seemed to be incapable of any kind of fidelity? Her sweet, foolish mother, who’d never been able to see any fault in her errant husband, which was why she had been his bride twice over. And why she let him treat her like a complete doormat.
If ever Ella had needed to know how not to conduct a relationship, she’d never needed to look any further than the example set by her own parents. And hadn’t she vowed that she would never, ever let a man make a fool of her like that?
She reached down and picked up her handbag, extracting the wide-toothed comb which was the only implement which could ever come close to taming her soft but wayward curls. Dare she risk putting a brighter light on in here?
Why not? The outrageously opinionated sheikh didn’t sound as if he was in any danger of coming back. He was probably subjecting some ‘tolerably attractive’ woman to a dance. Poor her, Ella thought with a genuine trace of sympathy. Imagine dancing with someone who had an ego as big as his—why there would be barely any room left on the dance floor!
She clicked on a light which illuminated the regal splendour of the vast antechamber and hunted around until she found a mirror recessed in one of the alcoves. Stepping back, she surveyed herself with critical eyes.
Her silver-beaded dress was a little on the short side but it was extremely fashionable—and such a look was essential in Ella’s line of work. Her rather flashy clients expected her to reflect their values, to make a statement and not fade quietly into the background. As a party planner catering to the nouveau-riche end of the market, Ella had decided to cash in on her family’s notoriety by working for the kind of people who had plenty of money, but very little in the way of generally accepted ‘taste.’
She’d quickly learnt the rules. But then, she was a quick learner—it came with the territory of being a survivor, of having lived with scandal and notoriety for most of her life. If a glamour-model bride wanted to arrive at her wedding in a dazzling diamante coach, she expected the woman organising the event to dazzle in a similar way. So dazzle Ella did. She’d got that down to a fine art. With her trademark slash of scarlet lipstick accentuating her wide mouth, she wore the on-trend clothes which so impressed her clients. She turned heads when she needed to.
But all that was for show. She kept the real Ella locked away where no one could find her. Or hurt her. Underneath the dazzling exterior, when she was dressed down and chilled out at home, it was a different story. There she could be the person her family had always teased her for being. Bare of makeup, wearing old jeans and a T-shirt—sometimes with paint underneath her fingernails. She wished she was there right now, instead of having to endure the longest evening of her life. A night she would never have believed could happen.
A member of her family was marrying into one of the Mediterranean’s oldest and most revered royal families—and the knives were out. Hadn’t she just heard for herself, via the arrogant sheikh, how the entire Jackson clan were being judged and found wanting? Weren’t the sly eyes of various members of the press watching every move they made, to report with glee how ill-equipped the Jacksons were to mix with the aristocracy?
Well, Ella would show them. She would show them all. Their cruel comments wouldn’t get to her because she wouldn’t let them. She bit her lip, for once feeling vulnerable about the charges which were always levelled at her and her siblings. She worked hard for her living—she always had done—and yet her Jackson surname made people pigeonhole her. They thought she just lay around all day, drinking champagne and generally whooping it up, and yet nothing could be further from the truth.
Raking the comb through her red-brown curls, she checked for any stray smudges of mascara and then applied a final, defiant coat of scarlet lipstick.
There.
Her dangling earrings were swaying in a sparkling cascade and even her blue eyeshadow had bits of glitter in it. Her shiny armour was firmly in place and she was ready to face the braying masses. Let anyone dare try to patronise her!
The sound of music and chatter grew louder as she clattered along the marble corridor in her new shoes. In glossy black patent, with towering silver heels which were wonderfully flattering to the legs, they were a fashionista’s dream and an orthopaedic surgeon’s nightmare. But they made her walk tall and stand straight and tonight she needed that more than anything.
The ballroom was crowded and noisy and Ella’s eyes skimmed the dance floor. The place was packed. Royals mingled with minor television stars, and one-time Premier League footballers who’d worked with her dad were propping up the bar. She could see various members of her family partying away with enthusiasm. Rather too much enthusiasm. Her father was downing a flute of champagne, her mother hovering nearby with an ever-hopeful smile on her face. Which meant that she was worried he was going to get drunk. Or make a pass at someone young enough to be his daughter.
Please don’t let him get drunk, thought Ella. And please don’t let him make a pass at someone else’s girlfriend. Or wife.
There was her sister Izzy dancing, grinding her hips in a way which made Ella turn away with embarrassment. Knowing there was no point in trying to reason with her wayward sibling, she redirected her gaze to the dance floor. Her heart suddenly beginning to pound as her eyes came to rest on a man whose exotic looks marked him out from everyone else.
She blinked. In a room which wasn’t exactly short on the glamour quotient, he drew the eye irresistibly. And yet he looked totally out of place among the glittering throng and she couldn’t quite work out why. It wasn’t just that he was taller than any other man there or that his muscular body was all hard, honed muscle. He looked hungry. Like he hadn’t eaten a decent meal in months. Ella’s gaze roved over his face. A cruel face, she thought with a sudden shiver. His black eyes seemed devoid of emotion and his sensual mouth was curved into a cynical smile as he listened to his blonde dance partner as she lifted her chin to chatter to him.
Ella’s heart missed a beat. It was him. Instinct told her so. The man who had been so unspeakably rude about her family when she’d been hiding in the anteroom. The man she had silently cursed as being arrogant and judgemental. And yet now that she’d seen him, she couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away from him.
His olive skin gleamed, as if he’d been cast from some precious metal, instead of flesh and blood. She watched as a beautiful redhead brushed past him, saw the way he automatically glanced at her bursting décolletage without missing a beat.
He was danger and sexuality mixed into one potent masculine cocktail—the kind of man most people’s mothers would warn you to steer clear of. Ella felt a debilitating kick in her belly, as something deep inside her responded to him. As if on some instinctive level, she had discovered something she hadn’t even realised she’d been looking for.
He raised his head then and she saw the way he stilled. The way his black eyes narrowed as he moved his gaze around the ballroom until at last it came to alight on her.
Like a hunter, she thought.
Ella felt as if she had been caught in a dark yet blinding spotlight. She could feel herself flush—a slow heat which started at the top of her head and seemed to work its way right down to her toes. Had he known she’d been staring at him? Look away, she urged herself furiously. Look away from him right now. But she couldn’t. It was as if he had cast some powerful spell over her which was making it impossible for her to tear her gaze away.
From across the dance floor, his black eyes grew slightly amused as their overlong eye contact was maintained. A pair of ebony brows were raised at her in arrogant question, and when still she did not move, he bent to whisper something into the blonde’s ear.
Ella was aware of the woman turning and glaring at her and of the man with the black eyes beginning to walk towards her. Run, she urged herself. Get away from here before it’s too late.
But she didn’t run. She couldn’t. It was as if she’d been turned into a tree and was rooted to the spot. Now he was almost upon her, and his physical presence was so overwhelming that she felt the breath dry in her throat. His shadow moved over her as he approached, enveloping her—and suddenly it was as if every other person in the crowded ballroom had ceased to exist.
There was a pause while he let his eyes rove unashamedly over her face and then her body, just as he’d done when the big-breasted redhead had passed him by.
‘Have we met somewhere before?’ he questioned.
Ella didn’t have to hear his deep, accented voice to know that she had been right. It was him. The opinionated man who’d been so rude about her family. She’d already decided that he was proud and arrogant, but she hadn’t expected this level of charisma. Nor for him to have such an overwhelming effect on her that she could barely think straight. And she needed to think straight. Now was not the time to demonstrate that her tingling body seemed to have taken on a greedy life of its own. All she needed was to remember his unforgettable insults.
‘Not until now,’ she said, injecting a noncommittal note into her voice and hoping it sounded convincing.
Hassan’s eyes flicked over her, interested at the play of emotions on the Madonna-like oval of her face. She had been staring at him as if she’d like to rip his clothes off with her teeth! Not an uncommon reaction from a woman, it was true—and she was pretty enough for him to have given the idea a moment’s consideration. But her initial hungry look had been replaced by one of wariness and suspicion. He felt the faint prickle of hostility emanating from her, and that was novel enough to arouse his interest.
‘Are you sure about that?’ he murmured.
She thought how incredibly well he spoke English, despite the sexily accented voice. It seemed to whisper over her skin with its velvet caress, and inexplicably she started wondering what it would be like to have that voice murmur sweet nothings in her ear. ‘Positive,’ she replied coolly.
‘Yet you were staring at me as if you knew me.’
‘Aren’t you used to women staring at you, then?’ she questioned innocently.
‘No, never happened to me before,’ he drawled sardonically, wondering what was making her blow so hot and cold. He looked at the provocative scarlet gleam of her lips and felt a sudden rush of desire. ‘What’s your name?’
Ella wished that her breasts would stop tingling and likewise the molten throb of lust deep in her belly. She didn’t want to feel like this about a man who had talked about her family in a way which had made them all sound like some sort of gutter animals. She stared at him, defying him to contradict her. ‘My name is … Cinderella.’
Hassan gave a slow smile. ‘Is it now?’ So she wanted to play, did she? Well, that was fine by him. He liked games—particularly of the flirty, sexual nature. And particularly with nubile young women with glossy, red lips and firm bodies which had been poured into a shiny silver dress which emphasised their every willowy curve. As a child, the only female role models he’d known had been servants and as an adult he had discovered that women were usually predatory and nearly always beddable.
He felt the sudden beat of anticipation as he looked at her. ‘Then I think the fairy tale must have just come true, Cinderella,’ he said. ‘Because you’ve just met your prince.’
It was the corniest line Ella had ever heard and yet, somehow, it worked. For some insane reason it made her want to smile—a little I’m-so-pleased-with-myself sort of smile to accompany the embarrassing rise of colour to her cheeks.
But she didn’t fall for meaningless chat-up lines, did she? Hadn’t she learnt—from the humiliating example set by her own father—that men spent their lives saying things to women that they didn’t mean? And hadn’t she vowed never to become one of those women who drank up worthless compliments and then let their hearts get broken as a result?
Drawing back her shoulders, she stared at the exotic-looking man, pleased that she’d worn such ridiculously high heels which meant that their eyes were almost on a level. ‘So you’re a real live prince, are you?’
‘Indeed I am.’ For a moment, Hassan felt a flicker of impatience, acknowledging his own obstinacy. He didn’t like being recognised for his royal blood and yet he found it faintly irritating when his regal status was not alluded to. He wasn’t expecting her to curtsey—which was a good thing, since she clearly had no intention of doing so!—but a little deference surely wouldn’t have gone amiss? Surely she could have allowed a small amount of awe to creep into an English accent which he found oddly difficult to place. ‘In fact, I am a sheikh,’ he expanded proudly. ‘My name is Hassan, and I am a prince of the desert.’
‘Wow!’
Hassan’s eyes narrowed. Was that sarcasm he had heard tingeing her voice? Surely not. People were always impressed by his sheikhdom, indeed being ravished by a sheikh seemed to be the number-one sexual fantasy among most of the Western women he met. Yet the uncertainty of her response fired his blood into a slow, pulsing heat. The cat-like slant of her blue eyes was very appealing and he felt another kick of lust as he imagined those eyes growing opaque in time to the powerful thrust of his body. He swallowed, for his groin had grown exquisitely hard in conjunction with his thoughts.
‘And now I think we are supposed to dance,’ he said unevenly. Slowly, he allowed his gaze to travel all the way down her legs to where her feet were encased in a pair of toweringly high stilettos. ‘Before you run off as the clock strikes midnight, and leave one of those gravity-defying and very sexy shoes behind.’
Ella’s heart hammered. Of course she knew the shoes were sexy—you didn’t wear heels this high because they were comfortable. But it came as something of a shock to hear him come right out and say so like that. There was something very blatant about his remark. It made her feel … weird…. As if she was something she wasn’t. As if she’d worn them so that an arrogant sheikh might look at her legs with unashamed appraisal. And she had certainly not done that.
Every instinct she possessed was screaming out to her to get away from him. But even as the adrenalin pumped around her body, wasn’t there a contrary instinct urging her to do precisely the opposite? Didn’t she have some insane desire for him to take her into his arms and pull her against his powerful body to see whether he felt as good as he looked?
‘I’m not really that into dancing,’ she said truthfully.
‘Ah, but that’s because you’ve never danced with me,’ he drawled as he took her by the hand and led her onto the dance floor. ‘Once you have, you’ll change your mind. You’ll become an instant convert, believe me.’
Ella swallowed. What an arrogant boast to make! Now was the moment for her to wrench her hand away from the firm grip of his fingers and walk away from him and these confused emotions she was experiencing.
So why was she letting him lead her to a spot where the overhanging chandeliers spilled their fractured diamond spangles onto the glossy dance floor? Because she liked his touch, that was why. It was that simple and that complex and it was doing strange things to her. Making her feel light-headed and excited. Making her heart race as if she had just endured an hour’s hard workout at the gym.
She felt a brief flash of shame but still she didn’t move. And she knew she was about to betray her family by dancing with a man who despised them.
Without warning, Hassan took her into his arms and his presence enveloped her, just as his shadow had done earlier. His body felt as warm and as hard as she’d imagined and she moved closer to him, as his hands splayed possessively across her back.
Remember all those things he said about your family, she reminded herself dazedly. About Izzy sounding like a crow and them all being nothing but tramps.
And yet it was difficult to remember the insults when he was holding her in his arms like this. Difficult to do anything other than melt against him.
‘You smell beautiful,’ he murmured. ‘Of summer meadows in the sun.’
With an effort, Ella lifted her head to stare at the proud jut of his jaw. ‘What do sheikhs know of summer meadows?’
‘Plenty. When I was a boy, I used to come and visit Alex and sometimes we would go to England, to play the polo at which we both excelled. It was there that I learned that the smell of newly mown grass was one of the most seductive smells in the world.’ He smiled against her hair. Particularly if there was a nubile and willing female lying in it, with most of her clothes undone.
Ella could now feel the gentle caress of his fingertips on her bare skin and she knew she had to stop this before it went any further. Before his sexy voice and sure touch made her do anything else she regretted. Turning her face up, she flashed him a smile which was completely insincere. ‘You must have been amazed to find someone tolerably attractive to dance with among all these women here tonight,’ she observed. ‘Should I be flattered?’
Hassan frowned at the unexpected change of topic, some subtle emphasis in her words nudging at a faint memory. ‘Perhaps you should.’ He moved his hand to allow his fingers to tangle briefly in the spill of curls which danced around at the base of her waist. ‘Though I imagine that flattery is something you’re quite used to.’
The easy compliment slipped off his tongue and it helped fuel her indignation. Ella wriggled a little in his arms. ‘Are you always this predictable when you talk to women?’
‘Predictable? You want me to be a little more original, do you, Cinderella?’ he questioned, feeling the provocative thrust of her beaded breasts pressing into his chest. ‘But that would be exceedingly difficult with someone who looks like you. What can I tell you that countless men haven’t said before? You must be bored with hearing that your eyes are the blue of a summer sky. Or that your hair is so lustrous that if I moved a little closer, I’d swear I’d be able to see my face in its reflection.’
He positioned his head as if he intended to do just that, but instead he found that his eyes were closing and that he was breathing her in and pulling her against his body. And that suddenly he wanted her very much. It had been, he realised achingly, a long time since he’d held a woman in his arms. Particularly a woman who sent out messages as conflicting as this one …
Ella felt his arms tighten around her and was appalled at how much she wanted to sink further into that embrace. To feel the beat of his heart and to listen to those admiring comments which he probably said to every woman and which meant precisely nothing.
‘Hassan,’ she said, realising how thready her voice sounded. But why wouldn’t it sound like that when he had just splayed his hands so proprietarily over her back? She was wearing a dress which left a lot of skin on show. Skin to which he now had access. She felt the almost imperceptible caress of his fingers and she shivered with a strange kind longing. She had to stop this.
‘Or the most beautiful pair of lips I’ve ever seen. Tell me, does that lipstick come off when a man kisses you and does it taste of roses, or berries?’
‘Hassan,’ she said again, more weakly this time.
‘Mmm? I like it when you say my name. Say it again. Say it as if you want to ask me a big, big favour and let me see if I can guess what that favour might be.’
With an effort, she ignored the shockingly erotic command and pulled away from him so that she could see his reaction. ‘What do you think of the bride-to-be?’
A look of displeasure crossed his face as the sensual mood was broken by her unexpected question. For a moment back then, he’d almost forgotten where he was—and he did not care to be reminded. ‘I don’t think you want to know,’ he said, an unmistakable note of finality in his voice warning her that he did not wish to pursue the topic.
‘Oh, but I do,’ argued Ella. ‘I’m fascinated to hear your opinion. I’m sure it’ll be really enlightening.’
He drew back. She was enchanting in her own way, but he thought that she was in danger of overstepping the mark. Didn’t she realise that if he wanted a subject closed, then it was closed? Immediately. And that persisting with her girlie questionnaire to test out his views on marriage—which was clearly what this was all about—would put a complete dampener on the rest of the evening? Because if he told her the truth—that marriage was not for him—wouldn’t her beautiful scarlet lips inevitably crumple with disappointment?
He wanted to dance with her, to feel the softness of her skin and the press of her flesh against his. If she continued to please him, then he might later take her to his bed, but she must quickly learn that his word was law.
‘I think that the less said about the bride-to-be, the better, don’t you?’ he drawled dismissively.
‘No, I don’t, actually.’ Ella saw the spark of warning glittering in the depths of his black eyes and a sudden, heady power infused her. Was he so spoiled that he was used to people just falling in with his wishes every time he snapped his fingers? Yes, he probably was. She recalled the words of his aide. The smarmy way he had tried to talk him round. Ugh! She leaned forward, her voice probably not as low as it should have been but her rage was so profound that she didn’t care. ‘But then you’ve probably exhausted the topic since you’ve already said quite a few nasty things about Allegra, haven’t you?’
He stiffened. ‘I beg your pardon?’
He had relaxed his hold on her and Ella took the opportunity to step away from the distraction of his touch, staring fearlessly into the ebony glitter of his eyes. ‘You heard me,’ she said. ‘But perhaps you’re suffering from some sort of short-term memory loss and need me to remind you of the things you said. Shall I do that?’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
Ella began to count the facts off against her fingers. ‘Let’s see, you think she’s highly unsuitable and that Alex shouldn’t be marrying her. Didn’t you describe her as a “tramp”—just like her mother and sisters? And didn’t you say that you considered the whole Jackson family far too “vulgar” ever to be related to the Crown Prince of Santina?’
‘Where the hell did you hear all this?’ he demanded.
‘I notice that you don’t deny it!’ she accused, her voice growing louder as several of the other dancers turned their heads to see what was going on. She could see the dawning light of recognition in his eyes and she leapt in for the final thrust, a fierce protectiveness sweeping over her as she thought of her wayward family. ‘You delivered your damning verdict on people you have never met, didn’t you? And then you left to find someone “tolerably attractive” to dance with. And that someone just happened to be me!’
There was a split second of a pause before his eyes narrowed as he looked at her. ‘You’re one of the Jacksons?’ he guessed.
‘Oh, bravo, Sheikh Hassan! Prince of the desert! It took you long enough to work it out, didn’t it? Yes, I’m one of the Jacksons!’
Resisting the desire to show her just how speedy his responses could be, he glared at her. ‘You were eavesdropping in the anteroom!’
‘And if I was?’
‘Eavesdropping!’ he repeated contemptuously. A slow anger began to build inside him as he met the defiant light in her blue eyes. But in truth, he was furious with himself for not having followed his own instincts. He had thought that he’d heard something, and yet he had allowed himself to be convinced otherwise. And wasn’t that lazy and dangerous behaviour from a king, especially one who had just left behind a war zone? Was he getting complacent now that he was away from the battlefields?
He lowered his voice to an angry hiss. ‘That’s exactly the kind of vulgar attitude I would have expected from a family such as yours, and one which completely vindicates my belief about your general unsuitability to be mixing in royal circles. I rest my case.’
It wasn’t so much the hateful things he was saying which made Ella’s blood boil, but the sanctimonious way he was saying them. As if he was in the right and she was in the wrong! As if he was allowed to say what he pleased and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. Her blood was pounding in her veins as she felt her rage rise, and an odd kind of hurt and frustration come bubbling to the surface.
People were staring at them quite openly now, but she didn’t care.
‘Unsuitability?’ she declared. ‘I’ll show you unsuitability if you want!’ Almost without thinking, she grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing waitress and tossed it over his dark, mocking face before turning to push her way through the throng of openmouthed spectators.
CHAPTER TWO (#ua56f4d1c-67c1-5038-aa52-e1ddfcac7a01)
FOR a moment Hassan was frozen into shocked immobility, scarcely able to believe what had just happened. The impudent minx of a Jackson girl had thrown champagne over him!
Angrily, he wiped both cheeks, aware that people were staring at him, their voices beginning to rise in excited chatter above the brief, stunned silence which had followed their very public row. But he barely paid them any attention. He was too busy watching the tottering sway of ‘Cinderella’ Jackson’s silver-clad bottom as she moved through the ballroom, as swiftly as her ridiculously high heels would allow.
He could see his bodyguard fixing him with a questioning look, as if seeking permission to go after her and give her a crash course in royal protocol. But Hassan gave a decisive shake of his head as a cold realisation crept over him.
How dare she humiliate him in such a way? And in public! Why, if a man in his own country had done such a thing, he would have been thrown immediately into the city jail!
His mouth hardening into a grim line, he began to follow her, his long stride quickly covering the distance between them. Now he was close enough to hear the clatter of her high heels on the marble floor and see the gleam of light as it highlighted the curve of her silver-beaded bottom. He saw her glance over her shoulder, her blue eyes widening when she saw him behind her, and a brief sensation of anticipation rippled over his skin as she increased her speed.
Silently, he pursued her, pleased when she briefly hesitated between two corridors—one wide and one narrow. She wouldn’t have a clue where she was going, he thought with satisfaction, whereas he knew well the labyrinth network of passageways which comprised the Santina palace. Hadn’t he and Alex played hide-and-seek in them often enough when they were children?
She chose the narrower passage and he continued to shadow her, knowing that he could easily have caught up with her there and then but he was enjoying the thrill of the chase too much to want to end it. It was like being back in battle, his senses honed and heightened as he pursued his quarry….
Only when the main body of the palace had retreated and the corridors were bare of servants did he surge forward. She whirled round as he backed her into a corner, her breath coming in short little pants. Her abundant curls were spilling down over the silver dress, one thigh was pushed forward as if to showcase its honed perfection, and he thought that he had never seen a woman look so wild and so wanton.
‘Got you,’ he said, his voice a triumphant murmur, but he didn’t touch her.
Ella stared at him, her heart pounding so hard that it felt as if it was about to leap out of her chest. She was hot and out of breath. Running in these heels had been a stupid thing to try to do because her feet now felt as if they were on fire. What had possessed her to react like that? To dare to chuck a drink over a man who was now towering above her looking like the devil incarnate, a patch of his pristine white shirt clinging wetly to his chest. A man who was different from every other man she’d ever met. Well, she had done it, and now she just had to keep her nerve.
‘You don’t scare me!’ she blurted out, but she wondered how convincing her words were as she met emptiness of his eyes.
‘Don’t I?’ Hassan leaned in a little. ‘Then maybe I need to try a little harder. Most people would be pretty scared of my reaction if they’d done what you’ve just done.’ He observed her rapid breathing which was causing the silver beads over her breasts to shimmer in a provocative sway. And suddenly it was difficult to remember just why he was so angry. He swallowed, so unbearably turned on that for a moment he could not speak. ‘That was some scene you created back there.’
Ella told herself that she ought to tread carefully. That she was dealing with someone who had danger written all over him. Someone who she, with her laughable lack of experience, didn’t have a clue how to deal with. The voice of reason was telling her to try to make it right between them, yet the apology she knew she really ought to make stayed stubbornly unspoken. For how could she forget those harsh things he’d said?
‘Who cares about a scene?’ she questioned stubbornly.
He met the defiance in her ice-blue eyes. ‘Clearly you don’t, but then you don’t have any reputation to wreck, do you?’
Actually, she did. She’d worked hard to build her own business and she survived on the income it provided. But the irony was that causing a scene with the sheikh was likely to bring new customers flocking to her, instead of taking their custom elsewhere. The fact that she was even mixing with royals would be great publicity. A bit of scandal never seemed to affect her client base. Hadn’t she noticed a definite growth in business whenever her father’s face was splashed all over the papers, no matter how dodgy the story? ‘And you do, I suppose?’
‘Of course I do!’ he snapped. ‘I am the ruler of a desert kingdom and my word is law. In fact, I make the laws.’
‘Wow! Mr. Powerful,’ she mocked.
Her insolence was turning him on almost as much as it was infuriating him. He felt a muscle working in his cheek and an even more insistent throbbing at his groin. ‘And I have people who look up to me who will not enjoy reading that their king had champagne flung at him by a brazen English nobody.’
‘I should have thought that people would have been used to your flings by now!’ she returned, and for one brief moment she thought she saw the edges of his lips tilt in the beginning of a smile. But it quickly disappeared and so did her small moment of triumph as she reminded herself that this man was the enemy. ‘Anyway, you should have thought about that before you started laying into my family.’
‘By telling the truth, you mean?’
‘It’s not—’
‘Oh, please, spare me the empty defence!’ His eyes took on a look of challenge. ‘You’re denying that your father is no stranger to the bankruptcy court? Or that your sister’s awful singing brought the house down, but not in a good way? Or that the Crown Prince has dumped his long-term girlfriend and fiancée in order to marry your other sister?’
Ella gritted her teeth. ‘If only there was another waitress nearby, I’d happily upend another drink all over you!’
‘Would you now?’ He tilted his head to one side and studied her. ‘And do you make a habit of resorting to playground tactics?’
‘Only if I’m forced to deal with the class bully!’ Ella stared at him with growing bewilderment. Why did she feel this overpowering sense of frustration which was making her want to pummel her fists against the solid wall of his chest? ‘Actually, I’ve never done anything like that before.’
‘No? You just thought you’d make an exception for me, did you?’ He stared at her, wanting to crush her rosy lips beneath his. Wanting more than that. Wanting to feel the soft surrender of her body as it gave itself up to the hard dominance of his own. ‘I wonder why?’
The arrogant flick of his gaze made her skin grow heated. ‘Because you’re overbearing, overopinionated and ridiculously traditional? Could that give you some sort of clue? You spout such outdated and macho comments that it’s obviously made me react to you in an uncharacteristically primitive way!’ Raking her fingers back through the wayward spill of her curls, she glared at him. ‘And you obviously haven’t got a clue what the modern world is like.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘You think that I am a stranger to the modern world?’
Suddenly, Ella wasn’t sure what she thought. Not any more. Not when he was staring at her so intently and every cell in her body was responding to that black-eyed scrutiny. Her senses seemed to be short-circuiting her brain, but there was one thing she was certain of. He’d just lumped her in with the rest of her family and he seemed stubbornly unrepentant about doing it. Maybe it was time he discovered how it felt to be treated as if you were simply a stereotype, instead of an individual.
She met the challenge in his eyes with one of her own. ‘Yes, I think you’re a stranger to the modern world! How can you not be? How can you know how most people live if you’re stuck in some remote desert country where you probably travel round by camel and sleep in a tent?’
For a moment Hassan could scarcely believe his ears. Camel? It was true that his most recent months had been spent on horseback as he had battled to settle the long-running dispute on the borders of his country. But although much in his life involved the ancient and the traditional, he had also insisted on embracing every new technology, for he recognised that there could be no real progress without it. He thought about his fleet of cars, the state-of-the-art aircraft and the engineers he employed to search for ever more eco-friendly alternative travel.
‘Now you insult my land,’ he observed furiously. ‘And thus my honour.’
‘As you did mine!’
He met the rebellious gleam in her blue eyes. ‘I said nothing which isn’t true. Whereas you have just passed judgement on my homeland without knowing a single thing about it.’
‘Well, that’s tough. Deal with it. And now, if you wouldn’t mind stepping out of the way, I’d like to leave.’
Hassan tensed. Was it her continuing defiance which made something inside him tighten? Something which had been tightening ever since he’d first started dancing with her and felt her soft and fragrant body in his arms.
Women never answered him back like this. They usually went out of their way to accommodate him. They didn’t hurl champagne at him and then storm away, wiggling their silver bottom in a provocative movement which was designed to ensnare his fast-hardening body. For all her professed disdain of him and all he stood for, there was an undeniable sexual charge sparking through the air between them. It had been there from the outset and nothing they’d said or done had diminished it. He could read her hunger in the darkening of her eyes and in the flagrant thrust of her nipples as they pushed against the tiny silver beads of her dress.
He felt urgent sexual desire fire him up, heating his blood with its insistent throb. He’d barely been a week back from battle when he had flown here to Alex’s party and the contrast between this glittering event and the months of arid hardship could not have been greater.
Warfare put many pressures on a man and perhaps the greatest of those was the absence of sex. For so long now he had sublimated his fierce sexual appetite in battle that it had become almost habitual. In some ways he welcomed it, for not only did it channel his energy into fighting, it also made him feel powerful. It gave him strength to know that he could subdue the weaknesses of the flesh. Yet how could he have forgotten what it felt like to be in thrall to his senses? And how could he not but thank a fate which had conspired to put him alone with a beautiful and eager young woman?
He looked around. The corridor was empty and bare of staff. Should he take her here and risk discovery? Or simply give her a taste of what would inevitably follow—the teasing brush of his lips over hers, the butterfly caress of his fingers over her jewel-covered breasts?
Yet he recognised that this tumble-haired brunette was a challenge, and that only fuelled his hunger, for he loved to conquer and to tame. That was his default mechanism. A way of inflicting control onto a life which had been filled with chaos.
Now that his anger had dissipated, there remained only desire. He remembered her defiance and the way she had struck him and his heart began to thunder. How it would please him to see her subdued. To hear her begging him to enter her, her fiery spirit temporarily silenced by her hunger for him!
His eyes were drawn downwards to see the way she had wriggled a restless-looking foot and he gave a slow smile, for he could read women as well as he could read his beloved falcons when he raced them over the desert skies.
‘Your feet are aching,’ he observed softly.
Ella’s eyes widened, momentarily disarmed by the lazy question in his. Had he read her mind? And what was it about this quiet corner of the palace which made her feel as if they had been suddenly cloaked in a quiet intimacy, so that she responded to him frankly? ‘My shoes are killing me,’ she admitted.
‘Then take them off. Isn’t that what Cinderella is supposed to do?’
The words were faintly erotic and Ella opened her mouth to protest, but when she thought about it, why not? Loads of women shed their shoes at parties. Some even secreted a pair of pumps in their bag. She made as if to bend but before she could move Hassan was there before her, crouching down to slide off both her high heels with a dexterity which made her think he might have done that kind of thing before. Briefly, he ran a thumb across her cramped toes and they gave an appreciative little wriggle before he put them down to meet the delicious coolness of the marble floor.
He straightened up, his black eyes mocking as they looked at her. ‘Better?’
Ella nodded. Sure, her feet now felt comfortable and free, but stupidly she was missing his touch. Because hadn’t it felt like some kind of delicious intimacy to have the sheikh’s fingers on her toes? She forced a smile.
‘Much better,’ she said.
He handed her the shoes. ‘Are you heading back to the party?’
Hooking her fingers through the glittery slingbacks, she shook her head. She couldn’t possibly go back now, and not just because she had left the ballroom in such dramatic circumstances. She just couldn’t face any more of this wretched partying, supposedly celebrating an engagement which nobody seemed happy about. Except for the happy couple, presumably.
‘No. I think I’ll call it a night. I need to organise a car to get back to my hotel.’
‘I’ll walk you back to the main entrance.’
Ella’s heart raced as fear and desire fused into a molten ache at the base of her belly. It was something to do with the way he was looking at her, her sudden awareness of how close he was. Close enough for her to be able to inhale his distinctly masculine scent, just as he’d done on the dance floor. And to remember him sliding the shoes from her feet like some old-fashioned fairy tale, in reverse. Because wasn’t the prince supposed to put the shoe on? She felt the rapid thunder of her heart. ‘No, honestly. I’ll be fine.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘You know where you’re going, do you?’
For the first time she became aware of her surroundings, of the dim silence of the cool corridor, in a network of passageways which all seemed to look exactly the same. She suddenly realised that there were no sounds of revelry drifting towards them and that they must be miles away from the other guests. But then she’d run like the wind, hadn’t she? Running to escape him wearing too-high heels which explained her aching feet and why she now found herself in some unknown corner of a strange palace.
Should she brazen it out? Tell him that she’d find her own way back and she didn’t need his help, thank you very much? That would be the most sensible thing. To walk away with her pride intact, and with some sort of uneasy truce having been reached between them. ‘I’ll be fine.’
‘Are you sure? It’s a bit of a maze. And I’d hate to think of you wandering around in circles for hours.’
‘But a maze which you can negotiate with the ease of a born navigator, I suppose?’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘As it happens, I do have a superb sense of direction, but I also happen to know the palace well. I used to spend a lot of time here with Alex when we were children.’
Ella’s fingers tightened around the straps of her shoes. It was strange to imagine this towering man with the cruel face ever having been a child. Had he told her that to emphasise his own royal credentials, reinforcing the fact that her family were simply arriviste social climbers?
Yet as she met the mockery in his black eyes, she realised that maybe she should do the grown-up thing and accept his offer. The last thing she wanted was to spend hours walking around this cavernous place and wandering into some part of the palace which was out of bounds.
She need never see him again—except, presumably, at the wedding, when her sister would marry his friend. And surely it would be better to part on cordial terms, particularly after she’d thrown champagne all over him. In fact, it was surprising and rather reassuring that he seemed to have forgotten all about that.
This time her smile was wider, even if it didn’t feel exactly joyful. But then joy wasn’t a word you really associated with a man whose eyes were so hard and so black they looked as if they’d been made from some rare, cold stone. ‘In that case, yes, please. I wouldn’t mind being pointed in the right direction.’
Hassan allowed a brief smile to curve the edges of his lips. ‘Let’s go,’ he said softly, knowing instantly the route he was about to take.
They made no sound as they moved through the high-ceilinged passage, but Ella was so aware of him that she didn’t take in any of the spectacular surroundings. For once, the ornate decor was completely overshadowed by Hassan himself. Without the added inches of her heels, his height and his breadth were almost intimidating. Did he always dominate his surroundings and the people in them? she wondered.
His question broke into her muddled thoughts. ‘How long are you staying on the island?’
‘I’m flying back to London tomorrow.’
‘After lunch?’
Ella shrugged, dreading the thought of yet another formal meal while people looked down their noses at her and her family. She’d been hoping to escape and slip back to England straight after breakfast but from what she understood attendance at the lunch seemed to be mandatory. She was quickly learning that you weren’t allowed to say no to royals. ‘Yes.’
Hearing the note of heavy resignation in her voice, Hassan glanced down at her. She wasn’t doing anything he had expected her to do. He’d expected a little more gratitude that he’d forgiven her for her shocking display of temper, and the seductive removal of her shoes would usually have guaranteed that by now she’d be glancing up at him from beneath her lashes and flirting like crazy. But she was doing no such thing. Instead her gaze seemed fixed firmly ahead of her, like a runner who had their eyes on the finish line. Like someone longing to reach their destination.
Was she?
Or was she just trying to dampen down the desire which had been so apparent since they’d first set eyes on each other? He let his eyes linger on her body as she moved. The shimmer of her silver dress was enhancing her willowy frame and the thick gleam of her dark hair made him want to run his fingers through it. And somehow her bare toes, with their gleam of silver polish, were much sexier without the stilt-like shoes he’d just removed. He felt a renewed stab of lust.
‘So would you like a glass of champagne before you leave?’ he questioned. ‘Or is that just asking for trouble?’
‘Champagne?’ It was the hint of unexpected humour in his voice which made her waver, until she reminded herself of her dramatic exit from the ballroom. She stared up at him, her hair shimmying around her face. ‘But I don’t want to go back to the party.’
‘I know. But since we’re right by my own suite, I thought you might like to see it.’ His lips curved into a smile. ‘Especially as it happens to contain some fabulous paintings.’
It was ironic that he seemed unwittingly to have hit on the one thing designed to make her heart beat faster and yet Ella’s one feeling was one of disappointment. It seemed that all men were predictably similar, whether they were desert princes or hedge fund managers. ‘As in, “Come up and see my etchings,” I suppose?’ she questioned sarcastically. ‘Gosh, you really do need to take a refresher course when you’re trying to chat up a woman!’
‘I had no idea that I was dealing with such an expert in chat-up lines,’ he murmured. ‘Or perhaps you just don’t like beautiful paintings?’
She heard the subtle put-down. There was that judgement of his all over again. Did he think she was too common to appreciate anything of beauty, that a Jackson would only ever enjoy some mindless pap on TV, or flicking through an undemanding glossy magazine? The anger which she’d thought had been extinguished now began to simmer once more. But infuriatingly, it was manifesting itself in the prickle of her breasts and a soft, melting feeling at the fork of her thighs. It was making her throat dry just to look at him, and her heart fluttered madly. ‘Or perhaps I just don’t like strange men coming on to me with sexual innuendo?’
‘Ah, Cinders, Cinders,’ he mocked as he watched the battle between her provocative words and her blossoming body. And wasn’t it echoing the same battle which was taking place in his own? ‘I was simply talking about art, yet all you seem to want to talk about is sex. And just what is your real name, by the way?’
‘It’s Ella,’ she said, her head spinning. ‘And will you please stop twisting everything I say? I don’t want to talk about sex!’
‘Neither do I,’ he agreed unexpectedly. ‘Since talking about it is a complete waste of time.’
Before she properly realised what he was going to do, he had pulled her into his arms. Pulled her right up close to his aroused body and, with a thrill of shocked recognition, she was letting him. An urgent kind of hunger overwhelmed her as she felt the weight of his hands at her back. The touch of his fingers on her bare skin was as electric as it had been on the dance floor and it had precisely the same sizzling effect on her. Only this time they weren’t in a crowd with the curious eyes of the other dancers on them. This time they were dangerously alone.
She opened her mouth to say something but by then his curiously empty eyes had begun to blaze into life as he lowered his head towards her. And then it was too late.
His lips came down to meet hers and Ella’s mouth opened of its own volition, and she found herself unwillingly lost in the most sensational kiss of her life.
CHAPTER THREE (#ua56f4d1c-67c1-5038-aa52-e1ddfcac7a01)
ELLA swayed as Hassan kissed her, his arms tightening around her so that every hard sinew of his powerful frame seemed to be imprinted indelibly on her body. She could feel the pricking of her breasts and their sudden aching heaviness as they pressed against him. And she could feel the coiling heat which was building inside her, pooling in an erotic, silken warmth at the juncture of her thighs.
The thunder of her heart played a backing-track as his lips explored hers and she sank against him. Yet even as his tongue slid inside her mouth and her eyelids fluttered to a close she knew that something wasn’t right. Through a haze, she tried to remember just what that something was, but her greedy body seemed intent on pushing all sane thoughts from her mind. The blood pooling in her breasts and at her groin was denying her brain the vital fuel it needed in order to think clearly. But how could she think clearly when she was feeling like this?
She gasped as Hassan caught hold of her breast, his big hand splaying with arrogant possession over its hardening swell. Against the finely beaded surface, he teased the already-aching nipple with his finger, and at that split second she remembered the source of her discomfort.
She hated him.
And he hated her.
He was supposed to be showing her the way out of the palace … and instead he had her pressed up against some cool palace wall where he seemed intent on having hot and urgent sex with her.
So why wasn’t she pushing him away and professing outrage at his seduction? Why was she winding the arm which wasn’t holding her shoes around his neck and breathing urgent little sounds of encouragement?
Because she’d never felt like this before.
Never imagined that a woman could feel like this when a man kissed her. As if this was what her body had been invented for. Her one previous sexual experience now just seemed a mockingly bland rehearsal for this rapid awakening which was making her blood fizz.
But it was wrong. It was very, very wrong.
‘Hassan.’ With an effort, she tore her mouth away from his as her high heels nearly slipped from her fingers onto the floor. ‘This is … absolutely … crazy ….’ She thought how weak her voice sounded. As if he had somehow sapped all her strength and resolve.
‘Don’t break the spell, Cinderella,’ he warned unsteadily, pushing open the door to his suite. Pulling her inside, he kicked the door shut, before taking her into his arms and beginning to kiss her again, as if that might obliterate any objections she might have.
And it was working, wasn’t it? It didn’t seem to matter that she was in the bedroom of a man who was a virtual stranger—a dark and empty-eyed sheikh who had spoken about her family with the cruel lash of his tongue. Such was his skill that he melted away every single doubt beneath the practised caress of his lips. His hands stroked their way down over her body as he kissed her, until her nerve endings were raw with desire and she was moving restlessly in his arms.
Her skin felt heated, her body on fire. She groaned when he cupped her breast again, his thumb brushing negligently against the bead-covered nipple. Why couldn’t he touch her bare skin instead, she wondered distractedly when, as if he’d read her thoughts again, he reached out and peeled down the flimsy bodice of her dress.
He leaned back a little to survey her, the way people did in art galleries when they wanted to get a better look at a painting. His eyes seemed to devour her breasts and she felt the skin tighten and tingle beneath that fierce black scrutiny.
‘Do you always go braless?’ he questioned unsteadily.
She wanted to tell him that the fashionable dress had made the wearing of a bra impossible but somehow the words seemed to have lodged in her throat.
‘But then again, why would you ever cover up anything so beautiful as these pert little breasts?’ he continued as he grazed a lazy thumb over one hardening nub. ‘I like the fact that they are so instantly accessible. That they are within easy reach of the curl of my tongue.’
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