Shamed in the Sands
Sharon Kendrick
A princess in disguiseBound to a life of restrictions and rules, Princess Leila of Qurhah feels like a puppet dancing to the Sultan’s strings. She’s desperate for her freedom, and only one man holds the key…When notorious advertising mogul Gabe Steel arrives in the desert kingdom of Qurhah the last thing he expects is an alluring stranger in his hotel room, demanding a job.Enthralled by this innocent beauty and her intoxicating touch, Gabe is unaware of her royal connection – or the lengths he will go to,to prevent her from shame!‘Sharon Kendrick is simply the master!’ – Ross, Receptionist, LutonDiscover more at www.millsandboon.co.uk/sharonkendrick
A princess in disguise
Bound to a life of restrictions and rules, Princess Leila of Qurhah feels like a puppet dancing to the sultan’s strings. She’s desperate for her freedom, and only one man holds the key.…
When notorious advertising mogul Gabe Steel arrives in the desert kingdom of Qurhah, the last thing he expects is an alluring stranger in his hotel room, demanding a job.
Enthralled by the innocent beauty and her intoxicating touch, Gabe is unaware of her royal connection or the lengths he will have to go to prevent her from shame!
Gabe accompanied the Sultan into a vast dining room, where lavishly laid tables were decorated with fragrant roses colored deep crimson.
“I have seated you next to the ambassador of Maraban, one of the most influential men in the region,” said the Sultan. “With my sister on the other side. Her English is excellent, and she is eager to meet with you. Ah, here she comes now. Leila!”
But Gabe didn’t need to hear his host say her name to know the woman’s identity. He knew that from the moment she entered the banqueting hall. Even though Leila’s body was swathed in flowing silk and even though a matching veil of palest silver was covering half her face—there could be no mistaking her. No amount of camouflage could disguise that sexy sway of her body—or maybe it was because in some primeval and physical way, he still felt connected to her.
He could still smell her on his skin.
Desert Men of Qurhah
Their destiny is the desert!
The heat of the desert is nothing compared to the passion that burns between the pages of this stunning new trilogy by Sharon Kendrick!
Defiant in the Desert
Oil baron Suleiman Al abd Aziz has been sent to retrieve the sultan of Qurhah’s reluctant fiancée—a woman who’s utterly forbidden, but is determined to escape the confines of her engagement…by seducing Suleiman!
Shamed in the Sands
The princess of Qurhah has always wanted something different from her life. So when sexy advertising magnate Gabe Steele arrives to work for her brother, Leila convinces Gabe to give her a job…but that’s not the only thing to cause a royal scandal!
Seduced by the Sultan
The sultan of Qurhah is facing a scandal of epic proportions. His fiancée has run off, leaving him with a space in his king-size bed. A space once occupied by his mistress—Carly Conner. And now he wants her back—at any price!
Dear Reader (#ud85e50b0-0abe-5ca0-b175-b1949777a152),
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…
Shamed in the Sands
Sharon Kendrick
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Olly Wicken, whose imagination and expertise helped bring Gabe to life. Thank you.
Contents
Cover (#ufcf45021-1849-5d62-8b9e-8f1f63ae4eaf)
Back Cover Text (#u533ddd47-e3a0-53b3-b41c-7f524fcd61d3)
Introduction (#ue75cdeb0-23f7-575e-ae32-7b8d5d4c90e9)
Desert Men of Qurhah (#u8b1471da-1072-531f-b840-f724ba5c87d7)
Dear Reader (#u689cd883-140c-5f42-992e-4f3136d1f7a6)
About the Author (#u1af0fe66-536e-546d-af38-1b1c607226ee)
Title Page (#uddc16a22-92a4-5498-99be-508b281dcbdf)
Dedication (#u230097d6-c85c-51d8-862f-1a5e992e7d59)
CHAPTER ONE (#u7a1633d1-9b1d-5f9e-9b08-1e7d87cf3c27)
CHAPTER TWO (#u73ccdb58-df7e-59aa-8c5e-29b739fc01a2)
CHAPTER THREE (#uc43d4685-bef8-5ddf-bf24-81e28a539152)
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)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ud85e50b0-0abe-5ca0-b175-b1949777a152)
GABE STEEL WAS naked when he heard the sound of knocking.
He picked up a towel and scowled. He wanted peace. No, he needed peace. He’d come to this strange city for all kinds of reasons—but none of them included being disturbed when he had just stepped out of the shower.
He thought about the harsh light of spring he’d left behind in England. The way it could still make his heart clench with pain at this time of year. He thought how guilt never really left you, no matter how deeply you tried to bury it. If you scratched beneath the surface you could always bring up stuff you didn’t want. Which was why he didn’t scratch. Ever.
But sometimes you couldn’t escape it, no matter how hard you tried. Hadn’t one of the staff sent someone up earlier, asking if he would like any special arrangements made for his birthday? He’d wondered how the hell they had known it was his birthday—until he realised that they had seen his passport when he’d checked in yesterday.
He stood still and listened. The knocking had stopped and everything was quiet again. He started to slide the towel over one hair-roughened thigh when the sound resumed, more urgently this time.
At any other time and in any other place, he would have ignored the unwanted summons and carried on with what he was doing. But Gabe recognised that these were not normal circumstances. This job was a first. He’d never been the guest of a member of a royal family before. Correction. The head of a royal family. He’d never worked for a sultan before—a man who ruled over one of the world’s wealthiest countries and who had already lavished on Gabe a breathtaking amount of hospitality. And maybe that was what was beginning to irritate him most of all—because he didn’t like to be beholden to anyone, no matter how exalted their position.
Uttering a muttered curse beneath his breath, Gabe wrapped the towel around his hips and crossed a room so vast that back home the walk might almost have qualified as a workout. He’d stayed in some amazing places in his time, and his own place in London was pretty mouth-watering. But he had to acknowledge that this penthouse suite in Qurhah’s finest hotel took luxury to a whole new level.
The knocking continued. A low drumming sound he found impossible to ignore—and its persistence made his impatience increase. He pulled open the door to find a woman standing there. Or rather, a woman who was doing her best not to look like a woman.
Tall and slim, her body was completely covered and her features were in shadow. She was carrying a briefcase and wearing a trench coat over a pair of jeans, with a fedora hat pulled down low over her face. Her appearance was so androgynous that she could almost have been mistaken for a man. But Gabe could smell a woman’s scent in a pitch-black room, even when she wasn’t wearing perfume. He could accurately assess the hip-width of a pair of panties from nothing more than a cursory glance. Where the opposite sex was concerned, he was an expert—even if his expertise went no further than the physical.
Because he didn’t do emotional. He didn’t need a woman to unpick his mind at the end of a stressful day, or cry on his shoulder in the mistaken belief that it might make his heart melt. And he certainly didn’t want some unknown female turning up today, when his heart was dark and his schedule full.
‘Where’s the fire?’ he demanded.
‘Please.’ Her voice was low and urgent and very faintly accented. ‘Can I come in?’
His lips gave the faintest curve of contempt. ‘I think you must have the wrong room, sweetheart,’ he said and started to shut the door.
‘Please,’ she repeated—only this time he could hear panic underpinning her words. ‘Men are trying to find me.’
It was a stark appeal and it stopped Gabe in his tracks. It wasn’t the kind of thing he heard in the slick, controlled world he called his life. It took him back to a time and a place where threat was a constant. Where fear was never very far away.
He stared down at her face and he could see the wide gleam of alarm in eyes shadowed by the fedora.
‘Please,’ she said again.
He hesitated for no longer than a heartbeat before something kicked in. Some unwanted protective urge over which he seemed powerless. And he didn’t do powerless.
‘Come in,’ he said abruptly. He caught the drift of her spicy perfume as she hurried past, and the fragrance seemed to cling to his skin as he closed the door and turned to face her. ‘So what’s the story?’
She was shaking her head and turning to look at the door as if she was petrified somebody was going to burst in behind her.
‘Not now,’ she said in that soft accent, which was making his senses start to prickle into life. ‘There’s no time. I’ll tell you everything you need to know But only when it’s safe. They mustn’t find me here. They mustn’t.’
She was looking at the far side of the vast room, where the open bedroom door revealed the unmade bed, on which he’d been taking a catnap before his shower. He saw her quickly turn her head away.
‘Where can you hide me?’ she questioned.
Gabe’s eyes narrowed. He thought her attitude was arrogant—almost imperious—considering the way she’d burst in on him like this. He was the one doing her a favour—and a little gratitude wouldn’t have gone amiss. But maybe now was not the time to give her a lecture on the etiquette of gate-crashing—not when she was looking so jittery.
He thought about where he used to hide whenever the bailiffs bashed on the door. The one room which always seemed safer than any other.
‘Go through into the bathroom,’ he said, flicking his fingers in the direction of the en-suite. ‘Crawl underneath the tub and stay there until I tell you otherwise. And your explanation had better be good enough to warrant this unwanted intrusion into my time.’
But she didn’t appear to be listening. She was already moving towards the bathroom with an unconscious sway of her slender bottom before she was lost to view.
And somehow she had managed to transfer her anxiety to Gabe and his body began to react accordingly. He could feel adrenalin coursing through his bloodstream and the sudden pounding of his heart. He wondered whether he should put on some clothes and then realised there was no time, because he could hear the heavy approach of footsteps in the corridor outside.
The rap on the door was loud and he opened it to find two men outside, their eyes as dark and pinched as raisins. Loose suits did little to conceal their burly strength, and Gabe could detect the telltale bulges of gun holsters packed against each of their bodies.
The taller of the two let his gaze flicker to Gabe’s still-damp torso and then to the small towel which was knotted at his hip. ‘We are sorry to disturb you, Mr Steel.’
‘No problem,’ said Gabe pleasantly, registering that they knew his name, just as everyone else in the hotel seemed to. And that their accents sounded like a pronounced version of the one used by the mystery woman currently cowering in his bathroom. ‘What can I do for you?’
The man’s accent was thick. ‘We are looking for a woman.’
‘Aren’t we all?’ questioned Gabe conspiratorially, with a silken stab at humour. But neither man took the bait and neither did they respond to the joke. Their faces remained unsmiling as they stared at him.
‘Have you seen her?’
‘Depends what she looks like,’ said Gabe.
‘Tall. Early twenties. Dark hair,’ said the smaller of the two men. ‘A very...striking woman.’
Gabe gestured towards the tiny towel at his hips and rubbed his hands over his upper arms, miming a chill which wasn’t quite fictitious, since the icy kick of the air-conditioning was giving him goose-bumps. ‘As you can see—I’ve been taking a shower. And I can assure you that nobody was keeping me company at the time—more’s the pity.’ He glanced over his shoulder towards the room before turning back to them, his forced smile hinting at a growing irritation. ‘Of course, you’re perfectly at liberty to look for yourselves, but I’d appreciate it if you could do it swiftly. I still have to get dressed and shaved—and I’m due to dine with the Sultan in a couple of hours.’
It worked. The mere mention of the Sultan’s name produced the reaction he’d hoped for. Gabe thought it almost comical as he watched both men take a step back in perfect unison.
‘Of course. Forgive us for interrupting you. We will take up no more of your time, Mr Steel. Thank you for your help.’
‘My pleasure,’ said Gabe, and closed the door softly behind them.
His footsteps across the carpet were equally soft, and when he opened the bathroom door, the woman was just slithering out from under the bathtub like some kind of sexy serpent. He felt the instant rush of heat to his groin as she scrambled to her feet and began brushing her hands over her body.
The fedora had fallen off and as she raised her face and he got a proper look at her for the first time he felt awareness icing his skin. Because suddenly he was looking at the most arresting woman he had ever seen. His mouth dried with lust. She looked like a fantasy come to life. Like a character from the Arabian Nights who had wandered into his hotel bathroom by mistake.
Her olive skin was luminous and her dark-fringed eyes were a bright shade of blue. A ponytail of black hair hung almost to her waist—hair so shiny that it looked as if she might have spent the morning polishing it. Despite the silky trench coat, he could see that her breasts were neat and her legs so long that she would have been at home on any international catwalk.
Her face remained impassive as he looked her over, as if she was no stranger to submission. Only the faintest flush of pink in her cheeks gave any indication that she might be finding his attention unsettling. But what did she expect? If you burst into a strange man’s bedroom and demanded refuge, then surely the normal rules of conduct flew right out of the window.
‘They’ve gone,’ he said shortly.
‘So I heard.’ She hesitated. ‘Thank you.’
He noticed the way her gaze kept flickering towards his bare torso and then away again. As if she knew she shouldn’t stare at him but couldn’t help herself. He gave a grim kind of smile. It wasn’t the first time he had encountered such a problem.
‘I think you owe me an explanation,’ he said. ‘Don’t you?’
‘Sure.’ She bent to pick up her briefcase, and as she straightened up she did that not-quite-looking thing at his chest again. ‘Just not...not in here.’
Was the intimacy of the setting too much for her? he wondered. Was she aware that beneath the tiny towel his body was beginning to respond to her in a way which might make itself embarrassingly obvious if he wasn’t careful? He could feel the hot pump of arousal at his groin and suddenly he felt curiously vulnerable.
‘Go through there,’ he said abruptly. ‘While I get dressed.’
The stir of his erection had subsided by the time he’d pulled on some jeans and a T-shirt and walked through to the sitting room to see her standing with her back to him. She was staring out of the panoramic windows which overlooked the city of Simdahab, where golden minarets and towers gleamed in the rich light of the late afternoon sun. But Gabe barely noticed the magnificent view—his attention remained captivated by the mystery stranger.
She had removed her trench coat and had slung it over the back of one of the sofas—was she planning on staying?—and suddenly there were no more concealing folds to hide her from his eyes. His gaze travelled to where denim clung to the high curves of her bottom, to where her dark ponytail hung down her back like a dark stream of satin.
She must have sensed that he was in the room because she turned round—the ponytail swinging in slow motion—and from this angle he thought the view was even better. She looked at him with those clear blue eyes, and suddenly all he could see was temptation.
He wondered if she had been sent to him by the Sultan—a delicious package for him to open and enjoy at his leisure. Another lavish gift, just like the others which had been arriving at his hotel suite all morning. It was said that, despite his relative youth, the Sultan was an old-fashioned man and this might be a very old-fashioned gesture on his part. Mightn’t the powerful potentate have decided to sweeten up Gabe with a woman? A submissive and beautiful woman who would cater to his every whim...
‘Who are you?’ he questioned coolly. ‘A hooker?’
Her face showed no reaction to his crude question, but it seemed to take for ever before she spoke.
‘No, I’m not a hooker. My name is Leila,’ she said, and now her blue eyes were watchful.
‘Pretty name, but I’m still no wiser.’
‘Mr Steel—’
Gabe shook his head in faint disbelief. ‘How come everyone in this city knows my name?’
The woman smiled—her lips softening into cushioned and rosy curves. And even though he had never paid for sex in his life, in that moment he almost wished she were a hooker. What would he get her to do first? he wondered. Unzip him and take him in her delicious mouth, and suck him until he came? Or lower those narrow hips and bounce around on him until he cried out with pleasure?
‘People know who you are because you are the guest of the Sultan,’ she was saying. ‘Your name is Gabe Steel and you are an advertising genius who has come to Qurhah to improve our global image.’
‘That’s a very flattering summary,’ offered Gabe drily. ‘But I’m afraid that unsolicited flattery doesn’t really do it for me and it still doesn’t explain why you’re here. Why you burst into my hotel room uninvited and hid in my bathroom...Leila.’
For a moment there was silence.
Leila’s heart pounded against her ribcage as she heard the blatant challenge in his voice, which countered the silky way he emphasised her name. Her mind was in a muddle and her senses felt raw and exposed. She had taken a risk and she needed to follow it through, but it was proving more difficult than she’d anticipated. Everything so far was going according to plan but suddenly she was filled with a powerful rush of nerves. She wondered how she could have been so stupid. How she could have failed to take into account Gabe Steel himself and the effect he would have on her.
She looked into his grey eyes. Strange, quicksilver eyes, which seemed to pierce her skin and see straight through to the bones beneath. She tried to find the right words to put her case to him, but everything she’d been planning to say flew clean out of her mind.
She wasn’t used to being alone with strange men and she certainly wasn’t used to being in a hotel room with a foreigner. Especially one who looked like this.
He was gorgeous.
Unbelievably gorgeous.
She’d read up about him on the internet, of course. She’d made it her business to do so once she’d discovered that her brother was going to employ him. She’d found out all the external things about Gabe Steel. She knew he owned Zeitgeist—one of the world’s biggest advertising agencies. That he’d been a millionaire by the age of twenty-four and had made it into multimillions by the time he reached thirty. At thirty-five, he remained unmarried—though not for the lack of women trying to get a wedding ring on their finger. Or at least, not according to reports from the rather more downmarket sources.
She’d seen images of him, too. Crystal-clear images, which she’d gazed at with something approaching wonder as they’d flashed up onto her computer screen. Because Gabe Steel seemed to have it all—certainly in the physical sense. His golden-dark hair gave him the appearance of an ancient god, and his muscular body would have rivalled that of any Olympian athlete.
She’d seen photos of him collecting awards, dressed in an immaculate tuxedo. There had been a snatched shot of him—paparazzi, she assumed—wearing faded jeans and an open shirt as he straddled a huge motorbike, minus a helmet. On one level she had known that he was the type of man who would take your breath away when you met him for real. And she hadn’t been wrong.
She just hadn’t expected him to be so...charismatic.
Leila was used to powerful men. She had grown up surrounded by them. All her life, she’d been bossed around and told to show respect towards them. Told that men knew best. She gave a wry smile because she had witnessed how cruel and cold they could be. She’d seen them treat women as if they didn’t matter. As if their opinions were simply to be tolerated rather than taken seriously. Which was one of the reasons why, deep down, she didn’t actually like the opposite sex.
Oh, she deferred to them, as she had been taught, because that was the hand which fate had dealt her. To be born a princess into a fiercely male-dominated society didn’t leave you with much choice other than to defer. There hadn’t been a single major decision in her life which had been hers and hers alone. Her schooling had been decided without any consultation; her friends had been carefully picked. She had learnt to smile and accept—because she had also learnt that resistance was futile. People knew what was ‘best’ for her—and she had no alternative but to accept their judgement.
Materially, of course, she had been spoiled. When you were the only sister of one of the richest men in the world, that was inevitable. Diamonds and pearls, rubies and emeralds lay heaped in jewellery boxes in her bedroom at the palace. Her late mother’s tiaras lay locked behind glass for Leila to wear whenever the mood took her.
But Leila knew that all the riches in the world couldn’t make you feel good about yourself. Expensive jewels didn’t compensate for the limitations of your lifestyle, nor protect you from a future you viewed with apprehension.
Within the confines of her palace home she usually dressed in traditional robes and veils, but today she was looking defiantly Western. She had never worn quite such figure-hugging jeans before and it was only by covering them up with her raincoat that she would have dared. She was aware of the way the thick seam of material rubbed between her legs. The way that the silky shirt felt oddly decadent as it brushed against her breasts. She felt liberated in these clothes, and while it was a good feeling, it was a little scary too— especially as Gabe Steel was looking at her in a way which was curiously...distracting.
But her clothes were as irrelevant as his reaction to them. She had worn them in order to look modern and for no other reason. The most important thing to remember was that this man held the key to a different kind of future. And she was going to make him turn that key—whether he wanted to or not.
Fighting another wave of anxiety, she opened the briefcase she’d been holding and pulled out a clutch of carefully chosen contents.
‘I’d like you to have a look at these,’ she said.
He raised his eyebrows. ‘What are they?’
She walked over towards a beautiful table and spread out the pictures on the gleaming inlaid surface. ‘Have a look for yourself.’
He walked over to stand beside her, his dark shadow falling over her. She could detect the tang of lime and soap combined with the much more potent scent of masculinity. She remembered him wearing nothing but that tiny white towel and suddenly her mouth grew as dry as dust.
‘Photographs,’ he observed.
Leila licked her lips. ‘That’s right.’
She watched him study them and prayed he would like them because she had been taking photos for as long as she could remember. It had been her passion and escape—the one thing at which she’d shown real flair. But perhaps her position as princess meant that she was ideally placed to take photos, for her essentially lonely role meant that she was always on the outside looking in.
Ever since she’d been given her very first camera, Leila had captured the images which surrounded her. The palace gardens and the beautiful horses which her brother kept in his stables had given way to candid shots of the servants and portraits of their children.
But most of the photos she’d brought to show Gabe Steel were of the desert. Stark images of a landscape she doubted he would have seen anywhere else and, since few people had been given access to the sacred and secret sites of Qurhah, they were also unique. And she suspected that a man like Gabe Steel would have seen enough in his privileged life to value something which was unique.
He was studying one in particular and she watched as his eyes narrowed in appreciation.
‘Who took these?’ he questioned, raising his head at last and capturing her in that cool grey gaze. ‘You?’
She nodded. ‘Yes.’
There was a pause. ‘You’re good,’ he said slowly. ‘Very good.’
His praise felt like a caress. Like the most wonderful compliment she had ever received. Leila glowed with a fierce kind of pride. ‘Thank you.’
‘Where is this place?’
‘It’s in the desert, close to the Sultan’s summer palace. An area of outstanding natural beauty known as the Mekathasinian Sands,’ she said, aware that his unsettling gaze was now drifting over her rather than the photo he was holding. He was close enough for her to be able to touch him, and she found herself wanting to do just that. She wanted to tangle her fingers in the thick, molten gold of his hair and then run them down over that hard, lean body. And how crazy was that?
With an effort, she tried to focus her attention on the photo and not on the symmetry of his chiselled features.
‘I took this after one of the rare downpours of rain and subsequent flooding, which occur maybe once in twenty years, if you’re lucky.’ She smiled. ‘They call it the desert miracle. Flower seeds lie dormant in the sands for decades and when the floods recede, they suddenly germinate—and flower. So that millions of blooms provide a carpet of colour which is truly magical—though it only lasts a couple of weeks.’
‘It’s an extraordinary picture. I’ve never seen anything like it.’
She could hear the sense of wonder in his voice and she felt another swell of pride. But suddenly, her work didn’t seem as important as his unsettling proximity. She should have been daunted by that and she couldn’t work out why she wasn’t. She was alone in a hotel room with the playboy Gabe Steel and all she was aware of was a growing sense of excitement.
With an effort, she forced her attention back to the photo. ‘If...if you look closely, you can see the palace in the distance.’
‘Where?’
‘Right over there.’ The urge to touch him was overwhelming. It was the strongest impulse she’d ever felt, and suddenly Leila found herself unable to resist it. Leaning forward so that her arm brushed almost imperceptibly against his, she pointed out the glimmering golden palace. She felt his body stiffen as she made that barely there contact. She thought she could hear his breath catch in his throat. Was his heart hammering as hers was hammering? Was he too filled with an inexplicable sense of breathless wonder?
But he had stepped away from her, and his cool eyes were still curious. ‘Why did you bring these photos here today, Leila? And more importantly, why were those men pursuing you?’
She hesitated. The truth was on her lips but she didn’t dare say it. Because once he knew—he would change. People always did. He would stop treating her like an ordinary woman and start eyeing her warily—as if she were a strange creature he had never encountered before. And she was enjoying herself far too much to want him to do that.
So why not tell him part of the truth? The only part which was really important.
‘I want to work for you,’ she said boldly. ‘I want to help you with your campaign.’
He raised his eyebrows in arrogant query. ‘I don’t recall advertising for any new staff,’ he said drily.
‘I realise that—but can’t you see that it would make perfect sense?’ Leaning forward, Leila injected real passion into her voice. ‘I know Qurhah in a way you never can, because I grew up here and the desert is in my blood. I can point you in the direction of the best locations to show the world that our country is a particular kind of paradise. I’ve done plenty of research on what a campaign like yours would involve and I know there’s room on this project for someone like me.’
She stared at him hopefully.
There was silence for a moment and then he gave a short laugh. ‘You think I’d hire some unknown for a major and very lucrative campaign, just on the strength of a pretty face?’
Leila felt the sharp stab of injustice. ‘But surely my “pretty face” has nothing to do with the quality of my work?’
‘You don’t think so?’ He shot her a sardonic look. ‘Well, I hate to disillusion you, sweetheart—but without the raven hair and killer figure I’d have kicked you out of here just as soon as those goons had gone.’
Leila tried to keep the sulk from her voice, because this was not what was supposed to happen. She couldn’t let it happen. She narrowed her eyes in a way which would have made her servants grow wary if they had seen her. ‘So you won’t even consider me?’
‘I won’t consider anything until you satisfy my curiosity, and I am growing bored by your evasion. I’m still waiting for you to tell me who those men were.’
‘My bodyguards,’ she said reluctantly.
‘Your bodyguards?’
She had surprised him now. She could see it in his face. She wondered how he would react if she told him the whole truth. That she had been born to be guarded. That people were always watching her. Stifling her. Making it impossible for her to breathe.
‘I’m rich,’ she said, by way of an explanation. ‘In fact, I’m very rich.’
His grey eyes were speculative. ‘So you don’t need the work?’
‘What kind of a question is that?’ she questioned heatedly. ‘I want to work! There’s a difference, you know. I thought a man like you would appreciate that.’
Gabe acknowledged the reprimand in her voice. Yes, he knew there was a difference—it was just one which had never applied to him because he had always needed to work. There had been no wealth or legacy for him. No cushion waiting to bolster him if ever he fell. He had known only hunger and poverty. He had known what it was like to live beneath the radar and have your life subsumed by fear. He had needed to work for reasons of survival and for the peace of mind which always seemed determined to elude him. Even now.
‘Oh, I appreciate it all right,’ he agreed slowly.
‘So you’ll think about it? About hiring me?’
He looked down into her beautiful eyes and felt his heart twist with something like regret. He saw hope written in their azure depths—just as he saw all kinds of passionate possibilities written in her sensual lips. What would happen if he kissed this beautiful little rich girl who had marched into his hotel suite with such a sense of entitlement? Would she taste as good as she looked? He could feel the savage ache at his groin as he realised how badly he wanted to kiss her and for a moment temptation washed over him again.
But his innate cool professionalism reasserted itself and, regretfully, he shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t work that way. I run my organisation on rather more formal lines. If you really want to work for me, then I suggest you apply to my London office in the usual way. But I suspect that you’ve blown your chances anyway.’ His eyes sent out a mocking challenge. ‘You see, a long time ago I made a decision never to mix business with pleasure.’
She was staring at him, her nose wrinkling as if she was perplexed by his words. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Don’t you?’ He gave an unconvincing replica of a smile. ‘Are you trying to tell me you haven’t noticed the chemistry between us?’
‘I—’
‘Look, just take your photos and go,’ he interrupted roughly. ‘Before I do something I might live to regret.’
Leila heard his impatient words and some deep-rooted instinct urged her to heed them. To make her escape back to the palace while she still could and forget all about this crazy rebellion. Forget the fairy-tale ending of a legitimate job with the hotshot English tycoon. Forget the film-script scenario and get real. She needed to accept her life the way it was and accept that she couldn’t just break out and change her entire existence.
But her thoughts were being confused by the powerful signals her body was sending out. She could feel the honeyed rush of heat between her thighs, where the thick seam of her jeans was rubbing against the most secret place of her body. She wanted to wrap her arms around her chest to try to quell the terrible aching in her breasts, yet she knew that would only draw attention to them.
Leila had read plenty of books and seen most of the current crop of films which had got past the palace censors. She might have been sheltered, but she wasn’t stupid. This was sexual attraction she was experiencing for the first time and she knew it was wrong. Yet even as she silently urged herself to get out before she made even more of a fool of herself, those rebellious thoughts came back to plague her.
She thought about how her brother behaved. How her own father had behaved. She’d heard the rumours about their sexual conquests often enough. She knew that men often acted on the kind of attraction she was experiencing right now, if the circumstances were right. People sometimes got intimate after nothing more than a short acquaintanceship, and nobody thought the worst of them for doing so. Because physical love wasn’t a crime, was it?
Was it?
‘What might you regret?’ she asked, but she knew the answer to her question as soon as the words had left her lips. Because you wouldn’t need to be experienced to realise why Gabe Steel’s face had darkened like that. Or why he was staring at her with a hot, hard look which was making her feel weak.
‘Does your mother know you’re out?’ he questioned roughly.
She shook her head. ‘I don’t have a mother. Or a father.’ She kept her voice light, the way she’d learned to do. ‘I’m just an orphan girl.’
His eyes narrowed. Darkened. He winced, as if she’d said something which had caused him pain.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said softly and reached out to brush the tip of his thumb over her lips. ‘So sorry.’
The weirdest thing was that Leila wasn’t sure if he was talking to her, or talking to himself. But suddenly she didn’t care because it was happening—just like in all the films she’d seen. He was reaching out and pulling her into his arms and she could feel the heat of his body as he moulded it against her. He framed her face with the palms of his hands and now his mouth was coming down towards hers. He seemed to be moving in slow motion, and Leila felt weak with excitement as her lips parted eagerly to meet his.
Because for the first time in her life, a man was going to kiss her.
CHAPTER TWO (#ud85e50b0-0abe-5ca0-b175-b1949777a152)
GABE FELT THE thunder of his heart as their mouths made that first contact. The warmth of her flesh collided with his and her skin smelt of flowers and spice. Desire flooded through him like fire but his hot lust was tempered by the cool voice of reason.
This was insane.
Insane.
He thought about the way she’d burst into his suite and the surly-faced bodyguards who might return at any time. It was obvious she shouldn’t be here—and he was in danger of jeopardising a deal. A very important deal. He was here on business and due to dine at the Sultan’s palace in a little under two hours. There wasn’t time to make love to her properly—no matter how gloriously accessible she appeared to be.
So for God’s sake, get rid of her!
But the moment he chose to push her away was the moment she chose to wind her arms around his neck and to move her body against his and to whisper something breathless in a language he didn’t understand. The breath died in his throat as heat pooled in his groin and he was helpless to do anything other than deepen the kiss. He could feel the mound of her pubic bone pressing against his growing arousal—making his erection exquisitely hard and almost painful. Her tiny breasts were flattening themselves against his chest and, for the first time all day, his body felt warm instead of filled with the cold and aching memories of the past.
Tearing his mouth away, he stared down into her face, trying to ignore the provocative trembling of her lips. ‘That was a mistake,’ he said unsteadily. ‘And I think you’d better get out of here before I make another one.’
‘But what if I want you to?’ she questioned breathlessly. ‘What then?’
He felt another fierce stab of arousal as she looked at him. Her eyes were wide. Wide and bright. Shining as brightly as the aquamarine studs at her ears. He could feel his senses warring with his moral compass. Send her away before it’s too late. But he couldn’t stop looking at her or wanting her. Her lips were soft and gleaming. They looked as if they had been specially constructed to accommodate his erection and to suck him dry.
He thought about the dull pain nailed deep into his heart and how her soft body could alleviate it—even for an hour. Because sex could obliterate pain, couldn’t it? He could feel his resolve slipping away from him, like sand through his fingers, and wondered if there was a man on earth who could have resisted what was being offered to him now.
‘I’m giving you one last chance to get out of here,’ he said unevenly. ‘And I’d advise you to take it and go.’
‘But I don’t want to go anywhere,’ she whispered. ‘I want to stay right here.’
‘Then I make no apologies for doing this,’ he said. ‘Which I have been wanting to do ever since you first walked in.’
He started to unbutton her shirt, exposing the silken flesh beneath, and another fierce jerk of desire shot through him. She was perfect, he thought. Just perfect. Her olive skin was dark against a brassiere so white that it looked as if she’d put it on new that morning. He drifted his fingertips over the gentle swell of her breast. ‘So what have you got to say about that, Leila?’
Beneath the tantalising touch of his fingers, Leila grew weaker still. Where were the nerves she should be feeling? And why did it feel so natural? As if she had been waiting all her life for Gabe Steel to touch her like this?
‘I think it’s gorgeous,’ she said, praying he wouldn’t stop.
‘I want to kiss your breasts,’ he vowed unsteadily. ‘Each beautiful breast which is peaking towards me, just waiting to be kissed.’
A pulse was hammering at his temple and Leila jerked with pleasure as he lowered his mouth to one tightening nipple. His dark blond head contrasted against the snowy silk of her bra, and she could feel the fabric growing moist as he sucked her. She squirmed in time to each provocative lick of his tongue, as helpless then as she could ever remember feeling. And suddenly she understood what all the fuss was about. Why sex was so powerful. Why people did such crazy things to get it.
‘G-Gabe,’ she gasped, the word stumbling over itself in disbelieving pleasure.
He lifted his head to stare at her, and suddenly his grey eyes were not so cold. They seemed bright with pewter fire.
‘I think we’re going to have to skip the next few stages,’ he said. ‘In fact, if I don’t get you horizontal in the next couple of minutes, I think I’m going to go out of my mind.’
He caught hold of her fingers and led her straight into the bedroom she’d seen earlier—the bed still in rumpled disarray.
Now slightly disorientated, Leila looked around in faint bewilderment because she had never seen a room in such a state before. In her ordered and enclosed world, a servant would have attended to it while she’d been in the shower—making the bed all neat and pristine again and tidying away her discarded clothes.
She had never been lowered down onto untidy sheets which were still rich with the scent of the man who had slept in them. Nor towered over by someone whose mouth was tight as he continued to undress her. She stared up at him but he wasn’t staring back. He was too busy removing her trainers and then unzipping her jeans as if he’d removed countless pairs of women’s jeans in his life.
He probably had.
Of course he had.
Leila remembered what she’d read about him on the internet. Fragments of information about all the beautiful models and actresses he’d dated came drifting back. Women infinitely more experienced than she was.
She felt the cold shiver of insecurity reminding her to face facts and not be swept away by fantasy. She knew what men were like. How they were guided by the heat in their loins or the weight of their own ambition. She knew that they viewed women simply as possessions or as adornments—or as vessels to carry children.
She must not forget that.
This might feel as if she were living out a scene from a film, but it wasn’t a film. This was real life and Gabe Steel wasn’t suddenly going to turn into some fantasy hero and fall madly in love with her.
She didn’t believe in that kind of love.
Her head fell back against the pillow as she felt the slide of his fingertips brushing over her thigh and suddenly it was difficult to think about anything, other than how good it felt.
He tugged the jeans down over her knees and she could hear the soft rustle as they fell to the floor.
‘Nice knickers,’ he murmured before deftly removing her bra and shirt.
Leila blushed at his words, telling herself this was normal. This was natural. ‘Thanks,’ she said, as if men complimented her on her choice of underwear every day of the week.
He tugged off his T-shirt and stood up to unbutton his jeans, and Leila was mesmerised as he peeled them off. Her heart began to pound with excitement as his body was revealed to her, for she had only ever seen a horse from the royal stables in such a state of arousal before.
Yet he seemed proud and unashamed of his nakedness as he walked across the room and retrieved something from his suitcase. Leila saw the glint of foil and the reality of what she was about to do suddenly hit her.
Because that was a condom; she was certain of it. She might never have encountered one before, but what else could it be?
She felt the icy clamp of sweat on her forehead as reality suddenly broke into her erotic thoughts. Did all women feel this sudden sense of panic the first time? The fear that she might disappoint him?
He was putting the item on the table beside the bed, and while she knew that she should be grateful to him for being pragmatic, it destroyed the mood a little. Why was real life so messy? she wondered bitterly. In films, you never saw any of this. Couples seemed to find themselves in bed together almost by magic and then the scene cut to them giggling as they ran down a street, usually in Paris. Not that she and Gabe Steel would be running anywhere here in Simdahab—at least not without the Sultan’s guards giving chase. And if he didn’t come back here and kiss her soon, she was going to get cold feet.
But almost as if he’d read her mind, he came back and lay down beside her. His body was warm, but his face was sombre as he traced a thoughtful line around her lips.
‘Suddenly so serious,’ he said, his grey eyes narrowing. ‘As if you’ve started having regrets. Have you, Leila? Because we can stop this right now if that’s what you want.’
Leila closed her eyes as she felt the brush of his finger over her lips. And wouldn’t that be best? To put her clothes back on and get out of here as quickly as possible. She would feel embarrassed, and he might be angry with her for having led him on, but no real harm would have been done. She could slip away and act as if nothing had happened—because nothing had.
But then she thought about what awaited her back at the palace. She thought about all the inevitable restrictions and rules which had governed her life so far. All the things she wasn’t allowed to do and never would be able to do just because she was a woman and a princess. She thought about the royal prince her brother would probably arrange for her to one day marry. The watchful eyes of both nations as they waited for her to produce an heir, before her husband thankfully sought refuge in the pleasures of his harem, just as her own father had done.
And suddenly she thought why shouldn’t she experience this—as millions of other women had done? The way that men did almost every day of their lives. Why shouldn’t she have this one brief interlude of pleasure before she took up the duties which lay ahead of her?
She wrapped her arms around his neck. ‘Kiss me,’ she whispered. ‘Kiss me. Please.’
He smiled as his mouth came down to cover hers, and suddenly it did feel like a fairy tale. As if her senses had been fine-tuned. As if she were capable of anything. Anything.
‘Oh,’ she said, her eyes fluttering to a close as he drifted his mouth to her neck to kiss it over and over. ‘Oh.’
Now his lips had found her breast and she could feel a thousand tiny sparks of pleasure as his tongue flicked against her puckered skin. She splayed her hands over his chest, where his heart pounded so strongly. She felt the coarse whorls of hair which grew there and she tugged at them—as playfully as a puppy with a new toy. His groan of delight filled her with confidence and she let her fingers drift downwards to explore the muscular flat of his belly and another helpless groan made her feel invincible. As if she could do anything or be anyone.
Anyone but herself.
He kissed her until she thought she would go out of her mind with longing. Until her heart was full of him. And suddenly, she wanted more. She could feel the restless movements of her body, orchestrated by a desire which seemed outside her understanding. Her fingers were kneading at his broad shoulders and she could hear him give a low laugh—as if her hunger pleased him. She could feel him tense as he began to nudge her legs apart with one insistent knee.
Her breath caught in her throat as he slid his hand between her thighs, and she cried out as he touched her where no man had ever touched her before.
‘God, you’re wet,’ he groaned.
‘Am I?’ she questioned almost shyly.
‘Mmm,’ he affirmed as his finger began to strum against her, moving against her heated flesh in a light and silken rhythm.
Against his shoulder, Leila closed her eyes and felt as if she might melt beneath his touch. It felt gorgeous. He felt gorgeous. Gorgeous Gabe Steel who had stopped touching her and was now tearing at the little packet of foil he’d left beside the bed.
His face was formidable as he moved over her again and suddenly it was happening, almost without warning. He was lifting up her hips and making one deep, long thrust inside her, and she was crying out—only this time her cry sounded different, because the pain was very real. She felt him grow still and her heart plummeted as she saw the new expression on his face. The intense pleasure had changed into an expression of disbelief as he stared down at her.
‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘No.’
‘What?’ she gasped, because he was deep inside her and now that her body had adjusted to accommodate him, it felt amazing.
‘You’re a virgin?’
She sensed that he was about to pull out of her, but she had come this far and she couldn’t bear him to stop. Some deep instinct was governing her now, and she prevented his withdrawal by the simply expedient of tightening her body around him. She saw his eyes grow at first angry and then smoky as tentatively she moved her hips upwards so that he was deeper still.
‘So what if I am?’ she whispered. ‘Somebody’s got to be the first and that somebody happens to be you. Please, Gabe. I want to experience pleasure the way that other women do. I want you to show me how. I know you can show me how.’
Gabe shook his head as he felt her slick heat yielding to his helpless thrust. The potent combination of her innocence and tightness and the erotic words she was whispering was making him harder than he could ever remember feeling before. But she was a virgin, he reminded himself. Unbelievably, she was a virgin. She had come to his room—this complete stranger—and given herself to him without any kind of ceremony. What kind of woman did that? He felt perplexed and resentful at having been lured into a situation which wasn’t what it seemed.
So call a halt to it right now.
He swallowed. ‘This is—’
‘Heaven,’ she said, her voice an irresistible murmur. ‘You know it is. Don’t stop, Gabe. Please don’t stop.’
Her heartfelt plea was his final undoing. His anger evaporated and Gabe gave a groan of submission. Why fight it when she didn’t want him to stop and...oh, God, neither did he? Pushing himself up on his elbows, he stared down at her beautiful face as he began to move inside her.
Her eyes were closed and he was glad about that. He didn’t want to have to look at her; he just wanted to feel. He pushed deeper into her moist heat and groaned again, because she felt so good. She felt unbelievable. Was this why men spoke wonderingly about virgins, because they were so tight? Or because it gave a man a sense of power to know that he was the first?
But in the midst of all his macho triumph, he fought another wave of helplessness which was unfamiliar to him. Gone was the slick and seasoned Gabe who could last all night. He felt like a teenager who wanted instantly to explode inside her. But he mustn’t. This had to be nothing less than amazing, because it was her first time. He had to take it slowly.
Yet it wasn’t easy. He found himself stunned by the intense pleasure which was radiating through every pore of his body and not just because she was so tight. He realised how liberating it was not to have any emotional expectations hovering over him like a dark cloud. This really was sex without strings. Sex without the fear that she would fall in love with him and want more than he was ever prepared to give.
His thumb on her clitoris, he tilted her back against the pillows, listening to the rising volume of her cries. He watched as she began to move inexorably towards orgasm. Suddenly, she opened her eyes, and he met a clear flash of startled blue. As if she couldn’t quite believe what was happening to her.
‘Gabe?’ she whispered, her accented voice unsteady.
‘Relax.’ He gave another deep thrust. ‘Just. Let. Go.’
He saw her lips frame something which was destined never to be said as her eyelashes flew down to shutter out the blue. And then her body started to quiver helplessly around him and her back began to arch. He heard the words she said as she convulsed around him, although she spoke them in a language he didn’t understand. He kissed away the muffled little cries which followed and tried to ignore her fingernails, which were now digging painfully into his back. He waited until her body was almost still before he let go himself, spilling out his seed in great wrenching bursts he never wanted to end.
For a moment he felt so dazed that it was almost as if he’d been drugged. Today, of all days—his body was warm and pulsing with life, instead of feeling empty and cold or deliberately anaesthetised. From between slitted eyes, he surveyed her. Her glossy black hair was tumbling down over her breasts and her perfect olive skin was flushed.
He lifted his hand to her cheek and felt her shiver beneath that light touch. ‘Who are you?’ he questioned, but she leaned over him and kissed his lips into silence.
‘Shh,’ she said, and her voice was very gentle. ‘You look weary. Go to sleep, Gabe. Just go to sleep.’
CHAPTER THREE (#ud85e50b0-0abe-5ca0-b175-b1949777a152)
‘HAVE YOU BEEN listening to a word I’ve been saying, Leila?’
Leila gave a start as her brother’s impatient question cut through the confusion of her thoughts. In the air-conditioned cool of the palace, she wondered if the hectic colour had faded from her cheeks and for once she gave thanks to the veil which concealed them from the Sultan. But there were other signs, too. She knew that. The mirror had told her so when she’d looked in it a short while ago.
Had the telltale glitter disappeared from her eyes? She prayed it had. Because if her clever and dictatorial brother Murat ever guessed how she had spent that particular afternoon...
If he had any idea that she had given her virginity to a man who had been a stranger to her.
She shivered.
He would kill her.
‘Of course I was listening,’ she defended.
His black eyes narrowed. ‘So I was saying...what?’
Leila swallowed as she searched around in the fog of her memory for something to remind her. ‘Something about the banquet you’re holding tonight.’
‘Very good, Leila.’ He nodded. ‘It seems you were paying attention, after all. A banquet in honour of my English guest, Gabe Steel.’
The sudden tremble of her knees at the mention of his name made Leila glad that she was sitting down. ‘Gabe Steel?’ she echoed and his name tasted nearly as sweet on her lips as his kisses had done.
Murat gave an impatient click of his tongue. ‘He is coming here tonight. You knew that, Leila.’
Leila forced a smile, acknowledging the power of the human mind to deny something which made you feel uncomfortable. It was the same as going for a ride in the desert—you knew that in the sand lurked snakes and scorpions, but if you thought about them for too long you’d never get on a horse again.
Of course she had known that Gabe was coming here tonight but—as with all the Sultan’s formal banquets—she hadn’t been invited. If she had, then there would have been no need to have gone to the advertising executive’s room in secret to make her doomed job application. And then to have acted like some kind of...
Briefly, she closed her eyes. She mustn’t think about him. She mustn’t.
Yet try as she might, it was impossible to stem the flashbacks which plagued her, as if someone were playing a forbidden and erotic movie inside her head on an endless loop. She couldn’t seem to stop remembering the way he’d made love to her and the way he had made her feel.
She knew that what she had done today had been wrong. It had flown in the face of everything she had been brought up to believe in. In Qurhah, women who were ‘good’ saved themselves until marriage. Especially royal princesses. There was simply no other option and up until today she had never questioned it. Yet she had seized the opportunity to let the powerful tycoon take her to his bed without a second thought. She had wanted him with a hunger which had taken her by surprise, and he had wanted her just as much, it seemed. For the first time in her life, she had behaved in a way which was truly liberated.
She remembered the gleam of his dark golden hair against the white of the pillow after he’d made that strange low cry and shuddered deep inside her. The way he had fallen asleep almost immediately—a sleep so deep that for a moment she’d had to check he was still breathing. He hadn’t even stirred when she’d slipped from the bed—her body still warm and aching and her skin suffused with a soft, warm glow.
Silently, she had crept around the hotel suite— gathering up her discarded clothes, which she’d put on in the bathroom with trembling fingers, terrified that he would hear. And she hadn’t wanted him to hear. She had known that her only option was to slip away before he awoke because she couldn’t face saying goodbye, Not when she was feeling in such a volatile emotional state and she wanted nothing more than to snuggle into his warm embrace and kiss those sensual lips of his again.
Because that was simply not on the cards. There was no future for them. She knew that. Not now and not ever—and she sensed that in her vulnerable post-orgasm state she might have been tempted to overlook that simple fact.
She sucked in a deep breath, telling herself that what was done was done and she wasn’t going to feel ashamed about something she had enjoyed so much. Not when for the first time in her life she had behaved like a free-thinking woman instead of a puppet whose strings were constantly being pulled by her powerful brother, the Sultan.
But she could also see now that her thinking had been skewed. She had been foolishly naive to approach the Englishman in the first place. Had she really imagined that Gabe Steel—no matter how powerful he was in his own country—could persuade her brother to let her work with him? Did she really think she could go from pampered princess to Westerner’s aide in one easy transition?
She could feel Murat’s eyes on her and knew he was waiting for some kind of response. He might be her brother, but he was first and foremost the Sultan—and, as such, the world always revolved around Murat.
‘There is no need for me to express my hope that your banquet will be successful, Murat,’ she said formally. ‘For that is a given.’
There was a pause as he inclined his head, silently acknowledging her praise.
‘I thought you might wish to attend,’ he said.
For the second time, Leila was glad she was sitting down. She narrowed her eyes, thinking she must have misheard him. ‘The banquet?’
The Sultan shrugged his shoulders. ‘Why not?’
‘Why not?’ She laughed. ‘Is that a serious question? Because it’s “business” and these affairs are traditionally men only.’
Murat gave a little shake of his shoulders and Leila thought he seemed a little unsettled tonight. Which wasn’t like her brother at all. Maybe the cancellation of his arranged marriage had affected him more than it had appeared to do at the time.
‘Then perhaps it is time that Qurhah embraced the untraditional for a change,’ he said.
Leila stared at him in growing disbelief. ‘What on earth has brought all this on?’
Murat glowered. ‘Does there have to be a reason for everything? You have harangued me for many years for a more inclusive role in state affairs, Leila—’
‘And you always ignore everything I say!’
‘And now that I am actually proposing a break in tradition,’ he continued implacably, ‘I am being subjected to some sort of inquisition!’
Leila didn’t answer because her heart had grown disconcertingly light. She tried to ignore the flutter in her stomach and the rush of blood to her cheeks, but she couldn’t ignore the glorious words which were circling round and round in her mind. She had been invited to the banquet! She was going to see Gabe again!
Her heart pounded. How would it feel to face him again at a formal palace dinner? And how would he react to seeing her in the last place he would ever expect to see her?
She felt the sudden rush of nerves and sternly she told herself not to get carried away. It didn’t matter how he reacted because that was irrelevant. Yes, he had been the kind of lover that every woman dreamt of, but Gabe was just a man. And she knew about men. She knew about the pain and heartbreak they caused women. The muffled sound of her mother’s tears had characterised her childhood and she reminded herself not to weave any foolish dreams about Gabe Steel.
‘You are very quiet, Leila,’ observed the Sultan softly. ‘I had imagined you would be delighted to meet my Western guest.’
Leila gave a cautious smile. ‘Forgive me for my somewhat muted response,’ she said. ‘For I was a little taken off-guard by your unexpected generosity. Naturally, I shall be delighted to meet Mr Steel.’
‘Good. And you will wear the veil, of course. I like the thought of our Western visitor observing the quiet decorum of the traditional Qurhahian woman.’ Murat frowned. ‘Though I hope you’re not coming down with a fever, Leila—for your complexion has suddenly grown very flushed.’
* * *
Gabe barely registered the gleaming golden gates which had opened to allow his bulletproof car through. Just as he had failed to register the colourful and bustling streets of Simdahab on his way to the palace. The journey through the city had been slower than he had anticipated—mainly, he suspected, because the car was so heavily armoured. He guessed that was one of the drawbacks to being a fabulously powerful sultan—that the risk of assassination was never far from the surface.
Yet instead of focusing on the task ahead or reflecting on the cultural differences between the two countries, as he usually would have done, he had spent the entire journey thinking about the woman it was probably safer to forget.
Leila.
When he’d woken from a deep sleep in that sex-rumpled bed, he had known a moment of complete and utter peace—before disjointed memories had come flooding back. For a moment he’d thought that he must have dreamt the whole bizarre incident. And then he had seen the faint red spots of blood on the sheet—not knowing if it had sprung from her broken hymen or when her fingernails had clawed deep into the flesh of his shoulders at the moment of orgasm.
He stared out of the car window at the vast splendour of the palace gardens, but this faint feeling of disorientation would not leave him.
He had always been successful with women—and not just because of his hard body and what the press had once described as his ‘fallen angel’ looks. He had quickly learnt how best to handle the opposite sex, because he could see that it was in his best interests to do so. To take what he wanted without giving any false hope. He’d learnt that guaranteeing pleasure was the most effective way of having someone overlook your shortcomings—the main one being his aversion to emotion. He knew that he couldn’t give love—but he could certainly give great orgasms.
He’d seen it all and done it all—or so he’d thought—though he’d avoided any situation involving cameras or threesomes. But he had never had a beautiful, virginal stranger turning up at his hotel room and allowing him to seduce her within minutes of meeting.
He felt his heart miss a beat as he recalled the way she had made him feel. That initial hard thrust against her tight hymen. Who was she? And why had she chosen to give her innocence to a man she didn’t know?
He thought about the photographs she’d shown him. Nobody could deny that she was talented. Did she think that her sexual generosity would guarantee her the offer of a job? Yet if that was the case, then surely she would have left him her card—or some number scribbled down on a sheet of hotel notepaper, so that he could contact her again. But she hadn’t. There had been nothing to mark the fact that she’d been there. Only her very feminine fragrance lingering with the unmistakeable scent of sex when he’d woken to find an empty space beside him and silence in the adjoining suite of rooms.
Gabe shook his head as the limousine drew to a halt and a robed servant opened the door for him. He must put her out of his mind and concentrate on the evening ahead. It didn’t matter who his mystery virgin was. It had happened and it was over. He could shut the door on it, just as he did with every other aspect of his past. He was here at the palace to meet formally with the Sultan and none of the other stuff mattered.
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