But Zahid also recognised that these reservations were all easily overcome and that the main stumbling block was the fact that he had begun to desire her with a hunger which at times had overwhelmed him. And he couldn’t afford to do that.
Since that last meeting, hadn’t he been thinking about her in a way which was most uncharacteristic? He enjoyed women and they enjoyed him—but he didn’t get hung up about them. Not ever. Sometimes not even when he was thrusting into them and watching dispassionately as they orgasmed around him and squealed their joy. One of his own perceived strengths was emotional detachment and it had always served him well.
Yet for days now he’d been remembering Francesca’s firm body and her soft, unpainted lips. The way she made him smile when he least expected it. Those deep blue eyes, which had stared at him from the confusion of his unusually restless and troubled dreams. Even when his sometime Russian lover Katya had arrived the other night—wearing nothing but a fur coat and a pair of tiny, crotchless panties—he had sent her away without making love to her.
Why the hell had he done that?
Wouldn’t the best thing of all be for him to send Francesca away, too?
Because Zahid recognised that something had changed between them—and changed for ever. He no longer saw her as simply Francesca, his innocent childhood friend. He saw her now as a woman—a sexy and experienced woman who had just emerged from a bruising experience. And wasn’t that dangerous?
Wouldn’t she be feeling very natural frustration now that her relationship with Simon had ended? Wasn’t there a danger that close confinement might prove too much of a temptation for them both?
He saw her reach out to touch the petals of a spray of orchids with light, tentative fingers and he was just imagining how delicate her touch might be on his aching skin when the telephone rang.
The sound ruptured his reverie. ‘Answer it,’ he said abruptly.
‘But—’
‘I said, answer it.’
Frankie’s heart was thudding as she walked over towards the bureau and picked up the phone. Should she announce that it was the sheikh’s phone? Probably not. It could so easily be the press. ‘Hello?’
A woman’s sultry and faintly disgruntled voice came down the line. ‘Who the hell are you?’
Frankie’s fingers tightened around the receiver; she felt fired up by some unknown instinct which had the little hairs on the back of her neck prickling. She wanted to say, “Who the hell are you?”, but something stopped her and that something was Zahid watching her very closely. ‘May I help you?’ she questioned politely.
‘Sure you can. I want to speak to Zahid.’
There was the briefest of pauses before Frankie spoke. ‘I’m afraid that the sheikh is unavailable at the moment.’ From the other side of the room, she saw Zahid raise his eyebrows in silent question. ‘But if you’d like to give me your name and number, I’ll make sure he gets it.’
‘My name is Katya,’ snapped the voice. ‘And he already has my number—tell him to damned well use it!’
The connection was broken abruptly and Frankie replaced the phone, looking up to find Zahid’s now inscrutable expression fixed on her. Her heart was thudding fiercely and she wondered who the woman with the sultry voice was.
‘Who was it?’ he demanded.
‘Katya.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘You didn’t bother checking whether I wanted to speak to her?’
Awkwardly, Frankie wriggled her shoulders. Had she overstepped the mark and allowed her feelings of undeniable jealousy to influence her reaction?
‘She sounded slightly … angry,’ she explained, in a sudden rush. ‘And I thought that the call might be of a personal nature, which you probably wouldn’t care to take in front of me. Alternatively, if I’d asked you whether you wished to take the call and you’d declined—then that would have been embarrassing for all three of us. I made a judgement, Zahid—which is presumably the reason you asked me to answer your phone.’ Tentatively, she chewed on her lip as he continued to stare at her in that expressionless way. ‘Was it the wrong one?’
There was a pause while he regarded her thoughtfully. A bold judgement, he thought as he met the question in her deep blue eyes. And a brave one, too. He saw the sudden flush of colour which had flared into her pale cheeks. Had she guessed that Katya was a lover? An ex-lover, he reminded himself as he shook his head.
‘No, it was not the wrong one—it was exactly right. I wanted to see whether you could think on your feet and it seems that you can,’ he said softly. ‘It’s a pity you couldn’t have been that insightful when you fell into bed with that creep Simon.’
For a moment, Frankie felt close to giving him a confessional, wondering if she should enlighten him about the laughably true nature of her relationship with Simon. But prospective employees didn’t suddenly start talking about their sex lives, did they? ‘It’s easy to be insightful when you’re acting for somebody else.’
‘Well, you’ve got yourself a job.’
‘I have?’
‘Don’t look so shocked.’ He gave a short laugh because it seemed that she hadn’t lost her ability to twist him around her little finger, after all. ‘It was pretty much on the cards all along.’
‘And what sort … what sort of job will it be?’
There was a brief silence as he allowed the long-standing glimmerings of an idea to float to the surface of his mind. ‘My father once kept a diary,’ he said slowly. ‘Did I ever tell you that?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Writing it became a kind of refuge for him,’ he continued. ‘Particularly in the troubled years during the wars and then when my mother became ill. And it suddenly occurred to me that you might be just the person to type them up for me.’
‘But I can’t speak your language,’ she objected.
‘He wrote them in English.’ He met her uncomprehending expression and shrugged. ‘It ensured their privacy—since most of my people don’t speak the language. I’ve been meaning to make them into a formal record for some time—the difficulty was in finding someone I could trust to do it.’ His black eyes gleamed. ‘And you, my dear Francesca, will be absolutely perfect for the task.’
Frankie blushed with pleasure—because praise from Zahid felt like the very best sort of praise.
‘Does that sort of role appeal to you?’ he questioned.
She nodded, trying not to be affected by the silken texture of his voice, but it wasn’t easy. ‘I’d like that very much.’ She hesitated. ‘You know, you haven’t even mentioned why you’re here—in England.’
He thought back to the working breakfast he’d had that morning with England’s leading horse-racing experts—and the similar meetings which had taken place in every major city in Europe. With an effort, he switched his attention away from the soft rose-pink of her cheeks and the sapphire gleam of her eyes.
‘I’ve been promoting the new horse-racing track and stadium we’ve almost completed in Khayarzah,’ he said. ‘One which will put us firmly on the international equestrian circuit. But this particular trip has also been personal.’ He walked over to the window and stared at a rusty barge which was chugging its way down the heavy grey waters of the Thames. He wouldn’t have discussed such a matter with anyone else, but his inherent trust in Francesca made him more candid than was usual. And didn’t it come as a kind of liberation—to be able to speak his mind for once? ‘I needed to meet with my brother,’ he said as he turned back to face her. ‘To see if he’s really been behaving as badly as the media suggest.’
Frankie saw the sudden tension which had tightened his face and she wrinkled her nose in question.
She’d only met his brother Tariq on a few occasions—and one of those had been at her father’s funeral, when she’d been too fogged down in grief to be able to think straight.
Like Zahid, Tariq had enjoyed a mixed and fairly liberal upbringing—some of it spent far away from his homeland. But the destinies of tw
o princes could be so radically different …
When Zahid had become King, his life had changed immeasurably—while Tariq was still able to behave pretty much as he always had done. Frankie knew that the younger prince was known for being outrageously gorgeous and had been dubbed ‘The Playboy Sheikh’ by the more extravagant sections of the western press.
‘Why, what has he done?’ she questioned.
‘That’s just the point. He hasn’t done nearly enough.’ Zahid gave a little click of irritation. ‘Well, that’s not entirely true, since Tariq possesses the uncanny ability to produce excellent results with the minimum amount of work. He just needs a little reminding from time to time that he is a royal prince with an obligation to his country—and not simply an habitué of the gambling tables and an object of slavish female desire. But let us not talk about that now. You will fly with me to Khayarzah at the end of the week—do you have a passport?’
She nodded, aware how parochial his question made her sound. ‘Of course.’
‘And we need to get you settled. In fact, we’d better find you a room here.’
Taken aback, Frankie blinked at him. ‘You mean I’m going to be staying here, at the Granchester?’
Something in the innocent way she framed the question sparked an unwanted hunger deep inside him—so that for a moment Zahid forgot that she was almost like one of the family. Forgot that his groin was not supposed to tighten and throb as he looked at her. Because when her pink and unpainted lips opened like that, he suddenly found he could think of a much better use for them than talking …
Unwanted lust made him tease her—trying to make his arousal go away but wondering idly whether she would respond. And how would you react if she did? Would you take her in your arms and taste her? Treat you both to a sweet interlude of mutually satisfying sex?
‘Of course you’re going to be staying here,’ he murmured, shifting his position slightly, which did precisely nothing to relieve the deep ache at his groin. ‘You’ll need to make a few preparations before we fly to Khayarzah. You’ll need a visa. Security clearance—that kind of thing—and it will all have to be done in London. You don’t have a problem with that, do you?’
It took a moment for Frankie to answer because her body was responding crazily to the way he was looking at her. She could feel the prickle of her breasts and a strange pooling of heat at the pit of her stomach so that she felt all light-headed, and vulnerable. Was this something he did to all women—made them feel all kinds of stuff they weren’t supposed to be feeling—leaving them aching and unsettled and wanting more?
But Frankie was determined to appear professional. He had seen her being made a fool of by her ex-fiancé—and her pride was hurting because of that. She must show him that she could be strong—that she wasn’t some vulnerable little girl who jumped every time somebody made a loud bang.
‘No, not a problem at all,’ she said calmly. ‘I’m very adaptable.’
‘Good. Then come and meet the rest of my staff. I’ll introduce you to my bodyguards and they’ll explain a few simple guidelines to you.’ He glanced down at her rain-spattered legs and the shoes which didn’t quite match the plain blue dress. ‘And we’d better organise some clothes for you. You’ll need something appropriate to wear—especially in Khayarzah, where it’s very hot but women cover their legs and their arms at all times. Something which befits a staff member to the sheikh.’
Frankie looked down at the dress she’d bought specially for this meeting—wondering if he had any idea of all the angst which had gone into choosing the neat garment. ‘You mean there’s something wrong with what I’m wearing?’
Did he protect her from the truth, or did he give it to her straight? Zahid’s mouth hardened. Hadn’t she already been lied to enough by one man? And she would never learn about life’s harsh realities unless somebody taught her. He looked her straight in the eye. ‘There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with it, Francesca—other than that it’s cheap.’ He gave her a regretful shrug as he reached out to pick up the phone. ‘And I’m afraid I don’t do cheap.’
CHAPTER SIX
PLONKING herself down on the bed, Frankie kicked the shoes from her aching feet and fell back against the snowy bank of pillows. It had been a long day. Even longer than yesterday, when she’d travelled back down to Surrey, packed some essentials and locked up the house—ready to embrace her new role as a member of Zahid’s staff. Already, her world seemed to have altered out of all recognition. She’d been given a luxurious room in one of London’s smartest hotels, a list of all the people who worked for the sheikh—as well as his busy schedule for the weeks ahead.
And today she had been sent off to see a stylist and to acquire the clothes which Zahid had told her were essential for her working trip to his homeland.
She hadn’t realised that shopping could be so exhausting—but then she didn’t usually buy an entire wardrobe at one fell swoop. The swish store was situated in a side street, not far from the Khayarzah Embassy, and Frankie was put in the hands of an elegant woman who seemed to know exactly the kind of clothes she needed for her forthcoming trip.
The shopping expedition had been so intensive that she’d missed lunch and by the time she got back to the hotel she was too exhausted to bother with room service. So she ate the chocolate which had been left lying on her pillow and lay down on the bed just to rest her eyes.
She must have dozed off because before she knew it she was startled out of some bizarre and fitful dream about telephones by an urgent knocking on the door. Reluctantly, Frankie got up off the feathery mattress and padded across the room to answer it. Still yawning, she pulled open the door to find Zahid standing there with a look of unmistakable irritation on his face.
‘I’ve been calling and calling you—didn’t you hear me?’
Still dozy from an unfamiliar daytime nap, she raked her fingers through her tousled hair. ‘No, of course I didn’t—otherwise I’d have answered.’ With difficulty, she stifled another yawn. ‘Sorry—I must have fallen asleep.’
‘Clearly.’ Reluctantly, Zahid found his eyes drawn to her. Her cheeks were flushed and her lashes looked like ebony smudges making spiky shadows on her soft cheek. With her hair spilling down untidily over her shoulders, she looked as if she had just been ravished, he thought—with an unwelcome beat of awareness. But she was wearing an old pair of jeans and an oatmeal-coloured sweater he recognised and he frowned. ‘I thought you’d been out shopping?’
‘I have. I just got back.’ She saw him looking askance at her jeans and shrugged as his gaze travelled over to the still open doors of her wardrobe, where the new clothes could be seen hanging in a neat line. ‘They seem almost too nice to wear—does that sound stupid?’
‘Yes.’
‘Especially when I’m just mooching around the hotel room.’
‘Well, stop mooching and start getting ready,’ he said coolly. ‘We’re having dinner with my brother in just over an hour.’
‘You’re kidding?’
He sucked in a breath of irritation as he glanced at the rumpled bed directly behind her. ‘No, Francesca, I am not. And just remember that I’m not paying you to lie around …’ Now why had his mind focused on that particular verb? Dragging his gaze away from the ruffled duvet, he narrowed his eyes as he spotted a discarded chocolate wrapper lying on the carpet. ‘Eating chocolate all day and napping! Be ready in an hour,’ he ordered. ‘One of my bodyguards will let you know when we’re ready to go.’
He slammed the door shut behind him and for a moment Frankie stood staring at it in disbelief. Talk about leaping to the wrong conclusions! He’d made her sound like some decadent couch potato who loved stuffing her face with carbs—when pretty much all she’d eaten all day had been that one, measly chocolate.
But she enjoyed soaking in a scented bath—and afterwards selecting something silken and suitable from her newly acquired wardrobe. The clothes she had been guided towards were fundamentally modest—there wasn’t a
low neck or a miniskirt in sight. Their beauty lay in the quality of the exquisite fabrics as they whispered delicately over her skin. As she slid on her own bra and knickers she thought that they seemed positively dingy in comparison to the quiet opulence of the green silk gown she’d chosen to wear.
One of Zahid’s enigmatic-looking bodyguards rapped at the door at eight o’clock precisely, and Frankie stepped into the corridor to find Zahid just emerging from his own room. He was wearing a suit of pale grey, which served as a perfect foil for his bronzed and dark colouring. But he stopped dead when he saw her and stood completely still—as if someone had turned him to stone.
‘Are you … ready?’ she asked tentatively, wondering if she had committed some awful faux pas that she wasn’t aware of. Was the dress too formal? Her shoes too high? Should she have worn her hair up instead of letting it tumble loosely down her back?
In answer to her stumbled question Zahid nodded—though he wasn’t really listening to what she’d asked him. Because, against all the odds—she looked beautiful. More beautiful than any woman he had ever seen. Like some princess who had stepped from the pages of one of the old Khayarzah fables his nanny used to read to him as a child.
Her dark hair was glossy, her blue eyes wide and watchful—and the deep green of her dress emphasised the porcelain paleness of her face and soft curves of her body. What must it be like for her, he wondered, to have blossomed as she had blossomed—to have gone from tomboy to temptress in one seamless step? Was she aware of the power which now lay at her fingertips—the power possessed by every woman who could hold a man in her thrall?
Yet Simon had been the one to awaken her, he reminded himself grimly. He might have been a duplicitous and money-grubbing creep—but he was responsible for this new, sensual allure of hers. He had been the one who had … who had …
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