‘Were you pleased?’
‘Yes, of course.’ She took another sip of her drink, adding when he said nothing, ‘I suppose I was shocked, but they were very happy together.’
‘And was that why you decided to come back to Shelton Castle after you finished university?’
How the heck did he know that? Surely Minty hadn’t thought it necessary to provide him with a full CV…
He must have seen something of her surprise in her face because he smiled. A slight deepening of the tiny lines fanning out from his sexy eyes, which had her stomach perform a complete somersault. ‘You have a first from Warwick University in English and Political Science.’ Rashid adjusted his powerful body against the cushions, but only so he could see her face more clearly. ‘That information was in the paperwork sent to me.’
Ah. If he knew about her interest in politics, maybe that went some way to explaining his concern at her involvement. He needn’t have worried. Since leaving university the only politics she’d had time for were the internal ones going on at Shelton.
‘My mother found it…difficult to adjust to being the Duchess of Missenden.’
‘Difficult?’
‘Difficult is probably not the right word,’ she concurred. The truth was her mother had found it completely impossible. Anthony had been incandescently angry. Benedict and Simon very little better. ‘Dukes don’t generally marry their housekeepers. Not in England, anyway. So I came for moral support with Richard’s blessing. I meant to spend just a year there but…’ Polly shrugged ‘…time passed and I stayed. And then there was the accident and I…stayed again.’
Nothing like the art of British understatement. Six years of emotional turmoil neatly contained in a handful of sentences.
‘Until now.’
‘Until now,’ she echoed with a smile. ‘I think this is the first thing I’ve ever done entirely for myself. I hope I don’t make a mess of it.’
‘Why should you?’
‘Well…’ Polly pretended to hesitate ‘…there’s having to speak directly at a camera as though it were a friend, coping with the heat…’
Rashid laughed and her chest grew tight, as though she’d swallowed too much air. ‘How about you? I—I seem to have given you my life story from four years onwards.’
‘I was under the impression you had researched me fairly thoroughly,’ he said lazily, his voice little more than a rumble.
Her eyes flew up to meet his teasing ones and she felt as pinned as a butterfly in a collector’s box. There was no getting away from sexy blue eyes that ripped through every preconception she’d ever had about herself.
‘What do you wish to know about me?’
Where to start? It was difficult not to be fascinated by a man who was so completely different from anyone she’d ever met before. He was simply more. More arrogant. More sexy. More inscrutable. More charismatic. More.
And yet he had roots in her own country. Those compelling blue eyes reminded her of it. ‘Do you really not feel remotely English? Not on any level?’
Rashid leant forward and tore off a piece of rukhal bread and offered it to her. Polly took it and he tore off a second piece for himself. ‘I think I made a choice.’
‘Between being Arab and English?’ She broke off the tiniest piece of her bread and put it in her mouth, watching the frown that formed on his forehead.
‘You will have read something of my parents’ divorce?’
It was scarcely a question but Polly nodded. She’d certainly done that. It was practically the first thing anyone wrote about him.
‘I was eight at the time and very angry when my mother left. I wanted nothing to do with her. I identified completely with my father. My one aim and purpose was to be like him. And that meant embracing everything that was important to him. I wanted to expunge everything English from my life because he hated it.’
‘So how did being given an English education fit into that?’ she couldn’t resist asking.
Rashid smiled. ‘I went to the same boarding school and university as my father. Followed that up with a Sandhurst military training, as had my brother Hanif before me. And during the holidays I absorbed every thing Amrahi. Poetry. Art. Music.’
‘To please your father?’
‘Initially. Even horse racing was his passion before it was mine. My father,’ Rashid said, reaching for the water jug and refilling Polly’s glass, ‘insisted we were connected with our Bedouin heritage and the Bedouin have a long tradition as master horsemen.’
So, naturally, Rashid had wanted to excel. Polly accepted her glass back. ‘I’ve only been to the races once in my life. The summer after Mum married Richard. To be honest it seemed more about gambling than sport. I suppose you could argue gambling is a sport.’
‘Not in Amrah.’
No, not in Amrah. Polly took another piece of rukhal bread. ‘So, if there’s no revenue from gambling, how is the Samaah Golden Cup funded?’
‘Private investment.’
‘Yours?’
His dark eyebrows rose, the blue eyes beneath them glinting in amusement.
Polly bit her lip and shook her head slightly. ‘That must be millions of dollars of “private investment”.’
‘Twenty-eight million.’
‘That’s crazy!’
‘We have to look to the future. Tourism and international finance is vital to our economy.’
‘And do you get a good return on twenty-eight million dollars?’ she asked politely.
‘I think so. I make sure that I do.’
Six words, but they sent a shiver down her spine. It reminded her of how he’d been at Shelton. That feeling that he would break whatever needed to be broken.
Rashid leant forward and tilted her chin up so he could look directly into her eyes. ‘I have a habit of winning.’
‘So I’ve read.’
Then his hand lightly stroked the side of her cheek, burning a trail across her skin. His eyes lingered on her lips. If he kissed her now she wouldn’t be able to stop him—even though she knew this was all a game to him.
Humiliatingly, he must know she’d fall into his bed like a ripe greengage from a tree. Almost. There was still the finest steel of self-preservation holding her back.
Rashid’s blue eyes glittered down at her, his thumb moving to stroke across her sensitive lips. Slowly. Very slowly, he moved to kiss her.
Her hands came up to hold him off, but one touch of his lips had them snaking round his neck, pulling him closer. Beneath her fingers she felt the soft curling hair that touched the nape of his neck. Her mouth softened and she heard the guttural sound of satisfaction deep in his throat.
Winning. This was all about winning.
‘No.’ She pulled back, her breath coming in short sharp bursts.
Rashid’s hands still cradled her face, his eyes locked with hers. ‘Polly.’ His deep voice breathed her name, sending renewed shivers coursing through her body.
‘This isn’t right. Please.’
His smiled twisted. Then he sat back, watching her face. ‘I will escort you back to your room.’
‘Th-thank you.’ Polly felt by her side for her lihaf, which had fallen off unheeded. She balled it up in her hand as sudden cold whipped through her. He must think she was a complete idiot. Any other woman would have just closed their eyes and thanked their lucky stars.
Other women did.
‘Come.’
She looked up to find Rashid was already standing. He held out a hand. Polly allowed him to help her to her feet. A faint breeze caught at the light fabric of her dishdasha, brushing it against the denim of his jeans.
Polly drew in a ragged breath. She just wasn’t made that way. But she was under no illusions. If Rashid truly intended to ‘win’ she’d be powerless to stop him.
CHAPTER FIVE
RASHID stood looking out across the courtyard, the fountain anything but soothing. There’d been some semblance of normality as he’d escorted Polly back to
her room. Years of experience had meant that he was perfectly able to talk about her proposed documentary, the arrangements that had been made to take them into the Atiq Desert, all the while pretending his body wasn’t on fire for her.
He screwed up the piece of paper in his hand and aimed it towards the waste bin by the desk. It brushed the edge and fell neatly inside. Rashid looked away, back out towards the central fountain and jagged a hand through his hair.
He’d kissed her. It didn’t matter he’d intended it as a kind of test. Somewhere between the thought and the action his motivation had changed. And he’d felt her tremble. Her lips had been warm and pliant against his. Her fingers had been in his hair pulling him closer, urging him on until the moment she’d stopped. Stopped him. The control had been all hers.
Rashid swore softly. Inviting them, her, to stay in his home had seemed such an inspired idea. He pulled an agitated hand across his face. It felt less inspired now.
‘Rashid?’
He spun round to face his sister. She quietly shut the door and walked to stand next to him.
‘Are you angry with me?’ she asked in Arabic, her voice low.
‘Do not bring her to me again. I will make my decisions in my own time and in my own way.’
Bahiyaa turned so she could look at his profile. ‘I do not believe Polly is involved in anything criminal.’
‘And you know that how?’
‘I know my own sex, Rashid. I genuinely believe she is here solely to make this documentary. And,’ she continued after a moment of silence, ‘she is charmingly excited to be here. I don’t think she has been used to have her wishes considered. Rashid, are you listening to me?’
He was listening, to every word. In his heart of hearts he didn’t believe Polly was complicit in any crime either. Perhaps it was his sense of self-preservation that had made him cling to that idea longer than was reasonable?
Even so…it was still possible. The timing of their visit was damnable and the stakes were high. If anything appeared in the British press that Hanif’s enemies could use against him, Rashid would never be able to live with himself.
Rashid straightened his spine, the expression on his face set as he looked down at his sister. ‘Golden Mile is sitting in our stables unable to sire anything—’
‘I understand that.’
‘Knowingly sold as a stud horse by Polly’s stepbrother.’
‘But—’
He pulled an agitated hand through his hair once more. ‘The ramifications of that will be far-reaching. There will be people, apparently good people, who have been persuaded to take payouts. People we know, Bahiyaa.’
‘But not Polly. I do not believe it.’
He’d thought…it would be easy to know. By changing her plans, having her stay in his home with the opportunity to talk to her…
He hadn’t expected desire to cloud his thinking.
He’d been prepared for everything but Polly with her wide eyes and soft curves. She seemed to be a woman of contradictions. At Shelton she had appeared so confident. The way she held herself, the way she moved, talked to people, managed difficult egos with quiet skill had suggested inner confidence. Here in Amrah she was eager to please, anxious…
Anxious because she suspected she was out of her depth and knew it?
Rashid left Bahiyaa at the French doors and sat down at his desk, picking up his fountain pen and twisting it between thumb and forefinger.
‘What are you going to do?’
Without turning his head he knew Bahiyaa had moved to stand behind him. ‘Here Polly can be closely supervised. While filming she can be equally monitored.’
‘About Golden Mile?’
‘Wait.’
She came round to stand in front of his desk. ‘For what?’
‘For the evidence to be compiled. Once I am clear as to who was involved and to what extent, I will act.’ He looked up. It was a statement of fact. He would act. In his own time, in his own way.
He intended to see the Beaufort Stud was put out of business. Anthony Lovell, Duke of Missenden, with it. He would send aftershocks through the entire racing fraternity. And if Polly was part of that…
‘Don’t let your pride hurt the innocent,’ Bahiyaa said softly, moving towards the door. ‘Be very certain where your anger is coming from.’
Rashid watched as his sister left and, for a few moments after the door shut, stayed looking at the closed door. Bahiyaa’s meaning was clear. She knew how betrayal affected him. Betrayal touched a nerve that had been left exposed during his childhood.
In among the fiasco that was Golden Mile there was betrayal in plenty. People close to him. People he employed and trusted. Under those circumstances how certain was he the cool, clear logic he prided himself on remained the guiding principle of his actions?
But did it matter? If Polly was as innocent of all involvement as Bahiyaa believed her to be it wouldn’t matter her visit here was closely supervised. She would get her documentary. He…would get peace of mind.
He pulled a hand across his face.
Only…
Only he’d kissed her. And he could still taste her sweetness in his mouth, feel the pressure of her lips on his. A kiss was nothing. He’d kissed many women, enjoyed their company and taken them to bed.
But…
It had been a long time since he’d connected to… He’d been going to say ‘a woman’, but the truth was it had been a very long time since he’d allowed himself to connect to anyone. And he knew why that was.
Rashid tapped his pen on the table, waiting. His eyes flicked to his wristwatch. Hanif had yet to return his call—and the wait was hard. While his father still lived there was hope of forgiveness, a chance to heal the hurts. Bahiyaa coped so much better than he did. Perhaps because she had long since ceased to seek her father’s approval.
At last the phone rang. ‘Rashid.’
‘No news to report.’ His brother’s voice sounded weary. ‘He is sleeping a great deal. Talking less.’
‘Has he asked for…the family to be gathered?’
He’d chosen his words carefully, but Hanif understood the question. ‘I’m sorry, Rashid. There has been no change. Not towards you or Bahiyaa, and I have tried.’
Rashid didn’t doubt that. His brother would have done everything possible. He sat back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling.
‘He really only wants Raiyah, who would prefer not to be here. Samira makes a duty visit twice a day primarily to stake her claim over Raiyah.’
Rashid smiled wryly at the thought of his brother standing between their father’s two wives.
‘And I’ve yet to persuade our grandfather he needs to leave Dholar. It’s been one nightmare of a day…’
‘Anyone know why we’re here?’ Pete asked, his shirt damp in places from having dragged it on after an interrupted swim.
John shook his head. ‘Something’s happened. Please God it’s not that Crown Prince Khalid has died. If Amrah goes into mourning, then starts to squabble over the old King’s successor, we’ll be stuffed.’
Polly sipped mint tea, too sweet for her taste, as Pete came to sit beside her. ‘You okay?’
She nodded. There was no time for more. Echoing footsteps and the sound of voices heralded the arrival of Rashid. She’d had a long sleepless night to prepare for this moment. Most of the morning. She was ready. Or thought she was.
‘Your Highness—’ John began, getting to his feet.
Rashid brushed him aside. ‘Please sit.’
Polly knew the moment he saw her. It was a fleeting glance but she knew he’d remembered it all. Their conversation in the garden. Their kiss. It was there as a sudden flare in his eyes and she knew hers responded.
What would have happened if she hadn’t pulled back? Would they be lovers now? Would she know what he looked like naked? Know how his skin felt beneath her fingers?
If only she’d been braver. That was the regret. She might never have the chance agai
n to know what a man like Rashid Al Baha would be like as a lover.
The sensible part of her brain saw no problem with that. He was obviously a highly sexual man and, for him, it would have meant nothing. It was different for her. Her heart and soul went with her body. If she became his lover she would carry him with her the rest of her life.
‘I have had to make some changes to your itinerary.’
John made a guttural sound as though he were about to speak. Rashid’s blue eyes turned on him and the other man sat back to listen.
‘We will be starting in Al-Jalini—’ Rashid nodded to an aide who passed out neatly typed sheets ‘—as opposed to the Atiq Desert.’
‘Are we allowed to ask why?’ Steve asked in his Texan drawl.
A muscle in Rashid’s cheek flexed. It wouldn’t take much, Polly knew, for him to answer, ‘Because I wish it.’ Whatever his reasons were, he didn’t like being questioned on them.
‘We went to some pains to keep the details of your visit private. Unfortunately it would seem our security measures have been breached and we must make adjustments. Your safety while in Amrah is my responsibility.’
‘We’ll need to run these changes by the London office,’ John said after a cursory glance down at his paper.
‘It has been done. But, of course, you will wish to confirm.’
Polly looked from John to Rashid and back again. There seemed to be more passing between the two men than the words they spoke.
‘“We?” Are you proposing to accompany us, Your Highness?’
‘Certainlyas far asAl-Jalini.’ Hist one was uncompromising. Certainly left no room for debate. ‘By then there will be clearer intelligence as to whether I need to be concerned.’
John nodded. ‘Thank you.’
‘If you have any questions about these amendments, please speak to Karim Al Rahhbi,’ he said, indicating the aide who had passed round the papers.
Polly made a show of looking at the new itinerary, but the point that interested her most was that Rashid had decided to accompany them. There’d never been even the faintest suggestion of that. Slightly scarier was the way her stomach seemed to have leapt into her chest cavity at the thought of time with him, whatever the cause.
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