by Kim Lawrence
‘You’re not seriously going like that?’
‘I was aiming for tacky and taste less.’ Maybe, she conceded, catching her own reflection, she had gone too far.
‘You achieved it,’ Khalid promised, lifting his eyes from the exposed upper slopes of her breasts and wiping the beads of sweat from his brow.
‘Thank you. I’m just hoping I don’t fall off the heels,’ Beatrice admitted.
‘This is never going to work,’ Khalid groaned suddenly.
‘Not if you go into it with such a defeatist attitude,’ Beatrice agreed. ‘Look, if we’re going to do this we’re going to have to do it properly.’
She had spent most of their journey bolstering Khalid’s flagging resolve, and this fresh crisis of confidence when her own nerves were jangling was not what she needed. She controlled her impulse to tell him to show a little backbone and forced a coaxing smile.
‘I know you think this brother of yours is omnipotent, or something.’
In Beatrice’s opinion he was nothing but a control-freak bully, and she was looking forward to taking him down a peg or two.
‘But the fact is he was the one who thought we were an item…’ She was encouraged to see Khalid smile.
‘Is it always this hot?’ she asked, flexing her shoulder blades to ease the clingy cloth of her dress away from her sticky skin as they crossed to the waiting helicopter.
The heat had hit her like a solid wall as they had left the air-conditioned comfort of the private jet with the royal logo emblazoned on its wings.
‘No, there’s usually a breeze from the mountains. Bea, are you sure you want to do this?’ Khalid asked suddenly.
Beatrice wasn’t, but she knew it was too late to turn back now. ‘I’m looking forward to giving your brother a headache. I was actually wondering if there are any other male relatives other than him I can try and seduce.’
Khalid’s expression grew seriously worried. ‘Look, Bea, I know you think this is some sort of joke, but you can’t play games with Tariq. You’ll get hurt.’
‘I really don’t know why you’re so afraid of this man.’
‘I’m not afraid of him,’ Khalid protested. ‘He’s actually a great person, and I can’t tell you how many times he’s bailed me out of trouble,’ he admitted, looking sheepish. ‘It’s just when he decides something…’ He shrugged. ‘Well, you should understand—you’ve got some pretty strong views too.’
‘Are you saying I’m like your brother?’ Beatrice was appalled at the suggestion she bore any similarity to him.
Khalid grinned. ‘No, you’re much prettier. Now, have you been in a helicopter before?’ he asked as they reached their waiting trans port.
‘Never, but I’m always up for a challenge.’
As the helicopter hovered Khalid pointed out the cave homes carved into the same red rockface from which the royal palace rose. It was magnificent, and looked like something a special effects artist had created, Bea thought.
‘They were actually lived in as recently as the sixties,’ he said.
Bea gave up trying not to be impressed.
‘Now,’ Khalid explained, ‘they are pre served—like a sort of museum.’
‘For the tourists?’
‘Tariq,’ he told her earnestly. ‘He thinks it is important to remember where we come from.’
For a split second she felt a stab of envy. It must be nice to know exactly where you came from, to have a place and people you identified with—to have roots. Then she pushed aside the wistful thought. She might not have roots, but at least she had her freedom, and no brother telling her how to live her life.
This wasn’t the first time Khalid had quoted his brother. It seemed to Beatrice that the biggest favour she could do Khalid was to get him out from under his brother’s thumb—though maybe it might not be as easy as she had first thought. It was never easy to break the habit of a lifetime, and thinking his brother’s opinion on any subject was the definitive one was clearly not a recent development.
There was an air-conditioned limo waiting to whisk them the short distance inside the walls of the palace compound, and Beatrice welcomed the luxury and brief respite from the heat.
‘Sir…’
The deferential manner everyone here adopted towards Khalid was going to take a bit of getting used to, Beatrice decided as she waited for this man to finish talking. She didn’t under stand a word that was being said, though the manner of both the man and Khalid suggested urgency.
‘Is something wrong?’ she asked, when the older man bowed low and vanished down the long marble-floored corridor, which resembled the several other marble-floored corridors they had already walked along.
‘I’m afraid so,’ Khalid admitted with a rueful grimace. ‘There’s a problem with the new irrigation project up in the southern desert and they need me. Tariq is waiting.’
Beatrice placed a soothing hand on his shoulder. ‘Go, Khalid—I’ll be fine.’ Lost, but fine, she thought, looking down the seemingly endless corridor.
‘Really?’ Khalid smiled his gratitude. Still he hesitated. ‘I hate to leave you like this.’
‘Will you go?’ Beatrice gave him a playful push just as a young woman appeared. Like the other women she had seen in the compound, she wore her hair covered but had no veil, and, like those other women, this one stared in fascination at Bea’s fiery hair.
‘Azil, here, will show you to your rooms. I’ll be as quick as I can, I promise.’
The sweet-faced girl, her big doe-like eyes encircled by kohl, smiled shyly at Bea and began to walk down the corridor. Beatrice struggled after her in the unfamiliar heels. She felt that wearing her usual uniform of sneakers, jeans and T-shirt would have failed utterly to convince the awful brother that she had what it took to enslave anyone, let alone a member of royalty!
‘Could you hold on a moment? These things are killing me.’
‘Pardon?’
Rolling her eyes, Bea pointed down at her feet. ‘The shoes—I have to take them off.’
The girl watched in astonishment as Bea removed first one spindly-heeled shoe and then the other. Then, as Bea wriggled her toes and sighed with bliss, she giggled.
She was still giggling when a shadow fell across them.
Bea turned her head, the shoes dangling from her fingers falling noisily to the floor. She did not need the girl’s sudden deferential manner to tell her who was standing there. All the hairs on the nape of her neck were standing up in warning.
He said something to Azil that caused her to bow her head and hurry away.
Bea felt a strong desire to follow her.
Tariq turned slowly. The last time they had met, her face had been bare of make-up, but now she had plastered it on liberally. The outfit she wore was simply outrageous, and was so obvious it was almost amusing.
But he didn’t laugh. It would be a mistake to underestimate her. He had seen the sinuous, overtly sexual way she had moved as he had watched her and Khalid cross the court yard together from the tower room. He did take some encouragement from the fact they had not behaved like lovers who could not keep their hands off each other—in fact they had not touched at all.
Had there been a lovers’ tiff? Had seeing this woman in his home environment made his brother appreciate how ludicrous such a liaison was?
As their eyes connected Beatrice felt a wave of heavy inertia wash over her.
In a suit, Tariq had looked in credible, but with the dusty heels of his riding boots visible beneath flowing desert robes, and his face framed by a guttrah, he looked like nothing she’d ever seen outside her most unrealistic fantasy.
Beatrice closed her open mouth and prodded her antagonism into life. Of course he isn’t like any male you’ve ever seen, Bea. He looks as if he’s just walked out of a Bedouin tent.
For some reason she’d been expecting him to be dressed in Western attire, and she hadn’t been mentally prepared for the sort of rampant sexuality he radiated.
Calm down, Bea. Underneath the outfit he’s just a man like any other—except for his inflated opinion of his own importance and his unlimited reserves of money.
She responded to her own advice and lifted her chin—she’d die before she’d let him see how intimidated she felt.
I’m calm and I’m in control, she told herself as he moved a step closer with a fluid grace that made her stomach muscles clench and quiver in a disconcerting way.
She looked at him and reminded herself that this was the man who was out to ruin the lives of her friends.
Only she wasn’t going to let him.
She took a deep breath that had an unfortunate effect on the too-tight bodice of her dress. Despite the heat a rash of goosebumps erupted under her skin, and her scalp tingled as she absorbed the chiselled planes and contours of Tariq Al Kamal’s amazing face.
Beatrice knew he was half-English, but there was very little hint in his face of his European heritage. His cleanshaven jaw was angular, and his strongly defined razor-edged cheek bones echoed the primitive sybaritic quality suggested by the curve of his sensually sculpted lips.
He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen.
‘I thought you were waiting for Khalid.’
‘I am going to join my brother shortly.’
‘Gosh, you take your duties as host very seriously. I’m touched.’
He did not respond to her gushing in sincerity. ‘If you are not here when we return I will double my initial offer.’
‘Tempting,’ she drawled, dredging up a smile from somewhere. ‘But, you know, now I see the place it’s like I said. I rather fancy myself as a princess. It’s every little girl’s dream, you know.’
‘You are not a little girl,’ he said, looking at her cleavage. ‘I also wonder if Khalid realises you’re the sort of woman who runs to fat.’
‘I doubt it. One of life’s great in no cents—that’s our Khalid. He thinks you’re a great guy.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘If you felt anything for my brother, Miss Devlin,’ he hissed, ‘you would not marry him.’
It was difficult not to contrast his manner unfavourably with Khalid’s self-deprecating humour.
She gave a mental shrug. Arrogance was pretty much a prerequisite for someone in his position—someone raised and brought up with the knowledge that he would one day be King.
No wonder, really, she conceded, that arrogance and hauteur were imprinted in every angle and hollow of this man’s sculpted symmetrical features.
She had never been in the presence of someone who exuded a tangible physical charge before. It was extraordinary, almost electrical, she thought, rubbing the tingling flesh on her bare arms and glaring at him.
His eyes dropped once more to her heaving bosom, and Beatrice struggled with the defensive impulse that made her want to cover what suddenly felt like acres of exposed flesh with her hands.
Instead she stuck out her chin and her chest and summoned a brilliant and patently false smile.
‘And call me Bea. After all,’ she said, shooting Tariq a flirtatious look from under the sweep of her lashes, ‘I’m almost family.’
He gave her a look that said, as clearly as a siren, Over my dead body, and gave her a smile as false as her own. His heavy-lidded and extravagantly lashed eyes shone with overt scorn as he murmured, ‘Miss Devlin, you will never be family.’
Beatrice swallowed the bubble of anger and reminded herself that this was the reaction she had wanted as she watched him stalk down the corridor, his white robes billowing around him.
Her own reaction as those dark eyes had moved insolently over her body was less desired. Awareness still tingled along her nerve-endings.
‘Miss…?’ the girl Azil held out the shoes to her.
Beatrice smiled and took them, casting one last look over her shoulder at the tall retreating figure. So confrontations with him were not easy on her nerves…imagine what stuff like that would do to gentle Emma!
CHAPTER FOUR
THREE days later Beatrice knew her suite and a small section of the palace rather well.
She had received exactly two telephone messages from Khalid. Both had been vague about when he’d return. In both he’d hoped she was being looked after.
She had to admit she was being looked after. She was sleeping in the most luxurious room imaginable, she was being waited on hand and foot, and the food was so good she was pretty sure she had already gained five pounds!
They treated her like an honoured guest, but Beatrice felt in all but name like a prisoner in a rather beautiful cage. She knew from Khalid that several members of the royal family had rooms in the palace compound, but she had been introduced to none, remaining totally segregated.
It was subtly done of course—a locked gate or door, a polite ‘this area is private’—but she nevertheless knew her movements were being monitored and restricted. She hadn’t tested these restrictions yet, but that was about to change.
Her mouth firmed as she tied the head scarf supplied by helpful Azil over her bright red hair and tucked in a few stray curls. Then she checked out the long skirt and kaftan top she had selected in the full-length mirror.
She gave her reflection a nod of approval, opened the door of the luxurious apartment and smiled sunnily at the man standing outside.
‘Good morning, Sayed.’
The thickset man dressed in traditional desert garb bowed his head courteously. Though there were others, this older man was her shadow—or jailer, depending on your point of view. She had the impression from the way he was treated that his position in the house hold was not as humble as he would have liked her to think.
‘I’m going out today.’
For once his impassive expression faltered. ‘Out?’ he said uneasily.
She nodded cheer fully. ‘Into the city. I feel like exploring.’
‘I don’t think that is a very good idea, miss…’
‘When he comes back I’ll tell your boss. I’m assuming you report back to the Crown Prince direct?’
There was a pause before the other man swept her a low bow. ‘That is so, Miss Devlin.’
‘Right, I’ll tell him you did your utmost to dissuade me but I took no notice. Would you call me a taxi?’
‘I really don’t think…’
‘Of course my friend in the British Embassy would be perfectly willing to pick me up if you’re too busy,’ she said, amazing herself with her powers of invention. ‘I hate to ask him as he’s always sorting out some diplomatic incident or other, and you know what a pain that is, but he’s always said if I’m ever in town…’
‘I will order a car, miss…’
Beatrice, who had been holding her breath, heaved a sigh of relief as the traditionally garbed figure vanished to make whatever arrangements he deemed necessary. Smiling, she chalked up an in visible point in the air. Of course she might have been in trouble if he’d called her bluff…but she wasn’t going to dwell on that.
Beatrice had no real idea what Tariq Al Kamal the royal pain in the neck intended to achieve by this enforced separation, but she had absolutely no doubt that it was his doing.
She wouldn’t put it past him to deliberately sabotage the irrigation scheme himself, in order to remove his brother from her evil influence! He was probably even now drip-feeding Khalid more poison about her—the irony being that Khalid undoubtedly agreed with his brother concerning her total un suitability for the role of royal consort.
Presumably Tariq imagined this period of isolation—a stranger in a very strange land scenario—would make Bea more malleable and more inclined to accept whatever bribe or threat he was going to offer her when they returned.
If so, his plan had back fired. Beatrice did feel isolated, out of place and lonely, but she also felt mad as hell at being manipulated this way. It might be hard, but she was determined to live up to Tariq’s expectations of her if it killed her.
She smiled in anticipation of seeing the supercilious snake squirm.
>
After the open spaces and tranquil silence of the palace the noise, sheer vibrancy and buzz of the capital stunned Beatrice to silence.
The limousine Sayed had produced made her feel like a modern-day Cinderella—though obviously minus the Prince. Now, as they drove down the wide, tree-lined boulevards of the modern part of the city, he gave her a running commentary on points of interest.
She listened politely, but he was giving her information she’d already read when she had done her research. She knew that Zarhat was politically stable, culturally diverse, and had an economy that was the envy of its neighbours. She knew the people were incredibly loyal to the royal family, and that they enjoyed a very high standard of living. She knew that over the past thirty years the country had re claimed thou sands of acres of desert and that agriculture thrived. In short, many considered Zarhat a model country.
‘I’d like to see the old city.’
‘The streets and alleys are narrow, and it would be difficult to take the car…’
‘I’d much prefer to walk.’
Sayed took a little persuading, but he came round when he saw she was determined.
‘Sayed?’
The older man bowed his head respectfully to the Crown Prince.
‘What is this?’ Tariq pointed at the large box of elaborately deco rated sticky sweet meats on his desk and gave a grimace of distaste. ‘I don’t have a sweet tooth.’
‘I’m sorry, sir, they shouldn’t be here. They’re for Miss Devlin, from the Rajoub family.’
Even her name conjured an image of her lush lips parting under the pressure of his. She would taste— The silence was punctuated by the sound of the pencil he held between his fingers snapping.
Conscious it was his brother who ought to be displaying the classic signs of sexual frustration and not him, Tariq glared accusingly at Sayed. ‘Miss Devlin…?’
