Secrets of the Oasis

by Abby Green

  All he could think about was Jamilah and how beautiful she’d looked just now, with that fall of silky midnight-black hair in a curtain around her shoulders and down her back. His gut clenched. She had looked tired. Faint purple shadows under her huge blue eyes. And that vulnerability had made him want to gather her up into his arms and carry her somewhere far away, into the dark starlit night, and lay her down underneath him. He amended his impulse. He just wanted her. He didn’t want to protect her.

  But he had once… He’d been twelve and she’d been just six when she’d broken through the numbness encasing him to provoke a protective instinct. He could remember the moment by their parents’ graves as clearly as if it were yesterday. She’d been so still, so stoic. He’d felt an affinity with her that he hadn’t felt with anyone else.

  The earth shifted ominously beneath his feet as he had to acknowledge that perhaps Jamilah could be the key to his unfamiliar feeling of equanimity. That thought disturbed him far more than any view could.

  Two nights later, as Jamilah lay in bed unable to sleep, she had to admit to herself that she probably would be better off if she was seeing Salman every day. Perhaps it would inure her to his presence? A voice laughed mockingly in her head at that. But anything had to be better than this awful restless hot feeling. She was useless at work, jumping at the slightest sound. She was turning into a nervous wreck.

  She’d heard people talking and speculating about him—especially the younger girls at the stables. ‘Is it true he’s more wealthy than even Sheikh Nadim?’ ‘He’s the most handsome man I’ve ever seen, but why doesn’t he come to the stables?’

  This last comment had been made dreamily by one of the girls who’d run an errand to the castle. Before Jamilah could say anything, her chief aide, a man called Abdul, had said curtly, ‘He is the Sheikh. And he can do as he wishes. Now get back to work.’

  Jamilah had looked at him aghast. Abdul was the most mild-mannered man she’d ever known, and had worked at the stables for longer than anyone could remember. He rarely opened his mouth to anyone. The girls had scuttled off, and he’d immediately apologised to Jamilah red-faced, clearly mortified. She’d waved off his apology, not knowing where the sudden passion had blazed from, and with the curious feeling that he’d been defending Salman. But from what?

  With a groan of frustration, mixed with anger at her obsessive thoughts about Salman, Jamilah threw back the covers and got out of bed. She stripped off and went straight to her shower, where she endured the icy spray until her teeth were chattering—as if she could numb all feeling.

  ‘You will have dinner with me tonight.’

  Salman’s voice was an autocratic decree from the ruler of Merkazad. If it had been Nadim, Jamilah would have said yes immediately. But it was Salman, and as her suddenly sweaty hand gripped the handset of the phone in her office she said waspishly, ‘Why should I?’

  Salman sighed, and her skin prickled.

  ‘Because we need to discuss some things…’

  Her heart thumped. ‘I have nothing to discuss with you.’

  Salman said, with an edge to his voice, ‘What you said to me the other day appears to be true. As much as I might be acting ruler, I’m being constantly diverted to you.’

  Jamilah couldn’t even feel a bit smug for a second. She just said faintly, ‘I told you you’d need to earn their respect.’

  ‘And until that day dawns I’m afraid that I need you—’

  Jamilah’s mind blanked when he said those words, and she had to concentrate just to keep up.

  ‘To have dinner with me and discuss official business. Or do you want me to bother Nadim and his pregnant wife while they are spending time with her family?’

  Immediately Jamilah answered, because she knew Salman would have no compunction about disturbing them, ‘No. Of course not.’ She continued in a rush, before she could lose her nerve, ‘I’m finished at work by seven. I’ll see you at eight.’

  Salman’s voice was husky. ‘Good. I’ll be looking forward to it, Jamilah.’

  Jamilah let the phone drop with a clatter and put hands to hot cheeks. Suddenly breathless, she had to consciously block out evocative images and memories of those weeks in Paris and tell herself that never again would she be so foolish as to let Salman anywhere near the vulnerable heart of her.

  A few hours later, though, seated in Nadim’s private formal suite, which Salman had moved into, at an intimate dining table, Jamilah was struggling hard to cling on to her sense of equilibrium. Salman sat opposite her in a black shirt. It made him look even darker, more dangerous. She took another sip of delicious red wine and cursed the impulse which had made her change into a black dress and high-heeled shoes. And leave her hair down. And put on the slightest touch of mascara. She told herself it was just armour. And she needed all the armour she could get.

  Salman put down his knife and fork and sat back, wiping his mouth with a napkin. She’d once teased him about the single-minded way he ate. To block the insidious memory, she commented, ‘You’re not drinking…’ And then she smiled sweetly. ‘Still recovering from last week? They say it gets harder with age to cope with the after-effects.’

  Almost curtly Salman said, ‘I don’t drink.’

  Jamilah frowned, and Salman’s whole body tightened. If she had any idea how aroused and hot he was for her right now she’d run a mile. Since Hisham had shown her in earlier he’d been in a state of heat and lust. He’d expected her to be in jeans and a shirt, and wouldn’t have been surprised to see mucky riding boots.

  But she was dressed in something floaty and black. And, while it revealed nothing overt, it clung to her soft bountiful curves with a loving touch. All he wanted to do was smash aside the table between them and rip it off her.

  He forced an urbane smile and tried to clamp down on his recently dormant but now raging libido. ‘And I don’t do drugs, either.’

  Jamilah was reminded of how he’d certainly appeared sober enough the morning she’d found him passed out. His admission made her feel funny…curious. She shook her head, not understanding. ‘How could you bear to be around those people, then? How could you invite them here and let them run amok like that?’

  Salman smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. ‘What can I say? I’m drawn to their instinctive hedonism. I find their lack of engagement with reality fascinating.’

  Jamilah had the sudden inexplicable sense that he envied those people, and battled her growing curiosity. Her voice was scathing. ‘I find that hard to believe. It would be impossible to stay in any kind of proximity to that kind of world without being out of your head.’

  His eyes darkened to unreadable black. ‘Believe it or not, I’ve been drunk once, and only once.’

  At that admission, which Jamilah could see he didn’t welcome, his face shut down, became impassive. Jamilah remembered then that Salman had never drunk to excess during the time she’d been with him.

  And then he said, ‘What about you, Jamilah? Are you such a paragon of virtue that you’ve never over-indulged?’

  Jamilah’s insides contracted. She could remember heady nights of wine and food when she’d been with Salman, the delicious tipsiness that had imbued her and Paris with a magical hue of romance. It certainly hadn’t done the same for Salman. Almost unconsciously she pushed away her half-full glass and answered, ‘I’m no paragon of virtue, Salman, but, no, I don’t feel that I need to see life through a veil of inebriation and crippling hangovers.’

  He smiled mockingly, and she couldn’t fail to notice something unbearably bleak this time. ‘Because you wake up each morning with a sense of optimism about your life and the future?’

  Jamilah went still inside. Once she’d been like that. So long ago that she almost couldn’t remember it. But she couldn’t deny that now every day when she woke up there was a dull sense of loss…of emptiness. He didn’t know that losing the baby had made her fearful that she might never get pregnant again. No one knew what she’d been through. And s
he wasn’t about to bare her soul to Salman now.

  Much as she hated to admit it, her sense of isolation had been heightened recently by Nadim and Iseult’s unabashed joy in finding each other.

  She wiped at her mouth perfunctorily with a napkin and sat up straight, looking pointedly at her watch even if she didn’t register the time. ‘What did you want to discuss, Salman? I’ve got an early start in the morning. We’ve got three new colts that need to be broken in.’

  She looked at him then, and was taken aback at the sudden ashen tinge to his skin. Instinctively she leant forward and said, ‘Salman?’

  But, as if she’d imagined it, he recovered. He stood up abruptly and walked over to a cabinet, where he took out some papers. Jamilah felt decidedly shaky, and tried not to let her eyes dwell on his tight buttocks encased in superbly cut black trousers. He turned and came back and her face flamed guiltily. She willed down the heat, hating feeling so out of control.

  He put down the sheaf of documents and she picked up the top one, feeling at a serious disadvantage as he stood looming over her with hands in his pockets. She could see that it was a press communiqué about an important series of meetings of Middle Eastern heads of state to be held in Paris later that week, regarding the global financial crisis.

  She looked up at him blankly. ‘So? What am I supposed to be seeing here?’

  ‘I have to go to Paris in Nadim’s place.’

  Feeling threatened, and not sure why, and also more than a little disturbed by the fact that she wasn’t feeling relief at being informed of Salman’s incipient departure, she stood up and said, ‘Well, have a good trip. I’ll try not to miss you too much.’

  She realised then that Salman hadn’t moved back, and now they were almost touching. With a spurt of panic Jamilah moved, but her heel caught in the luxurious carpet and she felt herself pitching backwards. At her helpless cry, two big hands came around her waist and hauled her up again. Breathing heavily, from fright and unwanted sensation, Jamilah could only look up into the black pools of Salman’s eyes.

  His fingers tightened on her waist and he said ominously, ‘You’re coming to Paris with me.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  IT TOOK a few seconds for his words to sink in, and then Jamilah started to struggle. Her hands were on his arms, and the feel of his bunched muscles was scrambling nearly every thought. Even so, she managed to get out, ‘No way.’

  The thought of going anywhere with this man, much less back to Paris, had cold, clammy horror sinking into her bones. He wasn’t releasing her, and Jamilah stopped struggling. It was futile.

  She asserted stiffly, ‘I’m needed here.’

  To her utter relief Salman released her then, and she took a hurried but careful step back. He lifted up another piece of paper and showed it to her. ‘I think you’ll find that a copy of this is probably in your office, too.’

  Jamilah took it and read, the words swimming before her eyes. She saw that it was from Nadim.

  Jamilah should go with you. There are going to be some important people there from the biggest stables in Dubai, and I’ve already set up some meetings. Unfortunately the meeting in Paris coincides with the annual yearling sales here in Ireland, otherwise I’d go myself…

  She looked up, and dropped the piece of paper to the table before Salman could see her hand start to shake. How could Nadim do this to her? And then she answered herself bitterly—because she’d put on a great show of making them believe that she cared nothing for the fact that Salman was going to be in Merkazad. And this was no more of a request than Nadim had made of her in the past. It was quite usual for her to go to meetings like this if he was otherwise occupied. After all, she did run the Merkazad stables.

  She looked at Salman in shock, something else occurring to her. ‘But it’ll be a disaster if you go. Are you planning on going to any of the meetings with the leaders?’ Before he could answer she said, ‘Do you know how much damage you could do to Merkazad and Nadim if you insult a leader at something like this?’

  She saw something unfathomable cross Salman’s face. For a moment it looked like pride. As if she’d injured his pride. His jaw clenched. He smiled, and it was hard, harder than she’d ever seen. ‘Which is precisely why you should come with me. You don’t want to have a loose cannon wrecking Merkazad’s reputation, do you?’

  He was mocking her. She knew that. And she knew she deserved it. Even though she didn’t believe he could be trusted with such a responsibility. This, after all, was the man who had left the running of his country squarely on the shoulders of his brother for as long as she could remember. Even when they’d been teenagers, and they had been home for the holidays, Salman had regularly eschewed the lengthy lessons in Merkazadi rule and law that Nadim had had to endure in preparation for his role. And yet, for reasons unknown to her, Nadim had never called him on it.

  The tension between the two brothers had always been palpable, and Jamilah was aware that this was the first time Salman appeared to be softening in some respect—taking an interest even if it was somewhat forced and clearly unwelcome. Did she want to be the person who sabotaged that?

  If she was to make a fuss and insist on staying in Merkazad she’d merely be proving to Salman that to her the thought of returning to Paris with him equated to a minor mental breakdown. Her one saving grace at the moment was that he believed her to be over their brief liaison.

  She came to a reluctant decision and told herself she was doing it for Nadim and for no other reason. ‘Fine,’ she said, as blasé as she could, as if it was costing her nothing. ‘I’ll go to Paris.’

  His dark eyes bored into hers so intensely that she started to get hot and tingly. She wanted to ask him to stop looking at her like that, but that would only give away the fact that he had an effect on her. As if he wouldn’t know that already from the wanton way she’d reacted to him in the shower. Her lower belly felt hot.

  He smiled, and her world tilted crazily. ‘Good. You can stay with me.’

  Jamilah faltered as she turned to leave. She looked back at him. ‘But…surely you’ll stay in your apartment? I can stay in a hotel.’

  Salman shook his head. ‘I sold that apartment years ago. I’ve been living in a suite at the Ritz. I have a spare room. You can stay there.’

  Panic setting in, Jamilah blustered, ‘I can look after my own accommodation.’

  Salman waved her suggestion away. ‘Don’t be silly. The meetings are taking place at the Ritz conference centre so it’s the most practical solution.’

  Jamilah stepped out of the plane and breathed the cool November Paris air in deep. She felt stifled, having been cooped up on a small private jet with Salman for a few hours, even though he’d kept himself to himself—surprising Jamilah by immersing himself in documents. She’d seen the headed paper and known they had to do with the meetings and that had surprised her even more. She’d fully expected him to toy with her mercilessly during the flight, but she might as well have been invisible.

  Much to her chagrin that hadn’t made her feel relieved or…good.

  She felt Salman nudge her back. ‘Are you going to stand there all day?’

  Quickly she hurried down the steps and into the waiting chauffeur-driven car. She heard Salman greet the driver by name, and had to assume the man was his personal driver. Within minutes they were joining the hectic stream of traffic, headed for the centre of Paris.

  Emotion surged within Jamilah, despite her best attempts to keep it down. She hadn’t been back to Paris once since that fateful time. She’d been to Nadim’s stables, which were just outside Paris, but not to the city. And yet here she was, with Salman.

  Salman was acutely aware of Jamilah, resolutely facing away from him, looking out of the other window. He could see the line of her exquisite profile. Those long dark lashes. She’d tied her hair back in a chignon, and in her long dark coat she could have been any of a number of stunningly beautiful women in this city. His chest tightened. She was so much more b
eautiful than any of those women.

  He’d had to immerse himself in work on the plane just to stop himself from giving in to a primal impulse to drag her into the sleeping cabin at the back and ravish her. And then, to his surprise, as he’d read up on the topics for the meetings he’d found his interest being stirred and ignited. For the first time in his life he’d felt something proprietorial for Merkazad rear its head. That feeling of vulnerability made his skin prickle uncomfortably.

  Jamilah turned and asked huskily, ‘Why did you sell your apartment?’

  The unbidden answer rose up inside him. Because I couldn’t stand to live there after that day…

  Jamilah watched as something enigmatic lit Salman’s eyes, and felt something in her own chest contract. But then it passed, and he looked away, shrugging. ‘I grew out of it. I wasn’t sure what I wanted instead, so I moved into the Ritz and I’ve been there ever since.’

  ‘It must be a bit…impersonal living in a hotel?’

  Salman looked back and smiled devilishly, every inch of him the supremely successful businessman in his charcoal suit and black coat. ‘It suits me perfectly. And my needs.’

  At the way he said needs Jamilah could feel colour flaring into her cheeks and looked away again. She could well imagine that it did serve his feckless needs. No woman being brought into the suite of a hotel would be under any illusion that their relationship wasn’t as transitory as his accommodation.

  Suddenly angry, Jamilah looked back, to find Salman still watching her. She reacted to that as much as to his words. ‘I feel sorry for you, you know. You’ve cut off all ties with your own home, you live out of a suite in a hotel, you don’t even have a relationship with your brother—’

  Her words were cut off brutally when the space between them was breached and Salman was suddenly there. Her head was in his hands, so close to his that she could breathe him in. She felt his powerful thighs right against hers. Her breath came short and jerkily. Her heart hammered.