The Sheikh's Prize

by Lynne Graham

  That process of self-persuasion was incredibly seductive. Throughout his life Zahir had very rarely done what he wanted to do, for the necessity of always considering the needs of others had taken precedence. But why shouldn’t he put his own desires first for once? He had already checked Sapphire’s schedule and she was due to leave Maraban within hours, an awareness that merely made him all the more single-minded. Zahir made his plans there and then with ruthless cool and the same kind of fierce, almost suicidal resolution that had once persuaded him to take a foreign wife without first asking his despotic father’s permission. As that reality and comparison briefly occurred to him he stubbornly suppressed the piercing shard of unease it awakened.

  * * *

  With a sense of merciful release from the strain of being on show, Saffy stepped into the site trailer to change. She shed the skimpy silk bandeau and slashed skirt and peeled off the fake navel jewel before donning white linen trousers and an aqua tee. In a couple of hours she would be on her way home and saying goodbye to the joys of Maraban couldn’t come quickly enough as far as she was concerned. After all, it was the last place in the world she would have chosen to visit, but civil unrest in a neighbouring country had led to a last-minute change of location and nobody had been willing to listen to her necessarily vague objections. But then the fact that nobody had a clue about her past connection to Maraban or Zahir was a relief. Thankfully that period of her life before fame had claimed her remained a deep dark secret.

  So, in spite of all he had once had to say on the score of corrupt hereditary rulerships, Zahir had still ended up taking the throne to become a king. But then, according to what she had read in the newspapers, the citizens of Maraban had not had a clue what to do with the offer of democracy and had instead rallied round their popular hero prince, who had rebelled with the army against his old horror of a father to protect the people. There were pictures of Zahir everywhere: she had noticed one in the hotel foyer with a vase of flowers set beneath it rather like a little sacred shrine. Her lush mouth twisted as she questioned the thread of bitterness powering her thoughts. He was honourable, a big fan of justice and was very probably an excellent king, she conceded grudgingly. It really wasn’t fair to resent him for what he couldn’t have helped. Their marriage had been a disaster and even now her thoughts slid away from the memories with alacrity. He had broken her heart and dumped her when she failed to deliver and she wasn’t really sure that it was fair to hate him for that when by that stage she had been urging him to divorce her for months. Everyone made choices, everyone had to live with those choices and a happy ending wasn’t always included.

  But she had a good life, she reminded herself doggedly as the security team cleared a path for her through the crush of spectators to the waiting limo that would whisk her back to the airport. She now had three glorious days of freedom to look forward to, and a tired sigh escaped her as she touched an admiring fingertip to the silky petal of an impossibly perfect blossom in the beautiful bouquet displayed in a vase inside the limo, while only vaguely wondering where the flowers had come from. When she got back to London, she would first catch up with her sisters, one who was pregnant, one who was desperate to conceive and one who was still at school. Her eldest sister, Kat, was thirty-six and considering fertility treatment while still being full of the newly married joys of her life with her Russian billionaire. After a sticky interview with her tough brother-in-law, Mikhail Saffy was a little less enamoured of her sibling’s blunt-spoken husband. Mikhail had demanded to know why Saffy hadn’t offered to help Kat when her sister had run into serious debt. Well, hello, Saffy thought back angrily—Kat had never told Saffy that she was in trouble and, even if she had, Saffy knew she would have found it a challenge to come up with that kind of cash at short notice. Having made a major commitment early in her career to help support an African school for AIDS orphans, Saffy lived comfortably but not in luxury.

  Saffy’s twin, Emmie, was pregnant and Saffy had not been surprised to learn that Emmie didn’t have a supportive man by her side. Saffy was painfully aware that her twin did not forgive those who hurt or offended her and in all probability the father of Emmie’s child had made that mistake. Saffy knew better than anyone how inflexible her sibling could be because the relationship between the twins had long been tense and troubled. Indeed Saffy could never suppress the surge of the guilt that attacked her whenever she saw her sister. As young children she and Emmie had been very close but events during their troubled teen years had ripped them apart and the two young women had never managed to repair that breach. Saffy would never forget the injuries that her reckless behaviour had inflicted on her twin sister or the many years of suffering that Emmie had endured as a result. Some things were just too bad to be forgiven, Saffy acknowledged sadly.

  In any case, Mikhail and Kat would undoubtedly assist Emmie in her struggles as a single mum—certainly, Saffy knew better than to offer assistance that would be richly resented. But she could not understand why Emmie had chosen to make a big secret of her baby’s paternity. Saffy winced at that thought. While it was true that Saffy had never told her sisters the humiliating truth about her own failed marriage, she felt that she had had good reasons for her silence, not the least of which was the embarrassing fact that she had totally ignored Kat’s plea that Saffy get to know Zahir better and for longer before she married him. Just common sense really, Saffy conceded wryly. Getting married at eighteen to a guy you had only known a couple of months and had never lived with had been an act of insanity. As immature and idealistic as most teenagers with little experience of independent life, Saffy had struggled from the outset with the role of being a wife in a different culture. And while she had struggled, Zahir had steadily grown more and more distant, not to mention his penchant for disappearing for weeks at a time on army manoeuvres just when she needed him most. Yes, she had made mistakes…but then so had he.

  Satisfied with that appraisal, which approportioned equal blame for what had gone wrong in the past, Saffy emerged from her reverie and noticed in surprise that the limo was travelling down a wide empty road that strongly reminded her of an airport runway. As the route back to the airport entailed travelling through Maraban city, she frowned, gazing out in confusion at the emptiness of the desert surrounding her on all sides. Strewn with stones and occasional large volcanic rock formations, the bleak desert terrain was interrupted by little vegetation. And so pervasive was the march of the sand that it was steadily encroaching on the road, blurring its outlines.

  Saffy had never warmed to Zahir’s natural preference for a lot of sand in his vicinity, had never learned to adjust to the extremes of heat or to admire the austerity of such a landscape. Where on earth were they going? Could the driver be taking another route to avoid the city traffic, such as it was? Her smooth brow creasing, she leant forward to rap the glass partition to attract the driver’s attention, but although she saw his eyes flicker in the rear-view mirror to glance in her direction he made no attempt to respond to her. While Saffy was annoyed at being ignored, his behaviour also awakened the first stirrings of genuine apprehension and Saffy rapped the glass harder and shouted for him to stop. What on earth was the stupid man playing at? She didn’t want to miss her flight home and she didn’t have time to waste.

  As she withdrew her fingers from the glass her knuckle brushed against the flowers in the vase and for the first time she noticed the envelope attached to them. She snatched it up and ripped it open to extract a typed card.

  It is with great pleasure that I invite you to enjoy my hospitality for the weekend.

  What on earth? Saffy stared down at the unsigned card. Who was inviting her where and why? Was this why her uncommunicative driver was travelling in the wrong direction? Her even white teeth gritted in angry frustration. Had her lightly clad appearance at the shoot caught the eye of some local randy sheikh? Possibly even the guy in the sand dunes with the binoculars? What did he think she was? Dial-a-tart? No, no, no! Her blue e
yes flashed like twin blue fires. No way was she sacrificing her one free weekend to pandering to the ego of yet another rich man, keen to assume that the very fact she made her living by her face and body meant that she was an easy lay available to the highest bidder! Desert Ice cosmetics was always willing to serve her up to VIPs as the face of its product and the somewhat racy reputation bestowed on her by the tabloids encouraged the wrong expectations and made rejecting amorous men even more of a challenge.

  No way on earth was she spending her weekend with some man she hadn’t even met! She dug through her bag in search of her cell phone, intending to ring one of her colleagues for assistance, but she couldn’t find her phone and only finally accepted that it wasn’t there after she had tipped out the contents of her bag on the seat beside her. She had had her phone in her hand before she got changed, she recalled with a frown. She had set it down…and clearly she hadn’t picked it up again! She ground her teeth together and just for the sake of it attempted to open the door beside her. She wasn’t surprised to find it locked and it really didn’t matter, she conceded ruefully, for she had no intention of risking serious injury by throwing herself out of a moving car.

  Conscious of the anxious glances the driver was now giving her in the mirror, she lifted her head high, her brain working double time. She might feel as if she were being kidnapped, but that was a most unlikely interpretation of her situation in a country as old-fashioned and law-abiding as Maraban. In addition, no Arab host would want an unwilling guest in his home. Indeed making a guest uncomfortable was a big no-no in Marabani culture, so once she politely explained that she had a prior engagement and apologised for being unavailable, she would be free to leave again…only by that time she might well have missed her flight home. Her lush mouth took on a downward curve.

  Only minutes later, the limo came to a halt by the side of the road and with a click the door beside her opened. Saffy’s brow pleated as she climbed out and she thought about making a run for it. But a run for it to where? It was the hottest part of the day and she would burn to a crisp. In addition the road was still empty and they had travelled miles through unbroken desert. As she pondered the unavoidable fact that there was nowhere safe to run to, a large four-wheel-drive vehicle drew up at the other side of the road. The driver jumped out and opened the passenger door wide while regarding her expectantly. Clearly it was an arranged meeting for her to be transferred to another vehicle. Did she accept that? Or fight it…but fight it with what? She glanced back into the limo and studied the glass vase that held the flowers. It was the work of a moment to smash the vase against the built-in bar and retrieve a jagged piece of glass, which she cupped awkwardly in her hand because she didn’t want to tighten her fingers and cut herself on it. Straightening her slim shoulders, she crossed the road and climbed into the four-wheel-drive. The door slammed instantly behind her.

  Was she in any true danger, she asked herself irritably, or was she at even greater risk of being swept along by an over-confident belief that somehow she was still in control of events? As soon as they arrived at their destination she would make it very clear that she wished to return to the airport immediately and if anyone dared to lay a single finger on her she would slash that person with the glass. Now was not the time to wish she had taken self-defence classes.

  The vehicle moved off and performed a U-turn to pass directly in front of the limo and drive down a stony track that ran straight out into the desert. That change in direction took Saffy very much by surprise and she looked out of the windows in dismay at the giant looming sand dunes coming closer to tower all around them as the rough track streaked doggedly ahead. It was very bumpy and very hot because there seemed to be no air-conditioning in the car. Perspiration beading her brow, Saffy gripped the safety rail above her head and gritted her teeth, thinking that possibly she should have made a run for it while they were still on the highway. As the track inevitably vanished beneath the sand the powerful vehicle roared endlessly over the shallow mounds that had taken its place, forging a zigzagging path between the dunes. Finally, when every bone in her body felt as if it were rattling inside her skin, the vehicle began to climb up the steep side of a dune, the engine whining at the strain. At the top she peered out of the window and focused on the sole sign of civilisation within view: a stone fortress with tall walls and turrets that looked remarkably like an ancient crusader castle.

  Oh, dear, she thought with a sinking heart, for it didn’t look as though it would offer the comforts of a five-star hotel and where else could they possibly be heading? And who in their right mind would invite her to such a remote place? Aside of a herd of goats there was nothing moving in the castle’s vicinity.

  The car thundered down the slope towards the building and big black gates spread slowly open as they approached. Through the gates she glimpsed surprisingly lush greenery, a welcome sight to eyes strained by sand overload. The vehicle lurched to a halt and she breathed in slow and deep when she saw staff clustered round an arched entrance. Maybe it was a hotel; certainly it looked at least the equal of the one she had stayed at in the city. As Saffy stepped out heads bowed low and nobody looked directly at her and nobody spoke. Saffy was in no mood to speak anyway and she followed in the steps of the older man who shifted his hand to gain her attention. Her shoes clicked on a polished marble floor and the blessed coolness of air-conditioning chilled her hot damp skin but nothing could have prepared her for the awe-inspiring sight that met her eyes. The amazingly spectacular hall stretched into seeming infinity in front of her. Fashioned of gleaming white marble and studded with gilded pillars and ornate mirrors, it was as unexpected in its sheer opulence inside those ancient walls as snow in the desert. She blinked in bewilderment, gazing up to scan the heavily decorated ceiling far above, which rejoiced in a gloriously well executed mural of a sunny blue sky dotted with exotic flying birds. A few feet ahead her guide hovered to wait for her to move on again.

  Her mouth tightening, Saffy walked on to descend a shallow flight of stone stairs and walk through tall gilded doors into a vast sunlit room, which, although draped in luxury fabrics, was traditionally furnished in Eastern style with low divans and beautiful rugs carefully arranged around a central fire pit where coffee could be made and served in the same way as it might have been in a tent. It was a statement that her prospective host respected the old ways from the far-off years when the Marabani had been nomadic tribesmen. She pushed the piece of glass into her bag.

  ‘Qu’est-ce que vous desirez, madame?’

  Startled, Saffy turned her head to see a youthful maid eager to do her bidding, and well did she recall that sinking sensation at the familiar sound of the French language, which was more commonly spoken in Maraban than English. For a girl who had dismally failed her GCSE French exam, communicating in French had been a major challenge five years earlier.

  ‘Apportez des refraîchissements…bring refreshments,’ another voice interposed in fluent accented French as smooth as honey warmed by the sun. ‘And in future use English to speak to Miss Marshall,’ he advised.

  Tiny hairs prickling eerily at the base of her skull, her eyes huge and her slim body trembling, Saffy stared in disbelief at the man in the doorway. In the corner of her eye the maid bent her head, muttered something that sounded terribly servile and backed swiftly out of the room through another exit.

  ‘Zahir…?’ Saffy framed in shaken disbelief.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘WHO ELSE?’ ZAHIR enquired silkily as she backed away small step by small step.

  Saffy’s heart was in her mouth and she was desperately short of breath because her every instinct for self-preservation was pumping full-blown panic through her tall, slender length. Zahir? Zahir, the King of Maraban. He was responsible for bringing her to the castle/fortress/palace, whatever it was? He was the host who wanted her to enjoy his hospitality for the weekend? What kind of sense did that make for a male who had divorced her five years ago and never once since alluded to the
ir former relationship in public?

  Yet he stood there, effortlessly self-assured in a black cotton shirt and jeans, a casual outfit that however emanated designer chic, for both garments fitted his very tall, well-built frame to perfection. He was one of the very few men Saffy had to look up to even in heels because he was several inches over six feet. Unhappily the sheer impact of his unexpected appearance shattered her renowned composure. For so long she had told herself that memory must have lied, that if she were to meet him again she would not be so impressed as she had been at the tender age of eighteen. And yet there he stood, defying her every ego-boosting excuse. Luxuriant hair with the blue-black shine of polished jet accentuated his absolutely gorgeous face, drawing her attention to the slash of his high exotic cheekbones, the proud arch of his nose, the stubborn jut of his strong jawline and the beautifully defined, wide, sensual fullness of his mouth. He had the lean powerfully athletic physique of a Greek god. And the fiercely stunning dark eyes of a jungle predator. He wasn’t safe; she saw that now. Zahir was not a man who played safe or who gave his woman the freedom to do her own thing, not when he had come to earth convinced of the fact that he always knew best. She had been way too innocent at eighteen and yet already damaged, she conceded painfully, much more damaged than either of them could ever have guessed. In spite of the surge of disturbing memories, butterflies still leapt and fluttered in her tummy at the stirring sight of him: dear heaven, she acknowledged in even greater shock, he could still rock her world.