by Penny Jordan
Sadie was struggling to get her head around not just what Drax was saying but also the whole Arabian Nights fantasy of being told by the ruler of a Gulf State that he wanted to whisk her off to his kingdom.
However, his purpose in taking her there was not because he wanted her to give him one thousand and one nights of pleasure, as Scheherazade had given her Caliph master with her fabulous stories, but—far more mun danely—so that he could use her expertise to help build a world-class knowledge economy with a world-class financial exchange to rival those of London, New York and Hong Kong. If what she was being told was the truth…
Surely rulers travelled in cavalcades of cars, surrounded by courtiers and security men? They did not drive themselves around in ordinary, if up-market, saloon cars. The ease with which Monika had deceived her still stung. This man—Drax, as she recalled hearing the Professor call him—might physically possess the kind of arrogance that went with high estate, but that did not mean he actually was what he claimed to be.
‘I…it all sounds so far-fetched,’ she told him doubt fully.
The green eyes glittered a look over her that was a combustible mixture of savage fury and arrogant disbelief.
‘You dare to persist in trying to accuse me of being a liar?’
‘I have a right to protect myself from being tricked into another situation in which I end up being out of pocket,’ Sadie defended herself. ‘There is a saying—“If a man makes a fool of me once, shame on him. If twice, shame on me.” You say you are a co-ruler of Dhurahn.’
‘I say it because that is what I am,’ he retorted. ‘I am not Monika al Sawar. I am co-Ruler of Dhurahn, with a moral responsibility towards my brother to act in a way that cannot possibly leave any stain on his honour, just as he has that responsibility to me.’
So much had happened in such a short space of time, the changes in her circumstances had been so seismic, that Sadie suspected she wasn’t in any fit state to make any kind of decision—never mind one as potentially reckless as agreeing to accept the job she was being offered.
And yet what alternative did she really have? She had no money, no family in the true sense to love and support her in England, should she choose to return, no job to return to there, and no passport to return there with, thanks to the man seated next to her, she reminded herself grimly. And what kind of message did that give her—the fact that he was prepared to use such an under-hand method to force her to do as he wished?
‘What if I choose not to accept your offer?’ she demanded.
Drax could hear the uncertainty in her voice. As though he could see into her head, he could imagine her thoughts. She had come to the Gulf in order to change her life in some way; that desire would still exist, despite Monika al Sawar’s behaviour towards her.
‘Why would you do that?’ he asked her coolly. Dhurahn can match everything that Zuran can offer you and exceed it. You would be a fool not to accept. And since I have offered you a job, and I do not offer jobs to fools, you cannot be one.’
Such arrogance. It was breathtaking. And exciting? Was she excited by it? By him? Thoughts she had never imagined were whirling through her head like grains of sand being whipped up by the desert wind, to create a mesmerizing, whirling force that changed the known to the unknown.
This man—powerful sheikh or lying braggart—possessed that same power as the dessert wind, and for better or for worse she was being swept into the maelstrom of excitement and uncertainty he was creating within her.
If he was speaking the truth then surely she would be a fool to turn down this kind of opportunity? Especially now, with no earnings to show for her time in Monika’s employ and the burden of her student loan still hanging over her.
‘If I take this job you are offering me, there will be two conditions,’ she told him firmly.
She was attempting to bargain with him? A woman? Powerless, jobless, trapped in his car, and wholly at his mercy? She was either very foolish or very brave. Vere would appreciate neither of those qualities. He was a fair man, but very autocratic. Whereas he…
He, Drax admitted to himself, was not always fair and autocratic—only when it suited him. Vere often teased him that he was Machiavellian. Drax preferred to think that he understood people and their weaknesses.
‘And those conditions are?’
Sadie took a deep breath.
‘That you return my passport to me and that you pay me—before we leave for Dhurahn—an advance on my salary sufficient to pay for a return ticket to the UK.’
So she had learned something from working for Monika after all.
‘Certainly.’
Sadie looked at him uncertainly, wondering if she had misheard his prompt and affirmative response.
‘You agree?’ she questioned him.
‘I’m beginning to see why Monika found it so easy to manipulate you,’ Drax told her. ‘A good negotiator behaves as though he or she believes themselves to be in an unassailably strong position even if they know that they are not.’
His instincts about her had been right. There was a softness, a vulnerability about her, that would make her perfect for his plans. The fact that in asking for an advance of her salary all she had asked for was the price of her air ticket home added to his confidence in his own intuition.
‘Yes, I agree—but with a condition of my own. And that is that while I am prepared to advance you the money you require before we leave Zuran, I am not prepared to return your passport to you until we reach Dhurahn. Still, you have at least shown some initiative—and I must say that I am impressed that you believe you are in a position to make conditions,’ Drax told Sadie smoothly.
‘And I am amazed that you would want someone working for you who was not aware of their value,’ Sadie countered. When his eyebrows lifted and she saw the cynicism in his eyes, she added swiftly, ‘The fact that Monika cheated me out of my wages does not lessen the value of my qualifications.’
‘I agree. But it does raise questions about your judgement. Academic qualifications on their own are all very well, but the shrewdest and most successful entrepreneurs will admit that it is the instincts they have honed and come to rely on that create the alchemic effect to turn the base metal of mere scholarship into the pure gold of financial genius. And that, surely, is true of every sphere of achievement?’
‘You are the one who offered me a job, not the other way around,’ Sadie felt bound to remind him.
But instead of responding to the anger in her voice Drax changed the subject, demanding coolly, ‘Monika’s accusations against you interest me. What exactly did she mean?’
His question had caught her off guard. Sadie looked away from him, not wanting him to see her naked expression and read in it what she would prefer to keep hidden.
‘She wanted me to…to persuade her clients that certain investments were of better value and more promising than she knew them to be.’
A tactful and evasive answer, Drax acknowledged. But, knowing Monika as he did, it wasn’t one he had any difficulty in interpreting.
‘She wanted you to use your sexual allure to sell unsafe investments, you mean?’ he suggested. It was no less than he had worked out for himself, but it inter ested him to witness her obvious discomfort in talking about it. Because she had felt obliged to give in to Monika’s bullying?
Drax’s good humour evaporated. A woman who had sold herself sexually, even if she had been forced to do so by someone else, was not the kind of woman who could become the wife of a ruler of Dhurahn—even in a marriage that was to be both temporary and unconsummated.
When Sadie didn’t say anything his mouth com pressed. The light mockery disappeared from his voice as he demanded, far more sharply, ‘It was only sexual allure she expected you to use, I trust? And not some thing more intimate…?’
‘There was a suggestion from her that I might flatter some of the clients a little more than I felt was morally acceptable,’ Sadie told him reluctantly. He was, after all, a friend
of Monika’s husband, even if he had made it plain that he did not like Monika herself.
‘She wanted you to have sex with her clients in return for them giving her their business? Is that what you mean?’
‘She never said that in as many words, but it was plain enough what she expected me to do.’
‘And did you?’
Sadie was too outraged to think of being tactful.
‘No. I did not. That is not the way I live my life,’ she told him furiously. ‘And it never will be. So if you are thinking of suggesting that I—’
He stopped the car with such force that she was thrown against her seatbelt.
‘What? You would dare to suggest that I, a ruler of Dhurahn, would sink to such depths?’
Sadie could see how much she had offended him. Where before she had seen arrogance, now she could see a fierce, steely pride.
‘I wasn’t making any accusations. I was simply stating what I am not prepared to do,’ Sadie defended herself.
She was speaking the truth. Drax could see that. Everything was as he had hoped—and expected. She was perfect for Vere, and he was a genius for having found her—and for having seized the opportunity she afforded so swiftly and effectively, he congratulated himself.
He turned his attention back to the road, setting the car in motion again.
‘So it is agreed that you will accept the job I have offered you and will return with me to Dhurahn?’
Was it? Sadie hadn’t given any verbal agreement to do anything, but somehow she wasn’t able to say as much to him. And she couldn’t really blame him for taking her silence as a sign that she had accepted what he had said, she acknowledged, when several minutes later he told her, ‘We should be at the airport in less than half an hour.’
‘I’ll need my passport,’ Sadie felt bound to point out.
The look he gave her reduced her to immediate silence.
‘We will be returning to Dhurahn in my own private jet. Naturally, as an employee I have personally appointed, there will be no need for you to go through passport control either in Zuran or Dhurahn.’
However, he would have to telephone the palace and make his excuses to Zwar’s Ruler for returning to Dhurahn at such short notice, Drax acknowledged.
His own private jet. Sadie struggled not to look too overwhelmed.
‘I am not sure…er…That is…I’m afraid I don’t know your correct title or how I should address you,’ she managed to say uncertainly.
He gave a small shrug of the powerful shoulders she had already noticed.
‘My brother and I both had a very liberal upbringing. Our mother was Irish and our father wanted us to follow in his footsteps and be educated in England and Paris. While the traditionalists in our country still use our titles, since we are modelling our new venture on modern lines everyone will be on first-name terms with one another. Therefore you will address me as Drax.
‘Drax…’
She made his name sound as though she was tasting it—a soft whisper of sound as her lips parted round the ‘D’ and then closed softly on the ‘x’.
‘It is a family name,’ he told her dismissively, irritated with himself for the images that were forming inside his head. He had seen far more beautiful women and had known far more sensually explicit and carnal women—so what was it about this woman that uniquely invested so much of what she said with such an intense sensuality that just being with her had his body in an almost constant state of arousal? It was a reaction to her he would have to destroy, since it was Vere who would have the right to claim her sexually—if he chose to do so.
The sudden savage surge of male possessiveness that gripped him made him frown. He was engaged in a matter of great diplomatic importance—one that must not be prejudiced by some ill-considered sexual lust. He had been too long without a woman. That was all that was causing him to feel desire for her, Drax reassured himself. It was over a year since he had ended his last relationship, and it was no wonder that his body was reminding him of its needs.
There was a very discreet and elegant retired belly dancer who had returned to Dhurahn after the death of her elderly husband and would be more than glad to welcome him into her bed, and she understood the rules that would govern their relationship without him having to spell them out to her. She was only just thirty, and stunningly beautiful.
They were at the airport. Sadie felt her stomach muscles start to clench. Was she doing the right thing? Was it too late for her to change her mind?
Change her mind? So far all the decisions had been made for her, not by her, Sadie forced herself to admit. And yet, if she was honest with herself, there was something exciting and energising about the thought of the career challenge that now lay ahead of her. If he—Drax—this Arabian sheikh who had swept into her life like the hot desert wind and taken her over, was telling her the truth.
CHAPTER FOUR
ZURAN airport was world-famous for its elegance and the number of shops in its duty-free shopping mall.
A snap of his fingers and a few quiet words from Drax had ensured that they were ushered through the airport’s security system by Zurani officials, and her case had been politely but firmly taken from her.
Without knowing quite how it had happened, Sadie discovered that she was obliged to walk behind her new employer, following in his wake as he strode arrogantly through the brightly lit mall with its designer label shops. He spoke into his mobile phone in Arabic, holding a conversation with someone who made him laugh several times. A woman? Sadie wondered. His woman?
The ferocity of the sensation that spiked through her shocked her into stopping abruptly, and it took the hasty apology of someone bumping into her to break her out of the paralysis that had seized her. It wasn’t quite so easy to move her thoughts on. Why on earth had the thought of a man she hardly knew having a sexual relationship with another woman stopped her in her tracks and filled her with such a fierce surge of envy? Envy? That wasn’t what she had felt at all, she hastily denied to herself.
She needed to find something else to focus her thoughts on. Determinedly, she looked around the impressive terminal hallway.
Huge gold palm trees reached up the full three floors of what was claimed to be the world’s biggest and most exclusive duty-free airport shopping mall. Tiny sparkling lights illuminated the trunks and the leaves, and beneath her feet the marble floor was immaculately clean. Everywhere she looked she could see evidence of Zuran’s wealth and status—and that of the travellers filling the mall. Being here reminded Sadie of how she had planned to treat herself to a few new things before returning home, thinking that the salary Monika had agreed to pay her would allow her some small indulgences.
Her wardrobe badly needed revamping; that was for sure. The cheap business clothes she had bought for her first job were now worn and shabby, and not really suited to the Gulf’s hot climate. Monika had promised her that she would provide her with a working wardrobe of clothes on her arrival in Zwar, but as with everything else the promised new clothes had never materialised. Now, looking at the displays in the windows of the shops lining the mall bearing the exclusive logos of well-known high-profile designers, and being surrounded by elegantly dressed women, Sadie couldn’t help giving a small sigh. She was not a materialistic person, but she still paused wistfully to look towards the windows, all too aware of how unfavourably she compared to both the mannequins in the shops and the women around her.
Yes, it would have been fun to treat herself to some new clothes. Fun, but now, thanks to Monika, impossible, she told herself sturdily. She quickened her pace to catch up with her new employer, the co-Ruler of Dhurahn—she still wasn’t sure she would be able to get used to addressing him informally as Drax. She just hoped that she was doing the right thing, that she wasn’t jumping out of one bad situation into another that was potentially even worse—because it was obvious to her that she couldn’t change her mind now. Drax had her passport and she had no money.
Up ahea
d of them several small electric buggies were waiting.
‘These will take us to the Royal runway,’ Drax informed her matter-of-factly as he was ushered into the first buggy. Accompanied by the same officials who had escorted them through the airport, Sadie had to travel behind him.
A group of uniformed and robed officials were waiting to receive them when the buggies came to a halt, and Sadie watched as the waiting men salaamed respectfully to Drax, who in turn merely inclined his head, indicating that there was no question of who was the highest ranking person there.
An immaculate strip of beautiful carpet ran from the exit to the foot of the steps leading up to a gleaming jet waiting on the tarmac, and overhead a canopy had been erected to protect them from the sun. This was travelling as Sadie had never experienced it before.
The robed officials surrounded Drax, their dark silk cloaks billowing in the wind as they escorted him to the plane. Sadie’s escort consisted of a small group of men dressed in white tunics, traditional baggy trousers and richly embroidered waistcoats bearing the device of the Royal Ruling Family of Zuran. One of them was carrying her shabby case. She felt as though she had stepped into some kind of parallel but very unfamiliar world, and if she was honest she was beginning to feel completely overwhelmed by it.
Several smartly uniformed men, who looked as though they must be the pilots and crew, were waiting at the bottom of the steps to the aircraft. Like the officials, they too bowed respectfully to Drax, and Sadie caught an unmistakably Australian twang in the voice of one of them as he murmured respectfully, ‘Highness.’
As Drax started to mount the steps, Sadie hung back. It was almost as though she didn’t exist, as though he had forgotten all about her. Her throat had gone tight, and suddenly she felt very alone and forlorn.
As though somehow he had sensed what she was feeling, Drax turned round to look at her. Although he didn’t say a word, somehow Sadie found that she was climbing the steps towards him, as though compelled to do so by some power that was emanating from him. There was something in the commanding intensity of those green eyes that exerted as much of a pull on her senses as any magician from an Arabian fairytale might have done. A man like this could be dangerous to know for a woman like her, an inner voice warned her, but Sadie refused to listen to it. This was the twenty-first century, and she was far too much of a modern woman to let herself drift off into some foolish fantasy about powerful, sensual desert men and their effect on her sex.
