‘I knocked but you didn’t answer, so I thought I’d better check on you.’ His dark eyes drifted over her, bringing a tinge of colour to Lexi’s wan face. ‘How are you feeling?’
Vulnerable, but no way would she admit it to him. ‘Better.’ She instinctively crossed her arms over her breasts, wishing she had pulled on the towelling robe that she’d noticed hanging on the bathroom door. ‘At the risk of sounding like a corny line from a film, where am I?’
‘My English home, Montgomery Manor. Windsor is less than half an hour’s drive from Henley-on-Thames, although it took longer to get here last night because you needed me to pull over a couple of times.’
Lexi felt mortified that he had seen her at her most undignified, throwing up in a gutter.
‘Did you undress me?’ she asked curtly. She had a hazy recollection of being carried up a flight of stairs and placed on a bed, and she remembered feeling her zip being drawn down her spine and the sensation of cool air on her body as her dress was removed.
‘There you go, jumping to conclusions again, like you did about Tania,’ Kadir said mockingly, but Lexi heard anger in his tone. ‘You were so ill you couldn’t even walk. Do you think I took advantage of your defenceless state to strip you...and do what—look at you, touch you?’
She bit her lip. ‘I had a particularly bad reaction to shellfish last night. I don’t remember much after you carried me out of the Fairfaxes’ house. All I know is that someone took my dress off. I recall that someone stayed with me and gave me some water.’ Someone had slipped an arm around her and held a glass of water to her lips. She remembered gentle hands wiping a cool flannel over her feverish brow.
‘My housekeeper put you into bed and took your dress away to be cleaned.’ He shrugged. ‘I called my doctor and explained your symptoms, and he advised me to stay with you until you’d stopped being sick.’ His jaw hardened. ‘Believe me, helping you to the bathroom a dozen times did not send me into a frenzy of sexual excitement.’
Kadir watched a stain of colour run along her high cheekbones and some of his anger abated. There were dark circles beneath her eyes and she looked fragile, but he sensed she would hate showing any sign of weakness. He had never met a woman who infuriated and intrigued him as much as Lexi Howard did.
It was a long time since he had been so turned on by a woman, he acknowledged. He was even beginning to question his plans to employ the Flight Captain as his private pilot. But the truth was that she was exactly what he needed and he would have to ignore his inconvenient throb of desire and try to forget that the uptight Ms Howard had a penchant for skimpy, sexy underwear.
Last night, when she had been sick for hour after hour, he had been more concerned about persuading her to take sips of water to prevent her from becoming dehydrated, as the doctor had instructed, and he’d barely noticed that she was almost naked.
But he noticed now.
When she had emerged from the bathroom, his eyes had been drawn to her nipples, clearly visible through her bra, and the shadow of blonde hair beneath the tiny triangle of semi-transparent material between her legs. He had been right about her wearing stockings. They were held up by wide bands of black lace around the tops of her thighs. Kadir’s pulse quickened and he dragged his eyes from her, feeling like a voyeur, or an excited teenage boy seeing a naked woman for the first time.
In a bid to ease the throb of his arousal he walked over to the window and pretended to be fascinated by the view of Windsor Great Park. ‘Your dress isn’t ready yet,’ he said abruptly, ‘so I brought one of my shirts for you to wear. It’s on the bed.’
‘Thank you.’ Lexi hurried across the room and snatched up the shirt. It was much too big, and as she did up the buttons she felt marginally less exposed now that her underwear was hidden. She had only worn a seamless bra and thong so that they wouldn’t show under her clingy dress. Kadir would have completely the wrong idea about her. She wasn’t a flighty, flirty type of woman who dressed to impress men. She was sensible, serious—boring, taunted a little voice inside her head.
‘As a matter of fact, all my clothes are in the boot of my car. After the party, I’d planned to drive to London to stay at a friend’s flat.’
‘I sent a couple of my staff over to Woodley Lodge to pick up your car.’
‘Thank you,’ Lexi repeated stiffly. ‘I’m sorry to be such a nuisance.’
She looked across the room to where he was standing, half turned away from her so that she could see his proud profile. A weakness invaded her limbs that had nothing to do with her being ill the previous night. Dressed in faded jeans that moulded his firm thighs and buttocks and a cream cashmere sweater that accentuated his exotic olive-gold skin, he was the epitome of masculine perfection. Any woman would find him attractive, she consoled herself. Nevertheless, it was irritating to realise that she was no different to those women in the tabloids who had proudly described every intimate detail of their affairs with the playboy prince of the desert.
She thought about how he had stayed with her during the previous night and taken care of her when she had been ill. Perhaps there was more to him than his reputation as a jet-setting philanderer gave him credit for.
‘Thanks for rescuing me from the party last night,’ she said awkwardly. ‘I guess that makes us even.’
‘It’s hardly the same thing. You saved my life.’ Kadir swung round and gave her a brooding look. ‘In fact, events have worked in my favour because now you are trapped here in my home, which gives us an opportunity to discuss my proposition.’
Needing a distraction from the realisation that without her car or clothes she could not leave Montgomery Manor, Lexi asked curiously, ‘How are you an English Earl and the Sultan of Zenhab?’
‘My mother is English. She met my father when he came to England to buy a racehorse from the Montgomery stud farm, and after a whirlwind courtship she married him and went to Zenhab as his Sultana. Unfortunately, my mother wasn’t cut out for life in a remote desert kingdom far away from Bond Street,’ Kadir said drily. ‘My parents split up when I was seven and I continued to live with my father, but I visited my mother and grandparents regularly and went to school in England. When my grandfather, the tenth Earl, died, the title and estate passed to me. However, I do not spend as much time here as perhaps I should. It was my destiny to rule Zenhab.’
But there was a price to his destiny, Kadir thought heavily. To claim the Crown from his uncle, he had been forced to agree to an arranged marriage. His jaw clenched. It was time for him to honour his promise. This trip to Europe would be his last as a single man, and on his return to Zenhab he would set a date for his wedding.
The prospect felt like a lead weight inside him. He tried telling himself that most men faced with imminent marriage, even to a woman they loved, would feel a sense of panic. He did not love his future bride; he had never met her. But until three days ago he had been resigned to fulfilling his duty.
Why was it that since he had met Lexi Howard he had felt a sense that prison bars were closing around him, sealing his fate? Perhaps it was because she was off-limits. He had never denied himself a woman before, he thought derisively. Maybe the knowledge that he could not allow the simmering sexual chemistry that existed between them to ignite was the reason for the raw feeling inside him, the curious longing for something he could not define or explain.
He stared unseeingly out of the window while he struggled to bring his emotions under control. His desire for Lexi was irrelevant. It had occurred to him that it would be a good idea to employ a female helicopter pilot to fly his future bride around Zenhab. He knew that Haleema would only be permitted to travel to the palace accompanied by a chaperone, meaning that he would have no chance to meet privately the woman with whom he must spend the rest of his life.
Employing a female helicopter pilot would negate the necessity for Haleema to have a chaperone, and perhaps there might be an opportunity for him to establish a rapport with the princess of the mountain tribes
who would rule Zenhab with him and bear his children.
He swung round, and his eyes were as hard as his heart as he stared at Lexi. ‘The proposition that I want to discuss with you is this. I want you to come to Zenhab and work for me as my private helicopter pilot.’
CHAPTER FIVE
HE WANTED HER to be his pilot! Lexi’s face grew warm as she recalled how she had put a very different interpretation on Kadir’s proposition. In her wild imagination she had even thought that he might suggest that they become lovers. Desperate to hide her embarrassment, she said crisply, ‘Why me? You must have pilots in Zenhab.’
‘Of course, but none of the military pilots who belong to the royal household are trained to fly the model of helicopter that I have bought. What I’m proposing is a six-month contract, during which time you will be my personal pilot and driver, and you will also instruct pilots from the Zenhabian air force on how to fly the AgustaWestland.
‘You are ideal for the job,’ Kadir insisted. ‘Initially, when you joined the RAF, you were a chauffeur for the Commanding Officer of an air force base before you went on to train as a pilot. You flew an AW169 for the coastguard agency and know the helicopter inside out. In Afghanistan you were awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross for rescuing injured soldiers under fire.’
‘You’ve certainly done your homework,’ she said drily.
More than she knew, Kadir mused. Apart from her impressive military record, his security team had dug up a few other interesting facts about her, including the fact that she owed a significant amount of money to various credit card companies. The first time he had met her, he had formed the opinion that Lexi Howard liked to be in control. The news that she had money problems had surprised him, but it worked in his favour.
‘Naturally, the salary I am prepared to pay will reflect your flying experience and expertise.’
The figure Kadir named made Lexi blink. Her job with the coastguard agency had been well paid, but she hadn’t earned in a year what Kadir was offering for six months’ work. The money was tempting, she acknowledged, because it would allow her to pay off the debts that her birth mother had accrued.
Lexi thought of the woman who had given her away when she had been a few days old. Ten years ago, with the help of the adoption agency, she had found her birth mother. But her dream of an emotional reunion had been disappointing. Cathy Barnes had bluntly admitted that she had been a teenager when she had given birth to Lexi, but she hadn’t wanted a baby. ‘I don’t know your father’s name. I didn’t ask names. I just met clients in hotel rooms and they paid me for what they wanted. They were mostly businessmen with fat expense accounts to blow.’
Lexi still remembered how shocked she had felt when Cathy had revealed that she had been working as a prostitute when she had fallen pregnant.
A few years after she had given Lexi up for adoption Cathy had married, but to this day she had never told her husband that she had a daughter.
It was painful for Lexi to know that she was her birth mother’s shameful secret. She met Cathy sporadically and their relationship was friendly rather than close. But six months ago Cathy had revealed that she had terminal cancer and had broken down as she’d explained that her husband was unaware that she owed a fortune on credit cards. Seeing her mother’s distress had tugged on Lexi’s heart, especially as Cathy did not have long to live. To spare her mother further worry, she had arranged for the debts to be transferred onto her own credit card.
‘What is your answer? I don’t believe you will find a better job offer than mine.’ Kadir’s voice tugged Lexi’s mind back to the present.
She couldn’t disagree with him—it was a darned good job offer, and she needed a job. So why was she hesitating?
She had a sudden flashback to those moments in his hotel suite when he had almost kissed her. The spicy scent of his aftershave had intoxicated her senses, just as it was doing now, she thought. Her nerves jangled as she watched him walk towards her, and her heart thudded erratically as her eyes were drawn to his mouth and she remembered the taste of his warm breath on her lips.
A quiver of sexual desire shot through her body, so intense that it took her breath away. She did not want to want him, and she certainly did not want him to finish what he had started at his hotel, she assured herself.
‘My new helicopter was manufactured here in England and is ready for collection,’ Kadir explained. ‘I plan to be in Europe for another week to attend a number of business meetings before I return to Zenhab.’
‘The AW doesn’t have the range to fly long-haul.’
‘A plane from my Royal Fleet will transport the chopper to Zenhab. I assume you are able to start work immediately?’
‘I haven’t actually agreed to take the job,’ Lexi reminded him.
He assumed way too much, she thought as she watched his heavy brows snap together in a frown. It seemed safe to assume that the Sultan was used to having his own way. ‘What about accommodation in Zenhab?’ she asked abruptly. ‘Where would I live?’
‘At the royal palace. I will need you to be available at all times.’
Lexi was annoyed when she felt herself blush, and she wondered if Kadir was deliberately playing with words to make her feel flustered.
‘You will be allocated a suite of rooms at the palace with access to a private garden and pool, and my staff will do their utmost to fulfil all your needs. All you will have to do is fly my helicopter, and spend a lot of time relaxing in the Zenhabian sunshine. You know, I can’t help thinking that maybe we got off to a bad start,’ Kadir murmured.
Lexi’s brows lifted. ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’ she said drily.
His mouth crooked into a sensual smile that caused the heat inside Lexi to burn hotter.
‘Can we start again—as friends? I’ve seen that you are an excellent pilot, and I would very much like you to work for me, Lexi.’
She would be a fool to turn this job and high salary down. All she had to do was spend six months in his desert kingdom—at a royal palace. How hard could it be compared to a dusty military camp in Afghanistan? Lexi asked herself. A traitorous thought slid into her head that the palace staff could not fulfil all her needs—followed by the even more treacherous thought that undoubtedly the playboy Sultan could!
But she would never be any man’s plaything. She would never be a rich man’s whore like her birth mother had been.
Whatever had happened in the past, Cathy needed her now, Lexi reminded herself. Had she offered to help her birth mother because she subconsciously hoped that Cathy would love her enough so that she would publicly recognise the daughter she had kept secret for nearly thirty years? Deep inside Lexi there was still the little girl who had studied a family photograph and wondered why she looked so different to her parents and baby sister. That had been the day she had learned she was adopted, and even at the age of five she had understood that she was on her own.
She lifted her head and met Kadir’s deep brown gaze, determined not to melt beneath his charismatic smile.
‘I’m confident that we can have a mutually respectful relationship, Your Highness,’ she said coolly. ‘I accept your offer.’
* * *
A week later, as Lexi lowered herself into the turquoise pool on the rooftop of Kadir’s luxury penthouse apartment in Monaco, she reflected that there were certainly benefits to working for a billionaire. The view of the Mediterranean sparkling in the early morning sunshine was breathtaking, and at this time of the day she had the pool to herself. Not that any of the other members of Kadir’s entourage were likely to use the pool, she mused. His two bodyguards kept themselves to themselves, and the elderly manservant Walif, when he was not attending to his master’s needs, or viewing Lexi with deep suspicion, was often to be found dozing in an armchair.
She wondered what time Kadir had returned to the penthouse, or whether the party he had attended aboard a Russian oligarch’s yacht had gone on all night. Lexi frowned, remembering the gorgeous bikini-cla
d women who had been gathered on Boris Denisov’s super-yacht moored in Monaco’s harbour. Like the other ‘business meetings’ Kadir had attended at the Folies Bergère in Paris and the prestigious Caves du Roy nightclub in St Tropez earlier in the week, she doubted he had spent much time discussing commercial deals when he’d been surrounded by all that naked, nubile flesh.
‘There’s no need for you to wait for me,’ he had told her last night as he’d stepped out of the car onto the jetty and waved to the eager reception committee on the Russian’s yacht. ‘I’ll make my own way back to the penthouse.’
‘Are you sure you’ll have the energy?’ Lexi had murmured drily, earning her one of Kadir’s outrageously sexy smiles that had a predictable effect on her heart-rate. Her gaze had been drawn to the girls on the yacht, with their golden tans and itsy-bitsy bikinis, and she had felt staid and inexplicably angry with herself, life and, top of the list, His Royal Rake—prince of the one-night stand!
It was partly her own fault she felt a frump, Lexi acknowledged. Before they had left England Kadir had chosen a pilot’s uniform out of a catalogue for her to wear, which had consisted of an eye-wateringly short skirt and a tight-fitting jacket.
‘I presume you’re joking,’ she’d said disgustedly. ‘I’m a pilot, not a Playboy centrefold.’ She had ordered a smart grey suit with a sensible mid-calf-length skirt, much to Kadir’s amusement. He seemed to find her a joke and the more she treated him with icy politeness, the more he teased her and tried to draw a reaction from her. Over the past week a battle of wills had developed between them, and Kadir’s weapons of choice were his laid-back charm and his sexy smile that Lexi suspected he was fully aware turned her insides to marshmallow.
She did not understand why she was letting him get to her, or why the wicked gleam in his eyes and his husky laughter when she gave him a withering look bothered her so much. She realised he was playing a game and she had no intention of taking his flirtatious behaviour seriously. But that did not stop her heart from thudding whenever he was near—and as he insisted on sitting next to her when she flew the helicopter, and he occupied the front passenger seat when she chauffeured him in the limousine, her nerves seemed to be permanently on edge.
Sheikh's Forbidden Conquest Page 5
