by Annie West
He thrust aside the weary voice that protested responsibility for the nation was enough, without taking personal responsibility for a stray female too. A female who, given his powerful reaction, was surely trouble.
Yet she had no options, no home.
Who else would take responsibility if not her Emir?
Sayid took his obligations seriously.
‘Thank you for the massage, Lina.’ He withdrew from her touch, ignoring the tingle along his skin and the urge to let her minister to him with those supple hands.
Sayid sat straighter. He would not act on this burgeoning desire.
‘Now.’ He rose and she did too, again with that sinuous grace that drew the eye and made him think inevitably about a soft female body moving against his. His groin tightened. ‘You can retire.’ His voice was gruff. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow. My secretary will schedule a time.’
Her fine eyebrows arched in surprise. Then she smiled, a real smile, unlike that stilted curve of the lips she’d given him originally. The effect was instantaneous. Heat blasted him, feeding an urgent hunger he should be too worn out to experience.
Yet now he didn’t feel worn out. He felt aroused.
‘Thank you, sir. You won’t regret this.’ She actually bounced on the balls of her feet, as if from excitement.
Then she bowed herself out, a diminutive figure who should have looked comical with his shirt hanging loose over those filmy skirts. Instead his gaze locked on her in a mixture of fascination and pure, searing lust.
Seventeen. She’s only seventeen.
Yet there was no mistaking that electric energy, the thunder in his blood and the heaviness in his groin.
Sayid raked his fingers across his scalp and swore.
Apart from her stunning looks, Lina wasn’t like the women he chose for himself.
They were experienced and independent. Passionate enough to appreciate his demanding sex drive and sophisticated enough not to linger. He allowed himself no more than a week of intense carnal pleasure at a time before returning to his onerous responsibilities. It was part of his stringent private control system—giving free rein to his erotic appetites once in a while, then sublimating them while he focused on his work.
Mostly his lovers were foreigners wanting a taste of the exotic in the form of a hereditary prince. And most were blonde. His tastes didn’t run to country-bred brunettes.
Until now.
Sayid swore again, exhaustion forgotten as he remembered those beguiling eyes and that curious mix of innocence and fire that made Lina far too alluring to a man who should know better.
He had to come up with a plan for her. A place for her to live.
Lina couldn’t stay in the palace indefinitely.
His self-restraint only went so far.
CHAPTER THREE
LINA SHIFTED IN her seat. It was a very comfortable seat, but she’d been sitting in it for ages. The Emir’s serious-eyed secretary had looked down his nose at her and warned she’d have a long wait, since the Emir had many important appointments. Far more important, he implied, with a comprehensive glance, than dealing with some tawdry dancing girl.
Lina wanted to tell him the clothes she wore weren’t her choice. She hadn’t been permitted to bring her own clothes with her to the palace, only the outfits her aunt had provided.
She’d stared straight back at the secretary, refusing to drop her gaze, and let him huff and puff. Eventually he’d led her into the library, motioned to a chair and left.
Now, finally, Lina could stand the temptation no more. She’d never seen so many books. They lined three walls. Surely that was more than any person could ever read in a lifetime.
Quietly, she got up and tiptoed to the nearest shelf. The covers were beautiful, leather and fabric in all the hues of a rainbow. Some tall and slim. Others short and stumpy. She reached out and trailed her fingers over one, then another, then another.
Imagine all the secrets hidden in these books. All the nuggets of knowledge. All the explanations of scientific marvels and history. And stories, so many stories contained in this massive collection. Wonderful stories such as her mother had told her and many more besides. The idea left her giddy with the possibilities.
With a quick look over her shoulder, Lina selected a book. Its cover was hard and green with gilt lettering. The secretary hadn’t said she couldn’t touch.
Carefully she slid it out, testing its weight on her hands. She opened it to find gorgeously coloured pictures of plants. A few she recognised, ones that grew in the foothills near her home. Others were unfamiliar. Her fingers traced the delicate shape of one beautiful flower. Its petals were a dark red that looked so real it might have been plucked fresh this morning.
Finally, when she’d looked her fill, she put the book back and moved along the shelf, selecting another at random. This one had a cover of red. Inside there were no pictures, but—
‘Lina.’
She spun, almost dropping the precious book as she started.
The Emir closed the door behind him. Last night, in the warm glow of his lamplit bedroom, he’d thrown her off balance. She’d told herself it was shock because she’d seen so much of his handsome, sculpted body. More than any woman expected to see of a man who was not her husband.
Yet that same thrill of excitement ran through her veins as he crossed the room towards her with that easy stride. The same breathlessness at his sheer masculine beauty and that aura of power he wore as surely as the fine white robes. His face, against the pale fabric, was bronze and arrestingly handsome. His eyes dark and penetrating.
And she knew exactly what he was like beneath his clothing. The moulded muscles, the hard, intriguing line of his shoulders. The wisp of black hair that bisected his flat belly and dipped below his trousers.
That explained why her heart hammered too fast and why, low in her body, she felt a rush of unfamiliar molten heat. It was reaction to him as a man, not as her ruler.
The realisation brought a flush to her cheeks and she hurriedly looked down at the book, open in her hands.
‘It’s good to see someone making use of the library. I doubt my uncle ever opened the books and I haven’t had time yet. Is it something interesting?’ His tone was gentle. Clearly he tried to put her at ease. As if she were his equal, not his...possession. Her breath hitched on the thought.
He stopped before her and every hair on her body prickled in awareness.
‘I...don’t know. I just opened it.’
There was a long pause. Then he reached out and lifted the book from her hands. But instead of keeping it, he merely turned it up the other way and gave it back to her.
Lina stared down at the lines of writing, warmth rising in her cheeks. She swallowed but didn’t look up.
‘Lina?’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Can you read?’ She heard the whisper of kindness in his voice, a note that reminded her, abruptly, of her long-dead mother. For even her father, though not mean or cruel, had never been tender.
A lump formed in her throat.
‘Lina?’ That tone, though gentle, compelled. She felt the force of his will drag her head up till her gaze collided with his. She shivered as fire and ice made her skin tingle and her backbone stiffen.
‘No, sir.’ Shame swamped her. She hated to admit the deficiency. It seemed to reinforce every cliché that had been thrown at her and her mother by her father’s relatives and many of their neighbours. As if their lack of learning was a character flaw rather than a lack of opportunity.
‘But there are schools in your town. I’ve seen them.’ The Emir’s brow knotted.
Lina nodded. She’d pleaded to be allowed to attend. But it had not been deemed appropriate.
‘My father didn’t believe it necessary for females to attend school. My mother wanted me to go, but she die
d when I was young and there was no one else to persuade my father.’ She paused, feeling it necessary to explain. Her father hadn’t been evil, just set in his ways. And he’d been disappointed that his only child was a girl. ‘He had very traditional views.’
Lina’s mother had been his second wife, twenty years his junior. She’d been beautiful, clever and charming, but faced prejudice because poverty and lack of education had forced her into becoming a dancer, performing in public before her marriage. That prejudice tainted Lina too, as if despite her careful upbringing, her morals were questionable because of her mother’s previous profession.
‘Do you want to learn?’
Lina blinked up at the grave face before her. Was he serious?
If it were her uncle or one of his sons asking, she’d expect some sort of teasing trick, to raise her hopes then dash them. But this was the Emir. The man who’d listened to her last night when he could have ignored her. Who’d been polite and almost gentle, despite his obvious fatigue.
The man who’d allowed her to go to her own bed, alone and untouched, instead of doing any of the things she’d been told he’d demand of her.
She hadn’t slept all night, going over and over each word, each gesture and nuance in her mind. The more she’d remembered, the more the glow of warmth inside her built.
‘Of course! I tried to find someone to teach me. But it didn’t work out.’
She’d made the mistake of asking one of her cousins. The quiet, scholarly one who didn’t make brash jokes in her presence and who’d seemed almost pleasant. Except their ‘lesson’ had lasted about five minutes before his hands started to wander. Then he’d grabbed her and tried to kiss her and Lina had never been so glad to see her aunt as when she’d burst in, even though it meant Lina was locked in her room for the next week as punishment.
Her hands shook so much she closed the book and put it down on the shelf beside her. ‘Would you...? Could I really learn to read and write?’
Hope nosedived at his suddenly fierce expression. As if her excitement displeased him. For a long moment he stared at her, his mouth a grim line. Then he nodded curtly and swung away to take a seat behind his imposing desk.
‘Of course it’s possible. In fact, it’s necessary if you’re going to make your way in the world.’
He gestured for her to take the seat before him. It made her feel a little like she had as a child, called before her father to account for some misdeed. Except, despite the shimmer of tension in the air and the hint of anger in the Emir’s tensed jaw, there was compassion in his eyes.
‘Clearly you can’t stay here in the palace.’
‘But I—’
A raised palm stopped her words and she shivered, realising she’d been about to argue with the man who held not only her fate, but her nation’s, in his palm. Her aunt had been right. Lina needed to curb her tongue.
‘I don’t keep a harem and when I want a woman it will never be someone forced to attend me.’
A shiver rolled through her, pulling her flesh tight. In that instant she was sucked straight back to those long nights of terror, waiting to be called before the Emir, to do whatever he commanded.
Yet now Lina felt that, if this man smiled and spoke to her in the smoky, caressing tone he’d used a few minutes earlier, she’d go to him willingly. She might be nervous about learning first-hand about sex, but her shimmy of excitement hinted she’d be avid to learn if Sayid Badawi taught her.
The realisation stopped her tongue.
‘However,’ he said, his voice serious, ‘you’re now my responsibility. I can’t send you back to your family, since they treated you so badly.’ His eyes flashed and, despite his even tone, she realised he was very, very angry. With her aunt and uncle? The grim line of his jaw accentuated the heavy beat of a pulse in his throat and she was struck with the idea they would suffer for bundling her off here.
Lina felt her eyes grow round and her mouth sag open. She knew because she’d overheard them speaking, that her aunt and uncle believed sending her to the palace would not only remove her from their sons but gain them favour with the Emir.
The old Emir. Not the new one. Sayid Badawi was not cut from the same cloth as his uncle.
‘Given the circumstances in which you arrived, you can’t stay in the palace. People would misconstrue your...role.’
Lina wasn’t exactly sure what misconstrue meant. She assumed the Emir didn’t want people believing she was his concubine.
After all, she was nothing but an uneducated provincial. Even a woman as inexperienced as Lina understood that this man, with his power, wealth and chiselled looks would have his pick of stunning women. He’d only have to click his fingers and they’d flock to him like doves to grain.
Why, he probably already had a lover, perhaps secreted here in the palace.
Heat flushed Lina’s cheeks as she remembered where her mind had wandered last night as she’d thought about the Emir, his kindness and his charisma. His cedar wood and bitter orange scent that made her feel curiously giddy. That zing of awareness when she touched him.
Of course he had a woman. It was ridiculous to think he’d ever want someone like her. Someone who didn’t even know how to hold a book the right way up!
‘I’ve decided to treat you as my ward.’
‘Your ward?’ She looked up and found herself snared by dark-as-night eyes. Another tiny shiver scudded down her spine.
‘I will be responsible for you until you can make your own way in the world.’
Slowly Lina nodded, biting down a question about how she was meant to do that when she only had domestic training.
‘Like an uncle,’ he added, as if to clarify.
Lina blinked. Anyone less like an uncle she couldn’t imagine. He was far too young for a start. Closer to her age than her uncle’s. Besides, she couldn’t imagine what she felt for the Emir was at all appropriate between niece and uncle.
‘You understand?’
Did he think her dim-witted because she couldn’t read the words in his precious books?
‘Yes.’ She clasped her hands before her. ‘You will act as my guardian.’
‘Precisely.’ He nodded, then sat back in his chair as if pleased that point was understood. ‘Now what would you like to do?’
‘Sir?’
‘What would you like for the future?’
Lina tried not to gape and probably failed.
No one ever, in her whole life, had asked what she wanted her future to be. It had always been assumed that her father would find her a suitable husband and she’d devote herself to looking after him and the family they’d have. Or, if her aunt were to be believed, she’d become a dancing girl or worse, pandering to the desires of men.
The enormity of the question stole her voice.
Eventually he spoke again. ‘You must have some desire. Some dream.’
Suddenly Lina remembered those childish hopes she’d once harboured. Hopes encouraged by the foreign archaeologists who’d worked for years near her home. They’d been entertained in her house when she was young, and, to her delight, there had even been women archaeologists. Lina had spent years tagging along behind them, before she was considered too old for such freedoms.
‘Lina? What is it you want?’ That deep voice yanked her back to the present.
The foolishness of those old hopes hit her anew. She could never do what she’d dreamed. And yet, here she was, sitting with the man who ruled Halarq, a man who’d brought peace to her nation, and he was asking her what she desired. Asking. Surely anything was possible here with this extraordinary man?
‘I want to learn,’ she said before she lost her nerve. ‘To read and go to classes and find out about the world.’ Her throat constricted at the daring of what she asked but she hurried on. ‘And I want to visit France and America.’
The
re. It was out. Her breath came in rough little pants and her fingers trembled against the carved wooden arms of the chair. She knew she’d been too daring. But she’d been unable to resist.
‘Why those countries?’ Instead of berating her for not requesting something sensible, like an apprenticeship to a seamstress, the Emir leaned forward as if curious. ‘It would be hard when you don’t speak the language.’
‘But I do!’ She beamed at him. ‘At least I used to. I spent time with the foreigners digging up the past in the old city ruins beyond my town. I have a good memory and they said I’m quick with languages.’
Clearly he wasn’t convinced. Yet nor did he dismiss her claim. Instead he sat in brooding silence, his elbows on the desk and fingers steepled beneath his chin.
Lina barely dared to breathe for fear of disturbing him as time stretched from seconds into long minutes.
‘Very well.’ Finally he sat back. A smile skated across his face and Lina caught her breath. In repose his face was serious yet handsome. But when he smiled it felt like angels danced in her soul.
‘I won’t promise America or France, but I can give you the opportunity to learn.’ He paused as if considering. ‘My secretary will arrange a teacher. If, by the end of a week, that teacher confirms you’re working hard and willing to learn, you will have the opportunity to go to school.’
Excitement was the buzz of a thousand bees in her bloodstream. ‘Sir, I can’t thank you enough. I—’
His raised hand cut her off. His expression turned serious. ‘It’s inevitable that gossip will get out about how you came here and about our...relationship.’
He said the word as if he tasted something unpleasant and instantly Lina’s warm glow subsided. ‘Given that, if you show promise, you will attend school outside Halarq.’
Lina nodded, torn between delight and the need to pinch herself to check she was awake. ‘But won’t it be expensive?’
