by Fiona Brand
Letting the drapes fall back into place, she walked to the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea before she showered and got ready for work. Her tiny kitchen, with its appliances fitted neatly to take up minimal space, was about as far away from the exotic isle of Zahir as she could get.
As she sipped hot tea, her reflection in the multipaned window over the counter bounced back at her and she found herself critically examining her appearance. With her hair bundled into a knot, her face bare of makeup, the thick robe making her look ten pounds heavier than she was, she looked washed-out, tired and...boring.
Frowning, chest tight at the thought that at twenty-eight she was no longer in the first flush of youth, she peered more closely at her reflection. Her eyes were blue; her skin was pale; her hair, when it was loose, was heavy, straight and dark. It was the faded robe that drained the color from her skin, and the tight way her hair was scraped back from her face that was so unflattering. She wasn’t old.
Although she would be twenty-nine next month. In just over a year she would be thirty.
The pressurized feeling in her chest increased. She sucked in a breath, trying to ease the tension, but the thought of turning thirty made her heart hammer. She was abruptly aware of time passing, leaving her behind, of her failure to find someone special to love and who would love her back in return.
On the heels of those thoughts an old fear loomed out of the shadows. That her disastrous track record with men wasn’t about bad luck or bad judgment, it was about her; she was the problem. Perhaps some aspect of her personality, maybe her academic bent and blunt manner, or more probably her old-fashioned insistence on being truly loved for herself before sex entered the equation, was the reason she would never be cherished by any man.
Grimly, she considered her two engagements, which had both fallen through. Her first fiancé, Roger, had gotten annoyed when she hadn’t felt ready to sleep with him the week of their engagement, and so had called it off. Not a problem.
The second time she had chosen better, or so she had thought. Unfortunately, after months of dating a fellow teacher, Mark, who had seemed quite happy with her views on celibacy before marriage, she had discovered, on the morning of their wedding, that he had fallen in love with somebody else. A blonde and pretty somebody else with whom he had been sleeping for the past four months.
Normally, she didn’t wallow in the painful details of those relationship mistakes. Burying her head in the sand and anaesthetizing herself with work had been a much more attractive option.
But reading the journal that had recently arrived from her cousin and dreaming that deeply sensual dream had changed her in some imperceptible way. Maybe what she was feeling was all tied up with the realization that her biological clock was ticking. Whatever the cause, she felt different this morning, tinglingly alive and acutely vulnerable, as if she were standing on the edge of a precipice.
And she knew what that precipice was: she was finally ready to try again. Her pulse sped up at the knowledge that after years of relationship limbo she wanted to love and be loved and this time, marriage or not, she wanted the passionate, heart-stopping sex. Adrenaline zinged through her veins at the thought of tossing her old relationship rulebook away. She was tired of waiting, of missing out. She wanted to take the risk, to find a man she could not just desire, but with whom she could fall recklessly, wildly in love.
A man like the dangerously handsome guy she had run into the day before.
Absently, she sipped her cooling tea. In the past, she had been black-and-white in her thinking. She had wanted all or nothing. She didn’t understand how she had become that way. Maybe her deep need for emotional certainty had been fueled by the fact that her father had only ever been a sometime presence in her life. Or maybe it was because she was naturally passionate in her thinking. For most of her adult life “all or nothing” had been the catchphrase that had summed up her approach.
Whatever the cause, it had devastated her last two serious relationships and was already sounding the death knell for the lukewarm friendship she shared with an importer of antiquities and fellow history buff that was the closest thing to a romance on her dating horizon.
Her jaw firmed. If she was going to find someone to love, someone she could marry and have babies with, it was clear she would have to be more flexible than she had been in the past. She would have to change. She would have to bite the bullet and experiment with a casual affair.
And the clock was ticking.
Replacing the mug on the counter, she dragged her hair free of the elastic tie that held it in place. Feeling tense and a little shaky, she raked her fingers through the warm, heavy strands, trying to work some volume into her satin-smooth hair. With her hair tumbling loose to her waist, she looked younger and sexier. Relief made her feel ridiculously light-headed.
She dragged off the robe and let it drop to the floor. The nightie she was wearing didn’t help matters. Made of cotton flannel in an unflattering shade of pale pink, it reminded her of the nightwear her grandmother used to wear. Great for cold nights, drinking hot chocolate and reading a book, but ultimately as sexy as a tent.
The only positive was that beneath the material she had a good figure. Her breasts were shapely, her waist narrow, her legs long and toned from all the walking she did.
Shivering at the chill, she dragged on the robe and returned to her bedroom. Flicking on a light, she flung her closet wide and began examining hangers of clothes she had bought for the honeymoon that hadn’t happened.
Annoyed at how affected she still was by the canceled wedding and Mark’s easy dismissal of her in favor of a woman who had been dishonest enough to sleep with an engaged man, she hauled out slinky clothes and dropped them on the bed. She needed to exorcise the past by either wearing the clothes as if they had not been bought for a special, life-changing occasion, or else give them away to a charity shop.
Sarah arrayed the collection of jewel-bright garments across her bed. With a start, she realized that almost four years had passed since Mark had jilted her.
Four years.
Jaw set at the time that had passed, she selected a red dress. The color was sensual and rich, the silk jersey warm to the touch. With three-quarter-length sleeves and a V-neck, the design was classic. Bought for the romantic honeymoon she had paid for in Paris then cancelled, it was also sexy and sophisticated.
Before she could change her mind, she stripped out of the robe and nightgown and pulled on the dress. The jersey settled against her skin, making her shiver. Strolling to her dressing table she examined the effect of the dress, which, worn without a bra and with her hair rumpled and loose, was startlingly sensual. The deep, rich color made her skin look creamy instead of pale, and turned her dark hair a rich shade of sable. She stared at the bold, definitely female image, feeling oddly electrified, like a sleeper waking up.
The woman in the mirror in no way looked boring or tired. She looked young and vibrant. Available.
Years had passed since Mark had ditched her practically at the altar. Years that she had wasted, and which had been her prime window in terms of finding a suitable mate. If she had been focused by now she would have met and married her Mr. Right, gotten pregnant and had at least one baby.
She had put her lack of success with relationships down to her heavy work schedule. According to her mother, Hannah, the real reason Sarah hadn’t found a relationship was fear. Two engagements had fallen through and in her usual stubborn way Sarah had refused to go out on a limb a third time.
Hannah’s solution had been to produce a constant supply of eligible men from among her interior-decorating business contacts, which was how Sarah had met Graham Southwell. Although, after several platonic dates, she had received the overwhelming impression that Graham was more interested in her connection to the missing de Vallois dowry than in an actual relationship.
As it happened she was meeting Graham that evening. After the revelation of the dream, she could not view tonight as just another dead-end date with a man who did not really see her. Tonight was an opportunity to effect the change that was already zinging through her.
She could not afford to wait any longer for her true love to find her; experience had taught her that might never happen. Like her ancestor Camille, she had to be bold. She had to formulate a plan.
By the time she was ready to leave for work she had settled on a strategy that was time-honored and uncannily close to Camille’s plan to win her sheikh.
Sarah would dress to kill, and when she found the man of her dreams, she would seduce him.
Two
Sarah found a space in the parking lot next door to the historic old building that housed the Zahiri consulate. Situated just over the road from the waterfront, the entire block was dotted with grand Victorian and Edwardian buildings and a series of old warehouses that had been turned into bars and restaurants.
As she stepped out of the car, cold wind gusted in off the sea and spits of rain landed on her skin. Her hair, which she’d spent a good hour coaxing into trailing curls with a hot curling iron, swirled around her face. Turning up the collar of her coat and shivering a little, because the red silk jersey dress was not made for a cold Wellington night, she locked the car and started toward the consulate.
Feeling nervous and self-conscious about all the changes she’d made, especially her new makeup and a pair of black boots with heels a couple of inches higher than she normally wore, she hurried past a group of young men hanging around the covered area outside a bar.
The wind gusted again, making her coat flap open and lifting the flimsy skirt of her dress, revealing more leg than she was accustomed to showing. Her phone chimed as she clutched the lapels of her coat and dragged her hemline down. Ignoring a barrage of crude remarks and a piercing wolf whistle, she retrieved the phone and answered the call.
Graham had arrived early and was already inside on the off chance that he might actually get to meet the elusive Sheikh of Zahir, who was rumored to be in town. Since it was cold and on the verge of raining, he had decided not to hang around outside waiting for her as they had arranged.
Irritated but unsurprised by Graham’s lack of consideration, Sarah walked up the steps to the consulate and strolled into the foyer, which was well lit and warm.
She was greeted by a burly man with a shaved head who was dressed in a beautifully cut suit. He checked her invitation and noted her name on a register. When he handed the invitation back, his gaze was piercing. In New Zealand it was unusual to be scrutinized so thoroughly. She was almost certain he wasn’t just a consulate official. With the sheikh in residence it was more likely that the man was one of the sheikh’s bodyguards. Though a Christian nation, Zahir, a Mediterranean island, was caught between the Middle East and Europe. The elderly sheikh had been kidnapped some years ago and so now was rumored to always travel with an armed escort.
She hung her coat on the rack provided. Ignoring an attack of nerves caused by losing the cozy, protective outer layer that had mostly hidden the red dress, she walked through an elegant hallway and into a crowded reception room. It was a cocktail party and promotional evening aimed at selling Zahir, with its colorful history as a Templar outpost, as a tourist destination. Sarah had expected little black dresses and the rich exotic colors of the East to abound, but crisp business suits and black and gray dresses toned down by jackets created a subdued monochrome against which she stood out like an overbright bird of paradise.
Sarah’s stomach sank. When she had read the pamphlet she hadn’t seen the evening as focused on business, but if she didn’t miss her guess, most of the guests were business types, probably tour operators and travel agents and no doubt a smattering of government officials.
Deciding to brazen it out, she moved to a display concerning the mysterious disappearance of the remains of Camille’s dowry. Hidden by a member of the sheikh’s family at the time of the evacuation during the Second World War, the location of the hiding place had been lost when the family member died in a bombing raid.
A short, balding man in a gray suit also stopped by the display, but seemed more mesmerized by the faint shadowy hollow of her cleavage. Annoyed by his rudeness, she sent him the kind of quelling glance that would have had her pupils scrambling to apply themselves to their study. As he scuttled away, she thought longingly about retrieving her coat and covering up the alluring brightness of the dress, but she refused to cut and run because she was attracting male attention. After all, that had been the whole point.
A waiter offered her a glass of wine. A little desperately, she took a glass and sipped slowly as she moved to a display of Templar weaponry. Instantly riveted by a history she found even more fascinating after immersing herself in Camille’s journal, Sarah read the notes about the Templar band under the command of Sheikh Kadin. Setting her glass down on a nearby table, she stepped closer, irresistibly drawn to the largest weapon—a grim, pitted sword that had clearly seen hard use. A small label indicated the sword had belonged to the sheikh. In that moment she remembered a passage of the journal, which had outlined Camille’s first meeting with Kadin.
“An overlarge warrior with a black, soaked mane, dark eyes narrowed against the wind, a workmanlike blade gripped in his battle-scarred hand.”
The fascination that had gripped Sarah as she’d read Camille’s account came back full force. A small sign warned against touching the displays, but the powerful compulsion to immerse herself in sensation, to touch the sword, far outweighed the officious red wording.
Breath held, her fingertips brushed the gleaming grip where the chasing etched into the bronze was worn smooth by use. The chill of the metal struck through her skin. A split second later, the bracket holding the sword came loose and the heavy weapon toppled, hitting the carpeted floor with a thud.
Mortified, Sarah reached for the sword, hoping to prop it against the display before anyone noticed. Before she could grab it, a large tanned hand closed around the bronze grip. With fluid grace, a tall, broad-shouldered man straightened, the blade in his hand, and her heart slammed once, hard, as her dream world and the present fused.
The warrior.
That seemed the only adequate description. The man was tall enough that her gaze was firmly centered on his jaw. Heart pounding, she tilted her head and stared directly into the amber gleam of eyes that, for a split second, she fully expected to be as passionately focused on her as those of the warrior who had haunted her dream.
Her breath caught in the back of her throat as she recognized the man she had run into the previous day. The curious tension that had invested the dream drew every muscle taut as she took in black hair cut crisp and short, the blade-straight nose and the intriguing scar on his cheekbone. The planes and angles of his face were mouthwateringly clean-cut, although any sense of perfection was lost in the grim line of his jaw and the lash of the scar.
His brows drew together as if he recognized her and was trying to remember from exactly where. A split second later his gaze shuttered and she had to wonder if she’d imagined that moment of intense interest.
Or, on a more practical note, if he was married. As a single woman with years of dating experience, it would not be the first time she had been checked out by a man who then suddenly recalled that he was committed elsewhere.
His gaze dropped to her hands. “Are you all right? For a moment, I thought you might have cut yourself.”
The low, rough timbre of his voice, the cosmopolitan accent, was definitely European, but with a slow cadence that indicated he had spent time in the States. The accent, along with the short cut of his hair and the suit, added to the impression that had been forming, the only one that made sense—he was either an aide to the sheikh or a bodyguard. Given his muscular build, and the fact that
he had arrived within seconds of her touching the sword, she would go with the security option.
She dredged up a smile and displayed her palms to show she wasn’t injured. “I’m fine, just a little startled the sword wasn’t secured. Especially since it belonged to Sheikh Kadin.”
For another heart-pounding moment his gaze seemed riveted on her mouth. “You’re right, the Wolf of Zahir would not have been so careless. I’ll have a word with the staff who set up the display.”
She dragged her gaze from the line of his jaw. “Oh no, really...it was completely my fault. I shouldn’t have touched the sword.” Shouldn’t have allowed herself to be distracted by her ancestor’s passionate love story when she needed to apply herself to establishing her own.
With an easy movement, he propped the weapon against the display board. As he did so an angled spotlight above gleamed over his damaged cheekbone, and cast a shadow over the inky curve of his lashes. Suddenly the dream warrior, as riveting as he had been, seemed too cosmetically perfect and lacking in personality. From memory, he had also been oddly compliant. In the way of dreams, he had done exactly what she had wanted, in contrast to this man who looked as seasoned and uncompromising as the Templar Knight who had originally wielded the sword.
To her surprise, instead of moving on, he held out his hand and introduced himself as Gabriel, Gabe for short.
Surprised at the informality and that he seemed to want to keep the conversation going, Sarah briefly gripped his hand as she supplied her name. Tingling warmth shot through her at the rough heat of his palm. “I’m a history teacher.”
She caught the flash of surprise in his expression and her mood dropped like a stone. He was tall, gorgeous, hot—as different from Graham as a dark lion from a tabby cat. Incredibly, he also seemed to be interested in her, and she had just ruined the outward impression of sexy sophistication she’d spent hours creating. If she’d had her wits about her she would have relegated her teaching occupation to some dusty dark hole and claimed an interest in travelling to exotic places.
