by Annie West
Jacqui blinked, unable to do more than digest the fact she was awake with a total stranger.
A stranger who transfixed her with his gleaming, dark gaze.
Yet even as she thought it a memory stirred, a hint of recognition. He seemed...familiar.
‘You’re all right now?’ The concern in his voice was echoed in his scrutiny and the line of his compressed lips.
Or was that annoyance?
Muddled and disorientated from the nightmare, she nevertheless felt no fear, sensed no threat. Surely it had been his voice, that warm, deep rumble that had dragged her out of horror and back to reality? Hazily, she registered relief she wasn’t alone in the dark.
Jacqui struggled to breathe deeply, gratefully dragging air into her lungs, anything to dispel the sharp, rusty tang of Imran’s blood from her nostrils.
The man stood so close she inhaled the scent of his skin, like the deep notes of an expensive cologne, only real, not manufactured. It reminded her of exotic spice and hot, desert breezes.
His breath was warm on her brow and parted lips as she sucked in more air. Long lashes veiled his eyes as his gaze dropped to her mouth. Instantly heat shimmered across her skin and her bloodstream traced fire through her body as if someone had set a match to dry kindling. Her skin flushed and her bare breasts tightened.
Her reaction was so sudden, so shockingly unfamiliar, she simply stared back, stunned, her mind grappling to take in what it meant.
‘Yes, thanks. I’m—’ Awareness crashed upon her in a flurry of alarm. ‘Naked!’ she gasped, jack-knifing to sit up.
Dimly she was grateful he stepped back but her focus was on locating the cover she must have flung off. She hoped she’d flung it off. That it hadn’t been dragged off her by a stranger.
Horror skated skeletal fingers down her spine as Jacqui grabbed for the lavishly embroidered throw that had slipped from the bed. She didn’t feel like she’d been groped. She couldn’t remember anything but the solid, calming warmth of broad hands on her shoulders. But how could she be sure?
Seconds later, with the cover wrapped tight around her overheated body, she swung to face him.
Never turn your back on danger.
The stranger was tall, imposingly tall, which was saying something given her lanky height. Few men made her feel petite. The effect of powerful height was emphasised by the breadth of straight shoulders that filled the doorway. Jacqui’s first impression was of hard, lean masculinity. Her second, that he hid something.
His expression was closed, almost stern, yet his gaze belied the sombre attitude. Those eyes looked heavy-lidded and secretive. They remained fixed on her face, thankfully not dropping to where she fumbled, tucking a stray edge of fabric under her arm.
She’d never experienced such an instantaneous physical reaction to any man. That unsettled her almost as much as finding him here, leaning over her.
Jacqui hitched the material higher and set her jaw, trying to control the apprehension tightening her flesh. Even the innocent brush of fabric against her skin seemed evocative, reminding her of her nakedness.
In all her years of travel she’d got packing down to a fine art. It was a sign of her distraction that for the first time ever she’d forgotten to pack her ancient sleep shirt. It hadn’t mattered two hours ago, but then she hadn’t expected to wake and discover a hero from an Arabian Nights fantasy towering over her. Or was he a villain?
‘Who are you?’ Her voice emerged faint and husky. She hated the tremor in it. She cleared her throat. ‘What are you doing here?’
He didn’t move yet she had the impression he stood taller, more imposing, if that were possible.
‘I believe that’s my line.’ He paused, brows raised, as if waiting for her to answer.
But Jacqui had learned never to show weakness or doubt. She had a perfect right to be here and she refused to cower as if she’d done something wrong. He was the one who’d invaded her privacy!
Before she could tell him so, he spoke again.
‘Who are you and what are you doing in my harem?’
CHAPTER TWO
HIS HAREM?
Jacqui’s mouth sagged.
No wonder he’d looked familiar. Yet, in the photos she’d seen of Sultan Asim of Jazeer, his head had been covered.
Jacqui took in the thick, black hair that complemented the burnished bronze of his skin and threatened to flop over his brow. The media had dubbed him one of the world’s most eligible bachelors. He had wealth, power and charisma. If the public ever saw him like this, bare-headed and slightly tousled in a way that amplified the potent sexuality of his strong, autocratic features, women would mob him wherever he went.
Though according to Imran plenty of women had already thrown themselves at His Royal Highness.
Imran.
Jacqui pressed a hand to her swooping stomach.
‘You should sit.’ It wasn’t a suggestion but an order, cracking through the tension in the room.
Jacqui pushed back her shoulders and opened her mouth to tell him she was fine.
‘The dream was disturbing. You shouldn’t exert yourself yet.’
‘You know about that?’
‘Why do you think I’m here?’ His lofty expression made a joke of her fear he might be a sexual predator. What would a man like Sultan Asim want with a woman as plain as Jacqui Fletcher?
Awkwardly, the long coverlet almost tripping her, she subsided on the bed. Silly, how weak her knees felt. But the dream had been so real.
‘Are you all right?’ He’d moved from the door but kept his distance. Clearly he had no desire to get close.
Grimly Jacqui acknowledged she wasn’t in the same league as the sort of women rich, sexy potentates entertained. Nature had skimped on her curves, for a start. Was that why she accepted so easily that his interest wasn’t personal?
‘I’ll be fine soon,’ she lied. Experience told her it would take far longer to shake the miasma of that dream. She tugged the covering close.
‘Do you get them often?’
Her head snapped up. What did he see as he scrutinised her so closely? Terror? Grief? Guilt?
Instinct urged her to protect her privacy. ‘Occasionally.’
‘You should see someone about them.’
‘You seem awfully interested in my sleeping habits.’
Was that a flush of colour across his cheekbones or a trick of the multi-coloured light?
Jacqui tensed and rubbed her forehead; a headache was beginning. Nerves and stress made her snap at the man who had the power to make or break this venture.
How could she? Everything rode on the Sultan’s goodwill.
She wished she could blame her stupidity on being disorientated after the nightmare. Yet Jacqui had an awful suspicion her reaction to the Sultan himself was to blame. He was just...too big, too masculine, too close, though he stood metres away. It was as if the spacious room had shrunk and couldn’t accommodate the two of them.
‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured huskily. ‘I apologise.’
‘No need. I understand.’ His voice was a deep burr that worked its way under her skin and turned her insides to mush. ‘The circumstances are...unusual. I should apologise for breaching your privacy. Finding a stranger so close on waking must be disconcerting.’
No mention of her nudity, or his hands on her body.
Yet she had trouble thinking of anything else.
She should be relieved he clearly didn’t want to be in her bedroom. What she’d thought was a gleam of sexual interest in those hooded eyes was nothing of the kind.
Yet for some reason tension still eddied between them.
‘Now we’ve got the apologies out of the way...’ he paused, as if waiting to be sure they had ‘...you can answer my que
stion.’
‘Your question?’ Jacqui felt like a parrot, repeating the word, but her foggy brain was a mess of impressions. Imran. The barely familiar room. The shock of meeting the Sultan. The curious ripple of reaction deep inside when those dark eyes rested on her.
He folded his arms and Jacqui was momentarily distracted as the movement moulded his long robe to a body that was even larger and more powerful than she’d imagined.
‘Exactly who are you?’
* * *
Amber. Her eyes were a luminous shade of amber. A warm, enticing shade that made him think of sunrise over the desert, or the peachy reflection of late-afternoon light in the pool at his favourite oasis.
Asim had been stunned by that glowing brightness when she’d looked up at him. Those wide-spaced, slightly slanted eyes gave her an intriguing feline look.
He found himself staring.
Better staring at her eyes than her naked flesh, his conscience taunted. He was the lion of Jazeer, ruler, law-giver and leader. He did not ogle defenceless women.
Yet the image of her lithe, streamlined body had lodged in some unrepentant part of his brain and he couldn’t shift it.
She hunched her bare shoulders and he realised he was scowling.
‘I’m Jacqui Fletcher.’ She sat straighter, meeting his eyes directly, as few in his kingdom did. His pulse pounded as their gazes meshed. That was unprecedented.
Asim waited but she appeared to be pausing for his response. Was he supposed to know her? Something about the name rang a bell but he was sure they’d never met.
She understood his language, had responded in it, though she’d switched to English once she’d become aware of her nudity. Presumably shock had made her revert to her mother tongue.
‘How do you come to be here?’ His security staff had questions to answer. This section of the palace was well beyond the public audience rooms.
‘I was invited.’ Her head tipped up, though her gaze slid from his. Instantly he sensed she withheld something.
‘Indeed?’
She flushed and Asim watched, fascinated, as colour washed her cheekbones and throat. With her tousled, tawny hair around her shoulders, flushed skin and flimsy covering, she looked alluring yet strangely innocent.
Damn! He needed to focus.
‘I don’t recall issuing any invitation.’
Again that lift of the chin, baring her slender throat. Did she realise how sexually provocative she looked with all that cream and rose flesh on display and her cover slipping low over her pert breasts?
‘It was from the Lady Rania.’
‘My grandmother?’ What was the old schemer up to now, inviting strange women into the palace? Not just into the palace but deep into the long abandoned heart of it that hadn’t been modernised in a century.
Asim sensed intrigue. He had an instinct for it, given the poisonous environment in which he’d grown up.
‘Strange she didn’t mention this invitation to me.’
A shrug drew his attention back to those bare shoulders, milk-white above the embroidered silk. A dart of heat jabbed low but Asim ignored it. He had more important issues to deal with than sexual awareness.
‘Really? I wouldn’t know.’
He told himself the husky, nervous voice proved she hid something. But his wayward body was too busy responding to the eroticism of that rough velvet tone.
Asim stood straighter, infuriated by his inability to focus. His day had turned to disaster because of one unwanted female. His night was rapidly going the same way. He fast lost patience.
‘Why are you here, Ms Jacqui Fletcher?’ A thread of memory tugged in his brain. He knew that name. ‘You should be in a guest apartment near my grandmother.’
Something was going on behind his back and he didn’t like it. He should have known when the old lady had been so uncharacteristically quiet this last week. His beloved grandmother was many things—opinionated, capable and clever—but never meek. He’d begun to worry she was unwell, that age and grief had finally caught up with her. He should have known better.
‘I’m here to research a book. I’m a writer.’
Asim frowned. ‘A writer?’
In a blast of realisation, it came to him. He knew where he’d heard of her. He froze, every nerve and sinew stiffening. Incredulity widened his eyes.
‘Not Jacqui, but Jacqueline Fletcher. Am I right?’ He watched her gulp and knew he wasn’t mistaken. ‘And not a writer, a journalist. Isn’t that so?’
Anger spurted in his veins. What was the old woman thinking, bringing a journalist into their midst? Bad enough at any time but now? Sheer lunacy! They had too much to lose.
And this wasn’t just any journalist. Anger turned to white-hot fury. She’d been there the day Imran died.
Asim drew in a searing breath, forcing back grief. His cousin had been on assignment with this woman. They’d headed out together for an interview. But only one had returned.
* * *
Jacqui clutched the fabric tighter at her chest. The silk kept slipping through her damp palms.
She’d planned to be fully dressed if she met the Sultan. She bit her lip, suppressing an insane urge to giggle. There was nothing remotely funny about this.
Sultan Asim had the power to scupper her project before it got off the ground. How could she convince him of her case, dressed in a bedspread and dazed from her nightmare? He’d never take her seriously.
Instinctively she rose, locking wobbly knees as she pushed the hair from her eyes.
‘My by-line is always Jacqui Fletcher.’
‘But you were identified as Jacqueline in the official reports.’ Accusation rang in his tone and she flinched.
Jacqui knew the reports that he meant. Police reports, diplomatic reports, hospital and media updates. It was amazing the paperwork caused when two foreign news reporters got caught up in a supposed terrorist blast, even if it was in a distant African nation. She swallowed. It felt like broken glass lined her throat, scraping her raw.
‘That’s my given name but I never use it.’
‘No.’ His face turned to granite. ‘I understand you prefer to be called Jack.’
Imran. Her fragile composure cracked. Imran must have mentioned that to his cousin.
‘It’s a nickname my colleagues use. Used.’ She drew a shaky breath that didn’t fill her lungs.
‘You were my cousin’s partner.’ It was a statement, not a question, yet Jacqui had the impression he probed. Did he think them lovers? His gaze scoured so intently she felt it abrade her skin.
Remorse filled her. Here she was in Imran’s childhood home, meeting his family, while he...
‘We were colleagues, and friends.’ He’d been the nearest she’d had to a best friend. Her throat closed on a searing ball of emotion.
No wonder she’d thought this man familiar. He and Imran shared that superior nose and striking good looks. But, where Imran’s eyes had danced with mischief, Jacqui couldn’t imagine the Sultan laughing. His brand of handsome was harder than his cousin’s. Those features looked like they’d been sculpted into proud, spare elegance by the desert winds.
‘I’m sorry for your loss.’ Her voice was hoarse. She’d written to Imran’s family after he’d died but today was the first time she’d met any of them.
‘Thank you.’ He inclined his head in a gesture that was at once courtly yet distancing.
As if he didn’t want her sympathy. He disapproved of her.
The knot of guilt in her stomach twisted tighter. She couldn’t blame him. It was her fault Imran had died. If she hadn’t dragged him to what had clearly been a set-up, he’d still be alive.
And she’d still be a journalist.
Brittle ice crackled in her veins and she hugged the bedd
ing tighter. She desperately needed to be alone. But the man before her looked as immoveable as this massive ancient citadel.
Obviously her state of undress didn’t faze him. She wished she could say the same. She was used to men, spent most of her time with them, but always fully clothed as one of the guys. Now she felt hyper-aware of her femininity and her nakedness.
‘My grandmother invited you here to research a book?’ Disbelief dripped from every syllable and his sable eyebrows shot up.
‘She did.’ Jacqui scrabbled for poise. How she wished she wore her charcoal trouser suit, or even the wrinkled cargo pants and long sleeved T-shirt she’d travelled in. Something familiar that would boost her confidence in the face of his imperious disbelief.
Once she’d have taken it in her stride, a challenge to be overcome to reach the next professional goal. But that certainty had been blown apart the day the bomb had exploded. She felt battered and unsure of herself. It wasn’t just the trauma of the dream and waking to his disturbing presence. These past months had taken a terrible toll, not only on her career, but her confidence.
She wasn’t the woman she’d been.
The realisation stiffened her spine. Hadn’t she determined to drag herself out of the dark void of despair and fear? Hadn’t she promised she’d make a success of this?
After all, it was all she had left.
She had to succeed.
‘The Lady Rania was very supportive, and hospitable,’ she added with deliberate emphasis, ignoring the whisper of her conscience that he had a right to resent her presence. ‘She personally invited me to stay here—’ her gesture took in the muted beauty of the ancient room ‘—in the heart of the old palace.’ Jacqui forced a smile, as if she couldn’t read the Sultan’s disbelief. ‘I’m most grateful to her.’
His expression grew more brooding.
‘Clearly you can’t remain.’
Jacqui’s smile died. ‘But I—’
He gestured in a slashing motion that signified no argument would be brooked. ‘This is no place for a guest.’
Jacqui put her palm to her chest where her heart crashed into her ribs. For a moment she thought he’d meant to evict her from the royal residence. That would have been disastrous, the end of all her hopes and plans.
