by Maya Blake
Before she could attempt to bumble her way through yet another explanation to excuse her runaway tongue, he banked the chopper, this time heading west and away from the dazzling waters of the Arabian Sea.
The terrain below swiftly changed from lush greenery to shrub land before merging seamlessly into the undulations of the Dar-Aman desert. Silence fell within the aircraft as the rotors whipped through the hot air.
When one of the bodyguards leaned forward and pointed, Rahim nodded and started to descend towards the convoy of sturdy SUVs lined up on a flat clearing.
The moment they landed a group in traditional Berber garb, led by an old man who was clearly the elder, strode forward. His wizened face creased in a smile as he hugged Rahim, then kissed him on both cheeks, before touching his hand to his heart several times.
Slowly stepping down from the chopper, Allegra observed the welcoming gestures—which she knew from her cultural interactions were reserved for revered guests and family. After several minutes, Rahim looked over to where she stood. In an instant the cordial expression melted from his face.
Without speaking, he nodded to one of his men, who came forward and indicated that she get into one of the many SUVs.
The realisation that she wouldn’t be travelling with Rahim brought sharp, disconcerting disappointment that threw her for a stunned second. She plastered a smile on her face when she noticed curious eyes turned on her. Silently, she took her seat. The smile was quickly wiped from her face when the convoy raced away from the choppers, taking a terrain that convinced her she’d broken more than one bone in her body by the time the rough, turbulent half-hour ride came to a halt on the fringe of a group of canvas-brown Bedouin tents. From either side of the settlement craggy mountains rose, and Allegra understood the need for ditching the choppers to make the final leg of the journey by land.
The scene was spectacular, if more than a little rough on her bones. Gingerly she got out of the car. And found Rahim standing in front of her.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
His large frame vibrated with an icy anger that told Allegra her outburst in the chopper remained very much an issue between them. It surprised her that he was going out of his way to enquire about her comfort considering he was very displeased with her.
‘I’m fine. Listen, about what I said...’
He gave a firm shake of his head. ‘We will discuss this later.’
Rahim bit out instructions in Arabic and all but two women and the elder remained. At his further instructions the women rushed forward and bowed. ‘Laila and Sharifa will take you to get cleaned up and serve you some refreshments. We will return to the palace once my meeting is over.’
He started to walk away.
‘Your Highness...’
He whirled abruptly towards her. ‘You seem intent on drawing quite severe conclusions about me. Am I really so irredeemable?’
The direct question and the fact that he seemed genuinely puzzled by her observations took her aback. Since she had no answer that would be diplomatic enough, she countered it with one of her own. ‘Why are you so keen for me to take an interest in you?’
He tensed slightly, but then shrugged. ‘How else will you set aside your prejudged bias and see the light?’
‘I’m not reacting to anything that’s not right in front of me.’ Knowing her response was directed more at him than at his kingdom sent a wave of shame through her.
His dark brows clamped beneath the shade of his keffiyeh. For several heartbeats he just stared at her. ‘Perhaps this wasn’t a good idea after all,’ he mused darkly. He nodded to the ladies hovering nearby. ‘I will be done in two hours and we’ll return to the palace.’
He was gone before she could reply.
When the women stepped forward and indicated that she follow them, Allegra sighed inwardly and summoned another smile.
An hour later, after an attempt to ride a disgruntled camel, and a short trail up several sand dunes to a point between two distant mountains to witness the most spectacular sunset, she washed her hands and feet, and sat cross-legged on a plump, richly embroidered cushion in a cool, stunningly decorated tent.
The half a dozen women who crowded around her spoke varying degrees of English, and Allegra was shocked to find that most of them had been pursuing academic careers at one point in their lives. Careers that had come to an abrupt halt around the same time about fifteen years ago.
Her tentative queries as to why drew dismissive shrugs, then furtive glances and lapses into heated Dar-Amanian when Allegra probed further.
Realising she’d broached a touchy issue, she attempted to change the subject only to clamp her mouth shut when her nape prickled with the keen awareness that she was under scrutiny.
The finger she’d been absently licking froze on her lower lip as her head snapped up and her gaze collided with Rahim’s.
He glanced from her face to her fingers, then to the empty dishes spread out before her, the icy look in his eyes emphasised by his cocked brow.
‘Dare I venture that the past two hours haven’t been pure torture for you?’
Allegra reddened. ‘Not entirely,’ she replied.
‘It’s time to return to the palace. That is, of course, if you can bear to tear yourself away.’
He stood watching in brooding silence as she washed her hands and stood. Again his expression was a mixture of anger and puzzlement.
The moment she reached him, he turned and strode out, his stature and billowing robe cutting an imperious figure through the crowd gathered to wave their sheikh off.
As she quickened her steps after him, Allegra found herself admitting she didn’t like silent and brooding Rahim Al-Hadi.
Not one little bit.
CHAPTER FIVE
BY THE TIME the helicopter landed back on the rolling green lawns of Dar-Aman Palace, Allegra was near-ready to jump out of the charged atmosphere. Rahim had barely made conversation, only answering direct questions she posed. His answers weren’t monosyllabic, but from the terse responses, they may as well have been.
‘Why were you meeting with the elders?’ She asked the question that had been hovering on her lips since they took off from Nur-Aman.
For a second, she thought he wouldn’t answer her. But Rahim glanced down at her as they neared the hallway that led to her suite. She breathed a sigh of relief when his steps slowed to match hers. She dismissed the part of her that mocked her for delaying the return to the crassly named women’s wing. Or that she was searching for further redeeming qualities of the man who’d run his kingdom to the ground while keeping himself draped in priceless arts and fast cars.
‘Did you notice the abandoned pipelines that were laid close to the tribe encampment?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she answered.
‘That mountain was where my first ancestor discovered the malachite that Dar-Aman is renowned for. In the valley below Nur-Aman is where we struck our first crude deposit. Those pipes were laid almost twenty years ago. It was a bold and brilliant plan that should’ve brought jobs and sustainable revenue growth to the Nur-Aman people.’
The deep pride in his voice enthralled her, while making her wonder why he’d remained blind to the needs of his people until recently.
‘But?’
‘But they haven’t been touched for over fifteen years.’
‘I could tell. Why not?’
Rahim’s expression showed mingled displeasure and bitterness. Wondering where the latter emotion had come from, she waited for him to answer.
‘Contracts were renegotiated and the oil drilling concerns sold off to faceless foreign corporations.’
‘Aren’t there laws to prevent that from happening?’
He shrugged. ‘They were bent far enough but not broken.’
She pursed her lips. ‘I’m surprised you would freely admit something like that.’
‘I have nothing to hide, Allegra. Especially not about something as important as this.’
<
br /> ‘What are you going to do about it?’
‘There’s only one course of action. I intend to get back, and keep, what is mine.’
Staring into his eyes, Allegra grew hot all over, absurdly affected by words that pertained to oil rights and furthering his riches.
But it was there all the same, fuelling a whole heap of confusion.
They reached the doors of her suite, and Rahim threw them open. Nura was nowhere to be seen and Allegra’s heart began a discordant hammer as she walked into the living room, followed closely by Rahim, and his overwhelmingly masculine presence.
‘Well, thank you for bringing me along. It was certainly an eye-opening experience,’ she said when she’d ran out of places to direct her attention and finally looked in his face to find him watching her with an intensity that dragged more heat through her stomach.
It took monumental willpower to tear her gaze from the sensual curve of his mouth.
He prowled to where she stood and caught an errant curl that had escaped her ponytail. Thoughtfully, with unhurried movements, he rubbed the strands between his fingers before tucking it behind her ear.
The electrifying touch, though it whispered over her skin for a few seconds, sent wild and fiery currents racing through her. Allegra’s stomach clenched in reaction to the arrows of fiery arousal lancing her. She forced herself to swallow when her mouth filled with a longing she couldn’t describe. When his hand fell to his side, it was all she could do not to catch and pull it back up to repeat the caress.
‘I’m glad your eyes have been opened.’
‘Are...are you?’ she asked vaguely, still yearning for his touch with a hunger that scared and surprised her.
As if he’d read her thoughts, his hand slowly lifted. This time he caressed her cheek, then her jaw, his touch almost reverent as it traced her skin. When he reached the corner of her mouth, Allegra held her breath, almost too afraid to move in case he removed it. ‘Of course. It would please me even more if you applied your observations fruitfully. Can I count on you to do that, Allegra?’
Knowing she should be giving this conversation better attention, she tried to focus, but his thumb, now tracing her lower lip, threatened to send her reasoning into free fall. ‘I’m not sure...what...’
He placed a stalling finger on her lips. ‘I have a proposition to make to you, Allegra. One I sincerely hope you’ll be receptive to.’ His eyes burned as he looked down at her.
She’d seen that look once, in a movie when the male lead actor had made an indecent proposal to the actress. At the time, she’d silently scoffed at the improbability of it all. Now, with her breath lodged in her throat, Allegra waited, an almost forbidden excitement racing through her blood. When he said nothing after a few minutes, she cleared her throat. ‘What...what sort of proposition?’ she asked huskily, every sensitive nerve ending on her mouth reacting to the brush of his finger.
His beautiful eyes darkened, the hunger that clawed through her emblazoned boldly in his gaze. ‘One that I hope will align our goals now that you’ve spent some time in Dar-Aman.’ Once again his finger trailed over her skin. This time it wove a path down her jaw to her shoulder, then drifted down her arm to capture her hand. Catching her fingers with his, he brought her hand to his lips to kiss her knuckles. A smile tilted the corner of his mouth when she gasped. ‘We will talk further this evening. The banquet starts at eight. I will collect you shortly before then.’
He turned and walked out, leaving her in a state of sensual confusion and hyped excitement. And despite telling herself she was a fool to fall into such an obvious trap, Allegra couldn’t summon a practical enough argument to calm her racing pulse as she walked into her bedroom in a daze to undress.
* * *
Rahim strode away from Allegra’s suite with a burning in his bloodstream and the knowledge that the game had altered significantly. Not enough to sway him from what he needed to do for his people. More like the dimensions of his intentions had grown, while the prototype remained the same.
It wasn’t a dynamic he altogether welcomed, because he’d never been one to mix business with pleasure. Or let his personal urges get in the way of his ultimate goals. Sex with Allegra, no matter how detached he would choose to view it, would be personal enough to jeopardise what she and her foundation could do for Dar-Aman.
Because to put it simply, he wanted to bed Allegra Di Sione. He’d known it from the moment he looked into her enthralling eyes this morning. Even through her wild and unfounded tirades, he’d found himself pulled closer to the powerful attraction that tugged fiercely between them.
For a while this afternoon, though, he’d been sure he’d made a mistake in thinking she could be the answer to his problems. He’d been set to send her packing the moment they returned, but then she’d started asking him questions on the chopper. Even then he’d been sceptical. Her interest in what he was doing at Nur-Aman had been the convincer he needed to slam the brakes on putting her on the first plane out of Dar-Aman. Perhaps his trip hadn’t been fruitless after all. She’d taken an interest, and that was something he could work with.
Rahim knew without conceit that, with further work, he could knock a few holes in her preconceived notions about him, and he planned to use that leverage to his every advantage.
As for the crackling attraction between them... He let out a frustrated groan at the tightening in his groin.
Despite the intelligence that shone from her eyes and the monumental public success of her foundation, Allegra Di Sione had all the hallmarks of a high-maintenance woman in private. Beneath her practical and stoic demeanour, he’d glimpsed a passionate temper, one that could flare out of control if not handled correctly.
Rahim didn’t intend to be the one to handle her in that capacity. He’d had enough experience of high-maintenance women to last him a lifetime. His footsteps slowed as he neared his private rooms. All around him were signs of his mother—in the wide alcove overlooking her favourite garden where she’d kept exotic birds for her amusement, to the sitting rooms decorated with priceless rugs, tapestries and cabinets full of delicate trinkets. Everywhere he looked memories flooded him of her huge, all-encompassing smile when her father presented her with a jewelled ornament after a business trip, or her diva tantrum when a whimsical wish wasn’t fulfilled immediately.
It was a failing to nitpick his mother, but while Rahim had known he was loved with absolute devotion as a child, he’d experienced a period of abject fear of what his life would be like were that the love be taken away when he’d had a taster of it on his eleventh birthday.
His first vow not to allow love or any emotions resembling it into his life had been uttered that night. It had grown to spurn any overtures remotely resembling it as he grew older. Sex he could deal with. Hell, he’d made it a life choice to indulge in affairs of the flesh even while he conceded that his earliest forays into his shocking lifestyle had been mostly to get his father’s attention.
A sad and bitter truth he still had a hard time swallowing.
Another truth he didn’t want to admit was that if Allegra was to be his saviour, then sex had to be taken off the table.
The pressure in his groin protested at that edict. Ignoring it, Rahim walked through the carved double doors that led to his bedchamber, and out onto his private terrace. He glanced to the left to where the women’s wing was located. His fingers tingled in wild recollection of Allegra’s silky skin and luscious mouth beneath his touch. The need to taste her had been urgent in the extreme. But it was a weakness he had to master.
Perhaps in the future, once his kingdom was on firmer ground and his leadership wasn’t in doubt, he could pick things up with her...
He shook his head and fisted the tingle from his fingers.
Turning abruptly, he strolled to the west wing, the parts that overlooked the grand ballroom, where preparations were being made for the banquet tonight. Exhaling, he accepted that there was really no choice, not when it came to his p
eople.
Their welfare came first and foremost. Selfish needs of the flesh, no matter how bone-crushingly desperate, would have to take second place.
Rahim scrambled to find that keen sense of duty when Allegra opened the door to his knock ninety minutes later.
Fire swept through his veins as he fought to control his breathing. Dressed in a fitted floor-length gown of the deepest azure that almost exactly matched her eyes, and heels that brought her height to his chin, she was a vision of regal beauty that stole his breath away.
‘Good evening,’ she murmured.
He returned the greeting; then, because he couldn’t seem to help himself, he uttered the words burning on his tongue. ‘You look exquisitely beautiful.’
Colour flared beneath her skin in a delicate blush, and she smiled. Rahim’s fingers tingled again with the need to touch, to caress.
‘Thank you. You don’t look so bad yourself.’
Her hair was styled in layered waves caught on one side by a diamond pin, flowing over her shoulder on the other. The curls he’d spotted in her ponytail earlier were more pronounced now and he had to fight every instinct not to plunge his hand into the rich tresses and test their silky luxury for himself. Preferably a prelude to pulling her close to plunder the peach-coloured gloss that sheened her luscious mouth.
Cursing the gods for the ill-timed bout of lust he couldn’t suppress, he forced a smile, thankful his robe concealed the evidence of his arousal.
‘As we’re a little early, we’ll take the more picturesque route to the ballroom.’
He tensed in expectation of her protest. When she readily nodded, Rahim breathed easier. ‘I’d like that. I’ve been reading a bit more about the fascinating history of the palace, especially the interior decorations. I’d really love to see more of it, if you don’t mind?’
Rahim told himself he should be pleased she was taking a keener interest, and yet the somewhat superficial request made him grimace inwardly, reminding him of past female conquests who’d attempted to impress him with their knowledge of all things Dar-Aman, unknowingly triggering their swift exit from his life. Besides that, Allegra’s furtive glance sparked something within him that he couldn’t put his finger on.
