A Cinderella for the Desert King

by Kim Lawrence

  It was crazy and he’d never known anything like it. It had been the slither of silk that had initially alerted him to her presence and sent the rush of aroused heat through his body, the rush becoming a flood when he’d turned and got his first look at her, sinuous curves swathed in silk that clung to her breasts and the long, lovely line of her shapely thighs. It was obvious she didn’t have a stitch on underneath.

  He lifted his gaze quickly, but not quickly enough to stop the painful pulse of heat from skewering him where he stood. She had the body of a goddess, athletic and toned.

  The effort of dragging his eyes upwards caused the muscles along his jaw to quiver. He forced his hands to unclench; the sensation of not being in complete control of himself was a new one—one he didn’t like. Thankfully he recognised it for what it was—simple sexual desire.

  ‘Should you be out of hospital?’ Abby sounded shrill.

  ‘I have been given a clean bill of health.’

  ‘Who did you bully and intimidate into signing that?’ She couldn’t resist the retort but as he held her gaze he sensed she immediately regretted it. A long, uncomfortable moment passed before he spoke.

  ‘Is that some subtle allusion...are you trying to suggest that I bullied you, Abigail?’

  ‘Nobody calls me Abigail.’ She shook her head and sighed. ‘All right, this is my decision. I’ve agreed to do this but—’

  ‘Ah, the but...?’

  ‘I don’t think I can carry it off.’

  ‘I don’t see the problem.’

  Her mouth twisted at his unsympathetic response. It was plain that she found it extremely frustrating that he didn’t seem to take her concerns seriously.

  ‘That is the problem—you don’t. The girl earlier—she tried to put my shoes on!’ Her voice rose to an incredulous quiver that made his lips twitch.

  His glance dropped to her painted toes peeking out through the velvet before returning to her face. ‘And that is a problem because?’

  ‘See?’ she said, lifting her hands in a point-proven gesture. ‘Having people put your shoes on for you is normal for you; for me it’s...well, ridiculous, and it makes me feel uncomfortable.’

  ‘It is not compulsory; I have been known to tie my own shoelaces on occasion.’

  ‘You’re laughing at me!’ she accused hotly.

  He huffed out a grunt that could be construed as apology or maybe an admission. ‘I appreciate this all might seem strange to you at first.’

  ‘Big of you,’ she said, refusing to be mollified.

  ‘I have every confidence that you will fulfil your side of the deal, unless I read you wrong?’

  He watched her eyes narrow at the suggestion she was not a woman of her word, and tough to boot, which was the response he had intended.

  ‘I said I’d do this and I will.’ The words carried more conviction with an image of her grandparents in her head. ‘Obviously I will need to speak to my agent.’ He wasn’t going to be happy she had work commitments lined up. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to say to him.’ Whatever she said it would be difficult to defend herself against his inevitable accusation of lack of professionalism.

  ‘I’ll sort it—give me the name.’

  Her lips tightened. ‘I don’t want you to sort it.’ She cinched the belt on her robe another defiant notch. ‘Look, this,’ her fluttering gesture took in their surroundings, ‘isn’t public so I don’t have to pretend to be weak and ineffectual. I am more than capable of sorting my own affairs. Obviously in public I will do my best to act as though I think every word you utter is a pearl of wisdom, but in private—’

  ‘In private,’ he drawled, ‘you will assert your independence just for the hell of it. Sounds like a fun eighteen months. For the record, I was simply trying to smooth things for you, not take over your life.’

  ‘I think you’ve already done that, considering you saved my life,’ she admitted. Abby caught her full lower lip between her teeth and pushed out a husky, ‘I know... I know it’s my choice and I will try not to keep hitting you on the head with it,’ she promised. ‘My grandparents taught me to take responsibility for my own actions...’ Her face fell, a look of dismay widening her eyes. ‘Oh, God, Nana and Pops!’ How was she going to explain this to them?

  ‘Whatever you want to tell your grandparents, I will go along with it.’

  Taken aback by his concession and his quick reading of the situation, shee took a moment to respond. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to tell them...maybe I don’t have to tell them yet—it’s two weeks before they get back from their cruise. And delaying the inevitable seems very attractive just now.’

  His brows hit his dark hairline, taking her glance with them, and her eyes stayed glued to the blond streak that he knew stood out against the glossy black.

  He caught the direction of her stare and lifted a hand to his head. ‘My mother come from Northern Italy. There are a lot of blondes there, though she is a redhead these days.’ His brow furrowed. ‘Cruise...? I thought that your grandparents were strapped for cash?’

  ‘They are but they won a competition in a magazine that my nan didn’t even remember entering...an all-expenses-paid trip in the Caribbean,’ she said, looking anywhere but at him...the woodwork over the door was really quite marvellous.

  ‘There was no competition, was there?’

  She dragged her eyes away from the doorway. ‘What makes you say that? Of course...oh, all right, then, there wasn’t, but Pops got really ill starting last winter; he had bronchitis and it really wore him down, so the summer was a total washout.’ She looked at him, her chin tilted to a defiant angle. ‘Then I saw this cruise advertised—it was massively reduced, they were virtually giving it away to fill empty cabins, and I knew they wouldn’t let me pay so I invented the competition,’ she admitted, fixing him with a so-hang-me glare.

  ‘So you can lie.’ Very badly, as it happened. ‘There’s no need to look so guilty. It was a kind thing to do.’

  * * *

  Her dark eyelashes fluttered against her cheek as she experienced a glow of pleasure that was totally disproportionate to the unexpected praise.

  ‘Have you eaten?’

  She nodded and looked across to the table where she’d sat earlier, but the dishes had already vanished, along with last night’s fresh flowers, which had been replaced by an equally fabulous arrangement of beautiful blooms. The place seemed to be populated by an army of people whose job it was to wait on her hand and foot without her ever seeing them.

  ‘Good, then get dressed and we can be off.’

  She blinked and stood her ground even though having one layer of silk between her skin and his eyes made her feel quite ridiculously exposed, and clothes—a wool jumper or something equally covering—seemed a very good idea!

  ‘Off where?’

  ‘I thought I’d give you the guided tour.’

  ‘That’s really not necessary,’ she said, wondering why he would offer to show her around himself when anyone else in his position would delegate.

  He raised a brow and folded his long length into one of the easy chairs set beside the double French doors that opened out onto a balcony. ‘What are you planning to do? Stay in here?’

  ‘Why not? A family of six could live here comfortably and I could do with catching up on some reading.’ She gave a sigh and added, ‘Look, I think that, under the circumstances, it would be better that I keep a low profile.’

  ‘That would defeat the object of this exercise.’

  She pursed her lips and tilted her head to one side, angling a feathery brow. ‘And that was again...?’

  ‘Showing that the future ruler of Aarifa has a beautiful wife which makes him a strong and dependable pair of hands. The press office have issued a statement this morning.’

  ‘Already!’ She fought her way through the panic churning in h
er stomach. ‘So what is expected of me—do I speak or just wear clothes and smile?’ The latter ought to be fine...it was just about all she’d done with her life so far, she thought, stifling a slug of resentment. When he came to choose a bride for real, would he want a mannequin then too or a real woman?

  ‘I think wearing clothes is a good idea,’ he said with an amused, sensual grin. ‘I hope there are some you care for in what I’ve ordered, but feel free to order anything else you need or want.’

  ‘Where did they all come from?’

  ‘I couldn’t tell you exactly, I just gave your measurements to—’

  ‘My measurements? How did you know my measurements?’

  A slow smile split his lean face as his glance slid slowly over her slim, sinuous curves. ‘I have a good eye for such things, cara.’

  ‘And no doubt a lot of practice sizing up women,’ she flung back, focusing on the annoyance of him making her blush, rather than the fire zigzagging along the nerve endings under the surface of her skin.

  ‘Oh, and for the shoes I got two sizes of each to accommodate your feet.’ He looked down at the items under discussion. ‘Shall I come back in, say, an hour and a half?’

  ‘How long do you think it takes me to get ready?’

  It wasn’t until he had grinned, said, ‘Right, half an hour, then,’ and left the room that she realised her indignation at his assumption that it took her so long to make herself presentable meant she had missed an opportunity to buy herself more time to recover from the way he was making her feel. Though she could have said three hours and probably should have said at least an hour, she had let him get to her and so he’d given her a tight timeline, knowing that she would be determined not to be a second late.

  Walking across to the massive wardrobes, she focused on the positives—at least he wasn’t going to sit there and wait—but she quickly met her second challenge...there appeared to be no handle in the smooth wooden surface. It wasn’t until she inadvertently pressed her palm to a panel that the doors slid silently open, revealing a massive space.

  The new items hanging in their protective covers covered a fraction of what was available, and she dropped to her knees to check the shoeboxes neatly stacked...still not sure if he’d been joking.

  He hadn’t been.

  There were ten pairs of shoes, all in two sizes.

  The clothes were all in one size—her size—and there was a bigger selection than many shops she knew carried. She didn’t buy many clothes for herself normally, though she had an eye for a bargain and she knew what suited her. Ultimately, what she felt comfortable in was quite often plain old jeans and a T-shirt.

  Neither was available, so after a short sift through Abby pulled out a pair of palazzo trousers with deep pockets in a subtle silvery blue and a square-shouldered fifties-style shirt in a slightly darker shade brightened by drifts of butterflies.

  She used her bra and pants from her overnight bag, though a quick glance in one of the drawers in the antique chest revealed a vast selection of silky underclothes in mouth-watering shades and gorgeous fabrics.

  She pulled out her one make-up bag from the hold-all and, after pushing her hair back from her face with an Alice band she applied that too. It didn’t take long—just her usual moisturisers and sunscreen, a smudge of blusher across her cheekbones and a smudge of brown eyeshadow on her eyelids. She tended not to wear mascara as her eyelashes were naturally brown and long, though they never curled without a lot of encouragement. Finishing off with a defiant slash of bold red lipstick, she let her hair fall loose. Standing in front of the mirror, she subjected her wild curls to a wrinkle-nosed scrutiny. The time constraint ruled out straightening it so, after holding it on top of her head for a moment while she tried to figure out how to tame it, she released it with a hiss of dissatisfaction and delayed the decision by going back into the bedroom to dress. Sliding on a pair of low-heeled red mules, she went over to one of the full-length mirrors to judge the results, but before she reached it there was a tap on the door. The visitor didn’t wait for a response, he just walked in.

  The sardonic half-smile curling his mouth at the corners flattened out when he saw her and he walked across the room towards her. Abby was flustered by his sudden appearance but she still managed to notice the clenched tension below his relaxed exterior.

  ‘I’m nearly ready.’

  * * *

  ‘Take your time...’ His glance drifted upwards from her feet to the top of her glossy head, returning to rest on her lips. ‘You look ready to me.’ She looked incredible...like a classy, sassy female lead in one of the classic old black and white Hollywood movies his mother had introduced him to as a kid...elegant but sexy and in full, glorious colour.

  She stuck out her chin. ‘Are you trying to be funny?’ She lifted a hand to her tumbling curls. ‘I haven’t done anything with my hair.’

  ‘It looks fine to me,’ Zain replied in a voice that gave no hint that he was imagining those curls falling down her naked back and over her breasts. It would cover them now it was inches longer than it had been ten months ago... He sucked in a sense-cooling breath through flared nostrils and pushed away the raunchy image. ‘What do you still need to do?’

  He arranged his long, lean length in a chair, aware her resentment was growing and choosing to push her by adopting a bored demeanour.

  ‘I need to make myself presentable...’ She lifted the weight of her hair off her neck and let it fall back in a gesture that suggested it explained everything. For Zain, it explained nothing. ‘Presentable for all those people who are probably lined up outside to look at me. Perhaps I should wear a veil...or would that offend people?’ Looking suddenly and completely overwhelmed by what she’d signed up for, she grabbed the padded back of a nearby chair, taking a deep breath before adding despairingly, ‘You see, I don’t have a clue.’

  His clicking fingers cut through her diatribe of complaint. He refused to believe that a woman who looked the way she did had any confidence issues. ‘Do not play the victim, it doesn’t suit you.’

  This bracing and unsympathetic advice brought her chin up, a move he was growing used to very quickly.

  ‘And it is also extremely unconvincing. I have seen you stand up to men wielding knives,’ he reminded her. ‘And as for presentable...presentable...’ he parroted. ‘What the hell is that?’

  ‘It’s something my nan always said before she left the house... Do I look presentable?’ The mention of her grandmother brought a wistfulness to her face and she blinked to clear the tears he could see her fighting. Before he could say anything to try and help, a hopeful smile spread across her face.

  ‘Perhaps your sister-in-law,’ she began eagerly. ‘Do you think if we told her the story she’d help me? I mean, it was her job, so surely she’d be able to give me some pointers.’

  ‘No.’ His emphatic response was designed to flatten her enthusiasm, and it worked.

  ‘But—’ she began to protest.

  ‘You will not approach Kayla.’ He moved towards her as he spoke, his voice not raised, but each ice-edged syllable had a dangerously explosive quality that was echoed in his body language; he looked big and dangerous.

  Breath held, her hands tightened on the back of the chair, he wasn’t sure if it was pride or paralysis that made her hold eye contact. It was definitely not good sense—that would have had her running for the nearest exit. Instead she tilted her head back, mirroring the tension he knew drew the skin tight across the angles and planes of his face.

  He paused a few feet from where she stood and added in the same soft, deadly tone, ‘And you will not tell her our story.’ He could only imagine what Kayla would do with that sort of information. ‘Is that understood?’

  ‘Well, I don’t see what the harm would be,’ she began mutinously.

  ‘Stay away from Kayla, Abigail,’ he intoned grimly. Seeing her ope
ning up to Kayla, all earnest eyes and the best of intentions, would be like watching a kitten ask advice from a tiger. The image in his head was enough to make him break out in a cold sweat.

  Refusing to categorise the feeling in his gut as protective, Zain zoned in on the practical measures he would need to put in place to protect Abby from Kayla, who would consider Abby, or anyone else that came between her and what she wanted, the enemy.

  ‘Why?’

  The question floored him but before he could think of a suitable response a look of comprehension appeared on Abby’s face.

  ‘Oh, God, I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking...you’re right.’

  Zain made a non-committal sound in his throat, glad she had reached the conclusion but not sure how she had got there.

  ‘I wasn’t thinking.’

  Slightly thrown by her abrupt capitulation Zain watched her lips twisted in a self-recriminatory grimace.

  ‘She must be devastated.’

  ‘She is, I’m sure.’ Though he imagined that fury was a more accurate description of Kayla’s likely reaction to having her position at the pinnacle of society being taken from her.

  ‘I won’t bother her, I promise. It must be a terrible thing to lose your husband so young... I can’t even begin to imagine.’ She lifted her hand to her hair. ‘Could you wait a minute while I tie it back?’

  His eyes moved down the golden red waves. ‘Your hair is spectacular just as it is.’ It was no less than a statement of fact. ‘And no one will be offended no matter how you appear—most women in Aarifa stopped wearing the veil a generation ago...a few of the older or more conservative do when they go out in public but it is their choice. So just relax.’

  * * *

  It took Abby a few moments to recover, not just from her reaction to having him call any part of her spectacular, but also to the flash of sense-incinerating fire she had seen in his eyes that had sent her heart rate crashing through the ceiling.