The Sheik's Unsuitable Bride

by Liz Fielding

  He could do no less. Acknowledging her tact with the slightest of bows, he said, ‘Thank you, Metcalfe.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  F OR the briefest moment Diana met his gaze. For the briefest moment he saw something in her eyes that made him forget the powerful men who were waiting for him, forget his precious airline. All he felt was a rush of longing, an overwhelming need to stop Diana from driving away, climb back into the car beside her and take her somewhere quiet, intimate, where their separate worlds, his and hers, did not exist.

  But to what purpose?

  For her smile? To watch it appear, despite every attempt she made to control it?

  To listen to her, enjoy conversation that had no ulterior purpose. No agenda.

  She might laugh, blush, even share a kiss, but with that swift return to ‘sir’ she had recognised the gulf between them even if he, in a moment of madness, had chosen to ignore it. She knew-they both knew-that in the end all they could ever share was a brief intimacy that had no future. Kind enough to take a step back, pretend that it had never happened, when a more calculating woman would have seen a world of possibilities.

  Selling a kiss-and-tell sheikh-and-the-chauffeur story to one of the tabloids would have paid for her dream twice over. That sparkly pink taxi for weekdays and something really fancy for Sunday. And he knew all about dreams…

  If she could do that for him, why was he finding it such a problem to do it for himself?

  It wasn’t as if he was in the habit of losing his head, or his heart, over a sweet smile.

  He might have a streak of recklessness when it came to business, even now be prepared to risk everything he’d achieved. But he’d been far more circumspect in his personal life, taking care to keep relationships on a superficial level, with women who played by the same rules he did-have fun, move on-who understood that his future was written, that there was no possibility of anything deeper, anything permanent between them. Who would not get hurt by a light-hearted flirtation.

  Diana Metcalfe was not one of those women.

  And he did not feel light-hearted.

  Yet, even when he recognised the need for duty before pleasure, he still wanted to hear his name on her lips, wanted to carry her smile with him. Couldn’t rid himself of the scent of her skin, the sweet taste of her that lingered on his lips, a smile than went deeper the more he looked, a smile that faded to a touch of sadness.

  He’d need all his wits about him this evening if he was going to pull off the biggest deal of his career to date and all he could think about was what had made the light go out of her eyes. Who had made the light go out of her eyes…

  And, on an impulse, he lifted the card he was still holding, caught a trace of her scent. Nothing that came from a bottle, but something warm and womanly that was wholly Diana Metcalfe.

  He stuffed it into his pocket, out of sight, dragged both hands through his hair, repeating his earlier attempt to erase the tormenting thoughts. He should call James right now and tell him to contact the hire company and ask them to provide another driver for tomorrow. Maybe, if she was out of sight, he could put her out of his mind.

  But even that escape was denied him.

  His first mistake, and it had been entirely his, was not to have kissed her, not even to have allowed himself to be distracted by her; he’d have to have been made of wood not to have been distracted by her. His first mistake had been to talk to her. Really talk to her.

  He’d talked to Jack Lumley, for heaven’s sake, but he’d known no more about the man after a week in his company than he had on day one.

  Diana didn’t do that kind of polite, empty conversation.

  He’d said she was a ‘natural’, but she was more than that. Her kind of natural didn’t require quotation marks. Diana Metcalfe was utterly unaffected in her manner. Spoke first, thought second. There was no fawning to please. None of the schooled politeness that the Jack Lumleys of this world had down to a fine art.

  He wouldn’t, couldn’t, ruin her big chance, send her back to the ‘school run’ when she’d done nothing wrong.

  He was the one breaking all the rules and he was the one who’d have to suffer.

  Maybe an evening brokering the kind of financial package required to launch an airline would have much the same effect as a cold shower, he thought as he watched the tail lights of the car disappear.

  Or maybe he just needed to get a grip.

  ‘Excellency.’ The maître d’ greeted him warmly as he led the way to a private dining room, booked for this very discreet dinner. ‘It’s good to see you again.’

  ‘And you, Georges.’

  But as he followed him up the wide staircase he deliberately distanced himself from this international, cosmopolitan world. Reminded himself with every step of his own culture, his own future. Demonstrated it by enquiring after the man’s family, his wife, not as he’d learned to do in the west, but in the Arab manner, where to mention a man’s wife, his daughters, would be an insult.

  ‘How are your sons?’ he asked, just as his father, his grandfather would have done.

  Diana drove back to the yard, filled in her log, wrapped the shattered remains of the snow globe in a load of newspaper before disposing of it. Vacuum cleaned the inside of the car.

  Even managed a bite of the sandwich she’d picked up at the local eight-’ til-late.

  But keeping her hands busy did nothing to occupy her brain. That was away with the fairies and would keep reliving that moment when he’d kissed her and, for just a moment, she’d felt like a princess.

  Zahir had wanted to send Diana away, had planned to call at eleven and tell her to go home, but somehow the moment had passed and when, leaving the restaurant, he saw her waiting for him, he knew that his subconscious had sabotaged his good intentions. And could not be anything but glad.

  It wasn’t solitude he needed at this moment, but the company of someone with whom he could share his excitement. Someone who had a smile that reached deep inside him and heated him to the heart.

  ‘You’ve had a long day, Metcalfe. Can you spare another five minutes?’

  ‘Yes…Yes, of course. Where do you want to go?’

  ‘Nowhere. Will you walk around the square with me?’

  Maybe he’d got the formula right this time, or maybe she caught something of the excitement he’d had to suppress in the presence of the financiers, but which was now fizzing off him. Whatever it was, she clicked the key fob to secure the car and fell in beside him.

  ‘There are no stars,’ he said, looking up. ‘The light pollution in London robs you of the sky. If we were in the desert the night would be black, the stars close enough to touch.’

  ‘It sounds awesome.’ Then, as he glanced at her, ‘I meant…’

  ‘I know what you meant,’ he said. She wasn’t using teenage slang, but using the word as it was meant to be used. ‘And you’re right. It’s empty. Cold. Clean. Silent but for the wind. It fills a man with awe. Reminds him how small he is. How insignificant.’

  ‘Did your meeting not go well?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘Better than I could ever have imagined.’ A rare take-it-or-leave-it arrogance had carried him through dinner tonight. He’d cut through the waffle and, refusing to play the games of bluff and counter-bluff, had gone straight to the bottom line, had told them what he wanted, what he was prepared to offer. Maybe his passion had convinced them. ‘Beyond the four of us at dinner tonight, you are the first to know what the world will hear two days from now. That Ramal Hamrah is about to have its own airline.’

  ‘Oh.’ Then, ‘That is big.’

  ‘Every deal is big, only the numbers change.’ Then, looking down at her, ‘When you buy your pink taxi it will be huge.’

  ‘It’ll be a miracle,’ she said with feeling, ‘but, if it ever happens, I promise you that I’ll look up at the stars and remind myself not to get too big for my boots.’

  He took her arm as they crossed the road and, when they reached th
e safety of the footpath, he tucked it safely beneath his before once more looking up at the reddish haze of the sky and said, ‘Not in London, Metcalfe.’ For a moment she’d frozen, but maybe his use of her surname reassured her and, as she relaxed, he moved on. ‘I suppose you could go to the Planetarium.’

  ‘Not necessary. In London you don’t look up to see the stars. You look down.’ He frowned and she laughed. ‘Didn’t you know that the streets of London aren’t paved with gold, they’re paved with stars.’

  ‘They are?’

  He looked down and then sideways, at her. ‘Obviously I’m missing something.’

  ‘We’re in Berkeley Square?’ she prompted.

  ‘And?’

  ‘You’ve never heard the song?’ She shook her head. ‘Why would you? It’s ancient.’

  Berkeley Square…Something snagged in his memory, a scratchy old record his grandfather used to play. ‘I thought it was about a nightingale.’

  ‘You do know it!

  ‘I remember the tune.’ He hummed a snatch of it and she smiled.

  ‘Almost,’ she said, laughing. ‘But it’s not just the nightingale. There’s a line in there about stars too.’ She lifted her shoulders in an awkward little shrug. ‘My dad used to sing it to my mum,’ she said, as if she felt she had to explain how she knew. ‘They used to dance around the kitchen…’

  ‘Really?’ He found the idea enchanting. ‘Like this?’ And as he turned his arm went naturally to her waist. ‘Well, what are you waiting for? Sing…’ he commanded.

  Diana could not believe this was happening. There were still people about-Zahir’s kind of people, men in dinner jackets, women in evening clothes-heading towards the fashionable nightclubs in the area to celebrate some special occasion. Laughing, joking, posing as someone took photographs with a camera phone.

  Maybe if she’d been dressed in a glamorous gown she wouldn’t have felt so foolish. But in her uniform…

  ‘Don’t!’ she begged, but Zahir caught her hand and, humming, began to spin her along the footpath. ‘Zahir…’ Then, ‘For heaven’s sake, that’s not even the right tune!’

  ‘No? How does it go?’

  Maybe his excitement, his joy, were infectious, but somehow, before she knew it, she was singing it to him, filling gaps in the words with ‘da-da-de-dum’s and he was humming and they were dancing around Berkeley Square to a song that was old when her parents had first danced to it. A song in which the magic of falling in love made the impossible happen. Made London a place where angels dined, where nightingales sang and where the streets were paved with stars.

  Dancing as if they were alone in the universe and the streets truly were paved with stars.

  It was only when she came to the end of the song that she realised they had stopped dancing, that they were standing by the car. That Zahir was simply holding her.

  That what she wanted more than anything in the world was for him to kiss her again.

  And as if reading her thoughts, he raised her hand to his lips, before tilting his head as if listening to something very faint.

  ‘Can you hear it?’ he murmured. ‘The nightingale.’

  It was a question that asked more than whether she could, impossibly, hear a shy woodland bird singing in a London square.

  It took every atom of common sense to ignore the soft touch of his breath against her cheek, his fingers still wrapped about hers, his hand warm against her waist. To ignore the magic of the nightingale’s sweet song filling her heart.

  It took Freddy’s voice saying, ‘Will you be home before I go to bed, Mummy?’ The memory of her promise, ‘I’ll be there when you wake up.’

  ‘No, sir,’ she managed, her voice not quite her own. ‘I think you’ll find that’s a sparrow.’

  And with that she shattered the fragile beauty of the moment and the danger passed. He took a step back and said, with the gravest of smiles, ‘I forgot, Metcalfe. You don’t believe in fairy stories.’

  For a moment she wanted to deny it. Instead, she said, ‘Neither, sir, do you.’

  ‘No.’ He repeated the touch of his lips to her finger and, without a word, turned and began to walk away.

  What?

  ‘Sir!’ He did not seem to hear her. ‘Where are you going?’ Then, in desperation, ‘Zahir!’

  Without stopping, without turning, he said, ‘Go home, Metcalfe. I’ll walk back to the hotel.’

  ‘But…’

  He stopped. Looked up to a sky fogged with neon.

  But? But what? What was she thinking?

  As if in answer to her unspoken question, he turned and, as their eyes met, she knew ‘what’.

  She’d always known.

  She’d been here before and the raw power of the heat-charged look that passed between them scared her witless.

  She’d had the sense to take a step back and then, as if seized by a determination to destroy herself all over again, she’d undone it all with that ‘but’.

  And she had no excuse. She wasn’t an eighteen-year-old with her head in the clouds and her brains in cold storage. At eighteen there was some excuse. At twenty-three, with her reputation rebuilt, responsibilities…

  She was fooling herself.

  This was desire at its most primitive. The atavistic urge that powered all of creation. Age, experience, counted for nothing. There was no immunity…

  ‘But?’ Zahir finally prompted, his voice as soft as thistledown.

  Without thought she’d reached out to him. Her hand was still extended, as if imploring him to come back. Finish what he’d started.

  Slowly, deliberately, she closed her hand, but somehow it stayed there and he took a step towards her.

  Maybe the movement broke the spell. Maybe age did help, because she swung her arm wildly towards the far corner of the square. ‘You’re going the wrong way,’ she said. ‘You need Charles Street. Then, um, Queen Street. Then Curzon Street.’

  ‘That’s out of the taxi drivers’ handbook, is it?’

  ‘Yes. No…’ Her eyes were still locked on to his. She could scarcely breathe. ‘Queen Street is one-way. I’d…a taxi…would have to cut along Erfield Street.’

  Zahir gently took her arm, opened the driver’s door of the car and said, ‘I’ll see you in the morning, Diana. Ten o’clock.’

  Zahir stood back as she climbed into the limo, fumbled to get the key in the ignition and, after what seemed like an age, drove away. Only then did he let loose the breath he seemed to have been holding for ever.

  He’d only met the woman a few hours ago and yet it was as if he’d been waiting for her all his life. She was the one who made him laugh, made him dance. Made him want to sing.

  Walking through the quiet streets, he should have been concentrating on the future, plans that had been a year in the making. Instead it was Diana Metcalfe who filled his head, heated him to the heart, made nightingales sing in the heart of London.

  Her father was dozing in front of the television, not conspicuously waiting for his little girl to come home, but he never went to bed until he knew she was safely in. As a teenager it had driven her mad. It still did but, a mother herself, these days Diana understood the need to know that your family was safe before you could rest.

  ‘Busy day?’ he asked.

  ‘Above average,’ she said, managing a grin as she peeled off her jacket. ‘An outbreak of food poisoning meant that I had the number one car and a sheikh.’ About whom the least said the better. Her father could read her like a book. ‘Did you manage okay?’ she asked, by way of diversion. ‘Freddy wasn’t too much for you?’

  ‘He was as good as gold. He’s spark out, bless him.’ He eased himself to his feet, limped into the kitchen, turning on the tap with his left hand, then holding the kettle beneath it. She wanted to say, Sit down…let me…but understood that his self-esteem was involved. Knew that the more he did, the better it was for his mobility. Her need, his determination, to look after Freddy for her had done more for his recovery from the s
troke than all the months of phsyio. Had given him a reason to push himself to be mobile. ‘What’ll you have? Tea, chocolate?’

  All she wanted was to get to her room, shut the door, be on her own so that she could unravel the emotional tangle she’d got herself in, get her head around it, but her father looked forward to hearing about her day. ‘Chocolate, if you’ll have some with me. Has Mum gone up?’

  ‘Hours ago. She was rushed off her feet at the shop today, doing the flowers for some fancy society wedding. She looked whacked out.’

  ‘She could do with a holiday,’ Diana said, trying not to envy all those journalists and tour operators, being whisked away, first class on Sheikh Zahir’s magic carpet. ‘Maybe we could all go somewhere when school breaks up.’

  ‘You should be going on holiday with people your own age,’ he said, then looked away.

  ‘I don’t think Freddy would fit in with an eighteen-thirty package, do you?’ she joked, pretending she hadn’t noticed.

  ‘We’d look after him. You need to get out more. Get a life.’

  ‘Freddy is my life,’ she said.

  ‘Di-’

  ‘How’s the Test Match going?’ she asked.

  Once launched on the safer subject of cricket, her father’s passion, all she had to do was say ‘absolutely’ in all the appropriate places while he gave her chapter and verse on the weaknesses in the England team, the poor eyesight of the umpires, the quality of the wicket, while she drank her chocolate. Then, having rinsed her mug, she dropped a kiss on his balding head.

  ‘Tell Mum that I’ll see to Freddy in the morning. I don’t have to go in until nine. Don’t stay up too late,’ she chided, playing up to the pretence that he’d stayed up to watch something he wanted to see on the television, rather than because he was waiting for her to come home.

  She looked in on Freddy, straightened the cover that had slipped from his shoulders, lightly touching his dark curls. Five years old and already a heartbreaker, just like the man who’d fathered him.