The Desert Prince / The Playboy's Proposition: The Desert Prince / The Playboy's Proposition

Two

As Salim piloted the car back to Salalah, he got the distinct impression Celia was trying to back out.

“How do you feel about honoring the land’s history of oil production?” She glanced sideways at him, blue eyes alive with intelligence. “That’s surely part of the area’s heritage, too.”

“You mean, incorporate the wellheads and pipelines?”

“Exactly.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t take a project unless I can implement my vision.”

Ah. An uncompromising artist. He’d expect no less of Celia. Wasn’t that part of her irresistible charm?

Salim turned and called her bluff. “Sure.”

She blinked and her lips parted.

“Not all of them,” she stammered. “I think an area’s industrial history can be part of its magic. I designed a park two years ago around an old coal mine in England. We preserved the pithead as part of the project because that mine was the reason the town grew there in the first place.”

Salim nodded as his hand slid over the wheel. “I appreciate original thinking. Too many tourist destinations are carbon copies of the same island fantasy.”

“Aren’t they? Sometimes it’s hard to tell if you’re in Florida or Madagascar. I have a heck of a time with some of my clients though. They don’t want to use native plants because they don’t see them as ‘upscale.’ I guess familiarity breeds contempt.”

“We business types need educating.”

Celia raised a blond brow. “Sometimes it’s not worth the trouble. Many people aren’t interested in being educated. They want business as usual.”

Salim turned to stare out at the empty road ahead. She wanted him to be one of those unimaginative suits, so she could turn down his project without a qualm of conscience.

But he couldn’t let that happen. “I’ll pay triple your usual fee.”

Celia froze. “What?”

“It’s a big project and will take a long time.”

She bit her lip, obviously contemplating the dilemma of turning down more money than she’d probably ever made.

He heard her inhale. “I’ll need to travel back to the states regularly.”

“Come and go as you please. I’ll pay all your expenses.”

She wanted to refuse him, but he’d make it impossible.

Seeing her again had already fanned that unfortunate flame of desire she kindled in him. It had never truly gone out. This time he wouldn’t be done with her until it was extinguished—permanently.

A simple signature committed Celia to the uneasy partnership. A meeting with the architect and general contractor established they were all on the same page, and all systems were go by the time Celia headed back to Manhattan with her first check burning a large hole in her pocket.

She could fly back to visit Kira whenever she wanted. When this job was over she’d have enough money for a down payment on a house in Weston, near her parents. She could set down roots and have a real home base to share with her daughter.

She had thoroughly convinced herself that taking the job was a good idea—until Sunday lunch at her parents’ house in Connecticut.

“But Mom, you’re the one who said it was time for Kira to meet her father.” Celia heard her voice rising to a whine the way it used to when she was a teen and they wouldn’t lend her the car.

“I know, dear. But you met with her father. Did you tell him about Kira?”

Kira was napping in the upstairs bedroom she slept in when Celia was traveling.

“You know I didn’t.”

“Why not?” Her mother’s clear blue gaze had never seemed more like an inquisitor’s stare.

“I don’t know.” She sighed. “The time never felt right. It’s a big thing. I should have told him when I was pregnant. I’m beginning to wish I had, but everyone talked me out of it.”

Her mother nodded. “They had good reason to. He’d already told you there was no future between you. You know sharia law grants a father full legal custody of his children. He could have taken Kira from you and denied you the right to see her. He still could.”

Celia frowned. “I don’t think he’d do that.”

“You’ve got solid gut instincts. If you didn’t tell him, there was good reason for it.”

“Your mother’s right, dear,” said her father, pushing a brussels sprout onto his fork. His soft voice rarely offered anything but support and encouragement, but she could see that he, too, was apprehensive about her taking this job. “He seemed like a nice boy when you two were back in college, but that was a long time ago. You don’t know what he’s capable of. He’s rich and powerful.”

Celia snorted. “All the money in the world doesn’t turn him into a god. He was a little intimidating at first, but I was completely blunt about my ideas for the project and we came to an understanding.”

“Except about the fact that you bore his child.” Her mother stared intently at her white wineglass as she took a sip.

Celia bit her lip. “I do want to tell him.”

“Just be careful. Once you tell him, there’s no going back.”

“I know, I know, believe me. Still, she’s Salim’s daughter. He has a right to know about her. It’s cruel to both Salim and Kira to keep him in the dark about her existence. When the time is right, I’ll tell him.”

Fear curled in her stomach, along with the guilt that had been her constant companion since Kira’s birth.

“Salim, huh? I see you’re back on a first-name basis. Don’t you fall in love with him again, either.”

“I’d rather die.”

Upstairs, she crouched beside Kira’s “big girl bed.” Her daughter’s long, long lashes fluttered slightly, as dream images flashed across those huge brown eyes.

They looked so much like Salim’s.

Celia bit her knuckle. So many things about Kira reminded her of Salim. Celia’s own pale coloring had been shoved aside by genes demanding shiny dark hair and smooth olive skin. Kira had a throaty chuckle when something really amused her that sounded shockingly like Salim’s laugh.

Already she was fascinated with numbers, and with money and business, and she certainly didn’t get that from her mom. She’d even convinced her grandma to help her set up a lemonade—and lemon cupcake!—stand last summer, when she’d barely turned two. She’d fingered the shiny quarters with admiration and joy that made the family fall about, laughing.

Celia was sure Salim, who’d majored in business and run a consulting firm of sorts while still in college, would be amused and proud beyond words.

A soft, breathy sigh escaped from Kira’s parted lips. Finely carved lips that were unmistakably an inheritance from one person.

It was wrong to deprive her daughter of her father. If it was awkward to tell him now, it would be much worse when Kira wanted to find him ten or fifteen years from now. It wasn’t fair to keep them apart.

When Celia returned to Oman two weeks later, Salim was in Bahrain, opening a new hotel. Every day she expected his return with trembling anticipation, but the days stretched out into six weeks with no sign of him.

She could be offended by his neglect, but she decided to view it as a vote of confidence. Apparently, he trusted her completely and didn’t even want detailed updates of her plans.

The archaeological team was hard at work reassembling structures and artifacts at the site. She’d put together a team of landscape professionals and made herself an expert in the unique local flora and fauna.

Suddenly word came from on high that his majesty was due back in three days. The coffee grew stronger and meetings stretched late into the night. Admins and accountants scurried faster from office to office. Celia found herself pacing the luxurious landscape nurseries, examining everything from specimen palm trees to prostrate ground covers with an increasing sense of alarm.

She planned to tell him about Kira at the first possible opportunity. She couldn’t work for him and take his money while concealing something so vital. His loyal employees made it clear that he was a man of honor. He’d be angry, yes, but.

“He’s here!” His admin burst into the conference room where Celia was organizing a set of drawings. “He’s on his way up and he asked me to find you. I’ll tell him you’re in here.”

Sunlight shone brighter through the elegant arched windows, and the sea outside seemed to glitter with a sense of menace. Celia straightened her new pinstriped suit and patted her hair.

You can do this.

It was going to be awkward any time she told him. Disastrous, even, but she couldn’t work for him under false pretenses. The longer she waited the worse it would be when the news finally came out.

He had to know. Now.

“Celia.”

His deep voice resonated off the thick plaster walls and marble floors. Her breath stuck in her lungs as she turned to face him.

An unexpected smile lit his imperious features. He strode toward her and took hold of both her hands, then raised them to his mouth and kissed them. Shock rippled through her as his lips brushed her skin and sparked a shiver of sensation.

“Uh, hi,” she stammered. “I was just organizing the plans.”

“Ahmad tells me your designs are ingenious.”

She smiled. “No more so than his.” The architect was younger than her, but already accomplished and now apparently generous with praise. She made a mental note to thank him.

She made another mental note to rip her gaze from Salim’s broad shoulders. Unlike last time he wore the typical attire of pretty much every man on the Arabian Peninsula: a long white dishdasha that emphasized the elegance of his powerful physique.

She cleared her throat. “I have some sets of plans to go over with you before I order the plantings.”

And there’s another little something I’d like to mention …

How on earth was she going to do this?

No time like the present. She screwed her hands up into fists. Drew a deep breath down into her lungs. Lifted her shoulders.

“Salim, there’s something I …”

But the words dried on her tongue as another man entered the room. Almost a carbon copy of Salim, but with a stockier build. And this man wore Western clothing—jeans in fact.

“Celia, meet my brother, Elan.”

Salim studied her face as she shook hands with Elan. She seemed nervous about something. According to Ahmad’s daily reports her plans were brilliant: creative, stylish and ideally suited to the difficult environment.

So why did she look so … apprehensive?

Her eyes darted from Elan to himself. Her cheeks were pink and her lips appeared to quiver with unspoken words. The pulse hammering at her delicate throat suggested a heart beating fast beneath her high, proud breasts.

He cursed the thought as Elan’s words tugged him out of his reverie. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“You have?” Celia’s voice was almost a squeak.

“What do you mean?” asked Salim. Surely he’d never mentioned his long-ago American girlfriend to his brother. They hadn’t even lived in the same country since Elan was sent away to boarding school at age eleven.

“Oh, yes. You were definitely the highlight of his college education,” he teased. “I suspect you may have rose-tinted the entire college experience for him. He certainly enjoyed it a lot more than I did.”

Salim’s ears burned at hearing himself discussed so casually. “That’s only because Elan is a man of action and not academics. I assure you my pleasure was entirely pedagogical.” He shot a dark glance at his brother.

Elan’s eyes twinkled with mischief. “Yeah, sure.”

“Elan runs an oil services company in Nevada.” Salim looked at Celia. “He’s busy ripping up the landscape so that people like you can put it back together one day.”

Elan shrugged. “The world still runs on oil, whether we like it or not. And as my brother knows, conserving the environment is a passion of mine.”

Celia smiled. “That is refreshing.”

Salim suppressed a snort of disgust. A passion of mine? He didn’t remember his brother being such a flirtatious charmer. “Where are Sara and the children?”

“They’re on the beach.” Elan tucked his thumbs into his belt loops in another American gesture that made Salim realize how little he knew his own brother.

“Perhaps you should join them.”

Salim glanced at Celia. Sun shone through the windows and illuminated her golden hair, picking out highlights of copper and bronze. He wanted to be alone with her.

To discuss the plans, naturally.

“I think we should all join them.” Elan held out his arm, which Salim noticed with irritation was as thickly muscled as a dockworker’s. “Celia, come meet my wife. She’s never left the U.S. before so I think she’d be glad to hear a familiar accent.”

Salim studied Celia’s face as she absorbed the fact that his brother had married an American girl. A perfectly ordinary girl without an ounce of aristocratic blood. Elan bragged cheerfully about her impoverished background. A stark contrast to the type of woman tradition had expected him to marry.

But Elan was not the eldest son.

Celia pushed a hand through her silky hair. “Sure, I’d love to come to the beach.” She glanced nervously at Salim. “Unless you had other plans for me.”

An alternate plan formed in his mind. It involved unbuttoning her officious pinstriped suit and liberating her lithe, elegant body.

He drew in a breath and banished the image before it could heat his blood. “None whatsoever.”

She glanced down at her suit. “I’d better run to my room and change.”

“Good idea.” Elan smiled. “They’re camped out near the snack bar. We’ll meet you down there.”

Salim bridled at the reference to his elegant beach café as a “snack bar,” but he kept his mouth shut.

Elan was his guest and he’d resolved to end the long estrangement between the surviving members of their once-great family.

He may have failed in his mission to produce the son and heir his father demanded, but at least he could draw his scattered brothers back to their roots in Oman.

They were all he had left.

“Salim, I’m not leaving you here,” said Elan. “You’ll start working and that’ll be the last we see of you until dinner.”

Salim stiffened as his brother threaded his arm through his. Elan always had been affectionate. It was one of the reasons his father had sent him away to a spartan boarding school in England—to toughen him up.

It had worked, as he remembered from their guarded encounters afterward. And it had backfired badly. Salim recalled the forthright strength Elan had shown in refusing the bride their father had chosen and claiming he’d never set foot on their land again. A promise he’d kept until their father’s death.

Apparently, Sara had un-toughened him again.

Salim snuck a sideways glance at his brother. Same strong nose, determined jaw, flinty black eyes. Even their close-cropped hair was similar.

But Elan’s jeans and shirt were a striking contrast to Salim’s traditional dress. A difference that spoke of the chasm opened between them.

Salim traveled regularly, but could not imagine living abroad.

Or marrying an American girl.

Even one as desirable as Celia.

Three

Celia couldn’t stop laughing. A bright-eyed toddler was attempting to bury her feet in the sand, and the combination of sun and splashing seawater made her feel downright giddy.

Sailboats scudded on the sapphire horizon and, behind her, the elegant white buildings of the hotel reflected the magical afternoon sun.

Salim sat on the fine sand a few feet from her, his long white garment crisp and elegant in stark contrast to everyone else’s swimsuits. He showered lavish praise on his young nephew Ben’s elaborate sand castle, and smiled indulgently when nine-month-old Hannah tugged at the hem of his robe and sprinkled sand on his feet.

Unlike his brother Elan, he showed no inclination to run in the surf with them under his arm.

Elan’s wife, Sara, was athletic, outspoken and almost as blond as Celia herself.

Hah. So much for the Al Mansur men being pledged from birth to marry a handpicked local bride. She couldn’t help gloating a little, under the circumstances.

How different things might have been if Salim hadn’t broken off their long-ago romance to marry the bride his father chose.

“I hear you’re one of the top landscape architects in the world today.” Sara’s comment pulled Celia out of her reflection.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. I’ve just had the good fortune to be offered some interesting projects.”

“She’s too modest,” Salim cut in. “Her innovative approach has earned her an excellent reputation. I wouldn’t have hired her otherwise.”

“I’m impressed that you hired a woman,” said Sara, looking straight at Salim. “Elan’s told me the country is very traditional. I wasn’t sure I’d see women in positions of influence.”

“I wouldn’t cheat my business of the skills and talents of half the population.” Salim shifted position. “I’ve raised some eyebrows with my hiring practices over the years, but no one’s laughing at the results.”

“That’s good to hear.” Sara smiled. “Though I’ve noticed that even a man who believes in equality in the boardroom can be quite the knuckle-dragger when it comes to his private life.” She shot a mischievous look at her husband. “Elan took a while to catch onto the idea of the emancipated woman.”

“Really?” Celia couldn’t disguise her fascination.

“It’s true,” said Elan ruefully. “I was all in favor of women in the workplace, until it came to my own wife.”

“And this after I’d already worked with him for several months. Somehow, once the ring was on my finger I was expected to lie around eating bonbons all day.”

Elan shrugged. “I guess I still had all those old-fashioned traditions etched somewhere in my brain, even though I’d rejected them a long time ago. Almost losing Sara made me wake up.”

“Lucky thing he came to his senses. I’d have missed him.” Sara winked. “And we wouldn’t have Hannah.” She looked fondly at the baby, who sat on Elan’s knee sucking on a sandy finger.

Elan stretched. “We Al Mansur men come with some baggage, but trust me, we’re worth the trouble.” He shot a glance at his brother.

Celia’s eyes darted from one man to the next. Had his comment been intended for her?

Surely Salim hadn’t told his brother about their long-ago relationship? With his hints about the past, he seemed to be trying to start something.

Salim sat, straight backed on the sand, brows lowered. Obviously the whole discussion made him uncomfortable.

As well it might.

Her breathing grew shallow. Elan had no idea of the bombshell she was about to lob at Salim.

“Salim,” Elan flicked a bug from his baby daughter’s arm. “Did I tell you Sara and I are eating out with one of my clients tonight? I hope you weren’t counting on us for dinner.”

Salim frowned. “I thought you wanted to eat that giant fish you caught this morning in the harbor. You should enjoy it while it’s still fresh.”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot all about Old Yellow.” He glanced up at Celia, a twinkle in his eye. “It’s a yellowfin tuna. Maybe you two could share it?”

Celia gulped.

What was Salim’s brother up to?

A cautious glance at Salim revealed his brow lowered in distaste.

“Goodness, I wouldn’t dream of imposing,” she blurted, anxious to dispel the tension. “I’m sure Salim is busy since he’s been away so long. A lot has happened at the site.”

“Yes, I need to visit it this afternoon.” Salim’s face was expressionless. “Perhaps you could accompany me and fill me in on the details.”

“Absolutely. I’d be glad to.” She met his poker face with one of her own.

Was that a grin of triumph spreading across Elan’s rather arrogant features?

He’d be grinning out of the other side of his mouth if he knew the truth about her. He had no idea he was trying to set his brother up with a woman who kept his own child a secret from him.

She bit her lip as dread crept through her.

The excursion would present a perfect opportunity to tell Salim about Kira.

Now that they were working together, every day she didn’t tell him made the secret weigh heavier. It was time to bite the proverbial bullet—or dagger, in this case—and face the consequences.

Salim chose a chauffeured car to drive Celia and himself to the site so there could be no suspicion of impropriety. His brother’s bizarre hints made it sound as if he actually expected him to form a relationship with Celia.

Where would he get such an idea?

His unfortunate reunion liaison with Celia was entirely secret. He hadn’t told a soul, and never would. He had no intentions toward her now, except to extinguish all thoughts of her from his heart and mind.

Celia stepped out of the car, her faded jeans giving away far too much information about her shapely legs. He glanced at his driver, but the man had tactfully averted his eyes.

“Guide me through the site as if it were built,” he commanded. He cleared his throat as she walked past, determined not to be distracted by the tasteless and provocative way her pale pink T-shirt draped over her rather pert breasts.

Really, a mature woman should dress more modestly in a business situation.

It was entirely her fault that images of her snuck into his dreams and hung around his brain, ready to spear him with unexpected and unwelcome sensations.

It was annoying that his body responded so predictably to such simple and obvious stimuli.

She wore construction boots, too. Was there no limit to her desire to flaunt the expectations of feminine dress?

The boots were practical though, he couldn’t argue with that. They picked their way across the rocky site until they reached an area where carved stone and mud-brick walls rose out of the soil.

“This will be the main entrance.” Celia spread her arms, which had acquired a slight tan. “The road will be paved with stones to match those found at the site, and the drive lined with native plants like simr that need little water and provide nectar for honeybees. The original site appears to have been fortified, so the design incorporates a low wall and a wide, wooden gate, which will remain open.”

“Unless invaders attack.”

She glanced at him, surprised. A smile flickered across her shell-pink lips. “Always best to be prepared.”