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www.millsandboon.co.uk
To Linda McQueen,
for her love of words and getting it right.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER ONE
XA SHIRAQ was notable for many things.
The impression that most people took away with them was of a penetrating gaze that seemed to strip souls bare.
His eyes were stygian black and deeply socketed. It was said they could see through any duplicity. They could burn with the heat of the desert or be as cold and cutting as the wind from the topmost peaks of the Atlas Mountains in the freezing heart of winter. They revealed nothing, yet they knew everything.
He had not inherited the Sheikhdom of Xabia. He had won the right to rule through the sheer force of his will and character. He retained and increased his power by not letting anything escape his notice. His vigilance over matters that others might regard as of little consequence, was legendary. Its effect was that Xa Shiraq was never surprised. He had no intention of ever being surprised.
‘Tell me about the geologist’s daughter,’ he commanded of Kozim, his closest aide.
‘No...o...o, ah...problem,’ came the habitual singsong reply.
A slicing flash of black eyes was enough for Kozim to clear his throat and bring forth a flurry of detail.
‘She is still at the hotel in Fisa, working front of house. She is in charge of reservations. There is a complaint lodged against her. She will not last.’
Xa Shiraq’s long, supple fingers tapped a thoughtful rhythm on the armrest of his chair. ‘Why did she take the position? Why has she stayed? With her qualifications she could have done better. It makes no sense unless my suspicion has substance. Each step... one step closer.’
‘She has applied for a transfer to Bejos,’ Kozim added as a possible point of interest.
‘Ah!’ It was the sound of satisfaction. ‘So the purpose reveals itself beyond all reasonable doubt. She is a woman of remarkable determination.’ He looked sharply at Kozim. ‘If application is made for entry to Xabia, it is to be refused.’
‘I will see to it immediately,’ Kozim said with fervour, hiding his surprise at such a leap in anticipation.
‘Never believe in coincidence, Kozim. Has the transfer to Bejos been granted?’
‘No, Your Excellency. It was blocked by the assistant manager at Fisa.’
‘For what reason?’
‘He claims unsuitability on the grounds that she is a striking blonde and may draw troublesome attention at the Bejos hotel.’ Kozim shrugged. ‘That is what he says officially.’
‘And unofficially?’ the sheikh prompted.
‘It is inferred that there are more personal reasons.’
The sheikh sat back, hooding his eyes. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the Fisa hotel one of the poorest performers in the Oasis chain?’
‘You are not wrong, Your Excellency,’ Kozim quickly assured him. ‘It has one of the lowest occupancy rates.’
‘There have been a number of complaints about the hotel,’ the sheikh said broodingly.
Kozim didn’t know of any. His ignorance did not disturb him. It was not unusual for him not to know what the sheikh knew. Xa Shiraq had many sources of information.
The fingers tapped again. ‘I will act. I can kill two birds with one arrow.’
Kozim had no idea what the sheikh meant, but he was glad he was not going to be on the receiving end of the arrow that would undoubtedly reach its targets with deadly accuracy. He was glad he had no connection whatsoever to the running of the Oasis Hotel at Fisa. He was glad he was not the geologist’s daughter.
CHAPTER TWO
AMANDA Buchanan thought she had developed a thick enough skin to withstand most of the put-down jokes that came her way. Normally, she let them flow past her like water off a duck’s back. After all, she had been born with three strikes against her. Her mother had been Polish, her father Irish, and she was a natural blonde.
The latest rash of ‘dumb blonde’ jokes was the most belittling she had so far encountered. It was almost enough to drive her into dying her hair black. Her stubborn sense of self-worth, however, would not countenance any backing off from who and what she was. Apart from which, it would give her snide detractors the satisfaction of knowing they had got to her.
One day, she vowed, she would make a lot of people eat their words. Not only on her own account, but on her father’s. Amanda wasn’t quite sure how she was going to achieve that end, but working for the Oasis chain of hotels had seemed a likely step in the right direction. What she needed to do was get into a high level management position which might...just might...open the door to where she wanted to go.
In the meantime, she had to grit her teeth and suffer the assistant manager’s malicious manner and spite in putting her down in every possible way he could conceive.
She knew why he did it. It was a payback for her lack of interest in him as a man. Charles Arnold combined a huge ego with small performance. His principal aim in life was to downgrade everybody to his own level so that he could feel superior. He had no idea how badly it reflected on himself and on his job.
If Amanda had been willing to accommodate him, his attitude and that of the male staff would have been very different. A shudder of revulsion ran through her at the mere thought of submitting to Charles Arnold’s touch. That was never going to happen, no matter what subtle or unsubtle pressure he brought to bear. As it was, the other staff took their lead from him, having their bit of ‘fun’ with her, knowing they were completely safe from any complaint of harassment.
There was only one person who could have fixed the situation for Amanda, and that was the vague, shadowy figure of Xa Shiraq, the owner of the Oasis chain. It was said that he held all the key decisions regarding personnel in his own hands. He was never around. He was never seen. There were doubts he really existed.
Amanda knew better. When her father lay dying in her arms, revealing what had happened in halting, stumbling words...it left no doubt in Amanda’s mind that Xa Shiraq existed.
This was the third Oasis Hotel Amanda had worked in. The mysterious owner had not once made an appearance at any of them. Promotions and sackings were done by impersonal faxes, never in person. Despite this lack of any substantial evidence of his actual presence, her father’s assurance and certainty had convinced Amanda that Xa Shiraq was indeed flesh and blood reality.
Her belief, however, was of no help to her in her present situation. It was difficult to keep her cool while she burned with the injustice of what was happening to her, but Amanda was determined not to put a foot wrong.
Soon, very soon, she hoped, her transfer to the Oasis Hotel in Bejos would come through. Then she would be one step closer to her real goal, one more step removed from her persecutors. Charles Arnold and his minions would then become so much flotsam that she could jettison from her life.
A telephone call claimed her attention. She lifted the receiver and projected a pleasant, welcoming note into her voice. ‘Good morning. The Oasis Hotel. Reservations.’
‘Is the Presidential Suite available tonight?’ a male voice inquired without preamble.
‘Just a moment, sir, I’ll check it on the computer.’
Amanda knew perfectly well that the most expensive suite in the hotel was vacant. In the five months she had worked here, it had been occupied only seven times. On every one of these occasions it had been given to bridal couples on a one-night complimentary basis as an inducement for the booking of the wedding reception. No-one had paid good money for it. This was not something the hotel management wanted broadcast to the rest of the world.
‘Yes, sir, it is available,’ she said after a suitable pause. ‘For how long would you like to make a reservation?’
‘For how long will it be available?’
Amanda chose an encouraging reply. ‘We would do our very best to ensure you have undisturbed occupancy for as long as you require.’
There was no response. The click of a receiver being quietly replaced sent a highly disquieting tingle down Amanda’s spine. Had someone been testing her, checking that she was not too free with information about bookings? There had been one fabricated complaint lodged against her, engineered by Charles Arnold to demonstrate the cost of his displeasure.
She assured herself there had been nothing to criticise in her handling of the call. If anyone had been playing funny games she’d given them no rope to hang her with. Nevertheless, the incident nagged at her mind long after she should have dismissed it.
It was the voice that had made her think the caller was genuine in his inquiry about the Presidential Suite. A hard, distinctive voice with a ring of arrogance about it. The kind of voice one instinctively associated with a position of power or wealth. A voice that expected requests to be automatically carried out to the letter, yet lacking any trace of the spoilt petulance that came from people born to riches.
It had been rude of him, though, to leave her hanging like that on the telephone. The courtesy of a ‘Thank you’ would have cost him nothing. Amanda decided if she ever met the man behind that voice, she would know him immediately. She knew how she would treat him, too.
While giving him all the courtesy and attention demanded by her job, she would maintain considerable reserve, aplomb, dignity and aloofness. A rueful smile flitted over her lips. More likely than not, he wouldn’t notice her manner. He was probably the type of person who didn’t acknowledge anyone who was not his peer.
A busload of tourists trailed in en masse for a three-night stopover. Charles Arnold put in an officious appearance, extolling the facilities of the hotel to the tour leader. Amanda helped with the process of checking everyone in and dispensing room keys.
She saw the man come in.
He emerged from the huge revolving door that gave entrance to the foyer and paused, taking in the melee around the front desk. There was something about him that arrested Amanda’s attention. Not his clothes. They were unremarkable; a white open-necked shirt, beige linen jacket, brown trousers. Not his looks. She had seen more handsome men. He was tall and lean, like an athlete honed to perfection. Amanda had seen that before with the Olympic Games team.
It was his stillness, his ability to concentrate and focus his full attention that was unusual. He observed the crowd of tourists and the piles of luggage strewn around the foyer in careless disarray. Amanda knew immediately that if he had been tour leader there would have been no carelessness and no disarray.
The signs of contempt in his eyes and on his face were marginal, but they were there. He was a man born to organise–people, places, things. He absorbed everything down to the minutest detail.
Amanda found his intensity disquieting. Making judgements, she thought, and not favorable ones.
‘Have any messages come in for me? My name is...’
Amanda smiled at the woman who had addressed her and obligingly checked for messages. When she darted another glance at the man, she found he had moved to the lounge setting beside the fountain. He was seated in an armchair that faced the reception desk. He had not picked up a newspaper or magazine to idle away the time. He was watching Charles Arnold’s effusive performance with the tour leader in the same way as a hawk watched a sparrow.
Again Amanda was struck by his stillness. Very few people could control and maintain immobility for more than a few seconds. It took the kind of discipline and training of both mind and body that Amanda associated with the ceremonial guards outside Windsor Castle in England. Yet she felt intuitively that this was not a man who took orders. He gave them. He was waiting...waiting for the right moment to take command.
It was difficult to guess his age. He had taut, smooth, dark olive skin stretched over strongly delineated bones; skin unmarked, unblemished, like polished wood–an ageless face.
There was no grey in his black hair. It was thick and straight and shiny, as shiny as his deeply set black eyes. He had certainly reached the age of maturity but whether he was as young as thirty or a decade or more older, Amanda found it impossible to decide.
Handsome was not the right word for him. He was distinctive. Her mind kept coming back to commanding as she dealt with other requests and inquiries from the party of tourists. He was also disturbing. Very disturbing. So disturbing that Amanda had a serious difficulty in tearing her eyes away from him.
Briefly he caught her glance, held it, and dismissed it.
Amanda’s heart skipped a beat. By the intense application of willpower she managed to wrest her attention back to what she was supposed to be doing. What had happened was more than disturbing. She had never reacted like this before in her life.
The worst part of the situation was that Amanda was convinced that this man, this outsider, this stranger had read every thought that had flashed through her mind. He knew, and understood, and did not care. He had come across similar situations many times in his life.
She was nothing new to him. No-one to hold his interest. Amanda was used to put-downs. It was silly to let it hurt, yet for some unfathomable reason, coming from him, it did.
His attention had switched back to Charles Arnold. His stillness was minimally broken. The fingers of his right hand began to tap across the end of the armrest in a steadily paced rhythm as though he was counting.
The tour leader called for attention and gave schedule details, stipulating the time for the next group meeting in the foyer. The crowd dispersed, picking up luggage, heading for the elevators and the rooms allotted to them.
Amanda automatically tensed as Charles Arnold chose to join her behind the front desk, a look of smug satisfaction centered on his face. ‘Well, that should put the numbers up. What’s the intake for today, Mandy?’
Amanda gritted her teeth and pressed the keys to bring up the total on the computer. She hated the way he drawled his version of her name, making her sound like some brainless kewpie doll. She also hated the way he crowded her as he looked over her shoulder at the monitor screen, not exactly touching, but only a breath away. A hot breath. A breath that made her skin crawl.
‘Not bad,’ he commented. ‘I’ve done well. A pity everyone else can’t do as well. Now do a breakdown on singles, doubles and suites.’
Her fingers faltered and stopped as she had the strangest feeling of being gripped by some alien force. She looked up. The man from the armchair was walking towards the desk, his black eyes focused directly on her, giving her more concentrated attention, seeming to absorb all that she was.
Amanda’s heart skittered into a faster beat. He hadn’t dismissed her, after all. She could not help wondering what he saw, how she was adding up in his mind, how he would attempt to organise her.
He probably thought her a soft pale creature compared to himself. Although her fair complexion had acquired a light golden tan in the tropical sunshine at Fisa, this only tended to accentuate the bright clarity of her aquamarine eyes, and made her long ash-blonde hair look whiter than it was, especially against the black suit that was the standard hotel uniform for her position.
Amanda was no fragile flower, but her facial features did have a delicate femininity, and she was slender and softly curved. Her physical appearance gave many men, men like Charles Arnold, the impression that she would be mal-leable and easy to manage. Amanda was quite happy for them to think so. Until such time as they crossed her mental line of what she considered wrong for her, anyone could think what they liked.
‘I have not been attended to.’
The sharp, demanding edge to the stranger’s voice made the statement sound like the most culpable crime against responsibility since the captain of the Titanic ordered full steam ahead.
Amanda’s fanciful speculations came to a dead halt. Her mind did an abrupt about-turn. She knew that voice. She had already heard it once today. This man owed her an apology for his rudeness on the telephone.
Charles Arnold gave the gentleman a perfunctory glance. ‘Everyone has to take their turn here, sir,’ he said brightly. ‘We’ll be with you in just a moment.’
In typically arrogant dismissal of anyone who impinged on his personal priorities, Charles turned back to Amanda. ‘Well, get on with it. The figures, please, Mandy,’ he urged. Then in an insultingly condescending tone, he in-structed, ‘Put your finger on the Enter key and...’
‘No! You will not touch the Enter key.’
The tone of absolute authority shivered through the air-conditioned atmosphere. Amanda had been right about one thing. The owner of the voice did not like having his orders disobeyed. He probably had an intense dislike for the word ‘no’, as well. Unless it was he who was using it.
She did her best to retrieve the situation. ‘We have a new arrival, Mr Arnold,’ she stated quietly. ‘Perhaps we could attend to him first.’
She flashed the stranger a quick glance, all ideas of aloofness, reserve, dignity and aplomb forgotten for the moment. She could not afford to have another complaint lodged against her. Her look carried a simple message. It said, please be aware that you are placing me in a difficult situation.
The man’s eyelids lowered fractionally for the briefest of moments, as if he had received her message, understood it completely, but nothing would divert him from the course of action he had chosen.
‘Don’t give me your dizzy blonde act, Mandy,’ Charles Arnold said, having missed the byplay between Amanda and the newly arrived guest. ‘These figures are important to me. My next promotion depends on them.’
‘I will have the Presidential Suite.’
That arrested Charles Arnold’s attention. Amanda hadn’t told him about the earlier inquiry. A paying customer in the Presidential Suite was a feather in any management cap. The dangling prize effected a complete reversal of attitude in Charles Arnold.
‘You are very welcome, sir.’
Pure smarmy syrup, Amanda thought, barely hiding her disgust as the sucking up act began.
‘We will attend to your every need immediately. Most regrettable that you’ve been kept waiting. If you’d alerted us earlier... However, we shall make generous amends. A porter for your luggage, sir? Any special refreshment you’d like in your suite? I’ll have your butler rung so it can be delivered while we... uh...take reservation details. Your name, sir?’
‘It is not necessary for you to know my name.’ It was a cold rebuff. The stranger, who was apparently intent on remaining a stranger, withdrew a folded sheet of paper from the inner pocket of his sports jacket and tossed it onto the desk. ‘This is all you need to know.’
Amanda watched Charles Arnold unfold the paper. It was thick, creamy, expensive. Her breath caught in her throat as she saw the emblem at the top of the page. She was not in a position to read the typed lines underneath, but that notepaper, that emblem, represented the man she most wanted to reach.
She had seen it before amongst her father’s papers...the personal insignia of the Sheikh of Xabia...a gyrfalcon at full wing, its talons poised ready to strike.
Her stomach seemed to turn over. Despite a sudden and debilitating feeling of weakness in her bones, Amanda forced herself to look once more at the commanding, ageless face in front of her. Was he...could he possibly be...Xa Shiraq himself?
CHAPTER THREE
NO SOONER had the electric thought gripped Amanda’s mind, than a wash of common sense defused it. No way would Xa Shiraq arrive at any hotel as casually as this man had, or dressed as this man was. The Sheikh of Xabia would have a retinue, bodyguard. He wouldn’t wait for anything. He’d be waited on hand and foot!
‘This isn’t signed,’ Charles Arnold said huffily. ‘Anyone could have typed those words. I do not consider it an authorisation to give you complimentary use of our Presidential Suite. Unless you can produce more than that, sir...’ he tossed the page back onto the desk in contemptuous rejection ‘...you are wasting our time.’
It gave Amanda the opportunity to read what was written on the page. The message was short and succinct.
By order of Xa Shiraq, the bearer of this note is entitled to have any request within my jurisdiction fulfilled.
Her mind dizzied again with the enormity of what was happening in front of her. This man was certainly not Xa Shiraq but he had to be important to have such a note. He could be one of Xa Shiraq’s three great supporters, all military men who by their loyalty and skill had helped Xa Shiraq win the sheikhdom in the first place. There was Jebel Haffa and...
Amanda took a deep breath. She pulled her mind into order. This man could lead her to one of her primary goals, the secretive and elusive Xa Shiraq himself.
‘You question its authenticity?’ The icy sting in his voice was not propitious to any pact of friendship.
‘Naturally a man in my position of authority has to do so,’ Charles Arnold observed coldly.
On the surface, it was a reasonable statement. It was true, Amanda reflected, that anyone with access to that particular notepaper could have written the letter. The hotel had discreet procedures for checking authenticity and credit ratings for guests. These procedures should now be followed.
‘Perhaps...’ she began.
Charles Arnold cut her short. ‘The figures please, Mandy.’
He turned back to the stranger, intent on cutting this arrogant foreigner down to his own level. Amanda had seen it all before. ‘As I’ve already said, anyone could have typed this order...’
‘Who would dare?’
The challenge sent a quiver through Amanda. Her gaze flew up to the hard commanding face. This man had to be close to Xa Shiraq. Very close. And his eyes missed nothing. How could she possibly get close to him? Yet if she could... must...her pulse quickened. Given half an opportunity...and she would leap at it.
‘I will not fall prey to a cheap confidence trick,’ Charles Arnold scoffed, losing control of the situation but reasserting his sense of superiority.
To reinforce it even further, he picked up the typewritten authorisation, held it gingerly by one corner as though it were contaminated, slowly drifted it to a position above the disposal bin, then released his grip. The letter floated down to join the rest of the garbage paper in the bin.
‘That,’ said Charles Arnold with satisfaction, ‘is what I think of that.’ As far as he was concerned, he had just won his encounter with the stranger.
The stranger said nothing. The black blaze of his eyes would have incinerated most people but his target was cocooned in self-importance. He lifted a hand. Amanda prayed for more time. The hand moved up to shoulder height as though he intended to slap it onto the counter. But it did not descend.