The Sheikh's Virgin Bride

‘Your grandfather wants you to marry a man who is a fellow countryman of his, and a business colleague, as a PR exercise for diplomatic purposes? Is that what you’re telling me?’ He cut across Petra’s angry outburst incisively.

Petra could hear the cynical disbelief in his voice and didn’t really blame him for his reaction.

‘Well, my godfather would like me to think that’s the only motivation for my grandfather’s behaviour, but of course he isn’t anything like so high-minded or altruistic,’ she told him scathingly.

‘From what I’ve managed to find out from Saud, my grandfather wants me to marry this man because as well as being a fellow shareholder in this complex he is also very well connected—is in fact related to the Zuran Royal Family, no less! My mother was originally supposed to marry a second cousin of the Family before she met and fell in love with my father. Her father—my grandfather—considered it to be a very prestigious match, and one that would bring him a lot of benefits. I suppose in his eyes it is only fitting that since he couldn’t marry my mother off to suit his own ends I should now take her place as a…a victim to his greed and ambition!’

‘Does your mixed heritage disturb you?’ His unexpected question threw Petra a little.

‘Disturb me?’ She tensed, anger and pride ignited inside her. ‘No! Why should it?’ she challenged him. ‘I am proud to be the product of my parents’ love for one another, and proud to be myself as well.’

‘You misunderstand me. The disturbance I refer to is that caused by the volatile mixing of the coldness of the north with the heat of the desert; Anglo Saxon blood mixed with Bedouin, the hunger for roots and the compulsion that drives the nomad and everything that those two polar opposites encompass. Do you never feel torn, pulled in two different ways by two different cultures? A part of both of them and at the same time alien to them?’

His words so accurately summed up the feelings that had bedevilled Petra for as long as she had been able to recognise them that they stunned her into silence. How could he possibly know that she felt like that? The tiny hairs on her skin lifted as though she were in the presence of a force she could not fully understand—a strength and insight so much more developed than her own that she felt in awe of it.

‘I am what I am,’ she told him firmly as she fought to ignore the way he was making her feel.

‘And what is that?’

Anger darkened her eyes.

‘I am a modern, independent woman who will not be manipulated or used to serve the ends of a machiavellian old man.’

She could see the shrug he gave.

‘If you do not want to marry the husband your grandfather has chosen for you then why do you simply not tell him so?’

‘It isn’t that easy,’ Petra was forced to admit. ‘Of course I told my godfather that there was totally and absolutely no way I was going to agree to even meet this man. Never mind marry him. That was when he announced that he had to leave for the far east and that he was taking my passport with him. To give me time to get to know my grandfather and to rediscover my cultural heritage, was how he put it, but of course I know what he’s really hoping for. He’s hoping that by leaving me here, at my grandfather’s mercy, he will be able to pressure me into doing what he wants. My godfather retires next year, and no doubt he’s hoping that the government will reward him for his work—including arranging a high-profile marriage to Sheikh Rashid—with a Peerage in the New Year’s honours list. And what makes it even worse is that, from what my cousin Saud has told me, it seems the whole family believe I should be thrilled to think that this…this…man is prepared to consider marrying me,’ Petra concluded bitterly.

‘Like normally marries like in such circumstances,’ the cool, almost bored voice pointed out. ‘I understand what you are saying about your grandfather’s motivations, but what about those of your proposed husband? Why should this…?’

‘Sheikh Rashid,’ Petra supplied for him grimly. ‘The same Sheikh Rashid who, from what I hear, does not approve of your…behaviour with his female guests!’

The quick, hard look he gave her caused Petra to say immediately, ‘I heard two women discussing you earlier on—’ She stopped. ‘As to why the Sheikh should want to marry me…’ Petra took a deep breath. ‘You might well ask. But apparently he and I have something in common—we are both of mixed parentage, only in his case I believe that it was his father who provided his Zuran heritage and not his mother. More importantly, The Zuran Royal Family consider the marriage to be a good idea. My godfather says that it will cause great offence if he refuses a marriage they have given their seal of approval, and great offence to mine if he refuses me. However, whilst I know enough about Zuran culture to know that for either of us to refuse the other once negotiations have commenced is considered to be an unforgivable insult, I know too that if he were to have reason to believe that morally I am not fit to be his wife he could honourably refuse to accept me.’

‘There’s an awful lot of supposition going on here,’ came the wry comment.

But when Petra shot him a fulminatingly angry look, and demanded, ‘Are you trying to say that it’s all in my imagination? Then there’s no point in us wasting any more of one another’s time!’

He gave her a small semi-placatory look and offered con-ciliatingly, ‘So! I understand the motivation, but why choose me?’

Petra gave a small cynical shrug.

‘Like I said, I heard a couple of female guests discussing you earlier, and from what they were saying it was obvious that…’

When she stopped speaking, he prompted her softly, ‘That what?’

‘That you have a reputation for enjoying the favours of the women who stay here. So much so, in fact,’ she added, tilting her chin defiantly, ‘that you have already been reprimanded for your behaviour by…by Sheikh Rashid, and are in danger of losing your job!’ Petra gave a small shudder. ‘I don’t know how those women can cheapen themselves! I might not want an arranged marriage, but there is no way I would ever prejudice my own personal moral beliefs by indulging in a meaningless sexual fling a…a cheap sexual thrill!’ Through the darkness Petra was suddenly acutely conscious of his gaze fixing intently on her.

‘I see…So you don’t want an arranged marriage and you don’t want cheap sexual thrills. So what do you want?’

‘Nothing!’ As he turned his head Petra saw the mocking way he raised his eyebrows and defended herself immediately. ‘What I mean is I don’t want anything until I meet a man who…’

‘Who matches up to your very high standards?’ he suggested tauntingly.

Crossly Petra shook her head.

‘Please don’t put words into my mouth. What I was going to say was until I meet a man I can love and respect and…and want to…to commit myself to emotionally, mentally, cerebrally, sexually—every which way there is. That is the kind of relationship my parents shared,’ she told him passionately. ‘And that is the kind of relationship I want for myself and one day want to encourage my own children to aspire to.’

‘A tall order, especially in this day and age,’ came the blunt response.

‘Perhaps, but one I think it worth waiting to fulfil,’ Petra told him firmly.

‘Aren’t you afraid that if you finally meet this paragon he might be deterred by the fact that your reputation—?’

‘No.’ Petra interrupted him swiftly. ‘Because if he loves me he will accept me and know and understand my values. And besides…’ She stopped, her face burning as she realised just how close she had come to telling him that the fact that she had so far not met such a man and was still a virgin would tell its own story to the man who eventually claimed her love. ‘Why are you asking me all these questions?’ she demanded sharply instead.

‘No reason,’ he replied laconically.

Through the darkness Petra could sense him evaluating her.

‘So,’ he announced at last. ‘You are offering to pay me five thousand pounds to pursue and seduce you and publicly ruin your reputation.’

‘To pretend to,’ Petra corrected him immediately.

‘What’s wrong?’ he taunted her. ‘Having second thoughts?’

‘Certainly not!’ Petra denied indignantly, and then gasped in shock as he closed the distance between them and took her in his arms, demanding shakily, ‘What are you doing?’

He smelled of clean night air and warm male skin, of the dangerous heat of the desert and the cool mystery of the night, and her whole body quivered in helpless reaction to his maleness. The slow descent of his head blocked out the light and the glitter of his eyes mesmerised her into unmoving stillness.

‘We have made a pact! A bargain!’ she felt him murmuring against her lips.

‘And now we must seal it. In the desert in times gone by such things were sealed in blood. Shall I prick your skin and release the life blood from your veins, to mingle it with my own, or will this suffice?’

Before Petra could protest his mouth was on her own, crushing the breath from her lungs. Oh yes, she had been right, she recognised weakly. He was as swift and as deadly as the panther she had mentally likened him to earlier…

A tiny frantic moan bubbled in her throat as she felt her body’s helpless response to the mastery of his kiss. She had been right to fear the passionate expertise indicated by that full bottom lip. There was a slight roughness about his face that chafed slightly against her own soft skin, and she had to fight to control the instinctive movement of her hand towards his face to touch that distinctive maleness. As he released her lips it seemed for some inexplicable shaming reason that they were determined to cling to his. Panic flooded over her, and before she could stop herself she bit fiercely into his lip in defiant pride.

The shock of the taste of his blood on her tongue held her immobile.

As she tensed herself for his retaliation she felt his hand wrapping round the slenderness of her throat.

‘So…you prefer to seal our bargain in blood after all? There is more of the desert in you than I had realised.’

And then before she could move his mouth was on hers again, crushing it with the pressure of a kind of kiss that was totally outside anything she had ever experienced. She could taste his blood, feel the rough velvet of his tongue, hear the frenzy of a desert storm in her own heartbeat and the relentless, unforgiving burn of its sun in the touch of his hand against her throat.

And then abruptly he had released her, and as he raised his head for a brief moment Petra saw his face fully illuminated for the first time.

His eyes were open and shock reeled through her as she discovered that they were not, after all, as she had imagined dark brown, but a pure, clear, cool, steely silver-grey.

‘We have the whole morning at our disposal, Petra. I thought you might like to go shopping. There is an exclusive shopping centre nearby, which has some wonderful designer shops, and…’

With a tremendous effort Petra tried to concentrate on what her aunt was saying to her.

She had telephoned Petra the previous evening to suggest that she show her something of the city and its shops. Whatever she thought about her grandfather’s behaviour, Petra could not help but like her aunt by marriage—even if she had been the one to speak to Petra self-consciously the very day her godfather had left.

‘Your grandfather knows how disappointed you must be that his doctor’s orders mean that he is unable to see you just yet, Petra, and so he has arranged for a…a family friend who…who has a major financial interest in it, to give you a guided tour of the hotel complex and to show something of our country. You will like Rashid. He is a very charming and very well-educated man.’

Petra had had to bite on her tongue to prevent herself from bursting out angrily that she knew exactly who and what Rashid was—thanks to Saud’s innocent revelations!

She had been awake for what felt like virtually the whole of the night, reliving over and over again those moments on the beach and wondering how she could ever have been stupid enough to allow them to happen, and had then fallen into a deep sleep which had left her feeling heavy-eyed.

The combination of that and the nervous edginess that was making her start at every tiny sound had exhausted her, and shopping was the last thing she felt like doing. Besides, what if he should try to get in touch with her? Would he do that, or would he expect her to seek him out on the beach and perhaps throw herself at him in the same shameless way she had heard that the other women had done? The thought made her stomach tense nauseously. No, their arrangement was that he was the one who had to pursue her, she reminded herself. Pursue and seduce her, a tiny inner voice whispered dangerously to her…

Seduce her. A fierce shudder ran through her, causing her aunt to ask in concern if she was cold.

‘Cold? In nearly thirty degrees of heat?’ Petra laughed. Her aunt might protest that in Zuran it was winter, but to Petra it felt blissfully warm.

‘Your grandfather hopes to be well enough to see you very soon,’ her aunt continued. ‘He is very much looking forward to that, Petra. He keeps asking if you look anything like your mother…’

Petra tried not to be affected by her aunt’s gentle words.

‘If he really wanted to know he could have found out a long time ago—when my mother was still alive,’ she pointed out, remaining unforgiving.

It was so tempting to tell her aunt that she knew the real reason she was here in Zuran, but she had no wish to get her young cousin into trouble.

‘What do you think of the hotel complex?’ her aunt was asking her, tactfully changing the subject.

Petra toyed with the idea of fibbing but her conscience refused to allow her to do so.

‘It’s…it’s breathtaking,’ she admitted. ‘I haven’t explored all of it yet, of course. After all it’s almost like a small town. But what I have seen…’

She particularly liked the traditional design of the interconnecting hotel and villa complexes, with their private courtyards filled with sweetly scented plants and fruit trees, and the musical sound of fountains which had reminded Petra immediately of both the Moorish style of Southern Spain’s architecture and images her mother had shown her as a child of Arabian palaces.

‘When Rashid shows you round you must tell him that. Although unfortunately it may be several days before he is able to do so. He sent word to your grandfather this morning that he has been called away on business on behalf of The Royal Family…Another project he is working on in the desert.’

‘He works?’ Petra made no attempt to conceal her disbelief. From what Saud had told her, her prospective suitor sounded far too wealthy and well-connected to do something so mundane.

‘Oh, yes,’ her aunt assured her. ‘As well as having a large financial interest in this complex he also designed it. He is a very highly qualified architect and greatly in demand. He trained in England. It was his mother’s wish that he should go to school there, and after her death his father honoured that wish.’

An architect! Petra frowned, but she had no intention of showing any interest in a man she had already decided to despise.

‘It sounds as though he is a very busy man,’ she told her aunt. ‘There really is no need for him to give up his time to show me round the complex. I am perfectly capable of exploring it on my own.’

‘No. You must not do that,’ her aunt protested once they were on their own again.

‘No? Then perhaps Saud could accompany me?’ Petra could not resist teasing her.

‘No…no! It is best that Rashid should show you. After all, he is the one who designed the complex and he will be able to answer any questions you might have.’

‘And his wife?’ Petra questioned innocently. ‘Will she not mind him spending his precious free time with me?’

‘Oh, he is not married,’ her aunt assured her immediately. ‘You will like him, Petra,’ she assured her enthusiastically. ‘You have much in common with one another, and—’ She broke off as her mobile phone started to ring.

Her aunt reached beneath her robes to retrieve her phone. But as Petra listened to her speaking quickly in Arabic, she saw her aunt’s face crease in anxiety. ‘What is it?’ she demanded as soon as the call was over. ‘Is it my grandfather? Is he—’

Furious with herself for her unguarded reaction, and for her concern, Petra stopped speaking and bit her lip.

‘That was your uncle,’ her aunt told her. ‘Your grandfather has suffered a relapse. He knows that he has been ordered to rest but he will not do so! I must go home, Petra. I am sorry.’

Just for a moment Petra was tempted to plead to be allowed to go with her—to be allowed to see her grandfather, the closest person to her in blood she had—but quickly she stifled her weakening and unwanted emotions. Her grandfather meant nothing to her. How could he when she so obviously meant nothing to him? She must not forget the past and his plans for her. No, she was certainly not going to be the one to beg to see him. Her mother had begged and pleaded and had suffered the pain of being ignored and rejected. There was no way that she, Petra, was going to allow her grandfather to do the same to her!

After a taxi had dropped her off outside the hotel, Petra made her way into the lobby. With the rest of the day to herself there were any number of things Petra knew she could do.

The complex had its own souq, filled with craftspeople making and selling all manner of deliciously irresistible and traditional things, or she could leave the hotel and enjoy a gondola ride through the man-made canals that bisected the complex, or walk in the tranquillity of its gardens. And of course she could simply chill out if she so wished, either by one of the several stunningly designed pools, including a state-of-the-art ‘horizon pool’, or even on one of the private beaches that belonged to the complex.

The pools and beaches were reached via a man-made ‘cave’ below the lobby floor of the hotel, where it was possible to either walk or be taken in one of the resort’s beach buggies.

Once there, as Petra had already discovered, a helpful employee would carry her towel to the lounger of her choice, and position both it and her beach umbrella for her before summoning a waiter in case she wanted to order a drink.

Nothing that a guest might need, no matter how small—or how large—had been left to chance in the planning of the complex or the training of its staff. Petra had travelled all over the world, both with her parents, her godfather, and on her own, and she had already decided that she had never visited anywhere where a holidaymaker’s needs were catered for so comprehensively and enthusiastically as they were here.

But of course she was not here on holiday—even if her closest girlfriends at home had insisted on dragging her round some of London’s top stores before she had left, to equip her with a suitably elegant wardrobe for her trip.

Baring in mind her own innate modesty, and the country she was travelling to, Petra had eschewed the more outré samples of resort wear her enthusiastic friends had pointed out to her—although from what she had seen of her fellow holidaymakers’ choice she could have chosen the briefest and most minimal bikini and still have felt comparatively over-dressed compared with some of them.

Instead she had opted for cool, elegant linens and discreet tankini beach sets, plus several evening outfits including an impossible to resist designer trouser suit in a wonderfully heavy cream matt silk satin fabric, which the salesgirl and her friends had tried in vain to convince her she should wear with simply the one-button jacket fastened over her otherwise naked top half.

‘You’ve got the figure for it,’ the salesgirl had urged her, and her friends had wickedly agreed. But Petra had refused to give in, and so a simple cream silk vest with just a hint of a pretty gold thread running through it had been added to her purchases.

A rueful smile quirked her mouth as she remembered the more outrageous of her two friends attempts to persuade her to buy a trendy outfit they had seen in a London department store: a fringed and tasselled torso-baring top, with a pair of matching lower than hip level silky pants which had revealed her belly button, claiming mock innocently that it would be perfect for her to wear in a country that celebrated the art of belly dancing.

Petra had known when she was being wound up. Her smile deepened as she instinctively touched her smooth flat stomach with her fingertips. Hidden beneath her clothes was the discreet little diamond navel stud she had bought herself just before she’d left home to replace the one she had been wearing whilst her recently pierced flesh had healed up.

No one, not even her friends, knew of the uncharacteristic flash of reckless defiance which had led to her having her navel pierced the very day after her godfather had finally ground down her opposition and persuaded her to come to Zuran.

Secretly Petra had to acknowledge that there was something dangerously decadent and wanton about the way the tiny diamond she had bought for herself flashed whenever it caught the light, but of course no one was ever likely to see it, or to know of her rebellious emotional reaction at having to give in to her grandfather’s desire for her to visit his country.

Thinking of her grandfather made Petra frown. Just how serious was his heart condition? She had assumed from her uncle’s original calm, almost casual reference to it that it was not a particular cause for concern.

Was he as ill as her aunt seemed to believe? Or was it simply a ploy, a means of manipulating her and putting pressure on her? Petra was fiercely determined that she would not give one inch to the despot who had caused her mother so much pain, and she was convinced that he was playing the kind of cat and mouse game that her mother had often told her he was an expert at, using his supposed poor health as a means of keeping her in dark about his real plans for her. Naturally such behaviour on his part had put her on her mettle and alerted her most defensive and hostile reactions. But what if she had been wrong? What if her grandfather was genuinely very ill?

Although it would have been impossible for her not to be emotionally touched by the warmth of her aunt and uncle’s reception of her, and their concern that she might be disappointed at being deprived of what they seemed to assume was a much longed for meeting with her grandfather, Petra’s antipathy towards her grandfather had been intensified by his emotional manipulation and had caused her to harden her heart even more against him.

She had every right to both mistrust and dislike him, she reassured herself. So why was she feeling somehow abandoned and rejected—excluded from the anxious family circle which had gathered protectively around him? Why did she feel this sense of anxiety and urgency to know what was going on? Why did she feel this sense of pain and loss?

Her uncle or her aunt would ring her at the hotel if they thought it was necessary; she knew that. But that wasn’t like being there, being part of what was happening, being totally accepted.

A family walked past her in the foyer, on their way to the piano lounge, its three generations talking happily together. A deep sense of anguish welled up dangerously inside Petra. Grimly she tried to suppress what she was feeling. She had always been too vulnerable to her emotions. Her Celtic inheritance was responsible for that! Against her will she discovered that she was remembering how she had felt as a child, knowing that she was different, sensing her mother’s pain and helpless to do anything to alleviate it, envious of other children she knew who talked easily and confidently about their adoring grandparents.

She was letting her feelings undermine her common sense, she warned herself. Her grandfather had only brought her here for one reason and it had nothing to do with adoring her! To him she was merely a suddenly valuable pawn in the intricate game he so enjoyed playing with other people’s lives, using them to advance his own lust for power.