An Ordinary Girl and a Sheikh: The Sheikh's Unsuitable Bride / Rescued by the Sheikh / The Desert Prince's Proposal

Who could resist it, when she’d been dead inside for so long?

‘Really—’

She made one more effort, but he raised a hand, demanding that she listen.

‘Lucy—charming, beautiful Lucy—’ she flinched at each word ‘—was the joint owner of one of those desert tour outfits. It was poorly managed, under-capitalised, going nowhere. And the man who ran it had been arrested for fraud, amongst other things.’

His mouth tightened as if just thinking about it made him angry and suddenly she was listening.

‘My cousin, Hanif—Ameerah’s father—knew that I was more interested in business than diplomacy and he encouraged me to step in, take it over, see if I could make something of it. I raised the capital—it didn’t take much—but when I bought Lucy out I insisted she keep a small equity in the business.’ He managed a wry smile. ‘Just in case I was as good as I thought I was. She’d had a raw deal.’

‘What a Galahad!’

‘You don’t understand.’ He lifted a hand as if asking her to at least try. ‘But then why should you?’

‘I never will unless you tell me. Not that it’s any of my business,’ she added, realising, somewhat belatedly, that haranguing a client about business affairs was probably not an entirely wise move. Except that she’d stopped treating Zahir like a client from, well, the moment she’d picked up the shattered snow globe.

But the admission earned her another of those smiles—the real ones—so that was okay.

‘Don’t go all polite on me, Diana.’

Or maybe not.

‘I’m listening,’ she said.

He leaned back against the car, folded him arms, looked down, as if dredging deep for what he was about to tell her. ‘The men in my family are diplomats. My grandfather before he became ruler. My father, uncles, cousins. I wanted something different. Like you, I had a dream.’

‘Your own airline?’

‘Not quite. It takes time to learn to dream on that scale. You have to start small, then, as your imagination grows, let the dreams grow until they are big enough to fill all the available space.’ He glanced up at her. ‘I got my chance because Lucy’s life had fallen apart. I owed her. She uses her share of the profits to fund a charity she founded, which is why she turns out for the PR stuff, as she did last night, whenever Hanif can spare her.’

Hanif …

‘Your cousin,’ she said, finally working out where all this was going. ‘Ameerah’s father.’ ‘And Lucy’s husband.’

Diana struggled to say something to cover her stupidity but for once words failed her and all she could manage was a stumbling, ‘I … um …’

Oh … sheikh!

Zahir saw her difficulty. But then he’d seen everything. That was why he’d taken the long route to make his point when he could just as easily have said, She’s my partner, but she’s also my cousin’s wife.

‘That wasn’t the kind of partnership you were talking about was it.’ he asked very softly.

A hole in the ground, opening up to swallow her whole, would be welcome right now, she decided as, left with no place to hide, she shook her head.

‘Whatever made you think—?’

‘I saw her last night when I returned the tray,’ she cut in quickly, before he reminded her exactly what she’d been thinking. ‘You were together. You looked so close and when he saw me looking Mr Pierce told me that she was your partner. I thought …’ She dismissed what she’d thought with an awkward, meaningless gesture.

‘A simple misunderstanding.’

She didn’t think so.

‘His partner …’ The way James Pierce had said it had been full of meaning. He’d meant her to believe …

No. That was ridiculous. Much more likely her imagination, working overtime, leaping to conclusions when she’d seen him standing so close to a beautiful woman just minutes after he’d kissed her.

Good grief, she must have it bad if she’d let her imagination run so green. She must really have it bad if she felt this good knowing that it wasn’t true.

While she was still trying to find words that would not betray her as a complete idiot—a jealous idiot at that—he rescued her, making a gesture in the direction of boatyard.

‘Actually, you’re right, Lucy would have loved the chance to see the yacht. In fact she’s calling in every favour I owe her in return for the right to give it a test run as a wedding anniversary gift to Hanif before it’s chartered to the public.’

‘You’re going to charter it?’ Diana asked, grabbing for the impersonal in an attempt to distract him from the fact that she’d just betrayed feelings that were just plain … inappropriate!

‘I could not justify the expense for my own personal use. Even if I had the time. But today it is all mine.’ And, with the slightest of bows, he offered her his hand. ‘In the absence of Princess Lucy al-Khatib, Miss Metcalfe, will you do me the immense honour of allowing me to share this moment with you?’

He had never treated her as if she were just his chauffeur, but at this moment she recognised that he was treating her like a princess and she laid her hand against his.

He closed his hand over hers, tucked it beneath his arm and, heading for the boatyard office, said, ‘My plan is to use the yacht as part of a wedding package. I’d value your opinion on that.’

‘I don’t think I’m your natural market, Zahir.’

He glanced at her. ‘Are you telling me that you don’t dream?’

‘Not at all. It’s just that my dreams are confined to pink taxis.’ And a prince who turns into a frog. The only way this could turn out. But it was her Cinderella moment and she was going to make the most of it.

‘There’s nothing wrong with the pink taxi dream, but maybe I can broaden your horizons.’

‘To what? A pink yacht?’

‘Just wait until you see her,’ he said, with a sudden smile that betrayed an oddly boyish enthusiasm. ‘There’s a very small island in Nadira Creek that is going to make a perfect wedding venue. I’m building a restaurant there, with a traditional wind tower to draw the air down over a basement pool to cool it naturally. A pavilion for romantic Westerners to make their vows.’

‘It’s just for tourists, then?’

‘An Arab wedding traditionally takes place at the bride’s home …’ He shook his head. ‘At Nadira, after the ceremony, the feasting, the yacht will be waiting to carry the honeymooners away, leaving the world behind …’

He left the rest to her already overcharged imagination.

‘It sounds enchanting,’ she said, concentrating very hard not to go there. ‘And expensive.’ Then, ‘But very romantic.’

‘It will be.’

‘Which?’

‘All three,’ he assured her. And the boyish smile faded, leaving only a very adult warmth in his eyes.

The yacht certainly looked expensive. White, sleek, beautiful, and so much larger than she’d anticipated, that Diana almost succumbed to another ‘… oh, sheikh …’moment.

‘You’d probably like to look around the accommodation, miss,’ the boat builder suggested, ‘while I show Sheikh Zahir the engines?’

Zahir hesitated, then, turning to follow the man below to inspect powerful engines that were, even now, sending a quiet hum through the yacht, he said, ‘Go where you like, Diana. I’ll catch up with you.’

She suspected that she knew at least as much about engines as Zahir. From the time she could reach inside the bonnet of his taxi, she’d been asking questions and her father had taught her all he knew, even as he’d taught her to drive on private roads, so that she’d passed her driving test only days after her seventeenth birthday.

But men were funny about stuff like that, so she did as she was told and wandered over the yacht, marvelling over the ingenuity of the fittings in the galley, sighing over the minimalist luxury of the accommodation. Coming to a halt when she opened the door to the main stateroom which, dominated by a huge bed, half hidden by rich silk drapes, was quite clearly the honeymoon suite. Zahir had certainly widened the horizons of her dreams she thought, as her imagination ran amok …

Definitely time for some fresh air, she decided, heading back to the deck. But the honeymoon image lingered and, as she stood in the prow, her dreams knew no bounds. A tropical sun dipping into the sea, the arm of a man who loved her around her waist, her head against his shoulder.

She shook her head to clear it.

Forget the yacht, the sunset. Only the man was important and she’d be wise to forget him too.

Everything she had, everything she could be, was down to her alone and on an impulse, she leaned forward, stretching out her arms like the heroine in the film Titanic and, in the absence of her own hero, telling herself that she could do anything, be anything, if only she had the courage …

Zahir dutifully stood over the glistening pistons as the engines were turned over because, as an owner taking possession, that was what was expected of him. Doing his duty when he’d far rather have stayed with Diana, wanting to see her face as he revealed his new toy to her. As he opened the door and she saw the stateroom. Certain that her reaction would tell him everything he wanted to know.

Perhaps it was as well he’d been distracted.

Better not to know …

When, finally, he could escape, he found her not below, exploring, but standing in the bow of the yacht, her arms outstretched like some figurehead … No … It was something else. A scene from a film.

She was dreaming after all and, smiling, he came up behind her, took hold of her waist and said, ‘Do it properly. Step up on the rail.’ Her response was to take a step back, drop her arms, but he urged her to go for it. Lifting her, he said, ‘Reach for it, Diana. Reach for what you want most.’

‘Zahir!’

His name was a wail of embarrassment, but he refused to listen.

‘Trust me … I won’t let you fall.’

Diana, feeling utterly foolish at being caught out playacting this way, for a moment resisted, but his hands were strong, his support real, and suddenly she was there, leaning far out over the water, her eyes closed, arms stretched wide, reaching for her future as he leaned with her, his arms beneath hers, keeping her safe.

‘I can feel the wind in my face,’ she said, laughing, feeling like the girl she’d never been. And at her back she could feel Zahir’s strength as he held her, the slight roughness of his chin against her neck, the warmth of his body quickening her to a womanhood she’d never known.

The thudding of her pulse at his closeness, an aching intimate heat, shocking in its urgency, was confirmation that life was to be seized and shaken and, for one mad moment, she came close to turning and pulling him over the edge with her, taking him with her as she plunged beneath the surface.

If they were both out of their depth they would be equal …

Except she was Cinderella and the minute they stepped off the yacht she would cease to be a princess.

‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’ she said shakily, backing away from the intensity of feelings that had almost overwhelmed her. Trying to keep this at a level she could handle.

She didn’t do overwhelmed.

She didn’t do dreams.

‘It won’t jinx the boat?’ she persisted, when the only answer was his soft breath against her cheek.

The scene in the film had been beautiful, but the love affair, like the Titanic, had been doomed from the first reel of the movie and, in an attempt to claw herself back to reality, she opened her eyes to find that the view had changed. That they were far from the shore.

Confused, she looked down to see a lacy ripple of white where the bow broke the surface of the water.

She stared down at it for a moment, trying to work out what was happening, then, as the water moving away from her made her giddy, she pitched forward, crying out, certain she was about to fall.

But Zahir’s hands were sure. He had her safe and, lifting her down, turned her so that she was facing him instead of the rush of water, drawing her close as she clung, shaking, to his shoulders, his arms around her as if he would never let her go while he murmured soft reassuring words against her hair, her temple.

She was still shaking, but not because she was afraid of falling. This wasn’t fear, this was something darker, more urgent, and, as she looked up, she knew he was going to kiss her.

Not the way he’d kissed her before. This was not like that sweet, sensuous, barely there kiss.

He’d held her as he’d danced with her.

This was something else. This wasn’t that light, floating touch as they’d slowly circled Berkeley Square. This was searingly close, a hungry, insistent need …

For the space of one, two, three heartbeats pounding in her ears, her head did its best to fight the seductive call to surrender, but by then her body had made a bid for independence and, overriding thought, reason, she was kissing him back.

No holds barred. No fooling. Minutes earlier she’d felt as if she were flying; this was the real thing.

Diana didn’t want him to let her go. She wanted him to carry her down to that stateroom and put that incredible bed to the purpose for which it had been designed.

Maybe he would have.

Maybe, like her, he was beyond reason and in another moment they would have been beyond recall. Instead they were shocked back to reality by a sharp shower of cold water.

She jerked back, gasping for breath.

Zahir, damn him, laughed. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, ignoring the water running down his face, instead wiping the spray from her cheeks with his thumbs.

‘All right?’ she demanded, her hair dripping down the back of her neck and trickling down inside her blouse. ‘What kind of dumb question is that?’

‘The “are you all right?” dumb question?’ he offered.

‘Fine!’ she said. Beyond the fact that she’d temporarily lost her mind. That it had taken the equivalent of a bucket of cold water to bring her to her senses. ‘I’m absolutely fine, if you overlook the fact that I appear to be at sea!’

‘Oh, that …’

‘Yes, that! Come and look at my new toy, you said. You didn’t say anything about putting to sea!’

‘Alan’s idea,’ he said. ‘But running away to sea suddenly has a lot to commend it.’

She refused to answer that on the grounds that it might incriminate her.

‘I’m sorry if you had a fright. Are you very wet?’

‘Yes!’ she said crossly. Being jerked down from that kind of high would make anyone cross. Then, more truthfully, ‘No …’

‘Sure? You don’t want to stand around in wet clothes.’

How could she be sure of anything when she was standing this close to Zahir, her hands still clinging to his shoulders as if he were anchoring her to earth, his hands about her waist and everything in between … touching?

‘Any excuse to get me out of this uniform, huh?’

Yes, well, it was the obvious next move after that mind-blowing kiss. Especially when she was clutching at his shoulders so hard that she was screwing up the linen of his jacket.

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