His Christmas Conquest: The Sheikh's Christmas Conquest / A Christmas Vow of Seduction / Claiming His Christmas Consequence
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She stared at him, not quite understanding what he meant until his stony expression told her more clearly than any words could have done. ‘You mean—?’
‘What happened in England must stay in England, for we cannot be intimate in Jazratan,’ he said. ‘The laws of my country are very strict on such matters—and it would offend my people deeply if it was discovered that I was having sex with an unmarried woman. Particularly an unmarried foreigner.’ He shrugged, as if to take some of the heat from his words. ‘For I am the sheikh and you are my employee, Livvy, and from now on we will not be stepping outside the boundaries of those roles.’
It was several moments before Livvy could trust herself to speak, and if the giant plane hadn’t already been taxiing down the runway, she honestly thought she might have run up to the steward and demanded they let her out.
But she couldn’t. She had agreed to take the job and she was going to have to behave like a professional. And anyway—mightn’t this strategy be the best strategy for keeping her emotions protected? If she and Saladin were to be segregated, it would be very difficult to foster any kind of attachment to him. So even though his words hurt, somehow she found the strength to force a careless smile onto her lips.
‘Well, that’s a relief,’ she said.
His black eyes narrowed. ‘A relief?’
‘Sure. I’ve got a lot of reading I want to get through before we land. I told you it was a long time since I’d worked with horses.’ With a wave of her hand, she gestured towards the books she’d just unpacked. ‘So I’d better have a browse through these. Reacquaint myself with the species, even if it’s only theoretical—until I get to meet Burkaan. So please don’t let me keep you,’ she added. ‘I’ll be perfectly happy here on my own.’
His face was a picture—as if he’d just realised that in effect she was dismissing him—yet he could hardly object to her demand for privacy after what he’d just said.
But once he’d gone, and she was left with the opened but unread pages of Healing Horses Naturally, Livvy found herself staring out of the window at the black sky as England receded, unable to deny the sudden pain that clenched like a vice around her heart.
He’d made her sound...
Like a cliché.
An unmarried foreign woman he was forbidden to have sex with.
She closed her eyes. He had come to the house determined to employ her, and for a while she had resisted him. Had he looked at her and wondered whether seduction was a price he was prepared to pay in order to guarantee her services? She bit her lip.
Even when she’d told him that she was a virgin—and a twenty-nine-year-old virgin, to boot... A lot of men might have stopped at that point. But not Saladin. Had he guessed that sex would make her eager to do his bidding? Did he realise that she would find it very difficult to refuse to work for him after what had taken place between them?
Damn him.
So stop letting him take control, she thought. Be grateful that he’s shown you are capable of sexual pleasure but also be grateful that he has put this barrier between you, because there is no future with Saladin and there never can be.
She picked up the cup of jasmine tea that had just been put on the table by a slightly nervous-looking steward.
She was going to have to start being rational. She was here on a life-changing salary to help his horse, and she would do her utmost to accomplish that. The sex she must forget. She had to.
She slept for almost six hours and, when she awoke, discovered that the little shower was much better than the one at home. Afterwards she felt a million times better and was just tucking into a bowl of delicious porridge topped with iced mango when the curtain between the two sections of the plane was drawn back, and she looked up to see Saladin standing there.
It was slightly disconcerting that he’d changed from his Western clothes into an outfit more befitting a desert sheikh, because it only seemed to emphasise the vast gulf between them. Gone were the trousers, sweater and cashmere coat, and in their place were flowing robes of pure silk that completely covered him, yet hinted at the hard body beneath. His ebony hair was now hidden by a headdress, held in place by a circlet of knotted scarlet cord—and against the pale material his golden-dark features looked forbidding.
He looked like a fantasy.
Like a stranger.
And that was exactly what he was, Livvy reminded herself grimly.
His eyes fixed on her, he waited, and she was sure he expected her to scramble to her feet, but she simply finished her mouthful of porridge and gave him a faint smile.
‘Morning,’ she said.
He frowned before slowly inclining his head, as if forcing himself to respond civilly to her casual greeting. ‘Good morning. Did you sleep well during the flight?’
‘Like a dormouse, as they say in France.’ Again, she smiled. ‘Did you?’
Saladin felt the pounding of a pulse at his temple, her glib response only adding to his growing annoyance and frustration. No, he had not slept well, for the night had seemed endless. He had tossed and turned and eventually had drawn up one of the blinds to stare out at the jewelled and inky sky as the plane travelled through the night towards Jazratan. It had been a long time since he’d endured such restlessness. Not since...
But the realisation that he was comparing simple sexual frustration to the worst time of his life filled him with an angry guilt. Pushing aside the turmoil of his thoughts, he acknowledged the insolent way in which Livvy Miller was leaning back on her elbows, watching him. Her amber eyes were hooded and her lips gleamed from the mouthful of jasmine tea she had just drunk. How dared she continue to drink and eat in his presence?
He had told her there would be no more intimacy, but he certainly hadn’t given her permission to abandon all protocol. Didn’t she realise that there was an etiquette that needed to be adhered to whenever he entered the room? You did not greet the king of Jazratan with such blatant carelessness, and this was something she needed to be aware of before she arrived at the palace.
‘You are supposed to stand when I enter the room,’ he said coolly.
‘Am I?’ She fixed him with a deliberate look of challenge. ‘As I recall, you seemed to prefer it when I was lying down.’
‘Livvy!’ He glanced behind him as he ground out his protest, feeling the instant rush of heat to his groin. ‘You mustn’t—’
‘Mustn’t what?’ she interrupted in a low tone. ‘Tell it like it is? Well, I’m sorry, Saladin, but I don’t intend to be a hypocrite. I accept the intimacy ban you’ve imposed because, now I’ve had time to think about it, I can understand it and I think it’s a good idea. But if you think I’m going to be sinking to the ground into a curtsy and lowering my eyes demurely whenever you appear, then you are very much mistaken.’
Her passionate insolence wasn’t something Saladin was used to, and he was shocked into a momentary silence. He wanted to do a number of things—all of which seemed to contradict themselves. He wanted to kiss her and to simultaneously push her as far away from him as possible. He wanted never to see her again and yet he wanted to feast his eyes on her in a leisurely visual feast. Suddenly he realised that here was one person—one woman—who would not be moulded to his will, and with a shock it suddenly dawned on him why that was. Because he needed her more than she needed him.
He could not expel her for insubordination—well, he could, but his stallion would only suffer as a result. And even though he was paying way over the odds for an expertise she had warned him herself might not work, he suspected that the money didn’t mean as much to her as it might to someone else.
Did it? Or had her initial reluctance to take the job simply been the work of a clever negotiator? Perhaps he should test her out.
‘Surely a little civility wouldn’t go amiss since I am rewarding you so handsomely for your work.’
‘You’re paying me, Saladin—not rewarding me,’ she contradicted. ‘You were the one who made the over-inflated offer in the first place, so please don’t start reneging on it now. And if you want me to show you respect, I’m afraid you will have to earn it.’
‘Earn it?’ he echoed incredulously.
‘Yes. Is that such an extraordinary proposition?’
He gave a short laugh. ‘It is certainly one that has never been put to me before.’
She stood up then, clenching her hands into two small fists and sucking in an unsteady breath as she looked at him. ‘I’m not a complete fool, Saladin,’ she hissed. ‘I’m fully aware that you seduced me for a purpose. And it worked.’
He looked into the amber eyes that blazed as brightly as her fiery hair. He thought how magnificent she looked when she was berating him, and suddenly he felt a lump rise in his throat. ‘Believe me when I tell you this,’ he said huskily. ‘I seduced you because I wanted you.’
Livvy heard the sudden passion that had deepened his words and something inside her melted. Stupid how she’d almost forgotten what they’d just been arguing about. Stupid how her body was just craving for him to touch her.
Did he feel that, too? Was she imagining the slight move he made towards her, when suddenly the plaintive lament of what sounded like bagpipes broke into her thoughts and shattered the tense atmosphere. Disorientated, she met Saladin’s gaze and it was as if the noise had brought him to his senses, too, because he stiffened and stepped away from her, and in his eyes flared something cold and bleak.
‘What the hell is that?’ she whispered.
Her question seemed to shake him out of his sombre reverie, though it took a moment before his eyes cleared and he answered. ‘A hangover from my great-grandfather’s holidays at your own royal family’s Scottish residence,’ he said. ‘He was very impressed by the bagpipes that were used to wake everyone in the morning. After that he decided that they would become a permanent feature of Jazratian life. Thus a returning sheikh is always greeted on his arrival by the unmistakable sound of Scotland.’
‘It’s certainly very novel.’
‘You will find much about my country that surprises you, Livvy,’ he replied. ‘In a moment I will leave the aircraft and one of the stewards will indicate when it is appropriate for you to do the same. There will be transport waiting to take you to my palace.’
She screwed up her eyes as she looked at him. ‘So I won’t even be travelling with you?’
He shook his head. ‘No. My homecoming is always greeted with a certain amount of celebration. There will be crowds lining the route, and it would not sit well with my people were I to return to the palace in the company of a foreign female, no matter how skilled she might be in her particular field.’
‘Right,’ she said.
‘You will be given your own very comfortable suite of rooms. Once you have settled in, I will send one of my advisors to take you to the stable complex, so that you can meet the vets and the grooms, and get to work on Burkaan straight away. You will, however, take meals with me.’
Without waiting for a response, he turned and walked away with a swish of his silken robes. And if Livvy felt momentarily frustrated by his sudden indifference, that wasn’t what was currently occupying her thoughts. It was the way he had looked during those few moments when she’d thought he was going to reach out and touch her.
Because when the smoky passion had cleared from his eyes, it had left behind a flicker of something haunting. The trace of an emotion that she wouldn’t necessarily have associated with a man like Saladin.
Something that looked awfully like guilt.
CHAPTER TEN
LIVVY STOOD BENEATH the bright Jazratian sunshine and looked around her with a sense of awe and a slight sense of feeling displaced—as if she couldn’t quite believe she was here in Saladin’s homeland, and that it was Christmas Eve.
The Al Mektala stable complex was lavish, and no expense had been spared in providing for the needs and comfort of over a hundred horses. She’d read about places like this, in those long-ago days when an equestrian magazine had never been far from her hand—but had never imagined herself actually working in one.
Fine sand paddocks were edged with lines of palm trees, which provided welcome shade, but plenty of areas had been laid to grass and it was curiously restful—if a little bizarre—to see large patches of green set against the harsh backdrop of the desert landscape. There were plush air-conditioned boxes for the horses and even a dappled and cool pool in which they could swim. Grooms, physiotherapists and jockeys—all clad in the distinctive Al Mektala livery of indigo and silver—swarmed around the place as efficiently as ants working in harmony together.
After arriving at the palace Livvy had been shown to a large suite of rooms, where she’d changed into jodhpurs and a shirt and then followed the servant who had been dispatched to take her to the stables. She hadn’t been expecting to find Saladin waiting for her—and she certainly wasn’t expecting to see him similarly attired in riding clothes, his fingers curving rather distractingly around a riding whip.
She had to force her thoughts away from how lusciously the jodhpurs were clinging to his narrow hips and hugging the powerful shafts of his long legs. It was difficult not to let her gaze linger on the way his billowing silk shirt gave definition to the rock-like torso beneath, making him resemble the kind of buccaneering hero you might find on some Sunday-night TV drama. She told herself that she wasn’t going to remember the way he had held her when he’d been making love to her, or the way it had felt to have him deep inside her. She wasn’t going to think about how good it had felt to be kissed by him—or the way she’d cried out as she had reached her climax, over and over again. She was here to see if she could help his horse—and that was the only reason she was here.
But it was hard to stand so close to him and to resist the desire to reach out and touch him, even though she was doing her best to keep her smile cool and professional.
‘So what do you think of my stables, Livvy?’
She smiled. ‘As you predicted—it’s very interesting to see what you’ve done in such an extreme climate. And it’s all very impressive—just as I would have expected,’ she observed as she glanced around. ‘Perhaps I could see Burkaan now?’
Once again Saladin felt that inexplicable conflict within him. He was irritated by her lack of desire to make small talk with him—yet couldn’t help but admire her cool professionalism. Just as he was irritated with himself for having almost reached out to her on the plane, when temptation had wrapped itself around his skin like a silken snare. But he had stopped himself just in time, and that was a good thing, although it hadn’t felt particularly easy at the time. Because he’d forced himself to remember that he was back in Jazratan where expectations were different and where the memory of Alya was at its strongest. Here, his role was rigidly defined, and casual sex with foreigners simply was not on the agenda. He needed to put that delicious interlude out of his mind and to see whether or not she could live up to her reputation.
Raising his hand, he indicated to the waiting groom that his horse should be brought outside, and he felt his heart quicken in anticipation, as if hoping that some miracle had happened while he’d been away and that Burkaan would come trotting out into the yard with his former vitality.
But the reality shocked and saddened him. The sight of his beloved stallion being led from his stable, looking like a shadow of his former self, made Saladin’s heart clench painfully in his chest. The magnificent racehorse’s frame seemed even more diminished, and his normally glossy black coat looked lacklustre and dull. The stallion was usually happy, but he was not happy now. Saladin could almost read the anguish and the pain in his eyes as he bared his teeth at his master.
‘Don’t go near him yet,’ he warned Livvy. ‘He’s been very vicious. Few people can get close to him. Even me.’
But to his annoyance and a concern he couldn’t quite hide, she completely ignored his words, moving so quietly towards the horse that she could have been a ghost as she held out her hand in a gesture of peace.
‘It’s okay,’ she said to the animal, in the softest, most musical voice he had ever heard. ‘I’m not going to hurt you. It’s okay, Burkaan. It’s going to be fine.’
Burkaan was more used to being spoken to in Jazratian, and even before his accident had been known for his intolerance of strangers, but Saladin watched in amazement as Livvy moved closer to the powerful animal. There was a split second when he expected the horse to lash out at her and braced himself in readiness to snatch the stubborn woman out of harm’s way. But the moment did not come. Instead, she slowly reached out and began to stroke his neck. And Burkaan let her!
‘It’s all right,’ she was crooning quietly. ‘I’ve come to help you. Do you know that, Burkaan? Do you?’
The horse gave a little whinny, and Saladin felt his throat constrict with something that felt uncomfortably like hope. But he knew better than anyone that misplaced hope was the most painful emotion of all, and he drove it from his heart with a ruthlessness he’d learned a long time ago. Just because the horse was prepared to allow the Englishwoman to approach and to touch him didn’t mean a thing.
‘I wonder, could you ask the groom to walk him around the yard a little?’ she said. ‘Just so I can see how badly he’s injured?’
Saladin nodded and spoke to the groom, and the stricken stallion was led forward and began to hobble around the yard.
‘You will note that he has injured his—’
‘His near foreleg,’ Livvy interrupted crisply, her gaze following the horse as it slowly made its way to the other side of the yard. ‘Yes, I can see that. He’s clearly in a lot of pain and he’s hopping to try to compensate. Okay. I’ve seen everything I need to see. Please ask the groom to bring him back now, and put him in his box.’
Feeling like her tame linguist, Saladin relayed her instructions to the groom, and once Burkaan had been led back into his box, Livvy turned to face him. He thought her smile looked forced, and he wondered if she was aware that the bright Jazratian sunshine was making her hair look like liquid fire. And, oh, how he would love to feel the burn of it against his fingers again.
‘I’m just going to try a few things out,’ she said. ‘So I’d prefer it if you and everyone else would leave now.’
Disbelief warred with a grudging admiration as she spoke to him, because Saladin realised that once again she was dismissing him. She really was fond of taking control, wasn’t she? He had never been dominated by a woman before, and he was finding it more exciting than he could ever have anticipated—but he would not tolerate it. No way. Surely she must realise that this was his stable and his horse, and of course he would wish to observe her. He fixed her with a steady look. ‘I’m not going anywhere, Livvy,’ he said. ‘I want to be here.’
She sucked in a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry, but I prefer to work alone.’
‘I don’t care. I want to be here,’ he repeated.
She narrowed her eyes as if trying to weigh up whether there was any point in further argument, before obviously coming to the most sensible conclusion. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘But I don’t want any distractions. You must keep very quiet and not interfere. I want you to stand over there out of the way, to keep very still and not say a word. Do you understand?’
Saladin’s mouth thinned into a grim smile as her cool words washed over him. One thing he did understand was that nobody else had ever spoken to him like this before, not even Alya—especially not Alya, who had been the most agreeable woman ever made.
Instinct made him want to march over to Livvy and pull rank and ask her who the hell she thought she was talking to. To remind her that he was the sheikh and he would damned well do as he pleased. Yet what alternative did he have but to accede to her demands, when the welfare of his beloved horse was of far greater importance than his own sense of pride and position?
‘Yes, Livvy,’ he said drily. ‘I think I get the general idea.’
Afterwards he would try to work out exactly what she had done to Burkaan, but, apart from a vague impression of her laying her palms on the animal’s injured foreleg, her time with the horse seemed to pass in a blur. Maybe it was because for once Saladin got the distinct impression that her words had been true. She really didn’t want him there, and would have preferred it if he had gone back to the palace as she’d requested. It was certainly the first time in his life that he had been completely ignored.
Because sheikhs were never ignored and people were always conscious of his presence. No matter how large an official function or social gathering, everyone always knew exactly where he was situated, although they often pretended not to. Nobody ever left a room while he remained in it, and nobody ever turned their back on him.
But none of this seemed relevant as he watched Livvy whispering into Burkaan’s ear and running feather-light fingertips over the horse’s injured limb and then stroking their way over his back. To his surprise, the stallion seemed to tolerate almost every touch she made—only jerking back his head and showing his teeth on two occasions. Eventually, she straightened up and wiped the palms of her hands down over her jodhpurs, and he could see sweat beading her pale brow.
‘I’ve finished now,’ she said. ‘I’ll see him later. Make sure he gets some rest and is undisturbed until I do.’
He saw her glance at her watch and realised that he had effectively backed himself into a corner. He had told her—quite correctly—that they would be occupying separate sections of the palace. He had told her that their lives would cross only at mealtimes and when she was hands-on with Burkaan. Yet now the thought of that did not please him—on the contrary, it positively rankled. He had found it necessary to lay out his boundaries during the flight over, in order to emphasise to her that the sex had meant nothing—and he had been expecting a host of objections from her, or maybe even a petulant sulk. Because women always tried to cling on to him when he rejected them—as reject them he inevitably did.
But Livvy was showing no signs of clinging—or sulking. She had travelled separately to the palace without protest, and, on arriving at her suite of rooms, had apparently made some complimentary comment to one of the servants about the ancient tiled floors and the beauty of the palace gardens. And ironically, he had found himself curiously unsettled by her apparent acceptance of the situation in which she now found herself.
‘We have plenty of time before lunch,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you would care to ride with me?’
For a moment, Livvy felt temptation wash over her as his suggestion brought back echoes of a life she had left far behind. She thought of being in the saddle again and the feeling of having all that impressive horse power beneath her. She thought of the warm, desert breeze against her skin and the incomparable sense of freedom that riding always gave her, but, resolutely, she shook her head. ‘I don’t ride anymore.’
‘Why not?’
She met the question in his narrowed eyes. ‘Because riding demands time and commitment and money—and I’ve been too busy running my business to have any of those things.’
‘But you have time now,’ he pointed out coolly. ‘And money isn’t a consideration.’
‘It’s out of the question,’ she said. ‘I’m completely out of practice.’
There was a pause. ‘And maybe you’re scared of getting back on a horse after so long away?’
His unexpected insight caught her off guard. Was that why she answered him so truthfully?