“Mariella? What is it? What’s wrong?” she heard Xavier demanding angrily. “If you feel unwell…”

“No, I’m fine,” she began, and then stopped, unable to drag her gaze away from his mouth, where it had focused with hungry, yearning intensity.

She could feel the hot burn of his gaze as it dropped to her own mouth. She was trembling, her whole body galvanized by tiny sensual ripples of reaction and awareness that made her sway slightly towards him. She felt him shudder as he drew breath into his lungs, her body instinctively leaning into his as weakness washed over her.

His mouth touched her, but not in the way she had remembered it doing before.

Caught up in the shock of what she had experienced, Mariella lifted her hand to touch her own lips, as though unable to believe what had happened…what she had wanted to happen. She had wanted Xavier to kiss her; her body ached for him in a hundred intimate ways that held her in silent shock. She and Xavier were enemies, weren’t they?

MILLS & BOON

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Penny Jordan
ONE NIGHT WITH THE SHEIKH

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

‘YOU won’t forget your mummy whilst I’m away working, will you, my precious baby girl?’

Mariella watched sympathetically as her younger half-sister Tanya’s eyes filled with tears as she handed her precious four-month-old daughter over to her.

‘I know that Fleur couldn’t have anyone better to look after her than you, Ella,’ Tanya acknowledged emotionally. ‘After all, you became my mother as well as my sister when Mum and Dad died. I just wish I could have got a job that didn’t mean I have to be away, but this six-week contract on this cruise liner pays so well that I just can’t afford to give it up! Yes, I know you would support us both,’ she continued before Mariella could say anything, ‘but that isn’t what I want. I want to be as independent as I can be. Anyway,’ she told Mariella bitterly, ‘supporting Fleur financially should be her father’s job and not yours! What I ever saw in that weak, lying rat of a man, I’ll never know! My wonderful sexy dream fantasy of a sheikh! Some dream he turned out to be—more of a nightmare.’

Mariella let her vent her feelings, without comment, knowing just how devastated and hurt her half-sister had been when her lover had abandoned her.

‘You don’t have to do this, Tanya,’ she told her gently now. ‘I’m earning enough to support us all, and this house is big enough for the three of us.’

‘Oh, Mariella, I know that. I know you’d starve yourself to give to me and Fleur, but that isn’t what I want. You’ve done so much for me since Mum and Dad died. You were only eighteen, after all, three years younger than I am now, when we found out that there wasn’t going to be any money! I suppose Dad wanted to give us all so much that he simply didn’t think about what would happen if anything happened to him, and with him remortgaging the house because of the stock market crisis.’

Silently the sisters looked at one another.

Both of them had inherited their mother’s delicate bone structure and heart-shaped face, along with her strawberry-blonde hair and peach perfect complexion, but where Tanya had inherited her father’s height and hazel eyes, Mariella had inherited intensely turquoise eyes from her father, the man who had decided less than a year after her birth that the responsibilities of fatherhood and marriage simply weren’t for him and walked out on his wife and baby daughter.

‘It’s not fair,’ Tanya had mock complained to her when she had announced that she was not going to go to university as Mariella had hoped she would, but wanted to pursue a career singing and dancing. ‘If I had your eyes, I’d have a ready-made advantage over everyone else whenever I went for a part.’

Although she knew how headstrong and impulsive her half-sister could be, Mariella admired her for what she was doing, even whilst she worried about how she was going to cope with being away from her daughter for six long weeks.

Whatever small differences there might ever have been between them, in their passionate and protective love for baby Fleur they were totally united.

‘I’ll ring every day,’ Tanya promised chokily.

‘And I want to know everything she does, Ella…Every tiny little thing. Oh, Ella…I feel so guilty about all of this…I know how you suffered as a little girl because your father wasn’t there; because he’d abandoned you and Mum…and I know too how lucky I was to have both Mum and Dad and you there for me, and yet here is my poor little Fleur…’

Holding Fleur in one arm, Mariella hugged her sister tightly with the other.

‘The taxi’s here,’ she warned, before releasing Tanya and tenderly brushing the tears off her face.

‘Ella! I’ve got the most fab commission for you.’

Recognising the voice of her agent, Mariella shifted Fleur’s warm weight from one arm to the other, smiling lovingly at her as the baby guzzled happily on her bottle. ‘It’s racehorses, dozens of them. The client owns his own racing yard out in Zuran. He’s a member of the Zuran royal family, and apparently he heard about you via that chap in Kentucky, whose Kentucky Derby winner you painted the other year. Anyway—he wants to fly you out there, all expenses paid, so that you can discuss the project with him, see the beasts in situ so to speak!’

Mariella laughed. Kate, with her immaculate designer clothes and equally immaculate all-white apartment, was not an animal lover. ‘Ella, what is that noise?’ she demanded plaintively.

Mariella laughed. ‘It’s Fleur. I’m just giving her her bottle. It does sound promising, but right now I’m pretty booked with commissions, and, to be honest, I don’t really think that going to Zuran is on. For a start, I’m looking after Fleur for the next six weeks, and—’

‘That’s no problem—I am sure Prince Sayid wouldn’t mind you taking her with you and February is the perfect time of year to go there; the weather will be wonderful—warm and mild. Ella, you can’t turn this one down. Just what I’d earn in commission is making my mouth water,’ she admitted frankly.

Ella laughed. ‘Ah, I see…’

She had begun painting animal ‘portraits’ almost by accident. Her painting had been merely a small hobby and her ‘pet portraits’ done for friends, but her reputation had spread by word of mouth, and eventually she had decided to make it her full-time career.

Now she earned what to her was a very comfortable living from her work, and she knew she would normally have leapt at the chance she was being offered.

‘I’d love to go, Kate,’ she replied. ‘But Fleur is my priority right now…’

‘Well, don’t turn it down out of hand,’ Kate warned her. ‘Like I said, there’s no reason why Fleur shouldn’t go with you. You won’t be working on this trip, it’s only a mutual look-see. You’d be gone just over a week, and forget any idiotic ideas you might have about potential health hazards to any young baby out there—Zuran is second to none when it comes to being a world-class cosmopolitan city!’

One of the reasons Mariella had originally bought her small three-storey house had been because of the excellent north-facing window on the top floor, which she had turned into her studio. With Fleur contently fed she looked out at the grey early February day. The rain that had been sheeting down all week had turned to a mere drizzle. A walk in the park and some fresh air would do them both good, Mariella decided, putting Fleur down whilst she went to prepare her pram.

It had been her decision to buy the baby a huge old-fashioned ‘nanny’ style pram.

‘You can use the running stroller if you want,’ she had informed Tanya firmly. ‘But when I walk her it will be in a traditional vehicle and at a traditional pace!’

‘Ella, you talk as though you were sixty-eight, not twenty-eight,’ Tanya had protested. Perhaps she was a little bit old-fashioned, Mariella conceded as she started to remove the blankets from the running stroller to put in the pram. Her father’s desertion and her mother’s consequent vulnerability and helplessness had left her with a very strong determination to stand on her own two feet, and an extremely strong disinclination to allow herself to be emotionally vulnerable through loving a man too much as her mother had done.

After all, as Tanya had proved, it was possible to inherit a tendency!

She frowned as her fingers brushed against a balled-up piece of paper as she removed the bedding. It could easily have scratched Fleur’s delicate skin. She was on the point of throwing it away, when a line of her sister’s handwriting suddenly caught her eye.

The piece of paper was a letter, Mariella recognised, and she could see the name and address on it quite plainly.

‘Sheikh Xavier Al Agir, No. 24, Quaffire Beach Road, Zuran City.’

Her heart thudded guiltily as she smoothed out the note and read the first line.

‘You have destroyed my life and Fleur’s and I shall hate you for ever for that,’ she read.

The letter was obviously one Tanya had written but not sent to Fleur’s father.

Fleur had always refused to discuss her relationship with him other than to say that he was a very wealthy Middle Eastern man whom she had met whilst working in a nightclub as a singer and dancer.

Privately Mariella had always thought that he had escaped far too lightly from his responsibility to her sister and to his baby…

And now she had discovered he lived in Zuran! Frowning slightly, she carefully folded the note. She had no right to interfere, she knew that, but…Would she be interfering or merely acknowledging the validity of fate? How many, many times over the years had she longed for the opportunity to confront her own father and tell him just what she thought of him, how he had broken her mother’s heart and almost destroyed her life?

Her father, like her mother, was now dead, and could never make reparation for what he had done; but Tanya’s lover was very much alive, and it would give her a great deal of satisfaction to tell him just what she thought of him!

Blowing Fleur a kiss, she hurried over to the telephone and quickly dialled her agent’s number.

‘Kate,’ she began. ‘I’ve been thinking…about that trip to Zuran…’

‘You’ve changed your mind! Wonderful…You won’t regret it Ella, I promise you. I mean, this guy is mega, mega rich, and what he’s prepared to pay to have his four-legged friends immortalised in oils…’

Listening to her, Mariella reflected ruefully that on occasion Kate could show a depressing tendency to favour the material over the emotional, but she was an excellent agent!

CHAPTER ONE

ZURAN had to have the cleanest airport in the world, Mariella decided as she retrieved her luggage and headed for the exit area, and Kate had been right about Prince Sayid’s willingness to spare no expense to get her to Zuran. In the first-class cabin of their aircraft Fleur had been treated like a little princess!

Arrangements had been made for her to be chauffeur-driven to the Beach Club Resort where she would be staying along with Fleur in their own private bungalow, and, thanks to the prince’s influence with the right diplomatic departments, all the necessary arrangements to get Fleur a passport, with Tanya’s permission, had also been accomplished at top speed!

Craning her neck, Mariella looked round the busy arrivals area searching for someone carrying a placard bearing her name.

Behind her she was vaguely aware of something going on, not so much because of an increase in the noise level but rather because of the way it suddenly fell away. Alerted by some sixth sense, Mariella turned round, her eyes widening as she watched the way the crowds parted to make way for the small phalanx of white-robed men. Like traditional outriders, they carved a wide path through the crowd to allow the man striding behind them to cross the marble floor unhindered. Taller than the others, he looked neither to the right nor the left so that Mariella’s artist’s eye was able to observe the patrician arrogance of a profile that could only belong to a man used to being in command.

Instinctively, without being able to substantiate her reaction, Mariella didn’t like him. He was too arrogant, too aware of his own importance. So physically and powerfully male, perfect in a way that sent a hundred unwanted sexual messages skittering over her suddenly very sensitive nerve endings. He had drawn level with her, and, whether because she sensed her antagonism or because Mariella had gripped her just a little bit more tightly, Fleur suddenly broke the silence with a small cry.

Instantly the dark head turned in their direction whilst the equally dark eyes burned into Mariella’s. Mariella registered his gaze as her body gave a small, tight shudder.

The dark eyes stripped her, not of her clothes, but of her skin, her defences, Mariella recognised shakily, leaving them shredded down to her bones; her soul! But his gaze lingered longest of all on her face. Her eyes, she realised as she returned his remote and disdainful look of contempt with one of smouldering fury.

Fleur made another small sound and immediately his gaze switched from her to the baby and stayed there for a while, before it switched back to her own as though checking something.

Whatever it had been it brought a sneering look of contempt to his mouth that curved it into an even more dangerous line, Mariella noticed as her body responded to his reaction with a slow burn of colour along her cheekbones.

How dared he look at her with such contempt? She didn’t care who or what he was! Once she imagined her father must have looked so at her mother before walking out on her, before leaving her to sink into the needy despair and dependence that Mariella remembered so starkly from her childhood, until her stepfather with his love and kindness had come to lift them both out of the dark, mean place her father had left them in.

As swiftly and as silently as they had arrived the small group of men swept through the hall and left. As a production it had been ridiculously overdone and theatrical, Mariella decided as she found the chauffeur patiently waiting for her and allowed herself to be carefully driven along with Fleur in the air-conditioned luxury of the limousine.

The Beach Club Resort was everything a five-star resort should be and more, Mariella acknowledged a couple of hours later when she had finished her exploration of her new surroundings.

The bungalow she had been allocated had two large bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, a small kitchen area, a living room, a private patio complete with whirlpool, but it was the obvious forethought that had gone into equipping the place for a very young baby that most impressed Mariella. A good-sized cot had been provided and placed next to the bed, the bathroom was equipped with what was obviously a brand-new baby bath, baby toiletries had been added to the luxurious range provided for her own use, and in the fridge was a very full selection of top-of-the-range baby foods. However, it was the letter that had been left for her stating that the Beach Club’s chef would prepare fresh organic baby food for Fleur on request that really made Mariella feel she could relax.

Having settled Fleur, who fell asleep as easily and comfortably as though she was in her own home, Mariella checked her watch and then put a call through to her sister. Tanya’s cruise liner was on an extended tour of the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico.

‘Ella, how’s Fleur?’ Tanya demanded immediately.

‘Fast asleep,’ Mariella told her. ‘She was fine on the flight and got thoroughly spoiled. How are you?’

‘Oh…fine…Very busy…we’re doing two shows each evening, with no time off, but as I said the money is excellent. Ella, I must go…Give Fleur a big kiss for me.’

A little guiltily, Mariella looked at the now-silent mobile. She hadn’t said anything to Tanya about her determination to confront her sister’s faithless ex-lover and tell him just what she thought about him! Tanya might have gone willingly to his bed, but Mariella knew she hadn’t been lying to her when she had told her that she had believed that he loved her, and that they had a future together.

Mariella struggled to wake up from a confused and disjointed dream in which she was being dragged by her guards to lie trembling at the feet of the man who was now her master. How she hated him. Hated him for the way he stood there towering over her, looking down at her, looking over her so thoroughly that she felt as though his gaze burned her flesh.

He was looking deep into her eyes. His were the colour of the storm-tossed skies and seas of her homeland, a cold, pure grey that chilled her through and through.

‘You dare to challenge me?’ he was demanding softly as he moved closer to her. Behind her Mariella was conscious of the threatening presence of the guards.

She hated him with every sinew of her body, every pulse of blood from her heart. He left the divan where he had been sitting and came towards her, bending down, extending his hand to her face, but as his fingers gripped her chin Mariella turned her head and bit sharply into the soft pad of flesh below his thumb.

She felt the movement of the air as the guards leapt into action, heard them draw their swords, and her body waited for the welcome kiss of death, but instead the guards were dismissed whilst her tormentor stepped back from her. One bright spot of blood glistened on the intricately inlaid tiled floor.

‘You are like a wildcat and as such need to be tamed,’ she heard him telling her softly.

She could feel the cleanliness of her hair on her bare skin and froze as he slowly circled her, standing behind her and sliding his hand through her hair and then wrapping it tightly around his fingers, arching her back against his body so that her semi-naked breasts were thrown into taut profile. His free hand reached for the clasp securing her top and her whole body shook with outrage. And then abruptly he released her, turning to face her so that she could see the contempt in his eyes.

Swimming up through the layers of her dream Mariella recognised that his face was one she knew; that his cynical contempt was something she had experienced before…

In the half heartbeat of time between sleeping and waking she realised why. The man in her dream had been the arrogant, hawk-eyed man she had seen earlier at the airport!

Getting out of bed, she went into the bathroom, shaking her head to clear her thoughts, and then, when that tactic did nothing to subdue their dangerous, clinging tentacles of remembered sensuality, she turned on the shower, deliberately setting it at a punishing ‘cool,’ before stepping into it.

The minute the cool spray hit her overheated skin she shuddered, gritting her teeth as she washed the slick film from her body, and then stepping out of the shower, to wrap herself in a luxuriously thick, soft white towel. In the mirror in front of her she could see the pale, pearlescent gleam of her own skin, and dangerously she knew that if she were merely to close her eyes, behind her closed eyelids she would immediately see her tormentor, tall, cynically watchful, as he mocked her before reaching out to take the towel from her body and claim her.

Infuriated with herself, Mariella rubbed her damp skin roughly with the towel, and then re-set the air-conditioning. In her cot Fleur slept peacefully. Going to the fridge, Mariella removed a bottle of water and opened it. Her hand was shaking so much some of it slopped from the bottle onto the worktop.

Mariella and Fleur had just finished eating a leisurely breakfast on their private patio when a message came chattering through the fax machine. Frowning, Mariella read it. The prince had been called away on some unexpected business and would not now be able to see her for several days. He apologised to Mariella for having to change their arrangements, but asked her to enjoy the facilities of the Beach Club at his expense until his return.

Carefully smoothing sun-protection lotion onto Fleur’s happy, wriggling little body, Mariella bent her head to kiss her tummy, acknowledging that this would be an ideal time to seek out Fleur’s father. She had his address, after all! So all she needed to do was summon a taxi to take her there!

Kate had been quite correct when she had described Zuran’s February weather as perfect, Mariella admitted half an hour later as she carried Fleur out into the warm sunshine. Since she was here on business and not holiday she had packed accordingly, and was wearing a pair of soft white linen trousers and a protective long-sleeved top. When she showed the taxi driver the sheikh’s address he smiled and nodded. ‘It will take maybe three quarters of an hour,’ he told her. ‘You have business with the sheikh?’ he asked her conversationally.

Having learned already just how friendly people were, Mariella didn’t take offence, replying simply tongue in cheek, ‘You could say that.’

‘He is a famous man. Revered by his tribe. They admire him for the way he has supported their right to live their lives in the traditional way. Although he is an extremely successful businessman it is said that he still prefers to live simply in the desert the way his people always have. He is a very good man.’

Mariella reflected inwardly that the picture the driver had just drawn for her was considerably at odds with the one she had gained from her half-sister.

Tanya had met the man in a nightclub, after all. Mariella had never liked the fact that Tanya worked there—although she had been employed as a singer, it openly advertised the sexual charms of its dancers, and Tanya had freely admitted that the majority of the customers were male.

And, certainly, during the twelve months they had been together, Mariella had never heard Tanya mention any predilection on her sexy sheikh’s part to spend quality time in the middle of the desert! In fact, if she was honest, she had gained the impression that he was something of a ‘playboy,’ to use a perhaps now outdated word.

It took just under forty minutes for them to reach the impressive white mansion, which the taxi driver assured her was the correct address.

A huge pair of locked wrought-iron gates prevented them from going any farther, but as if by magic an official stepped out of one of the pair of gatehouses that flanked the gates, and approached the car.

As firmly as she could Mariella explained that she wished to see the sheikh.

‘I am sorry but he is not available,’ the official informed her. ‘He is away at the oasis at the moment and not expected back for some time.’

This was a complication Mariella had not been expecting. Fleur had woken up and was starting to grizzle a little.

‘If you would care to leave a message?’ the official was offering courteously.

Ruefully Mariella acknowledged inwardly that the nature of the message she wanted to give to the sheikh was better delivered in person!

Thanking him, she asked the taxi driver to take her back to the hotel.

‘If you want, I can find someone to drive you to this oasis?’ he suggested.

‘You know where it is?’ she questioned him.

He gave a small shrug. ‘Sure! But you will need a four-wheel drive vehicle, as the track can be covered with sand.’

‘Could I drive there myself?’ Mariella asked him.

‘It is possible, yes. It would take you two, maybe three hours. You wish me to give you the directions?’

It made more sense to drive to the oasis under her own steam than to go to the expense of paying a driver for the day as well as hiring a vehicle, Mariella decided.

‘Please,’ she agreed.

Methodically, Mariella checked through everything she had put on one side to pack into the four-wheel drive for her trip into the desert. The Beach Club’s information desk staff had assured her that it would be perfectly safe for her to drive into the desert, and had attended to all the necessary formalities for her, including ensuring that a proper baby seat was provided for Fleur.

The trip should take her around three hours—four if she stopped off at the popular oasis resort for lunch as recommended by the Beach Club. But just in case she decided not to, they had provided her with a packed lunch in the form of a picnic hamper.

If it hadn’t been for the serious purpose of her trip, she could quite easily have felt she were embarking on an exciting adventure, Mariella thought. Like everything else connected with the Beach Club, the four-wheel drive was immaculately clean and was even provided with its own mobile telephone!

The road into the desert was clearly marked, and turned out to be a well-built, smooth road that was so easy to navigate that Mariella quickly felt confident.

The secluded oasis where apparently the sheikh was staying was located in the Agir mountain range.

The light breeze, which had been just stirring the air when she had left the Beach Club, had increased enough to whip a fine dust of sand over her vehicle and the road itself within an hour of her setting out on her journey. The sand particles were so fine that somehow they actually managed to find their way into the four-wheel drive, despite the fact that Mariella had the doors and windows firmly closed. She had left the main road, now branched out onto a well-marked track across the desert itself.

It was a relief when she reached the Bedouin village marked on her map. It was market day and she had to drive patiently behind a camel train through the village, but fortunately it turned off towards the oasis itself, allowing her to accelerate.

In another half an hour she would stop for some lunch—if she hadn’t reached the second oasis, marked on her map, she and Fleur would have their picnic instead.

The height of the sand dunes had left her feeling surprised and awed; they were almost a mountain range in themselves. Fleur was awake and Mariella turned off the radio to play her one of her favourite nursery rhyme tapes, singing along to it.

It was taking her longer than she’d estimated to reach the tourist base at the oasis where she had planned to have lunch—it was almost two o’clock now and she had expected to be there at one. A film of sand dust had turned the sky a brassy red-gold colour, and as she crested a huge sand dune and looked down into the emptiness on the other side of it Mariella began to panic slightly. Surely she should be able to at least see the tourist base oasis from here?

Ruefully she reached for the vehicle’s mobile, realising that it might be sensible to ask for help, but to her dismay when she tried to make a call to the number programmed into the phone the only response was a fierce crackling sound. Stopping the vehicle she reached for her own mobile, but it was equally ineffective.

The sky was even more obscured by sand now, the wind hitting the vehicle with such force that it was physically rocking it. As though sensing her disquiet Fleur began to cry. She was hungry and needed changing, Mariella recognised, automatically attending to the baby’s needs whilst she tried to decide what she should do.

It was impossible that she could be lost, of course. The vehicle was fitted with a compass and she had been given very detailed and careful instructions, which she had followed to the letter.

So why hadn’t she reached the tourist oasis?

Fleur ate her own meal eagerly, but Mariella discovered that she herself had lost her appetite!

And then just as she was beginning to feel truly afraid she saw it! A line of camels swaying out of the dust towards her led by a robed camel driver.

Relieved, Mariella drove towards the camel train. Its leader was gravely polite. She had missed the turning to the oasis, he explained, something that was easily done with such a wind blowing sand across the track. To her alarm he further explained that, because of the sudden deterioration in the weather, all tourists had been urged to return to the city instead of remaining in the desert, but since Mariella had come so far her best course of action now was to press on to her ultimate destination, which he carefully showed her how to do using the vehicle’s compass.

Thanking him, she did as he had instructed her, grimly checking and re-checking the compass as she drove up and down what felt like an interminable series of the sand dunes until eventually, in the distance through the sand blowing against her windscreen, she could just about see the looming mass of the mountain range.

It was already four o’clock and the light seemed to be fading, a fact that panicked Mariella into driving a little faster. She had never dreamed that her journey would prove so hazardous and she was very much regretting having set out on it, but now at last its end was in sight.

It took her almost another hour of zigzagging across the sand dunes to reach the rocky thrust of the beginnings of the mountain range. The oasis was situated in a deep ravine, its escarpment so high that Mariella shuddered a little as she drove into its shadows. This was the last kind of place she had expected to appeal to the man who had been her sister’s faithless lover.

Would his villa here be as palatial as his home in Zuran? Mariella frowned and checked as the ravine opened out and she saw the oasis ahead of her. Remote and beautiful in its own way, it was very obviously a place of deep solitude, the oasis itself enclosed with a fringing of palms illuminated by the eerie glow of the final rays of the setting sun. Shielding her eyes, Mariella stopped the vehicle to look around. Where was the villa? All she could see was one solitary pavilion tent! A good-sized pavilion, to be sure, but most definitely not a villa! Had she somehow got lost—again?

Fleur had started to cry, a cross, tired, hungry noise that alerted Mariella to the fact that for Fleur’s sake if nothing else she needed to stop.

Carefully she drove the vehicle forward over the treacherously boulder-rutted track, which seemed more like a dry river bed than a roadway! Sand blowing in from the desert was covering the boulders and the thin sparse grass of the oasis.

There was a vehicle parked several yards from the pavilion and Mariella stopped next to it.

A man was emerging from the pavilion, alerted to her arrival by the sound of her vehicle.

As he strode towards her, his robe caught by the strong wind and flattened against his body revealing a torso muscle structure that caused her to suck in her own stomach in sharply dangerous womanly response to its maleness.

And then he turned his head and looked at her, and the earth halted on its axis before swinging perilously in a sickening movement as Mariella recognised him.

It was the man from the airport. The man from her dream!

CHAPTER TWO

HIS hand was on the door handle of the four-wheel drive. Wrenching it open, he demanded angrily, ‘Who the devil are you?’

He was looking at her eyes again, with that same look of biting contempt glittering in his own as he raked her with a gritty gaze.

‘I’m looking for Sheikh Xavier Al Agir,’ Mariella responded, returning his look with one of her own—plus interest!

‘What? What do you want with him?’

He was curt to the point of rudeness, but then, given what she had already seen—and dreamed—of him, she wouldn’t have expected anything else.

‘What I want with him is no business of yours!’ she told him angrily.

In her seat Fleur’s cries grew louder.

Peering into the vehicle, he demanded in disbelief, ‘You’ve brought a baby out in this?’

The disgust and anger in his voice made her face sting even more than the pieces of sand blown against it by the wind.

‘What the hell possessed you? Didn’t you hear the weather warning earlier? This area was reported as being strictly out of bounds to tourists because of the threat of sandstorms.’

Hot-faced, Mariella remembered how she had switched off the radio to play Fleur’s tapes.

‘I’m sorry if I’ve arrived at an inconvenient time,’ she responded sarcastically to cover her own discomfort, ‘but if you could just give me directions for the Oasis Istafan, then—’

‘This is the Oasis Istafan,’ came back the immediate and cold response.

It was? Then?

‘I want to see Sheikh Xavier Al Agir,’ Mariella told him again, gathering her composure together. ‘I presume he is here?’

‘What do you want to see him for?’

Mariella had had enough. ‘That is no business of yours,’ she said angrily. Inwardly she was worrying how on earth she was going to get back to the city and the comfort of her Beach Club bungalow and what on earth a man as wealthy as the sheikh was reputed to be was doing out here with this…this…this arrogant predator of a man!

‘Oh, I think you’ll find that anything concerning Xavier is very much my business,’ came the gritted reply.

Something—Mariella wasn’t sure what—must have alerted her to the truth. But she was too shocked by it to voice it, looking from his eyes to his mouth and then back again as she swallowed—hard—against the tight ball of shock tightening like ice around her heart. ‘You…you…can’t be the sheikh,’ she told him defiantly, but her voice was trembling lightly, betraying her lack of confidence in her own denial.

Was this man her sister’s lover…and Fleur’s father? What was that sharp, bitter, dangerous feeling settling over her like a black cloud?

‘You are the sheikh, aren’t you?’ she acknowledged bleakly.

A brief, sardonic inclination of his head was his only response but it was enough.

Turning away from him, she reached into the baby carrier and tenderly removed Fleur. Her whole face softened and illuminated with love as she hugged her and then kissed her before looking him straight in the eyes and saying fiercely to him, ‘This is Fleur, the baby you have refused to both acknowledge and support.’

She had shocked him, Mariella realised, even though he had concealed his reaction very quickly.

As he stepped back from the vehicle for a second Mariella thought he was going to tell her to leave—and cravenly she wanted to do so! The man, the location, the situation were so not what she had been anticipating and prepared herself for. Each one of them in their different ways shattered not just her preconceptions but also her precious self-containment.

The man—try as she might she could just not envisage him in the club where Tanya had performed. The location made her ache for her painting equipment and brought her artistic senses to quick hunger. And her situation! Oh, no…Definitely no! This man had been her sister’s lover, and was Fleur’s father—

The shadowy fear that had stalked her adult years suddenly loomed terrifyingly sharply in front of her. She would not be like her mother; she would not ever allow herself to be vulnerable in any way to a man who could only damage her emotionally. The ability to fall in love with the wrong man might be learned, but it was not, to the best of Mariella’s knowledge, inherited!

‘Get out!’

Get out? With pleasure! Gripping the steering wheel, Mariella reached for the door, slamming it closed and then switching on the ignition at the same time, then she threw the vehicle into a furious spurt of reverse speed.

The tyres spun; sand filled the air. She could hear a thunderous banging on her driver’s door as the car refused to budge. Looking out of the window, she saw Xavier looking at her in icy, furious disbelief.

Realising that she was bogged down in the swirling sand, Mariella switched off the engine. If he wanted her to leave he would have to move the vehicle for her, she recognised in angry humiliation.

As the engine died he was yanking the door open, demanding, ‘What the hell do you think you are trying to do?’

‘You told me to get out!’ Mariella reminded him, equally angry.

‘I meant get out of the car, not…’ As he swore beneath his breath, to her shock he suddenly reached into the vehicle and snapped off her seat belt, grasping her so tightly around her waist that it actually hurt.

As he pulled her free of her seat and swung her to the ground she had a sudden shocking image of the two of them in her dream!

‘Let go of me,’ she demanded chokily, pushing him away. ‘Don’t touch me…’

‘Don’t touch you?’

Now that she was on the ground she realised just how far she had to look up to see the expression in his eyes.

‘From what I’ve heard it isn’t often those words leave your lips.’

Instinctively Mariella raised her hand, taking refuge in an act of female rebuttal and retaliation as ancient as the land around her, but immediately he seized her wrist in a punishing grip, his eyes glittering savagely as he curled his fingers tighter. ‘Hell cat!’ he taunted her mercilessly. ‘One attempt to use your claws on me and, I promise you, you will regret it.’

‘You can’t go anywhere tonight,’ he told her bluntly. ‘There’s a sandstorm forecast that would bury you alive before you could get even halfway back to the city. In your case it would be no loss, but for the sake of the child…’

The child…Fleur!

An agonised sound of distress choked in Mariella’s throat. She could not stay here in this wilderness with this…this…savagely dangerous man, but her own common sense was telling her that she had no other option. Already the four-wheel drive was buried almost axle-deep in sand. She could taste it in her mouth, feel it on her skin. Inside the vehicle, Fleur had begun to cry again. Instinctively Mariella turned to go to her, but Xavier was there before her, lifting Fleur out.

The baby looked so tiny held in his arms. Mariella held her breath watching him…He was Fleur’s father after all. Surely he must feel something? Some remorse, some guilt…something…True, he did pause to look at her, but the expression on his face was unreadable.

‘She has your hair,’ he told Mariella, before adding grimly, ‘The wind is picking up. We need to get inside the tent. Where are you going?’ he demanded as she turned back to the vehicle.

‘I want to get Fleur’s things,’ she told him, tensing as he gave a sharp exclamation of irritation and overruled her.

‘Leave them for now. I shall come back for them.’

Mariella couldn’t believe how strong the wind had become! The sand felt like a million tiny particles of glass shredding her skin.

By the time they reached the safety and protection of the pavilion, her leg muscles ached from the effort of fighting her way through the shifting sand.

Once inside the pavilion she realised that it was much larger than she had originally thought. A central area was furnished with rich carpets and low divans. Rugs were thrown over dark wood chests, and on the intricately carved tables stood oil lamps and candles. In their light Mariella could see two draped swags of cloth caught back in a dull gold rope as though they covered the entrance to two other inner rooms.

‘Fleur needs something to eat, and a change of clothes,’ she announced curtly, ‘and I want to ring the Beach Club to tell them what has happened.’

‘Use a telephone—in this intensity of sandstorm?’ He laughed openly at her. ‘You would be lucky to be able to use a landline, never mind a mobile. As for the child…’

‘The child!’ Mariella checked him bitterly. ‘Even knowing the truth you still try to distance yourself from her, don’t you? Well, let me tell you something—’

‘No, let me tell you something…Any man could have fathered this child! I feel for her that she should have a mother of such low morals, a mother so willing to give herself to any and every man her eye alights on, but let me make it plain to you that I do not intend to be blackmailed into paying for a pleasure that was of so little value, never mind paying for a child who may or may not be the result of it!’

Mariella went white with shock and disbelief, but before she could defend her sister, Fleur started to cry in earnest. Ignoring Xavier, Mariella soothed her, whispering tenderly. ‘It’s all right sweetheart, I know you’re hungry…’ Automatically as she talked to her Mariella stroked her and kissed the top of her head. She was so unbearably precious to her even though she was not her child. Being there at her birth had made Mariella feel as though they shared a very special bond, and awakened a maternal urge inside her she had not previously known she had.

‘I don’t know what she has to eat, but there is some fruit and milk in the fridge, and a blender,’ he informed her.

Fridge? Blender? Mariella’s eyes widened. ‘You have electricity out here?’

Immediately he gave her a very male sardonic look.

‘Not as such. There’s a small generator, which provides enough for my needs.’ He gave a brief shrug. ‘After all, I come out here to work in peace…not to wear a hair shirt! The generator can provide enough warm water for you to bathe the child, although you, I am afraid, will have to share my bathing water.’

He was waiting for her to object, Mariella could see that. He was enjoying tormenting her.

‘Since I shall only be here overnight, I dare say I can manage to forgo that particular pleasure,’ she told him grittily.

‘I shall go to your vehicle and bring the baby’s things. You will find the kitchen area through that exit and to your right.’

Mariella had brought some dried baby food with her as well as some tinned food, which she knew would probably suit Fleur’s baby digestion rather better than raw fruit, no matter how well blended! Even so, it would do no harm to explore their surroundings.

As she stepped through the opening she found that she was in a narrow corridor, on the right of which was an unexpectedly well equipped although very small kitchen, and, to the left, an immaculately clean chemical lavatory, along with a small shower unit.

The other opening off the main room must lead to a sleeping area, she decided as she walked back.

‘What is all this stuff?’ she heard Xavier demanding as he walked in with his arms full.

In other circumstances his obvious male lack of awareness of a small baby’s needs might have been endearing, but right now…

Ignoring him and still holding Fleur, she opened the cool-bag in which she had placed her foods.

‘Yummy, look at this, Fleur,’ she murmured to her. ‘Banana pudding…our favourite…Yum-yum.’

The look of serious consideration in Fleur’s hazel eyes as she looked at her made her smile, and she forgot Xavier for a second as she concentrated on the baby.

‘I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that she isn’t receiving the nutrition of her mother’s own milk,’ she heard Xavier announcing critically.

Immediately Mariella swung round, her eyes dark with anger.

‘Since her mother had to go back to work that wasn’t possible!’

‘How virtuous you make it sound, but isn’t it the truth that the nature of that work—is anything but? But of course you will deny that, just as you will claim to know who the child’s father is.’

‘You are totally despicable,’ Mariella stopped him. ‘Fleur does not deserve to be treated like this. She is an innocent baby…’

‘Indeed! At last we are in agreement about something. It is a pity, though, that you did not think of that before you came out here making accusations and claims.’

How could he be so cold? So unfeeling! According to the little Tanya had said about him, she had considered him to be a very emotional and passionate man.

No doubt in bed he was, Mariella found herself acknowledging. Her face suddenly burnt hotly as she recognised the unwanted significance of her private thoughts, and even worse the images they were mentally conjuring up for her; not with her sister as Xavier’s partner—but herself!

What was happening to her? She was a cool-blooded woman who analysed, rationalised and resisted any kind of damaging behaviour to herself. And yet here she was…

‘Just how long is this sandstorm going to last?’ she asked abruptly.

The dark eyebrows rose. ‘One day…two…three…’

‘Three!’ Mariella was aghast. Apart from the fact that Tanya would be beside herself if she could not get in touch with her, what was the prince going to think if he returned and she wasn’t there?

‘I have to feed and change Fleur.’

Luckily she had brought the baby bath with her as well as the changing mat, and Fleur’s pram cum carry-cot, mainly because she had not been quite sure what facilities would be available at the oasis.

‘Since it is obvious that you will have to stay the night, it is probably best that you and the child sleep in my…In the sleeping quarters,’ Xavier corrected himself. Mariella’s mouth went dry.

‘And…where will you sleep?’ she asked him apprehensively.

‘In here, of course. When you have fed and bathed the child I suggest that we both have something to eat. And then—’

‘Thank you, but I am perfectly capable of deciding for myself when I eat,’ Mariella told him sharply.

She was far more independent, and a good deal more fiery, than he had anticipated, Xavier acknowledged broodingly when Mariella had disappeared with Fleur. And quite definitely not his younger cousin’s normal type.

Thinking of Khalid made his mouth tighten a little. He had been both furious and disbelieving when Khalid had telephoned him to announce that he had fallen in love and was thinking of marrying a girl he had met in a dubious nightclub. Khalid had been in love before, but this was the first time he had considered marriage. At twenty-four Khalid was still very immature. When he married, in Xavier’s opinion it needed to be someone strong enough to keep him grounded—and wealthy enough not to be marrying him for his money.

His frown deepened. It had been his cynical French grandmother who had warned him when he was very young that the great wealth he had inherited from his father would make him a target for greedy women. When he had been in his teens his grandmother had insisted that he spent time in France meeting the chic daughters of her own distant relatives, girls who in her opinion were deserving of inheriting the ‘throne’ his grandmother would have to abdicate when Xavier eventually married.

Well-born though they were, those girls had held very little appeal for him, and, practical though he knew it would be, he found himself even less enamoured of the idea of contracting an arranged marriage.

Because of this he had already decided that it would be Khalid who would ultimately provide the heir to his enormous fortune and, more importantly, take his place as leader of their historically unique tribe. But he hadn’t been in any hurry to nudge Khalid in the direction of a suitable bride—until he had learned of his plans vis-à-vis the impossible young woman who had forced her way into his private retreat!

He didn’t know which of them had angered him the most! Khalid for his weakness in disappearing without leaving any indication of where he had gone, or the woman herself who had boldly followed up her pathetic attempt at blackmailing him via the letter she had sent Xavier, with a visit to his territory, along with the baby she was so determined to claim his cousin had fathered!

Physically he had not been able to see any hint in the child’s features that she might be Khalid’s; she was as prettily blonde as her mother, and as delicately feminine. The only difference was that, whilst her mother chose to affect those ridiculous, obviously false turquoise-coloured contact lenses, the baby’s eyes were a warm hazel.

Like Khalid’s?

There was no proof that the child was Khalid’s, he reminded himself. And there was no way he was going to allow his cousin to marry her mother, without knowing for sure that Khalid was the father, especially now that he had actually met her. It was a wonder that Khalid had ever fallen so desperately in love with her in the first place!

‘She has the grace of a gazelle,’ he had written to him. ‘The voice of an angel! She is the sweetest and most gentle of women…’

Well, Xavier begged to differ! At least on the two eulogising counts! Had he known when he had seen her at the airport just who she was he would have tried to find some way of having her deported there and then!

Remembering that occasion made him stride over to the opening to the pavilion, pulling back the cover to look outside. As had been forecast the wind was now a howling dervish of destruction, whipping up the sand so that already it was impossible to see even as far as the oasis itself. Which was a pity, because right now he could do with the refreshing swim he took each evening in the cool water of the oasis, rather than using the small shower next to the lavatory.

It both astounded and infuriated him that he could possibly want such a woman—she represented everything he most detested in the female sex: avarice, sexual laxity, selfishness—so far as he was concerned these were faults that could never be outweighed by a beautiful face or a sensual body. And he had to admit that, in that regard, his cousin had shown better taste than he had ever done previously!

Xavier allowed the flap of the tent to drop back in place and secured it. It irked him that Mariella should have the gall to approach him here of all places, where he came to retreat from the sometimes heavy burden of his responsibilities. A thin smile turned down the corners of his mouth. From what Khalid had described of the luxury-loving lifestyle they had shared, he doubted that she would enjoy being here. However little he cared about her discomfort, though there was the child to be considered.

The child! His mouth thinned a little more. Little Fleur was most definitely a complication he had not anticipated!

With Fleur fed, clean and dry, Mariella suddenly discovered just how tired she felt herself.

She had not expected Xavier to be pleased to be confronted with her accusations regarding his treatment of Tanya and Fleur, but the sheer savagery and cruelty with which he had verbally savaged her sister’s morals had truly shocked her. This was after all a man who had very eagerly shared Tanya’s bed, and who, even worse, had sworn that he loved her and that he wanted her to share a future with him!

In her opinion Tanya and Fleur were better off without him, just as she had been better off without the father who had deserted her!

Now that she had confronted him, though—and witnessed that he was incapable of feeling even the smallest shred of remorse—she longed to be able to get away from him, instead of being forced to remain here with him in the dangerous intimacy of this desert camp where the two of them…

Those ridiculous turquoise eyes looked even more theatrical and unreal in the pale triangle of her small exhausted face, Xavier decided angrily as he watched Mariella walking patiently up and down the living area of the pavilion whilst she rocked Fleur to sleep in her arms.

No doubt Khalid must have seen her a hundred or more times with her delicate skin free of make-up and those haunting, smudged shadows beneath her eyes as he lay over her in the soft shadows of the early morning, waking her with his caresses.

The fierce burst of anger that exploded inside him infuriated him. What was the matter with him? When he broke it down what was she after all? A petite, small-boned woman with a tousled head of strawberry-blonde hair that was probably dyed, coloured contact lenses to obscure the real colour of her eyes, skin the colour of milk and a body that had no doubt known more lovers than it was sensible for any sane-thinking adult to want to own to, especially one as fastidious in such matters as he was.

It would serve her right if he proved to Khalid just exactly what she was by bedding her himself! That would certainly ensure that his feckless cousin, who had abandoned his desk in their company headquarters without telling anyone where he was going or for how long, would, when he decided to return, realise just what a fate he had protected him from!

The child, though was a different matter. If she should indeed prove to be his cousin’s, then her place was here in Zuran where she could be brought up to respect herself as a woman should, and to despise the greedy, immoral woman who had given birth to her!

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