Bride Behind The Desert Veil (The Marchetti Dynasty 3)

Liyah held out her hand, and he gave her the phone with clear reluctance. She said into it, ‘Hello, Sharif.’

There was silence at the other end, and then a sigh. ‘Yes, Liyah?’

‘If you’re so concerned about where I am and what I’m up to you should leave your stuffy meeting and come and see some sights for yourself.’

He had said he would meet her for lunch, but she didn’t believe that. Anyway, she was used to occupying herself.

But then Sharif said, ‘I’ll meet you there. Wait for me.’

He terminated the call and Liyah handed back the phone, a little stunned. And excited. She turned away from the security guard, who pocketed his phone again and resumed his stony-faced position. Liyah tried but failed to block out the fluttery feeling in her belly.

Sharif saw her before she saw him. She was sitting on a low wall facing the Eiffel Tower. She was wearing jeans, Chelsea boots, and a dark green turtleneck under a leather bomber jacket with a sheepskin lining. Her hair was pulled up into a bun, with curling wayward strands framing her face. She also wore sunglasses. No different to many of the monied tourists around her, but a world apart at the same time.

She was drawing attention just sitting still. Her natural beauty too obvious to ignore. But she appeared not to notice. Before, Sharif would have immediately been cynical about that, believing that she was well aware of the attention she attracted. But now...he couldn’t be sure.

He’d been right to investigate her more thoroughly. The fact that she’d flipped the tables on him again was becoming irritating in the extreme.

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘HOW DID YOU get a table here at such short notice?’ Liyah asked, taking in the astounding views all around them from the ultra-exclusive restaurant in the Eiffel Tower. Then she rolled her eyes and answered herself. ‘Stupid question, don’t bother answering.’

She looked at Sharif, who was still in the three-piece suit that he’d changed into on the plane before landing. He looked as fresh as if he’d just woken from a ten-hour sleep.

The waiter came and took their orders. Even though they weren’t near the top, they were still high enough that people looked like ants down below, milling around at the bottom of the tower.

Liyah said, ‘I was only joking when I said that you should come. I didn’t mean to break up your day.’

‘I said I’d meet you for lunch.’

The waiter returned with white wine and poured two glasses. Sharif lifted his and said, ‘Santé.’

Liyah clinked her glass with his. ‘Santé.’

She took a sip, but was very aware of Sharif’s gaze, which had turned calculating. She suddenly felt nervous and had no idea why.

He said nothing at first. Over a delicious starter of asparagus, and a main course of chicken breast, he lulled Liyah into a false sense of security by conducting a light conversation regarding her likes and dislikes—everything from movies to books and art.

Apparently he too enjoyed twisty dark thrillers, and he revealed a surprisingly nerdy interest in comic books.

He said, ‘There were tons of them in my Scottish boarding school. I used to take piles of them and hide in one of the gardener’s sheds, and get lost in them for hours. It was worth the punishment when the staff thought I’d run away.’

Liyah gasped. ‘They punished you?’

Sharif’s mouth flattened. ‘It wasn’t a good place.’

He put down his glass of wine and leant forward.

Liyah was still thinking of that dark-haired young boy, being subjected to some awful humiliation, far from home, griefstruck, so when Sharif asked, almost idly, ‘When were you going to tell me that it isn’t you in those paparazzi shots?’ Liyah almost missed it.

Her skin went clammy. Maybe she’d heard wrong. She’d been distracted. ‘What did you say?’

‘You heard me. It wasn’t you in those paparazzi pictures.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because I looked at them properly after I realised you weren’t behaving like a spoiled socialite. Far from it.’

Liyah felt as if a layer of her skin had been stripped back. Incredibly vulnerable.