Surrender to the Sheikh

She had made changes. Had switched from Headliners to another, smaller agency—where the different faces and different clients had forced her to concentrate on work, instead of dwelling on the darkly handsome face she missed with such an intensity.

And she had sold her flat in Notting Hill, too. She had bought somewhere

slightly smaller and in a less fashionable area of London, which meant that she no longer needed to take in a lodger.

She didn’t have to pretend to be feeling good in front of a flatmate now that she lived on her own. And if she felt like a quiet evening in, reading or watching television, then there was no one to nag her about going out and meeting people. She didn’t want to meet people. Especially not men. She had known very early on that Khalim would be an impossible act to follow, and in that her instincts had not failed her.

Somewhere in the distance, she heard the chiming of the doorbell, and because she was up to her ears in stray bits of conifer she hoped that Jamie might answer it. She heard the door open, and then murmurings.

‘Rose!’

She blinked at the rather urgent quality in Jamie’s voice. ‘What is it?’

‘You have a visitor.’

She looked up to see Jamie framed in the doorway of the sitting room, his face white and tense, a look of something approaching anger hardening his mouth.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

‘It’s him!’

‘What is?’ she questioned stupidly.

‘Khalim!’ he whispered. ‘He’s here. Right now. Waiting in the hall.’

The world span out of control and she felt all the blood drain from her face. ‘What does he want?’ she whispered back, in a voice which did not sound like her own.

‘To see you, of course!’ Jamie glowered. ‘You don’t have to see him, you know, Rose! I can send him away, if that’s what you want.’

And wouldn’t that be best?

She had done everything in her power to eradicate him from her memory in the intervening year since she had last seen him. She had been largely unsuccessful in this, it was true, but it hadn’t been through a lack of trying. Wouldn’t seeing him again just reopen all those old wounds, making the original injury even worse than before?

But how could she not see him—when her heart was banging fit to burst at the thought that he was here? Now.

She stood up and brushed some spray fronds of greenery from the front of her jeans. ‘No, I’ll see him, Jamie,’ she said quietly. ‘Will you send him in, please?’

In an effort to compose herself, she walked over to the window and looked out at the stark winter landscape which seemed to mirror the icy desolation of her emotional state.

She heard him enter the room. That unmistakable footfall.

‘Rose?’ came the deep and slightly stern entreaty from behind her.

Heart hammering, Rose forced herself to face him, and when she did her breath caught in her throat with longing.

He looked…

Oh, but he looked perfect—more perfect than any man had a right to look. And he was not wearing one of the immaculate suits he usually wore when he was in Europe—instead, he was dressed in the flowing, silken robes of Maraban. The ebony eyes were gleaming with some unspoken message and his face was as stern and as fierce as she had ever seen it.

Sabrina’s heart turned over with love and longing as she stared into the unfathomable glitter of his eyes, but she prayed that her face didn’t register her feelings.

Why was he here?

‘Hello, Khalim,’ she said, in a voice which she didn’t quite recognise as her own.

He thought how pale her face was, so that the blue eyes seemed to dominate its heart-shaped frame with their unforgettable dazzle. And how fragile she looked, too—the jeans he remembered looking slightly loose on the waist, and around the swell of her bottom. ‘Hello, Rose,’ he said softly.

She drew a deep breath. ‘How did you find me?’