Monarch of the Sands

Expelling a sigh, he shook his head. If it had been anyone but Francesca, it would have been easy. He could have kissed and dismissed her with a promise to look her up when he was back in London. And then put her on the next plane home and forgotten all about her.

But it wasn’t anyone else—and the very fact that it was Francesca was what made the whole situation so damned difficult. He had brought her here to give her a chance to forget her problems back in England—and had promptly added to those problems a hundredfold, by seducing her! And to make matters worse, she had given him her virginity—the greatest gift a woman could give her lover. Wouldn’t that make her clingy—even clingier than new lovers so often were?

He needed to play it down. To show her that nothing need change. That their friendship could remain intact, if they handled it properly. ‘We might be able to manage the situation,’ he said slowly. ‘If we are very careful.’

Frankie looked at him, fearing the worst—for she had seen the calculating expression which had suddenly hardened his features. ‘Manage it?’ she echoed cautiously.

He stared at the soft pink face she’d just washed and knew that he had to be straight with her. ‘We’ve just crossed a forbidden line by making love,’ he said.

Lips pursed, she nodded, even though he made it sound as if they’d committed some sort of trespass. ‘I realise that.’

‘And I ought to send you back to England straight away—for both our sakes.’ He saw her face workin as she tried desperately not to react to his words and he found himself wondering if his own reaction was mirroring hers. Could she sense his own reluctance to do that?

‘But the thing is, that I don’t want to send you back.’

A new note of hope entered her voice. ‘You don’t?’

‘No. I want you to type up my father’s diaries as planned.’ He swallowed. ‘And I want to carry on making love to you.’

‘You … do?’

‘Of course I do,’ he growled. His eyes met hers, and he felt another urgent leap of desire as he registered her quick rise in colour. ‘Isn’t it crazy for us not to enjoy each other for a little longer?’

Frankie’s cheeks burned and her heart raced. She agreed with every word he said, yet she wished he hadn’t approached it quite so cold-bloodedly. Couldn’t he have just pulled her into his arms and told her between urgent kisses that he couldn’t bear to let her go—rather than making it sound like something which was on the agenda at a board meeting?

But Frankie recognised that it was an indication of Zahid’s sense of decency that he was not blinding her with emotion, or trying to sway her with more glorious sex. He was putting an offer on the table into which nothing should be read. He was offering her a brief interlude—to be enjoyed by them both while it lasted.

What was there to think about?

‘It might be crazy,’ she whispered, ‘but what’s wrong with a little craziness from time to time?’

With a moan, he pulled her towards him—brushing his mouth over hers as if he had been starved of contact for days instead of mere minutes. He felt the thunder of his heart and the urgent hardening of his groin as her soft breasts pressed against him. ‘We’re going to have to be discreet at all times—because my servants are all-seeing,’ he warned softly. ‘We must not flaunt our affair in front of them, for that would also be disrespectful to them.’

And what about me? wondered Frankie with a touch of desperation as he whispered his lips over her hair. Did her feelings matter less than those of the servants?

But she recognised that she must not waste precious time wishing for the impossible. She must enjoy what was on offer and applaud Zahid’s honesty towards her. He might not be giving her the fairy-tale version of a love affair, but at least he wasn’t lying to her—and surely that was showing her respect of the most fundamental kind?

‘Come on,’ he said, with one last, lingering kiss. ‘We’d better go.’

He reached down to press the remote control and the automatic blind floated back up over the window. Frankie blinked, realising that the exceptional brightness she’d noticed before was due to the reflection of sunlight on water. Walking over to the window, she peered out and in the distance she could see the shimmer of water and the unexpected lushness of green foliage.

‘Is that a river?’ she questioned, in surprise.

He went to stand beside her, his hand lingering briefly on the curve of her bottom. ‘Indeed it is—we call it the Jamanah river, which means “silver pearl”.’ He looked down and shot her a mocking look. ‘I suppose you thought that all desert kingdoms were entirely without water?’

‘I try to avoid generalisations like that.’ Frankie screwed up her eyes as she tried to remember back to her geography lessons. ‘Does it happen to have its source outside the country?’

‘Bravo,’ he affirmed softly. ‘It’s what is known as an exotic river and it flows from the neighbouring country of Sharifah.’

‘Isn’t that the one you had all the wars with?’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Bravo again, Francesca. How on earth did you know that?’

‘My father told me, of course. He was very interested in Khayarzahian history.’

‘And you’ve remembered it all?’

‘Most of it.’ She smiled to herself as they left the house and got into the car. Of course she had remembered it all! Didn’t she used to collect and store up facts about Zahid like other girls used to collect Barbie dolls? Because hadn’t it always fascinated her, to learn what she could about the dark sheikh she so adored and the land which was so precious to him? ‘I have a very retentive memory,’ she said primly.