The Sultan's Choice

This was it—just what she’d been dreading. And it got worse when he continued.

‘I knew I remembered meeting you, but couldn’t place where it was. And then it came to me …’

Her heart stopped beating. She begged silently that it wouldn’t be that awful moment which was engraved on her memory.

‘You had an unfortunate tussle with a table full of drinks at one of my parties.’

Samia was so ridiculously relieved that he didn’t seem to remember the library that she reached out to clasp his hand, her own much smaller one becoming engulfed by long fingers. His touch was strong and warm and unsettling, and she had to consciously stop herself from ripping her hand out of his as if he’d stung her.

‘Yes, I’m afraid that was me. I was a clumsy teenager.’ Why did she sound breathless?

While still holding her hand, he was looking into her eyes and saying musingly, ‘I didn’t realise you had blue eyes too. Didn’t you wear glasses before?’

‘I had laser surgery a year ago.’

‘Your colouring must come from your English mother?’

His voice was as darkly gorgeous as him. Samia nodded her head to try and shake some articulacy into her brain. ‘She was half English, half Arabic. She died in childbirth with me. My stepmother brought me up.’

The Sultan nodded briefly and finally let Samia’s hand go. ‘She died five years ago?’

Samia nodded and tucked her hand behind her back. She found a chair behind her to cling on to. Her eyes darted away from that intense blue gaze as if he might see the bitterness that crept up whenever she was reminded of her stepmother. The woman had been a tyrant, because she’d always known she came a far distant second to the Emir’s beloved first wife.

Samia looked back to the Sultan and her heart lurched. He was too good-looking. She felt drab and colourless next to him. How on earth could he possibly think for a second that she could be his queen? And then she remembered what he’d said about wanting a conservative wife and felt panicked again.

He indicated the chair she was all but clutching like a life raft. ‘Please, won’t you sit down? What would you like? Tea or coffee?’

Samia quelled an uncharacteristic impulse to ask for something much stronger. Like whisky. ‘Coffee. Please.’

Sadiq moved towards his own chair on the other side of the desk and thankfully just then his secretary appeared with a tray of refreshments. Once she’d left, he tried not to notice the way the Princess’s hand shook as she poured milk into her coffee. The girl was a blushing, quivering wreck, but she looked at him with a hint of defiance that he found curiously stirring. It was an intriguing mix when he was used to the brash confidence of the women he usually met.

He almost felt sorry for her as she handled the dainty cup. Miraculously it survived the journey from saucer to her mouth. She was avoiding his pointed look, so his gaze roamed freely over her and he had to concede with another little jolt of sensation that she wasn’t really that mousy at all. Her hair was strawberry-blond, with russet highlights glinting in the late-afternoon sun slanting in through the huge windows. It was tied back in a French plait which had come to rest over one shoulder. Unruly curls had escaped to frame her face, which was heart-shaped.

She looked about eighteen, even though he knew she was twenty-five. And she was pale enough to have precipitated his question about her colouring. He’d forgotten that interesting nugget about her heritage.

It surprised him how clearly that memory of her knocking over the table had come back to him. He’d felt sorry for her at the time;

she’d been mortified, standing there with her face beetroot red, throat working convulsively. Another memory hovered tantalisingly on the edges of his mind but he couldn’t pin it down.

Absurdly long lashes hid her eyes. He had to admit with a flicker of something that she wasn’t what he’d expected at all. Obeying some rogue urge to force her to look at him, so that he could inspect those aquamarine depths more closely, he drawled, ‘So, Princess Samia, are you going to tell me why you were about to leave?’

Samia’s eyes snapped up to clash with the Sultan’s steady gaze. She couldn’t get any hotter, and had to restrain herself from opening the top button of her shirt to feel some cool air on her skin. He was looking at her as if she were a specimen on a laboratory table. It couldn’t be more obvious that she left him entirely cold, and that thought sent a dart of emotion through her.

‘Sultan—’ she began, and stopped when he put up a hand.

‘It’s Sadiq. I insist.’

The steely set of his face sent a quiver through her. ‘Very well. Sadiq.’ She took a deep breath. ‘The truth is that I don’t want to marry you.’

She saw the way his jaw tensed and his eyes flashed. ‘I think it’s usually customary to be asked for your hand in marriage before you refuse it.’

Samia’s hands clenched tight on her lap. ‘And I think it’s customary to ask for the person’s hand in marriage before assuming it’s given.’

His eyes flashed dangerously and he settled back in the chair. Conversely it made Samia feel more threatened.

‘I take it that you overheard some of my phone conversation?’

Samia blushed again, and gave up any hope of controlling it. ‘I couldn’t help it,’ she muttered. ‘The door was partially open.’