Commanded by the sheikh

‘Is that why people support Khalil now?’

‘They’ve always supported him. He left the country when he was seven, but he’s remained in everyone’s hearts—the poor little prince who got booted out. And I’ve always been the smug brat who took his place.’ He still spoke lightly, but his eyes were like iron.

‘It sounds like your father didn’t think through his decision very wisely,’ Olivia said quietly, and Aziz let out a laugh, the sound harsh and abrupt.

‘My father,’ he answered, ‘Wanted to have his cake and eat it too. And he didn’t even like cake.’

‘So he loved Khalil,’ she said slowly, ‘But he still banished him.’

‘I’ve often wondered why he did, since he made it clear what a disappointment I was compared to Khalil.’ Aziz’s mouth twisted in something like a smile. ‘I suppose he did it because he was so angry that he’d been made a cuckold. Or maybe he was furious with himself for loving a son who wasn’t actually his. Or maybe he just reacted out of anger and pain.’ He took a breath and let it out slowly. ‘I think he made this will because he wanted to give Khalil a chance.’

She met his gaze directly. ‘A chance you don’t want to give him.’

Aziz jerked back as if he’d been slapped. ‘Why should I? He’s not the ruler by right. I am.’

‘But do you even like Kadar?’ Olivia pressed. ‘You’ve spent so little time here by your own choice.’ She shook her head slowly, realisation dawning. ‘You’re only doing this to spite your father, and he’s dead.’

She saw anger blaze briefly in Aziz’s eyes before he gave her a rather sardonic smile. ‘What an astute psychological assessment, Miss Ellis.’

‘Sarcasm is the lowest form of defence.’

‘I thought the expression was the lowest form of humour.’

‘That too,’ she conceded. ‘I’m not saying you don’t deserve to be Sheikh, Aziz, although—’ She stopped and his gaze narrowed.

‘Although...?’

‘Although I wonder if you think you do,’ she finished quietly.

He stared at her, breathing hard, as if he’d been running. Olivia held his gaze, wondering why she’d pushed him yet also glad that she had. ‘You’re right,’ he finally said. ‘I do wonder if I should be Sheikh. If the people don’t want me to be, if my father didn’t...’

‘And yet you’re still here.’

‘When I first read my father’s will I thought about just giving it up to Khalil. Turning my back. I think plenty of people were expecting me to.’

‘But you didn’t.’

‘No, I didn’t.’ He spoke heavily, as if he doubted the wisdom of his choice. Doubted, Olivia suspected, himself.

‘Well, I think that says something,’ she said and Aziz glanced at her with a hint of his old humour.

‘Oh? And what does it say? That I’m stubborn and bone-headed?’

‘And determined and strong,’ Olivia answered. ‘Aziz, you’re the Gentleman Playboy.’

‘As you keep reminding me—charming, shallow, feckless and so on. Yes, I know.’

‘Forget shallow and feckless for a moment,’ Olivia said. ‘You’re charming. You have most of Europe eating out of your hand, and I don’t just mean the women. Why shouldn’t you be able to win the hearts of your own people? You just haven’t tried before.’

He pressed his lips together as if to keep from saying something, then after a moment gave a little smile. ‘Thank you for that pep talk. It was obviously needed.’

So he was reverting to lightness, Olivia thought. She was disappointed and yet she told herself it was just as well. They’d had enough emotional honesty for one evening, surely.

‘Enough talk about Kadar and politics,’ he said, pouring them both more wine. ‘Let’s talk about something else.’

‘Such as?’

‘What do you like to do in your spare time?’

‘What?’ Startled and more than a little discomfited, she simply gaped at him. Aziz smiled back, his teeth gleaming white in his tanned face, his eyes like silver. Her insides tightened in helpless, yearning response. Why had she never responded to him like this before?

Because you never let yourself. Because she’d never spent so much time with Aziz that hadn’t been mundane and perfunctory. Because she’d never got to know the man behind the persona before—a man who was more thoughtful, sensitive and appealing than the Gentleman Playboy but with all of his charm and charisma.

‘Hobbies, Olivia. Pastimes. Do you like to read? Go to the cinema? Crochet?’

‘Crochet?’

He shrugged. ‘A shot in the dark.’

An unwilling bubble of laughter escaped her, surprising her. She was enjoying this silly banter, she realised. She liked how it made her feel. ‘I don’t crochet, I’m afraid.’

‘No need to be afraid. I’m not disappointed.’ She laughed again and Aziz’s eyes flared. ‘There it is. That lovely sound. I will find out why you laughed in the kitchen.’

She shook her head slowly, still smiling. ‘It was nothing.’

‘It was a wonderful laugh.’

‘I was laughing at a squirrel,’ she told him. ‘A little red one. He was trying to pick up a nut and it was too heavy for him.’

She’d watched that little squirrel for several minutes, had been absorbed in his little drama, and when he’d finally managed to pick up the nut she’d laughed. It had been such a silly little thing, but it had taken herself out of her own head for a little while, and she’d needed that.

‘No big mystery,’ she told Aziz lightly and he smiled.

‘But now you intrigue me even more. You make me wonder why I’ve never been able to make you laugh before, yet now I can.’ He held her gaze then, still smiling, but with a certain steadiness in his eyes that made Olivia’s mouth dry—for wasn’t this far more dangerous, this emotional connection, than a merely physical one?

A man who could make her laugh as well as burn.

She looked away.

‘Olivia?’ Aziz said quietly.

‘I suppose laughter doesn’t come easily to me any more,’ she said after a moment. She was amazed she was telling him this much, yet part of her wanted to tell him, to unburden herself, if only just a little.

‘Why is that?’

She just shrugged. She didn’t want to unburden herself that much, to admit that she’d thought the carefree, laughing girl she’d once been had died when she’d been just seventeen and it had felt like her soul had been ripped from her body. It had.

Aziz reached over and placed his hand gently on top of hers. ‘Whatever has made you sad,’ he said quietly, ‘I’m glad to see you happy, even if just for a moment.’

She nodded jerkily, her throat so tight she knew she couldn’t manage any words even if she’d known what ones to say.

Aziz removed his hand and sat back. ‘Are you finished?’ he asked, gesturing to her half-eaten salad. ‘I’ll call for the next course.’

Olivia nodded, grateful for the reprieve from their conversation, and a few minutes later the waiter returned to clear their plates and then bring the main course. Aziz asked for some mundane details about the Paris house, and by silent agreement they kept the conversation about various issues concerning the house and nothing else for the rest of the meal.

Yet, even though Aziz wasn’t asking her personal questions any more, Olivia couldn’t keep her mind from wandering to places it shouldn’t go. She couldn’t keep her gaze from roving surreptitiously over him, or from noticing the way the candlelight gave his hair a blue-black sheen.

He wore an evening suit that emphasised the breadth of his shoulders, the trimness of his hips, the overall perfection of his body.

Everything about him was graceful and elegant; Olivia was mesmerised just by the way he held his knife and fork. He had lovely fingers, she thought: long and slender, yet with so much latent strength. There was, she decided, a leashed and stealthy power about him that she hadn’t noticed before, at least not consciously. Perhaps now that he was ruler of a country she felt it, had the sense that he was more than a man of wealth and charm.

A dangerous man.

A desirable man.

And that was something she had no business thinking about. Aziz was getting married. Determinedly she yanked her gaze away from those long-fingered hands. He was getting married in just two days, if he found Queen Elena.

And if he didn’t?

Not her problem. Not a question she needed to answer, or even ask. Yet her heart lurched all the same.

The candles had burned down to waxy stubs by the time they had their coffee, thick and syrupy, brewed in the Arabic manner that made Olivia pucker her mouth.

Aziz laughed when he saw her expression. ‘It does take some getting used to.’

‘You’re obviously used to it,’ she said, for he’d drunk his without so much as a grimace, or even adding any sugar.

‘It took a while,’ he admitted as he finished the last of his coffee. ‘But the taste of it has grown on me.’

‘So you don’t miss your Americanos?’ Olivia asked with a little smile. She’d made his coffee on the machine he’d had installed in the kitchen of the house in Paris.