Inexperience had let her down, and now Khalid was giving her an out. Perversely, she didn’t want that. She wanted to stay with him. She wanted more of his time, and more of his touches. More of him. A spear of jealousy so real she actually gasped with pain pierced her at the thought of all the women he must have known; women who’d felt his hands on their bodies, and who had seen that same desire in his eyes.
‘I suppose your score card’s off the scale,’ she commented spikily on the back of this thought.
His hard face softened into laughter. ‘I’m not so bad.’ He paused a moment, and then admitted wryly, ‘I’m worse.’
‘And shameless.’ But there was no venom in her comment, only a growing fondness, which was dangerous; she had no doubt the Sheikh was as shrewd in his dealings with women as he was in every other area of his life. ‘So, what is your score?’ she pressed, bracing herself for the answer.
‘Sheikh undefeated,’ he said.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MILLIE SAT ALONE in the suite, waiting for Khalid to return from attending to his remaining party guests, her body still thrumming from his expert touch. She shifted uncomfortably on the sofa, before glancing at the time on her phone. It was getting late—surely Khalid had seen everyone he needed to see by now?
She was on the point of going to find Khalid at the party when there was a discreet tap on the door. When she opened it, a young maid called Sadie introduced herself. ‘His Majesty’s PA sent me to direct you to the Pig and Whistle,’ Sadie explained.
For a moment, Millie was confused. ‘His Majesty’s PA sent you? The Pig and Whistle?’ she queried, feeling like a fool as she shook her head.
‘The Pig and Whistle is what we call the staff mess,’ Sadie explained chirpily in a way that immediately endeared her to Millie. ‘It’s where we hold our parties, and I’m having one tonight.’
‘Your party?’ Millie queried.
‘Well, it’s not my party, exactly,’ Sadie excused. ‘It’s a tradition on the Sapphire that when His Majesty holds a party the staff that prepared everything for his guests, but who aren’t required during the actual event, are allowed to celebrate too. To be honest, we don’t need much encouragement,’ Sadie confided with a grin. ‘It’s fantastic working on the Sapphire. It’s such a great crowd.’
But now Millie was worried. Would Khalid find the time to talk to her? He seemed to be passing her on to somebody else. So was that kiss a real kiss, or a power play? She didn’t have enough experience to work it out. And Sadie was waiting for her answer. ‘I’d love to come along,’ she said honestly. Sadie seemed fun. Being invited to the crew party was a hell of a lot better than hanging around on her own, waiting to see if His Majesty could spare the time to talk to her.
‘You’ll love it. I promise,’ Sadie said as she opened the door. ‘There’s always loads of good food and fun, and lots of dancing.’
Curious about the next adventure, Millie followed the young maid out of the room.
* * *
Where was she? Khalid had expected Millie to seek him out well before the party for his guests had ended, but now the night was drawing to a close and shortly his guests would be leaving. He had checked with his guards, but there was no report of Millie leaving the ship. A bolt of dread had run through him as he alerted his head of security to a potential problem.
It couldn’t happen again.
A second tragedy on board the Sapphire was unthinkable.
Involving Millie?
‘I want every inch of this vessel searched,’ he commanded his guards as they lined up in front of him.
‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ they chanted as one, before separating and spreading out across the ship.
Nothing must happen to her, he determined fiercely as he joined the search.
* * *
She’d lost track of time, Millie realised. Her stomach clenched as she glanced at her watch. She hadn’t had so much fun for ages. The Sapphire’s crew came from all over the world, and there was a strong Irish contingent with music and fun and laughter in their blood. The party in the Pig and Whistle had turned into such a riot she’d been up on the table dancing with Sadie for the past half-hour—
Two things happened in quick succession. One of the men swung Sadie into his arms and carried her away, leaving Millie dancing solo, then everyone else turned to stare at the door.
Oh, no!
As if a bagpipe had deflated, the music died to a tuneless hum. Khalid was standing in the doorway. Tall. Dominating. Stern. He was the dark angel from her past, come to wreak vengeance on a woman who had taken a giant leap over the traces. That would be the same woman with burning cheeks and tangled honey-blonde hair, with her skirt lifted high, and a very silly smile on her face.
A smile that just as quickly died.
‘Please carry on,’ the Sheikh invited as he ducked his head to join them in the crew quarters. ‘Please,’ he said, turning to address the musicians. ‘Play on.’
The fiddler, a guitarist, and a banjo player soon started up again, and the drummer plied his beater on the Irish drum, the Bodhrán, and by the time the traditional flute had joined in it was as if there had been no interruption to the party.
‘I’m sorry I—’
She got no further before Khalid demanded in an icy tone, ‘Why are you still here?’
‘We’ve still to speak—Your PA—’
‘My PA was instructed to mention the party in the Pig and Whistle so you could get some food. You didn’t have the chance to dine before you left my ship the first time tonight, and I thought you might be hungry. I didn’t expect you to stay here all night. You should have found some way to tell me where you were, or have you so easily forgotten the risks on a big ship? I’ve had guards scouring the Sapphire for you.’
Millie bided her time until the door had closed behind them and they were alone in the corridor. ‘I haven’t forgotten the risks, and I’m sorry if I’ve put you and your guards to such trouble, but I understood we were to talk further. I waited and waited in your suite for you to return and then Sadie knocked on the door, inviting me to come here, at your behest, I’d imagined. Maybe I was mistaken, but would you have preferred me to have hung around on the deck for hours, waiting for a signal from you that it was convenient for us to talk?’
He stared down at her with no expression on his face at all, and then he queried softly, ‘Dance?’ Opening the door to the party, he stood aside to let her pass.
Millie frowned. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Never more so,’ he confirmed. ‘Well?’
She was still shell-shocked, both by the sudden appearance of Khalid, and by his offer. She suddenly became acutely aware that her lips were still burning from his earlier kisses, which made the decision to go or stay one hell of a lot more significant than it might have been. ‘I’d like that,’ she said.
Sheikh Khalid drew her through the throng and, springing up on the table, he lifted her and steadied her in front of him. The noise had reached fever pitch by this time, making it seem that they were in the middle of some primitive rite, with a dark angel and a virgin in the middle of it. And while some men might have looked foolish dancing on a table, as in everything else he did, Khalid was a natural.
Space restriction forced him to keep her pressed hard against his body. ‘I won’t let you fall,’ he promised.
‘You’d better not,’ she warned.
She felt safe. Even all the history behind them didn’t seem to matter. It was hot and steamy in the Pig and Whistle, and the noise was drumming at her head, but it couldn’t come between them. They were so closely linked, both physically and mentally, that even here in this crowded space it was as if just the two of them were dancing with no onlookers at all.
‘Enough?’ he asked when finally she begged for mercy.
‘I’m too dizzy to walk,’ she prot
ested, staggering as he sprang down from the table.
Reaching up, he brought her safe into his arms.
‘Put me down! I feel embarrassed.’
‘There’s no need,’ he said. ‘No one’s watching. No one cares.’
Everyone cares, Millie thought as the smiling crowd parted to let them through when Sheikh Khalid carried her to the door. It was only natural that they were intrigued. His Majesty and the laundress dancing in the Pig and Whistle? What wasn’t cool about that?
When the door closed behind them a second time, Khalid lowered Millie to her feet and stared down at her. ‘Are we going to talk?’ she asked. ‘I guess you need to say goodnight to your guests first, and I’m happy to wait,’ she said, thinking it was the least she could do. ‘And then I really must get back,’ she added to fill the silence when he didn’t speak. ‘It’s getting late.’
‘Did you plan to swim back?’
‘What? I... I’m sorry...?’ Millie stared up in utter amazement. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Just that the Sapphire’s been underway for over an hour.’
She couldn’t speak. She didn’t know what to say. There was nothing to say, Millie concluded. She was a stowaway on the Sheikh’s yacht? What protection did that give her?
What had she done?
She wracked her brains for a solution, but there was none. She was stranded at sea with the Sheikh. ‘What about your guests?’
‘They disembarked some time ago.’
‘So, we’re heading to...?’ She wracked her brains for the closest port to King’s Dock on the south coast of England.
‘For Khalifa,’ he said, as if that were obvious.
‘Khalifa?’ Millie gasped. ‘Halfway around the world?’
She was stunned when he confirmed this. Now she was standing still, she could feel the vibration of the ship’s engines beneath her feet and hear the faint hum. ‘Couldn’t you drop me off somewhere?’ she asked, knowing she was clutching at straws.
‘This isn’t a bus, Ms Dillinger.’
‘Of course not, I mean...’ For once in her neatly organised life, Millie didn’t have a clue what to do next. ‘Miss Francine will be worried,’ was all she could come up with.