Bride Behind The Desert Veil (The Marchetti Dynasty 3)

They were coming to a smooth stop outside a restaurant now, and Liyah could see officious-looking people springing forward with clipboards, and umbrellas to ward off the snow.

Sharif got out and opened Liyah’s door. She steeled herself against the inevitable reaction when she put her hand into his, but it was no use. By the time she got into the warm space of the restaurant her skin was hot, and she pulled away from Sharif in case he saw how weak she was.

Someone discreetly took her coat and she followed Sharif into the restaurant, gasping a little when she saw the elaborate setting. There was a long table laid with gold cutlery. An arrangement of winter flowers ran down the centre of the table in green, gold and decadent red. There were hundreds of flickering candles.

Everything became a bit of a blur as she and Sharif were swept into a round of meeting people and air-kissing before they were seated for dinner. Liyah had to stop her jaw dropping to the floor more than once when she recognised several movie stars. One of whom had won multiple awards the previous year.

To her relief, she wasn’t seated beside Sharif, who was at the top of the table. The new designer and his assistant were next to him. It gave her a chance to regain her breath after the revelations he’d shared on their journey here. A chance to observe him for once. She saw how he interacted with the designer, giving him the totality of his attention, but every now and then his gaze would slide to Liyah and she’d immediately feel flustered and look away.

In a bid to avoid Sharif’s eye, she got into a conversation with the woman beside her who turned out to be very pleasant. She was a stylist who regularly worked with the designer, and Liyah was able to ask her lots of questions about the fashion industry that Sharif would never have had the time to indulge.

After Sharif had given a speech, and the dinner party had started to break up, people moved into another room, from where Liyah could hear the infectious beat of disco music. Clearly the party was continuing. But when she looked around, Sharif was approaching with her coat.

‘You really don’t like to hang around, do you?’ Liyah observed drily as he helped her into it.

‘This is work for me.’

When they were back in the car, Liyah couldn’t help probing. ‘So, if you take a woman on a date, what do you usually do?’

Sharif didn’t like the way he suddenly felt defensive. For the whole of the dinner he’d found himself distracted. Distracted by the play of golden light on Liyah’s skin. The slope of her bare shoulders. Her arms, slender but strong. The graceful curve of her neck and jaw. The regal line of her profile and those ridiculously lush lips. The way she’d made everyone else look pale and listless in comparison. The way she’d listened attentively to the person beside her when everyone else in the room had been darting looks all around to see who was looking at them, or if someone more important was on the horizon.

He didn’t like it that he’d noticed so much. It made him prickly on top of feeling defensive. ‘Do you feel hard done by because I haven’t taken you on a date, Liyah?’

Her eyes flashed. ‘I know this isn’t a conventional relationship. I don’t expect...that.’

‘That?’ He mimicked her. ‘You mean romance? I don’t offer women romance, Liyah—as you might have noticed from the recent salacious headlines you must have seen in your research. I offer them a very straightforward transaction.’

‘Sex.’

He shrugged unapologetically. ‘In a word. I’m not interested in a relationship. Hence this...’ He gestured between them to indicate their arrangement.

She was silent for a moment, and then she asked, ‘Why are you so consumed by building the business if you hated your father so much?’

Revenge. Retribution. Redemption.

How did this woman get so close to his edges every time? He barely knew her, but she seemed to be able to see into a place inside him where no one else ever dared venture. Not even his brothers—and if anyone could guess at the darkness inside him it would be them.

And, worse, why did he feel the need to tell her anything? The story about him being kidnapped was in the public domain and yet he never spoke of it. Never spoke of that terrifying moment when a Jeep had come hurtling towards him over the sand in the desert. He’d been going to set up camp for the night on his own. At the age of eight. Because he’d wanted to prove to his mother that he could be trusted.

He’d thought at first that it was his cousins, or

his uncle, but it had been white-faced strangers with scarves covering their mouths. Private mercenaries with rough hands. Too strong for him to fight.

They’d hauled him off his horse.

To this day he cursed himself for not cantering away when he’d had the chance. They’d bundled him into the Jeep and taken him to a helicopter. And then a plane. First to Rome, where his father had laid out what was expected of him, and then to that gothic monstrosity of a school in Scotland.

He refused to visit Scotland even now.

And here was this woman, shining a light onto things he never discussed with anyone and making him aware of...what? That perhaps there was some lack in his life? Something missing?

Sexual frustration bit at his veins like the craving for a drug too long denied. He could kiss Liyah right now, give in to the carnal urge to slake his lust, and in so doing stop her looking at him as if she could see into all his hidden corners. And, more importantly, stop the irritating questions falling from those far too tempting lips.

But he knew that to give in would be to display a fatal weakness. So he said, in a tone that invited no further questions, ‘I might have hated my father, but I don’t allow emotions to cloud my judgement when it comes to business.’

Or when it comes to relationships, Liyah mused to herself silently as the car made its smooth progress through the streets of Manhattan.

She avoided Sharif’s eye for the rest of the journey, not wanting him to see how his words had affected her, because she wasn’t even sure why she felt this hollow sensation in her chest, when the fact that the man had closed his heart off long ago should have no impact on her whatsoever.