Taken by the Sheikh

Drax flicked another assessing look over Sadie, frowning as he saw her trying to smother a tell-tale yawn.

‘It has been a long day for you, and it is late. I shall summon Nasim and instruct him to escort you back to the women’s quarters. Tomorrow will be time enough for me to discuss my plans for our new venture with you in more detail.’

CHAPTER SIX

SADIE came up through the heavy layers of her deep sleep slowly and reluctantly on hearing the soft sounds of padding feet and the chink of china. When she opened her eyes it confused her at first not to see the bare discomfort of her small room high up under the roof of the al Sawar house.

And then she remembered. She wasn’t in Zuran any more; she was in the Royal Palace of Dhurahn.

She sat up quickly in the comfortable wide bed, thankful that she had taken the trouble to slip on a clean tee shirt before going to bed. Was that because she had feared that her sleep might be interrupted not by the shyly smiling Hakeem, who had just brought her a breakfast tray, but by the man who had brought her here?

Drax. Prince al Drac’ar al Karim bin Hakar. Just thinking about him was enough not only to raise the heat of her body, but to make her sensually aware of the cool stroke of the undoubtedly expensive bedlinen against her suddenly sensitised skin. She could feel the pulse of her own body, and the ache it sent radiated out all over her, making her nipples tighten and her toes want to curl.

She must not think like this, Sadie warned herself, shocked by the waywardness of her thoughts. She made herself focus on Hakeem, who was telling her softly, ‘I have brought you your breakfast, sheikha. If there is anything else you should wish?’

Sheikha? Surely she had no right to such an elevated form of address? Or was the girl simply being polite? It frustrated Sadie that her knowledge of Dhurahni customs was so limited. That was something she would have to address if she was to stay and work here.

Her thoughts suddenly busy, Sadie refused to admit to herself that she might be keeping them that way to resist giving in to the temptation of thinking about her new employer.

She smiled at the waiting girl and shook her head. ‘No. This is lovely. Thank you.’

‘I am to return in one hour to escort you to the public rooms of the palace, where you will be met by of one His Highness’s assistants,’ she told Sadie carefully, as though she had been rehearsing the words.

Sadie gave her another smile. She was glad she’d have someone to show her the way along the corridors. She had been too tired to take much note when she was whisked down them last night.

With Hakeem gone, Sadie got out of bed, tempted by the shafts of sunlight coming in through the open shutters of the windows to see what lay outside them. She had also been too tired to explore the suite of rooms she had been given, but this morning she could see just how luxurious her bedroom was. Its décor was an eye-pleasing mixture of traditional and modern. The bed was wide and low, a beautiful silk rug hung on the wall opposite the bed, and several more equally beautiful rugs were scattered over the tiled floor. Two sets of double doors opened off the bedroom on opposite walls adjacent to the windows. One set led into an elegantly furnished sitting room-cum-office, and the other into a wardrobe-lined dressing room which opened up into a large, modern bathroom with limestone floors and a huge free-standing ‘infinity’ bath.

Pulling on the towelling robe she had left at the end of the bed the night before, Sadie went over to the windows. As she looked out her eyes widened in delight when she saw the enclosed courtyard garden that lay beyond them. A pair of French windows opened out onto a tiled area, protected from the sunlight by a deep veranda. Beyond that were mosaic pathways and raised flowerbeds filled with a variety of hosta-like wide-leaved plants and neatly clipped topiary balls of white roses. The beds were finished off with a border of frothing white flowers Sadie didn’t recognise. In the middle of the enclosed area water splashed down from a fountain into a basin which overflowed into an ornamental stone-edged pond. As she watched, a large, sleek, beautifully-coloured fish rose from the water to snap at a hovering fly before subsiding back into the water.

Even from inside the room Sadie could smell the scent of the roses. Beyond the enclosed area was a miraculously green hedge, no doubt watered by some under-soil watering system. In the hedge was a ‘doorway’, which led to yet another garden—this one, so far as she could see from the window, containing more roses and topiary.

Sadie had never ever stayed anywhere so luxurious—made all the more sensual because it was so discreetly understated. She picked up the cup of coffee Hakeem had poured for her and drank it quickly. It was hot and sweet, although a bit strong for her taste. There was also a basket filled with small, sweet, sticky pastries, a selection of fruit and a bottle of water. But Sadie wasn’t hungry. In fact her stomach had started to churn with apprehension as she remembered the interview she’d had with Drax the previous evening.

Telling herself that it wouldn’t be a good idea to be late for her meeting with him, she poured herself another cup of coffee and drank it quickly, before hurrying into the bathroom.

Now, this was the kind of luxury she could easily get used to, she admitted as she paused to admire the infinity bath. There was no time for lingering this morning, though. A shower would be quicker, and probably far more therapeutic as it wouldn’t encourage her to indulge in thinking about Drax.

Half an hour later she was ready—her hair washed, blown dry and neatly secured, her body clothed in what seemed to be the plainest of her new clothes—a neutral-coloured linen-mix skirt with a white short-sleeved, softly fitting top embellished with decorative natural-coloured ‘stone’ buttons at the shoulders and on the small V-shaped neckline. His Highness, it seemed, had thought of everything—including, as she had just discovered, two pairs of designer sunglasses.

She had no idea what on earth she would do with all these things when she returned to the UK. She certainly hoped he didn’t expect her to want to keep them and then pay for them out o

f her wages. She would be paying for them for the rest of her working life, judging by the labels. But then perhaps to a man as obviously wealthy as Drax the cost of supplying an employee with a wardrobe bulging with designer labels was an insignificant perk. And the clothes weren’t for her; they were for an employee. She was a visual attachment to a very important venture, and as such she had to project the right image.

Sadie could hear the outer door of her suite opening. It was Hakeem, coming to collect her. Quickly slipping her feet into a pair of pretty shell-decorated summer mules, she hurried out of the dressing room, smiling at the young girl patiently waiting for her.

‘Heavens, I’ll never get used to all these corridors,’ she told Hakeem ten minutes later, envying the other girl’s elegant, straight-backed walk as she led her down a series of interconnecting white-walled corridors. She would have loved to have had time to stop and study the paintings and artwork, with their rich, vivid colours and sculptured lines, but Hakeem obviously didn’t want to linger. Like the domestic staff employed by the wealthy in Zuran, Hakeem was Indian, and so delicately beautiful that Sadie felt clumsy and awkward beside her despite her new clothes.

‘It was kind of you to bring me my breakfast this morning, Hakeem,’ Sadie said, and thanked her.

‘You like?’ Hakeem gave her another shy smile. ‘And you like the bedroom of the Royal Princesses? It is very beautiful, is it not?’ she asked proudly. ‘We have had only the ladies of the Royal Household of Zuran to stay in it before, when the Sheikha, who was the mother of our Rulers, was alive. But that was a long time ago—before I was here. It was before I was here too that Their Highnesses’ mother and father were killed and the whole of Dhurahn mourned their loss. It was very sad for such a dreadful thing to happen.’

‘Their parents were killed?’

‘It was in a car,’ Hakeem told her solemnly. ‘But not here,’ she assured Sadie hastily. ‘And it was a long time ago.’

‘How dreadful.’ Sadie couldn’t help shivering a little as she contemplated how awful it must have been for Drax and Vere to learn that such a terrible thing had happened to both their parents.

‘It was very sad,’ Hakeem repeated. ‘Everyone loved the Sheikha, even though she was not Dhurahni and, like you, came from a land far away. Ireland.’