The Sheik's Unsuitable Bride

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘DON’T you have an appointment to keep?’

It was Diana, not him, who finally broke the silence after what might have been an age, but was nowhere near long enough.

‘Nothing involving money.’ Zahir fought down the temptation to reach out, touch his fingers to her lips to silence her so that they could return to that moment of perfect understanding. Instead, he went for a wry smile. ‘I’ll rephrase that. It involves a great deal of money, but the negotiations were done and dusted months ago. I’m here to take possession of the finished article.’

‘Which, since we’re in a boatyard, I’m guessing would be a boat?’ she said, looking around her at the vast boat-building sheds, the craft pulled out of the water and propped up in cradles awaiting work.

‘Got it in one and you know how it is with a new toy. It’s no fun unless you can show it off to someone.’

Her gaze returned to him. It was direct, straightforward. Honest. She might blush like a girl, but there was none of that irritating coyness about her. She was direct in her look, direct in every way. Even as she acknowledged the truth of his remark with the smallest tilt of her head, she said, ‘Am I the best you can do?’

He sensed more than simple bafflement that he’d choose to display his latest acquisition to his chauffeur. Suspected that her question was loaded, but he played along, turning to look in the back of the car.

‘I can’t see anyone else. Of course, if you would really prefer to stay here and feed the seagulls?’

Diana knew that feeding the seagulls was the safe option. The sensible option. But, for some reason, she wasn’t doing sensible this week.

If she had been, she’d have politely accepted Zahir’s apology and left it at that. Too late now, but then their relationship had gone far beyond politeness. Beyond the point at which she could pretend that she was just his chauffeur and use the car as her defence. The fact that he’d asked, rather than ordered only underlined that point.

He was learning.

Pity she couldn’t do the same, she thought, as she opened the car door and stepped out, catching her breath as the breeze whipped at her hair.

At the marina, the sea, sheltered in the narrow estuary that the river had carved through the hills and coralled by wooden landing stages, had seemed deceptively tame.

Here the sea was a live thing, constantly on the move as it slapped against the concrete slipway, sucked at the shingle. Even the air tasted of salt.

She turned to Zahir, who was standing beside the car, waiting.

Tall, dark and so dangerous that he should have, Warning! Close Contact With This Man Can Seriously Damage Your Peace of Mind! stamped on his forehead.

The fact that he’d been able to tease her out of her strop the moment he’d put his mind to it was ample demonstration of the danger she was in. How would she ever be able to resist him if he really made an effort?

If he wanted more than a kiss…

She shook her head, recognising somewhere, deep inside her where she refused to go, that his apology had been a rare thing. That he had been making a very special effort.

That resistance was imperative. And, taking a slow calming breath, she turned to face him.

‘If you wanted to show off your new toy,’ she asked, ‘why didn’t you bring the Princess with you?’

‘Princess?’

He was good. He really looked as if he didn’t know what, who, she was talking about.

‘Tall,’ she prompted, holding her hand several inches above her own pitiful height. ‘Blonde.’ She couldn’t quite bring herself to say beautiful. ‘Your partner, according to James Pierce?’

He leaned back, his brows drawn down in a puzzled frown. ‘Do you mean Lucy?’

‘I don’t know. How many tall, blonde partners do you have?’ she snapped, angry that he wouldn’t just own up, tell her the truth. That while he was flirting with her, kissing her, dancing with her, he had a thoroughbred filly at home in the stable.

Angry with herself for allowing him to waltz away with her, when she knew…

‘You were talking to her when I returned the tray. If that helps,’ she prompted. ‘She was wearing a pale grey…’

‘I’m with you,’ he said, getting the picture. ‘But calling her my partner is stretching it a bit.’

‘Surely you are or you aren’t,’ she said, hating him for not being honest with her. Hating herself for caring…

‘It’s not like that.’

‘No? What is it like, Zahir?’

‘What is it like?’

His long look left her in no doubt that she’d exposed herself, had revealed feelings that would have been better kept hidden and, damn it, she was really good at ‘hidden’. She could keep a secret better than anyone she knew. She’d had years of practice…

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, turning away, but he stopped her. All it took was a touch to her shoulder.

‘It’s like this, Diana.’

And she turned back. Forget the way he looked, the way he smiled so that she felt like the only person in the world. Who could resist that low, seductively accented voice as it wrapped itself around her, warming everything within her that was vital, female, bringing it to life?

Who could resist it, when she’d been dead inside for so long?

‘Really-’

She made one more effort, but he raised a hand, demanding that she listen.

‘Lucy-charming, beautiful Lucy-’ she flinched at each word ‘-was the joint owner of one of those desert tour outfits. It was poorly managed, under-capitalised, going nowhere. And the man who ran it had been arrested for fraud, amongst other things.’

His mouth tightened as if just thinking about it made him angry and suddenly she was listening.

‘My cousin, Hanif-Ameerah’s father-knew that I was more interested in business than diplomacy and he encouraged me to step in, take it over, see if I could make something of it. I raised the capital-it didn’t take much-but when I bought Lucy out I insisted she keep a small equity in the business.’ He managed a wry smile. ‘Just in case I was as good as I thought I was. She’d had a raw deal.’

‘What a Galahad!’

‘You don’t understand.’ He lifted a hand as if asking her to at least try. ‘But then why should you?’

‘I never will unless you tell me. Not that it’s any of my business,’ she added, realising, somewhat belatedly, that haranguing a client about business affairs was probably not an entirely wise move. Except that she’d stopped treating Zahir like a client from, well, the moment she’d picked up the shattered snow globe.

But the admission earned her another of those smiles-the real ones-so that was okay.

‘Don’t go all polite on me, Diana.’

Or maybe not.

‘I’m listening,’ she said.

He leaned back against the car, folded him arms, looked down, as if dredging deep for what he was about to tell her. ‘The men in my family are diplomats. My grandfather before he became ruler. My father, uncles, cousins. I wanted something different. Like you, I had a dream.’

‘Your own airline?’

‘Not quite. It takes time to learn to dream on that scale. You have to start small, then, as your imagination grows, let the dreams grow until they are big enough to fill all the available space.’ He glanced up at her. ‘I got my chance because Lucy’s life had fallen apart. I owed her. She uses her share of the profits to fund a charity she founded, which is why she turns out for the PR stuff, as she did last night, whenever Hanif can spare her.’

Hanif…

‘Your cousin,’ she said, finally working out where all this was going. ‘Ameerah’s father.’

‘And Lucy’s husband.’

Diana struggled to say something to cover her stupidity but for once words failed her and all she could manage was a stumbling, ‘I…um…’

Oh…sheikh!

Zahir saw her difficulty. But then he’d seen everything. That was why he’d taken the long route to make his point when he could just as easily have said, She’s my partner, but she’s also my cousin’s wife.

‘That wasn’t the kind of partnership you were talking about was it.’ he asked very softly.

A hole in the ground, opening up to swallow her whole, would be welcome right now, she decided as, left with no place to hide, she shook her head.

‘Whatever made you think-?’

‘I saw her last night when I returned the tray,’ she cut in quickly, before he reminded her exactly what she’d been thinking. ‘You were together. You looked so close and when he saw me looking Mr Pierce told me that she was your partner. I thought…’ She dismissed what she’d thought with an awkward, meaningless gesture.

‘A simple misunderstanding.’

She didn’t think so.

‘His partner…’ The way James Pierce had said it had been full of meaning. He’d meant her to believe…

No. That was ridiculous. Much more likely her imagination, working overtime, leaping to conclusions when she’d seen him standing so close to a beautiful woman just minutes after he’d kissed her.

Good grief, she must have it bad if she’d let her imagination run so green. She must really have it bad if she felt this good knowing that it wasn’t true.

While she was still trying to find words that would not betray her as a complete idiot-a jealous idiot at that-he rescued her, making a gesture in the direction of boatyard.

‘Actually, you’re right, Lucy would have loved the chance to see the yacht. In fact she’s calling in every favour I owe her in return for the right to give it a test run as a wedding anniversary gift to Hanif before it’s chartered to the public.’

‘You’re going to charter it?’ Diana asked, grabbing for the impersonal in an attempt to distract him from the fact that she’d just betrayed feelings that were just plain…inappropriate!

‘I could not justify the expense for my own personal use. Even if I had the time. But today it is all mine.’ And, with the slightest of bows, he offered her his hand. ‘In the absence of Princess Lucy al-Khatib, Miss Metcalfe, will you do me the immense honour of allowing me to share this moment with you?’

He had never treated her as if she were just his chauffeur, but at this moment she recognised that he was treating her like a princess and she laid her hand against his.

He closed his hand over hers, tucked it beneath his arm and, heading for the boatyard office, said, ‘My plan is to use the yacht as part of a wedding package. I’d value your opinion on that.’

‘I don’t think I’m your natural market, Zahir.’

He glanced at her. ‘Are you telling me that you don’t dream?’

‘Not at all. It’s just that my dreams are confined to pink taxis.’ And a prince who turns into a frog. The only way this could turn out. But it was her Cinderella moment and she was going to make the most of it.

‘There’s nothing wrong with the pink taxi dream, but maybe I can broaden your horizons.’

‘To what? A pink yacht?’

‘Just wait until you see her,’ he said, with a sudden smile that betrayed an oddly boyish enthusiasm. ‘There’s a very small island in Nadira Creek that is going to make a perfect wedding venue. I’m building a restaurant there, with a traditional wind tower to draw the air down over a basement pool to cool it naturally. A pavilion for romantic Westerners to make their vows.’

‘It’s just for tourists, then?’

‘An Arab wedding traditionally takes place at the bride’s home…’ He shook his head. ‘At Nadira, after the ceremony, the feasting, the yacht will be waiting to carry the honeymooners away, leaving the world behind…’

He left the rest to her already overcharged imagination.

‘It sounds enchanting,’ she said, concentrating very hard not to go there. ‘And expensive.’ Then, ‘But very romantic.’

‘It will be.’

‘Which?’

‘All three,’ he assured her. And the boyish smile faded, leaving only a very adult warmth in his eyes.

The yacht certainly looked expensive. White, sleek, beautiful, and so much larger than she’d anticipated, that Diana almost succumbed to another ‘…oh, sheikh…’ moment.

‘You’d probably like to look around the accommodation, miss,’ the boat builder suggested, ‘while I show Sheikh Zahir the engines?’

Zahir hesitated, then, turning to follow the man below to inspect powerful engines that were, even now, sending a quiet hum through the yacht, he said, ‘Go where you like, Diana. I’ll catch up with you.’

She suspected that she knew at least as much about engines as Zahir. From the time she could reach inside the bonnet of his taxi, she’d been asking questions and her father had taught her all he knew, even as he’d taught her to drive on private roads, so that she’d passed her driving test only days after her seventeenth birthday.

But men were funny about stuff like that, so she did as she was told and wandered over the yacht, marvelling over the ingenuity of the fittings in the galley, sighing over the minimalist luxury of the accommodation. Coming to a halt when she opened the door to the main stateroom which, dominated by a huge bed, half hidden by rich silk drapes, was quite clearly the honeymoon suite. Zahir had certainly widened the horizons of her dreams she thought, as her imagination ran amok…

Definitely time for some fresh air, she decided, heading back to the deck. But the honeymoon image lingered and, as she stood in the prow, her dreams knew no bounds. A tropical sun dipping into the sea, the arm of a man who loved her around her waist, her head against his shoulder.

She shook her head to clear it.

Forget the yacht, the sunset. Only the man was important and she’d be wise to forget him too.

Everything she had, everything she could be, was down to her alone and on an impulse, she leaned forward, stretching out her arms like the heroine in the film Titanic and, in the absence of her own hero, telling herself that she could do anything, be anything, if only she had the courage…

Zahir dutifully stood over the glistening pistons as the engines were turned over because, as an owner taking possession, that was what was expected of him. Doing his duty when he’d far rather have stayed with Diana, wanting to see her face as he revealed his new toy to her. As he opened the door and she saw the stateroom. Certain that her reaction would tell him everything he wanted to know.

Perhaps it was as well he’d been distracted.

Better not to know…

When, finally, he could escape, he found her not below, exploring, but standing in the bow of the yacht, her arms outstretched like some figurehead…No…It was something else. A scene from a film.

She was dreaming after all and, smiling, he came up behind her, took hold of her waist and said, ‘Do it properly. Step up on the rail.’ Her response was to take a step back, drop her arms, but he urged her to go for it. Lifting her, he said, ‘Reach for it, Diana. Reach for what you want most.’

‘Zahir!’

His name was a wail of embarrassment, but he refused to listen.

‘Trust me…I won’t let you fall.’

Diana, feeling utterly foolish at being caught out play-acting this way, for a moment resisted, but his hands were strong, his support real, and suddenly she was there, leaning far out over the water, her eyes closed, arms stretched wide, reaching for her future as he leaned with her, his arms beneath hers, keeping her safe.

‘I can feel the wind in my face,’ she said, laughing, feeling like the girl she’d never been. And at her back she could feel Zahir’s strength as he held her, the slight roughness of his chin against her neck, the warmth of his body quickening her to a womanhood she’d never known.

The thudding of her pulse at his closeness, an aching intimate heat, shocking in its urgency, was confirmation that life was to be seized and shaken and, for one mad moment, she came close to turning and pulling him over the edge with her, taking him with her as she plunged beneath the surface.

If they were both out of their depth they would be equal…

Except she was Cinderella and the minute they stepped off the yacht she would cease to be a princess.

‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’ she said shakily, backing away from the intensity of feelings that had almost overwhelmed her. Trying to keep this at a level she could handle.

She didn’t do overwhelmed.

She didn’t do dreams.

‘It won’t jinx the boat?’ she persisted, when the only answer was his soft breath against her cheek.

The scene in the film had been beautiful, but the love affair, like the Titanic, had been doomed from the first reel of the movie and, in an attempt to claw herself back to reality, she opened her eyes to find that the view had changed. That they were far from the shore.

Confused, she looked down to see a lacy ripple of white where the bow broke the surface of the water.

She stared down at it for a moment, trying to work out what was happening, then, as the water moving away from her made her giddy, she pitched forward, crying out, certain she was about to fall.

But Zahir’s hands were sure. He had her safe and, lifting her down, turned her so that she was facing him instead of the rush of water, drawing her close as she clung, shaking, to his shoulders, his arms around her as if he would never let her go while he murmured soft reassuring words against her hair, her temple.

She was still shaking, but not because she was afraid of falling. This wasn’t fear, this was something darker, more urgent, and, as she looked up, she knew he was going to kiss her.

Not the way he’d kissed her before. This was not like that sweet, sensuous, barely there kiss.

He’d held her as he’d danced with her.

This was something else. This wasn’t that light, floating touch as they’d slowly circled Berkeley Square. This was searingly close, a hungry, insistent need…

For the space of one, two, three heartbeats pounding in her ears, her head did its best to fight the seductive call to surrender, but by then her body had made a bid for independence and, overriding thought, reason, she was kissing him back.

No holds barred. No fooling. Minutes earlier she’d felt as if she were flying; this was the real thing.

Diana didn’t want him to let her go. She wanted him to carry her down to that stateroom and put that incredible bed to the purpose for which it had been designed.

Maybe he would have.

Maybe, like her, he was beyond reason and in another moment they would have been beyond recall. Instead they were shocked back to reality by a sharp shower of cold water.

She jerked back, gasping for breath.

Zahir, damn him, laughed. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, ignoring the water running down his face, instead wiping the spray from her cheeks with his thumbs.

‘All right?’ she demanded, her hair dripping down the back of her neck and trickling down inside her blouse. ‘What kind of dumb question is that?’

‘The “are you all right?” dumb question?’ he offered.

‘Fine!’ she said. Beyond the fact that she’d temporarily lost her mind. That it had taken the equivalent of a bucket of cold water to bring her to her senses. ‘I’m absolutely fine, if you overlook the fact that I appear to be at sea!’

‘Oh, that…’

‘Yes, that! Come and look at my new toy, you said. You didn’t say anything about putting to sea!’

‘Alan’s idea,’ he said. ‘But running away to sea suddenly has a lot to commend it.’

She refused to answer that on the grounds that it might incriminate her.

‘I’m sorry if you had a fright. Are you very wet?’

‘Yes!’ she said crossly. Being jerked down from that kind of high would make anyone cross. Then, more truthfully, ‘No…’

‘Sure? You don’t want to stand around in wet clothes.’

How could she be sure of anything when she was standing this close to Zahir, her hands still clinging to his shoulders as if he were anchoring her to earth, his hands about her waist and everything in between…touching?

‘Any excuse to get me out of this uniform, huh?’

Yes, well, it was the obvious next move after that mind-blowing kiss. Especially when she was clutching at his shoulders so hard that she was screwing up the linen of his jacket.

‘You’ve got me,’ he said.

And it was those three little words that brought her back to earth, to reality. He was the one thing she hadn’t got. Not him. And she never would. Not for more than an hour or two.

That was too much like history repeating itself.

And slowly, very slowly, she loosened her fingers, doing her best to smooth the cloth over his shoulders. Except that linen didn’t smooth. Once wrinkled, it stayed wrinkled.

A bit like her life…

‘Sorry,’ she mouthed silently, only to discover that Zahir was still holding her.

Zahir was holding this girl he’d only just met, who was nothing like any girl he’d ever dated, had ever dreamed of dating, and for some reason he just couldn’t let go.

He just wanted to keep her this close, with her hands on his shoulders, his hands at her waist keeping her close. To sail away with her into the sunset…

Well, that was the fantasy that this yacht had been built for.

‘You can let go now,’ she said. ‘I won’t fall over.’

‘Really? Are you absolutely certain that you’ve got your sea-legs? Suppose there’s another big wave?’

‘Good point,’ she said, making a point of looking at her watch. ‘We’d better turn around and go back if I’m going to get you to London by six.’

He didn’t want to go anywhere. He wanted to stay here with Diana and, as she pulled away, he said, ‘Forget London. Tell me about the yacht.’

Diana swallowed.

What she really thought was that a yacht costing millions was a very clear demonstration of just how far out of her depth her heart had swum. Heading out to sea, but on its own and sinking fast.

‘Does it matter what I think?’

‘Would you want to spend your honeymoon on board her?’ he pressed.

‘She’s lovely,’ she said, putting on a big smile hoping that he wouldn’t notice that she’d avoided the question. Putting a safe distance between them as, trailing her fingers along the handrail, she walked along the deck. Away from him. Then, because she couldn’t help it, glancing back. He was standing just where she’d left him, his arm still extended, as if to keep her close. ‘Does she have a name?’ she asked. Anything to stop herself from going back.

‘Yes…’ He shook his head as if trying to think. ‘Yes. I’m calling her Star Gatherer.’

Star…

‘You just made that up!’ she declared without thinking and, as if she’d somehow released him, he joined her at the rail, leaning over it, looking down into the water. ‘I can see why, after last night, you might think so,’ he said.

‘No…’

Too late to deny it. ‘Yes, Diana. But in fact the name comes from the poem, Arab Love-Song.’ And he turned and leaned back against the rail, with the smile of a man who had just had everything he knew confirmed.

‘The Maiden of the Morn will soon/Through Heaven stray and sing,/Star gathering.’

‘Oh. That’s beautiful.’ Then, staring down into the water rushing past the side of the yacht, anywhere, rather than at him, ‘How will you get her home?’ she asked, seeking a subject less…incendiary. ‘To Ramal Hamrah? Will you take her there yourself?’

‘I wish I had that kind of time to spare. Unfortunately, at the moment the sky has first call on my time.’ Better. Safer, she thought, raising an eyebrow. ‘You might recall that I have an airline to get off the ground.’

‘A yacht, an airline? Tell me, Zahir, do you have a bit of a thing about transport?’

‘I’m in the travel business.’

‘Oh, right. Well, I suppose that would explain it.’

‘Jeff’s mustering a permanent crew for the yacht and they’ll bring her home. It’ll give them a chance to put her through her paces, get to know her quirks, on the way.’ Then, ‘If I offered you a trip to Ramal Hamrah in her would you be as quick to turn me down a second time?’

‘That depends. Would I have to share her with a bunch of freeloading journalists?’ Before he could answer, she said, ‘No, I’m kidding. I don’t have that kind of time either.’

But this time as she turned her wrist to check the time, he took her hand, stopping her. ‘We could always take her for a run across the Channel,’ he said.

‘The Channel? To France?’ she squeaked.

His thumb was stroking the back of her fingers. ‘We could have dinner in some little French café. I could take the train to Paris in the morning, while you return with the yacht.’

And the bit in between dinner and breakfast?

She couldn’t breathe. It shouldn’t be this hard to say no. If she just concentrated on that one word-morning. Remember that when morning came he’d be taking the fast train to Paris while her world would be in pieces.

Again.

And, on top of that, she wouldn’t have a job.

‘W-what about your dinner at the Mansion House?’ she stammered. ‘If I don’t get you back to London by six, James Pierce will call Sadie Redford and get me fired. He really doesn’t like me.’

‘I like you, that’s all that matters.’

‘Zahir…’

He lifted her hand to his lips, kissed the tips of her fingers. So sure of her…

‘No…’

Maybe it was the first time a woman had ever said ‘no’ to him, or maybe it was the undisguised anguish in her voice, but she now had his full attention.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but my evening is already spoken for.’

‘Your only task this evening is to drive me to the Mansion House.’

She shook her head. ‘Sadie has arranged for someone else to stand in for me.’

‘I don’t want someone else!’ She shook her head. ‘Are you telling me, Metcalfe, that you have a date?’

And that, Diana realised, was the answer. If he thought she was involved with someone, he’d stop this…whatever this was. Save her from herself. Because, heaven help her, hard as she was trying, she was finding it impossible…

‘Is that so unbelievable?’ she asked. ‘A minute ago you were inviting me to dinner in France.’

‘I don’t believe you.’ Then, eyes narrowed, ‘Tell me his name.’

‘Freddy,’ she said. How could she have been so lost in desire that the whole world had suddenly been filled with Zahir? Forgotten the child who was the centre of her world, who, she’d protected from the consequences of her own stupidity since the moment he had been conceived? ‘His name is Freddy.’

Zahir felt his gut contract.

For a moment he hadn’t believed her, had thought that she was clutching at the face-saving excuse he’d offered, protecting him as much as herself from the fallout of such an ill-considered venture. But one look at her face warned him that he was fooling himself.

She might have responded to his reckless kiss with all the passion at her command. She had certainly displayed all the signs of a woman betrayed when she’d thought he was involved with Lucy, but, whoever this Freddy was, he brought a whole new look to her face. A sweetness. A tenderness. Something that he’d fooled himself he’d seen when she’d looked up at him only moments before. When he’d had to force himself to say something stupid like ‘all right?’ to stop himself from picking her up and carrying her below, not as a choreographed move-the opening sequence in a slow dance that would lead inevitably to that inviting bed in the stateroom-but as the beginning of something rare, unexpected, precious.

His suggestion that they take ‘French leave’ had not, despite all appearances to the contrary, been driven by a libido racketing out of control, but because he wanted her with him. Couldn’t bear the thought of watching her drive away…

For a moment he didn’t move, but watched as she stood, one hand on the rail, her head slightly bowed, the sun lighting her hair like a rich halo around her face.

An illusion, he thought, turning abruptly and returning to the bridge.

‘Time is short, Alan,’ he snapped. ‘I’ve seen enough. Let’s get back to the yard so that I can sign the registration papers.’