The Sultan's Choice

He strolled into the room and barely leashed energy vibrated from every molecule of the man. Sensual elegance became something much more earthy and sexual as he came closer to Samia, and a disturbing heat coiled low in her belly.

His visage was stern at first, but then a wickedly sexy smile tugged at his mouth, sending her pulse haywire. Her thoughts scrambled.

‘Was it something I said?’

Samia looked at him blankly.

‘You were about to leave?’ he elaborated.

Samia coloured hotly. ‘No … of course not.’ Liar. She went even hotter. ‘I’m sorry … I just …’

She hated to admit it but he intimidated her. She might live a quiet existence and dislike drawing attention to herself—it was a safe persona she’d adopted—but she wasn’t a complete shadow. Yet here she seemed to be turning into one.

Sadiq dismissed her stumbling words with one hand. He took pity on her obvious discomfort, but he was still reacting to the jolt running through him at hearing her voice. It was low and husky, and completely at odds with her rather mousy appearance. As mousy as the photos had predicted, he decided with a quick look up and down. In that trouser suit and a buttoned up shirt which did nothing for her figure, it was imposible to make out if she had a figure.

And yet … Sadiq’s keen male intuition warned him not to make too hasty a judgement—just as a disconcerting tingle of awareness skittered across his spine. He stuck his hands into his pockets.

Samia could feel her cheeks heat up, and had a compelling desire to look down and see where his trousers would be pulled tight across his crotch. But she resolutely kept looking upwards. She tried to do the exercise she’d been taught to deal with her blushing—which was to consciously try to blush, and in doing so negate the reflexive action. But it was futile. The dreaded heat rose anyway, and worse than usual.

He just looked at her. Samia valiantly ignored the heat suffusing her face, knowing well that she’d be bright pink by now, and hitched up her chin. She nearly died a small death when he broke the tension and put out a hand.

‘We’ve met before, haven’t we?’

This was it—just what she’d been dreading. And it got worse when he continued.

‘I knew I remembered meeting you, but couldn’t place where it was. And then it came to me …’

Her heart stopped beating. She begged silently that it wouldn’t be that awful moment which was engraved on her memory.

‘You had an unfortunate tussle with a table full of drinks at one of my parties.’

Samia was so ridiculously relieved that he didn’t seem to remember the library that she reached out to clasp his hand, her own much smaller one becoming engulfed by long fingers. His touch was strong and warm and unsettling, and she had to consciously stop herself from ripping her hand out of his as if he’d stung her.

‘Yes, I’m afraid that was me. I was a clumsy teenager.’ Why did she sound breathless?

While still holding her hand, he was looking into her eyes and saying musingly, ‘I didn’t realise you had blue eyes too. Didn’t you wear glasses before?’

‘I had laser surgery a year ago.’

‘Your colouring must come from your English mother?’

His voice was as darkly gorgeous as him. Samia nodded her head to try and shake some articulacy into her brain. ‘She was half English, half Arabic. She died in childbirth with me. My stepmother brought me up.’

The Sultan nodded briefly and finally let Samia’s hand go. ‘She died five years ago?’

Samia nodded and tucked her hand behind her back. She found a chair behind her to cling on to. Her eyes darted away from that intense blue gaze as if he might see the bitterness that crept up whenever she was reminded of her stepmother. The woman had been a tyrant, because she’d always known she came a far distant second to the Emir’s beloved first wife.

Samia looked back to the Sultan and her heart lurched. He was too good-looking. She felt drab and colourless next to him. How on earth could he possibly think for a second that she could be his queen? And then she remembered what he’d said about wanting a conservative wife and felt panicked again.

He indicated the chair she was all but clutching like a life raft. ‘Please, won’t you sit down? What would you like? Tea or coffee?’

Samia quelled an uncharacteristic impulse to ask for something much stronger. Like whisky. ‘Coffee. Please.’

Sadiq moved towards his own chair on the other side of the desk and thankfully just then his secretary appeared with a tray of refreshments. Once she’d left, he tried not to notice the way the Princess’s hand shook as she poured milk into her coffee. The girl was a blushing, quivering wreck, but she looked at him with a hint of defiance that he found curiously stirring. It was an intriguing mix when he was used to the brash confidence of the women he usually met.

He almost felt sorry for her as she handled the dainty cup. Miraculously it survived the journey from saucer to her mouth. She was avoiding his pointed look, so his gaze roamed freely over her and he had to concede with another little jolt of sensation that she wasn’t really that mousy at all. Her hair was strawberry-blond, with russet highlights glinting in the late-afternoon sun slanting in through the huge windows. It was tied back in a French plait which had come to rest over one shoulder. Unruly curls had escaped to frame her face, which was heart-shaped.

She looked about eighteen, even though he knew she was twenty-five. And she was pale enough to have precipitated his question about her colouring. He’d forgotten that interesting nugget about her heritage.

It surprised him how clearly that memory of her knocking over the table had come back to him. He’d felt sorry for her at the time; she’d been mortified, standing there with her face beetroot red, throat working convulsively. Another memory hovered tantalisingly on the edges of his mind but he couldn’t pin it down.

Absurdly long lashes hid her eyes. He had to admit with a flicker of something that she wasn’t what he’d expected at all. Obeying some rogue urge to force her to look at him, so that he could inspect those aquamarine depths more closely, he drawled, ‘So, Princess Samia, are you going to tell me why you were about to leave?’

Samia’s eyes snapped up to clash with the Sultan’s steady gaze. She couldn’t get any hotter, and had to restrain herself from opening the top button of her shirt to feel some cool air on her skin. He was looking at her as if she were a specimen on a laboratory table. It couldn’t be more obvious that she left him entirely cold, and that thought sent a dart of emotion through her.

‘Sultan—’ she began, and stopped when he put up a hand.

‘It’s Sadiq. I insist.’

The steely set of his face sent a quiver through her. ‘Very well. Sadiq.’ She took a deep breath. ‘The truth is that I don’t want to marry you.’

She saw the way his jaw tensed and his eyes flashed. ‘I think it’s usually customary to be asked for your hand in marriage before you refuse it.’

Samia’s hands clenched tight on her lap. ‘And I think it’s customary to ask for the person’s hand in marriage before assuming it’s given.’

His eyes flashed dangerously and he settled back in the chair. Conversely it made Samia feel more threatened.

‘I take it that you overheard some of my phone conversation?’

Samia blushed again, and gave up any hope of controlling it. ‘I couldn’t help it,’ she muttered. ‘The door was partially open.’

Sadiq sat forward and said brusquely, ‘Well, I apologise. It wasn’t meant for your ears.’

Giving in to inner panic, Samia stood up abruptly and moved behind the chair. ‘Why not? After all, you were discussing the merits of this match, so why not discuss them here and now with me? Let’s establish if I am conservative enough for you, or plain enough.’

A dull flush of colour across the Sultan’s cheeks was the only sign that she’d got to him when she said that. Otherwise he looked unmoved by her display of agitation, and Samia cursed herself. Her hands balled on the back of the chair. He just sat back and regarded her from under heavy lids.

‘You can be under no illusion, whether you heard that conversation or not, that any marriage between us will be based purely on practicality along with a whole host of other considerations.’

When she spoke, the bitterness in Samia’s voice surprised her. ‘Oh, don’t worry. I’ve no illusions at all.’

‘This union will benefit both our countries.’

Suddenly a speculative gleam lit his eyes and he sat forward, elbows on the desk. Samia wanted to back away.

‘I’d find it hard to believe that someone from our part of the world and culture of arranged marriages could possibly be holding out for a love match?’

He said this sneeringly, as if such a thing was pure folly. Feeling sick, Samia just shook her head. ‘No. Of course not.’ A love match was the last thing she would ever have expected or wanted. She had seen how love had devastated her father after losing her mother. She’d had to endure the silent grief in his gaze every time he’d looked at her, because she’d been the cause of her mother’s death.