The Sheikh's Virgin Bride

Petra toyed with the idea of fibbing but her conscience refused to allow her to do so.

‘It’s…it’s breathtaking,’ she admitted. ‘I haven’t explored all of it yet, of course. After all it’s almost like a small town. But what I have seen…’

She particularly liked the traditional design of the interconnecting hotel and villa complexes, with their private courtyards filled with sweetly scented plants and fruit trees, and the musical sound of fountains which had reminded Petra immediately of both the Moorish style of Southern Spain’s architecture and images her mother had shown her as a child of Arabian palaces.

‘When Rashid shows you round you must tell him that. Although unfortunately it may be several days before he is able to do so. He sent word to your grandfather this morning that he has been called away on business on behalf of The Royal Family…Another project he is working on in the desert.’

‘He works?’ Petra made no attempt to conceal her disbelief. From what Saud had told her, her prospective suitor sounded far too wealthy and well-connected to do something so mundane.

‘Oh, yes,’ her aunt assured her. ‘As well as having a large financial interest in this complex he also designed it. He is a very highly qualified architect and greatly in demand. He trained in England. It was his mother’s wish that he should go to school there, and after her death his father honoured that wish.’

An architect! Petra frowned, but she had no intention of showing any interest in a man she had already decided to despise.

‘It sounds as though he is a very busy man,’ she told her aunt. ‘There really is no need for him to give up his time to show me round the complex. I am perfectly capable of exploring it on my own.’

‘No. You must not do that,’ her aunt protested once they were on their own again.

‘No? Then perhaps Saud could accompany me?’ Petra could not resist teasing her.

‘No…no! It is best that Rashid should show you. After all, he is the one who designed the complex and he will be able to answer any questions you might have.’

‘And his wife?’ Petra questioned innocently. ‘Will she not mind him spending his precious free time with me?’

‘Oh, he is not married,’ her aunt assured her immediately. ‘You will like him, Petra,’ she assured her enthusiastically. ‘You have much in common with one another, and—’ She broke off as her mobile phone started to ring.

Her aunt reached beneath her robes to retrieve her phone. But as Petra listened to her speaking quickly in Arabic, she saw her aunt’s face crease in anxiety. ‘What is it?’ she demanded as soon as the call was over. ‘Is it my grandfather? Is he—’

Furious with herself for her unguarded reaction, and for her concern, Petra stopped speaking and bit her lip.

‘That was your uncle,’ her aunt told her. ‘Your grandfather has suffered a relapse. He knows that he has been ordered to rest but he will not do so! I must go home, Petra. I am sorry.’

Just for a moment Petra was tempted to plead to be allowed to go with her—to be allowed to see her grandfather, the closest person to her in blood she had—but quickly she stifled her weakening and unwanted emotions. Her grandfather meant nothing to her. How could he when she so obviously meant nothing to him? She must not forget the past and his plans for her. No, she was certainly not going to be the one to beg to see him. Her mother had begged and pleaded and had suffered the pain of being ignored and rejected. There was no way that she, Petra, was going to allow her grandfather to do the same to her!

After a taxi had dropped her off outside the hotel, Petra made her way into the lobby. With the rest of the day to herself there were any number of things Petra knew she could do.

The complex had its own souq, filled with craftspeople making and selling all manner of deliciously irresistible and traditional things, or she could leave the hotel and enjoy a gondola ride through the man-made canals that bisected the complex, or walk in the tranquillity of its gardens. And of course she could simply chill out if she so wished, either by one of the several stunningly designed pools, including a state-of-the-art ‘horizon pool’, or even on one of the private beaches that belonged to the complex.

The pools and beaches were reached via a man-made ‘cave’ below the lobby floor of the hotel, where it was possible to either walk or be taken in one of the resort’s beach buggies.

Once there, as Petra had already discovered, a helpful employee would carry her towel to the lounger of her choice, and position both it and her beach umbrella for her before summoning a waiter in case she wanted to order a drink.

Nothing that a guest might need, no matter how small—or how large—had been left to chance in the planning of the complex or the training of its staff. Petra had travelled all over the world, both with her parents, her godfather, and on her own, and she had already decided that she had never visited anywhere where a holidaymaker’s needs were catered for so comprehensively and enthusiastically as they were here.

But of course she was not here on holiday—even if her closest girlfriends at home had insisted on dragging her round some of London’s top stores before she had left, to equip her with a suitably elegant wardrobe for her trip.

Baring in mind her own innate modesty, and the country she was travelling to, Petra had eschewed the more outré samples of resort wear her enthusiastic friends had pointed out to her—although from what she had seen of her fellow holidaymakers’ choice she could have chosen the briefest and most minimal bikini and still have felt comparatively over-dressed compared with some of them.

Instead she had opted for cool, elegant linens and discreet tankini beach sets, plus several evening outfits including an impossible to resist designer trouser suit in a wonderfully heavy cream matt silk satin fabric, which the salesgirl and her friends had tried in vain to convince her she should wear with simply the one-button jacket fastened over her otherwise naked top half.

‘You’ve got the figure for it,’ the salesgirl had urged her, and her friends had wickedly agreed. But Petra had refused to give in, and so a simple cream silk vest with just a hint of a pretty gold thread running through it had been added to her purchases.

A rueful smile quirked her mouth as she remembered the more outrageous of her two friends attempts to persuade her to buy a trendy outfit they had seen in a London department store: a fringed and tasselled torso-baring top, with a pair of matching lower than hip level silky pants which had revealed her belly button, claiming mock innocently that it would be perfect for her to wear in a country that celebrated the art of belly dancing.

Petra had known when she was being wound up. Her smile deepened as she instinctively touched her smooth flat stomach with her fingertips. Hidden beneath her clothes was the discreet little diamond navel stud she had bought herself just before she’d left home to replace the one she had been wearing whilst her recently pierced flesh had healed up.

No one, not even her friends, knew of the uncharacteristic flash of reckless defiance which had led to her having her navel pierced the very day after her godfather had finally ground down her opposition and persuaded her to come to Zuran.

Secretly Petra had to acknowledge that there was something dangerously decadent and wanton about the way the tiny diamond she had bought for herself flashed whenever it caught the light, but of course no one was ever likely to see it, or to know of her rebellious emotional reaction at having to give in to her grandfather’s desire for her to visit his country.

Thinking of her grandfather made Petra frown. Just how serious was his heart condition? She had assumed from her uncle’s original calm, almost casual reference to it that it was not a particular cause for concern.

Was he as ill as her aunt seemed to believe? Or was it simply a ploy, a means of manipulating her and putting pressure on her? Petra was fiercely determined that she would not give one inch to the despot who had caused her mother so much pain, and she was convinced that he was playing the kind of cat and mouse game that her mother had often told her he was an expert at, using his supposed poor health as a means of keeping her in dark about his real plans for her. Naturally such behaviour on his part had put her on her mettle and alerted her most defensive and hostile reactions. But what if she had been wrong? What if her grandfather was genuinely very ill?

Although it would have been impossible for her not to be emotionally touched by the warmth of her aunt and uncle’s reception of her, and their concern that she might be disappointed at being deprived of what they seemed to assume was a much longed for meeting with her grandfather, Petra’s antipathy towards her grandfather had been intensified by his emotional manipulation and had caused her to harden her heart even more against him.

She had every right to both mistrust and dislike him, she reassured herself. So why was she feeling somehow abandoned and rejected—excluded from the anxious family circle which had gathered protectively around him? Why did she feel this sense of anxiety and urgency to know what was going on? Why did she feel this sense of pain and loss?

Her uncle or her aunt would ring her at the hotel if they thought it was necessary; she knew that. But that wasn’t like being there, being part of what was happening, being totally accepted.

A family walked past her in the foyer, on their way to the piano lounge, its three generations talking happily together. A deep sense of anguish welled up dangerously inside Petra. Grimly she tried to suppress what she was feeling. She had always been too vulnerable to her emotions. Her Celtic inheritance was responsible for that! Against her will she discovered that she was remembering how she had felt as a child, knowing that she was different, sensing her mother’s pain and helpless to do anything to alleviate it, envious of other children she knew who talked easily and confidently about their adoring grandparents.

She was letting her feelings undermine her common sense, she warned herself. Her grandfather had only brought her here for one reason and it had nothing to do with adoring her! To him she was merely a suddenly valuable pawn in the intricate game he so enjoyed playing with other people’s lives, using them to advance his own lust for power.

But if he was ill…seriously ill…if…something should happen before she had the chance to meet him….

Swallowing against the sharp lump in her throat, Petra headed for the lift. She would go upstairs to her room and decide how she was going to spend the rest of the day.

The suite her family had booked her in to was elegantly luxurious and large enough to house a whole family. Not only did it have a huge bathroom, complete with the largest shower Petra had even seen, as well as a sunken whirlpool bath, it also had a separate wardrobe-filled dressing room, and a bedroom with the most enormous bed she had even slept in, as well as a private terrace overlooking one of the complex’s enclosed gardens.

Letting herself into the suite, Petra walked over to the dressing table and put down her bag. As she did so she glanced into the mirror and then froze as in it she saw the reflection of the bed—and more importantly the man lounging on it: her would-be seducer and partner in crime! His hands were clasped behind his head as he watched her, his body covered in nothing more than the towel he had wrapped around his hips. Tiny drops of moisture still glinting on his skin testified to the fact that he must have only recently stepped out of the shower—her shower, Petra reminded herself, unable to stop her eyes widening in betraying shock as she turned round and stared at him in disbelief.

Her suite, like the others on the same floor, and like the palatial owners suite above them, could only be reached by a private lift for which one needed a separate security card!

But for a man like this one anything and everything was possible, Petra suspected.

Like someone in a trance, she watched as he swung his feet to the floor and stood up.

If that towel he had wrapped so precariously around his body should slip…

Nervously she wetted her suddenly dry lips with the tip of her tongue. His own mouth, she suddenly realised on a flush of dangerous raw heat, bore a small fresh scar. Mesmerised, she tried to drag her gaze away from it…from him…

Had someone turned off the air-conditioning? she wondered dizzily. The room suddenly seemed far too warm…

He was walking towards her now, and in another few seconds…Automatically she backed away.

CHAPTER THREE

AS THOUGH it was someone else who was actually speaking, Petra heard her own voice, thick and openly panicky, demanding, ‘What are you doing in here?’