Climax Of Passion

Kozim didn’t know of any. His ignorance did not disturb him. It was not unusual for him not to know what the sheikh knew. Xa Shiraq had many sources of information.

The fingers tapped again. ‘I will act. I can kill two birds with one arrow.’

Kozim had no idea what the sheikh meant, but he was glad he was not going to be on the receiving end of the arrow that would undoubtedly reach its targets with deadly accuracy. He was glad he had no connection whatsoever to the running of the Oasis Hotel at Fisa. He was glad he was not the geologist’s daughter.

CHAPTER TWO

AMANDA Buchanan thought she had developed a thick enough skin to withstand most of the put-down jokes that came her way. Normally, she let them flow past her like water off a duck’s back. After all, she had been born with three strikes against her. Her mother had been Polish, her father Irish, and she was a natural blonde.

The latest rash of ‘dumb blonde’ jokes was the most belittling she had so far encountered. It was almost enough to drive her into dying her hair black. Her stubborn sense of self-worth, however, would not countenance any backing off from who and what she was. Apart from which, it would give her snide detractors the satisfaction of knowing they had got to her.

One day, she vowed, she would make a lot of people eat their words. Not only on her own account, but on her father’s. Amanda wasn’t quite sure how she was going to achieve that end, but working for the Oasis chain of hotels had seemed a likely step in the right direction. What she needed to do was get into a high level management position which might...just might...open the door to where she wanted to go.

In the meantime, she had to grit her teeth and suffer the assistant manager’s malicious manner and spite in putting her down in every possible way he could conceive.

She knew why he did it. It was a payback for her lack of interest in him as a man. Charles Arnold combined a huge ego with small performance. His principal aim in life was to downgrade everybody to his own level so that he could feel superior. He had no idea how badly it reflected on himself and on his job.

If Amanda had been willing to accommodate him, his attitude and that of the male staff would have been very different. A shudder of revulsion ran through her at the mere thought of submitting to Charles Arnold’s touch. That was never going to happen, no matter what subtle or unsubtle pressure he brought to bear. As it was, the other staff took their lead from him, having their bit of ‘fun’ with her, knowing they were completely safe from any complaint of harassment.

There was only one person who could have fixed the situation for Amanda, and that was the vague, shadowy figure of Xa Shiraq, the owner of the Oasis chain. It was said that he held all the key decisions regarding personnel in his own hands. He was never around. He was never seen. There were doubts he really existed.

Amanda knew better. When her father lay dying in her arms, revealing what had happened in halting, stumbling words...it left no doubt in Amanda’s mind that Xa Shiraq existed.

This was the third Oasis Hotel Amanda had worked in. The mysterious owner had not once made an appearance at any of them. Promotions and sackings were done by impersonal faxes, never in person. Despite this lack of any substantial evidence of his actual presence, her father’s assurance and certainty had convinced Amanda that Xa Shiraq was indeed flesh and blood reality.

Her belief, however, was of no help to her in her present situation. It was difficult to keep her cool while she burned with the injustice of what was happening to her, but Amanda was determined not to put a foot wrong.

Soon, very soon, she hoped, her transfer to the Oasis Hotel in Bejos would come through. Then she would be one step closer to her real goal, one more step removed from her persecutors. Charles Arnold and his minions would then become so much flotsam that she could jettison from her life.

A telephone call claimed her attention. She lifted the receiver and projected a pleasant, welcoming note into her voice. ‘Good morning. The Oasis Hotel. Reservations.’

‘Is the Presidential Suite available tonight?’ a male voice inquired without preamble.

‘Just a moment, sir, I’ll check it on the computer.’

Amanda knew perfectly well that the most expensive suite in the hotel was vacant. In the five months she had worked here, it had been occupied only seven times. On every one of these occasions it had been given to bridal couples on a one-night complimentary basis as an inducement for the booking of the wedding reception. No-one had paid good money for it. This was not something the hotel management wanted broadcast to the rest of the world.

‘Yes, sir, it is available,’ she said after a suitable pause. ‘For how long would you like to make a reservation?’

‘For how long will it be available?’

Amanda chose an encouraging reply. ‘We would do our very best to ensure you have undisturbed occupancy for as long as you require.’

There was no response. The click of a receiver being quietly replaced sent a highly disquieting tingle down Amanda’s spine. Had someone been testing her, checking that she was not too free with information about bookings? There had been one fabricated complaint lodged against her, engineered by Charles Arnold to demonstrate the cost of his displeasure.

She assured herself there had been nothing to criticise in her handling of the call. If anyone had been playing funny games she’d given them no rope to hang her with. Nevertheless, the incident nagged at her mind long after she should have dismissed it.

It was the voice that had made her think the caller was genuine in his inquiry about the Presidential Suite. A hard, distinctive voice with a ring of arrogance about it. The kind of voice one instinctively associated with a position of power or wealth. A voice that expected requests to be automatically carried out to the letter, yet lacking any trace of the spoilt petulance that came from people born to riches.

It had been rude of him, though, to leave her hanging like that on the telephone. The courtesy of a ‘Thank you’ would have cost him nothing. Amanda decided if she ever met the man behind that voice, she would know him immediately. She knew how she would treat him, too.

While giving him all the courtesy and attention demanded by her job, she would maintain considerable reserve, aplomb, dignity and aloofness. A rueful smile flitted over her lips. More likely than not, he wouldn’t notice her manner. He was probably the type of person who didn’t acknowledge anyone who was not his peer.

A busload of tourists trailed in en masse for a three-night stopover. Charles Arnold put in an officious appearance, extolling the facilities of the hotel to the tour leader. Amanda helped with the process of checking everyone in and dispensing room keys.

She saw the man come in.

He emerged from the huge revolving door that gave entrance to the foyer and paused, taking in the melee around the front desk. There was something about him that arrested Amanda’s attention. Not his clothes. They were unremarkable; a white open-necked shirt, beige linen jacket, brown trousers. Not his looks. She had seen more handsome men. He was tall and lean, like an athlete honed to perfection. Amanda had seen that before with the Olympic Games team.

It was his stillness, his ability to concentrate and focus his full attention that was unusual. He observed the crowd of tourists and the piles of luggage strewn around the foyer in careless disarray. Amanda knew immediately that if he had been tour leader there would have been no carelessness and no disarray.

The signs of contempt in his eyes and on his face were marginal, but they were there. He was a man born to organise–people, places, things. He absorbed everything down to the minutest detail.

Amanda found his intensity disquieting. Making judgements, she thought, and not favorable ones.

‘Have any messages come in for me? My name is...’

Amanda smiled at the woman who had addressed her and obligingly checked for messages. When she darted another glance at the man, she found he had moved to the lounge setting beside the fountain. He was seated in an armchair that faced the reception desk. He had not picked up a newspaper or magazine to idle away the time. He was watching Charles Arnold’s effusive performance with the tour leader in the same way as a hawk watched a sparrow.

Again Amanda was struck by his stillness. Very few people could control and maintain immobility for more than a few seconds. It took the kind of discipline and training of both mind and body that Amanda associated with the ceremonial guards outside Windsor Castle in England. Yet she felt intuitively that this was not a man who took orders. He gave them. He was waiting...waiting for the right moment to take command.

It was difficult to guess his age. He had taut, smooth, dark olive skin stretched over strongly delineated bones; skin unmarked, unblemished, like polished wood–an ageless face.

There was no grey in his black hair. It was thick and straight and shiny, as shiny as his deeply set black eyes. He had certainly reached the age of maturity but whether he was as young as thirty or a decade or more older, Amanda found it impossible to decide.

Handsome was not the right word for him. He was distinctive. Her mind kept coming back to commanding as she dealt with other requests and inquiries from the party of tourists. He was also disturbing. Very disturbing. So disturbing that Amanda had a serious difficulty in tearing her eyes away from him.

Briefly he caught her glance, held it, and dismissed it.

Amanda’s heart skipped a beat. By the intense application of willpower she managed to wrest her attention back to what she was supposed to be doing. What had happened was more than disturbing. She had never reacted like this before in her life.

The worst part of the situation was that Amanda was convinced that this man, this outsider, this stranger had read every thought that had flashed through her mind. He knew, and understood, and did not care. He had come across similar situations many times in his life.

She was nothing new to him. No-one to hold his interest. Amanda was used to put-downs. It was silly to let it hurt, yet for some unfathomable reason, coming from him, it did.

His attention had switched back to Charles Arnold. His stillness was minimally broken. The fingers of his right hand began to tap across the end of the armrest in a steadily paced rhythm as though he was counting.

The tour leader called for attention and gave schedule details, stipulating the time for the next group meeting in the foyer. The crowd dispersed, picking up luggage, heading for the elevators and the rooms allotted to them.

Amanda automatically tensed as Charles Arnold chose to join her behind the front desk, a look of smug satisfaction centered on his face. ‘Well, that should put the numbers up. What’s the intake for today, Mandy?’

Amanda gritted her teeth and pressed the keys to bring up the total on the computer. She hated the way he drawled his version of her name, making her sound like some brainless kewpie doll. She also hated the way he crowded her as he looked over her shoulder at the monitor screen, not exactly touching, but only a breath away. A hot breath. A breath that made her skin crawl.

‘Not bad,’ he commented. ‘I’ve done well. A pity everyone else can’t do as well. Now do a breakdown on singles, doubles and suites.’

Her fingers faltered and stopped as she had the strangest feeling of being gripped by some alien force. She looked up. The man from the armchair was walking towards the desk, his black eyes focused directly on her, giving her more concentrated attention, seeming to absorb all that she was.

Amanda’s heart skittered into a faster beat. He hadn’t dismissed her, after all. She could not help wondering what he saw, how she was adding up in his mind, how he would attempt to organise her.