The Sheikh's Seduction

“Sarah, have you eaten anything this morning?”

She turned blankly to the man who would direct everything she did from now on. He frowned at her, picked up the telephone again and proceeded to order a selection of croissants, muffins, and a platter of cheese and fruit. Having finished with room service, he considered her thoughtfully.

“You’re not going faint on me, are you, Sarah?” he asked. “You’ve stood up bravely so far.”

Brave words, Miss Hillyard... She wondered what Peter Larsen thought of her now. Trouble. Definitely trouble. For some reason the thought gave her satisfaction.

A spark of pride made her answer, “I’m not getting cold feet if that’s what’s worrying you.”

“Good!” He moved purposefully to the kitchenette beyond the dining suite. “Coffee or tea?”

Surprised at his intention to serve her, she asked, “Shouldn’t I be doing that?”

He laughed, a soft ripple of private amusement. “I’m being kind. Which do you prefer?”

No point in arguing. “Coffee, thank you. With milk.”

She watched him make it and bring it to her, noting he seemed more relaxed. Her own tension had eased, whether from the release of having carried through her purpose, or from the weird sense of having her fate taken out of her hands, she didn’t know. Maybe she was suffering some aftermath from the shock of hard decision-making. Whatever the reason, she felt oddly detached, even when Tareq came close, placing her coffee on the low table in front of her and settling on the sofa nearby.

“You said we’d be flying out tonight. Where are we going?” she asked, trying to get some bearings on what would be her new life.

“The U.S.”

She’d never been there. It might have been an exciting prospect under normal circumstances, but she seemed to be anaesthetised to all feeling at the moment. Shock, she decided. She’d been bombarded by the unexpected and driven to accept it. Recovery time was obviously needed.

She sipped her coffee. Tareq watched her, not with the high-powered intensity she had found so disturbing. It was more a clinical observation. It didn’t touch her inner self. Since he appeared disposed to answer questions, she tried to think of what she needed to ask.

“Will I get to say goodbye to the children?” Already they seemed distant to her. It was as though she had stepped from one world into another.

“Yes,” he assured her. “All going well at the meeting with your father, you and I will proceed to Werribee.”

“I drove here in a jeep,” she remembered.

“Your stepmother can drive it home. You will come with me in my car. There’ll be time for you to pack your belongings and take your leave of Jessie and the twins.”

“While you wait for me.”

“Yes.”

A hostage isn’t allowed to roam free, she thought. I’m tied to him. So why aren’t I feeling a sense of bondage?

Because it doesn’t feel real. Not even this conversation seems real. Sooner or later reality will kick in again and then I’ll feel it. In the meantime, talking filled the emptiness.

“Jessie wants to meet you,” she prattled on. Strange irony. Was Tareq a benefactor or a curse? “She watched for you yesterday, hoping to see you featured on television, but you weren’t. She was very disappointed.”

“Then I’ll make up for the disappointment by meeting her this afternoon,” he said smoothly.

“You’ve got the wrong clothes on,” she told him. “A sheikh is supposed to wear sheikh clothes.”

He smiled. “I’m afraid I don’t have them with me. Will the person do?”

The smile made him even more magnetically handsome. “I’m sure Jessie will be impressed.” As she herself had been at twelve...impressed and flattered to be given his attention. Perhaps he was always kind to children. They made it easy. They didn’t question so much.

Her mind flitted forward, away from the past and on to the future. “I guess I’m to have Peter Larsen’s ticket on the plane tonight.”

He shook his head. “There are no tickets, Sarah. I have my own plane.”

Of course. A private luxury jet, no doubt. She was moving up in the world. Like her mother. Only to a higher strata again. That should amuse her but it didn’t. “Will we be accompanied by many people?”

“I prefer to travel lightly. Only Peter came with me on this trip.”

Which meant she would be alone on the plane with Tareq. Though not quite alone. There would have to be a pilot, a steward, perhaps a co-pilot for such a long flight. Whatever...there would be no getting lost in a crowd. Was she to be his closest associate?

“Peter Larsen implied he’d known you a long time.”

“Since school days at Eton.”

So Mr. Larsen was very upper-class English. Sarah wondered if he knew her second stepfather. “I presume you trust him,” she said a little cynically.

“Yes. He’s never given me reason not to.”

A question of trust...

“How long do you expect it to take...for my father to prove himself to you?”

He eyed her speculatively. “Did you watch the running of the Melbourne Cup yesterday, Sarah?”

“Yes. On television.”

“Then you must have seen with your own eyes that Firefly did not run the distance he should have been trained for.”

She frowned, remembering how the horse had tired. “I thought the jockey had misjudged his run.”

“No, it was more than that. The horse wasn’t up to the distance and he should have been.”

Firefly...

A suspicion wormed into Sarah’s mind.

Jessie still loved the horse...but what did her father feel about it?

“I’ll have Firefly entered in the Melbourne Cup next year,” Tareq went on. “If he runs as well as he should...”

“You can’t expect him to win!” Sarah cried in alarm, a rush of agitation smashing the odd numbness that had claimed her. “No one can guarantee a winner in the Melbourne Cup. The favourites hardly ever win.”

“I agree,” Tareq answered calmly. “As long as it’s a fine effort for the distance I’ll be satisfied.”

A year of her life. Then her fate—the fate of her family—hung on Firefly’s performance. Dear God! She had to talk to her father, make sure he understood. If he had some prejudice against the horse, he had to bury it or they would never get to the other side of this bargain.