The Sheikh's Reward

‘And afterwards? Do you dare say that wasn’t deception?’

‘We-ell, I may have left a few things out. But you made it easy.’

‘And all the time you were laughing at me.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Do you know what would happen, in my country, to a woman who dared to do that?’

‘Tell me. No, wait!’ She rummaged in her bag and produced a notebook. ‘Now tell me. Hey!’ Ali had firmly removed the notebook from her hand and tossed it aside.

‘You will not make notes about me,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘You will not write about anything that happened the other night—’

‘Oh, I wasn’t going to. I write for a serious paper. It wouldn’t be interested in that corny line you handed me.’

‘I—’

‘Well, you have to admit—burning sunsets and tents flapping in the breeze? But I don’t blame you.’

‘You don’t?’ He sounded dazed.

‘I’m sure most girls would fall for it. Well, you wouldn’t keep using it if they didn’t, would you?’

‘That’s right,’ he said, his eyes kindling. ‘You see, one thing I’ve learned about women is this—the sillier the better.’

‘You don’t say!’

‘The more foolish the line, the more unconvincing the stage props, the more chance that some fluffy-headed little girl is going to believe it. Experience has taught me all I need to know about your sex.’

‘Are you daring to call me a fluffy-headed little girl?’

‘I don’t know why that should bother you, since you went out of your way to make me think just that. You should stick to the role, Miss Callam. It suits you better than pretending to be a man.’

‘I’m doing no such thing,’ she said furiously. ‘I earn my living as a journalist. You promised me an interview, and I’m here. Why don’t we get started?’

‘If,’ Ali said, regarding her coldly, ‘you imagine for one moment that I intend to discuss my private affairs with you—’

‘Not your private affairs, your business affairs,’ Fran said. She couldn’t resist adding provocatively, ‘I think we’ve already covered the private ones.’

‘Let it be clearly understood that I do not discuss business with women. That is not a woman’s role.’

‘Woman’s role?’ she echoed, scandalised. ‘Why, you prehistoric—’

‘Think what you like of me. Do you imagine I care? I haven’t been used to considering the opinions of women and I see no reason to start now. In my country women know their place and keep to it. It’s an arrangement that works very well.’

‘I wonder what your mother thinks of that?’ Fran said, with spirit. ‘She’s English, isn’t she? Brought up to be equal with men—’

‘No woman is equal with men. And don’t speak about my mother. You’re not going to interview me by the back door. I will not talk to you and that’s final.’

‘You talked all right when you thought I was just a plaything,’ Frances snapped.

‘But of course. That is what women are for.’

‘It’s not what I’m for.’

‘You think so, but in my arms you came alive like a true woman. Don’t say you’ve forgotten.’

She faced him defiantly. ‘I was acting a part.’

He smiled, and something about it disturbed her obscurely. ‘I don’t think so. I can tell when a woman is pretending. I can also tell when she’s yielding to her own deepest desires, in the arms of the man who can inflame those desires. Something happened between us the other night, something that was true and real.’

‘As though anything true and real could happen between me and a man from the Stone Age.’

‘Why must you deny it? What are you afraid of? That your theories might be swept away by a passion that will show you your real self? Is that why you try to reduce me to words on your page, because you think like that you will bring the truth under your control?’

He was standing dangerously close. She took a step away, and knew instantly that she’d made a tactical mistake. He knew now that she was nervous of him.

‘The only truth I’m interested in where you’re concerned,’ she said, ‘is what really goes on in those back-room deals you keep so secret.’

‘And I tell you not to interfere in what doesn’t concern you, and which would certainly be beyond your understanding. Please—’ he held up a hand ‘—don’t bore me with lectures about your brain. A woman’s brain, for pity’s sake!’

His scornful tone almost made her blow a gasket. ‘We do have brains, you know! We are members of the same species. And you were ready enough to concede that Scheherazade had a brain the other night.’

‘No. Scheherazade had wit. A woman’s wit that sparkles and dazzles a man. Not a bludgeon to challenge him. I thought then that you were witty and subtle, but now you seem determined to prove me wrong.

‘If you want me to listen to you, Diamond, forget your degree, and speak to me of your hair which is like a river of molten gold in the sunset. Then you will have all my attention. Since that night I’ve been troubled by your hair, thinking how I would run my hands through it and delight in adorning it with priceless jewels.

‘I’m haunted, too, by your skin, which has the smoothness of satin. I’ve dreamed of how it would feel pressed against me when we lie together in bed—’

‘Never,’ she whispered in outrage.

He took a step closer to her and looked directly into her eyes. His own were burning.

‘At this moment I too feel like saying never. I will never take to my bed a woman who rejects her own womanhood, and therefore my manhood. I will never trouble myself with a female who knows nothing about men and women and what fate created between them. I will throw her out and say good riddance.

‘But then I look into the depths of your eyes, and I know that it isn’t so easy. You and I met because we had to, and at our final parting we will neither of us be the same. What exquisite pleasure there will be in giving and taking with you, and knowing that what you give me you will have given no other man because you did not know it existed. That will be a treasure worth fighting for.’

He wasn’t even touching her, but her heart was thumping wildly from the effect of his words and the images they conjured up in her fevered brain. She was fully clothed, but the caressing way he’d spoken of her skin had made it come alive. She felt as though his fingers were tracing soft paths across it, lingering, teasing her, and his tongue was driving her wild with flickering movements everywhere—her mouth, her breasts…making her want everything in the world, knowing that he was the one man who had it in his power to give.

She wanted to turn away, to refuse to meet his eyes and see in them the destiny he planned for her, whether she consented or not. But that would be cowardly. Danger must be faced, not avoided. And so she gazed on the picture he painted, and felt it swallow her up.

‘Don’t you feel that too?’ he asked. ‘That it must be so?’

‘No,’ she said, taking another step back from him. ‘No, it can’t be. You can’t make something like that happen by giving an order.’

He reached for her. She backed but struck against the sofa, lost her balance, and had to sit on it. She tried to rise but he held her down with a hand on her shoulder, and sat beside her.

‘But the order has already been given,’ he said. ‘And it was you who gave it. You came to The Golden Chance in search of me, and I recognised you at once as the woman who would play a special part in my life. It’s too late to turn back. And why should you want to? Can it be that you are afraid?’

She would not let him kiss her, because he would take that as proof of his chauvinistic belief that only passion counted between men and women. And that was one victory he mustn’t win. But while her resolve was strong her bones felt as if they had been turned to water.

Nor did he try to kiss her. He merely raised his hand and touched her lips softly with one fingertip, tracing the outline of her wide mouth. The sensations he could evoke by that simple gesture were shocking. She was on fire, and there was no hope for her.