Sheikh's Defiant Wife: Defiant in the Desert

‘I guess they do.’ His pewter eyes narrowed as he twirled a solid gold pen between his long fingers. ‘So what’s brought about the sudden change of heart?’

Change of heart.

She wondered if Gabe had any idea of how uncannily accurate that particular phrase was. Probably. You didn’t get to be head of one of the world’s biggest advertising agencies without having a finely tuned degree of insight.

‘I was...’ She wondered what he would say if she told him the truth. I was due to get married to a Sultan, but I put a stop to that particular arrangement by having sex with his closest friend. Probably not a good idea. Men could be notoriously tribal about that kind of thing and she didn’t want to portray Suleiman as some sort of bad guy. And anyway, that wasn’t the whole truth, was it? Suleiman wasn’t the reason behind the cancelled wedding. He was just a symptom.

She stared sightlessly out of the penthouse window. A symptom who was currently prowling around her London apartment and making her feel as if she had imprisoned a tiger there.

It was a big apartment—everyone said so. So how come the rooms seemed to have shrunk to the size of matchboxes since Suleiman had accompanied her back from Paris and moved in with her? It had been her mother’s apartment and Sara loved every inch of it, a feeling clearly not shared by her lover.

He had walked through the three huge—or so she’d thought—reception rooms, had barely deigned to look at the kitchen and had given the bedrooms only a cursory glance, before turning to demand where the garden was.

She had hated the way her voice had sounded all defensive. ‘There isn’t one.’

‘No garden?’ He had sounded incredulous, while all her explanations about the convenience of having a nearby park had fallen on deaf ears.

He had complained about the plumbing—which admittedly was fairly ancient—and insisted on having black-out blinds installed in her bedroom. He had commandeered the second bedroom as some kind of makeshift office. Suddenly emails began arriving at odd times of the day and night. Important documents from the US and the Middle East were delivered daily, while a series of efficient sounding staff would ring and she would hear him speaking in his native tongue. She told him it was like living at the United Nations.

He said he was trying to decide whether or not to set up a London headquarters. But that was a big decision which couldn’t be made in a hurry, while Sara seemed to get stuck with the smaller, niggling ones.

She’d been forced to find some kind of laundry service since it seemed that Suleiman liked to change his shirt at least twice a day. It helped explain why he always looked so immaculate, but the practicalities of such high sartorial standards were a pain.

But she tried to tell herself that these were just glitches which could easily be sorted out. That Suleiman had never lived with anyone before and neither had she. She convinced herself that all these problems were solvable, but quickly realised there was one which wasn’t—and that was the problem of time management. Or rather, her time management. Suleiman was obviously used to having women at his beck and call. He didn’t like it when she got up at seven each morning to get ready for work. Sometimes it seemed as if he was almost jealous of her job.

And that scared her.

It scared her even more than her growing feelings for him.

It was as if the love she felt for Suleiman had started out as a tiny seed, which was in danger of becoming a rampant plant and spreading its tentacles everywhere. His presence was so pervasive and his character so compelling that she felt as if she was being taken over by him. That if she allowed him to, he would take over her whole life and completely dominate her and she would become invisible. And she couldn’t allow him to do that.

She didn’t dare do that.

So even though she had to fight every loving and lustful instinct in her body, she didn’t give in to Suleiman’s repeated attempts to push her job into second place.

‘Come back to bed,’ he would purr, with that tiger-hasn’t-been-fed look on his face, as he patted the empty space on the bed beside him.

And Sara would pull on her silk wrap and move to a safe distance away from him. ‘I can’t do that or I’ll be late,’ she’d said primly, the third time it happened. ‘Haven’t you ever been out with a working woman before—and if so, how on earth did you cope?’

His answering smile had been infuriating. Almost, she thought—smug.

‘Most women can be persuaded to take a sabbatical, if you make it worth their while.’

Sara had felt sick at the lengths to which her sex would go to in order to hang onto a man. Which, of course, made her even more determined not to weaken. Her job meant independence and she’d fought long and hard for it.

She realised that Gabe was still looking at her from the other side of the desk. Still waiting for some kind of explanation. She flashed him a slightly self-conscious smile.

‘Actually, it’s a man.’

‘It usually is,’ he offered drily. ‘Would that be the reason why you had your skirt on inside out yesterday morning?’

‘Oh, Gabe!’ She clapped her palms to her flaming cheeks. ‘I’m so sorry. I only realised when I came out of the meeting and Alice pointed it out.’

‘Forget it. I only mention it because the client did—so perhaps best not to repeat it. Anyway.’ He smiled. ‘What’s his name? This man.’

She could hear her voice softening as she said it. ‘It’s Suleiman Abd al-Aziz—’

Gabe’s eyes narrowed ‘The oil baron?’

‘You’ve heard of him?’

He smiled. ‘Unlike princesses, global magnates tend not to stay anonymous for very long.’

‘No, I suppose not. The thing is, I was thinking...’ She twisted her fingers together in her lap and wondered what was making her feel so nervous. Actually, that wasn’t true. She knew exactly what was making her nervous. On some instinctive level, she was terrified of Suleiman meeting her powerful and very sexy boss. ‘I wanted Suleiman to get a bit of an idea about what my job’s about. I told him about the massive campaign we did for that new art gallery in Whitechapel—and I thought that I might bring him along to the opening tonight. If that’s all right.’

‘Excellent. You do that.’ Gabe looked at her expectantly. ‘And now, if we’re through with all the personal details—can you get me the drawings for the Hudson account?’

Noting the slight reprimand, Sara opened up the folder she’d carried in with her and worked hard on the account for the rest of the afternoon. She sent Alice out for coffee and tried ringing Suleiman to tell him about the gallery opening, but he wasn’t answering his phone.