Sheikh's Defiant Wife: Defiant in the Desert

‘As a favour to Murat. He thought that you might prove too much of a challenge for most of his staff.’

‘But not for you, I suppose?’

‘Not for me,’ he agreed.

She wanted to tell him to wipe that smug smile off his face and get out of her office and if he didn’t, then she would call security and get them to remove him. But was that such a good idea? Her eyes flickered doubtfully over his powerful body and immovable stance. Was she seriously suggesting that anyone could budge him if he didn’t want to go?

She thought about her boss. Wouldn’t Gabe Steel have Suleiman evicted from the building if she asked him? Though when she stopped to think about it—did she really want to go bleating to her boss for help? She had no desire to blight her perfect working record by bringing her private life into the workplace. Because wouldn’t Gabe—and all her colleagues—be amazed to discover that she wasn’t just someone called Sara Williams, but a half-blood desert princess from the desert country of Dhi’ban? That she had capitalised on her mother’s English looks and used her mother’s English surname to blend in since she’d been working here in London. And blend in, she had—adopting the fashions and the attitudes of other English women her age.

No, this was not a time for opposition—or at least, not a time for open opposition. She didn’t want Suleiman’s suspicions alerted. She needed to lull him. To let him think that he had won. That she would go with him—not too meekly or he would suspect that something was amiss, but that she would go with him.

She shrugged her shoulders as if she were reluctantly conceding victory and backed it up with a resigned sigh. ‘I suppose there’s no point in me trying to change your mind?’

His smile was cold. ‘Do you really think you could?’

‘No, I suppose not,’ she said, as if his indifference didn’t matter. As if she didn’t care what he thought of her.

But she felt as if somebody had just taken her dreams and trampled on them. He was the only man she had ever wanted. The only man she’d ever loved. Yet Suleiman thought so little of her that he could just hand her over to another man, as if she were a parcel he was delivering.

‘Don’t look like that, Sara.’ His black eyes narrowed and she saw that little muscle flicker at his temple once more. ‘If you open your mind a little—you might find that you can actually enjoy your new life. That you can be a good wife. You will have strong sons and beautiful daughters and this will make the people of Qurhah very happy.’

For a moment, Sara thought she heard the hint of uncertainty in his voice. As if he was trotting out the official line without really believing it. Was he? Or was it true what they said—that something in his own upbringing had hardened his heart so that it was made of stone? So that he didn’t care about other people’s feelings—because he didn’t have any of his own.

Well, Suleiman’s feelings were none of her business. She didn’t care about them because she couldn’t afford to. She needed to know what his plans were—and how to react to them accordingly.

‘So what happens now?’ she asked casually. ‘Do I give a month’s notice here and then fly out to Qurhah towards the end of January?’

His mouth twisted, as if she had just said something uniquely funny. ‘You think that you are free to continue to make the Sultan wait for your presence?’ he questioned. ‘I’m afraid that those days are over. You will fly out to Qurhah tonight. And you are leaving this building with me, right now.’

Panic—pure and simple—overwhelmed her. She could feel the doors of the prison clanging to a close. Suleiman’s dark features blurred for a second, before clicking back into sharp focus, and she tried to pull herself together.

‘I’ll...I’ll need to pack first,’ she said.

‘Of course.’ He inclined his dark head but not before she could see the sudden glint of fire in his eyes. ‘Though I doubt whether your mini-skirt will cut it in your new role as Sultana. A far more suitable wardrobe will be provided for you, so why bother?’

‘I’m not talking about my clothes!’ she flared back. ‘Surely you won’t deny me my trinkets and keepsakes? The jewellery my mother left me and the book my father published after her death?’

For a moment she wondered if she had imagined the faint look of disquiet which briefly flickered in his eyes. But it was gone as quickly as it had appeared and she told herself to stop attributing thoughts and feelings to him, just because she wanted him to have them. Because he didn’t.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘That can be arranged. Now let’s go—I have a car waiting downstairs.’

Sara’s heart missed a beat. Of course he had a car waiting. Probably with a couple of heavies inside. That feeling of being trapped closed in on her again and suddenly she knew that she wasn’t going to take this lying down. She would not go meekly with Suleiman Abd al-Aziz—she would slip through his hands like an eel plucked from an icy river.

‘I have to finish up in here,’ she said. ‘I can’t just walk out for ever without putting my work in some kind of order.’

His face was unreadable. ‘How long will it take?’

Sara felt her mouth dry as she wondered realistically how much time she could plead to play with. ‘A few hours?’

‘Don’t test my patience, Sara. Two hours will be more than adequate for what you need to do. I will be waiting with my men at your apartment.’ He walked over to the door and paused. ‘And don’t be late,’ he said softly.

With one final warning flickering from his black eyes, he was gone. She waited until she heard the ping of the lift in the corridor and the sound of the elevator doors closing—but she was still paranoid enough to poke her head outside the office to check that he really had gone. That he wasn’t standing in the shadows spying on her and waiting to see what she would do next.

She shut the office door and walked over to one of the giant windows which overlooked the dark glitter of the river, feeling a stab of pain in her heart. She had loved working here. She had loved the freedom and the creativity of being part of Gabe Steel’s enormous organisation.

But now it was all coming to an end, whether she wanted it to or not.

Like hell it was.

An idea began to form in her mind. A plan so audacious that for a moment she wondered if she dared go ahead with it. Yet what choice did she have? To go with Suleiman, like a sheep to the slaughter? To be forced to share a bed with the hawk-faced Sultan—a man for whom she had felt not one whisper of chemistry?

She picked up the office phone instead of her own mobile phone. Because if they’d had bodyguards watching her all this time—who was to say they hadn’t bugged her phone?

It didn’t take her long to get the information she wanted from the Business Development Director, who was in charge of the company’s public relations. Judging by the noise in the background, he was clearly at some sort of Christmas party and gave her a list of journalists without asking any questions.

Her fingers were trembling as she dialled the first number and listened to the ring tone. Maybe nobody would pick up. Maybe they’d all set off home for Christmas—all going to some storybook destination with a wreath on the door and a roaring log fire, with the smell of chestnuts and pine scenting the air.

They wouldn’t be spending their Christmas Eve like her—with a car full of cold-faced men sitting outside the building, waiting to take her away to an unknown and unwanted future.

‘Hello?’

She took a deep breath. ‘Look, I know this is going to sound crazy—but I’ve got a story you might be interested in.’ Her fingers dug into the phone as she listened. ‘Details? Sure I can give you details. How about the proposed kidnap of a woman, who is being taken against her will to the desert country of Qurhah to marry a man she doesn’t want to marry? You like that? I rather thought you might—and it’s all yours. An exclusive. But we haven’t got long. I need to leave London before six o’ clock.’

CHAPTER TWO (#uf3217de5-5ea5-58c9-ba8e-a609f28a72d3)

SULEIMAN BROUGHT THE car to a halt so that it was hidden beneath the shadows of the trees, but still within sight of the cottage. The other cars all waited in darkness at various intervals down the country lane, as he had instructed them to do.

He turned off the lights. Rain spattered relentlessly across the windscreen, running in thick rivulets down the glass. For a moment he sat watching the lighted windows of the house. He saw Sara’s unmistakable silhouette going around, pulling the drapes tightly shut, and he felt a potent combination of anger and satisfaction. But alongside his triumph at having tracked her down, a deep disquiet ran through his veins like slow poison.

He should have refused this job.

He should have told Murat that his schedule did not allow him time to travel to England and deal with the princess.

But the Sultan did not ask favours of many men and the bonds of loyalty and gratitude ran deeper than Suleiman had anticipated. And although he would have given anything to have avoided this particular task, somehow he had found himself accepting it. Yet just one sight of her today had reinforced what a fool he had been. Better to have thrown himself to the mercy of a starving lion, than to have willingly closeted himself with the temptress Sara.

He remembered the honeyed taste of her lips and her intoxicating perfume of jasmine mixed with patchouli. He remembered the pert thrust of her breast beneath his questing fingers and the way his body had ached for her afterwards. The frustrated lust which seemed to have gone on for months.

His hands tightened around the steering wheel. Women like her were born to create trouble. To make men want them and then to use their sexual power to destroy them. Hadn’t her own mother—a fabled beauty in her time—brought down the king who had spent his life in slavish devotion to her? A husband who had spent so much time enthralled by her that he had barely noticed his country slipping into bankruptcy.

He drew in a deep, meditative breath, forcing all the frustrating thoughts from his mind. He must go and do what he needed to do and then leave and never see her again.

With a stealth nurtured by years of undercover work, he waited until he was certain the coast was clear before he got out of the car and silently pulled the door shut behind him. He saw one of the limousines parked further down the lane flash its lights at him.

Avoiding the crunch of the gravel path, he felt his shoes sink into the sodden mud of the lawn which ran alongside it. But the night was fearsome and the weather atrocious and he was soaked within seconds, despite his long-legged stride towards the front door.

He was half tempted to break in by one of the back windows and then to walk in and confront her to show just how vulnerable she really was. But that would be cruel and he had no desire to be cruel to her.

Did he?