Sheikh's Defiant Wife: Defiant in the Desert

His mouth hardened as he lifted one rain-soaked hand to the door handle and knocked.

If she was sensible, she wouldn’t answer. Instead, she would phone the local police station and tell them she had an intruder banging on the door of this isolated cottage on Christmas Eve.

But clearly she wasn’t being sensible because he could hear the sound of her approaching footsteps and his body tensed as adrenalin flooded through him.

She pulled open the door, her violet eyes widening as she registered his identity. For a split second she reacted quickly, trying desperately to shut the door again—but her reactions were not as fast as his. Few people’s were. He placed the flat of his hand on the weathered knocker and blocked her move until she had the sense to step back as he entered the hallway, pushing the door shut behind him.

For a moment there was silence in that small hallway, other than the soft drip of rainwater onto the stone tiles. He could see that she was too stunned to speak—and so was he, but for very different reasons. She might be regarding him with horror but no such feelings were dominating his own mind right then.

She had changed from the provocative dress she’d been wearing in her office earlier. Her hair was loose and her jeans and pink sweater were not particularly clingy, yet still they managed to showcase the magnificence of her body.

He knew it was wrong but he couldn’t stop himself from drinking her in, like a man lost in the desert who had just been handed a jug of cool water. Was she aware of her beauty? Of the fact that she looked like a goddess? A goddess in blue jeans.

‘Suleiman!’ Her voice sounded startled and her violet eyes were dark.

‘Surprised?’ he questioned.

‘You could say that! And horrified.’ She glared at him. ‘What do you think you’re doing—pushing your way in here like some sort of heavy?’

‘I thought we had an appointment to meet at six, but since it is now almost eight, you appear to have broken it. Shockingly bad manners, Sara. Especially for a future queen of the desert.’

‘Tough!’ she retorted. ‘And I’m not going to be a queen of the desert. I already told you that I have no intention of getting married. Not to Murat and not to anyone! So why waste everybody’s time by turning up? Can’t you just go back to the Sultan and tell him to forget the whole idea?’

Suleiman heard the determination in her voice and felt an unwilling flare of admiration for her unashamed—and very stupid—defiance. Such open insubordination was unheard of from a woman from the desert lands and it was rather magnificent to observe her spirited rebellion. But he didn’t let it show. Instead, he injected a note of disapproval into his voice. ‘I am waiting for an explanation about why you failed to show.’

‘Do you realise you sound exactly like a schoolteacher? I don’t really think you’d need to be a detective to work out my no-show. I don’t like having my arm twisted.’

‘Clearly you hadn’t thought things through properly, if you imagined it was going to be that easy to shake me off,’ he said. ‘But you’re here now.’

She eyed him speculatively ‘I could knock you over the back of the head and make a run for it.’

His mouth quirked at the corners, despite all his best efforts not to smile. ‘And if you did, you would run straight into the men I have positioned all the way down the lane. Don’t even think about it, Sara. And please don’t imagine that I haven’t thought of every eventuality, because I have.’

He pulled off his dripping coat and hung it on a peg.

She glared at him. ‘I don’t remember asking you to take your coat off!’

‘I don’t require your permission.’

‘You are impossible!’ she hissed.

‘I have never denied that.’

‘Oh,’ she said, her voice frustrated as she turned round and marched towards a room where he could see a fire blazing.

He followed her into a room which had none of the ornaments the English were so fond of cramming into their country homes. There were no china dogs or hangings made of brass. No jumbled oil paintings of ships which hinted at a naval past. Instead, the walls were pale and contrasted with the weathered beams of wood in the ceiling. The furniture was quirky but looked comfortable and the few contemporary paintings worked well, though in theory they shouldn’t have done. Whoever owned this had taste, as well as money.

‘Whose cottage is this?’ he questioned.

‘My lover’s.’

He took a step forward, so that his shadow fell over her defiant features. ‘Please don’t jest with me, Sara. I’m not in the mood for it.’

‘How do you know I’m jesting?’

‘I hope you are. Because if I thought for a moment that you had been intimate with another man—then I would seek him out and tear him from limb to limb.’

As she heard his venomous but undoubtedly truthful words Sara swallowed, reminding herself that it wasn’t a question of Suleiman being jealous. He had only uttered the threat out of loyalty to the Sultan.

She wished he hadn’t turned up and yet if she’d stopped to think about it for more than a second—she must have known he would follow her. If Suleiman took on a task, then Suleiman would see it through. No matter what obstacles were put before him, he would conquer them. That was why the Sultan had asked him—and why he was so respected and feared within the desert nations.

She had driven here without really thinking about the consequences of her action, only about her urgent need to get away. Not just from the dark certainty of her future, but from this man. The man who had rejected her, yet could still make her heart race with desire and longing.

But his face was as cold as a stone mask. His body language was tense and forbidding. Suleiman’s feelings towards her had clearly not changed since the night he’d kissed her and then thrust her away from him. She swallowed. How could she bear to spend hours travelling with him, towards a dark fate which seemed unendurable?

‘It’s my boss, Gabe Steel’s cottage,’ she said. ‘And how did you find me?’

‘It wasn’t difficult,’ he said. ‘You forget that I have tracked down quarry far more elusive than a stubborn princess. Actually, it was your sudden unexpected consent to my plan which alerted my suspicions. It is not like you to be so acquiescent, Sara. I suspected that you would try to give my men the slip so I hid outside the side entrance to your office block and followed you to the car park.’

‘You hid? Outside my office block?’

‘You find that so bizarre?’

‘Of course I do!’ Her heart was hammering in her chest. ‘I live in England now and I live an English life, Suleiman. One where men don’t usually lurk in shadows, following women who don’t want to be followed. Why, you could have been arrested for trespass—especially if my boss had any idea that you were stalking me.’

‘Unlikely—for I am never seen if I do not wish to be seen,’ he said arrogantly. ‘You must have known it was a futile attempt to try to escape, so why do it, Sara? Did you really think you could get away with it?’

‘Go to hell!’

‘I’m not going anywhere and certainly not without you.’

She hated the ruthless tone of his voice. She hated the unresponsive look on his hard face. Suddenly she wanted to shake him. To provoke him. To get some sort of reaction which would make her feel as if she was dealing with a real person, instead of a cold block of stone. ‘I was waiting here,’ she said deliberately. ‘For my lover.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘And why not?’ she demanded. ‘Am I so repulsive that you can’t imagine that a man might actually want to take me to bed?’

For a moment Suleiman stilled, telling himself that he wouldn’t fall into the trap she was so obviously laying for him. She was trying to rile him. Trying to get him to admit to something he was not prepared to admit. Even to himself. Concentrate on the facts, he told himself fiercely—and not on her blonde-haired beauty, or her soft curves which nature must have invented with the intention of sending any man crazy with longing.

‘I think you know the answer to that question—and I’m not going to flatter your ego by answering it. Your desirability has never been in question, but you seem to imply that your virtue is.’

‘What if it is?’ she challenged, her voice growing reckless. ‘But I don’t have to explain myself to you and I’m certainly not going to take orders from you. Do you want to know why?’

‘Not really,’ he said, in a bored tone.

‘I think you might.’ She licked her lips in a cat-got-the-cream expression and then smiled. ‘It might interest you to know that in between your invasion of my office and following me here, I have spoken to a journalist.’

There was a pause. Suleiman’s eyes narrowed. ‘I hope that’s a joke.’