Sheikh's Defiant Wife: Defiant in the Desert

Suleiman cracked the knuckles of his fists and stared down at the whitened bones because that was a far less distracting sight than confronting the spark of interest in those beautiful violet eyes. ‘I own an oil refinery and several very lucrative wells.’

‘You own an oil refinery?’ she repeated in disbelief. ‘A baby one?’

‘Quite a big one, actually.’

‘How on earth can you afford to do that?’

He lifted his head and met the confusion in her gaze. He thought how inevitably skewed her idea of the world was—a world where kingdoms were lost and bought and bartered. His investigations into her London life had assured him that her job for Gabe Steel was bona fide, but he knew that she’d inherited her luxury apartment from her mother. Sara was a princess, he reminded himself grimly. She’d never wanted for anything.

‘I played the stock market,’ he said.

‘Oh, come on—Suleiman. It can’t be as simple as that. Loads of people play the stock market, but they don’t all end up with oil refineries.’

He leaned back against the silken pile of cushions, an ill-thought-out move, since it put his eye-line on a level with her breasts. Instead, he fixed his gaze on her violet eyes.

‘Even as a boy, I was always good with numbers,’ he said. ‘And later on, I found it almost creative to watch the movement of the markets and predict what was going to happen next. It was, if you like, a hobby—a consuming as well as a very profitable one. Over the years I managed to accrue a considerable amount of wealth, which I invested. I bought shares along the way which flourished. Some property here and there.’

‘Where?’

‘Some in Samahan and some in the Caribbean. But I was looking for something more challenging. On the hunch of a geologist I met on a plane to San Francisco, I began drilling in an area of my homeland which, up until that moment, everyone had thought was barren land. It provided one of the richest oil wells in Middle Eastern history.’ He shrugged. ‘I was lucky.’

Sara blinked at him, as if there was a fundamental part of the story missing. ‘So you had all this money in the bank, yet you continued to work for the Sultan?’

‘Why not? There is nothing to match the buzz of being in politics and I’d always enjoyed my role as his envoy.’

‘So you did,’ she agreed slowly. ‘Until one day, something made you leave and start up on your own.’

‘If you hadn’t been a princess, you could have been a detective,’ he said sardonically.

‘So what was it, Suleiman? Why the big lifestyle change?’

‘Isn’t it right and natural that a man should have ambition?’ he questioned, taking a sip of his own tea. ‘That he should wish to be his own master?’

‘What was it, Suleiman?’ she repeated quietly.

Suleiman felt his body tense. Should he tell her? Would the truth weaken him in her eyes, or would it make her realise why this damned attraction which still sizzled between them could never be acted upon?

‘It was you,’ he said. ‘You were the catalyst.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes, you. And why the innocent look of surprise? Haven’t you yet learned that every action has a consequence, Sara? Think about it. The night you offered yourself to me—’

‘It was a kiss, for heavens sake!’ she croaked.

‘It was more than a kiss and we both know it,’ he continued remorselessly. ‘Or are you saying that, if I had pushed you against the shadowed palace wall for yet more intimacy, you would have stopped me?’

‘Suleiman!’

‘Are you saying that?’ he repeated, but he found her blush deeply satisfying—for it spoke of an innocence he had begun to question. And wouldn’t it be better to air all his bitterness and frustration so that he could let it out and move on, as he needed to move on? As they both did.

‘No,’ she said, the word a flat, small admission. ‘How can I deny it?’

‘I felt shame,’ he continued. ‘Not so much for what I had done, but for what I wanted to do. I had betrayed the Sultan in the worst way imaginable and I could no longer count myself as his most loyal aide.’

She was looking at him in disbelief. ‘So one kiss made you resign?’

He nearly told her the rest, but he stopped himself in time. If he admitted that he couldn’t bear to think of her in another man’s arms and that he found it intolerable to contemplate her being married to the Sultan and being forced to look on from the sidelines. If he explained that the thought of another man thrusting deep inside her body made him feel sick—then wouldn’t that reveal more than it was safe to reveal? Wouldn’t it make temptation creep out from behind the shadows?

‘It would have been impossible for me to work alongside your new husband with you as his wife,’ he said.

‘I see.’

And she did see. Or rather, she saw some of it. Sara stared at the black-haired man sitting before her, because now the pieces of the puzzle were beginning to form a more coherent shape. Suleiman had wanted her. Really wanted her. And now she was beginning to suspect that he still did. Behind the rigid pose he presented and the wall of disapproval, there still burned something. He had all but admitted it just now.

Didn’t that explain the way his body tensed whenever she grew close? Why his dark eyes had grown stormy and opaque when he’d studied her short skirt that day in the office. It was not indifference towards her as she had first thought.

It was Suleiman trying to hide the fact that he still wanted her.

She licked her dry lips and saw his eyes follow the movement of her tongue, as if he was being compelled to do something against his will. Was he remembering—as she was—when his own tongue had entered her mouth and made her moan with pleasure?

Her head was spinning; her thoughts were confused but as they began to clear she saw a possible solution to her dilemma. What if she used Suleiman’s desire for her to her own advantage? What if she tempted him beyond endurance and seduced him, what then? If they finished off what they had started all those years ago, wasn’t that a way out for her? He was a single-minded man, yes, and a determined one, but there was no way he could present her to Murat if he had been intimate with her himself.

Could she do it? Could she? She was certainly no seductress, but how difficult could it be to beguile the only man she had ever really wanted?

She rose to her feet. ‘Where’s the bathroom?’ she asked.

‘Through there,’ he said—pointing towards the door at the far end of the cabin.

She reached up towards the rack to retrieve the bag she’d brought with her and Suleiman moved forward to help, but she shook her head with a sudden fierce show of independence. She might want him, but she didn’t need him. She didn’t need any man. Wasn’t that the whole point of her carefree life in London? That she didn’t have to be tied down and trapped. ‘I’m perfectly capable of doing it myself.’

She disappeared into the bathroom, emerging a short while later with her blonde hair brushed and woven into a neat chignon. She had changed from her jeans and sweater and replaced them with clothes more suited to the desert climate of Qurhah.

Her slim-fitting linen trousers and long-sleeved silk shirt now covered most of her flesh, but, despite the concealing outfit, she felt curiously exposed as she walked back towards him. Her legs were unsteady and her stomach was tying itself up in knots as she sat down. For a moment she couldn’t quite bring herself to meet Suleiman’s eyes, terrified that he might discover the subversive nature of her thoughts.

‘So what happens when we arrive?’ she questioned. ‘Will an armed guard be taking over from you? Will I be handcuffed, perhaps?’

‘We are landing at one of the military airbases,’ he said. ‘That way, your arrival won’t be marred by the curiosity of onlookers at Qurhah’s international airport.’

‘In case I make a break for freedom, you mean?’

‘I thought we’d discounted this rather hysterical approach of yours?’ he said. ‘And since the threat of desert storms has been brewing for days, it is considered unsafe for us to use a helicopter to get you to the Sultan’s summer residence. So it might interest you to know that we will be travelling there by traditional means.’

At this, Sara’s head jerked up in surprise. ‘You don’t mean an old-fashioned camel caravan?’

Suleiman smiled. ‘Indeed I do. A little-used means of desert travel nowadays, but many of the nomadic people still claim it is the most efficient.’

‘And who’s to say they aren’t right? Gosh, I haven’t been on one since I was a child.’ Sara looked at him, her violet eyes shining with excitement. ‘And of course, this means that there will be horses, too.’