Penny Jordan Tribute Collection

‘The day we arrived my uncle came here to the hotel with his wife, and his son—my cousin Saud. He’s only fifteen, and… They said that my grandfather wasn’t well enough to come, that he had a serious heart condition, and that his doctor had said that he needed bed rest and no excitement. I believed them. But then, when we were on our own together, Saud accidentally let the cat out of the bag. He had no idea, you see, that I didn’t know what was really going on!’

Petra shook her head as she heard her voice starting to tremble. ‘Far from merely wanting to meet me, to put right the wrong he had done to my parents, what my grandfather actually wants is to marry me off to one of his business partners! And, unbelievably, my godfather actually thinks it’s a good idea.

‘Although at first he tried to pretend that I had got it wrong and misunderstood Saud, in fact my godfather thinks it’s so much of a good idea that right now he’s incommunicado in the far east—on official diplomatic business, of course—and he’s taken my passport with him! “Just meet the chap, Petra, old thing.”’ She mimicked her godfather’s cut-glass upper class British voice savagely. ‘“No harm in doing that, eh? Who knows? You might find you actually rather like him. Look at British nobility. All from arranged marriages, and with pretty good results generally speaking. All that love tosh. Doesn’t always work y’know. Like to like, that’s what I always say—and from what your uncle has to say—it seems like this Sheikh Rashid and you have lots in common. Similar cultural heritage. Bound to go down well with the Foreign Office. And the Prime Minister… awfully keen on that sort of thing, y’know. I’ve heard it on the grapevine that the White House is one hundred per cent behind the idea.”’

‘Your grandfather wants you to marry a man who is a fellow countryman of his, and a business colleague, as a PR exercise for diplomatic purposes? Is that what you’re telling me?’ He cut across Petra’s angry outburst incisively.

Petra could hear the cynical disbelief in his voice and didn’t really blame him for his reaction.

‘Well, my godfather would like me to think that’s the only motivation for my grandfather’s behaviour, but of course he isn’t anything like so high-minded or altruistic,’ she told him scathingly.

‘From what I’ve managed to find out from Saud, my grandfather wants me to marry this man because as well as being a fellow shareholder in this complex he is also very well connected—is in fact related to the Zuran Royal Family, no less! My mother was originally supposed to marry a second cousin of the Family before she met and fell in love with my father. Her father—my grandfather—considered it to be a very prestigious match, and one that would bring him a lot of benefits. I suppose in his eyes it is only fitting that since he couldn’t marry my mother off to suit his own ends I should now take her place as a… a victim to his greed and ambition!’

‘Does your mixed heritage disturb you?’ His unexpected question threw Petra a little.

‘Disturb me?’ She tensed, anger and pride ignited inside her. ‘No! Why should it?’ she challenged him. ‘I am proud to be the product of my parents’ love for one another, and proud to be myself as well.’

‘You misunderstand me. The disturbance I refer to is that caused by the volatile mixing of the coldness of the north with the heat of the desert; Anglo Saxon blood mixed with Bedouin, the hunger for roots and the compulsion that drives the nomad and everything that those two polar opposites encompass. Do you never feel torn, pulled in two different ways by two different cultures? A part of both of them and at the same time alien to them?’

His words so accurately summed up the feelings that had bedevilled Petra for as long as she had been able to recognise them that they stunned her into silence. How could he possibly know that she felt like that? The tiny hairs on her skin lifted as though she were in the presence of a force she could not fully understand—a strength and insight so much more developed than her own that she felt in awe of it.

‘I am what I am,’ she told him firmly as she fought to ignore the way he was making her feel.

‘And what is that?’

Anger darkened her eyes.

‘I am a modern, independent woman who will not be manipulated or used to serve the ends of a machiavellian old man.’

She could see the shrug he gave.

‘If you do not want to marry the husband your grandfather has chosen for you then why do you simply not tell him so?’

‘It isn’t that easy,’ Petra was forced to admit. ‘Of course I told my godfather that there was totally and absolutely no way I was going to agree to even meet this man. Never mind marry him. That was when he announced that he had to leave for the far east and that he was taking my passport with him. To give me time to get to know my grandfather and to rediscover my cultural heritage, was how he put it, but of course I know what he’s really hoping for. He’s hoping that by leaving me here, at my grandfather’s mercy, he will be able to pressure me into doing what he wants. My godfather retires next year, and no doubt he’s hoping that the government will reward him for his work—including arranging a high-profile marriage to Sheikh Rashid—with a Peerage in the New Year’s honours list. And what makes it even worse is that, from what my cousin Saud has told me, it seems the whole family believe I should be thrilled to think that this… this… man is prepared to consider marrying me,’ Petra concluded bitterly.

‘Like normally marries like in such circumstances,’ the cool, almost bored voice pointed out. ‘I understand what you are saying about your grandfather’s motivations, but what about those of your proposed husband? Why should this…?’

‘Sheikh Rashid,’ Petra supplied for him grimly. ‘The same Sheikh Rashid who, from what I hear, does not approve of your… behaviour with his female guests!’

The quick, hard look he gave her caused Petra to say immediately, ‘I heard two women discussing you earlier on—’ She stopped. ‘As to why the Sheikh should want to marry me…’ Petra took a deep breath. ‘You might well ask. But apparently he and I have something in common—we are both of mixed parentage, only in his case I believe that it was his father who provided his Zuran heritage and not his mother. More importantly, The Zuran Royal Family consider the marriage to be a good idea. My godfather says that it will cause great offence if he refuses a marriage they have given their seal of approval, and great offence to mine if he refuses me. However, whilst I know enough about Zuran culture to know that for either of us to refuse the other once negotiations have commenced is considered to be an unforgivable insult, I know too that if he were to have reason to believe that morally I am not fit to be his wife he could honourably refuse to accept me.’

‘There’s an awful lot of supposition going on here,’ came the wry comment.

But when Petra shot him a fulminatingly angry look, and demanded, ‘Are you trying to say that it’s all in my imagination? Then there’s no point in us wasting any more of one another’s time!’

He gave her a small semi-placatory look and offered conciliatingly, ‘So! I understand the motivation, but why choose me?’

Petra gave a small cynical shrug.

‘Like I said, I heard a couple of female guests discussing you earlier, and from what they were saying it was obvious that…’

When she stopped speaking, he prompted her softly, ‘That what?’

‘That you have a reputation for enjoying the favours of the women who stay here. So much so, in fact,’ she added, tilting her chin defiantly, ‘that you have already been reprimanded for your behaviour by… by Sheikh Rashid, and are in danger of losing your job!’ Petra gave a small shudder. ‘I don’t know how those women can cheapen themselves! I might not want an arranged marriage, but there is no way I would ever prejudice my own personal moral beliefs by indulging in a meaningless sexual fling a… a cheap sexual thrill!’ Through the darkness Petra was suddenly acutely conscious of his gaze fixing intently on her.

‘I see… So you don’t want an arranged marriage and you don’t want cheap sexual thrills. So what do you want?’

‘Nothing!’ As he turned his head Petra saw the mocking way he raised his eyebrows and defended herself immediately. ‘What I mean is I don’t want anything until I meet a man who…’

‘Who matches up to your very high standards?’ he suggested tauntingly.

Crossly Petra shook her head.

‘Please don’t put words into my mouth. What I was going to say was until I meet a man I can love and respect and… and want to… to commit myself to emotionally, mentally, cerebrally, sexually—every which way there is. That is the kind of relationship my parents shared,’ she told him passionately. ‘And that is the kind of relationship I want for myself and one day want to encourage my own children to aspire to.’

‘A tall order, especially in this day and age,’ came the blunt response.

‘Perhaps, but one I think it worth waiting to fulfil,’ Petra told him firmly.

‘Aren’t you afraid that if you finally meet this paragon he might be deterred by the fact that your reputation—?’

‘No.’ Petra interrupted him swiftly. ‘Because if he loves me he will accept me and know and understand my values. And besides…’ She stopped, her face burning as she realised just how close she had come to telling him that the fact that she had so far not met such a man and was still a virgin would tell its own story to the man who eventually claimed her love. ‘Why are you asking me all these questions?’ she demanded sharply instead.

‘No reason,’ he replied laconically.

Through the darkness Petra could sense him evaluating her.

‘So,’ he announced at last. ‘You are offering to pay me five thousand pounds to pursue and seduce you and publicly ruin your reputation.’

‘To pretend to,’ Petra corrected him immediately.

‘What’s wrong?’ he taunted her. ‘Having second thoughts?’

‘Certainly not!’ Petra denied indignantly, and then gasped in shock as he closed the distance between them and took her in his arms, demanding shakily, ‘What are you doing?’

He smelled of clean night air and warm male skin, of the dangerous heat of the desert and the cool mystery of the night, and her whole body quivered in helpless reaction to his maleness. The slow descent of his head blocked out the light and the glitter of his eyes mesmerised her into unmoving stillness.

‘We have made a pact! A bargain!’ she felt him murmuring against her lips.

‘And now we must seal it. In the desert in times gone by such things were sealed in blood. Shall I prick your skin and release the life blood from your veins, to mingle it with my own, or will this suffice?’

Before Petra could protest his mouth was on her own, crushing the breath from her lungs. Oh yes, she had been right, she recognised weakly. He was as swift and as deadly as the panther she had mentally likened him to earlier…

A tiny frantic moan bubbled in her throat as she felt her body’s helpless response to the mastery of his kiss. She had been right to fear the passionate expertise indicated by that full bottom lip. There was a slight roughness about his face that chafed slightly against her own soft skin, and she had to fight to control the instinctive movement of her hand towards his face to touch that distinctive maleness. As he released her lips it seemed for some inexplicable shaming reason that they were determined to cling to his. Panic flooded over her, and before she could stop herself she bit fiercely into his lip in defiant pride.

The shock of the taste of his blood on her tongue held her immobile.

As she tensed herself for his retaliation she felt his hand wrapping round the slenderness of her throat.