Penny Jordan Tribute Collection

Petra watched as the young tour guide reiterated his grateful thanks to Blaize, before jumping down out of the Land Rover.

They had all been on the point of departing from the oasis when the tour guide’s Jeep had refused to start.

Places had been found for his passengers in other vehicles, but unfortunately there had not been enough room for him, so Blaize had offered to give him a lift back to the complex.

Of course his presence had made it impossible for Petra and Blaize to discuss anything personal, but Petra suspected that she minded this far more than Blaize did.

The truth was that he was probably relieved she couldn’t say anything about last night, Petra acknowledged unhappily.

After all, if he had felt anything for her—even a mere small percentage of the love she knew she had for him—then he would have told her so last night, instead of returning her to her own bed and then treating her this morning as though… as though she meant nothing to him!

She might mean nothing to him, but he meant everything to her!

Still, at least one good thing had come out of last night, she tried to tell herself with a brave attempt at cynical courage.

Rashid certainly wasn’t going to want to marry her now. Not once he knew she had spent the night with another man! Given herself to another man! A man, moreover, who didn’t love or want her!

Determinedly Petra tried not to give in to her own despair.

That wasn’t true, she argued mentally with herself. Blaize had wanted her!

Her or just a woman… any woman?

Her pain was so intense that she didn’t dare to even look at Blaize, just in case he might read her feelings in her eyes and feel even more contempt for her than he no doubt already did. All she meant to him was a meal ticket and a few hours of casual and no doubt quickly forgettable sex! She had known what he was all along, she reminded herself, so why had she been so stupid? So reckless with herself and her love? What had she been thinking? That with her he would be different? That her love would make it different? Why, why, why had she closed her eyes so deliberately to reality? Why had she ignored everything she knew about him and the way he lived his life?

Because her love for him had given her no choice, Petra recognised bleakly. Because, against her love, common sense and logic had no real weapons at all!

Acidly painful tears burned the back of Petra’s throat. They were outside her hotel now, and without giving Blaize the opportunity to say anything she opened the door of the Land Rover and got out.

As she walked away she thought she heard Blaize calling her name, but she refused to stop.

It might be too late to stop herself from loving Blaize, but it was not too late for her to salvage her pride and her self-respect!

If she had meant anything to him… anything at all… he would have told her so last night.

An hour later, having exhausted every rational and several very irrational combinations of reasons and excuses for Blaize’s behaviour, and still had to return to the unwanted, unbearable truth that he had simply been using her and, having done so now, no longer wanted her, Petra heard someone knocking on the door to her suite.

Immediately, despite everything she had just told herself, her heart leapt, whilst relief and joy poured through her. It was Blaize! It had to be! She had got it all wrong! There was a rational explanation for the distance he had put between them, and he had now come to explain everything to her—to apologise for hurting her and to tell her how much he wanted her, how much he loved her.

Her whole face illuminated with happiness and love, Petra ran to open the door.

Only it wasn’t Blaize who was standing outside; it was her cousin Saud. In the shock of her disappointment Petra could only stand and stare at him uncomprehendingly.

‘Are you packed yet?’ she heard him asking her.

‘Packed?’

‘I told my mother she should have rung ahead to check that you were ready!’

Ready! Guiltily Petra realised that today was the day she was due to move in to the family villa. She had been so wrapped up in her love for Blaize and what had happened between them that she had totally overlooked the plans that had been made.

‘I… I’m running a bit late, Saud,’ she told him. After all, it was technically the truth. ‘I’m sorry…’

‘That’s okay,’ Saud assured her easily. ‘I’m not in any rush. Did you enjoy your trip into the dessert with Rashid? I saw him driving you there,’ he added casually.

Petra stared at him, her body completely immobile, like that of someone caught up in the dark power of a sorcerer’s spell.

‘Rashid?’ she questioned. Her lips were having trouble framing his name, and her heart had started to beat with heavy-doom laden thuds that rocked her whole body. ‘You saw me with Rashid?’

‘Yes, in one of the safari company’s Land Rovers,’ Saud confirmed.

‘But I wasn’t with—’ Petra began to protest, and then stopped as Saud continued with a wide grin.

‘My mother’s already planning the wedding. She thinks…’

‘Rashid,’ Petra mouthed, forcing her lips to accommodate themselves to his name, whilst her body shook with the enormity of what Saud had said. ‘But…’

But what? she asked herself numbly. But she had not been with Rashid. She had been with Blaize! Blaize who was not Rashid… who could not be Rashid…

‘I suppose Rashid is working upstairs in the Presidential Suite now, is he?’ Saud was chattering on happily. ‘Has he taken you to see his new villa yet? The one he has just had built out by the private oasis he bought?’ Saud was asking her excitedly. ‘Did he show you his horses? And his falcons? I’d love a falcon of my own, but Dad says it’s out of the question—especially if I’m to go to university in America.’

‘Saud, I’m not… I’m not packed yet. Could you come back a little later, say in an hour?’ she asked him jerkily, interrupting his enthusiastic and excited conversation.

‘Sure!’

Petra stared blankly at the door Saud had closed behind him.

Saud had said that he had seen her with Rashid. But the man she had been with was Blaize. Which meant either that Saud had been mistaken or…

There was a vile sickening sensation clawing coldly at the pit of her stomach, a suspicion inside her head that wouldn’t go away.

The Presidential Suite. That was on the top floor. White-faced, but determined, Petra opened the door of her suite and headed for the lift.

What she was thinking couldn’t be true, it just couldn’t! Saud had to be mistaken, but she had to find out, she had to know… to be sure!

Only one lift went all the way to the Presidential Suite, and when she got out of it Petra was trembling violently—although whether from shock, fear or fury, she didn’t really know.

Blaize could not be Rashid. It was totally implausible that he might be, totally impossible! But somehow the reassurances she was trying to give herself had a disconcertingly hollow and empty sound to them.

In the private hallway to the suite, a thick, lushly rich carpet muffled her footsteps—but not her racing heartbeat. Nervously Petra stared at the closed door in front of her.

What was she doing here? Blaize was a beach bum, a chancer, an adventurer who lived on his wits and other people’s money, a man with no moral beliefs, who made his own rules—and then broke them. Rashid, in contrast, from what she had heard about him, was a seriously successful businessman, a man ruthlessly focused on his own goals, a man prepared to marry a woman he did not know for his own advancement and benefit.

They could not be one and the same person. It was unthinkable that they might be. Unthinkable, unsustainable, unendurable! Of course it was! Saud had simply made a mistake.

Feeling slightly calmer, Petra pressed the doorbell and waited.

The door swung inwards, and a male voice demanded curtly, ‘Yes?’