Taken by the Sheikh

‘You would never have made it that far,’ Drax told her bluntly, before adding, ‘And you needn’t look at me like that. You have nothing to fear from me.’

‘That’s easy for you to say,’ Sadie retorted shakily. ‘You’ve practically kidnapped me, and—’

‘And now you’re worried that I might be carrying you off to my harem to have my wicked way with you?’ Drax mocked her, raising one dark eyebrow. ‘Do you really think that’s likely? Let’s be honest with one another—in today’s world, if I wanted to indulge myself sexually with a disposable partner I would hardly need to kidnap one, would I?’

Her eyes were the colour of clear warm honey, Drax noticed, her tawny hair as polished and silken as the coat of one of his cherished pure-bred Arab mares. He sensed within her the same pride that possessed his falcons—a pride he had the power and the skill to tame, so that they came to his hand as softly, as though they were doves.

Her skin was too pale, though, for the harshness of the desert’s midday sun, and she was paying for her folly in ignoring that fact now. Perspiration beaded her forehead and her head drooped on the slender stem of her neck. Drax guessed that in addition to her obvious apprehension at being bundled into his car she was probably also feeling slightly nauseous. She was certainly likely to be dehydrated.

He reached out and tapped open the centre console that separated their seats. ‘You will find a bottle of water in here. Take it and drink some,’ he advised her sternly.

Water! Until he had spoken she hadn’t realised how thirsty she was. Sadie’s tongue-tip flicked against the dry saltiness of her lips as she reached eagerly for the unopened bottle.

Removing the top, she lifted the bottle towards her mouth.

The traffic was heavy enough for Drax to slow down and watch her. Her lips were soft and full, and as she closed them around the head of the bottle she also closed her eyes, as though she was giving herself over to a much longed-for sensory pleasure. She drank quickly, the muscles of her throat contracting and expanding as she swallowed and then drank more deeply.

The arousal Drax had felt earlier returned, thrusting past the barriers of civility and necessity. Was she aware of just how intensely erotic her actions were? Drax wondered, as between one breath and the next he became trapped within the sexual urgency and immediacy of the images his own brain was creating from her actions. Inside his head the soft fullness of her lips clung eagerly not to the water bottle but to his flesh, greedily absorbing its texture and taste. A pothole in the road caused water from the bottle to trickle from her lips down her throat and beyond, filling the hollow at its base and then spilling from it. If he were to lap its wetness from her skin now it would taste of her flesh and her heat, and the taste would feed his tongue to taste her more intimate wetness, to…

The sudden sharp blare of a car horn somewhere up ahead of them wrenched Drax out of his fantasy and back to reality. His heart was the thudding in slow, heavy erotic beats as it urged his body to greater arousal. He reached for his own bottle of water, and drank fiercely from it, as though to quench the heat of what he was experiencing.

The air-conditioning was on, so why was she suddenly feeling aware of a heat so physical that it not only seemed to be filling the interior of the car, it also felt as if it was actually touching her, pressing against her skin as though in a caress? Because she wanted to be caressed? By him? What kind of craziness had possessed her? Was this some kind of heat-induced lust that was a by-product of too much exposure to the sun? Sadie’s thoughts spilled dizzily on top of one another, blocking her rational exit from them. She fought valiantly against them, making herself focus on the scenery outside the car.

‘We’re almost in the city,’ she told Drax. ‘It’s kind of you to think about offering me a job, but really there’s no need. If you give me my passport and drop me off—’

‘You’re rejecting the job without knowing what it is?’

Sadie’s words had aroused two very different and competing instant reactions inside Drax—one, that he should stop the car, give her the passport and forget that he had ever seen her; the other that there was no way he was going to let her go.

He pressed harder on the accelerator, swinging the car into the outer lane that led away from the city.

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_5324a89e-e833-58e6-92a5-b73e10f4e662)

‘AS JOINT rulers of Dhurahn, my brother and I have for some considerable time been looking into ways to provide our country and our people with a prosperous future once our oil runs out.’

Did he really expect her to believe that he was a ruler of Dhurahn? She had heard of Zuran’s neighbouring state, but she had also seen the protocol and the hierarchy of personnel that attended Zuran’s Ruler whenever he left the palace.

‘To this end, as you may know, we have developed an agricultural policy that has led to us provide other Gulf States with fresh produce. That is all well enough in its own way, but my brother and I both believe that we need something more. To effect this we have been in negotiation for some time now with various organisations in the City of London, with a view to establishing a business and financial centre of excellence within Dhurahn.’

Sadie started to frown. She had heard vague rumours of something like this, she acknowledged. In the way of such things word had got out of this ambitious plan by an unnamed gulf state, and she had also heard the young male MBAs with whom she’d worked stating that if the plan went ahead it would be a golden opportunity for the ambitious.

‘My brother and I are now at a stage in our negotiations where we are looking to put together a team of young MBAs to work with the experts we’ll be bringing in to implement our plans. Professor al Sawar, who was a long-standing friend of our late father, speaks very highly of you, and naturally it occurred to me that you would be an ideal candidate for our team.’

Drax gave a small shrug. ‘Of course I appreciate that offering you a job in this manner is not exactly orthodox business procedure, but events have moved ahead with more speed than we had anticipated. Interviewing and selecting a large number of the right young graduates and MBAs is going to take time. We have therefore decided to set up a small, specially selected team with all speed. The fact that you are here in Zuran and in need of a job makes you an ideal candidate for a place on that team.

‘Time is very much of the essence here. My brother has to leave for London for further negotiations, and I need to return to our country to allow him to do so, since one of us must always be resident in Dhurahn. If I can take you back with me and set you to work, initially as my PA with regard to the preliminary paperwork and the setting up of procedures and negotiations, that will allow me to have more time to work on other aspects of this ground breaking project.

‘You will be well paid. My brother and I have already agreed upon a salary scale for our young graduates—it is almost double the best rate paid in London, and I assure you that you will be paid. As rulers of Dhurahn our word is our bond, and we do not operate the same kind of business ethics as Monika al Sawar.’

‘You don’t really expect me to believe that you’re a ruler of Dhurahn, do you?’ Sadie challenged him. Just what kind of idiot did he take her for?

‘You’re accusing me of lying to you? Why should I bother to do that?’

‘Rulers of Arab states don’t drive themselves around without escorts, or—’

‘You know this for a fact, do you? So, how many rulers of Arab States exactly are you familiar with? Have you any idea just how insulting you are being?’ he asked Sadie softly. ‘Under traditional Dhurahni law people can be locked away for the rest of their life for such an insult to a member of its Ruling Family. In ancient times they would have had their tongue cut out so that they could never speak another lie. That was if they were allowed to live.’

Sadie shuddered, sickened by the graphic image he was forcing on her. He was certainly every inch the haughty all-powerful potentate whose word was absolute law, she admitted, wishing now that she had not spoken out so rashly.

‘I do not lie, Ms Murray. I do not need to. I could drive back to Zuran City and take you to the Ruler to verify my identity for you. Indeed, I could ask the same of your own Embassy. But I don’t have time. I need to return to Dhurahn before my brother leaves.’

Sadie saw the look in his eyes as his mouth curled downwards in hard dismissal, and knew that he meant what he said.

It was still hard for to take what he was saying at face value—especially after she had been so naïvely taken in by Monika.

‘I find it hard to accept that you’re willing to offer me a job without knowing anything about me, or—’

‘Here in the Gulf we believe very strongly in fate. It is true that when I left the Royal Palace earlier today with Professor al Sawar the thought of employing you or anyone else was not something I had planned. However, a clever man does not ignore the opportunities that fate offers to him.’ Drax gave another shrug. That was certainly what he believed, even if the opportunity he believed ‘fate’ had given him on this particular occasion was not the one he was now promoting to Sadie Murray.

‘A contract will be drawn up that allows us both a probationary period in which to assess the consequences of what might seem to be a too-hasty decision. I have no desire to keep you in my country against your will. An unwilling worker is of no benefit to Dhurahn. As co-rulers of Dhurahn, both my brother and I are well aware of that. Neither of us would ever tolerate anything that prejudices the progress or the reputation of our country. And, just for the record, I have no desire to keep you in my bed unwillingly, where the same principle applies. I see no pleasure to be gained in a woman who is not there of her own free will and her own desire.’

Sadie was struggling to get her head around not just what Drax was saying but also the whole Arabian Nights fantasy of being told by the ruler of a Gulf State that he wanted to whisk her off to his kingdom.

However, his purpose in taking her there was not because he wanted her to give him one thousand and one nights of pleasure, as Scheherazade had given her Caliph master with her fabulous stories, but—far more mun danely—so that he could use her expertise to help build a world-class knowledge economy with a world-class financial exchange to rival those of London, New York and Hong Kong. If what she was being told was the truth…

Surely rulers travelled in cavalcades of cars, surrounded by courtiers and security men? They did not drive themselves around in ordinary, if up-market, saloon cars. The ease with which Monika had deceived her still stung. This man—Drax, as she recalled hearing the Professor call him—might physically possess the kind of arrogance that went with high estate, but that did not mean he actually was what he claimed to be.

‘I…it all sounds so far-fetched,’ she told him doubt fully.

The green eyes glittered a look over her that was a combustible mixture of savage fury and arrogant disbelief.

‘You dare to persist in trying to accuse me of being a liar?’

‘I have a right to protect myself from being tricked into another situation in which I end up being out of pocket,’ Sadie defended herself. ‘There is a saying—“If a man makes a fool of me once, shame on him. If twice, shame on me.” You say you are a co-ruler of Dhurahn.’

‘I say it because that is what I am,’ he retorted. ‘I am not Monika al Sawar. I am co-Ruler of Dhurahn, with a moral responsibility towards my brother to act in a way that cannot possibly leave any stain on his honour, just as he has that responsibility to me.’

So much had happened in such a short space of time, the changes in her circumstances had been so seismic, that Sadie suspected she wasn’t in any fit state to make any kind of decision—never mind one as potentially reckless as agreeing to accept the job she was being offered.

And yet what alternative did she really have? She had no money, no family in the true sense to love and support her in England, should she choose to return, no job to return to there, and no passport to return there with, thanks to the man seated next to her, she reminded herself grimly. And what kind of message did that give her—the fact that he was prepared to use such an under-hand method to force her to do as he wished?

‘What if I choose not to accept your offer?’ she demanded.

Drax could hear the uncertainty in her voice. As though he could see into her head, he could imagine her thoughts. She had come to the Gulf in order to change her life in some way; that desire would still exist, despite Monika al Sawar’s behaviour towards her.

‘Why would you do that?’ he asked her coolly. Dhurahn can match everything that Zuran can offer you and exceed it. You would be a fool not to accept. And since I have offered you a job, and I do not offer jobs to fools, you cannot be one.’

Such arrogance. It was breathtaking. And exciting? Was she excited by it? By him? Thoughts she had never imagined were whirling through her head like grains of sand being whipped up by the desert wind, to create a mesmerizing, whirling force that changed the known to the unknown.