Penny Jordan Tribute Collection

Within an hour of her return she had received so many concerned telephone calls that she was refusing to take any more, and the largest reception room of the villa was filled with floral tributes—including an enormous display from the Royal Family, thanking her for rescuing one of their family.

Ignoring the dull, nagging ache which even the strong painkillers she had been given at the hospital had not totally suppressed, Petra went into the room she used as her office and started to go through the sample menus submitted to her by the hotel’s senior chef.

Their guests would be dining in one of the hotel’s private dining rooms, and Petra worked into the evening, meticulously checking the profiles she had been given of their guests against the chef’s suggested menus, stopping only to eat the light meal which Rashid’s housekeeper brought her and to reassure her that she was feeling completely fine apart from having an aching shoulder. At midnight Petra decided that she had had enough and tidied away her papers before making her way to her suite.

The live-in staff had their own quarters, separate from the main villa. Quite what the housekeeper thought of a newly married couple who slept apart Petra had no idea, but the housekeeper had confided to her that Rashid had had her suite of rooms completely redecorated prior to their marriage, even though the villa was brand-new and the rooms had previously been unoccupied.

The villa embraced the best of both Eastern and Western cultures, and had a clean, almost minimalistic look that reminded her of certain exclusive West Coast American homes belonging to friends of her parents, where modern simplicity was broken up and softened by the intriguing addition of single antique pieces. In the case of Rashid’s villa, there was an underlying sense of traditional Moorish décor which really appealed to Petra’s senses. Even the colours he had chosen were sympathetic to the eye and the landscape: pale sands, soft terracottas, a delicate watery blue-green here and there to break up the neutral natural colours.

Stunning sculptures and pieces of artwork made subtle statements about Rashid’s wealth and taste, fabrics made to delight the touch as well as the eye softened any starkness—and yet the villa felt alien and unwelcoming to Petra.

Despite its elegance and comfort, something essential was missing from it. It was a house empty of love, with no sense of being a home, of having a heart! To Petra, acutely sensitive about such things, it lacked that aura of being a place where people who loved one another lived.

She winced a little as she removed the bandage from her back and shoulder, but when she peered over her shoulder to study her reflection in the mirror in her bathroom she was relieved to see that, despite the livid bruising swelling her skin, the raw scrape on her flesh looked clean and had stopped bleeding. As she stood beneath the warm spray of a shower that was large enough for two people to share with comfort she winced a little with pain. She would have some discomfort for some days to come, the doctor had warned her.

It was the horse she felt most sorry for, Petra decided ruefully a little later as she discarded her wrap and slid naked into her bed. The poor animal had been nervous enough before the incident.

Her bed felt deliciously cool. It had been made up with clean, immaculate linen sheets that day. Forlornly Petra turned onto her side. The bed was huge, making her feel acutely conscious of the fact that, despite her marriage, she was still living the life of a partnerless woman. A woman whose husband did not want her, did not desire her, did not love her. Whilst she…

Whilst she had not gone one single night since her marriage without longing for Rashid to be here with her, without giving in to the hopeless, helpless temptation to recreate those hours she had spent in his arms at the oasis. Tiredly Petra closed her eyes against the slow fall of threatening tears.

Abruptly Petra opened her eyes, wincing as she tried to move her painfully stiff shoulder.

‘Petra, are you all right?’

She gave a small gasp of shock as she stared into the darkness to where Rashid was sitting beside the bed.

‘Rashid!’

Immediately she struggled to sit up, ignoring the dull nagging ache from her shoulder as she clutched the bedclothes to her body, her heart thudding furiously.

‘You weren’t supposed to be coming back yet! What are you doing here?’

‘What do you think I’m doing here?’ he answered her grimly. ‘I received a message to say that you had been involved in an accident and that there were grave concerns that you could be suffering from concussion. Naturally I caught the first flight back that I could.’

‘You didn’t need to do that.’ Petra protested. ‘I’m perfectly all right… apart from a stiff shoulder,’ she added ruefully.

Whilst she had been speaking Rashid had switched on the lamp at the side of her bed.

Petra sucked in her breath as she saw him properly for the first time. She had never seen him looking so formidably severe, harsh lines etched from his nose to his mouth, his expression wintry and bleak.

‘I’m sorry that you had to come back—’ she began.

‘What on earth were you thinking about?’ Rashid overrode her apology. ‘Is marriage to me really so unbearable that you prefer to throw yourself under the hooves of a horse and be trampled to death?’

Petra stared at him, stunned by the bleak bitterness in his voice.

‘It wasn’t like that,’ she protested. ‘There was a child… I simply acted instinctively, as anyone would have done.’

His frown deepened.

‘I hadn’t heard about a child, only that there had nearly been a terrible tragedy and that you had insisted on leaving the hospital even though there was concern that you might not be well enough to do so.’

‘I have a bruised shoulder, that is all.’ Petra told, him making light of her injury. The truth was that she was far more interested in discovering why the thought of her being injured had brought him all the way home from London than in discussing her very minor bruises with him.

‘When I spoke to the hospital the doctor said that he was concerned there was a risk that you might experience concussion.’

‘You came back because of that?’ Petra was openly incredulous.

‘He warned you that you should not be on your own,’ Rashid told her grimly.

‘He admitted that the risk was minimal and that he was virtually one hundred per cent sure that I would be okay. And anyway I’m not on my own—the staff—’ Petra began.

‘Are not here to keep a proper watch over you,’ Rashid interrupted her. ‘But I am.’

As he spoke he moved, and Petra saw how tired he looked.

‘Rashid, I’m fine,’ she told him. ‘Look, why don’t you go to bed and—’

‘I’m staying right here,’ he told her flatly.

Petra sighed. ‘I promise you, there is no need. If I hadn’t felt completely well I would not have come back to the villa.’

‘That’s fine. But, like I just said, until I’m convinced that you’re okay I’m staying here,’ Rashid reiterated.

Petra sighed again, hunching her uninjured shoulder defensively as she told him tiredly, ‘Have it your own way, Rashid, but honestly there’s no need for you to stay.’

As he reached out to switch off the light Rashid instructed her flatly, ‘Go back to sleep.’

Quietly Petra moved her head. She could hear Rashid breathing, but she couldn’t see him sitting in the chair beside her bed. And then, as she looked across the bed, she saw him.

He was lying on his back on the bed beside her fast asleep.

The moon was up and full, casting a soft silvery light through the gauzy curtains of her room. Propping herself up on one elbow, she studied Rashid’s sleeping form. Watching him sleep and seeing him so vulnerable sent a huge wave of tenderness aching through her.

At some stage he had unfastened the shirt he had been wearing and the white fabric was a pale blur against the darkness of his skin. There was evidence of his long day in the dark shadow bearding his jaw, and her muscles tensed a little in female response to such evidence of his maleness. Before she could stop herself she was reaching out to touch his jaw experimentally with her fingertips, and she felt her tenderness give way to sharply spiked desire.

As her fingers started to tremble she snatched them away, curling them into a fist and imprisoning them with her other hand. But, although she had managed to stop herself from touching him, she couldn’t stop herself from looking at him, her love-hungry gaze fastening greedily on his mouth, his throat, the exposed flesh of his torso.

Now it wasn’t just her fingers that were trembling, it was her whole body! She could feel the hot urgency of her own desire seeping into every nerve-ending—seeping, flowing, flooding through her until it swamped her completely.

Rashid! Tormentedly she mouthed his name, and then jumped back as he stirred in his sleep, his eyes starting to open.

By the time he had fully opened them she had retreated to her own side of the bed and was lying defensively still as she tried to feign sleep.

‘Petra?’ She heard the anxiety in his sleep-thickened voice as he leaned towards her. His hand touched her throat, checking her pulse, monitoring its frantic race.

‘Petra, wake up,’ he was commanding her.