Penny Jordan Tribute Collection

It was already almost dusk, the sun loungers around the pool empty, the beach deserted apart from one lone figure collecting the discarded windsurfers.

For a second his unexpected appearance checked Petra, and then she took a deep breath. She had initially intended to come down here merely to think, but perhaps fate had decided to take a hand in events.

The sand muffled her footsteps, but even so something must have alerted Rashid to her presence because he turned round to watch her in silence.

His formal clothes had been discarded and he was wearing a tee shirt and a pair of jeans.

Trying to control her nervousness, Petra walked up to him. His silence unnerved her, and she moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, her face flushing as his gaze trapped the small betraying movement.

‘I… I… have a proposition I want to put to you,’ she told him, superstitiously crossing her fingers behind her back as she spoke.

How was he going to react? Was he going to walk away? Was he going to ignore her? Was he going to listen to her? Petra knew which she wanted him to do!

‘A proposition?’

Well, at least he was responding to her, even if she could hear a grim note of cynicism in his voice.

‘What kind of proposition?’

‘I have a problem and I think you could be the very person to help me,’ she said.

It was a relief that it was now fully dusk and he couldn’t see her face—although she suspected that he must be able to hear the anxiety and uncertainty in her voice. If she had felt nervous the first time she had propositioned him then she felt a hundred—no, a thousand times more so now. Then all that had been at stake had been her freedom; now it was her whole life… her love… everything!

‘I need you to help me find out if the man I love loves me. Until today I believed that he didn’t, but now it seems I might have been wrong.’

‘The man you love?’ he questioned, and there was a new note in his voice that sent Petra’s pulses racing.

‘Yes. I love him so much that I’m almost afraid to admit just how much—even to myself, never mind to him—and I thought…’

‘Yes?’

He had moved so swiftly and silently, and she had been so engrossed in her own anxiety, that his sudden proximity to her caught her off-guard.

‘I thought you might be able to show me a way to show him just how I feel…’ she said huskily.

‘Oh, you did, did you? What inducement exactly were you planning to offer me in return for my co-operation?’

There was a distinct huskiness in his voice now, and Petra allowed herself to relax just a little.

‘Oh…’ She pretended to consider. ‘I was rather thinking in terms of… er… payment in kind…’

‘Uh-huh…’

Uh-huh. Was that going to be his only response? Nothing more? Nothing more positive? More encouraging? Fresh uncertainty gripped her.

‘If you aren’t interested—’ she began.

‘Did I say that?’ He was standing even closer to her now.

‘No,’ she admitted. ‘But…’

‘If you really wanted to prove to him that you do love him, I think a good place to start would be right here,’ she heard him murmur. ‘Right here, in his arms, like this…’

His arms were closing round her, holding her tight. Relief melted the tension from her bones.

‘Like this?’

Was that thrilled little squeak really her voice?

‘Uh-huh. And then you might show him that you liked being here by putting your arms around his neck, looking up in his eyes and…’

‘Like this, you mean?’ Petra whispered.

‘Sort of… You’re on the right track—but it would be even better if you did this!’ Rashid told her, showing her what he meant as he brushed her lips with his own.

‘Mmm… But what if I want to kiss him properly?’ Petra asked him.

‘Well, then I think you should go right ahead,’ Rashid replied. ‘But I ought to warn you that if you do that, he could very well want to…’

Sometimes actions could speak far more informatively than words, Petra decided dizzily as she daringly silenced Rashid’s soft-voiced instructions with the loving pressure of her mouth against his.

It was a long, long time before either of them wanted to speak again, but when they had finally managed to stop kissing one another Rashid told her masterfully, ‘I think our negotiations might be better conducted somewhere more… private.’

‘Oh?’ Petra gave him a mischievous look. ‘Have you anywhere specific in mind? Only I am staying at the hotel.’

‘What I have in mind,’ Rashid responded softly, with an erotic undertone to his voice that made her heart dance in excited anticipation, ‘is a very large bed, in a room that is preferably soundproofed so that no one can hear your cries of pleasure other than me…’

Since he was threading each word on a necklace of kisses round her throat, in between teasing her lips with the briefest of sensual contacts with his mouth, Petra was not really able to focus on too many specifics—although the words ‘bed’ and ‘pleasure’ did manage to penetrate her dizzying mist of euphoria.

As he kissed his way up the side of her neck and nibbled on her earlobe she demanded huskily, ‘So it is true, then—you do love me?’

So abruptly that it shocked her, Rashid released her. For a moment Petra went icy cold with fear, but then she saw the expression in his eyes.

‘I fell in love with you here on this beach, the evening you propositioned me,’ Rashid told her quietly. ‘Up until then you had just been a name I had heard mentioned in connection with your grandfather—someone who shared a similar parental background to my own, yes, but there are many, many offspring of mixed marriages living here.’ He gave a small dismissive shrug. ‘And then you accosted me here, and told me your wild tale of believing you were about to be forced into marriage to a man I admit even I was beginning to despise after I had listened to your description of him! And I thought that Saud liked me!’ he commented drolly.

Petra had the grace to give him an abashed look.

‘My grandfather told me that I’d got it all wrong, and that Saud had misunderstood what he had overheard!’

‘A passing comment, between business partners, that was never intended to be taken seriously. Knowing how concerned your family was about your grandfather’s health, and the effect your visit might have on it, I volunteered to show you something of the complex. But never for one moment did I intend to do so with a view to seeing if you might be a suitable wife!’

‘Did you really fall in love with me that night?’ Petra couldn’t resist asking him.

‘When I asked you what kind of man you wanted, and you told me…’ He paused and looked away from her, before looking back again. ‘I am a very wealthy man, Petra, and naturally I have been pursued by the kind of woman who sees a man only in terms of the financial benefits she can gain from him. When you spoke so passionately of your feelings and your beliefs, your hopes and desires for the way you wanted your life and your love to be, they so closely mirrored my own that I knew I could not let you walk away from me. And then I kissed you.’

‘And you knew then?’

Petra knew that her voice was trembling, and that Rashid would be able to hear quite clearly the joy and incredulity in it, but now she felt no need to hide her feelings or to feel ashamed of them.