Monarch of the Sands

‘It was good of your brother to come in your place. And that wreath you sent,’ Frankie added, with a gulp. ‘It was absolutely b-beautiful.’

He heard her voice wobble and he glared, getting up from the table to take the teapot from her trembling hands. ‘Here. Let me take that.’

‘You can’t pour your own tea.’

‘Don’t be so ridiculous,’ he returned. ‘I can just about upend a pot of boiling water. Or do you think I have people waiting on me every second of the day?’

‘Pretty much.’

A faint smile edged the corners of his mouth. ‘Impertinent woman,’ he murmured, and as he said it found himself looking into her startled blue eyes as one word leapt out and hung in the air surrounding them. He felt a pulse of heat deep in his groin. Woman. He swallowed. He would never have said that to her before. Nor found himself looking at her lips and wondering what it would be like to kiss them—even though they weren’t wearing a scrap of make-up. Did Simon not like her wearing make-up? he wondered heatedly.

Frankie took one of the mugs of tea and quickly moved away—the fact that it was burning her hand hardly noticeable when measured against the hot burning in her cheeks which had followed that curiously intense moment back then. ‘I’ll … I’ll get some honey,’ she said.

Glad to have the distraction of moving away, she walked over to one of the cupboards. Her fingers were trembling as she brought out a half-filled jar and handed it to him, and she watched as he spooned a teaspoonful of honey in each cup, seeing it melt in a golden puddle into the pale green liquid.

He looked up then, a careless question in his eyes. ‘So when do I get to meet him?’

‘Meet him?’ Francesca’s heart thudded. Surely he didn’t mean what she thought he meant? ‘Wh-who?’

‘Simon.’

She stared at him, trying to disguise her horror—some instinct telling her that Zahid and Simon should be kept apart at all costs. ‘Wh-why on earth would you want to meet him?’

He shrugged and her obvious reluctance to have him do so only fired up his sense of determination that he should. ‘Why wouldn’t I? My country owes a great debt to your father and I am an old family friend. Since you don’t have any senior male relative to look out for you, I consider it my duty to meet the man you are intending to marry.’

Frankie hoped that her face didn’t betray her appalled reaction to his suggestion—and not just because he had painted a rather grim image of himself as a “senior male relative”. The last thing she wanted was for him to meet Simon—because surely Zahid would make any man look hapless in his presence.

‘Well, perhaps we can arrange something for the next time you’re in town,’ she said, with the confident air of someone who knew that tight royal schedules made such casual meetings almost impossible.

‘But aren’t you seeing him tonight? Aren’t you planning to cook him dinner?’

She wondered how on earth he could have known that until she saw him looking at the covered dish of chicken and the little heap of potatoes waiting to be peeled; the box of unopened candles which lay next to them. Perhaps he had been a detective in another life, she thought crossly. ‘Yes, I’m cooking him dinner. I’d ask you to join us except that you’re probably busy.’ She gave a weak smile. ‘And I’ve only got two chicken breasts.’

Zahid almost laughed at the sheer banality of her statement, but the truth of it was that her attitude was firing him up even more. He wasn’t used to people saying no to him. And his curiosity had been aroused. What was she trying to hide? ‘No woman should have to cook a meal when she’s just got engaged—she should be freed from the drudgery of domesticity and left to enjoy the romance,’ he said silkily. ‘So I’ll take you and Simon out to dinner instead.’

‘No, honestly—’

‘Yes, honestly,’ he mocked. ‘I insist. What’s the name of a good local restaurant?’

‘Le Poule au Pot is pretty good—but you’ll never get a table this late.’

‘Please don’t be naïve, Francesca—I can always get a table. I’ll meet you in there at eight-thirty,’ he said implacably, as—pushing away his untouched tea—he got up from the table.

Frankie scrambled to her feet, aware of the sheer power of his body as she stared up into his hawklike features. ‘I suppose there’s no point in me trying to change your mind?’

‘No point at all.’ Black eyes bored into her. ‘And why would you want to?’

This silky challenge she couldn’t—or wouldn’t—answer. All she knew was that the thought of subjecting Simon—and herself—to the distracting company of the powerful man she’d known since childhood was filling her with trepidation.

Zahid looked down into her upturned face and those strangely kissable lips, which her tiny white teeth were currently digging into as she turned anxious blue eyes up at him. And in that moment she looked so vulnerable yet so damned sexy that he began to wonder whether fate might not have had a hand in bringing him here today.

‘Just don’t be late,’ he added softly.

CHAPTER THREE (#u0d7633fa-594f-5b1f-ab6d-e525e3790232)

‘SMILE, baby, and just relax—we’re going to have a ball.’ Relax? Frankie swallowed down the acid taste of nerves as Simon eased his car into the last available spot in the Le Poule au Pot’s car park. How could she possibly relax, knowing that an evening with Zahid lay ahead of them? Questions had been spinning round in her head all the time she was getting ready. Wondering why the autocratic sheikh was insisting on taking them out to dinner—and what on earth his agenda was. Was it really because he wanted to vet Simon, to see if he measured up and was suitable? And if so, wasn’t that an awfully old-fashioned point of view?

‘I just wish we weren’t going out,’ she said, her fingers playing nervously with her necklace. ‘And having a quiet dinner at home instead—the way we’d planned.’ Simon put the brakes on and shot a quick look at himself in the driving mirror. ‘Are you crazy? You’re best buddies with some sheikh—’

‘I wouldn’t describe us as “best buddies”—’ ‘

Well, friendly enough for him to invite us out. And you’d rather be sitting in your old kitchen with a home-cooked meal? I mean, what planet are you on, Frankie? Wait till I tell everyone that I had dinner with a royal!’

‘But you mustn’t,’ put in Frankie anxiously. ‘That’s the whole point. You’re not supposed to mention it to anyone—it’s an infringement on their privacy and they get little enough of that as it is.’

Simon’s smile was tight. ‘Let’s not drift too far from reality, shall we? I don’t need lessons in protocol from my secretary.’ He gave her knee a quick squeeze. ‘Even if she does also happen to be my fiancée!’

She gave him a weak, answering smile but Frankie’s heart was pounding as they entered the restaurant and she felt an overpowering feeling of relief when she realised that Zahid wasn’t there. Maybe he’d changed his mind about coming, she thought hopefully as they were led to their table. Decided that something more important—or someone very beautiful—had come up. Any minute now and the maître d’ would discreetly slide up to their table and tell them that he had been unavoidably detained, and …

‘Hello, Francesca.’

She’d been so deep in thought that she hadn’t noticed the sheikh enter the room until his silken and faintly accented voice broke into her thoughts. She looked up and there he was, standing in front of their table like some dark god—with Simon springing to his feet as if his long-lost brother had just appeared and for one awful moment Frankie thought that he was actually going to try to embrace the sheikh.

But Zahid pre-empted any inappropriate familiarity by extending a cool hand in greeting and an even cooler smile. ‘You must be Simon.’

‘And you must be Zahid. Frankie’s told me all about you.’

‘Has she really?’ Dark eyes were briefly glittered in her direction as Frankie attempted to clamber to her feet, but a careless wave of his hand indicated that she should remain seated.

‘Of course I haven’t,’ said Frankie. ‘And please won’t you sit down, Zahid?’ she added on a whisper. ‘Everyone’s staring at us.’

It was true. Even the eyes of the more studiedly cool diners seemed to be drawn irresistibly to the tall man in the impeccably cut suit, whose two burly-looking companions had been seated rather ostentatiously at a table right by the door. Frankie sighed. Even if it hadn’t been for his bodyguards, he just oozed power, wealth and a potent sexual charisma which had all the women in the restaurant responding to him. She could see a blonde who’d been shoehorned into a silver dress and who seemed to be wearing most of Fort Knox around her neck was now flashing him a sticky, vermilion-lip-sticked smile.

But Zahid seemed oblivious to the restrained excitement his presence was causing. Instead, he sat down with his back to the room, and as two waiters fussed round them with the kind of speed she wasn’t used to Frankie realised that this was the first time she’d actually been out in public with him—and that this must be what it was like all the time. The flattery and deference. His every wish anticipated and granted. No wonder his manner could be so assured and so … so … arrogant.

Having refused wine himself, Zahid ordered champagne for a clearly eager Simon and then leaned back in his chair—looking, thought Frankie indignantly, as if he were interviewing them for some sort of job!

‘I gather congratulations are in order, Simon,’ he murmured. ‘You are indeed a lucky man.’

Simon took a mouthful of champagne, followed by an appreciative glance at the label on the bottle. ‘Aren’t I just? Although naturally, there were lots of raised eyebrows when we first announced it!’

Zahid slowly curled his fingers over the starched linen surface of the tablecloth. ‘Really?’ he questioned coolly.

Simon leaned across the table towards him, in a man-to-man kind of way. ‘Well, lots of my friends were surprised to begin with,’ he confided.

Frankie squirmed. She could guess what was coming and although she didn’t usually mind Simon’s justifiable boasts about the dramatic effect he’d had on her appearance, something in her rebelled at having Zahid hear them. ‘Zahid isn’t interested,’ she said quickly.

‘Oh, but Zahid is,’ corrected the sheikh archly. ‘In fact, he’s absolutely fascinated. Do continue, Simon.’