Diamond in the Desert

Chemistry, she mused. And no wonder when Emir radiated danger. The dark business suit moulded his athletic frame to perfection, while the crisp white shirt set off his bronzed skin, and a grey silk tie provided a reassuring sober touch—to those who might be fooled. She wasn’t one of them. Emir might as well have been dressed in flowing robes with an unsheathed scimitar at his side, for seductive exoticism flowed from him.

She looked away quickly when his black gaze found hers and held it. Damn! She could feel her cheeks blazing. She quickly buried her attention in the documents in front of her.

Britt’s apparent devotion to her work amused him. He’d felt the same spark between them that she had, and there was always the same outcome to that. He generally relied on the first few minutes of any meeting to assess people. Body language told him so much. Up to now Skavanga had not impressed him. It was a grey place with an air of dejection that permeated both the company and the town. He didn’t need the report in front of him to tell him that the mineral deposits were running out, he could smell failure in the air. And however good this woman was at running the business—and she must be good to keep a failing company alive for so long—she couldn’t sell thin air. Britt needed to mine those diamonds in order to keep her company alive, and to do that she needed the consortium he headed up to back her.

The town might be grey, but Britt Skavanga was anything but. She exceeded his expectations. There was a vivid private world behind those serious dove grey eyes, and it was a world he intended to enter as soon as he could.

‘You will relate our dealings verbatim to His Majesty?’ she said as they began the meeting.

‘Of course. His Majesty greets you as a friend and hopes that all future dealings between us will bring mutual respect as well as great benefit to both our countries.’

He had not anticipated her sharp intake of breath, or the darkening of her eyes as he made the traditional Kareshi greeting, touching his chest, his mouth and finally his brow. He amended his original assessment of Britt to that of a simmering volcano waiting to explode.

She recovered quickly. ‘Please tell His Majesty that I welcome his interest in Skavanga Mining, and may I also welcome you as his envoy.’

Nicely done. She was cool. He’d give her that. His senses roared as she held his gaze. The only woman he knew who would do that was his sister, Jasmina, and she was a troublesome minx.

As Britt continued to lay out her vision of the future for Skavanga Mining he thought there was a touching innocence about her, even in the way she thought she would have any say once the consortium took over. Her capable hands were neatly manicured, the nails short and unpainted, and she wore very little make-up. There was no artifice about her. What you saw was what you got with Britt Skavanga—except for the fire in her eyes, and he guessed very few had seen that blaze into an inferno.

‘You must find the prospect of mining the icy wastes quite daunting after what you’re used to in the desert,’ she was saying.

He returned reluctantly to business. ‘On the contrary. There is a lot in Skavanga that reminds me of the vastness and variety of my desert home. It is a variety only obvious to those who see it, of course.’ As much as he wanted this new venture to go ahead, he wanted Britt Skavanga even more.

As hard as she tried to concentrate, her body was making it impossible to think, but then her body seemed tuned to Emir’s. She even found herself leaning towards him, and had to make herself sit back. Even then his heat curled around her. His face was stern, which she loved, and his scent, spicy and warm, sandalwood, maybe, it was a reminder of the exotic world he came from. Her sisters had already teased her mercilessly about Kareshi supposedly being at the forefront of the erotic arts. She had pretended not to listen to such nonsense, especially when they insisted that the people of Kareshi had a potion they used to heighten sensation. But she’d heard them. And now she was wondering if anything they’d said could be true—

‘Ms Skavanga?’

She jerked alert as Emir spoke her name. ‘I beg your pardon. My mind was just—’

‘Wandering? Or examining the facts?’ he said with amusement.

‘Yes—’

‘Yes? Which is it?’

She couldn’t even remember the question. The blood rush to her cheeks was furious and hot, while Emir just raised a brow and his mouth curved slightly.

‘Are you ready to continue?’ he said.

‘Absolutely,’ she confirmed, sitting up straight. She was mad for this man—crazy for him. No way could she think straight until the tension had been released.

‘There are some amendments I want to discuss,’ he said, frowning slightly as he glanced up at her.

She turned with relief to the documents in front of her.

‘I need more time,’ she said.

‘Really?’ Emir queried softly.

She swallowed deep when she saw the look in his eyes. ‘I don’t think we should rush anything—’

‘I don’t think we should close any doors, either.’

Were they still talking about business? Shaking herself round, she explained that she wouldn’t be making any decisions on behalf of the other shareholders yet.

‘And I need to take samples from the mine before I can involve the consortium in such a large investment,’ Emir pointed out.

He only had to speak for alarm bells to go off in every part of her body, making it impossible to think about anything other than long, moonlit nights in the desert. Not once since taking over at Skavanga Mining had she ever been so distracted during a meeting. It didn’t help that she had thought the Black Sheikh’s trusted envoy would be some greybeard with a courtly air.

‘Here is your copy of my projections,’ she said, forcing her mind back to business before closing her file to signify the end of the meeting.

‘I have my own projections, thank you.’

She bridled at that before reminding herself that just a murmur from the Black Sheikh could rock a government, and that his envoy was hardly going to be a pushover when it came to negotiations.

‘Before we finish, there’s just one here on the second page,’ he said, leaning towards her.

‘I see it,’ she said, stiffening as she tried to close her mind to Emir’s intoxicating scent. And those powerful hands … the suppleness in his fingers … the strength in his wrists …

He caught her staring and she started blushing again. This was ridiculous. She was acting like a teenager on her first date.

Exhaling shakily, she sat back in the chair determined to recover the situation, but Emir was on a roll.

‘You seem to have missed something here,’ he said, pointing to another paragraph.

She never missed anything. She was meticulous in all her business dealings. But sure enough, Emir had found one tiny thing she had overlooked.

‘And this clause can go,’ he said, removing it with a strike of his pen.

‘Now, just a minute—’ She stared aghast as Emir deconstructed her carefully drawn-up plan. ‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘That clause does not go, and neither does anything else without further discussion, and this part of the meeting is over.’

He sat back in his chair as she stood up, which explained why she wasn’t ready for him moving in front of her to stand in her way.

‘You seem upset,’ he said. ‘And I don’t want the first part of our meeting to end badly.’

‘Bringing in investors is a big step for me to take—’

‘Britt—’

Emir’s touch on her skin was like an incendiary device, but the fact that his hand was on her arm at all was an outrage. ‘Let me go,’ she warned softly, but they both heard the shake in her voice. And surely Emir could feel her trembling beneath his touch. He must feel the heated awareness in her skin.

He murmured something in his own language. It might as well have been a spell. She turned to look at him, not keen to go anywhere suddenly.

‘It seems to me we have a timing problem, Britt. But there is a solution, if you will allow me to take it?’

Emir’s eyes were dark and amused. At first she thought she must have misunderstood him, but there was no mistake, and the solution he was proposing had been in her mind for some time. But surely no civilised businessman would be willing to enter into such a risky entanglement within an hour of meeting her?

As Emir’s hand grazed her chin she moved into his embrace, allowing him to turn her face up to his. This was no meeting between business colleagues. This was a meeting between a man and woman who were hot for each other, and the man was a warrior of the desert.