The Sheikh's Last Gamble

His hands stilled. He didn’t need any reminders of why he wasn’t still at the roulette table. He turned slowly. ‘Be careful, princess.’

She jerked up her chin. ‘That’s the second time you’ve addressed me by my title. Is it so long that you’ve forgotten my name? Or can you just not bring yourself to utter it?’

‘Is it so long that you’ve forgotten that I said I never wanted to see you again?’

‘Maybe you should have thought of that before you turned up outside my tent that night.’

‘Is that what this is about? Why should that change anything? Or were you merely hoping to thank me?’

‘Thank you? For what?’

‘For rescuing you from Mustafa.’

‘Oh, you kid yourself, Bahir. You weren’t there for me. You were along for the ride, only there to have fun with your band of merry men. A little boys’ own adventure to whet your taste for excitement. So don’t expect me to get down on bended knees to thank you.’

A sudden memory of her on bended knee assailed him, temporarily shorting his brain, just as her mouth and wicked tongue had done back then. Not that she’d been thanking him exactly that time. More like tasting him. Laving him with her tongue. Devouring him. In fact, if he remembered correctly, he’d been the one to thank her …

He shook his head, wondering if he would ever be rid of those images, knowing he would miss them in the dead of sleepless nights if they were gone. But that minor concession didn’t mean he welcomed their presence now while he was trying to make a point. ‘I wouldn’t want your thanks anyway. If I did anything that night, it was out of loyalty to Zoltan and my brothers. It was duty, nothing more.’

‘How very noble of you.’

‘I don’t care what you call it. Just don’t go thinking that I’ve changed my mind about what I said back then. You’d be kidding yourself if you did. What we had is over.’

‘You really think you have to tell me that? I have no trouble remembering what you said. Likewise, I have no trouble believing you mean it now, just as you meant it then. And, for the record, it is you who are kidding yourself if you think I am insane enough to want you to change your mind. After what you said to me, after the way you treated me, I wouldn’t take you back if you were the last man left on earth!’

He sat back down in his seat. ‘So we understand each other, this is merely duty. Of the most unpleasant kind.’

Her eyes glared across at him as he buckled up. ‘Finally you say something I can agree with.’

Her agreement offered no satisfaction. His mood only mirrored the darkening sky as the plane descended judderingly through the clouds, icy rain clawing at the windows, the tempestuous winds tearing at the wings—and a sick feeling in his gut that, whatever the weather, things were not about to improve.

CHAPTER THREE

THE plane touched down somewhere on the coast of western Turkey at a small airport not far from where the rocky shoreline met the sea. It was almost dark now, although still only mid-afternoon, and they emerged from the plane into a howling wind that tore at their clothes and sucked the words from their mouths. A waiting car whisked Marina and Bahir through the immigration formalities before surprising Marina by heading away from the airport.

She flicked her windswept hair back from her face and looked longingly back at the airport. ‘Shouldn’t we stay with the plane?’ she asked, concerned. ‘So we’re ready to take off when the weather clears?’

Was it the lashing from the rain that had eroded her harsh demeanour and left her softer, almost vulnerable? Whatever. With her long black hair in wild disarray around her face, and with her eyelashes still spiked with the air’s muggy atmosphere, she looked younger. Softer. Almost like she had when she’d woken sleepily from a night of love-making. All that was missing was the smile and the hungry glint in her eyes as she’d eagerly climbed astride him for more.

‘Didn’t you hear the pilot’s last announcement, princess?’ Bahir asked, dragging his thoughts away from misspent days and nights long gone. This was the reason he’d never wanted to see her again. Because he knew she’d make him remember all the things he would never again enjoy. ‘Airports all over Europe are closed. We are not going anywhere tonight.’

‘But my children … I promised them I would be home tonight.’

Bahir looked away. He wasn’t taken in by her sudden maternal concern for her children. It was the first time she had even mentioned them and, if they meant so much to her, why had she left them at home in the first place? Maybe in hindsight it might have been the right thing to do this time, given how she had lumbered into the path of Mustafa, but she could not have known that would happen. And surely they had deserved to be at their own aunt’s wedding if not the coronation of Zoltan himself?

‘We leave at first light,’ he said, already looking forward to it. ‘You will be home soon enough.’ Though never soon enough for him.

She was silent as they passed through a small town that was seemingly abandoned as everyone had taken cover from the storm, the shutters of windows all closed, awnings flapping and snapping in the wind.

‘So where are we going now? Why couldn’t we stay with the plane?’

‘The crew are staying with the plane. It is, after all, Al-Jiradi property. They will not leave it.’

‘So we must?’

‘There is a small hotel on the coast. Very exclusive. You will be more comfortable there.’

‘And you?’

‘This is not about my comfort.’

If there was comfort in this hotel, it was proving elusive to find. There was luxury, it was true: the plushest silk carpets, the finest examples of the weaver’s art. The most lavish of fixtures and fittings, from the colourful Byzantine tiles to the gold taps set with emeralds the size of quails’ eggs.

But comfort was nowhere to be found. Just as it was impossible to sleep. Even now, when it seemed the worst of the storm had passed, lightning still flashed intermittently through the richly embroidered drapes, filling the room with an electric white light and bleaching the room of colour. But the atmosphere in the room remained heavy with the storm’s passing, and the soft bed and starched bed-linen felt stifling. She looked longingly at the doors that led onto the terrace overlooking the sea.

Ever since they’d arrived she’d locked herself away in her suite, wanting desperately to find distance from that man. He’d been impossible on the plane, sullen and resentful at first, openly explosive when the news had come of their flight’s delay, as if it had been all her fault.

Maybe it was. She had been the one to agree to him seeing her safely home, but it wasn’t for the reason he was thinking—that she somehow imagined that he might change his mind, that he might take her back.

What kind of arrogance led a man to believe a woman would want him back after the things he’d said to her?

Did he think she had no pride?

No, the man was unbearable.

So she’d taken refuge in her room, savouring her privacy and her time alone to call Catriona and explain about the delay. She took her time to talk to each of her children and tell them she would soon be home to hug and kiss them and tickle their tummies until they collapsed with laughter again.

It had seemed such a good idea to lock herself away like this while the storm had raged all around. But like the worst of the storm, hours had passed, and still she could not sleep. Still, she could not make sense of the war going on inside herself.

For she hated him, didn’t she? Hated him for the way he had amputated her from his life as quickly and decisively as if he’d been slicing a piece of fruit—as if she had never meant more than that to him. Yet still one sight of him and some primal, some base, bodily response kicked in and she had been wet with wanting him. Even now her body ached with need, as if he had flicked some kind of switch and turned her heartbeat into some kind of pulsing drumbeat of desire.

What kind of woman did that make her?

Was she mad? Or simply wanton? The party princess out for nothing but a good time and not caring who it was who gave it to her.

God, it was hot! The mattress seemed to cocoon her, trapping the heat of her thoughts and slowly roasting her in them. She pushed herself up and a bead of sweat trickled from her hair down her neck.

So much for a refuge. All she’d succeeded in doing was exchanging one kind of prison for another. And, in a few short hours from now, she’d be back on the plane—with him—and the torture would continue.

Another flash of lightning lit up the room, and her gaze went to the doors again. There was a chance they could be opened now, without being blown off their hinges or she being blown away herself. And maybe it would be cooler outside on her terrace. Maybe the wind would tear away some of the heat from her overheated skin, and maybe the air might have a chance to cool her sheets while she was gone.

She slid from the bed and reached for her gown, only remembering then that it was still tucked somewhere deep in her luggage because she had thought the weather too warm to need it. She thought for a moment of the hotel robe waiting neatly on a hanger in the closet, but the thought of towelling against her skin when she was already so hot …

She hesitated only a fraction of a moment. She didn’t really need it. It was three in the morning, and she was only stepping onto the darkened terrace. She wouldn’t be outside for long, and she so craved the feel of cool air and rain on her skin.

The wind had dropped but still she had to hang onto the door lest it slam open. She snicked it firmly closed behind her, knowing the sound would not carry over the waves crashing on the nearby shore, the wind already whipping her hair around her face and sending swirls of air up the slit in her long nightie, brushing against her legs and fanning against her heated core.

She shivered, not with cold from a sprinkling of rain, but with the wind’s delicious caress against her skin, and she turned into the onshore wind, pushing against it until she reached the balustrade overlooking the sea.