Bodyguard...To Bridegroom?

And if his responsibilities and her rights failed to align...? ‘Is that your way of asking me to do whatever you say?’

‘It’s my way of asking you not to fight me just for the sake of it.’

Hmm. Maybe he had read her file.

‘Fair enough. Parameter three...’ Time to really lay down the law. ‘I’m your responsibility, but not your friend. You get to be annoyed but not disappointed if things don’t go how you’d like them to.’

Okay, so maybe that baggage wasn’t really his to be encumbered with but it couldn’t hurt to knock it on the head nice and early. The last thing she needed on her big desert time out was anything that reminded her of her father’s not-so-quiet disappointment.

‘I’m good with that. Very good, in fact. I’m not here for the conversation.’

She sat back straighter against the plush leather seat. ‘Any final comments?’

He considered. ‘Parameter four. If you need help—if you really need it—you come to me. No matter what else has gone down between now and then. I’ll manage whatever it is.’

There was that word again...

She’d been managed her whole life.

‘You really have a thing for control, don’t you?’ Which was tantamount to waving a red tea towel at the bull of her capricious nature.

He shrugged. ‘I’m paid to control our environment.’

Her environment, for the next four weeks.

‘Okay...’ Four weeks was a long time, she needed to lighten things up a bit. ‘Courtesy, cooperation, respect and emergency protocol. I think we’ve covered everything. Except maybe a safe word? I vote for “capsicum”.’

His dark brows folded. ‘Capsicum?’

‘You know...in case either of us needs out of this arrangement at any time?’

If she thought the muscles of his face capable of it, she would have pegged that tiny twist on the right of his mouth as a smile. Probably just gas. Except then he really blew her mind by making a joke.

Kind of.

‘What if you’re ordering at a restaurant and you say it?’ he queried, eyes fixed on the road ahead.

Her perception of him shifted just a little. In an upward direction.

‘I’ll call them peppers.’

‘And if you’re planting a garden?’

She matched his straight face. ‘In the deserts of Umm Khoreem?’

‘What if you’re picking out wall colours?’

She laid her hand on her heart. ‘I pledge to do no interior decorating until this month is up.’

His eyes returned to hers and—miracle of miracles—they were just a hint warmer than before. More bark of oak and less Thames in winter.

‘Okay.’ He nodded. ‘Capsicum it is.’

Why did it feel good to have had a small win over this man, even in jest? And exactly when had it started feeling a little bit like flirting?

CHAPTER TWO

THE MORE SHE SPOKE, the more comfortable Brad felt about the month ahead. This wasn’t some helpless princess who would flap her hands every time something didn’t go her way. She wasn’t the needy type. She might well end up being a pain in his butt but at least she wouldn’t be looking to him for any kind of rescue. As far as he could see, this gig was more about protecting her from herself.

Still, she was celebrity offspring and he was a pro and so, out of habit, his eyes scanned the many expensive vehicles keeping pace with them at two hundred clicks on the highway away from Kafr Falaj. Each one with extra dark window tinting that obscured its occupants. Once, that would have made him twitchy, but this was Umm Khoreem—there was an oil-rich sea between here and any of the conflict hotspots he’d ever been stationed. And he was here keeping an eye on some rock star’s kid, not enforcing sanctions or protecting UN personnel.

Those days were behind him.

He cracked his knuckles and slid his eyes back to his client. Sera had made quite a meal of studying the endless desert since the whole ground-rules conversation had limped to a civil halt between them, and her eyes were still fixed on the massive dunes in the distance as they sped along the Al Dhinn highway.

His mind flashed up the client sheet that her London-based security firm had provided.

Seraphina Blaise. Twenty-four years old, daughter of a middle-aged Goth frontman who’d been performing live for most of Brad’s own youth and still was today. A punishing and relentless schedule that kept his band, The Ravens, at the top of the charts whenever they released anything. Blaise didn’t really seem old enough to have an adult daughter, but who knew with these rock types—they started their careers young, or made their mistakes early. Whichever.

His daughter’s file was full of labels like ‘ardent’ and ‘rash’ but also ‘committed’ and ‘loyal’. And ‘damaged’. There were screenshots about her very public arrest earlier in the year mixed amongst older citations for volunteering, academic excellence and her talent as a photographer. So which was true? He had citations—a drawer full of them—and they didn’t necessarily make him a better person.

Maybe he’d be better off ignoring what was in Sera’s file and conducting his own assessment.

Her tongue might be a little sharp but it worked for a pretty switched-on brain; not everyone called him out as thoroughly as she had just now. It was hard not to respect a pre-emptive striker even if she was overly cranky. She’d just been detained by one of the toughest and touchiest governments in the world—he’d throw her a bone on that one.

She’d been carved by some kind of post-modern sculptor. A whole bunch of mismatched parts that came together into an intriguingly curious package. Everything about her was long. Her face, her jaw, her nose. Hair. Fingers. Legs. It reminded him of Al Saqr’s best Arab horses but still managed to be feminine. It shouldn’t really work together but somehow it did, leaving her more...striking than classically pretty. She didn’t accessorise with copious amounts of jewellery the way most of her flight had; other than the silver clasps on her flimsy blouse, the treacle-brown hair tumbling down over her bare shoulders was all the decoration she needed.

On the other hand, she’d swanned into a conservative country with her arms and shoulders bare. Ordinarily, he would have chalked that up to cultural ignorance, but in Sera... He found it hard to imagine that she hadn’t read up on the region she was visiting. It was almost as if she was challenging Umm Khoreem to a silent social debate.

Maybe she was. Her file was full of protests and causes and righteous indignation about one thing or another.

For the second time in forty minutes, Brad hit the indicator to change lanes, and he navigated the SUV around and under the highway to reach the start of Al Saqr’s access road. He let the massive vehicle own the road; when the resort was as exclusive and private as Al Saqr, oncoming traffic was rarely an issue.

Sera sat up straighter to see what was ahead. The composed woman he’d seen at the airport was morphing, with every stretch of her long neck, into a different creature. A more excited, engaged, relaxed woman.

Or maybe the desert was just wielding its subtle magic already. It was good like that.

‘Still fifteen minutes,’ Brad murmured, and she slumped back into her seat like an impatient teen. He forced himself not to smile. ‘Is this your first desert?’

‘Not counting ones I’ve flown over? Yes.’

‘Whatever you’re expecting,’ he murmured, ‘you’re wrong.’

Her eyebrows raised, but she didn’t bite. She peered, instead, out the front of the vehicle at the vast...nothing...that was ahead of them.

Five minutes later, he pulled to a halt at Al Saqr’s armed boundary checkpoint. Per the regulations, the guard came out and eyeballed the whole vehicle—including the empty back seats—checking Sera’s name off the sparse guest register before waving them through the raised boom gate. In his periphery, Sera eyed the massive mesh fences stretching out in both directions as far as she could see and the casual way the guard’s high-powered weapon was slung over his shoulder. For the first time, her confidence seemed to wobble. Just a little.

‘Do you get much trouble out here?’

‘The fences are to protect the wildlife,’ he reassured. Though, in truth, they went a long way to making his job easier given the only people allowed past Al Saqr’s checkpoint were registered guests, staff and suppliers. That lessened his field of professional concern from everyone on the Arabian Peninsula to just a comparative handful.

Although something told him that Sera, herself, would be dominating his field of concern for the next few weeks of his life.

That elegant neck started craning again as they left the asphalt and hit the compacted road gouged through the desert. Around them, the geometric shapes carved by wind into the sand and the occasional fire bush dominated. But as they crested a high dune she got her first glimpse of the resort far ahead, nestled in the middle of an enormous expanse of interlocking, golden blonde sand dunes.

Like the oasis it functionally was.

‘It’s gorgeous,’ Sera breathed.

Yeah, it was. The resort stretched like a jewelled tiara along the top edge of a massive sand ridge.

Not that the desert needed any gilding.

The date palms that signalled the presence of shallow groundwater started to whizz by, first in singles, then in spikey clusters. Tucked away between small dune rises on their left and right were small, scattered buildings—service sites for the resort and their staff—but the road kept on moving past those, disappointing Sera visibly every time one was not part of the larger resort. Finally, the palm clusters merged into a proper croft and Sidr and Ghaf trees thickened up around them as neat herringbone pavers seemed to emerge from the graded sand like the yellow brick road in Oz.

Just as well, too, or Sera would have run out of seat to climb. He glanced sideways at her and tried hard not to acknowledge that curiosity did good things to her face.

‘Oh, wow!’

He loved this part. The moment that someone saw Al Saqr for the first time. The luxury resort that she would be calling home for the next month.

He scanned the arrivals area ahead as they pulled into the paved circle in front of the resort’s reception despite knowing that no one but authorised personnel and guests could have been inside the fences. Old habits died hard.

‘Standby,’ he instructed, levering his door handle.

Dry heat rushed past him as he climbed out, still scanning for threats, then crossed quickly in front of the SUV to open the passenger side door as two staff emerged from the heavy timber entrance of the resort’s central hub. The shorter of the two was traditionally but comfortably dressed, smiling broadly enough to pop dimples, his hand outstretched. Behind him stood a taller man, ginger haired, dressed in khaki and boots.

They nodded briefly to Brad then stood at attention as he gave Sera his arm down from the high SUV.

She stepped forward enthusiastically as soon as her feet touched earth.

‘Hi!’

Brad closed the SUV door quietly and stood in much the same pose as his colleagues—hands behind him, back straight—as they introduced themselves to Sera. There was little sign of the woman from the airport, now. This Sera had pulled her thick hair back in a desert-friendly ponytail while she was waiting for him to clear the arrivals area and wore undisguised excitement on her face. You had to be a real tough guy to remain unaffected by Al Saqr’s unique beauty.

This Sera was more girl than woman, and the unfamiliar twist in his gut hit him again.

‘Ms Blaise, welcome,’ the shorter of the two men said in impeccable English, pressing an introduction card into her hand for her later reference. ‘I am Aqil, your guest relations coordinator. Anything you need, do not hesitate to ask for me.’

Eric was taller, and he leaned around Aqil to shake Sera’s hand and introduce himself before adding, ‘I’m an Al Saqr field guide. You’ll be doing your activities with me.’

Two more staff emerged with a guest trolley and quietly collected Sera’s luggage from the SUV as Aqil and Eric ushered her beyond the main doors. Brad followed the arctic air that pumped out through the opening courtesy of air-conditioning powered by the ocean of solar panels tucked between the dunes out of guest view. No matter how many times he was assigned out here, stepping inside was always like walking into Aladdin’s cave. Cool, dark and just a little bit mystic. Traditional Arabian architecture and furnishings had been put to good use in the resort’s foyer, and the whole place smelled vaguely...herbal. It had an immediate impact on Sera.

‘I wish I’d kept my camera out of my luggage,’ she murmured, running her eyes from the labyrinthine floor tiles up to the ornate timber roof features.

Aqil turned a winning smile on her. ‘It is beautiful, no? You will be in this building often over the coming weeks. Many opportunities. This way, please.’

They guided her into the receiving lounge off to one side of the foyer, filled with richly upholstered sofas and low, old tables. Old in a good way—an expensive way—not old like the beaten-up furniture he remembered from his UN days in the desert villages. Eric returned with a tall glass of tropical fruit juice for Sera.

‘While you rest here I’ll just have a word with your liaisons,’ Brad murmured.

She might have heard him, she might not. Her attention was so thoroughly taken by the feel of the woven sheaves hanging over the arched doorway and the intricate wrought iron decorating the window looking back out to the foyer. But he took momentary leave to check in with Aqil and Eric.

Their focus shifted immediately once they were out of Sera’s presence.

‘What’s the protocol?’ Aqil said quietly.

‘Close contact,’ he briefed them, fast. Which meant he needed to be on hand nearby. Very nearby. ‘Where have you put her?’

Aqil consulted the site map spread on his desk. ‘Suite ten is vacant on both sides.’

Ten was good. Far enough away from other guests for privacy and quiet but close enough to the main buildings for a fast response if needed. And it meant he could set up camp in eleven, right next door. Al Saqr had multi-roomed suites, but an unrelated man and woman under one roof on the Arabian Peninsula...? Nope, not even if she was under serious threat. But better safe than sorry. Celebrity did weird things to people.

And he didn’t take any risks these days. He’d come too close in the past.

‘No one enters her suite when she’s in it unless I’m present,’ he ordered.

‘Understood.’

He rattled off a few other need-to-knows and then turned back to the lounge where Sera had finished fondling the curtains and sat, happy as a clam, sipping her juice on the luxuriously padded traditional lounge. Her smile was as bright as the desert outside when he returned to her side.

‘It’s all so amazing,’ she gushed.

His gut twisted that little bit more. He didn’t want her softening. He didn’t want bright innocence to start peeking out from behind the façade. He wanted the self-assured, cranky client to stay. Because she was easier to dislike.

And dislike was easier to manage.

‘Ready for your room?’

She glanced longingly at the juice still half-full in her hand then back at him.

He caught the smile before it infected the rest of his neutral expression. ‘Those are as common as sand out here.’

She took one final long, hard suck on her straw, then placed the glass down on the carved coaster that had been discreetly laid out for her.

‘Let’s go.’

* * *

Al Saqr must look a bit like a scorpion from the air, Sera thought. Long stretches of treed pathway extended out from the resort’s main building like articulated legs, going in different directions along the bank of the massive dune the resort was built on. Dotted along them at private yet accessible distances were the individual suites.

Not rooms exactly, she saw as they passed two that weren’t theirs, more like quasi-tents with the same plastered white walls and dark timber windows as the resort, but with canopied canvas roofs sitting like a broad sun hat over each hexagonal suite. With timber deck everywhere its shadows reached.

She sighed as her eyes fell on every new and alien thing. Nothing here would remind her of the media and their scrabbling. Or of home. Or the season.

‘Here we are,’ Aqil advised, pulling the courtesy buggy into the shade of a suite about halfway along the front leg of the scorpion, facing all that empty desert.

The way the suites were staggered, it was easy to feel that it was just she and the desert. No other human being or work as far as the eye could see. She took her time getting off the buggy, knowing that Brad would get there before her and indeed he did, sweeping inside as soon as the door opened and clearing the room before she was allowed into it. She smiled awkwardly at Aqil, who just shrugged and waited in patient, dimpled silence with her.

Stepping inside was totally worth the wait. Cool and dim and fragrant. Just like the resort reception. But that was where the similarity ended. This was a suite that managed to be simple yet more luxurious than anything she’d ever stayed in before. The six-sided shape of the room was countered by custom furniture in traditional style so that everything fitted without making it feel cluttered. Long sofas, luxury coffee station, writing desk and an opulent, high, king-sized bed centred against it all. Three of the six edges of the suite were glass doors with thick light-controlling drapes of the same kind of silken weave she’d gone crazy patting earlier.

Until Aqil flung one set open.

Beyond the glass doors, the Arabian desert flowed golden and dramatic, its dunes laid out in all their glory all the way to the horizon where the shadows of mountains loomed. And immediately in front, between all that sand and her air-conditioned life-support system, a gorgeous, deep, blue plunge pool, half in desert sun, half in shade.

Sera pressed her hands to the glass doors and leaned into the heat soaking in through them. Hot desert. Cold pool. Espresso station. Massive Princess and the Pea bed...

Some of the tension she’d been carrying around for the past year shifted and broke away, turning to dust on the warm desert breeze.

‘Your home for the next month,’ Aqil murmured. ‘Let me show you everything...’

It only took a few minutes, yet there was nothing she could need that Al Saqr hadn’t thought of. Lazy luxury from top to bottom.

‘Mr Kruger is in the suite immediately to your right,’ Aqil said when the tour was done, handing Brad an old-fashioned, hand-wrought key that matched hers. ‘His bag has been placed there already.’

On cue, hers was whisked in. Even with only one bag, she’d over-packed. Right now she would be entirely happy to spend the whole month in her swimsuit, though probably she’d need to throw on a dress to go for food now and then. She glanced at the table set up by the pool.

Unless she had dinner come to her...

Another knot in her shoulder unravelled.

‘Aqil, thank you. This is...exactly what I needed.’

Silence. Beauty. Nature. Far enough from civilisation that even she couldn’t cause a stir out here. The perfect place to lie low for a bit.

And not a hint of Christmas festivity.

‘We pride ourselves on being what our guests need, Miss Blaise,’ Aqil murmured. Then he excused himself, told her how she could contact him if she needed him and departed. She leaned back on the warm glass doors, closed her eyes and let even more of the tension soak away into that heat.

When they reopened, Brad was still there. Waiting quietly for instructions.

Kruger. Brad Kruger. A strong name for a strong man.

‘I’m going to dig out my camera,’ she said, pushing the thought away as firmly as she pushed herself away from the glass. ‘And I’m going to take a swim. And lie on this day lounge. Possibly not in that order. Why don’t you get settled in next door and come back when you’re done? We can talk about how this is all going to work.’

He nodded—the only discernible part of his inscrutable expression—and departed, leaving just her, her heavy heart and the non-judgemental desert.

* * *

Brad tore himself away from the familiar view and got up off the sofa. Getting ‘settled’ had only taken him a few minutes—how long could it take to unpack one small bag and lay out basic toiletries in the obscenely large bathroom?

If Sera’s UK security were paying for anything other than close contact then he would be back in his own apartment in the city, driving out to the resort every morning to supervise his client. But close contact meant close and so he’d be enjoying the resort’s six-star facilities gratis for the next month. His eyes strayed back out to the soft, rich light falling onto the desert sands.

There were definitely worse ways to spend your Christmas.

He’d heard the distant splash of Sera lowering herself into her pool a while earlier, so he trusted that she was too busy enjoying the view to be getting up to any early mischief. But he’d figured she could probably use a little mental space after her dramatic arrival in the country, so he’d cooled his heels for the twenty minutes after unpacking, then done a token perimeter assessment of both their suites to stretch it out a little more.

In his experience, protectees never adjusted quite as well to the idea of close contact as the protectors, even the ones whose lives depended on high-level guard. It was a skill, hitting that fine balance between too much and too little supervision. Relaxed enough to keep your client sane and compliant, but not so relaxed that it opened a window for the kind of risk that he was hired to protect them against. And not so much that the client became overly reliant on you and stopped listening to their own instincts. Overly reliant or overly fond—the small twist in his gut reminded him. That was just as dangerous. As he’d discovered the hard way.

The best balance was...indifferent acquiescence.

That was what he’d be pushing for with Sera.

His suite, which also meant hers, was unchanged from the last time he was assigned to Al Saqr—locked from the inside, glass doors on three sides, huge pair of timber doors on the public side, privacy fences all around but open to desert everywhere else. Rule of thumb here was that you kept your desert walks away from your neighbouring accommodations; a privacy thing. So staff wouldn’t visit while Sera was in the suite and no one should be hauling themselves up the dune face and stumbling into her private pool area any time soon.

Though shouldn’t and wouldn’t weren’t necessarily the same thing. His formal orders were to make sure Sera stayed out of trouble while the media attention from her recent legal troubles died down, but when your father was as rich and famous as hers, anything was possible. And he wasn’t about to get caught out by letting his guard down.

Once burned, ten times shy.

Brad locked suite eleven’s door behind him and jogged past Sera’s to the neighbours on the other side to confirm nine was definitely empty. Then he checked his watch to ensure a full hour had passed and he presented himself back at her door, knocking firmly.

He counted to ten before trying again.

Still nothing.

‘Sera?’

His chest filled with lead. Please don’t let her have gone exploring alone...

Just because she’d agreed to ground rule number two in the SUV didn’t mean she’d stick to it when faced with the seductions of this unique place. He stepped down off the decking leading to the front door and walked around the side of the suite where his own had a side opening for maintenance staff to use. He could hear a bunch of animal noises he didn’t recognise—one of them a kind of gaspy hitch—so the wildlife around them could be just about anything.