The Sheikh Who Loved Her: Ruling Sheikh, Unruly Mistress / Surrender to the Playboy Sheikh / Her Desert Dream

‘Yes?’ His face eased into a cynical smile as if he had been expecting this all along.

‘You left me a ridiculous amount of money in Val d’Isere,’ she began nervously.

‘Have you never received a tip before? I find that hard to believe.’

A tip for good service? Lucy wondered, feeling mortified as Razi’s sweeping brows lifted in mocking denial of everything they’d shared. ‘A tip? Yes,’ she said as her mind cleared. ‘Of course.’ She borrowed Razi’s mannerism and shrugged, as if a guest leaving her a tip big enough to buy a house with was an everyday occurrence. ‘I can’t think why else you’d leave me so much money.’

‘What aspect of money and payment would you like to discuss first?’ he offered, so certain of moral victory he opened his arms in a gesture of encouragement.

To see Razi so cut off from human feeling broke her heart. It hadn’t even occurred to him that she might be here to see him, or that what she felt for him was deep and everlasting love that asked for nothing in return. But this wasn’t about Lucy Tennant or even Razi al Maktabi, it was about a small defenceless child. She were here in Isla de Sinnebar to tell a man who no longer existed that they were going to have a baby together. The fact that something in Razi’s history meant he couldn’t imagine a woman loving him as she loved him was irrelevant.

The man she knew had gone and in his place was the ruler of Isla de Sinnebar, a warrior sheikh, who probably knew more about mastering a fiery stallion at the head of his troops than love. And now she was desperate to buy time. She might be strong and determined in her mind, but, unlike Razi, she was human and exhausted. Pregnancy had drained her and the enormity of the task ahead of her had begun to tell. ‘Would you mind if I freshened up before we talk? All I need is—’

‘Five minutes of my time?’ he interrupted.

‘If you can spare it?’

‘I can spare you five minutes—in my office. When you’re ready to see me ring the bell and someone will come to escort you. Don’t keep me waiting, Lucy.’

And with a swirl of robes he was gone.

He was a king with measureless powers, a king who had sworn to devote himself to a country and its people, but he was also a man and had thought that part of him locked away before Lucy’s reappearance.

She was a brief, bright memory, and must remain so, he told himself firmly. He wasn’t a ruler under sufferance. He wanted to be King so that he could change things for the better in Isla de Sinnebar.

He wanted the responsibility that came with rebuilding a backward country and would allow nothing to stand in the way of progress or the happiness of his people—and that included Lucy Tennant. If she wanted more money she could have it, but she could not stay. His first action would be to get her out of the building and away from public view. Her mere presence in a country that was still so backward-looking was all it might take for unsettling rumours to start up.

But she had fainted at his feet and he was concerned about her. She didn’t appear to be her usual robust self. There had always been something luminous about Lucy, but now there was a fragility he hadn’t noticed before. Perhaps it was just lack of food—or dehydration, the climate change or jet lag—or perhaps the stress of coming to see him. Whatever—he could at least feed her.

His arrival in the kitchens caused quite a stir. He ordered a picnic to be packed immediately. However suspicious he was of Lucy’s motives, hospitality was the way in Isla de Sinnebar and that particular tradition insisted he attended to all of her needs before he sent her on her way.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

SITTING by Razi’s side in an unmarked army Jeep, Lucy was filled with apprehension. He had dismissed the driver. The vehicle had been waiting for them with its engine running, at the back door of the Maktabi office building with her luggage already loaded in the back. Razi was wearing jeans, desert boots and a plain black top, with the sleeves cut off to accommodate his biceps and a pair of aviators concealing the expression in his astute green eyes. To a casual observer he would pass for any particularly good-looking government agent with an uneasy suspect at his side. ‘Are we going to the airport?’ she asked, dry-mouthed.

‘Soon.’

So, where were they going? Lucy wondered, her anxiety mounting as the Jeep swept away from the kerb. Her great idea lay in ashes. Telling Razi her wonderful news now would be akin to walking into the lion’s den and asking if the lion would like relish with his meal. She couldn’t do it. Her first priority had to be going home to England where she could consult a lawyer. ‘Is there another flight to the UK today?’

‘Not as far as I’m aware.’

She craned her neck to read a sign as Razi drove down a slip road onto the highway. ‘Where did you say we were going?’

‘I didn’t.’ As you very well know, his quick glance seemed to say. ‘We’re going into the desert.’

The desert? Her heart was thundering so violently she felt sick. Why couldn’t they have talked at the office as Razi had suggested? Because he didn’t want anyone to see him with her, Lucy concluded.

But he could have ordered someone to take her to the airport.

And had chosen not to.

Because he wouldn’t want any loose ends, she told herself sensibly, trying to calm down. Razi would never ask anyone to do something he believed was his duty; he took care of his own problems.

The highway cut through the desert, and at one time exploring that would have excited her, but the thought of travelling into such dangerous terrain with a man who could only wish she had never existed was a terrifying prospect.

Razi’s grim expression did nothing to allay Lucy’s fears. They sat in silence while he drove the same way he made love, with focus and a frightening degree of skill. ‘I thought you were joking about the desert,’ she said nervously as he took a turning off the highway.

‘I never joke,’ he said grimly.

Not these days. And now there was only the shimmering heat haze in front of them and the wilderness beyond.

When they arrived at their destination he had barely put the brake on before Lucy tumbled out of the Jeep. She gazed around in fear at what he realised must appear nothing more than featureless desert and mountainous dunes to her. ‘There’s more to come,’ he assured her, springing down to stand by her side.

She didn’t answer and the tension in her shoulders filled him with the urge to comfort her. He had forgotten how natural and unaffected she was, or that he hadn’t met anyone like her before or since. He made the effort to see things through her eyes and then he realised that what was familiar to him was strange and threatening to Lucy, and as she stumbled on the sand he leapt forward to steady her. ‘You’re trembling,’ he said, taking tighter hold of her. ‘You’ve no need to be frightened of me.’ He stared into her anxious eyes. ‘I come here all the time,’ he explained. ‘It’s quite safe. I thought it would be better for our talk than a sterile office building.’

‘It’s certainly more discreet,’ she observed shrewdly.

He had forgotten how perceptive she was too. ‘As soon as we’ve had our talk,’ he promised, ‘I’ll take you back.’

She looked at him as if to say she knew as well as he did that the time of her departure would depend on him just as her arrival had and that he held all the cards. ‘Lead on,’ she said, firming her jaw.

Something had changed. Lucy was stronger than when they’d first met …

Whatever it was he didn’t have long to find out.

Razi was a master of surprise. He’d sprung the first surprise at the door of his office where he’d been dressed in casual clothes and ready to leave, and now this drive into the wild interior. At first she thought there was nothing to see other than sand, but as Razi led the way up the shallow side of a dune and she saw the panorama on the other side she realised her dreams of a desert kingdom had been insipid stabs at conjuring the reality.

‘No comment?’ Razi demanded.

She was too stunned to speak. ‘It’s very beautiful,’ she said at last. This was a massive understatement. The brow of the dune was flat, allowing them to stand securely and look over the surrounding land. She was acutely aware of Razi at her side, sharing the moment as she gazed up into a metallic-blue sky streaked lemon and baby pink. There was a gash of neon-orange at the horizon and all the vivid colours of the dying sun were reflected on the surface of a glittering oasis, whose water was so clear she could see each tiny pebble on the sandy floor. Lush green palm trees provided a frame and there was even fruit hanging thickly amongst the fronds. But it was the pavilion on the bank of the oasis, with its ivory silk walls framed in indigo dusk, undulating lazily in the night-time breezes, that really held her attention. ‘Is that a traditional structure?’

‘It’s mine,’ he said, following her gaze.

‘It’s so romantic.’ She regretted the words the moment they left her mouth.

Razi remained silent, staring out across his desert kingdom. He moved down the dune and she followed him. He strode to the pavilion where he held the curtain aside for her to enter. As she dipped her head and brushed past him she was aware of his exotic scent, and as she walked deeper into the shaded interior she felt the heat of his stare on her back.

As she looked around he explained, ‘Everything you see here was produced in this country.’

It said something about a man who could take his pick from the world’s riches, and yet had furnished his desert retreat only with those items that carried a particular significance to him. Razi’s devotion to the Isla de Sinnebar couldn’t have been more starkly illustrated and she realised his trip to the mountains when they’d met had been one last indulgence before Razi returned to rule—and that her part in that trip had been nothing more than an entertainment for him.

‘What do you think?’ he said, interrupting these thoughts.

She brushed away the sadness and concentrated on her surroundings. ‘I think it’s magical,’ she said honestly. Everything was new and strange to her—she had everything to learn about his country. As she ran the palm of her hand over the fabric walls Razi explained that they were woven so fine to keep out the sand. So like the furniture they were functional as well as beautiful. It was like a treasure trove—Aladdin’s cave, she thought as she turned around to examine everything. There were chests of burnished ebony inlaid with mother of pearl, pierced brass tables and fabulous rugs intricately woven in jewel colours. Plump silk cushions invited rest, while polished lamps cast a subdued and honeyed light. As if a veil had dropped from her eyes, Lucy saw the heritage she was denying her child. The interior of the pavilion was so lovely she yearned for the opportunity to ask Razi for the history of every piece so she could squirrel the information away to tell her baby when the time was right. But how could she do that when he didn’t want idle conversation—and when the time would never be right? How could she ever have a normal conversation with him when she was concealing such a vital piece of news?

He offered her water, which she drank, and then she waited while he went back to the Jeep to collect the picnic he’d brought with them. This gave her an opportunity to look at things more closely, and now she noticed the platters of sweetmeats and the jugs of juice. ‘You planned this,’ she said when he returned.

‘You gave me around five minutes, I seem to remember,’ he said dryly, placing the basket of food on the ground.

And servants would rush to do his bidding, Lucy realised. Razi had everything in the material sense, and yet he seemed to have lost his joie de vivre, along with his capacity to love or even empathise with a fellow human being. How could that be good for his country? How could a fun-free life with a duty-bound father be good for her child?

‘Many of these gifts were left by the Bedouin,’ he explained, oblivious to her concerns. ‘And my brother uses the place sometimes.’

Lucy shuddered at Razi’s mention of the man known as The Sword of Vengeance. ‘You two must be very close,’ she ventured.

‘We trust each other completely.’

What would Ra’id make of her? Lucy wondered. She had to remind herself the great Sheikh probably wouldn’t think about staff at all.

Some of this must have shown on her face, she guessed as Razi dipped his head to stare at her. ‘Are you unwell?’ he demanded.

‘I’m fine,’ she lied, knowing pregnancy had taken hold of both her body and her turbulent thoughts.

‘Here, drink this.’ He poured another glass of water.

‘I’m perfectly all right,’ she insisted as he stared closely at her. But gullible was one thing Razi had never been.

He was instantly suspicious. There had been too much force behind Lucy’s assurance that she was all right. So what was she hiding? He refused to consider the most obvious explanation. Lucy was too honest to hide something so vital from him. But her eyes were wary and she was very pale …

The desire to protect Lucy and to defend a country combined in a surge of longing. He couldn’t have both and had been right to get her out of the city and away from prying eyes. He could have taken her to any number of places, but had chosen the sultry, seductive setting of the Maktabi Lagoon, a place so rich in ecological treasures he and his brother Ra’id only allowed the passing Bedouin to use it. Why here? Because the desert freed him. This place was his haven when he needed to recall how it had felt to be free. And he supposed that, whatever Lucy’s motives for coming to Isla de Sinnebar, some part of him that still remembered the time they had shared in the ski resort had wanted her to see this special place.

And now he wanted her to stay.

Why shouldn’t she stay?

He argued violently with himself, only to come up with the answer that rules might be made to be broken, but that was not the type of leader he intended to be. But for now he’d make her comfortable. ‘I keep a selection of robes in that chest over there,’ he said, viewing her city clothes with some degree of sympathy.

‘For your visitors?’

There was the faintest edge to her voice that made him smile inwardly. This was the Lucy he remembered: fire beneath the ice. And jealous too? He let that pass. What else could he do when he had changed her? He had always wanted Lucy to have confidence and self-belief, and now she had. ‘The Bedouin leave a selection of robes and other products when they use this trail through the desert,’ he explained. ‘That’s our custom here. If we have more than we need we pass it on to our neighbour—so, please, feel free to choose a robe to wear.’ She was hot and flustered in her workplace armour and would be more comfortable in a loose local robe, plus he’d like to see her wearing one—one last image for him to keep. ‘There’s no one but us around,’ he pointed out. ‘Why don’t you take a dip in the oasis to freshen up and then choose a robe?’

Maybe if she reversed that? Lucy thought as Razi strolled over to the ebony chest. She was still on edge with her mind full of what she had come to tell him. She watched as he raised the lid of a chest and rifled inside before pulling out a shimmering robe. In the palest shade of sky blue, it was embroidered with tiny pearls and diamanté, and was perhaps the most beautiful item of clothing she had ever seen. But as he held it up and the light streamed through it she realised it was completely sheer. ‘Don’t you have anything a little less revealing?’

‘This?’ he suggested, pulling out what was clearly a man’s robe.

‘That’s perfect.’ She nodded, plucking the dark, homespun robe out of his hands. It would go round her three times at a guess.

He was cooking over an open fire when Lucy returned from her swim. He’d had plenty of time to think while she’d been enjoying the lagoon, and every answer he’d come up with to explain her unexpected visit remained the same. He shrugged it off, refusing to believe she’d keep something like that from him.

‘You’re cooking,’ she said with surprise.

‘I still have to eat when I’m in the desert.’ He almost smiled. He hadn’t meant to relax, but the desert did that to him. He never felt more calm than when he was alone in this isolated splendour. He had always thought he was ready to see Lucy too—images already formed and complete in his head—but she never failed to surprise him. This time he sprang to his feet to save her embarrassment. The robe she had chosen to wear was trailing round her feet, and instead of winding the headdress, or howlis, as it was known in Isla de Sinnebar, around her head and face leaving only her eyes on view, she had draped it over her hair like a scarf. ‘Here, let me,’ he offered, risking danger just in touching her—and more of the same in being close. Not that he’d ever shrunk from danger, but when that danger came in the form of a woman he wanted to touch—a woman he had always believed to be pure and uncomplicated and now had his doubts about …

‘I’m not wearing it right?’ she said anxiously.

Taking hold of her water-cooled hands, he moved them away from her head to arrange the yards of fabric. He dragged greedily on her intoxicating wildflower scent while he was covering her face until only her concerned eyes were on view. ‘You are now,’ he said, relieved that her lips were covered. ‘Now all I need is a camera.’

‘You’re laughing at me.’

‘You used to have a sense of humour,’ he reminded her, aiming this over his shoulder as he returned to the fire.

‘And so did you,’ she called after him.

There was a moment of complete stillness between them as if they both accepted this, and then she went inside the pavilion to sort out her clothes, leaving him to see to the food. When she returned he tipped the omelette he had prepared for her onto a palm frond.

‘Eat,’ he encouraged as she sat cross-legged on the rug in front of the fire. He was still trying to talk himself into believing Lucy’s pallor was due to the long flight—or to dehydration—or to not eating for some time—to anything other than what made the most sense.

‘This is delicious,’ she said with surprise.

They were both off guard and almost exchanged a smile, but Lucy’s gaze dropped too quickly. He knew without doubt then that she was hiding something big from him.

She tossed away the headdress and began devouring the omelette as if she hadn’t eaten for days. He remembered her appetite for more than food. Here there was privacy afforded by mile upon mile of unseen sand. That she wanted him, he had no doubt. That he wanted Lucy had never been in doubt—and now more than ever. This was one last chance to taste what might have been and her absence from his life had only sharpened his appetite.

She glanced at him as if she could read his thoughts, but there was strain in her eyes—the strain of keeping that secret from him.

CHAPTER TWELVE

WHEN Lucy had finished eating she went to rinse her hands in the oasis. Razi braced himself for her return when he knew he would be hearing something monumental. But she surprised him once again.

‘I’d like to talk to you about money,’ she said, settling down on the opposite side of the fire.

He scratched his jaw. ‘I admire your candour.’

She had to make this work. There was no point wishing she and Razi could thrill together at the news of their child, when Razi was the ruler of a country and she was a chef. The best she could hope for was that she could get a good job back in England and secure her baby’s future. Meanwhile, she had to open a discussion that would allow her to go home. ‘I realised there could only be one reason why you left me so much money—’

‘You did?’ Razi’s green eyes glinted.

‘You wanted me to open a restaurant.’ She let this hang, daring him to disagree. If he did, it would turn their brief, though precious—at least to her—liaison into something sordid.

‘That was my intention,’ he confirmed.

This gave Lucy the courage to make her next suggestion. It was bold, but it was a way of keeping in touch with Razi, so that when she was ready to tell him about their child they could discuss their baby’s progress—though only over a boardroom table; something she believed he might agree to and she could handle. It was better than the prospect of never seeing him again and infinitely better than entrusting their child to strangers to pass between them. ‘I have identified a small site suitable for a restaurant and I’ve drawn up a business plan—’

‘Do you have it with you?’

‘Well, no …’ The one—the only thing on her mind when she had left England for Isla de Sinnebar had been the future of her child. She pressed on. ‘I’d like to use some of your money to help me with the start-up.’

‘And that’s why you’re here?’

It went against the grain to tell him even the smallest white lie, but when the stakes were so high and he had just given her a way out … ‘If you’re interested in taking a look at my predictions I’ll email a copy of my proposal to you as soon as I return.’

‘I don’t believe you didn’t think to bring a copy with you,’ he told her flatly.

‘I didn’t presume to—’ She dried up. What? She didn’t presume to stand her ground in front of the desert king? Razi knew her better than that. And while she hesitated it only took the slightest adjustment in his gaze to call her a liar. She couldn’t appear strong in one area and then fall back on the old, self-effacing Lucy when it suited her. ‘At first, all I wanted to do was return the money,’ she admitted, remembering how humiliated and angry she’d felt when she first found the pile of banknotes on the nightstand.

‘And now your situation has changed?’

‘I got an idea for a restaurant.’ She couldn’t hold his gaze and her cheeks were blazing.

Razi’s expression darkened. ‘So you want to open a restaurant and you’ve drawn up a plan?’ Springing to his feet, he stood towering above her, his anger palpable. ‘You didn’t have to come to Isla de Sinnebar to tell me that, Lucy. You could have emailed me your proposals as you’ve just offered to do now. You’re a hopeless liar,’ he said grimly. ‘Isn’t it about time you told me the truth?’

The ease that had briefly existed between them had vanished and in its place tension snapped like an oncoming storm. She stood up to face him. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry I came—I should have realised—’

‘Realised what, Lucy?’

There was something potent in Razi’s stillness that made her body yearn and fear him all at the same time, but she should have remembered that he moved a lot faster than she did. She should have remembered what it felt like to have him hold her firmly in place in front of him so she was drowning in his potent heat.

‘You should have realised what, Lucy?’ Razi pressed fiercely. ‘That I’m not going to be easily drawn in—or fobbed off? What should you have realised? Why are you here?’

‘Let me go—’

‘Not until you tell me the real reason for your surprise visit. After—what is it? Almost twelve weeks?’

‘You make it sound so—’

‘Suspicious?’ Razi rapped, all semblance of civilised behaviour stripped from his face. ‘How would you feel in my place? Suspicious would just be a start, I’m guessing—’

‘Please let me go.’

‘Not until you tell me the truth—’

‘I can’t …’

‘Why not?’

Her voice might be broken, but from some primal depth the fire of being a new mother rushed out of her in a shout. ‘I just can’t! Okay?’

‘Don’t ask me to believe you’ve come halfway round the world on the off chance I’d be free to speak to you about some plan you have to open a restaurant. Even if you didn’t email those plans through first, you’d make an appointment—’

‘I tried to.’

Razi called every bluff she’d had and had never seemed more the desert King than he did in that moment. He was so darkly forbidding, she was shivering with fright, but that was no use to her here. She had to think of her baby and for the sake of that child she would fight. She wasn’t ashamed of herself or her baby and Razi was right on all counts. If she had wanted to put a business proposition in front of him a face-to-face meeting would have been unnecessary at this stage. Only a child would bring her here to face him. And now that child’s father was waiting for her to prove herself unworthy of being a mother. She had to tell him.