Australia: In Bed with a Sheikh!

Of course. A private luxury jet, no doubt. She was moving up in the world. Like her mother. Only to a higher strata again. That should amuse her but it didn’t. “Will we be accompanied by many people?”

“I prefer to travel lightly. Only Peter came with me on this trip.”

Which meant she would be alone on the plane with Tareq. Though not quite alone. There would have to be a pilot, a steward, perhaps a co-pilot for such a long flight. Whatever… there would be no getting lost in a crowd. Was she to be his closest associate?

“Peter Larsen implied he’d known you a long time.”

“Since school days at Eton.”

So Mr. Larsen was very upper-class English. Sarah wondered if he knew her second stepfather. “I presume you trust him,” she said a little cynically.

“Yes. He’s never given me reason not to.”

A question of trust…

“How long do you expect it to take…for my father to prove himself to you?”

He eyed her speculatively. “Did you watch the running of the Melbourne Cup yesterday, Sarah?”

“Yes. On television.”

“Then you must have seen with your own eyes that Firefly did not run the distance he should have been trained for.”

She frowned, remembering how the horse had tired. “I thought the jockey had misjudged his run.”

“No, it was more than that. The horse wasn’t up to the distance and he should have been.”

Firefly…

A suspicion wormed into Sarah’s mind.

Jessie still loved the horse…but what did her father feel about it?

“I’ll have Firefly entered in the Melbourne Cup next year,” Tareq went on. “If he runs as well as he should…”

“You can’t expect him to win!” Sarah cried in alarm, a rush of agitation smashing the odd numbness that had claimed her. “No one can guarantee a winner in the Melbourne Cup. The favourites hardly ever win.”

“I agree,” Tareq answered calmly. “As long as it’s a fine effort for the distance I’ll be satisfied.”

A year of her life. Then her fate—the fate of her family—hung on Firefly’s performance. Dear God! She had to talk to her father, make sure he understood. If he had some prejudice against the horse, he had to bury it or they would never get to the other side of this bargain.

A knock on the door.

Tareq rose to answer it. The timing was fortunate. Sarah struggled to contain a surge of panic. She had to remain calm, confident. Tareq was far too perceptive. He would pounce on any hint of a problem with Firefly, and if he pursued the truth and found out what had been hushed up, he might decide he had no grounds for even the tenuous trust Sarah had pleaded for.

It was room service arriving. The ordered food was set out on the coffee table. Tareq tipped the waiter and saw him out. “Try to eat, Sarah. We have a long day ahead of us,” came the sensible advice.

She had absolutely no appetite. Her stomach was in turmoil. Nevertheless, eating precluded any dangerous conversation so she started with the fruit which was relatively easy to slide down her throat. Melon, strawberries, fresh pineapple…she picked and nibbled, using up time.

Satisfied she was well occupied, Tareq moved back to the telephone on the desk and made a series of calls. Sarah didn’t listen to what was spoken. Her thoughts were too loud, clamouring over each other. What if she didn’t get the opportunity to be alone with her father? Would Tareq tell him what the test of his training was to be?

Suddenly there were many ifs and buts. Sarah fretted over them until it struck her that her father might actually prefer to be rid of Tareq’s horses, however crazy it was in a professional sense. Although he had held on to them after Jessie’s accident, being paid for their training, he might have had no heart in their doing well. Maybe even taking some dark satisfaction out of making sure they didn’t.

Yet surely that was at odds with a trainer’s character…the drive to win, to get the best results, to chalk up enviable records. On the other hand, it could explain her father’s drinking bouts. She had put them down to stress, though perhaps she had mistaken the cause of stress…a mind divided against itself.

It seemed stupid to have had Firefly not running the distance, with his owner—a man as astute and as knowledgeable about horses as Tareq—watching his failure to perform. Yet…weren’t there people who wanted to be caught, wanted whatever they were doing to end?

She should have waited to discuss the issue with her father. She should have…

Her heart jumped at another knock on the door.

Her father?

She leapt to her feet, spinning around to face…Peter Larsen…as Tareq admitted him to the suite. The two men stood murmuring to each other. With a muddle of anxiety running rampant in Sarah, the question shot from her lips.

“Did my father agree to the meeting?”

It startled both men into turning to her. Her heart kicked into a gallop. She concentrated on Peter Larsen. He was responsible for making the arrangements. His sharply inquisitive gaze told her nothing. He seemed more interested in pegging her into a newly revised slot than answering her question.

“Why wouldn’t he agree, Sarah?”

It was Tareq who spoke, drawing her attention to him, and once again the power of the man came at her full bore, his eyes like electric probes, making her whole body quiver inside. How was she going to cope with this man when he could affect her like this? He’d caught her so off-guard she was hopelessly stumped for an answer. Her frantic mind finally seized on one.

“Pride. You fired him yesterday. He might be angry about me interceding on his business. I didn’t think about him so much as…”

“He’s here. In Peter’s suite,” Tareq stated, removing her uncertainty. His face took on a ruthless cast as he added, “If he doesn’t agree to my terms, I’ll be a very surprised man. Don’t concern yourself with contingency plans, Sarah.”

He was set on the bargain. He wanted it to happen. He would make it happen. She could see it in his eyes. And she had the prickly feeling it had nothing to do with horses anymore. It had to do with her.

“Tell the Hillyards I’m on my way, Peter,” he said, nodding to the man who needed no other signal to do the sheikh’s bidding. “Sarah, it’s best you wait here while we settle this business with your father.”

She tore her gaze from him and stared at the door closing behind Peter Larsen, wanting to snatch him back, wanting the orders altered.

“Have you changed your mind?” Tareq asked quietly.

She flashed him an anguished look. “I want to be in on the discussion with my father. I might have done wrong…”

“Then it’s up to him to say so. You have done your part. The choice is now his.”

Cool, clear reason. Yet she sensed the fire of purpose in Tareq and knew instinctively it wouldn’t be deterred by anything. Tentacles of fear started weaving through her, clutching at her heart and mind. What had she set in motion? Where would it end?

“Speak now if you prefer not to go through with this, Sarah. I won’t take it kindly if you try to back out after I’ve made a settlement with your father.”

She took a deep, deep breath.

The equation was the same.

The future security of the children was at stake.

“As you said, it’s up to my father. If he agrees, my agreement stands.”

Again the flash of satisfaction in his eyes, curling her stomach.

“This may take some time. Please be at ease here. Use whatever facilities you like. Treat the suite as your own.”

He left her to stew over what was transpiring between the two parties.

It was over an hour before he came back, an hour of agitated pacing, of sick turmoil, of swinging through so many emotions, Sarah felt like a limp rag when he re-entered the suite. She could tell nothing from his expression. It was guarded, controlled, yet he carried an aura of success.

“Well?” she challenged, on painful tenterhooks as to the outcome.

“I believe we’ve come to a clear and mutual understanding. Your father will continue training my horses. He and your stepmother would like to speak to you, Sarah. If you’ll come now…”

It was done.

Really done.

The next year of her life belonged to Tareq al-Khaima. He might not be dressed in traditional clothes but Sarah had no doubt he was a sheikh through and through, born to rule, used to dictating his own terms, determined that his will be carried out.

The only question left was…what was his will where she was concerned? Her soul trembled at the thought of finding out that reality.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE STRETCH LIMOUSINE heightened Sarah’s awareness of what life with Tareq was going to be like. She sat beside him on a lushly cushioned, blue velvet seat, every luxury at hand—cocktail bar, television, radio, telephone—and tinted windows around them, forming a cocoon of privacy from the ordinary world. Even the chauffeur, having been given directions to the Hillyard farm at Werribee, was removed from them by a glass partition.

Tareq dominated her space, dominated her thoughts, dominated her every sense.

Her gaze was pulled again and again to the hands resting on his thighs; long-fingered, brown-skinned, elegantly formed yet suggesting a tensile strength capable of catching and holding anything they wanted to. The future of her family was in those hands now, and she was within very personal reach of them any time he chose to make physical contact.

Her nostrils kept picking up the subtle scent of some male cologne. She hadn’t noticed it in the hotel but in the close confines of the car, it intruded enough for her to try to define it, thinking it might define the man. Like the navy suit he wore, it was classy, understated, yet tantalising in suggesting something primitive overlaid with especially tailored sophistication.

Her ears were constantly alert for any movement from him, a shift towards her, a recomposure of himself. He seemed to have mastered the art of utter stillness, which made Sarah extremely conscious of her own little outbreaks of nervous fidgeting.

He hadn’t touched her since he’d drawn her into consenting to the bargain. He didn’t need to. He knew she was now tied to him by honour and integrity. She could feel his touch on her heart and mind and soul.

In her mouth was the sweet-bitter taste of what he had drawn from her father on her behalf, whether by threat or persuasion or simple instruction, she didn’t know. Susan’s tearful gratitude she could accept as a natural response, but her father’s halting speech had been a raw exposure of hidden hurts, intensely embarrassing.

It had touched on feelings they had never talked about, never acknowledged, and because nothing of that ilk had ever been said between them before, Sarah had difficulty in deciphering what was sincere or simply forced out of the situation. She couldn’t help thinking of the Christmas in Ireland where she’d spilled too much to Tareq…a kind stranger she’d never expected to meet again…a man who was acutely, dangerously perceptive.

“Did you tell my father to say those things to me?” she blurted out, wanting to know how pervasive Tareq’s influence had been in that last painful scene at the hotel.

Out of the corner of her eyes she saw his head turn towards her. Sarah had to summon up her courage to look directly at him, needing to maintain a protective shield around herself while she held his gaze.

“What things, Sarah?” he asked, the powerful blue eyes scanning for cracks in her hastily erected defences.

“About not letting me down again.”

“You think he didn’t carry any guilt over abandoning you to your mother’s whims when you were twelve?”

“Did you make him feel guilty, Tareq?”

A slight shrug. “Perhaps I tapped at his conscience in explaining why you felt you could approach me personally…the past connection between us.”

“You must have laid it on thick,” she accused.

He was completely unabashed. “Sometimes it’s very beneficial, very sobering, for people to be faced with the consequences of the decisions they make.”

There was a hard glint of ruthlessness in his eyes.

Her father had certainly been sobered up by the time she’d walked into Peter Larsen’s suite. His alcoholic bender the night before had left him looking drawn and haggard, his eyes redrimmed, but he’d spoken with convincing determination about making good on this second chance. Having accepted Tareq’s terms, whatever they were, he could hardly do anything else. He’d undoubtedly been made to face that his career in training was on the line.

It was the second part of his speech she questioned. He’d moved straight on to expressing-openly expressing—his regret in failing her as a father; his realisation that he’d selfishly accepted her ongoing assistance to his family, thinking only of their need instead of seeing she was putting her own life on hold; his hope that her new position with Tareq al-Khaima would be a door to a lot of opportunities for her; and finally, his fervent vow to live up to her good faith in him and be there for her if she ever called him in need.

They had to be lines fed to him by Tareq. Under duress. Although it was possible her father had taken them to heart. Either way, it was too late for a real rapprochement between them. Tareq was taking her away.

“I didn’t have much evidence of his caring for you, Sarah,” Tareq remarked, reading her thoughts with disquietening ease. His mouth quirked. “And what good is a hostage without a strong value of caring? I thought it worthwhile to add an appropriate load of guilt.”

Questions answered.

Sickened by his logic even as she recognised its truth, Sarah dropped her gaze and turned her face to the side window. They were out of the city and travelling through the countryside to the place she thought of as home. Except it had ceased being her home eleven years ago when her status had changed to occasional visitor. More recently she’d been the live-in family help. But she didn’t belong there. She didn’t belong anywhere.

Which had probably made it easy for Tareq to claim her with no one to protest, no one to fight for her. She was on her own. But that didn’t mean she was a pushover for anything he wanted. Her hands curled into determined fists. If he made unreasonable demands on her she would fight him.

Without looking at him, she asked, “What are the duties of a travelling companion?”

“To travel with me.” His tone was lightly amused.

Her nails dug into her palms. “Nothing else?”

“Oh, I daresay we’ll come to various little accommodations.”

“Like what?”

“You can unclench your hands. I’ve never taken an unwilling woman to bed with me.”

Smarting at his knowingness, she flashed him a furious glance. “It’s all very well for you, sitting in your control box.”

He laughed, his eyes dancing, teasing, enjoying his control. “Are you a virgin, Sarah?”

“That’s none of your business!” she cried, futilely willing the rush of hot blood to her face to recede.

“Just curious. You’re so uptight…”

“There’ve been plenty of men interested in me.”

“Was the interest returned?”

She thought of the “precious” young men her mother had lined up as “catches” for her before she’d left London. Compared to Tareq al-Khaima they were bloodless boys. She was swimming with a shark in these waters. Which raised the question of how many willing women he’d gobbled up along the way.

“Let’s talk about you,” she said defiantly.

“By all means. What do you want to know?”

“No doubt you’ve had quite a love-life.”

“A little correction there. I don’t think love has ever entered into it. Desire, certainly. Satisfaction, yes. Mutual pleasure definitely attained…”

“All right!” she cut him off, disturbed by the images running through her mind. “Let’s say sex-life.”

“Ah, yes. Well, I can’t deny having had considerable experience.”

The smile lurking on his mouth was tauntingly sensual. Sarah could feel her blood heating up again. She had no difficulty in believing he was a very sexy man when he put his mind to it. If he put his mind to it with her…but it would be madness to succumb even if she did wonder what it might be like with him. Where could it lead? He was a sheikh, tied to a culture that was very foreign to her.

“Won’t it put other women off, having me tagging along with you everywhere?” she commented archly, wondering if he’d looked down the track to see the consequences of his decision.

“Not at all. You’d be surprised,” he said cynically.

He was right. Even marriages didn’t stop some people from going after what they wanted.

“What about your family? It could give them the wrong impression.”

His mouth curled with some private satisfaction. “They will think what I tell them to think. Where my family is concerned, it suits me very well to have you with me, Sarah.”

His ruthless streak was showing again. This time it piqued her curiosity. “Why?” she asked, wondering if he was at odds with them.

He weighed the question, his eyes regarding her speculatively. Eventually he said, “My background is similar to yours…a broken marriage, my mother returning to England, the agreement that I be educated there at Eton and Oxford. It got me out of the way for my father’s second wife and the family they had together.”

No wonder he had been sympathetic to the child she had been, cut adrift between two worlds and not really belonging to either. He really had understood and possibly empathised with her sense of apartness, her loneliness, the feeling of being a shuttlecock in an adult game that sought only personal gratification.

“The difference is…the complication is…I’m my father’s eldest son, despite my mixed heritage,” he said sardonically. “The sheikhdom had to pass to me when he died.”

“Did you want it?”

A flash of ruthless possessiveness in his eyes. “I was entitled to it.”

And no one was going to take that away from him, Sarah interpreted.

“Though the truth is…I am not in tune with my people. For years now, my uncle has ruled in my absence while I maintain a diplomatic role. It has suited us both very well. But circumstances change. My oldest half-brother will soon marry the daughter of a very powerful family. Ahmed and Aisha make a formidable coupling. If they work against me, it could stir some political instability. My uncle is pressing for me to marry a woman of his choice to cement my position.”

Sarah inwardly recoiled against the concept of an arranged marriage although she knew it was done and accepted in eastern cultures. For Tareq, it would seem the most sensible decision to make.

“You don’t want that?” she queried.

A flash of steely pride. “No one dictates my life anymore, Sarah.”

She could well believe it!

“Naturally I will be attending my half-brother’s wedding. And you’ll be with me. It neatly disposes of any machinations my uncle might have in mind.”

So Tareq had a purpose for her. Sarah could see it was very convenient for him to have a woman on tap who’d agreed to stay with him for a year. No possibility of a refusal to accompany him. No running away, no matter how sticky the situation.

The bargain he’d offered her suited him on many levels.

“I suppose you’ll want us to pretend to be…” lovers teetered on her tongue and she quickly withdrew it as a possibly dangerous suggestion. “…closer than we really are in front of your family.”

Amusement sparkled. “I don’t think any pretence will be necessary.”

Did he mean to seduce her before then? Sarah’s heart flipped over. Her whole body started churning as she remembered how he’d measured her desirability. Then, when he’d offered the bargain, she’d stood like a mesmerised idiot, letting him touch her. Had that assured him he could make her willing?

“You’ll soon get bored with me, you know,” she fired at him, hating the thought he was confident of arranging everything his way. She might have agreed to being his companion but she wasn’t his slave!

His amusement broke into a laugh that tap-danced all over Sarah’s nervous system. “I can’t remember when I’ve felt so challenged by a woman. But you could be right. A year is a good test.”

A year…

God help her!

She turned to look out the window again, knowing more now but not exactly comforted by the knowledge. They were passing by familiar Werribee landmarks. Soon she would be saying goodbye to all this, leaving the safe little world where she had been closeted for two years.

Her heart began to ache. She would miss Jessie and the boys. Though Tareq was right. They were Susan’s children, not hers. All the same, it didn’t mean she couldn’t love them…her half-sister and half-brothers. They were the only family she had.

Tareq had capitalised on her feeling for them.

She was risking herself for their sake and they’d probably never know. Not that it mattered. She knew. Regardless of what happened to her, something good had been achieved. Jessie and the twins would not become the flotsam of a broken family.

Like her.

Like Tareq.

Except no one in their right mind could think of Tareq al-Khaima as flotsam.

CHAPTER SIX

AS THE LIMOUSINE came to a halt in front of the house, Sarah saw Jessie zoom along the veranda in her electric wheelchair, heading for the series of ramps that would bring her down to the road. She could go almost anywhere on the property in the custom-made chair, the powered base giving it a four-wheel suspension and amazing mobility. the novelty of seeing a stretch limousine at close quarters was not about to be missed.

Jessie wasn’t the only one whose curiosity and interest were aroused. The foreman’s wife came to the veranda railing, watching as the chauffeur opened The passenger door. Sarah waved to her as she stepped out, determined on acting as naturally as possible in the circumstances. The startled look at Sarah’s arriving in such style turned to awed wonder as Tareq emerged from the car.

“Sarah!”

Jessie’s cry of surprise claimed attention. The little girl was also staring goggle-eyed at Tareq, the chair halted several metres away as she took in the man accompanying her older half-sister.

Sarah was momentarily tongue-tied, not having prepared what to say to Jessie. Tareq had dominated her thoughts during the trip here. Now the moment was upon her, she instinctively seized his arm and drew him forward with her. Since this was his doing, let him handle it.

“Jessie, remember how disappointed you were not seeing the sheikh yesterday? Well, here he is…Sheikh Tareq al-Khaima!”

“Really?” Incredulity was almost instantly mixed with excitement and pleasure, lighting up her face and dismissing all her woes. “You came out to see me?”

“Sarah told me about you, Jessie,” he answered, smiling indulgently and offering his hand. “You’ll have to forgive the suit. I don’t wear robes outside my own country.”

“Oh!” Jessie blushed. Her small hand was gently enfolded in his. “That’s all right. You look…well, sort of like a royal prince anyway,” she said in an admiring rush. “And the car is fantastic!”

“Would you like to see inside?” Tareq invited.

“I’d love to!”

Sarah realised she was still hanging on to Tareq’s arm. She quickly released it as they moved to make room for Jessie to manoeuvre her chair into position beside the car. It was crazy to have seized on closeness to him for some kind of reassurance. Yet he was good with Jessie. Faith…if it could be called that…in his kindness to children had been justified.

“That’s a great machine you’re driving,” he remarked, watching her zip the chair around the passenger door which he’d opened for her viewing.

“It’s the Rollerchair Trail Blazer,” she proudly informed him.

He grinned. “Well, I’d have to say it blazes, Jessie.”