In The Arms Of The Sheikh

Izzy was startled. ‘What?’

But Natasha was not looking at her. She glared at the man called Kazim. ‘I gather I’m so late you thought I was off your guest list.’

His eyes narrowed in the firelight. They glinted evilly. He said, ‘If you had called…’ He sounded like a hanging judge.

Even Izzy said apologetically, ‘Actually, that’s true, Tasha. When you didn’t turn up last night, I thought you weren’t coming.’

‘But I’ve left message after message.’

Izzy looked guilty. ‘In the excitement, I forgot to top up my phone.’

Natasha shook her head. ‘So you didn’t get even one of my messages? What on earth did you think I was doing?’

Izzy bit her lip. ‘I suppose I just thought something more important had come up.’

Natasha was genuinely shocked. ‘I’m not that rude. Am I?’

‘Not rude,’ said Izzy forgivingly. ‘Just busy being a tycoon.’

‘I’m not!’

Izzy smiled. ‘How many times have you blown me out this year?’

That was horribly true. Natasha could not deny it.

‘Never mind,’ said Izzy blithely. ‘You’re here now. That’s all that matters.’

Even in the fitful light of the bonfire, it was clear that Kazim Whoever-he-was did not agree. Natasha’s guilty conscience mutated rapidly into something a lot more combative.

‘Well, I am now I’ve made it through the front door security checks,’ she agreed, simmering. ‘Unlike my phone.’

Izzy looked bewildered. ‘What’s happened to your phone? Oh, Natasha, don’t say you were mugged.’

Natasha looked straight at Kazim Whoever-he-was. ‘Yup. A mugging. That’s what it was.’

His eyes flickered. But he did not say anything.

Kind Izzy hugged her again, distressed. ‘How horrible.’

Natasha did not take her eyes off Kazim. ‘Nothing I can’t handle,’ she told him.

She meant it. She could see from that look in his eyes that he knew it too. His nostrils flared.

Clearly no one had said that they could handle Kazim before. He was outraged. Outraged enough to do anything about it? Natasha was not sure.

Then she saw the rigid look to his mouth. Oh, yes, definitely outraged enough to do something.

For a moment she felt a little frisson of alarm. But then she caught herself. She never ran from a challenge. Ever.

Fine, do your worst, she taunted him silently.

His nostrils flared.

A trickle of something that could have been alarm ran down Natasha’s spine. Alarm or excitement. Suddenly all her senses were alert.

Nobody else seemed to notice. But she knew what was going on. And so did he. In the smoky darkness, unseen by anyone but themselves, light sabre clashed against light sabre.

It was like strong dark wine. Or a high wind.

Or coming alive.

CHAPTER THREE

ONLY not yet. Natasha had to get some warm clothes on before Kazim thought her trembling was down to him. He was arrogant enough for that.

Natasha turned her shoulder on him.

‘Actually, Izzy, I could do with getting out of these clothes. Can you point me in the direction of my room?’

Izzy was instantly remorseful. ‘Sure. You must be freezing.’

‘I’ve been warmer,’ agreed Natasha. ‘In fact, I’d be glad to borrow a sweater too. I didn’t know I’d need one.’

‘And, of course, you kept your packing down to the minimum.’ Izzy chuckled. She looked eloquently at Natasha’s overnight case. ‘How long have you been living out of that tiny little bag?’

Natasha grinned. It was a long-standing joke between them.

‘A week.’

‘Then a sweater isn’t all you’ll need to borrow,’ said Izzy with feeling.

‘The hotel had a laundry service,’ retorted Natasha. ‘A sweater will do it, really.’

‘I’ll come and find you some nice warm layers. And gum boots.’

Kazim interposed. ‘Stay with your guests. I can show Ms Lambert to her room. There are plenty of spare sweaters in the Egyptian room.’

Izzy’s brows flicked up, as if something in his tone surprised her.

Maybe it was the frosty disapproval, thought Natasha with irony. Presumably butlers weren’t supposed to take an instant dislike to their employers’ guests, even if the current employer was only borrowing their services for the weekend.

‘The fireworks will start any moment,’ Kazim said, as if that clinched it.

Natasha would much rather have had the girls’ tête-à-tête with Izzy that she had promised herself. But she knew her social duty.

‘Go and fix the fireworks,’ she urged Izzy. ‘If—Kazim, is it?—will just show me where to go…’ she sent a bland smile in his general direction, carefully not meeting his eyes ‘…I’ll get myself sorted in no time.’

‘Okay,’ said Izzy slowly. She looked thoughtful. ‘Mulled wine out here afterwards, then. I’ll bet you can do with it.’

Without waiting further, Kazim set off.

‘Whoops. See you in a bit,’ said Natasha and scampered after him, as fast as her stockinged feet permitted.

He led the way up the hill to a large paved terrace. Natasha followed. The damp grass struck cold underfoot. She regretted the impulse that had made her kick off her shoes. Temper always backfires, she thought ruefully. But it was too late now—and at least this time she was managing to keep up without slipping and sliding all over the place!

You’re still a quick study, Natasha, she congratulated herself.

He was still striding ahead without speaking, though. She decided to open hostilities.

‘So that was an adequate identification?’ she said to his back.

He glanced over his shoulder at that. ‘It was.’

‘What a relief!’

He ignored the mockery. ‘It must be.’

She realised suddenly that there was just a hint of a foreign accent to the deep voice, elusive as perfume. Maybe it was not even an accent. Just a slight over precision in pronunciation.

Natasha said abruptly, ‘When did you decide to dislike me?’

He kept walking. ‘If I am Lurch the butler, it is not my place to dislike you.’

It was neutral. Indifferent, even. So why was she suddenly positive that he was laughing at her? And why did a man with an arrogance quotient in the top one per cent decide to take a job as a butler?

Before she could ask, he held the door into the house open for her to precede him. She glanced at him as she passed and was surprised at the sheer force of his physical presence. Yes, he was tall. Taller even than she had realised outside on the front steps. But it was not his height that had all her instincts on red alert.

Nor was it his looks. Though the light of the house revealed him to be one of the most extraordinarily good-looking men Natasha had ever met. Not the pretty, smooth-faced good looks of a fashionable heart-throb either. It was something harder, fiercer. The dark eyes might be cool. But there was a fire burning under that imperturbable façade, she thought.

I wouldn’t like to cross him.

In spite of herself, Natasha shivered at the thought.

Instantly she was angry. It did not matter whom she crossed, said her internal mentor. She could handle herself. More important, she could handle the enemy! No matter what the world threw at her, she could handle it. Always had. Always would.

Relax, she told her instincts.

The door led to an old-fashioned orangery, all pale wood and glass. It was warm and full of sweet-leaved citrus trees. Overwhelmed for a moment, she paused in the doorway, all her senses alive to the scented air.

And Kazim walked into her.

It was like an assault, an electric shock straight to the naked nerves. She jumped, stumbled…cursed.

He caught her by the elbow and set her upright. ‘Careful.’

His fingers were cold from the brutal night, but his hold was not. Natasha felt as if a fire inside him arced across and set light to something in her too. It literally took her breath away.

He looked at her, surprised. ‘Are you all right?’

She gave that little shiver again. She did not answer. She could not.

Relax, damn you!

‘You are jumpy, aren’t you?’

Natasha found her voice—and brought herself gratefully back down to earth. ‘Try bloody frozen,’ she told him pleasantly.

He did not look as if he quite believed that. But he shrugged and led the way, threading between the orange and lemon trees as if they made up an obstacle course he could run blindfold. He opened the door into the main house with a flourish.

Still there was nothing Natasha could quite put her finger on. The gesture was just too theatrical. It was almost mocking.

She thought: It’s as if I’m standing on a stage and performing to an audience of one.

What does he know that I don’t?

But she was not going to let him see that he was getting to her. She went through the door he was holding and looked coolly round the oak-panelled entrance hall.

‘Impressive!’

The walls were hung with Victorian hunting prints and massive portraits of sober citizens in civic regalia. She pursed her lips in a silent whistle. ‘Whoever owns this place? They must be complete fossils.’

His spine was reinforced steel. ‘The owner values tradition, certainly.’ His tone said that she was a trashy modern thing, incapable of understanding.

Natasha decided it was time for a little mockery of her own.

‘Fun bunch,’ she observed, curling her lip at a severe family group. ‘Even the gun dog looks as if he’s wearing a corset.’

Kazim looked down his nose. ‘Not an art lover, Ms Lambert?’

‘Not a fan of pompous snobs,’ she said crisply.

He glanced at the picture they were passing. ‘The alderman does look as if he’s on his best behaviour,’ he admitted thoughtfully, to her surprise.

But before she could pursue her brief advantage, he led the way upstairs and turned along a discreetly lit corridor.

‘Ms Dare thought you would enjoy the Egyptian room. She said you’d like the chandelier. And it has a real nineteen-twenties bathroom.’

Natasha was inclined to be scornful. ‘What’s special about a nineteen-twenties bathroom?’

Kazim’s expression did not change. But Natasha knew she had made another mistake. Somehow, she had let him score a point.

‘I will be happy to show you.’ It was just too smooth, somehow. Like someone playing a butler on the stage.

Her brows twitched together in quick suspicion. But before she could challenge him, he had opened a massive oak door. He flicked a light switch. It seemed to Natasha as if a dozen lamps came on at least. He stood back to let her precede him. She stood in the doorway, blinking in disbelief.

The room had everything. Not just a chandelier, a velvet-hung four-poster bed, some serious antique chests and a painting that looked like an original Monet.

She gulped. But she had no time for the room to overawe her. Her feet were hurting quite badly now. In fact her left heel was burning. She must have bruised it as she’d scrambled after him over the paths and the twig-strewn grass. Refusing to let him see what he had reduced her to, she strode into the room, concentrating hard on not limping.

Kazim followed. He set down the small overnight case—with a great deal more ceremony than it deserved—on a bench at the end of the bed. He patted the rich brocade coverlet. As if he were testing the damned thing for bounceability, thought Natasha wrathfully. While he played the part of a classic butler in perfect tailoring.

‘Thank you,’ she said crisply, dismissing him.

He did not seem to notice. He just nodded, acknowledging her thanks. Was he laughing at her again?

Kazim opened a drawer, then several others, in quick succession, as if he was unsure for once. Natasha barely noticed. Her nose twitched at the smell of lavender and mothballs.

‘Traditional indeed,’ she said, almost to herself. ‘My grandmother’s house used to smell like that.’

Kazim did not like that. He shut the last drawer with considerable force.

‘You will find spare sweaters in there. Shirts. Please help yourself.’

Natasha came back to the present with a little jump.

‘Thank you,’ she repeated with emphasis and opened the door wide, standing beside it pointedly.

He ignored the hint. Instead he crossed the huge room and flung open a pair of double doors she had not noticed before.

‘And here is the answer to your question. Your bathroom!’

She could almost hear a flourish of trumpets, thought Natasha. It was clear that he was not going to move until she had inspected it.

She sighed ostentatiously. ‘There’s really no need to give me the guided tour. I know how taps work.’

‘But these are exceptional taps.’

Did his lips twitch? She stared at him suspiciously. He stared back, the expressionless butler to the life. She mistrusted him deeply.

But she wasn’t going to let him get the better of her.

A bathroom was too intimate, of course. But not more intimate than that proprietorial stroking of the bedspread. And she was quite sure that he knew it and was deliberately amusing himself.

Natasha pinned on a smile as deceptive as his own and limped over to stand beside Kazim. Not close beside Kazim. There was a crucial metre between their shoulders. She took good care of that.

‘Thank you. Very nice. That—’

Then she took in the full wonder of the room before her. She stopped dead. Her jaw dropped.

‘Decadent, would you say?’ said her tormentor, pleased.

Natasha gulped. ‘I’ve never—’ She pulled herself together. She was not going to let the damn man make her lose her cool so easily. ‘How interesting,’ she said faintly. ‘Egyptian?’

‘Well, Hollywood Egyptian,’ agreed Kazim. ‘It was designed by a movie art director. Impressive, isn’t it?’

Natasha shook her head, still staring. ‘Everything but the sheikh,’ she said with feeling, forgetting to be cool again.

For a moment he was no longer impassive. His lips twitched perceptibly. ‘That could be arranged.’

Natasha came back to the real world with a jump. ‘Sorry. What?’

He was striding round the bathroom, indicating its unique design with a helpful commentary. Natasha listened to one word in ten.

Every horizontal surface in the bathroom gleamed with marble—floor, ceiling, vanity table, even the window sill. The walls, where they weren’t gleaming decorated mirrors, were covered with hieroglyphs and pictures of stylised Egyptian houris with more eye make-up than draperies. The sunken bath was circular; at the marble rim there were indentations that she realised suddenly were head rests. Two head rests, to be precise.

If she had been with Izzy, they would have sat down on the edge of that preposterous bath and laughed until they’d cried. But it was not a joke she could share with this not-quite-butler. Not Kazim, with his unreadable eyes and his private laughter. And his theatrical butlering.

The truth was he was just too damn sexy to be a butler. He challenged her. He made her uneasy. He made her think. And she needed to talk all of that through with some good friends over a bottle of wine.

Natasha was aware of a sharp pang of regret. Oh yes, she had really been looking forward to that girls’ weekend. It would have been nice to take off her armour for once. She shifted unwarily and winced as her bruised heel complained.

She found he was looking at her oddly. Perceptively? That would never do. She didn’t want this man to recognise that uncharacteristic moment of weakness.

She drew herself to her full height and said crisply, ‘Thank you for showing me to my room. Now I would like to change.’

But he did not go. Indeed, he showed no sign that he even noticed he had been dismissed. ‘Are you hurt?’

She was startled. ‘What?’

‘You flinched.’

‘I didn’t.’

He didn’t contradict her. He just looked. Suddenly he was all male arrogance again.

Natasha responded to it, as she always did. Her eyes narrowed and her chin tilted dangerously. ‘What?’

He ignored her, frowning. ‘Now I think about it, you were limping in the orangery too.’

She glared. ‘Okay, maybe I was. So what?’

‘So how did you hurt yourself?’

‘Well, now, there’s a question. Could it be anything to do with being marched along an uneven path in the dark at light speed? Surely not!’

He frowned even harder. ‘Are you saying it’s my fault?’

Natasha gave a bark of laughter.

For a moment he looked furious. Then it was gone and he was the courteous butler again. ‘Then I must do what I can to help you.’

‘Why bother?’ said Natasha, blunt as always.

‘You are my guest.’

She bared her teeth at him in a smile that was ninety per cent challenge and ten per cent pure taunt. ‘I’m Izzy Dare’s guest.’

His eyes flickered. Annoyance, palpable as smoke, wafted off him.

Yes! Natasha chalked up a point to the female warrior. A small point, but worth having.

Content with her victory, she nodded to the door. ‘Now, if you’ll just go and help someone else, I’ll be down in a few minutes.’ The superior tone pleased her.

For the second time he failed to notice that she was dismissing him. Or not failed exactly. Ignored would be a better word.

Natasha drew herself to her full height. ‘Thank you—’

She got no further. He swung her neatly off her feet.

‘Put me down,’ said Natasha furiously, superior no longer.

He did. But not at all as she had intended.

He dropped her onto a stone seat with lion’s paws for arms and went down on one knee before her.

He picked up one foot and stared blankly at her ruined tights. ‘What on earth have you done?’

Natasha had not felt so grubby since she had scraped her knee in the playground and her mother had rebuked her. She glared. ‘Lost my shoes, didn’t I?’

She tried to take her foot back. She failed.

He inspected the foot narrowly.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Natasha was trembling. With anger, she told herself. With anger.

Kazim rotated her ankle. He was quite gentle but very firm.

‘No bones broken,’ he decided.

Natasha was shaken. To disguise it—‘Are you a doctor as well?’ she said nastily.

He looked up then, a surprising glint of mischief in his eyes.

‘No, but I’ve taken enough physical risks to know the basics.’

She took the opportunity to retrieve her foot. ‘No bones broken,’ she said curtly. ‘You said it yourself. Now will you please…?’

He lifted her other foot.

She gasped and fell silent. There was not even a vestige of torn hose between their skins, this time. And his fingers were so warm she could feel the blood beating against her cold skin.

Natasha’s mouth dried. She forgot what she was going to say; almost forgot how to think. All she could do was sit there, breathless, looking down at his bent head, and wonder at how crisp and dark his hair was, how surprisingly broad his shoulders. How sensitive his hands…

Natasha sat bolt upright. She was horrified. That was the sort of thing you thought about a lover. Or didn’t, on the whole, at least in her recent experience. But not, never, a stranger.

I must be out of my mind.

‘Stop that,’ she rapped out.

He did not even look up. ‘You’re bleeding.’

‘What?’

She bent down to peer at the foot. Their faces were suddenly close. She caught a hint of seriously expensive cologne.

Her brows twitched together. Since when did butlers wear Amertage?

Oblivious, Kazim said, ‘Ah, there it is. You seem to have torn the skin. Hold still a moment.’

‘What? Why? Ouch!’

She recoiled at the sharp pain.

He held up a savage-looking rose thorn and offered it to her. ‘Big beast,’ he said with satisfaction.

‘Yes,’ agreed Natasha faintly.

He was still concentrating on the task in hand. ‘You need a bandage on this. I will have someone see to—’ He stopped dead.

Suddenly Natasha was desperate to be alone.

‘Don’t bother. I’ve got a plaster in my case. I’ll do it myself.’

He ignored that too, getting to his feet. ‘Then I’ll get it for you.’

Natasha flinched inwardly. She really, really didn’t want this man going through her things. She travelled so light that almost everything in the bag was deeply personal. The contents revealed altogether too much about her, from the severe cotton underwear to rainbow silk scarves; to say nothing of those ludicrous furry feet.

But she couldn’t say that, could she? It would just show him how exposed he made her feel—even invite him to probe further. So she watched helplessly as he went back into the bedroom and threw open the small case.

Trying to sound indifferent, she told the open bathroom door, ‘There’s a small first aid pack in there somewhere.’

He started emptying the case, putting her clothes in neat piles on the bed as he removed them.

‘Very efficient, travelling with your own medical kit.’

‘I am efficient.’

It made her stomach turn over, watching those long fingers among her silks and cashmere. And when he found the squashy pussy-cat slippers, he paused, staring as if he could not believe his eyes. He said nothing. But Natasha felt her face flame.

She looked round wildly for a distraction. She found it in Egyptiana.

‘Who on earth put this lot together? Egyptian Bathroom Productions Inc? It’s outrageous.’

He put the slippers down on the floor and chuckled.

It was a sexy sound. So sexy Natasha’s hair lifted gently on the back of her neck.

Even as she fought down her own instinctive response, it astonished her. Arrogance and sexiness did not go together in Natasha’s book. Not normally. This man seemed to be turning all her normal reactions on their head. Again and again and again.

‘It’s pure art deco,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘I told you—specially commissioned from a Hollywood expert.’

Natasha swallowed. ‘It would have to be. Either that or we have some serious grave-robbing here.’

‘Ah, here it is.’ He came back into the bathroom with her little first aid pouch.

She could still feel the remnants of that blush. It was all her own fault too! What sort of professional woman thought slippers with whiskers were absolutely indispensable gear for an international business trip?

What would he think of her? What did it matter what he thought?

But she hadn’t admitted she owned a pair to anyone, not her mother, not even Izzy. Much less that she took them with her whenever she travelled. And now this mocking, unpredictable, sexy man was the only person in the world who knew her shameful secret. Well, that particular shameful secret. She winced.

‘Thank you,’ she muttered.

He looked at the wall frieze with appreciation. ‘My—’ He stopped abruptly. ‘Er—the original owner was a reprobate, but he wasn’t into grave-robbing.’

Natasha followed his gaze. The houris were slim as reeds and twisting themselves into graceful, muscle-killing knots. She eyed them sourly.

‘Just young women wearing lots of eye make-up and not much else,’ she supplied.

But they were beautiful, utterly confident in their languid hedonism. They were definitely not the sort of women to sit pounding at a computer at five o’clock in the morning in order to impress a client.

Natasha stroked a gentle finger down one lithe shape. She was suddenly rueful. ‘Ever feel outclassed?’

Kazim’s tone became positively comforting. ‘They are not supposed to represent real women, you know.’

She jumped and came back to the moment.

‘Thanks for the reassurance,’ she said dryly.

‘Unnecessary, I’m sure.’

God, you’re smooth.

She didn’t say it aloud. A polite visitor didn’t make personal remarks to a butler—even a borrowed butler with a dodgy attitude and an expensive taste in toiletries.

She almost snatched the first aid pouch from him and quickly found a plaster. She ripped off the protective packaging and briskly inspected her heel.