Kitabı oku: «The Sheikh's Convenient Princess»

I’m dedicating this, my 65th title, to my wonderful

readers—some of whom have been with me from

the first Friday in December 1992, when my

first book, An Image of You, was published.

You are my inspiration.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘BRAM...’

Bram Ansari had answered the phone without looking up from a document that had just arrived by courier. ‘Hamad...I was about to call you.’

‘Then you’ve received the summons to Father’s birthday majlis.’

‘It arrived ten minutes ago. I imagine I have you to thank for that.’

‘No. It’s his wish. He’s sick, Bram. It’s a significant birthday. You need to be home.’

His brother did not sound particularly happy at the prospect.

‘I doubt everyone thinks that.’

‘It’s covered. The old man has negotiated a secret deal with the Khadri family.’

‘A deal?’ Bram frowned. ‘What kind of deal?’ The last time he’d seen Ahmed Khadri the man had threatened to cut his throat if he ever stepped foot in Umm al Basr. ‘Tell me.’

As his brother explained the secret deal his father had negotiated to enable Bram to return home the colour leached out of the day until the sky, the sea, the flowers overflowing the tower turned grey.

‘No...’

‘I’m sorry, Bram, but at least you’re prepared. If Bibi hadn’t managed to smuggle a note to her sister you would have been presented with a fait accompli.’

‘You think I can go through with this?’

‘It’s the price that must be paid.’

‘But I won’t be the one paying it!’ He took a breath. ‘How is your family?’ he asked, cutting Hamad short when he would have argued. ‘The new baby?’

‘In sh’Allah, all my precious girls are thriving. Safia sends her fondest wishes and thanks for the gifts.’ He hesitated. ‘She said to say that you are always in her prayers.’

Bram ended the call then swept the invitation from the table in impotent fury. The longed-for chance to kneel at his father’s feet and beg his forgiveness had come attached to a tangle of string that would take more than prayers to unravel. It would need a miracle.

The phone beeped, warning him that he had a missed call. He glanced at the screen and ignored it. His aide was spending a long weekend with friends in the Alps and the last thing he needed right now was a joyous description of the snow conditions.

* * *

Qa’lat al Mina’a, perched high on its rocky promontory, shimmered like a mirage in the soft pink haze of the setting sun.

Far below, beyond a perfect curve of white sand, a dhow was drifting slowly along the coast under a dark red sail and for a brief moment Ruby felt as if she might have been transported back into some Arabian Nights fantasy, flying in on a magic carpet rather than a gleaming black helicopter.

The illusion was swiftly shattered as they circled to land.

The fortress might appear, at first glance, to be a picturesque ruin, a reminder of a bygone age, but behind the mass of purple bougainvillaea billowing against its walls was a satellite dish, antennae—all the trappings of the communications age, powered by an impressive range of solar panels facing south where the jebel fell away to the desert.

And the tower did not stand alone. Below it she glimpsed courtyards, arches, gardens surrounding an extensive complex that spread down to the shore where a very twenty-first century gunmetal-grey military-style launch was sheltered in a harbour hewn from the rock. And they were descending to a purpose-built helipad. This was not some romantically crumbling stronghold out of a fantasy; the exterior might be battered by weather and time but it contained the headquarters of a very modern man.

As they touched down, a middle-aged man in a grey robe and skullcap approached the helicopter at a crouching run. He opened the door, glanced at her with astonishment and then shouted something she couldn’t hear to the pilot.

He returned a don’t-ask-me shrug from his seat. Sensing a problem, Ruby didn’t wait but unclipped her safety belt, swung open the door and jumped down.

‘As-salaam aleykum. Ismee, Ruby Dance,’ she said, raising her voice above the noise of the engine. ‘Sheikh Ibrahim is expecting me.’

She didn’t wait for a response but shouldered the neat satchel that contained everything she needed for work, nodded her thanks to the pilot and, leaving the man to follow with her wheelie suitcase, she crossed to steps that led down to the shelter of the courtyard below.

The air coming off the sea was soft and moist—bliss after hours cooped up in the dry air of even the most luxurious private jet—while below her were tantalising glimpses of terraces cut into the hill, each shaded by ancient walls and vine-covered pergolas. There was a glint of water running through rills and at her feet clove-scented dianthus and thyme billowed over onto the steps.

It was beautiful, exotic, unexpected. Not so far from the fantasy after all.

Behind her the pilot, keen to get home, was already winding up the engine and she lifted her head to watch the helicopter take off, bracing herself against buffeting from the down force of the blades. As it wheeled away back towards the capital of Ras al Kawi, leaving her cut off from the outside world, she half lifted a hand as if to snatch it back.

‘Madaam...’

Despite her confident assertion that she was expected, it was clear that her arrival had come as a surprise but, before she could respond to the agitated man who was following her down the steps, a disembodied voice rang out from below, calling out something she did not understand.

Before she could move, think, the owner of the voice was at the foot of the steps, looking up at her, and she forgot to breathe.

Sheikh Ibrahim al-Ansari was no longer the golden prince, heir to the throne of Umm al Basr, society magazine cover favourite—a carefree young man with nothing on his mind but celebrating his sporting triumphs in some fashionable nightclub.

Disgraced, disinherited and exiled from his father’s court when his arrest for a naked romp in a London fountain had made front page news, his face was harder, the bones more defined, the natural lines cut a little deeper. And not just lines. Running through the edge of his left brow, slicing through his cheekbone before disappearing into a short-clipped beard was a thin scar—the kind left by the slash of a razor-sharp knife—and dragging at the corner of his eye and his lip so that his face was not quite in balance. The effect was brutal, chilling, mesmerising.

He was never going to be the beast—his bone structure beneath the silky golden skin was too perfect, the tawny eyes commanding and holding all her attention, but he was no longer the beautiful young man who had appeared in society magazines alongside European aristocrats, millionaires, princes. Whose photograph, trophy in hand, had regularly graced the covers of the glossier lifestyle magazines.

She was momentarily distracted by a flash of pink as a droplet of water, caught in the sun’s dying rays, slid down one of the dark, wet curls that clung to his neck.

She was standing with her back to the setting sun and he raised a hand to shade his eyes. ‘What the devil?’

Mouth dry, brain freewheeling and with no connection between them, her lips parted but her breath stuck in her throat as a second drop of water joined the first, hung there until the force of gravity overcame it and it dropped to a wide shoulder, slid into the hollow of his collarbone.

She watched, mesmerised, as it spilled over, trickled down his broad chest, imagining how it would feel against her hand if she reached out to capture it.

The thought was so intense that she could feel the tickle of chest hair against her palm, the wet, sun-kissed skin, and instinctively closed her hand.

She hadn’t expected him to be wearing a pin-striped suit or the formal flowing robes of a desert prince, but it was her first encounter with an employer wearing nothing but a towel—a man whose masculinity was underlined by the scars left by his chosen sports.

‘Who are you?’ he demanded.

Not some empty-headed ninny to stand there gawping at the kind of male body more usually seen in moody adverts for aftershave, that was for sure, and, sending an urgent message to her feet, she stepped down to his level.

‘Not the devil, Sheikh.’ She uncurled her clenched hand and offered it to him as she introduced herself. ‘Ruby Dance. I’ve been sent by the Garland Agency to hold the fort while Peter Hammond recovers from his injuries.’

Sheikh Ibrahim stared at her hand for what felt like forever, then, ignoring it, he looked up.

‘Injuries?’ Dark brows were pulled down in a confused frown. ‘What injuries?’

She lowered her hand. Well, that explained the confusion at her arrival. Obviously the message about his aide’s accident had failed to reach him.

‘I understand that Mr Hammond crashed off his snowboard early this morning,’ she replied, putting his lapse of manners down to shock. ‘I was told that he’d spoken to you.’

‘Then you were misinformed,’ he said. ‘How bad is it?’

‘The last I heard was that he’d been airlifted to hospital. I’ll see if I can get an update.’ She took her phone from her bag. ‘Will I get a signal?’ He didn’t bother to answer but she got five strong bars—those antennae weren’t just for show—and hit the first number on her contact list.

There were endless seconds of waiting for the international connection—endless seconds in which he continued to stare at her. It was the look of someone who was sure he’d seen her before but couldn’t think where.

‘Ruby? Is everything okay?’ Amanda Garland, the founder of the Garland Agency, had called her first thing, asking her to drop whatever she was doing, fly out to Qa’lat al Mina’a and hold the fort until other arrangements could be made.

‘Yes...’

‘Tell me.’ There was no fooling Amanda.

Ruby swallowed, took a breath. She was imagining it, she knew. It had been years since her photograph had been all over the media, but his sculptured chest, the smattering of hair arrowing down beneath the towel—far too reminiscent of that scene in the fountain—was wrecking her concentration.

In an attempt to get a grip, she turned away, focusing on the sea, the misted shape of the dhow far below, dropping its sails as it turned to edge up the creek.

‘Ruby!’

‘Everything’s fine,’ Ruby said quickly. ‘The flight went without a hitch but my arrival has come as something of a surprise. It seems that Sheikh Ibrahim did not get the message about Peter’s accident.’

‘What?’ Amanda was clearly shocked. ‘I’m so sorry, Ruby. Is there anything I can do? Do you want me to speak to the Sheikh?’

‘All I need is an update on Mr Hammond’s condition.’ Amanda gave her the details. ‘And which hospital...? Thanks—that will be perfect. I’ll speak to you later.’ She disconnected.

‘Well?’ he demanded as she turned to him, keeping her gaze fixed on his face. Tawny eyes, a hawkish nose, a mouth with a one-sided tug that gave it a cruelly sensuous droop—

‘Peter has broken his left leg in two places, torn a ligament in his wrist and cracked some ribs,’ she said, blotting out the thoughts that had no place in a business environment—thoughts that she didn’t want in her head. ‘They’ve pinned him back together and he’ll be flown home in a day or two. Amanda is going to text me contact details.’

‘Who is Amanda?’

Hello, good to meet you and thank you for rushing to fill the gap would have been polite. Thank you for putting my mind at rest was pretty much a minimum in the circumstances. But Ruby had long ago learned to keep her expression neutral, to never show what she was thinking or feeling, and she focused on the question rather than his lack of manners.

‘Amanda Garland.’ The name would normally be enough but Sheikh Ibrahim did not work in London, where it was shorthand for the best in business and domestic staff. There was no smile of recognition, no gratitude for the fact that his injured aide’s first thought had been to summon a replacement. ‘The Garland Agency supplies temps, nannies and domestic staff to an international clientele. Amanda is also Peter’s godmother.’ She returned her phone to her bag and took out the heavy white envelope that she’d sent with the driver who’d picked her up. ‘When he sent an SOS for someone to hold the fort, she called me. I have her letter of introduction.’

She’d already had her hand ignored once and did not make the mistake of offering it to him so that he could ignore the letter too, but waited for him to reach for it.

‘A letter of introduction from someone I don’t know?’

‘Perhaps Mr Hammond thought you would trust his judgement.’

‘How good would your judgement be if you were lying in the snow with a broken leg?’ he demanded.

‘Since that’s never going to happen, I couldn’t say.’ Her voice was deadpan, disguising an uncharacteristic urge to scream. She’d been travelling for hours and right now she could do with a little of the famous regional hospitality and a minute or two to gather her wits. ‘All I know is that his first concern was to ensure that you weren’t left without assistance.’

His only response was an irritated grunt.

Okay, enough...

‘Your cousin, His Highness the Emir of Ras al Kawi, will vouch for her bona fides,’ she assured him, as if she was used to casually bandying about the names of the local royals. ‘Her Highness Princess Violet entrusted Amanda with the task of finding her a nanny.’

‘I don’t need a nanny.’

‘That’s fortunate because I’ve never changed a nappy in my life.’ Her reputation for calm under pressure was being put to the test and there had been an uncharacteristic snap to her response that earned her the fractional lift of an insolent brow. ‘Miss Garland’s note contains the names of some of the people I’ve worked for, should you require reassurance regarding my own capabilities,’ she continued, calling on previously untested depths of calm.

‘Will I have heard of them?’ he asked, with heavy emphasis on them.

Since she had no way of knowing who he’d heard of, she assumed the question was not only sarcastic but rhetorical. Choosing not to risk another demonstration of the power of that eyebrow, she made no comment.

In the face of her silence he finally held out his hand for the letter, ripping open the flap with the broad tip of his thumb.

His face gave nothing away as he scanned the contents but he turned to the man holding her suitcase, spoke to him in Arabic before, with a last thoughtful look at her, he said, ‘I’ll see you in my office in fifteen minutes, Miss Dance.’

With that, he turned away, his leather flip-flops slapping irritably as he crossed the stone terrace before disappearing down steps that led to a lower level.

Shakily, Ruby let out her breath.

Whew. Double whew, with knobs on. Forget the grateful thanks for dropping everything and flying here at a moment’s notice—that had been tense. On the other hand, now that he’d taken his naked torso out of sight and she could think clearly, she could understand his reluctance to take her at face value.

It wasn’t personal.

Doubtless, there had been attempts to breach his security in the past, although whether for photographs of his isolated hideout, gossip on who he was sharing it with, or insider information on who was about to get the golden touch of Ansari financial backing was anyone’s guess.

Any one of them would be worth serious money and an unexpected visitor was always going to get the hard stare and third degree. She, more than anyone, could understand that.

Easy to say—as she followed the servant through an ancient archway and down a short flight of steps, her skin was goosebumped, her breath catching in her throat—but it felt very personal.

At the bottom of the steps, sheltered from the sea by stone walls and from the heat of the summer by pergolas dripping with blue racemes of wisteria, scented with the tiny white stars of jasmine, was a terrace garden.

She stopped, entranced, her irritation melting away.

‘Madaam?’ the servant prompted, bringing her back to the reason she was there, and she turned to him.

‘Sho Ismak?’ She asked his name.

He smiled, bowed. ‘Ismi Khal, madaam.’

She placed her hand against her chest and said, ‘Ismi, Ruby.’ Then, with a gesture at the garden, ‘This is lovely. Jameel,’ she said, calling on the little Arabic she’d learned during working trips to Dubai and Bahrain and topped up on the long flight from London.

‘Nam. It is beautiful,’ he said carefully, demonstrating his own English with a broad smile, before turning to open the door to a cool tiled lobby, slipping his feet from his sandals as he stepped inside.

She had no time to linger, admire the exquisite tiles decorating the walls, but, familiar with the customs of the region, she followed his example and slipped off her heels before padding after him.

He opened the door to a large, comfortably furnished sitting room, crossed the room to draw back shutters and open a pair of doors that led onto a small shaded area overlooking the sea. There was a rush of air, the scent of the sea mingled with jasmine and, despite the less than enthusiastic welcome and her own misgivings about coming here, she sighed with pleasure.

When Amanda had explained that Sheikh Ibrahim was sitting out his exile in a fort in Ras al Kawi, his maternal grandmother’s native home, she had imagined something rugged, austere. It was all that, but below the ancient fortress a home, a garden, had been carved from the shelter of the hillside.

The man might be a grouch but this place was magical.

Khal was all set to give her the full guided tour of the suite, starting with the tiny kitchen, but she had just a few minutes to freshen up and get her head straight before she had to report to Sheikh Ibrahim.

‘Shukran, Khal.’ She tapped her watch to indicate that she was short of time. ‘Where... Ayn...?’ She mimed typing and he smiled, then took her to the door, pointed at the steps leading down.

‘Marra,’ he said, and held up one finger, then, ‘Marrataan.’ Two fingers.

Once, twice?

‘Etnaan? Two floors?’

He nodded, then rattled something off that she had no chance of understanding, before heading off down them.

* * *

Bram had showered on the beach when he came out of the sea but he stood in his wet room with cold water pouring off him while he caught his breath, recovered from that moment when he’d looked up and seen the dark, foreshortened silhouette of Ruby Dance against the sky and his heart had stopped.

In that split second he’d imagined every possible drama that would have brought Safia flying north to Ras al Kawi. To him. When Ruby Dance, and not Safia, had stepped out of the shadow, the complex rush of disappointment, guilt had hit him like a punch in the gut.

Her hair was the same dark silk as Safia’s but it had been cut in short, feathery layers. Her eyes were not the rare blue-green that was the legacy of Iskandar’s army, who’d fought and scattered their seed every inch of the way along the Gulf to India, but the cool blue-grey of a silver fox. She was a little taller and, while her voice had the same soft, low musical tones that wrapped around a man’s heart, when she spoke it was with that clear precision—as English as a rainy day—of the privileged aristocratic women he’d known in Europe.

What she did have in common with Safia was a rare stillness, a face that gave no hint of what she was thinking or feeling.

Schooled to obedience—accepting without question a marriage arranged to keep the peace between their warring families when they were children—Safia would have played the role of perfect wife, borne his children, never by so much as a breath betraying her love for another man.

The arrival of a courier that morning bearing the summons home, and the difficult call from his brother, had stirred up long-buried memories, bringing Safia’s image so vividly to mind that it had taken time for his brain to catch up with what his eyes were telling him. A seemingly endless moment when everything dead within him had stirred, quickened and he’d come close to taking her hand to draw her close. To step back five years and, if only for a moment, be the man he was meant to be. Husband, father, heir to his father’s throne.

He shook his head, grabbed a towel and scrubbed at his face to erase the treacherous thought and concentrate on what Ruby Dance had said about Peter.

A badly broken leg, a wrist that would be out of action for weeks, the agony of cracked ribs; the timing couldn’t be worse. There were a number of projects requiring his undivided attention and, after five long years of exile, the longed-for call home with a sting in the tail...

He glanced at the letter of introduction, picked up his phone and keyed Amanda Garland into the search engine.

Her reputation—clients who were prepared to publicly laud her to the skies, a Businesswoman of the Year award, an honour from Queen Elizabeth—was as impressive as the list of people she’d offered as a reference.

He’d asked the Dance woman if he would have heard of any of them and the fact was that he’d met all of them. If she was used to working at this level she must be seriously good at her job and, unlike Peter, she wouldn’t be itching to disappear into the desert for days at a time with a camera.

* * *

Ruby wasted no time in stripping off and stepping into the walk-in shower. She let the hard needles of water stream over her for one long minute, stimulating, refreshing, bringing her body back to life.

It was warmer here than in London, than on the air conditioned jet, and she abandoned her dark grey trouser suit in favour of a lightweight knee-length skirt and linen top. And, having already experienced the ancient steps, she slipped on a pair of black ballet flats.

She still had a few minutes and used them to check her phone for Amanda’s text, copying the details of the hospital onto one of the index cards she carried with her before going in search of Sheikh Ibrahim’s office.

The evening was closing in. The sea was flat calm, the sky ranging from deep purple in the east to pale pinks and mauves in the west while, in the shadows, tiny solar lights twined around the pergolas and set amongst the casual planting, were blinking on, shining through leaves, glinting on a ripple of water trickling down through rocks.

The garden had a quiet magic and she could have stood there for hours letting the peace seep into her bones. She took one last look then, out of time, she walked down to the next level where, in a corner, a few shrivelled fruits still clung to a pomegranate tree.

She found another flight of steps half hidden behind the thick stems of the bougainvillaea that softened the tower wall. These were narrower, skirting the cliff face with only a wall that did not reach the height of her shoulder to protect her from a nerve-tingling drop onto the rocks below. She did not linger and, precisely fifteen minutes later, as instructed by the Sheikh, she stepped down into a courtyard where concealed lights washed the walls, turning it into an outside room.

Sheikh Ibrahim, wet hair slicked back and now wearing shorts and a loose-fitting T-shirt that hung from those wide shoulders, was sitting, legs stretched out, ankles crossed on the footrest of an old-fashioned cane planters’ chair, smartphone in hand.

There was a matching chair on the other side of the low table.

She placed the card with the hospital details in front of him, slid back the footrest on the empty chair, removed her phone, tablet, notepad and pen from her satchel and, tidily tucking her skirt beneath her, sat down.

He looked at her for what seemed like endless minutes, a slight frown buckling the space between his eyes.

Ruby had learned the habit of stillness long ago. It was her survival technique; she’d schooled herself not to blink, blanking even the most penetrating of stares with a bland look that had unnerved both the disapproving, pitying adults who didn’t know what to say to her and the jeering classmates who knew only too well.

Perhaps she’d become complacent. It was a long time since anyone had bothered to look beyond the image of the professional peripatetic PA that she presented to the world. Now, sitting in front of Sheikh Ibrahim, waiting for him to say something, say anything, it took every ounce of concentration to maintain her composure.

Maybe it was the memory of water dripping onto his bare shoulder, running down his chest, the certainty that he’d been naked beneath that towel that was messing with her head.

Or that his thighs, calves, ankles honed to perfection on horseback, on the blackest of black ski runs, were everything hinted at beneath the jodhpurs he’d been wearing on the Celebrity cover she’d downloaded to the file she’d created as soon as Amanda had called her. Confirmed in the photograph of him cavorting naked in a London fountain, one arm around a girl in transparently wet underwear as he’d poured a bottle of champagne over them both. The photograph that had cost him a throne.

Or maybe it was that she recognised the darkness in his eyes, an all-consuming hunger for redemption. It crossed the space between them and a shiver rippled through her as if he’d reached out and touched her.

‘Jude Radcliffe tells me that he offered you a permanent position in his organisation,’ he said at last. ‘Why didn’t you take it?’

‘You talked to Jude?’ Amanda hadn’t held back when it came to references.

‘Is that a problem?’ He spoke softly, inviting her confidence. She was not fooled. His voice might be seductively velvet but it cloaked steel.

‘No, but it is Sunday. I didn’t think he’d be at the office.’

‘He wasn’t. I know him well enough to call him at home.’ His response was casual enough, but she didn’t miss the underlying warning; someone he knew on a personal basis would be totally frank.

‘Did he tell you that his wife was once a Garland temp?’ she asked, demonstrating her own familiarity with the family. ‘It’s how they met. She was expecting her second baby the last time I worked at Radcliffe Tower.’ She picked up her phone and checked her diary. ‘It’s due next month.’

‘You keep files on the people you work for?’

She looked up. ‘The way they like their coffee, their favoured airlines, the name of their hairdresser, shirt collar size, the brand of make-up they use, important birthdays. They’re the small details that make me the person they call when their secretaries are sick,’ she said. ‘They’re the reason why their PAs check whether I’ll be available before they make their holiday bookings.’

‘You don’t undersell yourself. I’m surprised you were free to fly here at such short notice.’

‘I’d taken a week’s holiday to do some decorating.’

‘Decorating?’ he repeated, bemused.