Diana’s breath caught on a little sigh, her lips softened, but still she didn’t look at him, still held herself aloof, at a distance.
‘If I promise that I will never embarrass you in that way again, do you think you might just deign to come down off your high horse and talk to me?’
‘High horse!’ She swung round and glared at him. ‘I’m not on any high horse!’
Indignant was better than silent. Indignant, her eyes flashed green. Indignant might so easily spill over into laughter. She laughed so easily. Made him want to laugh as no woman ever had…
‘Eighteen hands at the very least,’ he said, pushing it.
She shrugged, spread her hands in an ‘and that means?’ gesture.
He responded by raising a hand above his shoulder.
She swallowed. ‘Good grief, we’re talking carthorse, here.’ Then, when he didn’t respond with anything more than a twitch of his eyebrows, ‘I might-
‘One of those small, plump creatures with the uncontrollable manes?’ he enquired, encouraged by the fleeting appearance of that dimple.
‘They’re the ones,’ she admitted, doing her best to swallow down the smile that was trying very hard to break through. Then, having, against all the odds, succeeded, she added, ‘Much more my style than some long-legged thoroughbred, wouldn’t you say?’
‘A perfect match,’ he said.
For once she had no swift comeback and for the longest moment they just looked at each other, neither of them saying a word. But smiling was the furthest thing from either of their minds.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘DON’T you have an appointment to keep?’
It was Diana, not him, who finally broke the silence after what might have been an age, but was nowhere near long enough.
‘Nothing involving money.’ Zahir fought down the temptation to reach out, touch his fingers to her lips to silence her so that they could return to that moment of perfect understanding. Instead, he went for a wry smile. ‘I’ll rephrase that. It involves a great deal of money, but the negotiations were done and dusted months ago. I’m here to take possession of the finished article.’
‘Which, since we’re in a boatyard, I’m guessing would be a boat?’ she said, looking around her at the vast boat-building sheds, the craft pulled out of the water and propped up in cradles awaiting work.
‘Got it in one and you know how it is with a new toy. It’s no fun unless you can show it off to someone.’
Her gaze returned to him. It was direct, straightforward. Honest. She might blush like a girl, but there was none of that irritating coyness about her. She was direct in her look, direct in every way. Even as she acknowledged the truth of his remark with the smallest tilt of her head, she said, ‘Am I the best you can do?’
He sensed more than simple bafflement that he’d choose to display his latest acquisition to his chauffeur. Suspected that her question was loaded, but he played along, turning to look in the back of the car.
‘I can’t see anyone else. Of course, if you would really prefer to stay here and feed the seagulls?’
Diana knew that feeding the seagulls was the safe option. The sensible option. But, for some reason, she wasn’t doing sensible this week.
If she had been, she’d have politely accepted Zahir’s apology and left it at that. Too late now, but then their relationship had gone far beyond politeness. Beyond the point at which she could pretend that she was just his chauffeur and use the car as her defence. The fact that he’d asked, rather than ordered only underlined that point.
He was learning.
Pity she couldn’t do the same, she thought, as she opened the car door and stepped out, catching her breath as the breeze whipped at her hair.
At the marina, the sea, sheltered in the narrow estuary that the river had carved through the hills and coralled by wooden landing stages, had seemed deceptively tame.
Here the sea was a live thing, constantly on the move as it slapped against the concrete slipway, sucked at the shingle. Even the air tasted of salt.
She turned to Zahir, who was standing beside the car, waiting.
Tall, dark and so dangerous that he should have,
The fact that he’d been able to tease her out of her strop the moment he’d put his mind to it was ample demonstration of the danger she was in. How would she ever be able to resist him if he really made an effort?
If he wanted more than a kiss…
She shook her head, recognising somewhere, deep inside her where she refused to go, that his apology had been a rare thing. That he had been making a very special effort.
That resistance was imperative. And, taking a slow calming breath, she turned to face him.
‘If you wanted to show off your new toy,’ she asked, ‘why didn’t you bring the Princess with you?’
‘Princess?’
He was good. He really looked as if he didn’t know what, who, she was talking about.
‘Tall,’ she prompted, holding her hand several inches above her own pitiful height. ‘Blonde.’ She couldn’t quite bring herself to say
He leaned back, his brows drawn down in a puzzled frown. ‘Do you mean Lucy?’
‘I don’t know. How many tall, blonde partners do you have?’ she snapped, angry that he wouldn’t just own up, tell her the truth. That while he was flirting with her, kissing her, dancing with her, he had a thoroughbred filly at home in the stable.
Angry with herself for allowing him to waltz away with her, when she knew…
‘You were talking to her when I returned the tray. If that helps,’ she prompted. ‘She was wearing a pale grey…’
‘I’m with you,’ he said, getting the picture. ‘But calling her my partner is stretching it a bit.’
‘Surely you are or you aren’t,’ she said, hating him for not being honest with her. Hating herself for caring…
‘It’s not like that.’
‘No? What is it like, Zahir?’
‘What is it like?’
His long look left her in no doubt that she’d exposed herself, had revealed feelings that would have been better kept hidden and, damn it, she was really good at ‘hidden’. She could keep a secret better than anyone she knew. She’d had years of practice…
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, turning away, but he stopped her. All it took was a touch to her shoulder.
‘It’s like this, Diana.’
And she turned back. Forget the way he looked, the way he smiled so that she felt like the only person in the world. Who could resist that low, seductively accented voice as it wrapped itself around her, warming everything within her that was vital, female, bringing it to life?
Who could resist it, when she’d been dead inside for so long?
‘Really-’
She made one more effort, but he raised a hand, demanding that she listen.
‘Lucy-charming, beautiful Lucy-’ she flinched at each word ‘-was the joint owner of one of those desert tour outfits. It was poorly managed, under-capitalised, going nowhere. And the man who ran it had been arrested for fraud, amongst other things.’
His mouth tightened as if just thinking about it made him angry and suddenly she was listening.
‘My cousin, Hanif-Ameerah’s father-knew that I was more interested in business than diplomacy and he encouraged me to step in, take it over, see if I could make something of it. I raised the capital-it didn’t take much-
