The Sheik's Unsuitable Bride

but when I bought Lucy out I insisted she keep a small equity in the business.’ He managed a wry smile. ‘Just in case I was as good as I thought I was. She’d had a raw deal.’

‘What a Galahad!’

‘You don’t understand.’ He lifted a hand as if asking her to at least try. ‘But then why should you?’

‘I never will unless you tell me. Not that it’s any of my business,’ she added, realising, somewhat belatedly, that haranguing a client about business affairs was probably not an entirely wise move. Except that she’d stopped treating Zahir like a client from, well, the moment she’d picked up the shattered snow globe.

But the admission earned her another of those smiles-the real ones-so that was okay.

‘Don’t go all polite on me, Diana.’

Or maybe not.

‘I’m listening,’ she said.

He leaned back against the car, folded him arms, looked down, as if dredging deep for what he was about to tell her. ‘The men in my family are diplomats. My grandfather before he became ruler. My father, uncles, cousins. I wanted something different. Like you, I had a dream.’

‘Your own airline?’

‘Not quite. It takes time to learn to dream on that scale. You have to start small, then, as your imagination grows, let the dreams grow until they are big enough to fill all the available space.’ He glanced up at her. ‘I got my chance because Lucy’s life had fallen apart. I owed her. She uses her share of the profits to fund a charity she founded, which is why she turns out for the PR stuff, as she did last night, whenever Hanif can spare her.’

Hanif…

‘Your cousin,’ she said, finally working out where all this was going. ‘Ameerah’s father.’

‘And Lucy’s husband.’

Diana struggled to say something to cover her stupidity but for once words failed her and all she could manage was a stumbling, ‘I…um…’

Oh…sheikh!

Zahir saw her difficulty. But then he’d seen everything. That was why he’d taken the long route to make his point when he could just as easily have said, She’s my partner, but she’s also my cousin’s wife.

‘That wasn’t the kind of partnership you were talking about was it.’ he asked very softly.

A hole in the ground, opening up to swallow her whole, would be welcome right now, she decided as, left with no place to hide, she shook her head.

‘Whatever made you think-?’

‘I saw her last night when I returned the tray,’ she cut in quickly, before he reminded her exactly what she’d been thinking. ‘You were together. You looked so close and when he saw me looking Mr Pierce told me that she was your partner. I thought…’ She dismissed what she’d thought with an awkward, meaningless gesture.

‘A simple misunderstanding.’

She didn’t think so.

‘His partner…’ The way James Pierce had said it had been full of meaning. He’d meant her to believe…

No. That was ridiculous. Much more likely her imagination, working overtime, leaping to conclusions when she’d seen him standing so close to a beautiful woman just minutes after he’d kissed her.

Good grief, she must have it bad if she’d let her imagination run so green. She must really have it bad if she felt this good knowing that it wasn’t true.

While she was still trying to find words that would not betray her as a complete idiot-a jealous idiot at that-he rescued her, making a gesture in the direction of boatyard.

‘Actually, you’re right, Lucy would have loved the chance to see the yacht. In fact she’s calling in every favour I owe her in return for the right to give it a test run as a wedding anniversary gift to Hanif before it’s chartered to the public.’

‘You’re going to charter it?’ Diana asked, grabbing for the impersonal in an attempt to distract him from the fact that she’d just betrayed feelings that were just plain…inappropriate!

‘I could not justify the expense for my own personal use. Even if I had the time. But today it is all mine.’ And, with the slightest of bows, he offered her his hand. ‘In the absence of Princess Lucy al-Khatib, Miss Metcalfe, will you do me the immense honour of allowing me to share this moment with you?’

He had never treated her as if she were just his chauffeur, but at this moment she recognised that he was treating her like a princess and she laid her hand against his.

He closed his hand over hers, tucked it beneath his arm and, heading for the boatyard office, said, ‘My plan is to use the yacht as part of a wedding package. I’d value your opinion on that.’

‘I don’t think I’m your natural market, Zahir.’

He glanced at her. ‘Are you telling me that you don’t dream?’

‘Not at all. It’s just that my dreams are confined to pink taxis.’ And a prince who turns into a frog. The only way this could turn out. But it was her Cinderella moment and she was going to make the most of it.

‘There’s nothing wrong with the pink taxi dream, but maybe I can broaden your horizons.’

‘To what? A pink yacht?’

‘Just wait until you see her,’ he said, with a sudden smile that betrayed an oddly boyish enthusiasm. ‘There’s a very small island in Nadira Creek that is going to make a perfect wedding venue. I’m building a restaurant there, with a traditional wind tower to draw the air down over a basement pool to cool it naturally. A pavilion for romantic Westerners to make their vows.’

‘It’s just for tourists, then?’

‘An Arab wedding traditionally takes place at the bride’s home…’ He shook his head. ‘At Nadira, after the ceremony, the feasting, the yacht will be waiting to carry the honeymooners away, leaving the world behind…’

He left the rest to her already overcharged imagination.

‘It sounds enchanting,’ she said, concentrating very hard not to go there. ‘And expensive.’ Then, ‘But very romantic.’

‘It will be.’

‘Which?’

‘All three,’ he assured her. And the boyish smile faded, leaving only a very adult warmth in his eyes.

The yacht certainly looked expensive. White, sleek, beautiful, and so much larger than she’d anticipated, that Diana almost succumbed to another ‘…oh, sheikh…’ moment.

‘You’d probably like to look around the accommodation, miss,’ the boat builder suggested, ‘while I show Sheikh Zahir the engines?’

Zahir hesitated, then, turning to follow the man below to inspect powerful engines that were, even now, sending a quiet hum through the yacht, he said, ‘Go where you like, Diana. I’ll catch up with you.’

She suspected that she knew at least as much about engines as Zahir. From the time she could reach inside the bonnet of his taxi, she’d been asking questions and her father had taught her all he knew, even as he’d taught her to drive on private roads, so that she’d passed her driving test only days after her seventeenth birthday.

But men were funny about stuff like that, so she did as she was told and wandered over the yacht, marvelling over the ingenuity of the fittings in the galley, sighing over the minimalist luxury of the accommodation. Coming to a halt when she opened the door to the main stateroom which, dominated by a huge bed, half hidden by rich silk drapes, was quite clearly the honeymoon suite. Zahir had certainly widened the horizons of her dreams she thought, as her imagination ran amok…

Definitely time for some fresh air, she decided, heading back to the deck. But the honeymoon image lingered and, as she stood in the prow, her dreams knew no bounds. A tropical sun dipping into the sea, the arm of a man who loved her around her waist, her head against his shoulder.

She shook her head to clear it.

Forget the yacht, the sunset. Only the man was important and she’d be wise to forget him too.

Everything she had, everything she could be, was down to her alone and on an impulse, she leaned forward, stretching out her arms like the heroine in the film Titanic and, in the absence of her own hero, telling herself that she could do anything, be anything, if only she had the courage…

Zahir dutifully stood over the glistening pistons as the engines were turned over because, as an owner taking