The Sheik's Unsuitable Bride

‘Would you want to spend your honeymoon on board her?’ he pressed.

‘She’s lovely,’ she said, putting on a big smile hoping that he wouldn’t notice that she’d avoided the question. Putting a safe distance between them as, trailing her fingers along the handrail, she walked along the deck. Away from him. Then, because she couldn’t help it, glancing back. He was standing just where she’d left him, his arm still extended, as if to keep her close. ‘Does she have a name?’ she asked. Anything to stop herself from going back.

‘Yes…’ He shook his head as if trying to think. ‘Yes. I’m calling her Star Gatherer.’

Star…

‘You just made that up!’ she declared without thinking and, as if she’d somehow released him, he joined her at the rail, leaning over it, looking down into the water. ‘I can see why, after last night, you might think so,’ he said.

‘No…’

Too late to deny it. ‘Yes, Diana. But in fact the name comes from the poem, Arab Love-Song.’ And he turned and leaned back against the rail, with the smile of a man who had just had everything he knew confirmed.

‘The Maiden of the Morn will soon/Through Heaven stray and sing,/Star gathering.’

‘Oh. That’s beautiful.’ Then, staring down into the water rushing past the side of the yacht, anywhere, rather than at him, ‘How will you get her home?’ she asked, seeking a subject less…incendiary. ‘To Ramal Hamrah? Will you take her there yourself?’

‘I wish I had that kind of time to spare. Unfortunately, at the moment the sky has first call on my time.’ Better. Safer, she thought, raising an eyebrow. ‘You might recall that I have an airline to get off the ground.’

‘A yacht, an airline? Tell me, Zahir, do you have a bit of a thing about transport?’

‘I’m in the travel business.’

‘Oh, right. Well, I suppose that would explain it.’

‘Jeff’s mustering a permanent crew for the yacht and they’ll bring her home. It’ll give them a chance to put her through her paces, get to know her quirks, on the way.’ Then, ‘If I offered you a trip to Ramal Hamrah in her would you be as quick to turn me down a second time?’

‘That depends. Would I have to share her with a bunch of freeloading journalists?’ Before he could answer, she said, ‘No, I’m kidding. I don’t have that kind of time either.’

But this time as she turned her wrist to check the time, he took her hand, stopping her. ‘We could always take her for a run across the Channel,’ he said.

‘The Channel? To France?’ she squeaked.

His thumb was stroking the back of her fingers. ‘We could have dinner in some little French cafe. I could take the train to Paris in the morning, while you return with the yacht.’

And the bit in between dinner and breakfast?

She couldn’t breathe. It shouldn’t be this hard to say no. If she just concentrated on that one word-morning. Remember that when morning came he’d be taking the fast train to Paris while her world would be in pieces.

Again.

And, on top of that, she wouldn’t have a job.

‘W-what about your dinner at the Mansion House?’ she stammered. ‘If I don’t get you back to London by six, James Pierce will call Sadie Redford and get me fired. He really doesn’t like me.’

‘I like you, that’s all that matters.’

‘Zahir…’

He lifted her hand to his lips, kissed the tips of her fingers. So sure of her…

‘No…’

Maybe it was the first time a woman had ever said ‘no’ to him, or maybe it was the undisguised anguish in her voice, but she now had his full attention.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but my evening is already spoken for.’

‘Your only task this evening is to drive me to the Mansion House.’

She shook her head. ‘Sadie has arranged for someone else to stand in for me.’

‘I don’t want someone else!’ She shook her head. ‘Are you telling me, Metcalfe, that you have a date?’

And that, Diana realised, was the answer. If he thought she was involved with someone, he’d stop this… whatever this was. Save her from herself. Because, heaven help her, hard as she was trying, she was finding it impossible…

‘Is that so unbelievable?’ she asked. ‘A minute ago you were inviting me to dinner in France.’

‘I don’t believe you.’ Then, eyes narrowed, ‘Tell me his name.’

‘Freddy,’ she said. How could she have been so lost in desire that the whole world had suddenly been filled with Zahir? Forgotten the child who was the centre of her world, who, she’d protected from the consequences of her own stupidity since the moment he had been conceived? ‘His name is Freddy.’

Zahir felt his gut contract.

For a moment he hadn’t believed her, had thought that she was clutching at the face-saving excuse he’d offered, protecting him as much as herself from the fallout of such an ill-considered venture. But one look at her face warned him that he was fooling himself.

She might have responded to his reckless kiss with all the passion at her command. She had certainly displayed all the signs of a woman betrayed when she’d thought he was involved with Lucy, but, whoever this Freddy was, he brought a whole new look to her face. A sweetness. A tenderness. Something that he’d fooled himself he’d seen when she’d looked up at him only moments before. When he’d had to force himself to say something stupid like ‘all right?’ to stop himself from picking her up and carrying her below, not as a choreographed move-the opening sequence in a slow dance that would lead inevitably to that inviting bed in the stateroom-but as the beginning of something rare, unexpected, precious.

His suggestion that they take ‘French leave’ had not, despite all appearances to the contrary, been driven by a libido racketing out of control, but because he wanted her with him. Couldn’t bear the thought of watching her drive away…

For a moment he didn’t move, but watched as she stood, one hand on the rail, her head slightly bowed, the sun lighting her hair like a rich halo around her face.

An illusion, he thought, turning abruptly and returning to the bridge.

‘Time is short, Alan,’ he snapped. ‘I’ve seen enough. Let’s get back to the yard so that I can sign the registration papers.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

SHEIKH ZAHIR did not invite Diana to join him while he signed the papers for his new yacht.

As she followed him ashore, he did not even look back as he dismissed her with an abrupt, ‘I’ll see you at the car, Diana. Be ready to leave in fifteen minutes.’

‘Yes, sir,’ she said, resisting the desire to say his name, feel it on her lips, reminding herself that was the way it was supposed to be.

Forget romance. The Cinderella fantasy was just that. A fantasy. She didn’t believe in fairy tales and this wasn’t the moment to lose her head. It was her job that mattered. This chance to move up the ladder. Get on. Get somewhere.

What she’d done back there had been right. For both of them. It hurt, but it would hurt far more afterwards when Zahir had returned to his real life and she was left with the pain.

The taxi was, probably always would be, just another fantasy, but becoming one of Capitol’s senior drivers was within her grasp. Or it had been, until Sheikh Zahir had smiled at her and every bit of common sense had flown out of the window.

Before he’d kissed her. Before he’d danced with her, waltzing off with her heart…