The croupier raked the stakes in. Fran watched Sheikh Ali, frowning. He didn’t even look at the fortune that was vanishing. All his attention was for his new stake.
Suddenly he looked up at her.
She gasped. Two points of light pierced her, held her imprisoned.
Then he smiled, and it was the most wickedly charming smile she had ever seen. It invited her into a conspiracy of delight and something in her leaped to accept. She discovered that she was smiling back; she didn’t know how or why. Simply that the smile had taken over her mouth, then her eyes, then her whole body.
Common sense told her that only pure chance had made him look in her direction, but somehow she didn’t believe it. He’d sensed her there. Among so many others, he’d known that she was watching him, and been impelled to meet her eyes.
Ali leaned forward to her, stretching out his hand across the narrow table. As if hypnotised she placed her own slender hand in his. He held it for a moment and she had the unnerving sense of steely strength in those long fingers. There was power enough there to break a man-or a woman.
Then he raised her hand to his lips. Fran drew in a sharp breath as his mouth brushed her skin. It was the lightest touch, but it was enough for her to sense the whole male animal, vibrant, sensual, dangerous.
‘Place your bets, please.’
He released her, reached for his stake and pushed it out onto the table. It stopped at black twenty-two, but he didn’t look to see. He’d forgotten the other women as soon as the wheel spun, but he kept his eyes on Fran, ignoring the wheel. She watched him back, meaning to tear her eyes away, but mysteriously unable to do so.
Ali seemed to come out of a dream to realise that the croupier was pushing the chips towards him. It had been a large stake and with one win he’d recouped almost all his losses. He grinned, showing white teeth, and indicated the place beside him with the slightest inclination of his head.
She edged around the table towards him. The other women pouted and sulked, reluctant to give way to her, but he dismissed them with a faint gesture.
Fran felt as if she was moving in a dream. Luck had fallen her way with stunning suddenness. She had meant to study Ali tonight, and now fate had presented her with the perfect opportunity.
‘You have brought me luck,’ he said as she reached him and sat down. ‘Now you must stay close by me so that my luck remains.’
‘Surely you’re not superstitious?’ she asked with a smile. ‘Your luck will come and go. It has nothing to do with me.’
‘I think otherwise,’ he pronounced in a tone that silenced further argument. ‘The spell you cast is for me alone. Not for any other man. Remember that.’
Arrogant beast, she thought. If this didn’t happen to suit me I’d enjoy taking him down a peg.
‘Place your bets.’
With a gesture of his hand Ali indicated for her to place the stake for him. She put the counters on red fifteen, and held her breath as the wheel spun.
A sigh went up from everyone around the table.
Almost everyone.
Ali alone was not watching. His eyes were fixed admiringly on Fran. As the counters were pushed towards him he gave a shrug which said, ‘Of course.’
‘I don’t believe that happened,’ she breathed.
‘You made it happen,’ he assured her, ‘and you will make it happen again.’
‘No, it was chance. You should stop now. Take it while you have it.’
His smile said that it was for petty men to worry about such things. Princes controlled their own fate. Under his hypnotic glance Fran found herself believing it.
‘Put it on for me again,’ he said. ‘All of it.’
Dazed, she piled up all his winnings and went to put them on-on-
‘I can’t decide,’ she said frantically.
‘What day of the month is your birthday?’
‘The twenty-third.’
‘Red or black? Choose.’
‘Black,’ she said recklessly.
‘Then black twenty-three it is.’
She watched in agony as the wheel began to spin.
‘Don’t look,’ he said, smiling. ‘Look only at me, and let the little gods of the tables take care of the matter.’
‘Can you make them do your pleasure as well?’ she whispered.
‘I can make anyone and anything do my pleasure,’ he said simply.
The wheel stopped.
A prickle went up Fran’s spine. This was eerie. Ali saw her startled look and laughed.
‘Witchcraft,’ he said. ‘And you are the most beautiful witch of all.’
‘I-I don’t believe it,’ she stammered. ‘It can’t happen like that.’
‘It happened because you are magic. And I can’t resist magic.’
On the words he dropped his head and laid his lips against her palm. Instantly Fran felt as though she was being scorched, although the touch of his lips was teasingly soft. The sensation started in her skin and swiftly pervaded her. She had a sense of alarm and would have snatched her hand back, but she remembered in time that such gaucheness wouldn’t fit the role she was playing. She smiled, hoping she looked as though such tributes happened every day.
The croupier pushed over the winnings. ‘I’ll take them,’ Ali announced.
A man standing behind his chair counted up and wrote the total on a piece of paper. Fran gasped as she saw it.
While the man went to cash the chips Ali rose and drew Fran away from the table. ‘Now we will dine together,’ he announced.
Fran hesitated. Ancient female wisdom told her that it wasn’t clever to accept such an abrupt invitation from a man she’d known barely half an hour. But she was in pursuit of a story, and she wouldn’t succeed by refusing the first real break she’d been given. Besides, a restaurant was public enough.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Joey, his jaw dropping. She gave him a wink and swept out on Ali’s arm.
His Rolls-Royce was waiting outside, the chauffeur already standing with the door open. Ali handed her gallantly inside. The chauffeur got in and started the car without waiting for instructions.
When they were moving Ali turned to her, smiling mischievously, and reached into his pockets. From one he produced a necklace of priceless pearls, from the other, a diamond necklace.
‘Which?’ he asked.
‘Whi-?’
‘One of them is yours. Take your pick.’
She gaped. He carried such things around with him, in his pockets?
Feeling as though she’d been transported to another planet, she said, ‘I’ll take the diamonds.’ The voice didn’t sound like her own.
‘Turn your neck so that I can remove that gold pendant,’ he commanded. ‘The man who gives you such trumpery baubles doesn’t know how to value you.’
His fingers brushed her neck, and she took a shuddering, uncontrollable breath. This wasn’t how the evening was supposed to go. She’d come prepared to analyse Sheikh Ali, to dislike and despise him. But she hadn’t come prepared to be overwhelmed by him. It had simply happened.
She felt the chill on her flesh as he draped a king’s ransom in diamonds about her neck. His fingertips brushed against her nape and she had to struggle not to tremble at that soft, devastating impact. Then there was another sensation, so light that she couldn’t be sure of it. Had he kissed the back of her neck or not? How dared he? If he
