Читать книгу The Desert Prince / The Playboy's Proposition: The Desert Prince / The Playboy's Proposition - Jennifer Lewis - Страница 10

As Salim piloted the car back to Salalah, he got the distinct impression Celia was trying to back out.

“How do you feel about honoring the land’s history of oil production?” She glanced sideways at him, blue eyes alive with intelligence. “That’s surely part of the area’s heritage, too.”

“You mean, incorporate the wellheads and pipelines?”

“Exactly.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t take a project unless I can implement my vision.”

Ah. An uncompromising artist. He’d expect no less of Celia. Wasn’t that part of her irresistible charm?

Salim turned and called her bluff. “Sure.”

She blinked and her lips parted.

“Not all of them,” she stammered. “I think an area’s industrial history can be part of its magic. I designed a park two years ago around an old coal mine in England. We preserved the pithead as part of the project because that mine was the reason the town grew there in the first place.”

Salim nodded as his hand slid over the wheel. “I appreciate original thinking. Too many tourist destinations are carbon copies of the same island fantasy.”

“Aren’t they? Sometimes it’s hard to tell if you’re in Florida or Madagascar. I have a heck of a time with some of my clients though. They don’t want to use native plants because they don’t see them as ‘upscale.’ I guess familiarity breeds contempt.”

“We business types need educating.”

Celia raised a blond brow. “Sometimes it’s not worth the trouble. Many people aren’t interested in being educated. They want business as usual.”

Salim turned to stare out at the empty road ahead. She wanted him to be one of those unimaginative suits, so she could turn down his project without a qualm of conscience.

But he couldn’t let that happen. “I’ll pay triple your usual fee.”

Celia froze. “What?”

“It’s a big project and will take a long time.”

She bit her lip, obviously contemplating the dilemma of turning down more money than she’d probably ever made.

He heard her inhale. “I’ll need to travel back to the states regularly.”

“Come and go as you please. I’ll pay all your expenses.”

She wanted to refuse him, but he’d make it impossible.

Seeing her again had already fanned that unfortunate flame of desire she kindled in him. It had never truly gone out. This time he wouldn’t be done with her until it was extinguished—permanently.

A simple signature committed Celia to the uneasy partnership. A meeting with the architect and general contractor established they were all on the same page, and all systems were go by the time Celia headed back to Manhattan with her first check burning a large hole in her pocket.

She could fly back to visit Kira whenever she wanted. When this job was over she’d have enough money for a down payment on a house in Weston, near her parents. She could set down roots and have a real home base to share with her daughter.

She had thoroughly convinced herself that taking the job was a good idea—until Sunday lunch at her parents’ house in Connecticut.

“But Mom, you’re the one who said it was time for Kira to meet her father.” Celia heard her voice rising to a whine the way it used to when she was a teen and they wouldn’t lend her the car.

“I know, dear. But you met with her father. Did you tell him about Kira?”

Kira was napping in the upstairs bedroom she slept in when Celia was traveling.

“You know I didn’t.”

“Why not?” Her mother’s clear blue gaze had never seemed more like an inquisitor’s stare.

“I don’t know.” She sighed. “The time never felt right. It’s a big thing. I should have told him when I was pregnant. I’m beginning to wish I had, but everyone talked me out of it.”

Her mother nodded. “They had good reason to. He’d already told you there was no future between you. You know sharia law grants a father full legal custody of his children. He could have taken Kira from you and denied you the right to see her. He still could.”

Celia frowned. “I don’t think he’d do that.”

“You’ve got solid gut instincts. If you didn’t tell him, there was good reason for it.”

“Your mother’s right, dear,” said her father, pushing a brussels sprout onto his fork. His soft voice rarely offered anything but support and encouragement, but she could see that he, too, was apprehensive about her taking this job. “He seemed like a nice boy when you two were back in college, but that was a long time ago. You don’t know what he’s capable of. He’s rich and powerful.”

Celia snorted. “All the money in the world doesn’t turn him into a god. He was a little intimidating at first, but I was completely blunt about my ideas for the project and we came to an understanding.”

“Except about the fact that you bore his child.” Her mother stared intently at her white wineglass as she took a sip.

Celia bit her lip. “I do want to tell him.”

“Just be careful. Once you tell him, there’s no going back.”

“I know, I know, believe me. Still, she’s Salim’s daughter. He has a right to know about her. It’s cruel to both Salim and Kira to keep him in the dark about her existence. When the time is right, I’ll tell him.”

Fear curled in her stomach, along with the guilt that had been her constant companion since Kira’s birth.

“Salim, huh? I see you’re back on a first-name basis. Don’t you fall in love with him again, either.”

“I’d rather die.”

Upstairs, she crouched beside Kira’s “big girl bed.” Her daughter’s long, long lashes fluttered slightly, as dream images flashed across those huge brown eyes.

They looked so much like Salim’s.

Celia bit her knuckle. So many things about Kira reminded her of Salim. Celia’s own pale coloring had been shoved aside by genes demanding shiny dark hair and smooth olive skin. Kira had a throaty chuckle when something really amused her that sounded shockingly like Salim’s laugh.

Already she was fascinated with numbers, and with money and business, and she certainly didn’t get that from her mom. She’d even convinced her grandma to help her set up a lemonade—and lemon cupcake!—stand last summer, when she’d barely turned two. She’d fingered the shiny quarters with admiration and joy that made the family fall about, laughing.

Celia was sure Salim, who’d majored in business and run a consulting firm of sorts while still in college, would be amused and proud beyond words.

A soft, breathy sigh escaped from Kira’s parted lips. Finely carved lips that were unmistakably an inheritance from one person.

It was wrong to deprive her daughter of her father. If it was awkward to tell him now, it would be much worse when Kira wanted to find him ten or fifteen years from now. It wasn’t fair to keep them apart.

When Celia returned to Oman two weeks later, Salim was in Bahrain, opening a new hotel. Every day she expected his return with trembling anticipation, but the days stretched out into six weeks with no sign of him.

She could be offended by his neglect, but she decided to view it as a vote of confidence. Apparently, he trusted her completely and didn’t even want detailed updates of her plans.

The archaeological team was hard at work reassembling structures and artifacts at the site. She’d put together a team of landscape professionals and made herself an expert in the unique local flora and fauna.

Suddenly word came from on high that his majesty was due back in three days. The coffee grew stronger and meetings stretched late into the night. Admins and accountants scurried faster from office to office. Celia found herself pacing the luxurious landscape nurseries, examining everything from specimen palm trees to prostrate ground covers with an increasing sense of alarm.

She planned to tell him about Kira at the first possible opportunity. She couldn’t work for him and take his money while concealing something so vital. His loyal employees made it clear that he was a man of honor. He’d be angry, yes, but.

“He’s here!” His admin burst into the conference room where Celia was organizing a set of drawings. “He’s on his way up and he asked me to find you. I’ll tell him you’re in here.”

Sunlight shone brighter through the elegant arched windows, and the sea outside seemed to glitter with a sense of menace. Celia straightened her new pinstriped suit and patted her hair.

You can do this.

It was going to be awkward any time she told him. Disastrous, even, but she couldn’t work for him under false pretenses. The longer she waited the worse it would be when the news finally came out.

He had to know. Now.

“Celia.”

His deep voice resonated off the thick plaster walls and marble floors. Her breath stuck in her lungs as she turned to face him.

An unexpected smile lit his imperious features. He strode toward her and took hold of both her hands, then raised them to his mouth and kissed them. Shock rippled through her as his lips brushed her skin and sparked a shiver of sensation.

“Uh, hi,” she stammered. “I was just organizing the plans.”

“Ahmad tells me your designs are ingenious.”

She smiled. “No more so than his.” The architect was younger than her, but already accomplished and now apparently generous with praise. She made a mental note to thank him.

She made another mental note to rip her gaze from Salim’s broad shoulders. Unlike last time he wore the typical attire of pretty much every man on the Arabian Peninsula: a long white dishdasha that emphasized the elegance of his powerful physique.

She cleared her throat. “I have some sets of plans to go over with you before I order the plantings.”

And there’s another little something I’d like to mention …

How on earth was she going to do this?

No time like the present. She screwed her hands up into fists. Drew a deep breath down into her lungs. Lifted her shoulders.

“Salim, there’s something I …”

But the words dried on her tongue as another man entered the room. Almost a carbon copy of Salim, but with a stockier build. And this man wore Western clothing—jeans in fact.

“Celia, meet my brother, Elan.”

Salim studied her face as she shook hands with Elan. She seemed nervous about something. According to Ahmad’s daily reports her plans were brilliant: creative, stylish and ideally suited to the difficult environment.

So why did she look so … apprehensive?

Her eyes darted from Elan to himself. Her cheeks were pink and her lips appeared to quiver with unspoken words. The pulse hammering at her delicate throat suggested a heart beating fast beneath her high, proud breasts.

He cursed the thought as Elan’s words tugged him out of his reverie. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“You have?” Celia’s voice was almost a squeak.

“What do you mean?” asked Salim. Surely he’d never mentioned his long-ago American girlfriend to his brother. They hadn’t even lived in the same country since Elan was sent away to boarding school at age eleven.

“Oh, yes. You were definitely the highlight of his college education,” he teased. “I suspect you may have rose-tinted the entire college experience for him. He certainly enjoyed it a lot more than I did.”

Salim’s ears burned at hearing himself discussed so casually. “That’s only because Elan is a man of action and not academics. I assure you my pleasure was entirely pedagogical.” He shot a dark glance at his brother.

Elan’s eyes twinkled with mischief. “Yeah, sure.”

“Elan runs an oil services company in Nevada.” Salim looked at Celia. “He’s busy ripping up the landscape so that people like you can put it back together one day.”

Elan shrugged. “The world still runs on oil, whether we like it or not. And as my brother knows, conserving the environment is a passion of mine.”

Celia smiled. “That is refreshing.”

Salim suppressed a snort of disgust. A passion of mine? He didn’t remember his brother being such a flirtatious charmer. “Where are Sara and the children?”

“They’re on the beach.” Elan tucked his thumbs into his belt loops in another American gesture that made Salim realize how little he knew his own brother.

“Perhaps you should join them.”

Salim glanced at Celia. Sun shone through the windows and illuminated her golden hair, picking out highlights of copper and bronze. He wanted to be alone with her.

To discuss the plans, naturally.

“I think we should all join them.” Elan held out his arm, which Salim noticed with irritation was as thickly muscled as a dockworker’s. “Celia, come meet my wife. She’s never left the U.S. before so I think she’d be glad to hear a familiar accent.”

Salim studied Celia’s face as she absorbed the fact that his brother had married an American girl. A perfectly ordinary girl without an ounce of aristocratic blood. Elan bragged cheerfully about her impoverished background. A stark contrast to the type of woman tradition had expected him to marry.

But Elan was not the eldest son.

Celia pushed a hand through her silky hair. “Sure, I’d love to come to the beach.” She glanced nervously at Salim. “Unless you had other plans for me.”

An alternate plan formed in his mind. It involved unbuttoning her officious pinstriped suit and liberating her lithe, elegant body.

He drew in a breath and banished the image before it could heat his blood. “None whatsoever.”

She glanced down at her suit. “I’d better run to my room and change.”

“Good idea.” Elan smiled. “They’re camped out near the snack bar. We’ll meet you down there.”

Salim bridled at the reference to his elegant beach café as a “snack bar,” but he kept his mouth shut.

Elan was his guest and he’d resolved to end the long estrangement between the surviving members of their once-great family.

He may have failed in his mission to produce the son and heir his father demanded, but at least he could draw his scattered brothers back to their roots in Oman.

They were all he had left.

“Salim, I’m not leaving you here,” said Elan. “You’ll start working and that’ll be the last we see of you until dinner.”

Salim stiffened as his brother threaded his arm through his. Elan always had been affectionate. It was one of the reasons his father had sent him away to a spartan boarding school in England—to toughen him up.

It had worked, as he remembered from their guarded encounters afterward. And it had backfired badly. Salim recalled the forthright strength Elan had shown in refusing the bride their father had chosen and claiming he’d never set foot on their land again. A promise he’d kept until their father’s death.

Apparently, Sara had un-toughened him again.

Salim snuck a sideways glance at his brother. Same strong nose, determined jaw, flinty black eyes. Even their close-cropped hair was similar.

But Elan’s jeans and shirt were a striking contrast to Salim’s traditional dress. A difference that spoke of the chasm opened between them.

Salim traveled regularly, but could not imagine living abroad.

Or marrying an American girl.

Even one as desirable as Celia.