Читать книгу Modern Romance June 2015 Books 1-8 - Эбби Грин, Natalie Anderson - Страница 32
ОглавлениеLEXI STARED OUT of the plane window at the seemingly unending expanse of saffron-coloured sand that had been wind-whipped into towering dunes and sinuous ridges which resembled a giant serpent writhing across the land. In the far distance she could see craggy grey mountains, beyond which, according to her guidebook, lay Zenhab’s wild and barren northern lands where a few ancient Bedouin tribes lived.
Looking in the other direction, she saw the outlines of modern skyscrapers alongside elegant minarets and curving mosque roofs. Zenhab’s position in the Arabian Sea made it an important trading route, and its rich cultural history and architecture reflected the periods in time when the country had been under Portuguese and, later, Persian rule.
As the plane flew over the capital city, Mezeira, Kadir’s chief adviser, Yusuf bin Hilal, pointed out places of interest. ‘There is the royal palace. You see how the pure white walls sparkle in the sunshine as though the stones are mixed with diamonds? They are not, of course,’ Yusuf explained. ‘The bricks contain a special kind of sand that gives the jewel effect.’
‘It looks like a fairy tale palace from Arabian Nights with all those towers and spires. It reminds me a little of the Taj Mahal in India.’
‘The people of Zenhab believe that our Sultan’s royal palace is the most beautiful building in the world,’ Yusuf said proudly.
‘I understand that in the past there was unrest in the mountain territories of Zenhab,’ Lexi commented.
Yusuf nodded. ‘There was a terrible civil war. But the present Sultan’s father, Sultan Khalif, established peace in the kingdom and for the past decade his son has introduced a programme of liberalisation and modernisation that has resulted in economic growth for the country. Sultan Kadir works tirelessly to attract foreign business and investment to Zenhab and he is regarded by the majority of the population as an inspired leader.’
Yusuf pointed to another building. ‘That is Zenhab’s first university, opened by Sultan Kadir five years ago and partly funded by him personally. His advancement of education for rich and poor alike, and especially for women, has gained him much support, and sadly a few enemies. The Sultan has received death threats, but he still insists on walking among his people whenever he can. He is a truly great man,’ Yusuf said reverently.
Every member of Kadir’s staff that Lexi had spoken to seemed to share Yusuf’s opinion. Her own opinion of him as a playboy prince was changing since she had discovered that he was willing to sacrifice his right to choose a wife and had agreed to an arranged marriage because he believed it was best for his kingdom. She respected his determination to put his duty to his country above his personal desires, and she knew she should be grateful to him for being honest with her in Italy instead of taking her to bed. But she had lied when she’d told him that she would easily forget the passionate moments they had shared in the summer house. He dominated her thoughts, day and night, but now that they had arrived in Zenhab he would soon marry his Princess, she thought dully.
She had not seen Kadir since they had boarded the plane and he had walked past his entourage of staff in the main cabin on his way to his private suite at the front. Once the plane had landed, she’d expected him to reappear, but there was no sign of him as she’d followed Yusuf down the steps and onto the tarmac. To her surprise, the members of Kadir’s staff who had travelled abroad with him stood with the plane’s crew, forming what appeared to be a reception committee, and Lexi had no option but to stand in line with them. ‘What’s happening?’ she whispered to Yusuf.
‘By tradition, when the Sultan returns home, glorious from his conquests and battles abroad, although, of course, he has business meetings now rather than battles,’ the adviser hastily explained, ‘he is escorted through the streets of the city to the palace by horsemen.’
Yusuf’s voice was drowned out by the sound of thundering hooves and Lexi turned to see a great dust cloud, through which appeared thirty or so horsemen wearing traditional Zenhabian clothes—white robes with brightly coloured short-sleeved jackets on top and white headdresses which billowed behind them as the horsemen raced along the runway.
Glancing up at the plane, Lexi’s heart lurched as Kadir appeared in the doorway and stood on the top step. Like the horsemen, he was dressed in a white robe, and his jacket was exquisitely embroidered in red and gold. At his waist he wore a wide leather belt and a terrifying-looking ceremonial knife in a jewelled holder. His white headdress, which Lexi knew was called a keffiyeh, was held in place by a circle of black and gold rope. He looked regal and remote, the powerful ruler of his desert kingdom, and far removed from his alter-ego of an English Earl.
Even from the distance that separated Lexi from him, she could see the dark brilliance of his eyes. She could not stop herself from staring at him, riveted by his handsome face, and she felt the same curious ache in her heart that she had felt in Italy when he had admitted that he was not free to make love to her.
He descended the steps and walked past the line of staff. Lexi found she was holding her breath as he came closer. She willed him to turn his head and notice her, but he strode straight past, leaving in his wake the spicy tang of his cologne that hung in the hot, still air and teased her senses.
She closed her eyes, assailed by memories of when he had kissed her in the summer house at Lake Como. She remembered the heat of his body through his silk shirt, the feel of his hands on her skin when he had pulled her dress down and caressed her breasts. Frantically, she tried to block out the erotic images in her mind as she reminded herself that Kadir should not have kissed her because he was engaged to another woman. She felt as if a knife had sliced through her heart, and she swayed on her feet.
‘Miss Howard?’ Yusuf sounded anxious. ‘Are you going to faint? The heat of the desert can take some getting used to, especially for someone as fair-skinned and delicate-looking as yourself,’ the adviser murmured sympathetically.
Lexi’s eyes snapped open. ‘I assure you I am not in the least delicate,’ she told Yusuf tersely. She was furious with herself for reacting to Kadir the way she had. It could not happen again. She was not a silly lovestruck girl, wilting beneath the desert sun and a surfeit of hormones. She had come to Zenhab to do a job and she must forget those passionate moments she had spent in the Sultan’s arms, as it appeared that he had forgotten her.
Kadir had reached the group of horsemen and a huge black horse was brought to him. He swung himself into the saddle and reached behind his shoulder to withdraw a long curved sword from a jewelled scabbard that Lexi saw hanging down his back. The horsemen did likewise, and held their swords aloft, the steel blades glinting in the fierce sun as their Sultan gave a loud victory cry.
The scene could have taken place centuries ago, when the great Islamic leader Saladin had fought the English King Richard in the Crusades, Lexi thought. This was the real Kadir Al Sulaimar, she realised. There was no sign of the charismatic playboy she had met when they had been in Europe. The Sultan of Zenhab looked stern and forbidding, yet she could not forget how his mouth had felt on hers when he had kissed her, his unexpected tenderness as he had teased her lips apart and explored her with his tongue.
Her breath caught in her throat as Kadir turned his head and stared directly at her. Lexi had the strange sense that he was remembering the moments when they had fallen into each other’s arms in the summer house. But the gleam in his eyes must have been sunlight reflected off his sword. He turned away and gave a blood-curdling cry before he galloped his horse down the runway, pursued by the thirty horsemen, in a cloud of dust and flashing horses’ hooves and white keffiyeh’s streaming behind the cavalcade.
* * *
She could not ask for a better place to work, Lexi conceded a few days later. She had been given a luxurious apartment at the palace with her own private terrace and pool, and she had access to the beautiful royal gardens, where it was pleasant to sit by the ornamental fountains and feel the cool spray on her face.
Kadir had a busy schedule and attended meetings and functions most days, requiring Lexi to fly him by helicopter to towns across the kingdom. The previous day she had flown him along Zenhab’s stunning coast so that he could inspect the site of a new hotel complex, which his adviser Yusuf had said was going to be built by the Russian businessman Boris Denisov.
Apart from bidding her good morning, Kadir had not spoken to her, and he’d sat in the rear of the helicopter. He obviously intended to keep their relationship strictly professional, but Lexi had been aware of his brooding gaze burning between her shoulder blades during the flight.
She was lonely at the palace, and missed the sense of camaraderie she’d had with her friends in the coastguard agency and the RAF. From one of the tallest towers she was able to look out over the desert, and remembering the dusty military base at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan and the other pilots she had flown missions with increased her sense of isolation.
As was her habit, she turned to physical exercise to relieve her frustration, and went running every morning before the sun rose high in the sky and the temperature soared. She’d also discovered an air-conditioned gym in the palace where Kadir’s bodyguards worked out. Ashar and Nasim were reasonably fluent in English, and Lexi spoke some Arabic. Once they had got over their initial hesitancy at sharing the gym with a woman, the two young men were friendly and their company went some way to alleviating her loneliness.
‘I’ll grant you that men are physically stronger than women, but in a test of stamina and endurance women can equal, or even beat their male counterparts,’ Lexi argued one afternoon.
Nasim stepped off the treadmill. ‘Okay, prove it. Push-ups until one of us gives up.’
Determination gleamed in Lexi’s eyes. ‘You’re on. Ashar, you can act as judge.’
Kadir frowned as he walked down the corridor to the gym and heard voices from behind the door. He had been busy with matters of state since he had returned to the palace, and this was his first chance for a workout. He had hoped to find the gym empty but, as he opened the door, he came to an abrupt halt at the sight of one of his bodyguards and his private pilot stretched out on gym mats, pumping their bodies up and down in a series of push-ups.
From where he was standing he had a perfect view of Lexi’s pert bottom covered in bright pink satin shorts—lifting and lowering, lifting and lowering in a steady rhythm that had a predictable effect on his pulse rate. He visualised her slender body arched above him, the tips of her bare breasts brushing his chest as she slowly lowered herself onto him... His arousal was instant and so hard that he hastily held his towel in front of him and cursed beneath his breath.
‘What is going on?’ He knew it was a stupid question, but the sound of his voice had the desired effect of making Lexi and the bodyguard stop what they were doing and jump to their feet. The guilty expression on Nasim’s face heightened Kadir’s anger. Why did the bodyguard look guilty, unless the push-ups were a prelude to another form of exercise? he thought grimly.
‘Do you not kneel before your Sultan?’ he demanded to Nasim and Ashar.
‘Your Majesty!’ The men immediately dropped down onto one knee, but Lexi remained standing and met Kadir’s hard stare with a challenge in her eyes as she placed her hands on her hips.
‘Is there a problem, Your Highness?’
You’re damned right there’s a problem, Kadir thought to himself. But he was not going to admit that his body felt as if it was about to explode, or that he was unbearably tempted to dismiss the bodyguards and make love to his feisty helicopter pilot right there on the gym mat. He was shocked and, if he was honest, ashamed of his ferocious desire for Lexi. No other woman had ever made him feel so out of control. He was a powerful Sultan, but she reminded him that he was also just a man with an inexplicable hunger clawing in his gut.
‘My bodyguards owe you an apology. They should have respected your privacy and departed from the gym while you were exercising.’
Lexi shrugged. ‘They offered to leave, but I don’t have a problem with them being here. I was used to training alongside men when I was in the RAF.’
Kadir’s jaw tightened. ‘You must understand that we have different ways here than in England.’
Lexi knew that although Zenhab was one of the more liberal countries in the Middle East, there were rules regarding men and women socialising together. ‘I understand that I wouldn’t be allowed to mix with men in a public gym, but this is a private facility and surely the same rules don’t apply? After all, the palace is your home, and you make the rules.’
‘That’s right,’ Kadir said in a dangerously soft voice intended to warn Lexi that she was close to overstepping the mark, ‘and my rule is that from now on you will be allocated separate times to use the gym when the men are not allowed in.’
Lexi could see that further arguing would be pointless. The Sultan had spoken. She glanced at the bodyguards, who were still kneeling, their heads bowed. Usually Kadir had an easy-going relationship with his protection officers and she did not understand why he was so annoyed. She did not want to lose her friendship with the two bodyguards. They were her only companions at the palace and if she was banned from spending time with them she knew she would feel even more isolated.
‘Please don’t blame Nasim and Ashar. It was my fault if any rules were broken.’
Her defence of the two men further fuelled Kadir’s temper. He held the door open for Lexi to leave. ‘I will deal with them as I see fit, before I deal with you.’
‘Deal with me?’ The vague threat was like a red rag to a bull. ‘What are you going to do, send me to bed with no tea? Put me across your knee?’
‘Would you like me to spank you?’ Kadir murmured dulcetly. He had followed Lexi out into the corridor so that the bodyguards could not hear their conversation.
A shockingly erotic image of him holding her face down over his thighs while he chastised her flashed into her mind and fiery colour flooded her cheeks. ‘Of course not,’ she said sharply.
His husky chuckle warned her that he had read her thoughts, and Lexi’s embarrassment became more acute. But she wondered why he was clutching his towel in front of his hips as if his life depended on it. Her senses, acutely attuned to him, detected the undefinable essence of male pheromones, the scent of sexual arousal.
‘Why does it matter to you if I hang out with Nasim and Ashar in my free time?’ she burst out. ‘There is no one else I can socialise with and I realise that it is not possible for me to go out in the city in the evenings on my own. I feel like I’m trapped at the palace.’
‘You have been provided with excellent accommodation and leisure facilities; I did not realise you expected to have a full social calendar. The palace is hardly a prison,’ Kadir said drily.
Lexi gave up trying to make him understand that she craved the company of other people. When she had served in the RAF she’d had a wide group of friends and had felt a sense of belonging that had been missing with her adoptive parents. Being alone gave her too much time to think, and stirred up her old feelings of loneliness and inadequacy she had felt as a child.
But Kadir knew nothing about her troubled background, and she had no intention of telling him. A dignified retreat seemed her best option but, as usual, she was determined to have the last word.
‘Perhaps hard physical exertion in the gym will relieve some of your tension,’ she murmured, before she turned and marched down the corridor, leaving Kadir fighting the temptation to go after her and kiss her sassy mouth into submission. There was only one kind of physical exertion that he knew was guaranteed to relieve his sexual frustration, but he could not make love to Lexi, no matter how much he wanted to.
* * *
Lexi had hoped that a punishing fifteen-kilometre run through the palace grounds would expend her anger with Kadir for criticising her friendship with his bodyguards. But when she returned to her apartment her temper was still simmering, and to cool down she dived into the pool and swam twenty lengths. Breathless at last, she hauled herself onto the poolside and shook her wet hair back from her face.
She stiffened when she saw Kadir was standing watching her. ‘I assume you have no objection to me swimming in my private pool?’ She hoped her cool tone disguised the heat that surged through her as she drank in the sight of him in cream chinos and a black polo shirt. His eyes were hidden behind designer shades and he was so outrageously attractive that Lexi almost jumped back into the pool to hide her body’s reaction to him. Her nipples were as hard as pebbles and she hastily dragged the towel around her shoulders to hide her traitorous body from view.
He gave her a lazy smile, no hint now of his earlier bad mood. ‘None at all,’ he assured her, ‘although I am wondering why you aren’t wearing your silver bikini.’
She shrugged. ‘A one-piece is more comfortable for swimming. But another reason is that I do appreciate the cultural differences in the Middle East. Although the pool is for my private use, the palace staff are around and out of respect for them I chose to wear a swimming costume. It’s more demure than a bikini.’
Demure! Kadir wondered if Lexi had any idea how sexy she looked in her sleek navy costume, which clung to every dip and curve of her superbly toned figure. He could not forget the image of her taut buttocks covered in tight pink shorts pumping up and down when she had been doing push-ups in the gym. Fire heated his blood and he altered his position to hide the evidence of his arousal beneath his trousers, which suddenly felt uncomfortably tight.
‘Anyway, there is no point in me wearing my bikini when I’m not allowed to socialise with anyone at the palace, or get a chance to meet a guy who I would like to untie the strings,’ Lexi said defiantly.
Kadir’s eyes narrowed. ‘Always you challenge me, Lexi. You want to be careful that I do not rise to your bait.’
Her gaze did not waver from his. ‘You have already demonstrated that that isn’t going to happen. I made a fool of myself in Italy,’ she said bitterly. She hated herself for the way she had responded to him like a gauche teenager on a first date. He was the only man who had ever made her lose control and the level of her desire had shocked and shamed her.
She suddenly became conscious of how close they were standing. The air between them throbbed with tension and every nerve ending on her body tingled with sexual awareness that she knew he felt too.
‘I was the fool, for kissing you when I knew I was not free to make love to you,’ Kadir said harshly. He picked up her robe and handed it to her. ‘Put this on, before I forget my good intentions.’ He gave a wry smile that did not reach his eyes, and Lexi had a sudden sense of how lonely his role as Sultan must be. His father was dead, his mother lived abroad and he was destined to marry a woman he had never met who had been chosen for him.
If he had not been contracted to his arranged marriage, she knew that they would be lovers by now. His desire for her smouldered in his dark eyes, but the firm set of his jaw told her that he would put his duty to his kingdom before his personal desires.
She pulled on the robe and tied the belt tightly around her waist. ‘Why did you want to see me?’
Because he could not keep away from her, Kadir thought grimly. She was like a drug in his veins and even the knowledge that his desire for her was forbidden did not stop him thinking about her constantly.
‘I came to apologise for my behaviour earlier. I appreciate that you might feel cut off from your friends and family. I have come with an invitation to tea from someone who I believe you could become friends with.’
Lexi eyed him suspiciously. ‘Who?’
His grin made him look suddenly younger. ‘I’m taking you to meet the most important woman in my life.’
* * *
‘I’m seventy-six,’ Mabel Dawkins told Lexi as she poured tea into bone china cups and nodded towards a plate of scones. ‘Help yourselves. I always make scones when Kadir comes to tea. When he was a boy he could eat a plateful all to himself.’
Lexi settled back on the chintz sofa in Mabel’s pretty apartment at the palace and bit into a feather-light fruit scone. ‘So you were Kadir’s nanny when he was growing up?’
‘Lady Judith hired me when her son was born. After she left the palace and returned to England, Sultan Khalif asked me to remain here to give Kadir stability because it was a difficult situation for a young boy to grow up in two very different cultures, here in Zenhab and at Montgomery Manor in England.’
Lexi glanced at Kadir. ‘It must have been strange to move between Western culture and Middle Eastern traditions. Do you think of yourself more as an English Earl or an Arab prince?’
‘I love my mother and I was close to my grandfather, the tenth Earl. But I am my father’s son, from an ancient line of desert kings, and my heart and soul belong to Zenhab,’ he said without hesitation.
Recalling how, when they had arrived in Zenhab, Kadir had wielded a fearsome-looking sword and given a battle cry to rouse his horsemen, Lexi was learning that beneath his playboy image reported in the European press there was a far more serious side to the Sultan of Zenhab that the paparazzi never saw.
She was agonisingly conscious of him sitting next to her. The two-seater sofa was made even smaller because it was stuffed with Mabel’s many crocheted cushions and, however stiffly Lexi held herself, she could not prevent her thigh from touching Kadir’s. She could feel his hard muscles through her thin skirt, and the spicy tang of his cologne wove a seductive spell around her.
‘What made you decide to join the RAF?’ Mabel’s voice dragged Lexi’s mind away from her wayward thoughts.
She shrugged. ‘I wanted an exciting career, the opportunity to travel.’ She did not explain that one reason why she had joined the air force had been because she had been looking for somewhere where she felt she belonged. Her adoptive parents had not really wanted her, and she had been hurt that her birth mother had insisted on keeping her a secret from her husband, as if Cathy was ashamed of her.
‘It must have been an exciting life, but dangerous too,’ Mabel said. ‘I expect your parents must have worried about you when you were stationed in Afghanistan.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Lexi said wryly. ‘My parents are busy with their own lives.’
‘Kadir told me that you will be staying in Zenhab and working as his helicopter pilot for six months. That’s a long time to be away from home, although I suppose when you were in the RAF you got used to living away from loved ones. Do you have a sweetheart back in England?’
Lexi was amused by the elderly nanny’s curiosity. ‘No, I don’t.’
‘I’m surprised. You’re such a pretty girl. Are you gay?’ Mabel asked bluntly.
Lexi choked on a mouthful of scone and hastily washed it down with a sip of tea. ‘No, I’m not.’ Realising that Mabel had no qualms about prying into her personal life, she murmured, ‘Actually, I was engaged but it didn’t work out.’
‘Mabel, it’s unfair to interrogate Lexi,’ Kadir interrupted. He had felt the sudden tension that gripped her and forced himself to ignore his own curiosity about her love life. He recalled Charles Fairfax had mentioned that she had been engaged but her fiancé had ended the relationship. Was she still in love with the guy she had hoped to marry? he mused, wondering why he disliked the idea.
His phone rang and he glanced at the name of the caller. ‘I’ll have to take this, I’m afraid,’ he said apologetically. ‘Lexi, please stay and finish your tea. If you think Mabel’s scones are good, wait until you try her sponge cake.’
‘He works so hard,’ Mabel sighed when Kadir had left. ‘He told me that his latest trip to Europe was very successful and he managed to secure several big deals with companies who will invest in new businesses in Zenhab.’
Lexi remembered that Kadir’s adviser, Yusuf bin Hilal, had said that the Sultan worked hard to attract foreign investment to his kingdom. ‘The European press seem more interested in Kadir’s private life and his reputation as a playboy.’
‘Oh, the press!’ Mabel gave a snort. ‘Most of what is written in the foreign newspapers is rubbish. The paparazzi don’t know the man that I know Kadir to be. He vowed as his father lay dying that he would devote his life to Zenhab and continue Sultan Khalif’s work to maintain peace and bring prosperity to the kingdom.’
‘Was Kadir close to his father?’
‘Very. Father and son adored one another.’ Mabel’s lined face softened. ‘Kadir was heartbroken when Khalif died but at the same time he was relieved that his father was spared any more suffering.’
Lexi felt strangely unsettled at the thought of Kadir being heartbroken. She had been too ready to believe the stories in the tabloids about him leading a charmed life of hedonistic pleasure, she acknowledged guiltily. But she was discovering that he was a man of deep emotions who had grieved for his father and vowed to rule Zenhab with the same devotion to duty as Sultan Khalif had done. ‘Why did Sultan Khalif suffer? Was he ill before he died?’ she asked curiously.
‘He suffered a stroke when Kadir was sixteen, which left him completely paralysed and barely able to speak. Obviously, Khalif could not continue to rule the country,’ Mabel explained, ‘and Kadir was too young to become Sultan, so Khalif’s younger brother, Jamal, became the interim ruler until Kadir came of age.’
‘And Jamal handed the Sultanate to Kadir when he was twenty-one?’
‘Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite as simple as that. Jamal wanted to remain as Sultan, and he had followers who believed that he should rule Zenhab and who were opposed to Kadir’s plans to modernise the country. Before Jamal would agree to step aside and allow Kadir to take his rightful place as Sultan, he insisted that Kadir sign a contract to marry the daughter of Jamal’s great ally, Sheikh Rashid bin Al-Hassan. Since Rashid died two months ago, Kadir has been under pressure to go ahead with his wedding to Princess Haleema to unite the country.
‘Jamal and his followers are against change and want Zenhab to return to feudal isolation as it was in the past,’ Mabel said grimly. ‘There have been plots to overthrow Kadir, and two years ago he survived an assassination attempt. A gun was fired by someone in a crowd, but fortunately the bullet narrowly missed him.’
The conversation turned to other matters, but later, as Lexi walked in the palace gardens, she could not forget Mabel’s revelation that an attempt had been made on Kadir’s life by his enemies. Far from being the playboy prince she had believed him to be, he was a dutiful Sultan who had dedicated his life to his kingdom.
The sun was sliding below the horizon, staining the sky flamingo-pink, and the fiery hues were reflected in the ornamental pools and many fountains in the formal gardens. Lexi strolled along an avenue of palm trees, but a familiar voice drew her from her thoughts, and her heart gave an annoying flip when she watched Kadir get up from a bench and walk towards her.
He had changed into a traditional white robe which skimmed his powerful body. As he came closer, Lexi could see the shadow of his black chest hairs beneath the fine cotton. He halted in front of her and smiled, revealing his perfect teeth, as white as his keffiyeh which framed his darkly tanned face.
‘The gardens are so beautiful,’ she said, looking around her because she dared not look at him, searching for something to say while she frantically tried to control her racing pulse.
‘My father had them landscaped as a gift for my mother. She fell in love with the gardens at Versailles on their honeymoon and Baba wanted to re-create them at the palace. Unfortunately, the project took longer to complete than my parents’ marriage lasted,’ Kadir said drily.
He indicated a carving on the trunk of a palm tree, and Lexi saw the shape of a heart inscribed with the words Judith will love Khalif for ever. ‘My mother made the carving. After she left, my father used to come and sit beneath this tree every day. He loved my mother until the day he died. When I look at the inscription I am reminded that people often do not mean what they say.’
‘How true,’ she said flatly, thinking of the many times people had let her down.
The emptiness in her voice stirred Kadir’s curiosity. ‘Why did your engagement end?’
For a moment Lexi did not answer. She rarely opened up about her private life. She did not understand the connection she felt with Kadir, but for some reason she felt drawn to confide in him.
‘I met Steven when we were serving with the RAF in Afghanistan. Living in a war zone is a strange experience,’ she explained ruefully. ‘Your emotions are heightened by the constant threat of danger. When Steven proposed, I accepted because I longed for a settled life, a home and a family. We planned to marry as soon as we finished our tour of duty, but he had failed to mention that he had a girlfriend and a baby in England. He told me by text message on the evening that we were supposed to be holding our engagement party that he wasn’t free to marry me.’
Beneath Lexi’s tough exterior was a vulnerable woman who had been badly hurt, Kadir realised. He felt guilty that while they had been in Europe he had succumbed to the sexual chemistry between them and kissed her, knowing that he wasn’t free to have any kind of relationship with her.
‘Mabel reminded me that six months is a long time to be away from home,’ he said abruptly. ‘You are welcome to invite your friends and family to the palace. I thought you might like to ask your parents to visit.’
‘They wouldn’t want to come. But thanks for the offer.’
He was puzzled by her offhand response. ‘It sounds as though you don’t have a close relationship with your parents.’
Lexi shrugged. ‘It’s true that we’re not close. I’m adopted. My parents believed they couldn’t have a child but, after they adopted me, my mother fell pregnant and gave birth to a daughter, which rather made me redundant.’
Once again Kadir heard a note of hurt in her voice and he felt an unexpected tug on his heart. ‘I’m sure your parents did not think that.’
‘As a matter of fact I overheard Marcus tell another relative that he and Veronica—my adoptive mother—would not have adopted a child if they had known they could have a child of their own,’ Lexi said flatly. ‘From the age of eight I knew I was an inconvenience when my parents packed me off to boarding school so that they could concentrate on Athena.’
‘I wondered why you and your sister do not look alike. Did you resent Athena because your parents gave her more attention?’
Lexi thought of her awkward, accident-prone sister and gave a rueful smile. ‘It would be impossible to resent Athena. She has the sweetest nature, and actually I think she has struggled to meet Marcus and Veronica’s expectations.’ She frowned as she recalled her misgivings about Athena’s intention to marry Charles Fairfax.
While she and Kadir had been talking, day had turned into night as quickly as Lexi remembered from the desert in Afghanistan, and a sliver of silver moon was climbing the sky accompanied by the first stars. She wondered what he was thinking. His hard-boned face was impossible to read, but she seemed to be acutely sensitive to his emotions and sensed that his mood had darkened.
‘Tomorrow I will require you to fly me across the desert to the old city of Sanqirah in the mountains,’ he said tersely. ‘The northern territories are much hotter and drier than here, where we are closer to the coast. You will probably be more comfortable wearing appropriate clothing rather than your pilot’s uniform.’
Lexi’s stomach plummeted as if she was riding a big dipper at the funfair. She knew that Princess Haleema lived in the mountains. And Mabel had said that Kadir’s uncle Jamal had been pushing for him to honour his marriage agreement. Pride demanded that she kept her voice unemotional. ‘What time do you want to leave?’
‘Early, and we won’t return until late.’ Kadir’s jaw tightened. Since he had received a phone call from Haleema’s brother, Omar, to confirm their meeting tomorrow he had sensed that his freedom was ending.
He felt no joy at the prospect of taking a girl he had never met as his bride, but it was necessary to prevent his detractors and Jamal’s supporters from challenging his rule and creating civil unrest in the kingdom. The time had come for him to honour his promise to his father. But the future seemed bleaker since he had been plucked from the sea by a woman who challenged him at every opportunity and made his blood run faster through his veins.
‘Lexi...’ Kadir watched her walk away from him and could not prevent himself from uttering her name in a low, driven tone.
She turned to him, her face serenely beautiful. Her long blonde hair seemed to shimmer in the moonlight. ‘Yes.’
Her voice was not quite steady, and Kadir knew then that the night air, thick with the scents of jasmine and orange blossom, was bewitching her senses as it beguiled his. He saw wariness in her eyes as well as a hunger that she could not hide, and he knew he should walk away from her.
She had been hurt by her ex-fiancé and by her adoptive parents. He had no right to play with her emotions when he knew that it could only lead to him hurting her too. But she was so lovely. He had never wanted any woman as fiercely as he wanted her and he could not stop himself from walking towards her.
‘Was there something else you wanted?’ she asked innocently.
‘Just...this...’
‘No.’ Lexi’s soft cry was crushed by Kadir’s mouth as he pulled her into his arms and claimed her lips. Her protest was carried away on the breeze that stirred the fronds of the palm trees. She had not expected him to kiss her and she had no time to muster any resistance, or so she tried to kid herself. But she was already lost to his magic, swept into his sensual spell as he swept her hard against him so that she was conscious of every muscle and sinew in his body, every beat of his heart.
His lips sipped from hers as he kissed her with a hunger that matched her own. Desire blazed white-hot, but underlying their passion was something indefinable, a connection between two souls as their two hearts thundered in unison.
Lexi gasped as Kadir skimmed his lips down her throat. The stubble on his jaw grazed her sensitive skin and the exquisite pleasure-pain sent a shudder through her. She arched her neck as he threaded his fingers into her hair and almost purred with pleasure when he cradled her head, angling her face so that he could plunder her mouth again and again until she felt boneless.
She could feel the solid ridge of his arousal pushing against her pelvis, and the evidence of his need excited her. But it was wrong. He had promised to marry another woman.
‘No!’ She tore her mouth from his, noting that he made no attempt to stop her. ‘No more games,’ she said quietly, proud that her voice was steady, even if her legs were not. Somehow she forced her feet to move, although it felt as if she had severed a limb when she stepped away from him. ‘What do you want from me, Kadir?’
‘Everything.’
The single word detonated between them as his harsh voice resonated with a depth of emotion that shocked Lexi. His eyes were black in the darkness. Kadir clenched his hands into fists to prevent himself from reaching for her. She could never be his and the knowledge felt like a knife blade through his heart. ‘But I cannot take your beauty and your fire. And I can offer you nothing. I should not have brought you to Zenhab.’
The tortured expression on his face made Lexi’s insides twist with a shared pain, and she suddenly knew that if she stayed in Zenhab they would destroy each other.
‘Then let me go,’ she whispered. ‘This situation is unbearable for both of us. And it will be unfair on your young bride. Haleema may have led a sheltered life but she will notice the way we look at each other.’ She swallowed. ‘Steven made me an unwitting accomplice when he cheated on his girlfriend who was waiting for him in England. Our desire for one another is wrong, and the only way we can end it is for me to leave Zenhab and we will never see each other again.’ The thought was agonising, but Lexi knew it would be even more painful to remain at the palace and watch Kadir marry his Princess.
Lexi was right. He had to let her go, Kadir acknowledged heavily. His duty to his kingdom and his promise to his father must come before his personal desires. ‘I still need you to fly me to Haleema’s home in the mountains tomorrow. My meeting with her brother, Sheikh Omar, is arranged and it will be seen as a great insult if I fail to attend. But after that I will release you from your contract...and you will be free to leave Zenhab,’ he said harshly.
It was for the best, Lexi told herself. The madness had to end. Without a word, she turned and fled from Kadir, her chest aching with the leaden weight of her heart. As she ran through the dark gardens she did not notice one of the palace staff watching her from the shadows.
