The Sheikh’s Reward

by Lucy Gordon

  ‘And all the time you were laughing at me.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Do you know what would happen, in my country, to a woman who dared to do that?’

  ‘Tell me. No, wait!’ She rummaged in her bag and produced a notebook. ‘Now tell me. Hey!’ Ali had firmly removed the notebook from her hand and tossed it aside.

  ‘You will not make notes about me,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘You will not write about anything that happened the other night-’

  ‘Oh, I wasn’t going to. I write for a serious paper. It wouldn’t be interested in that corny line you handed me.’

  ‘I-’

  ‘Well, you have to admit-burning sunsets and tents flapping in the breeze? But I don’t blame you.’

  ‘You don’t?’ He sounded dazed.

  ‘I’m sure most girls would fall for it. Well, you wouldn’t keep using it if they didn’t, would you?’

  ‘That’s right,’ he said, his eyes kindling. ‘You see, one thing I’ve learned about women is this-the sillier the better.’

  ‘You don’t say!’

  ‘The more foolish the line, the more unconvincing the stage props, the more chance that some fluffy-headed little girl is going to believe it. Experience has taught me all I need to know about your sex.’

  ‘Are you daring to call me a fluffy-headed little girl?’

  ‘I don’t know why that should bother you, since you went out of your way to make me think just that. You should stick to the role, Miss Callam. It suits you better than pretending to be a man.’

  ‘I’m doing no such thing,’ she said furiously. ‘I earn my living as a journalist. You promised me an interview, and I’m here. Why don’t we get started?’

  ‘If,’ Ali said, regarding her coldly, ‘you imagine for one moment that I intend to discuss my private affairs with you-’

  ‘Not your private affairs, your business affairs,’ Fran said. She couldn’t resist adding provocatively, ‘I think we’ve already covered the private ones.’

  ‘Let it be clearly understood that I do not discuss business with women. That is not a woman’s role.’

  ‘Woman’s role?’ she echoed, scandalised. ‘Why, you prehistoric-’

  ‘Think what you like of me. Do you imagine I care? I haven’t been used to considering the opinions of women and I see no reason to start now. In my country women know their place and keep to it. It’s an arrangement that works very well.’

  ‘I wonder what your mother thinks of that?’ Fran said, with spirit. ‘She’s English, isn’t she? Brought up to be equal with men-’

  ‘No woman is equal with men. And don’t speak about my mother. You’re not going to interview me by the back door. I will not talk to you and that’s final.’

  ‘You talked all right when you thought I was just a plaything,’ Frances snapped.

  ‘But of course. That is what women are for.’

  ‘It’s not what I’m for.’

  ‘You think so, but in my arms you came alive like a true woman. Don’t say you’ve forgotten.’

  She faced him defiantly. ‘I was acting a part.’

  He smiled, and something about it disturbed her obscurely. ‘I don’t think so. I can tell when a woman is pretending. I can also tell when she’s yielding to her own deepest desires, in the arms of the man who can inflame those desires. Something happened between us the other night, something that was true and real.’

  ‘As though anything true and real could happen between me and a man from the Stone Age.’

  ‘Why must you deny it? What are you afraid of? That your theories might be swept away by a passion that will show you your real self? Is that why you try to reduce me to words on your page, because you think like that you will bring the truth under your control?’

  He was standing dangerously close. She took a step away, and knew instantly that she’d made a tactical mistake. He knew now that she was nervous of him.

  ‘The only truth I’m interested in where you’re concerned,’ she said, ‘is what really goes on in those back-room deals you keep so secret.’

  ‘And I tell you not to interfere in what doesn’t concern you, and which would certainly be beyond your understanding. Please-’ he held up a hand ‘-don’t bore me with lectures about your brain. A woman’s brain, for pity’s sake!’

  His scornful tone almost made her blow a gasket. ‘We do have brains, you know! We are members of the same species. And you were ready enough to concede that Scheherazade had a brain the other night.’

  ‘No. Scheherazade had wit. A woman’s wit that sparkles and dazzles a man. Not a bludgeon to challenge him. I thought then that you were witty and subtle, but now you seem determined to prove me wrong.

  ‘If you want me to listen to you, Diamond, forget your degree, and speak to me of your hair which is like a river of molten gold in the sunset. Then you will have all my attention. Since that night I’ve been troubled by your hair, thinking how I would run my hands through it and delight in adorning it with priceless jewels.

  ‘I’m haunted, too, by your skin, which has the smoothness of satin. I’ve dreamed of how it would feel pressed against me when we lie together in bed-’

  ‘Never,’ she whispered in outrage.

  He took a step closer to her and looked directly into her eyes. His own were burning.

  ‘At this moment I too feel like saying never. I will never take to my bed a woman who rejects her own womanhood, and therefore my manhood. I will never trouble myself with a female who knows nothing about men and women and what fate created between them. I will throw her out and say good riddance.

  ‘But then I look into the depths of your eyes, and I know that it isn’t so easy. You and I met because we had to, and at our final parting we will neither of us be the same. What exquisite pleasure there will be in giving and taking with you, and knowing that what you give me you will have given no other man because you did not know it existed. That will be a treasure worth fighting for.’

  He wasn’t even touching her, but her heart was thumping wildly from the effect of his words and the images they conjured up in her fevered brain. She was fully clothed, but the caressing way he’d spoken of her skin had made it come alive. She felt as though his fingers were tracing soft paths across it, lingering, teasing her, and his tongue was driving her wild with flickering movements everywhere-her mouth, her breasts…making her want everything in the world, knowing that he was the one man who had it in his power to give.

  She wanted to turn away, to refuse to meet his eyes and see in them the destiny he planned for her, whether she consented or not. But that would be cowardly. Danger must be faced, not avoided. And so she gazed on the picture he painted, and felt it swallow her up.

  ‘Don’t you feel that too?’ he asked. ‘That it must be so?’

  ‘No,’ she said, taking another step back from him. ‘No, it can’t be. You can’t make something like that happen by giving an order.’

  He reached for her. She backed but struck against the sofa, lost her balance, and had to sit on it. She tried to rise but he held her down with a hand on her shoulder, and sat beside her.

  ‘But the order has already been given,’ he said. ‘And it was you who gave it. You came to The Golden Chance in search of me, and I recognised you at once as the woman who would play a special part in my life. It’s too late to turn back. And why should you want to? Can it be that you are afraid?’

  She would not let him kiss her, because he would take that as proof of his chauvinistic belief that only passion counted between men and women. And that was one victory he mustn’t win. But while her resolve was strong her bones felt as if they had been turned to water.

  Nor did he try to kiss her. He merely raised his hand and touched her lips softly with one fingertip, tracing the outline of her wide mouth. The sensations he could evoke by that simple gesture were shocking. She was on fire, and there was no hope for her.

  She wanted to speak, to make an angry protest, but her mouth was quiveringly aliv
e for the next gentle touch. Somehow-she didn’t recall doing it-she’d taken hold of his arms, as if to steady herself, and the pressure of her fingers was drawing him close to her, until his lips were on hers.

  As though this was a signal he’d waited for he took possession of the kiss, claiming her like a conqueror accepting surrender. Nor could she refuse because the treachery came from within herself, and it was her own desire that had invited him.

  He had said that anticipation was half the pleasure, and he was a man who knew how to go slowly, prolonging his own pleasure and hers, teasing her with her own longings. She moaned softly, and he entered her mouth with quick, exploring movements that made her dizzy. She wanted to explore him in return, wanted it so much it alarmed her.

  Before Ali, Fran had thought of herself as a moderate person. Howard’s kisses had pleased her but never tormented her with the longing for more. Now she was discovering that her own propriety was nothing but a mask, behind which another woman-hot-blooded and demanding-was waiting to break forth into a new life. And it was happening with a man who drove her to a fury of antagonism, hand in hand with desire.

  He gave her mouth a final caress, implicit with the promise of another time, and slid his lips down her neck, then further down, slipping open the buttons of her V-neck blouse to lay his lips between her breasts. The delight was unimaginable and her hands closed behind his head in a gesture of acceptance and plea. Her heart was thumping wildly beneath his lips, and she knew he must be able to feel it, but she was beyond caring. It felt as though everything about her was disintegrating and reforming into a new shape, a new person.

  Then Ali raised his head and his eyes were hovering above her, reassured her that all was well as long as she was in his arms.

  Slowly he lowered her back onto the cushions.

  ‘You see?’ he said, in a voice that shook a little.

  ‘See?’ she asked vaguely.

  ‘When we are together-something happens-to you and to me-you can’t deny it.’

  ‘I don’t,’ she murmured. ‘But it isn’t-’ She struggled to get the word out. ‘Isn’t important.’

  ‘Passion is always important.’

  Fran forced her head to clear. She didn’t trust this man. And the more her body yearned for him, the more she distrusted him.

  ‘But you feel passion for so many,’ she managed to say.

  He shook his head. ‘Not-like that,’ he said. And something in his voice told her that he was troubled. He’d done what he wanted, yet he too had been taken by surprise. He was shaking, and when he spoke again he sounded as though he was trying to force himself back to reality, because the realms of pleasure had alarmed him.

  ‘Now you must go,’ he said. ‘For the moment. When the time is right for us to meet again, I will let you know.’

  His arrogance had a usefully cooling effect on her. Angrily she freed herself and hastened to button up her blouse.

  ‘You will let me know-when you have decided?’

  ‘When the fates have decided,’ he corrected her gently.

  ‘Oh, no, you don’t. I want the interview you promised me. If I leave without it, I won’t come back, ever.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ he said, smiling. ‘But you will certainly leave without it.’

  The world was resuming its normal shape. She changed tack. ‘Now look, why don’t you just be reasonable and we can-?’

  ‘It’s no use, Diamond. The answer is no.’

  ‘And don’t call me Diamond.’

  ‘No, your name is Frances Callam. So, I needn’t have gone to such lengths to find it out.’

  ‘Didn’t your secretary tell you? The one who saw me home?’

  ‘It was no part of his duties to ask your name,’ Ali said smoothly.

  ‘But he must have told you where I lived,’ she insisted. ‘You could have discovered my name that way.’

  His eyes flashed, and now she was certain that he had returned to find her gone, and this tale was an invention, so that she shouldn’t know she’d successfully snubbed him.

  ‘Why should I need such methods when I had a much better way?’ he asked with a shrug. ‘I have a small confession to make-about that cheque.’

  ‘The one for a hundred thousand?’

  ‘That’s right.’ He smiled straight into her eyes, and despite her annoyance Fran felt the return of disturbance deep within her, which had less to do with his sexual charisma than with his sheer charm. He shouldn’t be allowed to smile like that.

  ‘I’m afraid I stopped it,’ Ali admitted. ‘My bank will refuse to pay, but they will tell me who it’s made out to. And so, if you hadn’t come here today, I would have learned your name anyway.’

  ‘Would you really?’ she said slowly.

  ‘Very unkind of me, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Very. But I did something rather unkind too. I didn’t try to cash that cheque myself. I made it out to the International Children’s Fund, and gave it to them yesterday, with your compliments.’

  He laughed out loud, showing strong white teeth.

  ‘That’s very good, an excellent story. But, my dear Diamond, did you really think I’d believe that any woman could refuse such a sum of money?’

  ‘I returned the necklace.’

  ‘Worth about a tenth of the cheque. Giving away a hundred thousand would have been another matter.’

  ‘Well, I did,’ she said, getting cross. ‘As you’ll soon find out. When the cheque bounces, your name will be mud-probably in world headlines.’

  ‘No, no, don’t keep it up. It was a good try, but I’m not that easily fooled. Now I’m afraid you must go. You’ve caused me to waste too much time.’

  ‘Yes, I mustn’t disturb you from making money, must I?’

  He saw her to the front door. ‘Till our next meeting?’

  ‘I wonder if there’ll be one?’

  ‘In my country we say-the answer is written in the sand.’

  ‘And in my country we say-don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.’

  Ali watched her until she’d vanished from sight. As he turned back into the house his secretary was hurrying from the office, very pale.

  ‘Excellency, someone from the ICF is on the phone to say they are most grateful for your generous cheque, but owing to a misunderstanding at the bank-’

  Ali swore and vanished into the study. It took all his charm to smooth away the problem, and within five minutes a new cheque had been made out to the charity. As he sealed the envelope his eyes were unreadable.

  ‘She fooled me,’ he murmured. ‘A hundred thousand, and nothing given in return.’

  He took a sheet of paper and wrote on it ‘Frances Callam’.

  After regarding the name for a moment he crossed it out and wrote ‘Diamond’.

  Then he crossed that out, and wrote ‘Scheherazade’.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A LI B EN S ALEEM’S house was quiet for a few days while he took a flying trip to New York. He returned in a hurry and spent the next week on the telephone, confirming deals and setting up new ones. Apart from his secretary, the staff saw very little of him, and he saw little of them. He certainly had no time to notice the new maid, which was what Fran had counted on.

  It had been surprisingly easy to set up. Joey had mobilised his contacts to find an employment agency in the area. Using bribery and persuasion, he’d arranged for them to send out an advertisement to all the houses in the area, and Ali’s chief steward had taken the bait. The house needed a live-in maid. Fran had applied, carefully disguised in a long, dark wig, drab clothes and flat shoes, and calling herself Jane. She’d been hired at once.

  She’d thought long and hard before going under cover in Ali’s house. It wasn’t the way she liked to work, and she’d very nearly backed off.

  But then the Sheikh had spoken in her mind: ‘I do not discuss business with women… In my country women know their place and keep to it… No woman is equal with men.’

  It was the memo
ry of his imperious tone, as much as his words, that made her temper rise and her resolve harden. She knew she would have no peace until she’d made him unsay those words, and give her some respect.

  She’d started on the day Ali departed. To begin with, her work had been downstairs, mostly in the kitchen. Once she was allowed upstairs, to clean Ali’s bedroom, but only under the steward’s supervision.

  She’d found the room disappointingly austere. There was none of the silk-curtained luxury of downstairs, where Ali entertained ladies with names like Diamond. In his private domain Ali had plain white walls, polished floors and a large mahogany bed. Three pictures adorned the walls, all of them of horses. The steward had informed her that these were His Excellency’s racehorses, shown at their moments of triumph in the Derby, the Grand National and at Ascot. Then he’d remembered his dignity, and told her sharply to get on with her work.

  Fran wasn’t sure exactly what she was looking for. Apart from getting a general picture of his life, she wanted something that would let him know she couldn’t be simply dismissed, as he had done. It was proving hard to find.

  She was working alone now. Joey had left London to take up another assignment in the north. She’d told Howard that she had to be out of town for a few weeks. Nobody knew where she was. She felt safer that way. But she was growing depressed by her lack of progress.

  When Ali returned she kept well out of his sight, but it was hardly necessary. Sheikh Ali didn’t notice servant girls.

  But tonight it seemed he’d made a mistake. Watching from above, Fran had seen him go to his bedroom with files tucked under his arm. An hour later he’d been summoned downstairs by a late visitor, and gone down without locking his door.

  This was her chance. Those files might contain some detail that would prove to be the key to the whole, involved oil empire. This man who spent a fortune on his pleasures and gave his people no say in the running of his little country must be made accountable. And she was the person to do it. If she also made him sorry he’d patronised her, that would merely be a bonus.

  As soon as she saw him vanish she slipped down the stairs and into his room. The files were spread out on the bed. To her disappointment only one was in English, but she started on that.