And risk him questioning her about just why she wanted to see him? He might have accused her of being mad—and wasn’t there a part of her which wouldn’t have blamed him?
‘Of course it did,’ she answered carefully. ‘But I had my reasons for this somewhat unusual approach.’
‘Did you? How very intriguing.’ His eyes narrowed, for there was something about her attitude towards him that he wasn’t used to, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Because she was not quite as adoring as women usually were? Or maybe because she was not displaying quite the right amount of deference? ‘Who are you?’ he questioned softly.
His black gaze seemed to scorch over her skin, and suddenly Laura wasn’t sure. The mind which had been trained to sift information and compartmentalise it suddenly became a jumble as her thoughts trickled through it like a sieve.
All she was aware of was the magnetic quality of his stare, and the coiled power of his hard body, and the way that it seemed to make her want to…to…
It made her want to despair—because this was business; strictly business.
Or was it?
Because if she looked beyond the professional to the personal for once she could recognise the impact of what she was about to do. And somehow this didn’t feel quite like business.
Didn’t the information she was going to give to Xavier de Maistre have the potential to change his life—or certainly the way he thought about life? Laura knew that she must play this very carefully—she must—because she was in possession of emotional dynamite, and she did not want it exploding in her face.
Extending her hand towards him, she gave her most brisk smile, which she hoped masked her sudden lurch of misgiving and the effect he was having on her.
‘My name is Laura Cottingham,’ she said.
‘Laura,’ he repeated, rolling the ‘r’ around his tongue and somehow making her Christian name sound unbelievably sexy. Black brows arched in question as he caught her slim fingers within his grasp to shake her hand, allowing his thumb to slide over her narrow wrist, where he could feel the rapid beating of her pulse. She was as slim as a young tree, he thought—and probably just as supple. ‘Do I know you? Your face is unfamiliar to me, and I never forget a beautiful face.’
Beautiful—her? Expert cosseting expressly for this unusual job had brought out the best in her, but Laura would never have described herself as beautiful. How could she when all her life she’d been chasing her tail, trying to make something of herself? Only to fall straight into an unsuitable relationship with someone who’d made her feel positively ugly inside.
Her throat constricted as she felt the warmth of his skin, the subtle caress of his fingertips, and she pulled her hand away. ‘No,’ she said breathlessly. ‘We’ve never met.’
‘So why are you here?’ he questioned, as his black gaze seared over her like a spotlight. ‘Why do you even now hesitate to tell me your business when most would have babbled it for fear that I would kick them out onto the boulevard?’ he said softly. ‘I am intrigued, Mademoiselle Cottingham, and intrigue is such a tantalisingly rare sensation for a man like me.’
A man like me. He was arrogance personified, and yet he had the looks and the charisma to be able to get away with it. How much would he be forgiven, she wondered, simply because his eyes were like dark fire and his face was that of a fallen angel?
Laura shot a look at his assistant, who was watching and listening to the proceedings with rapt attention—even if she was pretending not to. Concentrate on the job, Laura told herself.
‘I’d prefer it if we spoke alone,’ she said.
Now, why would that be? Xavier’s eyes narrowed. Did she think that her beauty allowed her to simply name her terms? And then he stilled as another, darker possibility dawned on him—one which had been tried and had failed on many occasions.
‘You’re trying to tell me it’s a paternity claim?’ he demanded softly, and saw her recoil in something like shock. ‘You are here on behalf of a girlfriend?’
‘No, no. Nothing like that.’ Laura shook her head, but then realised with a sudden sense of confusion that unwittingly Xavier de Maistre had put his finger on exactly what it was. Just not in quite the same way as he thought. ‘I simply think it’s better if we have this conversation in private.’
His eyes fixed on her assessingly, as if he were trying to look deep into her mind and read her thoughts—so that by the time he dragged his gaze away Laura felt as if she had been stripped bare.
‘Eh, bien. We will go into my office, cherie,’ he agreed softly. ‘But it had better be worth it—for I do not like having my time wasted.’
He turned and began to walk towards a door at the far end of the large room, and—her heart beating with nerves at the thought of what she was to do—Laura picked up her briefcase and followed him into an inner sanctum.
‘Shut the door,’ he said, turning round to watch her wiggle her way in. Had she deliberately worn a close-fitting skirt and high heels, knowing that they would make her walk in a certain way that all red-blooded men would find irresistible?
Laura pushed the door to and faced him, suddenly feeling daunted by the fact that she really was alone with him. He hadn’t asked her to sit down, so she stood in the middle of the vast room, holding her briefcase and feeling like a traveller who had just missed her train.
‘It’s kind of you to see me so promptly, Monsieur de Maistre,’ she said softly.
‘I can assure you that it was not kindness which motivated me—it was convenience. You see, you did me a kind of favour, Mademoiselle Cottingham. You provided me with an escape route from a situation which had become rather…tedious.’ Black brows were raised imperiously as he waited for her to pry, as women inevitably did—particularly when they were scoring points off one another. But, to his surprise, she did not pursue it. Just gave him a cool, almost glacial smile, which was not the way that women usually looked at him at all.
Laura knew that it was not her place to comment on his arrogance—or to pull him up on his cruel hint about getting rid of the blonde. Yet she suddenly felt an overwhelming pang of sympathy for the woman who had flounced out of the office. He was an easy man to desire, she suspected—and a hard man to leave if he rejected you.
‘I would have made another appointment if today had been inconvenient,’ she said quietly, as she began to open her case. ‘But my brief was to make sure that I spoke with you face to face.’
Something in her tone and her words aroused Xavier’s survival instincts, and he suddenly realised his first impression had been right—there was something in her demeanour which did not add up.
People usually came to him because they wanted something. When a man was as powerful and as wealthy as he was, there were few things in life which came without a price.
Laura Cottingham’s manner was pleasant, but brisk, efficient and matter-of-fact—the manner of someone who was doing the giving, not taking, and suddenly he was intrigued. My brief, she had said.
‘Your brief?’ he shot out.
‘Yes.’
‘You are a lawyer?’
‘Yes.’
He paused very deliberately. ‘I don’t trust lawyers unless they’re working for me,’ he said softly.
‘That’s probably a very healthy instinct.’
She obviously expected him to laugh, but he did not. His laughter was rare, and usually controlled—for laughter made you vulnerable and he was never that. ‘Why did you not contact my own lawyers if it is a legal matter?’ he questioned silkily.
‘Because…’ Laura hesitated. ‘Because this a delicate matter for nobody’s ears other than your own.’
Her words were tantalising—deliberately so, he suspected.
‘How intriguing,’ he murmured. ‘Tell me, do you like to tease and play games? Are you like this in bed? Or are you going to stop being coy and tell me more?’
Laura flushed deeply at his sexual taunt, but she was in no position to flounce out—and
the best way to deal with such behaviour was to ignore it.
‘Certainly, Monsieur de Maistre,’ she said crisply. ‘I’m actually here on behalf of someone else. As a representative of Sheikh Zahir of Kharastan.’
Xavier stilled. He was rarely surprised by anything, but this woman had succeeded in doing just that, and—inexplicably—his heart missed a beat. A sheikh? Yet he had no business interests in that part of the world. ‘I do not understand,’ he said softly.
‘I don’t expect you to. But I will attempt to explain.’ Laura took a deep breath, remembering her plan for how best to broach this. ‘You have heard of Kharastan, perhaps?’
‘I have heard of most countries.’ He stared at her unhelpfully.
‘You know that it’s an extremely wealthy mountain state, which borders on the ancient country of Maraban?’
She was met with an obdurate expression of pure steel.
‘I do not need a geography lesson from you,’ he said, in a voice which was soft with menace. ‘And neither do I need you preparing the ground to cushion the effect of what it is you are about to say. You have been granted access to me and my time is precious! So, either you tell me why you are here, or you get out.’
Laura had been intending to lead into the subject gradually—but she could see the impatience sizzling from him, the irritation which was burning from his black eyes, and she knew that there was no time for any groundwork.
‘I’m here to talk about your father,’ she said quietly.
Xavier froze as if she had turned him to stone, but beneath the stone his heart gave a strange and painful lurch as she strayed into forbidden territory. He took a step closer to her, lowering his voice so that it was an accusatory whisper.
‘How dare you bring up a matter as personal as my parentage?’ he questioned menacingly. ‘You, who are nothing more than a stranger to me. How dare you?’
Laura didn’t flinch beneath the accusation which burned from his eyes, telling herself that he had the right to be angry, that anyone would have been angry in similar circumstances.
‘I am merely carrying out orders,’ she answered, and prayed that she wouldn’t stumble over these precious and important words. She was aware of the burden of responsibility which lay so heavily on her shoulders, and suddenly realised that her boss had been economical with the truth. There was no such thing as ‘easy money’.
He took a step towards her—the silent menacing step of a predator. ‘Whose orders? Dites-moi,’ he hissed. ‘Tell me what you know.’
Laura drew a deep breath, realising that there was no way to prepare for this, or cushion against its impact. He needed to hear the facts in all their stark and compelling simplicity.
‘I’m here on a mission because of who you are—or who we think you are. You see, there is reason to believe that you are the son of the Sheikh of Kharastan,’ she said quietly.
CHAPTER TWO
XAVIER felt a strange sensation as Laura spoke to him. He could hear a muffled roaring in his ears, and yet he felt curiously detached from his own body. It was as if he had floated up to the summit of the room and was looking down on the scene, in the way people sometimes described a near-death experience.
He was a man who had—necessarily and ruthlessly—subdued anything which came close to emotion. Had that not been the way he had been taught to survive? Yet now he was experiencing feelings which were unsettling him and threatening his equilibrium—and her words seem to echo round and round in his head.
‘There is reason to believe you are the son of the Sheikh…’
All he could see was the woman who had come out with such a shocking announcement, with her pale face and her thick dark red hair.
‘You lie!’ he breathed.
‘No! Why would I lie about something like that?’
Logic and reason told him that her statement was nothing but far-fetched fantasy, and yet in the back of Xavier’s mind was a nagging doubt which stubbornly refused to be silenced.
For hadn’t he always felt that he was different?
He had grown up in poverty in the Marais, in a time before it had become one of the most fashionable places in Paris. During Xavier’s youth there had simply been lots of old and dirty houses where artisans would live and work—surrounded by small restaurants, narrow streets and few shops. He and his mother had lived in a tiny garret originally meant for servants—but amid the squalour his mother had worked every hour to provide a good home for her only child.
The exterior of the house in which they’d lived might have been crumbling and depressing, but inside it had been a haven. The walls clean and bright, the curtains crisp and perfectly pressed. There had always been soup or a pot au feu bubbling away on the stove—a jug of fresh flowers on the table.
And if his mother had been bitter—so what?—it had been easy to escape from the occasional tense atmosphere at home. If you walked south a block or two you would get to l’Île de la Cité, with the dizzy, imposing height of Notre Dame and the lavish, stained glass splendour of La Sainte-Chapelle.
Sometimes Xavier would go there after school and look at the soaring monuments, and vow that one day he would break free from his poverty stricken world and live surrounded by beauty and space.
His mother had forced books upon her clever son—‘For only in education lies an escape from poverty’, she’d used to tell him—and she had discouraged him from loitering around the streets with other boys his age.
But Xavier had not cared for the company of his peers, and they had always viewed him with a certain degree of suspicion—his lofty, ambitious attitude and his outstanding looks marking him out. The mane of raven hair, the dark, luminous skin and jewel-black eyes had branded him as someone different from the rest of them.
‘Qui est ton père?’ the other kids had used to mock him—but Xavier had never answered, for he had not known his father’s identity.
Ground vividly into his childhood memory was his mother’s tight-lipped fear whenever he had ventured to ask a question about him. Her reluctance to talk.
‘He is a powerful and dangerous man who will try to take you away from me. Forget him, Xavier!’ was all she would say.
Xavier had been afraid of no one—yet what choice had he had other than to accede to her wishes?
How could he have gone against the woman who had given him life, who had given up all her own ambitions in order to fend for him? Perhaps a part of him had thought she might mellow with age, but his mother had died five years ago—leaving behind nothing but a faded piece of pink ribbon and a gold and ruby ring—and in a way Xavier had felt that he was honouring her memory by letting her secrets die with her.
After that, he had convinced himself that some things were better left alone—that it freed him from burden and complications not to have known the man who was his biological father.
And now this English woman had come here today and was claiming that she knew his identity!
Suddenly Xavier felt anger rising in him, and without warning he reached out and caught hold of her, his fingers gripping into the soft silk which covered her arms. He hauled her up close—close enough to smell the faint scent of lilac she wore, and to see the pulse which beat convulsively against the paper-thin skin at her temple.
‘How can my father be a sheikh when I am a Frenchman to every fibre of my being?’ he hissed. ‘What fairytales do you concoct?’
Laura froze in his grip as his dark features swam in front of her, his breath hot on her face. His eyes were flashing black fire, and she could detect the raw scent of animal passion which clung to his skin. She felt dizzy with his proximity and shook her head, which felt heavy as lead—as if her slender neck did not have the strength to bear the weight of it.
‘It isn’t a fairytale,’ she breathed. ‘I swear it isn’t!’
‘Your word means nothing to me—why should I believe you?’ Yet the cold and logical side of his character was already assessing the possibility of the redhead’s bizarre decla
ration being true. No. He brought her even closer. ‘Who sent you?’ he demanded.
His dark-skinned face was so close that her senses were swimming, and Laura could barely get the words out. ‘I am acting on the Sheikh’s wishes—though he made them known through another.’
‘Through another?’ he repeated, as if she were speaking in a language he could not understand.
Laura nodded, wishing that her usual crystal-sharp thought processes hadn’t deserted her—but how could she concentrate when this man’s powerful masculinity seemed to be seeping into her very pores?
‘Yes. The Sheikh is old and frail, and thus I dealt mainly through one of his aides.’ Laura hesitated. ‘His ill-health is one of the reasons he wished to make contact.’
Xavier scowled. The Sheikh’s constitution was of no interest to him, but he could not stop the unfamiliar word she had used from stabbing at his heart. Father. It was as likely as looking up into the night sky and discovering that the moon had been made of blue cheese all along. As his take on reality shifted and changed irrevocably, he tightened his grip. ‘Liar! This man is not my father—how can he be?’
She felt his fingers biting into her flesh. ‘It’s true, I tell you—it’s true. Please. Let me go.’
‘Not yet.’ He loosened his grip slightly, but he did not set her free. He could see the tremble of her lips and the rush of emotions which her outrageous claim had released were such that he was tempted to drown them all in the sweet oblivion of a punishing kiss.
He could feel the hard, angry nudge of an erection, and for one brief second he wondered how long it would take him to enter her. How quickly could he make her wet with desire and rock against her, relieving these sharp, painful questions with the sweet oblivion of sex?
But as the primitive and powerful animal reaction overwhelmed him, he used his steely will to banish the desire. For now. Because sex would weaken him, would briefly have him in her thrall—and he would not risk that happening until he was acquainted with all the facts.
Desert Princes Bundle Page 2