The Sheikh's Bride

by Sophie Weston

  Amer stopped pacing. ‘No, she didn’t did she?’ he said in an arrested voice. ‘I wonder—’ He made a decision. ‘Call the woman again.’

  ‘But she is out.’

  ‘Not Leonora Groom,’ said Amer impatiently. ‘The secretary. I want to know if she has read the Antika Project’s Celebrity Essays.’

  Hari suddenly understood. ‘You sent her that?’ he gasped. ‘Twenty Ways to Catch a Woman by the last of the Ladykillers? You must be out of your mind. She’ll never speak to you again.’

  Amer strode to the window. The cherry trees in the garden were coming to the end of their blossom. He stared at them unseeingly.

  ‘She will,’ he said in a low voice. ‘If I have to kidnap her and lock her up to do it, I’ll make her listen to me.’

  Hari looked dubious but he made the call.

  Amer rested his brow against the window-pane. His temples throbbed. He should never have let her get away that night in Cairo. She had been so nearly his. He was experienced enough to know that if he had just put out a hand and touched her she would have gone with him wherever he said. She was too unsophisticated to hide her feelings. Maybe even too inexperienced to recognise them. But Amer had recognised them all right. He could have done whatever he wanted with her that night.

  But he had wanted—Well what had he wanted? He asked himself now, with bitter irony. Whatever it was, he had had six months to regret that he had not taken what was in his hands.

  He was not, Amer promised himself, going to let that happen again. The next time he got his hands on Leonora Groom, she was not getting away until he got what he wanted. Whatever it was.

  Hari put the phone down. ‘She has read it,’ he said in a voice of doom. ‘Her secretary was quite sure of that. Because it was immediately after she left Miss Groom reading it that she called Mr Hartley. That was when they got engaged.’

  There was a disbelieving silence. Then Amer swore.

  He had dared to call her! Leo’s first flare of rage turned into something more complicated. She was honest enough to admit that it was largely excitement.

  What sort of person, am I? she thought, horrified. Engaged to one man, getting goose bumps when another man calls me!

  She tried to talk to Simon. His office said he was visiting the Birmingham hotel.

  ‘Oh,’ said Leo disconcerted. She had expected to go on the Midlands trip. ‘Oh well, I suppose it isn’t urgent.’

  But somehow it felt urgent. She moved about her office restlessly. There were three applications in her In box but she just could not concentrate.

  Joanne buzzed.

  ‘The front hall rang up to say your car is ready when you are.’ There was a faint question mark in her tone.

  Leo chuckled. ‘Conscience car. Simon knows he should have taken me to Birmingham, too.’

  ‘I expect he thought you had other things to do.’ To her surprise Joanne sounded uncomfortable. ‘Shall I lock up for you?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Leo, dissatisfied. ‘It’s been a messy day. Maybe I’ll do better if I take some work home.’

  Fifteen minutes later she was running down the steps of the Groom building, a portfolio under one arm a substantial brief-case in the other and her handbag looped over one shoulder. She went straight to the parking space reserved for Board members. A uniformed man leaped out and opened the door for her.

  ‘Hi,’ said Leo, surprised. ‘Darren got the day off?’

  But the man just smiled and took the portfolio and briefcase from her. She sank into the seat and stretched her legs out. It was a shock. Her feet came nowhere near the back of the seat in front. Even her father did not demand this degree of luxury.

  She became aware of a still presence beside her just as the chauffeur started the engine.

  ‘Good evening, Leonora,’ said a voice out of her dreams.

  Out of her dreams. Out of her nightmares. Out of her sleepless nights. Leo went hot, cold, then deathly still.

  The limousine eased silently through the gates and out into the rush hour traffic.

  Leo said, ‘What are you doing here?’ Her frozen lips barely moved.

  ‘Talking some sense into you before you do something neither of us will be able to put right,’ said Amer with commendable honesty but a certain lack of tact.

  ‘Let me out of this car.’

  He gave a soft laugh. How she hated that laugh. It sounded gloating. It also made those goose bumps break out up and down her spine again.

  ‘You don’t mean that,’ he said confidently.

  Leo pulled herself together. ‘You know I do. This is kidnapping,’ she pointed out.

  He waved that aside. ‘There was no time for the courtesies. I needed to see you urgently.’

  The car was gliding through the traffic at a fair speed. Leo discarded the thought of leaping out. So she did the next best thing. She crossed her legs, leaned back into the aromatic softness of leather and looked at Amer with all the mockery she could muster.

  ‘Really?’ she said politely. ‘Six months, is it? Seven? Urgent indeed.’

  Amer’s mouth compressed. ‘You covered your tracks well.’

  Leo bit back a smug smile. ‘I wasn’t aware I had covered my tracks at all,’ she said airily.

  ‘False name. Phoney job. No forwarding address. No continuing friendships. My enquiries met stone wall after stone wall.’

  ‘Enquiries?’ Leo slewed round in her seat, smugness evaporating. ‘Are you saying you put a private detective on to me?’

  She was furious. But she felt oddly excited as well. So he had not just let her walk away without a thought. She had imagined Amer giving a philosophical shrug at the escape of one insignificant girl and turning to the next one.

  Amer waved that aside as well. ‘I wanted to find you,’ he said as if that justified anything.

  ‘Oh well, that’s all right then,’ said Leo affably. She was shaking with rage. And other things which she was not thinking about at the moment. ‘Whatever the Sheikh wants he gets, right? Never mind what anyone else wants.’

  He smiled. ‘You’ve grown your hair.’

  Leo was so angry she did not even blush. She drummed her clenched fists on her knees in frustration.

  ‘It suits you. I knew it would.’

  ‘Stop this car. Let me out at once.’

  ‘Don’t panic. I’m taking you home,’ he said soothingly.

  ‘I am not panicking,’ said Leo between her teeth. ‘And I don’t want to go home. I’m supposed to go to a reception at the National Gallery.’

  ‘You work too hard. Your secretary can apologise for you tomorrow.’

  ‘Ah. The Sheikh wants again, huh?’

  He laughed suddenly. ‘Stop spitting at me, Leonora. What is one reception among so many? This is important. We have unfinished business and we both know it.’

  ‘I’m engaged,’ said Leo harshly.

  She wished she had the ring on her finger to prove it. But she and Simon had not yet taken the time to choose one.

  Amer smiled tolerantly. ‘Yes, that’s one of the things I want to talk about.’

  Leo slewed round, her eyes wide with outrage. ‘Excuse me?’

  He leaned back in his corner and gave her that slow, sexy smile. Why had she only remembered that it set her heart pounding and not that it annoyed her to screaming point?

  ‘It was very silly to get engaged just to spite me,’ he said indulgently.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You weren’t engaged before I hit town.’

  ‘Coincidence,’ said Leo curtly. Her heart was beating so hard she thought he must be able to hear it.

  ‘Was it coincidence that you read my piece in that charity book and got engaged immediately afterwards?’ he asked shrewdly.

  ‘How did you know—?’ Leo broke off. But it was too late. She bit her lip.

  ‘A very understandable reaction,’ Amer assured her kindly. ‘I have read the thing again and I admit I went over the top in a couple of places.
But—’

  ‘Over the top?’ Leo glared at him. ‘Oh I wouldn’t say that. I think you got it all pretty accurately. At least from what I remember. But you should check with your other victims.’

  ‘Victims?’ That startled him, genuinely.

  ‘Targets then,’ said Leo, showing her teeth. ‘How does that sound?’

  ‘Calculating,’ Amer said slowly.

  She gave him a wide, false smile. ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself.’

  He said on a note of discovery, ‘Was that why you got engaged then? Because you thought I was playing games with you?’

  ‘Are you trying to tell me you weren’t playing games?’ Leo looked at him with ineffable scorn. ‘That heavily stage-managed incident in Cairo was all leading to love, marriage and a lifetime’s devotion, was it?’

  Amer frowned. ‘I don’t know where it was leading,’ he said shortly. ‘You didn’t give us time to find out.’

  ‘But marriage was on the cards?’ pressed Leo, mocking.

  There was a pause. Then, ‘No,’ Amer admitted heavily.

  ‘The truth at last,’ Leo said with contempt. ‘So face it and get out of my life.’ She leaned forward and tapped the chauffeur on the shoulder. ‘Trafalgar Square, the National Gallery Sainsbury wing. His Excellency made a mistake. I’ve got a reception to go to.’

  The man looked in the driving mirror for instruction. Amer’s expression was masklike. He nodded.

  Leo had a tough week. Her father and Simon seemed to be talking to each other but they only left one message a piece on her answering machine. Which left far too much time to think about Amer el-Barbary.

  Especially as he did not call her. Of course she would not have talked to him, if he had, Leo assured herself. She read his outrageous essay again to remind herself exactly why. She read it several times.

  After Simon’s message, an exclusive jeweller brought round a selection of engagement rings for her to try. Leo recognised the logo. It was a shop her father used regularly. Disturbed, she chose a ring almost at random.

  If Amer had rung then, she would have talked to him. He did not. Just as well, Leo told herself.

  Instead she had to give an interview to a magazine. Leo always shied away from personal publicity. But this time the journalist was a friend of Simon’s and he had asked her to do it as a favour.

  So Anne Marie Dance of Finance Today came to interview her. Only she did not behave like a friend of anyone. She went on the attack at once.

  ‘How does it feel to work in your father’s shadow all the time?’

  It was not the first time she had been asked that one, though the woman’s hostility was a shock.

  After a moment she said in her driest tone, ‘Educational.’

  Anne Marie nodded, as if a worthy opponent had scored a point. But not won the game. She leaned forward.

  ‘It won’t happen you know.’

  Leo said blankly, ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘You won’t take over Grooms. Has your father ever appointed a woman director? A senior manager, even? Why do you think he brought Simon Hartley on board?’

  Leo gave her a tolerant smile. ‘Come on, Ms Dance. You know the rules. Happy to talk about the business. My private life is off limits.’

  The journalist raised an eyebrow. ‘So what’s private about your life?’

  Leo stiffened.

  At once the woman said, ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Is it all right if I ask whether the el-Barbarys are going to take a stake in Grooms?’

  For the first time in the interview, Leo lost her professional poker face and she knew it.

  ‘What makes you say that?’ she demanded, trying to recover.

  Anne Marie Dance’s smile was faintly malicious.

  ‘Surely you know the el-Barbarys? Oil? Minerals? Race horses?’ The journalist was impatient. ‘Ever since the oil boom they’ve been buying up large chunks of western industry.’

  Leo’s brain worked swiftly. Amer was using the company to get at her. Or he was using her to get at the company; a nasty thought that. Alternatively he was not interested in the company at all but he had been asking about her and the journalist misinterpreted.

  ‘What makes you think they are looking at Grooms?’ Leo asked carefully.

  But the journalist just laughed. ‘You can’t expect me to tell you that, Ms Groom. Got to protect my sources. Let’s just say—they have been showing an interest.’

  She snapped her notebook shut and got up to leave. Leo escorted her to the lift. As she held out her hand to say goodbye, the journalist looked down at it almost with compassion. Disconcerted, Leo looked down. And there it was, the characteristic ink stain, half-way down her middle finger. She stuffed her hand into her pocket but it was too late.

  ‘Goodbye, Ms Groom. Good luck.’ She almost sounded as if she meant it. It was disturbing.

  Leo almost ran back to her office. Her secretary looked up surprised.

  ‘No rush. The reception doesn’t start until six. Plenty of time to get to the Science Museum.’ She added in sudden concern, ‘Have you hurt your hand?’

  Reluctantly Leo brought it out of her pocket. She shrugged, mocking herself.

  ‘No. It’s just the ink stain on the right doesn’t really go with the rose diamond on the left.’

  ‘What you need,’ said Joanne comfortably, ‘is a shower. Thank God for a decent ladies’ room.’

  ‘I don’t think this is a very good idea.’ Hari was beginning to feel seriously alarmed. ‘I mean what’s she going to do? You know what women are. False pretences. Sexual harassment. They can get crazy.’

  Amer shrugged.

  ‘Think of the scandal,’ moaned Hari. ‘After all the trouble you took to set up a meeting with the disaffected tribes. It’s a risk we don’t need.’

  Amer’s mouth set. ‘I must see her. I am going to see her.’

  ‘I don’t know what’s happened to you. I’ve never seen you like this.’

  The dark grey eyes were suddenly, startlingly, intense.

  ‘Maybe you’ve never seen me a hundred per cent alive before.’

  Hari gave up.

  Leo took her toilet bag and cocktail dress and went along to change. A couple of women were already there, repairing their make-up and chatting about their love lives.

  ‘Clever men are hell, aren’t they?’ one of them told the mirror. She arched a friendly eyebrow, including Leo in the conversation.

  Leo smiled but her voice was resigned when she said ‘Try me on corporate recognition. Better still, high season occupancy rates. I’m the bees’ knees at that. Men—clever or not—are a closed book to me.’

  The pretty painted face in the mirror looked almost pitying for a moment. ‘Join the club.’

  She’s sorry for me, thought Leo. That makes the second woman this afternoon. What a complete disaster I must be. And they only have to look at me to see it. It was a shocking thought.

  The others left and she went into the tiny shower room. Leo slid out of her clothes and turned on the shower. She felt numb. Automatically she applied her favourite shower gel. It was her one extravagance, specially imported from Japan. It made her skin soft as silk under her fingers and perfumed her whole body with the faint but lingering scent of spring blossom. Slowly, slowly, she began to feel again.

  What she felt was anger. And suddenly, blessedly, ready to fight back.

  How dared her father treat her like a cipher? Stick her in a nonjob and then stop speaking to her altogether as soon as she got engaged to the man of his choice! How dared Simon send her a mail-order engagement ring?

  Above all, how dared Amer el-Barbary virtually kidnap her in his blasted limousine and then leave her without a word for over a week?

  By the time Leo was dressed in designer black, with her newly washed hair piled on top of her head, she was glittering with the hunger for battle.

  She glared at herself in the mirror and said violently, ‘Bloody men.’

 
The stunned look had gone but she was still too pale. Leo shook herself. This would never do. She had just got engaged, for Heaven’s sake. Until she took charge of her own life and dealt with the men who had sewn her up she had to look radiant.

  She made an inventory of her attractions. There were not many of them. But at least you could not see her big feet in the waist-high mirror, Leo thought wryly. Otherwise there was her porcelain skin, her embarrassingly voluptuous figure and a very expensive dress. That was it.

  It was why all these men thought they could push her around to fit in with their plans. If she had been attractive, they would have thought about what was good for her. What she wanted; listened to her. As it was—Leo ground her teeth.

  It made a mess of her make-up. She had to wipe off her lipstick and start again. That did not do much for her mood, either.

  ‘Now calm down,’ she said to herself. ‘You can do makeup.’

  At Christmas Deborah had given her a voucher for a whole day’s beauty treatment. Leo had bought most of the cosmetics the make-up artist pressed on her, out of sheer self-defence. Now, she thought with acute self-mockery, all she had to do was remember which colour went where.

  She remembered. Ten minutes later she hardly recognised the face that looked back at her. Slumberous eyes, startlingly long lashes, provocative mouth…At least no one is going to feel sorry for me tonight, Leo thought with a flare of savage satisfaction.

  And as for her dress—she considered it clinically. It was low-cut and very plain, designed to show off her creamy shoulders. Well that was all right but—Leo wriggled it down further to accentuate the effect. Only that deepened the décolletage. Oh well, thought Leo, valiant with fury, why not?

  She threw a brilliant embroidered shawl over her dress and stalked down to the car. On the way she noticed her right hand. Despite the shower the shadow of the ink stain on the middle finger was still visible.

  ‘Damn,’ spat Leo.

  She dabbed at her finger with a tissue. And felt the spring which controlled her temper tighten another notch.

  It did not show when she arrived at the Museum. She stepped out as haughtily as a queen. Or so thought Hari, who had been left on watch for her.