She gave him a cool smile. ‘Thank you, Khalim—you can send him in now.’
It was unbelievable, he fumed as he went off to find Murad. She was dismissing him like a servant! She answered him back! Well, she would not be answering him back for much longer. Soon she would be agreeing to everything he said! He would satisfy her as no other man had, and she would be enchained to him for ever!
Murad Ovezov was a man of sixty years, and, although age had painted its inevitable lines around his black eyes, he still exuded a certain power. He had worked at the Areeku refinery since it had opened, gradually working his way up until he held the highest position within the factory.
‘It’s very good of you to see me,’ said Rose politely.
He gave a wary bow. ‘I was not expecting intervention,’ he said, in faultless English.
‘I think that you and Khalim have probably decided for yourselves who you wish to replace you.’ She smiled, noticing him start when she used the prince’s first name. ‘I’m here as the fail-safe mechanism—a third party often sees different qualities. Or failures.’
He nodded in comprehension. ‘Where would you like to begin?’
She spent half an hour with Murad and then Serdar Kulnuradov was brought in. He was aged forty, confident and knew the refinery inside out. He quoted figures and projections with such fluidity that Rose was left reeling with the breadth of his knowledge.
‘Thank you for your time,’ she said as he stood up to leave.
Serdar gave a short bow. ‘It is my pleasure.’ He paused. ‘Though it is not usual in Maraban to be interviewed by a woman.’
‘Especially a foreign woman?’ suggested Rose, with a wry smile. ‘I can imagine.’
Oraz Odekov was ushered in next—and a different breed of man entirely. For a start he was aged just thirty and Rose’s line of questioning produced quite different answers from those of Serdar.
‘And how do you see the future of Areeku?’ she asked him at the end of the interview.
And where Serdar had basically said that he wanted more of the same, Oraz was concerned with minimising the effects of pollution.
‘You think that’s important?’ enquired Rose.
‘I know so,’ he answered simply. ‘That is the way of the world today. Countries who do not fight to keep the planet clean will ultimately be discriminated against.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, and scribbled it down.
He hesitated by the door, and his handsome young face gave a small smile. ‘May I be so bold as to say how refreshing it is to have a woman involved in the selection procedure? This, too, is the way forward.’
Go and tell Khalim that, thought Rose irreverently as she smiled back.
Khalim appeared just seconds later. Had he been waiting out in the corridor? thought Rose in wonder. Like a boy waiting outside the headmaster’s study.
‘Made your mind up?’ he asked.
Well, he was certainly to the point when it came to business, thought Rose with some admiration.
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘It has to be Oraz.’
There was silence. ‘Because he’s young and good-looking, I suppose?’
‘Please don’t insult me, Khalim!’
He sighed. ‘Because Serdar is set in older ways than yours and because you are a feminist, is that it, Rose?’
She looked at him steadily. ‘I never bring my own personality or prejudices into the selection process—whether or not I think I could get on with them is irrelevant. I’m not going to be here, am I? And please don’t start calling me a “feminist”, Khalim, especially in that derogatory tone.’
‘Oh?’ His eyes held a mocking challenge. ‘You’re saying you’re not?’
‘I’m saying that I don’t like labels! Of any kind! I’m just a woman, who believes in equality, that’s all.’
The very last kind of woman he should be attracted to! And yet he was intelligent enough to realise that her unsuitability was part of what made her attractive to him. Her lively mind and keen wit and her refusal to be cowed were qualities he was unused to. Qualities which were proving more aphrodisiac than plump oysters!
‘So you’re in a dilemma now, aren’t you, Khalim?’
He looked at her from between narrowed eyes. Had the minx now managed to read his mind? ‘A dilemma?’ he stalled.
‘Of course. You clearly want Serdar to be the next director, while my advice to you is to appoint Oraz.’
‘Because?’
‘You want my reasons?’
His smile was coolly assessing. ‘That is what I’m paying you for.’
She didn’t react, but why should she? He spoke nothing but the truth. She was here on a professional basis—solely on a professional basis, she reminded herself—and he was paying.
‘Okay. Serdar has the greater experience, I grant you that, but Oraz has vision. A vision to carry the Areeka well into the middle of this century, and to make it a refinery to be reckoned with.’
He smiled again. ‘My very sentiments.’
She stared at him a moment before the gleam in his black eyes told her exactly what he meant. ‘You mean…that you agree with me?’
He sighed, almost wishing that she had chosen contrary to his own instincts. ‘Yes, Rose. I am entirely in accordance with your wishes.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Now let me take you back to the palace for lunch, and afterwards…’
His words tailed off in a silken caress and Rose’s heart began to pound uncomfortably in her chest.
‘Afterwards?’ she asked, relieved that her voice didn’t sound too eager.
‘Afterwards I shall take you riding.’
‘I don’t ride.’
There was something sensual and uncompromising in his answer.
‘But I do,’ he said.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE stables were almost like palaces themselves—huge and cavernous and completely spick and span. Rose knew little of horses, but she knew enough to realise that these bright-eyed animals were well cared for. And that the black stallion whose ear Khalim was tickling—surprisingly gently—was like no other horse she had ever seen, with its fine, narrow body, long legs and slender neck.
‘What an unusual creature,’ she breathed.
He paused mid-stroke, and Rose found herself wondering what it would be like to have those long, sensuous fingers stroking her with such a light caress.
He had changed from his silk robes into close-fitting jodhpurs and a gauzey white shirt, and had borrowed a similar outfit from one of his sisters for Rose. She thought that now he looked like some tousled buccaneer—wild and carefree. Contrasts again, she thought as she watched him.
‘This is an Akhal-Teke,’ he purred. ‘One of the oldest breeds in the world—bred and raced for almost three thousand years. These horses are prized for their desert hardiness—with their remarkable endurance and resistance to heat.’
A sense of history and longevity wrapped dreamy arms around her, and her voice was dreamy as she asked, ‘And is this your horse?’
‘Yes, indeed.’ His voice deepened with pleasure. ‘This is Purr-Mahl. The name means literally, “Full Moon”—’
‘And he was born by the light of it, I presume?’
‘You presume correctly, Rose.’ He smiled. ‘I sat and watched the birth, saw the contrast between the silvery-pale gleam of the moon and the night-dark colour of the foal, and I named him there and then. Come, let me sit you upon him.’
‘But I don’t ride, I told—’
Her protest was already lost on the warm, sultry breeze as he swung her up into his arms, and she wished that he could carry on holding her like that for ever, but he carefully placed her in the saddle instead.
‘Press your thighs hard against his body,’ he urged and felt a renewed awakening of need. ‘Let him know you are there.’
She did as he instructed while he took the reins and led the horse out into the yard where a bodyguard stood, his face inscr
utable in the glaring heat of the sun.
Khalim led her round and round the yard for a while and then he murmured something in his own language to the bodyguard, who gave a small bow in response.
Picking up a small leather bag, which he slung over his shoulder, he led her out through the gates to where the stark, shimmering vista of the desert awaited them, with the vast mountains dominating the skyline.
‘What did you say to the bodyguard?’ she asked him curiously.
‘Just that you did not ride, and that I wanted to show you the view from the gate. He is new,’ he added casually.
He led the horse a little way into the silvery-white sand, and then suddenly, without warning, he sprang up behind her, and pulled her close into his body at the same time as he seized the reins to urge the horse forward with a murmured word of command and a light slap to the shank.
And they were off!
‘Khalim!’ Her startled word streamed out like the wind which whipped through her hair.
‘Do not be frightened, sweet Rose,’ he murmured against her windswept hair.
But it was not fear she felt, it was something far closer to exhilaration. He held her tightly against the hard, lean column of his body, and he handled the horse with such control and mastery that Rose instinctively felt safe.
Safe? Was she mad? Galloping full-pelt across an unforgiving landscape towards the mountains with this dark, enigmatic prince who was taking her who knew where?
Yes, safe. As if this was somehow meant to be. As though all along this had been meant to happen.
As the mountains grew closer, time and distance lost all meaning for her, she had no idea how far they had ridden, or for how long, when, just as suddenly as he’d begun, he steered the horse to a halt in some kind of valley.
Rose could see fig plants and forests of wild walnut trees. And surely down there was the silver glimmer of water?
He jumped down from Purr-Mahl and held his arms up to her and there was a moment of suspended silence while she stared into the enticing glitter of those ebony eyes before sliding down into his arms.
‘Sweet Rose,’ he said softly.
Had she thought he would kiss her then? Because she was wrong. Instead he took her by the hand and led her towards where she thought she had seen water, and indeed it was, with dense dark thickets of green growing alongside.
He sat down where it looked most hospitable, and patted the ground beside him.
This is a dream, thought Rose. This is a dream. And why not? Was Maraban not the land of dreams as well as contrasts?
He pointed to the distant peak of one of the towering mountains.
‘When I was a boy,’ he said, and his voice softened with memory, ‘my father and I used to wait for the first thaw of spring to melt the snow on those mountain peaks, and to flow down to swell the icy river. And we would ride here and drink the crystal waters from a goblet—’
‘Why?’
He turned and smiled, and she had never thought that he could look so impossibly carefree. ‘Just for the hell of it.’ He shrugged, sounding as English as it was possible to be. He took the leather bag from his shoulder and drew out a small golden goblet, studded with rubies as wine-dark as the robes he had been wearing the other night. ‘Always from this goblet.’ He smiled.
Rose took it from him and studied it, turning it round in her hands. ‘It’s very beautiful.’
‘Isn’t it? Thousands of years ago my ancestors carried it along with many other treasures, when they trekked to this fabled mountain oasis to establish their kingdom.’
But even as he painted beauty with his words, he also painted sadness. For in that moment Rose gleaned some sense of his tradition, his history. He was not as other men. He could not make the same promises as other men. She’d been right from the very first when she had said to Lara that he was not able to offer commitment. And as long as she could accept that…
He put his hand inside the bag again, and drew out a flask in the same gold and claret-coloured jewels as the cup. ‘When I was seventeen, he brought me here as usual, only this time we did not drink water; we drank wine.’ He smiled. ‘Rich, Maraban wine, made from the wild grapevines which grow in the mountain valleys.’ His eyes grew soft. ‘Will you drink some wine with me, Rose?’
She knew a little then how Eve must have felt when the serpent had offered her the apple, for the question he asked was many-layered. ‘I’d love to.’
He tipped some of the ruby liquid into the cup and held it up to her lips. ‘Not too much,’ he urged gently. ‘For Maraban wine is as strong as her men.’
She closed her eyes as she sipped and felt its warm richness invade every pore of her body, and when she opened them again it was to find Khalim staring at her with such a transparent look of hunger on his face that she started, and a droplet of wine trickled from her lips and fell with a splash onto her wrist.
It lay there, a tiny crimson-dark star against the whiteness of her skin and they both stared at it.
‘Like blood,’ said Khalim slowly. ‘The rose has a thorn which draws blood.’
She raised her head and so did he and the look they shared asked and answered the same question, and the goblet fell unnoticed to the ground as he bent his head to kiss her.
Her lips fell open to his velvet touch and she heard herself making a little sound of astonished delight, because she had wanted this for so long. Oh, too long. Much, much too long.
He tangled his fingers in the silken stream of her hair and deepened the kiss. ‘Rose,’ he groaned against his sweet plunder of her mouth and they fell back against the coarse, desert grass. ‘Beautiful, beautiful Rose.’
Her fingers greedily explored the magnificent musculature of his torso through the thin, billowing shirt he wore, kneading her hands against his back as though he were the most delicious kind of dough.
Khalim felt that he might explode with wanting. But more than that—he knew that this woman above all others deserved his honesty. And that had to come now, before it was too late.
He lifted his head from hers and gazed down at her, feeling the heated flush of desire as it snaked its way across his cheekbones. Saw her matching response and the longing which darkened her eyes into twin eclipses.
He drew a long, shuddering breath. ‘I have to tell you something,’ he began unsteadily.
But Rose was proud. And she was also perceptive—they both knew that. She shook her head. ‘I know.’
‘You can’t know!’ he protested.
She wanted to say it her way—because she suspected that his words could wound her more deeply than any dagger. ‘There can’t be any future for us; I know that. This is this, and nothing more than this, and I mustn’t read anything else into it.’ She actually smiled at his expression of perplexity, recognising that this was a man who was used to calling the shots! ‘Don’t worry, Khalim,’ she finished huskily. ‘I won’t.’
He shook his head and made a silent curse. By withdrawing emotionally, as she had just done so neatly, she had succeeded in making him want her even more! Impossible! And his need was made all the more poignant by knowing that he could never really have her!
She saw the look of pain etched on his features, and lifted a wondering hand to smooth it down over the hard jut of his jaw. ‘Khalim?’ she questioned softly. ‘What is it?’
He gave a muffled groan as he bent to kiss her neck, his fingers moving to swiftly unbutton her thin shirt, his groan deepening as his hands found and cupped the curved perfection of silk-and lace-covered breasts.
He peeled the shirt open and levered himself up to stare down at her, his eyes as wild and as black as the stallion they had just ridden. He didn’t speak another word until he had slithered down the jodhpurs past her ankles and impatiently removed each sock, until she was lying there in just her bra and panties.
‘Lace.’ He swallowed as his gaze raked from her face, down over her bosom, and down further still until it came to rest with rapt fascination at the fl
imsy little triangle of silk and lace which was all that kept him from her greatest treasure. ‘I always knew you would wear lace, Rose.’
‘And you?’ She turned the tables as she reached her hand up and scraped her fingernails against his nipples through the white voile of the billowing shirt. ‘What about you, Khalim?’
He was used to complete mastery. ‘Me?’ he questioned unsteadily, an unmistakable note of surprise in his voice. ‘What about me, Rose?’
‘Take it off,’ she ordered softly.
Her words sent the blood coursing heatedly around his veins. ‘Is that a…command?’ he demanded unsteadily.
She revelled in the sense that something here was different for him. ‘It most certainly is.’
The sight of her head pillowed on the flaxen satin of her hair, and her big blue eyes and soft pouting mouth, was almost as much of a turn-on as her near-naked body. Khalim began to unbutton his shirt with fingers which threatened to tremble.
‘You have me in your thrall, sweet Rose—see how my hands shake,’ he murmured as the shirt was flung onto the desert scrub. ‘Now name your next command.’
‘Take it off,’ she instructed, revelling in the heady sensation of having such power over this man. This man.
‘What?’ But the attempted tease came out in a kind of strangled plea.
‘Everything.’
His long black riding boots were kicked off, and then he fingered the button of his jodhpurs, seeing from the automatic thrusting of her breasts that she was hurtling towards a stage of almost unbearable excitement. You and me both, he thought, with a helpless kind of rapture.
He made his undressing as slow and as deliberate as he could, and Rose was shocked, startled and unbearably aroused to see that he wore nothing beneath the jodhpurs, absolutely nothing. Nothing to disguise the awesome power of his erection. She swallowed, wondering whether…whether…
He read the expression in her eyes as the jodhpurs joined the shirt. ‘You worry that I am too much of a man for you?’
She laughed in soft delight at the arrogant boast. ‘Maybe you worry that I am too much of a woman for you!’
Surrender to the Sheikh (London's Most Eligible Playboys Book 2) Page 11