The Sheik's Unsuitable Bride

by Liz Fielding

  Maybe he would have.

  Maybe, like her, he was beyond reason and in another moment they would have been beyond recall. Instead they were shocked back to reality by a sharp shower of cold water.

  She jerked back, gasping for breath.

  Zahir, damn him, laughed. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, ignoring the water running down his face, instead wiping the spray from her cheeks with his thumbs.

  ‘All right?’ she demanded, her hair dripping down the back of her neck and trickling down inside her blouse. ‘What kind of dumb question is that?’

  ‘The “are you all right?” dumb question?’ he offered.

  ‘Fine!’ she said. Beyond the fact that she’d temporarily lost her mind. That it had taken the equivalent of a bucket of cold water to bring her to her senses. ‘I’m absolutely fine, if you overlook the fact that I appear to be at sea!’

  ‘Oh, that…’

  ‘Yes, that! Come and look at my new toy, you said. You didn’t say anything about putting to sea!’

  ‘Alan’s idea,’ he said. ‘But running away to sea suddenly has a lot to commend it.’

  She refused to answer that on the grounds that it might incriminate her.

  ‘I’m sorry if you had a fright. Are you very wet?’

  ‘Yes!’ she said crossly. Being jerked down from that kind of high would make anyone cross. Then, more truthfully, ‘No…’

  ‘Sure? You don’t want to stand around in wet clothes.’

  How could she be sure of anything when she was standing this close to Zahir, her hands still clinging to his shoulders as if he were anchoring her to earth, his hands about her waist and everything in between…touching?

  ‘Any excuse to get me out of this uniform, huh?’

  Yes, well, it was the obvious next move after that mind-blowing kiss. Especially when she was clutching at his shoulders so hard that she was screwing up the linen of his jacket.

  ‘You’ve got me,’ he said.

  And it was those three little words that brought her back to earth, to reality. He was the one thing she hadn’t got. Not him. And she never would. Not for more than an hour or two.

  That was too much like history repeating itself.

  And slowly, very slowly, she loosened her fingers, doing her best to smooth the cloth over his shoulders. Except that linen didn’t smooth. Once wrinkled, it stayed wrinkled.

  A bit like her life…

  ‘Sorry,’ she mouthed silently, only to discover that Zahir was still holding her.

  Zahir was holding this girl he’d only just met, who was nothing like any girl he’d ever dated, had ever dreamed of dating, and for some reason he just couldn’t let go.

  He just wanted to keep her this close, with her hands on his shoulders, his hands at her waist keeping her close. To sail away with her into the sunset…

  Well, that was the fantasy that this yacht had been built for.

  ‘You can let go now,’ she said. ‘I won’t fall over.’

  ‘Really? Are you absolutely certain that you’ve got your sea-legs? Suppose there’s another big wave?’

  ‘Good point,’ she said, making a point of looking at her watch. ‘We’d better turn around and go back if I’m going to get you to London by six.’

  He didn’t want to go anywhere. He wanted to stay here with Diana and, as she pulled away, he said, ‘Forget London. Tell me about the yacht.’

  Diana swallowed.

  What she really thought was that a yacht costing millions was a very clear demonstration of just how far out of her depth her heart had swum. Heading out to sea, but on its own and sinking fast.

  ‘Does it matter what I think?’

  ‘Would you want to spend your honeymoon on board her?’ he pressed.

  ‘She’s lovely,’ she said, putting on a big smile hoping that he wouldn’t notice that she’d avoided the question. Putting a safe distance between them as, trailing her fingers along the handrail, she walked along the deck. Away from him. Then, because she couldn’t help it, glancing back. He was standing just where she’d left him, his arm still extended, as if to keep her close. ‘Does she have a name?’ she asked. Anything to stop herself from going back.

  ‘Yes…’ He shook his head as if trying to think. ‘Yes. I’m calling her Star Gatherer.’

  Star…

  ‘You just made that up!’ she declared without thinking and, as if she’d somehow released him, he joined her at the rail, leaning over it, looking down into the water. ‘I can see why, after last night, you might think so,’ he said.

  ‘No…’

  Too late to deny it. ‘Yes, Diana. But in fact the name comes from the poem, Arab Love-Song.’ And he turned and leaned back against the rail, with the smile of a man who had just had everything he knew confirmed.

  ‘The Maiden of the Morn will soon/Through Heaven stray and sing,/Star gathering.’

  ‘Oh. That’s beautiful.’ Then, staring down into the water rushing past the side of the yacht, anywhere, rather than at him, ‘How will you get her home?’ she asked, seeking a subject less…incendiary. ‘To Ramal Hamrah? Will you take her there yourself?’

  ‘I wish I had that kind of time to spare. Unfortunately, at the moment the sky has first call on my time.’ Better. Safer, she thought, raising an eyebrow. ‘You might recall that I have an airline to get off the ground.’

  ‘A yacht, an airline? Tell me, Zahir, do you have a bit of a thing about transport?’

  ‘I’m in the travel business.’

  ‘Oh, right. Well, I suppose that would explain it.’

  ‘Jeff’s mustering a permanent crew for the yacht and they’ll bring her home. It’ll give them a chance to put her through her paces, get to know her quirks, on the way.’ Then, ‘If I offered you a trip to Ramal Hamrah in her would you be as quick to turn me down a second time?’

  ‘That depends. Would I have to share her with a bunch of freeloading journalists?’ Before he could answer, she said, ‘No, I’m kidding. I don’t have that kind of time either.’

  But this time as she turned her wrist to check the time, he took her hand, stopping her. ‘We could always take her for a run across the Channel,’ he said.

  ‘The Channel? To France?’ she squeaked.

  His thumb was stroking the back of her fingers. ‘We could have dinner in some little French café. I could take the train to Paris in the morning, while you return with the yacht.’

  And the bit in between dinner and breakfast?

  She couldn’t breathe. It shouldn’t be this hard to say no. If she just concentrated on that one word-morning. Remember that when morning came he’d be taking the fast train to Paris while her world would be in pieces.

  Again.

  And, on top of that, she wouldn’t have a job.

  ‘W-what about your dinner at the Mansion House?’ she stammered. ‘If I don’t get you back to London by six, James Pierce will call Sadie Redford and get me fired. He really doesn’t like me.’

  ‘I like you, that’s all that matters.’

  ‘Zahir…’

  He lifted her hand to his lips, kissed the tips of her fingers. So sure of her…

  ‘No…’

  Maybe it was the first time a woman had ever said ‘no’ to him, or maybe it was the undisguised anguish in her voice, but she now had his full attention.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but my evening is already spoken for.’

  ‘Your only task this evening is to drive me to the Mansion House.’

  She shook her head. ‘Sadie has arranged for someone else to stand in for me.’

  ‘I don’t want someone else!’ She shook her head. ‘Are you telling me, Metcalfe, that you have a date?’

  And that, Diana realised, was the answer. If he thought she was involved with someone, he’d stop this…whatever this was. Save her from herself. Because, heaven help her, hard as she was trying, she was finding it impossible…

  ‘Is that so unbelievable?’ she asked. ‘A minute ago you
were inviting me to dinner in France.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’ Then, eyes narrowed, ‘Tell me his name.’

  ‘Freddy,’ she said. How could she have been so lost in desire that the whole world had suddenly been filled with Zahir? Forgotten the child who was the centre of her world, who, she’d protected from the consequences of her own stupidity since the moment he had been conceived? ‘His name is Freddy.’

  Zahir felt his gut contract.

  For a moment he hadn’t believed her, had thought that she was clutching at the face-saving excuse he’d offered, protecting him as much as herself from the fallout of such an ill-considered venture. But one look at her face warned him that he was fooling himself.

  She might have responded to his reckless kiss with all the passion at her command. She had certainly displayed all the signs of a woman betrayed when she’d thought he was involved with Lucy, but, whoever this Freddy was, he brought a whole new look to her face. A sweetness. A tenderness. Something that he’d fooled himself he’d seen when she’d looked up at him only moments before. When he’d had to force himself to say something stupid like ‘all right?’ to stop himself from picking her up and carrying her below, not as a choreographed move-the opening sequence in a slow dance that would lead inevitably to that inviting bed in the stateroom-but as the beginning of something rare, unexpected, precious.

  His suggestion that they take ‘French leave’ had not, despite all appearances to the contrary, been driven by a libido racketing out of control, but because he wanted her with him. Couldn’t bear the thought of watching her drive away…

  For a moment he didn’t move, but watched as she stood, one hand on the rail, her head slightly bowed, the sun lighting her hair like a rich halo around her face.

  An illusion, he thought, turning abruptly and returning to the bridge.

  ‘Time is short, Alan,’ he snapped. ‘I’ve seen enough. Let’s get back to the yard so that I can sign the registration papers.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  S HEIKH Z AHIR did not invite Diana to join him while he signed the papers for his new yacht.

  As she followed him ashore, he did not even look back as he dismissed her with an abrupt, ‘I’ll see you at the car, Diana. Be ready to leave in fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said, resisting the desire to say his name, feel it on her lips, reminding herself that was the way it was supposed to be.

  Forget romance. The Cinderella fantasy was just that. A fantasy. She didn’t believe in fairy tales and this wasn’t the moment to lose her head. It was her job that mattered. This chance to move up the ladder. Get on. Get somewhere.

  What she’d done back there had been right. For both of them. It hurt, but it would hurt far more afterwards when Zahir had returned to his real life and she was left with the pain.

  The taxi was, probably always would be, just another fantasy, but becoming one of Capitol’s senior drivers was within her grasp. Or it had been, until Sheikh Zahir had smiled at her and every bit of common sense had flown out of the window.

  Before he’d kissed her. Before he’d danced with her, waltzing off with her heart…

  Well, good luck to him. He could keep it as a souvenir of his trip to London. It wasn’t as if she had any use for it.

  What she needed was for the sheikh/chauffeur balance to be restored.

  And it was.

  Everything was back in balance.

  So why did she feel so…bereft? So hollow? As if she’d just been offered the earth, the moon, the stars and had been too stupid, too scared to reach out and take them.

  Because she hadn’t been offered any of that.

  What she’d been offered was an exotic, thrilling, world-well-lost one-night stand that she would never forget. But it would still just have been a one-night stand and without warning, tears filled her eyes, a lump rose in her throat and for a moment she couldn’t move, but was bent double as the reality, the loss hit her.

  She could never do that.

  Never seize a moment. Take a chance. Grab at what life offered.

  You made your mistakes and you lived with them.

  ‘Your young lady doesn’t look too hot, Zahir. If an hour sailing when the weather is this calm has that effect on her, it doesn’t bode well for…’

  Zahir stopped Alan with a look, then, unable to help himself, he turned to follow his gaze. Diana, arms around her waist and bent double, hadn’t moved from the jetty, where he’d dismissed her, or walked away.

  He muttered an oath beneath his breath but, before he could take more than a step, she straightened, swiping the palm of her hand over her cheek as she lifted her head in a gesture that echoed his own pull-yourself-together-and-get-over-it attempts to block out the pain as they’d sailed back to the boatyard.

  Maybe her conscience was pricking her, he thought.

  Last night, when he’d kissed her, danced with her, she hadn’t been giving her ‘Freddy’ a second thought and today she’d been a heartbeat from giving him everything.

  But for a freak wave she would have.

  And what did that make him?

  Maybe he should be giving his own conscience a wake-up call, it occurred to him, because last night, when she’d returned his kiss, had sung to him as she’d melted into his arms, he hadn’t been giving his own future as much as a first thought. He’d been too busy making a fool of himself over a girl he’d only just met to spare a second or even a third thought for the young women being lined up for him to pick out a suitable wife.

  Whatever Diana had been doing, his actions had been far worse…

  ‘Whatever it was, she’s over it now,’ Alan said, watching her walk swiftly down the jetty until she rounded the building and was out of sight.

  ‘So it would seem.’ Uncapping his pen, he began to sign a stack of documents. He would do well to follow her example.

  Enough. Diana slumped behind the wheel, staring at the car phone. At eighteen years old, mired in a world of guilt as her mother had threatened, her father had looked at her as if he didn’t know her, she’d sworn never again.

  She’d got lazy. Complacent.

  It was easy to hold off the attentions of boys, men, when there was no attraction, no temptation, desire. Pete O’Hanlon had seen her looking at him as if he were something in a sweetshop window and he’d used that. But she wasn’t blaming him. She’d wanted him, had seized the moment without a thought for the morrow and she had to live with that.

  Her solace, her joy, was Freddy and she’d been content. But it had taken just one look from Zahir’s slate-grey eyes, one smile, to let her know what she was missing. Melt the ice-wall she’d built around her heart.

  She caught her breath, shaking her head as if to clear away all that romantic nonsense.

  Not her heart. Nothing that noble.

  What Sheikh Zahir al-Khatib had done with a single look was jump-start a hunger, a need that was so far beyond her experience that she hadn’t recognised the danger until it was too late.

  Until she was experiencing feelings that were so strong that for a moment she had been in danger of repeating history…

  No. This had to stop now. Now, before she wavered and did something really stupid and told him that Freddy was five years old. That her date was a classroom visit. Because, if she told him that, he’d know…

  She reached out to hit the fast dial on the car phone to call Sadie, ask her to take her off this job-what excuse she’d make she didn’t know, but she’d think of something. The phone rang before her finger made contact, making her jump nearly out of her skin, the caller ID warning her that Sadie had got in first. She was no doubt calling to update her on who would be driving Sheikh Zahir this evening so that she could pass on the good news.

  She jabbed ‘receive’, but, before she could speak, Sadie said, ‘Diana! At last! I’ve been calling you for the best part of an hour on this phone and your cellphone.’

  ‘Have you?’ She frowned, rubbing her hands over her
pockets. No cellphone. ‘I must have left it in my jacket…’

  ‘I don’t care where you left it! Where, in heaven’s name, have you been?’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘No, don’t bother to answer that. I can guess,’ she said cuttingly.

  What?

  Diana straightened. ‘Look, I’m sorry, but Sheikh Zahir…’

  ‘Please! I don’t want to know. I just want you to listen to me. You are not to come back to the yard. You will be met at the car park outside The King’s Head in Little Markham by Michael Jenkins. He’ll drive the Mercedes back from there. Sheikh Zahir’s personal assistant has arranged for another car to be on hand to take him back to the hotel. You…’

  ‘Whoa! Back up, Sadie. What on earth has happened?’

  ‘You have to ask?’

  Confused, miserable, she wasn’t in the mood for games. ‘Apparently I do,’ she snapped back with uncharacteristic sharpness.

  ‘You’d like me to read you the diary column from the midday edition of The Courier?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Maybe it will jog your memory if I tell you that the headline is “The Sheikh and the Chauffeur”? Or do you want all the gory details of how Sheikh Zahir al-Khatib was seen gazing into the eyes of his pretty chauffeur as he waltzed her around Berkeley Square at midnight?’

  ‘How on earth-?’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, everyone with a camera phone is an amateur paparazzo these days, Di! Even if the snapper didn’t recognise Sheikh Zahir, a man dancing with his chauffeur made it a story. The fact that he looks lost to the world makes it the kind of story that The Courier was always going to run in its diary column. I don’t imagine it took them more than two minutes to identify Sheikh Zahir. He’s not exactly a stranger to the gossip pages.’

  ‘He isn’t?’

  ‘He’s a billionaire bachelor, Diana, what do you think?’

  Think?

  Who was thinking?

  ‘Oh-’

  ‘Don’t say it!’

  ‘I wasn’t going to.’ She swallowed. ‘I was going to say that it’s not the way it must look.’