One Dance with the Sheikh

by Tessa Radley

  “Closer even than Dad and me, isn’t that what you’ve always claimed?” Jack added.

  “Boys.” From the exasperation in Angela’s voice the exchange reflected an old rivalry, one that wouldn’t be resolved anytime soon.

  Nikki spared Jack’s mother another glance. Though Angela held her head high, Nikki suspected she didn’t appreciate having her illicit relationship with Reginald discussed over casual dinnertime conversation. If Nikki had learned nothing else at her mother’s knee, it was how to deflect the conversation into less turbulent waters and do so with subtle deftness. Even so, she couldn’t help but wonder how a clearly intelligent, loving mother of two, a woman dedicated to her nursing profession, had been content to spend a good portion of her life hidden away as the mistress of one of the scions of Charleston society.

  Hours later, Jack addressed her unspoken question during their drive from his mother’s estate to the home he kept in Greenville for the rare times he wasn’t in Charleston. “I don’t understand it, either,” he announced, his comment coming out of the blue.

  “Don’t understand what?” she asked, though she suspected she knew.

  “Why my mother made the choices she did. Both my parents claimed they loved each other and didn’t care what society thought. Not that society thought anything until after Dad died. He went out of his way to keep our existence a deep, dark secret.”

  “I’m sorry,” Nikki murmured.

  “Nothing for you to be sorry about.”

  “Your parents…obviously they knew each other before Reginald ever married Elizabeth.”

  He slanted her a swift, amused look. “Obviously, since I’m proof of that ‘knowing.’”

  “Why didn’t he marry Angela? Did he ever say?”

  “They were both very young when it happened and Dad’s parents were strongly opposed to the relationship. They were new money and determined to break into the old money bastions of Charleston’s high society.” He shrugged. “In order to do that, Dad needed to contract a fiscally and socially advantageous marriage.”

  “Which wasn’t with your mother.”

  “No.”

  “Did Reginald just cave to pressure? That doesn’t sound like the man I knew.”

  “You’re right, he didn’t. In an act of rebellion, Dad enlisted in the Army and ended up part of a secret operative unit. They were engaged in covert operations in hotspots throughout the world, so none of my mother’s letters notifying him of her pregnancy reached him. At her parents’ insistence, she married Richard Sinclair shortly before I was born in order to provide me with the pretense of legitimacy. Dad never knew, not until a full decade later when he was visiting his father in the same hospital where my mother worked.”

  “I assume Richard had died by then?”

  “Yes.” Jack shrugged. “But she once told me that she never loved him, not the way she loved Dad. She made a decent enough life with Richard, including giving him a son.”

  “Alan resents you.” The comment spilled free before she could think better of it.

  “I know.” His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Nothing much I can do about that, either, despite the fact that we got along well enough when we were kids.”

  Nikki swiveled in her seat so she could look at him. “What changed?” she asked, genuinely curious.

  “Richard died. I suppose that’s the root of our problems. Until then, Alan was part of this perfect little triangle, whether he was old enough to realize it or not. He was ‘theirs’ while I was just ‘hers,’ the odd man out.”

  “Then Reginald showed up and Alan became odd man out.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Jack gently chided. “You heard my brother. Dad loved him as much as he did his own son.”

  “Got it.”

  It struck Nikki as intensely sad that Jack had never had a tight relationship with his various family members—that they had all kept him on the outside, nose figuratively pressed to the window. First there’d been the cozy triangle Alan had formed with his parents while excluding Jack, then the relationship he’d formed with Reginald, one that had to be kept quiet, which no doubt meant infrequent visits and never being allowed to have a father who fully participated in Jack’s life. He’d have also had to deal with whatever comments and slurs were cast by other children, and later by his contemporaries. It couldn’t have been easy. No wonder he’d been driven to succeed, had decided to actively compete against the Kincaids, possibly in a subconscious effort to prove himself their equals on a business footing, if nowhere else.

  Tears pricked Nikki’s eyes, making her grateful for the darkness enclosing the interior of the car. Jack was a strong, competent, tough man who would no doubt find her tears bewildering. While he went out of his way to protect his mother—the evidence of which she’d witnessed tonight—it never would have occurred to him to expect that same protection from his father. Instead, he’d been left to fend for himself.

  No wonder he had a grudge against the Kincaids.

  * * *

  Jack Sinclair smiled in satisfaction as he opened the door to his home and ushered Nikki in ahead of him. He’d been right. She suited his plantation home, a home that epitomized gracious Southern living.

  “This is…” She turned slowly to take in the foyer, the sweeping staircase, the mile-high ceiling and eighteenth century molding. “Okay, this is amazing. Absolutely gorgeous.”

  “I don’t know why you’re acting so surprised. You described this place to me on our first date.”

  It had been on their drive to his beach house for dinner. She’d shocked him by guessing what his mansion would look like, sight unseen, basing her deduction on what she knew of his personality. It was a game she and her father—a cop who’d gone down in the line of duty—had played during her youth. She informed him that his place would be an ideal blend of past and present, beautifully restored, the interior mating antiques with classic contemporary. Even more intriguing, she’d predicted that he’d put his own mark on the place in some way. Probably a way that had his interior decorator up in arms.

  He’d be interested to see her reaction when she found that mark.

  She laughed. “I’m not sure it’s quite the way I described. It’s more, far more.” She tilted her head to one side. “And yet…it suits you.”

  “I’ll save the grand tour until tomorrow.”

  “Really?” Nikki frowned in disappointment. “Why? I’d love to see it now.”

  He shook his head. “It shows best in morning light.”

  She gave a quick, agreeable shrug—another thing he appreciated about her, her easy-going nature. “Fair enough.” She glanced over her shoulder at him. “What would you like to do instead?”

  “Something a lot more entertaining than touring the house.”

  Awareness drifted into her sapphire blue eyes and a slow, sultry smile touched her mouth. “I can’t imagine what that might be.”

  “Take a wild guess.” He didn’t give her time to guess, but simply swung her into his arms and started toward the staircase. “I’ve always wanted to do this with a woman. The house positively shouts out for it.”

  She wrapped her arms around his neck. “You’re crazy, you know that? I’m no lightweight.”

  “You’re perfect.”

  The instant they hit the top of the stairs, he headed down the wide hallway to the master suite. Nudging open the door, he carried her straight through to his bed and lowered her to the mattress. She smiled up at him and in that moment he knew that if he wasn’t very careful he’d fall in love with her. He was already halfway there, maybe more. Just one teetering step away from the real deal. If he were brutally honest with himself, he’d admit he’d been falling bit by bit over the past four months and was about to go down for the count.

/>   “You really are perfect, you know,” he murmured.

  She simply stared at him and shook her head. To his concern, tears glistened in her eyes. “I’m not, you know,” she informed him in a low, distressed voice. “There’s a lot I haven’t told you about myself.”

  He came down beside her, easing her against the lightweight spread, the royal-blue silk an almost exact match for her eyes. “We all have secrets, private places we keep hidden from the world. I don’t expect you to share those parts of yourself until you’re ready.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  He took her mouth in a soothing kiss, slow and light and gently teasing. She moaned softly, opened to him, gifting herself with unconscious generosity. She’d been that way from the start, totally giving in the way she responded to him, never holding back or playing coy. He’d never known a woman so lacking in artifice or feminine wiles, who put her cards on the table without fear or hesitation. Okay, so she had a couple wild cards she kept face down. Reasonable. But she couldn’t hide who she was, not at her core.

  “I don’t need to understand everything,” he reassured. “Not until you’re ready.”

  He didn’t wait for a response, but kissed her again, deeper this time, edging them toward the passion that exploded between them whenever they touched. This occasion proved no different. With a soft moan she slid her fingers in his hair, anchoring him. And that’s when the world tilted and time stopped, just as it always did when they came together.

  He thumbed open the buttons of her blouse, one by one, and spread apart the edges of the crisp violet cotton. She wore a bra beneath, the scrap of silk and lace several shades paler than her blouse. It cupped her creamy breasts, offering up their bounty and tempting him beyond measure.

  “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted you here.”

  A wariness slipped across her expression. “Here in your bed? Or here in your home?”

  “Yes.” He hesitated, understanding the unspoken question. “Bringing you to Greenville and introducing you to my family isn’t a step I take lightly.”

  She hesitated, nodded. “It’s not one I take lightly, either.”

  Jack traced the line of her bra, watching Nikki’s eyes go dark and a flush of want creep into her cheeks. “So I should expect you to return the favor?” To his surprise she fell silent. One of those deep, dark secrets? “You’ve gone quiet,” he prompted.

  She glanced at him with a wry smile. “Sorry. I was just thinking about how nerve-racking it is when you first meet the parents. I was scared to death to meet your mother. I’m sure you’ll go just as quiet when we visit my mother and Grandmother Beaulyn. Guaranteed if you don’t before we get there, you will the minute you meet them.”

  He lifted an eyebrow in open reproof. “Is there some reason you find it necessary to threaten me with your relatives?”

  To his satisfaction, his comment caused her to relax and smile. “Seems only fair, given the minefield you forced me to negotiate at dinner tonight,” she said lightly.

  “The minefield you successfully negotiated.” Quite finished with the topic, he flicked open her bra, watching with intense interest as the cups parted and the pale lilac scrap of silk fell away, revealing the most perfect breasts he’d ever seen.

  She inhaled sharply. “Jack…”

  “Right here, sweetheart. And more than ready to stop talking about family and discuss something far more interesting.”

  She laughed, tugging his shirt over his head. “That doesn’t require any discussion. Just action.”

  He didn’t need any further prompting. He kissed her again, taking his time in order to be very, very thorough. Bit by bit their clothing slipped away until there was nothing between them but the sigh of evening air slipping through the window, softly caressing their intertwined bodies. The light breeze carried in the music of the night, the raspy croak of tree frogs, and from a pond in the distance the deeper bass of their bullfrog cousins. Insects added their high-pitched chirps to the springtime song, underscored by the soft, distinctive whinny from a tree where screech owls often nested and would soon be fledging their young. And not far from the window he caught the faint crackle of leaves under hoof that spoke of deer wandering across his property.

  For some reason nature’s chorus only added to the perfection of their time together. Nikki must have felt the same, for she released a sigh of intense pleasure, relaxing within his embrace and smiling with such sweetness Jack wished he could somehow capture this moment and engrave it on his memory for all time.

  “Nikki…” Her name escaped, the pure masculine need underscoring that single word adding an unmistakable note of passion to the music surrounding them.

  She brushed a series of slow kisses across his chest, her hands sliding over his hip. Her fingers lingered on an old scar carved across his right hip toward his buttock. “How did you get this? The last time I asked we got distracted and you never said.”

  He’d distracted her deliberately, not wanting to dwell on a memory that had caused him so much pain. “I was hit by a car when I was twelve.”

  Her breath caught. “Oh, God, Jack. What happened?”

  “Alan wandered out into the street. I got there in the nick of time to knock him clear.” He offered a quick, humorless laugh. “Unfortunately, I wasn’t in time to get clear myself. I ended up in the hospital.”

  “Your mother must have been frantic.”

  “She was.”

  “And your father?”

  Naturally, she keyed in on the one element he least wanted to discuss. He answered her question with a slow, lingering kiss. And then another. As he hoped, the question faded away, unanswered. Inexorably, he eased them back to where they’d been before she’d found the scar, chased away the pain of the discussion with the pleasure of her mouth. Her honeyed skin. Her tantalizing caresses.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever wanted a woman as badly as I want you,” he confessed.

  “What are you waiting for?” Her arms circled his neck and she tugged him down. “Take me, Jack.”

  For some reason he wanted this time to be special, the most special they’d experienced to date. He couldn’t say whether it was because they were in his Greenville home, a place he’d never shared with another woman, or because he’d found such perfection in this moment. The reason didn’t matter, only that he act on it.

  He started with a kiss, a kiss like the one that had started their affair. A kiss of introduction that had also marked them in some indelible way. She opened to him, just as she always did, but he caught something new in her kiss, both a vulnerability and a release, as though he’d breached an expected barricade, one he’d never realized existed. There was a newness to their kiss that spoke of a nakedness of the spirit as much as of their bodies, and he couldn’t seem to get enough of it.

  Slowly the passion built, warming the air and adding to the sweet fragrance. Jack ran a hand over Nikki’s hip and cupped her bottom. She was beautifully shaped—long and lean, with ripe and rounded curves. She would never be a fragile Southern belle, but rather possessed the strength and fortitude of a steel magnolia, her stem planted strong and deep while her petals were soft and fragrant and alluring. She used those fragrant petals to wrap him up in velvet, clung to him as he joined his body to hers, matched him in an endless give and take.

  The shattering came, more intense than ever before, stealing breath and intellect in its glorious aftermath. “It just gets better,” he managed to say. “How is that possible?”

  “I don’t know.” She buried her face against his chest and to his dismay he felt her tears. “I don’t understand it, either.”

  “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

  She gave a watery laugh. “Nothing’s wrong. It’s all…perfect. I guess that scares me.” She stared up at him
, her eyes a flash of blue within the darkness of the room. “I just want it to go on and on. And I’m afraid it won’t. That it can’t.”

  “It can and it will.”

  He almost told her of the love building in his heart, of the ring buried in his dresser drawer. But not yet. When he took her for his wife he wanted to put a final period to the past and be in a position to move decisively into the future as head of both Carolina Shipping and The Kincaid Group. But that wouldn’t happen until after the annual meeting at the end of June. Gently, Jack kissed Nikki, giving into desire instead of following his heart.

  He let the moment go, only seeing the crossroad long after he’d chosen a path and allowed his heart’s desire to slip away.

  * * *

  The next morning, Jack took Nikki on a tour of his plantation home, as promised.

  “This is incredible,” she informed him, marveling over the beautiful melding of past and present. She gestured toward the crown molding. “Is all of the wood trim original to the house?”

  He leaned against a doorjamb and smiled at her enthusiasm and pleasure. “In the oldest section, every last piece. In the two newer wings, it’s an exact replica. It’s even the same type of wood.”

  They’d explored almost every inch, but she had a sneaking suspicion he’d saved one part for last—no doubt the room where he’d left his own distinctive mark, a mark she’d predicted had his interior decorator up in arms. He led her to a final door and shot her a quick grin, which told her they’d finally arrived at that statement. Opening the door with a flourish, he stepped back and allowed her to enter first.

  She did and instantly burst out laughing. “It’s a tiki bar,” she marveled.

  “Somehow, it’s just not a plantation without a tiki bar,” Jack informed her gravely.

  She wandered through the room, pausing to stroke the sweeping surface of the bar. “This is wild.”