turning this way and that in an attempt to figure out where she was. Four windows from the central portico at the front. If she followed this passageway to the end, turned left and then counted the doors...
Her hand was on the doorknob now. If her calculations were right she was about to enter the bedchamber of Sheikh Zayed Al Afzal. Slowly, slowly she turned the heavy brass knob. It moved silently, readily beneath her grasp. There was no going back now. Whatever fate awaited her on the other side of this door, she knew her life would never be the same again.
* * *
Zayed was towelling himself dry when he heard a noise coming from his bedchamber next door. He froze, the towel in his hand. Someone was in there, he was sure of it. He strained his ears to listen but there was no sound now.
But a sixth sense told him that he was no longer alone. Had he locked his bedroom door? No, of course he hadn’t. Despite warnings that security was of paramount importance here, he couldn’t break the habit of a lifetime. Who, in the civilised world, locked their door before going to bed? Unless they didn’t want to be disturbed for a very different reason, of course.
Now he certainly wished he had heeded the advice. His eyes scanned the bathroom for some sort of weapon, anything he could use to defend himself, but it was hopeless. A bottle of shower gel and a loofah was about as lethal as it got. He would just have to use his wits and his own muscle. He was strong and he was fit and he knew how to disarm an attacker, especially with the element of surprise. If there was only one intruder, even if they were armed, he could do this. More than that? He would give it his best shot. Tucking the towel around his waist, he inched forward.
* * *
Creeping into the bedchamber, Nadia sucked in a breath and held it there, too terrified to let it out. In front of her was an enormous raised bed, the interior obscured by a canopy of sumptuous drapes that fell from a gilded corona above.
Was he in there? Tiptoeing closer, wincing with every silent footstep, Nadia reached forward and with a clammy hand shakily drew back the fabric a couple of inches. The bed was empty. He must be in the bathroom. The breath finally escaped from her lungs. This was it. All of her carefully laid plans had led to this point. Slipping off her sandals, she climbed into the bed as quietly as she could. Then, squirming on top of the satin sheets, she tried to arrange herself in a vaguely alluring position before lying back against the pillows with her eyes screwed shut. She was ready for her fate.
There was a noise, a sort of low animal growl, followed by a flash of muscled chest and the purposeful swing of arms through the air. And the next thing Nadia knew, she was being pinned to the bed by the considerable weight of over six feet of powerful, adrenaline-fuelled, near-naked flesh.
‘WHO ARE YOU and what do you want?’ Zayed snapped the words into Nadia’s ear, her head twisted into the pillow, a tangle of black curls obscuring the side of her face.
She couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe come to that. With her arms wrenched above her head, both wrists shackled by Zayed’s forceful grasp, the shock and fear that were pumping through her body were threatening to make her lose consciousness completely. Slowly, deliberately, she tried to turn her head, hoping that once Zayed saw that it was just her, Nadia, he would release her, give her a chance to explain. Although she wasn’t sure how she was going to do that.
But what she saw soon put paid to any such fanciful notions. Because the dark brown eyes that she found herself staring into, just inches away from her face, were still glittering with intent, ready to attack. Everything about his forbidding face, the clench of his jaw beneath the closely cropped beard, the dark, untidy brows drawn together in a menacing scowl, the tight line of his lips, told her she was in big trouble. He was going to kill her, wasn’t he? She was going to die. Murdered in a stranger’s bed, then chopped into small pieces and offered as tasty morsels to the palace falcons.
‘It’s only me.’ She gulped noisily, her eyes wide with panic. ‘Nadia.’ She wriggled beneath him to try to free some small part of her trapped body, any part, but the movement simply increased the contact between them and she stopped abruptly. That clenching spasm, somewhere low down where their bodies met, that had to be fear, didn’t it?
‘I know quite well who you are.’ Zayed’s breath swept hot and dry across her face. ‘But what I don’t know is why the hell you are in my bed.’ Anger seethed in his voice and his grip tightened still farther around her wrists. ‘I want an answer, now.’
‘Your Royal Highness.’ Fighting to find her voice that was crushed somewhere down with the rest of her body, Nadia now lay very still, blinking her wide violet eyes at her fearsome captor. Her only chance of survival was to try to talk herself out of this mess. ‘I can assure you, I mean you no harm. I merely felt the overwhelming need to see you again.’
‘Yeah, of course you did.’ Sarcasm cut through his voice and as he shifted his weight on top of her Nadia felt an alarming rush of blood sweep through her. ‘Not good enough, I’m afraid. Who are you working for and what do you want?’
‘No one, really. I am completely alone.’
‘I don’t believe you.’ His voice was a hoarse whisper against her skin. ‘Are you here to distract me? Is that it? Keep me occupied while an accomplice creeps in to slit my throat?’ Locking his arms now, he raised his bare chest enough to twist round to look over his shoulder, as if the assailant might already be there, brandishing a knife, before lowering it back down over Nadia’s breasts. Nadia’s eyes widened. The movement had shifted his weight, the jut of his hips, the meeting of their groins.
‘No, nothing like that, I just—’
‘Or my father’s throat? Is that was this is about? I know my father has many enemies.’
‘No. You have to believe me. I’m not here to slit anyone’s throat.’
Chance would be a fine thing. With her arms pinned above her on either side of her head, her breasts stretched taut and high beneath the rock-hard pressure of Zayed’s chest, she couldn’t have felt more vulnerable, more laid bare. And worse than that, with Zayed’s full weight on top of her, the whole length of his virtually naked body bearing down on her, his masculine heat trapping her beneath him, she was aware of a growing ache, low down in her belly, that had nothing to do with the pressure of his weight alone. She drew in a ragged breath, but it was full of the scent of him, the heady mixture of musky shower gel and pumping pheromones.
‘So just what are you doing here, Nadia?’ Zayed’s face lowered down again, so close now that the space between them had almost vanished completely. His fearsome features blurred out of focus as his mouth hovered over hers and he whispered, ‘You have exactly one minute to tell me the truth.’
‘And I will.’ Nadia bit down hard on her lip to try to get some control. ‘When you have released me.’
‘Uh-uh,’ Zayed grated. ‘That’s not how it works.’ He tipped back his head. ‘You tell me the truth now, or I call the palace guards.’
‘No! Don’t do that.’ Her attempt at defiance immediately crumbled.
This was so not what she had planned, to be pinned down on the bed like a common intruder. She was meant to be alluring, for heaven’s sake. Leading him into temptation and a betrothal that would prevent their kingdoms going to war. That had been the plan, at least. Now that plan had been well and truly squashed, along with her
