on her arms and ankles and the heavily jewelled belt around her hips all jangling in a cacophony of giveaway noise.
There was an open door in front of her and blindly she ran towards it, with no plan in her head other than that she must not be stopped. She had to get in to see Sheikh Zayed Al Afzal.
Skidding to a halt, she found herself in the middle of an enormous glittering stateroom. And there, seated on a gilded throne on a raised dais at the far end of the room, was Sheikh Zayed.
They stared at one another. With her breath heaving, Nadia felt the hated bra top cutting into her and accentuating the swell of her breasts, her stomach muscles contracting beneath the jewelled belly button, her whole body exposed in a hideous betrayal of everything she believed in.
And she had certainly got his attention. She could feel the sheikh’s eyes raking over her semi-naked body, her skin prickling with heat and self-consciousness in the wake of his sweeping gaze.
She knew this was her moment, her one chance, and she had to make it pay. But still she faltered. For this Sheikh Zayed was not what she had been expecting at all. He was tall and strikingly handsome, his long legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. He wore a dark Western suit with elegant ease, and as Nadia raised her eyes she took in the broad expanse of his chest, the white shirt, the tie roughly pulled to one side. His hands, she noticed, were gripping the lions’ heads on the arms of the throne, at odds with his relaxed posture.
Make eye contact, that was what she had to do now. Taking in a short, brave breath, she tipped back her head and braced herself to meet his gaze full on. She could do this. But what she saw was so much worse than she’d thought. For what halted the breath in her throat, sent her determination skittering sideways, was not the cruel eyes of the heartless killer she was expecting but something far more dangerous. They were beautiful eyes, a deep, dark chocolate brown, steady, assured and all seeing. The sort of eyes that could melt you. The sort of eyes that could snare you.
Suddenly she registered the laboured breath of a bodyguard behind her, but it was too late, his vice-like grip digging into the flesh of her forearm before she had any chance to dodge out of his way.
‘My apologies, sire, this one slipped past us.’
This one? How dare he speak about her like that? Furiously trying to shake off his grasp, Nadia felt it tighten still farther. ‘I’ll thank you to take your brutish hands off me!’
The guard hesitated for a second, Nadia still squirming in his grasp.
‘You heard what the lady said.’ Rising to his feet, Zayed positioned himself on the edge of the dais. ‘Let her go.’ The words echoed around the vast chamber of the room.
‘Sire.’ The hand was released and the guard took a small step back and bowed his head.
‘And for future reference, I expect my orders to be carried out in a civilised manner. Let it be known that I will not tolerate brutality in any form.’
‘Your Royal Highness.’
Nadia turned to give the admonished guard a haughty stare, pointedly rubbing at the red marks he had made on her arm. The wretched bangles jangled.
‘So, young lady.’ As he swiftly turned his attention to her Nadia felt the spotlight of Zayed’s glare. ‘What is your name?’
‘Nadia.’ She delivered it clearly enough but said out loud it made her feel all the more exposed.
‘Well, Nadia, I’m afraid I have to inform you that you have had a wasted journey.’ He stood tall and proud, with his legs apart and his arms crossed over his chest, very much the master of control. ‘You see, I am not in the habit of choosing my companions in the way that has been arranged tonight. I must apologise for inconveniencing you.’
Somehow it sounded more like a reprimand than an apology.
‘But, Your Royal Highness...’ With her heart thudding in her chest she raised her eyes to meet his, opening them as wide as she could before lowering them again and batting her dark lashes in what she hoped was a seductive gesture. ‘Since I am here, may I not be allowed to perform for you?’ Without waiting for an answer she slowly, hesitantly, began to make her hips sway, undulating them in the way she had seen the dancers perform in her own palace, for the entertainment of her father and brother.
She had studied them as closely as she could from her hiding place in the shadowed recesses of the palace ballroom, committing the movements to memory before hurrying back to her bedroom to practise what she had seen. Trying not to look her reflection in the eye, she had disrobed to her underclothes and gyrated earnestly before the mirror. Now she just needed to try to remember what she had learned.
She raised her arms above her head, twisting her hands around each other in the seductive, trance-like way she had seen performed, her hips moving more provocatively now as the moves came back to her, the jewelled beads jingle-jangling as she shimmied her behind first one way, then the other, her feet lightly moving beneath her.
‘Young lady.’ Zayed had descended the few steps from the dais and was striding across the brightly coloured mosaic floor towards her. Nadia’s dancing became more and more daring as she took her humiliation and turned it into raw sensuality, undulating her stomach and gyrating her hips with an excruciating lack of abandon.
He was right in front of her now. So tall, so close, his dark shape towering over her as he looked down at her overheated, increasingly desperate dancing.
Still Nadia didn’t stop, her eyes now level with his broad chest, her arms spiralling wildly in front of his face.
‘I obviously haven’t made myself clear.’ Suddenly his strong hands had caught hers in midair and he lowered them slowly down to her sides, his eyes not leaving her flushed face. All movement ceased, apart from the shudder of shame that ran through Nadia. Raising his hands to her shoulders, he turned her, gently but firmly, in the opposite direction. ‘The door is that way.’
* * *
Zayed watched as the beguiling young temptress scurried down the corridor, flanked by the guard, who was now thankfully keeping his hands to himself. She seemed keen to get away, her hurried strides rippling the long black curls down her back and making that particularly pert derrière sway alluringly beneath the tantalisingly flimsy costume. But the rest of her posture was stiff and aloof. Which seemed odd, when you considered her wanton performance just a few minutes before. The display she had just treated him to.
And a very nice display it had been, too, he had to say. There was no doubt that this Nadia was a beauty, the way she exhibited her pale-skinned flesh turning him on far more than he would admit to himself. If circumstances were different, if he were to come across her in a bar, for example, it would give him the greatest of pleasure to get to know her, in every sense of the word. But not here, not like that. He might have the reputation for being a womaniser, but seducing a beautiful woman was one thing. Having the poor creatures herded before him like a cattle market, quite another. Not that Nadia looked as if she would be easily herded anywhere. How she had ended up here was a mystery.
Scowling, Zayed turned away, and, shrugging off his jacket, he threw it over his shoulder. Standing in the middle of the opulent stateroom, he looked around him. What the hell had happened to his life? A couple of months ago he had been expanding his business empire, travelling the world, loving the thrill of facilitating multibillion-dollar company takeovers and the wealth and trappings that went with being hugely successful at his job.
