of his contempt for her and her family? Why, he’d barely had to try before she’d allowed him to practically rip her clothes off. Her eyes travelled to the silver dress which lay in a sad little heap on the floor, looking like last year’s Christmas decoration, the tiny beads scattered in all directions.
And yet, hadn’t he been the most fantastic and unselfish lover, hadn’t he destroyed all her doubts and uncertainties along the way? Beneath his expert caresses and amazing lovemaking, he’d made her feel things she’d never felt before. Desire and hunger and fulfilment. Like a real woman instead of the frozen and uptight version she’d believed herself to be.
She glanced at the watch which was still on her wrist, appalled to see that it was gone nine. How ironic that the longest sleep she’d had in years should be on the morning when she wasn’t even supposed to be in the royal palace. She was supposed to be tucked up in that fancy hotel with the rest of her family. What on earth would they say when she didn’t turn up for a post-mortem of the party over their breakfast eggs?
Where was he?
But even as the true extent of the situation in which she now found herself sank in, Ella made a decision. It had happened and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. It had been amazing and unexpected and she wasn’t going to act all shame-faced and cowed. They had both been responsible for what had taken place last night.
And if he decided that he had enjoyed it so much that he wanted to do it all over again, what then? Ella stared at the ceiling, unable to prevent the rush of memories from flooding back. Wouldn’t she be only too happy to start over, so they could prove to each other that first impressions needn’t necessarily count?
‘Hassan?’ she called softly.
No answer.
She wondered if he was in the shower, perhaps lathering creamy soap over that honed, olive skin. Suddenly, she could imagine only too well what that might look like. The hard, flat planes of his body. The powerful legs, the taut stomach and the dark mass of hair which grew around his manhood. She closed her eyes. She wasn’t going to take herself there. It had been … well, it had been absolutely fantastic. But she wasn’t going to read too much into it, not at this stage. All she wanted was to get back to her family as soon as possible, and she needed his help to do that.
‘Hassan!’ Her voice was louder now but there was still no reply, when just at that moment came a rap at the door.
What should she do?
Ignore it? Wait for Hassan to come out of the bathroom and deal with it himself? Surely, the fewer people who saw her here, the better.
But the rap was repeated and there came the distinct and undeniable sound of someone saying her name.
‘Miss Jackson?’
Ella screwed up her nose in confusion. That was her. No way on earth she could deny it. How the hell did they know she was here? Wrapping the sheet around her like a fancy-dress version of a Grecian goddess, she padded barefoot to the door, pulling it open and gazing suspiciously through the small crack. Outside stood a tall man she didn’t recognise, with a polite smile on his face and what looked like some dry-cleaning hanging over his arm.
‘Miss Jackson?’ he said again.
Ella screwed her eyes up. ‘Who are you?’
‘You don’t know me. My name is Benedict Austin and I work as an aide to Sheikh Hassan Al Abbas. He asked me to make sure that you got this.’
With this, he handed her the package and Ella blinked. ‘What is it?’
‘You’ll find some clothes in there. The sheikh was most insistent that you have them, since I understand that you …’ He hesitated. ‘Spilt some wine down your dress last night.’
Ella could feel herself blushing since she suspected that this man knew very well what had really happened to her dress. And in that moment, she felt furious. Why couldn’t Hassan have had the decency to hand over the clothes himself instead of sending one of his puppets to do the deed? She looked the aide straight in the eye. ‘Do you have any idea where he is?’
‘The sheikh?’ The aide gave an apologetic shrug as if this was a question he had been asked by indignant women many times during his career. ‘I’m afraid he had to fly back to Kashamak with some urgency. There were pressing affairs of state which he needed to attend to.’
Ella had thought it wasn’t possible to feel any worse than she already did, but this new piece of information just went to show how wrong she could be. So he had done a runner. He had left without even bothering to say goodbye.
Humiliated, she wanted to tell this Benedict Austin just what he could do with his clothes, but pride told her that was a luxury she couldn’t afford. What had happened was bad enough, but if she was seen slinking out of the palace wearing a tattered version of last night’s dress then she might as well carry a banner, announcing to the world how she’d spent the night.
‘Thank you,’ she said with as much dignity as she could muster, before taking the proffered package and quietly closing the door on him.
Some women might have cried, but not Ella. She was a survivor. She wasn’t about to waste her tears on someone as unworthy as Hassan Al Abbas. Instead she concentrated on making herself presentable enough to find her way out of the strange palace.
A shower and vigorous hair wash got rid of every last trace of the sheikh’s scent from her body, even if the memory of him wasn’t quite so easy to shift.
She stared at herself in the mirror, reading the bewilderment which had darkened her blue eyes and wondering why she had behaved like that.
Hadn’t she spent her whole life despairing at how easily her mother had capitulated to the whims of her straying ex-husband, allowing him back in her life whenever it pleased him? Time and time again she had begged her mum to grow a little backbone and stand up to the man who’d made such a fool of her. But once she’d realised that her mother would listen to nothing except the demands of her own heart, Ella had vowed that she would be different. She would always be cool-headed when it came to men. She would regard them with the same impartiality as she would a prospective business deal.
Up until now, she’d never had a problem with that strategy, but then, up until now she’d never met a man like Hassan Al Abbas. Nor ever felt as if she were a slave to her body. The only sexual experience she’d had prior to last night had been an unmitigated disaster, mainly consisting of her lying looking wide-eyed up at the ceiling, wondering what all the fuss was about.
Well, last night she’d found that out for herself. And suddenly she understood. Suddenly she could see why people took such huge risks when it came to sex. Why they made complete fools of themselves. She felt as if she had been initiated to a secret club, without having decided whether or not she really wanted to be a member.
With trembling fingers, she opened up the package which Hassan’s aide had brought with him. Inside lay a cool white dress and a pair of panties nestling among sheets of tissue paper. But while the dress was a fairly respectable length, the panties were nothing but a peach-coloured thong, a sexy little garment which revealed more than it concealed. The thin, satin string made her bottom look almost bare and the filmy peach fabric at the front showed the dark fuzz of hair through which Hassan had hungrily tangled his fingers only hours before.
Her
