brushed a hand across her brow. “Cold, thank you.”
Fayed gestured to a passing waiter, who presented a tray of ice-frosted glasses to her with alacrity. The young woman accepted some sparkling water and drank half of it right away. Markaz felt a flash of envy for the straw between her parted lips. Such beautiful lips, sensuously full and rosy without any sign of artificial enhancement.
In an effort to stop staring at her mouth, he drained the bitter coffee in his thimble-sized cup, passing his hand over it to stop the waiter refilling it. He’d already drunk two cups out of politeness.
The woman lifted her head and smiled at him, her sea-foam eyes brilliant. “Thank you, Your Highness, I was thirsty,” she said, earning a frown from Fayed.
Sometimes his bodyguard was more of a stickler for protocol than Markaz himself, he thought. “Even at this time of year, the heat can be challenging if you’re not accustomed to it.”
She nodded. “Coming from Australia I should be, but I hadn’t planned on being chased all over Al-Qasr.”
The sheikh’s surprised look went to his bodyguard. His orders hadn’t extended to hounding her. “By Fayed?”
“No, by another man. Fayed rescued me from him.”
The gingerly way his friend was moving suggested there was more to the story, but now wasn’t the time to go into details. He would get them from Fayed later. “Who was chasing you?”
She cast a nervous glance around as if her pursuer might still be in the vicinity. “The man I saw abducting Natalie.”
At hearing his ex-wife’s name from this woman’s lips, slivers of ice pierced Markaz. Fayed had already told him she had been seen here, and he had dispatched men to investigate at Markaz’s request. Suddenly the ring Simone had tried to pass to him over the barricades assumed a more sinister importance. Could it contain the information he’d been told Natalie would deliver to him at Al-Qasr?
He masked his concern. “What is your involvement with Natalie?”
“She was feeling ill so I helped her back to the parking lot. As I was leaving her, I saw a man force her into the car. I tried to help, but he got away. I decided to approach you.”
He felt his gaze harden. “How did you know to come to me?”
“Natalie said your life was in danger, and gave me this for you.” Shifting the glass to her left hand, she fumbled in the pocket of her skirt.
But the sheikh closed his hand over hers. “Not here. Join us for lunch inside the marquee.”
Simone’s hand was still in her pocket, but the sheikh’s touch seemed to burn through the light fabric of her skirt. She was imagining it, just as she’d imagined his gaze fixated on her mouth, she assured herself.
She took her hand out of her pocket and pressed the palm against her thigh. “I’m hardly dressed for this company.”
He took her hand and lifted it close to his mouth, his lips whispering over the back of it. “You would be an ornament to any occasion just as you are.”
In a flash she worked out what he was doing. Sheikh Markhaz was reputed to have a roving eye. He certainly didn’t remain with any one woman for long. He was creating the impression that Simone had attracted his interest, so no one would be surprised if he kept her at his side.
Knowing his attention was an act didn’t stop her pulse from racing. It was all she could do not to rub the back of her hand where his courtly kiss had scorched her like a flame. “As Your Highness wishes.”
“My name is Markaz,” he murmured.
If Fayed had disapproved of her speaking to Markaz unbidden, at this he looked thunderstruck. Men and women mixed more freely in Nazaar than in many Arabian countries, but behavior was still conservative by Western standards. The sheikh could have called her Miss Simone without raising eyebrows, but inviting her to use his first name so quickly was a scandalous intimacy.
Was it? She’d been so sure he was putting on an act that she hadn’t let herself think what would happen if there was more to it. He was certainly the most attractive man she’d met in a long time. And she’d broken up with Nick a couple of months before leaving Australia, so there was no man in her life, either.
Stop this, she instructed herself before the fantasy could get any more out of hand. The sheikh had invited her to an official lunch, presumably so she could tell him what she’d seen away from public view. It was hardly an invitation to join his harem.
“I’d feel happier if you’d send someone to look for Natalie,” she said, feeling guilty for indulging in stupid daydreams while the other woman was in danger.
The sheikh looked grim. “It is already being done. As soon as Fayed told me she was here, I dispatched men to investigate. As of yet she has not been located.”
Now Simone understood the significance of his discussion with Fayed. “Her car was parked directly across from the entrance to the north parking lot. She was driving a dark blue coupe with rental plates. I didn’t get the number.”
Markaz’s gesture brought Fayed closer. Their Arabic was too soft for her to translate, although she hoped he was giving Fayed the extra information. The big man once more melted into the crowd.
“If Natalie is in the area, Fayed will find her,” Markaz said.
“You didn’t ask me what she looks like.”
“We already know. The item she gave you could only have come from my ex-wife.”
Suddenly Simone knew why Natalie had seemed familiar. She was the woman he’d married in America, and divorced soon after becoming sheikh. Photos of them together had been on the Web sites Simone had researched for her trip, but Natalie had changed enough in ten years to stop Simone from recognizing her.
She barely had time to absorb this information before Markaz led her into the marquee where long, low tables were covered by dazzling white cloths and more delicacies than Simone had seen in a department store food hall.
At the head of the official table, Markaz’s chair had a higher back than the others, gilded and padded in wine-colored brocade. At his insistence she seated herself at his right, aware of causing a flurry of rearrangements. Although the Al-Qasr staff tried to be unobtrusive about accommodating her, Simone’s presence had undoubtedly caused a stir.
Enormous platters of crepelike bread, mounds of glistening rice and fragrant lamb, smoked chicken, stuffed grape leaves, marrow and squash and salads were served. Simone heard almost no conversation not related to the magnificence of the feast, but she didn’t find this unusual. To the end of his days her father had never become comfortable with the Western habit of conversing over a meal. He’d preferred small talk to take place over coffee and tea before and after a meal.
“You are hardly eating,” Markaz observed. “If you don’t wish to offend our hosts, you should taste a little of everything.”
Natalie’s ring was burning a hole in her pocket, but she followed the sheikh’s lead and paid attention to the feast. Knowing that Fayed was searching for Natalie had eased Simone’s mind enough so she could absorb her surroundings.
