the sitting room of the suite and, crossing to the French doors, flung them back and stepped onto the balcony. After the air-conditioned comfort of indoors the heat hit her like a blowtorch, but the view took her breath away.
This was her first visit to an Arab country, and the landscape was alien but magnificent. Dubai lay before her, sparkling white, pristine clean, with towering buildings, fantastically delicate minarets and, in the distance, the blue of the Gulf.
After drinking in the sight, she walked back into the room and picked up the information provided by the hotel. Dropping into a comfortable, soft leather chair, she read with interest of the restaurants and bars of the shopping arcade incorporated in the building. Better yet, situated close to the city centre as the hotel was, it was only five minutes’ walk to the gold souk...
Eight o’clock came, but Raul didn’t. Penny, with a determined glint in her blue eyes, picked up her small ivory clutch bag, slipped her feet in matching fabric strappy sandals and without a second thought walked out of the room and across the corridor into the elevator.
It was her birthday, and, by heaven, she was going to enjoy it. Not for her a meal in the room; a snack in one of the restaurants and a stroll around the gold souk sounded much more fun.
After a light meal, and armed with a small diagram from the hotel receptionist, Penny walked out into the cooler night air and turned left as instructed.
She had only walked two paces when she heard a car door slam and a voice snap, ‘Penelope.’ A firm hand closed around her upper arm and swung her around. ‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’ was hissed in her ear as she gazed up in surprise at Raul’s taut features.
‘Raul, you’re back. I was—’
‘Shut up,’ he grated, and it was then that she saw his two companions alight from the long white stretch limousine—one a gentleman in a Western-style suit, and the other a man taller even than Raul and draped in the flowing white robes of an Arab sheikh.
‘Raul, you must introduce me to this charming creature,’ the Arab commanded.
‘Of course, your highness; allow me to present...’ Raul hesitated ‘...my companion, Miss Penelope Gold.’ And, looking down at Penny, his dark eyes cold as ice, he continued, ‘Penny, this is Sheikh Ali Ben Hammat.’
For the first time in their relationship Penny felt truly embarrassed, and coldly furious at being introduced as a companion. Good manners alone brought a polite smile to her wide mouth, while there was no mistaking the blatant, sensual interest in the Sheikh’s black eyes as he caught her hand and raised it to his lips.
‘Charmed,’ he murmured. ‘I’m honoured to meet such an exquisitely lovely young lady.’ And, reluctantly releasing her hand, he added, ‘Senor Da Silva is an extremely lucky man.’
‘Thank you,’ she mumbled, but it took all her self-control not to cry out—not because of the kiss but because Raul’s fingers on her arm tightened to such a degree that she thought he would draw blood.
The conversation that ensued was lost on Penny, simply because the men spoke in Arabic. But ten minutes later she found out...
The walk through the hotel and the ride up in the elevator had been conducted in a tense, angry silence, and now, as the door swung closed behind Raul and he finally let go of her arm, Penny swung around, her blue eyes flashing fury. But, before she could open her mouth and demand an explanation for his ill-mannered, overbearing conduct, Raul silenced her with a string of curses that made the colour surge in her face.
He had never spoken that way in front of her before. But then, as her blue eyes clashed with furious black, she realised that she had never seen him so angry before. Involuntarily she took a step back; she could see the barely leashed tension in every line of his tall body, and felt suddenly threatened by it.
‘What the hell did you think you were doing?’ he snapped. ‘Have you gone stark, raving mad?’
Penny shrank back from the black rage in his eyes, but before she could answer his wild accusations he added furiously, ‘Look at you—a dress that reveals every curve... My God! Do you have to flirt with every man you meet, and in Dubai?’ Suddenly he caught her shoulders, his long fingers biting into her flesh. Her head fell back and she was looking up into his bitterly twisted features. ‘A sheikh no less...’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about...I wasn’t flirting with anyone. I was going for a walk—’
‘A walk—on your own—in a Arab country—at night.’
She flinched as he shot the words at her like the staccato fire of a machine gun, only inches from her pale face.
‘You have good reason to cringe. Their own women aren’t even allowed out without being draped from head to foot in black. A white woman on her own is considered little better than a whore and fair game.’ His hard mouth twisted in a sneer. ‘You had to know that, Penny. Even you are not that dumb.’
She gasped in outrage. Dumb was she? ‘If anyone is dumb around here it’s you,’ she shot back. ‘Dragging me through the hotel and back here like a sack of potatoes. Frothing at the mouth because I smiled at a man you introduced me too.’
‘Smiled? Simpered, more like. Have you any idea what you have done? You almost cost me a multi-million-dollar deal for the desalination plant.’
‘You’re crazy. The heat has got to you.’ Penny shook her head, unable to associate this glowering stranger with the man she had lived with for the past few months.
‘Your heat certainly got the Sheikh,’ Raul sneered cynically. ‘I have just spent the worst five minutes of my life trying to explain in not very good Arabic why I could not sell him my companion. You, Penny! He wanted you as one of his concubines...’
His mouth twisted in a bitter parody of a smile. ‘Luckily he did offer to wait until I was finished with you. But I still had the devil’s own job talking him out of it, and now I’m going to have to stay here a lot longer to oversee the alterations, simply so as not to offend the man further.’
Feeling like kicking him, she tore herself out of his hold and shot across the room, tears stinging her eyes. She was furious and so hurt... Now she knew what he really thought of her.
Spinning on her heel, she looked back at him. He was standing, all outraged masculine aggression. Her blue eyes ran over his tall, fit body. She loved him, but the Sheikh was obviously an astute man. He had seen what Penny had refused to acknowledge...
‘Perhaps if you had not hesitated over introducing me as your companion—’ she drawled the word scathingly ‘—he would not have considered me concubine material in the first place. The Sheikh is a man of the world, with a good grasp of English. Companion. Concubine. Where is the difference?’ she demanded bitterly, and almost laughed at the look of outrage on Raul’s dark face.
‘Is that what you truly think? Is that how you truly imagine I see our relationship?’ Raul asked, slightly incredulous, but with an icy authority that demanded an answer.
She stared back at him. ‘I think—’ She stopped. She didn’t know what she thought any more.
When she had first met Raul it had all seemed so perfect—like fate, destiny. She had been working the late
