MAKING a fool of herself, more like.
Diana swallowed but her mouth was suddenly dry and she picked up her glass with a hand that was visibly shaking and took a mouthful of water.
She’d known, right from the beginning, that Sheikh Zahir wasn’t going to be a conventional passenger. He might not have lived up to her Lawrence of Arabia fantasy, but it was obvious, from the moment that boy had cannoned into him, from that first meeting of eyes through the rear-view mirror, that he was going to be trouble.
For her.
And the kind of disturbance that even now was churning beneath her waistband confirmed her worst fears.
Inappropriate? This wasn’t just inappropriate. This was plain stupid and Sadie would have an absolute fit if she had the slightest idea of just how unprofessionally she had behaved right from the very beginning.
Chatting to him as if he were someone she’d met in a bus queue. Dragging him off to The Toy Warehouse and giving him the down-and-dirty gossip on the frog and princess scandal. Sharing canapés with him on a riverside bench when he should have been working the media.
Sharing an earth-shattering, world-changing kiss with a man whose ‘partner’ was inside the gallery, taking the strain.
All mouth, no brains, that was her.
There was absolutely no way there could be a personal connection between them other than some brief sexual dalliance which would obviously be a meaningless fling for him—and she felt a moment of pity for the beautiful princess—while it could only be damaging to her, professionally and personally. Even supposing she was the kind of woman who ‘flung’ around with a man who was attached, no matter how loosely, to another woman.
Who ‘flung’ full stop.
One fling had got her into enough trouble to last a lifetime.
And if he had anything else in mind, well he was the dumb one. He was a sheikh. She was a chauffeur. He was so far out of her orbit that he might as well be on Mars and it didn’t need the brains of Einstein to figure out how that equation would work out.
It wasn’t even as if she was fancy-free, at liberty to indulge herself, take the risk, no matter how self-destructively. She had responsibilities. A five-year-old son she would always put first, not out of duty, but out of love.
Why, oh, why, couldn’t her big chance have come on the day when the car had been booked to drive some grey, middle-aged executive whose only interest was the movement of the FTSE or the NASDAQ?
Someone who wouldn’t even have noticed she existed.
‘Tomorrow,’ she began, determined to put a stop to this before one of them did something really stupid. Something that she, at least, would regret—and she already had enough of those to last her a lifetime. Before she forgot all of the above and began to believe what his eyes seemed to be saying. ‘Tomorrow,’ she repeated, with determination …
‘Tomorrow I’m flying to Paris,’ he said, cutting her short before she could tell him that tomorrow he’d have another driver. If not Jack, someone else would have to take over from her, although what on earth she’d tell Sadie …
Somehow she didn’t think, ‘He looked at me and I came over all inappropriate …’ would go down at all well. She’d be lucky to keep the school run. But she’d have to take that risk. Better to lose her job than fall back into a pit it had taken her months, years, to climb out of.
‘Want to come?’ he said, jerking her back to the here and now.
‘To Paris. With you?’
‘The alternative is being at James’s beck and call.’ ‘Oh.’
What was that about being careful what you wished for? Although, if it meant she could keep this job for another day …
‘Well, great!’
He wasn’t fooled for a minute. ‘He’s not a soft touch like me, Diana. You’d probably be advised to bring a packed lunch,’ he said. And then he smiled.
Not the mask smile. Not the meaningless one that had so annoyed her when he’d used it to reduce a careless shop assistant to slavery. But the one that spoke directly to her, that said, ‘We are connected, you and I. Deny it all you want, but you know the truth.’
It took her good intentions, all her common sense and heated them to dust, blew them away, leaving her momentarily struggling for breath.
‘I brought a packed lunch today,’ she said. ‘I was going to sit on the harbour wall and share it with the seagulls.’
‘Were you? Well, the day is a long way from over. Maybe we could do that later.’
We …
‘It won’t be long,’ Jeff said, rejoining them before she could say anything. Just as well. For the second time that day she was lost for words. That had to be a record … ‘Do you want to clear up any final details on the contract while we’re waiting?’
‘I’m really quite happy with it,’ Zahir replied, ‘but, Metcalfe had a few queries.’ He held out his hand for the folder she’d put on the table in front of her. She handed them over without a word and Zahir extracted a single sheet of paper from the file and offered it to the other man. ‘If we can iron out these few details, keep her happy, you can have your office print up the final version and I’ll sign it before I leave.’
Jeff glanced at the figures, then, thoughtfully, at her. She gripped her lower lip between her teeth to keep it tightly closed.
‘There’s no kidding you, is there?’ he said with a wry grin in her direction. ‘If I conceded the first three without an argument, will you consider splitting the difference on the management fee?’
Zahir rescued her, holding up a hand as if to silence her. ‘Don’t be hard on the man, Diana. That’s fair.’ Then, offering the hand to Jeff, ‘We have a deal.’
If Diana had felt any concern about Zahir’s intentions, Jeff’s broad smile quickly reassured her.
‘I’ll fly out to Nadira next week to set things in motion, Zahir,’ he said. Then, turning to her, ‘Will I see you there, Diana?’
She’d just picked up her glass and taken a swallow of water, so Zahir answered for her.
‘I’m hoping Diana will accept my invitation to familiarize herself with the resort in the very near future. If you’re there at the same time we’ll be glad to repay your hospitality.’
She choked and the water took the only available exit and shot out of her nose.
Gasping, shaking her head, completely unable to speak, she leapt to her feet and rushed off in the direction of the washroom.
Now what was he playing at?
Since she had no possible way of knowing, she concentrated on the practicalities of mopping the water from the front of her shirt while she regained her breath and her composure. Took her time about refastening the unravelling
