special effort.
That resistance was imperative. And, taking a slow calming breath, she turned to face him.
‘If you wanted to show off your new toy,’ she asked, ‘why didn’t you bring the Princess with you?’
‘Princess?’
He was good. He really looked as if he didn’t know what, who, she was talking about.
‘Tall,’ she prompted, holding her hand several inches above her own pitiful height. ‘Blonde.’ She couldn’t quite bring herself to say beautiful. ‘Your partner, according to James Pierce?’
He leaned back, his brows drawn down in a puzzled frown. ‘Do you mean Lucy?’
‘I don’t know. How many tall, blonde partners do you have?’ she snapped, angry that he wouldn’t just own up, tell her the truth. That while he was flirting with her, kissing her, dancing with her, he had a thoroughbred filly at home in the stable.
Angry with herself for allowing him to waltz away with her, when she knew …
‘You were talking to her when I returned the tray. If that helps,’ she prompted. ‘She was wearing a pale grey …’
‘I’m with you,’ he said, getting the picture. ‘But calling her my partner is stretching it a bit.’
‘Surely you are or you aren’t,’ she said, hating him for not being honest with her. Hating herself for caring …
‘It’s not like that.’
‘No? What is it like, Zahir?’ ‘What is it like?’
His long look left her in no doubt that she’d exposed herself, had revealed feelings that would have been better kept hidden and, damn it, she was really good at ‘hidden’. She could keep a secret better than anyone she knew. She’d had years of practice …
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, turning away, but he stopped her. All it took was a touch to her shoulder.
‘It’s like this, Diana.’
And she turned back. Forget the way he looked, the way he smiled so that she felt like the only person in the world. Who could resist that low, seductively accented voice as it wrapped itself around her, warming everything within her that was vital, female, bringing it to life?
Who could resist it, when she’d been dead inside for so long?
‘Really—’
She made one more effort, but he raised a hand, demanding that she listen.
‘Lucy—charming, beautiful Lucy—’ she flinched at each word ‘—was the joint owner of one of those desert tour outfits. It was poorly managed, under-capitalised, going nowhere. And the man who ran it had been arrested for fraud, amongst other things.’
His mouth tightened as if just thinking about it made him angry and suddenly she was listening.
‘My cousin, Hanif—Ameerah’s father—knew that I was more interested in business than diplomacy and he encouraged me to step in, take it over, see if I could make something of it. I raised the capital—it didn’t take much—but when I bought Lucy out I insisted she keep a small equity in the business.’ He managed a wry smile. ‘Just in case I was as good as I thought I was. She’d had a raw deal.’
‘What a Galahad!’
‘You don’t understand.’ He lifted a hand as if asking her to at least try. ‘But then why should you?’
‘I never will unless you tell me. Not that it’s any of my business,’ she added, realising, somewhat belatedly, that haranguing a client about business affairs was probably not an entirely wise move. Except that she’d stopped treating Zahir like a client from, well, the moment she’d picked up the shattered snow globe.
But the admission earned her another of those smiles—the real ones—so that was okay.
‘Don’t go all polite on me, Diana.’
Or maybe not.
‘I’m listening,’ she said.
He leaned back against the car, folded him arms, looked down, as if dredging deep for what he was about to tell her. ‘The men in my family are diplomats. My grandfather before he became ruler. My father, uncles, cousins. I wanted something different. Like you, I had a dream.’
‘Your own airline?’
‘Not quite. It takes time to learn to dream on that scale. You have to start small, then, as your imagination grows, let the dreams grow until they are big enough to fill all the available space.’ He glanced up at her. ‘I got my chance because Lucy’s life had fallen apart. I owed her. She uses her share of the profits to fund a charity she founded, which is why she turns out for the PR stuff, as she did last night, whenever Hanif can spare her.’
Hanif …
‘Your cousin,’ she said, finally working out where all this was going. ‘Ameerah’s father.’ ‘And Lucy’s husband.’
Diana struggled to say something to cover her stupidity but for once words failed her and all she could manage was a stumbling, ‘I … um …’
Oh … sheikh!
Zahir saw her difficulty. But then he’d seen everything. That was why he’d taken the long route to make his point when he could just as easily have said, She’s my partner, but she’s also my cousin’s wife.
‘That wasn’t the kind of partnership you were talking about was it.’ he asked very softly.
A hole in the ground, opening up to swallow her whole, would be welcome right now, she decided as, left with no place to hide, she shook her head.
‘Whatever made you think—?’
‘I saw her last night when I returned the tray,’ she cut in quickly, before he reminded her exactly what she’d been thinking. ‘You were together. You looked so close and when he saw me looking Mr Pierce told me that she was your partner. I thought …’ She dismissed what she’d thought with an awkward, meaningless gesture.
‘A simple misunderstanding.’
She didn’t think so.
‘His partner …’ The way James Pierce had said it had been full of meaning. He’d meant her to believe …
No. That was ridiculous. Much more likely her imagination, working overtime, leaping to conclusions when she’d seen him standing so close to a beautiful woman just minutes after he’d kissed her.
Good grief, she must have it bad if she’d let her imagination run so green. She must really have it bad if she felt this good knowing that it wasn’t true.
While she was still trying to find words that would not betray her as a complete idiot—a
