the chance to see the yacht. In fact she’s calling in every favour I owe her in return for the right to give it a test run as a wedding anniversary gift to Hanif before it’s chartered to the public.’
‘You’re going to charter it?’ Diana asked, grabbing for the impersonal in an attempt to distract him from the fact that she’d just betrayed feelings that were just plain … inappropriate!
‘I could not justify the expense for my own personal use. Even if I had the time. But today it is all mine.’ And, with the slightest of bows, he offered her his hand. ‘In the absence of Princess Lucy al-Khatib, Miss Metcalfe, will you do me the immense honour of allowing me to share this moment with you?’
He had never treated her as if she were just his chauffeur, but at this moment she recognised that he was treating her like a princess and she laid her hand against his.
He closed his hand over hers, tucked it beneath his arm and, heading for the boatyard office, said, ‘My plan is to use the yacht as part of a wedding package. I’d value your opinion on that.’
‘I don’t think I’m your natural market, Zahir.’
He glanced at her. ‘Are you telling me that you don’t dream?’
‘Not at all. It’s just that my dreams are confined to pink taxis.’ And a prince who turns into a frog. The only way this could turn out. But it was her Cinderella moment and she was going to make the most of it.
‘There’s nothing wrong with the pink taxi dream, but maybe I can broaden your horizons.’
‘To what? A pink yacht?’
‘Just wait until you see her,’ he said, with a sudden smile that betrayed an oddly boyish enthusiasm. ‘There’s a very small island in Nadira Creek that is going to make a perfect wedding venue. I’m building a restaurant there, with a traditional wind tower to draw the air down over a basement pool to cool it naturally. A pavilion for romantic Westerners to make their vows.’
‘It’s just for tourists, then?’
‘An Arab wedding traditionally takes place at the bride’s home …’ He shook his head. ‘At Nadira, after the ceremony, the feasting, the yacht will be waiting to carry the honeymooners away, leaving the world behind …’
He left the rest to her already overcharged imagination.
‘It sounds enchanting,’ she said, concentrating very hard not to go there. ‘And expensive.’ Then, ‘But very romantic.’
‘It will be.’
‘Which?’
‘All three,’ he assured her. And the boyish smile faded, leaving only a very adult warmth in his eyes.
The yacht certainly looked expensive. White, sleek, beautiful, and so much larger than she’d anticipated, that Diana almost succumbed to another ‘… oh, sheikh …’moment.
‘You’d probably like to look around the accommodation, miss,’ the boat builder suggested, ‘while I show Sheikh Zahir the engines?’
Zahir hesitated, then, turning to follow the man below to inspect powerful engines that were, even now, sending a quiet hum through the yacht, he said, ‘Go where you like, Diana. I’ll catch up with you.’
She suspected that she knew at least as much about engines as Zahir. From the time she could reach inside the bonnet of his taxi, she’d been asking questions and her father had taught her all he knew, even as he’d taught her to drive on private roads, so that she’d passed her driving test only days after her seventeenth birthday.
But men were funny about stuff like that, so she did as she was told and wandered over the yacht, marvelling over the ingenuity of the fittings in the galley, sighing over the minimalist luxury of the accommodation. Coming to a halt when she opened the door to the main stateroom which, dominated by a huge bed, half hidden by rich silk drapes, was quite clearly the honeymoon suite. Zahir had certainly widened the horizons of her dreams she thought, as her imagination ran amok …
Definitely time for some fresh air, she decided, heading back to the deck. But the honeymoon image lingered and, as she stood in the prow, her dreams knew no bounds. A tropical sun dipping into the sea, the arm of a man who loved her around her waist, her head against his shoulder.
She shook her head to clear it.
Forget the yacht, the sunset. Only the man was important and she’d be wise to forget him too.
Everything she had, everything she could be, was down to her alone and on an impulse, she leaned forward, stretching out her arms like the heroine in the film Titanic and, in the absence of her own hero, telling herself that she could do anything, be anything, if only she had the courage …
Zahir dutifully stood over the glistening pistons as the engines were turned over because, as an owner taking possession, that was what was expected of him. Doing his duty when he’d far rather have stayed with Diana, wanting to see her face as he revealed his new toy to her. As he opened the door and she saw the stateroom. Certain that her reaction would tell him everything he wanted to know.
Perhaps it was as well he’d been distracted.
Better not to know …
When, finally, he could escape, he found her not below, exploring, but standing in the bow of the yacht, her arms outstretched like some figurehead … No … It was something else. A scene from a film.
She was dreaming after all and, smiling, he came up behind her, took hold of her waist and said, ‘Do it properly. Step up on the rail.’ Her response was to take a step back, drop her arms, but he urged her to go for it. Lifting her, he said, ‘Reach for it, Diana. Reach for what you want most.’
‘Zahir!’
His name was a wail of embarrassment, but he refused to listen.
‘Trust me … I won’t let you fall.’
Diana, feeling utterly foolish at being caught out playacting this way, for a moment resisted, but his hands were strong, his support real, and suddenly she was there, leaning far out over the water, her eyes closed, arms stretched wide, reaching for her future as he leaned with her, his arms beneath hers, keeping her safe.
‘I can feel the wind in my face,’ she said, laughing, feeling like the girl she’d never been. And at her back she could feel Zahir’s strength as he held her, the slight roughness of his chin against her neck, the warmth of his body quickening her to a womanhood she’d never known.
The thudding of her pulse at his closeness, an aching intimate heat, shocking in its urgency, was confirmation that life was to be seized and shaken and, for one mad moment, she came close to turning and pulling him over the edge with her, taking him with her as she plunged beneath the surface.
If they were both out of their depth they would be equal …
Except she was Cinderella and the minute they stepped off the yacht she would cease to be a princess.
‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’ she said shakily, backing away from the intensity of feelings that had almost overwhelmed her. Trying to keep this at a level she
