punctured balloon, coloured grey. Kat had taken to asking if she was sickening for something, and Sienna knew that she really was going to have to snap out of it. She had a business to run and she couldn’t divert her phone for ever. And Hashim seemed to have got the message at last, since he had left her alone for nearly a week.
She was sitting in her minuscule office, trying to concentrate on an engagement party which seemed to mock her with its celebration of love, when the telephone on her desk rang. Tiny hairs on the back of her neck began to prickle as she heard a disturbingly familiar dark, silken voice, and she wavered for a second. She could hang up, of course—or she could have the courage to tell him to leave her alone. And she couldn’t keep running away for ever.
‘What can I do for you, Hashim?’ she questioned coolly.
‘Why have you failed to cash my cheque?’ he demanded.
‘Because I don’t want your money!’
‘Ah, Sienna,’ he purred, like a trainee lion cub. ‘Don’t you realise that resistance turns a man on?’
Especially a man who wasn’t used to being resisted. ‘That isn’t why I’m doing it,’ came her icy reply.
He knew that. As a ploy it would have failed, because he would have seen through it. As a genuine wish it excited him. Greatly. ‘I want to see you,’ he said softly.
Images of his dark mocking eyes swam into her unwilling memory. ‘Well, you can’t.’
Did she not realise that he could hear her breathless note of hesitation—and the reluctant longing which matched his own? His voice dipped into a mocking caress as he felt the hot, hard jerk of desire. ‘Then say it like you mean it.’
Sienna closed her eyes, but that only made it worse. Now the images were of a hard body entering hers with almost heartbreaking sweetness. ‘There’s no point,’ she said wildly.
‘On the contrary. There is every point. I have a proposition to put to you.’
‘A proposition?’ Suspicion crept into her voice. ‘Planning another fictitious party, are you?’
He gave a low laugh. ‘Now, that’s an idea! Meet me and I’ll tell you all about it.’
‘Have you listened to a word I’ve been saying? I don’t want your phone calls or your flowers, and I certainly don’t want to see you, Hashim!’
‘Yes, you do,’ he murmured. ‘You know that and I know that. You are unsettled and so am I. Why keep fighting it? Your work will suffer, for a start.’
And he was right, damn him! She had almost more work than she could reasonably cope with, and—ironically —no inclination to do it. It had taken every bit of concentration she had to prevent herself from sitting staring into space and thinking about the dark Sheikh, trying to school herself away from wanting him, but in reality…Oh, the reality was so different.
‘If I meet you, will you promise to leave me alone?’
He gave a wry smile. How had she managed to get so far with such an appalling sense of logic? ‘If that is what you desire,’ he said carefully.
Desire. What a dangerous and provocative word that was. Sienna clenched her fist as she felt the empty little tug of her heart. ‘Name a time and place.’
‘Now.’
‘Now?’
‘I am very close to your house. I will be waiting.’
‘You are joking!’
‘What’s the matter, Sienna?’ he mocked. ‘Are you never spontaneous?’
She was wearing her oldest jeans and a T-shirt which one of the football team had given her at college. There was a rip at the hem and a stain on it which she thought might be crème de menthe, but she wasn’t entirely sure. She glanced in the mirror at her unwashed hair, which was caught back in a ponytail. Maybe if he saw her like this—the real, basic Sienna—then he would get the message.
‘Okay,’ she said slowly. ‘I’ll meet you.’
‘Five minutes,’ he clipped, and hung up.
Pausing only to brush her teeth, telling herself that she would have done the same no matter who she was meeting, she slid on a pair of old flip-flops and let herself out of the house, wondering where he was waiting.
She didn’t have to wonder for very long. A shiny limousine with tinted windows was parked at the end of the road—presumably because the road was so narrow it could go no further. In front of it and just to the rear were two leather-clad outriders on powerful motorbikes. It was like a scene straight out of a film, and Sienna could see a couple of curtains twitching as she walked towards it.
My neighbours will never look at me in quite the same way she thought, as a chauffeur stepped out of the driver’s seat and opened the door for her.
Telling herself that she could hardly be rude to Hashim’s employee, she had no choice but to slide into the soft-cushioned luxury of the back seat. It took a few seconds for her eyes to become accustomed to the dim light, but she could see Hashim sprawled negligently on the back seat, watching her.
Today he was wearing Western clothes—not a shimmer of soft silk in sight. An immaculately cut dark suit, with a snowy shirt and a tie which gleamed dully in the reduced light. Sienna could feel her heart begin to pound.
‘Nice of you to get out of the car yourself,’ she said.
‘I was thinking of your reputation.’
‘Liar.’
He laughed. ‘Your assessment of me is wholly and completely wrong, Sienna—my honesty has at times been described as almost brutal.’
Brutal. Yes. There was a brutal side to his nature. And yet it contrasted with the extraordinary gentleness he had displayed when she had lain so helplessly in his arms. She felt the drying of her lips, and as if he had read her thoughts he leaned forward and touched his mouth to hers in a barely-there kiss which started her senses sizzling.
‘Don’t,’ she said weakly.
The same cold skill and calculation which made him a world-class poker player made him kiss her for long enough to hear her sigh, and then he stopped and leaned back against the seat to study her. He pressed a button by his side and said something she did not understand. The car began its powerful acceleration.
‘Where are we going?’ she questioned, in alarm.
‘Just driving around—we will draw less attention to ourselves that way—this car tends to attract sightseers.’
‘Why don’t you travel in something less ostentatious, then?’ she questioned acidly.
‘Because I cannot,’ he said simply. ‘It needs to be bullet-proof.’
And—perhaps for the very first time—Sienna allowed herself to see the downside of his life. Hadn’t there been part of her which had somehow thought that the bodyguards which accompanied him were simply for
