took a deep breath. ‘Look, I know this is going to sound crazy—but I’ve got a story you might be interested in.’ Her fingers dug into the phone as she listened. ‘Details? Sure I can give you details. How about the proposed kidnap of a woman, who is being taken against her will to the desert country of Qurhah to marry a man she doesn’t want to marry? You like that? I rather thought you might—and it’s all yours. An exclusive. But we haven’t got long. I need to leave London before six o’ clock.’
SULEIMAN BROUGHT THE car to a halt so that it was hidden beneath the shadows of the trees, but still within sight of the cottage. The other cars all waited in darkness at various intervals down the country lane, as he had instructed them to do.
He turned off the lights. Rain spattered relentlessly across the windscreen, running in thick rivulets down the glass. For a moment he sat watching the lighted windows of the house. He saw Sara’s unmistakable silhouette going around, pulling the drapes tightly shut, and he felt a potent combination of anger and satisfaction. But alongside his triumph at having tracked her down, a deep disquiet ran through his veins like slow poison.
He should have refused this job.
He should have told Murat that his schedule did not allow him time to travel to England and deal with the princess.
But the Sultan did not ask favours of many men and the bonds of loyalty and gratitude ran deeper than Suleiman had anticipated. And although he would have given anything to have avoided this particular task, somehow he had found himself accepting it. Yet just one sight of her today had reinforced what a fool he had been. Better to have thrown himself to the mercy of a starving lion, than to have willingly closeted himself with the temptress Sara.
He remembered the honeyed taste of her lips and her intoxicating perfume of jasmine mixed with patchouli. He remembered the pert thrust of her breast beneath his questing fingers and the way his body had ached for her afterwards. The frustrated lust which seemed to have gone on for months.
His hands tightened around the steering wheel. Women like her were born to create trouble. To make men want them and then to use their sexual power to destroy them. Hadn’t her own mother—a fabled beauty in her time—brought down the king who had spent his life in slavish devotion to her? A husband who had spent so much time enthralled by her that he had barely noticed his country slipping into bankruptcy.
He drew in a deep, meditative breath, forcing all the frustrating thoughts from his mind. He must go and do what he needed to do and then leave and never see her again.
With a stealth nurtured by years of undercover work, he waited until he was certain the coast was clear before he got out of the car and silently pulled the door shut behind him. He saw one of the limousines parked further down the lane flash its lights at him.
Avoiding the crunch of the gravel path, he felt his shoes sink into the sodden mud of the lawn which ran alongside it. But the night was fearsome and the weather atrocious and he was soaked within seconds, despite his long-legged stride towards the front door.
He was half tempted to break in by one of the back windows and then to walk in and confront her to show just how vulnerable she really was. But that would be cruel and he had no desire to be cruel to her.
Did he?
His mouth hardened as he lifted one rain-soaked hand to the door handle and knocked.
If she was sensible, she wouldn’t answer. Instead, she would phone the local police station and tell them she had an intruder banging on the door of this isolated cottage on Christmas Eve.
But clearly she wasn’t being sensible because he could hear the sound of her approaching footsteps and his body tensed as adrenalin flooded through him.
She pulled open the door, her violet eyes widening as she registered his identity. For a split second she reacted quickly, trying desperately to shut the door again—but her reactions were not as fast as his. Few people’s were. He placed the flat of his hand on the weathered knocker and blocked her move until she had the sense to step back as he entered the hallway, pushing the door shut behind him.
For a moment there was silence in that small hallway, other than the soft drip of rainwater onto the stone tiles. He could see that she was too stunned to speak—and so was he, but for very different reasons. She might be regarding him with horror but no such feelings were dominating his own mind right then.
She had changed from the provocative dress she’d been wearing in her office earlier. Her hair was loose and her jeans and pink sweater were not particularly clingy, yet still they managed to showcase the magnificence of her body.
He knew it was wrong but he couldn’t stop himself from drinking her in, like a man lost in the desert who had just been handed a jug of cool water. Was she aware of her beauty? Of the fact that she looked like a goddess? A goddess in blue jeans.
‘Suleiman!’ Her voice sounded startled and her violet eyes were dark.
‘Surprised?’ he questioned.
‘You could say that! And horrified.’ She glared at him. ‘What do you think you’re doing—pushing your way in here like some sort of heavy?’
‘I thought we had an appointment to meet at six, but since it is now almost eight, you appear to have broken it. Shockingly bad manners, Sara. Especially for a future queen of the desert.’
‘Tough!’ she retorted. ‘And I’m not going to be a queen of the desert. I already told you that I have no intention of getting married. Not to Murat and not to anyone! So why waste everybody’s time by turning up? Can’t you just go back to the Sultan and tell him to forget the whole idea?’
Suleiman heard the determination in her voice and felt an unwilling flare of admiration for her unashamed—and very stupid—defiance. Such open insubordination was unheard of from a woman from the desert lands and it was rather magnificent to observe her spirited rebellion. But he didn’t let it show. Instead, he injected a note of disapproval into his voice. ‘I am waiting for an explanation about why you failed to show.’
‘Do you realise you sound exactly like a schoolteacher? I don’t really think you’d need to be a detective to work out my no-show. I don’t like having my arm twisted.’
‘Clearly you hadn’t thought things through properly, if you imagined it was going to be that easy to shake me off,’ he said. ‘But you’re here now.’
She eyed him speculatively ‘I could knock you over the back of the head and make a run for it.’
His mouth quirked at the corners, despite all his best efforts not to smile. ‘And if you did, you would run straight into the men I have positioned all the way down the lane. Don’t even think about it, Sara. And please don’t imagine that I haven’t thought of every eventuality, because I have.’
He pulled off his dripping coat and hung it on a peg.
She glared at him. ‘I don’t remember asking you to take your coat off!’
‘I don’t require your permission.’
‘You are impossible!’ she hissed.
‘I
