to see Iseult’s family while they still had time before the birth, Jamilah had felt a tinge of relief. To bear witness to their intense love and absorption every day was becoming more and more difficult. And it had only intensified with news of Iseult’s pregnancy some six months previously. Nadim hardly let Iseult out of his sight, and cosseted her like a prize jewel. Jamilah knew it drove Iseult crazy, but then she was as bad he was—visibly pining for her husband if he was away from her side for more than an hour.
Jamilah’s relief that she would have some respite had been spectacularly eclipsed when Nadim had casually mentioned over dinner that Salman would be taking over as acting ruler while they were gone.
She’d not missed the way Nadim and Iseult had looked at her intently for her reaction; they hadn’t asked questions after her bizarre behaviour at the Sultan’s party last year, but it had been obvious it had something to do with Salman.
She was proud of the way she’d absorbed the shock into her body and kept on sipping her wine, willing her hands not to show a tremor. She’d said nonchalantly, ‘That’s nice. It’s been so long since he came home…’
Nadim had said gently, ‘You could go to France, if you like. Check up on the stables there?’
Jamilah had tensed all over and sat up straight. ‘No.’ She was aghast that they might think she would crumble, or that she would let Salman’s presence affect her work. She’d shaken her head and sealed her fate. ‘Not at all. I won’t be going anywhere. We’re far too busy here…’
But now, when Hana stood up and asked, ‘Will you come to the castle to talk to the staff?’ Jamilah almost shouted out another visceral no, and had to calm herself.
She smiled and said, as breezily as she could, shamelessly playing to Hana’s pride, ‘Why would I need to come to the castle when you have it all in hand so beautifully? We’re busy here at the stables with some new arrivals… you can call me if anything comes up.’
To her intense relief Hana didn’t argue, and left. Jamilah sank back into her office chair, feeling as edgy as a new colt, her heart racing.
A month.
One whole month of avoiding going anywhere near the castle and Salman. At least here at the stables where she lived she was relatively safe. For as long as she’d known him he’d had an abhorrence of horses, so she knew he wouldn’t come near them.
She was over him, so the fact that he was right now less than ten minutes away meant nothing to her. Nothing at all.
* * *
Jamilah’s phone rang at five-thirty a.m.—just as she was about to go out and do her morning round of the stables to check everyone was where they should be. She was grouchy from lack of sleep and the constant feeling of being on edge. And for the past few days there had been the non-stop clatter of helicopter rotorblades, as numerous choppers took off and landed in the castle’s grounds. Even though it was a fair distance to the stables, some had flown close enough to the horses to spook them for hours. Jamilah had heard through the robust grapevine that Salman was hosting an unending series of parties at the castle.
Now she gritted her teeth and answered the phone in the office, which was part of her private rooms. All she heard on the other end was hysterical sobbing, until finally she managed to calm Hana down enough to listen for a minute.
With an icy cold anger rising, she eventually bit out, through a break in the tirade, ‘I’m on my way.’
Clinging on to that cold rage, to distract her from the prospect of seeing Salman again, Jamilah went outside and got into her Jeep, making the ten-minute journey to the castle courtyard in five minutes, where Hana was wringing her hands.
As soon as Jamilah stepped out of her Jeep Hana was babbling. ‘All night, every night…such loud music—and the food! It’s too much…couldn’t keep up with the demands and then they started throwing things…in the ceremonial ballroom! If Nadim was here…’
Gently but firmly Jamilah cut through Hana’s hysterics. ‘Get the staff organised for a clean-up, and get Sakmal here with a coach. I’ll have all these guests out of here this morning.’
By the time Jamilah had reached the quarters Salman had commandeered for his private use about an hour later her rage was no longer icy but boiling over. She’d just seen the devastation caused by what appeared to be half of Europe’s Eurotrash party brigade, and she’d just supervised about fifty seriously disgruntled, still inebriated people onto a coach, from where they would be delivered into Al-Omar and back home.
She pushed open the door to Salman’s suite and slammed it back against a wall. The immediate dart of hurt at what she saw nearly made her double over, and that made her rage burn even brighter. At the evidence that he was still affecting her.
Two bodies were sprawled on an ornately brocaded couch. An empty champagne bottle and glasses were strewn around them. The nubile blonde woman was caked in make-up, wearing a tiny sparkly, spangly dress. She looked up drunkenly from where she lay beside a sleeping Salman, one arm flung across his bare and tautly muscled chest. Thankfully he was at least wearing jeans.
‘Excuse me,’ she slurred in cut-glass tones, ‘who do you think you are? ‘
Jamilah strode over, trying to block out the sensually indolent olive-skinned body of Salman, and took the woman’s skinny arm, hauling her up.
‘Owl’
Jamilah was unrepentant as she marched the sluggish woman over to where two maids hovered anxiously at the door, clad head to toe in black, their huge brown eyes growing wider and wider. Jamilah said with icy disdain, ‘Girls, please escort this guest to the coach, after she’s picked up her things, and then tell Sakmal he can go. That should be everyone.’
Jamilah shut the door firmly on the woman’s drunken protestations and sighed deeply. She turned round and Salman hadn’t budged an inch. Her heart clenched painfully; he’d always slept like the dead, and now that was obviously exacerbated by his alcohol intake. Her eyes roved over his hard-hewn muscle-packed form. She hated to admit it, but for an indolent, louche playboy he possessed the body of an athlete in his prime.
Dark stubble shadowed his firm jaw, and a lock of black hair had fallen over his forehead, making him look deceptively innocent. Long black lashes caressed those ridiculously sculpted cheekbones. He looked like a dark fallen angel who might have literally just dropped out of the sky.
But an angel, fallen or otherwise, he most certainly was not.
Jamilah clenched her jaw, as if that could counteract the treacherous rising of heat within her, and went to the bathroom where she found what she was looking for. Coming back into the main drawing room, she said a mental prayer for forgiveness to Nadim and Hana for the damage she was about to do to the soft furnishings, and then she threw the entire bucket of icy cold water over Salman.
Salman thought he was being attacked. Reflexes that had been honed long, long ago snapped into action, and he was on his feet and tense before he really knew what was happening.
In seconds, though, he had assessed the situation and forced locked muscles to relax. Jamilah was standing in front of him with an empty bucket and a belligerent look on her beautiful face, and something inside him rose up with an almost giddy surge. For the first time since he’d returned he felt centred—not rudderless and scarily close to the edge of his control.
With
