gasping at the sight of her back view.
Her eyes connected with Rico’s and he grinned a rather lascivious grin. ‘Don’t be coy, now,’ he urged the audience. ‘If I were a single man myself, I would put my hat in the ring, I can tell you. But I’m out of the market, as my lovely wife right there will attest.’
He nodded down towards a table on Charmaine’s immediate left. She automatically glanced down, then froze.
Later that night, long after this ghastly moment was well behind her, Charmaine would be grateful she hadn’t been moving at the time, for she would surely have stumbled. Maybe even fallen. As it was, she still felt as if the floor had opened up under her.
At least now she knew why she’d been feeling so aware of male eyes on her. Because this pair of eyes had been hiding amongst the others.
Dark, beautiful eyes. Hard eyes. Dangerous eyes.
Prince Ali of Dubar, sitting right there at Renée’s table, looking dashing and debonair in a black dinner suit and gazing up at her with a coolly arrogant air.
Shock galvanised Charmaine’s brain as well as her body, several blank moments passing before she regained her composure and could even try to put two and two together. What on earth was this man doing sitting at Renée’s table? Surely they couldn’t be friends!
This unlikely possibility had barely surfaced before things which had seemed unimportant or irrelevant at the time flashed back into her mind. The prince himself, mentioning last year that he spent every weekend in Sydney going to the races and playing cards with friends. And then Renée the other day at lunch, talking about the high-rollers she played poker with every Friday night in this very hotel, in one of the presidential suites.
Who else could afford a presidential suite but a president, or a rock-star, or an oil-rich sheikh? The worst possible scenario of that little trio, of course, was the sheikh, especially one whom she’d derided and belittled and rejected and who was here tonight for one thing and one thing only. To make her eat her words that she would never go to dinner with a man like him.
Prince Ali of Dubar was undoubtedly going to be the highest bidder for the dinner date with her. Why else would he have come? He hadn’t bid for anything else so far tonight. She would have noticed if he had, a spotlight always briefly being shone on the successful bidder after an item was knocked down to them.
No, it would not be some total stranger sitting opposite her at dinner next Saturday night. It would be this man, whose pride she had severely dented last year. Now it was his turn to humiliate her, by forcing her to dine with him for several hours and endure not only his company, but also his none-too-subtle coveting of her body.
The impact of this realisation sent bile rising in Charmaine’s throat. Pride demanded she would not submit herself to such a mortifying situation. But pride also demanded she conduct herself with her usual self-contained, I’m-not-afraid-of-anything-or-any-man demeanour. After all, even if the sheikh was the successful bidder—and every cell in her brain shouted to her that he would be—what could he really do to her in a public restaurant, across the table? Proposition her once more? Try to seduce her with his charm?
This last idea was laughable.
No. Let him have his pathetic little moment of triumph.
Quite deliberately, she smiled straight at him, challenging him boldly with her eyes and her mouth.
Come on, sucker. Make your bid. See if I care.
His dark eyes narrowed a little at her smile, then slowly raked over her from head to toe, as though assessing if she was worth bidding for. For a split-second, Charmaine worried that he might not bid. Maybe he’d come to dent her pride that way.
But even as she was besieged by a thousand ambivalent emotions over this possibility, his royal mouth opened.
‘Five million dollars,’ he said firmly, and she gasped. She couldn’t help it. Neither could the rest of the people there.
Even Rico sucked in sharply. ‘Wow! That is some bid. Ladies and gentlemen, Prince Ali of Dubar has bid five million dollars for the privilege of a dinner date with our lovely Charmaine. Somehow, I don’t think there will be any better offers, but if there is some intrepid gentleman out there willing to top his royal highness’s offer, will he speak up now or forever hold his peace?’
Charmaine winced at Rico’s words, which were reminiscent of a wedding ceremony. Rather ironic, given this was as far from a romantic encounter as one could get. His royal highness just wanted the opportunity to make her eat humble pie, and he was willing to spend an exorbitant amount of money to do so.
‘No more offers? In that case…sold to His Royal Highness, Prince Ali of Dubar!’ Rico brought the gavel down on the rostrum with a loud thump that reverberated right through Charmaine.
Everyone in the ballroom started clapping, more so when the red arrow on the huge target metre displayed at the side of the stage was lifted by its attendant to twelve million dollars. Charmaine was forced to keep smiling when in fact she’d rather have been screaming, preferably at the man whose black eyes remained locked onto hers, his superior air evoking in her a burning desire to tell him that no man would ever own even a small piece of her, not even her time!
But, of course, that wish was to remain unrequited. No way could she turn down a five-million-dollar windfall for a cause that meant more than her silly pride. On top of that, no way in the wide world would Charmaine let this arrogant devil see how rattled and angry she was. To show anger was to show she cared. She resolved then and there to remain impeccably polite to him next Saturday night. There would be no further outbursts of temper. No rude remarks. No attempts to cut him down to size.
Given this was her intention, she really could not afford to stay standing where she was any longer. The way he kept looking at her was not conducive to ongoing politeness.
Lord knows how I’m going to control myself when I’m alone with him, Charmaine worried as she made her way—to further clapping—off the catwalk.
‘I still can’t believe it,’ Rico said to her after he’d wrapped up the auction and clicked off the microphone. ‘Good old Ali, bidding five mil just to have dinner with you. The man must have more money than sense. No offence meant, Charmaine. But even you must agree that was over-the-top.’
Charmaine frowned at Rico’s familiar remarks before realising that of course he had to be well acquainted with the prince as well, not just Renée.
‘You sound as if you’re really old friends,’ came her careful comment. As much as she despised herself for it, she couldn’t help being curious about the man who’d just paid five million dollars to have dinner with her.
‘We are,’ Rico admitted. ‘Been playing cards together every Friday night for nearly six years now. Been partners in a few racehorses over the years as well. Ali’s a great bloke. You’ll like him.’
Charmaine’s top lip curled before she could stop it. But then she decided not to be a total hypocrite. There was only so far she was prepared to carry pretence, and in private was not one of them.
‘The prince and I have met once before,’ she confessed curtly. ‘I didn’t like him then and I don’t like him now.’
Rico looked startled. ‘You’ve met before? Where?’
‘At
