up the wrap she’d dropped on the curved window seat earlier, she tugged it over her negligee and hurried to the door.
The hallway was silent, half of the lamps turned off. The double doors Nura had told her about loomed ominously before her. Fuelled by adrenaline and the promise not to fail again, she grasped the ornate golden handles. A part of her had feared the doors would be locked. After all, wasn’t that how harems worked? Or did Rahim allow whatever woman wanted him to just sail through the doors and into his bedchamber at their whim?
The thought brought acid distaste to her mouth, but not enough to stop her from walking through the doors and shutting them behind her. The hallway snaked into semidarkness, with a single Tiffany lamp burning on a delicately balanced console table a dozen feet away. Holding her breath, Allegra followed the run of Persian rug, her footsteps muffled by the thick carpet. In the curve of the hallway, she stopped. Heart hammering, she took in the twin Moroccan lanterned lamps bracing either side of giant carved doors.
She didn’t need a sign or plaque to tell her those were the doors that led to Rahim’s chamber. The heat flooding her veins and the quickening of her blood was evidence enough. But if that wasn’t enough, as she forced herself to move closer, his lingering scent curled around her senses. Her nostrils quivered, along with every screeching nerve ending in her body.
Desperately pushing the sensations away, she raised her hand and knocked lightly. She suppressed the half-formed plan bubbling at the edge of her mind and waited. After a full minute, she tried again, then pressed her ear to the door. Fighting not to give in to the voice screaming at her to reconsider what she was doing, she opened the door, again surprised when it gave way.
The living room was vast and probably as breathtaking as the rest of the dreamlike palace, but Allegra was too preoccupied with blocking out the many and varied consequences of being caught to appreciate its beauty. Instead she searched frantically, hoping against hope that the cabinet containing the trinket box had been moved from the bedroom to the living room.
When that optimism was dashed, she hurried, dry-mouthed, through the Moorish arch that led into another room.
Her blood pounding loud enough to drown out every single sound, Allegra entered Rahim’s bedroom and stopped. Beneath her bare feet, the softest carpet cushioned her soles, making her toes curl for a delicious second before the sheer visual heaven of her surroundings flattened her.
Although she’d expected it to be grand and opulent beyond her wildest imagination, the sight of Rahim’s bedroom made her jaw drop. Every imaginable luxury had been lavished on the room, from the magnificent chandelier from which the stunning frescoes etched into the ceiling seemed to flow from, to the solid gold framed mirrors and paintings positioned around the room.
But it was the sight and position of Rahim’s bed that made her eyes widen. Set on four solid pillars, the bed was suspended halfway to the soaring ceiling, with twin curving staircases leading to it from the middle of the cavernous room. Around the heavy cream silk framing the giant four-poster, multipillowed bed, wrought-iron railings, painted a matching gold and white, had been erected. And the headboard, more than twice the size of her own, was even more enthralling, the sheer magnificence of the erotic artwork holding her captive for endless seconds.
Imagining Rahim and his hard, lean body spread out on that bed, heat powered through her, freeing her from her stupor. Dragging her gaze away from the decadent sight, Allegra gulped in air before she snatched back her focus.
Her frantic gaze scoured the endless displays dotted around the room until she found the Louis XIV cabinet she’d seen in the coffee table book. Tightening her hold on her wrap, she sped across the carpeted floor to the display.
Her grandfather’s box sat in the middle of the top shelf, a tiny spotlight showing off the superb craftsmanship and utterly dazzling ornament to full effect. It was beautiful beyond belief, and for the first time since he’d asked her to retrieve it, Allegra accepted how special the box was.
Heart in her throat, she took a step closer to the cabinet, then whirled around with a gasp at the sound of a door sliding shut behind her.
Rahim entered the room and every atom in Allegra’s body screamed alive. First with dread. Then with a fiery excitement so strong she wondered whether she’d turn to char by the time the man who was rubbing his hair with a towel, and hadn’t yet seen her, realised she’d violated his privacy.
Rahim lowered the towel a second later, then froze. Shock flared through his eyes, before the hazel depths darkened. Narrow-eyed, he stalked across the bedroom floor, his gaze pinned like lasers on her.
With each step, Allegra cautioned herself not to look at his body. To instead think of a plausible explanation as to why she was here, in the middle of the night, dressed as flimsily as she was.
By his fourth step, she’d lost the battle. Her eyes devoured the wide, lean expanse of his shoulders, and the hard, washboard stomach. Against the stark white towel knotted carelessly at his waist, his dark olive skin glowed with mouth-watering vibrancy, his skin so gloriously sleek her fingers burned to touch. Desire dredged through her belly and her mouth flooded with acute hunger as he neared and she saw the droplets of water clinging to his skin.
He was beautiful beyond words; from the ink-black damp hair to the powerful legs eating up the distance between them, Rahim Al-Hadi was a panther-like specimen of male beauty, and she accepted in that moment that she couldn’t hold that against him. Not when every inch of her wanted to be plastered to every inch of him. Long and hard and in every imaginable position possible.
‘Allegra,’ he breathed her name, his voice heavy with an emotion she couldn’t name, but which echoed all the way through her body. ‘I’m not sure whether to applaud you for your reckless daring, or chastise you for your foolishness in coming here.’
The deep growl in his voice made the secret place between her thighs throb urgently. Chagrined, she wondered how she could react like this to his voice alone, even as her breasts tingled, her nipples turning to hard peaks at the blatant hunger in his face.
‘I hope you don’t mind, but I couldn’t sleep, not without coming here to...’ She trailed off uselessly as he shifted the towel from his neck and flung it away. In her bare feet, she was eye level with his pecs, and with the absence of the towel, his flat, brown nipples were displayed in perfect, round discs.
‘Coming here to...?’ he echoed mockingly.
She blinked. Tried to breathe.
God. Think, Allegra!
‘I... I wasn’t happy with the way we left things. I wanted to make amends.’
Rahim took another dangerous step closer, and she caught the faint smell of chlorine mingled with an earthier scent of warm, male skin. A visual image of him, swimming naked, surged up to collide with all the X-rated images speeding through her brain.
‘And how exactly do you wish to make amends?’
For as long as she lived, Allegra doubted she would be able to explain the sensation that overtook her in that moment. Perhaps she had been seeking a connection to something...or someone...all along without realising it. Certainly, the feeling of being adrift, of being alone since she lost her mother countless years ago, had been a pain waiting to rear up and stab her in her weakest moments. It wasn’t a feeling she freely expressed, because she knew her sisters and brothers viewed their often volatile mother differently, that they wouldn’t welcome Allegra’s lonely sentiment. Nor would she want to remind them of how she’d personally
