deepened to heat her cheeks. Her heart thumping in her chest as if it had just discovered how to beat, Sienna jabbed her finger at the booking diary. ‘Can I…can I help you, sir?’
The side of him which had been indulged from the cradle wanted to lower his head and whisper that, yes, she could spend the afternoon in bed with him—but her innocent blush meant that he had unconsciously moved her into a category of women with whom it was not acceptable to flirt outrageously.
‘I am meeting one of your guests here for lunch,’ he said instead.
‘And the guest’s name, sir?’ she questioned, looking down at her booking list and wishing she could stop blushing.
He gave it, and saw her eyes widen—for the politician he was meeting was well known, and Hashim knew very well the potency of power and connections. He had lived with them all his life.
‘He’s waiting at the table, sir. I’ll take you in to join him.’
She stood up to show him the way, and he enjoyed following her into the restaurant, so that he could watch her unobserved.
She was not tall, but he liked that—for he believed that a woman should look up to a man—and although her hips were narrow, her bottom was as curved as her breasts, and designed to be cupped by the warmth of a man’s hand.
But it was her green eyes, shaped like almonds, and the pinkness of her cheeks and the rose pout of her lips which stayed in his mind. During lunch he gestured for one of his guards to approach, lowering his head to give an instruction in his native tongue, and the guard was dispatched to the reception desk to acquire her phone number.
But Sienna refused to give it. What a cheek—sending his henchman! And in a way it just confirmed her rather jaundiced view of men. She wished she could go on her break right then, but it wasn’t for ages, and when he came out of the restaurant she was still sitting there.
She looked straight through him, as if he wasn’t there—something which had never happened to him before. But he was too intrigued to be outraged, and some alien emotion directed his steps towards her.
‘You wouldn’t give me your phone number,’ he mused.
‘You didn’t ask me.’
‘And was that such an unforgivable sin?’ he teased.
She turned her head away, unsure how to cope with him, this powerfully built and exotic man who was making her feel things she wasn’t used to feeling.
‘What is your name?’ he asked, without warning, and she turned back to find herself imprisoned in the blazing ebony spotlight of his eyes.
‘Sienna,’ she whispered, as if he had sucked the word clean out of her, without her permission.
‘Sienna,’ he repeated softly, and nodded. ‘So, are you going to have dinner with me, Sienna?’
Somewhere in the recess of her mind was the thought that staff definitely weren’t supposed to fraternise with the guests—until she remembered that he wasn’t actually a guest. And even further back was another thought—that she was rather good at getting out of her depth. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘Why not?’ he questioned softly.
‘Because I don’t even know your name.’
‘Ah! Did not one of your finest poets once ask: “What’s in a name?”’ His black eyes narrowed. ‘My name is Sheikh Hashim Al Aswad.’
Sheikh? Sheikh? Something in his eyes made her stare at him, aghast. ‘You’re not really a sheikh, are you?’
‘I’m afraid I am,’ he replied gravely.
Sienna stared up at him. Now his dark looks and foreign air and the unmistakable aura of authority made sense. ‘But what on earth would I wear?’
And he laughed. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said truthfully. ‘You are so young and so beautiful that you would look wonderful in anything.’ Or nothing, of course.
That night he took her to a restaurant which overlooked the silver snake of the river which wound its way through the city. The stars outside seemed close enough to touch. And the evening felt magical enough for Sienna to feel that she could.
She had thought she might feel awkward and out of her depth, but instead she was so—excited, and determined to enjoy every second of it. Even the simple little cotton dress she chose seemed okay, because her thick dark hair reached almost to her waist, and she wore it loose and saw the narrow-eyed look of approval he gave and knew she’d got it just right.
It felt like an old-fashioned date was supposed to feel. Hashim ignored the fact that there were two armed bodyguards seated a few tables away, and more outside. This felt different, and he wasn’t quite sure why. Because she seemed so transparently innocent?
‘So tell me about yourself,’ he instructed.
Sienna hesitated, wondering where to begin. Was this true lives or true confessions? She had once done something she didn’t feel too great about—but that one-off act didn’t define her as a person, surely? She’d probably never see him again after tonight—so why let him in on a secret which might ruin the evening?
She thought about what a man born to a sheikhdom would most like to hear. Well, she couldn’t compete on a material front, that was for sure! She leaned forward and clasped her hands on the starched linen tablecloth, and tried to paint a picture of a very different life.
‘I grew up in a little village. You know—a proper English village, with lambs gambolling around the meadows in the springtime and cherry blossom on the trees.’
‘And in summer?’
‘It rained!’ She wriggled her shoulders. ‘Well, actually, it didn’t—it just seems to now, whenever I go back. But maybe that’s because I’m an adult now. When I was little the sun always seemed to be shining and golden.’ She stared into his face, thinking that she had never seen eyes quite so black. ‘I suppose that most people’s childhoods are like that. We view them through rose-tinted glasses.’
He thought not. Certainly his own had been nothing like that, but he would not describe it, nor compare the two. He would not have dreamed of expressing his own thoughts about growing up. Privacy was second nature to him and always had been—drilled into him from the very beginning. Instead, he picked up on the wisftfulness in her voice. ‘If it was so idyllic, then why did you leave?’
Sienna fiddled with her napkin. ‘Birds need to fly the nest.’
‘Indeed they do.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘And is life outside the nest all you dreamed it would be?’
Sienna hesitated. It could be scary. It gave you opportunities, and they could be scarier still. ‘Well, you gain freedom, of course—but you lose stability. I guess that’s what life is like, though—gains and losses—hopefully it all balances out in the end.’
‘You have a very wise head on such young shoulders,’ he said gravely.
‘You’re making fun of me.’
‘No.’ He
