The Sultan's Choice (3 page)

‘You might find social situations intimidating, but with time they’ll become second nature. Also, you can’t deny that having grown up as a princess in a royal court you are aware of castle politics and protocol. You would have learnt that by osmosis. These are all invaluable assets to me in any marriage I undertake. I don’t have the time or the inclincation to train someone.’

Samia blinked up at him again. She couldn’t deny it. As much as she might want to. Even though she’d spent her formative years avoiding her stepmother, she knew castle politics like the back of her hand—she’d had to learn to survive. Her knowledge of the things he spoke had been engraved invisibly on her psyche like a tattoo from birth.

‘I want to create a solid alliance between Al-Omar, Merkazad and Burquat. We live in unstable times and need to be able to depend on each other. Marrying you will ensure a strong alliance with your brother. I already have it with Merkazad. Your father’s rule put Burquat firmly in an isolated position, which did your country no favours. Thankfully your brother is reversing that stance. I don’t see how you have any grounds at all—apart from your own personal concerns—to believe that you are not fit to become my queen, and in so doing ensure the future stability of your country.’

Samia swallowed painfully, glued to his glittering blue eyes in sick fascination. He was right. She could no more stand there and deny these facts than she could deny her very heritage and lineage. She might have hidden herself away
in a college and then a dusty library for the past few years, but she’d always had the knowledge of this ultimate responsibility within her.

And her concerns
were
personal—selfish, in fact. She just did not have that luxury. She wasn’t the same as the average person on the street. She had obligations, responsibilities.

As if he could sense her weakening, Sadiq moved closer and Samia’s breath faltered. That embarrassing heat was back, rising inexorably through her body, and for the first time she recognised it not as the heat of embarrassment or shyness but as a totally different kind of heat. The heat of desire. The fact that he was having the same inevitable effect on her as every other woman he must encounter was humiliating. She was not immune.

‘I …’ She had to swallow to get her voice to work. He was standing so close now that all she could see was those dark blue irises, sucking her in and down into a vortex of nebulous needs she’d never felt before. She battled her own sapping will and focused. ‘I accept what you’re saying. They’re all valid points.’

‘I know they are.’

Had his voice dropped an octave? It sounded like it. They were standing so close now that Samia could feel his warm breath feather around her, could smell the intensely masculine scent of sandalwood and musky spice. It was the memory of that scent that had kept her awake for long hours last night.

To her utter shock he reached out a hand and touched his thumb to her bottom lip, tugging it. She had the most bizarre urge to flick out her tongue and taste his finger. Her heart slowed to about a beat a minute.

‘That’s better. You shouldn’t be so tense. You have a very pretty mouth.’

A pretty mouth?
No one had ever referred to her as pretty
in her life. Instantly Samia felt as if a cold bucket of water had been flung over her. She stepped back abruptly, forcing the Sultan’s hand down, breaking the spell. Clearly the man felt the need to placate her with false compliments. What was wrong with her? Believing for half a second that she was in some sensual bubble with the Sultan of Al-Omar who had courted and bedded some of the world’s greatest beauties?

Her face flaming again, Samia looked away and tried to regain control, breathing a sigh of relief when she sensed Sadiq move back too.

His voice was tight. ‘Samia, it’s inevitable. You might as well give in now, because I won’t. Not until you say yes.’

She gulped and shook her head. Words were strangled in her throat. She was more sure than ever that she couldn’t do this. Especially after she’d all but sucked his finger into her mouth like some wanton groupie!

She heard him sigh expressively and sneaked a look. He was glancing at his watch and then looking at her. ‘I don’t know about you but I’m hungry. I’ve had a busy day.’

Samia just looked at him stupidly for a moment. The tension in the atmosphere diminished. And then her stomach gurgled loudly at the thought of food. She’d been so wound up for the last thirty-six hours that she’d barely eaten a thing.

As if Sadiq could see the turmoil on her face he quirked his mouth and came close again, playing havoc with Samia’s hearbeat, and tipped up her chin with a finger.

‘Rest assured I won’t stop until you have agreed to become my wife and queen. But we might as well start to get to know one another a little better in the meantime. And eat.’

Before she knew what was happening Sadiq was leading the way from the study with her jacket over his arm. She opened her mouth to protest, but then they were in the hall and he was conferring with his butler who bowed and indicated
for Samia to follow Sadiq into what turned out to be a dining room.

It was more than impressive. Dark walls were lined with portraits of Sadiq’s ancestors in western dress, looking very exotic, a huge gleaming oak table dominated the room and there was a setting for two at the top of the table.

Sadiq was standing behind a chair, looking at her expectantly, and, feeling very weak, Samia went forward and sat down. There was a flurry of activity as the butler came back with more staff and they were presented with options for dinner. Samia made her choice without even thinking about what she was ordering.

When they were momentarily alone Samia bit her lip for a moment and began to speak, not even sure what she wanted to say. ‘Sadiq …’

But he just poured her a glass of chilled white wine and said disarmingly, ‘You made the right choice with the fish. Marcel, our chef, is an expert. He used to work for the Ritz in Paris.’

Samia took the proffered glass and felt her unruly hair slip over her shoulder. She’d long lamented the fact that her hair didn’t fall in sleek and smooth waves like her younger sisters’, who’d all inherited their own mother’s exotic dark colouring. Kaden had inherited their father’s dark looks, so she’d always been the odd one out. Her stepmother had only had to breathe air into Samia’s own sense of isolation to compound it.

She felt a little naked with her hair down like this—somehow exposed, as if some secret feminine part of herself was being bared to the sun. It wasn’t altogether uncomfortable, which made it even more disturbing. Sadiq sat back and smiled at Samia urbanely, making her stomach flip-flop. If he turned on the charm she didn’t know how she would cope.

As if privy to her private thoughts, that was exactly what he did.

For the next hour and a half, while they ate delicious food, he managed to draw Samia out of her shell. At first she did her best to resist, but it was like trying to resist the force of a white water rapid. Something was happening—some intangible shift.

Perhaps she’d started feeling this softening, melting sensation when he’d mentioned her sailing trip? Or perhaps it had been his easy acceptance when she’d told him about her stuttering and shyness. She’d never told anyone about that before, and had done so with him purely in a bid to repel him. But it hadn’t worked. He’d
empathised.
It was almost like a betrayal to witness the sudden ease with which she was finding herself talking to him now, albeit about superficial subjects.

He was disarming her enough to make her forget for a moment who he was. It was seductive evidence of a self-deprecating side, and of the undeniable bond they shared in both coming from the same part of the world, from a similar background. Everything he had already pointed out. She had not expected self-deprecation from this man, or any kind of feeling of kinship with him. She hadn’t expected him to defuse the tension like this.

They were finishing their coffee when Samia looked at Sadiq, somewhat emboldened after the meal and a glass of wine. ‘You’re very good you know,’ she said.

He quirked a brow, his eyes breathtakingly blue against the olive tone of his skin. ‘Good? In what way?’

Samia had to concentrate. It was like sitting across the table from a Hollywood heart-throb, not a head of state. ‘At charming people.’

He shrugged minutely, and for a second Samia saw something stern flash across his face and into those eyes.

Immediately the warm bubble of fuzziness that had been infusing her dissipated. Of
course.
How could she have been so silly? This was all an act—an act put on her for benefit and his, to get to her to acquiesce to his plans for marriage. Of course he was charming her. And she was falling for it and believing it like any other woman with a pulse would.

She made a point of looking at her watch, even though she didn’t register the time, and then looked back at Sadiq, tensing herself against his effect on her.

‘I have to be up early tomorrow. I’m still handing over to my successor.’

Sadiq sat forward. ‘You like working in the library here?’

That rebellious streak rising again, Samia said defiantly, ‘Yes. And a queen who is more at home surrounded by books is hardly the queen for
you.’

Sadiq had to quell the sudden urge to wipe that prim look off Samia’s face by kissing her. He’d had her in the palm of his hand during the meal—he knew it. She’d been more relaxed than he’d seen her. And with that had come the realisation that he had grossly underestimated her appeal. The spark of desire that had lit earlier had erupted into full-on lust as he’d watched her natural effervescence emerge.

She’d blossomed quite literally before his eyes—like a flower being exposed to heat and light after being hidden in a dark corner. It was the most amazing thing. She reminded him of a dimond in the rough. Actually, he amended, more like a dark and glowing yellow diamond. A rare jewel.

But now she’d clammed up again like an oyster shell, protecting the bounty within. Those full lips were once again a thin line, the eyes downcast. He signalled discreetly to his staff and rose smoothly to his feet once his wayward body felt more under control. A dart of satisfaction went through him at seeing Samia look confused for a moment, as if she’d expected him to challenge her. And then she rose to her feet
too, somewhat less assuredly, and that protective instinct surged again. Sadiq had to clench his hands to fists to stop himself reaching out to steady her.

He couldn’t understand his physical response. The last woman he’d been with had been hailed as the most beautiful woman in the world three years running. And there had never been one moment when he’d felt protective of
her.
When he tried to picture her now all he remembered was that his desire for her had waned long before he’d admitted it to himself. And yet
this
woman, whose appeal was more wholesomely pretty than beautiful, was having a more incendiary effect on his libido than he could remember.

As Samia preceded Sadiq out of the dining room, he thought of something to test her. She got to the front door and turned around. Clearly she was hoping he wouldn’t challenge her again. He almost pitied her for her blind optimisim. He handed her her jacket and watched her expression closely.

‘You know,’ he mused, ‘perhaps you’re right after all. Perhaps you’re
not
suitable to be my wife.’

Something suspiciously exultant moved through him as he caught the split second of a reaction she couldn’t hide because her face was just too expressive.

Samia opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She stilled in the act of putting her jacket on. He’d completely surprised her. And, to her utter chagrin, instead of feeling relieved she had the absurd desire to contradict him and tell him that she
could
be a good wife for him. What was going on?

She tried desperately to hide her confusion as she continued putting on her jacket. ‘You mean if I was to walk out of here right now you wouldn’t stop me? Or pursue this matter?’

Sadiq smiled, but it was the smile of a shark. ‘You don’t really believe I’m just going to let you walk away, do you?’

Anger rose bright and rapid at the realisation that he was
playing with her. Samia grabbed for the door and tried to wrench it open, but it wouldn’t budge. She turned back, exasperated at being trapped. ‘If your door worked you could watch me walk out right now, and there wouldn’t be one thing you could do about it.’

Samia was mortified, because she knew well that he’d caught her out. She’d shown her reaction before she could hide it. He
knew
how conflicted she was about this.

‘The door works fine, Samia. I just wanted to see how you’d react if you got a sniff of freedom, and your face told me all I need to know.’

Acting on a purely animal instinct to escape a threat, Samia turned back to the door and this time it opened. She stood in the doorway, breathing deep, and almost simultaneously lights exploded all around her.

The paparazzi.

Samia heard a colourful Arabic curse behind her even as she registered big burly bodyguards materializing as if from thin air to hold the photographers back. Strong arms came around her and pulled her into a lean and hard muscled body. Samia was plastered against Sadiq’s length as he all but carried her back over the threshold and into the house.

It took a second for her to register that it was quiet again and the door was shut behind them. Samia’s breath sounded laboured, and she realised that she was still clamped to Sadiq like a limpet. Breasts crushed to his chest. She scrambled backwards, face flaming.

Sadiq raked a hand through his hair. ‘Are you okay? I’m sorry about that. Sometimes they lie in wait once they know I’m here, and the bodyguards can’t do anything.’

He could still feel the imprint of her body—the firm swells of her breasts pressed against him just for that brief moment. How delicate she’d been. She’d fit into his body like a missing
jigsaw piece. For someone used to women who almost matched him in height, it had been a novel sensation.