The Sultan's Choice (4 page)

She was standing there, looking dishevelled and innocently sexy with colour high in her cheeks, and he knew that she had no idea how alluring she was—which only inflamed him more, because he was used to women being all too aware of their so-called allure.

‘You
knew
about that.’

He frowned, not liking the accusatory tone in her voice. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You just said that you know they lie in wait. I’m going to be all over the papers with you. Leaving your house.’

Samia realised she was shaking violently. She heard another curse and felt Sadiq take her arm in a firm grip. ‘Come back into the study. You’re in shock.’

Once in the big stately room, Sadiq all but pressed Samia down into a chair and went to get a tumbler of brandy. He came back and handed it to her. ‘Take a sip. You’ll feel better in a minute.’

Hating feeling so vulnerable, Samia took the glass and a gulp of the drink, coughing slightly. She watched Sadiq pour himself a drink and come to sit opposite her on a matching chair. The lights in the room made his amazing good-looks stand out. An awful alien yearning tugged low in her belly and she put down the drink and crossed her arms across her chest defensively.

Grimly he said, ‘I’d forgotten all about the paparazzi. Of course I had no intention of putting you in that situation.’

Samia gulped, her anger dissipating. She knew he was telling the truth. A man like him would not have to resort to such measures. Restless, Samia stood up. ‘Look, thank you for the dinner … I—’

She stopped when Sadiq stood too, and she had to curb the ridiculous urge to look for an exit, as if she were alone
with a wild animal. Samia put out her hands wide in an unconsciously pleading gesture.

‘What happened just now should prove how unsuitable I am. That was my first time being caught by the paparazzi. You need someone who is used to that kind of thing—who knows how to handle it.’

Distaste curdled in Sadiq’s belly. That was exactly what he didn’t want. He was more sure than ever that he wanted
her
—and for reasons that went beyond the practical and mundane.

He came closer to Samia and an unmistakable glint of triumph shone in his eyes and she felt sick. She could talk till she was blue in the face but the game was up. He’d called her bluff. She’d shown her telltale confusion. He’d manipulated her beautifully. Bitter recrimination burnt her. He was so close now that all she could see were those mesmerising eyes, and all she could smell was that uniquely male scent.

‘Your reaction tells me you’re conflicted about this decision, Samia. So let me take the conflict out of it for you. Agree to become my wife because there simply is no other alternative. You are of royal blood, from an ancient lineage. You were born for this role, and nothing you do or say can change that. To fight this is to fight fate, me and your brother.’

From his jacket pocket he pulled out a small velvet box, and all the while his eyes never left hers. He opened it, and Samia couldn’t help but look down between them. The ring was surprisingly simple. It was obviously an antique—a square-cut stone in a gold setting, strikingly unusual and beautiful.

‘It’s a yellow sapphire. It was my paternal grandmother’s—a gift from my grandfather on one of their wedding anniversaries.’

Sadiq didn’t tell her that this distinctive ring had been
in his mind’s eye ever since he’d met her, and that it was a lucky coincidence it had been in the family’s jewel vault in London. He’d sent back the diamond ring he’d planned on using, feeling absurdly exposed in acknowledging that he hadn’t been happy with a stock ring, which should have been perfectly adequate for what was essentially a stock wedding.

Samia looked up, and Sadiq took her hand in his. He looked so deep into her eyes that she felt as if she might drown and diappear for ever. She knew on some rational level that he was probably not even aware of his power. Unconsciously her fingers tightened around his as if to anchor herself, and something undefinable lit in Sadiq’s eyes, hypnotising her even more.

‘Princess Samia Binte Rashad al Abbas, will you please do me the very great honour of becoming my wife and Queen of Al-Omar?’

A
T
that cataclysmic moment, while Sadiq’s words hung in the air, Samia had a flashback she couldn’t repress. She was hiding in the library of his castle after knocking over the table of drinks, cursing herself for being so clumsy and awkward. Her peace was shattered when a man walked into the room.

He didn’t spot her because the lights were dim, and all Samia knew as she sat there barely breathing was that he was tall, dark and powerful looking. Yet she wasn’t afraid. He walked over to the window which overlooked one of the castle’s numerous beautiful inner courtyards and stood there for long moments, as silent as a statue, with an air of deep melancholy pervading the air around him.

He sighed deeply and dropped his head to run a weary hand back and forth over his short hair. Something about this man was connecting with Samia on a very deep level, she
felt
his pain, empathised with his isolation. Without even thinking about what she was doing, responding to some impulse to do
something,
Samia was almost out of her chair when another person entered the room: a woman, tall and blonde and statuesque, and very, very beautiful.

The man turned around and to Samia’s shock she realised it was the charismatic Sultan she’d met only hours before. The melancholy and sense of isolation disappeared. She watched as his blue eyes glittered, taking in the woman’s
approach. In the place of the vulnerability she might have imagined was the hard shell of a supremely confident and sexual man, and she knew then that she had witnessed something incredibly private—something of himself that he would hate to know had been witnessed by anyone else.

Samia watched the woman walk straight up to him. She twined herself around him and, perversely, Samia wanted the Sultan to push this woman away contemptuously. As if he was hers! But as she watched, mesmerised, he backed the blond beauty up against a wall and proceeded to kiss her so passionately that Samia made an inadvertent sound of dismay.

Two faces turned towards her and Samia ran from the room, mortified to have been caught watching like a voyeur.

And now she was looking up into those same blue eyes, and she felt as if a hole had opened up in her belly. All she could remember was that intense vulnerability she’d seen, or
thought
she’d seen, in the Sultan that night, and the connection she’d felt.

She couldn’t block out that image of the secret side of this man even as she sensed his steely determination. He would not rest until she said yes, and that made a curious sense of calm settle over her. He was right: to fight this was to fight fate, her brother and
him.
She denied to herself that that evocative memory was a tipping point, because that would mean that Sadiq was connecting with her on an emotional level, and she would deny that with every cell in her body.

This decision was about inevitability, logic and practicality, and the sheer weight of her lineage which put her in this position. She opened her mouth to speak and saw Sadiq’s jaw tense, as if warding off a blow. Immediately she felt the impulse to reach up and smooth his jaw. She clenched her hand.

‘I …’ Her voice sounded rusty. ‘Yes. I’ll marry you.’

For a second there was no reaction. She wasn’t even sure if she’d spoken out loud. But then Sadiq slid the ring onto her finger, bent his head and pressed his lips to it. They were warm and slightly parted, and her belly tightened with a need that was becoming horribly familiar. His head was so close to her breast.

He stood again and she saw that a shutter had come down over his expression, turning him aloof. He was the stern ruler again, and he had achieved his aim. No softness or charm now. Job done. Mission accomplished. Samia thought cynically of how he’d manipulated her emotions so beautifully. And yet she couldn’t turn back now. She’d sealed her fate and chosen the path she would take for the rest of her life.

Her belly churning with the sudden realisation of what she’d just done, and a whole host of other scary emotions. She tried her best to match his dispassionate look and took her hand from his, stepping back. The ring twinkled and sparkled in her peripheral vision, and it was heavy. ‘I’ve got to be up early, so if there’s nothing else …?’

A ghost of a smile touched Sadiq’s mouth and he too stepped back, letting Samia breathe a little easier. He shook his head. ‘No, not right now. I’ll have my assistant set up a schedule and send it over to you tomorrow. It’s going to be a busy three weeks before we return to Al-Omar for our wedding.’

‘Three weeks?’
Samia squeaked, all pretence of insouciance gone at the terrifying thought. For some reason she’d imagined the wedding happening at some far-off distant time.

He nodded, all businesslike as he escorted her to the door. ‘Three weeks, Samia. That should give you plenty of time to hand over your job and prepare for the wedding. I’ll be in
touch. There will be a press release issued next week. You might want to let your brother know the happy news before that happens.’

The following morning at work Samia finally found five minutes to steal away somewhere private and look at the tabloid she’d furtively bought on her way to the library. She held her breath as she took in the full glory of the lurid photo. She looked like a rabbit startled in the headlights, her eyes huge and her hair wild. And that suit! She could hear her stepmother’s derisive voice in her head right now, exclaiming over Samia’s general incompetence. She could have wept. Sadiq loomed behind her with a stern look on his gorgeous face, like an avenging dark angel, big hands on her waist making it look tiny. She looked more like an ill-dressed PA to the Sultan rather than his fiancée.

Fiancée.
Her stomach churned as she crumpled up the offending paper. She’d left the engagement ring at home that morning and her skin prickled, as if somehow he would know and pop out from behind a corner to chastise her. She still couldn’t really believe it, but a long conversation with her brother the previous night, and his palpable relief that they would have Al-Omar’s cooperation, had helped reality sink in. It only eased her discomfort slightly.

The disturbing sense of equanimity that had washed over her when she’d said yes to Sadiq’s proposal had long disappeared. It would be the wedding of the decade, and she would be annihilated when people realised she was nothing like his long line of mistresses. Not to mention the other aspects of their marriage—like the physical one. Samia felt a dart of despair. She was so far out of Sadiq’s league in that respect that she fully expected he would have to take a mistress to stay satisfied.

The really galling thing was that she was as innocent and
pure as the virgin brides rulers like Sadiq would have expected for millenia. She’d had a bad experience in college when a boy who had been pursuing her had become very pushy after a couple of dates. Samia had turned his advances down and he’d stormed off, saying,
‘I was only trying to get you into bed for a dare anyway, because of who you are, but I’m glad I didn’t! Life is too short! ‘

She’d repressed any hint of sexuality since then, not wanting to invite any cruel criticism or attention. Diverting her mind from the painful memory, she thought back to the phone call she’d received from Sadiq early that morning, just before she’d left for work.

‘I’ve set up an appointment with a personal shopper this weekend. You’ll need a trousseau. And wedding outfits. The festivities alone will last three days.’

Samia had sat down on the chair beside the phone, the future yawning open before her and looking scarier and scarier. ‘Does it have to be three days? Why can’t we just get married here in a civil ceremony with a couple of witnesses?’

He’d chuckled darkly and it had made Samia want to hit him. ‘Because I’m a sultan and you’re a princess about to become a queen, that’s why. Also,’ he’d continued briskly, ‘you need to be protected. As of this morning you’ll have two bodyguards, and you will be transported to and from work in one of my cars. The news may not be public yet, but enough people know, or suspect something.’

Samia’s sense of personal freedom was disappearing fast, like an elusive shimmering oasis in the desert. ‘But—’ She’d started to protest, but had been cut off.

‘That’s non-negotiable. As of this moment you are under my protection. It’s simply too dangerous for you to proceed as you have done. You’re about to be married to one of the biggest fortunes in the world, not to mention the fact that
you can also lay claim to one of the world’s last remaining untapped oil bounties.’

At least, thought Samia with a hint of hysteria, she didn’t have to worry that Sadiq was marrying her for her money! Any lingering sense of anonymity was a delicate thread about to break for ever.

Five days later

Sadiq was in the waiting area of one of the private dressing suites in London’s most exclusive department store. Samia had been spirited away to somewhere within the labyrinthine rooms to be fitted out in a range of designer outfits, while he was waited upon hand and foot by a veritable army of beautiful women, all of whom were making their interest glaringly obvious.

The latest blonde offered him an array of newspapers and he picked one. She lingered far too long, causing Sadiq to bid her a curt thank-you. Once, not so long ago, he would have looked and decided if she was worth bedding. But not today, and never again.

That thought didn’t fill him with the claustrophobia he might have expected. He had to admit that his resolve to stay faithful wasn’t entirely down to the fact that he was about to be married but because curiosity and desire just weren’t there.

He hadn’t seen Samia again until he’d picked her up that morning. He’d told himself that he had to come with her because, after seeing her wardrobe, he couldn’t trust that she would pick appropriate outfits. He conveniently ignored the fact that she’d been assigned a stylist with plenty of experience.

Samia had been waiting outside her apartment building, her hair tied back and looking pale and haunted in faded
jeans, a light long-sleeved top and jacket. More unadorned than the servants who worked for him at the Hussein castle in B’harani. He’d had to quell irritation and also the disturbing flare of desire. Her jeans clung lovingly to slim legs and a pertly plump bottom. And the thin material of her top showed him again that her breasts were well shaped and more generous than he’d first assumed.

He’d reassured himself that his burgeoning desire for his fiancée was purely his head instructing his body to feel something for the only woman he would sleep with ever again, but the anticipation firing up his blood made a mockery of that assertion.

When he’d formally asked Samia to marry him after their dinner, he’d been overcome with a sense of desperation that she should agree—the first time he’d felt anything like it. or the first time in a long time. And he hadn’t welcomed it.

A curious sense of fear tightened his body now, as he heard the whisper of movement which meant his fiancée was returning to parade the first of her outfits for his pleasure. He’d decided that Princess Samia would make him a good, uncomplicated wife, and suddenly the road ahead seemed paved with complications he’d not accounted for.

Samia wanted to yank the silver sheath excuse for a dress up over her bust and down over her knees, but was too intimidated by the personal shopper who reminded her painfully of her stepmother. Looking her up and down while she’d stood there in her plain underwear, she’d muttered something like,
‘Well, there’s not much we can do. You ‘re too short for most of these dresses …’

Battling back trepidation at the thought of being paraded in front of Sadiq like a slave girl at an auction, Samia fixed her gaze forward, determined not to see the undoubtedly
disappointed expression on his face. She’d not even looked at herself in the numerous mirrors.

They emerged into the waiting room and Samia was aware of the big, powerful body lounging indolently on a cream sofa. Instantly her pulse quickened and that heat coiled low in her belly. She was teetering in sky-high heels and felt as unstable as a new foal on spindly legs.

Sadiq saw Samia emerge from behind a luxurious velvet curtain. He automatically raked her up and down with his eyes, as he had done with numerous women in the past—a reflex. This was usually an erotic prequel for their mutual pleasures later on. But never in his life had any of those women had this immediate an effect on him. So immediate and forcible that he had to angle his body in such a way as to disguise its rampant response.

Samia’s hair was still tied back in a bun at the nape of her neck. He’d had to curb his urge to ask her to take it down earlier, as if she were his mistress and she wasn’t pleasing him. Now she was avoiding his eye, and she was obviously excruciatingly embarrassed. He could see the telling red flush creep over her chest and up her neck and something inside him twisted.

But she was simply the most erotic vision he’d ever seen in his life. Far from his first impression of no curves, an almost boyish figure, she actually possessed the body of a houri. Without the boxy suits, jeans and unflattering top, she was all slender limbs and curves. He couldn’t take his eyes off the full line of her bosom, like some kind of out-of-control teenager. Her skin looked silky-soft and pale golden, and he could imagine the contrast between his skin and hers as their limbs entwined. The acute ache in his groin intensified.

His voice came, low and authoratitive. ‘Leave us for a moment, please.’

To his relief the stylist and her assistants melted away.

Privacy was something he’d never had to worry about before, having always managed to stay in control. It was as if some invisible barrier had existed between him and women before, keeping them at some kind of a distance, but here with Samia … there was no barrier … just heat.

The dress was totally inappropriate, but it revealed the intoxicating combination of Samia’s innocence and an earthy sexuality that she clearly had no clue she possessed. He didn’t expect for a moment that she wasn’t experienced, but he would bet right then that any lover she’d had hadn’t awoken her sensuality, and a fiercely primitive feeling swept through him.