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 shook his head and gave a gentle smile. ‘No, I am not. I find your attitude quite charming, if you must know. How old are you, by the way?’
Would he think her too young? Too young for what, Sienna? ‘Nearly twenty.’
But he smiled. ‘Only nearly?’ he teased.
‘Now you,’ she said. ‘What on earth do sheikhs do?’
His mouth twitched. She really was irresistible. ‘Sometimes I ask myself the very same question. Mainly, they rule a country, and that involves much fighting and the quest for power—but they also oversee oil exports, which is why I am here.’ And they are surrounded by a wealth that most people couldn’t begin to comprehend. Especially not her.
Sienna crumbled a piece of unwanted bread. ‘So where’s home?’
For a moment he said nothing, and then gave an odd kind of smile. ‘Qudamah is my home—but I come from a race of nomadic people.’ His black eyes glittered. ‘We do not settle easily.’
If she had been older she would have recognised that he was defining boundaries—but as it was his romantic words simply fired up her already overworking imagination.
Later, in the darkened limousine, his hard thigh brushed against hers and Sienna could hardly breathe. But there was no kiss, merely the request—no, the demand that he see her again.
It all happened so fast—Hashim’s life slipped into a different timescale and he found himself experiencing something which was unknown to him: a tumult of feelings which he was too seasoned and too cynical to call love. Yet his ancestors had been poets and sages, as well as warriors, and he was prepared to acknowledge that somehow Sienna touched a part of him which had before gone neglected. It was as if her innocence and her beauty had begun a slow melt of something he had not known was frozen.
Maybe it was his heart.
She trembled when he kissed her, and he could feel the tension of both eagerness and fear when he took her in his arms. It seemed unbelievable—given her age and her liberal Western upbringing—but something told him that his instinct was correct.
One evening his eyes burned into her as he stared down into her flushed face. ‘You are innocent of men?’ he demanded.
‘Yes,’ she admitted in a low voice, wondering if that admission would drive him away from her. ‘Yes, I am.’
‘Innocent virgin,’ he moaned as he kissed her. ‘My innocent virgin.’
Of course that changed everything. The knowledge of her purity filled him with delight, but there was also the certainty that he now bore a heavy responsibility towards her. For a man whose life had been burdened with responsibility, it was another he could have done without—and yet he found himself embracing it.
He saw her whenever he could, wondering if the frequency of their meetings would remove some of the magic, but the magic remained. He had spent his life avoiding any kind of commitment, yet now he saw that as a deficiency, not a blessing.
He took her to discreet restaurants and she showed him the hidden, secret places of the city. She made him feel alive. Never before had sex been denied him, but this was a self-imposed restraint, and he discovered that doing without something you really wanted could be unbearably erotic.
And yet her innocence made her suitable. Eminently suitable. Of course many bridges must first be crossed, and the first of those would be to introduce her to his family. But without pressure on either side. On neutral territory.
‘How would you like to accompany me to a wedding, sweet Sienna?’ he asked her one afternoon, looping his arms around her waist.
Sienna looked up into his black eyes. ‘Whose? Where? When?’
‘My cousin’s,’ he murmured. ‘In the South of France, next month. My mother and sisters will be there.’ He glittered a smile at her. ‘Will you come as my guest?’
Sienna knew that this was important. A statement. An indication that things were getting serious. She gave him a slow smile of delight. ‘I’d love to,’ she said simply.
Hashim spoke to one of his aides. ‘Will you arrange it, please?’
‘But, Your Highness, you are quite sure?’
Hashim frowned. He would not be dictated to! The history of his country was studded with examples of sheikhs who had taken commoners as wives...
But a couple of days later there was a rap on the door when he was working in his study, and Hashim looked up to see the Arctic dark eyes of his equerry, who was carrying what looked like a glossy magazine between his fingers, as if it was contaminated.
‘Yes, what is it, Abdul-Aziz?’ he demanded imperiously. ‘I am going out shortly.’
His equerry’s face was grim. ‘Before you do, Your Highness, there is something I must draw your attention to.’
For the umpteenth time, Sienna raked her hands back through her hair—fizzing over with a mixture of excitement and nerves.
Hashim was sending a car for her and they were having dinner at the Granchester Hotel, where he was staying.
She was still reeling from his invitation to the family wedding—so excited at the prospect of going public with him that she hadn’t had time to worry about what she was going to say to his mother.
She would just be herself, without artifice or airs, for that was who Hashim liked her to be. She gave herself a little shiver of excitement as she walked up the imposing marble stairs of the Granchester Hotel.
But Hashim was not there to greet her, and neither were any of his staff. Not even the hatchet-faced Abdul-Aziz. Instead, she got a message delivered with a rather knowing look from the receptionist as she was directed up to his suite.
It