The Sheikh's Seduction. Emma Darcy

all very well for you, sitting in your control box.”

      He laughed, his eyes dancing, teasing, enjoying his control. “Are you a virgin, Sarah?”

      “That’s none of your business!” she cried, futilely willing the rush of hot blood to her face to recede.

      “Just curious. You’re so uptight...”

      “There’ve been plenty of men interested in me.”

      “Was the interest returned?”

      She thought of the “precious” young men her mother had lined up as “catches” for her before she’d left London. Compared to Tareq al-Khaima they were bloodless boys. She was swimming with a shark in these waters. Which raised the question of how many willing women he’d gobbled up along the way.

      “Let’s talk about you,” she said defiantly.

      “By all means. What do you want to know?”

      “No doubt you’ve had quite a love-life.”

      “A little correction there. I don’t think love has ever entered into it. Desire, certainly. Satisfaction, yes. Mutual pleasure definitely attained...”

      “All right!” she cut him off, disturbed by the images running through her mind. “Let’s say sex-life.”

      “Ah, yes. Well, I can’t deny having had considerable experience.”

      The smile lurking on his mouth was tauntingly sensual. Sarah could feel her blood heating up again. She had no difficulty in believing he was a very sexy man when he put his mind to it. If he put his mind to it with her...but it would be madness to succumb even if she did wonder what it might be like with him. Where could it lead? He was a sheikh, tied to a culture that was very foreign to her.

      “Won’t it put other women off, having me tagging along with you everywhere?” she commented archly, wondering if he’d looked down the track to see the consequences of his decision.

      “Not at all. You’d be surprised,” he said cynically. He was right. Even marriages didn’t stop some people from going after what they wanted.

      “What about your family? It could give them the wrong impression.”

      His mouth curled with some private satisfaction. “They will think what I tell them to think. Where my family is concerned, it suits me very well to have you with me, Sarah.”

      His ruthless streak was showing again. This time it piqued her curiosity. “Why?” she asked, wondering if he was at odds with them.

      He weighed the question, his eyes regarding her speculatively. Eventually he said, “My background is similar to yours...a broken marriage, my mother returning to England, the agreement that I be educated there at Eton and Oxford. It got me out of the way for my father’s second wife and the family they had together.”

      No wonder he had been sympathetic to the child she had been, cut adrift between two worlds and not really belonging to either. He really had understood and possibly empathised with her sense of apartness, her loneliness, the feeling of being a shuttlecock in an adult game that sought only personal gratification.

      “The difference is...the complication is...I’m my father’s eldest son, despite my mixed heritage,” he said sardonically. “The sheikhdom had to pass to me when he died.”

      “Did you want it?”

      A flash of ruthless possessiveness in his eyes. “I was entitled to it.”

      And no one was going to take that away from him, Sarah interpreted.

      “Though the truth is...I am not in tune with my people. For years now, my uncle has ruled in my absence while I maintain a diplomatic role. It has suited us both very well. But circumstances change. My oldest half-brother will soon marry the daughter of a very powerful family. Ahmed and Aisha make a formidable coupling. If they work against me, it could stir some political instability. My uncle is pressing for me to marry a woman of his choice to cement my position.”

      Sarah inwardly recoiled against the concept of an arranged marriage although she knew it was done and accepted in eastern cultures. For Tareq, it would seem the most sensible decision to make.

      “You don’t want that?” she queried.

      A flash of steely pride. “No one dictates my life anymore, Sarah.”

      She could well believe it!

      “Naturally I will be attending my half-brother’s wedding. And you’ll be with me. It neatly disposes of any machinations my uncle might have in mind.”

      So Tareq had a purpose for her. Sarah could see it was very convenient for him to have a woman on tap who’d agreed to stay with him for a year. No possibility of a refusal to accompany him. No running away, no matter how sticky the situation.