The Sheikh's Blackmailed Mistress. PENNY JORDAN

course he didn’t want to acknowledge her. He was the Ruler of an Arab state and she was a nobody—less than a nobody in his estimation, no doubt. What he had taken from her he had taken as carelessly as he might have plucked a fig from a tree, biting into it in his desire to enjoy its sweetness and then discarding it, his enjoyment of it over and forgotten.

      The robed serving staff provided by the Ruler of Zuran were coming round in pairs, one carrying a tray of coffee cups, the other a tray of coffee and small sweet pastries.

      Up above them on the dais, the Ruler of Dhurahn was also being served with coffee. Sam watched as the sleeve of the gold-embroidered black robe he was wearing over an immaculate crisp white full-length Arab shirt was swept back, to reveal a lean brown hand and a muscular forearm. Beads of sweat pierced her forehead and her upper lip. She felt sick and shaky. It was because she hadn’t eaten any breakfast, she tried to reassure herself. But she knew deep down that wasn’t the reason at all.

      ‘We’ll see a bit more action now that he’s here,’ James told her, helping himself to several of the small pastries with relish. ‘Word has it that he’s got his own reasons for being here, and that he’s the kind to make sure he gets what he wants.’

      Yes, he was very definitely that kind, Sam agreed mentally. And if he had wanted her…Stop that, she warned herself. Whatever foolish fantasies she might have entertained before—and they had been foolish—there could be no question of her continuing to entertain them now that she knew who he was.

      He was standing up to speak, addressing them in unaccented crisply clear English as he reaffirmed what the cartographers amongst the team had already been told: namely, that the purpose of the exercise in which they ere involved was not either to reassess or challenge the validity of already existing borders but to study the effect of the desert itself on those borders.

      ‘Curious that he seems so keen to warn us that we aren’t to question the existing borders, don’t you think?’ James asked Sam sotto voce, under cover of eating yet another pastry.

      ‘Not really,’ Sam denied. ‘After all, we were told right from the start why we are here and all he’s doing is reaffirming that.’

      She didn’t want to have to listen to James, and she certainly didn’t want him obstructing her view of the Prince And yet what was the point in her pathetic and painful desire to watch and listen to him, like an obsessed teenager fantasising about some out-of-reach pop idol?

      Sheikh Sadir was now announcing that they were all to be presented to the Ruler of Dhurahn. Obediently everyone was shuffling out of their chairs to form a long line, going up to the dais being introduced.

      ‘Here—hold this for me a minute, will you?’

      Before she could stop him James had thrust the sticky crumb-filled plate from which he had been eating his pastries towards her, before standing up and leaving her holding it.

      Sam looked yearningly towards the rear exit to the tent. She was closer to it than she was to the dais. It would be easy enough for her to slip away and avoid the formal introduction. But of course it was impossible for her to do that. Apart from anything else it would be a grave breach of protocol, and indeed almost an insult to the Ruler.

      She looked with distaste at the plate she was still clutching and then, feeling a bit guilty, bent down to slip it beneath the nearest chair before filing into the queue behind James.

      It would be her turn next. So far Sam had managed successfully to avoid looking directly at the new Ruler, but that hadn’t stopped her heart thumping as heavily as though someone were wielding it like a sledgehammer, and now her palms were clammy with nervous perspiration. She was uncomfortably conscious of her bare shoulders and her casual attire. Would he think she had chosen to dress like this deliberately, as some kind of statement, or even worse in an attempt to lay claim to some kind of privileged status?

      James was bowing his head. Sam heard him laugh, and then to her horror he turned to her and announced cheerfully,’ If you’ll take my advice, Prince, you’ll keep an eye on my fellow cartographer here. She’s already been checking up on the source of your river. The next thing you know she’ll probably be challenging your borders as well. Trust a woman to want to meddle, eh?’

      Sam could feel herself shaking with a mixture of disbelief and furious outrage at James’s wholly unprofessional and untruthful allegations. With a few supposedly casual words he had painted a picture of her for the man who was now in charge of their venture that could only mark her out as a troublemaker, determined to ignore the guidelines they had been given from the start—guidelines which the man now staring very hard and very coldly at her had only just repeated.

      The words That’s not true hovered on her tongue, only to be choked back. Any kind of protest or argument from her now would only make her position worse.

      Ignoring James, she made a determinedly low obeisance to the Prince and said quietly, ‘Highness, I am aware, of course, of the purpose of our being here, and I thank you and the other Rulers for granting us the opportunity to work here. It is a unique opportunity and a privilege to be permitted to learn something of the mystery of the desert.’

      Without waiting to see what kind of reaction her words were receiving Sam backed away, waiting until her place in front of the Ruler of Dhurahn had been taken by someone else before straightening up ready to turn round. But before she did so she couldn’t prevent her gaze from seeking his. She wanted to look at him as the woman she had been in the hotel corridor, and him to be the man who had looked back at her with such fierce, sensual hunger.