herself, striving to take a more positive view of her circumstances. If she got the chance to ask questions she might even meet someone who remembered her mother working at the palace. Of course, that could only lead to a very awkward exchange, she acknowledged reluctantly. Had her mother slept around? Had she been involved with more than one man? And how on earth was she supposed to find that out without seriously embarrassing herself and other people? For the first time, Ellie’s forecast that seeking out her father would be like looking for a needle in a haystack returned to haunt Polly and she resolved to keep her personal business strictly private until she was confident of her reception.
A military truck crammed with armed soldiers led the way out of the airport and Polly’s nervous tension increased as a big crowd of people surrounded the convoy when it slowed down to leave the complex. Faces pressed against the blacked-out windows, hands thumped noisily on the outside of the car and there was a great deal of shouting. Something akin to panic briefly gripped Polly’s slender frame and perspiration beaded her brow. She shut her eyes tightly and prayed while the car pulled away slowly and then mercifully speeded up.
The car drove down a modern thoroughfare lined with tall buildings and lots of people standing around, apparently there to stare at the car she was travelling in. There were masses of people everywhere and a surprising suggestion of a general holiday mood, she thought in surprise as people waved in a seemingly friendly and enthusiastic fashion as the convoy passed by.
They left the city of Kashan and the crowds behind to travel into a desert landscape empty of human habitation. Flat plains of sand ornamented with rocky outcrops stretched in every direction and in the distance she could see giant dunes. There was something about that view stretched taut below a bright blue sky and the burning sun that made her want to paint in a medium different from her usual dreamy pastels. Distracted, Polly blinked as the car purred through giant gates into a startlingly green and lush spread of gardens dotted with trees and shrubs and colourful flowers.
Ahead loomed a very old building that was topped by a variety of large and small domes and which spread in all directions in a haphazard design.
The door beside her opened and Polly eased back out into the simmering heat, her lightweight trousers and tee shirt instantly sticking to her dampening skin. It was incredibly hot. A single female figure stood beneath the huge entrance portico and as Polly approached she bowed very low and motioned a hand in silent request that she follow her.
Clearly, she wasn’t under arrest, Polly reflected with intense relief, her curiosity flying as high as her imagination as she entered the palace, but her anger at the fearful uncertainty she had endured remained. They padded down a very long and very broad hallway lined with ornately carved stone columns. Her sandals squeaked as she trekked after the woman into the depths of the great sprawling building. They traversed a shallow staircase and crossed a scantily furnished large room towards French windows that stood wide open.
Oh, dear, Polly thought in dismay, back to the horribly hot outdoors and the unforgiving burn of the midday sun.
She walked hesitantly out into a walled courtyard and her companion departed. Water gushed down into a fountain overhung by palm trees. The tiles on the ground formed an elaborate pattern faded by time. Polly moved straight into the shade by the fountain, desperate for the cooler air.
A young woman in a long fashionable dress appeared and dealt her a small tight smile, sweeping a hand helpfully at the table and two chairs sited in full sun. Suppressing a groan, Polly moved closer just as quick steps sounded from behind her. The young woman immediately dropped down onto her knees and bowed her head. Polly blinked in astonishment and slowly turned round.
A very tall man with blue-black hair and eyes as keen as a hawk’s surveyed her. The hunting analogy was apt, she conceded, because she felt cornered and intimidated. He emanated authority and danger like a force field. He was also, very probably, the best-looking man she had ever seen outside a modelling advert and she knew who he was, thanks to her Internet research on the country of Dharia. He was the recently crowned ruler of Dharia, King Rashad. She swallowed hard, thoroughly disconcerted and shaken that she was being granted a personal meeting with such an important individual.
Her mouth had run dry and she parted her lips, struggling to think of something to say but he got there before her.
‘I am Rashad, Miss Dixon. I would like to hear how the ring came into your possession.’
I am Rashad, she thought, as if there were only one Rashad in the whole world. And looking at him, she thought there might well only be one man quite like him in the Arab world, a remarkable man who had single-handedly united his country’s different factions to bring about peace and who was universally and quite slavishly adored for that commendable achievement.
‘The truth is...there’s not much I can explain,’ Polly admitted shakily, for the instant she connected with those striking dark brown eyes as luminescent as liquid gold in the sunlight she could barely breathe, never mind think and vocalise.
‘PLEASE SIT DOWN,’ Rashad urged in a harshened undertone because he was finding it a challenge to maintain his normal self-discipline.
An instantaneous lust to possess was flaming through his lean, powerful frame and the uniqueness of that experience in a woman’s radius thoroughly unsettled him. But then the woman in front of him was, admittedly, quite exceptional. Polly Dixon was blindingly beautiful with hair of that silvery white-blonde shade that so rarely survived childhood. Her wealth of hair fell in a loose tangle of waves halfway to her waist. Her skin was equally fair, moulded over a heart-shaped face brought alive by delft blue eyes and a sultry full pink mouth. She wasn’t very tall. In fact she was rather tiny in stature, Rashad acknowledged abstractedly, doubting that she would reach any higher than his chest, but the ripe curves of her figure at breast and hip were defiantly female and mature.
Polly gazed back at him, dry-mouthed with nervous tension. He had amazing cheekbones, a perfect narrow-bridged nose and a full wide sensual mouth enhanced by the dark shadow of stubble already visible on his bronzed skin. With difficulty she recollected her thoughts and spoke up. ‘I gather all this fuss is about the ring that I had in my bag,’ she assumed. ‘I’m afraid I know very little about it. It only recently came into my possession after my mother died and I think that she had had it for a long time—’
Rashad’s sister-in-law, Hayat, brought tea to the table, acting as a discreet chaperone and stepping back out of view.
‘What was your mother’s name?’ Rashad enquired, watching Polly lick a drop of mint tea off her lower lip and imagining that tiny pink tongue flicking against his own flesh with such driving and colourful immediacy that he was glad of the table that concealed the all too masculine swelling at his groin.
Polly was starting to feel incredibly tired as well as desperately thirsty and she sipped constantly at the tea, wishing that it were cold enough to gulp down. ‘Annabel Dixon,’ she admitted heavily. ‘But I don’t see what that—’
Rashad had frozen into position. Lush black lashes swooped down to hide his eyes and then skimmed upward again to frame startled gold chips of enquiry, his surprise unconcealed. ‘When I was a child I had a nanny called Annabel Dixon,’ he revealed flatly. ‘Are you saying that that woman was your mother?’
‘Yes...but I know very little about her and nothing at all about her time here in Dharia because I was brought up by my grandmother, not by my mother,’ Polly told him grudgingly while marvelling at the idea that her mother had looked after Rashad as a little boy. ‘Why is the ring so important?’
‘It is the ceremonial ring of the Kings of Dharia, a symbol of their right to rule,’ Rashad explained. ‘It has great emotional significance for my people. The ring went missing over twenty-five years ago when my family died and the dictator Arak staged a coup to take power here. Who is your father?’
Polly stiffened at his question. A headache was forming behind her brow and she was wishing she had access to the