she admitted.
‘Then take them off. Isn’t that what Cinderella is supposed to do?’
The words were faintly erotic and Ella opened her mouth to protest, but when she thought about it, why not? Loads of women shed their shoes at parties. Some even secreted a pair of pumps in their bag. She made as if to bend but before she could move Hassan was there before her, crouching down to slide off both her high heels with a dexterity which made her think he might have done that kind of thing before. Briefly, he ran a thumb across her cramped toes and they gave an appreciative little wriggle before he put them down to meet the delicious coolness of the marble floor.
He straightened up, his black eyes mocking as they looked at her. ‘Better?’
Ella nodded. Sure, her feet now felt comfortable and free, but stupidly she was missing his touch. Because hadn’t it felt like some kind of delicious intimacy to have the sheikh’s fingers on her toes? She forced a smile.
‘Much better,’ she said.
He handed her the shoes. ‘Are you heading back to the party?’
Hooking her fingers through the glittery slingbacks, she shook her head. She couldn’t possibly go back now, and not just because she had left the ballroom in such dramatic circumstances. She just couldn’t face any more of this wretched partying, supposedly celebrating an engagement which nobody seemed happy about. Except for the happy couple, presumably.
‘No. I think I’ll call it a night. I need to organise a car to get back to my hotel.’
‘I’ll walk you back to the main entrance.’
Ella’s heart raced as fear and desire fused into a molten ache at the base of her belly. It was something to do with the way he was looking at her, her sudden awareness of how close he was. Close enough for her to be able to inhale his distinctly masculine scent, just as he’d done on the dance floor. And to remember him sliding the shoes from her feet like some old-fashioned fairy tale, in reverse. Because wasn’t the prince supposed to put the shoe on? She felt the rapid thunder of her heart. ‘No, honestly. I’ll be fine.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘You know where you’re going, do you?’
For the first time she became aware of her surroundings, of the dim silence of the cool corridor, in a network of passageways which all seemed to look exactly the same. She suddenly realised that there were no sounds of revelry drifting towards them and that they must be miles away from the other guests. But then she’d run like the wind, hadn’t she? Running to escape him wearing too-high heels which explained her aching feet and why she now found herself in some unknown corner of a strange palace.
Should she brazen it out? Tell him that she’d find her own way back and she didn’t need his help, thank you very much? That would be the most sensible thing. To walk away with her pride intact, and with some sort of uneasy truce having been reached between them. ‘I’ll be fine.’
‘Are you sure? It’s a bit of a maze. And I’d hate to think of you wandering around in circles for hours.’
‘But a maze which you can negotiate with the ease of a born navigator, I suppose?’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘As it happens, I do have a superb sense of direction, but I also happen to know the palace well. I used to spend a lot of time here with Alex when we were children.’
Ella’s fingers tightened around the straps of her shoes. It was strange to imagine this towering man with the cruel face ever having been a child. Had he told her that to emphasise his own royal credentials, reinforcing the fact that her family were simply arriviste social climbers?
Yet as she met the mockery in his black eyes, she realised that maybe she should do the grown-up thing and accept his offer. The last thing she wanted was to spend hours walking around this cavernous place and wandering into some part of the palace which was out of bounds.
She need never see him again—except, presumably, at the wedding, when her sister would marry his friend. And surely it would be better to part on cordial terms, particularly after she’d thrown champagne all over him. In fact, it was surprising and rather reassuring that he seemed to have forgotten all about that.
This time her smile was wider, even if it didn’t feel exactly joyful. But then joy wasn’t a word you really associated with a man whose eyes were so hard and so black they looked as if they’d been made from some rare, cold stone. ‘In that case, yes, please. I wouldn’t mind being pointed in the right direction.’
Hassan allowed a brief smile to curve the edges of his lips. ‘Let’s go,’ he said softly, knowing instantly the route he was about to take.
They made no sound as they moved through the high-ceilinged passage, but Ella was so aware of him that she didn’t take in any of the spectacular surroundings. For once, the ornate decor was completely overshadowed by Hassan himself. Without the added inches of her heels, his height and his breadth were almost intimidating. Did he always dominate his surroundings and the people in them? she wondered.
His question broke into her muddled thoughts. ‘How long are you staying on the island?’
‘I’m flying back to London tomorrow.’
‘After lunch?’
Ella shrugged, dreading the thought of yet another formal meal while people looked down their noses at her and her family. She’d been hoping to escape and slip back to England straight after breakfast but from what she understood attendance at the lunch seemed to be mandatory. She was quickly learning that you weren’t allowed to say no to royals. ‘Yes.’
Hearing the note of heavy resignation in her voice, Hassan glanced down at her. She wasn’t doing anything he had expected her to do. He’d expected a little more gratitude that he’d forgiven her for her shocking display of temper, and the seductive removal of her shoes would usually have guaranteed that by now she’d be glancing up at him from beneath her lashes and flirting like crazy. But she was doing no such thing. Instead her gaze seemed fixed firmly ahead of her, like a runner who had their eyes on the finish line. Like someone longing to reach their destination.
Was she?
Or was she just trying to dampen down the desire which had been so apparent since they’d first set eyes on each other? He let his eyes linger on her body as she moved. The shimmer of her silver dress was enhancing her willowy frame and the thick gleam of her dark hair made him want to run his fingers through it. And somehow her bare toes, with their gleam of silver polish, were much sexier without the stilt-like shoes he’d just removed. He felt a renewed stab of lust.
‘So would you like a glass of champagne before you leave?’ he questioned. ‘Or is that just asking for trouble?’
‘Champagne?’ It was the hint of unexpected humour in his voice which made her waver, until she reminded herself of her dramatic exit from the ballroom. She stared up at him, her hair shimmying around her face. ‘But I don’t want to go back to the party.’
‘I know. But since we’re right by my own suite, I thought you might like to see it.’ His lips curved into a smile. ‘Especially as it happens to contain some fabulous paintings.’
It was ironic that he seemed unwittingly to have hit on the one thing designed to make her heart beat faster and yet Ella’s one feeling was one of disappointment. It seemed that all men were predictably similar, whether they were desert princes or hedge fund managers. ‘As in, “Come up and see my etchings,” I suppose?’ she questioned sarcastically. ‘Gosh, you really do need to take a refresher course when you’re trying to chat up a woman!’
‘I had no idea that I was dealing with such an expert in chat-up lines,’ he murmured. ‘Or perhaps you just don’t like beautiful paintings?’
She heard the subtle put-down. There was that judgement of his all over again. Did he think she was too common to appreciate anything of beauty, that a Jackson would only ever enjoy some mindless pap on TV, or flicking through