another before slamming her with that sob story, the glimpse into the vulnerability she hadn’t believed existed. As his coup de grâce, he’d trained stirred and shaken eyes on her, and she’d melted in his arms. Literally. Anyone could have walked in on them and seen her wrapped around him and in the throes of orgasm.
Rashid Aal Munsoori had.
And Haidar had dared to say absolutely no harm done!
It didn’t matter that he had been trying to reassure her that the incident wouldn’t cost her her reputation and position. It didn’t matter that she had seen Rashid twice since then, and he’d treated her with utmost respect and decorum, without a trace of knowing in his eyes. It didn’t matter that there did seem to be no harm done whatsoever.
She still wanted to do Haidar some serious harm.
He’d probably encourage her to. And love every second.
Well, she’d get the chance to oblige him in an hour’s time.
She was heading to his house. His turf. And on his terms.
He had managed to make it an official summons, too.
But at least she was one of many. A whole delegation had been summoned to said turf to discuss what she regretfully admitted were relevant and pressing matters.
He had been laying much-needed groundwork in the past week, dealing with so much. And to her surprise, he was working, if indirectly, with both Rashid and Jalal to manage the oil spill. The three of them, each with his specific powers and strategies, and with their considerable connections, had surrounded the problem from all sides and were well on the way to resolving it.
She’d joked to her team this morning that the plan to save Azmahar should have three kings playing musical thrones.
He’d summoned the five men that he referred to as his “cabinet” to discuss some of the other serious economic and diplomatic problems. She was to act as analytical statistician of the meeting with Sheikh Al-Qadi. Her job, really.
Not that that made her feel any less … violent toward Haidar. In fact, it inflamed her more that he was having her walk into his lair under a pretext to which she could have no valid objection.
She exhaled, cursed the heavy, liquid throb of arousal that was her perpetual state now. That he managed to keep her in it by remote control was the height of injustice.
Why couldn’t she feel this way about someone … human?
Resigned that he had her hormonal number, she turned her eyes to the scenery rushing by the window of the limo he’d insisted on sending her.
Suddenly, the terrain changed, from flat desert to a stunning system of dunes that undulated down to an incredible stretch of red-gold shore. It curved into a bay ending in an arm of land that almost touched an oasis of an island. Between the dunes and the shore lay an estate spread with palm and olive trees. Nestled in its heart was a house.
As the car descended on a winding path from the main road, the house came into clearer and clearer detail. It was … amazing. As pliant as a tent that would billow in the warm, dry winds. As fluid as a ship that would sail down the pier that extended from its enfolding terrace, sail away into the sea. It lay like a graceful hybrid among the sublimely landscaped and the divinely natural, adorned with a mile of emerald and aquamarine liquid.
She sat up, heart hammering, mouth drying.
The sheer beauty of it all, enhanced by the perfection of a golden sunset, soaked into her senses, wrenched at every one with a power that left her gasping with its force, its … futility.
So this was Haidar’s home in Azmahar. A home he’d one day share with the woman he’d choose. The family he’d make.
This was also the home he’d asked her to come to last week. In her case, “home” had been only a figure of speech.
She’d always known that. Even when she’d been deluded that he’d felt something genuine for her, Haidar and home had been two words she’d known would never belong together.
They’d always met on impersonal ground, arrived separately, left the same way. How ironic was it that this time, he’d invited her to a personal place for impersonal business?
She blinked back the pointless disappointments as the car passed through electronic, twenty-foot, wrought-iron gates, wound up a cobblestone driveway and approached the architectural work of art from the back. The grounds were so extensive that it took almost ten minutes to come to a stop by the thirty-foot-wide stone steps that led to the entrance patio.
She thanked the driver, got out of the car before he could open the door for her, stiffened her back and resolve as she climbed the stairs. She wasn’t waiting for anyone, starting with Haidar, to receive her or wait on her. She was here for business, would conclude it and leave.
She tried not to notice more about the place. She might have achieved that—had she been carried in unconscious. As it was, she absorbed every detail as she reached a wraparound terrace from which every aspect of the magnificent property could be seen.
The double doors of the house were open. No one was around. Seemed Haidar still didn’t believe in having people around.
She stepped into the house, and air squeezed out of her lungs.
Like the exterior, the interior married the unexpected in a seamless blend, old Arabia concepts with innovative themes, producing something unprecedented. Everything had been chosen with an eye for the comfort of both body and soul, blending sweeping lines and spaces with bold wall colors and honey-colored ceilings. Curved windows and doorways coalesced with sand-colored marble floors accentuated by vivid mosaic. Furniture both functional and artistic offset wide-open seascapes. A place of contrasts, from the sublimely relaxing to the vibrant and exotic, an oasis of the best nature and man had been able to produce.
And that was just what she could see of the foyer and sitting area. She didn’t want to know what … other rooms looked like.
“I named this placed Al Saherah.”
His voice hit her dead center in her heart.
Al Saherah. The Bewitching. The Sorceress.
She turned, found him filling an archway leading to another part of the house. All in white, a fallen angel masquerading as one of the good guys. Big, vital, painfully beautiful.
It was he who was saher.
She swallowed the ache the sight of him always struck in her heart. “This place is magical.”
He walked toward her, as majestic and potentially lethal as the feline he’d been named for. “But I’m thinking of adjusting the name to Al Naar Al Saherah. Or Al Saherah Al Nareyah. To describe its flesh-and-blood personification.”
Bewitching Fire. Or the Fiery Sorceress.
Her hand rose involuntarily to her hair. When had he learned to talk like that? Wasn’t it enough that he drove anyone with double-X chromosomes insane with lust just by existing? He’d picked up the deadly power of verbal seduction, too? Talk about overkill.
Declining to comment on this salvo of mind-messing flirtation, she cleared her throat. “So where is everyone convened?”
“We met in this awesome inside garden that has the most amazing aqueduct system running through it. Let me show you.” He grabbed her hand, tugged her behind him, his grin gleeful like a boy unable to wait to show off a discovery.
She hurried to keep up with him, blinking at his enthusiasm, at the adjectives and intensifiers.
Strange. She’d thought he was too jaded to appreciate material beauty. Or at least that he would be so used to this place, he wouldn’t even see its wonders anymore.
As they passed another sitting area, he turned to her. “I fell for this place at first sight.”
So. He fell for