Michelle Reid - Michelle Reid Collection

Tilting her head back so she could see who it was over the brim of her hat, she found herself looking through a bank of moisture into the lean dark face of Sheikh Raschid Al Kadah. And her heart turned over.

He was smiling down at her, the wonderful shape of his sensual mouth tilted wryly at one corner. But his eyes were sombre, their warm, dark liquid-gold depths burning with a grave kind of understanding that had her sighing as she tilted her head forward again to watch the final few stragglers drift away.

‘You look beautiful,’ he murmured to her gently. ‘But inconsolably sad.’

‘I think I want to run away and never be found again,’ she confided. ‘Do you think my mother may notice if I did?’

‘No,’ he honestly replied. ‘But I would.’

Despite her heavy mood, a smile tilted the corners of her red-painted mouth. ‘That’s because you fancy the hell out of me,’ she countered. ‘Whereas my mother doesn’t fancy me at all—especially as a daughter.’

‘Then she has no taste.’

‘Gosh,’ Evie gasped. ‘I wonder if she knows that?’

‘Would you like me to tell her?’ he kindly offered.

‘No. What I would like you to do, Sheikh Raschid,’ she sighed out wistfully, ‘is gather me up on your white charger and take me away from all of this.’

‘Right now?’ A pair of long-fingered, beautifully shaped brown hands slid around her narrow waist to turn her to face him. His eyes were still sombre despite the light banter they were exchanging. ‘Just say the word, and I will carry you off to my palace in the desert and keep you locked away there for ever.’

‘A fate worse than death,’ she pouted. ‘You have hor rible dungeons there with no windows to look out of. I know,’ she disclosed sagely. ‘Because you told me.’

‘I have beautiful rooms too,’ he declared. ‘Which overlook exquisite gardens that cost me an absolute fortune to irrigate. You may have one of those rooms,’ he offered benevolently. ‘Where I will visit you every day to ply you with priceless gifts and incomparable compliments.’

‘May I move around your desert palace freely?’ she asked.

He shook his covered head. ‘You will be my prisoner,’ he explained. ‘With guards posted at the door to make sure you don’t stray.’

‘What if I fancy one of your guards for a bit of light diversion?’

‘They would all be eunuchs,’ he came back blandly. ‘The kind of light diversion you are referring to will make them of no use to you.’

‘I don’t want to go, then,’ Evie decided. ‘I’ll be more miserable there than I am here.’

‘That’s my girl,’ Raschid softly commended, drawing her even closer to that lean, tight body hiding behind the flowing robes. ‘Counting your blessings is always the wiser course in situations like these.’

She laughed. He smiled, the smile reaching his eyes now that he had managed to banish the sadness from hers. And, dipping his head beneath the brim of her hat, he kissed her.

They were by now completely alone beneath the wedding canopy, so Evie didn’t really need to pull away quite as quickly as she did. Their mouths had barely warmed in welcome to each other before she was carefully separating them and placing some much needed distance between their clinging bodies.

‘Are you trying to seduce me in broad daylight, Sheikh?’ she demanded mock sternly in an attempt to soften her rejection of him.

But Raschid refused to play the game. ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘I was trying to demonstrate how deeply I care for you.’

‘What—here?’ Evie mocked that also, but this time the mockery was ever so slightly spiked. ‘In front of a Christian altar—what will your God say? Or did the tent above your head make you forget where you were for a moment?’

‘My God is the same God as your God, Evie,’ he answered very grimly.

‘Well, just in case you’re wrong, I’m off, before we get struck down by a bolt of lightning or something,’ she said, clinging to her bantering tone despite his much—much graver one. ‘I’ll see you later—’

‘Evie.’

She had already turned her back on him when he said her name like that, making her go still as the muscles around her heart gave a painful pinch.

Raschid wasn’t stupid, she knew that. Those all-seeing liquid-gold eyes of his had caught the haunted look in her own eyes before she’d turned away.

‘What?’ she prompted warily.

There was a moment’s complete silence from behind her that trickled down her rigid spine like a warning. And she closed her eyes, mouth gone dry, heart still pinching in protest at what she was struggling to keep bottled up inside her today.

‘What’s wrong?’ ‘Nothing,’ she denied.

‘The same “nothing” that has made you as elusive as a rare butterfly for the last few weeks?’ he grimly suggested.

‘You’ve been busy. I’ve been busy,’ she murmured defensively.

‘You’ve been hiding,’ he corrected. ‘And you are still hiding.’

‘I just need to get through this day with my dignity intact, that’s all,’ she sighed.

‘And you think that my kissing you here diminishes that dignity?’ He sounded cold all of a sudden—as haughty as hell. Which was a bad sign. For Raschid a bruised ego always—always made him insufferably arrogant.

‘I did warn you not to come,’ she reminded him.

‘And because I refuse to hide like you I am to be punished, is that it?’

Put like that, he had a right to sound offended, Evie wearily acknowledged. ‘You’re a man,’ she said dryly. ‘Bedding one of England’s most eligible females only adds to your standing, whereas I get called a cheap little slut.’

‘The woman in the awful lilac dress!’ Raschid recognised instantly. ‘The words match her sour expression.’

Despite her heavy mood, Evie couldn’t resist smiling at his caustic description of dear Great-Aunt Celia. ‘To be fair,’ she twisted around to say to him, ‘she did call you a womanising barbarian.’

A sleek, superbly drawn black eyebrow arched in enquiry. ‘And you agree with her?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she admitted. ‘But then,’ she added softly, ‘I like you barbaric.’

The darkening look in his eyes set her stomach fluttering.

‘I have to go,’ she murmured, turning away what that fluttering sensation was tempting.

‘More evasion?’

‘I’ll see you later,’ was all she replied, and walked gracefully away.

Stepping out from beneath the sultry-aired canopy was like stepping into another world. The sun was bright, the air crystal-clear, and the sights and sounds of celebration were everywhere.

The bridal party was posing for photographers in front of a perfectly placed beech tree that looked as if it had been standing there for at least a thousand years. All about them their guests stood around in small groups watching them. A small army of white-jacketed waiters wove in and out with silver trays laden with fluted champagne glasses, trying to avoid the children who were running about like swirling dervishes and letting off steam.

The band was still playing, and it seemed odd to Evie that she hadn’t heard a single note while she had been with Raschid.

But then, Raschid had that kind of effect on her. When he was there her world began and ended with him alone. Which was why this other world out here felt so very strange and alien.

Julian caught sight of her and called out, then waved his hand in an imperious command for her to come and join them. Evie nodded her head in acknowledgement but took her time making her way over there. Her brother didn’t know it, but she had no intention of appearing with them on any photograph.

So she stopped a waiter to collect a champagne glass, paused then to chat lightly to the first group of people she came to. Saw, from the corner of her eye, her brother’s attention become claimed by more pressing duties that made him forget all about her, and kept her social smile fixed firmly in place as she wandered from group to group—the only group she carefully avoided being the Arab contingent.