Emma Darcy: Traded To The Sheikh

Emily argued to herself that although she might feel caught up in a scene from The Arabian Nights, it couldn’t be true, not in today’s world. Even Heba was now using a very modern slimline mobile phone, undoubtedly reporting the state of play.

This forcing her to wear the belly-dancing costume had to be a pressure tactic, wanting her to feel more exposed, more vulnerable in the next interview about her activities. It couldn’t have anything to do with a sexual trade-off. Not really.

Two security guards and a bearded man whom they clearly regarded as a higher authority arrived to escort her elsewhere. The women’s quarters were on the second floor. Emily expected to be taken all the way down to the opulent atrium but she was led to a door on the first floor, which instantly evoked a wild wave of apprehension. At least the hugely open atrium had been like a public arena, overlooked by anyone on the ground or upper floors. She hoped, quite desperately, that some kind of official office was behind this door.

It wasn’t.

The bearded man ushered her into what was undoubtedly a private sitting room, richly furnished and sensually seductive with its many cushioned couches surrounding a low circular table which held a tempting display of food and drink. It was occupied by only one person who instantly proceeded to dismiss her usher.

‘Thank you, Abdul.’

The bearded man backed out of the room and closed the door, leaving Emily absolutely alone with a sheikh who apparently believed the only law that had to be respected was his own!

He strolled forward, intent on gaining an unencumbered view of her from head to foot—front view, side view and back view—in the costume he’d chosen for her to wear. Emily gritted her teeth and stood as still as a statue, determined not to betray her inner quaking and hoping that with her head held high, she looked as though she disdained any interpretation he took from how well the skirt and bra fitted her.

He moved behind her. Her spine crawled with an awareness of how close he was. Within an arm’s reach. And he did not move on. His out-of-sight stillness played havoc with her pulse, making her temples throb with acute anxiety. What was he doing? What was he thinking? Was she imagining it or had he touched her hair, sliding fingers around a tress, lifting it away from the rest?

‘You must fetch a very high price…as a dancer.’

The comment was spoken slowly, consideringly, his voice thick with a sensuality that raised goose-bumps all over her skin.

Emily swallowed hard to work some moisture into a very dry mouth. Her inner agitation had bolted beyond any control. Remaining still was beyond her. She swung around, catching sight of a swathe of her hair sliding out between the thumb and fingers of a hand that had been raised to his mouth. Or nose. The idea of him taking the intimate liberty of tasting it, smelling it, created total havoc in Emily’s mind.

‘You’re making a big mistake about me,’ she cried, struggling to find some defence to how he was making her feel.

‘That was meant as a compliment, Miss Ross,’ he answered, his mouth still curved in a look of sensual pleasure. ‘There is no need for you to bristle.’

He didn’t have the right to touch her without her permission. Emily wanted to say so but she sensed he would only laugh at the objection. Right now he had the power to do anything he wanted with her. All she could do was try to change his view of who and what she was.

‘It sounded as though you thought I was a…a call-girl,’ she protested.

His smile tilted with irony. ‘I think it more a case of your choosing whom you’ll take as a lover…as it suits you.’

Emily wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that, either. She had the weird sensation of being silently enticed to choose him as her next lover. Or was he setting a test—a trap—for her?

‘Come—’ he waved her forward to one of the couches close to the circular table ‘—you must be hungry after the rigours of your escape from Jacques Arnault.’

Her stomach was empty—so empty it kept convulsing with nervous energy. ‘Does this mean you believe I was escaping from him and not involved in the drug-running?’ she asked, not yet ready to take a step in any direction.

He swept her an open-handed, graceful gesture. ‘Until we reach a time and place of complete enlightenment, I would prefer you to consider yourself more my guest than my prisoner.’

‘You mean you are actually checking me out,’ Emily pursued the point, hoping for some sense of relief from his false assumptions about her.

‘Different time zones do not permit that process at the moment but rest assured nothing will be taken for granted. In the meantime…’

‘I am hungry,’ she admitted, thinking she’d feel safer sitting down, safer keeping her mouth busy with eating if she could make her stomach cooperate with an intake of food.

Again he waved her forward. ‘Please…seat yourself comfortably, relax, and help yourself to whatever you’d like.’

No way in the world could she ever relax in this man’s company, but putting a table between them seemed like a good defensive move. ‘Thank you,’ she said, forcing her feet to walk slowly, waiting for him to indicate where he would sit so she could settle as far away from him as possible.

Apparently he wanted to be face-to-face with her so she didn’t have to manoeuvre for a position opposite to his. He took it himself. Nevertheless, there was still a disturbing sense of intimacy, just in their being seated at the same table. The couches around it were curved, linking with each other so there was no real sense of separation.

‘What would you like to drink?’ he asked, as though she truly were a guest. ‘You have a choice of mango, pineapple and hibiscus juices, coconut milk…’

‘Hibiscus juice?’ She’d heard of the flower but hadn’t known a drink could be made from it.

‘Sweet, light and refreshing.’ He reached for a jug of hand-painted pottery depicting a red hibiscus. ‘Want to try it?’

‘No, thanks. I’ve always loved mango.’ Which she was long familiar with since it was such a prolific fruit tree around her home city of Cairns.

His dark eyes danced with mocking amusement over her suspicious refusal of the hibiscus jug. ‘Where has your adventurous spirit gone, Miss Ross?’

The light taunt goaded her into shooting some straight truth right back at him. ‘I feel like having some familiar comfort right now, Your Excellency.’

He picked up another pottery jug and poured mango juice into a beautiful crystal goblet. ‘The familiar is safe,’ he observed, a glittering challenge in his eyes as he replaced the jug and watched her pick up the goblet. ‘A woman who plays safe would never have boarded Arnault’s yacht. She would have taken a far more conventional, more protected route to Zanzibar.’

Emily fervently wished she had. Never more so than now. Dealing with this sheikh and his attitude towards her was undermining her self-confidence. She didn’t know how to even set about getting out of this. Telling the truth didn’t seem to be winning her anything, but what else could she do?

‘I’ve crewed on yachts many times around the Australian coast. I was looking for a way to save the cost of plane fares.’

‘You took a risk with a stranger.’

‘I thought I could handle it.’

‘And when you woke up and found there was no wife…how did you handle it then, Miss Ross?’

‘Oh, then it came down to the rules of survival at sea. We needed each other to sail the yacht so agreements had to be reached and kept. Jacques only tried to cross the line once.’ Her eyes hardened with the contempt she felt for the Frenchman. ‘I think he found it too painful to repeat that particular error in judgment.’