Dana Marton - Desert Sheikhs - Monarch of the Sands / To Tame a Sheikh / Sheikh Protector

Because the face which had haunted him all night long had been that of Francesca.

Francesca O’Hara.

He groaned as he lathered soap over his hips, feeling the heavy throb of desire at his groin and praying that the ice-water would quickly dispel these useless fantasies. Because they were fantasy. She was completely forbidden to him—and he had to force himself to remember why.

He had known her all her life.

Her father had trusted him.

Most important of all, there was no future for her with him—because she was English and he was Khayarzahian. The destinies ordained for each of them were radically different—and she meant too much to him to ever want to hurt her. Because although Francesca O’Hara was an experienced woman of the world with one fiancé already behind her, he respected her too much to offer her nothing but a quick fling.

The thought of Simon robbing Francesca of her precious innocence was enough to kill Zahid’s desire stonedead and abruptly he turned off the shower, towelled himself dry and dressed.

His breakfast laid up on the table beside him, he’d just hit the ‘send’ button on an email when there was a rap at the door—quickly followed by a soft English voice.

‘Zahid?’

‘Come in.’

He looked up as the door opened slowly and Francesca stood there, her expression more than a little anxious, wearing some sort of muted grey dress which seemed to have leached all the colour from her face.

‘Zahid—’

‘You’d better come in and shut the door behind you,’ he commanded softly.

She did as he asked, drawing in a deep breath. ‘I need to talk to you.’

‘Talk away. But at least let’s do it in some degree of comfort.’ He gestured towards the table which was laid with breakfast, in an alcoved window overlooking the city. ‘Have you had breakfast?’

‘No. I’m not … very hungry.’

‘Francesca.’ He gave a slightly impatient sigh as he rose to his feet and walked over to her, taking her firmly by the elbow and steering her towards the table. But he felt the unmistakable tension in her body when he touched her and the answering clamour of his own senses in response. ‘On a current showing, you aren’t impressing me with your daily diet. All this skipping meals simply will not do. Coffee?’

She wanted to tell him that she was leaving but now he was propelling her into a chair and pouring her a cup of inky-dark coffee and somehow had persuaded her to take a warm croissant from the linen cradle of the bread basket.

Under his fierce gaze, she tore a buttery strip from the pastry and held it in her fingers. ‘Zahid, about last night—’

‘Yes, I’ve been meaning to speak to you about last night.’

‘You have?’’

‘Mmm.’ He sipped at his coffee and looked at her over the rim of the cup. ‘But I’ll hear what you have to say first.’

She thought that was a little unfair, but she was hardly in a position to say so. And it was hard to put anything into words when he was sitting right opposite her like that—managing to appear both relaxed and yet supremely powerful. With his fine silk shirt unbuttoned at the neck and his black hair still glittering from the shower, Frankie could have sat looking at him all day. But wasn’t that precisely why she needed to do the decent thing and hand her notice in, before her stupid desire for him got out of hand?

‘It seemed a good idea at the time to accept your offer,’ she began. ‘But clearly this isn’t going to work. Or rather, I’m not going to work—at least, not for you. I can’t come to Khayarzah, Zahid. I thought I could, but I can’t. I’m sorry.’

‘What a jumble of words!’ He reached for a glass of juice. ‘Why not?’

‘Because you don’t treat me fairly!’ she objected.

‘I don’t?’ he questioned coolly. ‘I fail to see how when I have just bought you an entire new wardrobe and will be paying you a very handsome salary to type up my father’s diary.’

‘That’s not what I meant, and you know it.’

‘Really?’ He registered her spiky challenge with surprise. ‘Then just what do you mean?’

She let the untouched piece of croissant flutter onto the plate. ‘All that stuff last night about what I was wearing and the way I was sitting—and how I’d had too much to drink, when we both know I hadn’t. That was all because you’ve known me all my life and still treat me like a child!’

‘On the contrary,’ Zahid said, sitting back in his chair and regarding her with unsettling scrutiny. ‘On reflection, the reason I said all those things was because you aren’t a child any more.’

Now it was her turn to look to him for clarification. Her brow creased in a puzzled frown. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘I think you probably do—if you stop for a minute to think about it. You see, I’m used to thinking of you as a friend—my only real female friend, as it happens.’

The simple accolade affected her deeply and for a moment Frankie was filled with a fear that he was about to snatch it away from her. And suddenly she realised that no job in the world was worth that . ‘Please don’t make it sound as if it’s all in the past!’ she cried, before she had time to think about the wisdom of her words or that they had poured out so emotionally.

‘I have no intention of making it something in the past,’ he said, his voice gentling by a fraction. ‘It’s just that you have grown up into a beautiful and very desirable young woman—and I’m finding it difficult to know how to react to you.’

It was such a stark and honest admission that it took Frankie completely by surprise. She looked at him in disbelief until she found herself blushing and then glanced down at her plate, terrified about what he might read into her embarrassment. Did he have any idea that she had entertained stupid fantasies about him since the year dot?

For a full minute there was silence and when the tension in the air had grown to such a point that she couldn’t take it any more, Frankie risked glancing up into his eyes once more.

‘I don’t know what to say,’ she whispered.

And for once in his life, neither did Zahid.

Looking at the morning light as it fell on the dark gleam of her hair, he knew what he should say. He should tell her he agreed with her—that it was an impossible situation which he hadn’t really thought through. That he hadn’t expected desire to rear its powerful head—and maybe it was best if she did go. Yet to Zahid that smacked of failure, and he didn’t do failure—not in any sphere of his life.

Now his gaze skated over the swell of her breasts, which seemed to transform the demure grey dress into a garment of shocking provocation. Wouldn’t it be a formidable and life-affirming challenge to resist the temptation she represented? Like the times when he and his brother had travelled into the arid centre of the desert and denied themselves the soft comforts of palace life. Such deprivation had been imposed on them by their elders as a deliberate means of making them strong and tough. Wouldn’t this simply be a variation on the same kind of denial?

‘I am loath to let you go,’ he admitted slowly. ‘And the reasons for giving you the job haven’t changed.’

‘No.’

‘But …’ He hesitated. Didn’t they know each other well enough to dispense with coy hints and get straight to the truth? He gave a rueful shrug of his shoulders. ‘We’re worried because something has changed and we’ve discovered that we are sexually attracted to each other.’

At this, she blushed. How anatomical he made it sound. ‘Zahid!’

‘Oh, come on, Francesca—don’t play the outraged innocent.’ His eyes gleamed. ‘It’s what we’ve both been thinking—or are you going to deny this rather inconvenient desire which has flared up between us?’