ALEXANDRA SELLERS - The Playboy Sheikh

He shrugged disparagingly. “Par for the course in these parts.”

“Nice for some. But I have a job to do.”

Her hands on the reins, she guided the horse into a 180-degree turn. Jaf allowed it, but when she tried to spur the horse to move, it froze into immobility.

She was startled to see how far they had come. She had expected to see, in the distance, the cluster of trailers, equipment, umbrellas and people that marked the filming location, but the sand was empty. They were alone. A thrill of fear shivered through her. In this barren landscape and merciless, unforgiving climate, she was at his mercy.

Just what she had always feared.

“Damn it!” Lisbet exclaimed, urging the reins, and nudging the horse’s foreleg with her bare heels. The horse might as well have been carved of wood. “Move damn it!” she cried. And then, “What have you done to this horse?”

He laughed, showing white teeth. His eyes sparkled in a way she remembered they had even in London’s damp. Here in the harsh sunshine the look dazzled her.

“Firouz and I have been together for six years,” he said. “If you understood me as well as he does…”

Lisbet gritted her teeth. “It would be better if you understood me!” she snapped. “Now, are you going to get this horse to move and take me back to the set, or am I going to get down and walk?”

It was a long way in such heat, and if she did not get lost, she would get sunburn, if not actual sunstroke. She could feel the prickle of drying salt on her skin and knew that the sea had washed off some, if not all, of her protection.

“You can’t walk in the sun,” he told her, looking down at her bare legs, the rise of her breasts in the revealing neckline of the costume. It was a look she remembered all too well. Her skin tingled under the drying salt. “You are nearly naked. My house is cool inside. It is among trees, a date plantation.”

“Take me back,” she said stonily, kicking futilely at the immovable horse. Her eyes scoured the horizon for some sign that someone was coming to her rescue. “They must have called the police by now. They must think you’re a kidnapper.”

“But that is what I am,” Jaf pointed out.

“What have you done to Adnan?” she almost shrieked.

“Your imagination is very vivid, but perhaps that is a professional necessity for an actress,” he said. Lisbet ground her teeth. She had never had an easy time controlling her temper around him. “I have done nothing to Adnan Amani except ease his financial worries for the immediate future.”

“You bribed him to let you take his place?” she cried, outraged.

“Would you prefer that I had knocked him on the head and tied him up? Violence should always be a last resort,” he chided.

“Of course I wouldn’t prefer—” Lisbet began heatedly, then realized that he was succeeding in putting her in the wrong. She heaved a breath.

“Take me back to the set.”

“On one condition.”

“To hell with your condition!”

“You must have dinner with me this evening.”

“Dinner! If that was all you wanted, why didn’t you come to Gazi and Anna’s? You must know I’ve been staying there!”

Coming to the Barakat Emirates to shoot the movie a week ago, she had naturally stayed with Anna and Gazi. It would have been natural for Jaf to visit them, but he made no move to try and see her. “We usually see him once or twice a week,” Anna had said apologetically. “He must be very busy.”

Lisbet had been half relieved, half anxious. If there was going to be a meeting, she wanted to get it over with. If not, she’d have liked to be certain of that.

He laughed. “Did you miss me?”

“I never expected you to come. Why would you want to see me? Why do you now?”

“What I have to say to you is not for public consumption,” he said.

Her heart pounded. She was afraid of him in this steely mood. She remembered how hard it had been to shut him out of her life. It had taken all her determination. “I’m not interested,” she said stonily.

“You do not agree to come?”

“We finished months ago, Jaf. It’s over and it’s going to stay that way.”

He seemed to make no move, and yet the horse lifted a delicate foreleg and stepped around in place, till it was facing the rocky ridge and the sea again.

“My house is beyond this point,” he said. The horse moved into the sea. “It is well protected. Once we are there, no one will reach you except with my permission.”

“Let me down!” she cried.

She struggled, but he held her tight, and the horse moved faster. She could not risk jumping, especially when she couldn’t be sure of the surface under the water. If her foot landed on a rock, if she fell or the horse kicked her…

“Now, or tonight, Lisbet? One way or another, you will see me.” The horse was moving into deeper water, on a heading around the thrusting finger of rock.

She could feel determination in him. Her feet were now brushing the surface of the water. Her body skittered with nervous anticipation.

After the months of silence, she had begun to believe that he had forgotten her, forgotten all his protestations of love. During the past week of waiting every night on tenterhooks for him to turn up at dinner, she had been convinced. And now, suddenly, here he was, angry, unforgiving, punitive.

She felt disoriented. She suddenly felt she didn’t know him. He was in his own country, on his own territory, taking her she knew not where. She was a foreigner, and he was influential here.

“All right!” she exploded, furious at her own capitulation.

The horse stopped instantly. Jaf frowned into her eyes. “You will have dinner with me tonight?”

“Yes, I’ll have dinner with you, damn you! But not at your house. I’ll go with you to a restaurant, and that’s final. So if you were expecting more than dinner, forget it! A face over a meal is all you’ll get.”

His head inclined with regal acceptance, making her feel like a rude peasant in the presence of the lord of the manor. “But of course,” Jaf said, as if she had made an indelicate remark. “What else?”

Firouz turned in place and began to pace back out of the water, as precise as a circus horse.

“Just as long as you realize there’ll be no sex for dessert,” Lisbet said defiantly.

“Do you realize it?” Jaf said.

They met two dune buggies halfway. Jaf laughed and reined in. “Your rescuers are only a little late,” he said.

“Lisbet, are you all right?” the director demanded, piling out of one of the vehicles in half-crazed concern. “Is everything okay?”

They had galloped in silence, Jaf’s chest against her back, the horse moving powerfully under her thighs, in a twin reminder of masculine might. Lisbet was filled with such a churning of conflicting and varied emotions she couldn’t find words.

One of the grips was there to help her down, but the dark, stocky director pushed him aside and solicitously reached up for her himself. She slipped out of Jaf’s strong hold and down onto the sand, and only when his protection was gone felt the loss.

Jaf’s face was stone as he watched the movement drag the dress of her skirt up around her hips, revealing the full length of her legs and the lacy underwear.

Masoud, glancing up at Jaf, let her go a moment too quickly. Lisbet staggered a little and then straightened.

“No, everything is not all right,” she informed the director in quiet fury. “Do you know this man? I won’t work while he’s on the set,” she said, storming off towards the dune buggy.

She was hoping for an argument, because Jaf was certain to lose. But she might have known better. She had taken no more than two steps when there came the sound of hooves. Involuntarily, Lisbet turned. Jafar al Hamzeh, his robes flying, magnificent on the white horse, was riding back the way they had come.