The Sheik's Unsuitable Bride Read online

  ‘For a ten-year-old?’ The words were out before she could stop them. On the point of stepping into the car, he paused and frowned. ‘I mean, glass. Was that wise?’ She had the feeling that no one had ever questioned his judgement before and, trying to salvage something, she said, ‘Mine is made from some sort of polymer resin.’ It had come from a stall at the local market. ‘Not precious…’ except to her ‘…but it would have, um, bounced.’

  Shut up now!

  Her shoulders lifted in the smallest of shrugs, disassociating the rest of her from her mouth.

  ‘Since it’s for a child, maybe something less, um, fragile might be more sensible. Glass is a bit, well…’

  Her mouth finally got the message and stopped moving.

  ‘Fragile?’ Sheikh Zahir, still not smiling, finished the sentence for her.

  ‘I’m sure the one you bought was very beautiful,’ she said quickly, not wanting him to think she was criticising. She was in enough trouble already. ‘But I’m guessing you don’t have children of your own.’

  ‘Or I’d know better?’

  ‘Mmm,’ she said through closed lips. ‘I mean, it would have to be kept out of reach, wouldn’t it?’ She attempted a smile to soften the message. ‘It is…was…a treasure, rather than a toy.’

  ‘I see.’

  He might be dressed in the most casual clothes, but there was nothing casual about his expression. He was still frowning, although not in a bad way, more as if he was catching up with reality.

  Face aching with the effort of maintaining the smile, Diana ploughed desperately on. ‘No doubt princesses are less clumsy than ordinary little girls.’

  ‘Not,’ he said, taking her breath away for the second time as he finally responded to her smile with a wry contraction of the lines fanning out from his charcoal eyes, ‘in my experience.’ Nowhere near a slay-’em-in-the-aisles smile, but a heart-stopper none-the-less. At least if her heart was anything to go by. ‘You’re not just a pretty face, are you, Metcalfe?’

  ‘Um…’

  ‘So, how much would it take to part you from this hardwearing toy?’

  She swallowed. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t have it now.’

  His brows rose slightly.

  ‘It didn’t break,’ she assured him. ‘I gave it to…’

  Tell him.

  Tell him you gave it to your five-year-old son.

  It was what people did-talk incessantly about their kids. Their cute ways. The clever things they did.

  Everyone except Miss Motormouth herself; how ironic was that?

  She’d talk about anything except Freddy. Because when she talked about her little boy she knew, just knew, that all the listener really wanted to know was the one thing she’d never told a living soul.

  Sheikh Zahir was waiting. ‘I gave it to a little boy who fell in love with it.’

  ‘Don’t look so tragic, Metcalfe, I wasn’t serious,’ he said, his smile deepening as he mistook her reluctance to speak for an apology. ‘Let’s go shopping.’

  ‘Y-yes, sir.’ Then, with a glance towards the terminal building, ‘Don’t you want to wait for your luggage?’

  She’d assumed that some minion, left to unload it, would appear at any moment with a laden trolley but, without looking back as he finally stepped into the car, Sheikh Zahir said, ‘It will be dealt with.’

  Sadie was right, she thought. This was another world. She closed the door, stowed the remains of the precious glass object out of harm’s way and took a deep breath before she slid behind the wheel and started the engine.

  Shopping. With a sheikh.

  Unbelievable.

  Unbelievable.

  All James’s careful planning-every second accounted for-brought to naught in an instant of distraction.

  But what a distraction…

  Zahir had walked through the arrivals hall expecting the efficient and monosyllabic Jack Lumley to be waiting for him. Instead he’d got ‘Metcalfe’. A woman whose curves were only emphasized by the severe cut of her jacket. A woman with a long slender neck, against which soft tendrils of chestnut hair were, even now, gradually unfurling.

  And a mouth made for trouble.

  The kind of distraction he didn’t have time for on this trip.

  No complaints. He loved the excitement, the buzz of making things happen, didn’t begrudge a single one of the long hours it had taken to turn a small, going-nowhere company running tours into the desert into a billion dollar business.

  He’d single-handedly taken tourism in Ramal Hamrah out of the stopover business-little more than a place for long-haul passengers to break their journey to shop for gold in the souk, take a sand dune safari-into a real industry. His country was now regularly featured in travel magazines, weekend newspaper supplements-a destination in its own right. Not just for the desert, but the mountains, the history.

  He’d created a luxurious tented resort in the desert. The marina complex was nearing completion. And now he was on the point of launching an airline that would bear his country’s name.

  He’d had to work hard to make that happen.

  Until he’d got a grip on it, tourism had been considered little more than a sideshow alongside the oil industry. Only a few people had had the vision to see what it could become, which meant that neighbouring countries were already light years ahead of them.

  Perhaps it was as well; unable to challenge the dominance of states quicker off the starting blocks, he’d been forced to think laterally, take a different path. Instead of high-rise apartments and hotels, he’d gone for low impact development using local materials and the traditional styles of building to create an air of luxury-something entirely different to tempt the jaded traveller.

  Using the desert as an environmental spectacle, travelling on horseback and camel train, rather than as a rip-’em-up playground for sand-surfers and dune-racers. Re-opening long-ignored archaeological sites to attract a different kind of visitor fascinated by the rich history of the area.

  And a change of attitude to international tourism in the last year or so had given him an edge in the market; suddenly he was the visionary, out in front.

  Out in front and on his own.

  ‘…you don’t have children of your own…’

  Well, when you were building an empire, something had to give. A situation that his mother was doing her best to change. Even as he sat in the back of this limousine, watching Metcalfe’s glossy chestnut hair unravel, she was sifting through the likely applicants for the vacant post of Mother-Of-His-Sons, eager to negotiate a marriage settlement with the lucky girl’s family.

  Make his father happy with the gift of a grandson who would bear his name.

  It was the way it had been done for a thousand years. In his culture there was no concept of romantic love as there was in the West; marriage was a contract, something to be arranged for the mutual benefit of two families. His wife would be a woman he could respect. She would run his home, bear his children-sons who would bring him honour, daughters who would bring him joy.

  His gaze was drawn back to the young woman sitting in front of him, the soft curve of her cheek glimpsed in the reflection of the driving mirror. The suggestion of a dimple.

  She had the kind of face that would always be on the point of a smile, he suspected, smiling himself as he reran the range of her expressions-everything from horror as she’d let slip a word that was definitely not in the Polite Chauffeur’s Handbook, through blushing confusion, in-your-face take-it-or-leave-it cheek and finally, touchingly, concern.

  Glass. For a child. What on earth had he been thinking? What had James been thinking?

  That was the point. They hadn’t been. He’d just ordered the most expensive, the most desirable version of the child’s wish and James had, as always, delivered.

  A wife wouldn’t have made that mistake.

  Metcalfe wouldn’t have made that mistake.

  Nor would she settle for a relationship based on respect, he suspected
. Not with that smile. But then she came from a different world. Lived a life unknown to the young virgins from among whom his mother would look for a suitable bride.

  Very different from the sophisticated high-achieving career women who he met in the line of business, who lived their lives more like men than women, although what she lacked in gloss, sophistication, she more than made up for in entertainment value.

  He dragged his fingers through his hair, as if to erase the unsettling thoughts. He didn’t have time for ‘entertainment’. And, with marriage very much on the agenda, he shouldn’t even be thinking about it.

  As it was, he had to snatch this hour to celebrate a little girl’s birthday out of a crammed schedule when he should, instead, be concentrating on the reception for travel journalists and dinner with the men who had the financial power to make his airline a reality.

  ‘Are you a permanent fixture, Metcalfe?’ he asked. ‘Or will Jack Lumley be back on duty tomorrow?’

  ‘I couldn’t say, sir,’ she said, glancing up to look in the rear-view mirror, briefly meeting his gaze, before returning her attention to the road. ‘He was taken ill earlier today.’ Then, ‘I’m sure the company could find you someone else in the meantime, if you insisted.’

  ‘Someone with a beard?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Her dimple had disappeared. She wasn’t smiling now. Not even close. She thought he objected to a female chauffeur?

  ‘And if I did?’ something made him persist. ‘What would you be doing tomorrow?’

  Her eyes flickered back to him. They were green, like the smudge of new leaves in an English hedgerow in April.

  ‘If I’m lucky I’ll be back at the wheel of a minibus, doing the school run.’

  ‘And if you’re unlucky?’

  ‘Back at the wheel of a minibus, doing the school run,’ she repeated, letting loose another of those smiles, albeit a somewhat wry one, as she pulled into the forecourt of a massive toy store. She slid from behind the wheel but he was out of the car before she could open the door for him and looking up at the façade of the store she’d chosen.

  It hadn’t occurred to him to dictate their destination. Jack Lumley would have taken him to Harrods or Hamleys, having called ahead to check which of them had what he was looking for, ensuring that it would be gift-wrapped and waiting for him, charged to his account.

  No waiting.

  No effort.

  Like an arranged marriage.

  A gust of wind whipped across the vast forecourt of the store and Diana grabbed for her hat, clutching it to her head.

  Sheikh Zahir had made no move to enter, but was staring up at the storefront and, heart sinking, she realised that she’d got it wrong.

  Sadie was right. She wasn’t equipped for this…

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘This isn’t what you expected.’

  He glanced back at her. ‘I left the decision to you.’

  True. And she’d made her best judgement…

  ‘I thought it would be quicker,’ she explained. ‘It’s certainly easier to park.’ Then, ‘And, to be honest, you don’t quite meet the Knightsbridge dress code.’

  ‘There’s a dress code?’ He turned to look at her. ‘For shopping?’

  ‘No bare feet. No sports shoes. No jeans. No backpacks.’ She faltered, realising just how foolish she must sound. As if anyone would turn him away for being inappropriately dressed. ‘Not that you’re carrying a backpack.’

  ‘But I tick all the rest of your boxes.’

  ‘I expect it’s different for royalty.’

  ‘Just as well not to risk it,’ Sheikh Zahir said gently. If he was laughing at her, he was being kind enough not to do it out loud.

  On the point of congratulating herself that she wasn’t such a juggins after all, he said, ‘Okay. Let’s do this.’

  Let’s. As in ‘let us’. We.

  ‘You want me to come in with you?’

  ‘Surely you were told that royalty never carries its own bags?’

  Now she was quite sure he was laughing.

  ‘The rumour is that they don’t carry money either and you should know that I can’t help you there.’ Then, ‘Besides, I really shouldn’t leave the car.’

  ‘Are you refusing to come with me?’ he enquired, a faint edge beneath the chocolate silk of his unbelievably sexy accent. A reminder that she was there at his bidding. ‘The school run is that appealing?’

  Maybe she’d been too quick to leap to judgement on the ‘kind’, she decided, locking the door and following him without another word.

  Inside a store of aircraft hangar proportions, aisle upon aisle of shelves were stocked with everything a child-and quite a few grown-ups-could possibly desire.

  Diana found herself staring at the shopping trolleys, the serve-yourself warehouse-style shelving, not through her own eyes, but through the eyes of a man for whom ‘self-service’ was undoubtedly an unexplored concept.

  It was most definitely another one of those ‘oh, sheikh’ moments.

  ‘So much for this being quicker,’ he said, looking around. ‘How on earth do you find what you’re looking for?’

  ‘With difficulty,’ she admitted, realising that at one of those Top People’s stores, someone would have found exactly what he was looking for in an instant. ‘The, um, idea is to get you to pass as many shelves as possible. That way you’re more likely to impulse buy.’ Then, ‘How many people, do you suppose, leave with the one item they came in to buy?’

  He turned to look at her. ‘That sounds like the voice of experience.’

  ‘Isn’t that what I’m here for? My experience? You’re the one who bought something made of glass for a little girl.’

  ‘Actually…’He stopped, shook his head. ‘I take your point, although I’m now beginning to think I’d be better advised to buy Ameerah shares in the company.’

  ‘Shares in a toy shop?’ she said, clutching her hands to her heart. ‘Now why didn’t my parents think of that?’

  ‘Because they’re not so much fun to play with, I imagine,’ he said seriously. ‘Not what a little girl imagines for her birthday surprise.’

  ‘True, but just think what I could do with them now.’ His brows rose slightly, inviting an explanation. ‘Instead of the five-minute gratification of a plastic car for my favourite doll, I could now afford to buy my own taxi. Be my own boss.’ Then, because his eyebrows lifted another millimetre, ‘I’d go for the fun version in sparkly pink, obviously…’

  CHAPTER TWO

  Z AHIR watched as Metcalfe swiftly turned and walked across to the enquiry desk, jolted out of his preconceived notion of who she was, what she was.

  Not just an attractive young woman at the wheel of a car, but an attractive young woman with aspirations, dreams.

  Not so long ago, he’d been there.

  People assumed that because he had been born the grandson of the Emir of Ramal Hamrah life had fallen into his lap. Maybe they had a point. He’d been indulged, he knew that, with every benefit that life could bestow, including a privileged education in England, the freedom of post-graduate studies in America. But there was a price to pay.

  Duty to his country, obedience to the family.

  He’d spent two years in the desert, with his own life on hold, as companion to his grieving cousin. His reward had come when Hanif, seeing that his heart lay not with the slow-grinding wheels of government, but in the fast-moving world of big business, had given him his first chance. Had given his own precious time to convince his father that he should be allowed to tread his own path.

  Had taken time to explain that what he was doing was as important for his country as playing the diplomat, the courtier, particularly when he would be such a reluctant one.

  Even so, he’d had to go to the market for the money he’d needed to build his empire from the ground up, but, while his name could not guarantee success, he knew it had opened doors for him. People had been polite, inclined to listen, because of who
he was, whereas even now he could see that his chauffeur was getting the most grudging attention from the assistant at the desk.

  ‘Do they have what we’re looking for?’ he asked, joining her.

  ‘Who knows?’

  As she went to ask for help from an assistant, Diana was desperately wishing she’d gone for the obvious shopping destination instead of trying to be clever. In Knightsbridge she would have had to stay with the car to fend off the traffic warden while he ‘shopped’ all by himself.

  ‘If they have any they’ll be with the novelty items.’ Her imitation of the assistant’s couldn’t-be-bothered gesture, made without looking up from whatever she was finding so gripping in the magazine she was reading, was meant to be ironic. ‘Over there, apparently.’

  Maybe Sheikh Zahir didn’t ‘get’ irony because he turned to the woman behind the desk and said, ‘We don’t have a great deal of time…’he paused to check out her name tag ‘…Liza. Would you be kind enough to show us exactly where we can find what we’re looking for?’

  She turned a page and said, ‘Sorry. I can’t leave my desk.’

  Big mistake that, Diana thought, warmed by his ‘we’.

  ‘I can’t’, as she’d already discovered for herself, did not impress him one bit.

  ‘The sign above your desk says “Customer Service”,’ he pointed out and then, as she sighed and finally looked up, he smiled at her.

  Diana watched, torn between outrage and amusement as, without another word, the assistant leapt to her feet and scurried round the desk.

  ‘This way,’ she said, switching on a smile of her own. One of the hundred watt variety.

  ‘We seem to have beaten the system, Metcalfe,’ Sheikh Zahir said as, with a gesture, he invited her to follow the woman.

  ‘Nice work,’ she said, ‘but somehow I don’t think that technique would work for me.’

  That earned her a smile of her own. Rather less than he had used on the assistant, but at the same time more, she thought.

  Less teeth. More eyes.

  ‘You use what you have,’ he said with a shrug.

  Fortunately, before she was called upon to reply, they arrived at a shelf lined with a colourful selection of snow globes.