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‘Get my bodyguard,’ Amanda directed Mocca.
‘There is no need. We are under protection,’ he excused.
‘Some bodyguards they turned out to be,’ Amanda scoffed. ‘The first time I need them, they evaporate like water under the midday sun. You can reimburse the palace for them, Mocca.’
He gestured an eloquent appeal for forbearance. ‘They will be at your service, if service is required. But this is a matter of hospitality, not hostility.’
Amanda knew all about complimentary hospitality, as masterminded by Jebel Haffa. With a sense of fatalism, she picked up her bag and stepped down from the truck. The least she could do was conduct herself with dignity. Her heart was pounding painfully but she would show no hesitation, no fear, no faltering. She had come to right an injustice. She would be heard, if nothing else.
The Berber guard escorted her to the tent and gestured for her to enter. She felt the trap closing around her as she stepped inside and the door flap behind her was lowered into place, ensuring complete seclusion from Mocca and his extended family.
Richly patterned carpets had been laid on the ground. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafted on the air. But there was a stronger scent permeating the interior of the tent, a fresh, beautiful scent she had never smelled the exact likeness of before. It was tantalising, making it difficult to concentrate on the proceedings that were about to take place.
It was intensely discomfiting to find only one man waiting for her, the man in the black burnoose who had sat beside her in the truck. For the past hour he had known this moment was coming, ignoring whatever transpired between Mocca and herself because he knew all he had to do was ensure they took the road to this tent. When had he laid his plans...this morning after she had left the city?
He stood beside the table where the coffee and plates of sweet biscuits and fruit were waiting. He waved an invitation to the chair that had been set for her...opposite his. It was not a camp chair, any more than the table was a camp table, set as it was with an embroidered linen cloth. The backs of the chairs were ornately carved, the seats cushioned and upholstered in burgundy brocade. This tent and its contents marked his status as a very important person.
Amanda decided not to speak until she was spoken to. There was no profit in saying anything until the situation was clarified. She moved to the chair indicated and sat down. He walked to the other end of the tent where there was a large divan bed covered with the same burgundy silk as on the chairs. A group of plump, decorative cushions were piled on top of it. Her host obviously didn’t believe in sleeping rough.
Outside the tent music began to play. Amanda wondered if this was to be the entertainment. She identified a violin, flute, tambourine, and possibly a guitar.
What was the scent teasing her nose? It seemed to be sharpening all her senses...or was she confusing it with the very real sense of danger that was making her feel more acutely aware of herself and everything else? Especially the man who was now discarding his burnoose, tossing it negligently on the bed.
He swung around to face her and Amanda’s stomach contracted as though absorbing a physical blow. She stared at him, her mind cartwheeling through a dizzying series of logical steps that brought home the realisation she could never achieve what she had set out to achieve. Not in the way she had planned it. Xa Shiraq and his men had been one step ahead of her, all the way.
And this man...who would have been her lover if she had allowed it...this man who had pursued her from Fisa...this man who could command the Chugah, Jebel Haffa’s personal troops...could she still touch him...sway him from his loyalty to the sheikh?
He stood absolutely motionless, watching her reaction to him with those all-knowing, all-seeing black eyes. She should have known, in the truck, who he was. Her instincts had told her. Neither cloak nor cowl could smother the innate power of the man. She had never met his like before their encounter at Fisa. It had been blindly stupid of her not to link the same force with the same source.
Not that it would have changed anything, Amanda assured herself. He would have engineered this result regardless of any effort she might have made to change it. This was his territory. Without an army to fight his troops, Amanda could not have evaded him. Tirham was the gateway to the mountains that held the crystal caves.
‘You knew I would be coming here,’ she stated flatly.
‘Yes.’
‘The promotion at Fisa was to see if I would be content with a career in hotel management.’
Again that flash of respect in his eyes. ‘Yes.’
‘The cachet blanc from Xa Shiraq...that also was a deliberate test of my purpose. To see how quickly I could think.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why was I allowed to come this far?’
‘There is a saying in your country—”Give a person enough rope so they can hang themselves.” You were given sufficient rope, Miss Buchanan.’
He paused to let her feel the noose tightening around her neck. Both ruthless and relentless, Amanda thought, with a little shiver of apprehension. As he had been with Charles Arnold, after giving him enough rope to damn himself.
They both knew he could have had her arrested at the embassy in Bejos for false representation of the sheikh’s authority, but it would have been dealt with by officialdom in Bejos. Perhaps the fraudulent act might have been dismissed as a misdemeanour at that point. Not any longer.
‘You wanted me in Xabia,’ Amanda reasoned.
‘It had a certain piquancy. Yes!’
‘Revealing my intentions.’
‘Beyond all reasonable doubt,’ he affirmed.
