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He raised his glass to her, his eyes half shuttered, smiling at her purposefully before lifting the glass to his lips. His eyes never left her, even as his chin kicked up, his eyes stayed with her, dark, intent.
She swallowed before even taking as much as a sip as her feelings of comfort rocked into uncertainty again. Maybe it was time to remind him of another woman who would play a part in this wedding, a woman who, it now occurred to her, he barely spoke about.
‘Thank you,’ she said softly. ‘And if I may, I’d like to propose a toast to the woman who will wear the dress, for without her, the dress is nothing. To your bride.’
She took a sip from her crystal flute, satisfied that she’d put their relationship back into some kind of perspective. Whether or not he’d intended to kiss her just then, he’d at least know that she wasn’t likely to forget he was about to marry another woman.
But, watching him over the rim of her glass, she could see her words didn’t faze him in the least. If anything, they just served to increase the width of his smile, the dark intent in his eyes.
‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘Let us drink to the woman who will be my wife. To my bride.’
He raised his flute and held it up to her again, still smiling, holding her gaze firm and square, and just for one moment she sensed she was missing something.
Something had happened—oh, yes, he’d acknowledged his bride and he’d done it without missing a beat. But there was something else, curious and intriguing, that she couldn’t quite pin down. Something that didn’t feel quite right.
Her glass moved to her lips mechanically and she had her first taste of the sparkling wine, the tiny bead bursting with the essence of yeast and fruit and neither too sweet nor too dry. But her appreciation of the wine came a poor second to the continued machinations of her mind. Just what was Sheikh Khaled about? She didn’t want to give credence to Paolo’s concerns but there was something about him that disturbed her on the deepest level.
And yet she’d never been in the company of royalty before. Was it any wonder he was complex and guarded? It was probably bred into him, along with his power. Was it any wonder he was different from other men?
Paolo’s words were rendering her too suspicious, too sensitive to the merest inflexion of Khaled’s voice and too ready to think the worst.
Sheikh Khaled was clearly a gracious host. She should relax and enjoy the experience. That way she would prove Paolo’s fears groundless.
A steward leaned over and whispered something in Khaled’s ear, his eyes widening a fraction before they narrowed on a razor-sharp gleam.
‘I apologise,’ he said, putting down his glass. ‘Something has arisen which I must attend to urgently. Please excuse me.’
She looked over to the business workstation, where two uniformed officers were already gathered around the computer screen. ‘Is anything the matter?’ she asked.
‘It is a trifling matter, nothing to concern yourself with,’ he assured her, nodding before turning and withdrawing to join his staff. Where had his officers come from? She hadn’t noticed them on the plane earlier, although it no doubt made sense for someone of a sheikh’s standing to travel with his own security.
Whatever the ‘trifling matter’ was, it was taking some time. And emotion. Every now and then the sound of raised voices and urgent instructions drowned out the constant hum of the engines and the sudden noise would pull her out of her designs once more to wonder what was going on. But the men were engaged in rapid-fire discussions between themselves and someone at the end of th
e satellite phone line and there was no way her curiosity would outweigh her good sense. She was staying right here.
Besides, it was a welcome break to have time away from Khaled’s presence, his dark, challenging eyes and his unreadable expressions.
A slight change in the feel of the flight told her they’d started their descent. She looked out of the window to the ground some forty thousand feet below. They were crossing a coastline, the blue waters of what she took to be the Mediterranean a stark contrast to the white line of the coast and the wide expanse of yellow-brown interior beyond.
She turned back to find Khaled lowering himself into the seat next to her.
‘It won’t be long now,’ he said.
‘Is everything all right?’ she asked, with a glance to the rear of the plane, but the two officers had disappeared again.
‘It is now,’ he said, noncommittally.
It wasn’t long before the sleek aircraft gently touched down on the runway at Jebbai’s airport, a short distance, Khaled explained, from the capital, Hebra. Sapphy stepped from the plane into the clean, dry heat of a Jebbai afternoon. She paused for a moment at the top of the steps. It was so different from Milan—with no mountains to shadow the small but modern airport. Instead the land was flat, reaching in all directions around, one endless golden dune after another, leading on to the horizon and broken only by a long strip of bitumen, the highway leading to the capital.
The middle of nowhere.
Never had the phrase been so apt. She gulped down a fortifying lungful of air.
Never had she felt so alone.
Khaled’s hand squeezed her shoulder, as if reassuring her. ‘Welcome to your new home,’ he said. She was halfway down the stairs and the moment gone before she realised what he’d said.
They transferred to the waiting limousine for the thirty-minute drive as day was beginning to fade. The heat of the day lingered, the warm air clean and dry under a sky that seemed to go on forever.
