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‘Look, miss. We’re having a very important meeting in here, and that machine’s damn noisy…couldn’t you go and clean elsewhere?’ a young man in a suit demanded angrily.
‘Yes, of course,’ Kirsten muttered, cut to the bone.
Another man appeared behind him, and murmured with glacial cool, ‘Don’t let me hear you address another member of staff in that tone or in that language again.’
‘No, of course not, Your Highness,’ the first man framed in dismay, his complexion turning a dull dark red at that cold rebuke.
Kirsten had stopped breathing when the second male emerged into view, for he was taller, broader and altogether more impressive in stature. Her entire being was wrapped in the sheer challenge of recognition: it was the man on the motorbike. But she could not believe that it could be the same person for he looked so very different, in a formal dark business suit the colour of charcoal: sophisticated, dignified, the ultimate in authority.
Belatedly she registered the significance of the title the younger man had awarded him and incredulity sentenced her to shaken stillness. The guy she had met on the hill above the farm was the Prince? Prince Shahir—the enormously rich owner of Strathcraig and its ninety-odd-thousand acres? Surely that was impossible? This is my land, he had said, but she had assumed he was joking. How could she have possibly guessed that a young man, casually clad in biker leathers, might be so much more than he seemed?
Refusing to allow herself to look back at him, she began to reel in the cable of the floor polisher. Her hands were all fingers and thumbs, and clumsy with nerves. She seized a hold on the weighty machine, in preparation for carting it off to a less contentious area, but her perspiring palms failed in their grip and it toppled back on to the ground again, with a noisy clatter that made her wince in despair. She was supposed to be silent and invisible around him, she recalled in steadily mounting frustration. Was she supposed to abandon the polisher and just run?
‘Let me help y
ou with that…’
‘No!’ Kirsten yelped in horror, when she raised her head to find him standing over her, and she backed away in panic, hauling up the polisher before the lean brown hand he had extended could get anywhere near it. ‘Sorry…’
Moving as fast as she could with the unwieldy machine, Kirsten hurried away and sped through the first set of fire doors. For a split second Shahir hesitated, a frown of annoyance and surprise at her behaviour pleating his brows, and then he strode after her.
‘Kirsten…’ he breathed, before she could reach the next set of fire doors.
Unnerved by the unfamiliar sound of her name on his lips, Kirsten whirled round. She was breathing heavily, her lovely face pink with the effort of carting the cleaner with her. ‘You’re not supposed to speak to me!’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Shahir retorted crisply.
‘I’m not being ridiculous! What do you want from me? An apology? Right, you’ve got it. I’m sorry I told you off for riding that bike like a maniac. I’m sorry if I interrupted your important meeting…OK, Your—er—Highness?’ And, with that almost pleading completion, Kirsten continued to back away, until she hit the doors with her behind, then twisted round and quickly made her way through them.
Shahir followed her at speed, and long before she could draw near the next set of doors he spoke and arrested her in her tracks. ‘No—don’t move one further step,’ he murmured, with a quietness that was misleading; every syllable of that warning somehow contrived to bite into her like a whiplash. ‘When I’m speaking to you, you will stand still.’
Kirsten groaned. ‘But that’s against the rules!’
Shahir vented an unappreciative laugh. ‘What rules?’
‘The household rules. People like me are supposed to vanish when you appear—’
‘Not when I’m trying to speak to you,’ Shahir asserted in dry interruption.
‘But you’re going to get me into trouble…Nobody knows we’ve even met, and I don’t want to be seen talking to you.’
‘That’s not a problem.’ Shahir opened the nearest door and thrust it wide. ‘We’ll talk in here.’
Kirsten sucked in a steadying breath and walked into an empty meeting room furnished with a polished table and chairs. ‘Why do you want to speak to me?’
Shahir thought he had never heard a more insane question. Any man between fifteen and fifty would have wanted to speak to her. Her head was bent, her face half turned away from him, her spectacular hairtied back. But nothing could hide the silken shine of that pale hair, the stunning perfection of her profile or the flawless clarity of her complexion. Nor could a dreary overall conceal the fluid, willowy grace of her highly feminine figure.
But on another level her sheer lack of vanity and her naivety shook him. He had never had to pursue a woman before. Even without his encouragement women gave Shahir a great deal of attention. Many were so enthusiastic that he had to freeze them out with a façade of cold formality. Others were more subtle, but equally obvious in their eagerness to demonstrate their availability to him. If he showed even the smallest interest to the average young woman she would fall over herself to respond to him and roll out the welcome mat.
‘Why did you tell no one that we had met?’
Kirsten focused on his superb leather shoes. ‘I wasn’t supposed to be on the hill.’
‘Why not?’
Kirsten continued to study his feet with fixed attention. She did not know what to say. She did not want to admit that her father policed her every move, and the alternative of lying was anathema to her.
Her seeming defiance challenged Shahir. ‘I asked a question.’
