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‘It’s fine.’ She winked. ‘Just for you.’
He crossed his arms over his chest, waiting. She ran through a catalogue of songs, each of them embedded in her brain like speech and movement. Her fingers found the keys and she closed her eyes for a moment, breathing in deeply, straightening her spine, centring herself to the instrument, and then she began to play. Slowly at first, her interpretation of the Beethoven piece more tempered and gentle than many others. She kept her eyes closed as she played, the strength of the piece building inside her, and as she reached the midpoint and the tempo crescendoed, she tilted her head back, lost completely to the beauty of this form of communication.
The piece was not long—a little over four minutes. She played and when she hit the last notes, both hands pressed to the keys, she opened her eyes to find that the Sheikh had moved closer. He stood right in front of her, his eyes boring through her.
When he spoke, his voice was husky.
‘Play something else.’
She lifted a brow, a teasing smile on her lips, but the look was somewhat undermined by the film of tears that had moistened her eyes.
‘It’s a beautiful instrument.’ She ran her fingers over the keys. ‘Did you have this brought up today?’
‘I wanted to hear you.’
‘A keyboard would have done.’
He shook his head. ‘Show me something else.’
She did, this time, her favourite Liszt piece, the étude one she’d mastered only a week before her father had left home. She vividly recalled because she’d never got a chance to play it for him, and she had been practising so hard, preparing to surprise him with how she’d mastered the difficult finger movements.
‘You play as well as you breathe,’ he said softly, after she’d finished.
She blinked up at him, her eyes still suspiciously moist. When he pulled her to standing, she went willingly, and when he lifted her against his chest, carrying her back to bed, she felt only intense relief.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘YOUR HIGHNESS.’
The voice was coming to Daisy from a long way away. She shifted in bed a little, lifting a hand to run through her hair and connecting with something warm and firm. And it all came flooding back to her, so her eyes burst open and landed on a man she’d only ever seen in a professional capacity. Malik.
Oh, no!
She’d fallen asleep in the Sheikh’s bed—she must have—and now it was morning and his suite was teeming with staff. It wasn’t a particularly mature thing to do but she dragged the sheet up higher, covering her face, hiding from the servant.
‘Privacy, Malik.’ Sariq’s voice was firm, and, yes, there was irritation there too.
‘Yes, sir. Only you have a breakfast meeting with the President. The helicopter is ready to take you to Washington.’
‘It will wait for me.’
‘Yes, of course.’
A moment later, the door clipped shut.
‘You can come out now.’ His voice, so stern a moment ago, showed amusement now.
But it wasn’t funny. She pushed at the sheet roughly, and her voice matched it. ‘This is so not funny,’ she said with a shake of her head, pushing her feet out of the bed and looking for her uniform. ‘Oh, God. This is a disaster.’
His frown was way sexier than it should have been. ‘Why?’
‘Why? Because I told you, no one could know about this, and now that guy, Malik, has seen me naked in your bed! Oh, God.’ She paced across the room, pulling her shirt on as she went, snagging a nail on one of the buttons and wincing.
‘Malik can be trusted,’ Sariq assured her.
‘Says you, but what if he can’t? What if he tells my boss?’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t lose this job, Your Highness.’
At this, he barked a short, sharp laugh into the room. ‘Your Highness? Daisy, I have made love to you almost the entire night. Can you call me Sariq now?’
