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But it was happening. Every surreal second of it. People were bowing as the convoy went past—as if they suspected that their royal king might be enclosed in one of the long line of dark vehicles. The car was approaching an enormous domed palace whose golden gates were opening before them. Past stern-faced guards they drove, into vast and formal grounds, studded with marble statues and exotic blooms she’d never seen before. She found herself wondering how on earth the grass could be so green when nothing but dust and desert surrounded them. She wondered what kind of birds she could hear singing in those strange and beautiful trees.
‘Excited?’ came the accented caress of Dimitri’s voice from beside her as they came to a halt.
She turned to look at him, hating the instant thudding of her heart. Why did it have to be him who made her body react like this? Why couldn’t she have desired some other man to tease her bare breasts with his teeth, as Dimitri had done on that long-ago night she’d never forgotten.
‘I don’t know if “excited” is the word I’d use,’ she answered, trying to sound blasé. ‘It will be an interesting experience to see a country I would never normally get the chance to visit—but the thought of being cooped up with you for two days isn’t exactly filling me with joy.’
‘Oh, really?’ he drawled, knotting his silk tie as he glanced towards the palace doors. ‘And fascinating as this discussion is, I think we’re going to have to take a rain check. Because if you look over there you’ll see a man in golden robes heading this way. It seems that the Sheikh of Jazratan has come out in person to greet us.’
* * *
‘I notice that you have been very preoccupied tonight, my friend.’
Dimitri smiled as he listened to the Sheikh’s silken words, for they both knew that the title of ‘friend’ was completely spurious. The man who said it was too remote and too powerful to have true friends—indeed, Saladin was as friendless as he, for men like them always stood alone.
But that was the way he liked it.
Dimitri watched as yet another fragrant platter of food was placed before him, waiting until the robed male servant had withdrawn, before turning to the hawk-faced king beside him.
‘Have I?’
‘Mmm.’ The Sheikh waved away another servant who was hovering with a water jug. ‘I note that you have barely been able to tear your gaze away from your secretary all evening.’
Dimitri picked up a jewel-inlaid goblet and sipped from it. ‘Is it not always the instinct of a man to look at a woman, particularly when she is the only one present?’
‘Indeed it is,’ commented Saladin thoughtfully, his eyebrows rising to just below the edge of his white headdress. ‘But she does not fall into the category of your preferred blondes, one of whom I saw pictured with you in the newspapers not a fortnight ago.’
Dimitri gave a thin smile. ‘You surprise me, Saladin. I did not have you down as a reader of tabloid newspapers.’
The Sheikh’s eyes hardened. ‘Ah, but I always do my research. I like to know about the lifestyle of my prospective business partners.’
Dimitri put his goblet down, his heart giving a quick beat—as if sensing that, after so many years of delicate negotiation, the prize was at last within his grasp. But he kept all emotion from his voice. ‘Do I take it this means you have agreed to sell me the oil fields?’
A shadow of something imperceptible moved across Saladin’s hawklike features.
‘I try never to conduct business at mealtimes,’ he said smoothly. ‘It has been a long day and your secretary is looking somewhat weary. I trust that your sleeping arrangements meet with your satisfaction?’
Dimitri stiffened, wondering what Saladin was hinting at. Had he suspected that he and Erin had once been lovers and might have preferred a shared suite rather than the two adjoining ones they’d been allocated? No. He felt the flicker of a pulse at his temple. One unplanned night all those years ago did not put them in the category of lovers. It had been nothing. Nothing but a blip. He drank some more pomegranate juice. And yet he had never been able to completely forget that night, had he? It had been too easy to recall the way he’d felt as he had thrust deep inside her. The memory of her slim-hipped body and tiny breasts was curiously persistent. It was forbidden fruit at its sweetest.
He saw Saladin watching her and felt a responding shimmer of something which felt decidedly territorial. The mother of his child was sitting between Prince Khalim of Maraban and the ambassador of nearby Qurhah, looking almost as if she had been born to eat from jewelled platters, in the sumptuous opulence of a state banqueting room.
