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‘Miss Baker!’ called a TV-trained voice. ‘Sienna! Is the Sheikh of Qudamah aware that you used to be a topless model?’
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE startled doorstep photo made the first edition and the second—only it ran alongside a much larger photo. There was her sand-sprinkled and sultry image plastered over all the tabloids.
Even the serious broadsheets gave it house-room—justifying their usual no-breasts policy with weighty pieces on the changing morals of the Middle East. And a censored version of it was beamed into homes the length and breadth of the country as an add-on to an otherwise boring television news show.
‘And finally, the Sheikh of the fiercely traditional State of Qudamah is rumoured to be dating a British glamour model. Stunning brunette Sienna Baker…’
Female leader-writers took up the case in their mid week columns, asking righteously: What would you do if your son brought a topless model home?
Trapped inside the house, unable to go out without fear of being accosted, Sienna was sitting in the kitchen at the back of the house with the blinds drawn down when Kat came in and handed her the telephone with a look which said everything.
She pressed the phone to her ear. She wasn’t aware she’d actually said anything, but she must have made some sort of sound because she heard his deep and silky voice.
‘Sienna?’
She bit her lip. Closed her eyes. She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t. But the sound of his dear voice was almost more than she could bear. ‘Yes, it’s me.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Ask me another. How about you?’
He ignored that. ‘The press are still there?’
‘Well, not so many of them. I think they got fed up because I refused to say anything.’
‘Good. If you feed a story it only grows.’
‘Oh, Hashim—how the hell did they get hold of it? How did they even find out about it?’
Hashim’s mouth tightened into a grim and forbidding line. He suspected that someone in Qudamah must have informed the foreign press about a juicy piece of gossip in their Ruler’s life. In the power-play that was his life Sienna’s past had become a weapon. And he must protect her from the fall-out.
‘These things have a habit of getting out,’ he said slowly. ‘That’s the way the world works.’
He sounded almost weary, as if he had seen sides of the world she did not know—and of course he had. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like to be a sheikh, but she was fairly sure that it would be very hard to trust people’s motives towards you. ‘Yes,’ said quietly. ‘I imagine so.’
The silence between them seemed huge. ‘I am sending some people to look after you, Sienna. If I come myself it will only add fire to the story. Is there somewhere you can go?’
She was suddenly and acutely aware that this conversation was a purely practical one, and not personal at all. He didn’t want to talk—not really talk—and besides, what was there left to say? This was damage limitation time.
She bit her lip. Where did she always turn when she wanted an escape route? Who would always accept her with open arms and no questions asked? Who wanted the best for her no matter what. ‘My mother wants me to go to her.’
‘Then go. Let me arrange it.’
‘Hashim—you don’t seem to understand!’ she said frustratedly. ‘I have existing contracts to fulfil. And the phone hasn’t stopped ringing with work requests—I’ve never been so popular. I think it’s the curiosity factor,’ she added acidly. ‘Having your party planned by a so-called “Glamour Model.” But some of the calls are from journalists pretending to be clients. I’m certain of it.’
He felt the dark dagger of self-contempt as he remembered that he too had done just that. Pretended. Masqueraded. Finally got his way by seducing her—and now what had happened? Had she ever deserved this because of some rash youthful decision made with all the best intentions? ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly.
She shook her head as if he was in the room, hating to hear his apology—so stilted and formal—like one stranger talking to another. ‘It isn’t your fault, it’s mine. I should never have done it in the first place—I just didn’t realise it was going to come back and haunt me in such a big way.’
‘But that is down to me. To your relationship with me.’
The most precious thing in her life. Past tense, she reminded herself. She sighed, wanting to lean on him yet knowing she shouldn’t. And anyway, she couldn’t—not really. He was at his Palace, thousands of miles away, and she was holed up in her tiny terraced house in Kennington. There were no arms to hold her, no heart to beat next to hers, no hand to stroke her hair.
