Cinderella and the Sheikh. NATASHA OAKLEY

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      RASHID watched the Hon Emily Coolidge finger the large diamond nestled against her rather bony chest and felt a familiar wave of boredom wash over him. This was his mother’s country, the country in which he’d received much of his education, but he felt very little affinity with it. Or with the people who lived in it.

      It felt empty. Soulless. Emily had to know he’d never choose her, or anyone like her, as the mother of his children. It made her behaviour inexplicable.

      The brunette’s finger moved again across the cool plains of the diamond droplet. There’d been a time, not so long ago, when that unspoken offer would have been appealing. In fact, he wouldn’t have stopped to think about it. He’d merely have lost himself in mindless pleasure, content that Western women seemed to view these things differently.

      â€˜Will you be in London next week?’

      Rashid twisted the champagne glass between thumb and forefinger, concentrating on the play of light on the liquid in his glass. He really hadn’t thought much about who the mother of his children would be. It was always something for the future. Something far distant.

      But now things were changing. He felt a mortality that had never touched him before. There had to be something inbuilt that made a man long to pass on his genes. To feel that he would go on…

      Was that it? Was that what this gnawing dissatisfaction with his life was about? A wanting to set his place in history? To find meaning?

      â€˜I’m returning to town after this evening.’ Again the brunette moved her hand suggestively across her low décolletage. ‘Wouldn’t it be fabulous if we could spend some time together before you fly back to Amrah?’

      â€˜No.’ And then he cursed himself for what had been a staggering lack of good manners. His shoulders moved in an apologetic shrug. ‘My father…’

      Rashid let the sentence hang unfinished. The doctors, he knew, would do everything they could, but neither he, nor any man, could hope to foresee what the next few months would bring.

      Emily leant forward and touched his hand, outwardly concerned.

      Rashid studied her face. She didn’t care. There was no genuine emotion in her painted eyes.

      And he couldn’t be bothered.

      The truth of that slid into his brain like a dagger through silk. He wanted to shake these people off, move away, find space to breathe. And yet he had the responsibility of a guest towards his host’s friends. A responsibility he was shirking.

      It was a relief when a loud crack ripped across the general murmur of conversation. He looked out towards the formal gardens stretching down to the ornamental lake and at the white firework cascading down like some overblown pompom.

      â€˜Oh, my God, how lovely.’ Emily unwound her overly long body and stood, hand raised to shield her eyes as though that would somehow make it easier to see what was happening out in the landscaped gardens. ‘Fireworks! Oh, Rashid, how beautiful.’ She turned her long neck so she could look directly at him.

      Another sharp crack, followed by a hiss and sizzle, and he caught sight of a particularly spectacular cascade of golden shards.

      â€˜I love fireworks!’

      Vaguely, very vaguely, he was aware of the movement around the table. Chairs scraped back and then Nick’s hand touching his arm. ‘Coming to see?’

      Rashid shook his head. He looked up and met his friend’s understanding blue eyes. Nick knew why he was here and would be tolerant if his behaviour wasn’t quite as it should be.

      Rashid’s head jerked upwards as he felt the spurt of anger flicker deep inside him. Under any other circumstances he wouldn’t be here. Given half a choice he’d be back in Amrah, ready to spend precious time with his father if he was sent for. And he’d have been watching his brother’s back, holding off the factions that were all too eager to turn recent events to their advantage.

      His friend smiled and deftly manoeuvred the rest of the party outside. Rashid pulled a weary hand across his face and then let his eyes wander along the panelled walls. So different from home, but no less beautiful. Shelton Castle was a place of wealth. A little shabby, but in the English style of conserving all that was old regardless of fashion.

      He’d come hoping to understand—and he didn’t. The fifteenth Duke of Missenden was feckless and without honour. He fully deserved the destiny he had created for himself, Rashid thought, and if he’d scared him by coming here, so much the better.

      Rashid was distracted by a flash of peacock-blue dipping in and out of the black-dinner-suited men clustered by the doors to the terrace. He sat back in his chair and watched Miss Pollyanna Anderson weave her way through the tightly packed throng watching the fireworks.

      She was his one uncertainty. Where did she fit into all this? Last night he’d finally accepted Nick’s statement that the dowager duchess and her daughter were not accepted by the late duke’s children and therefore unlikely to be complicit in anything underhand.

      But Pollyanna was too confident. She’d worked the room tonight with the assurance of someone who knew she belonged.

      It had been Pollyanna who’d orchestrated the staff so they were largely inconspicuous. Pollyanna who’d managed the minor fracas earlier. He couldn’t see her as someone passive. She appeared strong and capable.

      So, given all that, was he prepared to accept Pollyanna Anderson’s sudden desire to come to Amrah was a mere coincidence? His strong mouth twisted. And if it were not a coincidence, what he wanted to know was what she hoped to gain. And by what means did she intend to gain it?

      His eyes narrowed. Did she hope to coerce him into silence by distorting what she saw in his country? Or was she some kind of a honey trap? Set to embarrass him and discredit his evidence?

      That didn’t feel right. She moved gracefully enough, but she didn’t walk in a way that suggested she expected to be looked at. Her dress was a stunning colour, which brought out the deep blue of her eyes, but he doubted it had been made by any of the designers the women he’d spent time with would have deemed worthy of notice.

      She was attractive, he conceded, but in a very English way. Wide blue eyes, pale alabaster skin and hair the colour of desert sand. But no femme fatale. And, baring the fact he was certain she’d known exactly who he was and where he was to be found at any given time this evening, she’d not tried to approach him.

      She’d been too busy working, controlling the events of the evening with a skill born of practice. He watched her as she paused, looking back towards the fireworks with a slight smile. Then she raised a hand to rub her neck and turned away. Her movements were rapid and she walked with obvious purpose across the highly polished floor towards a narrow door in the back wall.

      It was the small furtive glance she made back across the now almost empty ballroom that had Rashid on his feet. Curiosity had always been his besetting sin and this was beyond temptation.

      Rashid sidestepped the table and followed her across the ballroom. The door she’d СКАЧАТЬ