The Sheikh's Convenient Princess. Liz Fielding

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СКАЧАТЬ Sheikh Ibrahim continued after a moment. ‘He mentioned a wedding.’ His glance dropped to her hand.

      ‘Not mine.’

      ‘No, I can see that you already wear a wedding ring. Your husband does not object to you working away from home?’

      Her fingers tightened protectively against the plain gold band she wore on her right hand, the hand on which she knew they wore wedding rings—if they wore them at all—in this part of the world.

      ‘It’s a family ring,’ she said. ‘My grandmother wore it. And my mother. If I were married I would wear it on my left hand.’ She looked up but he said nothing and she knew that he could not have cared less whether or not she was married or what her husband thought about her absences. That was the reason she temped. She was here today, gone tomorrow and no one, not even the person she was working for, had the time or inclination to concern themselves with her personal life. ‘I’m booked to cover Jude’s PA,’ she said. ‘She’s getting married at the beginning of June. Hopefully, Peter Hammond’s leg will be up to all these steps by then.’

      Sheikh Ibrahim was saved from answering by the appearance of Khal, carrying a tray, which he placed in front of her.

      ‘Shaay, madaam,’ he said, indicating a small silver teapot.

      ‘Shukran, Khal.’ She indicated a second pot. ‘And this?’

      ‘That is mint tea,’ Sheikh Ibrahim said before he could answer. ‘I’m surprised you don’t have a note of my preference in your file.’

      ‘My files are always a work in progress, but I do have a note that, unusually, you take it without sugar. Would you like some now, Sheikh?’

      ‘We’re on first name terms here.’ If her knowledge irritated him he kept the fact well hidden. ‘Everyone calls me Bram.’

      She was on first name terms with most of the men and women she temped for on a regular basis, but she hadn’t seen any of them half naked.

      It shouldn’t matter, but somehow it did.

      She glanced up at the sky, the stars beginning to blink on as the hood of darkness moved swiftly over them from the east, and took a steadying breath. When she looked back it occurred to her that she wasn’t the only one struggling to hold onto at least the appearance of relaxation. She was pretty fluent in body language herself and, despite the way he was stretched out in that chair, he was, like her, coiled as tight as a spring.

      ‘Would you like tea, Bram?’ she managed, hoping that the slight wobble was just in her head.

      Their gazes met and for a moment she felt dizzy. It wasn’t his powerful thighs, shapely calves, those long sinewy feet stretched out in front of her like temptation. It was his eyes, although surely that dark glowing amber had to be a trick of the light? Or maybe she was hallucinating in the scent-laden air?

CHAPTER TWO

      A PING FROM her phone warning her of an incoming text broke the tension. Bram nodded and, miraculously, Ruby managed to pour mint tea into a tall glass set in a silver holder and place it in front of him without incident.

      As if he too needed a distraction, he reached for the card on which she’d written the hospital details, murmured something.

      ‘I’m sorry?’

      He shook his head. ‘He’s in Gstaad. I broke my ankle there years ago.’

      ‘Remind me never to go there. It’s clearly a dangerous place,’ she added when he gave her a blank look.

      Her Internet search for information had thrown up dozens of photographs of him in skin-hugging Lycra, hurtling down vertiginous ski runs, and with the resulting medals around his neck.

      ‘Maybe,’ he said, his eyes distant, no doubt thinking of a different life when he’d been a champion, a media darling, a future king.

      ‘I’m sorry.’

      He didn’t ask her what she was sorry for and in truth she didn’t know. If he wanted to ski, play polo, there was nothing to stop him, other than shame for having disgraced his family. Was giving it all up, leaving his A-list social life in Europe to live in this isolated place, atonement for scandalising the country he had been born to serve?

      Or did he want the throne of Umm al Basr more than the rush of competition, the prizes and the glamorous women who hung around the kind of men who attracted photographers?

      Was the hunger at the back of his eyes the need for forgiveness or determination to regain all he had lost?

      He dropped the card back on the table.

      ‘Call the hospital. Make sure they have all the details of Peter’s medical insurance and tell them that whatever he needs above and beyond that he is to have. Talk to his mother,’ he continued as she made a note on her pad. ‘Liaise with her about flying him back to England as soon as he’s able to travel. Make sure that there is a plane at their disposal and arrange for a private ambulance to pick him up and take him wherever he needs to go.’

      She made another note. ‘Is there any message?’

      ‘You’re a clumsy oaf?’ he suggested, but without the smile that should have accompanied his suggestion.

      She looked up. ‘Will there be flowers with that?’

      ‘What do you think?’

      What she thought was that Peter Hammond hadn’t crashed his snowboard for the sole purpose of annoying his boss although, if she’d been him, she might have been tempted to take a dive into the snow rather than spend one more day working for Bram Ansari.

      What she said was, ‘Get well soon is more traditional under the circumstances, but it’s undoubtedly a man thing. I’m sure he’ll get the message.’

      She certainly did but, despite the cool reception, she had some sympathy. It was bad enough to have your routine disrupted by the drama of outside events without having a total stranger thrust into your life and, in Bram Ansari’s case, his home.

      He might be an arrogant jerk but she was there to ensure that Peter’s absence did not disturb his life more than absolutely necessary and she was professional enough to make that happen, with or without his co-operation. Not that she’d waste her breath saying so. The first few hours were show-not-tell time.

      ‘No doubt he’ll be as anxious to be back on his feet as you are for his return,’ she said as she picked up the card and tucked it into her notebook. ‘Unfortunately, bones can’t be hurried.’

      ‘I’m aware of that but Peter manages the day-to-day running of Qa’lat al Mina’a. Without him we don’t eat.’

      ‘Everything is flown in from the city, I imagine.’ She could handle that. It wouldn’t be the first time that running a house had come within the remit of an assignment. ‘What did people do here before?’

      ‘Before?’

      ‘Before there was a city with an air-conditioned mall selling luxuries flown in from around the world. Before СКАЧАТЬ