The Sheikh's Virgin Bride. PENNY JORDAN

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СКАЧАТЬ who…who has a major financial interest in it, to give you a guided tour of the hotel complex and to show something of our country. You will like Rashid. He is a very charming and very well-educated man.’

      Petra had had to bite on her tongue to prevent herself from bursting out angrily that she knew exactly who and what Rashid was—thanks to Saud’s innocent revelations!

      She had been awake for what felt like virtually the whole of the night, reliving over and over again those moments on the beach and wondering how she could ever have been stupid enough to allow them to happen, and had then fallen into a deep sleep which had left her feeling heavy-eyed.

      The combination of that and the nervous edginess that was making her start at every tiny sound had exhausted her, and shopping was the last thing she felt like doing. Besides, what if he should try to get in touch with her? Would he do that, or would he expect her to seek him out on the beach and perhaps throw herself at him in the same shameless way she had heard that the other women had done? The thought made her stomach tense nauseously. No, their arrangement was that he was the one who had to pursue her, she reminded herself. Pursue and seduce her, a tiny inner voice whispered dangerously to her…

      Seduce her. A fierce shudder ran through her, causing her aunt to ask in concern if she was cold.

      ‘Cold? In nearly thirty degrees of heat?’ Petra laughed. Her aunt might protest that in Zuran it was winter, but to Petra it felt blissfully warm.

      ‘Your grandfather hopes to be well enough to see you very soon,’ her aunt continued. ‘He is very much looking forward to that, Petra. He keeps asking if you look anything like your mother…’

      Petra tried not to be affected by her aunt’s gentle words.

      ‘If he really wanted to know he could have found out a long time ago—when my mother was still alive,’ she pointed out, remaining unforgiving.

      It was so tempting to tell her aunt that she knew the real reason she was here in Zuran, but she had no wish to get her young cousin into trouble.

      ‘What do you think of the hotel complex?’ her aunt was asking her, tactfully changing the subject.

      Petra toyed with the idea of fibbing but her conscience refused to allow her to do so.

      ‘It’s…it’s breathtaking,’ she admitted. ‘I haven’t explored all of it yet, of course. After all it’s almost like a small town. But what I have seen…’

      She particularly liked the traditional design of the interconnecting hotel and villa complexes, with their private courtyards filled with sweetly scented plants and fruit trees, and the musical sound of fountains which had reminded Petra immediately of both the Moorish style of Southern Spain’s architecture and images her mother had shown her as a child of Arabian palaces.

      ‘When Rashid shows you round you must tell him that. Although unfortunately it may be several days before he is able to do so. He sent word to your grandfather this morning that he has been called away on business on behalf of The Royal Family…Another project he is working on in the desert.’

      ‘He works?’ Petra made no attempt to conceal her disbelief. From what Saud had told her, her prospective suitor sounded far too wealthy and well-connected to do something so mundane.

      ‘Oh, yes,’ her aunt assured her. ‘As well as having a large financial interest in this complex he also designed it. He is a very highly qualified architect and greatly in demand. He trained in England. It was his mother’s wish that he should go to school there, and after her death his father honoured that wish.’

      An architect! Petra frowned, but she had no intention of showing any interest in a man she had already decided to despise.

      ‘It sounds as though he is a very busy man,’ she told her aunt. ‘There really is no need for him to give up his time to show me round the complex. I am perfectly capable of exploring it on my own.’

      ‘No. You must not do that,’ her aunt protested once they were on their own again.

      ‘No? Then perhaps Saud could accompany me?’ Petra could not resist teasing her.

      ‘No…no! It is best that Rashid should show you. After all, he is the one who designed the complex and he will be able to answer any questions you might have.’

      ‘And his wife?’ Petra questioned innocently. ‘Will she not mind him spending his precious free time with me?’

      ‘Oh, he is not married,’ her aunt assured her immediately. ‘You will like him, Petra,’ she assured her enthusiastically. ‘You have much in common with one another, and—’ She broke off as her mobile phone started to ring.

      Her aunt reached beneath her robes to retrieve her phone. But as Petra listened to her speaking quickly in Arabic, she saw her aunt’s face crease in anxiety. ‘What is it?’ she demanded as soon as the call was over. ‘Is it my grandfather? Is he—’

      Furious with herself for her unguarded reaction, and for her concern, Petra stopped speaking and bit her lip.

      ‘That was your uncle,’ her aunt told her. ‘Your grandfather has suffered a relapse. He knows that he has been ordered to rest but he will not do so! I must go home, Petra. I am sorry.’

      Just for a moment Petra was tempted to plead to be allowed to go with her—to be allowed to see her grandfather, the closest person to her in blood she had—but quickly she stifled her weakening and unwanted emotions. Her grandfather meant nothing to her. How could he when she so obviously meant nothing to him? She must not forget the past and his plans for her. No, she was certainly not going to be the one to beg to see him. Her mother had begged and pleaded and had suffered the pain of being ignored and rejected. There was no way that she, Petra, was going to allow her grandfather to do the same to her!

      After a taxi had dropped her off outside the hotel, Petra made her way into the lobby. With the rest of the day to herself there were any number of things Petra knew she could do.

      The complex had its own souq, filled with craftspeople making and selling all manner of deliciously irresistible and traditional things, or she could leave the hotel and enjoy a gondola ride through the man-made canals that bisected the complex, or walk in the tranquillity of its gardens. And of course she could simply chill out if she so wished, either by one of the several stunningly designed pools, including a state-of-the-art ‘horizon pool’, or even on one of the private beaches that belonged to the complex.

      The pools and beaches were reached via a man-made ‘cave’ below the lobby floor of the hotel, where it was possible to either walk or be taken in one of the resort’s beach buggies.

      Once there, as Petra had already discovered, a helpful employee would carry her towel to the lounger of her choice, and position both it and her beach umbrella for her before summoning a waiter in case she wanted to order a drink.

      Nothing that a guest might need, no matter how small—or how large—had been left to chance in the planning of the complex or the training of its staff. Petra had travelled all over the world, both with her parents, her godfather, and on her own, and she had already decided that she had never visited anywhere where a holidaymaker’s needs were catered for so comprehensively and enthusiastically as they were here.

      But of course she was not here on holiday—even if her closest girlfriends at home had insisted on dragging СКАЧАТЬ