The Sheikh's Virgin Bride. PENNY JORDAN

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      ‘Panic over?’

      Automatically Petra looked towards Blaize as he emerged from the bathroom, still wearing merely the towel, with an electric razor in one hand whilst he smoothed the skin of his newly shaved jaw with the other. Then she quickly looked away as her heart did a triple-flip before losing its balance and slamming heavily into her chest wall.

      What on earth was the matter with her? So he was having a shave. So what?

      So what? The voice of moral female indignation inside her retorted angrily; what he was doing was an act of deliberate male intimacy…shaving in her suite…in her bathroom…

      ‘Mmm. I could get used to this,’ he told her appreciatively as he studied the well-laden trolley. ‘Pour me a cup of coffee, would you?’ he called out to her as he turned back towards the bathroom. ‘Black and strong, no sugar.’

      Pour him a coffee! Who on earth did he think he was?

      ‘Oh, by the way,’ he told her, pausing as he reached the bathroom door. ‘I’ve already booked us a table at The Venue for tonight, and told them to bill it to your room. We were lucky. They were virtually fully booked. Are you sure you don’t feel like short-circuiting things? I could move in here and…’

      ‘No!’

      Petra’s denial was an explosive sound of outrage and panic, but far from shaming him it just seemed to add to her tormentor’s amusement.

      Relaxing against the open doorway, he told her wickedly, ‘You know, I think I could really enjoy making this seduction the real thing, if you want me to.’

      ‘No.’ This time her denial was even more vehement, her eyes huge and storm-lashed as she added in a strangled voice, ‘Never.’

      ‘Ah, yes! I forgot that you’re saving yourself for the man of your dreams! Well, take care he doesn’t turn into a nightmare…Is that my coffee?’ he added easily, coming to rescue the cup that she was in danger of overfilling.

      Furious with herself for her automatic response to his original request, Petra snatched the cup back from him.

      ‘No, it isn’t’ she denied. ‘It’s mine. You can pour your own.’

      Unperturbed, he shrugged and reached for the coffee pot, leaving Petra to digest her hollow victory along with the bitterly strong coffee she had claimed.

      Broodingly she watched as Blaize tucked into the meal he had ordered with obvious relish. This wasn’t what she had envisaged when she had initially approached him. What she had had in mind was an open and obvious flirtation on the beach, perhaps a couple of very public outings and maybe a meal together thrown in.

      ‘Come and sit down and have something to eat. I ordered enough for both of us,’ Blaize told her.

      ‘So I see,’ Petra agreed waspishly.

      There was no way she could let her family pay for whatever Blaize had added to her bill. Thankfully she had come away with plenty of traveller’s cheques and her credit cards, and her godfather—no doubt motivated by guilt—had pressed a very generous sum of money on her before he had left for the far east.

      ‘I’m a working man,’ Blaize told her cheerfully.

      ‘I’m glad you reminded me,’ Petra replied. ‘And, talking of your work, shouldn’t you…?’

      ‘Don’t worry,’ he assured her. ‘I had some leave owing to me, so I’ve arranged to take some time off. That way I can be free to do whatever you want me to do. If our Rashid is prepared to take you sight unseen, so to speak, then I dare say he’s going to be pretty hard to shift. So you and I are going to have to make sure that we’re convincing. Are you sure you don’t want me to move in here?’ he pressed, looking wistfully at her large bed.

      ‘Perfectly sure,’ Petra told him through gritted teeth. ‘And just as soon as you’ve finished I would be grateful if you would get dressed and leave.’

      ‘Leave? So soon? I thought we could spend some time getting to know one another a little better.’

      To Petra’s chagrin she knew that her expression had betrayed her even before he started to laugh.

      ‘You’re going to have to do much better than this if you expect to convince anyone that you’ve ever done anything more than exchange chaste kisses with a man—never mind that you and I are lovers,’ he warned her when he had stopped laughing.

      ‘The whole purpose of my paying you is that СКАЧАТЬ