The Playboy Sheikh. Alexandra Sellers

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СКАЧАТЬ left small, perfect white imprints in the wet sand as she ran.

      “Allah, he’s panicked her! She’ll break her ankle!” the director cried.

      A buzz ran through the set at the sound of the name, and the crew was suddenly alert. Wardrobe people and makeup artists and gofers appeared at the doors of different trailers as if someone had waved a magic wand. Jafar al Hamzeh, Cup Companion to Prince Karim, was not only rich and as handsome as the devil, he was also, at the moment, the tabloids’ favourite playboy.

      Things got interesting when Jafar al Hamzeh was around. If he had taken an interest in the film’s star…this could be quite an adventurous shoot.

      Down on the beach, the rider remained still, seated negligently on the horse, one fist against his hip, the other casually gripping the reins, in a posture so purely, physically arrogant it was like watching a hawk or a big cat. Letting his prey run a little, his attitude said, for the sake of better sport.

      The director stood as if tied, staring, while the tiny green-clad figure raced wildly down the beach. He lifted his bullhorn and shouted, but they were too far away. His voice would be feeble against the surf.

      He turned and glanced around him for inspiration. Catching sight of the actor in the white desert robes, he gestured imperatively. “Adnan, get on your horse and—”

      “Oh, my God!” someone gasped, and Masoud al Badi turned again.

      The rider had spurred his horse to action at last. The white beast responded eagerly, leaping forward to the chase, and within moments was close behind the running woman. He did not slacken speed.

      The director cursed helplessly into the bullhorn.

      “Jaf! God damn it, Jaf!”

      Those watching gave a collective gasp as, in the distance, the horseman now dropped the reins against the horse’s neck. Like a trick rider in the circus, he leaned sideways out of the saddle, clinging with his knees, while the horse, galloping perilously close to the fleeing woman, moved abreast of her.

      “Is he trying to run her down?” Masoud demanded furiously.

      She screamed something, turning to flail her arms at him, but to no avail. The horseman’s hands caught her firmly around her slim waist and he lifted her effortlessly as he straightened in the saddle. Suddenly she was sitting in front of him on the horse, being held tight in one ruthless arm. With the other he captured the reins again and urged the horse forward.

      “Put me down!” Lisbet shouted wildly. “Are you trying to kill me? What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

      “But you dared me, Lisbet,” he murmured, his face alight with a devilish smile. “When a woman dares a man of spirit it is because she wishes to provoke him to action. But she must beware. The action may not be exactly what she wished.”

      Lisbet gasped in outrage. “Do you imagine I wanted you to—! How did you get here, anyway? How did you know where we were?”

      He smiled down into her face, showing all his teeth.

      “Do you take me for a weakling, who waits for circumstance to assist him? You are not so foolish!”

      Her heart was beating uncomfortably fast. At this it kicked hard. “What do you mean?”

      Jaf laughed and encouraged the horse, forcing her to cling to his chest for balance. The white horse galloped effortlessly along the perfect, smooth sand with his double load. Water diamonds splashed up around them and fell back into the glittering sea.

      “What do you mean, you didn’t wait for circumstance?” she repeated, more loudly.

      “You will learn what I mean,” he said.

      Once they were lovers, but that was long ago. No, not in a previous life, though such is always possible. They had met almost a year ago, when her friend and his brother were struggling through suspicion and misunderstanding towards love.

      There had been no suspicion or misunderstanding for Jaf and Lisbet. Not at the beginning. For them to look had been to love—or at least, to desire. And from desire there had been nothing to bar the rapid progress to completion.

      Of a sort. But soon he came to feel that sexual completion was not all that he wanted. He had wanted, in the words of that still echoing song, to get inside her head.

      She had not wanted him there. He would hold her head between his two powerful hands in the moment when passion was about to drag them away from shore and into those unfathomable depths—he would cup her head, as if it were one of the precious, paper-thin jade cups in his late father’s treasury of antique art, and gaze into her eyes, watching for a sign that what swept his heart also touched her. But she would only laugh and turn her head away or, if his hands were too insistent, close her eyes as the pleasure his body made for her coursed through her.

      When he became demanding, she had warned him. “Don’t dream about me, Jaf. Don’t look at me and see the mother of your babies. That’s not who I am.”

      It drove him wild. Of course when he looked at her he saw the mother of his sons and daughters. He saw the grandmother of his grandchildren.

      “Come with me to Barakat when I go,” he pleaded, for soon he would have to return. “A visit. See whether you could live there. We would live there for part of the year only. It’s a beautiful country, Lisbet.”

      She had smiled in that way that infuriated him—remote and untouchable. “I’m sure it is. Anna loves it there.” Anna was her friend, who had married his brother—once love had conquered, as it must. “Maybe I’d love the country, too. But that’s not the point, is it? It’s not about Barakat versus England. It’s about marriage versus freedom. And I did warn you, Jaf. Right at the start.”

      “Freedom!” he had exclaimed impatiently. How could she be so blind? “What freedom? The freedom to grow old alone? To be without children to comfort you?”

      A look he did not understand had crossed over her face then, and her eyes became shuttered. “Exactly,” she said cheerfully, her voice belying the expression on her face. “The freedom to grow old alone, without children to comfort me. We’re mismatched, Jaf. If you would just face that simple—”

      His hand urgently clasped her neck to stop the words in her throat. “We are not mismatched,” he growled. “We are the perfect mating that others only dream of.”

      She had the grace to blush. “I didn’t mean sex.”

      He stared at her, shaking his head, until her gaze fell. Then he said gently, to the top of her bent head. “Sex is only one of the ways in which we are matched, Lisbet. Do you think I do not know how you struggle to hide from me? Do you understand that what I am saying means that such hiding is unnecessary?”

      She had looked at him then, smiling defiantly. “You’re imagining things, Jaf.”

      But he knew that he was not.

      Two

      Lisbet kicked her heels futilely at the horse’s powerful, rhythmically flexing shoulders. She was sitting side-saddle in front of Jaf, one hip tilted against the low pommel. In spite of his imprisoning СКАЧАТЬ