The Sheikh's Bride. Sophie Weston

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      Leo hesitated.

      ‘You think your father wouldn’t like it,’ Deborah diagnosed. Her mouth drooped.

      Leo almost patted her hand. But Deborah would have jumped a foot. They were not a touchy-feely family.

      So she said gently, ‘It’s not that. There’s a conference dinner. We’ve arranged it at an historic merchant’s house and there’s going to be a lot of bigwigs present. I really ought to be there.’

      ‘If the wigs are that big, why can’t your boss do it?’ Deborah said shrewdly.

      Leo gave a choke of laughter. ‘Roy? He doesn’t—’

      But then she thought about it. The guest list included some of the most illustrious charitable foundations in the world, including a high royalty quotient. Roy liked mingling at parties where he had a good chance of being photographed with the rich and famous. He called it networking.

      ‘Mother, you’re a genius. It’s just the thing for Roy,’ she said. She pulled out her mobile phone.

      All she got was his answering machine. Leo left a crisp message and rang off.

      ‘Right, that’s sorted. I’ll see you tonight. Now I’ve got to take a seventy-year-old from New Jersey to Giza.’

      Deborah muttered discontentedly.

      Leo looked down at her.

      ‘What?’

      ‘Surely someone junior could take this woman to the pyramids?’

      Leo grinned. Deborah had been a rich man’s daughter when she married rising tycoon Gordon Groom. There had been someone junior to take care of tedious duties all her life. It was one of the reasons Gordon had fought so hard for the custody of his only child.

      ‘As long as I’m a member of the team, I do my share of the chores,’ she said equably.

      ‘Sometimes you are so like your father,’ Deborah grumbled.

      Leo laughed. ‘Thank you.’

      Deborah ignored that. ‘I don’t know why he had to buy Adventures in Time, anyway. Why couldn’t he stick to hotels? And civilised places? What does he want with a travel agency?’

      ‘Diversify or die,’ Leo said cheerfully. ‘You know Pops—’ She broke off. ‘Whoops.’

      In the Viennese café Mrs Silverstein was chatting to an alarmed-looking man in a grey suit. Leo was almost certain he was a member of Sheikh el-Barbary’s entourage.

      ‘It looks as if my client is getting bored. I’ll pick you up at eight this evening, Mother.’

      She darted into the crowd. It was a relief.

      Deborah’s divorce from Gordon Groom had been relatively amicable and her settlement kept her luxuriously provided for, but she could still be waspish about her workaholic ex-husband. It was the one subject that she and Leo were guaranteed to argue about every time they got together.

      Tonight, Leo promised herself, she was not going to let Deborah mention Gordon once. Leo was beginning to have her own misgivings about her father’s plans for her. But she was going to keep that from Deborah until she was absolutely certain herself. So they would talk about clothes and makeup and boyfriends and all the things that Deborah complained that Leo wasn’t interested in.

      One fun evening, thought Leo wryly, after another wonderful day. She went to rescue the security man.

      The Sheikh’s party swept into the suite like an invading army. One security man went straight to the balcony. The other disappeared into the bedroom. The manager, bowing, started to demonstrate the room’s luxurious facilities. He found the Sheikh was not listening.

      An assistant, still clutching his brief-case and laptop computer, nodded gravely and backed the manager towards the door.

      ‘Thank you,’ said the Sheikh’s assistant. ‘And now the other rooms?’

      The manager bowed again and led the way. The security men followed.

      The Sheikh was left alone. He went out to the balcony and stood looking across the Nile. The river was sinuous and glittering as a lazy snake in the morning sun. There was a dhow in midstream, he saw. Its triangular sail was curved like scimitar. It looked like a small dark toy.

      He closed his eyes briefly. It was against more than the glare reflected off the water. Why did everything look like toys, these days?

      Even the people. Moustafa, his chief bodyguard, looked like a prototype security robot. And the woman he was seeing tonight. He intended quitting the boring conference dinner with an excuse he did not care if they believed or not in order to see her. But for an uncomfortable moment, he allowed himself to realise that she reminded him of nothing so much as a designer-dressed doll. In fact, all the women he had seen recently looked like that.

      Except—he had a fleeting image of the girl who had tumbled against the pillar in the hotel lobby. She was too tall, of course. And badly turned out, with her hair full of dust and a dark suit that was half-way to a uniform. But uniform or not, she had not looked like a doll. Not with those wide, startled eyes. The sudden shock in them had been intense—and unmistakeably real.

      The Sheikh’s brows twitched together in a quick frown. Why had she looked so shocked? He suddenly, passionately, wanted to know. But of course he never would, now. He grunted bad temperedly.

      His personal assistant came back into the suite. He hesitated in the doorway.

      The Sheikh straightened his shoulders. ‘Out here, Hari,’ he called. There was resignation in his tone.

      The assistant cautiously joined him on the balcony.

      ‘Everything appears to be in order,’ he reported.

      The Sheikh took off his dark glasses. His eyes were amused but terribly weary.

      ‘Sure? Have the guys checked thoroughly? No bugs in the telephone? No poison in the honey cakes?’

      The assistant smiled. ‘Moustafa can take his job too seriously,’ he admitted. ‘But better safe than sorry.’

      His employer’s expression was scathing. ‘This is nonsense and we both know it.’

      ‘The kidnappings have increased,’ Hari pointed out in a neutral tone.

      ‘At home,’ said the Sheikh impatiently. ‘They haven’t got the money to track me round the world, poor devils. Anyway, they take prosperous foreign visitors who will pay ransom. Not a local like me. My father would not pay a penny to have me back.’ He thought about it. ‘Probably pay them to keep me.’

      Hari bit back a smile. He had not been present at the interview between father and son before Amer left Dalmun this time. But the reverberations had shaken the city.

      A terminal fight, said the palace. The father would never speak to the son again. An ultimatum, said Amer’s household; the son had told his father he would tolerate no more interference СКАЧАТЬ