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The Sheikh's Pregnancy Proposal
Fiona Brand
Mills & Boon Desire
This sheikh must marry the mother of his child!Twenty-four hours before he’s to formally announce his engagement to the bride his father has chosen, Sheikh Kadin Gabriel ben Kadir gives in to a rare moment of temptation. But when one night with Sarah Duval leads to pregnancy, he vows he’ll be part of mother and child’s life. His plan: replace one political marriage for another. He’ll wed the captivating history teacher who arouses such powerful desire and keep his heart out of the bargain.But Sarah wants a soul mate. How can she promise forever to a man who has sworn never to be ruled by love?
“If you’re pregnant with my child, that changes things.”
“What things, exactly?”
He hesitated. “I’m already engaged to be married.”
Her jaw set. “If you got engaged so quickly, you must have known your fiancée.”
Gabe parked in her driveway. “No. It was an arranged marriage.”
Horror transfixed her. “So that’s why you slept with me. It was a last fling.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“How was it, then?”
His gaze pinned hers for long seconds. “You know exactly how it was between us.”
Sarah stared at him, needing to see the truth in his eyes, feeling crazily emotional and on the verge of tears. “So how was it, exactly, between us?”
“Like this.” Gabe cupped her jaw and out of nowhere her heart began to pound and the humming, tingling attraction she’d fought to suppress shimmered through her.
He lowered his mouth, and foolishly she tossed away any thoughts of being sensible and controlled and let him kiss her.
The Sheikh’s
Pregnancy Proposal
Fiona Brand
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
FIONA BRAND lives in the sunny Bay of Islands, New Zealand. Now that both her sons are grown, she continues to love writing books and gardening. After a life-changing time in which she met Christ, she has undertaken study for a bachelor of theology and has become a member of The Order of St. Luke, Christ’s healing ministry.
To the Lord.
“Our Lord showed me an inward sight of His homely loving. I saw that He is everything that is good and comforting to us. He is our clothing. In His love He wraps us and holds us. He enfolds us in love and He will never let us go.”
—The Revelations of Divine Love, Julian of Norwich
Heartfelt thanks to Stacy Boyd for inspirational suggestions, patience and grace in editing.
It’s always a joy to work with you.
Contents
Cover (#u7823b3af-6b98-5310-8a08-b8da795613bf)
Excerpt (#u4730d1b0-4c94-5d66-a683-38c2a66448d5)
Title Page (#u7fe83f88-e45c-5aa8-8ea8-c97d3055f6a4)
About the Author (#ud5b11f2b-2db6-558f-933e-9bd95f539c06)
Dedication (#ufbcc6c20-e609-568e-9810-92a79fd346af)
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One (#ulink_cee63133-d081-5924-beb2-0b2efa0cb164)
Twenty-four hours away from the deadline to sign a marriage contract...
The stark thought shoved Sheikh Kadin Gabriel ben Kadir out of a restless sleep. Tossing crisp linen sheets aside, Gabe flowed to his feet and pulled on a pair of narrow dark jeans. The cool light of a New Zealand dawn flooded his suite, a floor above the Zahiri consulate in Wellington, as he broodingly considered the concept of once more entering into the intimacy of marriage.
Marrying a wealthy heiress would solve his country’s financial problems. The problem was, after the disaster of his last marriage, he had no desire to ever immerse himself in that particular hell again.
The morning air cool against his torso, he padded barefoot to the French doors and dragged aside heavy linen curtains. Dark gaze somber, he surveyed the gray rain drenching his last day of bachelor freedom. At that moment, like a fiery omen, the sun pierced the thick veil of storm clouds that hung over Wellington Harbour, illuminating a large painting of his twelfth-century ancestors, which dominated one wall of his suite.
Gabe studied the painting of the original Sheikh Kadin on whose birthday he’d had the bad luck to be born. A battle-hardened Templar Knight, Kadin’s main claim to fame was that he had taken someone else’s bride along with her diamond-encrusted dowry. The captured bride, Camille de Vallois, a slim redhead with dark exotic eyes, had then proceeded to entrance his ancestor to the point of obsession. Gabe’s stomach tightened at the remembrance of the obsession that had haunted his own youthful marriage, although in his case the possessive intensity hadn’t emanated from him.
Once they were married, Jasmine, his childhood sweetheart, had become increasingly clingy and demanding, dissolving into tears or throwing tantrums when she didn’t get her way. She had resented his busy work schedule, and had become convinced he was having affairs. When he had refused to start a family until their relationship was on a more even keel she had taken that as a sign that he regretted the marriage. The guilt she had inspired in him had taken on a haunting rawness when, after a tense exchange during a boat trip, Jasmine had stormed off in the yacht’s tender, overturned on rocks and drowned.
The memory of the icy salt water dashing off rocks as he had attempted to save Jasmine started a dull ache in the scar that marred one cheekbone, a permanent reminder of that day.
Legend said Gabe’s ancestor had a positive outcome to his passionate involvement with the woman he had married. Gabe’s experience had been such that he would not allow a woman to have that kind of power over him again. As far as he was concerned, passion had its place, but only in short, controllable liaisons. Love was another thing entirely; he would not be drawn into that maelstrom again.
A rap at the door of his suite was a welcome distraction. Shrugging into a T-shirt, he opened the door to his longtime friend and Zahir’s chief of security.
Xavier, who had just flown in from Zahir, strolled into the spacious lounge that adjoined Gabe’s bedroom and handed him an envelope. “Special delivery.”
Slitting the envelope, Gabe extracted the marriage contract he had discussed with his lawyers before leaving Zahir.
Xavier stared at the contract as if it were a bomb about to explode. “I don’t believe it. You’re actually going to go through with it.”
Gabe headed for the state-of-the-art kitchenette that opened off the lounge. “There aren’t a whole lot of options.”
With the cold winds of bankruptcy at their backs and the remains of Camille’s extraordinary wealth lost during the confusion of the Second World War, it was up to Gabe to restore the country’s fortunes with another arranged marriage to an extremely wealthy woman.
Xavier shook his head to the offer of a glass of orange juice. “I would have thought that after Jasmine—”
“That it was time I moved on?”
Xavier’s expression became impatient. “When you married Jasmine you were both too young. It’s time you had a real marriage.”
“The marriage to Jasmine was real enough.” Gabe drained his glass of juice and set the glass down on the counter with a sharp click. As far as he was concerned, their marriage had been all too real. He could still feel the familiar coldness in his gut, the tightness in his chest every time he thought about the past and how completely he had failed his wife when she had needed him most. “This marriage won’t be.” It was prescribed and controlled, preventing any possibility of destructive, manipulative emotion. “Remember, it’s a business arrangement.”
Xavier, who was happily married, didn’t bother to hide his incredulity. “You can’t seriously think you can keep it that way. What woman will ever allow that?”
Gabe lifted a brow as he flipped to the back pages of the contract. It contained a short list of candidates and photographs of the pretty young women from wealthy families who had expressed an interest in the prestige and business opportunities inherent in a marriage to the future Sheikh of Zahir.
Xavier frowned at the list. “I still think you’re making a big mistake, but I guess it’s your funeral.”
Gabe saw the moment Xavier realized the import of his final comment about a funeral. He cut off Xavier’s apology with a curt word. They had grown up together. Xavier had been his best man when he’d gotten married, and when Jasmine had died, he had kept the press and hordes of well-meaning friends and relatives at bay, gifting Gabe the privacy he had needed. Through it all, their friendship had endured. “I have to marry at some point. Don’t forget, aside from the money, Zahir needs an heir.”
After Xavier left, Gabe grabbed fresh clothing and headed for the shower. He considered Xavier’s comment that he and Jasmine had been too young to marry. He had been twenty, Jasmine eighteen. The marriage had lasted two years.
Flicking on the shower, he waited until steam rose off the tiles before stripping and stepping beneath the water. Now he was thirty, and as his father’s only son he needed to marry and continue the family line. The prospect of a second marriage made his jaw clench. He could think of other ways to raise the money Zahir needed, Westernized ways that weren’t presently a part of Zahir’s constitution. But with his father recovering from cancer and wary about new investments, Gabe had accepted his father’s old-fashioned solution.
Minutes later, dressed in a white shirt, red tie and dark suit, he stood drinking the dark, aromatic coffee he preferred as he stared out at the heavy rain sweeping the harbor. As cold and alien as the view was, thousands of miles from sunny Zahir, it was nevertheless familiar. Not only had his mother been born in New Zealand, but Wellington had been a home away from home for him because he had gone to school here.
Checking his watch, he placed his empty mug on the coffee table next to the marriage contract. Right now he had a breakfast meeting with both the Zahiri and New Zealand ministers for tourism. That would be followed by a string of business meetings, then a cocktail party and presentation on Zahir’s attractions as a tourist destination at the consulate tonight.
Despite Gabe’s resolve, he could think of better ways to spend his last day of freedom.
One more day—and night—as a bachelor, before he committed to the marriage of convenience that was his destiny.
* * *
She was destined to be loved, truly loved...
The chime of her alarm almost pulled Sarah Duval out of her dream, but the irresistible passion that held her in its grip was too singular and addictive to relinquish just yet. Eyes firmly closed against the notion of another day of unvarying routine in her teaching job, she groped for the alarm and hit the sleep button. Dragging a fluffy feather pillow over her head, she sank back into the dream.
The directness of the warrior’s gaze was laden with the focused intent she had waited years to experience, as if he thought she was beautiful, or more—as if he was actually fascinated by her.
Strong fingers cupped her chin. Sarah dragged her gaze from the fascinating scar that sliced a jagged line across one taut cheekbone and clamped down on the automatic caution that gripped her, the disbelief that after years of being let down by men an outrageously attractive man could truly want her. The searing heat blasting off his bronzed torso, the rapid thud of his heart beneath her palms, didn’t feel like a lie.
In point of fact, the warrior wasn’t saying a lot, but Sarah was okay with that. After years of carefully studying body language, because she had learned she could not always trust what was said, she had learned to place a measure of trust in the vocabulary of the senses.
Throwing her normal no-nonsense practicality to the winds she lifted up on her toes, buried her fingers in the thick night-dark silk of his hair, and pressed herself firmly against the muscular warmth of his body. His mouth closed over hers and emotion, almost painful in its intensity, shuddered through her.
Dimly, she acknowledged that this was it. The long years of waiting were over. She would find out what it felt like to be truly wanted, to finally make love—
The shrill of the alarm once more shoved Sarah out of the dream, although the warrior’s voice seemed to hang in the air, as declarative as his dark gaze.
“You are mine to hold.”
An electrifying quiver ran the length of her spine, lifting all the fine hairs at her nape as she silenced the alarm. Blinking at the grayness of the morning, she registered the comforting ticking of the oil heater she’d dragged beside the bed to keep out the winter chill. She sucked in a breath in an effort to release the tension that banded her chest and the sharp, hot ache at the back of her throat. As if she really had been the focus of a powerful male’s desire...
A soft thud drew her gaze to the leather-bound cover of the family journal she had been reading before she’d gone to sleep. It had slipped off the edge of her bed and fallen to the floor. The journal, which had been partially transcribed from Old French by an erudite cousin, relegated the dream to its true context—fantasy.
None of it had been real. At least no more real to Sarah than the dramatic contents of the personal diary of Camille de Vallois. A spinster and academic who had lived more than eight hundred years ago, Camille had been sold into marriage by her family. However, when her ship had foundered on the rocks of Zahir, she had made herself over as an adventurous femme fatale and gone after the man she discovered she wanted, a sheikh who had also been a battle-hardened Templar Knight. Camille had risked all for love, admittedly with the help of an enormous dowry, and she had succeeded.
Frowning, Sarah reviewed the vivid dream and reluctantly let the last remnants of the powerful emotions that had held her in thrall flicker and die. Camille’s story had clearly formed the basis of the dream. Plus, the previous day, caught up in the romance she’d been reading in the journal, she had called at the Zahiri consulate and picked up a pamphlet about a scheduled exhibition of Zahiri artifacts and a lecture on their history and culture. While exiting the building in the middle of a rain shower, head down because she had forgotten her umbrella, she had run into a man so gorgeous that for long seconds her brain had refused to function.
By the time she had recovered the power of speech, he had picked up the pamphlets she’d dropped, handed them to her with a flashing grin and strode into the consulate. The hero of her dream, scar and all, had looked suspiciously like that man.
Her cheeks warmed at the memory of some of the graphic elements of the dream, the searing embrace and a toe-curling kiss that had practically melted her on the spot. It had definitely been the stuff of fantasies and nothing to do with her normal life as a staid history teacher.
In her ancestor’s case, the dream had come true, but Sarah could never allow herself to forget that Camille’s romance had been smoothed along by a great deal of cold hard cash. Love story or not, Sarah was willing to bet that Sheikh Kadin had known on which side his bread had been buttered.
Pushing upright in the cozy nest of her bed, she reached down and retrieved the journal, which included photocopied sheets of the original, written in Old French, plus the sections of the journal her cousin had so far transcribed.
A heavy gust hit the side of her cottage, rattling the windows and making the old kauri timbers groan. Pushing free of the heavy press of quilt and coverlet, Sarah inched her feet into fluffy slippers, belted a heavy robe around her waist and padded to the window to stare out at the stormy day.
The steep street she lived on was shrouded in gray. The sodium lamps still cast a murky glow on neatly trimmed hedges, white picket fences and the occasional wild tangle of an old rose. The houses, huddled together, cheek-by-jowl—some so close a person could barely walk between them—were neither graceful and old nor conveniently modern. Inhabited by solo homeowners like herself or young families, they were something much more useful: affordable.
Letting the drapes fall back into place, she walked to the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea before she showered and got ready for work. Her tiny kitchen, with its appliances fitted neatly to take up minimal space, was about as far away from the exotic isle of Zahir as she could get.
As she sipped hot tea, her reflection in the multipaned window over the counter bounced back at her and she found herself critically examining her appearance. With her hair bundled into a knot, her face bare of makeup, the thick robe making her look ten pounds heavier than she was, she looked washed-out, tired and...boring.
Frowning, chest tight at the thought that at twenty-eight she was no longer in the first flush of youth, she peered more closely at her reflection. Her eyes were blue; her skin was pale; her hair, when it was loose, was heavy, straight and dark. It was the faded robe that drained the color from her skin, and the tight way her hair was scraped back from her face that was so unflattering. She wasn’t old.
Although she would be twenty-nine next month. In just over a year she would be thirty.
The pressurized feeling in her chest increased. She sucked in a breath, trying to ease the tension, but the thought of turning thirty made her heart hammer. She was abruptly aware of time passing, leaving her behind, of her failure to find someone special to love and who would love her back in return.
On the heels of those thoughts an old fear loomed out of the shadows. That her disastrous track record with men wasn’t about bad luck or bad judgment, it was about her; she was the problem. Perhaps some aspect of her personality, maybe her academic bent and blunt manner, or more probably her old-fashioned insistence on being truly loved for herself before sex entered the equation, was the reason she would never be cherished by any man.
Grimly, she considered her two engagements, which had both fallen through. Her first fiancé, Roger, had gotten annoyed when she hadn’t felt ready to sleep with him the week of their engagement, and so had called it off. Not a problem.
The second time she had chosen better, or so she had thought. Unfortunately, after months of dating a fellow teacher, Mark, who had seemed quite happy with her views on celibacy before marriage, she had discovered, on the morning of their wedding, that he had fallen in love with somebody else. A blonde and pretty somebody else with whom he had been sleeping for the past four months.
Normally, she didn’t wallow in the painful details of those relationship mistakes. Burying her head in the sand and anaesthetizing herself with work had been a much more attractive option.
But reading the journal that had recently arrived from her cousin and dreaming that deeply sensual dream had changed her in some imperceptible way. Maybe what she was feeling was all tied up with the realization that her biological clock was ticking. Whatever the cause, she felt different this morning, tinglingly alive and acutely vulnerable, as if she were standing on the edge of a precipice.
And she knew what that precipice was: she was finally ready to try again. Her pulse sped up at the knowledge that after years of relationship limbo she wanted to love and be loved and this time, marriage or not, she wanted the passionate, heart-stopping sex. Adrenaline zinged through her veins at the thought of tossing her old relationship rulebook away. She was tired of waiting, of missing out. She wanted to take the risk, to find a man she could not just desire, but with whom she could fall recklessly, wildly in love.
A man like the dangerously handsome guy she had run into the day before.
Absently, she sipped her cooling tea. In the past, she had been black-and-white in her thinking. She had wanted all or nothing. She didn’t understand how she had become that way. Maybe her deep need for emotional certainty had been fueled by the fact that her father had only ever been a sometime presence in her life. Or maybe it was because she was naturally passionate in her thinking. For most of her adult life “all or nothing” had been the catchphrase that had summed up her approach.
Whatever the cause, it had devastated her last two serious relationships and was already sounding the death knell for the lukewarm friendship she shared with an importer of antiquities and fellow history buff that was the closest thing to a romance on her dating horizon.
Her jaw firmed. If she was going to find someone to love, someone she could marry and have babies with, it was clear she would have to be more flexible than she had been in the past. She would have to change. She would have to bite the bullet and experiment with a casual affair.
And the clock was ticking.
Replacing the mug on the counter, she dragged her hair free of the elastic tie that held it in place. Feeling tense and a little shaky, she raked her fingers through the warm, heavy strands, trying to work some volume into her satin-smooth hair. With her hair tumbling loose to her waist, she looked younger and sexier. Relief made her feel ridiculously light-headed.
She dragged off the robe and let it drop to the floor. The nightie she was wearing didn’t help matters. Made of cotton flannel in an unflattering shade of pale pink, it reminded her of the nightwear her grandmother used to wear. Great for cold nights, drinking hot chocolate and reading a book, but ultimately as sexy as a tent.
The only positive was that beneath the material she had a good figure. Her breasts were shapely, her waist narrow, her legs long and toned from all the walking she did.
Shivering at the chill, she dragged on the robe and returned to her bedroom. Flicking on a light, she flung her closet wide and began examining hangers of clothes she had bought for the honeymoon that hadn’t happened.
Annoyed at how affected she still was by the canceled wedding and Mark’s easy dismissal of her in favor of a woman who had been dishonest enough to sleep with an engaged man, she hauled out slinky clothes and dropped them on the bed. She needed to exorcise the past by either wearing the clothes as if they had not been bought for a special, life-changing occasion, or else give them away to a charity shop.
Sarah arrayed the collection of jewel-bright garments across her bed. With a start, she realized that almost four years had passed since Mark had jilted her.
Four years.
Jaw set at the time that had passed, she selected a red dress. The color was sensual and rich, the silk jersey warm to the touch. With three-quarter-length sleeves and a V-neck, the design was classic. Bought for the romantic honeymoon she had paid for in Paris then cancelled, it was also sexy and sophisticated.
Before she could change her mind, she stripped out of the robe and nightgown and pulled on the dress. The jersey settled against her skin, making her shiver. Strolling to her dressing table she examined the effect of the dress, which, worn without a bra and with her hair rumpled and loose, was startlingly sensual. The deep, rich color made her skin look creamy instead of pale, and turned her dark hair a rich shade of sable. She stared at the bold, definitely female image, feeling oddly electrified, like a sleeper waking up.
The woman in the mirror in no way looked boring or tired. She looked young and vibrant. Available.
Years had passed since Mark had ditched her practically at the altar. Years that she had wasted, and which had been her prime window in terms of finding a suitable mate. If she had been focused by now she would have met and married her Mr. Right, gotten pregnant and had at least one baby.
She had put her lack of success with relationships down to her heavy work schedule. According to her mother, Hannah, the real reason Sarah hadn’t found a relationship was fear. Two engagements had fallen through and in her usual stubborn way Sarah had refused to go out on a limb a third time.
Hannah’s solution had been to produce a constant supply of eligible men from among her interior-decorating business contacts, which was how Sarah had met Graham Southwell. Although, after several platonic dates, she had received the overwhelming impression that Graham was more interested in her connection to the missing de Vallois dowry than in an actual relationship.
As it happened she was meeting Graham that evening. After the revelation of the dream, she could not view tonight as just another dead-end date with a man who did not really see her. Tonight was an opportunity to effect the change that was already zinging through her.
She could not afford to wait any longer for her true love to find her; experience had taught her that might never happen. Like her ancestor Camille, she had to be bold. She had to formulate a plan.
By the time she was ready to leave for work she had settled on a strategy that was time-honored and uncannily close to Camille’s plan to win her sheikh.
Sarah would dress to kill, and when she found the man of her dreams, she would seduce him.
Two (#ulink_5a2e114a-004e-561f-9d59-04a208646e81)
Sarah found a space in the parking lot next door to the historic old building that housed the Zahiri consulate. Situated just over the road from the waterfront, the entire block was dotted with grand Victorian and Edwardian buildings and a series of old warehouses that had been turned into bars and restaurants.
As she stepped out of the car, cold wind gusted in off the sea and spits of rain landed on her skin. Her hair, which she’d spent a good hour coaxing into trailing curls with a hot curling iron, swirled around her face. Turning up the collar of her coat and shivering a little, because the red silk jersey dress was not made for a cold Wellington night, she locked the car and started toward the consulate.
Feeling nervous and self-conscious about all the changes she’d made, especially her new makeup and a pair of black boots with heels a couple of inches higher than she normally wore, she hurried past a group of young men hanging around the covered area outside a bar.
The wind gusted again, making her coat flap open and lifting the flimsy skirt of her dress, revealing more leg than she was accustomed to showing. Her phone chimed as she clutched the lapels of her coat and dragged her hemline down. Ignoring a barrage of crude remarks and a piercing wolf whistle, she retrieved the phone and answered the call.
Graham had arrived early and was already inside on the off chance that he might actually get to meet the elusive Sheikh of Zahir, who was rumored to be in town. Since it was cold and on the verge of raining, he had decided not to hang around outside waiting for her as they had arranged.
Irritated but unsurprised by Graham’s lack of consideration, Sarah walked up the steps to the consulate and strolled into the foyer, which was well lit and warm.
She was greeted by a burly man with a shaved head who was dressed in a beautifully cut suit. He checked her invitation and noted her name on a register. When he handed the invitation back, his gaze was piercing. In New Zealand it was unusual to be scrutinized so thoroughly. She was almost certain he wasn’t just a consulate official. With the sheikh in residence it was more likely that the man was one of the sheikh’s bodyguards. Though a Christian nation, Zahir, a Mediterranean island, was caught between the Middle East and Europe. The elderly sheikh had been kidnapped some years ago and so now was rumored to always travel with an armed escort.
She hung her coat on the rack provided. Ignoring an attack of nerves caused by losing the cozy, protective outer layer that had mostly hidden the red dress, she walked through an elegant hallway and into a crowded reception room. It was a cocktail party and promotional evening aimed at selling Zahir, with its colorful history as a Templar outpost, as a tourist destination. Sarah had expected little black dresses and the rich exotic colors of the East to abound, but crisp business suits and black and gray dresses toned down by jackets created a subdued monochrome against which she stood out like an overbright bird of paradise.
Sarah’s stomach sank. When she had read the pamphlet she hadn’t seen the evening as focused on business, but if she didn’t miss her guess, most of the guests were business types, probably tour operators and travel agents and no doubt a smattering of government officials.
Deciding to brazen it out, she moved to a display concerning the mysterious disappearance of the remains of Camille’s dowry. Hidden by a member of the sheikh’s family at the time of the evacuation during the Second World War, the location of the hiding place had been lost when the family member died in a bombing raid.
A short, balding man in a gray suit also stopped by the display, but seemed more mesmerized by the faint shadowy hollow of her cleavage. Annoyed by his rudeness, she sent him the kind of quelling glance that would have had her pupils scrambling to apply themselves to their study. As he scuttled away, she thought longingly about retrieving her coat and covering up the alluring brightness of the dress, but she refused to cut and run because she was attracting male attention. After all, that had been the whole point.
A waiter offered her a glass of wine. A little desperately, she took a glass and sipped slowly as she moved to a display of Templar weaponry. Instantly riveted by a history she found even more fascinating after immersing herself in Camille’s journal, Sarah read the notes about the Templar band under the command of Sheikh Kadin. Setting her glass down on a nearby table, she stepped closer, irresistibly drawn to the largest weapon—a grim, pitted sword that had clearly seen hard use. A small label indicated the sword had belonged to the sheikh. In that moment she remembered a passage of the journal, which had outlined Camille’s first meeting with Kadin.
“An overlarge warrior with a black, soaked mane, dark eyes narrowed against the wind, a workmanlike blade gripped in his battle-scarred hand.”
The fascination that had gripped Sarah as she’d read Camille’s account came back full force. A small sign warned against touching the displays, but the powerful compulsion to immerse herself in sensation, to touch the sword, far outweighed the officious red wording.
Breath held, her fingertips brushed the gleaming grip where the chasing etched into the bronze was worn smooth by use. The chill of the metal struck through her skin. A split second later, the bracket holding the sword came loose and the heavy weapon toppled, hitting the carpeted floor with a thud.
Mortified, Sarah reached for the sword, hoping to prop it against the display before anyone noticed. Before she could grab it, a large tanned hand closed around the bronze grip. With fluid grace, a tall, broad-shouldered man straightened, the blade in his hand, and her heart slammed once, hard, as her dream world and the present fused.
The warrior.
That seemed the only adequate description. The man was tall enough that her gaze was firmly centered on his jaw. Heart pounding, she tilted her head and stared directly into the amber gleam of eyes that, for a split second, she fully expected to be as passionately focused on her as those of the warrior who had haunted her dream.
Her breath caught in the back of her throat as she recognized the man she had run into the previous day. The curious tension that had invested the dream drew every muscle taut as she took in black hair cut crisp and short, the blade-straight nose and the intriguing scar on his cheekbone. The planes and angles of his face were mouthwateringly clean-cut, although any sense of perfection was lost in the grim line of his jaw and the lash of the scar.
His brows drew together as if he recognized her and was trying to remember from exactly where. A split second later his gaze shuttered and she had to wonder if she’d imagined that moment of intense interest.
Or, on a more practical note, if he was married. As a single woman with years of dating experience, it would not be the first time she had been checked out by a man who then suddenly recalled that he was committed elsewhere.
His gaze dropped to her hands. “Are you all right? For a moment, I thought you might have cut yourself.”
The low, rough timbre of his voice, the cosmopolitan accent, was definitely European, but with a slow cadence that indicated he had spent time in the States. The accent, along with the short cut of his hair and the suit, added to the impression that had been forming, the only one that made sense—he was either an aide to the sheikh or a bodyguard. Given his muscular build, and the fact that he had arrived within seconds of her touching the sword, she would go with the security option.
She dredged up a smile and displayed her palms to show she wasn’t injured. “I’m fine, just a little startled the sword wasn’t secured. Especially since it belonged to Sheikh Kadin.”
For another heart-pounding moment his gaze seemed riveted on her mouth. “You’re right, the Wolf of Zahir would not have been so careless. I’ll have a word with the staff who set up the display.”
She dragged her gaze from the line of his jaw. “Oh no, really...it was completely my fault. I shouldn’t have touched the sword.” Shouldn’t have allowed herself to be distracted by her ancestor’s passionate love story when she needed to apply herself to establishing her own.
With an easy movement, he propped the weapon against the display board. As he did so an angled spotlight above gleamed over his damaged cheekbone, and cast a shadow over the inky curve of his lashes. Suddenly the dream warrior, as riveting as he had been, seemed too cosmetically perfect and lacking in personality. From memory, he had also been oddly compliant. In the way of dreams, he had done exactly what she had wanted, in contrast to this man who looked as seasoned and uncompromising as the Templar Knight who had originally wielded the sword.
To her surprise, instead of moving on, he held out his hand and introduced himself as Gabriel, Gabe for short.
Surprised at the informality and that he seemed to want to keep the conversation going, Sarah briefly gripped his hand as she supplied her name. Tingling warmth shot through her at the rough heat of his palm. “I’m a history teacher.”
She caught the flash of surprise in his expression and her mood dropped like a stone. He was tall, gorgeous, hot—as different from Graham as a dark lion from a tabby cat. Incredibly, he also seemed to be interested in her, and she had just ruined the outward impression of sexy sophistication she’d spent hours creating. If she’d had her wits about her she would have relegated her teaching occupation to some dusty dark hole and claimed an interest in travelling to exotic places.
“I’m guessing since you’re at the exhibition that it’s Templar history?”
Her mood dropped even further when she realized she now had to tell him how boring and prosaic her subjects were. “I specialize in the industrial revolution and the First and Second World Wars.” She let out a resigned breath, convinced they had nothing in common. “What about you?”
“Five years at Harvard. It was useful.”
Hope flared anew. “Harvard. That sounds like law, or business.”
“Business, I’m afraid.”
He sounded almost as apologetic as she had been. Her heart beat faster. Not a bodyguard then, despite the muscle. Perhaps he was one of the sheikh’s financial advisors. She was riveted by the thought that maybe all wasn’t lost.
Just as she was searching for some small talk, two Arabic men in suits joined them. The taller one, carrying a screwdriver, immediately set about refixing the bracket that had held the sword. The other suit, a plump man with a tag that proclaimed he was Tarik ben Abdel, the consulate administration manager, sent her a disapproving glance. He then button-holed Gabe and launched into a tirade in a liquid tongue she recognized as Zahiri.
Gabe cut him off with a flat, soft phrase, although Sarah was distracted from the exchange. Graham had appeared just yards away, head swiveling as if he had finally remembered to search for her. His gaze passed over her then shot back to linger on the hint of cleavage at the V of her dress. When he fished in his pocket for his cell phone and turned away, an irritated look on his face, she realized that, aside from checking out her chest, he had failed to recognize her.
Tarik, with a last disapproving glance at her, marched away, the second suit trailing behind. She noticed that the sword was once again affixed to the display.
Sarah was suddenly blazingly aware that the tall dark man hadn’t left as she had expected him to and that he was studying her with an enigmatic expression, as if he’d logged the exchange with Graham.
Still mortified at the fuss she’d created, she rushed to apologize. “I read the sign. I know I shouldn’t have touched the sword, that artifacts can be vulnerable to skin oils and salts—”
“Tarik wasn’t worried that the sword might be damaged. It survived the Third Crusade, so a fall onto soft carpet is hardly likely to cause harm. He was more concerned about the tradition that goes with the sword.”
Understanding dawned. If there had been a pre-eminent symbol of manhood in the Middle Ages, it had been the sword, and this had been a Templar sword. “Of course, the Templar vow of chastity.”
Amusement gleamed in his gaze. “And a superstition that a woman’s touch would somehow disable a warrior’s potency in battle.”
A curious warmth hummed through her as she realized that, as nerve-racking as the exchange had started out, she was actually enjoying talking to the most dangerously attractive man she had ever met. “Sounds more like a convenient way of shifting blame for a lackluster performance on the battlefield.”
“Possibly.” Gabe’s mouth kicked up at one corner, softening the line of his jaw and revealing the slightest hint of an indentation. “But, back then, on Zahir, if a woman handled a man’s sword, it was also viewed as a declaration of intent.”
Breath held, Sarah found herself waiting for the dimple to be more fully realized. “What if she was simply curious?”
His gaze locked with hers and a tension far more acute than any she had experienced in her dream flared to life. “Then the warrior might demand a forfeit. Although most of the Templars that landed on Zahir eventually gave up their vows.”
“Including the sheikh, who married.”
The cooling of his expression as she mentioned marriage was like a dash of cold water. For the second time she wondered if he was married. Disappointment cascaded through her at the thought. A glance at his left hand confirmed there was no ring, although that meant nothing. He could be married, with children, and never wear a ring.
A faint buzz emanated from his jacket pocket. With a frown that sent a dart of pleasure through her, because it conveyed that he didn’t want to be interrupted, he excused himself and half turned away to take the call.
Unsettled and on edge because she was clearly developing an unhealthy fascination for a complete stranger, Sarah remembered her glass of wine. As she took a steadying sip, her cell phone chimed. Setting the glass back down, she rummaged in her handbag and found the phone and another text from Graham. Although there was nothing romantic or even polite about the words.Where are you?
Annoyed at his blunt irritation, the cavalier way he hadn’t bothered to meet her as they had arranged, Sarah punched the delete key. She might be a victim of the love game, but she would not be a doormat. Temper on a slow simmer, she shoved the phone back in her handbag.
Gabe terminated his call. “Are you with someone? I noticed you came in alone.”
Suddenly the tension was thick enough to cut, although she couldn’t invest the knowledge that he had noticed her entrance with too much importance. She was the only person dressed in red in a sea of black and gray; of course he had noticed her. “Uh, I was supposed to meet someone...”
“A man.”
She crushed the urge to say she wasn’t meeting another man; that would have been a lie. “Yes.”
He nodded, his expression remote, but she was left with the unmistakable impression that if she had said she was alone the evening might have taken a more exciting turn than she could ever expect with Graham.
His expression suddenly neutral, Gabe checked his watch. “If you’ll excuse me. I have a call to make.”
Sarah squashed a plunging sense of disappointment. As he walked away, she forced herself to look around for Graham.
She spotted him across the room involved in an animated discussion with a man wearing a business suit and a kaffiyeh, the traditional Arabic headdress. She studied the Arab man, who she assumed must be the sheikh. She had read a lot about Zahir, but most of it had been history, since Zahir was a small, peaceful country that didn’t normally make the news. She knew that the sheikh was on the elderly side, and that he had married a New Zealander, a woman who had originally come from Wellington, which explained Zahir’s close ties with her country.
She strolled closer just as the man with the kaffiyeh moved away and finally managed to make eye contact with Graham.
The blankness of his expression changed to incredulity. “You.”
Not for the first time Sarah looked at Graham and wondered how such a pleasantly handsome man could inspire little more in her than annoyance. “That’s right, your date.”
He shook his head as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. “If you’d told me you were going to change your appearance—”
Her jaw locked at Graham’s unflattering response, as if the act of putting on a dress, a little extra makeup and messing with her hair was some kind of disguise. “This is how I look.”
He stared at her mouth, making her wonder if she’d been a little too heavy on the berry lip gloss. “Not usually. If you had, we might have hit it off a little better.”
Sarah realized there was one very good reason she had never been able to really like Graham. Not only was he self-centered with a roving eye, he had a nasty streak. She had been looking for a prince and, as usual, had ended up dating a frog. “How about I make it easy for us both. From now on don’t call and don’t come around to my mother’s house for dinner. A clean break would suit me.”
His expression took on a shifty cast. “What about the journal? You said I could look at it.”
“That was all you really wanted, wasn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t say that, exactly.”
No, because what he really wanted was to find the lost dowry and cash in on it. Sarah drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. The first two men in her life had dumped her for other women; that she could accept. Graham preferring a book and the possibility of cold hard cash over her was the proverbial last straw. “Forget the journal. It’s a private, family document. Hell would freeze solid before I’d give it to you.”
Feeling angry and hurt, hating the fact that she had lost her temper but relieved she had finally finished with Graham, Sarah spun on her heel then froze as she spotted Gabe talking with an elderly lady. He was close enough that he had probably heard some of her conversation with Graham. His gaze locked with hers, sharp and uncomplicatedly male, and for a moment the room full of people ceased to exist. Then a waiter strolled past with a tray filled with glasses, breaking the spell.
Her stomach clenched on a sharp jab of feminine intuition, that despite knowing she had a date, after he had made his call, Gabe had come looking for her. When he’d seen her talking with Graham, he’d stopped far enough away to allow her privacy—to allow her a choice—but close enough to keep an eye on her.
Graham didn’t find her attractive, but she was suddenly acutely aware that Gabe did. Talking to him at the sword display had been easy; there had been nothing at stake. Instinctively, she knew a second conversation meant a whole lot more. It meant she would have to make a decision. Suddenly the whole concept of abandoning her rule about no sex before commitment seemed full of holes when what she really wanted was love, not sex.
Feeling utterly out of her depth, her chest tight, she dragged her gaze away and made a beeline for the ladies’ room and the chance to regroup.
Pushing the door open, she stepped into a pretty tiled bathroom. Her reflection bounced back at her, tousled hair and smoky eyes, sleek dress and black boots. Her cheeks flushed as she registered what Gabe was seeing. Graham was right. She barely recognized herself. The woman who stared back at her looked exotic and assured. Experienced.
She wondered if all Gabe saw was the outer package and the possibility of a night of no-strings passion. What if, like Graham, Gabe wouldn’t be attracted to who she really was?
She found her lipstick and reapplied it, her fingers shaking very slightly. The knowledge that Gabe was attracted to her, that the improvement she had made to her appearance had worked, was unsettling. She hadn’t expected such an instant response.
She should be buoyed by her success. Instead, she felt on edge and, for want of a better word, vulnerable. Maybe it was because in her mind Gabe had become linked with the dream that had been the catalyst for all of this change. She knew almost nothing about him, but in the moment he had picked up the sword, he had made an indelible impression; he had symbolized what she wanted.
She stopped dead as the final piece of the puzzle of her dysfunction with men dropped neatly into place. She drew a deep breath. She felt like quietly banging her head against the nearest wall, but that would not be a good idea with all the security personnel roaming around. The reason she had not been intimate with anyone, even her fiancГ©s, was because, hidden beneath the logic and practicality and years of academia, she was an idealist. Worse, she was a romantic.
Maybe all the years of burying her head in history books had changed her in some fundamental way because it was now blindingly clear why an ordinary, everyday kind of guy with a nine-to-five job had never been quite enough. Somehow, despite common sense, in her heart of hearts, she had wanted the kind of seasoned, bedrock strength and stirring romanticism that it was difficult to find in the twenty-first century.
She had wanted a knight.
When she stepped back into the reception room, despite giving herself a good talking-to about the dangers of projecting crazy romantic fantasies onto a man she barely knew, she found herself instantly looking for Gabe. When she couldn’t find him, disappointment gripped her. In an adjacent room the lecture on Zahir was beginning. She strolled inside and saw him at the back, in conversation with a well-known government official.
The jolt in her stomach, the relief and the tingling heat that flooded her, should have been warning enough. In the space of an hour she had somehow fallen into a heady infatuation with a virtual stranger, but after years of emotional limbo the blood racing through her veins, the crazy cocktail of emotions, was addictive. Just as she debated what to do—brazenly approach Gabe or wimp out completely and ignore the intense emotions—an elegant young woman walked up to Gabe and flung her arms around him.
Numb with disappointment, Sarah turned on her heel, walked into the foyer and began searching for her coat. She was fiercely glad she hadn’t approached Gabe, because he appeared to have a girlfriend, or, more probably, a wife.
Frowning, she flipped through the rack of coats again and pulled out a coat which looked like hers, but which wasn’t. Someone had obviously left in a hurry and taken her coat by mistake. As much as she needed a coat, she drew the line at helping herself to one she knew wasn’t hers. Besides, she still had her small telescopic umbrella, which fit in her handbag. In the wind, it probably wouldn’t last long, but it was better than nothing.
Outside, lightning flickered and, in the distance, thunder crashed. As Murphy’s Law would have it, the rain, which had been light earlier was now tropical.
Extracting the umbrella, Sarah paused by the antique double doors of the entrance, reluctant to step out into such a heavy downpour. A flicker of movement turned her head. She saw Gabe speaking to the tall, bald man who had checked her invitation.
Aware that in just a few seconds he could turn and see her standing in the foyer, watching him, she pushed open the doors and stepped outside.
As she descended the steps the wind, damp with rain and bitingly cold, sent a raw shiver through her. She came to a halt at the edge of the sheltered area. Flipping up her umbrella, she stepped into the wet and wild night.
The bottom half of her dress was almost instantly soaked. Water seeped into the soles of her boots as she threaded through cars that gleamed beneath streetlights. The parking lot seemed farther away than when she had arrived. In the murky darkness, the garish lights from the nightclub were overbright, although the steady thud of music was now muted by the sound of the rain.
Dragging soaked hair from her eyes and glad she was wearing waterproof mascara, she fumbled in her bag, searching for keys. She depressed the key lock, suddenly wishing she hadn’t parked quite so close to the nightclub. The lights of her car flashed and she headed for the welcome beacon of her small hatchback. As she opened the door, she became aware of a cluster of dark shadows congregated beneath the overhang of the warehouse-size building that housed the nightclub. Slamming the door closed, she immediately locked it, just in case the youths tried something silly.
She inserted her key into the ignition. The starter motor made its familiar high-pitched whine, but the motor itself refused to fire. Feeling a little desperate, she tried again, then a third time. When the starter took on a deeper, slower sound, as if the battery was becoming drained, she immediately stopped. She was no mechanic but, at a guess, the wind had driven rain under the hood and the electronics had gotten wet. The car wouldn’t start until she managed to dry the motor. If she kept using the starter she would also end up with a flat battery.
She considered ringing her mother then immediately dismissed the thought. Hannah was overseas on a buying trip for her interior-decorating business. Graham was still inside. As much as she didn’t want to ask him, he would have to help her. Groaning, she tried texting. When minutes passed with no reply, she bit the bullet and rang him. The call went through to voice mail.
Deciding that it would be a whole lot simpler to just walk back into the consulate to get help, Sarah grabbed her bag and stepped out into the rain, which had thankfully eased to a fine drizzle. A tap on her shoulder made her start.
“Having trouble, darlin’?”
She stiffened at the shock of being touched by a stranger and stepped away from the powerful whiff of alcohol fumes. “Nothing I can’t handle, thanks.”
He grinned hazily. “I’d sure like to help you.”
There was a stifled laugh somewhere behind him. With a jolt Sarah realized they had been joined by two more men, both of them like the first, darkly dressed, wearing leather and decorated with tattoos and multiple piercings.
The taller of the two grinned. “Don’t keep her to yourself, Ty. We’d all like to help the lady.”
Jaw set, Sarah debated trying to get back into the car and locking the doors, but decided against that. If she did, they could prevent her from closing the door and before she knew where she was, they would be inside the car with her and she would be in a worse position.
Rape. The horrifying thought shuddered through her. She was a virgin. She had saved herself for love and marriage. The first time she was with a man could not be because she was being forced.
Footsteps sounded across the parking lot. They were no longer alone. Thinking quickly, Sarah’s fingers tightened on her umbrella. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but she would use it if she had to. “I don’t need help. My boyfriend’s here. He’ll fix the car.”
“What boyfriend?” The taller man grabbed her arm as she edged away.
Jaw gritted, Sara brought the umbrella’s wooden handle crashing down on the man’s fingers.
“This one,” a dark voice murmured, as Gabe stepped around a chunky utility vehicle into the light.
Three (#ulink_caecad93-8499-5f94-88d1-eeb8e8150186)
Rubbing bruised knuckles, the tall guy, who now didn’t seem large at all compared to Gabe, stumbled backward. “Hey, sorry, man,” he mumbled. “Didn’t know she was taken.”
Gabe glided closer. When he stretched out his hand, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to put her fingers in his. “Even if she wasn’t �taken’ you shouldn’t have gone near her. But, as you said, she is taken, so don’t bother her again.”
Tall Guy took another step backward. The other two had already climbed into a car decorated with dents. He held one hand up in a placating gesture as he fumbled open the rear passenger door. “Yeah, man. She’s yours. Totally. We won’t bother her again.”
He clambered into the car, which jolted into motion with a squeal of tires.
Gabe released his grip on her hand. “Are you okay?”
Sarah replaced her car keys in her bag. She was cold and her fingers were shaking, but she barely noticed because she was so focused on the fact that Gabe had come after her. She didn’t know how he had located her in the dark, or why he had walked out into the rain to find her, just that he had. “I am now, thank you.”
“Problem with your car?”
She blinked at the shift of topic. His gaze was still fixed on the taillights of the retreating car. The steely remoteness of his expression sent a chill down her spine. He looked more than capable of backing his flatly delivered challenge with physical force.
A fierce, oddly primitive sense of satisfaction curled through her. Gabe had not only come to her aid, but he had been prepared to physically fight for her.
When he repeated the question about the car, she realized he was deliberately distracting her from the nastiness of the encounter. Suppressing a shiver, she replaced her umbrella in her bag. “I think the electronics got wet.”
Gabe, who had walked around to the front of her car, took a sleek phone out of his pocket and stabbed a short dial. “Is there still a charge in the battery?”
“I stopped before it went flat.”
“Good.” Gabe spoke quietly into his phone in the same liquid Zahiri she had heard him use before then slipped the cell back in his jacket pocket. “Xavier will have a look at the car. He’s not a mechanic, but he spends a lot of his spare time tinkering with cars.”
She hooked the strap of her bag more securely over her shoulder. It was an odd moment to register that the wind had dropped, leaving an eerie calm after the storm. With mist rising off the wet concrete, wreathing the cars and forming a halo around the street lamps, the night now seemed peaceful.
With a reflexive shiver she rubbed at her chilled arms and tried not to let her teeth chatter. Now that she was no longer buzzing with adrenaline the cold seemed to be seeping into her bones. “I suppose Xavier is one of the sheikh’s bodyguards.” The remark was shamelessly probing but she didn’t care. She suddenly needed to know more about Gabe, what he did for a living, how long he would be in Wellington, when or if he was coming back—
His gaze glittered over her, making her aware of the soaked red dress clinging to her skin, her hair trailing wetly around her cheeks. “Only when the sheikh leaves Zahir.”
The answer was confusing, as if the sheikh was still in Zahir when Sarah knew him to be here, in Wellington. But with Gabe walking toward her, dark trousers clinging low on narrow hips, his jacket damply molded to broad shoulders, white shirt plastered to his chest so that the bronze of his skin glowed through, it was hard to concentrate on unraveling subtleties.
He frowned. “You’re cold. Have you got a coat in the car?”
“No c-coat. Someone at the consulate took mine by mistake.”
A moment later, his jacket dropped around her shoulders, swamping her with warmth and filling her nostrils with the scent of clean male and an enticing hint of sandalwood. An electrifying thrill shot through her, reminding her of the sharp, visceral jolt she had felt when Gabe had said she was his.
He was briefly close enough that she felt the heat radiating off his body, and she had to resist the urge to sway a few inches closer to that delicious warmth. Her fingers closed on the fine weave of the jacket lapels, hugging the fabric closer. Despite everything, all of the warnings she was giving herself, she couldn’t help loving that she was wearing his jacket, which was so large the sleeves dropped almost to her knees. After the nasty scenes with Graham and the leather-clad thugs, Gabe’s chivalry—his consideration, as if she truly mattered to him—was a soothing balm.
Gabe checked his watch. “Xavier’s on his way. If you’ll give me your car keys, he’ll take a look. In the meantime I suggest you come with me back to the consulate. There’s a guest suite there, so you can dry off while you wait.”
A vivid flash of the young woman flinging her arms around him made Sarah stiffen. “Won’t your...girlfriend mind?’
His expression registered his surprise at the question. “I don’t have a girlfriend. If you’re referring to the young woman who came into the lecture, she was a cousin I haven’t seen in years. She dropped in because she knew I was leaving in the morning.”
The relief that the pretty girl wasn’t a love interest was almost instantly replaced by the depressing confirmation that Gabe was leaving in a matter of hours.
His hand briefly cupped her elbow as he helped her step up onto the higher level of the consulate parking lot. “Is she the reason you left the lecture?”
Her mouth went dry at the bluntness of the question but after everything that had happened, somehow it didn’t seem as intrusive as it should have been. It would have been easy to say she’d had a fight with Graham and was upset, but the truth was, whatever she had felt for Graham had been utterly overshadowed by her response to Gabe.
He was leaving in just a few hours.
Lifting her chin, she met his gaze. There was no point trying to hide what was already clear to him. She had been hurt and disappointed when she had thought he was committed to another woman. “Yes.”
There was a moment of vibrating silence, filled by the muted sound of their footfalls on wet pavement, the distant wash of the sea and the slow drip of water splashing off a gutter. Sarah’s stomach tightened as Gabe directed her to a door at the side of the consulate building and held it for her. Somehow, in the space of a little over an hour they had achieved a level of intimacy that made her stomach tighten and her pulse pound. But her time alone with him was almost up. Soon they would be joined by other people and a conversation that had become unexpectedly important would be over.
As if to underscore her thoughts, the plump administrative official, Tarik, strode down the corridor toward them, disapproval pulling his brows into a dark line. She drew a breath, but it was already too late to ask Gabe the question that was burning inside her.
He knew she was strongly attracted to him and that was why she had left the consulate so quickly. But was attraction the reason he had come looking for her?
* * *
Gabe left Sarah freshening up in the guest room that opened onto his study and strode along the hall to his suite. The moment he had seen the thug lay hands on her replayed through his mind, making him tense. When he had registered the danger, the half-formed desires and intentions that had driven him out into the stormy night had coalesced into one burning reality.
He wanted Sarah Duval.
He hadn’t liked the fact that she’d had a date. He had liked it even less that the drunk thought he could simply reach out and touch her. Crazily, because Gabe barely knew her and had no interest in emotional attachments, his attraction to Sarah had coalesced into the kind of knee-jerk possessiveness he could not afford on the eve of his engagement. But, as hard as he tried to shake it, he couldn’t—for one simple reason. In his mind he had already claimed her.
As he unlocked the door, Xavier stepped out of the elevator and followed Gabe into the suite. Gabe grabbed a towel from the bathroom and began blotting his hair and face. “What’s the verdict on the car?”
Xavier shrugged. “We could have it going in half an hour if we put it in the consulate garage, but to get it there we’ll need to tow it and none of the hire vehicles have tow bars. The best-case scenario is that I call her a taxi.”
“No.” Gabe unknotted his tie and peeled out of his wet shirt and tossed both in the laundry basket.
The sensible thing was to do what Xavier suggested. The last thing he needed was a complication that would make the commitment he had to make in the morning even more difficult. But ever since Sarah had walked into the reception room, glowing like a fiery beacon in red, her dark hair a sexy tousled mass, the obligation and duty of his impending marriage had seemed secondary. When she had disobeyed all instructions and laid her hand on his ancestor’s sword, he had been entranced.
Somehow, the fact that she had knocked the sword, which was practically a sacred object on Zahir, off its bracket had only made her more interesting.
She was a history teacher. Against all odds, he found himself grinning.
Like no history teacher he’d ever seen.
Gabe strolled into his bedroom to find a clean shirt. In the past hour something curious had happened. He felt lighter and more carefree, as if a weight had lifted off him.
Because for the first time in years when he had looked at another woman, he hadn’t been haunted by thoughts of Jasmine.
He guessed the fact that Sarah was literally Jasmine’s polar opposite—tall and curvy with a steady, resolute gaze and hints of a fiery temper, instead of tiny and fragile and sweetly feminine—had helped. When Sarah had toppled Kadin’s sword, in some odd way the separation from his past had seemed complete. Jasmine had hated all of the old Templar relics and the violent history that went with them. Sarah had seemed fascinated. From the way she had wielded her umbrella in the parking lot, he was willing to bet she would not be averse to holding a sword.
He stared at his crisply starched shirts in the closet, looking for something that didn’t belong in a boardroom. Clothing that might indicate that he had a life. “I’m taking her home.”
Xavier muttered something soft and short. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Neither will your father.”
Gabe shrugged into a dark shirt and buttoned it. The searing attraction that had sent him walking out into the night to find Sarah settled into grim determination. Xavier’s unease mirrored his own because it was a fact that Gabe didn’t want to just spend time with Sarah—he wanted her. Period. But just hours out from signing his life away, he was in no mood to deny a response he thought he would never feel again. “Right now a whole lot of things are happening that are not exactly good ideas.”
An outmoded financial system that did not allow for the foreign investment Gabe had been advocating for years, and the marriage that was Zahir’s financial rescue plan.
“The marriage is just an arrangement, you could have an—”
“No.” Zahir was Western, but it was also extremely conservative. And Gabe was clear on one fact: once he was married he would not dishonor his vows or his family’s integrity.
Xavier looked uncomfortable. “Sometimes I forget the pressure you’re under. But what do you know about this woman? She could be some hard-nosed journalist angling for a story.”
“Sarah’s not a journalist.” Gabe shrugged into a soft black leather jacket. “And she won’t go to the press.”
“You can’t know that. You’ve only just met her. You have no idea what she’ll do.”
Gabe went still inside as a memory flickered. Cold rain scything, a dark-haired woman, head down against the weather, stepping around a corner. As his hands had shot out to stop her caroming into him he had noticed that her hair had been scraped back and her face had been almost bare of makeup. She had looked like a history teacher. But it had been Sarah, her eyes that deep, pure blue, the faintly imperious nose and exquisite cheekbones, the soft, generous mouth.
Instead of tempering his attraction, the recollection had the disconcerting effect of deepening it. In that moment, Gabe recognized the quality that drew him to Sarah most of all—the fact that in the midst of all the superficiality of the social world he usually moved in she was exactly what she seemed, a refreshingly direct woman unafraid to reach out and take what she wanted. “I met her yesterday.”
Xavier’s brows jerked together. “That makes it even worse.”
Everything Xavier was saying was true. Normally he didn’t pursue women he had only just met. Because of his position, he accepted that security checks on the women he dated were a fact of life. But ever since he had woken up that morning he had been restless and in no mood to be controlled. “Relax. She doesn’t know who I am.”
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