Taken by the Sheikh (22 page)

“We have a visitor you won’t believe,” she told him, trying to keep her voice light. “Someone who’s really going to surprise you.”

Ash pushed his spectacles down his nose so he could see further than his paper-work, and lurched to his feet with alarm as Rafiq’s tall silhouette appeared in the doorway.

On one hand he was elated for Laurel. She’d been moping around for the past three long months—never as animated as he’d seen her in Al Sounam. Maybe now she’d regain her sparkle?

On the other hand, had Rafiq come to steal his precious grand-daughter away again? He felt the sudden surge of protectiveness flash through him. Over his dead body! He emerged from behind his desk and extended a cautious hand.

“I never expected to see you again, my boy,” he said. “Come to see some
real
horses, have you?”

Rafiq threw back his head and laughed. “The two you saw at the lodge weren’t as young as they used to be. I could show you horses in my homeland that would astound you.”

“And I could show you the same here.”

Laurel glanced from one man to the other. If they were going to indulge in some sort of ridiculous masculine ‘mine’s bigger than yours’ ritual, she was out of there.

“Lunch,” she said. “Cold lamb and salad. Five minutes.” She turned and left them to it.

By two-thirty they were all on horseback, and Ash was giving Rafiq the grand tour.

As though he’s a prospective customer
, Laurel thought stonily as she tagged along behind them on gentle Yasmina. She wanted Rafiq all to herself, but how could she spoil her grandfather’s obvious enjoyment?

And when she thought about the situation carefully, did she want to risk being alone with Rafiq again when he still had such a hold over her heart? Dared she tempt herself with his dazzling company when he’d probably disappear in a few days, leaving her more bereft than ever? She caught the inside of her cheek between her teeth and worried away at it as she turned her thoughts around and around.

She was pleased Trinity looked so impressive. It was the height of summer. The earlier thunderclouds had dispersed, and the sun now shone on pastures studded with pregnant mares and capering foals. A skylark’s song cascaded down over Ash’s patch of paradise, and the distant sparkle of the ocean flashed blue and blinding.

Eventually Laurel excused herself and left them to it. Although Rafiq had been careful to include her in the conversation, and often directed an enquiring glance or broad smile in her direction, she felt his concentration was really on Ash’s commentary.

“I’m going to tidy the pond rubbish,” she called. “There’s still quite a lot of mess to clean up. I’ll see you both at dinnertime.” She wheeled Yasmina around and cantered back towards the stables, wondering about the real purpose of his visit, and sleeping arrangements, and whether his luggage had arrived yet.

To her great relief the non-arrival of one delayed the allocation of the other. She escaped into the garden again and lost herself in knee-deep water and soggy vegetation. Her brain seemed as liquid as the sun-dappled pond, swirling with unanswered questions and strange currents.

 As she waded through the water carrying yet another armful of rubbish, she was greeted by the unexpected sight of Ash and Rafiq ambling down the lawn. Ash carried a bottle of champagne and Rafiq had three of her grandmother’s Waterford crystal flutes by their stems. Both men were grinning fit to bust; what had happened?

Laurel stilled, and her eyes narrowed as she watched them approach. Then she grasped the long brown arm that Rafiq offered, and allowed herself to be hauled up out of the water.

“What?” she demanded, eyes darting from Ash’s twinkling blue eyes to Rafiq’s unfathomable dark ones.

Ash nodded to Rafiq to set the glasses down on the old lichen-covered seat, and uncorked the bottle.

“We have a partnership to drink to,” he beamed. “This young fellow of yours has flung a few bucks my way and become part-owner of Trinity. We can really get moving now.”

Laurel felt all sensible comment desert her. She stood open-mouthed; it had been the last thing she expected. For sure he was fond of horses, but to invest money on the other side of the world? Was he taking pity on them? Had he noticed the slightly down-at-heel condition of the stud and decided to help bail them out with a tiny fraction of his wealth? She couldn’t bear the thought of that. Nor could she endure having a tenuous link to him for years to come. Oh, it was too cruel!

Rafiq seemed to sense her disquiet. He held a tall fizzing flute towards her and spoke with intense passion.

“I hope we have
two
partnerships to drink to, Laurel. The way you greeted me before lunch gave me hope, so I’ve asked Ash’s permission to court you—properly this time.”

They stood, fingers touching as she reached for the champagne and he refused to relinquish it. He wrapped his other hand over hers to bind them together.

He raised the champagne to her lips. “To us?” he asked.

Laurel’s eyes never left his. She took a tiny sip as he tilted the glass, swallowed, and nodded.

“You really mean it?” she asked in a small choked voice.

“For as long as you’ll have me, Azizah. Do you not want me now?” He pulled her close and stroked her hair. “It’s taken me all this time to extricate myself from the security projects and to slide away. To speak with my uncle the King and rearrange my life so I could share it with you.”

He really wants me!

She poked him in the chest and said “Not one message, Rafiq! Not one little word that I should keep hoping.”

“My Azizah, you turned me inside-out. I hardly dared think this would be possible. My life was all planned—service to my people, my country. The probability I would take over as King one day if I survived the security work; if I gave up my new identity and returned to my old one. That was what I expected.”

He shook his head, frustrated. “And then you appeared. From the very first moment I wanted you to stay in my life. I was desperate to rescue you—would have tried to kill Fayez and Nazim with my bare hands if that had been necessary.”

He set the champagne flute down on the seat again and cupped her indignant face in his long fingers.

 Neither of them registered that Ash had quietly retreated.

“I had so little to offer you,” he continued in a softer voice. “No family, no certainty I would even be alive the next day. No life worth sharing.”

“You told Ash I was a liability,” she accused.

“And so you were. I needed to get you away to safety. Anyway, you called my country ‘barbaric’ and said the heat was unbearable.”

A small smile lit her face. “Tit for tat,” she said. “I was getting used to the heat by then.”

“You knew I loved you.”

“I knew no such thing! How would I? You never told me once.”

He took a deep affronted breath. “It’s a very hard thing to say when it matters so much. That’s why I wrote it down so you’d find it in the emerald box and have it to keep until I could come to you.”

Recognition finally dawned. “Not the loopy-doopy-curvy-whoop-de-doo bit? The line I couldn’t read because it wasn’t in English?”

“Loopy-doopy-curvy...?” His straight black eyebrows shot towards his hairline. “I did that? In Sounamese? Well, that tells you how serious I was if I wrote it in the most beautiful script in the world. Loopy-doopy-curvy indeed...”

She found herself even more tightly held in his arms.

“Miss Kiwi, I love you. Is that plain enough?” He gazed down into her eyes and then smiled at the startled expression on her muddy face. “I have told my uncle that the throne of Al Sounam is now rightfully his. His sons can succeed him. The royal role for which I was destined can’t compare to the world of love I found with you.”

He kissed her gently. “You made my hard heart beat softly at last. So here I am in your very green country to ask you to share my life. To build a new life. To beg your grandfather to allow this. I have money, and a good brain, and ambition.”

“And a very nice body and funny handwriting.”

“Always the last word, you infuriating little woman.”

He was silent for a moment. “You like my body? Even with all my scars?”

“You have one more because of me.” She reached up to touch the mark on his brow where he’d wounded himself to make her desert escape appear real to the other men.

“Worth every twinge,” he declared. “I’d do anything for you, my lovely Laurel—even hold you in my arms while you smell like a swamp.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

She smelled nothing like a swamp two months later as the wedding march burst from the wheezy old organ in the sunlit country church.

Laurel tucked her arm through Ash’s, and they started up the carpeted aisle together.

“I never expected to have a lovely grand-daughter to give away,” he said. His eyes were suspiciously moist.

She squeezed his arm and smiled.

“I never expected to have a grandfather to
give
me away—or to meet a wonderful man who’d want me as much as Rafiq seems to,” she whispered back.

Later, in the huge marquee on Trinity’s lawn, and after a sumptuous wedding breakfast, Rafiq stood to make his speech.

“Dear friends,” he said. “You have made us so happy by joining us today. Laurel and I thank you for all your good wishes, and your wonderful gifts, and most of all for your company. This is the start of many good things. Not just a new life for me and my lovely bride.”

He raised her hand and pressed a kiss onto her fingers.

“As you know, Laurel has no immediate family apart from Ash, and she has been acquainted with her grandfather only for the last few months. What you may not know is this; we’re a matching pair. I lost my own family— many years ago now.”

A shocked murmur filled the marquee, then slowly died away.

“These people from my homeland are not my parents and my brothers as you’ve probably assumed.”

He turned and bowed to the contingent from Al Sounam. “They are my King and Queen, and...members of their household staff.” He hoped that was a diplomatic description of the bodyguards.

There was an audible gasp from many of the guests.

“I’m honored they could join us today. Like us, they’re also setting out on a happy new future. It will give me the greatest pleasure to take my lovely new wife back to visit them from time to time.”

Dropping his eyes to Laurel’s, he murmured so only she could hear, “and Azizah and Muzaffar, too?” She sent him back a smile of pure delight.

“We also welcome two other special people—our dear friends Yasmina and Malik who traveled halfway around the world to be with us today.”  

He looked across to his old nanny and repeated his words in Sounamese. Yasmina sat taller and twitched her beautiful embroidered scarf up, obviously thrilled and embarrassed.

He turned in Ash’s direction. “Trinity Stud is truly well-named because the ownership is shared three ways again—by Laurel, her grandfather, and myself. Together we plan to make it the finest establishment of its kind in the whole country. Already you’ll see the improvements to the sand training track, and the foundations for the new indoor arena. You’ll know we’ve just purchased two magnificent stallions—Robert the Bruce and Charleston Star.”

“Enough of the advertising,” Laurel protested.

Guests at the nearest tables started to chuckle.

“When will I ever have the attention of so many prospective customers again?” he asked her, mouth quirking and an expression of wicked innocence in his eyes.

The rest of the guests joined in the merriment.

“I met Laurel under the oddest circumstances you can imagine,” he continued once the laughter had subsided. He cleared his throat. “She was found wandering in the desert. I was assigned to hide her from the terrorists who had captured her—until they could in turn be captured themselves. Romantic old hideaway, two young people with little to occupy them—you get the picture?” Again he provided a rapid translation in Sounamese.

“Nosy old nanny and sharp-eyed chauffeur,” Laurel added, sending Yasmina and Malik a grin.

The guests smirked with delight.

“Something about this cheeky woman,” Rafiq said, slipping an arm around her shoulders, “totally captivated me. She was brave, she was beautiful, and she showed me life could be fun again. Laurel and I plan to have a lot of fun together, and to create our own family.”

“Enough for a polo match?” she suggested.

His eyebrows rose in mock-alarm. “You expect me to do it that many times, wife?”

“My Lord Rafiq—I expect you to do it whenever I flutter my eyelashes at you or crook my little finger in your direction.”

He smiled broadly as the whole wedding erupted into laughter.

“Hen-pecked already,” he said, bending to drop a fond kiss on her lips.

THE END

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CHAPTER ONE

Kerrigan Lush felt the ripple of unease start on her scalp, tingle down her neck, trickle along her spine...and then slide down each leg until her toes curled in her scarlet stilettos.

Get a grip, Kerri,
she snapped at herself.
It’s only a building. You’re here to interview the man who donated it to Gamblers Anonymous—not because you’ve a little gambling problem yourself.

She patted her pocket. Yes, the mini-recorder was safely there. She checked her watch. Jiggled her keys. And still those scarlet shoes weren’t willing to cross the street.

Finally, she took a deep breath, tossed her dark hair, clenched her fingers around her briefcase handle, and stepped out.