Rumours: The Billion-Dollar Brides: The Desert King's Blackmailed Bride (Brides for the Taking) / The Italian's One-Night Baby (Brides for the Taking) / Sold for the Greek's Heir (Brides for the Taking). LYNNE GRAHAM
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answered her call at predictable speed. ‘Where are you? Why has it taken you so long to phone me? I’ve been really worried about you!’
And Polly proceeded to give her sibling the watered-down version of the truth that she had already decided on but she did have to explain that their mother had apparently had no right to even have the fire-opal ring, never mind bequeath it to anyone.
‘Well, I think a lawyer would need to decide that, not some jumped-up foreign ruler!’ Ellie exclaimed, angrily unimpressed. ‘You have to fight this, Polly. Are you sure you’re free to leave the palace? Why have they a guard stationed outside your door? Try going for a walk and see what happens. I’m very suspicious about the set-up you’ve described and I think I may approach the Foreign Office to ascertain what your position is and ask for advice—’
‘Do you really think that’s necessary?’ Polly prompted ruefully. ‘Don’t you think you’re taking this all too seriously?’
‘Polly...you don’t pick up on warning signals!’ Ellie condemned with heartfelt concern. ‘You’re always making excuses for the bad things people do... I’m not sure I could trust you as a judge of human character!’
Polly completed the call, her face flushed and sheepish. Now Ellie was up in arms and ready to do battle! Although she believed her sister’s concern was groundless she was willing to test Ellie’s suggestion that she try going for a walk. She grabbed her sunhat and sunglasses and left the room, turning left at random and moving along a stone corridor, pausing to look down at an inner hall covered with the most eye-catching mosaic tiles she had ever seen.
She traversed a wide stone staircase and stilled again to admire a big wide corridor of elaborate arches that stretched away into the distance to frame the far vista of a lush garden at the end. As she set off to explore she noted that the guard was following her but not closely and he was so busy chattering to the maid that had accompanied him that Polly reckoned she could’ve turned cartwheels without him noticing. She wandered down the corridor and peered out into the gorgeous garden that shaded a pool in the shape of a star. The stone arches surrounding the courtyard were as exquisitely carved and detailed as handmade lace. It was truly beautiful and had she had her phone with its camera she would have loved to take photographs.
Her exploration ranged deeper into the building until she finally recognised the main hall where she had arrived the day before, and she was approaching the entrance when the woman who had served tea to her and the King appeared out of a doorway.
‘Miss Dixon?’ she called with a very artificial smile. ‘The King asks that you join him for lunch.’
‘How lovely,’ Polly responded with a rather more natural smile, her face heating as she recalled her first meeting with Rashad, the gorgeous talker of textbook English.
Turning to follow the woman, she faltered only slightly when she finally registered that her guard of one had turned into a guard of six while she was wandering and all of them backed away in concert and flattened themselves back against the wall and averted their eyes as she passed by. Weird, really weird—maybe it was considered impolite to look too directly at a female, she pondered uncertainly. Certainly, her companion’s jaw had tightened so much in response to that display that it might have been carved from stone.
Lunch was mercifully being served indoors, Polly appreciated as she entered a room with a polished marble floor and contemporary furnishings that fitted in surprisingly well with the ancient walls. Rashad appeared without warning, striding in through a connecting door to the left only to stop dead the instant he saw her. Her feet stopped too and without her meaning to still them where she stood. And there he was, she thought rather giddily, jaw-droppingly gorgeous and breathtakingly sexy. Sexy wasn’t a word she normally applied to or indeed even thought of around men, but it rushed to her brain the minute she saw Rashad and it made her wonder if that was the main drawback of being a virgin and essentially inexperienced. Did sheer curiosity about sex give her a more impressionable response to men? But it had never happened to Polly around any other man, she reasoned, irritated by her wandering thoughts.
‘Please sit here,’ her companion interposed, tugging out a chair at the table Polly hadn’t even noticed ahead of her.
‘You look better today,’ Rashad commented quietly as he settled down opposite her, his attention locked to the delicate colour in her cheeks and the sparkle in her blue eyes.
‘Yes, feeling better too. Sorry about the fuss I caused,’ Polly responded dismissively, trying not to look directly at him, utterly unnerved by the effect he had on her usual calm state of mind.
Rashad was disappointed that her hair was braided. He had never seen such beautiful hair before. Simply the novelty of different colouring in a country where most people had black hair, he told himself doggedly. She was wearing trousers again and a loose white top and he would not allow himself to wonder the things that his brain wanted to wonder. He angrily shut that side of himself down and began to make excruciatingly polite conversation of the sort he was accustomed to making at foreign dinner parties.
‘My phone wasn’t in my bag when it was returned to me,’ Polly announced without warning, encountering eyes so dark they glittered like stars in the light filtering through the open doors behind him.
‘Enquiries will be made on your behalf,’ Rashad fielded smoothly, well aware that the phone had most probably been confiscated as a security precaution at Hakim’s order. ‘I am sure it will be found and returned to you.’
‘Thank you,’ Polly said equally politely, wondering why he seemed so different from the man he had seemed to be the day before.
He was more controlled, almost stiff and expressionless, the lean strong bones of his face cool and set, his jawline hard. Wary? Hostile? Offended? She marvelled at the extent of her own curiosity and scolded herself for it. Why should she care? She would soon be taking up residence in her little bed-and-breakfast place near the bazaar in Kashan and she could be fairly sure that she would never meet an actual reigning king again in her lifetime. He could only be lowering himself to sharing a meal with a foreign commoner to pursue the controversial topic of the fire-opal ring he wanted to retain.
‘About the ring,’ she began abruptly.
‘We will not discuss that now,’ Rashad decreed without hesitation. ‘When you have fully recovered from your illness we will discuss it.’
Off-balance at the flat refusal, Polly studied him for several tense seconds. He was the most infuriating man. She could see that he expected the subject to be dropped simply because he had issued an embargo and his sheer level of assurance hugely annoyed her. ‘I am fully recovered,’ she traded quietly. ‘And grateful as I am for the care I received when I took ill and the hospitality which has been offered to me here, I would like to return to my holiday plans as soon as possible.’
‘Perhaps we will discuss that tomorrow,’ Rashad fielded without batting a single lush black eyelash.
‘You do realise,’ Polly whispered, because that hard-eyed brunette she couldn’t quite warm to was seated only ten feet away, ‘that you are making me want to thump you again? I thought it might be my high temperature that caused my loss of temper yesterday but I can now see that it was merely you being you—’
A brilliant smile unexpectedly stole the grim aspect from his lean, dark, brooding features. ‘Me being me?’ he queried with perceptible amusement in a clear encouragement for her to expand on her feelings.
‘Horribly bossy. And I can see you’re used to people doing exactly as you say—’
‘Because I am the King,’ Rashad filled in helpfully.
‘But you’re not my King.’ Polly made that distinction with a slow sweet smile of mingled exasperation and reluctant amusement.
When he saw that smile, Rashad froze and leant back into his chair, squaring his shoulders while he wondered if she was flirting with him. Probably not, his brain told him. The British women he had been intimate with a few years earlier had used