Desert Jewels: The Sheikh's Undoing / The Sultan's Choice / Girl in the Bedouin Tent. Annie West
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around. It was noisy, warm and cluttered. Lighted candles dripped wax down the sides of old Chianti bottles, posters of Venice and Florence vied for wall-space with photos of Siena’s football team, and popular opera played softly in the background. He could remember eating somewhere like this years ago as a student, at the end of a rowdy rugby tour. But never since then. ‘It’s…different,’ he observed. ‘Not the kind of place I normally eat in. I thought you might have chosen somewhere…’
‘Yes?’ Isobel raised her eyebrows.
‘Somewhere a little more upmarket. The kind of place you’d always wanted to go but never had the chance.’
Isobel put the menu down. ‘You mean somewhere like the Green Room at the Granchester? Or the River Terrace? Or one of those other fancy establishments with a celebrity chef, where you can only ever get a table at short notice if you happen to be someone? All the places you usually frequent?’
‘They happen to be very good restaurants.’
She leaned forward. ‘This happens to be a good restaurant, too—though you seem to be judging it without even trying it. Just because you don’t have to take out a mortgage to eat here, it doesn’t mean the food isn’t delicious. Actually, I thought you might like to try somewhere different and a bit more relaxing. Somewhere you aren’t known, since you often complain about rubbernecking people staring at you.’ She sat back in her chair again and shot him a challenge with her eyes. ‘But maybe you like being looked at more than you care to admit—and anonymity secretly freaks you out?’
He gave a soft laugh. ‘Actually, I’m rather enjoying the anonymity,’ he murmured, and glanced down at the menu. ‘What do you recommend?’
‘Well, they make all their own pasta here.’
‘And it’s good?’
‘It’s more than good. It’s to die for.’
His gaze drifted up to the curve of her breasts, which were pert and springy and outlined by a surprisingly chic little black dress. ‘I thought women didn’t eat carbs.’
‘Maybe the sorts of women you know don’t,’ she said, thinking about his penchant for whip-thin supermodels and feeling a sudden stab of insecurity. ‘Personally, I hate all those dietary restrictions. All they do is make people obsessed with eating, or not eating, and their whole lives become about denying themselves what they really want.’
Tariq let that go, realising that he was denying himself what he really wanted right at that moment. If it was anyone other than Izzy he would have thrown a large wad of notes down on the tablecloth and told the waiter that they’d lost their appetite. Then taken her back to his apartment and ravished her in every which way he could—before sending out for food.
He realised that he was letting her call the shots, and briefly he wondered why. Because he’d taken her innocence and felt that he owed her? Or was it because she worked for him and his relationship with her was about as equal as any he was likely to have?
‘Perhaps we’ll have a little role-reversal tonight. How about you choose for me?’ he suggested.
‘I’d love to.’ She beamed.
She lifted her head and instantly the waiter appeared at their table, bearing complementary olives and bread and making a big fuss of her. For possibly the first time in his life Tariq found himself ignored—other than being assured that he was a very lucky man to be eating with such a beautiful woman.
As he leant back in his chair he conceded that the waiter had a point and Izzy did look pretty spectacular tonight. For a start she’d let down her hair, so that corkscrew curls tumbled in a fiery cascade around her shoulders. Her silky black dress was far more formal than anything she’d ever worn to work, and it showcased her luscious curves to perfection. A silver teardrop which gleamed at the end of a fine chain hung provocatively between her breasts. And, of course, she had that indefinable glow of sexual awakening…
With an effort, he dragged his gaze away from her cleavage and looked into tawny eyes which had been highlighted with long sweeps of mascara, so that they seemed to dominate her face. ‘I take it from the way the waiter greeted you like a long-lost relative that you’ve been here before?’
‘Loads of times. I’ve been coming here since I first started working in London. It’s always so warm and friendly. And at the beginning—when I didn’t have much money—they never seemed to mind me spending hours lingering over one dish.’
‘Why would they? Restaurants never object to a pretty girl adorning their space. It’s a form of free advertising.’
Isobel shook her head. ‘Were you born cynical, Tariq?’
‘What’s cynical about that? It happens to be true. I’m a businessman, Izzy—I analyse marketing opportunities.’
She waited while the waiter poured out two glasses of fizzy water. ‘And did you always mean to become a businessman?’
‘As opposed to what? A trapeze artist?’
‘As opposed to doing something in your own country. Doing something in Khayarzah. You used…’
He frowned as her words trailed off. ‘Used to what?’
‘At school.’ She shrugged as she remembered how sweet he had been to her that time—how he’d made her feel special. A bit like the way he was treating her tonight. ‘Well, I hardly knew you at school, of course, but I do remember that one time when you talked about your homeland. You spoke of it in a dreamy way—as if you were talking about some kind of Utopia. And I suppose I sort of imagined…’
‘What did you imagine?’ he prompted softly.
‘Oh, I don’t know. That you’d go back there one day. And live in a palace and fish in that silvery river you described.’
‘Ah, but my brother is King there now,’ he said, his voice hardening as he acknowledged the capricious law of succession and how it altered the lives of those who were affected by it. ‘And Zahid became King very unexpectedly, which changed my place in the natural order of things.’
Isobel looked at him. ‘How come?’
‘Up until that moment I was just another desert sheikh with the freedom to do pretty much as I wanted—but when our uncle died suddenly I became second in line to the throne. The spare.’
‘And is that so bad?’ she prompted gently.
‘Try living in a goldfish bowl and see how you like it,’ he said. ‘It means you have all the strictures of being the heir, but none of the power. My freedom was something I cherished above everything else…’ Hadn’t it been the one compensation for his lonely and isolated childhood? The fact that he hadn’t really had to account for himself? ‘And suddenly it was taken away from me. It made me want to stay away from Khayarzah, where I felt the people were watching me all the time. And I knew that I needed to give Zahid space to settle into his Kingship in peace.’ There was a pause. ‘Because there is only ever room for one ruler.’
‘And do you miss it? Khayarzah, I mean?’
He studied her wide tawny eyes, realising that he had told her more than he had ever told anyone. In truth, his self-imposed exile had only emphasised his feelings of displacement, of not actually belonging anywhere. Just like the little boy who had been sent away to school. As a child he’d felt as if he’d had no real home and as an adult that feeling had not changed.
‘Not really,’ he mused. ‘I go back there on high days and holidays and that’s enough. There’s no place for me there.’
Isobel sipped her drink as the waiter placed two plates of steaming pasta before them. His last words disturbed her. There’s no place for me there. Wasn’t that an awfully lonely thing to say? And wasn’t that what she’d thought when she’d seen him lying injured in hospital—that he’d looked so alone? What if her instinct