The Sheikh and the Virgin. KIM LAWRENCE
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her tender heart touched by the story.
Not that it offered any excuses for the dreadful brother’s behaviour. She too had lost her own mother, at a similar age, but it didn’t make her feel she could go around sitting in judgement on total strangers!
Khalid took Emma’s hand. ‘And I’m sorry, Bea—that you had to go through that with Tariq.’
‘Better me than Em,’ Beatrice retorted, adding with a shrug, ‘I was mad, not hurt.’
‘Tariq will love Emma once he meets her. It just has to be the right time.’
Beatrice’s heart went out to the unhappy lovers. From her experience that morning, she was pretty certain that the right time would be of the ‘when hell freezes over’ variety, and from Khalid’s expression she was sure that he knew it too.
She felt a surge of frustration. She’d been hoping that she could laugh off this morning, but that was before she knew what was at stake.
‘There must be something I can do or say to this brother of yours.’ A brother who seemed to live in another century and who thought everyone had a price. Then it hit her. The solution was right under their noses and so blindingly simple that they couldn’t see it!
‘He’ll never accept me,’ Emma retorted bleakly. ‘Khalid would have to choose between me and his family, and I couldn’t let him do that.’
‘What if there was another way?’
The lovers looked at her with a mixture of doubt and hope.
‘He might see you, Em, in a entirely new light if he’s just endured a visit from the bride from hell.’ Bea’s green eyes, dancing with devilish excitement, were at stark variance with her butter-wouldn’t-melt expression. She smiled at the bemused-looking couple. ‘It’s perfect,’ she enthused as she warmed to the idea forming in her head.
‘What are you talking about, Bea?’ Khalid asked impatiently.
‘Don’t ask,’ Emma advised. ‘Look at her face—she’s got one of her crazy plans.’
‘Not crazy—perfect!’ Beatrice insisted, punching the air in a triumphant gesture. ‘It can’t fail. And the beauty is that it was his idea, so we’re just going along with it. Take me home with you, Khalid.’
‘What?’
‘I’ll be the fiancée your brother thinks I am, and when you dump me they’ll be so relieved that anyone else you bring home will seem perfect,’ she promised grimly.
And the other beauty of her plan was that she would be able to exact revenge first-hand on the wretched man.
‘She’s serious?’ Khalid said, looking to Emma for confirmation.
‘Totally,’ Beatrice promised them both. She arched a feathery brow and looked at Khalid. ‘Unless you have a better idea?’
‘It’s hard. Family is …’
Hearing the defensive note in her young friend’s voice, Beatrice smiled and admitted readily, ‘Something I know zilch about.’ At times like this that didn’t seem such a bad thing, even though when she was growing up a family and roots had been the only things she’d dreamt of.
‘If we do this crazy thing and it backfires … Tariq realises what we’re up to … it will only make things worse,’ Khalid said, shaking his head.
‘How?’ Emma said in a small voice.
Khalid looked at her.
‘How can it be worse than this?’ she asked in a stricken whisper. ‘Tell me, Khalid, what is worse than sneaking around as though we’re doing something wrong? Not even able to tell my best friend or my family?’
Khalid stood there for a moment and watched the tears sliding down Emma’s pale cheeks. Then he heaved a sigh and turned to Beatrice.
‘You would really do this?’
Beatrice smiled, anticipating her revenge. ‘Absolutely.’
CHAPTER THREE
BEATRICE put a lot of effort into her choice of outfit for her second meeting with Tariq Al Kamal. She was rewarded for her efforts by Khalid’s look of total horror at the lime-green and orange Lycra mini-dress she had squeezed her voluptuous curves into during their plane journey.
‘You’re not seriously going like that?’
‘I was aiming for tacky and tasteless.’ Maybe, she conceded, catching her own reflection, she had gone too far.
‘You achieved it,’ Khalid promised, lifting his eyes from the exposed upper slopes of her breasts and wiping the beads of sweat from his brow.
‘Thank you. I’m just hoping I don’t fall off the heels,’ Beatrice admitted.
‘This is never going to work,’ Khalid groaned suddenly.
‘Not if you go into it with such a defeatist attitude,’ Beatrice agreed. ‘Look, if we’re going to do this we’re going to have to do it properly.’
She had spent most of their journey bolstering Khalid’s flagging resolve, and this fresh crisis of confidence when her own nerves were jangling was not what she needed. She controlled her impulse to tell him to show a little backbone and forced a coaxing smile.
‘I know you think this brother of yours is omnipotent, or something.’
In Beatrice’s opinion he was nothing but a control-freak bully, and she was looking forward to taking him down a peg or two.
‘But the fact is he was the one who thought we were an item …’ She was encouraged to see Khalid smile.
‘Is it always this hot?’ she asked, flexing her shoulderblades to ease the clingy cloth of her dress away from her sticky skin as they crossed to the waiting helicopter.
The heat had hit her like a solid wall as they had left the air-conditioned comfort of the private jet with the royal logo emblazoned on its wings.
‘No, there’s usually a breeze from the mountains. Bea, are you sure you want to do this?’ Khalid asked suddenly.
Beatrice wasn’t, but she knew it was too late to turn back now. ‘I’m looking forward to giving your brother a headache. I was actually wondering if there are any other male relatives other than him I can try and seduce.’
Khalid’s expression grew seriously worried. ‘Look, Bea, I know you think this is some sort of joke, but you can’t play games with Tariq. You’ll get hurt.’
‘I really don’t know why you’re so afraid of this man.’
‘I’m not afraid of him,’ Khalid protested. ‘He’s actually a great person, and I can’t tell you how many times he’s bailed me out of trouble,’ he admitted, looking sheepish. ‘It’s just when he decides something …’ He shrugged. ‘Well, you should understand—you’ve got some pretty strong views too.’
‘Are you saying I’m like your brother?’ Beatrice was appalled at the suggestion she bore any similarity to him.
Khalid grinned. ‘No, you’re much prettier. Now, have you been in a helicopter before?’ he asked as they reached their waiting transport.
‘Never, but I’m always up for a challenge.’
As the helicopter hovered Khalid pointed out the cave homes carved into the same red rockface from which the royal palace rose. It was magnificent, and looked like something a special effects artist had created, Bea thought.
‘They were actually lived in as recently as the sixties,’ he said.
Bea gave up trying not to be impressed.
‘Now,’ Khalid explained, ‘they are preserved—like a