An Ordinary Girl and a Sheikh. Nicola Marsh
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climbed behind the wheel, started the car and, using her wing mirrors, taxi-driver style, she made her way through London managing to avoid any possibility of eye-contact with her passenger.
And, since she was working strictly to the ‘don’t speak until spoken to’ rule, it was a silent journey since Sheikh Zahir said nothing.
He was probably angry because she’d had the temerity to intervene over his suggestion that James Pierce take a taxi. He probably wasn’t used to anyone arguing with him, although anyone with any sense could see that it had to be more sensible to be doing something, even transporting chisel-cheeks, than just hanging around waiting for him to talk his way through dinner. Or maybe, once kissed, she had joined his personal harem and was now his alone.
‘Tosh, Diana,’ she muttered under her breath. ‘One kiss and you’re losing it …’
And yet he didn’t move to get out of the car by himself when she’d eased around Berkeley Square and pulled up in front of the restaurant.
Was that his way of making the point that it had changed nothing? Or everything?
Apparently neither. He was so far lost in his thoughts as she opened the door that it was obvious he hadn’t even noticed that they’d stopped.
‘What time would you like me to pick you up, sir?’ she asked, taking no chances.
Zahir had spent the journey from the Riverside Gallery gathering his thoughts for the coming meeting. Trying to block out the image, the taste, the scent of the woman sitting in front of him. All it took was a word, a solemn enquiry, to undo all that effort.
‘If you’re not sure, maybe you could call me?’ She took a card from her jacket pocket and offered it to him. ‘When you’ve got to the coffee stage of the evening?’
It was a standard Capitol card. ‘Call you?’
‘That’s the car phone number printed on the front,’ she said. ‘I’ve printed my cellphone number on the back.’
He took the card, still warm from her body, and, to disguise the sudden shake of his fingers, he turned it over and looked at the neatly printed numbers. It was, had always been, his intention to walk back to his hotel. He knew he’d need a little time to clear his head, no matter what the outcome of his meeting. On the point of telling her that she could go home, that she could have gone now if she hadn’t insisted on picking up James, he stopped himself. Sending her home early might make him feel good, but he’d be doing her no favours. On the contrary, he’d be robbing her of three hours’ work at the highest evening rate.
‘Eleven-thirty should do it,’ he said. ‘If there’s a change of plan, I’ll give you a call.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The ‘sir’ jabbed at him. But it wasn’t just the ‘sir’. For the first time since she’d handed him the broken toy outside the airport, she wasn’t quite looking at him. She had her gaze firmly fixed on something just over his right shoulder and it occurred to him that Diana, with considerable grace, was telling him that she understood that his kiss had meant nothing. Giving him—giving them both—the chance to step back. Go back to the beginning. To the moment before an excited child had altered everything.
He could do no less. Acknowledging her tact with the slightest of bows, he said, ‘Thank you, Metcalfe.’
CHAPTER FOUR
FOR the briefest moment Diana met his gaze. For the briefest moment he saw something in her eyes that made him forget the powerful men who were waiting for him, forget his precious airline. All he felt was a rush of longing, an overwhelming need to stop Diana from driving away, climb back into the car beside her and take her somewhere quiet, intimate, where their separate worlds, his and hers, did not exist. But to what purpose?
For her smile? To watch it appear, despite every attempt she made to control it?
To listen to her, enjoy conversation that had no ulterior purpose. No agenda.
She might laugh, blush, even share a kiss, but with that swift return to ‘sir’ she had recognised the gulf between them even if he, in a moment of madness, had chosen to ignore it. She knew—they both knew—that in the end all they could ever share was a brief intimacy that had no future. Kind enough to take a step back, pretend that it had never happened, when a more calculating woman would have seen a world of possibilities.
Selling a kiss-and-tell sheikh-and-the-chauffeur story to one of the tabloids would have paid for her dream twice over. That sparkly pink taxi for weekdays and something really fancy for Sunday. And he knew all about dreams …
If she could do that for him, why was he finding it such a problem to do it for himself?
It wasn’t as if he was in the habit of losing his head, or his heart, over a sweet smile.
He might have a streak of recklessness when it came to business, even now be prepared to risk everything he’d achieved. But he’d been far more circumspect in his personal life, taking care to keep relationships on a superficial level, with women who played by the same rules he did—have fun, move on—who understood that his future was written, that there was no possibility of anything deeper, anything permanent between them. Who would not get hurt by a light-hearted flirtation.
Diana Metcalfe was not one of those women.
And he did not feel light-hearted.
Yet, even when he recognised the need for duty before pleasure, he still wanted to hear his name on her lips, wanted to carry her smile with him. Couldn’t rid himself of the scent of her skin, the sweet taste of her that lingered on his lips, a smile than went deeper the more he looked, a smile that faded to a touch of sadness.
He’d need all his wits about him this evening if he was going to pull off the biggest deal of his career to date and all he could think about was what had made the light go out of her eyes. Who had made the light go out of her eyes …
And, on an impulse, he lifted the card he was still holding, caught a trace of her scent. Nothing that came from a bottle, but something warm and womanly that was wholly Diana Metcalfe.
He stuffed it into his pocket, out of sight, dragged both hands through his hair, repeating his earlier attempt to erase the tormenting thoughts. He should call James right now and tell him to contact the hire company and ask them to provide another driver for tomorrow. Maybe, if she was out of sight, he could put her out of his mind.
But even that escape was denied him.
His first mistake, and it had been entirely his, was not to have kissed her, not even to have allowed himself to be distracted by her; he’d have to have been made of wood not to have been distracted by her. His first mistake had been to talk to her. Really talk to her.
He’d talked to Jack Lumley, for heaven’s sake, but he’d known no more about the man after a week in his company than he had on day one.
Diana didn’t do that kind of polite, empty conversation.
He’d said she was a ‘natural’, but she was more than that. Her kind of natural didn’t require quotation marks. Diana Metcalfe was utterly unaffected in her manner. Spoke first, thought second. There was no fawning to please. None of the schooled politeness that the Jack Lumleys of this world had down to a fine art.
He wouldn’t, couldn’t, ruin her big chance, send her back to the ‘school run’ when she’d done nothing wrong.
He was the one breaking all the rules and he was the one who’d have to suffer.
Maybe an evening brokering the kind of financial package required to launch an airline would have much the same effect as a cold shower, he thought as he watched the tail lights of the car disappear.
Or maybe he just needed to get a grip.
‘Excellency.’ The maître a” greeted him warmly as he led the way to a private dining room, booked for this very discreet