An Ordinary Girl and a Sheikh. Nicola Marsh
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that matter.
She tried not to look at him, but couldn’t help herself. His face, however, offered no help, no clue to his thoughts. She’d seen him do that before, she realised, in the toy store, with a smile that was no more than a disguise. A mask to cover any hint of what he was feeling.
Then, and later when James Pierce had joined them, he’d given her a glimpse behind the mask, had drawn her into his private world with a silent invitation to become his fellow conspirator.
There was no smile hidden in the depths of his cool grey eyes now. Even the sensuous droop of his lower lip had been jacked up into a straight line.
Whatever he was thinking, he was making damn sure no one else knew. Including her. And tempting though it was to provoke some kind of a response she very much doubted he’d be amused if she excused herself on the grounds that today she’d had the forethought to provide herself with a packed lunch.
Played the thanks-but-no-thanks, see-you-later gambit.
Instead she gave Jeff one of her best smiles and said, ‘I’ll be perfectly warm enough, thank you.’
‘This way, then.’ He lifted an avuncular arm to usher her towards the terrace, then, obviously thinking better of it, let it drop, instead leading the way to a sheltered corner.
It was one of those perfect May days, the temperature in the mid-seventies, with just enough breeze at the coast to fill the sails of a flotilla of dinghies that were making a picture postcard scene of the estuary.
‘Do you sail?’ Jeff asked, following her gaze.
‘No.’ She sat down. Then, smiling up at him, ‘Never had the opportunity.’
‘Hopefully you will do soon,” Jeff replied.
‘As I said, Metcalfe is part of my UK team,’ Zahir interposed smoothly. ‘I’m in the process of setting up an office in London. If everything goes to plan, James will stay here and run it.’
‘Expensive. I’d have thought it would be more cost effective to leave this end of things to specialist travel agents.’
‘For the purely tourist end of the business, I agree.’
‘You’re expanding your business?’
‘A business not expanding is a business in decline.’
‘Right …’
The steward arrived with their drinks and the menu, and taking advantage of the distraction, Zahir looked across at her and their shared knowledge was like an electric spark leaping across a vacuum.
‘It’s just bar meals at lunchtime during the week, I’m afraid,’ Jeff said, apologising to her rather than Zahir, then, apparently catching the intensity of the look that passed between them, fell silent.
‘A sandwich is the most I ever eat in the middle of the day,’ Diana said, filling the gap, when Zahir remained silent. ‘And I don’t always get that.’ Then, when Jeff had gone through to the bar to place their order, she whispered urgently, ‘What are you doing? Why am I here?’
For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to answer, then, with a lift of his shoulders, he said, ‘To create a level playing field.’
‘What?’
‘I find you distracting, Metcalfe. It’s not your fault—you can’t help how you look—but if I’m to be distracted, it’s only fair that Jeff should be similarly handicapped. It seems to be working. He can’t keep his eyes off you.’
She stared at him.
In her uniform, flat shoes, absolute minimum of make-up, she was about as distracting as lukewarm soup in the middle of winter. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’
He blinked slowly and without warning a hot surge of colour rushed to her cheeks. ‘Oh, no …’
‘You distracted me when I should have been glad-handing journalists, although I have to say that the sheer effort of keeping you out of my head gave me a real edge over dinner last night. Those bankers didn’t know what had hit them.’
‘You did seem a little high last night. If you don’t mind me saying so.’
‘Billion dollar deals tend to have that effect. Make me want to sing, to dance …’
‘Zahir!’
‘You see. You say my name and I can’t even decide what I want for lunch. Distracting.’
‘If that’s the case, then it would probably be a good thing if I left you to it and went for a walk,’ she said, getting to her feet.
And he got himself another driver for tomorrow.
‘Stay where you are, Diana.’ Before she could open her mouth to protest, he added, ‘Out of sight is not out of mind.’
‘This is outrageous.’ She glared at him. ‘You expect me to sit here and “distract” the man, while you pull your tycoon act and take him to the cleaners?’
‘Did I say that?’
‘What else could you possibly mean?’ she demanded. And she had the doubtful pleasure of seeing the impassive mask slip, feeling the heat from eyes that were—momentarily—anything but cool. ‘You’re quite mad, you know,’ she said, subsiding into her chair, not in obedience to his command but because her legs refused to keep her upright. ‘I’m not some femme fatale.’
‘No?’ Then, after a moment’s thought, ‘No.’
Dammit, he wasn’t supposed to agree with her! And this was definitely not the moment for him to smile. If that lip moved, sheikh or not, he was cats’ meat …
Maybe he recognised the danger because he managed to restrain himself, confine himself to an apparently careless shrug.
‘In that case, why are you making such a fuss?’
CHAPTER SIX
MAKING a fool of herself, more like.
Diana swallowed but her mouth was suddenly dry and she picked up her glass with a hand that was visibly shaking and took a mouthful of water.
She’d known, right from the beginning, that Sheikh Zahir wasn’t going to be a conventional passenger. He might not have lived up to her Lawrence of Arabia fantasy, but it was obvious, from the moment that boy had cannoned into him, from that first meeting of eyes through the rear-view mirror, that he was going to be trouble.
For her.
And the kind of disturbance that even now was churning beneath her waistband confirmed her worst fears.
Inappropriate? This wasn’t just inappropriate. This was plain stupid and Sadie would have an absolute fit if she had the slightest idea of just how unprofessionally she had behaved right from the very beginning.
Chatting to him as if he were someone she’d met in a bus queue. Dragging him off to The Toy Warehouse and giving him the down-and-dirty gossip on the frog and princess scandal. Sharing canapés with him on a riverside bench when he should have been working the media.
Sharing an earth-shattering, world-changing kiss with a man whose ‘partner’ was inside the gallery, taking the strain.
All mouth, no brains, that was her.
There was absolutely no way there could be a personal connection between them other than some brief sexual dalliance which would obviously be a meaningless fling for him—and she felt a moment of pity for the beautiful princess—while it could only be damaging to her, professionally and personally. Even supposing she was the kind of woman who ‘flung’ around with a man who was attached, no matter how loosely, to another woman.
Who ‘flung’ full stop.
One fling had got her into enough trouble to last a lifetime.
And