The Desert Princes. Jackie Braun
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with the buckles, she flung it open and delved inside. The best she could come up with was a white T-shirt, a pair of old jeans and some flip-flops, but at least they were clean and fresh, and they’d have to do. Flinging the chosen outfit onto a chair, she raced back to the bathroom, tugging off clothes as she ran. Stepping gratefully beneath the tepid water, she soaped herself down. This was a bathroom fit for a king—a bathroom the size of her family home—a bathroom lined in pink-veined cream marble with a matching floor. There were black granite surfaces and golden taps. It wasn’t to her taste, but there was no doubt it was the height of luxury, the height of decadence, the height of—well, the height. And there was even a store-sized selection of high end products for her to choose from.
But no time to use them.
She grabbed for towels in her excitement, plucking the first ones that came to hand from the heated rail. Wrapping her hair in one, she almost managed to wrap her body in the other before barging through the door, and—
Paling with shock, she remained rooted to the spot, clutching her wholly inadequate towel over those bits most obviously reacting to the ruler of A’Qaban.
Raffa was currently lounging on the sofa. Surprised, excited and embarrassed, she performed a virginal two-step, backing her way to the bathroom door, conscious all the while her towel was slipping. ‘Wh…who let you in?’
‘Your butler.’
‘My…?’ She didn’t even know she had a butler. How many more invisible men were sharing the penthouse with her?
Unfolding his powerful frame, Raffa straightened up and did the last thing she expected. ‘What are you doing?’ She backed away nervously as he strolled towards her.
‘I thought you might need these…’
He sounded so relaxed she wondered if dealing with half-naked employees was par for the course. But then she saw what he was holding. As Raffa’s cool, sexy gaze remained steady on her face, she extended one hand cautiously to take the jeans and top she’d chosen to wear.
‘Most people who stay here use this space as a meeting room and reception area,’ he explained.
And don’t run around it naked, Casey gathered, pressing back against the bathroom door. ‘Could you…?’ How to make the required gesture without dropping her towel?
Fortunately, Raffa anticipated her. ‘Could I turn around?’ he suggested.
Could he read her mind? She hoped not. ‘Please…’
‘My pleasure…’
It was a relief to turn his back on Casey and allow his stern expression to unbend a little. She was so warm and pink and flustered; she was adorable. Not a quality he sought, necessarily, in his executives.
‘Okay, you can turn round now.’
How piquant to be given permission. But there had been too many compliant milksops in his life recently, and he rated ladies who stood up to him. Executives who stood up to him, he amended.
‘Did you need something?’ Casey sounded concerned, professional, as she straightened her clothes.
‘The shopping trip,’ he reminded her.
‘I’ve got it covered.’
‘You have?’ He narrowed his eyes, viewing the towel she had discarded on the floor. She blushed violently as she explained, ‘I called a cab.’
‘No need.’
‘No need?’
As she angled her face and stared at him with an ingenuous look in her clear blue eyes he got a jolt. She affected him in a way no executive should. That didn’t stop him sticking to his plan. ‘I’ll take you.’
‘You?’
She looked alarmed, as if he had suggested something immoral. His gaze dropped from her eyes to her lips. They were full, moist, and slightly parted. He had certainly never wanted to kiss one of his executives before.
‘Why?’ she said suspiciously.
Had he had been expecting wall-to-wall gratitude? ‘Because it’s the least I can do,’ he explained. ‘I brought you here with a backpack and a shovel, and you need a suit.’ He made a gesture, as if to say that was an end of it. ‘Shall we go?’ He looked towards the door.
‘Only if you promise I can pay.’
‘What?’ As he held her gaze he was amused to think anyone could be so humdrum on paper and yet so original in the flesh.
She brandished her purse. ‘Promise me…’
‘I thought Sheikhs were supposed to pay?’ He spoke lightly to restore her mood, but she only blushed again and looked away. He guessed she was concerned she had overstepped the mark and had lost the job without a hand being played. What would the papers have to say about this? he wondered as he gave his word.
‘Thank you. And as for Sheikhs,’ she admitted shyly, ‘I really don’t know—you’re my first.’
And your last, he thought fiercely.
‘Muta assif, Casey Michaels,’ he intoned in a deceptively calm voice. ‘Please accept my apologies if I have insulted you.’
‘No insult,’ she hurried to assure him. ‘It’s just that I’m used to paying my own way.’
‘You should never apologise for that.’ He held the door for her.
THE limousine had gone home to bed, and in its place was a blood red Lamborghini.
‘You wanted to go shopping didn’t you?’ Raffa prompted, when Casey remained rooted to the spot, staring at the fabulous vehicle in confusion.
‘Of course I do, but—’
‘But what?’
But it was a small car where they’d almost be touching— where they’d be sharing the same air, the same breath. ‘Is the boot big enough?’
‘For one business suit?’ Raffa looked at her sideways.
What to say? She couldn’t admit that she didn’t trust herself to sit so close to him without her brain scrambling and something addled coming out of her mouth.
‘The shops don’t stay open all night.’
She took the prompt as a warning to get a move on, and made her way to the open door where, with as much grace as she could muster, she performed the contortions required to insert a reasonably well-upholstered body into a letter-box-sized opening.
‘It’s a moulded seat,’ Raffa explained helpfully as she bumped her hips in a dozen different places.
Moulded around Tinkerbell’s bottom, Casey presumed, forcing her own rather more ample curves into the available space. ‘Lovely…’ She beamed, remembering not to flinch as Raffa settled himself beside her.
He was being helpful, she reminded herself. He didn’t need to do this.
And she didn’t need to stare at his strong, capable hands on the wheel, or his legs…But she could see the muscles in his thighs working as he operated the vehicle, and they were really gripping her attention. She raised her chin in time to see Raffa lower what to her would be around a month’s worth of wages in designer sunglasses past the obstacle of his ridiculously long eyelashes and part-way down his nose. Far too late now to evade his laser stare.
‘It is a very big shopping mall. Give me a clue as to what you need and I’ll decide where to park up.’
‘Just a serviceable suit.’
‘Which you’ll wear with flip-flops? Don’t waste