The Sheikh Who Blackmailed Her. Susan Mallery
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reminded her of that. Or was it the result of the terror she had experienced when she’d found herself naked in a desert sheikh’s arms?
So he was now wearing a very western suit, and the tailor who had cut it to fit his frame must have been kissing the ground he walked on—but the desert sheikh thing still applied. It didn’t matter about the wrappings or the sophisticated, urbane demeanor. Deep down this man was a total barbarian—she had every right to feel terror.
Just terror …?
Gabby evaded his dark eyes and closed down that line of thought before it got going.
‘You were asleep.’
Gabby’s eyes lifted. She opened her mouth to refute the crazy claim, then closed it again. A few hazy memories came slipping back, but she ignored them and produced a disdainful sniff.
Asleep! Couldn’t the lecherous rat come up with a better story? Or was it possible that in some moment of insanity brought on by stress and emotion she had been responsible for ending up naked in his arms?
It seemed about as likely as him being overcome by lust and going Neanderthal. This man had control—iron control that it would take a lot to snap.
‘I might have dozed off for a moment,’ she conceded reluctantly. ‘But that doesn’t give you the right to—’
‘Save your life?’
This drew a laugh from Gabby. ‘My hero! Save my life? Pooh!’ she muttered, even as the realisation that he had seen her naked hit her again. The thought kept going around in her head, and every time it did she had to fight the urge to curl up into a mortified foetal ball and pretend this was all a dream—correction, nightmare!
‘You could have drowned.’ As he thought of how close she had been, he felt anger crowding in on him again.
About to pour scorn on this, Gabby closed her mouth with an audible click. She swallowed. ‘I only closed my eyes for a minute.’
Rafiq could hear the uncertainty in her voice.
His nasty smile was to Gabby’s mind unnecessarily smug.
‘When I got in the tub the water was stone-cold.’ His sweeping gesture drew her gaze downwards, and Gabby saw the bottoms of his beautifully tailored trousers were wet to above the knee. There were dark water stains on his shirt and jacket from where he had held her.
He had held her naked in his arms. She shook her head to dispel the image that was a distraction she did not need just now—though she knew she was going to be thinking about it later.
The colour flooded her face. ‘I fell asleep …? That was … I was …’
‘Stupid,’ he supplied helpfully.
She bit her lip, totally mortified. ‘I didn’t do it on purpose.’ She covered her face with her hands and groaned. ‘God, this is so embarrassing.’
He looked confused by her choice of words. ‘Why?’
She looked at him through her fingers. Was he dense, or what? ‘Because I was …’
‘Naked?’ he suggested, looking amused. ‘Better to be embarrassed, Gabby,’ he declared, ‘than dead. If it helps, I have seen naked women before.’ None of them were imprinted on his retina, though.
‘It doesn’t,’ she hissed, thinking of women with Hollywood gloss and perfect bodies he no doubt normally swept into his arms. She wanted badly for the floor to open up and swallow her. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get dressed.’ He didn’t move, so she added pointedly, ‘Without an audience.’
‘Of course.’ He inclined his head and turned to leave her.
‘And … thank you,’ she called, as he stood with his hand extended towards the door.
He swung back. ‘It was my pleasure.’
‘That’s what bothers me,’ she muttered as the door closed. He must have heard her because she heard him laugh, which just about made her humiliation complete.
Gabby was tempted to put her own clothes back on, but her shirt had just about disintegrated.
‘Damn,’ she muttered, shaking out the dress that had been left for her. The floor-length gown unfolded with a soft swish. Her eyes widened. ‘Wow!’
A dreamy expression drifted across Gabby’s face as she gazed at it. Layers of the finest silk in varying shades of blue, it was just about the loveliest thing she had ever seen. She had never in her life imagined wearing anything like it.
It probably wouldn’t fit.
It did.
It fitted perfectly. Gabby found herself smiling stupidly as she looked at her reflection in the full-length mirror. She swung her hips and the dress belled out from her knees, the silk swishing seductively against her skin.
‘My God, I almost have a cleavage!’
Not that the illusion was going to fool the man waiting for her in the next room. He already knew that she wasn’t exactly lushly endowed. Although she had read somewhere that when it came to the naked female form men did not demand the perfection that women imagined …
Her expression sobered abruptly and she took a step back. Paul was rotting in a prison cell and she was wondering what the Crown Prince of Zantara had thought about her naked—wondering what he would say when he saw she scrubbed up quite well. How shallow and selfish did that make her?
Not to mention delusional. An infant-school teacher from Cheshire would not even register on his radar.
She shook her head and refused to think about the heat she had seen in his eyes.
Taking a deep breath, she walked into the salon. The first thing that hit her was the smell of food—she was ravenous—and then she turned, and the second thing hit her.
Rafiq Al Kamil was sitting on one of the sofas. He rose politely to his feet when he saw her. Ineffably elegant, he radiated a confidence that was totally unaffected—an integral part of him, as was the raw sexuality that hit an unprepared Gabby with the impact of a physical blow.
What a time to discover a weakness for tall, dark and brooding, Gabby thought as she struggled to mentally shift gear. She was ashamed that she had to struggle. Her brother’s dilemma should be the first thing on her mind—not some stranger who had made the whole brooding hero thing his own.
He didn’t speak, just stared at Gabby—who stared back. She felt his eyes as they slid down her body, and she lifted a self-conscious hand to the silk bodice of the dress.
‘My clothes were a write-off. This isn’t really my style, but thanks.’ She lowered her eyes. What was she doing thanking the man? It wasn’t as if he’d picked it out personally.
‘It is an improvement.’
The iridescent shades of blue in the gown she wore reflected but did not outshine the brilliance of her blue gaze. Her skin, scrubbed clean of make-up and dirt, was revealed as flawless and porcelain-pale, and her hair, freshly washed and still damp, fell down her back in soft rippling waves
‘Anything would be.’ She shrugged.
‘That is not what I meant,’ Rafiq said, as he struggled to erase the image in his head of her in the bathtub, her pale skin gleaming and wet. It wasn’t just his body that was weakened, it seemed, but also his brain.
Was he going to say what he meant?
She noticed that his glance had dropped to the creamy vee that hinted at her cleavage, and to hide the fact her heart had started hammering she let her hair fall forward to hide the flush on her cheeks.
‘It is true that what you are wearing is not suitable for travelling in the backs of delivery trucks. You appear uncomfortable … are you still embarrassed?’ He sounded mildly amused by