Traded To The Sheikh

‘I am hungry,’ she admitted, thinking she’d feel safer sitting down, safer keeping her mouth busy with eating if she could make her stomach cooperate with an intake of food.

Again he waved her forward. ‘Please…seat yourself comfortably, relax, and help yourself to whatever you’d like.’

No way in the world could she ever relax in this man’s company, but putting a table between them seemed like a good defensive move. ‘Thank you,’ she said, forcing her feet to walk slowly, waiting for him to indicate where he would sit so she could settle as far away from him as possible.

Apparently he wanted to be face-to-face with her so she didn’t have to manoeuvre for a position opposite to his. He took it himself. Nevertheless, there was still a disturbing sense of intimacy, just in their being seated at the same table. The couches around it were curved, linking with each other so there was no real sense of separation.

‘What would you like to drink?’ he asked, as though she truly were a guest. ‘You have a choice of mango, pineapple and hibiscus juices, coconut milk…’

‘Hibiscus juice?’ She’d heard of the flower but hadn’t known a drink could be made from it.

‘Sweet, light and refreshing.’ He reached for a jug of hand-painted pottery depicting a red hibiscus. ‘Want to try it?’

‘No, thanks. I’ve always loved mango.’ Which she was long familiar with since it was such a prolific fruit tree around her home city of Cairns.

His dark eyes danced with mocking amusement over her suspicious refusal of the hibiscus jug. ‘Where has your adventurous spirit gone, Miss Ross?’

The light taunt goaded her into shooting some straight truth right back at him. ‘I feel like having some familiar comfort right now, Your Excellency.’

He picked up another pottery jug and poured mango juice into a beautiful crystal goblet. ‘The familiar is safe,’ he observed, a glittering challenge in his eyes as he replaced the jug and watched her pick up the goblet. ‘A woman who plays safe would never have boarded Arnault’s yacht. She would have taken a far more conventional, more protected route to Zanzibar.’

Emily fervently wished she had. Never more so than now. Dealing with this sheikh and his attitude towards her was undermining her self-confidence. She didn’t know how to even set about getting out of this. Telling the truth didn’t seem to be winning her anything, but what else could she do?

‘I’ve crewed on yachts many times around the Australian coast. I was looking for a way to save the cost of plane fares.’

‘You took a risk with a stranger.’

‘I thought I could handle it.’

‘And when you woke up and found there was no wife…how did you handle it then, Miss Ross?’

‘Oh, then it came down to the rules of survival at sea. We needed each other to sail the yacht so agreements had to be reached and kept. Jacques only tried to cross the line once.’ Her eyes hardened with the contempt she felt for the Frenchman. ‘I think he found it too painful to repeat that particular error in judgment.’

The sheikh’s mouth twitched into a sardonic little smile. ‘Perhaps this contributed to Arnault’s belief you were a virgin, Miss Ross, fighting for your virtue.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘One doesn’t have to be a virgin to not want a scumbag sharing your bed.’

‘A scumbag…’

‘The lowest of the low,’ she drily explained.

‘Ah!’ One eyebrow arched in wicked challenge. ‘And what of the highest of the high, Miss Ross? Where does your measure start for a man to be accepted into your bed?’

The highest of the high…

Emily’s heart catapulted around her chest.

He was speaking of himself. Had to be. Which made this question far too dangerous to answer. If he actually did want to be accepted into her bed…the speculative look in his eyes was making her toes curl.

Emily quickly reached out to pick up some tasty tidbit from the table to stuff in her mouth.

Eating was safe.

Speaking was dangerous.

She was suddenly heart-thumpingly sure that a desire for sexual satisfaction was more on Sheikh Zageo bin Sultan Al Farrahn’s mind than a desire for truth, and what he wanted from her was capitulation, vindicating everything he thought about her.

No way.

Never, she thought fiercely.

But what if he kept her here until she did give him the satisfaction he expected from her? She might never get to Stone Town for the meeting with her sister!

CHAPTER FOUR

ZAGEO watched Emily Ross eat. The consumption of an array of finger food was done with such single-minded focus, she could well have been absolutely alone in the room. He rated no visible attention whatsoever.

In any other woman’s company he would find this behaviour unforgivably rude. In fact, he couldn’t recall such a situation ever happening before. Emily Ross was proving to be an intriguing enigma on many levels, and perversely enough, her constantly challenging attitude was exciting more than just an intellectual interest in her. Mind-games with a woman were always sexy.

He suspected if he made some comment about her concentration on the food, she would lift those incredibly vivid blue eyes and state very reasonably, ‘You invited me to help myself. Do you now have some problem with me doing it?’

What reply could he make to that without sounding unreasonable?

The plain truth was he felt peeved by her refusal to show more awareness of him. It pricked his male ego. But he could wait. Time was on his side. Let her satisfy this hunger. If she was using it as an evasive tactic, it would come to an end soon enough and she’d be forced to acknowledge him again.

Besides, the Frenchman had not been wrong in his assessment of this woman’s physical attractions. She was intensely watchable. Her hair alone was a visual delight—not just one block of colour but an intriguing meld of many variations in shades of blond and copper. The description of ‘strawberry-blonde’ had suggested red hair and pale skin, but there was more of an overall warm glow in Emily Ross’s colouring. Her skin did not have the fairness that freckled. It was lightly tanned to a golden-honey shade.

Copper and gold, he thought. A woman of the sun with eyes the colour of a clear, sun-kissed sky. But her body belonged to Mother Earth, the fullness of her breasts and the width of her hips promising an easy fertility and a natural ability to nurture that Zageo was finding extremely appealing.

Perhaps it was the contrast to Veronique’s chic model thinness that had him so…fascinated…by this woman’s more opulent femininity. The lavish untamed hair denied any skilful styling by a fashionable hairdresser. The lavish flesh of her body—not fat, just well covered, superbly covered—allowed no bones to protrude anywhere, and would undoubtedly provide a soft cushioning for anyone lying with her—man or child.

She was a creature of nature, not the creation of diet and designer wear, and Zageo found himself wanting to lie with her, wanting to sink into her softness and wanting to feel her heat envelop him and suck him in to the deepest part of her where secrets melted and intimacy reigned. That was when she would surrender to him. Utterly and completely.

Zageo relished the thought of Emily Ross’s ultimate submission as he watched her eat. He was inclined to believe the Frenchman had not managed to get that satisfaction from her. Arnault’s sexual frustration would have primed his readiness to try selling her on, demonstrating a total lack of perception about Zageo’s character and the woman’s. Emily Ross was of the mettle to play her own game by her own rules.

Nevertheless, Zageo had no doubt she could be bought, just like everyone else.

It was always a matter of striking the right trade.

The challenge was in finding out what buttons to press for the door of opportunity to open.

‘Where were you aiming to meet your sister in Stone Town?’ he asked.

Important private business—if Emily Ross had spoken the truth about her motive for coming to Zanzibar—invariably provided leverage.

Emily chewed over that question as she finished a tasty egg and asparagus tartlet and sipped some more mango juice. She didn’t like the past tense he’d used, suggesting she wasn’t going to be allowed to keep her appointment with Hannah.

Her gaze targeted his, projecting very direct intent. ‘I still aim to meet her. She’s counting on my meeting her. I left the yacht and swam for it because I didn’t want to let my sister down.’