Innocent in the Desert: The Sheikh's Impatient Virgin / The Sheikh's Convenient Virgin / The Desert Lord's Bride

When Karim appeared at her shoulder she greeted him like an old friend and repeated the compliment, adding, ‘Your wife’s French is quite, quite excellent and isn’t she coping well? I remember the first Embassy Ball I hosted—my smile had to be surgically removed.’

Eva felt warmed by the compliment, but the glow of pleasure faded abruptly when, after acknowledging that her French was adequate, Karim added, ‘Let’s hope she doesn’t take too long to master Arabic, Julia.’

Eva’s chin went up. ‘I hope so too. Then people will have to be out of earshot when they talk about me.’ She could not shake the conviction that the lovely Layla’s laughter had been aimed at her or the image of her in bed with Karim.

Karim arched a brow and said, ‘Paranoia, Eva?’ And left her standing there feeling like a total idiot.

Julia took her arm and patted her hand. ‘Layla is what I’d call a man’s woman …’

Eva shot her a startled glance. Were her thoughts that transparent?

‘Men look,’ Julia continued with a Gallic shrug. ‘It is in their nature.’ Her grin deepened and she added with mock sympathy, ‘Poor lambs. You know, when I married Alain I went through agonies thinking he lusted after every woman he smiled at. Alain could have anyone he chose, you see, then one day it finally struck me—he chose me.’

Eva bit back the impulse to assure the Frenchwoman that as far as she was concerned Karim could smile at any woman he pleased, but she could hardly reveal to her sympathetic and obviously romantic friend that she was no more in love with her husband than he was with her.

‘It’s a steep learning curve,’ she admitted. The Frenchwoman had no idea how steep!

She wondered what her new friend’s reaction would be if she explained that Karim had only married her because honour had demanded it and it wasn’t politically expedient for him to alienate his influential neighbour.

Of course, as far as she was concerned Karim could romance whom he liked, but he might at least have the decency and good manners not to rub her nose in it!

Eva’s resentment and sense of isolation increased when Karim, presumably having adopted a sink-or-swim policy, left her to her own devices for the next half-hour.

It was not relief she felt when she caught sight of her tall, supremely elegant husband returning. Her heart rate began to thud with a confusing mixture of excitement, resentment and apprehension.

He reached her side and bent forward, bringing his face close to hers; for a moment she thought he was going to kiss her again.

He didn’t.

‘Smile, and stop looking at me as if I’m the wolf and you’re Little Red Riding Hood.’ His hooded glance slid to the hint of creamy cleavage pressing against the pale satin and he wondered if her skin tasted as good as it looked.

It would not be so very difficult to eat her up. ‘You’re meant to be enjoying yourself.’

Shaking a little from the anticlimax, she fixed him with a narrow-eyed glare. ‘Well, I’m not—not enjoying myself.’

‘You seemed to be enjoying yourself when you were talking to my cousin.’

‘Cousin? Could you be a bit more specific? You do have hundreds.’

‘Hakim.’

‘Oh, the doctor—yes, he’s really nice.’

‘That’s what all the girls think before he breaks their hearts.’

She watched him walk away with a puzzled frown. Anyone who didn’t know the circumstances might have confused his attitude with jealousy. Next time she saw him the orchestra had struck up a slow number that drew several couples to the floor.

Eva, uncertain of the protocol, turned to him for clarification and found he was watching her with an expression that she struggled to decipher. ‘Are we meant to dance?’

Karim, already in a state of arousal, was skeptical of his ability even in his loose robes to hold her in his arms and not reveal the fact to everyone present.

‘I don’t dance,’ he said, but he did other things well and tonight he planned to show her.

That had been ten minutes earlier and she could still see his face when he said it, still hear his dismissive tone.

She was hearing it as she listened to what Julia’s extremely handsome and charming husband was saying. Eva’s own smile had become fixed and strained—she hoped in an intelligent way, but the fact was she was finding it virtually impossible to concentrate on what her companion was saying.

Rage and a strong sense of misuse made her chest tight. She struggled against a suffocating sensation to get her breath … was he trying to humiliate her?

Don’t let anyone see you care. Don’t let him see you care. Her lips compressed as her glance was once again drawn to the dance floor. She looked quickly away, a smile frozen on her face, thinking, Don’t let anyone see you care.

Don’t let him see you care!

Why did she care?

Presumably Karim’s non-dancing stance only applied to dancing with her, because for someone who didn’t dance he was managing rather well as he circled the floor with the highborn beauty in his arms.

They moved as one, bodies close, dark heads closer, the diamonds around Layla’s wrists and lovely neck catching the lights of the chandeliers overhead.

Eva had struggled hard against the irrational dislike she had felt earlier when the brunette had been introduced, but she now stopped trying—call it a personality clash.

Call it jealousy, said the voice in her head.

Logically she had no reason to dislike a woman she had not exchanged more than a dozen words with, if you discounted the way she touched Karim at every opportunity and spoke to him in that husky voice pitched too low for anyone else to hear, but obviously what she said was witty because Karim laughed more than once, looking younger and more relaxed as he did so than Eva had ever seen him.

The music stopped and Eva expelled a relieved sigh that drew an amused look from the man beside her. She said something to cover the moment, aware in the periphery of her vision of Karim bowing his head to his dance partner, but before he could leave Layla took his hand, tilting her head and pouting as she moved in close and whispered something in his ear.

Eva gave up all pretence of making conversation and watched, her eyes as hard as the emeralds around her neck as Karim shook his head, trying—not very hard, it seemed to Eva—to leave before he allowed his partner to drag him back to the centre of the dance floor. She could hear from where she was standing the tinkling sound of the brunette’s laughter as she laid her fingers against Karim’s neck.

Eva watched them dance, but she wasn’t the only one who did so. She knew that several glances were cast in her direction and the voltage of her smile and the level of her animation rose in direct proportion to the interest.

Finally when she laughed too loudly at something, Alain leaned forward with an expression of genuine concern and asked softly, ‘Are you all right?’

It was at that moment it hit her.

She shook her head slowly, a stunned look on her face as her glance slid towards the dance floor where Karim was moving, his grace and co-ordination matched by those of his partner.

‘No, I’m not all right.’ I’m in love with my husband.

Now how stupid was that?

She shook her head. It wasn’t possible!

She obviously had spoken the latter aloud because though Alain was looking at her with concern it was not the sort of alarm someone would reserve for a bride who was having a breakdown at the possibility she was in love with her husband.

‘Shall I get someone … Karim …?’

The suggestion made her eyes widen with horror. ‘No, not Karim!’