Mistress Of The Sheikh. Sandra Marton

to his desk and sat down in the ornately carved chair behind it.

      Everything was “the custom”. The way he was addressed. The way Quidarans, and even many Americans, bowed in his presence. He didn’t mind it so much from his countrymen; it made him uncomfortable, all that head-bobbing and curtseying, but he understood it. It was a sign of respect.

      It was, he supposed, such a sign for some Americans, too.

      But for others, he sensed, it was an acknowledgment that they saw him as a different species. Something exotic. An Arab, who dressed in flowing robes. A primitive creature, who lived in a tent.

      An uncultured savage, who took his women when, where and how he wanted them.

      He rose to his feet and walked across the room to the windows, his mouth set in a grim line, his eyes steely.

      He had worn desert robes perhaps half a dozen times in his life, and then only to please his father. He’d slept in a tent more times than that, but only because he loved the sigh of the night wind and the sight of the stars against the blackness of a sky that can only be found in the vastness of the desert.

      As for women…Custom permitted him to take any that pleased him to his bed. But he’d never taken a woman who hadn’t wanted to be taken. Never forced one into his bed or held one captive in a harem.

      A smile tilted across Nick’s mouth.

      Humility was a virtue, much lauded by his father’s people, and he was properly modest about most things, but why lie to himself about women? For that matter, why would he need a harem?

      The truth was that women had always been there. They tumbled into his bed without any effort at all on his part, even in his university days at Yale when his real identity hadn’t been known to what seemed like half the civilized world.

      They’d even been there in the years before that.

      Nick’s smile grew.

      He thought back to that summer he’d spent in L.A. with his late mother. She was an actress; it had seemed as if half the women who lived in Beverly Hills were actresses, starting with the stunning brunette next door, who’d at first taken him for the pool boy—and taken him, too, for rides far wilder than any he’d ever experienced on the backs of his father’s purebred Arabians.

      There’d always been women.

      Nick’s smile dimmed.

      It was true, though, that some of the ones who were drawn to him now were interested more in what they might gain from being seen with him than anything else.

      He knew that there were women who wanted to bask in the spotlight so mercilessly trained on him, that there were others who thought a night in his arms might lead to a lifetime at his side. There were even women who hoped to enter his private world so they could sell their stories to the scandal sheets.

      His eyes went flat and cold.

      Only a foolish man would involve himself with such women, and he was not a—

      The phone rang. Nick snatched it from the desk.

      “Yes?”

      “If you’re going to be here in time to shower and shave and change into a tux,” his half sister’s voice said with teasing petulance, “you’d better get a move on, Your Gorgeousness.”

      Nick smiled and hitched a hip onto the edge of the desk.

      “Watch what you say to me, little sister. Otherwise, I’ll have your head on the chopping block. Abdul says it’s an ideal punishment for those who don’t show me the proper respect.”

      “The only thing that’s going to be cut tonight is my birthday cake. It’s not every day a girl turns twenty-five.”

      “You forget. It’s my birthday, too.”

      “Oh, I know, I know. Isn’t it lovely, sharing a father and a birthday? But you’re not as excited as I am.”

      Nick laughed. “That’s because I’m over the hill. After all, I’m thirty-four.”

      “Seriously, Nick, you will be here on time, won’t you?”

      “Absolutely.”

      “Not early, though.” Dawn laughed softly. “Otherwise, you’ll expect me to change what I’m wearing.”

      Nick’s brows lifted. “Will I?”

      “Uh-huh.”

      “Meaning what you have on is too short, too low, too tight—”

      “This is the twenty-first century, Your Handsomeness.”

      “Not when you’re on Quidaran turf, it isn’t. And stop calling me stuff like that.”

      “A,” Dawn said, ticking her answers off on her fingers, “this isn’t Quidaran turf. It’s a penthouse on Fifth Avenue.”

      “It’s Quidaran turf,” Nick said. Dawn smiled; she could hear the laughter in his voice. “The moment I step on it anyway. What’s B?”

      “B, if Gossip can call you ‘Your Handsomeness’, so can I.” She giggled. “Have you seen the article yet?”

      “I’ve seen the cover,” Nick said tersely. “That was enough.”

      “Well, the article says that you and Deanna—”

      “Never mind that. You just make sure you’re decently dressed.”

      “I am decently dressed, for New York.”

      Nick sighed. “Behave yourself, or I’ll have you sent home.”

      “Me? Behave myself?” Dawn snorted and switched the portable phone to her other ear as she strolled through her brother’s massive living room and out the glass doors to the terrace. “I’m not the one dating Miss Hunter.”

      “Hunter? But Deanna’s name is—”

      “Hunter of a titled husband. Hunter of the spotlight. Hunter of wealth and glamour—”

      “She’s not like that,” Nick said quickly.

      “Why isn’t she?”

      “Dawn. I am not going to discuss this with you.”

      “You don’t have to. I know the reason. You have this silly idea that because Deanna has her own money and an old family name, she’s—what’s the right word—trustworthy.”

      Nick sighed. “Sweetheart,” he said gently, “I appreciate your concern. But—”

      “But you want me to mind my own business.”

      “Something like that, yes.”

      His sister rolled her eyes at the blond woman who stood with her back against the terrace wall. “Men can be clueless,” she hissed.

      Amanda Benning did her best to smile. “Have you told him yet?”

      “No. No, not—”

      “Dawn?” Nick’s voice came through the phone. “Who are you talking to?”

      Dawn made a face at Amanda. “One of the caterer’s assistants,” she said briskly. “She wanted to know where to put the cold hors d’oeuvres. And speaking of knowing, aren’t you curious about what I got you for your birthday?”

      “Sure. But if you told me, it wouldn’t be a surprise. And birthday presents are supposed to be surprises.”

      “Ah. Well, I already know what my gift is.”

      “You do?”

      “Uh-huh.” Dawn grinned. “That shiny new Jaguar in the garage downstairs.”

      Nick groaned. “There’s no keeping anything from you.”

      “Nope,