The Sheikh's Reward. Lucy Gordon

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      “You lured me here on false pretences. You had no right.”

      “You knew I was the kind of man who would never forgive….” He took a step closer. “You forced my hand over the check. That stung my pride.”

      “Your pride!” Frances scoffed.

      His voice changed, became harder. “The ruler of a country must be a man of pride. If not, he is unfit to rule. I could not allow an insult to go unpunished. I decided it was time you had a lesson in reality.”

      “Reality?” she echoed, hardly able to believe her ears. “Putting me with your concubines? Ali, this has gone far enough. I want my bag, my clothes, and I want to get out of here.”

      He laughed softly. “You are wonderful. You are completely helpless in my power and yet you speak with such authority. I tremble in my shoes.”

      “I don’t believe this,” she said in a shaking voice. “I’m dreaming, and I’ll wake up soon.”

      “I wish you the sweetest of dreams, and I hope they will all be of me. But when you awake, you will still be here. And you will remain here, at my pleasure, until I decide otherwise.”

      Lucy Gordon cut her writing teeth on magazine journalism, interviewing many of the world’s most interesting men, including Warren Beatty, Richard Chamberlain, Roger Moore, Sir Alec Guinness and Sir John Gielgud. She also camped out with lions in Africa, and had many other unusual experiences, which have often provided the background for her books.

      She is married to a Venetian, whom she met while on holiday in Venice. They got engaged within two days, and have now been married for twenty-five years. They live in the Midlands of the U.K., with their dogs.

      Two of her books have won the Romance Writers of America RITA Award—Song of the Lorelei in 1990, and His Brother’s Child in 1998 in the Best Traditional Romance category.

      The Sheikh’s Reward

      Lucy Gordon

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      CHAPTER ONE

      HE WAS a prince to his fingertips. Tall, black-haired, his head set at a proud angle, Prince Ali Ben Saleem, Sheikh of the principality of Kamar, drew everyone’s gaze as he walked into the casino.

      It wasn’t just his handsome features and his tall body with its combination of power and grace. There was something about him that seemed to proclaim him skilful at everything he attempted. And so men regarded him with envy, women with interest.

      Frances Callam watched with the others, but her eyes held a peculiar intentness. Ali Ben Saleem was the man she had come here to study.

      She was a freelance journalist, much in demand for her skill at profiling people. Editors knew that she was unbeatable in stories where large sums of money were concerned. And Ali was one of the wealthiest men in the world.

      ‘Will you look at that?’ Joey Baines breathed in awe, watching Ali’s imperial progress to the tables. Joey was a private detective whom she sometimes hired as an assistant. She’d brought him along tonight as cover while she visited the casino and watched Ali at play.

      ‘I’m looking,’ Fran murmured. ‘He certainly lives up to the legend, doesn’t he? In appearance anyway.’

      ‘What’s the rest of the legend?’

      ‘He’s a law unto himself, accountable to nobody for where his money comes from or where it goes to.’

      ‘But we know where it comes from,’ Joey objected. ‘Those oil wells he’s got gushing away in the desert.’

      ‘And a lot of it vanishes in places like this,’ Fran said, looking around her with disapproval.

      ‘Hey, Fran, lighten up. Can’t we enjoy life among the fleshpots for just one night? It’s in a good cause.’

      ‘It’s in the cause of nailing a man who doesn’t like answering questions about himself, and finding out what he has to hide,’ Fran said firmly.

      Joey ran a finger around the inside of his collar. His short, undistinguished person looked uncomfortable in the black tie and dinner jacket that was de rigueur for the men.

      ‘I can’t believe you came here looking like a goddess just to work,’ he said, eyeing her slender figure, pale skin and red-gold hair with wistful lust.

      ‘Down, Fido,’ Fran said amiably. ‘Tonight this is my work outfit. I need to look as if I belong in this place.’

      She’d succeeded in her aim. Her dress seemed to be solid gold glitter with a neckline that plunged low, and a side slit that came up to her thigh. She was rather disconcerted by the dress’s frank immodesty, and had hired it only with misgiving. But she was glad now that she’d done so. In the glittering, sophisticated ambience of The Golden Chance, London’s premier casino, this was how to look.

      As well as the dress, she’d hired the solid gold jewellery that went with it. Hanging earrings accentuated the length of her neck, heavy gold bracelets weighed down her wrists, and a long gold pendant plunged between her breasts, emphasising her décolletage.

      I look like a kept woman, she thought, faintly shocked at herself.

      But so did every other woman here, and in that respect the outfit was a success.

      Certainly she could have held her own among the women who crowded around Sheikh Ali, competing for his attention, and being rewarded with a smile, or a kiss of the fingers in their direction. The sight made her seethe.

      ‘Arrogant so-and-so,’ she muttered. ‘Men like that are supposed to be extinct.’

      ‘Only the ones who can’t get away with it,’ Joey told her wisely. ‘Those who can are as bad as ever.’

      ‘You’re jealous,’ she said indignantly.

      ‘We all are, Fran! Look around you. Every man in the place wants to be him, and every woman wants to sleep with him.’

      ‘Not every one,’ she said firmly. ‘Not me.’

      Ali had finished his royal progress and was settling at one of the tables. Fran edged nearer, trying to observe him without looking too interested.

      He played for very high stakes, and when he lost he merely shrugged. Fran gulped at the sums he tossed away as though they were nothing. She noticed, too, that once play started he forgot about the women at his elbow. One minute he was flirting madly with them. The next they didn’t exist. Her annoyance grew.

      It grew even more when play stopped and he turned on the charm again, clearly expecting to take up with them where he’d left off. Worse still, they let him.

      ‘You see that?’ she muttered to Joey. ‘Why doesn’t one of them spit in his eye?’

      ‘You try spitting in the eye of a hundred billion,’ Joey said. ‘See how easy it is. Why must you be such a puritan, Fran?’

      ‘I can’t help it. It’s how I was raised. It’s not decent for one man to have so much—so much—just so much.’

      She’d