Defying her Desert Duty. Annie West

accustomed to thinking was in some far-off future that became less real with every passing year.

      Yet as she snicked the bolt shut and scooped up Lisle’s carelessly discarded camisole, Soraya was surprised to realise it was Zahir El Hashem’s strong features that filled her mind. Not those of her betrothed.

      Zahir stared at the door, one hand still raised as if to stop it shutting. Or force it open.

      Shock held him rigid. It wasn’t a familiar feeling. He was a man of some experience. Little surprised him. To be at a loss because she’d been invited to make up a threesome with the lovers he’d seen last night should be impossible.

      Yet he rocked back on his feet, his gut clenching as if he’d caught a hammer blow to the belly. Searing bile snaked through his system.

      Despite what he’d seen earlier, he’d almost convinced himself he’d been mistaken about Soraya. That the woman who carried herself with such poise and grace, yet with that intriguing shadow of anxiety in her eyes, was special. When he’d relaxed his guard he’d liked her, despite his doubts.

      Stupid wishful thinking!

      Had she deliberately sidetracked him?

      Valiantly he’d tried to keep his eyes off the syncopated sway of her pert backside as she climbed the stairs in precarious heels. Even when he’d managed not to look he’d imagined the slip of soft fabric across warm, rounded flesh. His palms had tingled with remembered heat.

      Anger welled. His hands fisted and his jaw ached as he clenched his teeth against the need to bellow out her name.

      She’d played him for a fool. Tried to con him.

      He felt … gutted.

      He slumped against the door, hand splayed against it for support, recalling that discarded scrap of lingerie casually discarded just inside the door.

      He’d spoiled her fun at the club and, he realised now, with the news she had to return to Bakhara where her every move would be scrutinised. Was she even now hauling that slinky dress over her head to join her friends in a little early-morning debauchery?

      Nausea writhed.

      Breathing heavily, Zahir sought calm.

      Could he have misread what he’d seen and heard? He had so little evidence. Was he wrong to assume the worst? It was tempting to hope so.

      Till he realised how much he wanted to be wrong. Fear feathered his backbone as he registered the sense almost of longing within him.

      From the first his instinct had screamed a warning about Soraya Karim: she was dangerous. She tested his control to the limit and messed with his judgement.

      He couldn’t let her undermine his duty too.

      Zahir sighed and scrubbed his hand over gritty eyes, suddenly more tired than he could remember. How could he break it to Hussein that the woman he planned to marry might not be fit for the honour?

      ‘I’m sorry, madam. I’m afraid the guest you enquired about isn’t available.’

      ‘Not in or not available?’ Soraya tamped down the steaming anger that had been simmering for hours. ‘It’s important I see him as soon as possible.’

      ‘Excuse me a moment while I check.’ The receptionist turned to confer with a colleague, leaving Soraya free to focus on her surroundings.

      The foyer was luxurious in the bred-in-the-bone way you’d expect of one of Paris’s grandest hotels. From the crimson carpet leading in from the cobblestoned pavement to the discreetly helpful staff, exquisite antiques and massive Venetian glass chandeliers, the placed screamed money, but in the most hushed and refined tones. The guests, whether wearing couture, business suits or staggeringly mismatched casuals, took the opulence in their stride, as only the super-wealthy could.

      Soraya in her workaday jeans, T-shirt and loose jacket had never felt so out of place. Her family, one of the oldest in Bakhara, was comfortably off but had never aspired to this sort of rarefied luxury.

      Even her shoes, her one pretension to elegance, had been snaffled in a miraculous end-of-sale bargain.

      She stood taller. None of that mattered. All that mattered was seeing him. A tremor of repressed fury skated down her spine. Hadn’t he promised her a day to get her bearings and then contact him? He’d had no right …

      ‘I’m sorry for the delay, madam.’ The receptionist was back. ‘I’m able to tell you the guest you asked for has left strict instructions not to be disturbed.’

      Soraya’s lips compressed. That was why he hadn’t answered his phone for the past two hours and she’d finally had to leave her work and come here in person. As if she didn’t have more important things to concern her!

      Why give her his phone number if he was going to be incommunicado for hours?

      An image flashed into her brain of the waitress at the café melting at the sight of his blatant masculinity.

      Was that why he couldn’t be disturbed? Some assignation with an adoring woman?

      ‘Thank you.’ Her voice was crisp. ‘In that case I’ll wait till he is available.’

      With a humph of disgust, Soraya stepped away from the desk.

      Zahir El Hashem would soon discover she was no pushover.

      In the early hours of this morning she’d been numb with the shock of his news, so dizzy with it she’d let him take charge. Now she’d had time to absorb the fact that she had no choice but to face her future head-on. That didn’t stop the regrets, the anxiety, the downright fear. But she had to be strong if she was to survive the ordeal ahead. At the moment that meant teaching Zahir she wasn’t some lackey to be ordered about at his convenience.

      She was, like it or not, his Emir’s future queen and a woman in her own right.

      Soraya stalked across the room, oblivious now to its refined opulence, and plonked herself down on a plump sofa. She unzipped her laptop case and switched on the computer.

      She’d rather be angry than fearful. And better than either was to immerse herself in something she really cared about. Two minutes later she was focused on her report, seeking an elusive error in the heat-transfer calculations.

      Soraya didn’t know what finally tugged her attention from the latest projections, but something made her look up, a sixth sense that sliced through her absorption.

      A cluster of men in dark suits stood on the far side of the lobby. She recognised one as a senior French politician, his face familiar from news reports. But it was the tallest of the group who drew her frowning attention. His skin was burnished a dark honey gold, his features arresting.

      Abruptly he looked up, his eyes locking instantly with hers. Shock danced down her spine at the impact.

       Just like before.

      The world had fallen away when he’d looked at her last night too.

      Her hands jerked on the laptop keys. From the corner of her vision she saw a stream of extra rows appear in the carefully constructed table of technical analysis. Yet she couldn’t drag her eyes from his.

      In leather and denim he’d been a virile bad boy with an undeniable aura of danger.

      Today, in exquisite tailoring and with an air of urbane assurance, he looked like he’d stepped from the ranks of the world’s power brokers.

      Who was Zahir El Hashem? Politician or heavy? Sophisticate or rogue?

      Why did locking eyes with him make Soraya’s heart thud to a discordant beat that stirred unfamiliar sensations?

      She jerked her gaze away, blindly hit ‘save’ on her document and fumbled to shut down the laptop.

      She’d had no sleep and she was stressed; no wonder she imagined things. There’d been