Desert Sheikhs: Monarch of the Sands / To Tame a Sheikh / Sheikh Protector. Dana Marton

stared at him. ‘Well, if we’re talking inappropriate—then wanting to discuss my fiancé with me behind his back surely falls into that category? Okay, so he got a little drunk—big deal! These things happen sometimes—they probably happen in Khayarzah, if you only knew it!’

      ‘But nobody there would dare to get drunk in front of the king!’ Zahid snapped, before drawing in a deep breath, reminding himself that he had come here today with a purpose. Not a particularly palatable one, it was true—but he needed to muster up every diplomatic atom in his body if he was to limit the emotional damage his discovery was going to have on Francesca. ‘Shall we take a walk around the garden?’

      At this, she smiled. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to go inside, into the warmth? I’ve made you a cake.’

      He felt the unfamiliar stab of guilt. She’d spent the morning making him a cake—just like old times. While he had spent the morning accruing information which would …

      ‘No cake, thank you.’ He saw the brief look of hurt which flitted over her pale face and forced himself to breathe out a platitude. ‘I’m sorry if you went to any trouble.’

      ‘Not even your favourite lemon?’

      ‘Francesca—’ He paused, reluctant to open the can of grotesquely wriggling worms he was in possession of. ‘Tell me how you met Simon.’

      ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake.’ Couldn’t he let this go? ‘Does it really matter?’

      ‘Yes.’ His gaze was steady. ‘It matters a lot.’

      She stared at him, remembering about what he’d said the other day. Something about it being his ‘duty’ to meet Simon. And if that was the case, then wasn’t he taking duty a little too far? ‘Is this another quasi-paternal question?’ she questioned.

      Paternal? Zahid winced. God help him but he didn’t feel in the least bit paternal at the moment—not when those wide-spaced eyes looked so blue and so deep that he felt he might be able to dive into them. ‘Just answer the question,’ he said unevenly.

      She sighed, giving into the inevitable—sensing that he wouldn’t give her any peace until she provided him with the information he wanted. ‘I met him when he came to the house after my father died.’

      Zahid nodded. ‘So he knew your father? He came to pay his respects?’

      Francesca bit her lip because the next piece of information had never sat very easily with her—even when Simon had explained that people in the business world needed to be outgoing in order to keep themselves afloat.

      ‘Not really,’ she said slowly. ‘He’d read about his death in the papers and so he came … he came …’

      ‘He came to see whether you needed to sell the house?’

      Frankie flushed under the black glare of his fierce scrutiny. ‘I suppose so.’

      ‘Like some low-life lawyer chasing an ambulance, touting for business?’ The words were out before he could stop them.

      Frankie froze. ‘Don’t you dare judge him! How would you know what it’s like, Zahid? You’re a sheikh and even when your country was broke, you still lived in a palace and had servants all over the place—while Simon has had to fight to make his way in the world!’

      ‘My heart bleeds for him.’

      Something about the way he said it made a queer kind of frustration bubble up inside her and for a moment Frankie actually took an angry step towards him, until he halted her with a voice like ice.

      ‘I think you forget yourself!’ he snapped. ‘I allow you the kind of leeway which I wouldn’t tolerate from anyone else, Francesca—but there really are limits.’

      ‘What, so you think you can stand there and insult my fiancé and I’m just expected to take it?’

      His eyes lanced her a piercing question. ‘You aren’t even interested why I’ve brought the subject up?’

      Something in the way he asked it unsettled her enough to hide behind defiance. ‘To cause trouble?’

      ‘Funnily enough, my schedule is usually too tight to indulge myself with random acts of interference—especially towards people I care about. I want you to tell me what happened next—after Simon came to see you that first time.’

      Frankie was tempted not to reply—or to change the subject completely. But if she had nothing to hide, then why should she shy away from his questioning, no matter how intrusive it seemed? ‘I told him that I didn’t really want to sell the house unless it was absolutely necessary, and that I needed a job.’

      Zahid nodded. ‘So he gave you a job, a makeover and a proposal in quick succession and when you agreed to marry him, he somehow persuaded you that it was in your best interests to sell the house?’

      Frankie flushed to the roots of her hair. He was making it all sound so … so mercenary. As if Simon had planned it all. ‘These things happen.’

      ‘I bet they do,’ he drawled. ‘But I’m right, aren’t I?’

      ‘Yes, Zahid—I expect you’re always right.’

      ‘And you don’t think it’s slightly suspect behaviour?’

      ‘Why should I? Maybe I’m not as suspicious as you are! Maybe I like to think the best of people! And Simon loves me!’

      ‘Does he?’

      Frankie stilled as something in his sombre tone iced her skin with a terrible sense of foreboding. ‘Of course he does.’

      ‘How much do you think he loves you?’

      ‘What kind of a question is that?’ She eyed him warily. ‘Enough to want to marry me.’

      There was, he realised, no diplomatic way to do this. No way of telling her which wasn’t going to hurt her. ‘I wonder,’ he said quietly.

      ‘Will you please stop talking in riddles? What do you wonder?’

      There was another pause. Like the split-second pause before a marksman fired a bullet from a gun. And then he spoke. ‘He’s got another woman.’

      Frankie’s heart began to pound. ‘What did you say?’ she whispered.

      ‘Simon’s got another woman. There’s someone else.’

      She shook her head, her fingers flying to her cheeks. ‘No! You’re making it up!’

      ‘Why would I do that?’

      ‘I don’t know!’

      Her face had gone completely white and she swayed so that Zahid’s hand automatically went out to steady her, his body tensing. Had he been so brutal with the facts that she was about to faint? Wasn’t he supposed to have been diplomatic? Protective? Surely there was a way he could have told her which wouldn’t have made her face looked so bleached and transparent.

      Uttering a short curse in his native tongue, he bent and scooped his arms underneath her knees, despite her ineffectual protests to push him away. And as the firmness of her young body imprinted itself on his mind he was aware of the blood in his own veins growing hot and heavy. He could feel the curved definition of her thighs beneath his fingers, the soft weight of her breast as she slumped against his chest—and he felt a wave of guilty pleasure as he carried her into the house.

      Some of her strength must have returned because by the time he had deposited her on the old sofa in the sitting room, she had begun half-heartedly punching against his chest—and he let her. He crouched down in front of her, holding his palms up in front of him—like a man trying to quieten a fractious horse. ‘Francesca—’

      Her hands fell like stones into her lap. ‘Go away!’ she whispered.

      ‘You don’t