Six Sizzling Sheikhs. Оливия Гейтс

would those remain?

      Would Sam notice?

      Khaled shook two pills into his hand and swallowed them dry. How long would it take, he wondered, before Lucy hated him? Perhaps she hated him already. Simple lust didn’t change that.

      And yet still he had gone forward—announcing the marriage to the press, steamrolling the impossible plan into being—because he wanted her. Needed her.

      And, no matter the cost to either of them, he would have her.

      Khaled flung himself into a chair, the prescription drug stealing sweetly through his body, bringing temporary relief to his knee even though he still felt swamped with pain.

      Was he really so selfish, so greedy, that he would force Lucy to marry him, bring them both pain and misery, simply because he wanted her so much?

      He could pretend it was for Sam’s sake—he could almost make himself believe it—but his heart knew the truth.

      It was for his sake… And it might well be his damnation.

       CHAPTER SEVEN

      LUCY slept badly that night. She could have blamed it on Sam, who woke several hours after he’d first gone to sleep, his body clock hopelessly out of sync—but in truth she’d been wide-eyed and awake before Sam had ever uttered a sound.

      It wasn’t Sam keeping her awake; it was Khaled.

      She felt tangled up inside, memories, beliefs, hopes, suspicions all twisted. She didn’t know which was true, what to trust. Who to trust.

       Is that obvious as well?

       Could you love me again?

      Sensible.

      Lucy groaned aloud, sleep no more than a distant memory. Outside stars glittered in a velvety black sky, and the breeze wafting through the French doors was a soft, sultry blanket around her.

      What kind of man was Khaled? Was he the reckless, uncaring playboy she’d so stupidly given her heart to? Or was he a man shaped and strengthened by life’s trials, a man she could love now, love deeply, not with the silly, desperate infatuation of four years ago?

      With the love of a woman, rather than that of a besotted fool.

      Lucy closed her eyes, not wanting to ask the questions, much less seek the answers. She couldn’t take the risk of knowing Khaled again, of opening her heart to him.

      Of watching him walk away again.

      So why, despite her insistent refusals, was she actually thinking of it, of Khaled, again?

      Wanting.

      Marriage.

      It was absurd, unnecessary. Ridiculous. Dangerous.

      Tempting.

      That was the problem, Lucy realised despondently. No matter how hard she tried to guard her heart, Khaled stole round the barriers, toppled the fences. He came right in without even realising it and laid siege to her very soul.

      And she couldn’t let him. She couldn’t let herself risk or feel love.

      It was too hard when it all came crashing down. And she knew from hard, painful experience that it was just a matter of time until that happened.

      By the time the sun peeked over the jagged mountain-tops, Lucy felt even more exhausted than when she’d gone to bed. Sam, however, in the manner of most three-year-olds, was fairly bouncing off the walls of their room, peppering Lucy with questions.

      ‘When will we go swimming? Where’s Khaled? What about the spiders?’

      ‘I don’t know, Sam,’ Lucy replied wearily, yet still managing to summon a smile. ‘I imagine we’ll see Khaled at breakfast, and he can tell us about our day then.’

      A female servant soon knocked on their door and led them to a terrace where there was a table set for breakfast, overlooking the gardens.

      ‘Good morning.’ Khaled strode towards them, smiling, and with a squeal Sam flung himself round Khaled’s knees.

      ‘Sam!’ Lucy said reprovingly, but Khaled shook his head. He tousled Sam’s hair and disengaged himself from the stranglehold on his legs with only the faintest grimace of discomfort.

      ‘I’m happy to see you too, Sam. Are you hungry?’

      Lucy looked round for Ahmed, and saw with a twinge of relief that he was not present.

      ‘I thought we could relax today,’ Khaled said as he led them to a table set with a wide variety of breakfast items, from English sausage to the more traditional Arabic flat-bread with a spicy topping of tomatoes and white beans. ‘Recover from jet lag, swim and just enjoy the gardens.’

      ‘Swim!’ Sam shouted, and Lucy laid a steadying hand on his shoulder.

      ‘He’s just a little bit excited,’ she said with a wry smile, and then felt one of those disconcerting lurches when Khaled smiled back, his golden gaze so very direct.

      ‘I’m glad. And how are you this morning, Lucy? Did you sleep well?’

      ‘Well enough.’ Lucy kept her voice light as she accepted a cup of coffee from Khaled, made just the way she liked it, including the sugar. ‘And you?’

      ‘The same,’ he said, and somehow she knew she hadn’t fooled him. It gratified her—stupidly, perhaps—to think he hadn’t slept either.

      Had she kept him awake? Had memories of other nights, nights they’d had together, kept him awake, as they had her?

      Had he had memories of them lying together, their limbs twined together among the sheets, sleepy and sated?

      Why was she thinking like this, feeling like this?

      Remembering at all?

      Lucy took a hasty sip of coffee to divert her mind, nearly scalding her tongue, as well as diverting Khaled’s knowing gaze.

      After breakfast they all returned to their rooms to fetch swimming costumes. A few minutes after Lucy had changed into her modest one-piece and wrapped a sarong firmly around her waist, Khaled knocked on their door. Sam flung it open.

      ‘Ready?’ Khaled asked, smiling.

      ‘Ready!’

      He led them down to the pool, which was every bit as spectacular as the view from above had promised. It had been built into the mountainside to resemble a natural lagoon, complete with waterfalls, rock slides and a little bridge.

      Equipped with armbands, Sam was in heaven. He plunged in up to his waist, and then turned to Khaled.

      ‘Come in!’

      ‘All right.’ Khaled shrugged off his tee-shirt, and Lucy sucked in a breath.

      She’d forgotten how beautiful he was.

      Yet she hadn’t, not really; she’d tried to, and failed. For just one glimpse of the hard, sculpted muscle of his chest, golden skin and fuzz of dark hair made her remember with a rush how that chest had felt against her body, how his hair had tickled her lips. How his skin was hot and taut and so surprisingly smooth.

      Khaled wore only a pair of swimming trunks, and Lucy saw the thick support brace wrapped around his knee, covering his leg from mid-thigh to nearly mid-calf.

      Lucy watched Sam and Khaled swim together, content for the moment to spend some time stretched out on a lounger. Sam hadn’t had much experience with pools or swimming, but he caught on quickly, and within minutes he was launching himself at Khaled, who caught him before tossing him up into the air. Each time Sam landed with a splash and a giggle of glee, and bemusedly Lucy didn’t know which sound was louder.

      It