Secret Sheikh, Secret Baby. Carol Marinelli

clothes and climb into a fluffy white bathrobe rather than trudge the streets searching for accommodation that was rather more basic. But it was impossible, that was all! At that moment her phone rang. Not wanting to be rude, Felicity ignored it, and Karim gave a slight frown.

      ‘It’s my mum!’ she said, by way of explanation.

      ‘Shouldn’t you speak with her?’

      ‘I did a little while ago,’ Felicity said, and then relented a touch. ‘She suffers with anxiety. It’s easier if I ring her when I’ve found out where I’m staying.’

      ‘You just have,’ Karim said. ‘You will stay as our guest.’

      ‘Our guest?’

      ‘Zaraqua’s guest!’ He spoke as if the city was a person. ‘We invited you to attend today’s information session; now you have missed your train and you have also saved a baby’s life. Of course it is our responsibility to ensure you get safely home. If that means you stay in London tonight, then so be it…’

      ‘I couldn’t possibly.’ Felicity shook her head.

      ‘This is how it will be.’ Karim stood up. ‘Excuse me for one moment.’

      Felicity watched his broad back as he strode through the lounge. He really did have the most amazing presence. Every head turned as he walked past. She sat quietly, determinedly ignoring her phone, which was ringing again. She wished her mother would wait a little. Felicity would ring her, she resolved again, when she knew what was happening herself.

      ‘Here.’ Felicity jumped slightly and put down the scone she was eating as Karim returned and handed her a neat navy folder. ‘It has all been arranged.’

      It had too! She opened the folder, saw her room number and a swipe card, and could scarcely believe it. She was also just a little nervous as to what she was being offered. ‘Are you sure?’ Felicity frowned, completely unused to being spoilt, to things being sorted for her—normally that was her role. Still, the incident had shaken her up enough that she didn’t have it in her to protest too much! ‘Are you sure about this?’

      ‘Absolutely.’ Karim nodded. ‘You cannot go home in wet clothes. Use the laundry service, and you have full use of the facilities—perhaps visit the spa…After today, you deserve to relax, And,’ he added, ‘may I say again well done. They are both very lucky that you were there.’

      She deserved this, Karim thought. This woman who had just saved a life should not be stranded in London. She deserved to be spoiled, pampered. He insisted to himself he would have done the same for any attendee, but as he had arranged her accommodation he had shamelessly upgraded her—several notches, in fact. A rather confusing thought had occurred to him. Karim remembered the moment before the accident—the moment this woman had turned her back on him.

      ‘Well, thank you,’ Felicity said, retrieving her bag from the floor. ‘It will be nice to get out of these clothes…’ She stopped abruptly, a little embarrassed at her choice of words. ‘Thank you again.’

      She was going, Karim realised with a frown. Her words had been unintentional. There was no hint of flirting, no lingering to see if he might ask her to join him later…

      ‘Would you like another drink?’ Karim asked, but she shook her head.

      ‘No, thanks.’

      ‘Perhaps later?’ When again she shook her head, Karim couldn’t be bothered to pursue it. He was here in London for fun, and this was starting to feel like hard work.

      As Felicity stood to go the waiter came over.

      ‘Will you and your guest be dining with us tonight, Your…?’

      He was frowned into silence. Karim had given strict instruction that his title was not to be used within the hotel—his security team were miserable enough with his jogging and walking the London streets, without alerting the public that there was a sheikh royal prince in their midst.

      ‘Sir!’ The waiter changed his words with a cough.

      Karim was about to decline. He thought of Mandy, ever ready and waiting, and then looked to where Felicity stood. Her face was blushing scarlet, her eyes so startled he half expected her to turn and run. Maybe he should just let her. But he remembered again the attraction that had flared in the presentation room, that unacknowledged arousal between them that had rendered him so hard he had had to get out. He decided the effort might be worth it—he wanted to go there again.

      ‘Would you like to join me?’

      He saw the dart of her eyes, and—always smooth, always polite—said the right thing. ‘Forgive me—that was crass. Of course you do not have to join me. There is no obligation.’

      ‘I know…’ Felicity managed a small laugh as he voiced her urgent thoughts and then checked herself. Her accommodation was sorted, and now the most impossibly attractive man was asking her for dinner…So what if it couldn’t lead to anything? So what if there was no point in pursuing a romance with this man? She hadn’t had a night out or off in months.

      Staring into his black eyes, at that moment the answer was easy. ‘I’d love to join you, except…’ She gestured to her crumpled and soaked linen suit.

      ‘The hotel will sort that…’ He waved his hand as if it were that easy. ‘And I can give you an update on the mother and baby over dinner.’

      ‘Thank you.’ Felicity nodded.

      ‘We will meet at eight,’ Karim said. ‘Here?’

      ‘That would be lovely.’

      It would be lovely, Felicity thought as Karim stalked out of the hotel lounge. But, glancing at her watch, she realised she had only just over an hour to prepare! So, after ringing her mother to tell her a rather loose version of her plans, Felicity snapped into urgent mode and dashed to a chemist. She bought some stockings, a toothbrush and paste, and some hair serum, and then went up to her room.

      Only it wasn’t a room—it was a suite. A vast sprawling suite, with flowers and chocolates and even a bucket of champagne cooling in a silver bucket.

      And then someone knocked at the door.

      Her heart stilled. She was nervous that it was Karim, that she had misinterpreted the exceptionally friendly gesture after all.

      But it was a woman with an instant wardrobe on a trolley, that she wheeled into Felicity’s room. Felicity just stood there as she was informed to help herself, and told that her own clothes would be laundered and back to her by morning.

      She couldn’t get her head around it. She was used—too used—to being two steps ahead of everything, to being the one who anticipated problems, the one who sorted things out. Yet since she had stepped into the hotel—since her first greeting from Noor—she had been looked after, her needs anticipated, and she had been rewarded for a job well done too.

      It felt nice.

      Unfamiliar, but very, very nice.

      Peeling off her damp clothes, Felicity took in her suite.

      It had everything—and she hadn’t needed to worry about the toothpaste and brush. The little basket of goodies in the bathroom contained everything a girl might need, Felicity thought as she found a teeny pump bottle of hair serum. And even things a girl didn’t need too…

      Like condoms!

      Oh, Karim had assured her there were no obligations, but that wasn’t why she dropped them like a hot coal. Whatever Karim might be expecting from her, it was never going to happen.

      Felicity sat, deflated, on the edge of the huge oval bath and stared at herself in the mirror.

      Her blonde hair was tumbled, there was still a flush of excitement in her cheeks, and her blue eyes were glittering at the prospect of dinner with Karim. But, as Paul had found out, dinner was all it would ever be.