Her Desert Dream

CHAPTER SEVEN

KAL stood beneath the pounding icy shower. He did not need hot water; the heat coming off him was turning the water to steam.

He closed his eyes but it didn’t help. Without visual distraction, the image of Rose Napier, silk clinging to every curve, filled his head, obliterating everything from his mind but her.

If he had ever doubted her innocence, he was now utterly convinced of it. No woman who had a scintilla of experience would have let a man see such naked desire shining out of her eyes, been so unconscious of the come-and-take-me signals her body was semaphoring in response to his nearness. Given him such power over her.

But maybe they were both out of their depth.

Preoccupied with his own concerns and apparently immune to this pale beauty that the entire world appeared to be in love with, his guard had been down.

Knocked sideways from his first sight of her and, knowing that he wouldn’t sleep, he’d gone to the stables, determined to blow away the demands of his body in hard physical activity.

But as hard as he’d ridden he could not shake loose the image of those blue eyes. One moment keep-your-distance cool, the next sparkling with life, excitement. A touch of mischief.

Almost, he thought, as if she were two women.

The adored, empathetic public figure-as flawless and beautiful as a Bernini marble, as out of reach as the stars.

And this private, flesh and blood woman whose eyes appealed for his touch, for him to take her, bring her to life.

Living with those eyes, those seductive lips that drew him to her, would not make for a comfortable week. And he’d just made it a thousand times worse.

He’d ridden off the sexual energy that had built over their long flight. Had been totally in control, with the self-discipline to keep his hands off her.

All he’d had to do was keep his distance, leave it to her to initiate any outings. He had his own agenda and it certainly didn’t include getting involved with a woman, especially one who was a national icon.

Until he’d taken a turn in the path and saw her standing before him, her hair hanging like silk around her shoulders. Wearing an embroidered silk kaftan that exactly matched eyes shining like a woman on her wedding night.

And he’d been the one insisting that the two of them should spend time alone together on a boat.

Offering to teach her to ride.

Unable to resist touching her lip with his thumb, his tongue, wanting to test the heat, knowing that it was for him.

It had taken every ounce of self-discipline to stop himself from carrying her into the pavilion hidden in the trees behind her. Making her his.

To force himself to step back, walk away.

He flipped off the water, stepped from the shower, grabbed a towel and wrapped it round him.

His clothes had been pressed and hung up but someone, Dena, probably, had added an array of casual and formal robes for his use while he was at Bab el Sama.

The kind of clothes that Hanif would wear. A sheikh, relaxing in the privacy of his own home, with his children around him.

It was Dena, undoubtedly, who’d dressed Rose in that silk dress, had painted her hands with henna. He frowned, wondering what she thought she was doing.

He shook his head. Rose was on holiday in an exotic location and no doubt Lucy had ordered that her friend be totally pampered.

She certainly looked a great deal more rested. Unlike him. He lifted his shoulders, easing them, then reached for his cellphone and called his grandfather at the clinic.

After he’d asked how he was, as if he didn’t know-in desperate pain but stubbornly refusing palliative care until he was permitted to return home to die-and getting the same answer, he said, ‘I met someone today who knew you.’

‘And is prepared to admit it?’

‘She said that you were stubborn, Jaddi. But charming-’

There was a short harsh laugh, then, ‘She?’

‘She said, “Tell him that his sister Dena remembers him with fondness.”’

‘Dena?’ There was a rare catch in the old man’s voice. ‘She is well?’

‘She is well,’ he confirmed. ‘She said it was time you were home.’

‘Tell her…Tell her I will be there, insh’Allah. Tell her that I will not die until I have kissed her.’

‘It will be so, Jaddi’l habeeb,’ Kal said softly. ‘I swear it.’

He put down the phone, spent a moment reminding himself why he was here, gathering himself.

Then he pulled out the jeans he’d brought with him, chose a loose long-sleeved white shirt from the wardrobe and pulled it over his head and stepped into thong sandals that seemed more suitable than any of the shoes he’d brought with him.

As he picked up the phone to stow it in his pocket, it rang. Caller ID warned him that it was Lucy and he said, ‘Checking up on me, Princess?’

She laughed. ‘Why? What are you up to?’ Then, not waiting for an answer, ‘I just wanted to be sure that Rose arrived safely.’

‘So why not call her?’

‘She wants to cut herself off from everyone while she’s away. She wants to think about the future without anyone else offering their opinions, clouding the picture.’

‘Instead, she got me,’ he said. ‘Tell me, was there a single word of truth in what you told me?’

‘Absolutely. Cross my heart,’ she swore. ‘Why do you think her grandfather was so desperate to stop her? He doesn’t want her doing anything as dangerous as thinking for herself, not without someone on hand to guide her thoughts in the right direction.’

‘And that would be in the direction of the marriage he’s arranged?’ he asked casually enough, despite the fact that the thought of another man touching her sent a shaft of possessive heat driving deep into his groin.

‘She’s longing for a family, children of her own, Kal, and I think she’s very nearly desperate enough to marry Rupert Devenish to get them.’

‘What other reason is there for a woman to marry?’ he asked.

Or a man, for that matter.

Far better to have people who had known you all your life, who understood your strengths and weaknesses, to seek a bride whose temperament, expectations matched your own, than rely on unbridled passion that, no matter how intense the heat, would soon become ashes. He’d seen it happen. His grandfather, his father…

‘Oh, pish-posh,’ Lucy said with the impatience of a woman who’d found a rare love and thought he should be making an effort to do the same. ‘How is she?’

‘Rose? She slept for a while, but now she’s exploring the garden.’

‘On her own?’

‘I have no doubt that your Dena has someone within call.’ Someone who would have seen him kissing her? ‘She’s safe enough,’ he said abruptly. ‘And we’re about to have lunch.’

‘Maybe when you’ve eaten you’ll be in a better mood. Perhaps I should call you then?’

‘No. Really. I’ve just spoken to my grandfather. And, as for your Rose, well, she isn’t quite what I expected. I imagined unruffled serenity.’

‘Oh? In what way is she not serene?’

In the quick blush that warmed her pale skin, in her eyes, a mouth, a body that gave away too much.

‘Well,’ he said, pushing away the disturbing images, ‘I would have welcomed a warning that she’s a nervous flyer.’

‘Rose? I never knew that. How did she cope with the helicopter?’ Her concern was genuine enough, Kal decided, giving her the benefit of the doubt.

‘I managed to keep her distracted.’ Before she could ask him how, he added, ‘I was surprised to discover that she doesn’t ride.’

‘I think a pony bolted with her when she was little.’ He could see the tiny frown as she tried to remember. ‘Something like that.’

‘Well, she appears to be willing to give it another go.’

‘You’re going to take her riding?’

‘Amuse and entertain her, that was the brief.’

‘Absolutely. I’m glad you’re taking it so seriously. But the reason for my call is to give you advance warning that Rose should be getting a courtesy visit from Princess Sabirah later in the week. The household will be warned of her arrival, but I thought you might welcome a little extra time to prepare yourself.’

‘Thank you, Lucy. If I haven’t sufficiently expressed my grat-’

‘It’s little enough in return for everything you’ve done for my charity, Kal. Just do me one favour. Don’t tell Rose that I was checking up on her.’

‘I won’t. Lucy…’

He hesitated. He knew his doubts were foolish. Lady Rose Napier had been hand delivered to him by her security guard…

‘Yes?’ she prompted.

‘Nothing. Take care.’

He disconnected, pushed the phone into his back pocket and, bearing in mind that it was his duty to keep her safe, he went to find Rose.

Lydia resisted the urge to fling herself into the nearest pool to cool herself down. Instead, she walked the winding paths, swiftly at first, outrunning feelings she could not control, until her breath was coming in short gasps and she almost collapsed into a seat that seemed to have been placed precisely for that purpose.

She sat there for an age while her breathing returned to normal and the heat gradually faded from her skin, attempting to make sense of what had happened.

She might as well try to catch mist in her hand.

There was no sense in it. Love-or just plain lust-as she knew to her cost, made fools of everyone.

‘Get a grip, Lydie,’ she said intently, startling a bird from the tree above her. ‘Rose is depending on you. This madness will go away.’ Then, after a long time, ‘It will go away.’

By the time she returned to the terrace her flush might easily have been put down to nothing more than a brisk walk on a sunny day.

Just as well, because one of the girls who’d taken care of her was sitting cross-legged in the shade, embroidering a piece of silk.

‘You will eat, sitti?’ she asked, rising gracefully to her feet.

Food was the last thing on her mind, but it had been a long time since the croissant that she’d barely tasted and eating was a proven distraction for heartache.

‘Thank you…I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.’

‘It is Yatimah, sitti.’

‘Yatimah,’ she repeated, rolling the word around her mouth, tasting the strangeness of it. ‘Thank you, Yatimah. Your English is very good.’

‘Princess Lucy has taught me. She speaks Arabic as if she was born here, but her mother comes sometimes. From New Zealand. And her friends from England.’

‘And they do not,’ Lydia said.

‘A few words,’ she said with a smile.

‘Will you teach me?’

‘Nam,’ she said. And giggled. ‘That means yes.’

‘Nam,’ she repeated. Then, remembering the word Kal had taught her, she said, ‘Shukran. Thank you.’ And received a delighted clap. Encouraged, she asked, ‘What is “good morning”?’

‘Good morning is sabah alkhair and the reply is sabah alnur.’

Lydia tried it and got the response from Yatimah who, an eager teacher, then said, ‘Good afternoon is masa alkhair and the reply masa alnur. And goodnight is-’

‘Leila sa’eeda.’

Startled by Kal’s voice from the doorway, Yatimah scuttled away, leaving Lydia alone with him.

The last time he’d kissed her, she’d managed to dismiss it as if it was nothing. They both knew that wasn’t going to happen this time and for a moment neither of them moved, spoke.

‘Lucy called,’ he said at last, stepping onto the terrace.

He’d showered and changed into a loose white collarless shirt that hung to his hips. Soft faded jeans. Strong, bare feet pushed into thong sandals. The clothes were unremarkable but with that thin high-bridged nose, polished olive skin, dark hair curling onto his neck, he looked very different from the man in the suit who’d met her at the airport. More like some desert lord surveying his world.

‘She wanted to be sure you’d arrived safely.’

‘Then why didn’t she call me?’ Lydia asked, brave in the knowledge that if she’d rung Rose, by the magic of the cellphone, she’d have got Rose, wherever she was. Except, of course, that Rose didn’t know anything about Kal. She’d need to send a message, she thought, her hand going to the phone in her pocket, warn her…

‘My own reaction,’ he replied, ‘but she seemed to be under the impression that you’d rather not talk to anyone from home. That you did not want to be disturbed.’

…or maybe not.

He turned to her in expectation of polite denial.

Being a lookalike was an acting role, stepping into the shoes of another person, copying the moves, the gestures, the facial expressions. Practising the voice until it became her own. But nothing that Rose had ever done had prepared her for this.

In a situation like this, all she had to fall back on was the supermarket checkout girl with the fast mouth.

And that girl wouldn’t let him off with a polite anything. That girl would look him in the eye, lift an eyebrow and say, ‘She should have thought about that before she invited you to my party.’

Just like that.

If she’d hoped to raise a smile, she would have been sadly disappointed.

Apart from the slightest contraction of a muscle at the corner of his mouth-as if she needed any encouragement to look at it-his expression didn’t alter for so long that, but for that tiny giveaway, she might have wondered if he’d actually heard her.

Then, with the merest movement of his head, he acknowledged the hit and said, ‘No doubt that’s why she asked me not to tell you she’d called.’

‘So why did you?’ she demanded, refusing to back down, play the lady. She might not know what Rose would do under these circumstances, but she jolly well knew what she should do after that very close encounter in the garden.

That had gone far beyond simple flirting. Far beyond what had happened in the helicopter, where his kiss had been simple enough. It had been her own reaction that had turned into something much more complex; fear, strangeness, the need to cling to something safe would do that and it was easy enough to dismiss as an aberration.

But what had happened in the garden was different.

He’d touched her mouth as if marking her as his, taken her lower lip into his mouth as intimately as a lover, certain of his welcome.

And she had welcomed him.

That moment had been an acknowledgement of the intense attraction that had been bubbling beneath the surface from the moment she had walked into the airport and found him waiting for her.

It was a dance where they circled one another, getting closer and closer. Touching briefly. Moving apart as they fought it but, like two moths being drawn closer and closer to a candle, totally unable to resist the fatal attraction, even though they both knew they would go down in flames.

Except that she had no choice. She had to withstand the temptation or tell him the truth, because she knew how it felt to be made love to by someone who was acting. Knew how betrayed she’d felt.

And she couldn’t tell him the truth. Couldn’t betray Rose for her own selfish desires. Not that he’d want her if she did. He was not a man to accept a fake. A copy. If he knew the truth he’d lose interest, turn away.

And if he didn’t…

‘Kal…’

‘You are hungry?’

Her life seemed to be happening in slow motion, Lydia thought. Neither of them moved or made a move to answer Dena’s query for what seemed like forever.

It did not matter. Apparently oblivious to the tension between them, she bustled across the terrace to a table set beneath the trees, issuing orders to the staff that trailed after her.

A cloth was laid, food was set out.

‘Come, eat,’ she said, waving them towards the table.

Kal moved first, held out a chair for her, and she managed to unstick her feet from the flagstones and join him at the table.

‘This looks wonderful, Dena,’ she said, trying very hard to ignore his hands grasping the back of her chair, the beautiful bones of his wrists, the dark hair exposed where he’d folded back the sleeves of his shirt, the woody scent of soap and shampoo as she sat down and he bent over her to ease the chair forward.

It was like living inside a kaleidoscope of the senses. Everything was heightened. The food glowed, gleamed with colour, enticed with spices. The arm of her chair, worn smooth by many hands. The starchy smell, the feel of the damask cloth against her legs. A silence so intense that she could almost feel it.

Then a bird fluttered down, anticipating crumbs, and gradually everything began to move again and she realised that Dena was speaking. That both she and Kal were looking at her.

‘What?’ she asked.

Dena excused herself, leaving Kal to pass on the message, but he shook his head as if it was nothing important and instead took her on a culinary tour of the table.

Rice cooked with saffron and studded with pine nuts and sultanas. Locally caught fish. Chicken. Jewelled salads. Small cheeses made from goats’ milk.

‘It’s a feast,’ she said with every appearance of pleasure, even though alarm bells were going off in her head, certain that she’d missed something. That somehow they knew…‘I just hope Dena does not expect me to eat it all. I usually have a sandwich for lunch.’

‘And here I was thinking that you spent every day at a lavish lunch, raising money for charity.’

His words were accompanied by a wry smile and the bells quietened a little, the tension seeping away beneath the honeyed warmth of his voice, his eyes.

‘Not more than once a week,’ she assured him. Then, managing a smile of her own, ‘Maybe twice. But I only taste the food.’

‘A taste will satisfy Dena. None of the food will be wasted.’ He took her plate. ‘Rice?’

‘A spoonful,’ she replied, repeating the same word each time he offered her a new dish. He put no more than a morsel of each on her plate but, by the time he had finished, it was still an awful lot of food to eat in the middle of the day and she regarded it doubtfully.

‘It will be a long time until dinner, Rose. We eat late. And you’re going to need plenty of energy before then.’ She looked up. ‘We’re going fishing, remember?’

‘Is it hard work? I thought you just sat with a rod and waited for the fish to bite.’ She picked up a fork. ‘Was that what you were arranging with Dena?’

He hesitated for a moment, as if he had some unpleasant news to impart, and the bells began jangling again.

‘Kal?’

He shook his head. ‘It was nothing to do with this afternoon. She’s had a message from Rumaillah. It seems that the Emir’s wife has decided to pay you a courtesy call.’

The fork in Lydia’s hand shook and the waiting sparrows dived on the scattered grains of rice.

‘The Emir’s wife?’

‘I know that you hoped to be totally private here, Rose, but I’m sure you understand that Princess Sabirah could not ignore your presence in her country.’

Lydia felt the colour drain from her face.

When Rose had asked her to do this it had all seemed so simple. Once she was out of the country there would be nothing to do but indulge herself in one of those perfectly selfish holidays that everyone dreamed about occasionally. The kind where you could read all day and all night if you wanted to. Swim. Take a walk on the beach. Do what you wanted without having to think about another person.

And, like Rose, do some serious thinking about the future.

She’d had ten good years as Rose’s lookalike and had no doubt that she could go on for ten more, but now she’d met Kal and the only person she wanted to be was herself.

No pretence.

No lies.

Not that she was kidding herself. She knew that if, in the unlikely event that he’d ever met her as ‘herself’, he wouldn’t have even noticed her.

Everything about him was the real deal, from his designer suit to the Rolex on his wrist-no knock-offs for this man. Including women.

The pain of that was a wake-up call far louder, the argument for reality more cogent than any that her boss at the supermarket could make, even using the in-store announcement system.

She had been coasting through her own life, putting all her energies into someone else’s, and she would never move on, meet someone who wanted her, the real Lydia Young, unless she started building a life of her own.

‘When?’ she asked, ungluing her tongue. ‘What time?’

Maybe she could throw a sickie, she thought a touch desperately, but instantly rejected the idea as she realised what kind of fuss that would cause. This wasn’t some anonymous hotel where you could take to your bed and no one would give a damn. And she wasn’t some anonymous tourist.

If Lady Rose took to her bed, panic would ensue, doctors would be summoned-probably by helicopter from the capital. And Kal or Dena, probably both, would call Lucy, the Duke of Oldfield and then the game would be up.

No, no, no…

She could do this. She had to do it.

‘Relax. She won’t be here for a day or two and she won’t stay long,’ Kal said, not looking at her, but concentrating on serving himself. ‘Just for coffee, cake. Dena will arrange everything,’ he added, that tiny muscle in his jaw tightening again.

What was that? Tension?

What was his problem?

‘Does she speak English? What will we talk about?’

‘I believe her English is excellent and I imagine she’ll want to talk about your work.’

‘Really?’ Lydia had a flash image of herself politely explaining the finer points of the checkout scanner to Her Highness over a cup of coffee and had to fight down a hysterical giggle as the world began to unravel around her.

‘Play nice,’ he said, ‘and you’ll get a generous donation for one of your good causes.’

Kal’s flippancy brought her crashing back to reality. This was not in the least bit funny and her expression must have warned him that she was no more amused by his remark than Rose, whose parents had been killed on a charity mission, would have been.

‘I’m sorry, Rose,’ he said immediately. ‘That was unforgivable.’ He shook his head and she realised that for some reason he was as on edge as she was. ‘I’m sure she’ll just want to talk about Lucy and her grandchildren. It’s a while since she’s seen them.’

As if that was better!

She’d assumed that being at Bab el Sama would be like staying in a hotel. Great service but everything at a distance. She hadn’t anticipated having to live with the pretence of being Rose in this way. This minute by minute deception.

She’d come dangerously, selfishly close to confessing everything to Kal before Dena had interrupted her but she could not, no matter how desperately she wanted to, break Rose’s confidence.

She had made this offer with a free heart and couldn’t, wouldn’t let her down just because that heart wanted to jump ship and fling itself at someone else.

‘I appear to have spoiled your appetite,’ Kal said, and she took a little heart from the fact that he didn’t seem particularly comfortable to hear of their unexpected visitor either.

‘I’m good,’ she said, picking up her fork and spearing a piece of chicken so succulent that, despite her dry mouth, she had no trouble swallowing it. ‘So tell me what, exactly, is your problem, Kal?’