Desert King, Pregnant Mistress(2)

As he prowled closer he was  forced to shut out the seductive beauty of  his homeland. There was much  in Q'Adar to tempt the senses, and it  would be easy to slip into  self-indulgent ways. A panorama of exquisite  loveliness tempted him to  lower his guard and linger. When he returned  to the palace he would be  greeted by sights of unimaginable  splendour-every wall at the Palace of  the Moon was decorated with gold  leaf, and the doors were studded with  precious stones. Beguiling  perfumes would lure him into thinking of  erotic pleasures, while music  would thrum a constant siren-song through  his senses.

The only sticking point for him at the palace was his  mother. Hoping he  would marry soon, she had assembled the world's most  beautiful women  for his perusal. Every royal house was represented-and  there was no  doubt her efforts had pleased the corrupt sheikhs, who  didn't care  about his choice of bedmate just so long as he was  distracted and left  them alone. What they had failed to realise was that  his mistress was  work, and that here in Q'Adar there was much to do.                       
       
           



       



Beth  watched the man bury his face in the towel with a mixture of   apprehension and fascination. There was something about his stillness   that warned her to be wary. She couldn't shake off a feeling of   uneasiness. Maybe he did know she was here, watching him. Maybe he   wasn't just burying his face in a towel, but quietening his body in   order to listen to his senses. As he lifted his head the onshore breeze   caught his thick black hair and tossed it around his face. He was   magnificent. She'd never seen anyone like him before, and she held her   breath as he fixed the towel around his waist.


He started  walking-thankfully, away from her. Cutting at right angles  to the beach,  he disappeared out of sight behind some more rocks …

Letting out  her breath in a ragged stream, Beth relaxed. What an  experience that had  been! She wished there had been a sculpter on hand,  or an artist,  someone capable of capturing his likeness and sharing it  with the world …

Beth  shrieked as something cold and hard pressed into the back of her  neck.  Was it a gun? She was too frightened to turn and find out.

'Get up,' a clipped male voice instructed. 'Get up slowly, and turn around.'

She  did as he asked, stumbling in the sand, only to find the man on the   beach confronting her. 'I was told I would be safe here,' she blurted   out. 'The new Sheikh has reserved this beach for his staff.' Beth knew   that she was rambling as tears of fright filled her eyes. She couldn't   see the gun, but knew it must be somewhere. 'I've got a permit … ' No,  she  hadn't! She had changed out of her jeans into a sundress without   pockets. 'Don't you speak English?' she blurted, wondering if those few   phrases were all he had.

'As well as you, I imagine,' the man replied in a voice that was barely accented.

Beth  found herself confronting the hardest, coldest eyes she'd ever  seen,  set in a face of savage beauty, but affront had taken the place  of her  anger. The man was twice her size, and much older than she was.  She  firmed her jaw. He had no need to threaten her with a gun. 'Is it  usual  to intimidate guests to your country?'

She had guts, he'd give  her that, but she had been spying on him, and  she mustn't be allowed to  think him an easy target. 'Do you make a  point of invading other  people's privacy?' he snapped back.

Her cheeks turned an  attractive shade of rose, telling him that emotion  came easily to her.  In that they were very different. But the moment  of embarrassment  swiftly passed, and now this barefoot intruder with  her wind-tangled  hair and flimsy beach-dress was shooting fire at him  from crystal-blue  eyes. She was much younger than he had first thought,  and her skin had  the texture of a downy peach. She was new to the  unforgiving Arabian  sun, and instinctively he took a step forward to  back her into the  shade.

'Don't you come near me!' she warned him, holding out her tiny hands to ward him off.

She  was frightened, but still determined to put up a fight. And then he   noticed that her small, straight nose had a sprinkling of freckles   across the bridge …

Irrelevant. He was surprised that he'd noticed  such a thing. Where had  she come from, and how had she slipped past his  guards? She wasn't part  of his world or she would have been recognised  him immediately. She  must have drafted in to help with the celebrations.  But, if that was  the case, why was she sunning herself while everyone  else was working?  'Does your supervisor know you're here?'

'Does yours?'

He  recoiled at her impudence. Then he recognised the accent. Natives of   Liverpool weren't noted for holding back. 'I asked the question  first,'  he said evenly. 'Have you considered the possibility that your   supervisor might be worried about you?'

A crease appeared between  her upswept taupe brows as she considered  this. 'It seems to me that  yours has more cause to be worried about  you.'

'How do you work that out?' he said, deciding he would play along.

'Do they know you bring a gun to the beach?'

'A  gun?' He had to hold back his astonishment as well as his amusement.   Holding out his hands, palms flat, he showed her he had no   weapons-concealed or otherwise-unless she felt like searching under his   towel, of course. 'I was merely attempting to attract your attention,'   he told her.                       
       
           



       

'Oh, I see,' she said, catching on. 'With one  sea-cooled finger?' Her  mouth firmed into an angry line. 'So you don't  use a gun, but you do  assault guests to your country-well?' she  demanded. 'Don't I deserve  the courtesy of a reply when you've  frightened me half to death?'

He was still adapting to this  radical change to the way people usually  addressed him when his  attention was drawn to her full rosebud-lips,  and the difficulty she was  having keeping them pressed flat in an  expression of affront. He wanted  to smile, because she was so young and  so indignant, but he knew better  than to prolong the encounter. 'My  apologies,' he said mildly. As he  spoke he touched his right hand to  his breast and then to his forehead.  'You are right to feel distress.  As a visitor to my land you are of  course my honoured guest … ' As the  silky words worked their ancient  magic, he saw her eyes darken with  more than interest. She wasn't so  keen to get away now.

'Apology accepted,' she said. 'So, you work here too?'

Rather  than answer he watched the flush rising on her cheeks. Her  slight frame  and pert breasts had made his senses stir. 'That's right,'  he said at  last. 'I just got here.'

'Oh, like me,' she cut in, forgetting to  be angry with him. 'I expect  you've come for the celebrations.' She  glanced towards the palace.  'They told me a lot of new staff had been  hired.'

'Did they?'

She gave him a long, considering look,  and then decided to trust him  with a little more. 'Q'Adar's the most  beautiful country, isn't it?'

He could only agree. The sea was  jade green with a white-lace frill,  and his Palace of the Moon had  turned rose pink in the mellow light of  late afternoon.

'But it's  not the flash that makes it so lovely, is it?' she demanded  bluntly.  'Though there's plenty of that around, from what I've seen.  Thing is,  ostentation's commonplace when you can see it on the telly  any time you  want.'

'Ostentation?' He had thought the palace overblown when  he'd returned  to it after an absence too, but he wasn't sure how he felt  about  hearing criticism of it from a stranger.

'It's the scenery  that gets you, isn't it?' she went on, gesturing  around. 'I think it's a  combination of beach, sea, and the warmth of  the people that makes  Q'Adar so special.'

She was making it increasingly hard for him  to find fault with her,  especially when she added, 'I think it's the  people most of all.' She  stopped then and blushed, and started fiddling  with her hair, as if  aware that she was keeping him. But then wariness  shaded her eyes as  she took on board the fact that she shouldn't be  engrossed in  conversation with a man she didn't know-a man who might  even pose a  danger to her …

'I won't hurt you,' he said, lifting his hands.

She  shrugged, a little defiant gesture to cover for the predicament in   which she found herself, he guessed. And then a horn sounded somewhere   in the palace, and she jumped. 'What was that?' Still gasping for air,   she stared at him for answers.