'Imagine having this much fuss made of your birthday,' she said, drawing his attention again. 'I thought I was lucky, but-'
'Lucky?' he interrupted, wanting to know more about her.
'I have the best family on earth,' she assured him passionately. As she laughed, he presumed all the happy reminiscences must be flooding in. 'They do all sorts of batty things for me on my birthday. Wonderful surprises … ' Her eyes turned dreamy. 'You know the type of thing?'
Actually, no, he didn't. His parents loved him, but duty had always coloured his life. There had been little time to party, and much to learn. If he hadn't been voted Sheikh of Sheikhs, he would still have returned to Q'Adar to serve his people at some point.
'I expect the Sheikh's up there now,' she said, shading her eyes as she gazed up to where the bursting flames of the dipping sun were reflected in the windows. 'There'll be champagne corks popping right now, I'll bet.'
They would be anxiously awaiting his return. He had been gone for far too long. The plans for this celebration had been rigorously planned minute by minute, and unlike the celebrations she had described there would be no surprises. The Platinum and Diamond Ball would not conform to any of the wacky images Beth had conjured, but would be stiff with ceremony, and fraught with pitfalls, especially for an innocent like Beth Tracey Torrance. 'Is someone taking care of you tonight at the ball?'
'Taking care of me?' she slanted him a coquettish look. 'Why? Are you offering? Because, if you are, I think it's time you told me your name.'
'I'll be working,' he reminded her.
'Oh, don't worry,' she said, flipping her wrist. 'I was only teasing you. I know you must have lots to do, and most probably hundreds of gorgeous women in your harem-' Her hand flew to cover her mouth. 'Sorry! Sorry!' She looked mortified, and her accent broadened as she exclaimed in horror, 'I didn't mean that! I hate stereotypes, don't you?'
'No offence taken,' he assured her. 'And, as for my name, you can call me Khal … '
'Khal as in Khalifa?' she interrupted. 'Now, that is a coincidence … ' As she stared at him her face changed and grew pale beneath its scattering of freckles. 'No, it isn't, is it?' she said.
CHAPTER TWO
THREE things happened in quick succession. His bodyguards appeared out of nowhere, Beth screamed as one of them shoved a gun in her face, and he launched himself in her defence, seizing the gun so fast the man reeled back. 'Leave her!' he commanded in a shout.
Beth's face was twisted with fear as he reached out to reassure her. His men had stormed in-using unnecessary force to make up for their earlier negligence, he deduced-but Beth was young and a stranger to violence, and they had terrified her. 'Come,' he said, beckoning her closer with his outstretched hand.
Shaking her head, she refused to look at him. He sensed her fear, but above that he sensed her determination to maintain control. Even so, inwardly he gave a curse directed at his men. She had been so full of life only moments before, and now that life had been crushed out of her. She had been like a breath of fresh air, but her innocence had been trampled. She had come to Q'Adar with some romantic notion of what life would be like in a desert kingdom, and couldn't be expected to understand the harsh realities. He lost no time dismissing his men, and then asked her, 'Will you walk back to the palace with me, Beth?'
Hugging herself, she shook her head. He couldn't blame her for feeling the way she did when the ugly threat of violence was still hanging in the air. It would be so alien to anything she was used to, she'd have no coping strategies.
'Is that how it is here?' she said at last.
He was surprised to see her clear blue gaze had turned to steel.
'If you mean the guards-'
'And the guns.'
'They are a necessary precaution.'
'To protect you from your people?' Pressing her lips down, she shook her head in disapproval. 'Then I really do feel sorry for you … ' Still hugging herself, she stalked away.
He had pulled her CV from the pile and was studying it in the bath, allowing the eucalyptus-scented steam to clear his head. Beth certainly had the gift when it came to selling, and along with the bare facts he found several glowing references-not just from her line manager, but from her colleagues too. They said if she had a fault it was that Beth Torrance didn't know how good she was …
He smiled as he thought about this, about Beth-and he rarely smiled, because life was a serious business. She was so unspoiled, but then she was only twenty-two … Yet she was confident enough to stand her ground and fight for what she believed in. The Sheikh and the shop girl were as one in that, he reflected wryly.
He turned back to the folder to look at her reports from school, where she'd captained the hockey team and led the first-aid group, generally showing a solid performance in all her academic studies. From school she had moved straight into a management-training course with Khalifa, which involved working in every department over the course of five years, and was not an easy option. Her reason for doing this, he read, smiling again as he imagined her writing it, was because she had wanted 'to get stuck into something right away'. She didn't mince her words.
Beth Tracey Torrance, aged twenty-two, might be a small problem in the scale of things he had to deal with, but he wasn't about to set her adrift in a sea of sharks. Calling up his mother, the Dowager Sheikha, he asked for one of her trusted attendants to be assigned to their visitor. 'She's a young girl in a foreign land, and we must ensure that her stay is-' he chose his next words with care '-comfortable and safe.' Ignoring the suspicion in his mother's voice, he ended the call.
The young girl sent to help Beth dress for the ball was a good listener. Beth was still fretting as she helped her with her make-up. What would her friends say when she went back to Khalifa and they realised she'd let them down? 'I promised them all I'd put the trophy in the staff lounge,' she explained as the young girl pinned a fresh orchid in her hair. 'I wanted everyone to share it. But now I won't have a trophy to put there, will I? The Sheikh will never give it to me now … '
The girl shook her head.
'Well, it's no use looking on the black side, is it? I'd better get that dress on because, trophy or no trophy, I am going to that ball.' At least if she attended the ball she'd have something to share with her colleagues, Beth thought, feeling nervous as she thought about it. None of this had seemed real while she had been chatting away-not this magnificent suite of rooms in the Palace of the Moon, or the beach with the man on it, or the guns … But now it did, and she had to go to the ball all alone.
When she got up from the stool, and looked at the silvery ball-gown shimmering on its hanger next to the dressing gown she'd just discarded, her heart went wild. But she wasn't going to turn tail and run, Beth determined, though that was exactly what she felt like doing. No. She was going to this ball, and she was going to face up to the amazingly glamorous and stunningly endowed Sheikh-and if there was even the smallest chance that she could come away with that trophy then she would. 'Could you help me, please?' she said, knowing she couldn't fasten the dress unaided. As the girl passed her the dressing gown, Beth, still thinking distractedly about Khal, said, 'No, I meant the dress-' But then she noticed the girl had blushed a deep shade of red, and the penny finally dropped. 'You don't speak English, do you?'
'I am sorree,' the young girl managed in a halting accent.
'No, I'm the one who should be sorry,' Beth argued. 'Rabbiting on like that and you not understanding a word of it. And that's not the first mistake I've made today-if only!' Beth exclaimed, pulling a face with a laugh. 'Come on,' she said, smiling as she put her arm around the other girl's shoulders. 'Let's do this together.'
Taking the dress down from the padded hanger, Beth handed it to the maid. 'You've done me a favour, you have. You've woken me up-and about time too! It's time to put my foreign-travel head on and snap out of this. "Ooh, the sun's shining, and I left my brain behind in Liverpool". Don't worry if you didn't understand a word of that,' she added, giving the startled girl a hug. 'You didn't miss much-and that's a whole lot more than can be said for me!'