The Sheikh's Prize(3)

But she had a good life, she reminded herself doggedly as the security   team cleared a path for her through the crush of spectators to the   waiting limo that would whisk her back to the airport. She now had three   glorious days of freedom to look forward to, and a tired sigh escaped   her as she touched an admiring fingertip to the silky petal of an   impossibly perfect blossom in the beautiful bouquet displayed in a vase   inside the limo, while only vaguely wondering where the flowers had  come  from. When she got back to London, she would first catch up with  her  sisters, one who was pregnant, one who was desperate to conceive  and one  who was still at school. Her eldest sister, Kat, was thirty-six  and  considering fertility treatment while still being full of the  newly  married joys of her life with her Russian billionaire. After a  sticky  interview with her tough brother-in-law, Mikhail Saffy was a  little less  enamoured of her sibling's blunt-spoken husband. Mikhail  had demanded  to know why Saffy hadn't offered to help Kat when her  sister had run  into serious debt. Well, hello, Saffy thought back  angrily-Kat had never  told Saffy that she was in trouble and, even if  she had, Saffy knew she  would have found it a challenge to come up with  that kind of cash at  short notice. Having made a major commitment  early in her career to help  support an African school for AIDS orphans,  Saffy lived comfortably but  not in luxury.

Saffy's twin, Emmie, was pregnant and Saffy had not been surprised to   learn that Emmie didn't have a supportive man by her side. Saffy was   painfully aware that her twin did not forgive those who hurt or offended   her and in all probability the father of Emmie's child had made that   mistake. Saffy knew better than anyone how inflexible her sibling could   be because the relationship between the twins had long been tense and   troubled. Indeed Saffy could never suppress the surge of the guilt that   attacked her whenever she saw her sister. As young children she and   Emmie had been very close but events during their troubled teen years   had ripped them apart and the two young women had never managed to   repair that breach. Saffy would never forget the injuries that her   reckless behaviour had inflicted on her twin sister or the many years of   suffering that Emmie had endured as a result. Some things were just  too  bad to be forgiven, Saffy acknowledged sadly.

In any case, Mikhail and Kat would undoubtedly assist Emmie in her   struggles as a single mum-certainly, Saffy knew better than to offer   assistance that would be richly resented. But she could not understand   why Emmie had chosen to make a big secret of her baby's paternity. Saffy   winced at that thought. While it was true that Saffy had never told  her  sisters the humiliating truth about her own failed marriage, she  felt  that she had had good reasons for her silence, not the least of  which  was the embarrassing fact that she had totally ignored Kat's plea  that  Saffy get to know Zahir better and for longer before she married  him.  Just common sense really, Saffy conceded wryly. Getting married at   eighteen to a guy you had only known a couple of months and had never   lived with had been an act of insanity. As immature and idealistic as   most teenagers with little experience of independent life, Saffy had   struggled from the outset with the role of being a wife in a different   culture. And while she had struggled, Zahir had steadily grown more and   more distant, not to mention his penchant for disappearing for weeks at  a  time on army manoeuvres just when she needed him most. Yes, she had   made mistakes...but then so had he.                       
       
           



       

Satisfied with that appraisal, which approportioned equal blame for what   had gone wrong in the past, Saffy emerged from her reverie and noticed   in surprise that the limo was travelling down a wide empty road that   strongly reminded her of an airport runway. As the route back to the   airport entailed travelling through Maraban city, she frowned, gazing   out in confusion at the emptiness of the desert surrounding her on all   sides. Strewn with stones and occasional large volcanic rock formations,   the bleak desert terrain was interrupted by little vegetation. And so   pervasive was the march of the sand that it was steadily encroaching on   the road, blurring its outlines.

Saffy had never warmed to Zahir's natural preference for a lot of sand   in his vicinity, had never learned to adjust to the extremes of heat or   to admire the austerity of such a landscape. Where on earth were they   going? Could the driver be taking another route to avoid the city   traffic, such as it was? Her smooth brow creasing, she leant forward to   rap the glass partition to attract the driver's attention, but although   she saw his eyes flicker in the rear-view mirror to glance in her   direction he made no attempt to respond to her. While Saffy was annoyed   at being ignored, his behaviour also awakened the first stirrings of   genuine apprehension and Saffy rapped the glass harder and shouted for   him to stop. What on earth was the stupid man playing at? She didn't   want to miss her flight home and she didn't have time to waste.

As she withdrew her fingers from the glass her knuckle brushed against   the flowers in the vase and for the first time she noticed the envelope   attached to them. She snatched it up and ripped it open to extract a   typed card.

It is with great pleasure that I invite you to enjoy my hospitality for the weekend.

What on earth? Saffy stared down at the unsigned card. Who was inviting   her where and why? Was this why her uncommunicative driver was   travelling in the wrong direction? Her even white teeth gritted in angry   frustration. Had her lightly clad appearance at the shoot caught the   eye of some local randy sheikh? Possibly even the guy in the sand dunes   with the binoculars? What did he think she was? Dial-a-tart? No, no,  no!  Her blue eyes flashed like twin blue fires. No way was she  sacrificing  her one free weekend to pandering to the ego of yet another  rich man,  keen to assume that the very fact she made her living by her  face and  body meant that she was an easy lay available to the highest  bidder!  Desert Ice cosmetics was always willing to serve her up to VIPs  as the  face of its product and the somewhat racy reputation bestowed  on her by  the tabloids encouraged the wrong expectations and made  rejecting  amorous men even more of a challenge.

No way on earth was she spending her weekend with some man she hadn't   even met! She dug through her bag in search of her cell phone, intending   to ring one of her colleagues for assistance, but she couldn't find  her  phone and only finally accepted that it wasn't there after she had   tipped out the contents of her bag on the seat beside her. She had had   her phone in her hand before she got changed, she recalled with a  frown.  She had set it down...and clearly she hadn't picked it up again!  She  ground her teeth together and just for the sake of it attempted to  open  the door beside her. She wasn't surprised to find it locked and  it  really didn't matter, she conceded ruefully, for she had no  intention of  risking serious injury by throwing herself out of a moving  car.

Conscious of the anxious glances the driver was now giving her in the   mirror, she lifted her head high, her brain working double time. She   might feel as if she were being kidnapped, but that was a most unlikely   interpretation of her situation in a country as old-fashioned and   law-abiding as Maraban. In addition, no Arab host would want an   unwilling guest in his home. Indeed making a guest uncomfortable was a   big no-no in Marabani culture, so once she politely explained that she   had a prior engagement and apologised for being unavailable, she would   be free to leave again...only by that time she might well have missed   her flight home. Her lush mouth took on a downward curve.

Only minutes later, the limo came to a halt by the side of the road and   with a click the door beside her opened. Saffy's brow pleated as she   climbed out and she thought about making a run for it. But a run for it   to where? It was the hottest part of the day and she would burn to a   crisp. In addition the road was still empty and they had travelled miles   through unbroken desert. As she pondered the unavoidable fact that   there was nowhere safe to run to, a large four-wheel-drive vehicle drew   up at the other side of the road. The driver jumped out and opened the   passenger door wide while regarding her expectantly. Clearly it was an   arranged meeting for her to be transferred to another vehicle. Did she   accept that? Or fight it...but fight it with what? She glanced back  into  the limo and studied the glass vase that held the flowers. It was  the  work of a moment to smash the vase against the built-in bar and  retrieve  a jagged piece of glass, which she cupped awkwardly in her  hand because  she didn't want to tighten her fingers and cut herself on  it.  Straightening her slim shoulders, she crossed the road and climbed  into  the four-wheel-drive. The door slammed instantly behind her.