LITMIR.BIZ

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barks a lot, and two cats. When time allows, Lynne is a keen gardener.

       CHAPTER ONE

      ZARIF WAS BORED. The opulent attractions of his creamy-skinned and highly sophisticated mistress had palled. Right at that minute she was posed on the bed, entranced by her reflection in the mirror as she adjusted the glowing ruby pendant now encircling her throat. ‘It’s so beautiful,’ she told him, wide-eyed with avid admiration. ‘Thank you. You’ve been very generous.’

      Lena was shrewd. She knew the pendant was a goodbye gift and that she would vacate his lavish Dubai apartment without argument and cruise off in search of another rich man. Sex, Zarif had discovered, was no big deal. He preferred amateurs to professionals in the bedroom but had few illusions about the morals of the women he took as lovers. He gave them the means to enjoy the good things in life while they gave him a necessary outlet for his highly charged sex drive. Such women understood the need for discretion and appreciated that approaching the media would be a seriously unwise career move.

      And Zarif had more need than most men to conserve his public image. At the age of twelve he had become the King of Vashir with his uncle acting as Regent until Zarif attained his majority. He was the latest in a long line of feudal rulers to occupy the Emerald throne in the old palace. Vashir was oil-rich, but very conservative, and whenever Zarif tried to drag the country into the twenty-first century the old guard on his advisory council—composed of twelve tribal sheiks all over the age of sixty—panicked and pleaded with him to reconsider.

      ‘Are you getting married?’ Lena shot the question at him abruptly and then gave him a discomfited glance. ‘Sorry, I know it’s none of my business.’

      ‘Not yet but soon,’ Zarif responded flatly, straightening the tailored jacket of his business suit and turning on his heel.

      ‘Good luck,’ Lena breathed. ‘She’ll be a lucky woman.’

      Zarif was still frowning as he entered the lift. When it came to marriage or children, luck didn’t feature much in his family tree. Historically the love matches had fared as badly as the practical alliances and very few children had been born. Zarif had grown up an only child and he could no longer withstand the pressure on him at home to marry and provide an heir. He had only got to reach the age of twenty-nine single because he was, in fact, a widower, whose wife, Azel, and infant son, Firas, had died in a car crash seven years earlier.

      At the time, Zarif had thought he would never recover from such an indescribable loss. Everyone had respected his right to grieve but even so he was well aware that he could not ignore his obligations indefinitely. Preserving the continuity of his bloodline to ensure stability in the country that he loved was his most basic duty. In truth, however, he didn’t want a wife at all and he felt guilty about that. But he liked being alone; he liked his life just as it was.

      A sleek private jet returned Zarif to Vashir. Before disembarking he donned the long white tunic, beige cloak and rope-bound headdress required for him to attend the ceremonial opening of a new museum in the city centre. Only after that appearance had been made would he be free to return to the old palace, a rambling property set in lush perfumed gardens. It had long since been surpassed by the giant shiny new palace built on the other side of the city, which now functioned as the official centre of government. Zarif, however, had grown up at the old palace and was strongly attached to the ancient building.

      It was also where his beloved uncle, Halim, was spending the last months of his terminal illness and Zarif was making the most of the time the older man had left. In many ways, Halim had been the father whom Zarif had never known, a gentle, quiet man, who had taught Zarif everything he had needed to know about negotiation, self-discipline and statesmanship.

      Zarif’s business manager, Yaman, awaited him in the room Zarif used as an office. ‘What brings you here?’ Zarif asked in surprise for the older man rarely made such visits.

      Unlike his brothers, Nik and Cristo, who had both made names in the financial world, Zarif had little interest in his business affairs. Vashir had become oil-rich long before he was born and he had grown up wrapped in the golden cocoon of his family’s fabulous wealth. Yaman and his highly professional team presided over that fortune and conserved it.

      ‘There is a matter which I felt I should bring to your personal attention,’ Yaman informed him gravely.

      ‘Of course. What is this matter?’ Zarif asked, resting back against the edge of his desk, his dark eyes enquiring in his lean bronzed features.

      The middle-aged accountant’s air of discomfiture increased. ‘It relates to a personal loan you made to a friend three years ago...Jason Gilchrist.’

      Disconcerted by the mention of that name, Zarif stiffened. Yet it was not his one-time friend’s face that he pictured, it was that of Jason’s sister, Eleonora. An image of a young woman with a honey-blonde fall of silky curls, gentian-blue eyes and the legs of a gazelle flashed in his mind’s eye. Zarif froze into angry defensiveness at the speed of his own unwelcome response and the unwelcome remembrance of the staccato delivery of insults he had never forgotten:

      We’re both far too young to get married.

      I’m British. I couldn’t live in a culture where women are second-class citizens.

      I’m not cut out to be a queen.

      ‘What has happened?’ he asked Yaman with his customary quietness, only the charge of sudden flaring energy lighting his dark gaze to amber belying his outer façade of cool.

      * * *

      Ella walked into the silent house. She was so tired that only will power was keeping her upright.

      A light was burning below the living-room door: Jason was still up. She walked past quietly, unable to face another clash with her hot-tempered brother, and went into the kitchen. The room was a disaster area with abandoned plates of food still resting on the table. The chairs were still pushed back from the day before, when they had each leapt out of their seats as Jason broke his devastating news of their financial ruin during a family meal. Straightening her shoulders and reluctant to recall that dreadful lunch, Ella began to clear up, knowing that she would only feel worse if she had to face the mess in the morning.

      The house didn’t feel like home without her parents. Distressing images of her mother lying still, frail and newly old in her hospital bed, and her father sobbing uncontrollably, filled Ella’s mind. Hot tears stung her eyes and she blinked them away fiercely because giving rein to self-pity and sadness wouldn’t change anything that had happened.

      The horrors of the past forty-eight hours had piled up like a multiple-car road crash. The nightmare had begun when Jason admitted that the family accountancy firm was on the brink of bankruptcy and that her parents’ comfortable home, where they all lived together, was mortgaged to the hilt. Only just returned from the Mediterranean cruise that Jason had persuaded his parents to take while he looked after the business, her father had been irate and incredulous that matters could have been brought to such a desperate pass in so short a time period. Gerald Gilchrist had rushed off to the office to check the firm’s books and then consult his bank manager for advice while Jason stayed behind to explain the situation in greater detail to their mother.

      Initially, Jennifer Gilchrist had remained calm, seemingly convinced that her clever, successful son would naturally be able to sort out whatever problems there were and ensure his family’s continuing prosperity. Unlike her husband she had not angrily condemned Jason for his dishonesty in forging his parents’ signatures on the document used to remortgage their home. Indeed she had forgivingly assumed that Jason had merely been trying to protect his parents from needless financial worry.

      But then Jason had, from birth, been the adored centre of her parents’ world, Ella conceded wryly. Excuses had always been made when Jason lied or cheated and forgiveness and instant understanding had been offered to him on many occasions. Born both brainy and athletic, Jason had shone in every sphere and her parents’ pride in him had known no bounds. Yet her brother had always had a darker side to his

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