LITMIR.BIZ

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with a guest trolley and quietly collected Sera’s luggage from the SUV as Aqil and Eric ushered her beyond the main doors. Brad followed the arctic air that pumped out through the opening courtesy of air-conditioning powered by the ocean of solar panels tucked between the dunes out of guest view. No matter how many times he was assigned out here, stepping inside was always like walking into Aladdin’s cave. Cool, dark and just a little bit mystic. Traditional Arabian architecture and furnishings had been put to good use in the resort’s foyer, and the whole place smelled vaguely...herbal. It had an immediate impact on Sera.

      ‘I wish I’d kept my camera out of my luggage,’ she murmured, running her eyes from the labyrinthine floor tiles up to the ornate timber roof features.

      Aqil turned a winning smile on her. ‘It is beautiful, no? You will be in this building often over the coming weeks. Many opportunities. This way, please.’

      They guided her into the receiving lounge off to one side of the foyer, filled with richly upholstered sofas and low, old tables. Old in a good way—an expensive way—not old like the beaten-up furniture he remembered from his UN days in the desert villages. Eric returned with a tall glass of tropical fruit juice for Sera.

      ‘While you rest here I’ll just have a word with your liaisons,’ Brad murmured.

      She might have heard him, she might not. Her attention was so thoroughly taken by the feel of the woven sheaves hanging over the arched doorway and the intricate wrought iron decorating the window looking back out to the foyer. But he took momentary leave to check in with Aqil and Eric.

      Their focus shifted immediately once they were out of Sera’s presence.

      ‘What’s the protocol?’ Aqil said quietly.

      ‘Close contact,’ he briefed them, fast. Which meant he needed to be on hand nearby. Very nearby. ‘Where have you put her?’

      Aqil consulted the site map spread on his desk. ‘Suite ten is vacant on both sides.’

      Ten was good. Far enough away from other guests for privacy and quiet but close enough to the main buildings for a fast response if needed. And it meant he could set up camp in eleven, right next door. Al Saqr had multi-roomed suites, but an unrelated man and woman under one roof on the Arabian Peninsula...? Nope, not even if she was under serious threat. But better safe than sorry. Celebrity did weird things to people.

      And he didn’t take any risks these days. He’d come too close in the past.

      ‘No one enters her suite when she’s in it unless I’m present,’ he ordered.

      ‘Understood.’

      He rattled off a few other need-to-knows and then turned back to the lounge where Sera had finished fondling the curtains and sat, happy as a clam, sipping her juice on the luxuriously padded traditional lounge. Her smile was as bright as the desert outside when he returned to her side.

      ‘It’s all so amazing,’ she gushed.

      His gut twisted that little bit more. He didn’t want her softening. He didn’t want bright innocence to start peeking out from behind the façade. He wanted the self-assured, cranky client to stay. Because she was easier to dislike.

      And dislike was easier to manage.

      ‘Ready for your room?’

      She glanced longingly at the juice still half-full in her hand then back at him.

      He caught the smile before it infected the rest of his neutral expression. ‘Those are as common as sand out here.’

      She took one final long, hard suck on her straw, then placed the glass down on the carved coaster that had been discreetly laid out for her.

      ‘Let’s go.’

      * * *

      Al Saqr must look a bit like a scorpion from the air, Sera thought. Long stretches of treed pathway extended out from the resort’s main building like articulated legs, going in different directions along the bank of the massive dune the resort was built on. Dotted along them at private yet accessible distances were the individual suites.

      Not rooms exactly, she saw as they passed two that weren’t theirs, more like quasi-tents with the same plastered white walls and dark timber windows as the resort, but with canopied canvas roofs sitting like a broad sun hat over each hexagonal suite. With timber deck everywhere its shadows reached.

      She sighed as her eyes fell on every new and alien thing. Nothing here would remind her of the media and their scrabbling. Or of home. Or the season.

      ‘Here we are,’ Aqil advised, pulling the courtesy buggy into the shade of a suite about halfway along the front leg of the scorpion, facing all that empty desert.

      The way the suites were staggered, it was easy to feel that it was just she and the desert. No other human being or work as far as the eye could see. She took her time getting off the buggy, knowing that Brad would get there before her and indeed he did, sweeping inside as soon as the door opened and clearing the room before she was allowed into it. She smiled awkwardly at Aqil, who just shrugged and waited in patient, dimpled silence with her.

      Stepping inside was totally worth the wait. Cool and dim and fragrant. Just like the resort reception. But that was where the similarity ended. This was a suite that managed to be simple yet more luxurious than anything she’d ever stayed in before. The six-sided shape of the room was countered by custom furniture in traditional style so that everything fitted without making it feel cluttered. Long sofas, luxury coffee station, writing desk and an opulent, high, king-sized bed centred against it all. Three of the six edges of the suite were glass doors with thick light-controlling drapes of the same kind of silken weave she’d gone crazy patting earlier.

      Until Aqil flung one set open.

      Beyond the glass doors, the Arabian desert flowed golden and dramatic, its dunes laid out in all their glory all the way to the horizon where the shadows of mountains loomed. And immediately in front, between all that sand and her air-conditioned life-support system, a gorgeous, deep, blue plunge pool, half in desert sun, half in shade.

      Sera pressed her hands to the glass doors and leaned into the heat soaking in through them. Hot desert. Cold pool. Espresso station. Massive Princess and the Pea bed...

      Some of the tension she’d been carrying around for the past year shifted and broke away, turning to dust on the warm desert breeze.

      ‘Your home for the next month,’ Aqil murmured. ‘Let me show you everything...’

      It only took a few minutes, yet there was nothing she could need that Al Saqr hadn’t thought of. Lazy luxury from top to bottom.

      ‘Mr Kruger is in the suite immediately to your right,’ Aqil said when the tour was done, handing Brad an old-fashioned, hand-wrought key that matched hers. ‘His bag has been placed there already.’

      On cue, hers was whisked in. Even with only one bag, she’d over-packed. Right now she would be entirely happy to spend the whole month in her swimsuit, though probably she’d need to throw on a dress to go for food now and then. She glanced at the table set up by the pool.

       Unless she had dinner come to her...

      Another knot in her shoulder unravelled.

      ‘Aqil, thank you. This is...exactly what I needed.’

      Silence. Beauty. Nature. Far enough from civilisation that even she couldn’t cause a stir out here. The perfect place to lie low for a bit.

      And not a hint of Christmas festivity.

      ‘We pride ourselves on being what our guests need, Miss Blaise,’ Aqil murmured. Then he excused himself, told her how she could contact him if she needed him and departed. She leaned back on the warm glass doors, closed her eyes and let even more of the tension soak away into that heat.

      When they reopened, Brad was still there. Waiting quietly for instructions.

      Kruger.

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