LITMIR.BIZ

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she registered the laboured breath of a bodyguard behind her, but it was too late, his vice-like grip digging into the flesh of her forearm before she had any chance to dodge out of his way.

      ‘My apologies, sire, this one slipped past us.’

      This one? How dare he speak about her like that? Furiously trying to shake off his grasp, Nadia felt it tighten still farther. ‘I’ll thank you to take your brutish hands off me!’

      The guard hesitated for a second, Nadia still squirming in his grasp.

      ‘You heard what the lady said.’ Rising to his feet, Zayed positioned himself on the edge of the dais. ‘Let her go.’ The words echoed around the vast chamber of the room.

      ‘Sire.’ The hand was released and the guard took a small step back and bowed his head.

      ‘And for future reference, I expect my orders to be carried out in a civilised manner. Let it be known that I will not tolerate brutality in any form.’

      ‘Your Royal Highness.’

      Nadia turned to give the admonished guard a haughty stare, pointedly rubbing at the red marks he had made on her arm. The wretched bangles jangled.

      ‘So, young lady.’ As he swiftly turned his attention to her Nadia felt the spotlight of Zayed’s glare. ‘What is your name?’

      ‘Nadia.’ She delivered it clearly enough but said out loud it made her feel all the more exposed.

      ‘Well, Nadia, I’m afraid I have to inform you that you have had a wasted journey.’ He stood tall and proud, with his legs apart and his arms crossed over his chest, very much the master of control. ‘You see, I am not in the habit of choosing my companions in the way that has been arranged tonight. I must apologise for inconveniencing you.’

      Somehow it sounded more like a reprimand than an apology.

      ‘But, Your Royal Highness...’ With her heart thudding in her chest she raised her eyes to meet his, opening them as wide as she could before lowering them again and batting her dark lashes in what she hoped was a seductive gesture. ‘Since I am here, may I not be allowed to perform for you?’ Without waiting for an answer she slowly, hesitantly, began to make her hips sway, undulating them in the way she had seen the dancers perform in her own palace, for the entertainment of her father and brother.

      She had studied them as closely as she could from her hiding place in the shadowed recesses of the palace ballroom, committing the movements to memory before hurrying back to her bedroom to practise what she had seen. Trying not to look her reflection in the eye, she had disrobed to her underclothes and gyrated earnestly before the mirror. Now she just needed to try to remember what she had learned.

      She raised her arms above her head, twisting her hands around each other in the seductive, trance-like way she had seen performed, her hips moving more provocatively now as the moves came back to her, the jewelled beads jingle-jangling as she shimmied her behind first one way, then the other, her feet lightly moving beneath her.

      ‘Young lady.’ Zayed had descended the few steps from the dais and was striding across the brightly coloured mosaic floor towards her. Nadia’s dancing became more and more daring as she took her humiliation and turned it into raw sensuality, undulating her stomach and gyrating her hips with an excruciating lack of abandon.

      He was right in front of her now. So tall, so close, his dark shape towering over her as he looked down at her overheated, increasingly desperate dancing.

      Still Nadia didn’t stop, her eyes now level with his broad chest, her arms spiralling wildly in front of his face.

      ‘I obviously haven’t made myself clear.’ Suddenly his strong hands had caught hers in midair and he lowered them slowly down to her sides, his eyes not leaving her flushed face. All movement ceased, apart from the shudder of shame that ran through Nadia. Raising his hands to her shoulders, he turned her, gently but firmly, in the opposite direction. ‘The door is that way.’

      * * *

      Zayed watched as the beguiling young temptress scurried down the corridor, flanked by the guard, who was now thankfully keeping his hands to himself. She seemed keen to get away, her hurried strides rippling the long black curls down her back and making that particularly pert derrière sway alluringly beneath the tantalisingly flimsy costume. But the rest of her posture was stiff and aloof. Which seemed odd, when you considered her wanton performance just a few minutes before. The display she had just treated him to.

      And a very nice display it had been, too, he had to say. There was no doubt that this Nadia was a beauty, the way she exhibited her pale-skinned flesh turning him on far more than he would admit to himself. If circumstances were different, if he were to come across her in a bar, for example, it would give him the greatest of pleasure to get to know her, in every sense of the word. But not here, not like that. He might have the reputation for being a womaniser, but seducing a beautiful woman was one thing. Having the poor creatures herded before him like a cattle market, quite another. Not that Nadia looked as if she would be easily herded anywhere. How she had ended up here was a mystery.

      Scowling, Zayed turned away, and, shrugging off his jacket, he threw it over his shoulder. Standing in the middle of the opulent stateroom, he looked around him. What the hell had happened to his life? A couple of months ago he had been expanding his business empire, travelling the world, loving the thrill of facilitating multibillion-dollar company takeovers and the wealth and trappings that went with being hugely successful at his job.

      But all that had changed, dramatically so, when his mother had made the shock announcement that he was to return home, to the kingdom of Gazbiyaa. That he, Zayed, was to be crowned the next sheikh of Gazbiyaa, and not his elder brother, Azeed. The decision had been equally momentous for both brothers: Zayed thrown into the totally unfamiliar role of sheikh, something that he had never been prepared for, never expected and certainly never wanted, and Azeed, who had been groomed for this role all his life, having the title brutally snatched away from him.

      Now the newly crowned Sheikh Zayed Al Afzal, supreme ruler of the fabulously wealthy desert kingdom of Gazbiyaa, gazed bitterly around the empty room. He was going to have to make some serious changes round here, and fast, assert his authority before he was subjected to any more hideous debacles like the one tonight. A harem indeed. What on earth had that been about?

      He only wished he could have stopped it before the poor women had arrived. The first he’d known of it was when one of his advisors had ushered him into the stateroom with a sweeping gesture of the arm and announced that the most beautiful women in the kingdom were waiting to be selected for his entertainment. Momentarily stunned, he had only been able to stare in disbelief as the room had filled with these bejewelled creatures, their eyes flashing, their bodies twirling as they paraded before him. By the time he had come to his senses and ordered that they be removed his voice had become raised and his anger all too obvious, making him come across as some sort of brutish tyrant. He was ashamed to remember the frightened look in their eyes as they were rounded up and told to leave. Because his anger wasn’t meant for those poor girls, it was aimed at himself. For the position he had been forced to accept and the crazy life he now found himself in.

      But that last young woman, Nadia—that certainly hadn’t been fear in her eyes. Her parting glance, blazing over her shoulder as she’d left, had been full of mystery and challenge, with a dollop of haughty imperiousness for good measure. Suddenly he found himself trying to remember the colour of those remarkable eyes. Dark blue? Violet?

      Pulling himself up short, Zayed took a sharp breath and turned to stride from the room. Why was he wasting his time trying to figure that out? Didn’t he have bigger things to worry about?

      * * *

      Nadia felt the cold night air brush over her heated skin and shivered violently. What now? That gorilla of a guard had escorted her to the palace gates without a word, locking them firmly behind her, and now she watched his retreating figure through the bars as he ascended the long flight of steps back up to the entrance, where he would no doubt take up his position to make sure she didn’t slip

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