LITMIR.BIZ

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something about her feathered his nape with a cold brush of warning.

      Here, he sensed, lay trouble.

      The chamberlain spoke. ‘Sire, I am pleased to bring before you...’

      The woman’s jaw tipped high, her gaze rising to meet his and the chamberlain’s words were lost in the heavy thrum of Sayid’s pulse as he looked down into eyes as velvety as a drift of mountain violets. Holding his gaze, she dipped into a curtsey that was the epitome of grace.

      Shock hammered. His blood rushed, drowning all noise.

      Lina. Little Lina.

      Sayid remembered her as pretty. Had told himself imagination had embroidered her charms. It had been the forbidden piquancy of finding himself her master, free to do as he wished with her, that had turned a passably attractive teenager into something special in his mind.

      He’d been wrong. She was something special. More, she was extraordinary.

      Not just because of her beauty. The way that clear-eyed stare met his, the hint of boldness behind the mask of politeness, communicated directly with him on a personal level. A level that made his belly tense and his calm crack.

      ‘Welcome back to Halarq.’ He kept his voice as grave as his expression. She might have knocked him sideways for an instant but Sayid would never let that show.

      ‘Thank you, sir.’ She bowed low in a move as formal and graceful as that of any courtier.

      He refused to let his eyes track her trim frame, but it was too late. Her image was imprinted on his brain. ‘You’ve grown up.’

      Her gaze met his, setting off a buzz of response at the base of his spine. Then her lips twitched into a far too appealing half-smile and she shrugged. ‘It happens to all of us.’ She paused, as if waiting for him to respond. ‘I just turned twenty-two last week.’

       Better, far better than seventeen.

      The sly voice in his mind was full of insinuation. Of anticipation. But he’d set himself up as her protector, her guardian. Because she had no one else.

      Sayid knew what could happen to women who had no one to champion them. Especially beautiful, desirable women.

      It was why he’d sent Lina away. Not only to pursue her education, but to keep her out of reach. He might be changing his country, one step at a time, to ensure all his people had the rights of free citizens, but he was still a man.

      A man with a formidable appetite for pleasure.

      Knowing that was a family trait, seeing its devastating effect on his uncle, who’d never learned to resist temptation, Sayid had striven to contain that side of his nature.

      Yet he looked at Lina and something raw and ravenous stirred in his belly. Something uncivilised and unrepentantly greedy that spoke of want and the need to possess. It was a burn in his gut. A sharpness on his tongue. A tightening of his body.

      Just like that! As if the rules he’d set for himself no longer existed. As if she wasn’t in his care.

       Damn!

      Years before he’d done what he could to protect her. According to Halarqi custom, since she’d been given into his keeping, Lina belonged to him. From that moment he was the head of her family. In his people’s eyes, and the law’s, he was her lord. Her master. Potentially her lover.

      To his shame, the idea still sent an illicit thrill through him.

      Yet, to his credit he’d done what a decent, civilised man would do—embracing his responsibility and becoming her guardian, sending her away.

      He’d forgotten she was due to return today. Plus he’d assumed the years would be enough to sever this startling, impossible tug of desire. That he’d have become immune or she’d have grown ordinary.

      Neither had happened.

      Surely it was a malicious, mocking Fate that had allowed him to send away a child, only to receive in return a woman so flagrantly desirable.

      Sayid forced a smile. ‘Congratulations on reaching such an advanced age.’ He stood, turning to the chamberlain. ‘That will be all for now. My ward and I have matters to discuss.’

       CHAPTER FOUR

      IF LINA HAD expected a warm welcome from her self-styled guardian, she’d have been disappointed.

      The tight curve of his mouth could be classed as a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Those gleamed as cool and impenetrable as black onyx. Yet something about the quality of that look sent a tremor of yearning through her insides.

      Severely she told herself she hadn’t expected warmth.

      It was just that he’d been kind.

      He’d treated her, not as an encumbrance or an embarrassment, but as a person who mattered.

      When she looked at him she felt something like the prickle of delight she’d known years before in her home on the edge of the desert. She’d looked at the night sky and lost herself in the beauty of the diamond-bright wash of stars. Then she’d felt small and vulnerable but at the same time exultant, as if the vast night sky had touched her with a tiny spark of its magic.

      Lina was too old for girlish fantasies about a handsome sheikh. Even though he’d swept in and rescued her. Even though such fantasies had been her solace and her rock as she grappled with life beyond Halarq and everything she knew.

      Yet, to her dismay, she discovered fantasies weren’t so easy to banish. She looked into those midnight eyes, heard the warm burr of his voice, and felt it again, that swirl of starlight and wonder. That ripple of hyper-consciousness. Even the contrast of his spare, burnished flesh against pristine white robes caught and held her gaze. And the honed, arrogant but beautiful angles and planes of his face.

      He’d altered in four and a half years. His shoulders seemed even wider than before, his chest deeper. There were new lines around his eyes and mouth too, but they only accentuated the masculine charisma of that strong face.

      For one mad instant, when she saw a pulse pound at his temple and those broad shoulders stiffen, she’d thought he, too, was affected. But that was her imagination running riot. A second look confirmed she was wrong.

      He led her to a pair of opulent antique chairs positioned on the far side of the room. They were a formal few metres apart, slightly turned to make the best of the view from the citadel, down over the ancient sprawling city.

      ‘Is it good to be home?’

      Lina turned in her seat to find him watching her closely. A shiver skated through her at the intensity of his regard. She sat straighter.

      ‘I...it feels strange.’ Though what felt most strange was hearing him speak of home. As if she truly belonged though she was an outsider here. ‘I don’t really know the city. I was only here a short time.’

      His sleek black eyebrows lifted. ‘You would rather return to your old town? Your old home?’

      ‘No. No!’ The shiver that tracked her spine this time had nothing to do with the man sitting across from her. Her fingers curled tight in her lap as she leaned closer. ‘Please don’t send me back. There’s no place for me there.’

      She paused, pushing down the rising fear that she’d be made to return to the family who despised her. For years she hadn’t entertained the possibility. Surely the Emir had saved her from that?

      ‘I’m sure I’ll adjust quickly to life in the capital.’

      She’d adapted to moving from a provincial town to an international school in Switzerland. To make matters worse, it wasn’t just any school, but one patronised by the wealthy and privileged. It taught not

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