Cinderella and the Sheikh

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‘You have?’ she asked, her eyes nervously flicking up. ‘Anyway, it was fun—and quite successful in ratings terms so Minty found it easy to get the funding for this one. And, well, th-that really is it…’ She tailed off lamely. ‘She’s put it all together and I know she’ll be more than happy to talk it over with you. I’m just there to provide a personal connection to the subject.’

And because Minty was quite determined her friend would find a life for herself away from Shelton. There was no need to mention that. It made her sound incredibly wet.

Besides, Minty might change her mind when she heard how this conversation had gone. If Rashid had even the slightest inclination to open his country to a film crew again he’d want to be sure the resulting programme would be well executed and she hadn’t done much to instil him with confidence.

Rashid stood up in one fluid movement. It was that panther thing again. He was all restrained power and energy, his mind finding an outlet in movement, and yet she would never describe him as agitated. In fact, you couldn’t really imagine anything much throwing this man off his balance.

All of a sudden she didn’t care one way or the other. She’d done her best and that was all anyone could do. If this didn’t come off something would. Life was like that. It couldn’t go on for ever without a bend in the road.

Polly finished off the last of her water and stood up, cradling the glass in two hands. ‘W-what do you think? Can we come?’

His blue eyes flashed across at her. ‘There would need to be conditions.’

‘Of course. Not that I’d have anything to do with any of that. But Minty was wonderful when she made the programme on Shelton. Everyone involved was really considerate of the castle and there was nothing intrusive or unpleasant about the experience.’

Much to her annoyance Polly could hear a tremor in her voice. She wanted to sound confident and yet, somehow, in front of this man it wasn’t possible.

‘She’s your friend.’ He brushed her comment aside as though it wasn’t worth nothing. It was the spur she needed.

‘The programme on Shelton was one of five Minty made about different English stately homes. No one complained. She’s a talented and very successful documentary film maker.’ Polly raised her chin. ‘So, what do you think?’ she asked, forcing herself to meet his eyes. There was nothing to see. Not by so much as a flicker did he give away what he was thinking.

‘Why now?’

She’d been braced for an outright rejection and his question surprised her. ‘Now? You want to know why now?’ she echoed, and then gathered herself together. ‘Because of the weather. If we want to film in the desert—’

Rashid cut her off. ‘I will think about it,’ he said, turning away and striding across the room.

Polly stood, slightly stunned as the door shut behind him. She drew in a shaky breath. Heaven help her. That had been scary. But…he had left her with a little bit of hope—and, even ten minutes ago, that was more than she’d expected.

CHAPTER THREE

POLLY adjusted her long dark head-covering, trying to pull it farther over her blond hair. ‘How do I stop this thing slipping off?’

Pete, standing closest to her, gave the front a gentle tug. ‘Maybe a hair clip? I don’t know. Do your best. It’s not required of Westerners to cover their heads unless they’re entering a holy place.’

Yes, she knew. But Minty’s thirty-two-page ring-bound instruction booklet had also said a simple covering was sensible in the heat and generally considered respectful.

‘Just relax about everything. So, where is this interpreter guy? Ali something, isn’t it?’ he said with a look over his shoulder at the cameraman.

Ali Al-Sabt. She knew that, too. She’d gone through Minty’s ‘bible’and highlighted anything that might be important in fluorescent yellow. She practically knew it verbatim, but there was no point saying anything.

‘He should be holding up a card. Easy enough to spot,’ Baz said, scanning the crowded concourse.

‘You’d have thought.’

Polly let the conversation wash over her. The five men Minty had assembled were all veteran travellers. They’d worked together before, knew each other well and clearly considered her dead weight in their team. It didn’t matter. She was here. And it was absolutely incredible.

There were people everywhere. The guidebook had said that Amrahis regarded travel as an event and that whole families tended to see their loved ones off and meet those coming home. It was all a world away from her quiet and controlled departure from Heathrow, but she loved it. The noise, the bustle, the general excitement of the place.

‘There! John’s over there.’

A hand waved high above the crowd and Polly allowed Pete to steer her towards it, struggling to keep the wheels of her case straight.

A smiling man in a traditional white dishdasha nodded as they approached. ‘As-salaam alaykum.’

Polly murmured, ‘Wa alaykum as-salaam.’ Which she seriously hoped meant ‘Peace to you’ or something like. Leastways that had been what her Phrases for the Business Traveller to Amrah had said, though her pronunciation was bound to be hit and miss despite the accompanying CD.

‘This is Ali Al-Sabt—’

Behind them there was a loud shout and then a general hum of excitement. Polly’s eyes went to the glass-protected VIP walkway, high above. At first she noticed the speed at which a group of men on it were walking, their sense of purpose—and then recognition hit her.

She felt as though her stomach had plummeted a couple of hundred feet. Even in the traditional robes of his country Rashid Al Baha was unmistakable. Powerful.

For the tiniest fraction of a second she fancied his footsteps slowed and his eyes met hers. She felt as though everything around her had frozen in a blur of colour. There was only him…and her. Everyone else was as still as if they’d been paused by a TV remote. He looked directly at her. She was sure he did.

For a moment.

And then the world around her restarted, the noise of the concourse louder than before.

‘That’s Sheikh Rashid Al Baha. He must be returning from the summit in Balkrash.’

Polly wasn’t sure which member of the team said that. She watched as Rashid disappeared from sight, still feeling a little shell shocked. She wasn’t alone either. Judging from the reaction of the people around her, the Crown Prince’s second son enjoyed a film-star status in his own country. There were fingers pointing all around. An excited chattering, which punctured the general hubbub of airport noise.

‘What was the summit about?’ she asked, bending to adjust the label on her bag.

‘Perhaps best if we don’t ask those kind of questions,’ Steve, the one American of the team, said quietly. ‘Let’s keep ourselves out of the politics. Contravene that one and I guess we’ll be on the first plane out of here.’

Polly agreed and stood quietly by while they waited for Graham to join them with all their equipment.

Seeing Rashid had brought back all the feelings she’d experienced when she’d met him at Shelton. He unsettled her. Worried her. It wasn’t as though she felt he was attracted to her. Not that. It was that he…was watching her.

Watching her, looking for something that would mean he could make a decision about her. And because she knew he wasn’t a man to have as your enemy it…bothered her. At least, she thought that was what she thought.

‘Ready to go, Polly?’ Baz said, coming behind her.

She nodded and let herself be steered towards the exit. Once outside the intense heat hit her like a wall, driving everything else from her mind. She’d come expecting the temperatures to be high, but this was searing. Direct sunlight made her grateful for the scarf she had fashioned into a hijab covering her head. Less about modesty, perhaps, and everything about practicality.

‘Please to come this way,’ Ali said, indicating a line of waiting cars. Sleek, expensive and so black you might imagine they’d been dipped in oil. And more incredibly they were surrounded by uniformed guards. Guards with guns.

‘Please. This way.’

Polly looked over her shoulder in time to see Pete duck down into the third car. Graham was anxiously watching their expensive equipment safely stowed away, and John, Baz and Steve had already vanished.

‘Miss Anderson,’ Ali said, indicating the second car. As she moved towards it the door was held open. Disorientated, she meekly did what was wanted, only hesitating when she realised there was a man already inside. A man she recognised.

‘You?’ she said foolishly.

Rashid Al Baha’s blue eyes met hers. ‘As you see.’

‘I—I wasn’t expecting to see… I mean…’ Oh, hell! Polly pulled at the scarf covering her blond hair in what she recognised was a nervous gesture. ‘Were you supposed to be meeting us? I’m sure we weren’t told—’

His eyes seemed to dance. ‘This is a spontaneous gesture of hospitality. There is no way I could have arranged my timetable today to coincide with yours.’

‘Oh.’ And then, rather belatedly, ‘Thank you.’

‘Afwan.’

You’re welcome, she mentally translated, foolishly pleased the hours she’d spent poring over her phrase book were paying dividends. ‘Are you sure we’re allowed to be travelling together?’

Rashid settled himself more comfortably in his seat, resting his head back on the rest. ‘You have an inaccurate view of my country.’

‘I merely wondered whether it was appropriate with you being a member of the royal family.’

‘Ah.’ He turned his head so that he could look at her. ‘I think you’ll find that, as a member of the royal family, I’m permitted to do as I choose.’

Polly wasn’t sure what to answer. Her explanation hadn’t been true either, because she had wondered whether it was usual for a woman to travel alone in a private car with an Amrahi man who wasn’t a family member. And it seemed Rashid was totally aware of that. His blue eyes were still glinting. Teasing.

Well, if he didn’t care, why should she? This wasn’t her country. She deliberately concentrated on fastening her seat belt. With the door shut and the tinted windows closed the atmosphere was pleasantly cool. Polly sighed and settled back into the softest leather seat she’d ever sat in. Soft as butter. She let her fingers rest on the suppleness of it and tried not to think how close Rashid Al Baha was to her. Or how much he unnerved her.

And he really did unnerve her. On every level there was. This close she could feel him breathe, strong and even. It seemed to pulse through her. As did her awareness of his taut body, thighs slightly apart and feet firmly planted against the sway of the car.

‘You’ve just returned from a summit, I gather,’ she said in an effort to break the silence.

‘Yes.’

‘D-did it go well?’ Steve’s words of caution came flooding into her mind. Politics was a no-go area. Part of the stipulations Rashid had made was that they didn’t film anything that could be construed as military or politically sensitive. ‘I don’t mean to pry, obviously.’

He said nothing, merely watched her beneath hooded eyes.

‘I still can’t believe I’m really here.’ Polly nervously pleated one end of her scarf. ‘One minute I’m discussing whether we need to take the chandelier in the Great Hall down for cleaning and the next I’m here.’

Not the greatest conversational gambit she’d ever tried, but it was the best she could do. Every sense she had was throbbing with awareness. Every hair on her body standing to attention. She couldn’t remember reacting to a man like this…ever. But then she’d never met a man quite like him.

Polly turned to look out of the tinted car window. Partly because she needed to have something other than Rashid Al Baha to focus on, and partly because she was captivated by what she was glimpsing.

The guidebooks she’d devoured hadn’t really prepared her. She’d come expecting desert and wide blue skies and was confronted by modern glass, steel constructions and six-lane motorways.

‘Amrah is a place of great contrasts,’ Rashid said, as though he’d been able to read her thoughts.

‘I had no idea Samaah would be like this. How old a city is it?’

He shifted in his seat, drawing her attention back to him as much by that as his voice. ‘Centuries old, but its current incarnation is only forty. It has become a financial centre and brought a great deal of wealth to the country.’

She’d known that. Only that wasn’t part of Elizabeth Lewis’s story and she’d not focused her attention on what that would mean. ‘Amrah doesn’t have oil, does it?’

‘Some, but the reserves are fast running out.’

Polly turned again to look out of the window. She watched as the buildings sped past, unwilling to miss anything.

If they’d arrived by sea, she knew from guidebooks she’d have been met with fortified ramparts dating back centuries. A testament to its troubled history. But this…was all so newly constructed.

‘Are you disappointed?’

‘Stunned.’

‘We have the camels and the Bedouin tents, too.’ His voice was laced with humour.

Polly turned her head to look at him and smiled. Her first since getting into the car. She settled back into her seat. ‘Do you spend much time in the desert?’

‘Like most of my countrymen I return at least once a year to reconnect myself with my heritage. A tradition, if you will. Something you English seem to understand.’

He said it as if she were a different species. ‘You’re half English.’

‘My mother is English, but I am entirely Arab.’

How did he manage to turn his voice to flint? Polly adjusted her scarf, tucking one end carefully over her shoulder.

‘I’m flattered you have so obviously researched me,’ he continued, his voice slicing through the silence.

Polly glanced up at his calmly arrogant face. Did he honestly think that? That she’d consciously sat down and ‘Googled’ him?

She had. But she’d infinitely prefer it if he didn’t think it. ‘Merely read the magazines in the hairdresser’s,’ she corrected. ‘You’re often featured. Being royalty.’

‘Then I should be the one asking the questions, perhaps.’

‘There’s nothing particularly interesting about me—’ She broke off as she caught sight of the Majan International Hotel. ‘Isn’t that where we’re staying?’

‘There’s been a change.’

Polly looked at him sharply. ‘What kind of change?’

‘I have decided to offer you the hospitality of my home while you are in Samaah. You and your colleagues,’ he added as blandly as though he hadn’t seen her quick glance through the back window to make sure they were still being followed.

She wasn’t particularly reassured. Why was he doing this? He might have given them permission to film here, but even Minty hadn’t imagined he’d wanted them here.

‘Is that a spontaneous decision?’

‘Not at all. How else could I have arranged for cars to be here to meet you?’

Quite. And Polly had the definite feeling very little in Rashid’s life was left to chance.

‘My sister is waiting to receive you. I was to have joined you later.’

His sister?

‘Is it far from the airport?’

‘No.’