Master of the Desert

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‘Well done.’

‘Not too well done, I hope?’ she chipped in cheekily, clearly refreshed by her swim. ‘You don’t like anything about me, do you?’ she protested when he slanted an ironic stare in her direction.

She would wait a long time for him to play along with that line. But, actually, she was growing on him. Apart from her obvious attractions, or perhaps in spite of them, beneath her adolescent quirkiness there was real grit and determination. She was uncompromising, he had concluded, like him, and now he sat back to enjoy the show he was sure was about to begin. He didn’t have to wait long.

Seeing that she had failed to provoke him, she upped the ante. ‘I’m just in the way.’ She pulled a broken face. ‘You’d far rather be here on your own.’

‘Without the cabaret?’ He stirred the fire. ‘You’ve got that right.’

While he spoke she was circling him like a young gazelle not quite sure what she was dealing with, until finally curiosity overcame her and she came to peer over his shoulder at the food he was preparing. ‘It’s got its head on!’ she exclaimed as he impaled on a spit the fish he’d just caught.

‘They grow that way in the Gulf.’

‘Is that the only choice for supper?’

‘Did I forget to give you the menu?’

‘Stop teasing me,’ she protested.

Without any effort on his part a new sense of ease was developing between them. She’d made a bad start, but she had worked really hard since then to make up for it. ‘You don’t have to eat the fish,’ he said, playing along. ‘You don’t have to eat at all. Or, if you want something off the menu, I’m sure there’s plenty more bread in the galley that could do with eating up.’

She scowled at this, but then an uncertain smile lit her face when their glances connected.

They were beginning to get the measure of each other, and both of them liked what they saw, he concluded. He was more relaxed than usual; this was luxury for him, eating simply, cooking the fresh fish he’d caught over an open fire. It gave him a chance to kick back and experience a very different life.

The fish did smell good. And she was ravenous. ‘Can we start over?’ Antonia suggested, knowing there was more at stake than her first proper meal of the day—her voyage to the mainland, for instance, not to mention sharing a meal with a frighteningly attractive man she dared to believe was starting to warm to her.

‘That all depends.’

‘I’ve told you that I’d like to help, and I mean it,’ she said. ‘I can sail—I can help you sail to the mainland.’

‘Help me sail?’ he murmured, skimming a gaze over her tiny frame.

‘Seriously—let me prove it to you. I’m not as useless as I look.’

He stared into the fire to hide his smile.

‘If I knew your name, it would be a start,’ she persisted. ‘Maybe we could relax around each other more if we knew what to call each other.’

‘Wasn’t that my question to you?’

Antonia’s cheeks blazed. How could she be so careless? Wasn’t that the one question she wouldn’t answer? ‘I have to call you something,’ she pressed, getting her question in first.

She had almost given up when he answered, ‘You can call me Saif.’

‘Saif?’ she exclaimed, seizing on the word. ‘Doesn’t that mean sword in Sinnebalese?’ And, without giving him a chance to answer, she rattled on, ‘When I first planned to travel to Sinnebar I studied the language.’

Instead of turning things around as she had hoped, this only provoked one of his dismissive gestures. ‘The name Saif is very popular in Sinnebar,’ he explained, stoking the fire with a very big stick.

‘But it isn’t your real name?’ she said, tearing her gaze away. ‘Saif is just a name you’ve adopted for while you’re here,’ she guessed.

Please, please say something, she urged him silently. ‘If you don’t want to tell me your real name, that’s all right by me.’

Nothing.

‘We could have a name truce,’ she pressed as another idea occurred to her.

‘What do you mean by that?’

Her confidence grew; imagination was her speciality. ‘Our outside lives can’t touch us here—you can be Saif, and I can be—’

‘I shall call you Tuesday.’

‘Tuesday?’ She frowned.

‘I take it you’ve heard of Man Friday?’

‘Of course I have, but—’

He shrugged. ‘You came on board on a Tuesday.’

They were really communicating, and for the first time since she’d come aboard his yacht she could see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Or at least the lighthouse guarding the entrance to the harbour of Sinnebar.

‘Tuesday it is, then,’ she agreed eagerly. ‘Would you like me to fillet the fish for you?’ She wanted to prove she could be helpful in so many ways.

Saif paused, knife suspended. His expression reflected his doubt in her abilities. ‘All right, go ahead,’ he said reluctantly.

And make a mess of it if you dare, Antonia silently translated.

She swallowed as Saif drew his knife, and took it gingerly from him with the thick, beautifully carved pommel facing towards her hand. ‘This is very nice,’ she said, struggling to wrap her hand around it. ‘Is it an heirloom?’

‘There’s nothing special about it,’ Saif said as he removed the fish from the spit he’d made out of twigs and a piece of twine. ‘It’s a utility item and nothing more.’

‘Well, it’s a very nice utility item.’

Nothing special? Apart from the knife’s size, and the fact that it could slice the gizzard out of a shark at a single stroke, it was the most fearsome weapon she had ever seen. And one she would put to good use. Her juices ran as Saif waved the fish on the stick to cool it, sending mouthwatering aromas her way.

It was a relief to discover that all the trips to fabulous restaurants with her brother Rigo hadn’t been wasted. Positioning the fish on the large, clean leaf that would act as a plate, she removed the head, skin and bones with a few skilful passes of Saif’s razor-sharp blade. ‘You first,’ she insisted, passing the succulent white morsels of fish to him on their bed of lush emerald-green leaf.

She breathed a sigh of relief when Saif’s lips pressed down with approval and he murmured, ‘Good work.’

‘Thank you.’

‘This is delicious,’ she observed, tucking in with gusto. ‘We make a good team, you and I.’

Careless words, Antonia realised when one arrogant ebony eyebrow peaked. She ate in silence after that, and when they were finished went to rinse her hands in the sea. Sitting down on the sand a safe distance from Saif, she leaned back on her hands to stare at the moon. It wasn’t long before she was longing for things she couldn’t have—a sexy Arabian lover with a body made for non-stop sin, for instance.

Saif turned when she sighed, but what could she do? It was such a romantic evening. There was a smudge of luminous orange at the horizon, and overhead a candystriped canvas of pink and aquamarine remained stubbornly in place as the sky darkened into night. ‘You don’t know how lucky you are living here,’ she murmured. ‘Though they say the ruling Sheikh is—’