The Sheikh's Bride

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The driver vaulted into the Jeep and gunned the engine. Amer turned back and took in Leo’s wariness.

‘Are you going to tell me you’re seasick?’ he said, amused.

Leo cast him an harassed look. Nothing was going to serve her but the truth, she realised.

‘I am not the best co-ordinated person in the world,’ she announced defiantly. ‘I was just trying to work out how to get into this thing.’

The jeep roared off. It left behind the starlit dark and the soft slap of the river against the jetty. And the man, now no more than a dark shadow against shadows. It was a warm night. But in the sudden quiet, Leo shivered.

‘That’s easy,’ Amer said softly.

He picked her up.

‘Careful,’ gasped Leo, clutching him round the neck.

She could feel the ripple of private laughter under her hands. Amer held her high against his chest and stepped down into the boat.

She was right. There were cushions everywhere. Amer sank gracefully into them. He seemed, thought Leo, to hold on to her for far longer that was necessary. She inhaled the new aroma of expensive laundry and man’s skin, all mixed with some elusive cologne that was hardly there and yet which she knew she would never forget.

None of the semidetached men in her life had made her feel like this. Was it because he was, as her mother had called him, a seriously sexy article? Would any woman have felt her pulses race in this situation? Or was it only Leo? Had her cool temperament and shaky experience led her to over-react to an embrace that was not an embrace at all? Somewhere deep inside there was still a clumsy sixteen-year-old who had hung around at the edge of the room at parties, marooned in her own self-consciousness. Had someone found the route to reach her at last?

If so, Leo was far from grateful. She disentangled herself, not without difficulty, and sat up. She pulled her jacket straight and smoothed her hair.