Desert Orchid: The Desert Princes: Book 1 (5 page)

"What can I do for you, Ms. Faulkner?"

Dark brown eyes stayed level on his.

"Her Royal Highness would like to invite you to join her for afternoon tea."

So, the waiting was over.

Khalid couldn't say he was looking forward to meeting his future ball and chain. But he had a duty to his family and he'd promised his father faithfully that he wouldn't let him down.

Again.

The sense of relief that the wait was over lifted his spirits, not that he showed it to the woman watching him as if he was a smear on a Petri dish.

Khalid stood.

"I would be delighted. Please, lead the way."

Omar’s eyes never left Arabella as he opened the door. His bodyguard was hot on their heels. His towering presence followed them as they entered the reception hall and the main staircase and began to climb to the next level.

Arabella stopped on the wide first floor landing.

"We’ll use the elevator. It’s six floors to Her Highness's apartments. We’ll exit on the fifth floor. No one is permitted entry to the apartments without permission," she said as she indicated he precede her into the elevator.

"Especially me? Hmm, Ms. Faulkner?" Khalid spoke softly and Omar stiffened by his side as Arabella placed herself between Khalid and his protection officer.

"I’m sorry. Your bodyguard is not permitted beyond this point."

Seriously?

The woman was prepared to stand there and tell him where he could and could not go in his own palace?

Omar spread his legs and went for his weapon.

His bodyguard was not used to women issuing orders and the act was a deliberate act of aggression, to show her who was boss.

The woman didn’t flinch.

Khalid, in spite of himself, was impressed by how she didn't flicker as much as an eyelid.

"Put the gun away, Omar. Ms. Faulkner will keep you company."

He met the cold fury in his bodyguard’s eyes and stared at him until Omar tucked away his weapon and took a reluctant step back.

Khalid gave a tight little smile as he entered the elevator. He pressed the button, and the elevator doors closed on Arabella Faulkner and Omar. He decided his soon-to-be-wife needed to be taught a salutary lesson in manners. After all, he'd been more than fair since he'd arrived. Plus, since Charisse was grieving, he'd been prepared to give the woman a certain amount of leeway.

However, he was not prepared to be treated like a guest in what was now his own home.

The elevator rose smooth and swift. And he couldn't help but wonder what his future wife was like. Was she sturdy? Big hipped? Or was she a bag of bones with no meat on her? Khalid liked his women womanly with breasts and ass. Something for a man to grip, to hold onto.

The doors opened.

An elderly maid bowed deep before him.

For some reason his nerves were jangling and he didn't like it, not one little bit.

He was a king for God's sake. And it was time he started acting like one.

The maid led him up a wide stone stairway to arched doors painted a glossy black.

She knocked once, opened the doors and bowed for him to precede her.

Khalid entered an airy and light space with huge doors on all sides open to the elements and stopped dead.

Well, well, this was a pleasant surprise.

While the rest of the palace was luxurious, furnished with heavy teak and decorated in a traditional Arabic style that tended to make it dark and claustrophobic, here the walls were chalk white with huge paintings, slashes of modern art, hung strategically around the room. A log burner in brushed stainless steel rose majestically through the cavernous ceiling. The space throbbed with energy and life.

It smelled of candle wax, flowers, and warm woman.

The maid indicated a couple of seven foot sofas set at right angles and groaning under the weight of silk cushions in bright jewelled colours edged with gold tassels. “Please sit, Highness.”

She closed the double doors to the suite quietly behind her.

Khalid picked a seat which gave him the best view of the room.

He sat.

Nice place.

Very feminine.

Intrigued, he leaned back, crossed his legs, and made himself comfortable.

Glass bowls teaming with fresh flowers scented the air.

Beeswax candles, thick as a man’s fist, marched down a wide coffee table made of tempered glass holding a variety of books on antiquity along with the latest glossy western magazines for women.

A movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention.

He blinked.

Two wolfhounds with rough shaggy coats of dirty grey sat like statues at the entrance to another space. Hazel eyes studied him with interest.

"Would you like tea or coffee?" A young woman’s voice called out.

His brows rose.

Must be another maid, and one who didn’t know her place. Domestic staff did not shout at an El Haribe prince.

Imagining his brother’s outrage at the break of strict protocol, Khalid grinned.

"Coffee, please."

The dogs rose, moving as one and padded before a metal and glass tea trolley pushed by one of the most beautiful young women Khalid had ever seen.

And he’d seen more than his fair share.

He thought she looked vaguely familiar.

His mind flicked through a mental file of women, but he couldn't place her.

A silver waterfall of hair fell to a narrow waist.

She was dressed in pale blue designer jeans that fitted her in all the right places and a pale grey Rolling Stones short sleeved T-shirt. She was tall. Five feet eight inches and about one hundred and ten pounds. A bit on the skinny side. Her small breasts were high and firm. The long limbs and fine bones were all in proportion. Combined with a lightly tanned skin, she was simply stunning.

But it was the large eyes that caught Khalid’s lungs.

They were a sparkling blue, the colour of a Mediterranean sky in summer, and edged with thick dark lashes.

He read a fierce intelligence, curiosity and a deep sadness in their beautiful depths.

Those marvellous eyes blinked into his.

"Would you like milk?"

Her soft voice was well-educated with a hint of France, and that voice slid over his senses like warm honey.

She smiled and Khalid’s mind went blank.

"Ah, black... thank you."

He accepted a bone china cup and saucer and frowned at her, almost certain that he’d seen her before. "Have we met?" he asked now.

Those amazing eyes stared deep into his.

And he was sincerely shocked to read something like contempt.

"Oh, I know who you are, Prince El Haribe. My late husband followed your... exploits very carefully."

Using small tongs, she placed a couple of tiny pastries on a plate and offered it to him. Another too polite smile had him narrow his eyes.

He took the plate as she poured herself a coffee, popped a pastry in her sensual mouth and sat next to him.

Then she leaned back to study him.

"Your late husband?" Khalid murmured unable to tear his eyes away from hers.

Cocking her blonde head in a way that made him decide she looked utterly adorable, her smile curled his toes as more mischief entered those fabulous eyes.

She placed her cup and saucer on the table and held out her hand.

Khalid placed his hand in hers.

It wasn't electricity that jolted up his arm but a buzzing attraction that made his heart beat too fast and made him go as hard as a rock. He couldn't help but savour the moment, it had been a very long time since a woman had affected him like this.

Her hand was delicately boned.

The skin was soft, silky smooth to his touch as the scent of vanilla, honeysuckle and shampoo along with warm woman spun around his heightened senses.

Her blue eyes glittered into his and her voice sounded so husky it tingled the base of his spine and shot liquid fire into his groin.

"Charisse El Haribe. I believe I am to be your wife. How do you do?"

The unexpected hum of sexual attraction tingling up her arm shocked Charisse in its intensity.

With infinite care she removed her hand from his strong grip and tried to tear her eyes from his, but she couldn’t look away.

Good God, the glamorous pictures of him in the society pages didn’t do the man justice. She’d never seen him smile in a photograph. He certainly wasn’t smiling now. He looked like an austere rock star. His skin was smooth and the colour of spun gold. His ebony hair was tied back at the neck in a slippery tail. But his eyes were the palest grey and so vivid they seemed to burn right through her.

He was long and lean. Too thin, was her first thought, quickly followed by, what an amazing bone structure. His face was all angles and plains with a long straight nose and a fabulously sculpted wide mouth that had a tendency to appear brooding, along with a purely masculine jaw, which already had a faint five o’clock shadow.

It was the face of a man who meant business, tough and uncompromising.

It was a face that could have been carved out of granite.

He blinked as if waking up from a dream.

Then he frowned at her in a way that caught her breath.

It made him look like a bad tempered warrior.

"How the hell can this be? How old are you?" he demanded.

The deep American drawl had thrown her initially, and it did the same thing now.

His question didn’t surprise her.

"I am twenty-two. I have been married for six years."

Silence.

That dead on stare was making her nervous.

He
was making her nervous.

To keep her hands busy Charisse took a sip of coffee.

Those eyes went dark now and as cold as ice.

She shivered at the look in them for her.

"He bought you, didn’t he?"

The clutch of fear in her belly was an old familiar foe.

She hadn’t felt the presence of that foe for six years.

Charisse straightened her spine, reminded herself that she was no longer broken.

And she wouldn’t be intimidated by any man, and certainly not by the one sitting there looking at her as if she was a bad smell.

Her chin lifted. "Excuse me?"

Khalid sat back on the sofa with an arrogance that made her palm itch, looking all relaxed and in control. He didn't fool her. The way his eyes narrowed flicking over her body as if she was an object rather than a human being made the ache in her heart burn. It felt as if the organ was being squeezed in an iron fist. Fear. It rose up from her belly into her throat in a way that brought back hellish memories of a time when the world as she’d known it had ended. Of a time when powerful men had looked upon her as a commodity.

She shuddered with a memory that had a cold sweat trickle down her back. A flashback of lying naked, bloody, freezing cold and in pain entered her mind. And it took everything she had not to tremble in front of Khalid.

A Khalid who was now looking at her as if she was something he wanted to scrape from the sole of his Italian handmade shoe.

"My accountants are very thorough. I’ve been through the bank accounts with them. Six years ago, my uncle Asim paid three and a half million Euros for you." The drawl was now filled with utter disdain. "And he’s left ten times that amount in Swiss bank accounts in your name. I hope he got his money’s worth."

Heady relief that he had no idea of the awful truth of her past fought with a righteous outrage that he believed she would marry a man for his money. That she had no moral compass or cared nothing for her country or her people.

How dare he?

Bastard.

"Do not look at me as if I am a piece of meat," Charisse warned in a tone of solid ice.

She rose and found her legs far from steady. She stalked to the doors open to the balcony and back, all the while trying desperately to hang onto her temper. The dogs growled and she silenced them with a hand signal. Her eyes remained glued to the dark angel lounging on the sofa and staring at her in a way that made her hand hurt to smack him, hard.

She didn’t attempt to hide her fury as she spoke,

"How dare
you
of all people sit there in judgement of me? You know absolutely nothing about me."

The sneer corrupting his beautiful mouth was an ugly thing. "Drop the contempt, baby. Right back at you. And you know nothing about me other than what you’ve read in your glossy magazines or listened to gossip while you’ve been holed up here in your ivory tower."