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But it was happening Every surreal second of it People were bowing as the convoy went past—as if they suspected that their royal kingline of dark vehicles The car was approaching an enor before therounds, studded with marble statues and exotic bloo how on earth the grass could be so green when nothing but dust and desert surrounded the in those strange and beautiful trees
‘Excited?’ came the accented caress of Dimitri’s voice from beside her as they came to a halt
She turned to look at hi of her heart Why did it have to be him who made her body react like this? Why couldn’t she have desired some other man to tease her bare breasts with his teeth, as Diotten
‘I don’t know if “excited” is the word I’d use,’ she answered, trying to sound blasé ‘It will be an interesting experience to see a country I would never nor cooped up with you for two days isn’t exactly filling me with joy’
‘Oh, really?’ he drawled, knotting his silk tie as he glanced towards the palace doors ‘And fascinating as this discussion is, I think we’re going to have to take a rain check Because if you look over there you’ll see athis way It seereet us’
‘I notice that you have been very preoccupied tonight, my friend’
Dimitri smiled as he listened to the Sheikh’s silken words, for they both knew that the title of ‘friend’ was completely spurious The man who said it was too remote and too powerful to have true friends—indeed, Saladin was as friendless as he, for men like them always stood alone
But that was the way he liked it
Dirant platter of food was placed before hi until the robedto the hawk-faced king beside him
‘Have I?’
‘M with a water jug ‘I note that you have barely been able to tear your gaze away fro’
Dioblet and sipped from it ‘Is it not always the instinct of a man to look at a woman, particularly when she is the only one present?’
‘Indeed it is,’ co to just below the edge of his white headdress ‘But she does not fall into the category of your preferred blondes, one of whoo’
Diave a thin smile ‘You surprise me, Saladin I did not have you down as a reader of tabloid newspapers’
The Sheikh’s eyes hardened ‘Ah, but I always do my research I like to know about the lifestyle of my prospective business partners’
Di a quick beat—as if sensing that, after so otiation, the prize was at last within his grasp But he kept all ereed to sell me the oil fields?’
A shadow of so imperceptible moved across Saladin’s hawklike features
‘I try never to conduct business atday and your secretary is looking soements meet with your satisfaction?’
Di at Had he suspected that he and Erin had once been lovers and ht have preferred a shared suite rather than the two adjoining ones they’d been allocated? No He felt the flicker of a pulse at his teo did not put the but a blip He drank soranate juice And yet he had never been able to coht, had he? It had been too easy to recall the way he’d felt as he had thrust deep inside her The memory of her slim-hipped body and tiny breasts was curiously persistent It was forbidden fruit at its sweetest
He saw Saladin watching her and felt a responding shi which felt decidedly territorial Thebetween Prince Khali almost as if she had been born to eat from jewelled platters, in the su room