The Sheikh's Baby Omnibus (23 page)

None of that would be possible when he had to share its purity
with a woman who bartered her flesh and her conscience for money—a woman who was
the complete opposite of the kind of woman he admired.

But he
had
wanted her.

Briefly, foolishly, shamefully, and in a moment of lost
self-control. It would not happen again.

She would never
have agreed to this
trip if she had known they were going to be alone, Sam fumed. He should have
told her and given her the opportunity to refuse. But of course he was far too
arrogant to do anything like that. So far as he was concerned his word was law.
She frowned, remembering something, turning her head to look at him as she
challenged him.

‘I thought no one other than desert-qualified Arab drivers were
allowed to drive members of the teams? Or don’t the rules apply when one is the
Ruler of one’s own kingdom.’

She could see anger deepening the colour of his eyes. He
obviously didn’t like what she was saying one little bit. Did she really want to
think of herself as the kind of woman who was attracted to his kind of man? Of
course she didn’t, she assured herself.

‘I
am
a desert-qualified driver,’
he told her coldly, looking away from her to switch on the car’s satellite
navigation and communication system, and using the earpiece he had put on to say
something in Arabic to the camp’s radio controller, effectively making it
impossible for Sam to rally and make a retort.

Good—she was glad that he was making it plain that he didn’t
want to talk to her, because she certainly did not want to talk to him! In fact
she didn’t want any kind of contact with him at all!

The four-by-four might
be the most
comfortable vehicle she had ever travelled in, with its air-conditioning and its
leather seats that could be electronically contoured to fit one’s own body for
maximum support, but she certainly wasn’t going to be able to relax enough to
enjoy that comfort, Sam admitted. And not just because of the number of steep
sand dune escarpments they were having to climb and then descend as the Prince
took what she could only assume must be a shortcut to their destination.

There was also the fact that tonight they would be sharing a
camp. Not, of course, that she had anything to fear from him. She knew that. And
she had made overnight stays with other members of the team—it was part and
parcel of their work, after all, and taken as such by everyone concerned. Anne
hadn’t even blinked when Sam had told her about this trip, for instance.

Other members of the team, Sam reminded herself. Never just one
person...just one man...
this
man...to whom, no
matter how hard she might try to deny it to herself, she was dangerously
vulnerable.

Not any more! That had been before, when she had thought both
of them were caught up in the same surge of mutual unstoppable passion that was
beyond their control, when she had believed that they shared something very
intimate and special, however out of character for her it had been. Then, of
course, the thought of a night alone with him under the stars with only the
desert and the night sky to witness their being together would have been her
idea of heaven. Desert nights were cold—cold enough for two people who desired
one another to positively need to share the heat of their bodies and their
desire.

Sam couldn’t think of anywhere more perfect than the desert,
with all its powerful secrets, under the moon, with all its magical mystery, to
consummate a love affair between two people who shared the same desire so
intimately that they almost shared the same heartbeat. The male strength of the
desert tamed by the female allure of the moon had surely been created to be
together for an eternity that symbolised the best of human love.

Why was she letting herself think like this when she knew she
could only hurt herself by doing so? It would have been hard enough for her had
he merely ignored her, indicating that he wanted to pretend that embrace in the
hotel corridor had never taken place. He had gone several steps further than
that, though, with his criticism and accusations against her professionalism. He
wasn’t just indifferent to her, he actively disliked her. And she returned that
dislike now, Sam told herself firmly.

Nothing could be more hellish, surely, than for two people to
be alone together when their hostility towards one another was as strong as that
between the Prince and herself. He had made his loathing of her very plain, and
she was honour-bound to reciprocate it.

For some reason Sam suddenly felt very close to tears, her
heart as raw with pain as her throat would have been had she actually been
crying.

It was pointless regretting now what couldn’t be changed. All
she could do was resolve to make sure in every single way she could that he had
no further opportunity to throw in her face any accusation about her coming on
to him sexually. That should be easy enough to do, surely? After all, she had
been celibate virtually all her grown-up female life, so it wasn’t as though she
carried with her a fully awakened sexual lust that needed to be satisfied.

The irony of her situation was its own form of black humour.
Here she was, a virgin still in the emotionally and sexually fulfilled sense.
Her single experience of ‘full sex’ had been the fumbled and uncomfortable
experience she had shared with a fellow undergraduate when she had traded her
virginity for the right, as she had thought then, to call herself a woman. Being
accused of attempting to seduce a man who any woman could see had at his
disposal all the experience and sensuality that any woman could want in a lover
was absurd.

Was that why she had succumbed to temptation so easily? Because
in her heart of hearts she knew that she had deprived herself of a passionately
loving journey into womanhood and secretly longed to experience its mystery? Had
she looked at him and somehow believed that in his arms she could find what she
had never had? It was less painful to think that than to think, as she had done
initially and ridiculously, that they were fated to meet and be together.

Ridiculous, yes. But how very different things could have been
if
he
had shared that shock of awareness and longing
she had felt at their first touch. She would have given herself
willingly—eagerly, in fact—into his hands, just for the joy of knowing the
reality of true sensual pleasure and satisfaction, without asking anything from
him other than his own reciprocal pleasure in their coming together. She could
easily have lived off the sweetness of that remembered pleasure, storing it up
inside her like the most precious of precious gifts, treasuring it and revering
it for all her life as a time apart from reality, without expecting or needing
anything else.

But he had not offered her that gift. Instead he had made
accusations against her and humiliated her. Sam gave a small gasp of pain as her
feelings pushed against the barriers she had tried to erect against them. This
was definitely not the time to give in to her emotions, she warned herself.

Vere glanced towards
the passenger
seat. He prided himself on the excellence of his desert driving, and so far as
he was aware he had done nothing to elicit the small sharp sound of pain from
the woman seated next to him.

He looked at the satellite navigation system map and then
checked the onboard compass. They were out of range of radio frequency now, but
he had no fear of them not reaching their destination.

Vere had lied to Sam when he had told her that he knew nothing
about the course of the river having been changed.

The source of the river had a deep-rooted significance for his
family, and his parents had brought him and Drax here often. He and Drax had
kept up the tradition, coming in the winter to camp beside the river their
ancestor was supposed to have conjured up so magically from the rocks, and Vere
was perfectly well aware of how and why the original course of the river had
been changed. What he didn’t know, though, was what interpretation Ms Sam
McLellan intended to put on that change when, as the Emir’s pawn, she started
trying to make trouble for Dhurahn.

By the time they returned to the main camp tomorrow he would be
in possession of that information, and he intended to have made sure that Sam
McLellan knew that he would be merciless in destroying her credibility if he had
to do so to protect his country and his people.

Sam gasped as
the four-by-four
suddenly seemed to surge up a slope so perpendicular that her heart was in her
mouth. With every metre they climbed she held her breath, expecting at best to
feel the wheels spin as they sank into the sand and at worst to find that they
were sliding sideways back down the incline.

Vere seemed oblivious to her concern. In fact when she looked
at him she could see that he was smiling grimly as though he was enjoying
forcing the hostile terrain to accept his mastery. And then suddenly the
pressure forcing her back in her seat was released as they crested the
incline.

‘There is our camp. We should be there in a few more
minutes.’

The calm words gave no hint of the triumphant satisfaction she
had sensed minutes earlier as he battled the steep hill.

Down below them Sam could see dozens of small pinpricks of
light, whilst the moon revealed the outlines of two of the now familiar black
Bedou tents.

Sam’s eyes widened. She had assumed that they would have to
make their own camp, but plainly she’d been wrong. People had obviously come out
here ahead to establish the camp for them. The thought of others having to toil
in the hot sun to set up this camp angered her, as well as underlining yet again
the difference in their status.

‘It all looks very welcoming,’ she told him coolly. ‘I hate to
think of the waste of energy resources it must represent, though.’

Vere frowned. Dhurahn was arguably the most ‘green’ of all the
states involved in the project. He and Drax were both committed to cutting
Dhurahn’s own greenhouse gases, and he didn’t like Sam’s coolly cynical
comment.

‘It’s never a good idea to make assumptions—especially when one
is doing so without the benefit of any real knowledge or expertise. For instance
the lights you can see are solar fuelled, and water will be collected in the
traditional way overnight from the change in temperature. Dhurahn is known as
the greenstate of the gulf, and we take our responsibility to the environment
very seriously.’

‘But you drive a gas-guzzler,’ Sam interrupted him, adding
pointedly, ‘but then of course as an Arab prince I dare say you feel it is your
right.’

‘Dhurahn does not have its own oil. This “gas-guzzler”, as you
call it, has been adapted to run in the most fuel efficient way possible. Along
with our neighbours in Zuran, we are financing research into alternative
eco-friendly fuels. I may be an Arab prince, Ms McLellan but I come from a
people who know very well how to live alongside nature and respect it. As the
Ruler of Dhurahn it is my privilege to honour the traditions of my people,
rather than dishonour them by seeking to emulate the greedy consumerism that has
caused so much human suffering.’

Sam opened her mouth to argue with him and then closed it
again. What, after all, could she say? She had not expected him to be so
fiercely determined about asserting his green credentials, and she felt slightly
resentful of the way it seemed he had scored the moral high ground in having
done so. How childish was that? Surely what was more important was his
commitment to green issues, not her savouring a small moral victory. She had
only wanted to be victorious because he kept on putting her down and making her
feel small, making her feel that she had no value. But then to him she didn’t,
and she might as well accept that.

They had almost reached the small camp now, and Sam could see
where the moon was reflected on a small pool of water beneath a rocky outcrop.
She remembered seeing it when she had come out originally to look at the river.
She had thought then that it was a beautiful spot, with vegetation around the
pool framing it in a lush green halo, the rocks so old and worn smooth by time,
that she had felt a sense of awe just looking at them. The privilege of seeing
such beauty softened her mood, allowing her earlier irritation to slip from her.
How could anyone not marvel at something like this? This was the reason she had
wanted this posting—this miracle that was the desert when it bloomed.

‘The spring for the pool must be underground,’ she heard
herself saying softly.

Vere looked at
her. A look of
shining reverence illuminated her face, and like the soft awe in her voice, it
caught him off guard. As though a barrier within him had been removed, he could
feel the swift flood of his own longing swirling powerfully through him. He
wanted her! Angry denial gripped his insides, but the truth couldn’t be ignored.
Against everything he knew to be in his own best interests, and more importantly
those of his people, he
did
want her.

He turned away from her. As a boy, he too had marvelled at the
pool, thinking it magical, whereas Drax, as always more practically minded than
him, had wanted to dive down and find out where the spring actually was.

‘You will do no such thing,’ their father had told them both
sternly. ‘It is far too dangerous. Besides, I can tell you that the spring is
situated beneath the rocks. It ebbs and flows in a way known only to itself, but
with a pull that is dangerously strong.’

Like the pull of this woman, whose presence he resented so
much, on the desire within him that he could not subjugate to his will? How
swiftly and treacherously that knowledge slid into his consciousness—the merest
dart of awareness, yet as powerful as any narcotic and surely as compulsive,
stealing away the mind’s strength whilst feeding the heart’s desire. It was, he
knew, no matter how much he wished he did not have that knowledge, a pull that
was capable of changing the course of his life for ever if he did not control
it.