She had only walked two paces when she heard a car door slam and a voice snap, ‘Penelope.’ A firm hand closed around her upper arm and swung her around. ‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’ was hissed in her ear as she gazed up in surprise at Raul’s taut features.
‘Raul, you’re back. I was—’
‘Shut up,’ he grated, and it was then that she saw his two companions alight from the long white stretch limousine—one a gentleman in a Western-style suit, and the other a man taller even than Raul and draped in the flowing white robes of an Arab sheikh.
‘Raul, you must introduce me to this charming creature,’ the Arab commanded.
‘Of course, your highness; allow me to present...’ Raul hesitated ‘...my companion, Miss Penelope Gold.’ And, looking down at Penny, his dark eyes cold as ice, he continued, ‘Penny, this is Sheikh Ali Ben Hammat.’
For the first time in their relationship Penny felt truly embarrassed, and coldly furious at being introduced as a companion. Good manners alone brought a polite smile to her wide mouth, while there was no mistaking the blatant, sensual interest in the Sheikh’s black eyes as he caught her hand and raised it to his lips.
‘Charmed,’ he murmured. ‘I’m honoured to meet such an exquisitely lovely young lady.’ And, reluctantly releasing her hand, he added, ‘Senor Da Silva is an extremely lucky man.’
‘Thank you,’ she mumbled, but it took all her self-control not to cry out—not because of the kiss but because Raul’s fingers on her arm tightened to such a degree that she thought he would draw blood.
The conversation that ensued was lost on Penny, simply because the men spoke in Arabic. But ten minutes later she found out...
The walk through the hotel and the ride up in the elevator had been conducted in a tense, angry silence, and now, as the door swung closed behind Raul and he finally let go of her arm, Penny swung around, her blue eyes flashing fury. But, before she could open her mouth and demand an explanation for his ill-mannered, overbearing conduct, Raul silenced her with a string of curses that made the colour surge in her face.
He had never spoken that way in front of her before. But then, as her blue eyes clashed with furious black, she realised that she had never seen him so angry before. Involuntarily she took a step back; she could see the barely leashed tension in every line of his tall body, and felt suddenly threatened by it.
‘What the hell did you think you were doing?’ he snapped. ‘Have you gone stark, raving mad?’
Penny shrank back from the black rage in his eyes, but before she could answer his wild accusations he added furiously, ‘Look at you—a dress that reveals every curve... My God! Do you have to flirt with every man you meet, and in Dubai?’ Suddenly he caught her shoulders, his long fingers biting into her flesh. Her head fell back and she was looking up into his bitterly twisted features. ‘A sheikh no less...’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about...I wasn’t flirting with anyone. I was going for a walk—’
‘A walk—on your own—in a Arab country—at night.’
She flinched as he shot the words at her like the staccato fire of a machine gun, only inches from her pale face.
‘You have good reason to cringe. Their own women aren’t even allowed out without being draped from head to foot in black. A white woman on her own is considered little better than a whore and fair game.’ His hard mouth twisted in a sneer. ‘You had to know that, Penny. Even you are not that dumb.’
She gasped in outrage. Dumb was she? ‘If anyone is dumb around here it’s you,’ she shot back. ‘Dragging me through the hotel and back here like a sack of potatoes. Frothing at the mouth because I smiled at a man you introduced me too.’
‘Smiled? Simpered, more like. Have you any idea what you have done? You almost cost me a multi-million-dollar deal for the desalination plant.’
‘You’re crazy. The heat has got to you.’ Penny shook her head, unable to associate this glowering stranger with the man she had lived with for the past few months.
‘Your heat certainly got the Sheikh,’ Raul sneered cynically. ‘I have just spent the worst five minutes of my life trying to explain in not very good Arabic why I could not sell him my companion. You, Penny! He wanted you as one of his concubines...’
His mouth twisted in a bitter parody of a smile. ‘Luckily he did offer to wait until I was finished with you. But I still had the devil’s own job talking him out of it, and now I’m going to have to stay here a lot longer to oversee the alterations, simply so as not to offend the man further.’
Feeling like kicking him, she tore herself out of his hold and shot across the room, tears stinging her eyes. She was furious and so hurt... Now she knew what he really thought of her.
Spinning on her heel, she looked back at him. He was standing, all outraged masculine aggression. Her blue eyes ran over his tall, fit body. She loved him, but the Sheikh was obviously an astute man. He had seen what Penny had refused to acknowledge...
‘Perhaps if you had not hesitated over introducing me as your companion—’ she drawled the word scathingly ‘—he would not have considered me concubine material in the first place. The Sheikh is a man of the world, with a good grasp of English. Companion. Concubine. Where is the difference?’ she demanded bitterly, and almost laughed at the look of outrage on Raul’s dark face.
‘Is that what you truly think? Is that how you truly imagine I see our relationship?’ Raul asked, slightly incredulous, but with an icy authority that demanded an answer.
She stared back at him. ‘I think—’ She stopped. She didn’t know what she thought any more.
When she had first met Raul it had all seemed so perfect—like fate, destiny. She had been working the late shift in the Kensington branch of a national drugs company that had employed her as a pharmacist.
It had been a black, blustery night at the end of January when Raul had dashed into the shop with a prescription which he’d said was for his housekeeper Mrs Grimble’s angina. The old lady had forgotten to have it filled and he had not liked the idea of her being without her medication. Penny had thought what a caring man he was and her admiration had risen another notch when he’d declared that it was very dangerous for a lovely young girl like herself to be alone in a pharmacy at night.
They had got talking and Penny had remarked on his slight accent. He’d told her that he was Spanish and she remembered her response with a sad smile.
‘But you’re too tall to be Spanish.’
Raul had laughed out loud and gently mocked her. ‘A commonly held prejudice of northern Europeans, but may I point out Prince Felipe of Spain is well in excess of six feet? Your Prince Charles is around five-nine, no?’
Admitting her mistake, they had laughed together. But she had sensibly refused his offer to come back at closing time, to give her a lift home. The company had provided taxis for the late staff. But the following afternoon Raul had appeared again and persuaded her to have dinner with him.
That had been the start of their relationship. For the next two months, whenever he’d been in London, he’d called her, wined and dined her, taken her to the theatre, the opera, and opened up a world of wealth and sophistication that she had never thought to aspire to, and finally he had taken her to his bed.
How naive she had been! Penny thought, closing her eyes for an instant as the memory washed over her. Raul had made love to her with all the tender passion and expertise he possessed. Her passage from virgin to woman had been a revelation, a feast of the senses, an explosion of emotions that she had never imagined possible.
It had been