She didn’t suppose he was alluding to her backlog of satisfied clients. It was not a compliment at all, but a thinly veiled insult, implying…implying…Oh, she knew damn well what he was implying! Feeling as though her lungs had been scorched, she sucked in a breath to steady herself. ‘But presumably you’re not expecting me to work with you,’ she said quietly.
He gave a heady, husky laugh of anticipation. ‘For an employee you sure as hell make a lot of presumptions. It could get you into a lot of trouble if you’re not careful.’
She had forgotten what a curious mixture he was, of the ancient and the modern, the forward-thinking and the ludicrously old-fashioned. He was one of the most intelligent men she had ever met—so why the hell was he deliberately misunderstanding her reservations? ‘Oh, Hashim—don’t be so…dense!’
‘Dense?’ He tilted his chin imperiously and his eyes narrowed into glittering ebony shards. ‘You dare to address me—a sheikh—in such a way?’
In the past he had never pulled rank—but then he hadn’t needed to. She hadn’t cared about his position—hadn’t even known about it to start with. And by the time she did it hadn’t mattered. Or at least she’d thought it hadn’t—but that was yet another indication of just how out of her depth she had been. Because of course it had.
It had mattered a lot.
CHAPTER TWO
SHE should never have met him, of course, for theirs were two such different paths in life—destined never to cross. But country girls sometimes went to live in big cities and became receptionists in super-smart hotels—the kind of places where you bumped into real- live sheikhs when you were on your way to work. Just like a fairy tale. And sometimes the fairy tale came true—but what it was easy to forget was that there was always a dark side to the story.
Sienna had gone to London for the usual reasons— and then some more. In the midst of crisis she had needed money and a solution. And after that…Well, after that she had needed to forget. And, as well as offering her anonymity, the big city had also offered her the opportunity to work her way up the ladder in the hotel industry—and to live rent-free in one of the most expensive parts of London. A perk which had made up for the long and unsociable hours.
The first time she had seen Hashim, Sienna had been on her way to the hotel for a late shift. It had been a beautiful day, and she’d been enjoying the sunshine.
She’d been wearing nothing out of the ordinary— a floaty kind of summer dress—but her hair had been down and she’d walked with the unconscious vigour of youth. In her daydream she’d barely noticed the slight commotion of people milling around the dark- windowed limousine of the world-renowned Granchester Hotel.
And then she had seen the figure emerging from the car. He’d been tall, with a natural autocratic poise, dressed in a coolly pale suit which had made the dark olive of his skin look so silken. It had gleamed soft gold and contrasted with the hard ebony glitter of his eyes.
For a split-second as they’d looked at one another it had been like something out of one of the old- fashioned films she’d always been a sucker for. As if she had been waiting all her life to see just that man looking at her in just that intent and interested way. His eyes had narrowed as a bodyguard had shot an arm out in front of her, bringing her to a halt.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she had protested, and the man had smiled a hard kind of smile, and then said something in a husky tongue which was foreign to her.
‘Let her pass,’ he clipped out, as if he was translating the command for her benefit, and the bodyguard grunted and moved aside. Sienna inclined her head.
‘Thank you.’ She walked off down the road, somehow aware that the black eyes watched her, burning into her back, branding her with their strange exotic power.
And then, a few weeks later, he came into the hotel and Sienna just froze.
He looked…she swallowed…he looked so vibrant …so different—as if someone had plucked a bright and very exotic bloom and placed it in a vase of white flowers. She could see people in the foyer giving him sly little glances, and others—women— giving not so shy ones. And his two bodyguards— ever-present in the background, solid as a brick wall and silently sending out messages to keep away.
Experience had made Sienna wary of men, and so her unexpected reaction to this one took her by surprise. When desire had never really touched you it was a bit earth-shattering when it did. ‘Um, um…’ She could feel her cheeks growing pink. How unprofessional! ‘I mean, good morning, sir.’
Hashim’s eyes narrowed with interest. It was the girl with the green eyes and the body! And what a body!
Carelessly, he flicked his hand to indicate that the bodyguards should remain where they were, and he moved forward to the desk himself, fully aware of the impact he was making as he stared down into her face. ‘Hello again,’ he said softly.
His accent was silky, rich and deep, and the tiny blush which had begun deepened to heat her cheeks. Her heart thumping in her chest as if it had just discovered how to beat, Sienna jabbed her finger at the booking diary. ‘Can I…can I help you, sir?’
The side of him which had been indulged from the cradle wanted to lower his head and whisper that, yes, she could spend the afternoon in bed with him—but her innocent blush meant that he had unconsciously moved her into a category of women with whom it was not acceptable to flirt outrageously.
‘I am meeting one of your guests here for lunch,’ he said instead.
‘And the guest’s name, sir?’ she questioned, looking down at her booking list and wishing she could stop blushing.
He gave it, and saw her eyes widen—for the politician he was meeting was well known, and Hashim knew very well the potency of power and connections. He had lived with them all his life.
‘He’s waiting at the table, sir. I’ll take you in to join him.’
She stood up to show him the way, and he enjoyed following her into the restaurant, so that he could watch her unobserved.
She was not tall, but he liked that—for he believed that a woman should look up to a man—and although her hips were narrow, her bottom was as curved as her breasts, and designed to be cupped by the warmth of a man’s hand.
But it was her green eyes, shaped like almonds, and the pinkness of her cheeks and the rose pout of her lips which stayed in his mind. During lunch he gestured for one of his guards to approach, lowering his head to give an instruction in his native tongue, and the guard was dispatched to the reception desk to acquire her phone number.
But Sienna refused to give it. What a cheek—sending his henchman! And in a way it just confirmed her rather jaundiced view of men. She wished she could go on her break right then, but it wasn’t for ages, and when he came out of the restaurant she was still sitting there.
She looked straight through him, as if he wasn’t there—something which had never happened to him before. But he was too intrigued to be outraged, and some alien emotion directed his steps towards her.
‘You wouldn’t give me your phone number,’ he mused.
‘You didn’t ask me.’
‘And was that such an unforgivable sin?’ he teased.
She turned her head away, unsure how to cope with him, this powerfully built and exotic man who was making her feel things she wasn’t used to feeling.
‘What is your name?’ he asked, without warning, and she turned back to find herself imprisoned in the blazing ebony spotlight of his eyes.
‘Sienna,’ she whispered, as if he had sucked the word clean out of her, without her permission.
‘Sienna,’ he repeated softly, and nodded.