He looked like a fantasy.
Like a stranger.
And that was exactly what he was, Livvy reminded herself grimly.
His eyes fixed on her, he waited, and she was sure he expected her to scramble to her feet, but she simply finished her mouthful of porridge and gave him a faint smile.
‘Morning,’ she said.
He frowned before slowly inclining his head, as if forcing himself to respond civilly to her casual greeting. ‘Good morning. Did you sleep well during the flight?’
‘Like a dormouse, as they say in France.’ Again, she smiled. ‘Did you?’
Saladin felt the pounding of a pulse at his temple, her glib response only adding to his growing annoyance and frustration. No, he had not slept well, for the night had seemed endless. He had tossed and turned and eventually had drawn up one of the blinds to stare out at the jewelled and inky sky as the plane travelled through the night towards Jazratan. It had been a long time since he’d endured such restlessness. Not since...
But the realisation that he was comparing simple sexual frustration to the worst time of his life filled him with an angry guilt. Pushing aside the turmoil of his thoughts, he acknowledged the insolent way in which Livvy Miller was leaning back on her elbows, watching him. Her amber eyes were hooded and her lips gleamed from the mouthful of jasmine tea she had just drunk. How dared she continue to drink and eat in his presence?
He had told her there would be no more intimacy, but he certainly hadn’t given her permission to abandon all protocol. Didn’t she realise that there was an etiquette that needed to be adhered to whenever he entered the room? You did not greet the king of Jazratan with such blatant carelessness, and this was something she needed to be aware of before she arrived at the palace.
‘You are supposed to stand when I enter the room,’ he said coolly.
‘Am I?’ She fixed him with a deliberate look of challenge. ‘As I recall, you seemed to prefer it when I was lying down.’
‘Livvy!’ He glanced behind him as he ground out his protest, feeling the instant rush of heat to his groin. ‘You mustn’t—’
‘Mustn’t what?’ she interrupted in a low tone. ‘Tell it like it is? Well, I’m sorry, Saladin, but I don’t intend to be a hypocrite. I accept the intimacy ban you’ve imposed because, now I’ve had time to think about it, I can understand it and I think it’s a good idea. But if you think I’m going to be sinking to the ground into a curtsy and lowering my eyes demurely whenever you appear, then you are very much mistaken.’
Her passionate insolence wasn’t something Saladin was used to, and he was shocked into a momentary silence. He wanted to do a number of things—all of which seemed to contradict themselves. He wanted to kiss her and to simultaneously push her as far away from him as possible. He wanted never to see her again and yet he wanted to feast his eyes on her in a leisurely visual feast. Suddenly he realised that here was one person—one woman—who would not be moulded to his will, and with a shock it suddenly dawned on him why that was. Because he needed her more than she needed him.
He could not expel her for insubordination—well, he could, but his stallion would only suffer as a result. And even though he was paying way over the odds for an expertise she had warned him herself might not work, he suspected that the money didn’t mean as much to her as it might to someone else.
Did it? Or had her initial reluctance to take the job simply been the work of a clever negotiator? Perhaps he should test her out.
‘Surely a little civility wouldn’t go amiss since I am rewarding you so handsomely for your work.’
‘You’re paying me, Saladin—not rewarding me,’ she contradicted. ‘You were the one who made the over-inflated offer in the first place, so please don’t start reneging on it now. And if you want me to show you respect, I’m afraid you will have to earn it.’
‘Earn it?’ he echoed incredulously.
‘Yes. Is that such an extraordinary proposition?’
He gave a short laugh. ‘It is certainly one that has never been put to me before.’
She stood up then, clenching her hands into two small fists and sucking in an unsteady breath as she looked at him. ‘I’m not a complete fool, Saladin,’ she hissed. ‘I’m fully aware that you seduced me for a purpose. And it worked.’
He looked into the amber eyes that blazed as brightly as her fiery hair. He thought how magnificent she looked when she was berating him, and suddenly he felt a lump rise in his throat. ‘Believe me when I tell you this,’ he said huskily. ‘I seduced you because I wanted you.’
Livvy heard the sudden passion that had deepened his words and something inside her melted. Stupid how she’d almost forgotten what they’d just been arguing about. Stupid how her body was just craving for him to touch her.
Did he feel that, too? Was she imagining the slight move he made towards her, when suddenly the plaintive lament of what sounded like bagpipes broke into her thoughts and shattered the tense atmosphere. Disorientated, she met Saladin’s gaze and it was as if the noise had brought him to his senses, too, because he stiffened and stepped away from her, and in his eyes flared something cold and bleak.
‘What the hell is that?’ she whispered.
Her question seemed to shake him out of his sombre reverie, though it took a moment before his eyes cleared and he answered. ‘A hangover from my great-grandfather’s holidays at your own royal family’s Scottish residence,’ he said. ‘He was very impressed by the bagpipes that were used to wake everyone in the morning. After that he decided that they would become a permanent feature of Jazratian life. Thus a returning sheikh is always greeted on his arrival by the unmistakable sound of Scotland.’
‘It’s certainly very novel.’
‘You will find much about my country that surprises you, Livvy,’ he replied. ‘In a moment I will leave the aircraft and one of the stewards will indicate when it is appropriate for you to do the same. There will be transport waiting to take you to my palace.’
She screwed up her eyes as she looked at him. ‘So I won’t even be travelling with you?’
He shook his head. ‘No. My homecoming is always greeted with a certain amount of celebration. There will be crowds lining the route, and it would not sit well with my people were I to return to the palace in the company of a foreign female, no matter how skilled she might be in her particular field.’
‘Right,’ she said.
‘You will be given your own very comfortable suite of rooms. Once you have settled in, I will send one of my advisors to take you to the stable complex, so that you can meet the vets and the grooms, and get to work on Burkaan straight away. You will, however, take meals with me.’
Without waiting for a response, he turned and walked away with a swish of his silken robes. And if Livvy felt momentarily frustrated by his sudden indifference, that wasn’t what was currently occupying her thoughts. It was the way he had looked during those few moments when she’d thought he was going to reach out and touch her.
Because when the smoky passion had cleared from his eyes, it had left behind a flicker of something haunting. The trace of an emotion that she wouldn’t necessarily have associated with a man like Saladin.
Something that looked awfully like guilt.
LIVVY STOOD BENEATH the bright Jazratian sunshine and looked around her with a sense of awe and a slight sense of feeling displaced—as if she couldn’t quite believe she was here in Saladin’s homeland, and that it was Christmas Eve.
The