‘Now we’ve got the apologies out of the way...’ he paused, as if waiting to be sure they had ‘...you can answer my question.’
‘Your question?’ Jacqui felt like a parrot, repeating the word, but her foggy brain was a mess of impressions. Imran. The barely familiar room. The shock of meeting the Sultan. The curious ripple of reaction deep inside when those dark eyes rested on her.
He folded his arms and Jacqui was momentarily distracted as the movement moulded his long robe to a body that was even larger and more powerful than she’d imagined.
‘Exactly who are you?’
* * *
Amber. Her eyes were a luminous shade of amber. A warm, enticing shade that made him think of sunrise over the desert, or the peachy reflection of late-afternoon light in the pool at his favourite oasis.
Asim had been stunned by that glowing brightness when she’d looked up at him. Those wide-spaced, slightly slanted eyes gave her an intriguing feline look.
He found himself staring.
Better staring at her eyes than her naked flesh, his conscience taunted. He was the lion of Jazeer, ruler, law-giver and leader. He did not ogle defenceless women.
Yet the image of her lithe, streamlined body had lodged in some unrepentant part of his brain and he couldn’t shift it.
She hunched her bare shoulders and he realised he was scowling.
‘I’m Jacqui Fletcher.’ She sat straighter, meeting his eyes directly, as few in his kingdom did. His pulse pounded as their gazes meshed. That was unprecedented.
Asim waited but she appeared to be pausing for his response. Was he supposed to know her? Something about the name rang a bell but he was sure they’d never met.
She understood his language, had responded in it, though she’d switched to English once she’d become aware of her nudity. Presumably shock had made her revert to her mother tongue.
‘How do you come to be here?’ His security staff had questions to answer. This section of the palace was well beyond the public audience rooms.
‘I was invited.’ Her head tipped up, though her gaze slid from his. Instantly he sensed she withheld something.
‘Indeed?’
She flushed and Asim watched, fascinated, as colour washed her cheekbones and throat. With her tousled, tawny hair around her shoulders, flushed skin and flimsy covering, she looked alluring yet strangely innocent.
Damn! He needed to focus.
‘I don’t recall issuing any invitation.’
Again that lift of the chin, baring her slender throat. Did she realise how sexually provocative she looked with all that cream and rose flesh on display and her cover slipping low over her pert breasts?
‘It was from the Lady Rania.’
‘My grandmother?’ What was the old schemer up to now, inviting strange women into the palace? Not just into the palace but deep into the long abandoned heart of it that hadn’t been modernised in a century.
Asim sensed intrigue. He had an instinct for it, given the poisonous environment in which he’d grown up.
‘Strange she didn’t mention this invitation to me.’
A shrug drew his attention back to those bare shoulders, milk-white above the embroidered silk. A dart of heat jabbed low but Asim ignored it. He had more important issues to deal with than sexual awareness.
‘Really? I wouldn’t know.’
He told himself the husky, nervous voice proved she hid something. But his wayward body was too busy responding to the eroticism of that rough velvet tone.
Asim stood straighter, infuriated by his inability to focus. His day had turned to disaster because of one unwanted female. His night was rapidly going the same way. He fast lost patience.
‘Why are you here, Ms Jacqui Fletcher?’ A thread of memory tugged in his brain. He knew that name. ‘You should be in a guest apartment near my grandmother.’
Something was going on behind his back and he didn’t like it. He should have known when the old lady had been so uncharacteristically quiet this last week. His beloved grandmother was many things—opinionated, capable and clever—but never meek. He’d begun to worry she was unwell, that age and grief had finally caught up with her. He should have known better.
‘I’m here to research a book. I’m a writer.’
Asim frowned. ‘A writer?’
In a blast of realisation, it came to him. He knew where he’d heard of her. He froze, every nerve and sinew stiffening. Incredulity widened his eyes.
‘Not Jacqui, but Jacqueline Fletcher. Am I right?’ He watched her gulp and knew he wasn’t mistaken. ‘And not a writer, a journalist. Isn’t that so?’
Anger spurted in his veins. What was the old woman thinking, bringing a journalist into their midst? Bad enough at any time but now? Sheer lunacy! They had too much to lose.
And this wasn’t just any journalist. Anger turned to white-hot fury. She’d been there the day Imran died.
Asim drew in a searing breath, forcing back grief. His cousin had been on assignment with this woman. They’d headed out together for an interview. But only one had returned.
* * *
Jacqui clutched the fabric tighter at her chest. The silk kept slipping through her damp palms.
She’d planned to be fully dressed if she met the Sultan. She bit her lip, suppressing an insane urge to giggle. There was nothing remotely funny about this.
Sultan Asim had the power to scupper her project before it got off the ground. How could she convince him of her case, dressed in a bedspread and dazed from her nightmare? He’d never take her seriously.
Instinctively she rose, locking wobbly knees as she pushed the hair from her eyes.
‘My by-line is always Jacqui Fletcher.’
‘But you were identified as Jacqueline in the official reports.’ Accusation rang in his tone and she flinched.
Jacqui knew the reports that he meant. Police reports, diplomatic reports, hospital and media updates. It was amazing the paperwork caused when two foreign news reporters got caught up in a supposed terrorist blast, even if it was in a distant African nation. She swallowed. It felt like broken glass lined her throat, scraping her raw.
‘That’s my given name but I never use it.’
‘No.’ His face turned to granite. ‘I understand you prefer to be called Jack.’
Imran. Her fragile composure cracked. Imran must have mentioned that to his cousin.
‘It’s a nickname my colleagues use. Used.’ She drew a shaky breath that didn’t fill her lungs.
‘You were my cousin’s partner.’ It was a statement, not a question, yet Jacqui had the impression he probed. Did he think them lovers? His gaze scoured so intently she felt it abrade her skin.
Remorse filled her. Here she was in Imran’s childhood home, meeting his family, while he...
‘We were colleagues, and friends.’ He’d been the nearest she’d had to a best friend. Her throat closed on a searing ball of emotion.
No wonder she’d thought this man familiar. He and Imran shared that superior nose and striking good looks. But, where Imran’s eyes had danced with mischief, Jacqui couldn’t imagine the Sultan laughing. His brand of handsome was harder than his cousin’s. Those features looked like they’d been sculpted into proud, spare elegance by the desert