‘So?’ they chorused, nearly deafening her as they gathered around. ‘You’ve been seen.’
‘Really?’ She acted daft.
‘With the best-looking man on King’s Dock,’ one of them confided with a jerk of her head to her friends.
‘Hmm.’ Staring heavenwards, Lucy pretended to think about this. If she’d had more experience of men, maybe she could have joked along with her girlfriends, but somehow Tadj was special—unique in her experience—and she didn’t want to exchange banter concerning him while the tender green shoot of a first meeting was still so fragile. ‘I did meet someone who works in security,’ she admitted frankly. ‘He bought me coffee, and that’s all there is to it.’
‘So you won’t be seeing him again?’ her friends pressed, exchanging knowing glances with each other.
‘I didn’t say that. What?’ she demanded when her girlfriends started to laugh.
‘It’s not what you’re telling us, but what you’re not telling us,’ one of them insisted. ‘Unless, of course, you really don’t know?’
‘Don’t know what?’ She’d been warm and safe here, and surrounded by friends since the day she’d arrived. Had she thrown all that away for the sake of a wicked smile and mocking eyes?
‘Didn’t the guy tell you his name?’ one of her closest friends prompted.
‘His name is Tadj. He doesn’t have to hide anything,’ Lucy insisted.
But did he? she wondered. The spear of anxiety had returned, and with it thoughts of her vicious gangland thug of a stepfather, who was currently serving a lengthy term in prison for his crimes. He had plenty to hide, and could still charm the pants off anyone who didn’t know his reputation, and who met him for the first time.
‘Tadj,’ another friend prompted, breaking into Lucy’s troubled thoughts. ‘Did this Tadj have a surname?’
It was a relief when Tadj’s stunningly attractive face swam into Lucy’s mind, completely eclipsing the evil mask of her stepfather. ‘I don’t think so,’ she murmured as she racked her brains. ‘First names are enough at a first encounter over coffee.’
‘Did he tell you about his job?’ another friend pressed.
‘Yes—security. I already told you.’
Her stepfather had eyes like a shark, black, dead and cold, she remembered, without a flicker of expression in them. There was no evil in Tadj’s eyes. He could look a bit fierce at times—all right, most of the time—but there was also good humour and warmth. And, of course, the sexual heat that flared off him. Better not to think about that now.
More friends had joined them, and her tiny room was overcrowded. Miss Francine was known locally as the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, because of her generosity towards the women she hired. The bedsits she let out for a peppercorn rent might be cramped and old-fashioned, but, for women seeking sanctuary, not even the finest five-star hotel could compare.
‘So, I’ve been seen with a man,’ Lucy accepted with a good-humoured shrug, making a joke of it as she stared around.
‘With the Emir of Qalala, no less,’ her best friend informed the rest.
Lucy froze like a child playing statues. ‘What did you say?’
She had heard perfectly well, but...the Emir of Qalala? Tadj was the Emir of Qalala?
She tried and failed to process the information. And what was she supposed to say now? I’m a dope—I didn’t recognise him? I didn’t read the papers today? I don’t watch local TV? All true, unfortunately.
‘Oh, come on—potential Emira,’ her friends coaxed. ‘Tell us what the Emir is really like...’
‘I’m afraid I don’t know,’ Lucy admitted. ‘He seems nice enough.’
‘And as hot as hell,’ one of her friends put in to an agreeing chorus of raunchy suggestions.
‘Might have been,’ Lucy conceded.
‘His photograph is all over the news,’ another friend insisted, in a tone that said she should have known. ‘And nice doesn’t begin to describe him.’
‘Sex on two hard-muscled legs,’ someone else shouted out.
‘With a body made for sin,’ another drooled as she thrust a magazine cover in front of Lucy’s nose.
Lucy inhaled sharply at the sight of Tadj, tanned and buff, wearing a pair of figure-hugging swim shorts.
‘Either he’s a prize-winning swimmer, or he likes to show that thing off.’
‘Stop,’ Lucy implored her friends. ‘I had a coffee with him, nothing more.’
‘He’d definitely need security if I shared a hot drink with him,’ a friend exclaimed as she read the article over Lucy’s shoulder. ‘And he’s one of the infamous Sapphire Sheikhs—so-called because they are as rich as Croesus, and as insatiable as a pack of ravening wolves.’
Lucy’s pulse raced off the scale. So Tadj was not only ridiculously wealthy, but all-powerful and royal too. It was too late to refuse his invitation without appearing to be a coward. She didn’t have a number to call him, and she could hardly breach security to ask one of his men to deliver a message. Out of her depth and out of her mind didn’t even begin to cover this mess! Adventure was one thing, but not on this scale.
‘The Emir of Qalala,’ she murmured, biting her lip, turning away as she tried to reconcile the little she knew about a hot guy in a café who had turned out to be one of the world-renowned Sapphire Sheikhs. ‘I had no idea,’ she murmured.
And if she had, would she have accepted Tadj’s invitation?
He was an extraordinary man, and, yes, she probably would have taken the chance. Did his title make a difference? He’d asked if money could change her opinion. She’d never considered a royal title, but she understood that great privilege came with restrictions and complications. Her usual good humour kicked in at this point. No half measures. If she was going to dip her toe in the dating pool, why not go for full-body immersion? She wouldn’t simply be out of her depth at the Sheikh’s party, she’d be like Orphan Annie at the feast, but that chance to peep inside a very different world proved irresistible. Spinning around, she faced her friends. ‘Could you help me get ready for tonight?’
When they chorused, ‘Yes!’ she knew there was no turning back.
Security expert indeed, Lucy thought as her friends jostled around. Just wait until she saw Tadj again! ‘I own one dress, and no high-heeled shoes,’ she explained. ‘My dress is sleeveless and it will be freezing out tonight. If I could also borrow an evening bag, big enough for a lip gloss and my bus fare home?’
Drowned out by laughter and offers of help, she made a silent promise that she would be safely tucked up in her own bed by midnight.
* * *
He’d never been uncertain of a woman. He should have brought Lucy back with him to make sure he’d see her again, Tadj concluded as he strode on board his friend’s superyacht. Lucy was unique and unpredictable. There were no guarantees she’d show up tonight. For once, that really mattered to him.
‘All women are unique, my friend,’ his friend Sheikh Khalid insisted when they met on his arrival in the grand salon. ‘You seem preoccupied,’ the Sheikh added when Tadj grimaced.