WHEN THE FOOD was cleared away and Millie had returned—acting cool, but still with the glow of pleasing discoveries reflected in her eyes—he persuaded her to walk out on the deck, where a sophisticated heating system ensured she wouldn’t be cold this far north, and subdued lighting permitted views of the night sky, as well as a wide swathe of restless sea.
‘I’d be happy in the staff quarters,’ she assured him as she leaned over the rail...still looking, still searching for the truth, he thought. ‘Save the guest suite for someone who appreciates golden sheets,’ she said, pulling back as a steward drew out a chair.
‘Relax. Enjoy yourself. Sit down,’ he encouraged. ‘There’s nowhere else to go.’
She angled her chin to stare up at him. ‘It isn’t easy to relax,’ she admitted.
‘I know,’ he said quietly.
* * *
She couldn’t stop staring at his mouth. She had to stop. But how, when she only had to press her lips together to find they were still swollen from his kisses?
‘Don’t you want to experience something more exciting than a bunk bed dressed with white cotton for the duration of this trip?’ he asked, distracting her.
‘If that’s your opening gambit, I’m disappointed.’ Liar, Millie thought as her pulse careered out of control.
‘And I took you for an ambitious woman, Millie Dillinger.’
‘I am,’ she confirmed, ‘but I’ll get ahead on my own merit, thank you.’
The Sheikh smiled faintly. ‘So no golden sheets?’
He shrugged, and pressed his lips down in a way she found hard to resist.
‘I realise I must pay you something for passage on your ship.’
Her prim tone made him laugh. ‘I’m sure we’ll come to some sort of accommodation.’
‘I’m talking about a purely commercial transaction,’ she assured him.
‘And so am I. What else could I possibly mean?’
Millie firmed her jaw and said nothing.
‘And you should know I don’t offer credit.’
‘This is no joking matter, Your Majesty.’
‘I think we’ve reached a stage where you can safely call me Khalid.’
‘Thank you, Your Majesty,’ Millie said pointedly. There was nothing safe about any of this. ‘If it pleases you—’
‘It does please me. Call me Khalid,’ he repeated with a slight edge to his voice.
Here was someone who wasn’t used to being disobeyed, Millie thought. ‘Thank you, Sheikh Khalid. I realise the great honour you’re doing me, so I will use the polite prefix Sheikh in future.’
This made him groan. ‘I’m a man like any other.’
‘That’s just the point,’ she insisted. ‘You’re not. I’m here because I’m waiting for you to tell me the truth about my mother, and—’
‘I’m here because?’ he prompted.
‘It’s a long, cold swim home?’ she suggested.
He laughed. It was a wonderful sound. However aloof she tried to be, it seemed Khalid could always cut through her reserve. But what was he thinking now? she wondered as she stared into his brooding face. She could never tell—
She yelped as he cleared the table with a comprehensive sweep of his arm. Everything went flying as he dragged her close and pressed her down onto the cool, hard surface.
‘Now what are you going to do?’ he asked.
She’d have been angry if it hadn’t been for the teasing light in his eyes, because that excited her more than he frightened her. ‘Let me go,’ she said quietly.
‘What if I say no? What are you going to do then?’
‘Raise a knee and do you an injury.’
He laughed again. ‘And you say that so nicely.’
She held her breath as his wicked mouth tugged into a smile. ‘You really are a very bad man,’ she observed on a dry throat.
‘I really am,’ he confirmed, unconcerned.
What a time for her gaze to drop to his mouth!
‘Do you want me to kiss you?’ he asked.
She drew in a long, shuddering breath. ‘It would be nice,’ she confessed.
‘Nice?’
Now he was frowning.
‘Very nice?’ she suggested.
* * *
The tip of Millie’s tongue had just crept out to moisten her kiss-bruised lips in a way he found unbearably seductive. Was it deliberate? He concluded, yes. She had the light of mischief in her eyes.
‘And when you’ve kissed me, I still want the truth, and not the edited version you gave me earlier on.’
She said this so coolly he could only admire her nerve. She had a knack of combining business with pleasure in a way he was beginning to doubt he could do when Millie was involved. Cursing viciously in Khalifan, he let her go and straightened up. ‘Are you determined to drive me to distraction?’
‘That depends on how long it takes,’ she said, and, brushing the creases out of her clothes as coolly as you liked, she climbed down from the table.
‘You’re playing with fire,’ he said as she stared into his face.
‘I hope so,’ she agreed.
Raking a hand through his hair, he began to laugh. ‘You win the prize for the coolest and most infuriating woman I’ve ever met.’
‘Good,’ she said. ‘I’d hate to be an also-ran.’
‘As the mistress of the ruling Sheikh of Khalifa, you’d have no competition—’
‘Your mistress?’ Millie repeated as if she had something unpleasant on her tongue. ‘Are you telling me, if that were the case, I’d have no competition for your attention?’
‘None,’ he confirmed.
‘Forget it, Your Majesty,’ she flared with an incredulous shake of her head. ‘Just tell me what I need to know and we’re done here.’
‘We’re done when I say we’re done,’ he rapped, all out of patience.
‘Perhaps you don’t think I deserve the truth?’ she said, bridling as she confronted him. ‘Or maybe you think I can’t handle the truth. Either way, you’re wrong.’
He’d never had such an outright revolt to handle, and was enjoying the experience. When she started to pick up the mess he’d made when he’d cleared the table, he couldn’t just stand and watch.
* * *
Khalid, Millie thought. As if she could call the titan currently helping her to clear up the floor Khalid. It was one thing having him inhabit her dreams as a sheikh on horseback, or a hero who took the starring role in every one of her erotic dreams, but calling the real live man Khalid, rather than Your Majesty, or Sheikh Khalid, was way too intimate to even contemplate. If she did that, who knew where it might lead? Not to becoming his mistress, that was for sure, she thought as their arms brushed. Having the Sheikh as her lover might hold huge appeal for her erotic self, because in her dreams she had nothing better to do than enjoy the pleasures of the seraglio, the hidden secrets of the desert, and the sensual pleasures concealed within a Bedouin tent. But in the real world? No chance.
‘You wanted to talk,’ he reminded her as, job completed, they both stood up again. ‘So, let’s talk.’
She’d wanted nothing more, but suddenly her mind blanked. ‘You don’t have to protect my feelings,’ she said as the mist cleared. It had occurred to her that maybe he really was trying to protect her. ‘I went through all the stages of grief eight years ago.’
‘When what happened must have seemed black and white to you,’ he said, staring at her keenly.
‘Death doesn’t come in shades of grey.’
‘Indeed not,’ Khalid agreed in the same quiet tone.
‘My mother was a victim.’ She could never say that enough times. It was what she had always believed, totally and utterly. ‘The gutter press may have labelled her a pathetic drunk, but she was always a star to me, and she was my mother, and I’ll defend her to my last breath. If you know anything about that night that could absolve her from any blame or ridicule, I want you to tell me. With the benefit of hindsight, it’s easy to see that my mother was deluded, and believed that singing on your brother’s yacht might revive her career. It was all she’d got—’
‘She had you.’
Yes, yes, and the responsibility for leaving the one person who had needed her most alone on this yacht would never leave her. ‘Yes, and I left her,’ she exclaimed, lashed by guilt. ‘Then your brother took advantage of my mother’s vulnerability. How can you possibly sanitise that?’
‘You still hate me,’ he murmured.
‘Tell me something to change my mind,’ she begged, wishing deep down that there could be proof that Khalid had never been implicated directly. There was no excuse for his brother. The late Sheikh Saif was guilty of murder in Millie’s eyes, and all she could do now was to obtain justice for her mother.
‘Your mother brought you into danger that night, and that’s a fact,’ he said as she shook her head slowly and decisively, over and over again. ‘My brother’s parties were notorious. She must have known.’
‘That she was putting me in danger? No. She would never do that.’
‘It depends how desperate she was, don’t you think?’
‘You didn’t know her, I did,’ she insisted stubbornly.
‘She was your mother, and you loved her no matter what. I get that. And I won’t go on, if you can’t take it.’
‘Don’t patronise me,’ she warned. ‘Tell me what you know. You can’t stop now.’
He stared at her for a long time before saying anything, as if he had to be sure she wouldn’t break down. She nodded once, briskly, inviting him to explain.
Another long pause, and then he said, ‘Did you know your mother was a drug addict?’
She battled to suck air into lungs that had inexplicably closed. ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ she blurted at last. ‘Don’t you think I’d have known, if that were the case?’
But she did know. At least, she had suspected. And had needed to hear it from someone else, someone who was deeply involved. Miss Francine had always protected Millie from the truth, and she loved her for it. Khalid had done her another type of kindness by not dressing up the truth, and perhaps his was the greater gift, because he’d given her closure at last.
‘How did you know?’ she asked, feeling the tension seep away as the last piece of the jigsaw settled into place. Her fury at Khalid had been instantly replaced by deep sorrow for her mother.
Taking hold of her hands, he brought them down from her face. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘I think everyone must have known about your mother’s habit apart from you.’
‘I think I knew,’ she whispered. ‘I’d read rumours in the press, but I didn’t want to believe them. She was always careful around me, so I never saw any proof. Thank you for telling me. I needed to hear it. Then...’ She braced herself to voice the unspeakable. ‘If my mother was the freak show, was I the support act? Did your brother ever speak to you of that?’
* * *
His intention was not to destroy Millie, but to try and lay her ghosts to rest. His late brother would accept no restraint on his perversions. Whatever Millie asked of him now, he had to edit the truth, or cause her endless pain. ‘I didn’t know there was a party on board the Sapphire that night, until I arrived,’ he explained. ‘And as for your mother taking drugs? She would hardly be the first great artist to fall foul of ruthless and unscrupulous drug dealers.’
‘But that doesn’t explain her death,’ Millie said, frowning.
He wasn’t about to explain that he’d chased her mother’s drug dealer into the arms of the police, and had been dockside when Roxy’s body was fished out of the harbour. He’d checked to see if there was a pulse, and had seen the sapphires spilling over the top of her dress. He’d retrieved them before he was asked to stand back, so at least she could never be branded a thief.
‘Did she fall or was she pushed?’
Millie’s voice was hoarse, and her face was pale and strained. She deserved an honest answer, and at least he could give her this. ‘The dealer pushed her into the water.’
Over her gasp, he told her the rest of it—or his interpretation of what must have happened on that terrible night. He guessed Roxy had tried to pay the man for her fix in sapphires, which the dealer would assume were fake. Khalid guessed that was when he lost his temper. He’d seen little more than the end of the fight. The Sapphire was a huge vessel, so by the time he reached the shore, calling the authorities as he ran, he was too late to save Millie’s mother.
‘You saw this happen,’ she stated tensely, ‘so you were watching her all along.’
‘I witnessed something,’ he said honestly. ‘I was too far away to see clearly, and when I arrived at the scene it was dark and the water was black.’
‘But you called the authorities, so you must have known something was badly wrong.’
‘I heard a scream. That was what attracted my attention. It could have been kids acting up. It was only a few seconds later when I realised it wasn’t a game, and by then it was too late.’
‘I asked you to go back to save her,’ Millie said quietly. All her frustration and grief collided. ‘You bastard!’ she exclaimed, launching herself at him. ‘You let her down. And I know there’s something you’re not telling me. I know it—I know it!’
Catching hold of her, he held her still. ‘It’s over, Millie. It’s over now.’
As she fought him and railed against him, he wished he could do more, say more, but with a bride looming in his very near future he would not make any false promises to Millie. He could only wait until her anger burned out, and when it did, and she slumped against him, completely spent, he let her sob.
He waited until she was quiet again, and then tipped up her chin. ‘Where are you taking me?’ she asked as he took hold of her hand.
‘To bed—’
‘Are you mad?’ she exclaimed. ‘Let go of me!’
Ignoring her request, Khalid steered her on through the ship. The elevator was closer than the companionway and he stopped in front of it. Within seconds he’d backed her into the small, plush space. It did no good raging. He stood in her way, blocking her only escape route as the doors slid slowly to.
‘My intention is not to make you forget the past,’ he said quietly as she stood stiff as a board, pressed up hard against the corner, ‘but to help you face the facts and deal with them.’
* * *
‘How very kind,’ she said tensely. Her emotions were shot. She should have realised what a trauma it would be coming back. If she’d stayed on board eight years ago and shadowed her mother, this wouldn’t be happening, and her mother would still be alive.
‘No,’ Khalid instructed in a low tone as she covered her face with her hands. ‘No,’ he repeated. ‘This is not your fault.’
This was all her fault. Snapping around so she didn’t have to look at him, she slammed her forearm against the padded wall and buried her face in her arm. But reality had a way of intruding. What chance would she have stood against the toad-like Sheikh Saif and his guards?
Maybe none, but she should have tried.
‘No,’ Khalid said again, this time in a sharper tone when she reached for the controls to try and open the doors of the elevator before it moved off. ‘It’s too late for that.’
Too late for everything, she thought as he kept her boxed in the corner as the car began to rise. When she tried to push him away, he caught hold of her wrists and pinned them above her head. Frustration grabbed her by the throat. The need to learn secrets he refused to tell her exploded in fury and she snarled like a wild animal caught in a trap. He had an answer for that too. Dipping his head, Khalid enforced silence with a kiss. And not just any kiss, but one that melted her from the inside out. She only had to taste him, feel him, scent him, touch him, and she was lost. He was everything missing from her life. His touch seared her senses. His kisses rocked her world. Being lost in his arms always blotted out the past. He offered oblivion, and that was exactly what she craved right now. If she thought any more about the past, she’d go mad.
The elevator slowed to a halt, but he sent it down again. He pressed another light on the panel and it stopped between floors. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked tensely.
‘Taming you,’ he said, shocking her to her core. ‘Helping you to forget...’
What did that mean? Her wrists were still captive in his one massive fist, and with his free hand he began to map her breasts. Stunned, excited, angry, eager; she was all of those things. Her knees actually shook when he kissed her this time. Her body felt as if it had been plugged into a power source. She gasped when he grazed her nipples with his thumbnail. And vocalised her need for more when he weighed her breasts appreciatively before stroking them with the most seductive touch. She was incapable of speech, not that it mattered. Khalid was so intuitive he didn’t need any instruction, and telling him to stop was the last thing she wanted to do. Pulses of pleasure streamed straight to her core, leaving her with only one possible destination.
‘Need is blazing in your eyes,’ he observed, sounding pleased. ‘But if you’d like me to stop—’
Her excited laugh gave him the only answer he needed. She was a willing prisoner in Khalid’s erotic net, and her reward was the brush of his sharp black stubble against her neck, and then the lightest brush of his lips as he kissed her. When he took possession of her mouth with his tongue, she found it too arousing, too tempting, and as he deepened the kiss she rubbed against him. She needed that big, hard body pressing into hers. Desperate for more contact, she writhed shamelessly against him. He tasted of everything good, and she was putty in his hands. Animal sounds of pleasure escaped her throat as his hand slid slowly up her leg.
Done with begging, she commanded, ‘I need you.’
‘Open your legs. Wider,’ he instructed.
* * *
He had never felt such an urge to pleasure a woman. Thrusting his thigh between hers, he spread her wide. Her excited cries greeted his first touch. The change in her was instantaneous. From being her avowed enemy, he was her lifeblood and she would do anything he asked. Sinking onto his palm, she ground her body against the heel of his hand.
‘Not so fast,’ he cautioned.
Releasing her wrists, he held her securely in place while he traced the hot swell of her sex. Removing her thong, he found the tip that craved his attention and circled it. Teasing Millie was torture for him, but it was also its own reward, and with so many days at sea ahead of them, he could afford to take his time.
‘Please!’ Millie begged in a voice that was trembling with need. Clinging to him, she worked her hips in a desperate hunt for more contact.
‘Do you expect me to obey you?’ he asked with amusement.
‘You can’t leave me like this.’
‘Can’t I?’
‘Please don’t.’
He smiled against her mouth as she threatened to make him pay for his cruel neglect.
‘I’m counting on it,’ he said as he began the slow and deliberate circling as she frantically worked her hips.
‘Don’t tease me,’ she begged in a strangled tone as she tried every which way to bring her body into contact with his hand.
Adjusting the position of his fingertip by millimetres was all it took for him to change the outcome. Increasing both pressure and speed by the smallest degree quickly brought Millie the release she so desperately needed. Her screams of relief were deafening and prolonged. She had waited a long time, he guessed, and would need a lot more before she was sated.
Holding her safe in his arms until she quietened, he kissed her and then murmured, ‘Bed?’
‘Just more of that,’ she said, resting against him as she dragged in air. ‘Wherever—’
Sending the car up to his deck, he lifted her into his arms and carried her to his suite.