Reclaimed by the Powerful Sheikh Read online

  ‘Not really my thing either,’ she said, turning the half-drunk glass of champagne around in her hands. She made a face at the thought of the alcohol, probably warm now, and put it on the table next to Francesca’s discarded, empty, glass.

  ‘Wanna get out of here?’

  ‘The bus isn’t coming for at least another three and a half hours, Scott.’

  ‘Fresh air. There’s a balcony that wraps around the back of the building.’

  Resisting the pull of one last glance at the man, reluctant to feel that punishing spark once more, she took the arm that Scott had offered and let him lead her from the room.

  * * *

  The American girl’s laugh was grating on what little nerves Danyl had left. The whole evening had been a bust. He was beginning to think that perhaps he should have returned to Ter’harn, to his parents... Until he’d caught sight of the little brunette over in the corner. He’d felt her gaze on him across the room. It was as if a flame had licked across his cheek. In the three and a half years he’d been in New York for his degree and masters in business and international relations, he’d not felt anything like it. But he knew what it meant. And it usually came with a giant neon sign saying STAY AWAY in capital letters.

  But, despite the warning, he hadn’t been able to break the connection. She was petite, tiny even, in comparison to his near six feet and four inches, but every single inch of her spoke of strength. Her skin, sun-kissed and lightly tanned, even in the depths of this New York winter had warmed him all over. And his fingers itched to run and play in the sweeping curls of her long hair the colour of burnt sugar. Sweet, the taste on his tongue imaginary and expectant, but as sure as if he’d just eaten a single caramel.

  Within one distracted moment, she’d disappeared and he wondered if it was for the best. Danyl looked at his watch. Perhaps he should head back to the embassy. Surely there would be more life in their end-of-year party than this. A morgue would beat this. At first, the thought of having all of America’s best racing syndicates in one room sounded fantastic. A chance to research what had only been a briefly mentioned idea by Antonio a couple of months ago but, taken up by Danyl and Dimitri, was fast becoming a deeply tempting business prospect—to create a world-renowned horse-racing syndicate of their own. They’d toyed with the name for a while, but they kept coming back around to the Winners’ Circle. Only they couldn’t decide where to put the apostrophe.

  They should have been here with him. The two students he’d met nearly four years ago at the beginning of their studies had soon become the brothers he’d never had. Having been thrust into the American lifestyle of university, they had been drawn together by the determination to succeed not only in their studies, but also in their pleasures. And the bond of friendship born from similar interests had become something more...vital. Never before had Danyl had such close friendships, the palace being a lonely place for an only child. An only royal child.

  This evening was supposed to have been it! Been amazing. It was the last New Year’s Eve he would spend in New York before he went back to Ter’harn and the life of duty that awaited him. And he’d wanted to make it count, wanted it to be the last, greatest chance to let loose, to be...free. But Antonio had been forced to visit his parents and sister, and Dimitri was rescuing his half-brother from some scandal back in Greece.

  So here he was, alone at the Langsford, where it seemed he couldn’t escape his royal reputation and the conversation had turned to him instead of horses and racing. For a moment, he thought he might have found something else in the eyes of a dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty, but she had disappeared and instead some brash American was making a pass at him. In front of everyone.

  She laughed again and that was it.

  Forgoing the usual diplomatic politeness that felt as if it had been forced, rather than bred, into him, he walked out of the human circle, leaving one of the men mid-sentence. They’d forgive him. He was royalty after all.

  Heading for the exit, he spied the evening’s patrons and knew that he would be waylaid if they saw him. He veered off to a glass doorway leading to the balcony, where, if he was lucky, there might just be a door back in at the other end of it. He ducked out onto the large wrap-around balcony and the sting of the frigid wintry air bit at him, but even that was nothing compared to the shock he’d felt when he’d locked eyes with that girl. It was a shame to leave without seeing what that could have led to, but safer. Yes, definitely safer.

  The sounds of hushed angry voices were thrown against him by the whipping wind. He frowned, looking out into the shadows to see two figures just before the bend in the building. A man and...that woman. Before his body could react, he saw her pull her hand away from the man’s clutches, only to be pinned against the brick wall behind her.

  ‘Get off me, Scott.’

  ‘Don’t give me that, Mase...’ The man’s slurred voice was muffled by the way his head was buried in her neck.

  ‘You’re making a fool of yourself. Just stop it.’ The woman’s words were firm rather than angry as she tried to push him away.

  ‘Oh, come on, Mason, you’ve been making eyes at me for nearly three months now.’

  ‘I’ve done nothing of the sort, Scott. I’m going back inside.’

  ‘No, you’re not.’ The man reached out to grab her arm again in the time that it took Danyl to cover the distance between them.

  ‘Get off me!’

  ‘The lady told you to stop.’ Danyl’s loud voice was toned with barely leashed control. He hated men like that. Hated when a man couldn’t take the word no.

  ‘Go away. This is none of your business.’

  Danyl peered at the brunette in the darkness. There was nothing about her that suggested she was faking her distress. Her eyes were large, deep brown pools marred by frustration and even a little fear. Her body was held tight, retreating on itself as if to reduce the physical contact between her and this guy as much as possible.

  The man spun round to face Danyl, squaring up to him with arrogance and inebriation.

  ‘If anyone’s leaving, it’s—’

  Danyl had seen the move coming from a mile away, the man’s whole body thrown into a wide, arcing punch that held more bravado than power. It really took very little effort for Danyl to block the man’s punch with his forearm and thrust up his free hand into the man’s nose.

  A rather unpleasant crunching sound cut into the night, seemingly worse for the woman’s gasp of shock and the subsequent howl let out by the man now bent double, clutching his nose.

  The man scuttled over to the door to the balcony, casting a furious glance at Danyl and the woman whose name he still didn’t know, before re-entering the building, dropping curses like litter in his wake.

  Danyl looked back at the woman who had stepped away from the wall, a delicate shiver running across her skin. Her eyes, almost as dark as the night, stared up at him, any trace of fear vanished, and instead he was surprised to find anger.

  ‘Are you—?’

  ‘What the hell did you do that for?’ she demanded, husky Australian accents heavy on her words.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I had it under control,’ she muttered under her breath, pushing past Danyl. He tried to ignore the spark her touch brought, and focus on the reaction he hadn’t expected.

  ‘Like hell you did,’ he replied, spinning around to face her. ‘That guy was—’

  ‘Drunk and harmless. I could have handled him myself,’ she dismissed.

  ‘Of course you could have. Look at you. You can’t be taller than five feet and two inches!’

  ‘Size doesn’t matter,’ she responded indignantly.

  He narrowed his gaze, desperately fighting back the instinctive retort to the contrary. But it seemed she had read his thoughts as clearly as if he’d said them.

  ‘Really?’ she demanded, and the scorn in her voice was a little too much for Danyl to bear. Perhaps he should have just stayed out of it. Facing the event’s patrons would have been better than this.

  She huffed out an impressively delicate puff of air and disappeared through the door to the reception.

  * * *

  Mason shook out her hands, a slight trembling the only outward sign of what had happened on the balcony she would allow herself to show. What had Scott been thinking? He had taken her completely by surprise, never having shown any interest in her other than that of a friend. Until now. And contrary to what that stranger had thought, she did have it under control. If she could wrangle an unstable stock horse, she could handle Scott. She willed the adrenaline coursing through her veins from her fight—rather than flight—reaction to leave her body, more angry than scared that she had found herself in that situation. No. That Scott had put her in that situation. She hadn’t seen or heard anything about Scott that indicated he was...like that, and Mason could have handled it herself. But someone else might not. So, she’d be speaking to Harry about it in the morning.

  What she hadn’t been able to handle was her reaction to the man who had driven her out to the balcony in the first place. The man who had broken Scott’s nose. She had tried to avoid his gaze and the intense, searing heat she felt every time they locked eyes. As the shivers from just the memory of it wracked her body, she told herself it was from the cold, but knew she was made of sterner stuff than that. The thrill of just being near him was incredible, and she’d only ever felt such a thing galloping down the gentle slopes of her father’s horse farm back in New South Wales.

  As she stood in the small hallway that either led back to the reception, or to the bank of lifts that might take her away from the Langsford, the muffled sound of the pa
rty reached her ears and she knew she didn’t want to go back in there. She quickly retrieved her long, thick coat from the cloakroom, changed out of the painfully high heels into warmer and much more comfortable black boots and slipped into the lift before anyone could see her leave.

  As Mason descended nearly thirty flights, she calculated how long she’d have until the bus came back to pick them up. Two, maybe three hours. She looked at herself in the gold-tinted mirrored panels, and instead saw two hazel eyes in a chiselled marble image of male perfection staring at her as if he knew something about her she didn’t know.

  ‘I had it under control,’ she whispered angrily to the image of a man she feared she might never forget.

  The doors to the lift opened and she strode across the black and white chessboard foyer, her eyes cast down as she held a stern conversation with herself. She’d definitely had it under control, she assured herself as she pushed, too heavily, on the spinning circular doorway, the resulting force shoving her out onto the pavement beyond and straight into the back of...

  Oof.

  The air was knocked from her lungs the moment her chest met a deliciously muscled back, even if it was a bit painful. She reached out a hand to steady herself, only to find that her fingers had wrapped around a forearm, also disturbingly muscular.

  ‘I’m so—’

  Her apology was cut short as the stranger from the balcony turned, pushing her off balance, and she would have fallen if he hadn’t pulled back the arm she was still clinging to. Instead, she found herself chest to chest with her apparent rescuer.

  ‘We must stop—’

  ‘Don’t finish that cliché,’ she warned.

  ‘Are you always this angry?’ he asked, the half-laughing, half-genuine curiosity dancing in his eyes.

  ‘No, I’m just...’ She shook her head to loosen the thoughts that were churned up by the very sight of him. ‘Usually more coherent,’ she added ruefully, an answering smile pulling at her lips.

  She stepped back, away from the heat of him, the smell...something she wanted to take a little longer to discern. If she’d thought there was power in the man from across the room, being this close, being held by him, was overwhelming. Casting a glance upwards, she could see golden flecks in his impossibly dark eyes, flecks that sparkled with mischief. His lips, curved into an almost irresistible smile, were full and indiscreetly sensual, and Mason found herself responding in a way that was wholly unexpected and inappropriate.

  She turned away from the sheer magnetism of the man and looked up and down the street, surprised to find it so quiet. Everyone must either be at their own party, or in Times Square, she mused as breath streamed like smoke into the night air about them.

  This was silly. She had to get over him. Over herself, more like.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, the words white on the air in front of them, neither, it seemed, willing to look at the other. ‘For...’ She used a hand to gesture up and behind her back towards the balcony.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw his powerful shoulder shrug, and felt rather than watched his lips curve into an ironic smile. ‘You had it under control.’ A heartbeat later, ‘You’re leaving?’ his accented voice asked. She couldn’t place it. Somewhere from the Arab states, clearly. But not one she’d encountered at her father’s horse farm before.

  She frowned at his question. ‘No,’ she said, once more looking up and down the strangely quiet street. She offered her own shrugged shoulder. ‘The bus coming to take us back to our accommodation isn’t arriving until one a.m.’

  ‘Our accommodation,’ he mused. ‘Our being you and...’

  ‘The other trainee jockeys,’ she said, deliberately ignoring his leading question.

  ‘One of whom would be...’

  ‘Scott. Yes. He is one of the other trainee jockeys.’

  ‘And you don’t want to go back to the party.’ It was a statement and a warning, all in one.

  Mason pursed her lips into a pout and shook her head, still looking out into the street before her, rather than see—or feel—his eyes on her.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ he announced in a way that seemed to involve her somehow. ‘With absolutely no ulterior motive, would you like to go and get some food?’

  She willed him silently not to hear the rumble of her stomach. The mention of food was enough to set her mouth watering. ‘Weren’t you waiting on Francesca?’ the question was out of her mouth before she could stop it, knowing that it would betray more than a passing interest in him.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The girl you were talking to...’

  ‘The brash American?’

  ‘Yes, the brash American,’ Mason replied with a laugh at the apt description of her friend.

  ‘No, she turned her attentions to a duke when she realised I wasn’t interested.’

  He’d moved slightly, subtly, without her noticing, so that he was now clearly within her line of sight. His eyes grazed a little too long over her features, but not in an unpleasant way. It sent sparkles spreading across her skin, and down into a stomach that was now past the ‘growling’ stage, and quickly moving on to the ‘eating itself’ stage.

  ‘Food would be good. Though we’re not going to find anywhere open. It’s nearly midnight on New Year’s Eve.’

  ‘They’ll open for me,’ he said confidently.

  ‘Why? What’s so special about you?’

  ‘I’m a prince,’ he said with all the arrogance the title implied.

  * * *

  The sound of her laughter still rang in Danyl’s ears as they picked their way through silent, snow-covered streets, his personal bodyguard hanging a suitably invisible distance behind. It wasn’t that no one else had ever laughed at him before, at least not since he’d met Antonio and Dimitri. It was the laugh itself. A sound so pure, so unbridled, that the only thing that matched it was the joy expanding in his chest. There was something about the fiery young woman. She was like a present that he wanted to unwrap. Slowly.

  Even bundled up in the thick winter wool coat she wore, she seemed impossibly small. Something that clearly suited her chosen occupation. How on earth she was able to wrestle control over a powerful thoroughbred, he couldn’t fathom, but somehow he relished the chance to discover. The thought fired the blood in his veins and he silently cursed himself. He should know better. But as a stray tendril of that honey-brown hair escaped the confines of where she’d pushed it into the collar of her coat, he desperately wanted to sweep it back, just to feel the silken smoothness of it.

  He let her lead him through the streets, almost sure she didn’t have a particular destination in mind, especially when she paused at a crossroads, looked up and down, and as if at the last moment decided on a left-hand turn.

  ‘So where in Australia are you from?’

  ‘Ah, well done. Americans often mistake my accent for English somehow. The Hunter River Valley. It’s in New South Wales.’ The longing in her voice prompted his next question.

  ‘You miss it?’

  She looked up at him with a smile that was both wondrous and a little sad.

  ‘Yes.’ She shrugged her slim shoulders in the overly large winter coat. ‘This is...strange, and... unfamiliar—but oddly familiar if you know what I mean? Too many TV shows, I suppose.’

  She scrunched her nose up as she chose her words. He liked it. It was cute. Though he couldn’t remember liking cute before.

  ‘New South Wales is beautiful. And open. Not like...’ She gestured with her hands towards the tall buildings around them in explanation.

  ‘It takes a while to get used to.’

  ‘Different to where you’re from?’ she asked, cocking her head to the side, as if trying to work something out about him.

  ‘Yes, very different to Ter’harn,’ he replied, putting stress on the name of his country.

  ‘And Ter’harn is...?’

  ‘On the African continent. But it has the benefit of being a coastal country, so has deserts, mountains and a seafront.’