Hide-and-Sheikh Read online

  Hide-and-Sheikh

  By

  Gail Dayton

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  "Where Are We?"

  "My place."

  "You said it was a business meeting." Ellen glared at Rudi. She was beautiful when she was angry.

  "It is. In town, in the morning." He offered Ellen his hand. "Coming?"

  Rudi held his breath as she looked from his face to his hand and back again, waiting for her to decide. Would she take his hand?

  When her fingers slid across his palm and her hand closed around his, the touch jolted him. Every molecule in his body wanted her. Not just for sex. He wanted more.

  He wanted to see admiration in her eyes. He wanted to hear her laugh. He wanted to wake up with her in the morning after a night of hot, mindless, slow, sultry sex and have her smile at him.

  "Well?" Ellen's voice broke into his musing. "Are we going to get off this airplane?"

  Rudi grinned. He loved her sass.

  Dear Reader,

  Welcome to Silhouette Desire, where every month you can count on finding six passionate, powerful and provocative romances.

  The fabulous Dixie Browning brings us November's MAN OF THE MONTH, Rocky and the Senator's Daughter, in which a heroine on the verge of scandal arouses the protective and sensual instincts of a man who knew her as a teenager. Then Leanne Banks launches her exciting Desire miniseries, THE ROYAL DUMONTS, with Royal Dad, the timeless story of a prince who falls in love with his son's American tutor.

  The Bachelorette, Kate Little's lively contribution to our 20 AMBER COURT miniseries, features a wealthy businessman who buys a date with a "plain Jane" at a charity auction. The intriguing miniseries SECRETS! continues with Sinclair's Surprise Baby, Barbara McCauley's tale of a rugged bachelor with amnesia who's stunned to learn he's the father of a love child.

  In Luke's Promise by Eileen Wilks, we meet the second TALL, DARK & ELIGIBLE brother, a gorgeous rancher who tries to respect his wife-of-convenience's virtue, while she looks to him for lessons in lovemaking! And, finally, in Gail Dayton's delightful Hide-and-Sheikh, a lovely security specialist and a sexy sheikh play a game in which both lose their hearts…and win a future together.

  So treat yourself to all six of these not-to-be-missed stories. You deserve the pleasure!

  Enjoy,

  Joan Marlow Golan

  Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

  ISBN 0-373-76404-9

  HIDE-AND-SHEIKH

  Copyright © 2001 by Gail Shelton

  GAIL DAYTON has been playing make-believe all her life but didn't start writing the make-believe down until she was about nine years old, because it took her that long to learn how to write coherent sentences. She married her college sweetheart shortly after graduation and moved to a small Central Texas town where they lived happily for twenty years. Now transplanted to an even smaller town in the Texas Panhandle, Gail lives with her Prince Charming, their youngest son and Spot the Dalmatian, where they are still working on the "ever after" part. The "happily" they have down.

  After a checkered career with intervals spent as a mommy, the entire editorial staff of more than one small-town newspaper, a junior college history instructor and legal assistant in a rural prosecutor's office, she finally got to quit her day job in favor of writing love stories. When she's not writing or reading other people's love stories, she sings alto in her church choir and teaches basic sewing as an incentive to finish her own sewing projects, which would otherwise languish.

  Gail would love to hear from readers. Write her at P.O. Box 176, Clarendon, Texas 79226.

  To those wonderful women from Waco, the best friends a writer could have.

  Thanks for all your support. I wouldn't be here without you. To Myles, for worrying about me when I don't write, and for twenty-five wonderful years.

  One

  She'd found her target. He lounged near the makeshift bar, his perfect teeth glinting as he smiled at some dark-haired bimbette. In the warehouse-cum-nightclub in New York's garment district, lights flashed, strobe-quick and bright, or slower, in garish colors that painted the party goers in even more ghastly shades than they'd painted themselves. Except for that man, her night's mission. The Sheikh of Araby.

  Or rather, the Sheikh of Qarif, to give him his true name. As she maneuvered her way toward him, Ellen watched the lights turn his handsome face pink, then sickly green, then dappled blue, but his perfection continued unblemished. He knew it, too.

  He threw back that chiseled profile in a laugh that had to be calculated to show off his best features: dark sultry eyes, straight white teeth, high, carved cheekbones. His picture hadn't done him justice.

  Oh, it had amply illustrated his movie-star features, but it hadn't said a word about the sexuality that oozed like honey from his every pore. Ellen kept the wry twist from her faint smile at the sight of the little girl bees buzzing around him. She couldn't let him see past the mask she wore to her real purpose. He might be the best-looking, sexiest man she'd seen in the past dozen years, but he was still her target.

  And, as mama always said, beauty is skin deep, but ugly goes clear to the bone. Somebody's mama had said it, even if Ellen's never had. She'd known spoiled, rich playboys. One of them she'd known very well.

  Davis Lowe had been born with a golden spoon in his mouth and upgraded to platinum at his first opportunity. He'd swept her off her middle-class feet with his charm and his money and brought her into his world, where she'd met his spoiled playboy friends. Because of Davis, she'd learned these rich men were all the same.

  Whether they were from New York or New Delhi, they all expected the world to bow and scrape and cater to their every whim. At least this one offered a nice view.

  Finally he reacted to Ellen's laser-beam stare. He looked up and met her gaze. Ellen held it a long moment, allowed a hint of a smile to brush her lips, then she turned away and began to count seconds.

  One… She found a place at the sawhorse-and-planking bar, and ordered a gin and tonic. Seven, eight, nine… Would she have to look at him again? The pretty ones were often tougher to get to. Ellen tossed her hair back over her shoulder. Long, straight, dark blond hair with golden highlights, it was one of her best weapons.

  "Hello."

  Bingo. He was hooked. Fourteen seconds. Not her best time, but not her worst, either. If "the look" didn't get them, the hair usually did.

  Ellen turned and gave her sheikh a once-over. That high-beam smile of his could prove near lethal at close range. She raised a cool eyebrow. The effect was somewhat destroyed by the fact that they had to lean close and shout full volume to be heard over the pounding music.

  "Hello?" she said. "That's all you can come up with? What kind of line is that?"

  He shrugged. "It is no line. I said hello. If you want a line, I am sure many other men here would be happy to provide one."

  His English was impeccable, overlaid with a faint hint of the foreign, and a fainter hint of a…Southern drawl? He wore a short-sleeved raw silk navy shirt unbuttoned over a plain white T-shirt. A T-shirt that must have been bought a size too small, given the way it strained over the man's lean but well-muscled torso. Khaki slacks finished the ensemble. Not what one would expect from the scion of a royal family, but it looked good on him. Darn good. Did she have the right man? Ellen studied his face again, comparing it to the memorized photo in her head. This was her target. No mistake.

  She lifted a shoulder in a casual shrug. Cool and calculated would serve her better with this one. He would be us
ed to women falling over themselves to please him.

  "I don't need a line." She accepted the drink from the bartender and took a sip, schooling her expression against the taste. Fruity concoctions with paper umbrellas, the kind she preferred, didn't blend with the sophisticated image she wanted to project tonight.

  He grinned and pushed his hand back through his thick sable hair. "That is just as well," he said, "because I do not have any idea what to say next. Whatever I say will sound like a pick-up line."

  Ellen found herself charmed by his apparent openness and told herself it was an act. It had to be. Nobody with "prince" in front of his name could be this transparent.

  "Have you any suggestions?" He propped an elbow on the bar and leaned. The wattage in his smile seemed to go up.

  "My name is Ellen." She put her hand out to shake. She had to keep him on a string until she knew she could reel him in.

  "Names. Good." He took her hand and squeezed gently. "Call me Rudy."

  Rudy? Ellen ran through the list of names they'd given her, half a dozen or more, all belonging to the target. Of the few she could actually remember, Rashid was one, and it didn't sound anything like Rudy. Neither did any of the others.

  "Rudi, with an i," he said. "I prefer the way it looks written that way."

  She shook the hand still holding hers. "How do you do, Rudi-with-an-i. It's nice to meet you."

  Whatever he wanted to call himself made no difference to her. But it did surprise her a bit. Why not use his real name? Unless he was more security conscious than he appeared. Ellen stopped herself from searching the room for bodyguards. She knew where his bodyguards were. She'd sent them there herself.

  "So." He glanced down at their still-clasped hands, and the brilliance of his smile suddenly took on a heat that Ellen felt clear down to her toes, which curled in their strappy sandals. "Now that we have the formalities over, why don't we…"

  His words trailed off as he bent over her hand and pressed a kiss to its back, a kiss that sizzled across her skin straight to the libido she'd thought long ago starved to death.

  Why don't we what? Curiosity resurrected her dormant desire. Nothing else had for years.

  "Dance," Rudi said.

  "Dance?" That's all he wanted to do?

  Feeling numb and yet feeling every nerve ending spark and sizzle, Ellen let him lead her by the hand— the same hand he'd kissed—onto the dance floor. Rudi tugged, spinning her skillfully into his arms. Never mind that the band clashed and wailed and thumped out raging heavy metal rock that made the flashing lights shudder with vibration. Rudi held her close and danced what Ellen could only describe as some kind of cross between a tango, a foxtrot and sex with clothes on.

  Or maybe the sex part was just in her head.

  This dance, seen objectively, wasn't much different from the hundreds of others Ellen had danced. Rudi's hands rested lightly at her waist, her hands on his shoulders. They moved back and forth to the music in the limited space allowed on the crowded dance floor. But with every brush of Rudi's hips against hers, the heat turned a notch higher.

  Ellen's hands curved over Rudi's shoulders, shaping themselves to his lean musculature. He was sleek and strong, beautiful like one of those horses they raised in his part of the world.

  He laughed, a very male sound, his eyes flashing pleasure at her, and Ellen realized her hands had slipped. Now they rested on the broad slope of his chest. With another laugh, Rudi whipped off the unbuttoned shirt he wore to let the T-shirt beneath show off his physique. Ellen didn't have to fake her approval. She liked the way he looked. Entirely too much.

  He snapped out one end of the shirt, reached out and caught the other end so that it passed behind Ellen. Then he used it to draw her in closer, until they touched hip to hip. Holding her only with the shirt pulled snug around her waist, Rudi swayed, his eyes twinkling.

  "Join me," he shouted over the crashing music. "Do you not know how to rumba?"

  She pushed at him, her fingers curling into his chest. "This doesn't sound like a rumba to me."

  Rudi deepened the swing of his hips, his thighs getting friendly with their sensual nudging against hers. "The beat is in your blood. Feel it inside you."

  Was it getting hotter in here? Or was he just making her crazy?

  He leaned in, until his lips brushed her ear. "Feel it, and let it out."

  Rudi did something with his hands, and the shirt around her jumped several inches higher, drawing her slowly in, bringing her breasts toward that white-clad chest.

  Confusion struck her. This was a new dilemma. She needed to tempt him, keep him close until the final moment. But she'd never before been tempted herself. She wanted to touch him, to let her breasts settle against that solid chest, and that would be entirely unethical. She wasn't supposed to like her targets.

  The music paused to allow the gasping musicians time to catch their collective breath. In the startling, deafening silence, Ellen broke away, tugging the navy shirt from his hands. She stared at him, panting almost as hard as the band. Why? She hadn't done anything strenuous.

  Rudi's smile faltered a second, then returned. "Let me buy you a drink." The white of his T-shirt contrasted with his deep tan. He was gorgeous and nice. A deadly combination.

  Ellen had to get this done and get out quickly, before she got in over her head. It was for his own good. And for hers. They'd both be better off if she just got it over with now.

  "I have a better idea." Still holding his shirt, Ellen caught Rudi's hand and led him from the dance floor.

  "Where are we going?"

  "You'll see." She threw him one of her patented mysterious smiles, her hair swinging around her shoulders.

  Rudi followed her out of the warehouse, bemused by his luck. Ellen was the most beautiful woman he'd seen in his entire life, and he'd seen a lot of beautiful women. But they never came on to him like this. Not to Rudi.

  Only Rashid ibn Saqr ibn Faruq al Mukhtar Qarif could get women at the snap of his fingers. And then it was the money and the power that attracted them, not the man.

  Money and power were as much of an illusion as Rashid. Or maybe Rudi was the illusion. Sometimes he wasn't sure which of his personas was the real one. But he did know that the money and the power belonged to his father, not to him.

  Down the street outside the warehouse, Ellen hailed a taxi. The streetlight gleamed along her slender, mile-high legs as she got in. Rudi stared, half-hypnotized, until Ellen leaned out the open car door.

  "Are you coming?" she asked, a smile curving her luscious pink lips. A smile that promised nothing and everything at the same time, that dared him to find out what secrets hid behind it.

  He shouldn't. He had doubtless terrified and infuriated his family enough, vanishing as he had. The bombs back in Qarif were real. The terrorists were real. But the terrorists were still in Qarif, trying to transform the country into a miniature Afghanistan. This woman could not possibly be a terrorist. Just look at her.

  Rudi followed his own suggestion as she waited without a hint of impatience for him to make up his mind. She was a blond goddess, a Valkyrie escaped from Wagner's opera. Her straight dark gold hair spilled over her shoulders like yesterday's sunlight, streaked with the brighter shine of tomorrow's dawn. Long thick lashes shaded eyes whose color he couldn't decipher in the uncertain light. A high forehead, straight narrow nose, prominent cheekbones and full mouth completed her classically beautiful face.

  But it was not the beauty of her face or her sleek athlete's body beneath the simple black dress that drew him. Perhaps it was the hint of mischief in her eyes, or the mystery in her smile, the feeling that she played some secret game and he did not know the rules. She challenged him, dared him to play. Rudi had never been able to pass up a dare.

  He stepped off the curb and got in the cab. Satisfaction flickered across Ellen's face a brief second before she hid it behind that smile. Rudi did not object. She had won only one hand. He intended to win the game.


  "So, Rudi." Ellen leaned back in the corner of the cab opposite him. "What do you do?"

  "I dig holes." At least, he wanted to. His family did their level best to keep him in a nice, clean office where he couldn't play in the dirt.

  Ellen's eyebrow arched. "Really."

  Would she back off now, thinking him no more than a ditchdigger?

  "Holes, as in the Lincoln Tunnel?" she asked. "Or holes as in—" She waved at a construction site vanishing behind them, where bulldozers would have clawed deep into the earth to set the foundation before the steel frame started up.

  "Holes as in wells. For water, oil—whatever is hiding down there."

  Ellen's expression changed, as if she were impressed in spite of herself. At least, Rudi hoped that was what it meant.

  "You dig oil wells?" She stretched a long, elegant arm along the back of the seat.

  Rudi started to agree, then changed his mind. Tell her the truth, see how that impressed her. If it did. "Actually, I prefer drilling for water. A person cannot drink oil."

  "You can't run a car on water."

  "Not now." Rudi grinned. "Give the scientists some time. If they ever finish their fusion reactor research, we could be pulling up to the garden hose to fill our cars with fuel."

  She watched him with that enigmatic smile on her face, saying nothing. Rudi did not know if that meant she wanted to know more or was bored to tears. But he did not handle silence well.

  "Of course, you can make more money drilling oil wells, but…" Rudi shrugged. "The people who need water generally need it more."

  Ellen's smile changed, became warmer and yet sad at the same time. This smile still hid secrets, but it seemed more genuine. "You're a nice man, Rudi," she said. "I like you."

  Stunned, Rudi didn't realize the cab had stopped until Ellen got out. Scrambling to follow her beckoning gesture, he found himself on the sidewalk in front of an upscale hotel. Ellen linked her arm through his and strolled past the doorman into the gilt-and-marble lobby.