Celeste nodded and turned back to Tariq. ‘He’s a little overwhelming, isn’t he? Especially in formal dress. I swear, if he wasn’t a king someone would snap him up as a model.’
Samira pressed her hand against her churning stomach, only half-listening.
She stared at the powerful figure on the podium and the voice of self-doubt, the voice that had ruled the first twenty-five years of her life, told her she was crazy. Crazy to think about wanting what she could never have. After all, she and Tariq hadn’t been friends for years. There was no guarantee he’d even listen to her.
But another part of her applauded. The part that had grown stronger in the last four years, nurtured by her family and her determination to drag herself out of the mire of despair and make something of her life. The voice of the survivor she’d become.
She knew what she wanted.
Why not go for it?
Yet instinctively she shied away from such an action. That wasn’t her style. It never had been. The only time she’d defied convention and upbringing and had reached for what she desired, it had turned to dust and ashes, ruin and grief. She still bore the scars.
Yet what had she to lose by trying? Nothing that mattered when weighed against the possibility of winning what she so desperately craved.
* * *
In the mirrored lift, Samira straightened her neat, cinnamon jacket and smoothed her clammy palms down the matching fitted skirt. Her cream blouse was businesslike rather than feminine but this, she reminded herself, was a business meeting.
The most important business meeting of her life.
If only she felt half as confident as at her meetings with clients.
The door hissed open and she stepped out. A few metres took her to the door of the presidential suite and a dark-suited security man.
‘Your Highness.’ He bowed smoothly and opened the door, admitting her into the suite’s luxurious foyer.
Inside, another staff member greeted her.
‘If you’d care to take a seat, Your Highness?’ He led the way to a beautifully appointed sitting room furnished in shades of soft taupe and aubergine. Large windows offered an unrivalled view of Paris. ‘Can I offer you something to eat or drink?’
‘Nothing, thank you.’ Samira couldn’t swallow anything. Her insides felt like they’d been invaded by circling, swooping vultures.
The man excused himself and Samira darted a look at her watch. She was dead on time. It felt like a lifetime had passed since she’d stepped out of her suite downstairs.
Slowly she breathed out, trying to calm her rioting nerves, but nothing could douse the realisation her whole future rested on this interview.
If she failed... No, she refused to imagine failure. She had to be positive and persuasive. This might be unconventional but Samira would make him see how sensible her idea was.
She swallowed hard, squashing the doubts that kept surfacing, and walked towards the windows. Automatically she stretched out a hand to the luxurious silk of the sofa as she passed. It was cool and soft, the lush fabric reassuringly familiar. If she closed her eyes perhaps she could imagine herself in the quiet sanctuary of her work room, surrounded by delicate silks, satins and crêpe de Chine; by damask, velvet and lace.
‘Samira.’
She started and turned, her heart thumping out of kilter as her eyes snapped open. There he was, his powerful frame filling the doorway.
Her breath snared, just as it had time and again that last year. She’d been on the brink of womanhood and suddenly noticed her brother’s best friend as a man. A man who’d evoked disturbing new responses in her awakening body...
Samira dragged in a calming breath, squashing shock at the way awareness prickled the tender flesh of her breasts and belly. She wasn’t the untried girl she’d once been.
‘Tariq.’
How could she have forgotten those eyes, their remarkable colour legacy of marauding ancestors who’d intermarried along the way? Under slashing dark brows those eyes gleamed with the pure, rich green of deep water and were just as unfathomable.
His expression made her hesitate.
Was she welcome or did the hard set of his jaw indicate displeasure? Was he annoyed she’d used their connection to inveigle a meeting at short notice? No doubt he had huge demands on his time but he could hardly reject her request, given the close links between their kingdoms.
Samira’s brow puckered. The Tariq she recalled had been infallibly patient and friendly, even though she’d probably been a nuisance, tagging along behind him and Asim.
‘How are you, Samira?’ He stepped into the room and the air evaporated from her lungs. He seemed to fill the space even though he stood metres away, watching her with that penetrating stare as if he saw behind the practised façade to the nervous woman beneath.