* * *
Gabe barely registered the gleaming golden gates which had opened to allow his bulletproof car through. Just as he had failed to register the colourful and bustling streets of Simdahab on his way to the palace. The journey through the city had been slower than he had anticipated—mainly, he suspected, because the car was so heavily armoured. He guessed that was one of the drawbacks to being a fabulously powerful sultan—that the risk of assassination was never far from the surface.
Yet instead of focusing on the task ahead or reflecting on the cultural differences between the two countries, as he usually would have done, he had spent the entire journey thinking about the woman it was probably safer to forget.
Leila.
When he’d woken from a deep sleep in that sex-rumpled bed, he had known a moment of complete and utter peace—before disjointed memories had come flooding back. For a moment he’d thought that he must have dreamt the whole bizarre incident. And then he had seen the faint red spots of blood on the sheet—not knowing if it had sprung from her broken hymen or when her fingernails had clawed deep into the flesh of his shoulders at the moment of orgasm.
He stared out of the car window at the vast splendour of the palace gardens, but this faint feeling of disorientation would not leave him.
He had always been successful with women—and not just because of his hard body and what the press had once described as his ‘fallen angel’ looks. He had quickly learnt how best to handle the opposite sex, because he could see that it was in his best interests to do so. To take what he wanted without giving any false hope. He’d learnt that guaranteeing pleasure was the most effective way of having someone overlook your shortcomings—the main one being his aversion to emotion. He knew that he couldn’t give love—but he could certainly give great orgasms.
He’d seen it all and done it all—or so he’d thought—though he’d avoided any situation involving cameras or threesomes. But he had never had a beautiful, virginal stranger turning up at his hotel room and allowing him to seduce her within minutes of meeting.
He felt his heart miss a beat as he recalled the way she had made him feel. That initial hard thrust against her tight hymen. Who was she? And why had she chosen to give her innocence to a man she didn’t know?
He thought about the photographs she’d shown him. Nobody could deny that she was talented. Did she think that her sexual generosity would guarantee her the offer of a job? Yet if that was the case, then surely she would have left him her card—or some number scribbled down on a sheet of hotel notepaper, so that he could contact her again. But she hadn’t. There had been nothing to mark the fact that she’d been there. Only her very feminine fragrance lingering with the unmistakeable scent of sex when he’d woken to find an empty space beside him and silence in the adjoining suite of rooms.
Gabe shook his head as the limousine drew to a halt and a robed servant opened the door for him. He must put her out of his mind and concentrate on the evening ahead. It didn’t matter who his mystery virgin was. It had happened and it was over. He could shut the door on it, just as he did with every other aspect of his past. He was here at the palace to meet formally with the Sultan and none of the other stuff mattered.
Buttoning up the jacket of his suit, he stepped out onto the honey-coloured gravel of the forecourt and in the distance he could see a long line of similar limousines already parked. The turreted palace gleamed red-gold in the light of the setting sun, like something out of an upmarket Disney film. Gabe wondered how long it had taken to build this impressive citadel—an unmistakeable symbol of beauty and power, set in an oasis of formal and surprisingly green gardens.
The evening air was thick with the scent of roses and soft with the sound of running water from the stream which traversed the palace grounds. In the distance, he could see soaring mountain peaks topped with snow and, closer, the circular and steady flight of what looked like a bird of prey.
That was what he should be thinking about, he reminded himself grimly. Not a woman who had made him feel slightly...
He frowned.
Used?
Had she?
‘Gabe! Here you are at last. May I welcome you to my home?’
An accented voice broke into his thoughts. Gabe turned to find the Sultan standing on the steps to greet him. A tall and imposing figure, he was framed by the dramatic arches of the palace entrance behind him. His robes and headdress were pure white and the starkness of his appearance was broken only by the luminosity of his olive skin. For a moment, a distant memory floated across Gabe’s mind before it disappeared again, like a butterfly on a summer’s day.