Monarch of the Sands Read Free Page A

annual card. ‘Well, Simon runs a very successful company—’
    ‘Not about the company, Francesca—about
him
,’ he butted in. ‘This man you are proposing to marry. This
Simon Forrester
.’
    It wasn’t easy when she felt as if he were spearing her with hostile black light from his eyes and spitting out Simon’s name as if it were some particularly nasty kind of medicine, but Frankie tried to remember all the things she liked best about her fiancé. Those blueeyes and the way he’d dazzled her with his attention. The roses which he’d had sent to her house, week after week—she, who had never received a bunch of flowers in her life!
    She licked her lips. ‘He’s not the kind of man I would have normally expected to go out with—’
    ‘Really? You go out with many men, do you?’ he fired back. ‘And then compare them?’
    ‘N-no.’ Why on earth was he looking at her so
darkly
? ‘That’s not what I meant.’
    ‘So what
do
you mean?’
    Frankie swallowed as she filled the kettle from the big, old-fashioned sink and put it on to boil. Why was he tying her up in knots with his clever line in questioning and, furthermore, why was he being so …
aggressive
? As if he had some sort of
right
to question her. Resisting the impulse to tell him it was none of his business, she forced her mind back to Simon and an image of his face popped into her mind. She thought of the thick lock of hair which flopped onto his forehead unless he brushed it back, which he did—rather a lot, as it happened. ‘Well, he’s blond and
very
good-looking.’
    Zahid scowled. ‘I’m disappointed in you, Francesca,’ he said. ‘Are you really so superficial that physical attributes matter most?’
    ‘That’s rich, coming from you!’ said Frankie quietly, before she could stop herself.
    There was a short and disbelieving silence. ‘I’m sorry?’
    ‘It doesn’t matter.’
    ‘Oh, but it does.’ His voice dipped to a tone of menacing silk. ‘Tell me.’
    Frankie met the flash of annoyance which sparkedfrom his eyes. Why
shouldn’t
she tell him? He didn’t think twice about foisting his opinion on
her
. ‘You’re not such an angel yourself, are you, Zahid? Don’t you use your so-called “business” trips to Europe and the United States as a cover-up for your affairs with women?’
    It would have been laughable if it were not so insulting and Zahid felt a mounting fury that Francesca—whom he had known all her life—could think so poorly of him. As if he were nothing more than some brainless
stud
. ‘And just where did you acquire this fascinating piece of information?’
    ‘The gossip columns are always full of your exploits—though I notice that they’ve tailed off since you became King. But prior to that, you were always being seen with some woman or other!’
    ‘How very naïve you are, Francesca.’ With a faint sigh of impatience, he shook his dark head and subjected her to a look of chilly censure. ‘Do you really believe everything you read in the papers?’
    ‘I believe the evidence of my own eyes! I’ve seen enough photos of you wit … with …’ To her fury and consternation, Frankie found that her breath was catching in her throat and that her mind was now being plagued with images far more vivid than that of Simon’s face.
    Zahid with a Hollywood hottie gazing up at him, with naked adoration on her face. Zahid being papped with a sexy international lawyer who had been representing one of his rivals in some complicated court case. Except that she was pretty sure it wasn’t written into a legal code of conduct that a legal representative should look at her own client’s adversary as if she’d liketo eat him up for breakfast. ‘With all
kinds
of women!’ she finished hotly. ‘Making you look like some sort of international
playboy
!’
    Zahid winced and, to be fair, he conceded that she
did
have a point. He
had
always enjoyed a colourful and varied sex-life until the constraints of his