Page 37 of Seduced by the Sultan (Desert Men of Qurhah 3)

‘Yes,’ said Murat. ‘I know what you’re going to say, Bakri and that you will be justified. I realise that I cannot continue to behave like this. That it isn’t fair to the women in question, nor is it fair to my people to keep refusing to marry, and to provide them with the heir which they long for. But I have a solution.’

Bakri narrowed his eyes. ‘You do?’

‘I do,’ said Murat grimly. ‘Get me Gabe Steel on the phone, will you?’

* * *

Catrin stared at the general manager as if she hadn’t heard him properly. ‘Could you...um...repeat that?’ she questioned.

Stephen Le Saux nodded, and smiled. ‘Of course. We’re very pleased with you, Catrin. You’ve worked very hard and shown great promise since you’ve been here. You’ve proved that you can turn your hand to pretty much anything and we’d like you to fly down to the Cornish hotel in our group. The assistant general manager has been taken ill and we need a safe pair of hands to help them cope, until she’s back on her feet. And it’s been decided that you would be the perfect candidate.’

Catrin swallowed, guessing that praise was exactly what she needed at a time like this, though she couldn’t deny her surprise. It was an honour to be asked, yes—but did she deserve it? She had been trying to work hard ever since Murat had gone back to Qurhah, but her heart hadn’t really been in it. Maybe it was difficult for a heart to be enthusiastic about anything when it felt so empty. As if there were a hole in your chest where that heart used to be.

She’d gone about her work, thinking—hoping?—that Murat might telephone, even though she had told herself that she wouldn’t pick up. But he hadn’t. There had been nothing but a very loud silence from the Middle East, forcing her to face a truth she didn’t want to face. It seemed that it really was over. And even though she knew they couldn’t have carried on like that it didn’t stop her from feeling as if her world had suddenly become muted. As if a dark curtain had descended and shrouded everything which was bright and good.

‘You’ll need your passport, for ID purposes,’ Stephen Le Saux was saying. ‘And you’ll need to be ready in an hour. We’ll be flying you down to Newquay this afternoon, if that’s okay?’

‘That soon?’ questioned Catrin, standing up and smoothing her palms down over her uniform dress.

‘Unless you have something keeping you here?’

She would have laughed, if laughing hadn’t become such an alien concept. ‘No, there’s nothing keeping me here,’ she said.

She went directly to her room. At least other areas of her life were looking good. Rachel was doing well at Uni and her mother was doing even better in Arizona. Even though all contact with the outside world had been banned for the first six weeks of treatment, Catrin had spoken to one of the counsellors at the clinic, who had sounded cautiously optimistic about her progress.

Hastily, she packed a bag and was ready and waiting when the hotel mini-bus arrived to take her to Cardiff airport, with Stephen himself at the wheel. But she started feeling confused when they got to the airport and he took her straight to a rather plush waiting room.

‘Are you sure I’m in the right place?’ she questioned as she looked around to see several smartly dressed people sipping from glasses of champagne.

‘Of course you are,’ he answered smoothly. ‘And you’ll be well looked after, I can assure you. Have a good trip.’

Catrin had only ever travelled by air with Murat, with his staff making all the arrangements, and in a way this seemed no different. Maybe that was what made her so compliant—allowing herself to be shown onto a plane which was much larger than she’d expected for a relatively short flight to Cornwall. And it wasn’t until they were in the air—indeed, until they were crossing the English Channel that she started to realise that something was very wrong. For a start, she was the only person on the plane and the stunning redhead stewardess was treating her as if she were some kind of royalty.

Catrin summoned her over with a hand which had suddenly started trembling. ‘Would you mind telling me where this plane is headed?’

The redhead smiled. ‘Why, to Qurhah, of course.’

Catrin’s mouth opened, closed, then opened again. ‘But I?

??m supposed to be going to Cornwall.’

The redhead’s smile grew wider. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said gently. ‘This is one of the Sultan’s jets and you are the esteemed guest of the Sultan himself. You’re flying to Simdahab, the capital of Qurhah.’

Catrin wanted to leap from her seat and say that she wasn’t going anywhere, and certainly not to Qurhah to see a man she couldn’t have. A man she was doing her level best to forget, who had now decided in some outrageously macho way to actually kidnap her. But she could hardly demand a parachute and throw herself out of the plane, could she? Especially when her knees were feeling so weak that she didn’t think she’d be able to stand, let alone make a dash for it.

With an angry little sound, she sat back in the plush seat, shaking her head when the stewardess offered her a glass of lime juice. But the long flight meant that she couldn’t keep refusing drinks, or food, even though she merely picked at the tempting morsels she was offered.

Her gaze kept steering to the window, though the skies were now in darkness. But where the flicker of the plane lights passed over the ground, she could see the stark desert sands which Murat had spoken of so many times. And as the plane began its descent she could do nothing to prevent the shiver which ran down her spine, hating her reaction because she understood exactly what had caused it. Because this was the land which had spawned him. The land which had made Murat the cold-eyed warrior who had broken her heart.

So why had he brought her here? Against her will and against her knowledge?

She supposed that she could refuse to leave her seat, cling on tightly and demand to be flown back to Wales. But there was no way she could behave like that and maintain any degree of dignity, and she told herself that maintaining her dignity was paramount. Yet it wasn’t just that, was it? She was curious to know what had made Murat do something like this. He had promised to leave her alone and it seemed that he had broken his word—and it was that which surprised her more than anything.

A man called Bakri came onto the plane and introduced himself as Murat’s aide. It was weird, because, although she’d sometimes spoken to him when he’d phoned Murat in London, Catrin had never imagined she would actually meet him. She had never thought that her world would collide with the Sultan’s like this.

And she still didn’t know why it had.

Bakri was extremely courteous, but he stonewalled all her indignant questions with the mantra: ‘The Sultan will tell you everything you wish to know.’

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