CHAPTER TWO
STILL GRAPPLING WITH the fact she’d forgotten her father in the presence of the emir, Liyah knocked on Miz Abdullah-Hasiba’s door.
She hadn’t even taken the chance to meet Gene Chatsfield’s eyes for the first time. How could she have missed such a prime opportunity?
She was here to observe her father and ultimately make herself known to him. Liyah had not come to the Chatsfield London to ogle a Zeena Sahran prince.
Aaliyah Amari did not ogle anyone.
The door in front of her swung open. The unexpectedness of it, even though she’d been the one to knock, further emphasized how disconnected from her normal self Liyah was.
Wearing a dark apricot kameez embroidered around the neck and wrists with pale yellow thread, the emir’s personal housekeeper clasped her hands in front of her and bent her head forward. “Miss Amari, how may I be of service?”
“I wanted to make sure you and the emir’s other female traveling companions have found your accommodations acceptable.”
“Very much so.” The older woman stepped back and indicated Liyah should enter her room. “Please, come in.”
“I do not want to take you from your duties.”
“Not at all. You must share a cup of tea with me.”
With no polite way to decline, and frankly not inclined to do so, Liyah followed the other woman to the small sofa on the other side of the deluxe room. As much as it might bother her, Liyah could not deny her fascination with the emir.
At least, not to herself.
The Middle Eastern tea service Liyah had purchased on behalf of the hotel—along with the ones for the sheikh and his fiancée’s suites—sat in the center of the oval coffee table.
Miz Abdullah-Hasiba poured the fragrant hot drink from the copper-and-glass pot into the short, narrow matching cups with no handles. “This is a treat.”
“Yes?”
The housekeeper nodded with a smile. “Oh, yes. We do not travel with glassware as it is too easily broken.”
“Naturally.” Liyah waited for the housekeeper to take a sip before following suit, enjoying the sweetened warm beverage and the bittersweet memories it evoked.
Her mom had insisted on beginning and ending each day with a cup of mint tea augmented by a touch of honey.
“Nevertheless, the Chatsfield is the first hotel on the emir’s current European travel itinerary to have thought to provide the traditional tea service.”
“They will only be found in your room, the emir’s suite and that of his fiancée, I’m afraid.”
The older woman smiled. “Your grasp of our culture is commendable. Most hotel staff would have put the tea set in the room for the emir’s secretary.”
Liyah did not shrug off the praise, but neither did she acknowledge it. She was more aware of the Zeena Sahran culture than the average Brit or American, but anyone observant would have taken note that the housekeeper had been booked in the most deluxe room beside the emir’s fiancée’s suite.
“His secretary is actually junior office staff, I believe,” Liyah observed.
“She is. The emir follows the old ways. By necessity, his personal administrative assistant is Duwad, a male.”
“Because your emir cannot work late hours in his suite with a woman, married or otherwise,” Liyah guessed.
“Precisely.”
“So, this is a business trip?” Very little had been said in the media about the nature of the emir’s current travel plans.
“For the most part. Melech Falah insisted Emir Sayed enjoy a final European tour as it were before taking on the mantle of full leadership of our country.”
“The king intends to abdicate the throne to his son?” She’d read speculation to that effect, but nothing concrete.
“One might consider that a possible course of events after the royal wedding.”
Liyah approved the other woman’s carefully couched answer and did not press for anything more definite. “Our head of housekeeping was scandalized at the thought of booking a separate floor for a sheikh’s harem.”
“Ah. She assumed he would be bringing a bevy of belly dancers to see to his needs, no doubt.”
“That may have been her understanding, yes.” Liyah herself had assumed something similar, if not quite so fanciful when first told of the harem.
The Zeena Sahran housekeeper laughed softly. “Nothing so dramatic, I am afraid. The emir is ever mindful of his position as a betrothed man.”
Not sure she believed that, but having very little practical experience with men and none at all with their sex drives, Liyah didn’t argue. She did know the rooms she’d prepared had all been for different female staff members of the prince’s entourage.
Most of the rooms that would ultimately be occupied were slated to house the emir’s fiancée and her mostly female traveling companions. Her brother was supposed to be accompanying her, as well, and had booked a suite on the presidential level near the emir’s.
Not quite as grand, it was nevertheless impressive accommodation.
After a surprisingly enjoyable visit with Hasiba—as she insisted on being called—in which the housekeeper managed to convey unspoken but clear reservations toward the future emira of Zeena Sahra, Liyah left for a meeting with the concierge.
He and his staff expected her input on a finalization of entertainment offerings to make to the sheikh over the next two weeks.
* * *
Liyah came out of the royal suite, pleased with the care the chambermaid assigned to the emir’s rooms had taken.
The vases of purple iris―the official flower of Zeena Sahra―Liyah had ordered were fresh and perfectly arranged. The bowls with floating jasmine on either side of the candelabra on the formal dining table did not have a single brown spot on the creamy white blossoms.
The beds were all made without a single wrinkle and the prince’s tea service was prepped for his late-afternoon repast.
She headed for the main elevator. While staff were encouraged to use the service elevator, she was not required to do so. The busiest time of day for housekeeping and maintenance usually coincided with light use on the guest elevators.
So, as she’d done at her hotel in San Francisco, Liyah opted to use them when she wasn’t carrying towels or pushing a cleaning cart. Something she rarely had to do in her position as lead chambermaid, but not outside the realm of possibility.
The doors slid open with a quiet whoosh and Liyah’s gaze was snagged by espresso-brown eyes.
The emir stared back, his expression a strange mixture of surprise and something else she had very little experience interpreting. “Miss Amari?”
“Emir Sayed.” She dipped her head in acknowledgment of his status. “I was just checking on your suite.”
“The service has been impeccable.”
“I’m glad you think so. I’ll be sure and pass your kind words on to your suite’s housekeeping staff.”
He inclined his head in regal agreement she doubted he was even aware of.
She waited for him to step out of the elevator, but he did not move. His security detail had exited first with a smooth precision that came off as a deeply ingrained habit, followed by the emir’s administrative assistant and the junior secretary.
“I’m sure you’re used to women falling all over you,” she offered by way of an explanation.
He frowned. “Is that meant to be a sop to my ego or a slam against it?”
“Neither?”
He shook his head again, as if trying to clear it.
She wondered if it worked. She would be grateful for a technique that brought back her own usual way of thinking, unobscured by this unwelcome and unfamiliar desire.
She did not know what else he might have said or how she would have responded because the telephone inside the elevator car rang. She opened the panel the handset resided behind and answered it.
“Amari here.”
“Is the sheikh with you?” an unfamiliar voice demanded, and she wondered if Christos Giatrakos, the new CEO himself, had been called to deal with the highly unusual situation.
A shiver of apprehension skittered down her spine, until she realized that the tones had that quality that implied a certain age.
“Yes, the emir is here,” she forced out, realizing in kind of a shocked daze that she might well be speaking to her father for the first time.
“Put him on.”
“Yes, sir.”
She reached toward Sayed with the phone, the cord not quite long enough. “Mr. Chatsfield would like to speak with you.”
Sayed came closer and took the handset, careful not to touch her in the process.
She retreated to the other side of the elevator where she was forced to witness the one-sided conversation. Very little was actually said beyond the fact there was no problem and they would be arriving at the lobby level in a moment.
Even with her tendency to shut down, Liyah would have felt the need to explain herself, not so the emir of Zeena Sahra. If she had not witnessed his moment of shocked self-realization, she wouldn’t believe he was discomfited in the least by their situation.
True to his word, the elevator doors were opening on the lobby level seconds later. Both the emir’s personal bodyguard and Liyah’s father were waiting on their arrival.
The conspicuous absence of anyone else to witness their exit from the elevator said more than words would have what everyone thought had been happening in the stopped elevator.
Offended by assumptions about her character so far from reality, Liyah walked out with her head high, her expression giving nothing of her inner turmoil away.
Making no effort to set her boss’s mind at rest in regard to Liyah’s behavior, the emir barely acknowledged Gene Chatsfield before waving his bodyguard onto the elevator with an imperious “Come, Yusuf.”
“In my office,” her father said in frigid tones as the elevator doors swished to a close.
The following ten minutes were some of the most uncomfortable of Liyah’s life. Bad enough to be dressed down by the owner of the Chatsfield chain, but knowing the man was her father, as well, had intensified Liyah’s humiliation at the encounter.
The short duration of her time in the elevator with the sheikh and her obvious lack of being mussed had saved her from an even worse lecture. However, Liyah had been left in no doubt that she was never to ignore hotel policy of employees vacating the main elevators when guests entered again.
Definitely not the moment in which to make herself known to Gene Chatsfield as the daughter he’d never met.
* * *
Sayed woke from a very vivid dream, his sex engorged and his heart beating rapidly.
It was not surprising the dream had not been about his fiancée. He had known Tahira, the daughter of a neighboring sheikh, since their betrothal when she was a mere infant. He had been thirteen and on the brink of leaving for boarding school in the States.
His feelings toward her had not changed appreciably since then.
The uncomfortable but also unsurprising reality was that the dream had centered on the beautiful Aaliyah Amari he’d met his first day in London. And thought about incessantly since.
He’d seen her in passing twice, once before the elevator incident and once since then. Both times his attention had been inexorably drawn to Aaliyah, but she’d done her best to pretend ignorance of his presence on the most recent occasion.
Understandably.
Nevertheless, even after the briefest collision with her emerald-green gaze, electric shocks had gone straight to his instant erection. And he’d almost stumbled.
Him.
Accused of being made of ice more than once, his disturbing reaction to this woman who had no place in his life bothered Sayed more than he wanted to admit. The elevator incident was still firmly in the realm of the inexplicable, no matter how much he’d tried to understand his own actions in the matter.
Sheikhs did not pant after chambermaids, not even those with additional responsibility. Aaliyah was of the servant class. He was an emir. He could not even consider an affair with her if he were so inclined.
Regardless, while Sayed had not been celibate for his entire adult life, he had been for the past three years.
Once Tahira had reached the age of majority and their betrothal had been announced officially, his honor demanded he cease sexual intimacy with other women. No one else seemed to expect it of him, but Sayed didn’t live according to any viewpoint but his own.
However, his celibacy might well explain the intense and highly sexual dreams. Three years was a long time to go without for a thirty-six-year-old man who had been sexually active since his teens.
The knowledge that his sexual desert would end in a matter of weeks after he married Tahira gave him little comfort.
He could no more imagine taking the woman he still considered a girl, despite her twenty-four years, to bed than he could countenance giving in to his growing hunger for Aaliyah Amari.