The Sheikh's Baby Omnibus by Penny Jordan Read Free Book Online Page A

infuriated by his own weakness in allowing such thoughts to creep into his head.
    Eleven o’clock—how could it be? Mariella wondered guiltily, but a quick glance at her watch showed her that it was.
    She couldn’t wait to get back to the city and the sooner she and Fleur were on their way back there, the better, she decided as Xavier strode out of the room.

CHAPTER FOUR
    M ARIELLA frowned as she walked into the empty living area of the pavilion. Where was Xavier?
    A laptop hummed quietly on a folding campaign table to one side of the pavilion. Xavier had obviously been working on it.
    As she looked round the pavilion with its precious carpets and elegant few pieces of furniture, which she recognised as being expensively antique as well as functional, Mariella tried to imagine her dizzy half-sister in such a setting. Tanya was totally open about the fact that she was a girl who loved the bustle of cities, holidays in expensive, fashionable locations, modern apartments as opposed to traditional houses. Although she adored Fleur, self-indulgence was her byword, and Mariella was finding it increasingly hard to visualise her sister ever being compatible with a man like Xavier, who she could not imagine truly sharing Tanya’s tastes. He was too austere, surely. Too...
    Tanya loved him, she reminded herself stubbornly, although she was finding that equally hard to imagine! He was just so totally not Tanya’s type! Tanya liked happy-go-lucky, boyish, fun-loving men!
    Fleur was sound asleep, and Mariella decided she would go outside to check on what was happening. She could no longer hear the sound of the wind battering against the walls of the pavilion, which hopefully meant that she would be able to make her way back to the city.
    As she stepped outside she saw to her relief that the wind had indeed dropped. The air was now totally still and the sky had a dull ochre tinge to it. She could see her four-wheel drive, its sides covered in sand.
    On the far side of the oasis, the rock face of the gorge rose steeply, its almost vertical face scarred here and there by the odd ledge.
    There was a raw, elemental beauty about this hidden place, Mariella acknowledged, seeing it now with an artist’s eye rather than the panicky apprehension of a lost traveller.
    A scattering of palm trees fringed the water of the oasis, and beyond them lay a rough area of sparse, spiky grass. The rutted track she had driven down probably was a dried-out river bed, she could see now.
    The quality of the stillness and the corresponding silence were almost hypnotic.
    A movement on the other side of the oasis caught her eye, her body tensing as she recognised Xavier. He was dressed not in traditional robes, but in jeans and a tee shirt. He seemed to be checking the palm trees, she realised as he paused to inspect one before walking to another. He had obviously not seen her, but instinctively she drew farther back into the shadow cast by the pavilion.
    He had turned away from the trees now and was staring across the oasis, shading his eyes as he looked up into the sky.
    * * *
    T HE STORM HADN ’ T weakened the roots of any of the palm trees, Xavier acknowledged. There was no reason why he shouldn’t go back to the pavilion and continue with his work. And in fact pretty soon he would have to do so. Right now they were in the eye of the storm, but as soon as it moved on the wind would return with even greater force.
    But he couldn’t go back inside. Not whilst he was still visualising her lying on the bed...his bed...
    Angrily he stripped off his tee shirt, quickly followed by the rest of his clothes. And began to wade out into the water.
    Mariella couldn’t move. Like someone deeply beneath the spell of an outside force she stood, muscles clenched, hardly daring to breathe as she fought to repel the sensation coiling through her, and shivering to each and every single sensitive nerve ending as her gaze absorbed the raw male beauty of Xavier’s nudity.
    As