Lord of the Desert

by Diana Palmer

  She spared him a glare as he entered the room. “Come to say goodbye, have you?” she asked coldly. “Fine. You’ve said it. Goodbye.”

  He hesitated, uncertain of his next move. “Brauer is still in the vicinity. This is a bad time to travel.”

  “I’m taking ‘Elvis’ home with me,” she said. “He’ll protect me.”

  He folded his arms over his chest, glaring at her. “I will not give you permission to leave the country. I will have you stopped at the airport.”

  “Your father has already given me the necessary papers so that I can travel, in his personal jet, without your damned consent,” she shot back.

  His eyes began to glitter. “You are my wife!”

  “Like hell I am!” she replied, eyes blazing as she walked right up to him. “I’m only your secretary. You just said so!”

  He winced. “I want to explain,” he began.

  “There isn’t anything to explain. Now get out of my room!”

  His chin lifted slowly. The menace in his face grew with every deep, measured breath. “You do not command me in my own palace, madame!”

  “This is my room, and I want you out of it!”

  “I will leave when it pleases me,” he growled. “Not before!”

  “If you don’t get out of here, I’ll—Philippe!” she cried sharply.

  He had her up in his arms and his face was furious. He turned, walked to the door, slammed it shut and locked it.

  “You put me down!” she raged, fighting him. “I’m going home! I’m going to marry my ranch foreman and live happily ever after, do you hear me?”

  Ignoring her struggles, he carried her to the bed and tossed her down onto it. With a savage smile, he bent and ripped the caftan she was wearing from neckline to hem, whipping it away from her body, nude except for tiny white briefs. He jerked those off as well and stood over her, vibrating with anger and jealousy of the faceless man back in Texas that she’d once confessed to being in love with.

  “You monster!” she choked, grabbing the sheet up against her nudity as she glared up at him. “How dare you!”

  “You are my wife,” he said harshly, so eaten up with desire that he was shivering from the force of it.

  She was angry, too, her lips tremulous as he stood over her. “That isn’t what you said a few minutes ago! And just what are you planning to do?” she demanded.

  He laughed coldly. “Since I have nothing left to lose, I am going to show you what you married,” he said harshly. “If you think I am a monster, let me prove that you are right before you leave me.”

  He caught the hem of his aba and thobe and threw them off, pausing long enough to step out of his slippers and unfasten the silk pants he wore under the robes. When he turned, the scars that covered the left side of his body were blatant white streaks against the natural olive tan of his skin. But it wasn’t the scars that drew Gretchen’s shocked, fascinated eyes. She’d seen photographs of nude men, but Philippe was in a class of his own. She wasn’t looking for flaws. In fact, she wasn’t certain she’d have recognized them if she’d seen them. She sat up in bed, suddenly uninhibited, and stared at him with parted lips.

  “Well?” he asked furiously, his fists clenched at his sides. “Don’t you have anything to say?”

  She swallowed and lifted her eyes back to his. “No wonder it hurt, the first time,” she said in a husky, fascinated tone.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Philippe’s rigid stance relaxed. His fists unclenched. “What?” He scowled.

  She swallowed again. “You heard me.” Her eyes fell back to his hips and she colored furiously.

  Something changed in his lean face. He moved toward her, sitting down on the edge of the bed facing her. “I wanted you to see the scars,” he began hesitantly.

  “Oh.” Her eyes met his, curious and soft. “Why?”

  He laughed in spite of himself. “I thought it might be a suitable revenge for your defection.”

  “Revenge? I don’t understand.”

  Quite obviously she didn’t. His eyes fell to her mouth. He bent and kissed it slowly, teasing her lips apart. He felt her shy hands go to his hair-roughened chest and bury themselves in it. His body rippled with sensation. He eased her down on the mattress and moved over her. He felt her arms slide around him, felt her long legs soften and slide against his in a slow, lazy caress.

  His hands framed her face as he kissed her. His tongue went slowly past her lips and into the soft darkness of her mouth. His body became one long caress, teasing hers, whispering against it in a silence that grew explosively by the second. He felt as he had in his teens, when he was inexhaustible and eager for experimentation. He treated her as he would have treated a virgin, slowly arousing her, denying her the pleasure she begged for. Minutes grew long with the exquisite pace of their loving. By the time he curled her into him and began to possess her, she was shivering helplessly with the fierce urgency of her need.

  She cried out softly at his ear, gripping his powerful upper arms with her nails as he moved into total intimacy with her. He felt her hips straining upward in a rigid arch and he lifted his head to look at her.

  He read the thought in her eyes. Without moving, he reached for one of the small cushions and placed it gently under her hips. “Yes,” he whispered as he moved down again, this time in a stark penetration that made her gasp. “For me, too, it must be…very deep…”

  She whimpered as his mouth moved to cover hers. He whispered to her, savage, shocking things that made her writhe under him. She felt the pleasure climb like a spiral of pure fire as she clung to his strength and felt the potency of him increase with every brush of his body. It had never been like this. She was barely certain, in the last few lucid seconds, that she could even accommodate him…!

  He felt her body convulse under his, again and again. He gloried in her pleasure until his own need demanded fulfillment. He gave himself to it, his body fierce on hers, hoping that he wasn’t going to hurt her in the frenzy of passion. He soared, burned, consumed in flames that pulsed and pulsed and pulsed endlessly.

  He heard his own ragged breath jerking out at her ear as he lay heavily upon her damp body, shaking in the aftermath of their explosive lovemaking. Finally, he forced his head to lift and he looked into a face that was white with misery and tears.

  “Gretchen!” he whispered, startled. “Did I hurt you?”

  Her lips trembled. She felt sick all over. She’d welcomed him, shamed herself with him, when all the time she knew it was because he wanted Brianne and couldn’t have her. He’d used her, and she’d let him, out of a helpless, shameful love that she couldn’t help. But it was wrong. Wrong!

  She pushed at him and he withdrew from her, rolling onto his back and then his side. She curled into a ball and refused to look at him.

  “Did I hurt you?” he demanded.

  She shook her head.

  “Then what is wrong?”

  She swallowed, hating him for the very pleasure he’d given her. “She’s married,” she whispered harshly. “But a blind man could see that she looks just like me. I guess I’m her stand-in tonight, is that right? You couldn’t have her, so you had me. I hope you enjoyed it.”

  His heart seemed to stop. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I’m so ashamed,” she sobbed. “I’ve never been so ashamed in my life. I didn’t even have enough willpower to deny you. I let you…use me!”

  He couldn’t remember ever feeling so outraged. He slammed out of the bed and back into his clothing, so furious at her intolerable insult that he forgot to be embarrassed about his scars. She wasn’t looking, anyway. Her back was to him.

  He took the coverlet and threw it over her, his face like stone. He raged at her in three languages, the content of which was muddled and barely comprehensible.

  She rolled over under the cover and sat up, glaring at him from a ravaged face. “You just can’t stand the truth, can you?” she demanded on a sob. “You want her, but you’re too
noble to do it with her. You wouldn’t even introduce me as your wife, but when you want sex, here I am!”

  “You aren’t my wife any longer,” he raged back in heavily accented English. “I divorce you!” He snapped his fingers. “You can go back to Texas and marry your foreman, with my blessing!”

  “And you can get Brianne Hutton a divorce and marry her, can’t you?!” she cried.

  “Believe what you like, madame!” He spun on his heel and stormed out of the room, scattering servants as he continued to curse, eloquently and audibly, the entire length of the corridor.

  Leila came running, having feared that her Lady would have need of her. When she saw the sobbing woman in the bed, she knew she was right.

  “Lady, what can I do for you?” she asked gently.

  Gretchen’s lower lip trembled, but she raised her face proudly. “You can help me finish packing and call Hassan! I’m leaving here right now!”

  “But, Lady,” Leila began.

  “You heard him,” she pointed out. “The whole palace heard him. He just divorced me. I don’t live here anymore!” She got out of bed, totally uninhibited, and put on her gellabia. “I want a bath and then I want you to call the driver to take Hassan and me to the airport.”

  “I will go with you,” Leila offered.

  “I’ll miss you. But you can’t go with me.” She turned away. “You’ll have a new Lady to take care of very soon, anyway.”

  “She is married, Lady!”

  “She can be divorced as easily as he divorced me. Come on. I want to get this over with.”

  A week later, she was not only back home in Jacobsville, but she was back at work as well. The girl who’d taken her place at the law firm of Barnes and Kemp had gotten pregnant and gave up her job while morning sickness kept her bedridden. The job was temporarily open, and Gretchen had to support herself until she could look for something permanent.

  The surprise was to find that Callie Kirby wasn’t there, either. Something very hush-hush was going on, and nobody was talking about what it was. Gossip was that a drug lord was involved, and that Micah Steele, Callie’s stepbrother, was also missing. Beyond that, nothing was really known publicly.

  Gretchen could have found out from her brother, Marc, but he hadn’t been at home when she arrived, either. Conner Mack, the elderly ranch foreman, and his wife, Katie, welcomed her with open arms. Marc’s old friend and fellow Texas Ranger Judd Dunn was home on vacation. He stopped by to see Gretchen and was surprised to find her with a six-foot-four-inch Arab bodyguard who went everywhere with her.

  “Where did you get him?” he asked.

  “Hassan? Oh, he’s my dowry,” she told him with a grin. “I suppose he’s my marriage settlement, too. I must say, I’ve never felt safer in my life. He takes very good care of me.”

  Judd’s black eyes flashed with humor. “Do you get to go to the ladies’ room alone?” he asked wickedly.

  “He stands right outside the door,” she said with a chuckle. “He’s intimidating, isn’t he?”

  “Does he speak English at all?”

  She shook her head, smiling at Hassan, who nodded and smiled back. “But he’s a darling. I feel ever so safe with him.”

  Judd noticed a flicker in Hassan’s eyes, but he didn’t mention it. “What are you going to do about your marriage?”

  Her face hardened. “There’s nothing to do. He divorced me before I left the country. I’m free.”

  “Doesn’t sound quite legal,” he remarked.

  “The marriage was only legal in Qawi,” she pointed out. She folded her arms over her chest, fighting a bout of nausea. Ever since she’d come home, she’d been having these irritating queasy spells. She must have picked up a bug in Qawi, while they were in the desert. “How’s the job?” she asked.

  “It’s hard,” he said flatly. “They’ve got me working with a new partner, and we don’t get along. I miss Marc.” He shoved his hands into his jean pockets. “He’s never going to be happy living from pillar to post. Why doesn’t he come home?”

  “He’s wondering that himself. He isn’t happy with the Bureau. He doesn’t like all the traveling he has to do.”

  “Good. I hope it gets so bad he can’t sleep at night.”

  She grinned. “Give it time. He’s weakening.”

  He glanced at her as they turned and started back toward the house. “I wondered why he went off in the first place. He loved the Rangers.”

  She wasn’t about to give Marc away, especially not to Judd. His reason for leaving was still painful. “He thought he wanted a change of scenery.”

  “Uh-huh.” He pursed his lips. “And to get away from somebody in the process, maybe.”

  “I haven’t said a single word. And I won’t.”

  He chuckled. “Never mind. I know when to quit, too.”

  He came over twice more before his vacation was up and he headed back to headquarters in Austin for his next assignment. She liked Judd, but she was still a little intimidated by him.

  She wasn’t at all intimidated by the ranch foreman and his wife, who did the cooking and housecleaning. Connor was in his fifties and so was Katie. She wondered what Philippe would think if he knew that she’d had her “crush” on Connor when she was six years old. He was much more like her father than an employee and she loved him and Katie dearly. She’d given Philippe a wrong impression, but it didn’t really bother her. She was still seething about Brianne and being treated like a slave girl in her own bed while she stood in for the other woman. Her pride was crushed, but nothing helped her loneliness. She missed Philippe more every single day.

  She brooded over her own problems, but worry wasn’t going to solve them. She’d hoped that Philippe might call or write, or even show up one day at the front door. But a month passed with no word from him at all, and Gretchen gave up. She was lackluster and miserable, sick half the time and tired the rest, but she put on a good face for her co-workers. The only bad thing was the continuing ill health that finally drove her to Dr. Lou Coltrain after she passed out in the office where she worked.

  When she came to, Hassan had her in the ranch truck and had driven her to the doctor’s office. Heaven knew how he found it, but he was resourceful. He helped her out of the truck and frog-marched her, in the gentlest possible way, right up to the receptionist’s desk and patted her shoulder with a hand the size of a ham.

  “Hassan thinks I should see Dr. Lou,” Gretchen said irritably. “I fainted,” she added.

  “Is Mr. Hassan your husband?” the receptionist asked, staring at the big man wide-eyed.

  “What he is would make a book,” Gretchen said with a sigh. “Can you work me in, since he won’t let me go home?”

  “Of course! She’s only got one more patient. She was leaving early, but she won’t mind seeing you. Have a seat.”

  She did. Hassan sat and waited with her, ignoring the fascinated glances of the other people in the waiting room. Ten minutes later, the nurse called her name and led her back to a small cubicle. Hassan followed, standing at attention outside the door.

  Lou Coltrain came in seconds later, giving the huge man a speaking glance before she closed the sliding cubicle door and looked at Gretchen.

  “You have a shadow,” Lou remarked with a grin. She had long blond hair, too, and was married to “Copper” Coltrain, the other doctor in the small practice.

  “Hassan,” Gretchen said complacently. “Although I call him ‘Elvis.’ He’s my dowry.”

  Lou blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “My husband gave him to me as a dowry. I get to keep him, even though my husband divorced me. He’s my bodyguard.”

  Lou grinned. “Do you need one?”

  “I am…I was,” she corrected, “married to the head of state of a small Middle-Eastern country. He divorced me and sent me home, but one of his enemies is trying to blow him out of his palace. He thinks I may be a target, so Hassan has to live with me until one of us dies or Kurt Brauer is arrested again.”


  Lou cocked her head. “Nice story. Thinking of getting it published, are you?”

  Gretchen glared at her. “It’s the truth.”

  Lou nodded. “Of course it is,” she said, humoring her patient. “Now let’s hear your symptoms.”

  Gretchen elaborated on them. Lou asked a question and Gretchen gasped out loud as she realized that she hadn’t had a monthly in two months. Lou frowned and called the nurse in to draw blood.

  “What do you think it is?” Gretchen asked, worried.

  “I think you’re pregnant,” she said flatly. “We can tell with one of these tests. Considering that it’s eight weeks since your last period,” she added, “I don’t think there’s going to be much guesswork.”

  Gretchen grabbed up an old magazine and began fanning herself furiously. “I can’t be pregnant,” she said breathlessly. “It’s impossible.”

  “You said you were married…” Lou offered.

  “No, it’s not that.” She looked up. “He was injured in a land mine explosion years ago,” she said. “The specialists told him he could never have sex again or father a child. They were wrong about the sex part, but he’ll never believe they were wrong about fathering a child. He won’t think it’s his.” She buried her face in her hands. “I can’t even tell him. I can’t bear it…!”

  Lou took both her hands in hers and held them tightly. “It’s very early days,” she began. “If you want to consider other options…”

  Gretchen shook her head. “Oh, no. No.” She took a slow breath and let go of Lou’s cool, strong fingers. “I want my baby. I’ll just have to make sure he doesn’t find out.”

  “Your bodyguard is right outside the cubicle,” Lou pointed out. “And the door is paper thin.”

  “Hassan can’t speak English.” She smiled. “He’s very handsome, isn’t he?”