Chosen for His Desert Throne

by Caitlin Crews

  If Tarek was not mistaken, that dazed light in her eyes meant he had succeeded in being...disarming. Imagine that.

  He continued in the same vein. “I will leave it up to you. You have no reason to trust me, so I will not ask such a thing of you. I would request only this. That if asked, you make it known that the very moment I learned that you were here, I freed you myself.”

  That dazed light faded, replaced by something far sharper.

  “You want me to be your press release,” she said softly.

  “I would love you to be my press release.” He even laughed, and as he did, it occurred to him that he wasn’t faking this. “If there exists any possibility that you will sing wide the glory of the kingdom, I would be delighted.”

  Her head tilted slightly to one side, and Tarek still wasn’t used to her direct gaze. To the way she unapologetically considered him, right where he could see her do it. “I can’t speak to any possibilities or press releases, I’m afraid. I haven’t taken a proper shower in eight months. Much less soaked myself in a good, long bath. Or used moisturizer. Or any of a thousand other everyday things that now seem luxurious to me.”

  “I understand, of course.” Tarek smiled, again astonished to discover it was not a forced smile. He did not think of honey or vinegar, bees or business. Only what he could do to make her look at him without suspicion. “You must do what you feel is right.”

  He should not have taken pleasure in the way she looked at him, as if he wasn’t quite what she expected. Surely he should not have introduced pleasure into this in the first place, no matter how tempting she was when she ate so recklessly, so heedlessly.

  Tarek could not help but wonder how else she might approach her appetites. How else she might choose to sate them.

  That is enough for now, he snapped at himself.

  He stood, inclining his head to her in what he doubted she would realize was more of an apology than anything he might have said. Or would say.

  “I will leave you to your luxuries, Doctor,” he said. He nodded toward the door. “As I mentioned before, my staff waits outside to attend to you, should you wish it. This suite has both indoor and outdoor spaces, so you need not feel confined. Should you have need of me, personally, I will make myself available to you. You need only ask.”

  Her eyes darted around the room as if she was looking for a way out. Or for a lie. “Um. Yes. Thank you.”

  And Tarek left her then, aware as he strode from the room that he was battling the most unusual sensation.

  Not fury at the circumstances.

  Not distaste at what fate had thrown before him on this day, just as he’d imagined he was over the worst of this complicated year and ready to settle into a brighter future.

  Not the usual bitterness that surged in him when he thought of his brother’s betrayal.

  But the exceptionally unusual feeling that, even though all she was doing was fencing words with him—with an insolence Tarek would have permitted from no other—he would have preferred to stay.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE BATHROOM ALONE was at least three times the size of her cell, and Anya intended to enjoy every inch of it.

  She spent a long while in the vast shower, with its numerous jets and showerheads, offering her every possible water experience imaginable. She conditioned her hair three separate times. She slathered herself in all the shower creams and gels and soaps available. When she was done, having scrubbed every inch of her body to get the dungeon off, she drew a bath in a freestanding tub. She filled it with salts that felt like silk against her skin and she sat in the water for a long while, letting emotion work itself through her in waves. She stared out the windows, sank down deeper into the embrace of the water, and let whatever was inside her work its way through her while she breathed.

  And pretended it was the steam on her cheeks, nothing more.

  After her bath, she wrapped herself in one of the exultantly thick robes that hung on the wall, and sat at the vanity piled high with every hair implement she’d ever dreamed of. And a great many more she’d never seen before. Then she thought of absolutely nothing while she blew out her hair, then put in a few well-placed curls, until the woman who looked back at her from the mirror was actually...her again.

  “Me,” she whispered out loud.

  Her chest felt so tight it hurt to breathe, but she made herself do it anyway—long and deep—trying to keep that knotted thing below her breastbone at bay.

  Anya got up then, snuggling deeper into the lush embrace of the robe. Now that she was so clean she was pickled, she let herself explore. She enjoyed her bare feet against the cool stone floors, or sunk deep into the thick rugs. She wandered the halls, going in and out of each of the bright rooms, then out onto the wide terrace so she could stand beneath the sky.

  She hadn’t invited any staff inside, because that felt too much like more guards. Instead, she wandered around all on her own, as thrilled with the fact she was alone as anything else. All alone. No one was watching her. No one was listening to her. It amazed her how much she’d missed the simple freedom of walking through a room unobserved.

  Through all the rooms. A media center with screens of all descriptions. There was that brightly colored room she’d sat in with Tarek, and three other salons, one for every mood or hint of weather. She had her own little courtyard, filled with flowers, plants, and a fountain that spilled into a pretty pool. There was a fully outfitted gym, two different office spaces, each with a different view, and a small library.

  There was also a selection of bedchambers. Anya went into each, testing the softness of the mattresses and sitting in the chairs or lounging on the chaises, because she could. And because it made her feel like Goldilocks. But she knew the moment she entered the master suite. There was the foyer of mosaic. The art on the walls.

  In the bedchamber itself, she found a glorious, four-poster bed that could sleep ten, which made her feel emotional all over again.

  And laid out on top of the brightly colored bed linens, a rugged-looking canvas bag that she stared at as if it was a ghost.

  Because it was. The last time Anya had seen it, the police had taken it from her.

  Suddenly trembling, she moved to the end of the bed, staring at her bag as if she thought it might...explode. Or she might. And then, making strange noises as if her body couldn’t decide if she was breathing or sobbing, she pulled her bag toward her. Beneath it she found the jeans, T-shirt, and overtunic she’d been wearing that night. The scarf she’d had wrapped around her head. And inside the bag, her personal medical kit, her passport, and her mobile.

  Charged, she saw when she switched it on. Anya stayed frozen where she was, staring at the phone in her hand and the now unfamiliar weight of it. Her voice mailbox was full. There were thousands of emails waiting. Notifications from apps she’d all but forgotten about.

  The outside world in a tiny little box in her palm. And after all this time—all the days and nights she’d made long and complicated lists of all the people she would contact first, all the calls she would make, all the messages she would send—what she did was drop the mobile back down onto the bed.

  And then back away as if it was a snake.

  Her heart began to race. Nausea bloomed, then worked its way through her. Her breath picked up, and then the panic slammed straight into her.

  It didn’t matter what she told herself. It never had mattered. Anya sank down onto her knees and then, when that wasn’t sufficiently low enough, collapsed onto her belly. And as it had so many times before, the panic took control.

  “You are not dying,” she chanted at herself. “It only feels like it.”

  Her heart pounded so hard, so loud, it seemed impossible to her that she wasn’t having a major cardiac event. She ordered herself to stop hyperventilating, because the doctor in her knew that made it worse, but that didn’t work. I
t never worked.

  Anya cried then, soundless, shaking sobs. Because it felt like she was dying, and she couldn’t bear it—not when she’d only just escaped that dungeon.

  But she knew that there was no fighting these panic attacks when they came. That was the horror of them. There was only surrendering, and she had never been any good at that.

  It felt like an eternity. Eventually, she managed to breathe better, slowing each breath and using her nose more than her mouth. Slowly, her heart beat less frantically.

  Slowly, slowly, the clench of nausea dissipated.

  But she still had to crawl across the floor on her hands and knees. Back into the bathroom, where she had to lie for a while on the cold marble floor. Just to make sure that this time it really wasn’t the sudden onset of a horrible influenza.

  As she lay there, staring balefully at the literally palatial toilet before her, it occurred to her that in all the months she’d been imprisoned, she’d never once had one of these attacks. If asked, Anya would have said that her whole life had taken place on a level of intense stress and fear. Especially before she’d begun to learn the language, and had been forced to exist in a swirl of uncomprehending terror.

  Stress, fear, and terror, sure. But she hadn’t had one of these vicious little panic attacks, had she?

  And in fact, it was only when she thought about the world contained on her mobile—and the inevitable messages she would find from her father—that her heart kicked at her again. And another queasy jolt hit her straight in the belly. She could feel her shoulders seem to tie themselves into dramatic shapes above her head, and apparently, it was here on the bathroom floor of a grand palace in Alzalam that Anya might just have to face the fact that it wasn’t her eight-month imprisonment that really stressed her out.

  It was the life she’d put on hold while stuck in that cell.

  “That’s ridiculous,” she muttered at herself as she pulled herself up and onto her feet, feeling brittle and significantly older than she had before.

  When she staggered back out of the bathroom, she didn’t head for her bag again. Or her mobile, God forbid. She went instead through the far archway and found herself in an expansive dressing room, stocked full of clothing, just as the forbidding and beautiful Tarek had promised.

  Anya told herself that she was erring on the side of caution. But she suspected it was more that she didn’t want to be alone any longer, stuck with nothing but her panic, too many voice mail messages she didn’t want to listen to, and the horror of her inbox.

  Whatever it was, she went out and called in the servants.

  “I am to have dinner with the Sheikh and the American ambassador,” she told the two women who waited for her, both of them smiling as if they’d waited their entire lives for this opportunity.

  “Yes, madam,” one of them said. “Such an honor.”

  Anya had not considered it an honor. Should she have? When Tarek had made it clear that it was likely damage control? Maybe she really did need to sit down with her mobile, get online, and read the story of what had happened to her as told by people she’d never met. But the thought of picking up that phone again made something cold roll down her spine.

  She smiled back at the women. “I’m hoping you can help me. I’ve never attended a formal dinner in your country and I have been...indisposed for so long.”

  “Don’t you worry, madam,” said the other woman, smiling even brighter. “We will make you shine.”

  And that was what they did.

  They spared no detail. They buffed Anya’s fingernails and her toenails, then added polish. They clucked disapprovingly over her brows, and then, as far she could tell, removed every errant piece of hair from her entire body. There was a salt scrub, because they did not feel that her long shower, or deep soak in the bath, was up to par.

  Nor were they impressed with her hair, and when they were finished restyling it, she could see why. Anya looked luminous. Soft, pampered, and something like happy.

  They had rimmed her eyes with dark mascara. They’d slicked a soft gloss over her lips. And when she looked in the set of full-length mirrors in the dressing room, she found herself resplendent in a bright tunic and matching trousers, flowing and lovely. Topped off with a long scarf with a pretty, jeweled edge that complemented the outfit and made her seem like someone else. The kind of woman who dined with ambassadors and kings, maybe.

  “Thank you,” she said to the women when they were done. “You’ve worked miracles here tonight.”

  Anya found herself smiling when they led her out of her rooms, then through the halls of the palace.

  Night was falling outside, but the palace was still filled with light. She could see the last of the sun creep away a bit more every time they walked across a courtyard. And when they reached the grand central courtyard—that she vaguely remembered studying on the plane out of Houston a lifetime ago, because she’d known she was heading into the region—she paused for a moment as the night took over the sky.

  Because she wasn’t in the cell. There was nothing between her and the stars, save the palace walls that stood, then, at a distance. As if they understood, the women seemed content to wait while she stood there, her head tipped back and the half-wild notion that if she jumped, she would float straight off into the galaxy.

  But she didn’t. And when she came back to earth, the servants led her into a smaller room off the courtyard that was filled with Americans.

  “His Excellency wishes you to speak with your countrymen for long as you desire,” the woman closest to her said, not in English. “Only when you are satisfied will the formal dinner begin.”

  “Thank you,” Anya said quietly.

  “You learned the language?” asked one of the men who waited for her, slick and polished in his suit and shiny shoes, with a sharp smile to match. “Smart move, Dr. Turner.”

  Anya heard the door close behind her, and surely she should have felt...something different, now. Some sense of triumph, or victory. Instead, she felt almost as if she was back in one of the hospitals she’d worked in before she’d come abroad, forced to contend with competitive doctors and high-stakes medical issues alike.

  There were too many men in suits in the room and somehow, what she wanted was a different man. One in ivory and gold, with a predator’s sharp gaze, and the quiet, inarguable presence of heavy stone.

  “Was it smart?” she asked, smiling faintly because she thought she should. “Or survival?”

  “It’s an honor to meet you, Dr. Turner,” said the most polished of the men, his face creased with wisdom and his smile encouraging. “I’m Ambassador Pomeroy, and I have to tell you, I can’t wait to take you home.”

  Home. That word echoed around inside of her. And as the circle of men tightened around her, all of them making soothing noises and asking about her state of mind and general welfare, she told herself it was joy.

  Because it had to be joy.

  But it wasn’t until she walked into the dining room that had been prepared for them—another triumph of mosaic and marble, beautifully lit and welcoming—that she breathed easy again.

  Because Tarek waited there, lounging with seeming carelessness at the head of a long table. His gaze was hooded and dark, a clear indication of the power he was choosing not to wield, so obvious to Anya that it made her feel hollowed out with a kind of shiver. He was wearing a different set of robes that should have made him look silly compared to the pack of American diplomats in their business suits. But didn’t.

  At all.

  “Welcome,” the King said, his voice a ruthless scrape across the pretty room. “I thank you for joining me in this celebration of—” and Anya could have sworn that he looked only at her, then “—resilience and grace.”

  “Hear, hear,” cried the men, a bit too brightly for strangers.

  And despite how she’d feasted e
arlier, and how sure she’d been that she couldn’t eat another bite, she found when she was seated at Tarek’s right hand that she was starving. So while the men engaged in the sort of elegantly poisonous dinner conversation that she supposed was the hallmark of international diplomacy, or perhaps of tedious dinner parties, Anya indulged herself. Again.

  It was only when she was quietly marveling at the tenderness of the chicken she was eating—simmered to tear-jerking tenderness on a bed of fragrant rice and doused in a thick, spicy sauce with so many flavors—that Anya realized that the Sheikh was not paying any attention to the arch wordplay of the ambassador and his aides.

  Instead, Tarek was focused on her.

  “The food in the dungeon wasn’t terrible,” she told him, realizing only as she smiled at him that she was...not embarrassed, exactly. But something in her heated up and stayed hot at the notion he was watching her again. “Just, you know. Bland.”

  “That is unpardonable.”

  Was she imagining the heat in his gaze? The faint trace of humor in that dark voice of his?

  “How did you find your ambassador?” he asked, doing something with his chin that brought one of the waiting servants over to place more delicacies in front of her. “Appropriately outraged on your behalf, I trust?”

  “Are you asking if I issued that press release?” she heard herself ask, in a tone she was terribly afraid was more flirtatious than not.

  Good lord. Maybe when she’d had that panic attack, she’d hit her head on the stone floor. That was the only explanation. She dropped her gaze to her plate.

  But she could still feel Tarek beside her. The burn of his attention all over her.

  “I have a far more interesting question to ask you than what you did or did not tell a career diplomat,” he said, all quiet force and the dark beneath. Like the night sky she’d wanted to float away in, ripe with stars. “Who will tell his own tales to suit himself, let me assure you.”