by Jane Porter
Someone else, someone soft, might be moved by her fragile beauty, but he refused to allow himself to feel anything for her, not now, not after she’d become a temptress. A seductress. A problem.
He didn’t allow his personal and professional life to overlap. Sex, desire, lust … they didn’t belong in the workplace. Ever.
“I respected you.” His deep voice sounded harsh even to his own ears, but he’d never minced words with her before and wasn’t about to start now. “And I’m not sure I do anymore.”
She flinched, visibly stung, and his gut tightened, an uncomfortable cramp of sensation, and then it was gone, pushed away with the same ferocious intensity he’d applied to the rest of life.
He didn’t cater to anyone—male or female. It went against his belief system. Makin had been his parents’ only child and they’d been a very close, tight-knit family. His father, a powerful Bedouin ruler and Kadar’s royal prince, was nearly twenty years older than Makin’s French mother, Yvette.
When he was growing up, his parents had rarely discussed the past, being too focused on the present, but Makin had pieced enough details together to get a picture of his parents’ courtship. They’d met when his mother was just twenty and a film student in Paris. She was beautiful and bright and full of big plans, but within weeks of meeting Tahnoon Al-Koury, she’d accepted his marriage proposal and exchanged her dreams for his, marrying him in a quiet ceremony in Paris before returning to Kadar with her new husband.
Makin had only met his maternal grandparents once, and that was at his father’s funeral. His mother refused to speak to them so it’d been left to Makin to introduce himself to his French grandparents. They weren’t the terrible people he’d imagined, just ignorant. They couldn’t understand that their daughter could love an Arab, much less an Arab confined to a wheelchair.
Makin had grown up with his father in a wheelchair and it was neither terrible nor tragic, at least not until the end. His father was beyond brilliant. Tahnoon was devoted to his family, worshipped his wife and battled to maintain as much independence as he could, despite the degenerative nature of his disease.
Makin was twenty when his father died. But in the years Makin had with him, he never heard his father complain or make excuses, even though Tahnoon lived with tremendous pain and suffered endless indignities. No, his father was a proud, fierce man and he’d taught Makin—not by words, but by example—that life required strength, courage and hard work.
“You don’t respect me because I wanted to be loved?” Hannah asked huskily, forcing his attention from the past to the present.
He glanced down, straight into her eyes, and felt that same uncomfortable twinge and steeled himself against the sensation. “I don’t respect you wanting to be loved by him.” He paused, wanting her to understand. “Ibanez is beneath you. He’s self-centered and vulgar and the women who chase him are fools.”
“That’s harsh.”
“But true. He’s always at the heart of a scandal. He prefers married women or women recently engaged like that ridiculous Princess Emmeline—”
“Ridiculous Princess Emmeline?” she interrupted. “Do you know her?”
“I know of her—”
“So you can’t say she’s ridiculous—”
“Oh, I can. I know her family well, and I attended her sixteenth birthday in Brabant years ago. She’s engaged to King Zale Patek, and I pity him. She’s turned him into a joke by chasing after Ibanez all year despite her engagement to Patek. No one respects her. The princess has the morals of an alley cat.”
“That’s a horrid thing to say.”
“I’m honest. Perhaps if others had been more honest with Her Royal Highness, she might have turned out differently.” He shrugged dismissively. “But I don’t care about her. I care about you and your ability to perform your job with clarity and efficiency. Don’t let Ibanez waste another moment of your time. Nor my time, for that matter. Everything about him bores me.” His gaze held hers. “Are we clear?”
“Yes,” she said huskily.
“Then pull yourself together and take a seat in the main cabin so we can depart.”
Using the vanity kit provided in the bathroom, Emmeline washed her face, brushed her teeth and ran a comb through her hair. The thick dark hair still looked strange to her. Emmeline missed her golden-blond color. Missed her wardrobe. Missed her life.
This is how Hannah must have felt when thrust into Emmeline’s life.
Lost. Confused. Angry. And Emmeline knew she was the one who’d put Hannah in that position. Changing places with Hannah had been Emmeline’s idea. There was no benefit for Hannah. Nothing to be gained by masquerading as a princess. It was Emmeline who’d benefited. She’d been able to slip away from her attendants to seek out Alejandro and tell him about the pregnancy. Only in the end, when she had confronted him, it hadn’t mattered. He’d still rejected her.
Emmeline sucked in a slow breath, sickeningly aware that her selfishness and foolishness had impacted so many people. Hannah. King Patek. Sheikh Al-Koury.
What she had to do was fix things. Not just for her, but for everyone.
Once tidy and outwardly calm, she took the seat the flight attendant led her to, a seat not far from Makin’s, although he was at work typing away on his laptop.
Emmeline tried to block him from her peripheral vision as the jet taxied down the runway, unnerved by the sheer size and shape of him.
He was tall, solid, muscular. As he typed, his arms flexed and she could see the distinct shape of his thick bicep press against the taut cotton of his shirt. His fine wool trousers silhouetted the hard cut of his quadriceps. Even his hands were strong, his fingers moving easily, confidently, across the laptop keyboard.
She watched his hands for a moment, fascinated by them. His skin was tan and his fingers were long and well-shaped. They reminded her of the hands on Greek statues—beautiful, classic, sculptural. She wondered what his touch would be like, and how his hands would move on a woman’s body. Would his touch be light and gentle, or heavy and rough? She wondered how he held a woman, and if he curved her to him or held himself aloof, using her like a piece of equipment.
Emmeline had never wondered about such things before, but her night with Alejandro had changed all that. It changed the way she viewed men and women, made her realize that sex had been romanticized in books and movies and the media.
Sex wasn’t warm or fun or intimate. It hadn’t been beautiful or something pleasurable.
She’d found it a soulless, empty act. It’d been Alejandro taking her body—no more, no less than that.
Emmeline knew now her expectations had been so silly, so girlish and immature. Why hadn’t she realized that Alejandro would pump away at her until he climaxed and roll off to shower and dress and leave?
Her eyes stung, hot, hot and gritty. Even seven weeks later she felt betrayed by her need for love and affection, and how she’d turned to Alejandro to give her that affection.
She’d imagined that sex would fill the hollow emptiness inside of her, but it had only made it worse.
Squeezing her eyes closed, she pulled the soft blanket even higher on her chest as her late grandmother’s voice echoed in her head, “Don’t cast pearls before swine.” But that’s what Emmeline had done out of desperation that no one would ever love her.
Emmeline shivered beneath the blanket, horrified all over again by her poor choices.
“Would you like me to turn the heat up?” Makin asked.
She opened her eyes and saw he was watching her. She didn’t know how long he’d been watching. “I’m fine,” she said unsteadily.
“I can get you another blanket.”
“I’m fine,” she repeated.
“You’re shivering.”
Heat crept into her cheeks. He was watching her closely, then. “Just my thoughts.”
“Ibanez isn’t worth your time. He’s a liar, a cheat, a scoundrel. You deserve a prince of a man. Nothing less.”
How ironic. Hannah deserved a prince of a man, but she, Emmeline, deserved only scorn.
Emmeline swallowed around the thick lump in her throat, wishing that she could be the smart, capable Hannah he admired instead of the useless spoiled princess he despised.
His disdain for her wounded. It shouldn’t. He didn’t know her, and she shouldn’t let one person’s opinion matter, but it did. He’d touched a nerve. A powerful nerve. It was as if he’d somehow seen through her elegant, polished exterior to the real Emmeline, the private Emmeline who felt so unworthy and impossible to love.
She’d always wondered why she felt so insecure, so alone, and then, on her sixteenth birthday, a half hour before her big party, she’d learned that her parents weren’t her birth parents after all. She’d been adopted. Her birth mother had been a young unmarried woman from Brabant, but no one knew who her birth father was.
She’d gone to her birthday party absolutely shell-shocked. She didn’t know why her adoptive father, King William, had felt compelled to break the news before her party but it had spoiled the night for her. Instead of dancing and celebrating with her guests, she’d found herself wondering about the mother who’d given her up, and if she looked like her, and if her mother ever thought of her.
It had been nine years since that revelation, and yet Emmeline still wondered about her birth parents. Could the fact that she’d been adopted have anything to do with her sense of emptiness and fear of abandonment? Could she have missed that mother who gave birth to her?
“What did you hope to accomplish tonight at the Mynt?” Makin suddenly asked.
She drew the blanket even closer to her chest, trying to capture more warmth. “He said he loved me—”
“Yes, I know,” he interrupted impatiently. “You already told me that.”
“—and I thought if he saw me tonight, he’d remember how he felt about me,” she pressed on as though he hadn’t spoken. “I thought he’d remember he’d asked me to marry him.”
“He asked you to marry him?” he repeated, incredulous.
Her chin tilted defiantly. Why did he find that so impossible to believe? “Yes.”
For a long moment Makin said nothing, absolutely nothing. He just sat there, looking at her as if he felt sorry for her. Just when Emmeline didn’t think she could take his pitying silence another moment, he spoke. “Alejandro’s already married. Not just married, but a father to five children. The oldest is twelve. The youngest just nine months old.”
“Impossible.”
“Have I ever lied to you about anything?”
She couldn’t answer and, jaw flexing, he looked away, dropping his gaze to the bright screen of his laptop computer.
Blanket pressed to her collarbone, Emmeline’s stomach heaved. Alejandro, already married? Father to five? Things just kept getting worse.
CHAPTER THREE
HOURS later, Emmeline was woken by the vibration of the jet’s landing gear unfolding, wheels in position in preparation for touching down. Half asleep, she glanced out the window but could see nothing below but pale gold … or was it beige? Maybe a little of both. No buildings, no lights, no roads, no sign of life. Just sand.
Emmeline groggily sat taller. Far in the distance she could see a spot of gray color. Or was it green? She didn’t know what it was but it couldn’t be a city, and there was no sprawling airport, either, and yet here they were making a sharp, steep descent as if they were about to land.
Just moments later, they touched down, the landing so smooth it was but a bump of sound and then the swift application of brakes. They hurtled along the black asphalt runway bordered on both sides by a vast reddish-gold desert. In the distance, in the same direction she’d spotted the gray-green patch, she could see a ragged range of mountains, but even those were copper and gold in the morning light.
She didn’t know why, but she’d expected a city. Most of the royal princes she knew in Dubai and the UAE lived in cosmopolitan cities—glamorous centers filled with fashion boutiques and deluxe hotels and five-star restaurants. Sheikhs today were modern and wealthier than the rest of the world, including their European counterparts. They could afford life’s every luxury, and they owned jets, yachts, rare cars, polo fields and strings of expensive ponies.
That was the world Emmeline had expected Sheikh Al-Koury to take her to. A sprawling urban city. But instead there was just sand. Sand and more sand. A virtual sea of sand in every direction, all the way to the rough-hewn mountains.
Emmeline had thought she could just put Hannah on a plane and get her here. But she wasn’t going to be able to sneak Hannah into the desert and change places with her without anyone knowing. They were in such a deserted spot that all incoming aircraft would immediately be noticed.
“You look disappointed.” Makin’s deep voice came from across the aisle.
Emmeline’s pulse quickened, and his deep husky timbre flooded her with memories—his appearance at the nightclub last night. His harsh opinion of Alejandro. His overwhelming physical presence.
“Why would I be disappointed?” she answered, with a casual arch of her eyebrow.
His silver gaze collided with hers and held. His features were granite-hard, his strong black eyebrows a slash above intense gray eyes. There was a light in his eyes, too, and a curve to his upper lip as if he weren’t pleased with what he saw, either.
Her pulse jumped, racing wildly. He was still intense, still overwhelming, and nausea threatened to get the best of her.
“You’ve never liked the desert and Kasbah Raha,” he said softly, his upper lip curling yet again. “You prefer life in Nadir with all the hustle and bustle.”
So they truly were in the middle of nowhere. Which meant getting Hannah into Raha undetected would be as nearly impossible as Emmeline getting out.
“That may be so,” she answered, hoping he didn’t hear the wobble in her voice, “but I love how the morning sun burnishes the sand, turning everything copper and gold.”
“How refreshing. You usually dread your time in the desert, saying Raha reminds you too much of your ranch in Texas.”
Emmeline valiantly tried to play along. “But I love the ranch. It’s where I grew up.”
“Maybe. But in Nadir you have friends, your own apartment in the palace, and numerous social activities, and when you’re here, you’re very much alone. Or alone with me.”
The “alone with him” part sent a tremor of anxiety through her. She couldn’t imagine spending another hour alone with him, much less days. She had to get Hannah here. Immediately.
His eyes suddenly gleamed, his full sensual mouth lifting in a mocking smile, and she could have sworn he knew exactly what she was thinking. She blushed, cheeks heating, skin prickling, even as she told herself it was impossible. He wasn’t a mind reader. He couldn’t possibly know how much he unsettled her.
And yet his gray eyes with those bright silver flecks were so direct, so perceptive she felt a quiver race through her, a quiver of dread and anticipation. He was so different from anyone she knew. So much more.
Makin’s long legs stretched carelessly into the aisle and his broad shoulders filled his chair. He was at least six feet two. While Alejandro was handsome, Makin Al-Koury exuded power.
“Fortunately, this time here you’ll be too busy assisting and entertaining my guests to feel isolated,” he added. “I trust that everything’s in place for their arrival?”
“Of course.” She smiled to hide the fact that she didn’t have a clue. But she’d soon find someone on his staff who would fill her in.
“Good. Because last night I seriously questioned your ability to pull this weekend off. But you slept most of the flight and appear more rested.”
“I am,” she answered, thinking that it was he who looked utterly fresh despite the fact that they’d been traveling for so long.
“Did you take something to help you sleep?”
“No. Why?”
“You aren’t usually able to fall asleep o
n flights.”
She didn’t know how to respond to that as she’d learned to sleep on planes at a very young age. She’d grown up traveling. There were always royal functions and goodwill tours and appearances, first with her family and then on her own.
She’d been a shy little girl, and even a timid teenager, but the media never knew that. All they saw was her face and how photogenic she was. By the time she was fifteen, the paparazzi had singled her out, crowning her as the great beauty of her generation. Since then she’d lived in the spotlight, with camera lenses constantly focused on her and journalists’ pens poised to praise or critique, and she never knew which until the article was published.
“I think I was too worn out not to sleep,” she said, and it was true. All she wanted to do lately was sleep, and apparently that was another side effect of pregnancy. “And you? Did you get any rest?”
“Less than I wanted,” he said, lashes dropping over his eyes, concealing his expression. “It was hard to sleep. I was—am—worried about you.”
She heard something in his deep voice that made her insides flip-flop.
Genuine emotion. True concern.
He might hate Emmeline but he adored Hannah.
Emmeline felt a sharp stab of envy. What she wouldn’t give to be the brilliant, efficient Hannah—a woman worthy of love and respect.
Awash in hot emotion, Emmeline looked away, out the jet’s oval window. They’d finally come to a full stop in this vast desert. Uniformed personnel appeared on the tarmac. A fleet of shining black vehicles waited just off to the side of the runway, sunlight glinting off the windows and polished surfaces. Even though it was early, heat shimmered in iridescent waves off the black tarmac and surrounding sand.
This vast hot shimmering desert was Sheikh Al-Koury’s world and now that she was here, Emmeline sensed her life would never be the same.
Makin stretched his legs out in the back seat of his custom car, a large, powerful sedan with tinted windows and reinforced panels to make it virtually bulletproof.
