What was really insane was that a part of her wished he would detain her here forever. That way she wouldn’t be separated from him.
Of course, in her heart of hearts he wouldn’t do such a thing because he wasn’t that kind of man. But he would send her away in the morning.
Knowing she wouldn’t be able to sleep for a long time, she walked out to the patio to breathe in the scent of the flowers. She marveled that they grew and thrived in one of the harshest of climates on earth.
Lauren moved around to look at each one and savor its fragrance. He’d brought her out here the first time they’d eaten together. The night had been magical.
Tonight was different. It was late and the air had grown cooler. One glance at the desert and she finally went back to the bedroom, hoping she’d be able to sleep. But her thoughts were too full of him and it was hours before oblivion took over.
When morning came, a numbness seemed to have taken over her body. Once she’d eaten breakfast, Nazir arrived for her. Before that, several maids had taken her bags on ahead. Nazir escorted her out of the palace to the waiting helicopter. Naturally there was no sign of Rafi. It almost destroyed her, but there was nothing she could do about that now.
She climbed in the back seat next to one of the guards and strapped herself in, having to accept her fate. Nazir took the co-pilot’s seat. After he’d put on his head gear they were off. Lauren couldn’t bring herself to look back. Frozen with pain, she closed her eyes.
“Mademoiselle? Do you feel ill?”
Nazir always did his job. He would report everything that went on to Rafi. If nothing else, her pride couldn’t bear for him to be told she’d had a meltdown in the helicopter on the way to El-Joktor, so she opened her eyes and smiled. “I’m fine. Just sleepy.”
He nodded, but he clearly didn’t believe her. A heavy sigh escaped her throat.
For once there were clouds in the sky. Not serious ones. They were too high and wispy. The Nafud only got a little more than an inch of rain in a whole year. There’d be no storm today.
She heard the pilot talking through his headphone, most likely to the control tower in El-Joktor. The forty miles that would have taken two days to cover by caravan would only take fifteen minutes or less. They’d already been in the air for a while.
The next time she looked out the window, she saw they were making their approach, but as they drew closer, she realized it was to a smaller city than El-Joktor with a ridge of mountains behind it. Houses, horses, trucks, cars, Jeeps.
“Nazir? What city is this?”
“Raz, mademoiselle.”
“Why are we landing here? Is something wrong?”
“No, mademoiselle. Don’t be concerned. You’re perfectly safe.”
The pilot put the helicopter down next to a sprawling one-story building at what looked like a mining site.
“If you’ll follow me,” Nazir said after she’d jumped to the ground. He was so polite when he knew he’d left her with no choice. He led her inside the modern, air-conditioned interior. It was a well-decorated office building with every convenience.
“This way, mademoiselle.” He showed her around one corner and opened a door for her to step inside. It was a CEO’s suite, to be sure. “Please be seated.” She sat down on one of the leather chairs. Nazir disappeared, then came back with a bottle of cold water and handed it to her.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. If you need a restroom, it’s through that door.”
Once he’d gone, she removed the bottle cap and drank while she awaited her fate. When Rafi walked in through a connecting door, the bottle slipped from her hand and fell to the floor. What little liquid was left spilled on the rug.
He retrieved it before she could, and set it on the desk. “Don’t worry. It will dry soon enough.” She stared up at him. “This is where I spend the majority of my time.”
He’d dressed in typical Arab garb, white top and white pants. He’d tucked them into his leather boots. Rafi was all male; whatever he wore, he looked spectacular.
“Your job covers a lot of territory. It makes a woman’s head spin. Why didn’t you let the helicopter fly me to El-Joktor?”
His eyes smoldered, sending another delicious shiver down her spine. “Because there’s a matter of unfinished business.”
“I was afraid of that.” She had the pleasure of watching the muscles harden in his striking face.
“Close your eyes and lower your head, Lauren.”
If this was some kind of a test, she was determined to meet it with a brave face. “They’re closed.”
Even before his hands encircled her neck, her heart had jumped to her throat. She felt his legs press against hers while he fastened something at her nape. After he stepped back he said, “You can open them now.”
As she lifted her head, she felt something dangling against her chest. She looked down, not believing her eyes. “My medallion!” Her gaze flew to his. She discovered him lounging against his desk with a strange gleam in his eyes.
He nodded. “The second Dr. Tamam saw it, he took it off the chain and informed me. While you were still unconscious, I removed the chain from your neck and pocketed both for safekeeping.”
Lauren could hardly breathe. “All this time you’ve had it, yet you flew me to the site of the sandstorm in my pathetic hope to find it?” She covered her mouth with her hand. “Since I was brought in, you’ve known everything!”
“Not quite.” He folded his arms.
“Until the other night, I didn’t realize the ancients of your tribe worshipped the moon. The medallion had much more significance than I’d realized.” She shook her head.
“I’d hoped you’d tell me the whole story behind it so I wouldn’t have to resort to these extreme measures. This is your last chance to come clean. Why didn’t you give me the complete description of the medallion when I asked you?”
She unconsciously ran her thumb over the relief. “Because I needed to protect certain people from being hurt in case they saw it and made a connection.”
“Certain people at the Oasis, you mean.”
Lauren looked away. “Yes.”
“And what connection would that be?”
“I thought you knew—” she cried out, jumping to her feet.
“I do, but I want to hear you say it.”
There was no help for it. “To the royal family.”
“Be more specific.”
It was no use. Lauren couldn’t take any more. “Oh, all right! To King Malik.”
He straightened from the desk. “Why single out King Malik? The medallion is the symbol of the entire royal family who’ve been in power for centuries.”
“Because he was the one who gave it to…someone I knew,” she mumbled, but he heard her.
The second the words were out of her mouth, she watched in fascination the way his chest rose and fell, as if he’d sustained a shock. “But that’s impossible.”
She blinked, totally confused. “Why?”
“Only when a new male member of the royal household is born is one minted. He wears it for life and is buried with it.”
The king’s love for her grandmother must have been beyond comprehension. “Did anyone see if King Malik was buried with his?”
Rafi went so quiet, she knew he didn’t have an answer for that question. It was probably the only time in his life he’d been thrown by a mystery he couldn’t solve.
Dark lines etched his arresting features. “Tell me the name of the person he gave it to. According to you, they’re dead. You don’t have to worry since you’ve already broken your promise to them.”
Tears pricked her eyelids. “Because you tricked me—”
“Not tricked. I only held off showing you the medallion until I could see that nothing else would work. It’s my job to protect the royal family. I had to be certain you weren’t working for a hostile entity sent to spy on the king or the acting sheikh.”
“You mean Prince Ra
shad.”
“That’s right. You and I are both on the same side, Lauren.”
Put that way, she realized they were, but she couldn’t forgive him for what he’d put her through. She bit her lip. “H-he gave it to my grandmother,” she said in a tremulous voice.
More silence. “When?” he eventually demanded.
“I’m sure if you went back far enough in the official documents of the kingdom, you would see that she traveled here alone, unmarried, when she was twenty years old.
“Someone told her about the Al-Shafeeq Oasis that blossomed like a rose in the desert. Being an adventurous person, she decided she wanted to see it.”
Rafi stood there still as a statue. “She met Sheikh Malik?”
Lauren nodded. “He was twenty-six at the time. He saw her walking in the palace garden. She had hair my color, but she wore it down her back to her waist. He was so drawn to her, he had her brought to him. One thing led to another. At one point he took her to see the Garden of the Moon.”
A strange sound came out of Rafi.
“It was there he told her he would love her until the day he died. But he couldn’t marry her because he was betrothed to another princess.”
Her voice shook as she told Rafi the rest. “H-he said she would have to leave the Oasis and they would never be able to see each other again. The only thing he could give her was the medallion. He put it around her neck and told her that every time she looked at it, he would sense it and know she was remembering their time beneath the moon when she’d made him feel immortal.”
Rafi rubbed the back of his neck. A white ring encircled his lips.
“When my grandmother knew she was dying, she took the medallion off her own neck and gave it to me. She said that next to me, it was her most priceless possession. After she passed away, I had this longing to come to the oasis and see where it had all happened.”
She undid the chain. “Thank you for returning this to me, but it isn’t mine to keep. It belongs to the royal family. I would think King Umar would like to have something that belonged to his father. Princess Farah said that King Malik was known as the great sheikh for making the kingdom stronger.
“The more I think about it, the more I want him to have it in payment of his generosity and kindness to me while I’ve been recuperating at the palace.” She went over to the desk and left it on top. “Now am I free to go?”
His eyes were dark slits as he looked at her. “No.”
She struggled for breath. “Do you want me to stay, Rafi? If you do, tell me—”
He gave her a look so tormented, she was shaken by it. Without saying a word, he walked behind his desk and opened the drawer. She saw him take out a ring and put it on. Then he moved toward her and extended his hand, palm down.
When she saw the same medallion in the form of a ring, she got that curious din in her ears again, as she’d felt when the sandstorm had hit without warning. The same presentiment came to her now that she was about to go through another life-changing experience and nothing would ever be the same again.
One by one, every moment with him, every nuance, every warning, every word and gesture fell into place as pure revelation flowed through her. Her eyes searched his and she saw the truth written in them. She remembered him telling her that the kind of marriage she imagined wasn’t written in his stars…
“You’re Prince Rashad,” she whispered.
No-o-o. Oh no—
She felt his hands cup her face and lift it. The eyes staring down at her blazed with fire. In panic, she tried to pull away from him, but he held her fast. “Don’t be frightened of me, Lauren. You know I could never hurt you. Now that everything’s out in the open and there are no secrets between us, all I want to do is love you.”
“No—” She jerked away from him and staggered back. “We can’t!—”
How could she have been so blind? He was the acting sheikh. Of course. Hadn’t he talked and walked like a prince?
His hands slid to her shoulders, kneading them restlessly. “I need you and I know you need me. I have an apartment through that door. We’ll start all over again and be alone for as long as we want. We’ll do what we’ve been wanting to do from the very beginning. You’re all I desire,” he declared passionately, running his hands up and down her arms.
“You’re all I want, too,” she answered honestly. “You have no idea of the depth of my feelings, but we can’t be together because—because it would be wrong!”
“Wrong?” He laughed almost angrily. “How can you say that when we know what we feel for each other is so right no power has been able to stop it?”
She agreed. There’d been something that had come over her before she’d even fully awakened after the sandstorm, bonding her to him. But she possessed a secret he didn’t know anything about yet. Lauren could keep it to herself, but could she live with the guilt of it over a lifetime?
She already knew the answer to that question. No matter how much she wanted to belong to Rafi, she realized the knowledge would eventually destroy them both. She had to tell him the truth.
“Don’t look at me like that, Lauren,” he implored, misunderstanding the pain in her eyes.
“I’ll go to my father tonight. When I explain to him about us, he’ll call off the plans for my wedding. I couldn’t go through with it now.” He started kissing her face, every part of it, thrilling her so completely her body throbbed with need.
“Farah said it would take place at the end of the year.”
He smothered a moan before clasping her hands and kissing her fingertips. “The timeline has changed to a month away. I have to go to him before another day passes.”
Jealousy drove a shaft through Lauren. “Who is she?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters. Already she’s planning to be your wife. You can’t undo what’s been done.”
“You think not?” he came back in a voice of command. “Princess Azzah will rejoice when she learns it’s been called off.”
No, she won’t, Lauren lamented. Farah didn’t have to tell Lauren that her brother was desired by other women. There was no other man like him. “She’s already anticipating her marriage to you.”
His eyes, so black and alive, searched hers. “Why are you fighting me on this?”
“Because I’m not going to be the woman responsible for causing a breach with your father. When you and I were together the other night, I thought you were the king’s chief of security. I thought you were emotionally free.
“When you told me you were a pot who still hadn’t found its cover, I interpreted that to mean you were a bachelor who enjoyed the life you were living. But now that I know your identity, everything’s changed.
“Farah has told me things. She says your father isn’t well. One day you’ll be taking his place. You have no choice but to carry on certain traditions for which your life has always been destined.”
Lines marred his handsome features. “Your argument rings hollow. You’re holding back another secret from me. What else did Farah tell you?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s not true. Why won’t you look at me?”
“Rafi—I need to leave.”
“You’re not going anywhere.” He grasped her arms. “I want to know what my sister said to you.”
“It was just a passing comment, but it appears to have come true.” In fact Lauren was haunted by it now.
She heard him expel an angry breath. “Is your silence intended to be punishment for me because of the way I dealt with you?”
“No—” she cried, hearing the anguish in his voice. She lifted imploring eyes to him. “While we were all at the pool the other day, she made the passing comment you had been too favored. She said your mother feared that because you’d been given every gift there’d be a price to pay.
“I asked her what she thought her mother meant. She said that heaven was jealous of you. One day when something came along you wanted more th
an anything on earth, it wouldn’t be granted.”
Rafi bit out an epithet. She didn’t have to know Arabic to understand the emotion behind it. “I love Farah, but she’s a very dramatic, impressionable person who overstates things at times without realizing it.”
“Nevertheless, she was right about this, wasn’t she? You and I want something that can’t be. I’m going to have to do what my grandmother did. Somehow she found the strength to leave King Malik and never come back. Now it’s my turn to do the right thing.”
“No,” Rafi declared. “That’s not the right thing for either of us. My nation has come out of the Dark Ages, Lauren. I’ve been doing everything possible to modernize our way of life and keep up with the new advances, particularly in technology.
“Change has been inevitable and will continue to happen. The point is, I’m not a product of another era. I was born into this one. Some traditions from the past are good and important. Yet I have a different view of many things to make life better for our people.
“Certainly I haven’t grown up being in favor of archaic marriage traditions, but until I met you, I was willing to go along with my father’s expectations. Now everything has changed. I refuse to be like my grandfather who was so strong in his own beliefs, he gave up the great love of his life and sent your grandmother away. That decision left them no joy.”
When Rafi would have kissed her mouth, Lauren hid her face from him. “Then I’ll have to be strong for both of us.”
“Why?” he cried.
“Because King Malik was my grandfather, too.”
Silence shattered everything.
As the revelation computed, his arms tightened around her. “Say that again?” he whispered into her hair.
With tears in her voice she said, “We both have the same grandfather. My grandmother went home not realizing she was pregnant with my mother. Their daughter.”
His hands tightened in her curls before sliding to her upper arms. He eased her far enough away to look into her eyes. “But that’s impossible.”
“No. It was very possible, Rafi. They were lovers for a fortnight…i-in the garden suite.”
Her Desert Prince Page 12
