She leaped to her feet and spun towards his men. ‘Do you understand what he’s doing? He’s kidnapping me! He’ll lose his head for this. You’ll all lose—’ The plane’s engines coughed to life and began to whine. Joanna turned back to Khalil. ‘What do you want?’ she pleaded. ‘More money? You’ve only to ask my father. He’ll give you whatever—’ The plane began moving forward into the dark night and her voice rose in panic. ‘Listen to me! Just take me back. No. You don’t have to take me back. I can drive myself. Just give me the keys to the car and—’
Khalil’s look silenced her.
‘We’ve a three-hour flight ahead of us. I suggest you get some rest before we reach the northern hills.’
‘You’ll never get away with this! You can’t just—’
Khalil put his hands on his hips and looked at her. His eyes were cold, empty of feeling. With a sinking heart, she thought what a fool she’d been not to have guessed his identity from the start.
‘It is done,’ he said. ‘What will be, will be.’
Joanna stared at him, at that unyielding, harsh face, and then she turned away and looked blindly out of the porthole while the plane raced down the sand and rose into the night sky.
He was right. It was done. Now, she could only pray for deliverance.
CHAPTER FOUR
NOTHING made sense. Joanna sat stiffly in her seat, alone with her thoughts in the darkness of the plane, trying to come up with answers to questions that seemed as complex as the riddle of the Sphinx.
Why had Khalil played out the charade of letting her think he was someone else? He could have announced his identity when he’d discovered she was Joanna, not Joe.
Where was he taking her? This wasn’t any quick trip around the block. She glanced at the luminescent face of her watch. They’d been in the air more than an hour now, and she’d yet to feel the tell-tale change in engine pitch and angle of flight that would mean they were readying to land. A little shudder went through her. No, she thought again, this wasn’t a short hop by any means. Wherever Khalil was taking her, it was some distance from Casablanca.
And then there was the most devastating question of all, the one her frazzled brain kept avoiding.
Why had he taken her captive?
She had tiptoed around the issue half a dozen times at least, edging up to it as a doe might a clearing in the woods, getting just so close, then skittering off. She knew she had to deal with the question, and soon, for this flight could not last forever and Joanna knew herself well. Whatever lay ahead would only be the more terrifying if she weren’t prepared for it mentally.
The plane bounced gently in an air pocket and she used the moment to try and see beyond the curtain that separated the tiny lounge area in which she was seated from the rest of the cabin. Khalil had gone to the front shortly after take-off, leaving her alone with a robed thug who sat in total silence. Did he speak English? She thought he must, but what was the difference? He was a brigand, the same as his chieftain, left to guard his prisoner. Where Khalil thought she might escape to was anybody’s guess.
She closed her eyes. It was too late for that, too late for anything except standing up to whatever fate awaited her and showing this—this cut-throat marauder that Sam Bennett’s daughter was no coward.
‘Are you cold?’
Her eyes flew open. A man was standing over her, tall and fierce and incredibly masculine in flowing white robes. Joanna’s throat constricted. It was Khalil.
‘Are you cold, Joanna?’
‘Cold?’ she said foolishly, while she tried to reconcile the urbane man who’d sat beside her at dinner with this robed renegade.
‘You were shivering.’ His eyes, as frigid as winter ice, swept over her. ‘But then you would be, wearing such a dress.’ His tone oozed disdain. ‘It hardly covers your body.’
Joanna felt heat flood her face. Her fingers itched with the desire to tug up the bodice of her dress, to try and tug down the emerald silk skirt, but she’d be damned if she’d give him that satisfaction. Instead, she folded her hands in her lap, her fingers laced together to keep them still, and looked straight at him.
‘I am certain that Oscar de la Renta would be distressed to learn that you don’t approve of his design, Your Highness, but then, the dress wasn’t made for the approval of a back-country bandit.’
The insult struck home. She could see it in the swift narrowing of his eyes, but his only obvious reaction was a small, hard smile.
‘I’m sure you’re right, Joanna. The dress was meant for a finer purpose: to entice a man, to make him forget what he must remember and concentrate only on the female prize wrapped within it.’
Joanna smiled, too, very coldly.
‘I am dressed for dinner at the Oasis. Had you told me we were going on a journey, I’d have worn something more suitable for travel.’
His smile broadened. ‘Had I told you that, I somehow doubt you’d have come with me.’
It was impossible to carry off her end of the dialogue this time. He had struck too close to home, and she shuddered at the realisation.
‘You are cold,’ he said sharply. ‘It is foolish to sit here and tremble when you have only to ask for a lap robe.’
It was hard to know whether to laugh or cry. A lap robe? Did he really think this was a flight on Royal Air Marroc to New York? Did he think she was wondering what would be served for dinner?
‘Ahmed!’ Khalil snapped his fingers and the man seated across the aisle sprang to his feet. There was a flurry of swift, incomprehensible words and then the man bowed and scurried off. ‘Ahmed will find you a blanket, Joanna. If you wish anything else...’
‘The only thing I want is my freedom.’
‘If you wish anything else,’ he said, as if she hadn’t spoken, ‘coffee, or perhaps tea—’
‘Are you deaf or just a bastard? I said—’
She gasped as he bent and clasped her shoulders so tightly that she could feel the imprint of his fingers, the heat of his body.
‘Watch your tongue! I have had enough of your mouth tonight.’
‘Let go of me!’
‘Perhaps you don’t realise the seriousness of your situation, Joanna. Perhaps you think this is a game, that I have instructed my pilot to fly us in circles and then land at Nouasseur Airport before I return you to your hotel.’
It wasn’t easy to look back at him without flinching, to force herself to meet that unyielding rock-like stare, but she did.
‘What I think,’ she said tightly, ‘is that you’ve made one hell of a mistake, Khalil, and that there’s still time to get out of it with your head still attached to your neck.’
He looked at her for what seemed a long time, in a silence filled only with the steady drone of the plane’s engines, and then he smiled.
‘How thoughtful, Joanna. Your concern for my welfare is touching.’ He straightened and looked down at her. ‘But you may be right. Perhaps I have made a mistake.’
A tiny flame of hope burst to life in her heart. ‘If you take me back now,’ she said quickly, ‘I’ll forget this ever happened.’
‘Perhaps I should have accepted what you so graciously offered before I stole you.’
Joanna flew from her seat. ‘How dare you say such things to me?’
‘Highness?’
Khalil put his hand on her shoulders and propelled her back into her seat. He turned to Ahmed, who held a light blanket in his outstretched arms.
‘Thank you, Ahmed. You may leave now.’ Khalil dropped the blanket into Joanna’s lap as Ahmed disappeared behind the curtain. ‘Your temper should be enough to keep you warm, but if it isn’t, use this.’
‘Dammit!’ Joanna shoved the blanket to the floor. ‘Who in hell do you think you are?’
He bent, picked up the blanket, and dropped it in her lap again.
‘I am the man who holds your destiny in his hands,’ he said with a quick, chill smile. ‘Now, cover yourself, before I do it for you.’
Sh
e snatched the blanket from him, draping it over herself so that it swathed her from throat to toe.
‘What’s the matter?’ she said with saccharine sweetness. ‘Are you afraid my father won’t pay as much ransom if I come down with pneumonia and die?’
His thigh brushed hers as he sat down beside her, the softness of his robe a direct contrast to the muscled warmth of the leg beneath it.
‘Such drama, Joanna. You’re young and healthy and a long, long way from death.’
‘But that is what you’re after, isn’t it?’ The question she’d dreaded asking was out now, and she was glad. Still, it was hard to say the words. ‘Ransom money, from my father?’
‘Ransom money?’ he repeated, his brows knotting together.
‘Yes.’ She made an impatient gesture. ‘I don’t know how you say it in your language—it’s money paid to a kidnapper to—’
‘I speak English as well as you do,’ he said sharply. ‘I know what the word means.’
‘Well, then...’
‘Is that what you think this is all about? Do you think me so corrupt that the money you offered me at the restaurant isn’t enough to buy my co-operation?’
‘What else am I to think?’
Khalil sat back, his arms folded over his chest. ‘And just how much do you think you’re worth?’
Joanna’s jaw tightened. ‘Don’t play with me, Khalil. I don’t like it!’
‘Ah.’ Amusement glinted in his eyes. ‘You don’t like it.’
‘That’s right, I don’t. It’s bad enough that you’ve kidnapped me—’
‘And I don’t like your choice of words.’
She stared at him in disbelief. ‘What would you prefer me to call it? Shall I say that you’ve decided to take me on a sightseeing trip?’
His face turned cold and hard. ‘What I do, I do because I must.’
Joanna sat forward, the blanket dropping unnoticed to her waist. ‘All you had to do was say you wanted more money. My father would surely have been willing to—’
‘Money!’ His lip curled with disgust. ‘You think there is a price for everything, you and your father. Well, this is what I think of your pathetic attempts to buy me!’
He dug the envelope she’d given him from his robe, folded it in half, and ripped it into pieces that floated into her lap like a paper sandstorm. For the first time, she permitted herself to admit that he might have kidnapped her for some darker, more devious reason.
‘Then—then if it’s not for the money...’ She touched the tip of her tongue to her lips. ‘I see. You want to hurt my father.’
Khalil’s mouth narrowed. ‘Is that what I want? It must be, if you say it is. After all, you know everything there is to know about me and my motives.’
‘But you won’t hurt him,’ she said, leaning forward towards him. ‘You’ll just make him angry. And—’
‘I don’t give a damn what he is!’ Khalil reached out quickly and caught her by the shoulders. ‘He can be angry, hurt, he can slash his clothing and weep for all I care!’
‘Then why—if you don’t want money, if you don’t care how my father takes the news of my kidn—of my abduction, what’s the point? Why have you done this?’
A quick smile angled across his mouth.
‘Ah, Joanna,’ he said, very softly, ‘I’m disappointed. You seem to know so much about the kind of man I am—surely you must have some idea.’
She stared at him, at those fathomless dark blue eyes. A tremor began deep in her muscles and she tensed her body against it, hating herself not only for her fear but for this show of weakness she must not let him see.
Before she’d left New York, the same people who’d teased her about her chances of running into the ghost of Humphrey Bogart had teased her with breathless rumours of a still-flourishing white slave trade, of harems hidden deep within the uncharted heart of the desert and the mountains that enclosed it.
‘And what a prize you’d be,’ a man at a charity ball had purred, ‘with that pale skin, those green eyes, and all that gorgeous red hair!’
Everyone had laughed, even her—but now it didn’t seem funny at all. Now, with Khalil’s fingers imprinting themselves in her skin, she knew it was time to finally come face to face with the fear that had haunted her from the moment she’d found herself in this plane.
‘My father won’t let you get away with this,’ she said in a low, taut voice.
‘Your father will have no choice.’
‘You underestimate him. He’s a powerful man, Khalil. He’ll find where you’ve taken me and—’
‘He will know where I’ve taken you, Joanna. It will not be a secret.’
‘He’ll come after me,’ she said, her voice rising, becoming just a little unsteady. ‘And when he rescues me, he’ll kill you!’
Khalil laughed, a soft, husky sound that made the hair rise on the nape of her neck.
‘I am not so easy to kill. Abu Al Zouad will surely tell your father that.’
‘How about my government? Do you think you can make a fool of it, too?’
‘Your government?’ His dark brows drew together. ‘What part has it in this?’
She smiled piteously. ‘I’m a US citizen. Perhaps, in your country, women are—are like cattle, to be bought and sold and—and disposed of at will, but in my country—’
‘I know all about your country, enough to know your government won’t give a damn about one headstrong woman who runs off—’
‘I didn’t run off! You—’
‘—who runs off with a man on a romantic adventure.’
‘Me, run off with you on a romantic adventure?’ She laughed. ‘No one would accept that! Anyway, my father will tell them the truth.’
‘He’ll tell them exactly what I authorise him to tell them,’ Khalil said coldly.
‘Don’t be ridiculous! Why would he lie?’
‘This thing is between your father, Abu Al Zouad, and me. No one else will be involved.’
‘You’re unbelievable,’ Joanna said, ‘absolutely unbelievable! Do you really imagine you can tell my father what to do? Maybe you should have spent more time in the West, Khalil. Maybe you’d have realised you’re only a man, not a—a tin god whose every insane wish has to be obeyed!’
‘I’m impressed,’ he said, with a condescending little smile, as if she were a pet he’d just found capable of some clever and unexpected trick. ‘Any other woman would be begging for mercy, but not you.’
Joanna’s chin lifted. ‘That’s right,’ she said, determined not to let him see the depths of her fear, ‘not me! So if that’s why you abducted me—so you could have the pleasure of seeing me grovel and weep for mercy—you’re out of luck.’
‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, Joanna, but my reasons were hardly so petty.’ He gave her a slow, lazy smile. ‘I took you because I can use you.’
Her eyes flashed to his. ‘Use me?’ she repeated. ‘I don’t—I don’t understand...’
His smile changed, took on a darkness that made her breath catch, and his gaze moved over her lingeringly, from her wide eyes to her parted lips, and finally to the swift rise and fall of her breasts.
‘Don’t you?’ he said softly.
‘Khalil.’ She swallowed, although the effort was almost painful. ‘Khalil, listen to me. You can’t—you can’t just—’
‘Shall I have you sold at the slave-market?’ He took her face in his hands and tilted it to his. ‘You would bring a king’s ransom in the north, where eyes the colour of jade and hair like the embers of a winter fire are very, very rare.’
Oh, God, Joanna thought, oh, God...
‘You wouldn’t do that,’ she said quickly. ‘Selling me would be—’
‘It would be foolish.’ He smiled again, a quick angling of his lips that was somehow frighteningly intimate. ‘For only a fool would sell you, once he had you.’
‘Abducting me is foolish, too!’ She spoke quickly, desperately, determined to force him to listen to reason. ‘You
must know that you can’t get away with—’
‘What would you be like, I wonder, if I took you to my bed?’
Patches of scarlet flared in her cheeks, fury driving out the fear that had seconds before chilled her blood.
‘I’d sooner die than go to your bed!’
He laughed softly. ‘I don’t think so, Joanna. I think you would come to it smiling.’
‘Not in a million years!’
His fingers threaded into her hair; his thumbs stroked over her skin.
‘How would your skin feel, against mine?’ he said softly. ‘Would it be hot, like fire? Or would it be cool, like moonlight against the desert sand?’
There it was again, that sense of something dark and primal stirring within her, like an unwanted whisper rising in the silence of the night.
‘You’ll never know,’ she said quickly. ‘I promise you that.’
Khalil’s eyes darkened. He smiled, bent his head, brushed his lips against Joanna’s. A tiny flicker of heat seemed to radiate from his mouth to hers.
‘Your words are cool, but your lips are warm,’ he murmured. Her breath caught as his hands slid to her midriff. She felt the light brush of his fingers just below her breasts. ‘Fire and ice, Joanna. That is what you are. But I would melt that ice forever.’ He pressed his mouth to her throat. ‘I would turn you to hot flame that burns only for me,’ he said, the words a heated whisper against her skin.
She wanted to tell him that it was he who’d burn, in the eternal fires of hell—but his arms were tightening around her, he was gathering her close, and before she could say anything he crushed her mouth under his.
He had spoken of turning her to flame but he was the flame, shimmering against her as he held her, his kiss branding her with heat. His tongue traced the seam of her lips, then slid against hers as her mouth opened to his, silk against silk.
Dear God, what was the matter with her? This man was everything she hated, he was her enemy, her abductor...
He felt the sudden tightening of her muscles and he reached between their bodies, caught her hands and held them fast.
‘Don’t fight me,’ he whispered.
But she did, twisting her head away from his, panting beneath his weight. Still, he persisted, kissing her over and over until suddenly she went still and moaned his name.
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