by Dana Marton
“You saved my life.” No question about that. The kingdom of Jamala and he, personally, owed her a great debt. She and her child would be taken care of and would never have to feel the sting of the father’s abandonment. “I owe you my gratitude.”
She shrugged that off. “You had the good sense to be in a light coma. Any worse and I wouldn’t have had a choice but to take you in for intensive care. And you get points for getting blown up with a doctor in hailing distance.”
He’d been in high spirits that night, just back from an evening in town with his friends. Their first day in the United States. And he couldn’t let it end without seeing Isabelle. “I was coming back to you. I should have come sooner.”
She busied herself with stirring the soup. “It doesn’t matter.”
But it did. Because if he had come back months ago, hadn’t let her slip away after their amazing weekend, then she wouldn’t have met another man, wouldn’t be carrying another man’s child now. Had he expected that after all this time she would wait for him? A part of him, deep down, obviously had.
Something sharp stabbed him in the middle of his chest.
He had meant to come back, had made plans. But matters of the state had interfered. He was a sheik; his time was not his own. Not even now.
“Have you heard anything about the royals at the Wind River Ranch and Resort?” He needed to call Stefan, Efraim and the others. They were probably searching for him. His disappearance must have messed up the negotiations between the United States and their Coalition of Island Nations, COIN.
She put the soup on the table, looking at home in the small kitchen. “All over the news, according to the nurses. They can’t even stop talking about it when I call into the hospital to check in on the patients I had to hand off because of the maternity leave. It’s been like the Wild West returned over at the resort with all those princes. Never a dull moment, apparently.”
His muscles clenched. “Has anyone been harmed?” Those four men were like brothers to him, even closer to his heart than his recently found half brother, Wade, who was yet another reason for his being in Wyoming. A quest that would now have to wait.
“Someone was shot, but not one of the royals.”
A confused second passed before he remembered that she didn’t know his true identity. Their two passionate days together had been pure fantasy, strangers acting out a scene from the tales of the Thousand and One Nights. And now…with danger all around and him as weak as he was…probably not the best time to tell her. He needed to regain his strength and orient himself much better before he trusted anyone.
“We eat, and then we leave,” was all he told her. He needed to know for certain who his friends were and who his enemies were.
The phone threat texted to Stefan and the letters to him had to be connected. He’d received those letters back in Jamala. And Stefan received the text message before they even landed here. His instincts said whomever was behind the threats was from the islands and was not an American.
The miserable old king of Saruk came to mind, head of a larger neighboring country that wanted all the undersea oil rights, among other things. Five years ago he would have been the first person Amir would have looked at. But Prince Darek was taking over more and more of his father’s duties, making most, if not all, of the important decisions, and Darek was a good man, a friend. Amir trusted him.
So where did the threat originate? He had opponents back at home, of course. The summit had opponents, too. He cracked his knuckles. Either way, his enemy was either here now or used American accomplices. Someone had put a bomb on that limousine.
“Food is ready.” Isabelle was putting plates on the table, a picture of domestic femininity even with that tension he didn’t understand still in her shoulders. “You stay put. I’ll bring you a tray.”
He pushed to his feet, succeeding this time. “I’ll never regain my strength if all I do is sit around.”
And he needed his strength back desperately. Whoever had sent those threatening notes had taken things to the next level with the bomb in the car. He’d made his first kill, even if the driver had been an unintended victim. But the attacker was clearly committed to his goal, set on his course. He wasn’t going to give up until he accomplished whatever he was after.
His friends and he were in danger. And Isabelle was in danger by simply being with him. That last bit bothered him the most. She had nothing to do with politics. Her only crime was saving him.
But he would protect her with his life, if needed. “We should hurry.”
He pushed forward, his progress embarrassingly slow, a contrast to his words. When he made it to the table, he sank onto the chair with relief. He watched with appreciation as she ladled rich vegetable soup onto his plate. The aroma filled the one-room cabin, instantly making the strange place seem more welcoming.
He had pictured their reunion a dozen times in the past few months, but never under these circumstances. She sat across the table from him, unable to pull up her chair all the way due to her swollen belly. Her skin glowed; her black hair was lustrous and shiny. Pregnancy became her. He couldn’t say he had contemplated pregnant women all that much in the past, but she was both desirable and fascinating.
“Since you’ve been here, taking care of me all this time, I’m guessing the father of the baby is no longer in the picture.”
He had mixed feelings about that. Outrage that the bastard had abandoned her, and relief that he didn’t have to see her with another man, the thought of which was enough to make him clench his teeth and fist his hands on the table. There was a part of him that had thought of her all these months as his.
Sheer idiocy. Of course others wanted her, courted her. The thought was like a thousand daggers cutting his skin.
She opened a bag of bread, pulled the butter away from him. Avoided his gaze. “You should eat light for the next couple of days. Your stomach hasn’t seen solid food in a while.”
“Do you not want to talk to me about the father? The shame is his for abandoning his responsibilities, not yours.” He shook his head. “American men these days, they grow up on television and video games, having too much, without a real man’s sense of what duty is.”
But he was here now. As soon as their stomachs were filled, he was going to take her to safety. He was going to protect her and her unborn baby.
“American men are fine.” She drew a slow breath, no longer bothering to disguise the anger and resentment in her tone. “You’re the father, okay?”
Chapter Two
Somewhere in the city of Dumont, Wyoming, a telephone rang in a dark, abandoned warehouse, the sound bouncing off the empty walls and filling the space. Long seconds ticked by before anyone responded.
“I think we know where he is,” the caller said when the line was finally picked up.
“Do we have confirmation?”
“Not yet.”
“How soon?”
“Within the hour.”
“Get the men ready.”
“Yes, sir.”
“No more mistakes.”
“No, sir. Should we bring him to you when we have him?”
“Yes, but not here. I’ll be changing locations. I’ll call you from the new place and give directions when I get there.”
“Yes, sir. And if he has anyone with him?”
A moment of silence, then, “You know who I want. Everyone else is expendable.”
The line went dead as the call ended.
ISABELLE WATCHED AMIR from under hooded eyelids. Yep, she should have definitely waited with her big surprise.
He’d just come out of a coma. He should still be in bed. Not that she would ever be able to get him back in there now. He had stubborn written all over him. He had walked to the table, for heaven’s sake. He seemed determined to pretend that there was nothing wrong with him. Men and their foolish pride. Someone needed to invent a pill for that. If only.
“You need rest. We can talk about this later
.” Or not at all. “You need to get back to your family and a physical therapist who can help you regain your strength. I have to get back home and get ready for the baby’s birth.”
She had a week left, at most. If he hadn’t awakened in a day or two, she would have had to make the difficult decision of what to do with him. She could no longer stay with him at the cabin, and she couldn’t have left him here alone, either, not without medical assistance.
Yes, she was mad at him for manipulating her the night they first met, but she was a doctor. She would never be mad enough at anyone to provide less than the best medical assistance she was capable of. Not even if the lying weasel bastard had tricked her into his bed and left her pregnant.
The worst part was that after all that, she was still attracted to him. She had to be stupider than shipping peanuts. Seriously. Any other woman would have strangled the man by now. Not her, she’d carefully taken care of him.
His tumultuous dark gaze was fixed on her belly, his gaze like a physical touch on her skin. “Are you certain about paternity?”
Oh, that was rich. He was questioning her word? She bit her lower lip, then let it go, pulled her aching spine straight. “I am. And I’m not going to be offended by the question, because you don’t really know me, but this is the only pass you’re going to get on the subject.”
He raised his gaze to her, sharp now like a hawk’s. His shoulders tensed. His voice was cold as he asked, “What do you want from me?”
She shouldn’t have been disappointed. This was exactly what she’d expected in the unlikely case that the prince of Persia ever returned.
“How about your name, for starters?” After evading the truth so skillfully when they’d first met, now that the question was put to him straight, would he lie about his identity?
Nine months ago they’d met at the hospital’s annual charity ball, a masquerade. She’d been Isabelle the Harem Flower. All six of the women from general surgery were decked out to the nines in belly-dancing outfits—Janie’s idea since she’d been taking lessons to revive her marriage.
He’d worn the costume of a Persian prince to the charity ball, a flowing, colorful robe. His midnight eyes called her from across the room. He’d walked straight to her without noticing any of the women who gaped at him. They’d discussed health care, of all things, which still needed improvement in his home country, Jamala, he’d told her in the most charming accent. His intelligence had seduced her as much as his rich voice and the way his dark gaze drank her in.
She had no idea how she’d ended up in his suite at the Wind River Ranch and Resort, but she knew with absolute certainty that it wouldn’t have happened if she’d known that he was a sheik! Yep, he’d skipped that little detail.
She’d stayed with him for two whole days, doing little more than making love and ordering room service. She’d left without waking him, nearly late for her emergency O.R. shift, at 2:00 a.m. on the third day, still thinking him some foreign hospital administrator here to do benchmarking or whatever.
“So no name, huh?” Resentment welled inside her for having been duped so thoroughly. “It would be nice to know what to say once the kid starts asking.”
She’d been too embarrassed to go back to him once she’d gotten off work. She’d never lost control like that before. She barely even dated, let alone had passionate affairs with strangers. Med school, residency, then her insane surgery schedule left her neither time nor energy for men. Having a serious relationship was on her to-do list, just scheduled for a much later date. After she’d made chief of surgery, maybe.
By the time she’d figured out that she was pregnant, he had checked out, and the resort, of course, would divulge no information on the mysterious guest in the Emerald Suite.
But here he was now, even if with his amazing lips pressed in a thin line, he didn’t look like he was keen on her giving any more information than he’d given her before, which was pretty much nothing.
She tilted her head, incredulity creeping into her voice as she asked, “I can’t know your name?” Her fingers itched to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. Not that she would ever do that to a patient.
A tense couple of seconds passed. His gaze slipped to her belly, then slowly returned to her face.
“Amir Khalid.” He stood and gave a small but formal bow, watching her as if he could see right inside of her, to her deepest, darkest secrets.
“Isabelle Andrews.” Of course, he probably knew that if he knew where she lived. He’d said he was coming to see her the night he’d gotten injured. So he’d investigated her. She wasn’t sure how that made her feel.
“Sheik Amir Khalid,” he said, adding his title, then waited a beat. “You don’t seem surprised. You knew my name already.”
She held his gaze without blinking. “Your friends at the resort made a rather passionate plea on television for information on your whereabouts. Your picture was all over the news.”
His face turned grim. “I regret that I involved you in this. I’m afraid that by coming to you, I might have put you in jeopardy.”
“Nobody knows. Relax. I didn’t even call your friends. There were some news reports on a possible conspiracy or whatever that went as far as the local cops. I didn’t know who to trust.”
“My friends you can trust.”
“How about you? Can I trust you?”
He looked taken aback. “We should leave here as soon as we can. Of course you can trust me.”
Not a chance. “But you never trusted me.” She pointed out. “If you trusted me, you wouldn’t have lied about who you were.”
“I didn’t lie.”
“You didn’t tell me you were a sheik. The Black Sheep Sheik of Jamala. That’s what they called you on the news, you know that? Imagine how stupid I felt when I heard it and recognized your picture. What exactly did you do to get that nickname, anyway?”
His eyes narrowed. “I didn’t plan for things to happen this way.”
Oh, she believed that. “You just planned to make some poor, ordinary woman your entertainment for the weekend. Rich royal sweeps in, seduces clueless chick, goes home and forgets her. Did I hit all the major bullet points?”
“I never forgot.” His voice was low; his gaze piercing; his color rising.
Dammit. She drew a slow breath, catching herself too late. She wasn’t supposed to get him upset and get his blood pressure up. She was a doctor, for heaven’s sake. She’d promised herself that she wasn’t going to attack him at first chance.
“How fast can you be ready to move?” he asked.
Again with his insistence that they weren’t safe. Thing was, she felt safer here than at just about anyplace else. The cabin had served them well for the last month. She had some medical equipment and meds here, if he relapsed and needed anything. If he really was in as much trouble as he thought he was, then going to ground made more sense than running around out there. At least until he made a full recovery.
“We’ll talk about leaving after you finish your food and put your feet up for a few minutes. How about that? You’re no good to anyone if you push yourself too hard and relapse.”
He went back to his food, his dark brows furrowed. “Do you still work at the hospital?”
“I took the last month of pregnancy as maternity leave. Can’t do those triple shifts. Can’t really stand hours on end in the O.R., either.” There, that almost came out normal, as if she wasn’t spitting mad at him.
“Is everything well with you? With the pregnancy?” His tone was detached.
She made hers match it as she said, “Yes.”
Silence stretched between them. She closed her eyes for a second, consoling herself with the fact that the situation couldn’t possibly get any worse. Then it did.
“I used protection. I always do.” That same emotionless tone again. He was questioning her word.
She hated that. She was a respected surgeon. People normally didn’t accuse her of lying, not even in a roundabout way.
“I said one pass.” Each word was frostier than the one before. “We slept together nine months ago. I’m nine-months pregnant. Do the math. I haven’t been with anybody else since.” Or before, really, not for a long time.
Something flashed across his dark gaze but was gone too quickly for her to identify it. He read her much better, apparently, and could see that she was telling the truth, because he magnanimously said, “I believe you.” Then ruined the whole effect by adding, “Of course, there’ll be a test of paternity.”
“I don’t want anything from you. I can support this child. He’ll be well loved and well taken care of. You can go back home as soon as you recover.”
She’d been preparing herself for a future just like that. She didn’t need a man in her life. She didn’t want a man in her life. Another woman might have built up a number of crazy fantasies over the past weeks about him recovering and the two of them riding off into the sunset. She had no illusions. She’d known from early childhood that the whole happy-American-family thing was a sham, a marketing message companies used to sell things.
His spoon had stopped halfway to his mouth. “A son?”
“According to the last ultrasound.” Despite the strained circumstances of the moment, a thrill ran through her. She couldn’t wait to meet her son. She hadn’t planned on having a baby just now, all alone, but the thought of that baby made her feel happier than she’d ever been. The two of them were going to make an amazing family.
“A boy for certain?”
She focused back on Amir. “This is not something you have to worry about. My son and I will be fine. I have a whole support system ready. I have great friends. And if you don’t believe me about him being yours, that’s okay, too. I’m all right with this. I had time to figure it all out. You obviously have your own very serious issues to deal with.”
Like the fact that somebody wanted him dead. Her heart twisted at the thought of anyone harming him. They shared a child. Whether they ever saw each other again after this or not, there was a connection between them that would never go away. She couldn’t say that the concept didn’t make her feel uneasy.
