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‘I, on the other hand, am feeling a little insecure about being on a plane with a total stranger going...’ she gave an expressive shrug ‘...God knows where. So do you mind filling in a few blanks?’
He nodded. She didn’t sound insecure. She sounded and looked confident and sexy and in control. What would it take to make her lose it? It could be he was about to find out.
‘My father sent you?’
He tipped his head in acknowledgement and she gave a gusty sigh of relief. ‘He sends his love.’
‘I’m sure Dad appreciates your sense of humour, but I’m a bit...’
‘Uptight? Humourless?’
Her blue eyes narrowed to slits. She had very little energy left, and being angry with him was using it all up. She took a deep breath and thought, Rise above it, Hannah. People had said a lot worse about her and she’d maintained her dignity.
It was a power thing. If they saw it got to her they had the power and she lost it. It didn’t matter who they were—school bullies, journalists—the same rule applied. If you showed weakness they reacted like pack animals scenting blood.
‘I’d prefer to know what’s happening, so if you could just fill me in...? Tell me where the plane is headed and then I’ll let you sleep in peace.’
‘Surana.’
The mention of the oil-rich desert state fired a memory. That was where she’d seen the crest on the plane before, and it fitted: her father had called in some favours. She knew he counted the King of Surana as a personal friend; the two men had met forty years earlier at the public school they had attended as boys. The friendship had survived the years—apparently the King had once dandled her on his knee but Hannah had no recollection of the event.
‘So Dad will be there to meet us?’
‘No, he’ll be waiting at the chapel.’
Hannah fought for composure. Was this man on something? ‘Hilarious.’ She tried to laugh but laughing in the face of the ruthless resolve stamped on his hard-boned face was difficult. She hefted a weary sigh and reminded herself she was free. It was all up from here, once she got a straight answer from this man. ‘This is not a joke that has the legs to run and run.’
His broad shoulders lifted in a shrug that suggested he didn’t care. ‘Look, I wish it were a joke. I have no more wish to marry you than you have me, but before you start bleating for Daddy ask yourself what you would have preferred if I’d offered you the option back there: marrying me, or spending twenty years in a boiling-hot jail where luxury is considered a tap shared by several hundred. Or even worse—’
‘How does it get worse?’
‘How about the death penalty?’
‘That was never a possibility.’ Her scorn faltered and her stomach clenched with terror. Had she really been that close? ‘Was it?’
He arched a sardonic brow.
‘So if I’d signed the confession...?’ Her voice trailed away as she spoke until ‘confession’ emerged from her white lips as a husky whisper.
‘You didn’t.’ Kamel fought the irrational feeling of guilt. He was only spelling out the ugly facts; he was not responsible. Still, it gave him no pleasure to see the shadow of terror in her wide eyes. ‘So don’t think about it.’
The advice brought her chin up with a snap. ‘I wouldn’t be thinking about it at all if you hadn’t told me.’
‘Maybe it’s about time you faced unpleasant facts and accepted that there are some things we cannot run away from.’
Not several thousand feet off the ground, but once they landed Hannah intended to run very fast indeed from this man. ‘I’m grateful to be free, obviously, but I didn’t do anything wrong.’
‘You entered a sovereign state illegally, carrying drugs.’
Hannah’s clenched teeth ached. His righteous attitude was really getting under her skin.
‘I got lost and I was carrying medicine. Vaccines and antibiotics.’
‘Morphine?’
Feeling defensive, Hannah rubbed her damp palms against her thighs. With his steely eyes and relentless delivery he was a much more effective interrogator than her captors had been. ‘Yes.’
‘And a camera.’
‘No!’
‘Isn’t there a camera on your phone?’
He would have thought better of her if she had the guts to hold up her hands and take responsibility for her own actions, but that obviously wasn’t her style.
‘Weren’t you told to stay with the vehicle if it broke down?’
How did he know? ‘It was an emergency.’ And that was the only reason she had been entrusted the responsibility. There simply had been no one else available.
‘And you were the one on the ground and you made a tough call...fine. But now you have to take the consequences for that decision.’
Struggling to keep pace with the relentless pace of his reasoning, she shook her head. ‘So I have to marry you because you rescued me? Sure, obvious. I should have realised.’
The bored façade and the last shades of cynical amusement in his manner fell away as he vaulted to his feet.
He towered over her, eyes blazing with contempt. She could feel the anger spilling out of him and presumably so could the bird sitting on its perch—it began to squawk and Hannah lifted her hands to her head to protect herself.
The act of soothing the spooked creature seemed to help Kamel regain some semblance of control. ‘She won’t hurt you.’
Hannah dropped her hands, cast a quick sideways glance at the fascinating wild creature, and then returned her attention to the man. ‘I wasn’t worried about the bird.’
His jaw tightened in response to the pointed comment, and he stared at the mouth that delivered it...her wide, full, sexy lower lip. Hers was a mouth actually made for kissing.
‘I wouldn’t marry you even if you were sane!’
She might have a point. Wasn’t it insane to be checking out her impossibly long legs? Wasn’t it even more insane to actually like the fact she didn’t back away from him, that her pride made her give as good as she got?
‘And came gift-wrapped!’ Hannah caught herself wondering how many women would have liked to unwrap him, and felt a lick of fear before she told herself that she was not one of them.
‘You want facts? Fine. When we land in Surana in—’ He turned his wrist and glanced at the watch that glinted against his dark skin.
‘Thirty minutes. There will be a red carpet and reception committee for Your Royal Highness,’ she finished his sentence for him, and, keeping her eyes on his face, she performed a graceful bow.
He took her sarcasm at face value.
‘There will be no official reception under the circumstances. Things will be low-key. We will go straight to the palace where my uncle, the King—’
Her eyes flew wide. ‘King? You’re asking me to believe you’re really a prince?’
He stared at her hard. ‘Who did you think I was?’
‘Someone my father paid to get me out of jail. I thought you were pretending to—’
‘I can’t decide if you’re just plain stupid or incredibly naïve.’ He shook his head from side to side in an attitude of weary incredulity. ‘You thought all I had to do was walk in, claim to be of royal blood and all the doors would open to release you?’ What alternative universe did this woman live in?
Her eyes narrowed with dislike as he threw back his head and laughed.
‘What was I meant to think?’
‘That you were extremely lucky you have a father who cares so much about you, a father who is waiting with my uncle and Sheikh Sa’idi of Quagani. The only reason you are not now facing the consequences of your actions is because the Sheikh has been told that you are my fiancée.’
‘And he believed that?’
‘I think the wedding invite swung it.’
‘Well, I’m out, so job done. You can tell him the wedding’s off.’
‘I can see that that is the way things work in your world.’ A world with no honour.
‘What is that meant to mean?’
The plane hit a pocket and he braced himself as it sank and rose while she staggered and grabbed the back of a chair. ‘That you step away from commitment when it suits you.’
Hannah was waiting for her stomach to find its level but this not so veiled reference to her engagements brought an angry flush to her cheeks. ‘I’m fine, thanks for asking,’ she murmured, rubbing the area where her wrist had banged against the chair.
He continued as though she had not spoken. ‘But that is not the way it works here. My uncle feels indebted to your father and he has given his word.’
‘I didn’t give my word.’
‘Your word!’ he echoed with acid scorn.
She felt the burn of tears in her eyes and furiously blinked to clear them. ‘I won’t be lectured by you!’
‘Your word means...’ he clicked his fingers ‘...nothing. It is otherwise with my uncle. He is a man of integrity, honour. I suppose I’m speaking a foreign language to you?’
‘So your uncle would be embarrassed. I’m sorry about that—’
‘But not sorry enough to accept the consequences of your actions?’
Consequences...consequences... Hannah fought the urge to cover her ears. ‘This is stupid. What terrible thing is going to happen if we don’t get married?’ Hannah hoped the question didn’t give him the false impression that she would even consider this.
‘I’m glad you asked that.’
He opened the laptop that lay on a table and spun it around, stabbing it with his finger. ‘We are a small country but oil rich, and we have enjoyed relative political stability. Since the discovery last year of these new reserves, we are set to be even more rich.’
She pursed her lips at his lecturing tone and stuck out her chin. ‘I do read an occasional newspaper.’
‘Don’t boast about your IQ, angel, because,’ he drawled, ‘stupidity is the only possible excuse for your little escapade.’
An angry hissing sound escaped her clenched teeth. ‘I know the country is a shining light of political stability and religious tolerance. What I didn’t know was that the ruling family had a history of insanity—but that’s what happens when you marry cousins.’
‘Well, you will be a new injection of blood, won’t you, angel? This will happen, you know. The sooner you accept it, the easier it will be.’
Hannah bit her lip. Even her interrogators had never looked at her with such open contempt and, though she refused to admit it even to herself, it hurt. As had the headlines and the inches of gossip all vilifying her.
‘Shall I tell you why?’
He waited a moment, then tipped his head, acknowledging her silence.
‘We have a problem. We are landlocked and the oil needs to get to the sea.’ He flicked his finger across the screen and traced a line. ‘Which means we rely on the cooperation of others. The new pipeline is at present being constructed in Quagani, and it crosses three separate countries. Did you know your father is building the pipeline?’
Hannah didn’t but she would have died before admitting it. ‘I’m surprised they haven’t already married you off to some Quagani princess to seal the deal.’
‘They were going to, but she met my cousin.’ Kamel had fallen in love with Amira slowly. It had been a gradual process and he’d thought it had been the same for her. Had he not seen it with his own eyes, Kamel would have laughed at the idea of love at first sight. He had tried very hard not to see it. ‘When she found him...preferable, her family were fine with it because he was the heir and I was, as they say, the spare.’
‘Then where is the problem? If your families are linked they’re not going to fall out.’
‘He died...she died...their baby died.’ The only thing that linked the rulers now was shared grief and a need to blame someone.
Like a sandcastle hit by a wave, Hannah’s snooty attitude dissolved. Despite some throat-clearing her voice was husky as she said softly, ‘I’m so sorry. But my father wouldn’t force me to marry for any amount of money.’
He looked at the woman who sat there with spoilt brat written all over her pretty face.
‘Has it occurred to you that your father, being human, might jump at the chance to get you off his hands? And if he did I don’t think there are many who would blame him.’
‘My father doesn’t think of me as a piece of property.’
He might, however, think of her as a lead weight around his neck.
‘Do you care for your father as much as he does you?’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means if Quagani closes the new pipeline it won’t just be the school programme in our country that suffers. Your father has a stake in the new refinery too.’
It was the mention of a school programme that brought a worried furrow to her brow. In her job she knew what a difference education could make. ‘My father has a stake in many things.’
‘My uncle let your father in on this deal as a favour. He knew of his situation.’
She tensed and then relaxed.
‘What situation? Are you trying to tell me my father has lost all of his money again?’
Over the years her father’s reckless, impulsive approach to business had led to dramatic fluctuations in fortune, but that was in the past. After the heart attack he had actually listened to the doctors’ warnings about the danger of stress. He had promised her faithfully that the risky deals were a thing of the past.
‘Not all of it.’
Hannah met his dark, implacable stare and felt the walls of the cabin close in. Even as she was shaking her head in denial she knew deep down that he was telling her the truth.
