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She and Nurse McGregor had been right. There was something more than human about him.
“You’re still not convinced, even when your paramedical experience is telling you I’m right.”
He was. But…”I—I just can’t stop thinking how much worse it could have been…”
“But it wasn’t. You can stop guilt-tripping.”
He was wrong about that. It wasn’t guilt. It was this… fear for him, even when she knew that danger had been averted.
He sighed. “What will convince you that I won’t keel over? I assure you I don’t intend to for roughly the next fifty years.”
The out-of-nowhere flashes of his dry-as-tinder sense of humor amazed her.
Her lips quivered. “I’ll hold you to that.”
Another sideways glance, longer this time, and even more unsettling. But he said nothing more as he navigated out of the hospital and into the freezing night.
She fought the urge to take his hand as they crossed the road. Driving him here and escorting him inside were two things he’d grudgingly consented to. Literally holding his hand was another level of infringement altogether. And she’d rather not be exposed to more eyebrow action.
But she was, in response to her rushing to take the wheel.
He reinforced that eyebrow’s censure by remaining outside, his bulk blocking the passenger-side window.
A button wound it down. “Get in already.”
He only stood there, uncaring of the icy wind as his coat flowed around him like a magician’s cape. “You’d rather drive yourself home instead of giving me directions?”
She thought of saying yes, just so he’d get in from the cold. But even if she didn’t suffer from advanced candor, she wouldn’t bargain with him with anything less than the full truth.
She looked up at him with her unequivocal intention. “I’m driving you home.”
Widening his stance, he shoved his hands in his pants’ pockets, evidently having no problem with haggling over this all night. “Our deal wasn’t open-ended. It ended when you heard with your own ears that my injury was trivial.”
“So the injury wasn’t as bad as you’re used to, and the blood loss turned out to be a kick. But the stitches must be hurting like hell, especially since you went all Rambo and refused anesthesia and painkillers. Even if you have an inhuman pain threshold and feel nothing, bottom line is, I’m still driving. And I won’t just drop you home and leave. I’m coming in with you.”
That silenced him. For at least thirty seconds.
Then he leaned down, looked straight into her eyes, the night of his own eyes deep enough to engulf her whole.
Slowly, distinctly, he said, “I’ve been in three wars, princess. I forget how many other lesser scale, if sometimes even more vicious, armed conflicts. Not to mention all those missions I undertook with one-way tickets because coming back at all, let alone in one piece, was a one in a hundred shot at best. I’ve seen and done and had done to me some of the absolute worst things imaginable. Two-dozen stitches actually feels nostalgic now that I’ve left the battlefield behind for the boardroom. I assure you, I can tuck myself into bed.”
That image filled her with heat. How many women had fought for that privilege, had had that pleasure…?
She bit her lip at the disconcerting projections. “I’m sure you can also lug the whole world on your back, Sheikh Atlas. But that doesn’t mean that you have to, or that you have to do it alone. No matter what, you’re not alone tonight. You got those stitches in my defense, so that makes them mine, too, and I have an equal right in deciding how to view them. You think they’re negligible or nostalgic, I think they’re premium grounds for fussing. You evidently find being fussed over an alien concept, but you’ll have to suck it up, since fuss over you I will. So you might as well give in, get in and let me take you home.”
Judging by the infinitesimal widening of his eyes, she’d definitely flabbergasted him. She’d bet no one had ever dared talk to him like that.
When he finally spoke, his voice was an octave deeper, if that was possible, “I really don’t need—”
“I know you need nothing from anyone.” Now that she had him miraculously off-balance, she had to strike the red-hot iron of his indecision and get the obdurate man in from the cold. “It’s a given you can take care of yourself at the absolute worst of times, having done so all your life. But you won’t tonight. Tonight, I take care of you.”
Three
She’d pushed her luck too far.
From the way Rashid was looking at her, as if she were an alien life form, she feared she’d done worse. Instead of persuading him to get into the car, she might have convinced him to walk home on foot.
What the hell. Might as well go all the way.
She leaned farther so she could look up at him. “If you’re thinking of calling a cab, I’ll follow it. If you decide to walk, I’ll cruise along beside you. Or I’ll get out and walk with you and you’ll have my hypothermia on your hands and your conscience.”
He clearly couldn’t believe his ears.
She grinned up at him. Stick around and, according to my family, you’ll hear plenty of pretty unbelievable stuff.
Before she could utter another word he was in the car, and she sat back quickly into her seat, stunned by how fast he had moved.
She blinked at him. How could someone of his height and bulk flow so effortlessly? It was as if he had a stealth mode and tricked her senses into not registering his movement.
Had they taught him that in black ops training? Or were those powers of undetectability why he’d been sought for the position in the first place?
After closing the window, he presented her with his profile. Not even his horrific scar detracted from its hewn perfection.
Ya Ullah, but he was utter beauty.
Her one complaint was that he’d almost shaved off his hair. She’d once made a profound study of how its lush silkiness framed his masterpiece of a face, how its virile hairline outlined his lion’s forehead, how it captured light only to emit it in glimmers of raven gloss. She’d been grateful when he’d kept growing it so there’d been more of it for her to delight in. When she’d been twelve or thirteen, he’d worn it in a ponytail midway down his back. She’d lived for the times when he’d unbound it.
Even when he’d joined the army, he hadn’t gotten a military cut. But now he had barely half an inch to adorn his warrior’s head. That was an injustice of massive proportions.
Burning to ask why he kept it so ruthlessly cropped, she waited for him to say something. Like where to drive.
His continued silence told her she should figure out what to do with the rest of her one-sided plan. He’d contribute nothing more.
She started the ignition, cranked up the heater, turned back to him. “I’ll need directions.”
Without a word, he set the GPS then resumed his position.
So. The silent treatment. Two could play at this game.
Twenty minutes later, cruising the powerful car down almost-empty streets on the outskirts of the city, she’d long realized that that was easier bragged about than achieved.
She’d spent a lifetime yearning to talk to him and failing. Now she wanted to make up for all of those frustrating times. She wanted to deluge him with a thousand questions, yammer on about all the things she’d longed to say to him all her life.
But his silence was like a barrier. It made her awareness of him highly distressing. She felt as if his every breath expanded in her own chest, as if every impulse powering his magnificent body quivered through her nerves.
Then she felt him slide a discreet glance her way.
She tore her gaze from the road to his face. For a fraction of a second she saw something… unguarded.
It was gone before she could latch on to it, but she felt he was wrestling with something. Irritation? Humor? What?
“You understand that was blackmail.”
All her hairs, perpetually at half-mast around him, stood on end as the velvet night of his voice poured into her ear.
Her lips wobbled. “I choose to call it persistence. In response to your pointless resistance.”
“My resistance wasn’t pointless. Just useless.”
Her grin widened as she returned her eyes to the road. “That it was. But pray tell, what was its point?”
“That you shouldn’t be with me. That it’s inappropriate.”
“Oh, no. You’re not pulling our region’s traditions on me, of what’s ‘appropriate’ behavior for women, especially the variety stigmatized by spinsterhood.”
“You’re not a spinster.”
Her laugh dripped in sarcasm. “Tell that to my family, especially my dear mother. I’ve been a spinster in her eyes for over ten years.”
“Ten years ago you were a child of seventeen.”
He knew her age!
She tried not to grin like a fool at the discovery. “And I was already past my prime then. You know girls in our region are expected to interest men in acquiring them earlier than that.”
Instead of debating her, he only said, “Any reason why you don’t find this situation inappropriate?”
Was he for real? “Because we’re not in Azmahar or Zohayd?”
“Our behavior shouldn’t change based on geography. Wherever we are, we remain who we are. You—more than anyone from our region—should always observe said ‘traditions.’ As you realized tonight, they’re not only set to limit your freedom, but to protect you.”
“You’re not saddling me with the responsibility for tonight’s attack. Tonight was a fluke…”
“You can’t afford flukes. Or to think that guards would ‘cramp your style.’“
“Is that why you think I don’t have guards? Seems you haven’t kept abreast with the latest developments.”
“Why don’t you update me?”
“Sure. Where did you last leave off the soap opera that is my family life? You know the basics, how the whole mess started. Two brothers marrying two sisters to unite two kingdoms, and instead of being satisfied with their enviable lots of wealth, status and healthy children, becoming each others’ worst enemies.”
His gaze plunged into his own realizations. “You discovered how things stood between your parents, and your uncle and aunt.”
“Only from the time I knew who they were.”
That she’d always known seemed to interest him. At least she thought that was what that last heavy-lidded glance signified.
She sighed. “Then it all came to an inevitably explosive end when my mother and aunt plotted against their husbands and got caught, divorced and exiled. That’s where the part about my guards comes in. All my life, until her exile, my mother was obsessed with one thing. That she, the lofty Princess Somayah of Azmahar, not end up as a second-rate princess, known only for being sister to Queen Sondoss of Zohayd and married to King Atef’s brother. She had me hounded by a platoon to safeguard the asset she hoped would bring her an alliance that would elevate her to her sister’s higher royal status, and rid her of dependence on my father’s family. My father, who’s always been mired in gold-digging mistresses, only sent guards after me to evict hers in his petty feud with her. Once their toxic relationship was thankfully over, they dismissed me from their minds, the one thing they’d rather forget bonded them forever. So, I’ve been guard-free since I left Zohayd.”
His jaw hardened. “Why didn’t you ask your uncle Atef or your cousins for replacements? Why don’t you hire some yourself?”
“I never ask anyone for anything, let alone round-the-clock protection. And while my software development business is taking off, my liquid assets are tied up in its operating capital. Most important, I really felt I didn’t need protection. I came here to start a new life as just another single woman living in the city. I paid attention to my safety. This was the first time I ran into any trouble.”
“It only takes once.”
She exhaled. “True. But it didn’t happen because I was negligent. Someone was determined to hurt me. They would have found a way no matter what I did. And I’m grateful you happened along.”
A long moment of silence followed her statement.
At length, he exhaled. “As a princess of Zohayd, you must never be without protection. And you should never be with a strange man, let alone offer to drive him home.”
Oh, man. He was going all protective and disapproving on her. As if she needed to find him any yummier.
“You are strange—” in a uniquely and incredibly exciting way, her grin told him “—but not a stranger.”
That majestic head inclined in delicious curtness. “Not a total stranger, granted, but still one.”
“Oh, come on, Rashid. Next you’re going to say I need a mehrem.” In other words, an adult male of her kin whom she couldn’t marry to chaperone her in the presence of males she could. “How about you stop behaving as if we don’t know each other?”
“We don’t.”
A huff of incredulity burst out at his emphatic declaration. “Yeah, right. I’ve known you all my life.”
“You’ve seen me from afar for a portion of it.”
“Yeah, a portion comprising its first seventeen years. And the ‘from afar’ bit was your doing. It sure wasn’t for lack of trying to come closer on my part.”
There. Her crass candor was getting into gear. But boy, had she tried to come closer.
She’d tried to be everywhere he was while he’d been in Zohayd, had found every reason to be in Azmahar when he’d been there, striving for a chance to talk to him. Yet no matter her ingenuity, she could count on one hand the quasi-exchanges they’d ever had. The one thing ameliorating her disappointment had been that Rashid was like that with everyone. Not that he’d been that reserved with others. And not that she’d ever given up.
After he’d joined the army and his appearances had become more sporadic, she’d obsessively done everything she could to be around for the rare visits. But war between Azmahar and Damhoor had erupted mere months after he’d enlisted. Then he’d been reported missing and thought dead….
Ya Ullah, she’d never known such desperation. Or such relief when he’d turned up weeks later, alive and leading his squad back to civilization. She’d almost died of frustration when she hadn’t been able to go with Haidar and Jalal to greet him at his return. But she’d gone to the ceremony where he’d received Azmahar’s highest medal of valor. She’d still had to ambush him to congratulate him, tell him how thankful she’d been for his safety. But he’d been more aloof than ever before.
He’d drifted farther away from then on until he’d seemed to disappear off the face of the earth. He’d resurfaced almost three years ago, just as the upheaval in Zohayd had erupted, as her closest cousins’, Haidar’s and Jalal’s, enemy, and subsequently the enemy of her whole family.
No one knew what had happened between the former best friends to tear them apart so viciously. She didn’t even know if it was the same thing that had alienated Haidar and Jalal themselves. All she’d known was that she had to be resigned that she would never see him again. That she’d never had any chance with him, anyway.
Now fate had brought him exploding back into her life, only for her to find he’d become this exhilarating delight of a man who was still making her struggle for every inch closer…
The GPS announced that they’d arrived at their destination.
Bringing the car to a stop, she squinted up through the windshield.
He lived in a… warehouse?
His next words confirmed it. “Now that you’ve driven me home, I’ll have someone tail you to yours.”
