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‘Not a love match, then?’ Khalil queried sardonically and Elena stiffened.
‘I don’t believe that is any of your business.’
‘Considering you are here at my behest, I believe it is.’
She pursed her lips and said nothing. The Kadaran people believed it was a love match, although neither she nor Aziz had said as much. People believed what they wanted to believe, Elena knew, and the public liked the idea of a royal fairy-tale. If it helped to stabilise their countries, then so be it. She could go along with a little play-acting. But she wasn’t about to admit that to Khalil.
‘Pleading the fifth, I see,’ Khalil said softly. ‘I grew up in America, you know. I am not the barbarian you seem to think I am.’
She folded her arms. ‘You have yet to show me otherwise.’
‘Have I not? Yet here you are, in a comfortable chair, offered refreshment. Though I am sorry you hurt yourself.’ He gestured to her scraped knee, all solicitude. ‘Let me get you a plaster.’
‘I don’t need one.’
‘Such abrasions can easily become infected in the desert. A grain of sand lodges in the cut and, the next thing you know, it’s gone septic.’ He leaned forward, and for a moment the harshness of his face, the coldness in his eyes, was replaced by something that almost looked like gentleness. ‘Don’t be stupid, Your Highness. God knows I understand the need to fight, but you are wasting your energy arguing with me over such small matters.’
She swallowed, knowing he was right, and hating it. It was petty and childish to refuse medical care, not to mention stupid as he’d said. She nodded and Khalil rose from his chair. She watched as he strode to the entrance of the tent and spoke to one of the guards waiting outside.
Elena remained seated, her fists clenched in her lap, her heart beating hard. A few minutes later Khalil returned to the table with a cloth folded over his arm, a basin of water in one hand and a tube of ointment in the other.
‘Here we are.’
To her shock he knelt in front of her and Elena pressed back in her chair. ‘I can do it myself.’
He glanced up at her, his eyes gleaming. ‘But then you would deny me the pleasure.’
Her breath came out in a rush and she remained rigid as he gently lifted the hem of her skirt over her knee. His fingers barely brushed her leg and yet she felt as if she’d been electrocuted, her whole body jolting with sensation. Carefully Khalil dampened the cloth and then dabbed the scrape on her knee.
‘Besides,’ he murmured, ‘you might miss some sand, and I would hate to be accused of mistreating you.’
Elena didn’t answer. She couldn’t speak, could barely breathe. Every atom of her being was focused on the gentle touch of this man, his fingers sliding over her knee with a precision that wasn’t sensual, not remotely, yet...
She took a careful breath and stared at the top of his head, his hair ink-black and cut very short. She wondered if it would feel soft or bristly, and then jerked her mind back to her predicament. What on earth was she doing, thinking about his hair, reacting to his hands on her skin? This man was her enemy. The last thing, the very last thing, she should do was feel anything for him, even something as basic as physical desire.
His hand tightened on her knee and everything inside Elena flared to life.
‘I think that’s fine,’ she said stiffly, and tried to draw her leg away from Khalil’s hand.
He held up the tube of ointment. ‘Antiseptic cream. Very important.’
Gritting her teeth, she remained still while he squeezed some cream onto his fingers and then smoothed it over the cut on her knee. It stung a little, but far more painful was the kick of attraction she felt at the languorous touch of his fingers on her sensitised skin.
It was just her body’s basic physical reaction, she told herself as he rubbed circles on her knee with his thumb and her insides tightened. She’d never experienced it like this before, but then she was inexperienced in the ways of men and women. In any case, there was nothing she could do about it, so she’d ignore it. Ignore the sparks that scattered across her skin and the plunging deep in her belly. Attraction was irrelevant; she would never act on it nor allow it to cloud her judgement.
Escape from this man and his plans to ruin her marriage was her only goal now. Her only desire.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_708a7621-e758-5b60-b337-d017ecfca8b3)
KHALIL FELT ELENA’S body tense beneath his touch and wondered why he had chosen to clean the cut himself. The answer, of course, was irritatingly obvious: because he’d wanted to touch her. Because, for a moment, desire had overridden sense.
Her skin, Khalil thought, was as soft as silk. When had he last touched a woman’s skin? Seven years in the French Foreign Legion had given him more than a taste of abstinence.
Of course, the last woman he should ever think about as a lover was Queen Elena, Aziz’s intended bride. He had no intention of complicating what was already a very delicate diplomatic manoeuvre.
Kidnapping a head of state was a calculated risk, and one he’d had to take. The only way to force Aziz to call a national referendum was for him to lose his right to the throne, and the only way for that to happen was to prevent his marriage.
His father’s will, Khalil mused, had been a ridiculous piece of legal architecture that showed him for the brutal dictator he truly had been. Had he wanted to punish both his sons? Or had he, in the last days of his life, actually regretted his treatment of his first-born? Khalil would never know. But he would take the opportunity his father’s strange will offered him to seize the power that was rightfully his.
‘There you are.’ Khalil smoothed her skirt over her knee, felt her tense body relax only slightly as he eased back. ‘I see your skirt is torn. My apologies. You will be provided with new clothes.’
She stared at him, studying him as you would a specimen or, rather, an enemy: looking for weaknesses. She wouldn’t find any, but Khalil took the opportunity to gaze back at her. She was lovely, her skin like golden cream, her heavy-lidded eyes grey with tiny gold flecks. Her hair was thick and dark and gleamed in the candlelight, even though it was tangled and gritty with sand.
His gaze dropped to her lips, lush, pink and perfect. Kissable. There was that desire again, flaring deep inside him, demanding satisfaction. Khalil stood up. ‘You must be hungry, Your Highness. You should eat.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Suit yourself.’ He took a piece of bread and tore off a bit to chew. Sitting across from her, he studied her once more. ‘I am curious as to why you agreed to marry Aziz.’ He cocked his head. ‘Not wealth, as Thallia is a prosperous enough country. Not power, since you are already a queen. And we know it isn’t for love.’
‘Maybe it is.’ Her voice was low, pleasingly husky. She met his gaze unflinchingly but he heard her breath hitch and Khalil smiled.
‘I don’t think so, Your Highness. I think you married him because you need something, and I’m wondering what it is. Your people love you. Your country is stable.’ He spread his hands, raised his eyebrows. ‘What would induce you to marry a pretender?’
‘I think you are the pretender, Khalil.’
‘You’re not the only one, alas. But you will be proved wrong.’
Her grey-gold gaze swept over him. ‘You genuinely believe you have a claim to the throne.’
His stomach knotted. ‘I know I do.’
‘How can that be? Aziz is Sheikh Hashem’s only son.’
Even though he’d long been used to such an assumption, her words poured acid on an open wound. A familiar fury rose up in him, a howl of outrage he forced back down. He smiled coldly at this woman whose careless questions tore open the barely healed scars of his past. ‘Perhaps you need to brush up on your Kadaran history. You will have plenty of time for leisure reading during your stay in the desert.’ Although he knew she wouldn’t find the truth in any books. His father had done his best to erase Khalil’s existence from history.
She stared up at him unblinkingly. ‘And if I do not wish to stay in the desert?’
‘Your presence here, I’m afraid, is non-negotiable. But rest assured, you will be afforded every comfort.’
Elena licked her lips, an innocent movement that still caused a hard kick of lust he instantly suppressed. Queen Elena was a beautiful woman; his body, long deprived of sensual pleasures, was bound to react. It didn’t mean he was going to do anything about it.
Perhaps the most attractive thing about her, though, was not her looks but her presence. Even though he knew she had to be frightened, she sat tall and proud, her grey eyes glinting challenge. He admired her determination to be strong; he shared it. Never surrender, not even when the whole world seemed to be against you, every fist raised, every lip curled in a sneer.
Had she faced opposition and hardship? She had, he knew, suffered tragedy. She’d taken the throne at nineteen years of age, when her parents had died in a terrorist bombing. She was only twenty-three now and, though she looked very young, she seemed older in her bearing, somehow. In her confidence.
She rose from her seat, every inch the elegant queen. ‘You cannot keep me here.’
He smiled; he almost felt sorry for her. ‘You’ll find that I can.’
‘Aziz will send someone to fetch me. People will be looking.’
‘Tomorrow. By that time any tracks in the desert, any evidence of where you’ve gone, will have vanished.’ He glanced towards the tent flap, which rustled in the wind. ‘It sounds as if a storm is brewing.’
Elena shook her head slowly. ‘How did you manage it? To get a false message to him, convince the pilot to land somewhere else?’
‘Not everyone is loyal to Aziz. In fact, few are outside of Siyad. You know he has not been in the country for more than a few days at a time since he was a boy?’
‘I know he is very popular in the courts of Europe.’
‘You mean the country clubs. The gentleman playboy is not so popular here.’
Elena’s eyes flashed gold. ‘That’s a ridiculous nickname, given to him by the tabloids.’
Khalil shrugged. ‘And yet it stuck.’ Aziz, the playboy of Europe, who spent his time at parties and on polo fields. He ran a business too, Khalil knew; he’d started up some financial venture that was successful, if just an excuse for him to party his way through Europe and avoid the country of his birth.
Aziz didn’t even care about Kadar, Khalil thought with a familiar spike of bitterness. He didn’t deserve to rule, even if he hadn’t been a bastard son.
‘No matter what you think of Aziz, you can’t just kidnap a queen,’ Elena stated, her chin jutting out defiantly. ‘You’d be wise to cut your losses, Khalil, and free me now. I won’t press charges.’
Khalil suppressed a laugh of genuine amusement. ‘How generous of you.’
‘You don’t want to face a tribunal,’ she insisted. ‘How can you become Sheikh if you’ve committed a crime? Caused an international incident? You will be called to account.’
‘You’ll find that is not how things are done in my country.’
‘My country, then,’ she snapped. ‘Do you think my Council, my country, will allow its queen to be kidnapped?’
He shrugged. ‘You were merely detained, Your Highness, as a necessary measure. And, since Aziz is a pretender to the throne, you should be grateful that I am preventing a marriage you would undoubtedly regret.’
‘Grateful!’ Her eyes sparked with anger. ‘What if your plan fails?’
He smiled coldly. ‘I do not consider failure a possibility.’
She shook her head slowly, her eyes like two grey-gold pools, reminding him of a sunset reflected on water. ‘You can’t do this. People don’t— World leaders don’t do this!’
‘Things are different here.’
‘Not that different, surely?’ She shook her head again. ‘You’re mad.’
Fury surged again and he took a deep, even breath. ‘No, Your Highness, I am not mad. Just determined. Now, it is late and I think you should go to your quarters. You will have a private tent here and, as I said before, every comfort possible.’ He bared his teeth in a smile. ‘Enjoy your stay in Kadar.’
* * *
Elena paced the quarters of the elegant tent Assad had escorted her to an hour ago. Khalil had been right when he’d said he’d give her every possible comfort: the spacious tent had a wide double bed on its own wooden dais, the soft mattress piled high with silk and satin covers and pillows. There were also several teak chairs and a bureau for clothes she didn’t even have.
Had they brought her luggage from the jet? She doubted it. Not that she’d even brought much to Kadar. She’d only been intending to stay for three days: a quiet ceremony, a quick honeymoon and then a return to Thallia to introduce Aziz to her people.
And now none of it would happen. Unless someone rescued her or she managed to escape, prospects she deemed quite unlikely, her marriage to Aziz would not take place. If he did not marry within the six weeks, he would be forced to relinquish his claim to the throne. He wouldn’t need her then, but unfortunately she still needed him.
Still needed a husband, a Prince Consort, and before the convening of the Council next month.
Elena sank onto an embroidered chair and dropped her head into her hands. Even now she couldn’t believe she was here, that she’d actually been kidnapped.
Yet why shouldn’t she believe it? Hadn’t the worst in her life happened before? For a second she remembered the sound of the explosion ringing in her ears, the terrible weight of her father’s lifeless body on top of hers.
And, even after that awful day, from the moment she’d taken the throne she’d been dogged by disaster, teetering on the precipice of ruin. Led by Markos, the stuffy, sanctimonious men of the Thallian Council had sought to discredit and even disown her. They didn’t want a single young woman as ruler of Thallia. They didn’t want her.
She’d spent so much time trying to prove herself to the men of her Council who questioned her every action, doubted her every word. Who assumed she was flighty, silly and irresponsible, all because of one foolish mistake made when she’d been just nineteen and overwhelmed by grief and loneliness.
Nearly four years on, all the good she’d done for her country—all the appearances she’d made, the charities she’d supported and the bills she’d helped draft—counted for nothing. At least, not in Markos’s eyes. And the rest of the Council would be led by him, even in this day and age. Thallia was a traditional country. They wanted a man as their head of state.
Tears pricked under her lids and she blinked them back furiously. She wasn’t a little girl, to cry over a cut knee. She was a woman, a woman who’d had to prove she possessed the power and strength of a man for four endless, stormy years.
It couldn’t end now like this, just because some crazed rebel had decided he was the rightful heir to the throne.
Except, Elena had to acknowledge, Khalil hadn’t seemed crazed. He’d been coldly composed, utterly assured. Yet how could he be the rightful heir? And did he really think he could snatch the throne from under Aziz’s nose? When she didn’t show up in Siyad, when the Kadaran diplomat who had accompanied her sounded the alarm, Aziz would come looking. And he’d find her, because he was as desperate as she was.
Although, considering she was being held captive in the middle of the desert, perhaps she was now a little more desperate than Aziz.
He could, she realised with a terrible, sinking sensation, find another willing bride. Why shouldn’t he? They’d met only a handful of times. The marriage had been her idea. He could still find someone else, although he’d have to do it pretty quickly.
Had Khalil thought of that? What was preventing Aziz from just grabbing some random woman and marrying her to fulfil the terms of his father’s will?
Elena rose from the chair and once more restlessly paced the elegant confines of her tent. Outside the night was dark, the only sound the sweep of the sand and the low nickering of the tethered horses.
She had to talk to Khalil again and convince him to release her. That was her best chance.
Filled with grim determination, Elena whirled around and stalked to the opening of her tent, pulled the cloth aside and stepped out into the desert night, only to have two guards step quickly in front of her, their bodies as impenetrable as a brick wall. She gazed at their blank faces, at the rifles strapped to their chests, and lifted her chin.
‘I want to speak to Khalil.’
‘He is occupied, Your Highness.’ The guard’s voice was both bland and implacable; he didn’t move.
‘With something more important than securing the throne?’ she shot back. The wind blew her hair about her face and impatiently she shoved it back. ‘I have information he’ll want to hear,’ she stated firmly. ‘Information that will affect his—his intentions.’
The two guards stared at her impassively, utterly unmoved by her argument. ‘Please return to the tent, Your Highness,’ one of them said flatly. ‘The wind is rising.’
‘Tell Khalil he needs to speak to me,’ she tried again, and this time, to her own immense irritation, she heard a pleading note enter her voice. ‘Tell him there are things I know, things he hasn’t considered.’
One of the guards placed a heavy hand on her shoulder and Elena stiffened under it. ‘Don’t touch me.’
‘For your own safety, Your Highness, you must return to the tent.’ And, pushing her around, he forced her back into the tent as if she were a small child being marched to her room.
* * *
Khalil sat at the teakwood table in his private tent and with one lean finger traced the route through the desert from the campsite to Siyad. Three hundred miles. Three hundred miles to victory.
Reluctantly, yet unable to keep himself from it, he let his gaze flick to a corner of the map, an inhospitable area of bleak desert populated by a single nomadic tribe: his mother’s people.
