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Feeling pathetically grateful towards him, Alexa left the tent and was immediately confronted by his powerful shoulders and lean, long legs. He was in conversation with several men from the camp, but he turned as he heard her emerge from the tent. Their eyes met and held.
He said nothing, and yet the moment felt intensely personal—a silent acknowledgement of a secret shared. Then he gave a brief nod and Alexa felt her insides tumble. Suddenly she felt ridiculously nervous and had absolutely no idea why.
‘Good morning.’
He dismissed the man he was talking to with an abrupt wave of his hand. ‘You are feeling all right?’
She dug her hands in her pockets. How was she supposed to reply to that? No, she wasn’t feeling all right. Suddenly she felt as vulnerable as she’d felt when she was eight years old, clinging to the desperate hope that someone, somewhere would care for her and take the pain away if only she could find them.
But at least at the age of eight, she’d had childhood on her side as a decent excuse for such foolish fantasies.
What excuse was she using now?
Her eyes slid to Karim.
What was it about the dark and the dreams that had turned her into a child again? Why was she longing to trust him, when she’d long since discovered that the only person she could trust was herself?
Was it because, for the first time in sixteen years, she’d shared her past? She hadn’t had to cope with it alone, and that had felt good. And, now that she’d experienced the warmth of human comfort, it no longer seemed easy to shut her emotions away. She wanted more, and the power of that need terrified her more than the nightmare itself.
She wanted to feel his touch again. She wanted to reach out and touch him.
But that wasn’t allowed, was it? Although his gaze held hers, he held himself slightly apart—distant and unapproachable, as if warning her that the intimacy that they’d shared during the hours of darkness could not be extended into the daylight.
She was alone again.
A little masculine comfort in the darkness of the night had changed nothing, except perhaps to make everything seem just that little bit worse. Because that taste of human comfort had left her thirsty for so much more.
‘I’m fine, Karim.’ Too confused about her own feelings to hold his gaze a moment longer, she glanced away. ‘I’m sorry about last night. Not your favourite scenario, I’m sure.’
He didn’t reply, and she wished she’d had the sense not to raise the subject. Even though they weren’t touching she could feel the tension in his powerful frame, and sensed that he had every intention of avoiding any reference to the conversation that they’d had in the dark recesses of the night. She sucked in a breath. ‘Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you. You were—kind.’ It seemed a completely inappropriate word for this man, who was the complete antithesis of the word kind, and perhaps he thought so, too, because his dark eyes narrowed slightly as he studied her face in brooding silence.
Finally he spoke. ‘No apology is needed. You had a long and tiring day. Enough to trigger bad dreams in the most robust personality.’
‘Yes.’ There was no need to tell him that the dreams had nothing to do with the day they’d had and everything to do with her dark and tangled past. He didn’t need to hear that. He didn’t want to hear it. The loneliness of her situation rose up inside her and threatened to swallow her whole.
Karim took a step backwards, his tone cool and lacking in encouragement. ‘We should leave. Eat something.’ He waved a hand towards a rug that had been spread out in front of the tent. ‘I’ll meet you by the car when you’re ready.’
Alexa watched him stride off and dropped onto her knees on the rug, not at all feeling like eating. She nibbled a few dates and some pita bread and took a few sips of water, before returning to the tent to pack her things. Keep moving forward. Never look back.
Karim was already loading the four-wheel drive. ‘Are you ready?’
‘Yes.’ She handed him her small case and he stowed it in the back. ‘How far are we going today?’
‘We should reach the next oasis. It’s much bigger than this place. More of a tourist resort. From there it is less than two days’ drive to the Citadel. You should be in plenty of time for your wedding.’
‘Wedding.’ Alexa stared at him and he lifted an eyebrow.
‘You’d forgotten your wedding?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. Of course not.’ But she had. Just briefly, her life had condensed itself down to this one single moment, and the only man in her mind was him. But now she was duly reminded that there was so much at stake. As if remembering that fact, she glanced once over her shoulder and then slid into the car, trying to ignore Karim in the seat next to her.
Strong, she thought wistfully. During the night it had been his strength that had comforted her. And she had to remind herself that there had been nothing personal in the gesture.
‘So—tell me about this dune driving.’ Trying to distract herself, she covered her eyes with her dark glasses and stared out of the window at the towering dunes that surrounded them. ‘They look pretty high. You drive right to the top?’
‘And down the other side and then back up to the top again.’
‘Sounds fun. Can we do it?’
He glanced towards her, dark eyes incredulous. ‘You want to drive to the top of a dune?’
‘I thought we could both do with a little light relief.’
‘I haven’t done it since I was in the army.’
‘So what’s that supposed to mean—are you too old to have fun?’ A devil inside her made her tease him. Or perhaps she was just overcompensating for the misery she felt. ‘Or have you lost your nerve since then, Karim?’
‘It is your nerve that concerns me. You may be a rebel, but I don’t think you’re brave.’
Aware that he was referring to the tears she’d shed the night before, she drew in a deep breath. ‘My nerve is intact. I thought you wanted to show me the desert. So take me to the top of a dune and show me your desert, Karim.’
For a moment she thought he was going to refuse. Then he turned towards her, his dark eyes gleaming with challenge. ‘Do you like roller coasters?’
Alexa sensed a change in him. Suddenly he seemed lighter—less intimidating—and the tantalizing glimpse of this hidden part of him intrigued her. ‘I’ve never been on a roller coaster. Try me.’
‘You promise not to scream like a girl?’ A faint smile tugged at the corners of his normally serious mouth, and that smile was so surprising that she felt her stomach flip.
‘I promise not to scream like a girl. Go for it. Rediscover your reckless youth.’
‘All right. Hold on.’ Without giving her a chance to change her mind, he turned the wheel, flattened the accelerator and the vehicle shot straight to the top of the dune.
The sudden rush of speed made her wish she hadn’t been quite so rash, and if she could have changed her mind in that split second then she would have done.
Why, oh, why, had she encouraged him to behave like an irresponsible teenager?
As they roared up the side of the steep dune she clutched her seat and cast a look at his profile—and saw not a teenager, but a man.
His eyes were fixed ahead in total concentration, his hands moving instinctively over the controls as he demanded the utmost from the vehicle. And his cool confidence soothed her anxiety and she found herself relaxing, and then gasping with amazement as they crested the dune and she saw more dunes stretching out ahead of them like an exotic, fiery labyrinth.
‘Oh, it’s beautiful,’ she breathed. ‘So beautiful. Like another world.’
For a moment they were poised on the top of that world, and then Karim threw her a slow, wicked smile and hit the accelerator with his foot. The vehicle plunged nose-first down the vertiginous drop on the other side, forcing Alexa to throw out a hand and steady herself against the dashboard.
It was so thrillingly terrifying that at first she couldn’t catch her breath. Resisting the temptation to cover her eyes, she braced herself for the moment when the vehicle would topple over and land upside down at the foot of the dune, but it didn’t happen. Instead they descended the dune in a smooth rush, Karim handling the wheel so skilfully that Alexa laughed with exhilaration.
They reached the bottom and he jerked on the handbrake.
She gulped in some much-needed air and then turned to look at him, unsure as to exactly what was responsible for her churning stomach: terror or the impact of the devastating smile he’d given her. ‘Is this what they teach you in the army?’
‘Desert survival.’ Still smiling, he released the handbrake and drove back towards the road. ‘You’re a very surprising woman, do you know that?’
‘Because I didn’t scream like a girl? I didn’t have the breath to scream.’
‘Because you’re not afraid of any of the things I would expect you to be afraid of. You shrug off the heat, you stroke a snake and you laugh at dune driving—but you hate locked doors, cry in your sleep and you run from a man who has no reason to chase you.’
Her smile faltered. ‘Well, fear is a funny thing, isn’t it? It’s different things for different people.’ Dark clouds swirled around her brain like a malevolent stalker ready to snuff out her brief flirtation with happiness. ‘Can I have a go behind the wheel?’
‘You have to be joking.’
His reaction made her laugh. ‘So is this your fear, Karim? A woman behind the wheel?’
‘Driving in the desert is very different to driving on tarmac. The sand is constantly shifting. It isn’t as easy as it looks.’
‘It doesn’t look easy at all. But it looks fun. That’s why I want to try it.’ Alexa couldn’t remember a time when she’d laughed like that, and suddenly she was desperate to recapture the moment. ‘Can I?’
‘You forget that I’ve already experienced your driving once. Even without the presence of a sand dune, it was scary.’
‘That’s not fair. I was afraid we were being followed.’
‘You drove like a madwoman,’ Karim muttered, adjusting several controls on the dashboard and steering the vehicle back onto the sandy road that cut between the undulating dunes. ‘If that is how you drive, then it is no wonder that you have had accidents.’
The feeling of happiness left her as abruptly as it had arrived. ‘My accidents had absolutely nothing to do with my driving.’
‘You are saying that the tree jumped out and banged into your car?’
‘No. I—’ Oh what was the point? His job was simply to escort her safely to the Citadel, not provide her with emotional support. She didn’t need emotional support. ‘Accidents happen, Karim.’
He watched her for a moment, his gaze disturbingly acute. ‘Not when I am your bodyguard.’ He sounded so confident that for a moment she wanted to believe him. It would have been so tempting to just relax and let someone else take the pressure for a change.
But she knew she couldn’t do that.
An unexpected moment of lighthearted fun didn’t change the facts. Her life was in danger, and she wouldn’t be safe until they were inside the high stone-walls of the Citadel.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THEY arrived at the oasis as dusk was falling.
Alexa watched as Karim avoided the busy tourist hub and drove the vehicle to an elaborately tented area slightly set apart. ‘They call this the Royal Suite. It has been set aside for our use. It’s more private than the other accommodation.’
‘I wish we didn’t have to stop.’
‘Even I cannot drive for days without rest,’ he said dryly. ‘You need to relax and leave the worrying to me.’
‘But you’re not worrying.’
‘A worry is merely a problem which hasn’t been solved.’ He undid her seat belt, and there was a sardonic gleam in his eyes. ‘If I see a problem, I solve it.’
Her heart banged against her chest. ‘What if you don’t see the problem before it hits you?’
‘Then the reaction must be all the quicker.’ Leaning her head back against the seat of the car, she closed her eyes. Despite the sleep she’d managed to snatch, she felt mentally and physically exhausted, the strain of the past few weeks building to a crescendo. ‘I’m so tired.’
‘Hopefully you will sleep better tonight.’
‘Yes.’ Alexa turned to look at him. ‘Thank you. I know I said I didn’t want a bodyguard, but I never would have managed this journey without you. I can see that now.’ She sensed his immediate withdrawal.
‘You are my responsibility.’
In other words he was just doing the job he was being paid to do, and he didn’t want her to forget that. Unreasonably disappointed by his reaction, she climbed down from the vehicle and followed him into the tent.
‘Well, I envy your stamina. I don’t think I have the energy to eat. I’ll just go straight to bed, and—’ She broke off with a gasp of shock as she walked into the tent and saw the bed. ‘Oh my goodness! It’s like something out of an Arabian fantasy.’
‘Indeed.’ Karim opened a bottle of water and handed her a drink. ‘The tourists like it. It is the honeymoon suite, I believe.’
Alexa stared at the huge bed draped in jewel-coloured silk and velvet cushions, and felt the colour heat her cheeks. Arabian antiques and elaborate rugs gave the tent a warm, intimate feel. It was clearly a place for lovers. ‘Won’t we be conspicuous staying here?’
‘No one will be looking for you in the honeymoon suite. You’re not married yet.’
The yet hung between them, and she gazed at him for a moment, noting the sudden tension in his broad shoulders.
It was ridiculous, she thought frantically, to be so sexually aware of a man when she was about to marry another. She had to stop thinking about Karim in that way. Just because he’d been kind, didn’t mean that he was thinking …
‘We should eat.’ His voice sounded unnaturally harsh, and the fact that he turned away from her made her wonder if he’d somehow sensed the way she was feeling.
Was he shocked? Embarrassed? Probably, because she certainly was.
‘I’m not really hungry.’
‘Sit down, Alexa.’ He sounded tired, and he rubbed the tips of his bronzed fingers over his forehead as if to relieve the tension. ‘You must eat. We have almost two days of travel ahead of us, and you ate virtually nothing today.’
‘All right. Just something small.’
She wasn’t aware that he’d communicated with anyone, and yet moments later several staff entered the tent, bearing a selection of dishes which they placed on the rug. Once they were alone again, Alexa knelt down. ‘So this place is actually a hotel?’
‘Zangrar is proving a surprisingly popular tourist destination.’ Karim picked up a dish and transferred several delicacies to her plate. ‘These desert encampments appeal to the romantic nature of tourists. They have a chance to swim, go dune driving, ride a camel and spend a night in the desert under the stars.’
‘Tourism was the Sultan’s idea?’
‘He has driven much of the commercial development, yes. It is important to look forward to the time when our natural resources run out.’
‘It’s wonderful that he cares so much about the future of Zangrar.’ Alexa stared at the food on her plate without touching it. ‘My father was the same. He was passionate about Rovina—’ She stopped suddenly, horrified with herself. Why was she talking about her father?
‘His death must have been a great loss to the country.’
‘I miss him every day.’ Her hand shook, and Karim reached out and gently removed the plate that she was holding.
‘Much of the security of childhood comes from parental love. You were deprived of that.’ His astute observation surprised her.
‘Yes, it was hard.’
