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Kareef frowned. “I spoke with him…” Name of God, was it only last night, after he’d left Jasmine in the garden? It seemed far longer than that. He’d spent all night dreaming of Jasmine—and all morning dealing with Akmal, his vizier, who was furious at Kareef’s plans to leave for the desert. He smiled broadly. “I spoke with him yesterday.”
“I don’t believe it!”
“It’s true. Though it wasn’t easy to track him down in Monte Carlo, he’s coming to the coronation.”
“All three of us, back here at the same time?” his brother said in amazement.
“It’s been too long,” Kareef agreed.
Rafiq suddenly gave him a sharp look. “That’s quite a smile.”
He blinked. “Of course I would smile. You’re here and Tahir is on his way.”
His brother narrowed his eyes, looking at him keenly. “You’re smiling with your whole face,” he observed. “I haven’t seen you do that for years. Care to explain?”
“You’ll know everything soon enough.” And he feared it was true. Rafiq had always been the sharp-est—the most ruthless—of the brothers. To change the subject, Kareef leaned forward and slapped his hands on his thighs. “But you are here and that, my brother, is a good thing. I hear your business goes from strength to strength. Tell me more.”
The journey through the city was swift as traffic halted for the king’s motorcade. Kareef tried to pay attention to the details of the new emporiums Rafiq had just opened in Auckland and Perth, but his mind kept wandering to the woman who waited for him at the palace. And the night that awaited them in the desert.
Jasmine would resist him. He knew that. He also knew she would fall. She would be in his bed—tonight. Tomorrow. And the day after that, if he still wanted her. He would make love to her until they were both utterly spent.
Then, and only then he would speak the words that would part them forever. And let her go on to her marriage.
His smile faltered. The motorcade went past the palace gate and stopped beneath a portico. A turbaned footman opened his door. As they went up the sweeping steps, Kareef glanced back at his brother. Rafiq seemed dazed as he stared up at the turrets and domes reaching into the sky, glowing like a pearl beneath the noonday sun.
Kareef stopped, taking his brother by the arm. “Here I must leave you, my brother. So if you will excuse me…”
Rafiq cocked a suspicious eyebrow. “Off to place a bet on the Qais Cup?”
Kareef laughed. “I haven’t gambled on a horse race in years.”
“Then it’s being crowned king,” he guessed. “All that raw power.” He winked. “I’m almost envious, my brother.”
“No.” That definitely wasn’t it. “Excuse me.”
“Then what is it?” his brother called after him. “What’s got you so damned happy?”
Kareef didn’t answer. He hurried down the stone cloister of ancient Byzantine arches around the courtyard. Servants stopped to bow as he rushed past them, his white robes whipping around his ankles. In the courtyard, the sun shone bright and hot. A warm breeze blew through the palm trees, rich with the fragrance of spice and oranges.
Her scent.
He glanced at the bright blue sky, hearing birdsong from the garden. It was after noon, and he hadn’t yet eaten. But he hungered for only one thing.
He found Jasmine waiting in her small bedroom in the servants’ wing, sitting on the bed reading a paperback book, her packed suitcase at her feet. When he opened the door, she looked up, her expression grave and pale.
“Finally, I am ready.” He glanced around the tiny, shabby room, noticing it for the first time. He cleared his throat. “I regret this was the only room available in the palace…”
“That’s quite all right,” she said quietly, marking her place and tucking her book in her suitcase. “This room has suited me very well.” She rose to her feet. “Shall we go?”
Her wide eyes looked up at him, the color of sepia fringed in black. She was wearing a short modern dress in pink silk. Her dark hair was pulled back in a chignon beneath a little felt hat. Her look was retro, modern and with a quirky style all her own.
She looked sixteen still. The same pale, olive-hued skin. The same full black lashes, sweeping over high cheekbones. The same full, luscious lips, bare of makeup. The color of roses.
He longed to kiss those lips.
He was already hard for her.
No wonder. He’d been celibate for…He didn’t like to think about that. He’d thought he was too busy for women, or simply uninterested in the particular succession of gold diggers who threw themselves at royalty on a daily basis, even if he had been only minor royalty until recently.
Now he knew the truth. His body had hungered for only one woman. The woman in front of him now.
He could hardly wait to satiate himself with her. It was a journey of several hours to the desert. His eyes fell upon her tiny bed. He was not sure he could wait that long…
But even as he considered the size of her bed, she’d already left the room, dragging her tiny suitcase behind her. He caught up with her, lifting up the suitcase on his shoulder.
“Thank you,” she said gravely.
“It weighs almost nothing.” And it truly did. He carried it easily with one hand. “Why did you pack so little?”
“Um.” Her lips turned upward at the corners. “To avoid baggage fees at the airport?”
He snorted a laugh. “Hajjar has his own plane.” He shook his head. “You always enjoyed dress-up as a girl, always had your own style different from the rest.” He smiled. “Has so much changed for you? You’re too busy to worry about clothes, now that you run your own multimillion dollar company in New York?”
“Ah. Well.” Her eyes shifted away uneasily. “Umar has already picked out the clothes he thinks appropriate for me. They will arrive from Paris in a few days. So he didn’t—I mean, I didn’t—see much point in bringing my own clothes from New York, especially since we’ll only be in Qusay until we’re married.”
“I see.” He was suddenly irritated by the thought of anyone telling Jasmine what to wear. He tried to shrug it off. If Jasmine didn’t care, why should he? Her relationship with Umar was none of his business. In fact, Kareef was determined to make them both forget his existence for the next few days.
Outside the palace, a bodyguard hefted the small suitcase from Kareef and carried it to the bottom of the sweeping stairs. Another assistant packed it in the front SUV of the motorcade.
Jasmine looked at the SUV and limousine behind it, and all the many bodyguards and servants bustling around the motorcade, with palpable relief. “I see we’re not traveling alone.”
“Don’t get too excited. I travel as the king of Qusay.” He gave her a sudden wicked grin. “But in the desert, that will change. As you said, in the desert I’ll be just a man. Like any other…”
He let his voice trail off suggestively and saw her shiver in the sunlight. As his chauffeur opened the door, she was very careful not to touch Kareef as she scooted past him into the backseat of the Rolls-Royce.
Sitting beside her, Kareef leaned back, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye as the motorcade drove out the palace gate. She was clinging to the farthest side of the car. It almost amused him. Did she really think she would get out of this without falling into his bed?
Well, let her continue to think so. He loved nothing more than a challenge.
And she had nothing to feel guilty about. Not in this case. Nor in the other—
Memory trembled on the edge of his consciousness, threatening to darken his sunshine. He pushed the troubling memory away. He wouldn’t think of what they’d lost in the past—what he’d caused her to lose. Today would be about one thing only: pleasure.
The motorcade moved swiftly out of the city, heading northeast along the coast. But with Jasmine sitting against the opposite window, doing her level best not to touch him, every mile seemed to stretch out to eternity.
He should have listened to Akmal Al’Sayr, he thought grimly. His vizier had tried to convince him to use one of his royal helicopters or planes currently shuttling foreign dignitaries to Qusay, rather than waste time traveling by car. Now Kareef wished he’d taken that advice. Coddling diplomats suddenly seemed a much lower priority than getting Jasmine into his bed.
Kareef glanced at her. She refused to look in his direction, continuing instead to stare stonily out the darkly tinted window. Behind her, he could see the bright turquoise sea shining beyond the smooth, modern highway.
Neither of them moved, but tension hummed between them.
He wanted her. Wanted to take her right here and now in the backseat of this limousine. But was that the private, discreet affair he wanted? Tossing her like a whore in the backseat of a Rolls-Royce, with bodyguards surely able to guess what went on behind darkened windows?
Kareef cursed beneath his breath. He would just have to wait.
But as they approached a fork in the road, he suddenly leaned forward.
“Turn here,” he ordered.
“Sire?” His chauffeur looked back in surprise.
“Take the old desert road,” he commanded in a voice that did not brook opposition. As his bodyguard communicated the order over a walkie-talkie to the SUV in front of the motorcade, his chauffeur switched lanes on the modern highway, heading toward the exit that would lead straight north through the sands and rock, toward the desert of Qais.
He sat back. He might have to be patient, but he’d be damned if he wouldn’t get it over with as soon as possible, by taking the most direct route.
The modern highway of Qusay stretched around the circumference of the island, a new way to travel north to the principality of Qais, a harsh landscape of desert sands and cragged, desolate mountains. Only two years ago, Kareef, as Prince of Qais, had finished the highway with the new influx of money brought by his developments, including the blossoming sport of horse racing. Qais was now second only to Dubai as the emerging hotspot on the thoroughbred racing circuit.
Ironic, Kareef thought, that after personally giving up the sport, the thing he’d once loved the most in the world, he’d turned it into a thriving industry for others.
Although that wasn’t entirely true. There had once been something he’d loved even more than horse racing.
He glanced at Jasmine. Her beautiful face was wan. Dark circles were beneath her eyes, hollows beneath her cheeks.
Damn it all to hell.
Why was she trying to resist what they both wanted?
He turned back to the window. Rolling dunes sifted scattered sand onto the road, brushed by wind beneath the hot sun. The road was very old, dating to his grandfather’s time. During sandstorms this road could disappear altogether.
Disappear. As he’d tried to do thirteen years ago.
He’d wanted to die rather than face the accusation in her eyes. He’d fled into the desert, praying to be sucked beneath a grave of sand.
Instead, Umar Hajjar had found him and brought him home. Unable to die, Kareef had thrown himself into a life of sacrifice and duty. The nomadic people of the desert had eventually looked to him for leadership, turning his family’s honorary title of Prince of Qais into a real one.
Against his will, Kareef had been brutally sentenced—to live.
He rubbed the back of his tense neck, giving Jasmine a sideways glance. He would never be able to make amends to her for what he’d done.
But should he try?
He wanted her. But did that mean he had the right to take her? Should he try to do one last unselfish thing…by letting her go?
One man has had no trouble resisting me, Kareef. You.
He suppressed a harsh laugh. He, who’d shown such perfect control with women, lost all self-control around her. Prickles of heat went through his body just sitting beside her.
Any man would be attracted to Jasmine. Even if he were blind. Even if she were wrapped in veils from head to toe. Any man would seek her warmth. Her scent, a tantalizing mix of citrus and clove. Her seductive shape, with that tiny waist setting off her delectable breasts and the wide curve of her hips. The perfect backside for any man’s hands. The heartbreaking sweetness of her glance. Of her soul.
No, he would not think of her soul. He would think only of her body.
“We’re not going to stop, are we?” she suddenly whispered. Her voice sounded tortured. “We’re not going to stop on the way?”
He turned to her. Her beautiful brown eyes were shimmering with light.
“Do you wish to stop?” he asked in a low voice.
She shook her head. “I want to drive through the mountains as quickly as possible.”
“Are you afraid?”
This time, she had no bravado in her.
“Yes,” she whispered. “You know what I fear. I see it in my nightmares. Don’t you?”
Kareef’s throat closed. He gave a single unsteady nod.
Here on the old desert road, they would drive right past the riding school and the red rock mountains beyond. The cliffs. The hidden cave. The place where he hadn’t protected her, where he hadn’t protected the child neither of them had known she was carrying. Where Jasmine had nearly died of fever because he’d given the ridiculous promise not to tell after the horse-riding accident. As if love alone could save them.
He’d been helpless. Useless. He’d failed at the most basic test of any man. Jagged pain cracked his throat, making his voice husky as he said, “We will not stop.”
He saw her take a deep, grateful breath. “Thank you.”
He nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Long ago, they’d escaped the prying eyes of the palace at the riding school. Her friend Sera had distracted the girls’ aged chaperone so Kareef and Jasmine could have some precious time together—alone.
The remote school, surrounded by paddocks and stables, had been where Kareef felt most truly alive, the place he’d loved to race his black stallion, Razul. He’d loved to feel Jasmine’s eyes on him as he showed off for her.
“Ride with me, Jasmine,” he’d begged, adding with a grin, “You’re not afraid, are you?” And one day—she’d finally agreed.
They’d thought themselves so clever, to evade the restrictions set by her parents and find a way to be together. But in the end, fate had punished them all—even her strict but well-meaning parents whose only crime had been trying to protect Jasmine from a man who might bring destruction and shame to her loving, innocent soul and fairy-tale beauty. A man like him.
As their motorcade traveled through the desert, he stared out at the sharp light of the sun reflecting against the sand. Scattered clouds like yin and yang symbols of darkness and light moved swiftly against the bright blue sky. He wondered if a storm was coming.
Then he felt her small hand on his arm and knew the storm was already here. Inside him.
“Thank you,” Jasmine whispered again. Her fingers tightened on his arm. “Umar is a kind man, he tries to be good to me, but I did not wish to face this for the first time beside him, traveling through the desert on my wedding day.” She shook her head, lifting her luminous eyes to his. “He can’t understand. You do.”
At the light touch of her fingers, he shuddered.
If he were a civilized man, he thought suddenly, he’d set her free right now. He would divorce her immediately and let her go untouched to the man she wished to marry. His friend. But the thought of her with any other man was as sharp as a razor blade inside him.
Kareef wanted her for himself.
Wanted? Was that even close to the right word? His body craved her, like it craved food or water or air.
Wanted?
He wanted her so much that she made his body shake with need. It was an inhuman test of will that he should be so close to her, trapped in the back of a Rolls-Royce but unable to touch her.
