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The hairdresser urged Liv to sit down on the chair they’d pulled into the bathroom and while she turned her attention to Liv’s clean but tousled blond hair, the other one started in on a pampering manicure.
While they worked she snacked on fruit and cheese and crackers Khalid had sent to her. A glass of champagne also arrived but she didn’t dare touch it. She hadn’t eaten much in days and feared the alcohol would go straight to her head. However, the assorted cheeses, sweet apricots, grapes and savory flatbreads were delicious and Liv ate virtually everything on her plate.
By the time her hair and nails were finished, Liv felt unusually relaxed and ridiculously spoiled. To have not one, but two, women fuss over her while she snacked on cheese and crackers struck her as incredibly decadent, but she wasn’t in a position to argue. Tonight was important. Khalid had made that very clear and she was going to do everything in her power to make a good impression on the visiting officials.
“And your clothes have now arrived,” the manicurist said. “We’ll just get you into your dress, make sure everything fits exactly so and then leave you to your party.”
Her party.
The suggestion was laughable but Liv didn’t laugh. She shivered, suffering from a sudden fit of nerves.
She was scared. Nothing could go wrong tonight. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—go back to Ozr.
Fortunately her attention was drawn to getting dressed. She was to wear a beautiful ivory-pleated gown, the ivory shimmering with threads of gold. A gold collar encircled her throat, the collar the width of her hand and heavy with gold and jewels. The dress was long, touching the tips of her champagne-colored high heels.
The hairstylist had curled her hair in loose waves, and then pinned strategic pieces up so that her hair looked like a golden waterfall with loose tendrils around her face. The manicurist wasn’t to be outdone. She swiftly applied a deft application of makeup, including sooty eyeliner, a swirl of black mascara and a soft golden blush on Liv’s cheeks, and a touch of golden gloss on her lips.
“You look perfect,” the manicurist said, stepping back to examine her handiwork. “So fresh and young and charming, just the way a princess should.”
Liv smiled gratefully even as she heard the door open and close. From the sound of voices she knew that the guests had arrived and her smile disappeared as her stomach flipped … a maddening somersault that had her clutching the sink.
“It’s going to be fine,” the hairstylist said, patting Liv on the back even as Liv leaned over the sink, trying to catch her breath and calm her queasy stomach. “Everything is fine, and you are going to make His Highness very proud. Now go. Enjoy your party.”
Her party. A party where she had to pretend she was engaged to Prince Khalid Fehr, Sheikh of the Great Sarq Desert. How could she do it? She was just a girl from Pierceville, a girl who’d never had more than twelve dates in her entire life.
Her stomach rose up again in protest. She couldn’t do it, couldn’t go out there, not if the Jabal secretary of security was here….
But then she thought of her mother, and Jake, and the sheikh himself. They were all counting on her, depending on her to be strong.
And she could be strong. She would be.
Khalid watched Olivia enter the room, the long, loose pleated ivory and gold gown emphasizing her slender frame and delicate beauty. With her head up, her shimmery blond hair slid along her bare shoulders, the curls long and loose like the pleats in her dress.
She’d been pretty in her passport photo and troubling in prison, but entering the room she was simply stunning and Khalid watched her, by turns surprised, proud, hungry, possessive.
The gold arm rings on her slim biceps hid the bruises on her upper arms. Her fair hair, curled and twisted back from her face, revealed her elegant features, her pale, flawless complexion and her astonishing goddesslike composure.
He knew she didn’t want to be here tonight, knew she’d been terrified to face the secretary of security from Jabal, but one wouldn’t know it looking at her. Her expression was serene, her blue gaze focused, intelligent, poised.
Beautiful, he thought, she was beautiful and so small and fragile and not of this world.
And she was his.
His.
Khalid’s body grew hot, tight, his chest constricting with emotions he didn’t know he could feel.
He wanted her, and he’d protect her. Forever.
“She doesn’t wear a head-covering or robe,” the Jabal official said under his breath, turning an accusing eye to Khalid.
“She doesn’t have to,” Khalid answered evenly. “She’s here with me.”
“But you parade her like a—”
“Careful,” Khalid interrupted. “She is my future bride, and I have vowed to protect her with my life. I will not allow anyone to insult her.”
The secretary of security clamped his jaw together, his nostrils flaring, and for a moment he couldn’t speak and then he choked, “If she really is your betrothed, when is this wedding going to take place? Because it is unlawful for an unmarried man and woman to be together like this, unchaperoned—”
“But she is chaperoned. Her attendants are in her room now.” The corner of Khalid’s mouth lifted sardonically. “Perhaps you’d like to meet her attendants personally, Mr. Al-Awar?”
One of the Egyptian dignitaries interjected. “That is not necessary, Your Highness, your word is good enough for us, and may I extend our warmest congratulations on your coming nuptials?”
“Thank you,” Khalid answered, keeping an eye on Olivia as she stood at the far end of the living room. She looked very small and vulnerable standing on her own and he found himself wishing his brother Sharif was here tonight with his American wife, Jesslyn. Although Jesslyn was now the Queen of Sarq, she was a former schoolteacher and one of the kindest, most genuine women Khalid had ever met. Jesslyn was just the sort of woman Olivia needed in her corner right now.
“When are these nuptials?” the Jabal official pressed. “I haven’t heard a date mentioned, which troubles me, and my government. If your engagement is just a hoax—”
“If you’ve come to insult me, then perhaps it’s best if you go now before I take personal offense.” Khalid fixed his attention completely on the secretary of security.
“The paperwork stated she was a family member.”
“And she is.” Khalid’s upper lip curled.
“So there will be a wedding.”
“Royal weddings take time and my family is scattered at the moment. Once we can bring us all together on a mutually agreeable date, the ceremony will take place.”
The Jabal official was silent a long moment before awkwardly nodding his head. “Very good. And congratulations again.”
“Thank you.” Khalid smiled, showing a hint of his teeth. “And now I shall join my fiancée, but I do hope you’ll stay and enjoy our hospitality. The hotel chef has outdone himself and there is much to sample.” With a nod he left the men and headed to Olivia.
Olivia watched Khalid walk toward her. While she’d dressed, he’d also changed, donning the traditional Arab robeing.
“Enjoying the party?” he asked on reaching her side.
She nearly smiled at his ironic tone. “It’s not much of a party.”
His warm gaze slowly swept over her, resting indulgently on her upturned face, lingering even longer on her lips. “I promise that one day we’ll throw you a proper party, one with lots of interesting people.”
“As long as there’s no one from the Jabal government there, I’ll be happy.”
He glanced toward the dignitaries now crowding around the buffet, piling their plates with food. “I’d tend to agree with you there.”
Before she could respond he turned back to look at her. “You look beautiful tonight. Like a goddess.” His dark gaze met hers and held. “And I don’t give compliments often. I also never say what I don’t mean.”
Liv’s insides felt funny, and her chest grew tight as though she’d swallowed an air bubble, but she knew it was nerves, and this odd emotion he stirred in her. This morning she’d thought it was fear. Now she wasn’t so sure. “Thank you. I’m glad you approve.”
By the time Liv went to bed an hour and a half later, she was so exhausted she was asleep the moment her head touched the pillow.
In his room, Khalid didn’t find it so easy to fall asleep. Usually when he closed his eyes he found absolute silence, and darkness, a stillness that wrapped him completely, blanketing thought, emotions, need. But tonight when he closed his eyes he saw eyes, blue eyes, eyes with long sooty lashes, eyes that were too big in a face that was too small and pale.
But he didn’t want to be thinking of Olivia, didn’t want to become emotionally involved—or attached—in any way.
He hadn’t left his desert and isolation to become entangled in a relationship. He liked being a bachelor, enjoyed his life as a loner, and yet suddenly marriage seemed like a very real, and very constraining, possibility.
And he was the one who’d vowed to never marry.
Khalid passed a hand over his face, trying to erase the picture of Olivia from his mind, trying to create the desert’s stillness, but he couldn’t shake Olivia’s blue eyes, couldn’t erase her shock and fear from his mind’s eye.
He was still lying awake hours later when he heard her scream. It was a piercing scream and Khalid was on his feet immediately, bursting through the door separating the two bedrooms in the royal suite to flick on the light.
But once in Olivia’s room he discovered she was still asleep.
Standing motionless in her doorway, he watched her sleep, wondering what it was that had made her cry out, and hesitating in case she called out again. But minutes passed and she didn’t cry again. Instead she slept on, her long blond hair spilling across the pillow, her left hand curled beneath her cheek and chin.
Sleeping, all the worry and pain disappeared from her face. Sleeping, she reminded him of a young girl with all her hopes and dreams still before her.
He’d just turned out the light and was closing the door, turning to leave, when Olivia’s voice reached him.
“'Night, Jake,” she said sleepily, her voice soft in the darkness.
Jake. The big brother.
His jaw suddenly flexed, tension and pain rippling through him. He’d once been the big brother, too, to younger sisters, too.
But they’d died over ten years ago. They’d died and there was absolutely nothing he could do for them.
Maybe that’s why he was here, risking life and limb for Olivia. She was someone’s little sister.
“Good night, Olivia,” he said quietly, closing the door behind him, and as the door shut, he realized why he couldn’t sleep earlier.
Olivia was waking him up. Making him feel again. And feeling emotions hurt.
Feeling was the last thing he wanted to do.
CHAPTER FIVE
KHALID was woken by the sound of his phone ringing. Groaning as it continued to ring, he reached out and grabbed the small wireless phone from the table beside his bed.
He recognized the number immediately. His eldest brother, Sharif.
Answering, he rolled over onto his back. “You’re a king and a newlywed,” Khalid said, his deep voice husky with sleep. “What are you doing calling so early?”
“You promised me you wouldn’t break any laws.”
Khalid rolled his eyes. “I didn’t.”
“The president of Jabal wants her back.”
“He’s not the president, he’s a dictator, and the Red Cross and United Nations are both extremely concerned by his regime’s disregard for human life.”
“Khalid, this is serious.”
“I know it is,” Khalid answered mildly, but both of them knew that Khalid was the Fehr brother least likely to compromise. “And Olivia’s not going back. Not now, not ever.”
Sharif sighed heavily. “You freed her by illegal means.”
“I rescued her from Ozr, which is synonymous with hell and you know it.”
“You claimed her. You claimed her as your fiancée.”
“Yes, I did.” “That’s a lie—”
“Not if I marry her.” Khalid nearly smiled at Sharif’s sharp intake.
“That’s ridiculous,” Sharif protested tersely. “You’ve spent the past ten years making it clear that you’re not interested in people, or relationships or emotions. You’ve pushed everyone close to you away. You don’t even return phone calls—”
“She’s in trouble.”
“The world’s in trouble, Khalid. That doesn’t mean you can save everyone.”
“I’m not trying to save everyone.”
“No?”
“No.”
Sharif muttered something unintelligible before adding, “They believe your Miss Morse is part of a huge drug ring.”
“She’s not,” Khalid answered flatly.
“But what if she is?”
Khalid fell silent. He’d considered the very same point. What if Olivia wasn’t innocent? What if she was part of this drug smuggling ring? What if the others were just better at the game and she was the one who got caught?
What if there weren’t any others involved?
What if she’d lied to everyone about everything?
“I’ve run a background check on her,” he answered after a moment. “There is nothing in her past that indicates she has the experience, or worldliness, to pull something like this off. She lives in the middle of nowhere—a small town in the south—and it’s a genuine small town, population thirteen thousand.”
“Just the kind of girl to crave fame and fortune.”
“Her mom’s a homemaker, her older brother is a carpenter and builds houses.”
“Khalid,” Sharif said, a caution in his voice. “You can’t mean to marry her—”
“Why not? You married a schoolteacher. I can marry a travel agent.”
