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The adrenaline ebbed away, leaving her cold.
Zafir barked out a command, something short and hard in Arabic and then stepped back.
Cold sweat trickled down her back as she looked around. The most unholy silence enveloped her, and everyone watched her with curiosity and contempt.
Two men with discreet-looking guns flanked her. “Zafir, wait,” she called out, but he’d already turned his back on her.
Her gaze followed the elevator’s ascent, but he didn’t look at her, not once. She tried to step back, only to find her every move blocked.
What nightmare had she walked into? Where was David?
Trying to stem the panic bubbling inside her, she turned and noticed an older man who spoke to the guard. “What the hell is going on?”
The man’s eyes chilled. “You’re under arrest for attacking the Sheikh of Behraat.”
* * *
Zafir Al Masood stalked out of the meeting with the High Council. His displeasure must have been evident in his face because even the most audacious members quickly shuffled out of his way.
For the first time in six weeks, the outrageous complaints from the council pricked him.
Who was the woman? How could a woman, a Western woman, an American at that, have such familiarity with him as to strike him? Was he going to bring the Western world’s wrath on Behraat?
Was he going to doom Behraat for a woman like his father had done?
He entered the elevator, hit the button to hold it there. Fury and frustration pumped in his veins as he sought to control his temper.
The glass walls around him reflected his image back at him, forcing him to take stock. Forcing him to swallow his bitterness, as he had done for the past six years.
Did they see a glimpse of his father, the great Rashid Al Masood, the man who had brought Behraat out of the dark ages, in him?
Would he be never allowed to forget that his father had only acknowledged him as his son when he had needed a different crown prince, thanks to his corrupted half brother Tariq?
Once upon a time, he would have been glad to hear that his father’s blood flowed in his veins. But now...now that he was spending his life paying for his mistake...
He cursed the wretched High Council and its power to elect the High Sheikh. Maybe if the bunch of corrupt cowards had spoken up during Tariq’s regime, Behraat wouldn’t be in this state now.
But with Rashid’s strict regulations blown apart, they had been busy stuffing their pockets with Tariq’s bribes while he had ruined relations with neighboring countries, destroyed peace treaties and violated trade agreements...
Yet they used any reason to doubt his rule over Behraat, harped on and on about the separation of tribes from the state.
As if it was his mistake and not his father’s.
Zafir headed straight to the situation room, determined to stomp them out. Much as he hated his father for bringing him up as a favored orphan, he couldn’t turn a blind eye to Behraat. Even before he had learned about his birth, duty had been filled in his very blood.
This was his father’s legacy to him.
Not love, not pride, not even the knowledge of his mother, but this infernal sense of duty toward Behraat.
Lauren’s face on the huge plasma screen monitor brought him to a sudden halt.
Something twisted deep and hard in his gut...a hard thrum in his very muscle, an echo of a primal need that he couldn’t fathom to this day...
That plump bottom lip caught between her teeth, her complexion paler than usual. Blue shadows marred the beauty of wide-set black eyes. The scarf she had used earlier to cover her hair loosely was gone, her black hair cut to fall over her forehead, once again hiding her entire face from him.
The long-sleeved cotton T-shirt molded the curve of her breasts. She sat with her fingers entwined on top of the table, her posture straight, reckless defiance in every line.
Defiant and honest, sensuous and wary, from the moment he had set eyes on her, Lauren had ensnared him.
At his command, his special security force had locked her up, confiscated everything from her. Punishment meted out to anyone who was suspected of being a threat to his new rule. And all the evidence they had gathered since didn’t bode well for her either.
But he couldn’t shake off the betrayal, the hurt that had glittered when she had looked at him. He had wanted to kiss her. He’d wanted to plunder her mouth until the betrayal etched into her face turned into arousal.
“She planned the charade,” Arif said in his matter-of-fact tone. “She clearly means to exploit your weakness in indulging in an affair with her. You should have mentioned her to me after you returned so that I—”
“No.”
Still transfixed by the sight of her, Zafir scrubbed a hand over his face.
There was no place for regret. There was no place for softness, in his feelings or in his actions. There was no choice to be anyone but himself.
Already he’d made a mistake, somehow he’d let her get too close.
“What would be her motivation, Arif?” he asked the older man. His father’s oldest friend, Arif was now his biggest ally.
“She walks around the trade center with a journalist friend who knew you would be present, Zafir. It’s all planned,” Arif spat out, with a vehemence that had been nurtured over a lifetime for women, foreign or otherwise.
Zafir remained quiet, giving the doubts that polluted his thoughts free rein.
The few members of staff present at the trade center had already been pledged into silence. He had offered an explanation to the High Council—to keep the peace for Behraat’s sake.
Her bow-shaped mouth was pinched, her shoulders strained under the weight of her feigned defiance. “Did they find him?”
The older man’s disquiet was answer enough.
Zafir switched off the monitor, taking away the temptation messing with his head.
“We need to contain this as soon as possible. If that video falls into the hands of the media...” Arif continued, letting his silence speak for the consequences.
“We might have a full-scale riot on our hands again,” Zafir finished. Tariq had used too many women, bloated with power and Zafir couldn’t be seen in the same light.
If they didn’t find the video and contain it, what little trust he had gained of the people of Behraat could be blown to smithereens.
Already, the High Council was questioning his proposals for change, looking for ways to skew public perception of him. “I’ll talk to her. No one else,” he said, wondering if he had misjudged the first woman to mess with his head in...ever.
* * *
How dare he lock her up?
Lauren eyed the camera in the top corner of the room. She wanted to march toward it, stick her face in it and demand they release her. But it would only waste her dwindling energy.
The sheer fury she had been running on was crashing already. Misery gnawed at her.
She turned her attention to the small room with its austere white walls and concrete floor. The sterile smell of the room made her empty stomach heave. A window boarded shut with cheap plastic and a faded plastic chair and table graced the room. The other end of the spectrum from the magnificent foyer and reception hall where she’d stood in awe only a couple of hours ago.
Even if she wanted to delude herself that it was all some ghastly mistake, the gritty reality of the room stopped her.
She held her shoulders rigid. But each passing minute filled her with increasing dread and confusion. The old man’s words rang in her ears.
Zafir, the Sheikh of Behraat?
It sounded straight out of a nightmare, yet how else could she explain all this?
She rubbed her eyes and swallowed, her throat dry and scratchy like sandpaper. They had taken her backpack, her cell phone. She thought longingly of the bottle of water in there and even the granola bar she usually hated.
The knob turned as the door was fiddled with on the outside.
Her muscles tensed up, her lungs expanding on a huge breath.
Zafir stepped into the room. She sagged against the chair, saw the tight line of his mouth and instantly pulled herself back up.
He had ordered his minions to lock her up. Just because he was here didn’t mean anything, she told herself sternly.
He cast a look at the camera at the top wall. The tiny orange flicker went out.
Apparently, all it took was a blink of an eye from him and the world rearranged itself.
He closed the door behind him, and leaned against it.
His gaze swept over her, noting everything about her with a chilling thoroughness.
The traditional attire was gone yet he felt no more familiar than the cold stranger she had slapped so foolishly. A white cotton shirt folded back at the cuffs revealed strong forearms, the burnished bronze of his skin a startlingly stunning contrast against it.
Black jeans outlined the hard strength of those muscular legs, legs that had pinned and anchored her in the most intimate of acts, a mere couple of hours before he had stepped out of her life.
The Zafir she had known in New York had still been a mystery, but he’d been a kind, caring man. Not friendly but she’d felt safe with him, even after knowing him for only an hour.
Not straightway approachable after the way she’d ripped into him at the ER, but he’d still been a gentleman.
Not exactly the boy-next-door type and yet he’d laughed with her.
Had all that been just a mask to get her into bed?
He prowled into the room and leaned against the opposite wall, forcing her to raise her gaze. Her stomach was tied up in knots, but she refused to let him intimidate her.
Standing up, she moved behind the chair and mirrored his stance.
He folded his hands and pinned her with that hard gaze. “Why are you here, Lauren?”
“Ask your thugs that question.” She gripped the back of the chair with shaking hands, and tilted her chin up. “Sorry, I mean, your guards.”
He raised a brow, quiet arrogance dripping from every pore. How had she not seen this cloak of power he wore so effortlessly? “This is not the time to play with the truth.”
“Look who’s talking about truth,” she said, anger replacing the dread. “Is it true? What that man said?”
An eternity passed while his gaze trapped hers. But she saw the truth in it.
In fact, the truth or a shadow of it had been present all along.
In his tortured words whenever he spoke of Behraat, in the anguish in his eyes when they had watched a TV segment about the old sheikh still in coma, in the pride that resonated in his voice when he spoke of how Behraat had emerged as a developing country under the sheikh’s regime.
Even in that sense of stasis she had sensed in him, as though he was biding his time.
His very presence was a ticking powerhouse in the small room. He shrugged. Such a casual gesture for something that shook her world upside down. “Yes.”
The single word grew in the space between them, bearing down upon her the consequences of her own actions.
Her throat dried up, every muscle in her quivered. All the stories she had heard from a fascinated David about Behraat, of the ruling family, they coalesced in her mind, shaking loose everything she had believed of Zafir.
She stared at him anew. “If you’re the new sheikh, that means you’re...”
“The man who ordered the arrest of his brother so that he can rule Behraat. The man who celebrated victory on the eve of his brother’s death.” His words echoed with a razor-sharp edge. “But be very careful. You’ve already committed one mistake. I might not be so lenient again.”
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_a8fd5a59-e830-51da-ae1e-0e37f6ef2347)
“LENIENT?” LAUREN GLARED at him, hating the tremor she couldn’t contain at the casual power in his words. “You had your thugs throw me here without hearing a word I had to say.”
“If you were anyone else...the punishment would have been much worse.”
“I slapped you. It’s not a capital crime.”
“You slapped me in front of the High Council who thinks women should stay at home, that women need to be protected from the world, and from their own weaknesses.”
There was no smoothness to his words now. They reverberated with cutting hostility. “That’s archaic.”
“Fortunately for you, I agree. Women are just as capable of deception, of manipulation as any man I’ve known.”
Lauren stared at him. “So you’re a misogynist as well as being a sheikh? I don’t know how much more of this I can handle.”
Something entered his gaze. “This is not New York, Lauren. Nor am I an average Joe.”
“No, you’re not,” she whispered. Even in New York, she hadn’t made the mistake of thinking he was an average man.
A small-scale exporter, he’d told her, struggling to keep his place in Behraat because of the changing political clime. The gleam of interest in his eyes—six feet of stunning, sexy, jaw-droppingly arrogant man’s interest in her, averagely attractive ER nurse, who’d long ago chosen a life of non-adventure and boring normalcy, because it was safe—it had gone straight to her head.
She’d swallowed his lies all too willingly.
Instead, he was the ruler of a nation and, if the media was to be believed, one who had seized power from the previous sheikh. He was the very embodiment of power and ambition she despised, far from the rootless man she had thought him to be.
