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LAUREN OPENED HER eyes slowly, feeling a sharp tug at her wrist. Her mouth felt woolly as if she had fallen asleep with cotton stuffed into it. It took her a moment to focus around the strange room. Feeling a little frayed, she propped herself on her elbows and scooted into a sitting position.
She was lying on a huge bed on the softest scented cotton sheets. The subtle scent of roses tickled her nostrils. A dark red tapestry hung on the opposite wall while sheer silk curtains fluttered at the breeze. Her whole apartment in Queens could fit into the suite, she thought, awed by the magnificence of the surroundings.
“It is nice to see some color in your cheeks,” said a voice near the foot of the bed in heavily accented English.
The IV tube tugged at her wrist as Lauren moved.
A woman laid a cool hand against Lauren’s forehead and nodded. She wore a bright red tunic with a collar and long sleeves, and black trousers underneath it. Her hair was tied into a ponytail at the back. Her skin, a shade lighter than Zafir’s rich copper tone, shone with a vibrancy that made Lauren feel like a pale ghost.
“The fever is gone. Would you like something to drink?”
When Lauren nodded, instead of handing the glass to her, the woman tucked one hand at Lauren’s neck and held it to her mouth with the other. The cool liquid slid against her throat, bringing back feeling into her mouth. Feeling infinitely better, Lauren looked at her. “Where am I?”
A little line appeared in the woman’s smooth forehead. “The royal palace.”
Holding her growing anxiety at bay, Lauren studied the suite again. Rich, vibrant furnishings with hints of gold greeted her eyes. A high archway lighted with bronze torches led into the balcony on her right, from which she could see the turrets and domes of the palace.
First, he had her locked up accusing her of conspiracy, and now he had staff waiting on her?
She ran a finger over her dry, cracked lips. Her blouse was creased and her cream trousers looked dirty. “I’ve never fainted in my life before. If you remove the IV, I’d like to wash up. And then leave.”
The woman shook her head. “That’s not possible.”
After the day she’d had, Lauren was in no mood to be ordered around. “Excuse me, but who are you?”
“I’m one of the palace physicians, the only female one. His Highness ordered that I attend to you personally,” she said, her words ringing with pride.
It took Lauren a moment to realize who she meant. She was still a prisoner then, upgraded from that stark...cell to the sumptuous palace. “Well... His Highness can screw himself for all I care,” she muttered, emotions batting at her from all directions.
The woman’s mouth fell open, and she looked at Lauren as though she had grown two heads. Lauren felt like an ass. It wasn’t really the woman’s fault.
“I’m sorry....”
“Dr. Farrah Hasan.”
“Dr. Hasan, I have to leave. In fact, if you can just hand me my phone.” She pointed to her gray metallic handbag—the funky bag looked as out of place on the red velvet settee as she felt in the grandiose palace. “I’ll call the airport and reschedule my flight.”
“You can’t leave, Ms. Hamby. Besides the fact that His Highness has forbidden it,” she rushed over her words as if afraid that Lauren would lose it again, “given your condition, you’re very weak. I recommend that you spend at least a week in bed and wait two weeks before you fly long-distance.”
“My condition?” Lauren said, her heart beginning a strange thump-thump loud enough to reach her ears. “Nothing’s wrong with me except the effects of dehydration.” Which was really His Highness’s fault. But she managed to keep the words to herself this time.
“Your pregnancy,” Dr. Hasan said with a frown. “You’re not aware of it?”
Lauren felt as if she’d been physically slapped. She shook her head, huffed a laugh at the ridiculousness of the suggestion. The doctor’s eyes remained serious.
She couldn’t be. “But that’s not...”
She collapsed against the bed, shaking uncontrollably from head to toe. Her breaths became shaky, and a vicious churn started in her stomach. Pregnant? How was that possible? She took her pill without missing it a single day. She clutched the sheets with her hands, tears leaking out of the corner of her eyes.
Fear and shock vied with each other, a heaviness gathering in her belly.
She couldn’t be pregnant. A child needed unconditional love, stability, two parents who loved it, who would put it before anything else, before their own ambitions and duties.
Zafir and she couldn’t even bear to look at each other without distrust.
Panic unfurled its fangs, and she felt woozy again.
“Just breathe, Ms. Hamby,” the doctor said, and Lauren let that crisp tone wash over her, glad to have someone tell her what to do.
As her breathing became normal again, a little flicker of something else crept in. She shoved her top away under the cotton sheets and splayed her fingers on her stomach. A tiny life was breathing inside her, and it felt as though it breathed courage into her.
A baby.
Her job as an ER nurse at an inner-city hospital in Brooklyn consumed every ounce of her energy, both physical and emotional. Christ, she had never even had a normal boyfriend.
She saw and dealt with unwed, single mothers and their difficulties on a day-to-day to basis. That gritty reality coupled with her own childhood had made at least one thing clear in her head. She’d never wanted to bring a child into the world that couldn’t have the love of both parents.
“Is everything okay with the...baby?” she said, her thoughts steering in another direction suddenly.
Dr. Hasan smiled, as though reassured of Lauren’s mental state. “It is very early in the pregnancy, I’m assuming. As far as your health, you’re fine. But you’re dehydrated and I suspect your iron content is low. Nothing that a week’s rest and nutritious food wouldn’t cure, though.”
Lauren nodded, feeling a little calm. As much as she hated staying within a ten-mile radius of Zafir, she wasn’t going to take any chances. She’d stay a week and then fly back to New York on her originally scheduled flight.
She needed to sort out her life, and she couldn’t do that here. Once she was back in her own city, adjusted to this new change, then she would tell him.
“Are you friends with Zafir?”
Deep pride filled the doctor’s eyes. “Yes, Zafir... I mean, His Highness and I have known each other since childhood.”
So Farrah was not only his staff but one of his friends. A week was a long time surrounded by people who worshipped the ground Zafir walked on. “But as your patient, I have your discretion?”
She frowned. “Yes, of course, Ms. Hamby.”
“Please call me Lauren.” She tugged the sheet up and clasped her hands on top of it. “I need you to keep...this,” she said, as her fingers fluttered over her stomach, “between you and me, Dr. Hasan.” A part of her flinched at the lie she was spouting with such little effort. “It doesn’t concern Zafir and I would like to keep it that way.”
A frown furrowed the doctor’s forehead. “Of course, it’s not something I will disclose to anyone. But if—”
Lauren turned away from her questions. It was better for everyone concerned if she said very little right then.
* * *
Zafir signed the last file with satisfaction and pushed it into the pile for his assistant. This was one of his pet projects, a plan sanctioning the money to upgrade the existing women’s clinic on the outskirts of the city for the tribes that still resided in the desert and constantly faced the challenge of bringing their women into the city for medical care.
He stood up from the massive oak table and walked toward the liquor cabinet. He poured himself a glass of whiskey and drank it straight. It burned a fiery path through his throat and gut but did nothing to curb the seething mass of frustration. Knowing that Lauren was in the palace, just in reach, was messing with his self-control.
Tariq’s death had put an end to their affair, but he had not forgotten the mindless pleasure he had found in her arms.
The man he was in Behraat couldn’t have an affair without courting undue scrutiny from the High Council and more importantly, the wronged people of his country. He needed to create a different image, put distance between him and the scandalous life led by Tariq. Yet...
Arif stepped into his office, a tiny camcorder in his hand. “We found the man.”
Zafir’s heart pumped faster, as if he was on a stallion racing against a desert storm. “And?”
“He gave us the footage, said he didn’t want to do anything to upset the balance of power in Behraat. As long as you give him an exclusive one-on-one.”
Perversely, her friend’s indifference toward Lauren’s safety riled Zafir while she had refused to betray him in any way. “He did not inquire after Lauren?”
“He did. I took him to speak to the woman. He was satisfied about her safety and a little curious about her stay in the royal palace,” Arif said, a little hint of his own dissatisfaction thrown in for good measure.
Excitement pulsed through Zafir. He pushed his chair back and stood up. “Say it, Arif.”
“Send her away, immediately.”
No other man would have dared to suggest what Arif had said. But his old mentor was nothing if not ruthlessly loyal to Behraat.
“Why?”
“That woman,” Arif continued, showing his distaste by not mentioning Lauren by name, “is trouble. Only two days and she has already...unsettled you.”
Zafir shook his head. “I walked away, in the middle of the night, without looking back. Hid my identity from her.”
All he cared about now, or ever, was Behraat. Yet, the same thought plagued him. Did that mean he was not entitled to even the little pleasures he wanted?
“She’s due a little anger.”
His gaze steady, Arif shook his head. “You cannot let anything distract you from your path.”
And what Arif didn’t say was that he already had. Frustration and anger mixed in with a healthy dose of unsatisfied libido swirled through him.
All he had ever done was to give of himself to his father, even though he hadn’t known it then, and to Behraat. And yet, in return, he would be denied such a small thing as the one woman that tempted him no end.
No!
“Should I live my life like a monk?” It was a question he’d already asked himself. And with Lauren within reach, the answer was becoming blurry to him.
“The best thing for your future, for the future of Behraat would be to find a suitable young woman, one who knows her place in your life and marry her. Cement your position in front of the High Council.”
A pleasant, traditional, biddable Behraati woman would never talk back to him, would definitely not even think of striking him.
That’s what the future held for him. But he was in no hurry to embrace it just yet.
Tariq’s wife, Johara’s portrait caught his attention.
Johara was delicate, stunningly beautiful, shy, the daughter of a member of a powerful High Council member. Someone like her was what he needed for a future wife.
Lauren, on the other hand, was the exact opposite of Johara. Tall and lithe, hardworking, tough, prickly, and unflinchingly honest.
She asked for nothing, made no demands of him, and had nearly killed herself with flu instead of asking for help once. She had few friends outside of her work at the inner-city ER, no personal life. They had been like two perfectly matched ships crossing each other at a port.
Yet she had come looking for him, had cared enough to mourn for him.
A dangerous temptation for a man who rarely allowed himself any personal attachments...
“My life is, always will be, about Behraat, Arif. No woman will change that. Or change me into something I never could be.”
But, for once in his life, he wanted to indulge himself.
She had made the choice to come, hadn’t she? After the brutal reality of the past few weeks, maybe Lauren arriving in Behraat was his prize.
Just the thought of her was enough to tighten every muscle in his body with need.
But first, he needed to make it right with her. And he knew how to do just that.
After all, there had to be some perks to being the ruler of a nation.
* * *
Lauren pushed the French doors aside and stepped onto the private balcony. Dusk was an hour away and it painted the sky crimson. She tugged the edges of a cashmere sweater tighter around her shoulders, feeling the chill in the air.
It was something that amazed her even after a week in Behraat. As hot as it got during the day, with sunset, chill permeated the air.
She couldn’t believe she was in the royal palace, home to the royalty of Behraat, with its various turrets and domes.
Landscaped gardens, water fountains, meandering pathways amid tiled courtyards, everywhere she looked, old-world charm, sheer opulence and unprecedented luxury greeted her. It was a setting straight out of a princess tale her aunt had read to her years ago from a book her parents had gifted her after another diplomatic stint in some far-off, exotic country, just like Behraat.
The quarters she’d been given boasted a large antique bed with the softest cotton sheets spun with threads of gold, satin drapes and the en suite bathroom with a marble bathtub was fit for a princess. Plush, colorful rugs snuggled against her bare feet, a vanity mirror framed with intricate gold filigree...everywhere she turned, the opulence of Zafir’s wealth, the sheer differences in their worlds mocked her.
Even when she lay down on her bed, there was the soaring ceiling inlaid with an intricate mural that cast a golden glow over the room. As though she needed a reminder of where she was or who she was dealing with.
She turned around and walked back into the suite. Restlessness and uncertainty gnawed at her, even though it had been a full day since she had learned of her pregnancy. “You’re a fully qualified doctor?” she shot at Farrah who hadn’t left except for a couple of hours.
Farrah looked up from her journal and nodded.
“It doesn’t bother you that he’s ordered you to play nursemaid to me?”
“It’s a small request from a man who saved me at my lowest without judgment, when...even my family had forsaken me.” She put the journal aside. “And it is clear that you are important to him.”
Lauren ignored the obvious question in Farrah’s words and shot one of her own. “Because he has jailed me here rather than one of those underground cells?”
“You misunderstand. You’re in Zafir’s private wing. Women are not allowed here. If imprisoning you was what he intended, he could have put you anywhere.” She paused as though waiting for the import of her words to sink in. “Here, he can be absolutely certain of your safety.”
Lauren refused to attach any meaning to Farrah’s revelation.
She walked toward the dark side table laden with exotic fruits and pastries. She picked up the elegant silver jug and poured sherbet into the gleaming silver tumbler and took a sip. Apparently, in Zafir’s world, silverware meant actual silverware.
The smooth fruity liquid slid down her parched throat blissfully. “The only person posing a problem to my safety is His Arrogant Highness.”
“There have been two attempts on his life since he returned to Behraat, Lauren.”
