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Though his people believed in omens, he was more skeptical and refused to credit what he was feeling as anything more than a response to an attractive female. He hadn’t been with one in several weeks. Affairs of state for his father had kept him too busy.
This woman’s pallor didn’t diminish her fresh-faced, porcelain complexion. A slight fruity fragrance escaped the silkiest hair ever to touch his cheek. Wisps of it, not confined, framed classic features. Her feminine scent tantalized his nostrils and further weakened him in ways his mind refused to acknowledge.
Mustafa followed him to the helicopter where Tariq assisted in strapping her into the seat behind them.
“She was traveling to Al-Shafeeq.”
“Alone?” Rashad couldn’t imagine why.
“Yes.” Mustafa scratched the side of his cheek. “I thought it strange, too. Here is her passport.”
Rashad grimaced before putting it inside his pocket. “Is there anyone else who needs immediate treatment?”
“No, Your Highness.”
“Good, then I’ll fly her to the palace for medical care. Help is coming from Raz with provisions for you. They’ll be here soon.”
Mustafa nodded his thanks and once more Rashad started up the helicopter, this time heading for Al-Shafeeq. He reached for his satellite phone to call Nazir. His personal assistant at the palace would make certain the doctor for the royal family would be standing by ready to take over.
After a short flight, Rashad put down at the side of the palace. He let Tariq and the bodyguard lower the woman out of the helicopter. The less he had to do with this incredibly appealing female, the better. A team of medical people rushed forward and took her seemingly lifeless form inside.
Assured she’d get the best treatment possible, he told the men to climb back in the helicopter and he’d fly them back to Raz. Rashad still had business to finish up.
During the flight Tariq remained uncharacteristically quiet. Rashad cast him a side glance. “What’s on your mind, Tariq? I haven’t heard a word out of you.”
“It’s not natural for a woman to be out here alone. Especially one so young.”
“I agree, but this one is foreign, which explains a lot.”
“She is very, very beautiful. Some man will suffer if he learns the sand has claimed her. Let’s hope the doctor can save her.”
Rashad didn’t respond because Tariq’s words had sent an invisible wind racing over his skin, lifting the hairs on his bronzed arms and nape. That was the second time within an hour he’d felt a quickening. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all.
Anxious to get back to work on his new plans, Rashad set them down outside the main plant, only to hear his phone ring as Tariq exited the chopper. Rashad checked the caller ID; it was the doctor back at the palace.
His body tautened. The man was probably phoning to tell Rashad he’d lost his patient. And what if he had? What could that possibly mean to Rashad, except that he would feel sorrow for anyone who’d died in those circumstances? He finally answered the call. “Dr. Tamam?”
“I’m glad you answered right away.”
“Did I get the American woman to you too late?”
“No. She’s slowly reviving with the IV.”
Rashad released his breath, unaware he’d been holding it until he’d heard the news. “She was very fortunate. Is she coherent yet?”
“No, but that’s good.”
Rashad nodded to himself. “She’s going to be in shock while she recovers from her ordeal.” He waited for a response, but when it came, the doctor’s words surprised Rashad.
“This woman needs complete privacy, away from everyone. Do you have a suggestion, Your Highness?”
This was no normal request from the doctor, and Rashad was immediately alerted. Without having to think about it he said, “The garden suite.”
It was on the second floor of the palace with a rooftop view. A private passageway led to it from the main upstairs hallway. Because of its isolation from the rest of the palace, other members of the family had used it as their bridal suite at the beginning of their honeymoons.
No one would be occupying it again until his own wedding night, scheduled in six months. Lines darkened Rashad’s face at the thought.
“Good. The nurse and I will transfer her there immediately.”
Nothing else was forthcoming, which wasn’t like the usually loquacious doctor. An unsettling feeling swept through Rashad. “I’ll be with you shortly, Doctor.”
“I will be waiting for you.” Dr. Tamam clicked off.
The doctor who’d faithfully looked after his family for years had just ended the call before Rashad could ask any more questions. That alone told him the older man was keeping some information that would be for Rashad’s ears alone.
Like everyone else on the staff, the doctor kept his ear to the ground for anything that appeared suspicious. One could never be too careful where the safety of Rashad’s family was concerned.
Rashad entered the plant office, intending to work on some details needing attention, but he found he couldn’t concentrate. With a grunt of dissatisfaction, he decided to fly back to Al-Shafeeq to find out what was going on. After a quick shower and a meal in his own suite, he left for the other wing of the palace in one of his silk lounging robes.
There was a cultivated garden of exotic flowers by the patio of the garden suite. His mother, along with the gardeners, often tended it because she had a special love for them. Rashad had decided on this suite for their patient partly since the American was a rather exotic species herself. He thought of Tariq’s comment—very, very beautiful didn’t begin to cover Rashad’s description of the woman.
He opened the doors and nodded to the nurse who told him the doctor was still in with the American. Rashad walked on through the large sitting room to the bedroom. From a distance he saw the patient in bed with an IV drip hanging from the stand placed at the side. He drew closer. The doctor stood at the other side, checking her pulse. When he saw Rashad, he lowered the woman’s arm and moved toward him.
“How is she?” Rashad asked in a quiet voice.
“Coming along. I put something in her IV to help her sleep. Tomorrow she should be in better shape to cope with what happened. I’m leaving the nurse to watch over her during the night and give her oxygen if she needs it. I wanted you here because I’d like you to take a look at what I found hanging from the chain around her neck.”
Rashad’s brows formed a black bar before he moved past the doctor to see what he was talking about. Closer now, he could tell the IV was doing its job. There was more color in the woman’s cheeks. Her hair had been washed, and the wavy strands had a sheen like that on the sheerest wings of the butterflies hovering over the flowers in the garden. Her dark lashes and brows provided a contrast that made her even more stunningly beautiful.
The nurse had dressed her in a white cotton shift. A sheet had been pulled up to her shoulders, but he glimpsed a gold chain around her neck. He flashed the doctor a glance. “What am I supposed to be seeing?”
“This. I took the liberty of removing it at the clinic before I did anything else.”
As he glanced at the shiny object held in the doctor’s palm, Rashad drew in a ragged breath. It was a round gold medallion with a half moon inscribed—the symbol of the Shafeeq royal family.
Only when a new male member was born was another one minted. Rashad had been given his when he’d come of age at sixteen. They were all worn around the neck on a chain, but Rashad had broken with tradition and had asked for his to be fashioned into a ring he could use as his personal seal for important documents. He kept it in the desk of his office here at the palace.
For this woman from another continent to be in possession of one, let alone wearing it, simply wasn’t possible! Yet the truth lay in front of him, mere inches away.
How had she come by it?
Without hesitation he pocketed the medallion before returning to the woman. With great care he found the little catch to remove the chain, aware of the softness of her creamy skin against his bronzed knuckles; such skin the women of his tribe didn’t possess.
Their patient made a little sound, then moved her head to the other side, as if she’d felt the slight caress of his flesh against hers. He held his breath, half hoping she’d wake up so he could look into her eyes and see through to her soul to where she kept her secrets.
The other half of him hoped she’d stay asleep, thus prolonging the moment when she had to be told she’d almost died. There was a penalty for experiencing the terrible beauty of the desert. Sometimes the price was too great, but this foreign woman had been willing to take the risk. Why?
He stared at the medallion, fingering its smoothness until his jaw hardened. An ill wind boded no good. His mother had said it many times. Nothing about the woman or the medallion added up.
Confounded by the situation, he pocketed the chain with the medallion, then turned to the doctor whose shrewd gaze told its own story. There were few secrets between the two of them. “You were right to tell me about this, but say nothing to anyone else.”
“My lips are closed tighter than the eye of the needle, Your Highness. My nurse wasn’t allowed to undress and bathe the patient until I’d safely removed the medallion.”
In the past the doctor had saved Rashad’s life on more than one occasion, and Rashad trusted him completely. “I owe you a great deal. Thank you for taking care of her.”
The doctor nodded. “I’m going home. Call if you need me. I’ll look in on her later.”
As soon as he left, Rashad went through the suitcases left by the maids. He did a thorough search of both, looking for a clue that would help explain this mystery, but he turned up nothing.
To his surprise the woman had packed with no frills. Unlike most females, her underwear and nightgowns were modest. Two dresses for evening, one a simple black, the other cream. A pair of high heels, some sandals and a sweater. The rest, practical clothing for the desert. A small kit with few cosmetics or makeup. She packed like a person used to traveling light.
Rashad knew better than to prolong his stay at the woman’s bedside. His thoughts would wander down different paths, distracting him from his mission to unmask her. Like the fragrant white moonflower, she held her secret within her petals, only revealing it in full moonlight when no one was watching.
For the good of the family he’d sworn a holy oath to protect, he would wait until daylight to learn how she’d come by the medallion.
Once he’d said goodnight to the nurse, he strode down a long hallway to his own second-floor suite on the other side of the palace and dismissed his staff. He needed to be alone. After pouring himself a cup of hot black coffee, he wandered through to his bedroom. Reaching for the woman’s passport, he sat down in a chair to study it.
Lauren Viret. Twenty-six. Few people looked good in a passport photo, but she was one woman who couldn’t take a bad picture. Even lying there unconscious, her beauty had reached out to him, stirring him on some deeper level.
Address: Montreux, Switzerland.
Montreux. The town where the Shafeeq family did their banking. When he had stayed there in order to do business, he had sometimes skied at Porte du Soleil, only a half hour from the Swiss town with its exuberant night life. Rashad had no use for casinos or partying. On the other hand, his forty-year-old cousin Faisal, the ambitious son of his father’s younger brother Sabeer, frequented the place on a regular basis, mostly for pleasure.
Rashad liked the snow, but he much preferred flying to Montreux in summer. The sight of Lake Geneva from the bedroom balcony of the family apartment mesmerized him. So much blue water to be seen, with steamers and sailboats, when he’d been born in a land with so little of the precious element above ground. Below the Arabian desert there was a vast amount of water, more than the uninformed person knew.
For years he’d been working to find a way to channel more of it to the surface to water flocks and irrigate crops. A fertile land for the growing population of his people. That was his next project in the years to come, but for the moment he was keeping his plans a secret from his uncle’s family living nearby. There’d been enough jealousy from that sector to last a lifetime.
Rashad took a deep breath before studying the street address listed in the passport. It was in the wealthiest area of the town bordering the lake. Who was paying for Lauren Viret to live among the pieds-a-terre of royals in Montreux?
Where and how had she come by the medallion? There were only eight in existence.
Reaching the limit of his patience, Rashad closed the passport and tossed it on the nearest table, a beauty inlaid with mother of pearl. It was late. He had no answers to this riddle and needed sleep. Tomorrow he’d get to the bottom of it by drawing close to her. It was a task he found himself looking forward to with uncommon anticipation.
CHAPTER TWO
“MADEMOISELLE? ARE YOU AWAKE?”
The same gentle female voice Lauren thought she’d heard during the night broke through soporific waves to reach her consciousness. She felt something being removed from her nostrils.
“Can you hear me, mademoiselle?”
Lauren tried to communicate, but it was difficult because her mouth and throat felt too dry to talk. As she tried to sit up, her head reeled and she realized the back of her hand had something in it. What on earth?
“Lie back and drink,” the woman urged. She spoke English, but with an accent. Lauren felt a straw being inserted between her lips and she began sucking on it. Cool water trickled down her throat.
“Heaven,” she murmured and continued to drink. Suddenly every nerve ending in her body seemed to come alive, like a drooping plant whose roots took in the moisture that worked its way to the leaves.
Her eyelids fluttered open, but she had trouble focusing because she could see three women with the same dark hair and lab coat standing over her. “Are you a doctor?” she questioned.
“No. I’m Dr. Tamam’s nurse. How do you feel?”
Lauren started to shake her head, but that only made her feel worse. “I—I don’t know,” she stammered.
While the nurse removed the IV from her hand, Lauren tried to get her bearings. The hospital room wasn’t like any she’d ever seen before. It was huge with sumptuous green and aqua accoutrements, bringing the apartment of a harem to mind. As her head continued to whirl, she realized she could be dreaming all this and wished she could wake up.
A remembered feeling of suffocation took over. Panic gripped her. “Help me—I can’t breathe—” she cried, unable to stem the tears gushing down her cheeks.
She heard voices in the background. Then just one. A male voice. Deep and resonant. She felt it snake right into her body and travel through her nervous system. A man’s hand gripped hers. Solid, masterful.
“Don’t be afraid. You’re safe now.” His accented English spoken in a commanding tone was so reassuring, her anxiety lessened and she slept.
When next she came awake, she discovered the same hand holding hers. This time when she opened her eyes, she saw only one figure seated at her bedside. A powerfully built male, probably mid-thirties. The nurse had disappeared.
A white shirt covered his broad shoulders and well-defined chest. A dusting of black hair showed above the opening. The color of the fabric brought out his beautiful olive skin tone. He had the blackest eyes and hair she’d ever seen at such close range. She noticed he wore it longer than some men, slicked it back from his forehead as though he’d been in a hurry.
His widow’s peak suited his aquiline features. There was a magnificence about him. She’d never met a truly gorgeous man before, and he was much more than that. Her heart thundered in her chest as though she’d suddenly been given a drug to bring her to life.
Though he studied her as she imagined an eagle would do before swooping to catch its prey unaware, she glimpsed banked fires in the recesses of those eyes. He was dark and dangerous. Her body gave off a shiver of excitement she couldn’t repress. Something was wrong with her to be this aware of a total stranger.
“What am I doing here?”
His eyelids lowered, exposing long black lashes that shielded part of his penetrating gaze from her. “You don’t remember what happened to you?” He asked the question in a low, silky tone, almost as if he didn’t trust what she’d just asked him.
Growing more nervous under his unrelenting scrutiny, she unconsciously moved her hand to her throat. Suddenly it occurred to her she couldn’t feel her grandmother’s medallion.
In a frantic gesture, she raised up and moved the pillow to see if it had fallen on to the mattress, but it wasn’t there. Neither was the chain.
“Did the nurse remove it?” she cried. By now she was sitting straight up, staring at the man beside her bed.
“Remove what?” he asked in such a calm tone, it got under her skin.
She fought not to let her panic show. Now that the sheet had fallen to her waist, the man’s eyes were appraising her. The white shift she wore her was modest enough, but still those black orbs burned like hot coals as he looked at her. But maybe she was being too paranoid because she’d awakened feeling as though she was in a strange dream.
“My medallion is missing. I have to find it.”
He clasped his bronzed hands beneath a chin so solid, a lesser-blessed male would sell his soul to have been created like this god in earthly form.
A god. That’s what her grandmother had called her lover. Lauren had smiled at Celia’s description, allowing her that flight of fantasy. But she wasn’t laughing now. Maybe Lauren had lost her mind. Fear crept over her once more. She closed her eyes and lay back.
“Perhaps if you gave me a description, mademoiselle.”
She bit her lip, discovering it was cracked and dry. Just how long had she been in this condition? Her eyes opened again. “It’s a gold circle about the size and thickness of an American quarter. Maybe a little thicker.”
She didn’t dare give the full details. Her relationship to her grandfather was a secret and had to remain one, even down to a piece of jewelry he’d given her grandmother. “Have you ever seen a quarter?” He nodded slowly. “I kept it on a gold chain. It has little monetary value, but it’s my most prized possession.” More hot tears trickled out of the corners of her eyes.
“Then I’ll ask my staff to look for it.”
“Thank you.” She dashed the moisture from her cheeks with her free hand. “How sick am I?”
