Guarding the Princess (14 page)

“Hey—” he cupped her chin, turned her face back to his “—it’s in the past. Like I said, no looking back—keep moving forward. In a few days, this will all be history.”

She sat silent. Watching him. Something powerful was going on inside her head. “It won’t be over,” she said softly.

“What do you mean?”

“It won’t be history. Not for me.” Then a sharp brightness flashed through her eyes—the old Dalilah was back, the passionate one. She shoved the sleeping bag off her body, grabbed her boots, thrust her foot into one.

“I don’t feel like I’ve broken any damn promise,” she snapped, grabbing the other boot, yanking it on, too.

“It wasn’t even mine—I never made it.” She seemed to catch herself. Then she grew quiet.

Brandt sat back. “I don’t understand.”

She struggled with the laces of one boot, unable to tie them with one hand, frustration biting at her movements. “It’s a political contract, between my deceased father and Haroun’s dying father.”

He stared. “What is?

“My marriage was arranged when I was five.”

He was speechless.

Seconds ticked by. “An arranged marriage?” he said, trying to wrap his head around it. “When you were five years old?”

“Yes. A political alliance between the two kingdoms.”

He dragged his hand over his hair. “But...you do love him, right?”

She swallowed, looked up and met his eyes. “Brandt, I barely know him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Five times—I’ve been with Haroun only five times in my entire life.”

“You’ve
slept
with him five times?”

“No! I’ve been in his company five times. Each time with a chaperone. I haven’t even kissed him. I feel nothing physical at all for him, so there you have it now. Happy?”

Brandt’s mind reeled, his entire paradigm tilting drunkenly on edge. And pieces of the puzzle that had been niggling at him suddenly began clicking into place—her sad look when he pressed her on her engagement. The quiet desperation in her eyes when he’d asked her if giving up her job and charity work was worth marriage to a king. Her attraction to him.

A mad excitement, anticipation, hope, rushed through him all at once, as if floodgates had been abruptly flung open in his brain. Birds grew loud outside and baboons screeched. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed the sky growing lighter. But he was riveted to the floor by this news, unable to move.

“I know that doesn’t excuse what happened here,” she said quietly, “but I wanted you to know because—” Her voice hitched and moisture pooled in her dark eyes. “I care that you think well of me, Brandt.”

“Do you want to marry him?” Blunt. Simple. Top question on his mind.

“I must.”

“Must?”

“It’s a binding contract. Two kings, two kingdoms. A political accord. Everyone expects it. My brother, King Zakir, needs it. His ruling King’s Council needs it. It will bring a lucrative oil partnership, defense contracts, an economic alliance—”

“And you’re the pawn on the chessboard? The chattel to be exchanged. Whatever happened to women’s emancipation?”

Her mouth tightened, eyes narrowing, a flicker of defiance shooting through her features. “Haroun is as much ‘chattel’ as I, if that’s what you want to call it—this is not a female thing. He has to uphold his end, too.”

“And you’re going to do it, uphold this contract?” He waved his hand between them.

“It’s my
duty
to uphold it, Brandt. It’s been my obligation as a royal since I was five years old. I’ve grown up with the knowledge. I’ve accepted I was born a royal, and with that comes obligations other people don’t have.” She hesitated, holding his gaze. “Or sometimes can’t understand.”

He spun around, dragged both hands over his hair, then ricocheted back to face her.

“Jesus, Dalilah, how can you marry a guy you don’t even know, let alone
love?
Do feel
anything
for him? Like...”

“Like I feel for you?”

He went dead still. Swallowed. Throat dry, muscles shaking. She’d said it. Out loud. She felt for him. And he’d told her what she was doing to him. What was patently obvious to both had now been made vocal, and that admission cracked Brandt’s world open like the shell of an egg, and he didn’t know what to do with the mess spilling out.

Rays of light bled into sky, savage slashes of pink, orange, yellow. Amal would be on the move and a voice in the back of Brandt’s mind was saying,
Hurry, hurry. Move—now!
Yet a different voice was urging him to deal with the moment properly, not to let something—someone—so precious slip through his fingers forever.

“No, Brandt,” she said softly. “I don’t feel anything for Haroun other than civility. He’s is a nice-looking, smart man, and he seems kind, and—” She looked as if she was going to cry suddenly, then steeled, her chin rising in defiance. And in that brief second Brandt could see the two women inside Dalilah doing battle. One the exotic, determined, flamboyant powerhouse, a proud princess committed to her country and diplomatic function. The other a gorgeous, vulnerable and compassionate woman who needed love in her life.

Dalilah Al Arif had one stiletto planted in an ancient desert world, the other firmly in a new one.

Her cheeks heated and she cursed suddenly, softly, in Arabic. “I wish you’d put some more clothes on.”

Brandt jolted back, grabbed his shirt. “You’re sacrificing your freedom, that’s what you’re doing,” he said coolly as he pulled on his shirt and cinched his belt buckle. “You’re giving up everything you are, who you’ve fought to become, for your kingdom, for your brothers?”

Anger was creeping into his voice now, and he couldn’t help it. “You can’t do this, Dalilah.” He rammed the GPS back into his belt, grabbed his sheathed knife.

“Why not?”

“It makes you unhappy. You don’t have to be a shrink to see that.” He waved his hand at the crumpled sleeping bag. “Your kiss, your body, your eyes, everything tells me you want more than a cold marriage, that you don’t want to give up the niche you’ve carved for yourself in the world. You just told me that your whole life you’ve been fighting to get out from under your brothers’ shadows. Now this?”

“You’re just saying this because you want to sleep with me.”

He reeled, then looked carefully into her features. She was testing, pushing him, he could see that. Maybe to test her own resolve, hell knew.

“No,” he said quietly. “I have no right to even try to fight for a woman like you, Dalilah. I could never win, anyway. Besides—” his gaze went to her ring “—if I slept with you, it could get you killed. Trust me—I know.”

He resheathed his panga, grabbed his gun. He slung the rifle across his chest and pulled the camera out of the pack.

“I need to go see if there’s any sign of Amal. It’s getting late.” His tone was brusque. But as he was about to step over the coals, he paused as something hit him like a mallet—she’d been engaged all her adult life.

I’ve never even kissed him...

He spun round. “Dalilah, have you ever dated anyone else?”

Her face flushed. She got slowly to her feet. “No,” she said. “The contract stipulates I come to the marriage...pure.”

Something akin to violent protectiveness surged through his chest. Brandt felt his neck go wire taut.

“You’re a virgin,” he said very softly.

She swallowed, the color in her cheeks going high.

His jaw dropped. Princess Dalilah Al Arif, foreign-investment consultant, global activist, one of the most stunning women he’d ever met in his life...

“You’ve
never
been with a man? Never even kissed anyone?”

Her eyes began to water.

He stared at her, his brain spinning like a top. He’d kissed her, caressed her—this woman who’d been a mere girl when her father had signed a document stipulating she go to another man’s bed untouched. To live in a gilded cage of a castle, fenced behind tradition and diplomatic protocol.

And suddenly it sliced him—a hot, vehement rage. This was not supposed to be his business, but by hell it now was. He’d crossed a line. His actions alone in that sleeping bag could cost her life if anyone ever found out. And on the back of the rage rode a raw and basic urge to protect her—from herself, from a future decided by someone else. From her brothers and her own kingdom.

Yet here he was being paid to deliver her to that very fate.

His hands started to shake.

“Dalilah,” he said, his voice coming out low, dark, dangerous. “Tell me one thing, and tell me honestly. Do you want to do this? Is it your choice?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “It’s my choice to uphold my duty.”

Brandt spun around and hurdled out the window. He stalked over the veldt toward the cliff edge, conflict torquing inside him. Thrown into the bloody mess was guilt, for touching her like that, for kissing her.

A
virgin.

Bloody hell.

Way to go, Stryker, you imbecile.

At the cliff edge, he climbed a rock and put the camera to his eye. Zooming in, he panned the landscape. Already sunlight was rippling gold over the grasses. Carefully, he studied the distant line of trees fringing the Tsholo, then he moved the camera to the north.

He stilled. A fine line of rising dust was catching the first full rays of sun. He zoomed in as close as he could. He could make out what looked like two jeeps, four horses, moving south. And fast.

Adrenaline slammed through his body. He leaped down from his rock and ran back to the building.

“Dalilah!” he called as he neared. “They’re coming! Get the stuff together!”

He reached the door, began kicking out the coals, throwing sand over the remains of the fire.

She was on her knees struggling to roll up the sleeping bag with one hand. He grabbed it from her.

“They’re over the river,” he said, breathing hard as he rolled the bag. He stuffed the rest of their gear into the pack. “Give me your feet.”

Quickly he trussed up her laces, then he tied the sleeping-bag roll to the pack. “They’re heading south, cutting back along the river. When they hit our camp, they’ll track back to our jeep. Once they find that, they’ll come fast toward the cliff following our prints. Looks like they have two vehicles and horses.”

He hefted the pack onto his shoulders.

“Our only consolation is that when they do hit the cliff wall they’ll be forced to drive about forty kilometers farther north through some tricky terrain if they want to get up on the plateau. If we move away directly perpendicular to the rift, they won’t cut across our tracks, which means they’ll have to drive that forty kilometers all the way back to this point before they find our sign again.”

He started out the door.

“Brandt.”

He stopped, met her gaze.

“I’m scared.”

He hesitated. “I know.” He grasped her hand. “Come, I’ve got you.” He paused. “And know this, I will die before I let anyone touch a hair on your head.”

Her eyes filled with tears “Brandt—I could love you.”

Emotion sucker punched him so hard his eyes pricked with tears. He swallowed, controlling himself. He wanted to say so much, and couldn’t. “We need to go,” he whispered. “You ready?”

She nodded.

They left the small customs building at a fast trot, fueled by the knowledge Amal was right on their tracks. The sun burst suddenly over the plateau—fierce and fiery orange—rays of heat instant. The air was dry.

It was going to be a killer day.

Chapter 13

B
randt moved faster and faster as the sun climbed higher and burned down hotter. Dalilah half ran, half stumbled behind him. She was already desperately thirsty, and blisters from yesterday were rubbing raw in her oversize boots.

Humiliation, desperation, burned through her chest. She’d opened up, made herself so vulnerable, told him she was falling in love with him, while confirming at the same that she was going to marry Haroun. How stupid could she possibly be? What on earth had she hoped to achieve?

Had she thought he’d miraculously rescue her from having to make her own decisions? From her own desires? From her obligations?

All she’d done was make it tougher on him, and on herself, and she’d made herself a wanton fool in his eyes.

“Faster, Dalilah!” he yelled from ahead of her.

“Dammit, I’m going as fast as I can!”

He marched harder, his stride wider. She had to start running full tilt to keep up.

She stumbled, hitting the ground with such a hard thud that it forced him to spin round. The look on his face was ferocious, eyes icy cold. He unsheathed his panga, grabbed a nearby branch and hacked it from the tree. He lopped off the pieces of frayed wood on the end, then he thrust the stick at her.

“Use it to keep balance.” He was breathing hard, body glistening with sweat, the sun shining gold on his hair.

“You have to stay focused and
move.
We need to find a vehicle now, before those guys get over the cliff, or we’re both as good as dead, because we’ll be outgunned and outmanned.”

About another mile out and Dalilah could no longer breathe. She bent over, bracing her good hand on her knees, hyperventilating as she strained to catch her breath, drenched in sweat.

“I said keep up, stay right behind me!”

“I’m trying,” she snapped.

He stopped, wiped sweat from his brow, frustration burning in his features.

“My boots are too big. You have a longer stride. You’re fitter, trained.” Emotion filled her eyes, her fear of Amal, her desperation over what was happening between them, her physical inability to match his pace—it was all overwhelming her.

He opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, she said, “And don’t think I’m whining. I’m
not
—I’m just saying it like it is. Those are the facts in front of you—so deal with it!”

“
Deal
with it?”

She lifted her head, met his eyes. “Yeah—deal with it.”

“The fact you’ve signed your life away to a man you have no desire to sleep with? Deal with the fact I’m trying to save you—that you’ve saved yourself—for
that?
So your brothers can benefit?”

Slowly, angrily, she pushed herself back to an upright position, dizziness swirling. “You really are an ass.”

He snorted. “I’m a simple guy. I boil things down to the basics, and those are the basics.” He paused. “Aren’t they? I’m saving you from Amal’s murderous animals for what? So you can marry some other tyrant?”

“Haroun is not like that! I don’t have to justify myself to you.”

“Then why did you tell me?”

Dalilah’s pulse pounded.

He muttered a curse and thrust the water pouch at her. She swigged, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, shoved it back at him.

“I don’t expect you to understand!”

“You’re right, I don’t.”

“And why the hell not?”

“I thought you said—” He stared at her. “Look, drop it. Now is not the time.”

She looked daggers at him, her cheeks hot.

He glanced at the sun, then his watch, irritability and tension rolling off his body. “You ready?”

“I need to rest another minute. I can’t go on like this.” She began to sit down on a rock, but his hand shot out and he grabbed her good arm, yanking her away from the rock. Shock, rage, sliced through Dalilah and she shook him off. “What the—”

He jerked his chin to where she’d been about to sit. A scorpion, translucent brown, scuttled, sideways, tail curved high in warning. She stared at it, then started to tremble, her head pounding in pain as she fought the emotion threatening to suddenly overwhelm her.

He was watching her intently.

“Okay,” he said. “Sit. Five minutes—that’s it.” His tone was softer, but underlying it she heard the frustration, the urgency. Amal was gaining. Her life was unraveling.

He fiddled with his GPS while she rested on the rock. Sun pressed down relentlessly, no shade anywhere for respite.

Brandt hooked the GPS back onto his belt, then as if he couldn’t hold it in, “It’s just—” He stopped himself.

“Just what?”

“Nothing.”

“Say it, Brandt. You owe it to me.”

He glanced away, struggling with something. Then he said, “You just don’t seem the type to go through with an arranged marriage, Dalilah.”

“Oh, and what
type
might that be?”

He rubbed his brow. He seemed to be fighting the need to go there, but it was eating at him nevertheless.

“You’re liberated, strong, independent...Jesus, Dalilah, you have more assets than...” He swallowed. “All those things you forced on me about yourself—your job, being an investment consultant, buying your own penthouse, having good friends, doing volunteer work that satisfies you. You shoot like an ace. You’re strong...and goddamn beautiful.” His voice hitched, going thick. “You’re desirable enough to make a man weep.”

Her eyes gleamed.

“And no matter how you package it to me, or to yourself, you’re throwing it away because some man signed you over to an Arabian prince when you were five.”

“Not some man, Brandt. My
father.
A king.”

“Doesn’t change what it is.”

“It
does.
I’m a royal. I have obligations. This is bigger than just who I want to sleep with.”

His eyes darkened, a muscle working on his brow.

“You know what,” she said suddenly. “I lied—I
did
expect you to understand, because of the importance you said you placed in a promise. Because of the way you spoke about loyalty and honor.” She held her arm up. “And that is what my ring is about—loyalty, honor, duty.”

He stared at her, then the ring.

A vulture circled up high, casting a shadow. Brandt rubbed the back of his neck.

“It’s the double standard,” he said quietly. “That’s what irks the hell out of me. Your brothers got to marry whoever they wanted. Omair was the king of one-night stands before he took a bride. Yet you—you can’t enjoy those same freedoms and choices. You’re sold like a pawn for their benefit.”

“And what about my benefit?”

“Really?”

She glared at him, her pulse racing. Then she said, very quietly. “You know, I wavered once, several years ago. I had met a guy that I liked. A lot. And one night...it led to a kiss, and I wondered if I could go through with this. Then, the very next morning, I got news of the coup in Al Na’Jar—my mother and father had just been murdered in their own beds—their throats slit by their own guards. And on that same night, my oldest brother, Da’ud, was murdered on his yacht off Barcelona. Assassins also went to Zakir’s penthouse in Paris and the only reason he escaped was because he was out that night.” She inhaled deeply.

“Da’ud had been next in line to take the throne and he’d been ready for it. But Zakir wasn’t prepared to lead—he never wanted to. He was a playboy and an entrepreneur, yet he was compelled to return to Al Na’Jar, where he took the throne in a very troubled and violent time of rebellion. Zakir did his duty, Brandt. He gave up his life for our kingdom. And he didn’t tell anyone he was going blind as he did this.” Her voice grew thick, emotional. Caught.

“Dalilah, this is not the time to—”

“No! I want you to hear it. I
need
you to hear this. Omair didn’t shy from committing to relationships because he didn’t want one. He
had
to. He couldn’t have a normal life. He couldn’t involve a woman in what he was doing. He was driven to hunt the globe to bring those assassins to justice, desert style. A blood honor. Only through that process did he find Faith, his wife—and he was able to bring her into his life because she was like him, a soldier. An assassin. She understood him, and his life.”

Brandt opened his mouth, but Dalilah raised her hand. “No, hear me out, Brandt, please. Tariq was a neurosurgeon and he was engaged to a woman he loved more than life itself. But Amal’s father had a bomb planted on our royal jet and Tariq’s fiancée died in his arms as he tried to save her. Tariq was badly scarred in more ways than one, and he lost the use of his arm in that blast. His career was over. In some ways he died himself that day. And it took a long time, and the help of a special woman to bring him back to life.”

She paused, looking into his eyes, emotion ballooning in her chest. “And me? I went to school in the United States. I got to pursue my career, my interests. Sure, I built something, but I never suffered like they did.” She inhaled deeply. “My brothers did their duty,
are
doing it. And now, this is my cross to bear, my way to give. It was my dead father’s wish.”

He stared at her. “You’re doing it out of guilt,” he whispered.

“I’m doing it for family and kingdom.”

Something changed in his face. “It’s not right, Dalilah,” he said quietly. “It’s not you.”

“You barely even know me, Brandt.”

“Oh, I know what you’re made of. You put someone into a life-and-death situation and you get to see pretty damn quick what’s at the core of that person. You’ve got what it takes—you’ve got so much. I hate to see you throw your life away.”

“I’m not throwing it away—I’m gaining a political advantage.”

“Yeah, well, apparently you’ve made up your mind about that one. So, don’t come looking to me for endorsement, because I don’t think your brothers deserve what you’re doing for them. How well do you know this Haroun anyway—apart from meeting him five times?”

“Well enough.”

“Will you be safe? Are you certain he won’t hurt you?’

“What are you saying, Brandt?”

He hesitated, turned away, stared out over the bush. Then he turned back, as if having made up his mind about something. “I’m saying I know things. I did covert intelligence work in Libya. Those two Egyptian men who killed that Sa’ud sheik’s fiancée in Dubai were known assassins—the Libyan authorities were looking for them.”

Tension thrummed.

“Doesn’t prove anything,” she whispered.

“Those men had done contract work for the Kingdom of Sa’ud before, Dalilah, paid for by Hassan royalty.”

“Work?”

“Murder for hire.”

Blood drained from her head. “And you know this because of your covert work?”

“It wasn’t a robbery gone wrong in Dubai, Dalilah. That woman was killed by the Hassans because she’d tainted the royal family by sleeping with another man.”

“Does Omair know this, too?”

“I don’t know what Omair knows. He wasn’t with me on the job in Libya.”

She stared at him, her brain reeling.

“Haroun had nothing to do with that incident. He wasn’t part of it.”

“Are you so sure—a Sa’ud sheik about to become king? Do you think, in the eyes of his kingdom, he’d be allowed to be seen tolerating any indiscretion on your part? I just don’t trust the House of Sa’ud.”

Silence quivered between them. She could hear bees buzzing somewhere, the shriek of a raptor. Her head hurt.

“He’s probably slept with a thousand women himself, and expects
you
to come to his bed a virgin.”

Heat flushed her cheeks. “That’s unfair,” she said quietly.

“That, Dalilah, is the way the cookie crumbles with men like Sheik Haroun Hassan. Trust me, I know. He can have whatever—or whoever—the hell he wants, when he wants, but you can’t.”

“You don’t even know him.”

“Yeah,” he said softly. “Well, apparently, neither do you.”

Tension simmered between them.

“Why—” her voice came out in a hoarse whisper
“—are you so bitter? Is it because your own marriage didn’t work?”

He came close. She could feel his heat, a kinetic energy rolling off him. He bent down, abruptly cupped the back of her head, and kissed her. Hard. Angry, fierce. She stiffened under him, then instantly melted under her own fire, opening her mouth, reaching up behind his neck, pulling him into herself, kissing him so wildly she could taste blood. Tears came from her eyes, her tongue twisting with his, tasting the salt of him, feeling the rough stubble of his jaw against her cheek.

He pulled back suddenly, breathing hard, his eyes wild.

“That’s why,” he whispered.

She was shaking, her eyes burning.

“Because I care. Because I’ve fallen for you, Princess. And because I can’t have you, and Sheik Hassan can.”

Moisture pooled in her eyes.

“And believe me, Dalilah, I tried not to care—I’m
trying
not to care. But...” His eyes glittered. “I
do
respect your honor, your decision to marry for politics, for your kingdom. But what I can’t swallow is that you’ll be sacrificing your identity when I can see it makes you so unhappy.”

The tears in her eyes slid down her cheeks. He appraised her silently for a moment, struggling with something himself. Then he checked his watch. “Five minutes are up, Princess.” He spun away sharply and began to march over the dry, baking earth.

“We’ve wasted enough bloody time!” he muttered over his shoulder. “Amal will be right on our asses at this rate.”

* * *

It was almost 11:00 a.m. when Brandt stopped suddenly and held up his hand. Dalilah, zoned out from heat and almost five hours of continuous walking, bumped right into his back.

“What is it?” she whispered.

Then she heard it, a lowing, the distant clang of a bell.

“Livestock. We must be close to the village.”

They came over a ridge and Brandt quickly motioned for her to get down.

He lowered himself beside her, just under the lip of a sandy ridge baking under the noon sun.

“Lie flat,” he said softly.

They studied the village from their hiding spot. It was fenced and contained several small square houses, painted brightly, with corrugated tin roofs. Papaya trees grew in barren red ground. A few dogs lay in shade and chickens scratched in soil. Goats bleated behind an enclosure while barefoot children played in what looked like a schoolyard—dusty brown legs. A burst of bright laughter reached them.