To Tempt a Sheikh (16 page)

Harres nudged Amjad's shoulder, pointing to his own eyes with two fingers. “Eyes here, Amjad.”

Amjad ignored him, kept looking at her, yet talking about her, not to her. “The way she's glaring back at me. Fascinating. Fearless, is she? Or is she just so perceptive that she read you right, knew she could pretend fearlessness knowing she has nothing to fear, and that would be what gets to you?”

This time Harres sort of punched him. “Quit your snide mother-in-law routine, Amjad, or prepare to eat some sand.”

Amjad's sculpted lips twisted, the provocation in his gaze only rising as he looked down at her. “First you let Shaheen sink into Johara's thrall without throwing so much as a cursory rope and now you're eagerly rushing to join the collective of beached men. Is she pregnant, too? At least, was she any good…” Amjad allowed a beat for her to start to seethe, for Harres to take offense for real before he continued smoothly. “…for any info we can use?”

Okay. All right. The verdict was in.

They hired this guy to teach goading in hell.

The other three men had slipped away midconfrontation, went back to the helicopter to prepare it for the return flight. And, no doubt, to give the brothers a chance to have at it.

Though Amjad was formidable, Harres was clearly the more physical one and there was no doubt who would win in a fight. That was, if Amjad didn't fight dirty. Which she was sure he would, and did.

Keeping her hand clasped in his, Harres said with Amjad's same lethal tranquility, “I'll say this once, Amjad. Talia is my woman, my princess.” Talia almost collapsed. Harres was saying what he wished for, wasn't taking into account the implausibility of it all. It felt like heaven. And like hell. And he was going on. “I owe her my life, and I
have no life without her from now on. Deal with it. Nicely. Or else.”

Suddenly Amjad addressed her. “See this? Your man, your prince, hits a snag, and he threatens, and may I add, employs, physical violence. Tut, tut. A bleak prognosis for a future with him, don't you think, doctor?” Then he swung his eyes to Harres. “And I had such high hopes for you. Have fun in your new life of mind-numbing sameness and soul-destroying emotional servitude.”

Before she could finally set him straight, on so many accounts, before Harres could elaborate on his gag order, Amjad turned away, gave the oasis people who'd come to say goodbye a whimsical wave and headed back to the helicopter.

Then, as Talia hugged everyone who came to see her off, crying rivers with Harres beside her promising their return, the aggravating man had the nerve to honk.

 

Talia's return to the capital was the total reverse of her departure from it.

Going back in a royal helicopter surrounded by princes was certainly something she couldn't have even dreamed of when she'd been kidnapped twenty days ago. But being next to Harres as the real world approached made her realize the depth and breadth of the lifetime they'd lived together during that time.

After they landed in the princes' private airport, Talia changed into the clothes Harres had had delivered there, while he changed, too, before they drove to the palace in separate limos.

He told her they couldn't afford to have her tied to him. Apart from those who knew the truth, everyone thought he'd dropped off the radar on a mission as usual. But the traitors in the palace would know what this mission involved. If she
were seen with him, they'd work out her true identity. So she'd arrive at the palace as a friend of Laylah, his cousin. Once that was established, he'd pretend to hook up with her, and it would seem natural to everyone that he'd be interested in the blonde beauty.

She told him she'd reconnect with her informant, get the rest of the promised info. And he forbade her to. He wouldn't risk her in any way, not even if the kingdom hung in the balance. He would find another way to discover the truth.

Then, reluctant to leave her but having matters to attend to, he gave her a cell phone so they could call each other until he could start seeing her again. Which he intended to be as soon as possible.

It took arriving at the palace—which was right up there with the Taj Mahal, just far more extensive—to take her mind off the turmoil of their situation, off feeling bereft at being away from him.

When she'd researched Zohayd before coming there, she'd read that the mid-seventeenth-century palace had taken more than three decades to build, and thousands of artisans and craftsmen to build it. But it was one thing looking at detailed photos, no matter how stunning they'd been, and something totally different treading this place with her own feet, feeling the history and grandeur saturating the walls and halls surround her, permeating her senses.

Just being there explained so much about Harres, how such a powerhouse had come into existence. The nobility and power and distinction, the ancient bloodline that had forged this place coursed through him. From what she'd seen of his relatives, it also did in them.

And no matter what he said, she had to do all she could to protect this legacy. Even if she hadn't fallen in love with him and would therefore do anything to protect him and
his loved ones, Harres had been right. The whole kingdom was steeped in peace and prosperity. She'd been prejudiced when she'd thought that it would be better off without the royal family that had clearly done so much to produce and maintain that.

But if she played her cards right, she might help bring the danger to Harres and his family, to the kingdom and the whole region, to an end.

Just as she began to call her informant, reinitiating contact, her alibi for her long absence rehearsed, the phone came alive in her hand.

Knowing it was Harres, she pounced on the answer button.

His beloved voice poured into her ear. “I have news,
ya habibati
. The investigations and negotiations I had my family do while we were in the oasis bore fruit. Your brother will be released from prison. There won't be a retrial, just the charges dropped and he will be given a public apology in every international newspaper and anything he demands in compensation.”

To say she was overcome would be to say her love for him was a passing fancy. She began to babble her shocked elation and thanks when he said, “I beg your forgiveness,
ya nadda jannati
. There is another pressing thing I have to attend. I'll call again the second I can. Until then, congratulations,
ya mashoogati
.”

She stared at the phone, reeled. Todd. Released. It was over. Really over. She'd have her brother back. He'd have his life back. It was too much to take in. Harres hadn't told her that he'd been working to exonerate Todd already. But he had been, and he'd succeeded. And she knew it had all been for her.

She fell on the bed and curled into a tight ball. She
felt she might explode from too much love and relief and gratitude otherwise.

Then she burst up in a frenzy of purpose, dialed the number of her informant. She was told the number was no longer in service. She tried again, just to make sure she hadn't dialed it wrong. She hadn't. It must have been a temporary number so it couldn't be tracked. On the same thought, she went online, shot him an email, listing her phone number.

Moments after she hit Send, the phone's distinctive three-tone ring shot through her again. Harres. He must have more info.

Her flailing hand dropped it twice before she could answer. Then she almost dropped it again.

It wasn't Harres. It was a distorted voice that scraped her every nerve raw. Her informant's.

She hadn't dreamed he'd get back to her that fast. But it wasn't that that shocked her mute. It was what he'd said.

“Hello, Dr. Talia Jasmine Burke.”

She squeezed her eyes. So their precautions hadn't worked. She didn't know how, but her cover was blown.

“Don't worry, doctor. I still want to do business with you. You're now in an even better situation to do the most damage. Harres is doing all he can to stay on your good side, to exploit you, so I hope you aren't falling for his charm and forgetting your original goal to redeem your brother.” At her gasp, the distorted voice gave a macabre chuckle. “Yes, I know everything. That's why I went after you in the first place. Because I wanted someone with a cause, and because you are a woman. It suits me to have the Aal Shalaan's downfall be at the hands of someone who has a vendetta against them, and who better than a woman to bring all those mighty men to ruin.

“And now, I'll tell you who the mastermind behind the
conspiracy is. Yusuf Aal Waaked, prince of the neighboring emirate of Ossaylan.”

Talia at last found her voice. “But why expose him and risk having the Aal Shalaans stop the conspiracy in its tracks once they learn who they have to fight and where they need to look for their missing jewels?”

“Oh, there's nothing the Aal Shalaans can do with his identity. My exposure will actually guard against him changing his mind. It will guarantee he'll see this through to the end.”

Suddenly there was a long silence then the voice became uglier, scarier. “You idiot! You'll use the info to help Harres, won't you? He
has
gotten to you. I should have known, with a woman in the legendary playboy prince's clutches for so long. He must have you willing to sell your soul for him by now. But I'll prove to you that he and his family don't deserve your help, but your vengeance.”

The line went dead.

She didn't know how long she'd stayed there, staring into space, shaking with agitation.

At last she roused herself. She had to call Harres, give him the new info. No matter what her informant said, she was sure Harres
would
do something with it, maybe solve this whole mess.

As she began to dial his number, two masked men burst into the room from the French doors that opened to a patio leading to the gardens. The gun in the first's hand made sure she didn't attempt a scream or a struggle.

“We won't harm you,” the armed man said, “if you don't try to expose us. We just want you to come with us. There's something our master wants to show you.”

They took her from the French doors, swept her around the palace through the extensive grounds.

They entered through another open French door into
a room. It was empty. Before she could say anything, she heard Harres's voice.

Her heart fired with hope, then dread crashed right on its heels. What if he walked in here, and they panicked, shot him?

But then she realized he wasn't moving. He was in an adjoining room, talking to someone. On the phone.

“…and how many women have you seen me take and discard? You think this American means more than any of them? The others at least were pleasant pastimes I remember with some goodwill. She, on the other hand, almost cost me my life. Can you even imagine the distaste I suffered as I catered to her for so long, struggled to save her miserable life, to get her to trust me and spill her secrets, and to change her mind about exposing them? Do you realize how enraged I was when I found out she knew practically nothing? But I had to continue to play along. I knew she could still renew her mission and secure the rest of the promised info.”

He was silent for a moment, then he drawled, his voice pitiless, “Why do you think I gave her the trivial incentive of setting her brother free? She trusts me with her life now, will do anything to get me my coveted intel. I went so far as to proclaim my love, would have even offered to marry her if necessary.”

He was silent for a moment more as the person on the other line interrupted him. Then Harres gave an ugly laugh, a sound she'd never thought could issue from him. “I might have afforded a measure of chivalry and human compassion in other circumstances. But anyone is expendable in my quest to fulfill my duty to protect this kingdom. So if she's useless to me on that front, do you really think I care if she lives or dies?”

“D
id you hear enough,
ya ghabeyah?
”

Ghabeyah
. Stupid.

She'd been far beyond that.

She was beyond devastated.

The nightmarish voice continued. “That's what your prince says when he's having a private conversation with his crown prince, who's taking him to task over you. That's the ugly truth of his feelings. Still want to run to him with the information? Or will you now finally take the revenge you're owed?”

Talia stared at the phone on the bed. Who'd turned it on? How had she made it back to this room?

Her eyes panned around, unseeing. She was alone.

Her escorts must have led her back, turned on the phone's speaker. Their master, her informant, was pulling at the hook embedded inside her, shredding her insides.

Then at some point, the mutilation stopped. And silence decimated what was left intact of her.

She found herself on her side on the bed, a discarded body paralyzed with pain too huge to register yet. Her eyes were open and bone-dry. Harres's words revolved like a serrated wheel inside her skull, mashing her brain to tinier fragments.

He didn't mean it.
Whimpers of denial spun in a countering direction.
There's an explanation. He was placating Amjad, his odious brother, to get him off his back, off my case. Or something. It must have killed him to say those things. He'll explain why he did. He loves me. I won't believe otherwise…

“Talia.”

Harres
. Here? Or in her feverish hopes?

She jerked up. He
was
here. Looking down at her.

Please, my love, take it back, explain it away. Just look at me with love in your eyes and it will all go away.

But for the first time since she'd laid eyes on him, his were empty.

No. Give me something.

He gave her nothing, his face as expressionless as his voice. “Sorry to interrupt your rest, but my private jet is ready.”

“Ready for what?” She heard her bleeding whisper, wondered how she could still talk.

“To take you home.”

She stared up at him, the void emanating from him engulfing her. Then she found herself rising, as if a closer look would make her see inside him, decipher the truth.

She saw nothing. Only the abyss of uncaring he'd professed to feel for her.

And it all crashed down on her, the full weight of his betrayal, of his heartless exploitation. It crushed her.

But she realized one thing. Even hurt beyond expression or endurance, injured beyond healing, she couldn't retaliate in kind. She wouldn't. This was the one thing her informant hadn't taken into consideration in his quest to destroy the Aal Shalaans.

Harres had systematically destroyed her, for his duty, his family. But even had she wanted to exact revenge on him, she wouldn't destroy the royal family and the whole kingdom along with him. And she
didn't
want to avenge herself. She just wanted to curl up and die, far away from this land where she'd lost her heart and her faith in anything forever.

One thing was left in her wreckage. “What about Todd?”

“The procedures of his release are ongoing as we speak.”

She saw the truth of this at least in his eyes. Or maybe she imagined it as she'd imagined everything between them so far.

And she gave him what he'd ruined her for. “The conspiracy's mastermind is Yusuf Aal Waaked, prince of Ossaylan.”

His eyes flared. But she'd lost the ability to read them. She'd never had it. And she no longer cared. She just wanted out of his orbit. Wanted to go somewhere far to perish in peace.

“I know,” he finally said in the same expressionless voice.

He did? How?

One thing explained everything. He'd monitored her phone call and got his coveted information the moment she had.

So the master secret-service man had adjusted his plan on the fly every second since they'd met, according to her
reactions and based on an unerring reading of her character. She'd fallen in step with his every undetectable nudge. His masterstroke had been that last bit of reverse psychology. While indirectly stressing the danger Zohayd was in, he'd forbidden her to reinstate contact with her informant, knowing the first thing she'd do was just that. As the coup de grâce, he'd secured Todd's release. It clearly had required no effort or sacrifice on his part, had been insurance to make sure she would do anything for him.

Now her purpose to him was over. He couldn't wait to get rid of her.

It made sense. Far more sense than this all-powerful prince falling in love with her, so totally.

With this last shard of rationalization tearing into her heart, it was like a dampener dissolved and every memory of the past twenty days bombarded her, rewritten in the macabre new perspective.

Agony mushroomed to unmanageable levels, humiliation inundating her. She felt she'd suffocate, shatter.

She lashed out with all her disillusion and devastation. “So you know. But you can't say I didn't give you something in return for my brother's freedom and redemption. Now that I have them, I can't wait to leave this godforsaken land.”

There was no mistaking what slammed into his eyes now. Shock.

Of course. He must have thought she'd simper and fawn and beg for him to keep her on any degrading terms he wished to impose. As he'd reassured his brother, he was an old hand at using and discarding women. He must have fully expected the dumping to be one-sided.

Before he could say anything, Amjad stuck his head around the door. “What's taking you so long?”

Harres tore his stunned eyes from hers, turned them to his brother. He still said nothing.

Then he shook his head, as if trying to credit what she'd said. She could only imagine how she'd sounded, looked as she'd said it. If a fraction of what was stampeding inside her had been apparent, he must be flabbergasted at the seemingly out-of-the-blue change that had seized her.

He stood aside, staring at her with eyes crowded with so many things it made her sick trying to fathom them. She gave up, on everything, preceded him out of the room.

Amjad was leaning on the wall outside the door in an immaculate sports jacket, his arms folded over his chest.

As she passed him, his eyes gleamed ruthlessly. “Give my…regards to your brother. He's to be congratulated for having a sister like you.”

She stared at him, felt the urge to ask for an explanation. It fizzled out as it formed.

Feeling ice spreading from her center outward, she turned away, let Harres steer her outside the palace.

He sat beside her in his limo, the eerie silence that had replaced their animated conversations, his feigned interest and indulgence, deepening her freeze.

They arrived at the private airport they'd landed in only hours ago. What a difference that time had made.

He rushed out of the limo before it came to a full stop. He materialized on her side in seconds, handed her out of the limo, led her to the sleek silver Boeing 737 purring like a giant alien bird on the pristine tarmac.

His movements were measured, his hold the epitome of composure. The vibes emanating from him were the opposite.

At the stairs he turned to her. But though the move was controlled, his eyes were anything but, storming with
emotions barely held in check. His voice sounded even more agitated. “What was that back at the palace?”

It couldn't be just his displeasure at her rewriting his expected dumping scene, could it?

Stop it.
She
must
stop casting anything she felt from him through the prism of nobility and sincerity. She'd heard the truth with her own ears. What was she waiting for? To have it said to her face?

She wouldn't survive that.
End this.
Now.

She shrugged, started to turn away, to run away.

His hand snagged hers. But it was the confusion and hurt she thought she saw eclipsing the twin suns of his eyes that stopped her, captured her. “You're saying it was all for your brother? To manipulate me into setting him free?”

How could he still sound so genuine? How could she still be so pathetic that she wanted to believe him, melt into his arms, to answer her walking orders with proclamations of undying love?

Ghabeyah
. Stupid. That was what her informant had called her.

No. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing her weep for him. She was so far beneath him, so disadvantaged, in every way, but especially in the depth of her involvement. She could only try to leave him on equal ground in at least that.

She heard the acid that now filled her arteries drip from her voice. “That wasn't too far to go to make you help an innocent man prove his innocence, don't you think?”

She'd seen him get shot. He hadn't reacted this spectacularly then. After his recoil, he stilled, seeming to loom larger, his vibe darkening until it was deeper than the night enveloping them.

Then he finally snarled, “It is
I
who has gone
far
farther to help a guilty man get away with his crimes.”

For a moment she didn't get his meaning. Just as it dawned on her, he gritted out, “I guess committing fraud runs in your family, after all.”

She staggered out of his hold. “I didn't think even you would go that far.”

“
Even
me? What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. None of it meant anything.” She'd crumble at his feet any moment now.
Get away from him.

She groped for the rails. He caught her back, twisted her around to face him. His face was a conflagration of every distraught emotion humanly achievable.

You're seeing what you want to see.

Pain skewered her, tearing the last tatters of her sanity.

“What is it?” she rasped. “Is your ego smarting? You want me to go but still want me to beg to stay? Or maybe you want another payment for Todd's freedom? On board your jet? I can give you one last go if you want to cross another fantasy off your list, with a reluctant woman this time.”

For an eternity, it seemed, horror froze his features. Then his phone rang. He lurched, looked down as if not understanding where the sound was coming from, or its significance.

She broke away from his now loose hold, ran up the stairs. She wanted to keep running, out of her very skin.

Then she had to stop, heaped on the farthest seat in the jet. She begged the first person who came offering her services to please, leave her alone. She wanted nothing.

She only wanted to let the pain eat her up.

And for the duration of the flight toward a home she'd forgotten, a home no longer for now she'd remain forever homeless, she let it.

 

“Talia! You did it!”

Talia slumped against the door she'd just closed.

Todd
.

She swung around, and there he was zooming toward her, his eyes filled with tears as he pounced on her and snatched her into a crushing embrace.

She shook, her battered mind unable to grasp the reality of his presence, here, so soon. How…?

She must have voiced her shock. He pulled back, held her at arm's length, his eyes, so much like hers, unsteady and avid over her face. “How did you do it? Mark told me you were trying to get me out, but I didn't dare hope that you would actually do it.”

She almost told him,
I sold my soul to the devil for your freedom.
But that wouldn't be accurate. She'd given her soul of her own free will to said devil. And she'd asked for nothing in return. Todd's freedom hadn't been the price of her soul, just another strand in a convoluted, undetectable web of manipulation.

Yet to see him, free, here, was worth anything.

Not that she could bear more turmoil now, or contact, with even the brother who'd always felt like a physical part of her. Every nerve in her body felt exposed.

She pushed away, shrugged. “It doesn't matter what I did. What's important is that you're free and exonerated.”

“How can you say that? I need to know if you got yourself in trouble for me.”

“What's important is you're out and can resume your life.”

“Oh, God, you did do something terrible, didn't you?” He caught her by the shoulders, his agitation mounting, shaking his whole slight frame. “Whatever you did, undo it. I'll go back to prison, serve the rest of my sentence.”

“Don't worry, Todd. I'll deal.”

But the lie must have been blatant on her face. Todd's
tears flowed down his shuddering, flushed face. “Please, Talia, take it back. I'm not worth it.”

“Of course you are. You're my brother, my twin. And the most important thing is that you're innocent.”

“But I'm
not
.”

She'd thought she'd depleted her reserves for shock, that all that was left in her was oceans of grief and agony.

She stared at Todd, denial still fighting to ward off comprehension. His next words ended its struggle.

“I—I committed all the crimes I was convicted for. I hacked into accounts I found out about when Ghada once let me fix her computer. She was just a good friend, and I made up the whole thing about us to give you a story you'd believe and sympathize with. I embezzled millions, sold dozens of vital secrets. I did far more than what they found out. But I couldn't admit it to you. It was part shame, part needing you to stand by me, to help me get out of this nightmare. I feared that if you knew I deserved what I got and worse, even with loving me, your sense of honor would stop you from trying. But I no longer care. I'll go back so you can stop paying the price for the freedom I don't deserve. I only hope you can one day forgive me.”

She stared at him. This was too much.

It was all a lie.