LITMIR.BIZ

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his head, he had a hard time dismissing it. Maybe he’d been too focused on fighting with his enemies in the government, and had overlooked the dogs that slinked around his own backyard, waiting to bite when his back was turned.

      Leaving her to screw on the caps, he strode to the window to look out at the endless desert, which, instead of sheltering him, as it had done for countless generations of his ancestors, had haunted him throughout his life.

      “No time to set up the satellite before the storm.” Locating the two-hundred-pound piece of equipment then dragging it back onto the roof would take considerable effort. He glanced at Sara and found her squaring her slim shoulders.

      “I still think you should call Sheik Abdullah as soon as we can. He should be able to protect us.” She seemed confident of that, coming back to it once again.

      Everyone always thought that the sheik could do everything. But he hadn’t been able to protect his family, he hadn’t been able to protect his people, and there was a good chance he wouldn’t be able to protect her.

      And that he regretted profoundly.

      “I am the sheik,” he said.

       Chapter Four

      “What sheik?” She stared at him dumbfounded. He didn’t look like a sheik. The first time she’d seen him—that morning in his Western-cut suit, with his unaccented English—she’d thought he might be American.

      “Tariq Abdullah.”

      Sheik Abdullah! Oh, God. “But—If you’re the sheik, why didn’t they take you to be ransomed? Why take Husam?”

      He shrugged. “They had no way of knowing I would be coming along. Could be they didn’t recognize me in the heat of the battle. They had a goal and they were focused on that.” He glanced toward the main entrance. “I’m going to make sure you get on a flight out of here as soon as possible.”

      Outside, the wind was swirling the sand.

      “The bandits took my passport,” she said, dazed. In novels, sheiks usually carried the soon-to-be-ravished heroines to their royal tent. Here she was, at a grim construction site, sitting on a blanket made in China.

      “Then you will be taken to the U.S. embassy. They’ll handle everything.” He looked out over the desert where the wind was picking up.

      Sheik Abdullah. She took a deep breath and blew it out, wondering feverishly if she’d said anything to offend him so far. If she messed up the deal she’d come here for … She was thinking for a moment as if everything was business as usual. Then pain hit her in the solar plexus as she remembered Jeff, whom some protective instinct had pushed out of her mind, so she could function. Images flooded her brain—of blood-soaked sand—and the job and the contract became insignificant.

      Jeff was gone. She was alive only because of Tariq. Sheik Tariq.

      “Thank you for saving my life,” she said. “Sheik.”

      He turned back to her, crooked his head and actually smiled. Not the full-blown thing—heaven knew they had little to smile about—but a self-deprecating stretch of masculine lips over gleaming white teeth. Her breath got stuck under her breastbone.

      “I think, all things considered, calling me Tariq would be fine. I hope I haven’t hurt you much while trying to help.”

      “Good choice, considering the alternative.” She could barely feel the bump at the back of her head. She didn’t want to think about what would have become of her by now if the bandits had taken her.

      Sheik Tariq Abdullah. She was going to need a few seconds to process that.

      “You didn’t tell me.”

      “At first I wasn’t sure I could trust you.”

      “Understandable.”

      He was nothing like she had expected. She’d been resigned to not meeting Sheik Abdullah at all. He was famous for being reclusive, an astute businessman who managed his tribe’s assets with little personal publicity. Supposedly, a person could be in a business relationship with one of his companies for years and never once see him.

      As a man, Tariq went beyond a woman’s wildest fantasies. He was perhaps the most physically appealing male she had ever met, although he was not handsome in a conventional way. She found the energy that radiated from him mesmerizing. His movements betrayed strength and confidence. But the whole sheik business … She had a hard time picturing that. Where were his camels and his flowing robes, his tents and his Bedouin tribesmen?

      “Why didn’t we go to your tribe’s camp instead of here?” She would have felt safer with people around them, especially the sheik’s desert warriors.

      The look on his face was one of faint amusement. “Except for a few small groups, my tribe rarely camps anymore, unless on a hunting trip for sport. They live in towns and villages south of Tihrin.”

      A day ago, hearing that would have been a major disappointment to her romantic soul. At the moment, however, she had bigger things to worry about. Still, she couldn’t let it go without a question. “There are no more Bedouin?” But she’d seen pictures in the tourist guides.

      “Bedu. We call ourselves Bedu. Foreigners call us Bedouin. Some tribes still have nomadic groups. I don’t know any tribes that live fully in the desert anymore. Mostly, they come and go.” He watched her, raising a dark eyebrow. “This saddens you?”

      Was she that transparent? “I suppose. Doesn’t it sadden you?”

      He shrugged. “I grew up in a palace in Tihrin, then was sent abroad. I never lived in the desert.”

      So much for her sheik-flying-over-the-sand-dunes-on-the-back-of-his-black-Arabian-stallion fantasies. But one word caught her attention. “Palace?”

      The expression on his face hardened as he walked away from the window. “My father was the king. And after him, my half brother,” he said. “We’d better secure this place before the storm hits. We don’t have long. See what you can do in here. I’ll search outside for anything we might be able to use for protection.”

      Tariq was royalty? Sara knew that the term sheik meant prince or king, but also knew that it wasn’t strictly that way in real life. The guy who sold carpets in a small store across from her hotel called himself Sheik Jumah. She’d figured Sheik Abdullah was a tribal chief. She had no idea he was the son of a king.

      She was staring at Tariq, slack-jawed.

      “Sara?”

      “Yes?”

      “You know, I was really starting to like you. Don’t go all weird on me now.”

      He was starting to like her! She resisted some deeply buried teenage instinct to ask, In what way? “No problem.”

      He was starting to like her. Yeah, that went a long way toward settling her down. Not.

      Maybe she could gather her thoughts and act nonchalant by the time he returned. He seemed to be aiming for the door, picking up the tire iron on his way.

      “You must be related to the current king then,” she said without meaning to, her thoughts rambling.

      “The king is my cousin. My grandfather was a powerful king and he had many sons.”

      “What happened to your father and your half brother?” Did kings retire? She’d read up on the country’s economics with a special eye toward the petroleum industry, but hadn’t spent time on its history.

      He stopped on the threshold, and she watched his face darken, his jaw tightening. “They were killed. Bad luck seems to be the only dependable companion for the men in my family. You could say we’re cursed with it.”

      HE CAUGHT SIGHT of a shadowy, moving shape between buildings to his

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