LITMIR.BIZ

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where he is,” the caller said when the line was finally picked up.

      “Do we have confirmation?”

      “Not yet.”

      “How soon?”

      “Within the hour.”

      “Get the men ready.”

      “Yes, sir.”

      “No more mistakes.”

      “No, sir. Should we bring him to you when we have him?”

      “Yes, but not here. I’ll be changing locations. I’ll call you from the new place and give directions when I get there.”

      “Yes, sir. And if he has anyone with him?”

      A moment of silence, then, “You know who I want. Everyone else is expendable.”

      The line went dead as the call ended.

      ISABELLE WATCHED AMIR from under hooded eyelids. Yep, she should have definitely waited with her big surprise.

      He’d just come out of a coma. He should still be in bed. Not that she would ever be able to get him back in there now. He had stubborn written all over him. He had walked to the table, for heaven’s sake. He seemed determined to pretend that there was nothing wrong with him. Men and their foolish pride. Someone needed to invent a pill for that. If only.

      “You need rest. We can talk about this later.” Or not at all. “You need to get back to your family and a physical therapist who can help you regain your strength. I have to get back home and get ready for the baby’s birth.”

      She had a week left, at most. If he hadn’t awakened in a day or two, she would have had to make the difficult decision of what to do with him. She could no longer stay with him at the cabin, and she couldn’t have left him here alone, either, not without medical assistance.

      Yes, she was mad at him for manipulating her the night they first met, but she was a doctor. She would never be mad enough at anyone to provide less than the best medical assistance she was capable of. Not even if the lying weasel bastard had tricked her into his bed and left her pregnant.

      The worst part was that after all that, she was still attracted to him. She had to be stupider than shipping peanuts. Seriously. Any other woman would have strangled the man by now. Not her, she’d carefully taken care of him.

      His tumultuous dark gaze was fixed on her belly, his gaze like a physical touch on her skin. “Are you certain about paternity?”

      Oh, that was rich. He was questioning her word? She bit her lower lip, then let it go, pulled her aching spine straight. “I am. And I’m not going to be offended by the question, because you don’t really know me, but this is the only pass you’re going to get on the subject.”

      He raised his gaze to her, sharp now like a hawk’s. His shoulders tensed. His voice was cold as he asked, “What do you want from me?”

      She shouldn’t have been disappointed. This was exactly what she’d expected in the unlikely case that the prince of Persia ever returned.

      “How about your name, for starters?” After evading the truth so skillfully when they’d first met, now that the question was put to him straight, would he lie about his identity?

      Nine months ago they’d met at the hospital’s annual charity ball, a masquerade. She’d been Isabelle the Harem Flower. All six of the women from general surgery were decked out to the nines in belly-dancing outfits—Janie’s idea since she’d been taking lessons to revive her marriage.

      He’d worn the costume of a Persian prince to the charity ball, a flowing, colorful robe. His midnight eyes called her from across the room. He’d walked straight to her without noticing any of the women who gaped at him. They’d discussed health care, of all things, which still needed improvement in his home country, Jamala, he’d told her in the most charming accent. His intelligence had seduced her as much as his rich voice and the way his dark gaze drank her in.

      She had no idea how she’d ended up in his suite at the Wind River Ranch and Resort, but she knew with absolute certainty that it wouldn’t have happened if she’d known that he was a sheik! Yep, he’d skipped that little detail.

      She’d stayed with him for two whole days, doing little more than making love and ordering room service. She’d left without waking him, nearly late for her emergency O.R. shift, at 2:00 a.m. on the third day, still thinking him some foreign hospital administrator here to do benchmarking or whatever.

      “So no name, huh?” Resentment welled inside her for having been duped so thoroughly. “It would be nice to know what to say once the kid starts asking.”

      She’d been too embarrassed to go back to him once she’d gotten off work. She’d never lost control like that before. She barely even dated, let alone had passionate affairs with strangers. Med school, residency, then her insane surgery schedule left her neither time nor energy for men. Having a serious relationship was on her to-do list, just scheduled for a much later date. After she’d made chief of surgery, maybe.

      By the time she’d figured out that she was pregnant, he had checked out, and the resort, of course, would divulge no information on the mysterious guest in the Emerald Suite.

      But here he was now, even if with his amazing lips pressed in a thin line, he didn’t look like he was keen on her giving any more information than he’d given her before, which was pretty much nothing.

      She tilted her head, incredulity creeping into her voice as she asked, “I can’t know your name?” Her fingers itched to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. Not that she would ever do that to a patient.

      A tense couple of seconds passed. His gaze slipped to her belly, then slowly returned to her face.

      “Amir Khalid.” He stood and gave a small but formal bow, watching her as if he could see right inside of her, to her deepest, darkest secrets.

      “Isabelle Andrews.” Of course, he probably knew that if he knew where she lived. He’d said he was coming to see her the night he’d gotten injured. So he’d investigated her. She wasn’t sure how that made her feel.

      “Sheik Amir Khalid,” he said, adding his title, then waited a beat. “You don’t seem surprised. You knew my name already.”

      She held his gaze without blinking. “Your friends at the resort made a rather passionate plea on television for information on your whereabouts. Your picture was all over the news.”

      His face turned grim. “I regret that I involved you in this. I’m afraid that by coming to you, I might have put you in jeopardy.”

      “Nobody knows. Relax. I didn’t even call your friends. There were some news reports on a possible conspiracy or whatever that went as far as the local cops. I didn’t know who to trust.”

      “My friends you can trust.”

      “How about you? Can I trust you?”

      He looked taken aback. “We should leave here as soon as we can. Of course you can trust me.”

      Not a chance. “But you never trusted me.” She pointed out. “If you trusted me, you wouldn’t have lied about who you were.”

      “I didn’t lie.”

      “You didn’t tell me you were a sheik. The Black Sheep Sheik of Jamala. That’s what they called you on the news, you know that? Imagine how stupid I felt when I heard it and recognized your picture. What exactly did you do to get that nickname, anyway?”

      His eyes narrowed. “I didn’t plan for things to happen this way.”

      Oh, she believed that. “You just planned to make some poor, ordinary woman your entertainment for the weekend. Rich royal sweeps in, seduces clueless chick, goes home and forgets her. Did I hit all the major bullet points?”

      “I never forgot.” His voice

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