LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter Three

      Sharif did not understand why, after all these years, he was suddenly seized with the desire to possess a woman. Why at this perilous time, when he needed to stay alert, and why this defiant woman?

      From the moment he’d held her in the car, Holly had aroused a response like no woman since Yona. And now, in the rise and fall of her breasts as she stared at him, he read a rising passion that matched his own.

      She was fighting her desire in vain. He knew from his younger days what it took to seduce a woman, and this one lay within his power. All it would take was the touch of his lips against her face and throat, and the hard commanding movements of his body, and he could bring them both to ecstasy.

      Holly’s eyes widened. With fear or longing, or both? “Don’t,” she whispered. “Please.”

      She was, the sheikh reminded himself sharply, another man’s bride. She was also a threat to his ability to take his son back to Alqedar.

      Stiffly, he drew back. “You have nothing to fear. I told you, I am not an abuser of women.”

      “And you really don’t know what’s happened to my sister?” Even at this tense moment, Holly Rivers was more concerned for the missing woman than for herself, he saw with reluctant admiration.

      “I wish I did.” Sharif bent and ran one finger along his son’s cheek. “It would be easier to straighten out this mess if she were here. Unless she intended, as I feared, to seek custody.”

      “I don’t know what she intended.” The young woman brushed back a wave of red hair that had fallen across her temple. “I haven’t seen her in three months, since before Ben was born.”

      “Then how did you get him?”

      “A friend of hers brought him, a musician named Griff Goldbar. He said she would come back in a few days. That was over a month ago.”

      About that time, the clinic owner had stopped taking Zahad’s calls. Such a coincidence must be meaningful. “Do you know a woman named Noreen Wheaton?”

      “No, why?”

      “She’s the head of the clinic that hired your sister,” he said. “If you’ve been searching for Jasmine, surely you found some record of the surrogacy arrangement.”

      Holly’s expression grew troubled. “Jazz must have taken her contract with her. I cleaned out her room, but there weren’t any papers from a clinic.” The baby began to squirm. “I think he’s hungry.”

      “I’ll get the formula.” Sharif went to fetch the bag that Aunt Selima had packed.

      As he crossed the cabin, he wondered why the clinic director had been reluctant to talk to Zahad. Had there been threats against the clinic and, if so, from whom? With the police after him, Sharif could hardly contact Mrs. Wheaton to ask her directly.

      Or perhaps he was looking in the wrong direction. The woman, Jasmine, might have enemies of her own. Her disappearance might bear no relationship to Sharif or to the clinic.

      On his way back to the alcove, he tuned the television set to an all-news station, grateful that, in California, even remote cabins came equipped with TV service. At the moment, however, the report concerned local politics.

      “My great-aunt provided these supplies.” He set the bag beside Holly on the bed. “She and my cousin Amy will care for the child when I get home.”

      “You’re not married?” In the filtered light, the woman could have passed for a teenager.

      “My wife died many years ago.” To cut off further questions, he presented her with a can of formula. “Is it necessary to heat it?”

      “Not really,” Holly said. “Do you have a clean bottle?”

      “I would scarcely bring a dirty one!” He handed it to her. “How long will that last?”

      “There’s enough for two feedings, so maybe half a day. Is this all you’ve got?”

      “There are two more cans.” Obviously, it would not be enough. “Zahad will get more.”

      After filling the bottle, the woman settled the baby at the same angle Selima had demonstrated. Sharif wondered whether women did these things by instinct, but he knew better than to ask an American woman.

      “You have a phone?” she said.

      Sharif patted his robe.

      “I wondered if I could call my fiancé,” she said. “Trevor must be going crazy.”

      Trevor. Ah, yes, the athletic blond man in his forties who had crossed the courtyard that afternoon. Sharif no longer believed Holly had manipulated her groom, yet she didn’t speak of him as if she were in love. Her reasons for marrying were, however, none of his business.

      “I am sorry to put you both to this inconvenience,” he said. “However, the police will be monitoring his telephone and might be able to locate us.”

      “Even through a cell phone?”

      “It is possible,” he said. “The technology is developing rapidly.”

      From the TV, the word “kidnapping” drew his attention. A picture came on screen, a blurry angled shot taken from overhead. It showed Sharif, Zahad and Holly getting into the car.

      “A security camera in a strip mall captured this scene earlier today in Harbor View, where a bride and her nephew were abducted minutes before her wedding,” said a woman announcer’s voice.

      “The victim has been identified as Holly Jeannette Rivers, a hairstylist from Harbor View. Her sister, Hannah Jasmine Rivers, vanished three months ago. Hannah Rivers is the mother of the kidnapped baby.”

      A security camera! Sharif cursed under his breath. Neither he nor Zahad had considered that possibility in such a small row of stores.

      The picture changed to computer-enhanced closeups of Sharif’s and Zahad’s faces, side by side, like a wanted poster. He realized the camera must have taken numerous shots during their hour-long surveillance.

      “Police say the men in the photograph have been tentatively identified as Sheikh Sharif Al-Khalil and his aide, Zahad Adran, from the small Arabian nation of Alqedar.”

      How? he wondered, and then realized the camera must also have captured the license plate on the rental car, which could be traced to a subsidiary of the Bahrim Corporation. With that information and those pictures, it wouldn’t take long to make an ID.

      “A spokesman for the State Department told our station that the sheikh is not in the country on official business and has no diplomatic immunity,” the announcer said. “It is unclear what connection he has with the Rivers family.”

      Sharif had known he ran a security risk four years ago when he relinquished his powerful post in the central government to devote himself to the well-being of his province, but he had never anticipated such a situation as this.

      Alqedar’s president, Sheikh Abdul Dourad, was an old friend. In his fifties, the president had fought for freedom alongside Sharif and Zahad. However, even he could not retroactively grant diplomatic immunity.

      On TV, the anchorwoman sat at her desk beside a blond man in a business suit. “We have with us Trevor Samuelson, the fiancé of kidnap victim Holly Rivers.” She turned to him. “Mr. Samuelson is an attorney in Harbor View and would like to say a few words to the abductors.”

      “Just don’t hurt Holly or Ben.”

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