LITMIR.BIZ

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and weeks in the dark, dank cell. It’d been so awful, so unbelievable. She still couldn’t understand how she’d ended up at Ozr. She’d never broken a law in her life—well, except for driving over the speed limit, and even then, it had been five miles over the limit, not twenty.

      “Would you like a blanket?”

      “Please.” Liv smiled gratefully.

      “Poor thing. Have you been sick?” the flight attendant asked sympathetically as she crossed to the wood-paneled cabinet and retrieved an ivory cashmere throw and small pillow, the ivory blanket the same color as the supple leather seats.

      Returning, the flight attendant unfolded the blanket and draped it across Liv’s legs. “And just between you and me, I think the air conditioner is a little too efficient. Now, how about something warm to drink? Coffee, tea?”

      “Coffee, with milk and sugar. If that’s not too much trouble.”

      “None at all.”

      The flight attendant disappeared into the jet’s galley kitchen and Liv sank deeper into her seat. This was surreal, she thought, tugging the blanket up to her shoulders. An hour ago she was still locked up in Ozr and now here she was, on a private jet, being waited on hand and foot.

      While Liv sipped her coffee on the plane, Khalid joined his pilot in the final preflight inspection.

      “We’ve a change of plans,” Khalid told the pilot.

      The pilot looked up from his clipboard. “We’re low on petrol. The airport refused our request to refuel.”

      “I’m not surprised. We had a little problem on the way here.”

      “Is that why we’re not going straight to Sarq?”

      Khalid nodded. “Can’t risk involving my brother in this. There’s enough tension between Sarq and Jabal already. I won’t drag Sharif, or my people, into an international incident.”

      The pilot’s attention was suddenly caught by a line of cars on the horizon. “Police,” he said, nodding at the line of cars racing toward them. “Are they coming for you?”

      “That, or my guest, or us both,” Khalid replied, dispassionately watching the cars grow closer.

      The pilot patted the side of the plane. “Then maybe it’s time to go.”

      Liv looked up as Sheikh Fehr and the pilot boarded, the pilot drawing the folding stairs up and then securing the door. Sheikh Fehr stopped to speak to the flight attendant and then continued down the aisle to take a seat across from Liv.

      “Are you not feeling well?” he asked Liv, seeing the blanket wrapped around her.

      “I was cold,” she answered, feeling the engine turn on, a low vibration that hummed through the entire plane.

      Sheikh Fehr’s eyes narrowed as he inspected her. “You are quite pale. I wonder if you’re coming down sick.”

      “I’m not sick. Just chilly. But I’m getting warmer.” She started to fold the blanket up, but the sheikh put out a hand to stop her.

      “Don’t,” he said. “If the blanket is keeping you warm, there’s no need to put it away.”

      As the jet began to taxi toward the runway, she resettled the blanket on her lap and glanced at him from beneath her lashes. Against his white head-covering, his skin was a tawny gold, while his eyebrows were inky slashes above long-lashed eyes the color of bittersweet chocolate.

      His features were almost too angular, too strong. His forehead was high, his cheekbones were prominent, even his nose was a trifle too long. It should have made him unattractive. Instead it gave him a rugged, and very primitive, appeal.

      As she looked at him, a window behind his shoulder, she caught sight of a flashing red-and-blue light.

      Her eyes widened as she spotted the line of cars trailing the jet.

      The sheikh glanced out the window. “Police,” he said matter-of-factly.

      She looked at him, her stomach tumbling, the fear returning. “What do they want now?”

      “Us,” he answered.

      Us, she repeated silently, as the jet began racing down the runway, faster and faster until they were off the ground and soaring up, up, into the air.

      Liv sat glued to the window.

      Within ten minutes they had lifted high above the congested streets of the capital, and as they climbed higher, green fields came into view before the green faded to a khaki gold, and then even the gold hue faded, leaving just pale khaki.

      “What happened in Ozr?” Sheikh Fehr asked abruptly. “What did they do to you?”

      Liv jerked her attention away from the landscape below. “Nothing,” she answered quickly, too quickly, and from the creasing of the sheikh’s eyes, she knew he knew it, too.

      “Ozr isn’t a nice place,” he said. “I can’t imagine they were nice to you.”

      She suddenly pictured her life of the past four long weeks. The terrible food, the lack of sunlight, the lack of exercise, the taunts, the accusations and the endless middle-of-the-night interrogations. “I’m here now.”

      His jaw tightened. “Barely,” he answered quietly, his gaze meeting hers.

      She suppressed a shiver and turned away, unable to hold his intense gaze, or dwell on her weeks in Ozr. She was out now. That’s what mattered. She was out and soon she’d be going home.

      “The view is beautiful from here,” she said, determinedly turning her attention to the landscape below.

      He gestured toward the stretch of brown and beige beneath them. “That’s the Great Sarq Desert. It begins in Southern Jabal and stretches through much of Sarq, my country, and is one of the largest deserts in Northern Africa, consisting of thousands of miles.”

      “I’ve read quite a bit about the Great Sarq Desert,” she said shyly but eagerly. “I read that thousands of years ago the desert was once a lush tropical landscape, that there are elaborate rock paintings in the mountains depicting everyday life. Is that true?”

      He nodded. “Yes, and scattered oases are all that’s left of that ancient tropical landscape.”

      “Oases used by traders and their caravans,” she added, her gaze glued to the empty plains below. “Before the trip I was reading a book on the area, and it said that in ancient civilization the desert here was the corridor that linked Africa with the coast, and the world beyond. Everyone utilized the desert corridor. The Romans, the Phoenicians, as well as the early Greek colonists—” She broke off, flushing. “But of course you know all that. It’s just … new … to me.”

      The look her gave her was frankly appraising. “I didn’t know American women cared about geography so far from their own homes.”

      Her eyebrows lifted. “You can’t judge America, or Americans, by what you read in the news.”

      “No?” he mocked.

      “No.” She held her breath for a moment, battling her temper. “Just like it’d be unfair of me to judge all the countries in this area by what happened to me in Ozr.”

      The rest of the flight passed in silence. Liv tried to blank her mind, desperate to ignore the questions and worrying thoughts racing through her head. She leaned back in her chair and turned her attention to the landscape below and for a short while, it provided the much-needed distraction.

      The vast desert, with its contrasting hues of tan and orange, burnt amber and rust, maroon and even a few shades of purple, held her captivated as flat expanses of sand gave way to gently rising sand dunes, which led to even higher hills. She’d never thought the desert could have so many contrasting colors. It was breathtakingly beautiful.

      Before

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