LITMIR.BIZ

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straight black eyebrows, the high hard edge of cheekbone, a strong uncompromising jaw.

      The line of cheekbone and jaw was familiar. Too familiar although it’d been years since she saw the one, the dream…the one, true fantasy…

      She closed her eyes, not wanting to remember, the association too tangled with heartbreak and pain. No dream should be so abruptly broken, not the way she’d been broken.

      Keira drew another breath, opened her eyes, and yet without looking at him, she was uncomfortably aware of him, aware of his size, his height, the length of his long legs. “My father didn’t even wait twenty-four hours.” It was impossible to hide her bitterness. “He’d said he’d give me twenty-four hours. He lied.”

      There was a moment’s silence. She could have sworn he smiled and then he said, “I’m not your father’s emissary.”

      She could barely breathe. Her head felt even woozier than before. It was a strange terror filling her. “Then who the hell are you?”

      “You don’t remember me?”

      He asked the question so softly that it did something terrible to her. Took her heart, her chest, her lungs and mashed them into a bitter ball.

      She knew who he was, she’d known from the moment he spoke but she hadn’t wanted to believe it, couldn’t believe it. Not after all these years.

      “I’m certain you remember me,” he added.

      Ice filled her veins, blocks of ice that clashed wildly with the rush of blood to her face. “Go back to the light.”

      “You’re being silly.”

      And then he struck a match, and in the small bright yellow flame, she saw him. Clearly. And she stared hard at the face opposite her, stared directly, determined to see what she wouldn’t let herself see before.

      Not just straight black eyebrows, and high hard cheekbones, but black fringed eyes that shone amber-gold.

      The match burned out. Keira looked away, flattened. She wanted to shake her head, shake away the vision that burned her eyes, her mind, burned into her all of the time.

      She might be able to forget his brow, his cheekbone, his jaw, but she’d never forget his eyes. Amber-gold eyes.

      Amber-gold eyes surrounded by long dense black lashes. Eyes that didn’t smile. Eyes that just stared through one, all the way to the heart, all the way to the soul.

      No one had eyes like that. No one had ever looked at her the way he did. No one but Kalen Nuri.

      Her own childish desert fantasy.

      Inexplicable tears scalded the back of her eyes and she gripped her wineglass tightly. How terribly infatuated she used to be…

      What a silly crush it’d been…

      “Sheikh Nuri,” she breathed his name, unable to look at him.

      His dark head inclined, his expression blank. “S-salamu alikum.”

      The traditional Barakan greeting, Peace on you.

      The wrong answer from what had once been the right man.

      Her lips parted, air slipped out. Kalen Nuri was here. Stood just a foot away. The shock returned, hit her hard, a blow to the breastbone, a fierce punch that knocked the air from her, making her head light, nerves taut, everything too wobbly.

      It had been years since she last saw him…and now he was here but he wasn’t her friend. Of that much she was certain.

      “You can’t tell me that my father didn’t send you.” Her words were terse, anger pitching her voice low. “You can’t lie to me, too.”

      He shrugged. “I can tell you the truth. But it’s your choice whether to listen. Your choice what to believe.”

      “I want the truth.”

      “I know what your father intends for you.”

      He wasted no time, said it so bluntly that she couldn’t look away, and as she stared at him the craziest things happened inside her—inarticulate words like you’re here, you’re really here—even as her rational mind told her that he was more dangerous than anything her father had arranged for her. “My father works for your brother.”

      Kalen made a dismissive gesture. “Your father works for himself.”

      Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t trust my father.”

      “No.” The sheikh studied her just as intently as she had examined him. “Do you trust your father?”

      “He’s my father.”

      “Youthful naiveté.”

      “Naiveté?”

      “It’s a kinder word than stupidity.”

      Her surge of temper didn’t help the pounding that had begun at the top of her skull. “What do you want?”

      “As I said, to give you options.”

      She said nothing, just stared at him.

      Sheikh Nuri’s mouth curved but the shape wasn’t kind. “You don’t have to marry Mr. Abizhaid.”

      Something inside her twisted up tight. No, she thought silently mocking herself. I used to want to marry you. “Really? And what’s wrong with Ahmed Abizhaid?”

      “He’s old, he’s hairy, he’s heavyset.”

      “So?”

      “He has children from his first marriage older than you.”

      She said nothing.

      “He’s notorious for his fanaticism.”

      Keira grit her teeth together, refusing to speak. She sensed that Sheikh Nuri was enjoying himself at her expense.

      “And he has questionable political ambitions.” The sheikh lifted his hands, an expressive gesture of laying the facts out for her. “But if this is appealing…”

      His voice drifted off and she looked away, saw the lights of the city flicker, the distant white and red streams of light indicating the freeway traffic. “It’s not appealing, and you know it.”

      “You need my help.”

      “I don’t want your help.” She didn’t want anything from any man. Once she’d been trusting, once, yes, she’d been naive, but she wasn’t the foolish girl of the past.

      “So you’ll cut off your nose to spite your face?”

      “You know nothing about my nose, or my face, Sheikh Nuri.”

      “I know that lovely face will be veiled and hidden if you don’t allow me to help.”

      She couldn’t answer. Terror filled her. She knew the life Sheikh Nuri described, knew of the women’s quarters, the secret women’s world and she didn’t want it. Couldn’t bear it. She’d never been Barakan. She’d finished university with honors, had been hired as a communications director for Sanford Oil and Gas, an international firm based in Dallas, and she traveled, worked, succeeded. Succeeded beyond her wildest expectations.

      How could she have her freedom stripped? How could she go back to what she’d escaped?

      No. No. She wouldn’t be segregated. Wouldn’t be veiled. Would never allow herself to be hidden as though she were something to be ashamed of. “I haven’t lived in Baraka since I was four,” she said.

      “Your father has already sent people for you.”

      Keira went hot, then cold.

      “There are three men waiting at your house this very moment.” He paused, let his words sink in. “They’re not going away without you.”

      “I won’t go home then.”

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