LITMIR.BIZ

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it’s true.”

      She closed her eyes, hating him, hating the words he said. He was right. She knew he was right. Her father got what he wanted. Her father always did.

      “Face the truth, Miss al-Issidri. It’s me. Or them. Pick your poison.”

      CHAPTER TWO

      PICK her poison?

      Her father, or him? Disgusted, she groaned inwardly, her body seething with tension. “I’m not playing this game, Sheikh Nuri.”

      “Maybe you aren’t, but your father is. Three men are waiting at your house now. They’ve a car, a plane, a flight plan. You go home and you become theirs.”

      Her disgust intensified, as did her fear. Thoroughly chilled, she craved a wrap to keep her warm. “Why should I believe you?”

      “Why should I lie to you?”

      He sounded so perfectly reasonable and yet none of this made sense. She hadn’t lived in Baraka for years. She’d had little contact with her father these past seven years. Why would he force her into an arranged marriage now?

      And what about her father’s plans would bring Sheikh Nuri to her doorstep?

      This was about business or economics, she thought, and she wanted no part in either.

      “You’ve ulterior reasons for being here,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at the party still in full swing. Sheikh Nuri was one of the richest, most powerful men in the world. He was the special guest. He was the reason her boss wanted her here tonight.

      “Yes.”

      “You wanted me here tonight, didn’t you?”

      “You’re the only reason I’m here.” He extended an arm in her direction. “Shall we go and take care of business?”

      She looked at him, the dim moonlight playing across the hard features of his face, and suddenly she felt sixteen again. Head over heels in love with a man easily ten years her senior and she knew their lives were so different but she wanted part of his world anyway.

      “Business?” she repeated numbly, and for a moment she was that sixteen-year-old, the one who felt so painfully alienated in school, so dark and foreign compared to the beautiful English roses, the one that missed her ballet classes, the intensely disciplined world of dance, the one who never shared what she felt with anyone but kept all her secrets buried deep in her heart.

      “The men invading your home.”

      Sheikh Nuri had a car waiting. The interior of the car was dark, the tinted windows allowing little exterior light to penetrate.

      She practically hugged the corner of her seat, her hand wrapped convulsively around the door handle.

      Small spaces, dark spaces made her skin crawl and it took all of her concentration to keep from breaking into a cold sweat.

      Nothing bad is going to happen…

      You’re just getting a ride home…

      But she shouldn’t have left her car at the stadium. If she hadn’t left her car she’d be driving herself home. She’d be feeling safer. More secure. She wouldn’t be sitting so close to a man she didn’t know anymore…not that she ever really knew him. But she’d imagined.

      Those fantasies.

      They rode in silence and then Kalen rolled the window down. “We’re almost to your neighborhood, aren’t we?”

      In the dark Keira could see flashes of her neighborhood, a suburb of tidy blocks with neat little houses and groomed little gardens. In the front yards of each house pink and white and purple crepe myrtles still bloomed and the first of the Japanese maple had started to turn red.

      Indian summer.

      Her favorite time of year.

      “Yes.” With one finger tip she traced the glass. She loved her little house, loved the hammock slung up in the backyard, loved the idea of owning something of her own, something that no one could take away.

      And like that, they were there, reaching her quiet street with the dogwoods and Japanese maples and crepe myrtles she so loved.

      “Your house,” he said, slowing the car, drawing to a stop in front of her house.

      “Yes.” Heartbreak wrapped around her chest, tight, vise-like. Was her freedom over? Slowly she turned her head, looked at Kalen Nuri intently. “Tell me again, tell me you’re not an emissary for my father.”

      “I’m not an emissary for your father.”

      She didn’t miss the faint mocking note in his voice, nor the strength he exuded just sitting there. There was nothing rough or rustic about Kalen Nuri, just a strength she couldn’t place and the sense of power, unlimited power…

      He could have been the Sultan. He could have worn the crown easily. If it weren’t for the fact that his brother Malik was first born, Kalen Nuri could have been king. He was certainly proud enough. Confident enough.

      “But you’ve spoken to my father?” she persisted, dazzled by the gold in his eyes, seeing the gilded grains of desert sand beneath the blaze of North African sun.

      “No.” The corners of his eyes creased. “There’s little love lost between your father and me. He’s forced to tolerate me because I am Malik’s brother, but I dislike him intensely. And he knows it.” A deep groove formed next to Kalen’s mouth. “And I am here because he would not like it.”

      His words were met by silence, but there was nothing quiet between them, nothing still about the night. The night crackled with tension, electricity, like a dark sky before a storm but tonight the sky was clear. Just moon, and stars and beneath the moon and stars the tension grew.

      Being near him like this, talking so, made her head spin, her body hum. She fought to clear her mind now. “You said I had to pick my poison.”

      “Yes.”

      “You, or them, you said.”

      “I did.”

      “Why are those my only two options?”

      For a moment he didn’t speak and then his broad shoulders shifted, a careless shrug. “Because who else will take on your father? Who else will turn his world inside out to prevent this marriage from taking place?”

      She was missing something, there was a piece to this puzzle she didn’t see, didn’t understand, and she desperately wanted to understand. “I don’t want a man,” she said after a moment. “I do not need a man.”

      “Want and need are two different things. You might not want me, Miss al-Issidri, but you need me.” He paused for emphasis. “There are worse things than accepting my protection.”

      “You mean like being forced home to marry Mr. Abizhaid?” Hot brittle laughter formed in her chest. “I think I’d rather handle this my way,” she said, reaching for the door handle. “Unlock the car. I’m getting out.”

      She heard the doors unlock. “And you do know you have visitors in the house?” he answered calmly.

      Three, he’d said and she glanced at the house but saw nothing amiss, just the light left on in the entry hall that she always left burning when she knew she’d return late. “I see no one.”

      “They’re not going to hang a Welcome Home sign, laeela.”

      Laeela. Darling, love. An Arabic endearment that was like the kiss of the silken Saharan sands. No one had ever called her laeela before.

      “I’ll keep that in mind.” She swung the door open, stepped out, slammed the door shut. “Thanks for the lift, Sheikh Nuri.”

      The sedan’s door opened again just as quickly as Keira shut it. “You need my help.”

      “No,”

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