LITMIR.BIZ

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a strange gleam in his eyes.

      He nodded. “The second Dr. Tamam saw it, he took it off the chain and informed me. While you were still unconscious, I removed the chain from your neck and pocketed both for safekeeping.”

      Lauren could hardly breathe. “All this time you’ve had it, yet you flew me to the site of the sandstorm in my pathetic hope to find it?” She covered her mouth with her hand. “Since I was brought in, you’ve known everything!”

      “Not quite.” He folded his arms.

      “Until the other night, I didn’t realize the ancients of your tribe worshipped the moon. The medallion had much more significance than I’d realized.” She shook her head.

      “I’d hoped you’d tell me the whole story behind it so I wouldn’t have to resort to these extreme measures. This is your last chance to come clean. Why didn’t you give me the complete description of the medallion when I asked you?”

      She unconsciously ran her thumb over the relief. “Because I needed to protect certain people from being hurt in case they saw it and made a connection.”

      “Certain people at the Oasis, you mean.”

      Lauren looked away. “Yes.”

      “And what connection would that be?”

      “I thought you knew—” she cried out, jumping to her feet.

      “I do, but I want to hear you say it.”

      There was no help for it. “To the royal family.”

      “Be more specific.”

      It was no use. Lauren couldn’t take any more. “Oh, all right! To King Malik.”

      He straightened from the desk. “Why single out King Malik? The medallion is the symbol of the entire royal family who’ve been in power for centuries.”

      “Because he was the one who gave it to … someone I knew,” she mumbled, but he heard her.

      The second the words were out of her mouth, she watched in fascination the way his chest rose and fell, as if he’d sustained a shock. “But that’s impossible.”

      She blinked, totally confused. “Why?”

      “Only when a new male member of the royal household is born is one minted. He wears it for life and is buried with it.”

      The king’s love for her grandmother must have been beyond comprehension. “Did anyone see if King Malik was buried with his?”

      Rafi went so quiet, she knew he didn’t have an answer for that question. It was probably the only time in his life he’d been thrown by a mystery he couldn’t solve.

      Dark lines etched his arresting features. “Tell me the name of the person he gave it to. According to you, they’re dead. You don’t have to worry since you’ve already broken your promise to them.”

      Tears pricked her eyelids. “Because you tricked me—”

      “Not tricked. I only held off showing you the medallion until I could see that nothing else would work. It’s my job to protect the royal family. I had to be certain you weren’t working for a hostile entity sent to spy on the king or the acting sheikh.”

      “You mean Prince Rashad.”

      “That’s right. You and I are both on the same side, Lauren.”

      Put that way, she realized they were, but she couldn’t forgive him for what he’d put her through. She bit her lip. “H-he gave it to my grandmother,” she said in a tremulous voice.

      More silence. “When?” he eventually demanded.

      “I’m sure if you went back far enough in the official documents of the kingdom, you would see that she traveled here alone, unmarried, when she was twenty years old.

      “Someone told her about the Al-Shafeeq Oasis that blossomed like a rose in the desert. Being an adventurous person, she decided she wanted to see it.”

      Rafi stood there still as a statue. “She met Sheikh Malik?”

      Lauren nodded. “He was twenty-six at the time. He saw her walking in the palace garden. She had hair my color, but she wore it down her back to her waist. He was so drawn to her, he had her brought to him. One thing led to another. At one point he took her to see the Garden of the Moon.”

      A strange sound came out of Rafi.

      “It was there he told her he would love her until the day he died. But he couldn’t marry her because he was betrothed to another princess.”

      Her voice shook as she told Rafi the rest. “H-he said she would have to leave the Oasis and they would never be able to see each other again. The only thing he could give her was the medallion. He put it around her neck and told her that every time she looked at it, he would sense it and know she was remembering their time beneath the moon when she’d made him feel immortal.”

      Rafi rubbed the back of his neck. A white ring encircled his lips.

      “When my grandmother knew she was dying, she took the medallion off her own neck and gave it to me. She said that next to me, it was her most priceless possession. After she passed away, I had this longing to come to the oasis and see where it had all happened.”

      She undid the chain. “Thank you for returning this to me, but it isn’t mine to keep. It belongs to the royal family. I would think King Umar would like to have something that belonged to his father. Princess Farah said that King Malik was known as the great sheikh for making the kingdom stronger.

      “The more I think about it, the more I want him to have it in payment of his generosity and kindness to me while I’ve been recuperating at the palace.” She went over to the desk and left it on top. “Now am I free to go?”

      His eyes were dark slits as he looked at her. “No.”

      She struggled for breath. “Do you want me to stay, Rafi? If you do, tell me—”

      He gave her a look so tormented, she was shaken by it. Without saying a word, he walked behind his desk and opened the drawer. She saw him take out a ring and put it on. Then he moved toward her and extended his hand, palm down.

      When she saw the same medallion in the form of a ring, she got that curious din in her ears again, as she’d felt when the sandstorm had hit without warning. The same presentiment came to her now that she was about to go through another life-changing experience and nothing would ever be the same again.

      One by one, every moment with him, every nuance, every warning, every word and gesture fell into place as pure revelation flowed through her. Her eyes searched his and she saw the truth written in them. She remembered him telling her that the kind of marriage she imagined wasn’t written in his stars …

      “You’re Prince Rashad,” she whispered.

       No-o-o. Oh no—

      She felt his hands cup her face and lift it. The eyes staring down at her blazed with fire. In panic, she tried to pull away from him, but he held her fast. “Don’t be frightened of me, Lauren. You know I could never hurt you. Now that everything’s out in the open and there are no secrets between us, all I want to do is love you.”

      “No—” She jerked away from him and staggered back. “We can’t!—”

      How could she have been so blind? He was the acting sheikh. Of course. Hadn’t he talked and walked like a prince?

      His hands slid to her shoulders, kneading them restlessly. “I need you and I know you need me. I have an apartment through that door. We’ll start all over again and be alone for as long as we want. We’ll do what we’ve been wanting to do from the very beginning. You’re all I desire,” he declared passionately, running his hands up and down her arms.

      “You’re all I want,

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