LITMIR.BIZ

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an excellent doctor. You won’t be sorry for following his advice.”

      “I plan to.” After a pause she said, “Are you hungry too?”

      “Ravenous, as a matter of fact.” All the senses of his body had come alive around her. He didn’t know himself anymore.

      “Does that mean you’ve been out saving more poor souls caught in another sandstorm?” she teased.

      Her charisma charmed him to the core of his being and was so at odds with the secret she was keeping, it succeeded in tying him in knots.

      “They don’t happen that often, but I can tell you this much—in the last hundred years, you have the distinction of being the first foreign woman who lived through one.”

      He felt her shiver. “I’ve been blessed, thanks to you and Mustafa.”

      Rashad took an extra breath. “He was the one who pulled you off your camel in time.”

      “Yes.” She turned away from him. “I need to thank him in person. That’s why I was on the phone just now. I called the travel agency in Montreux and asked them to contact him for me.”

      “I would imagine he’s out with another caravan. When your caravan takes you back to El-Joktor, you can thank him then. Now if you’ll come with me, the patio is through this alcove.”

      He cupped her elbow. Their bodies brushed against each other, bringing certain longings alive. He ushered her out to the roof with its crenelated walls. Evening had fallen. The patio torches had been lit.

      An awe-filled sigh escaped her lips as she looked out over the desert. He understood it. From this vantage point, one could see the oasis with its many lighted torches, and the sand beyond the boundary stretching in every direction. The perfumed air of the night breeze was cooling down even as they stood there. Stars had started to come out overhead. This was his favorite spot of the palace.

      “I’ve never seen a sight like this in my life.”

      “Neither have I,” Rashad whispered, studying her alluring profile. If he moved an inch closer to her enticing warmth, he would have to touch her. He wouldn’t be able to help himself.

      “It’s magical and makes me want to cry.”

      She was so in tune with his emotions, he admitted, “Sometimes when my work closes in on me, I get the urge to slip away from my office and come out here to feel the night.”

      “You can feel it,” she cried in wonder and turned to him. The glow from the nearest torch reached her eyes. When he looked into them, he was staggered by their bewitching color. They were a rare shade of green so light and iridescent, they dazzled him more than the large shimmering star rising beyond her shoulder.

      How could eyes that soulful belong to a woman who’d come here to do him and his family harm? “Are you cold?” He wanted a reason to wrap his arms around her again.

      “Not yet,” she answered in a shaken voice.

      “Then let’s eat.”

      Rashad had instructed his staff to arrange a table for two near the lattice-covered garden so that he and Lauren could enjoy its fragrance. Flames from the candles flickered, throwing the shapes of the flowers into larger-than-life replicas against the thick palace walls.

      He pulled out a chair for her. She sat down quickly, but not before his hands shaped her shoulders after helping her. By now her long dark lashes—unusual on someone so fair—half hid her gaze focused on the flowers. “How beautiful,” she whispered.

      “The royal family calls it the Garden of Enchantment.”

      Rashad heard her soft intake of breath before she said, “I can understand why. I feel only a sense of peace sitting here. It’s exquisite.”

      “I agree it’s perfection.”

      Goosebumps broke out on Lauren’s arms. This was the garden her grandmother had talked about!

      Lauren had come to the desert to walk in Celia’s steps. Who would have dreamed she’d do it literally.

      She’d always thought herself a down-to-earth, sensible person, but a force outside her sphere of understanding was at work here and it stemmed from the man seated across from her.

      Feeling the full intensity of his eyes on her rather than garden, she was afraid to look at him directly. He was too powerfully striking. His unconscious arrogance of demeanor, his fierce male beauty, didn’t need the embellishment of this glorious night to cause the blood to pound in her ears.

      Something had to be seriously wrong with her to be sitting here mesmerized by this masculine force of nature whose roots had sprung from an unforgiving desert. Refusing to let him know how much his comments and nearness disturbed her, she looked down at the food placed in front of her.

      There were slices of melon, fruit ice and tender portions of lamb with potatoes. She’d been so enthralled by him, she hadn’t even noticed they’d been served, yet he was already eating with pleasure.

      She sipped her hot sweet coffee first. “You keep late hours, Rafi. Have you no wife who’s expecting you?”

      “A pot needs the right cover. I’ve not found mine yet.”

      His admission made her heart leap. “In other words, you’re telling me in your unique way to mind my own business.” But Lauren laughed as she said it. Considering the looks of the gorgeous if not enigmatic male seated across from her, no Arabic analogy could have been more absurd.

      “I’m pleased to see I’ve been able to bring a smile to your lips. You must do it more often.”

      “I couldn’t help it. Your comment about a pot brought to mind the story of Ali Baba. All those poor thieves boiling in hot oil inside the covered pots. Such a cunning servant girl,” she said, enjoying each delicious morsel of food.

      His sudden white smile in that burnished face robbed her of breath. “She was that,” he murmured before breaking into laughter, the rich male kind she felt to her toes, deep and uninhibited.

      She sent him an oblique glance. “I have a hard time believing you’re a confirmed bachelor.”

      “I’m not,” he stated matter-of-factly, “but when that day comes, it won’t be the kind of marriage you imagine.” He drank some coffee while he ate nuts and raisins from the bowls. “It’s not written in my stars.”

      Lauren wiped the corner of her mouth. “If I didn’t know myself better, I’d have made a wrong decision and be in a bad marriage by now. Surely you’re in control of your own destiny.”

      “So far,” he said on a cryptic note.

      “Do you have family here at the oasis?”

      He eyed her for a long moment. “I have parents and siblings.”

      “You’re very fortunate. Have you lived at the oasis all your life?” She found herself wanting to know any detail he would share.

      “Apart from schooling in England and France, this has been my home. Has Switzerland always been yours?”

      “Yes, but we sometimes stayed in New York where Celia was born.”

      “Tell me about your grandmother. Had she been ill a long time before she died?”

      He’d skillfully guided their conversation away from himself. “No. Celia came down with bronchitis and it turned into pneumonia. Most people in their seventies recover, but she didn’t. Because she was such an intrepid adventurer, I assumed she’d live well into her nineties.”

      “In other words, you weren’t prepared for her death.”

      Tears stung her eyes. “I don’t think you ever are, even if you sit at someone’s bedside for months or years. She was taken from me too soon.”

      “Every

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