Strangers in the Desert Read online

  “It’s okay, Grant,” he heard her say behind him. “I’ll talk to him for a few minutes.”

  Grant looked confused. But then he nodded once and tapped Makuna on the arm. The two of them melted away from the door, and Adan was once more alone with Isabella.

  “Wise decision,” he said.

  She sank onto the chair she’d originally been sitting in. Her fingers trembled as they shoved her riot of dark golden hair from her face. Her heavily made-up eyes stared at him in confusion.

  “Why would you think I’m your wife? I’ve never been married.”

  Anger clawed at his insides. “Deny it all you like, but it won’t make it any less true.”

  Her brows drew down as she stared at him. “I don’t know why you’re telling me this, or why you think I’m your wife. I’ve never met you. I don’t even know your name.”

  He didn’t believe it for a moment. “Adan,” he said, because arguing about it was pointless when she insisted on carrying through with her fiction.

  “Adan,” she repeated. “I left Jahfar a long time ago. I think I’d remember a husband.”

  “I won’t play this game with you, Isabella,” he growled. “Do you really expect me to believe you don’t remember? How stupid do you think I am?”

  She frowned deeply. “I never said that. I said I didn’t know you. I think you’ve confused me with someone else. It’s not unusual for men to try and get close to me in this business. They see me sing and they think I’m available for an easy hookup. But I’m not, okay?”

  Adan wanted to shake her. “You are Isabella Maro, daughter of Hassan Maro and an American woman, Beth Tyler. Nearly three years ago, you and I were wed. Two years ago, you walked into the desert and were never seen again.”

  He couldn’t bring himself to mention Rafiq to her, not when she was so obviously trying to play him for a fool.

  She blinked, her expression going carefully blank. And then she shook her head. “No, I …”

  “What?” he prompted when she didn’t continue.

  She swallowed. “I had an accident, it’s true. But I’ve recovered.” Her fingers lifted to press against her lips. He noticed they were trembling. “There are things that are fuzzy, but—” She shook her head. “No, someone would have told me.”

  Everything inside him went still. “Someone? Who would have told you, Isabella? Who knows you are here?”

  She met his gaze again. “My parents, of course. My father sent me to my mother’s to recover. The doctor said I needed to get away from Jahfar, that it was too hot, too … stressful.”

  Fury whipped through him. And disbelief. Her parents knew she was alive? Impossible.

  And yet, he’d hardly seen Hassan Maro since Isabella had disappeared. The man spent more time out of the country these days than he did in it. Adan had chalked it up to his business interests and to grief over the loss of his only daughter, but what if it were more? What if Maro were hiding something?

  Was the man truly capable of helping his daughter to escape her marriage when he’d been so thrilled with the arrangement in the first place?

  Adan shook his head. She was lying, playing him, denying what she knew to be true simply because she’d been caught. She’d survived the desert, there was no doubt, and she could not have done so without help.

  But whose help?

  “I have never heard of selective amnesia, Isabella,” he growled. “How could you remember your parents, remember Jahfar—yet not remember me?”

  “I didn’t say I had amnesia!” she cried. “You did.”

  “What do you call it, then, if you say you know who you are and where you come from, but you can’t remember the husband you left behind?”

  “We’re not married,” she insisted—and yet her lower lip trembled. It was the first sign of a small chink in her armor, as if she knew she’d been caught and was desperate to escape.

  Adan hardened his resolve. She would not do so, not until he was finished with her. She had much to answer for. And much still to pay for.

  She clasped her hands in front of her body. The motion pressed her breasts together, emphasized the smooth, plump curves. A tingle started at the base of his spine and drifted outward.

  No.

  Adan ruthlessly clamped down on his libido. Was he so shallow as to allow the sight of a woman’s half-naked body to arouse him, when the woman was as treacherous as this one? When he had every reason to despise her?

  “Let’s turn this around, then,” she said, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. “Assuming for a moment that you’re correct, that we are married—where have you been and why didn’t you come for me sooner?”

  “I have been in Jahfar,” he ground out. “And, as you very well know, I believed you to be dead.”

  Her face grew pale beneath her tan. “Dead?”

  He was tired of this, tired of the caginess and obfuscation. He’d flown through several time zones and had had no sleep in his quest to learn if the picture were true, if the woman holding a microphone and peering up at the camera as if to a secret lover was indeed his wife. He’d told himself it wasn’t possible. She could not have survived.

  But then he’d walked into this bar and seen her standing there, her face so familiar and so strange all at once, and he’d known the truth.

  And he was done being civil. “You walked into the desert, Isabella. What you did after that is anyone’s guess, but you did not come back out. We searched for weeks.”

  She shook her head. “It’s insane, absolutely insane.”

  “Is it?” Adan tucked his hand under her elbow and pulled her out of the chair. She rose surprisingly easily, as if she were distracted. He pointedly ignored the current of electricity that zapped through him when he touched her bare skin.

  She looked up at him, her dark, smoky eyes full of emotion. “I don’t remember.”

  He would not be moved. “Gather your things. We’re leaving.”

  Married.

  Isabella shook her head. It was impossible. But a knot of fear lodged in her stomach like a lump of ice. She had a few fuzzy spots in her memory, it was true, and yet, how could this man be a part of it? How could she possibly forget something as monumental as a husband?

  She could not. It was out of the question. Besides, her parents would not have kept this from her. Why would they do so? What terrible thing would make them do so?

  There was one way to clear this up. Isabella turned and grabbed her purse, digging through it for her cell phone.

  “What are you doing?” Adan asked.

  She whipped the phone out and held it up triumphantly.

  Her hair was in her eyes, stuck to the lipstick on her mouth, but she didn’t care. She knew she looked wild. She felt wild.

  Crazy.

  He’d said she was dead—that everyone in Jahfar believed she was dead.

  But her father knew she wasn’t, so how could that be?

  When she’d asked questions about her accident, he’d told her it was better if she did not know the specifics. She’d been in a wreck, and she’d fallen into a coma. There were drugs, pain meds, and they were making her memory fuzzy. It was nothing, he’d insisted.

  Nothing.

  Her mother, typically, hadn’t known anything about what Isabella’s life in Jahfar had been like. Beth Tyler had been gone from the country for ten years, and though she’d seemed pleased when Isabella came to stay with her, they’d both been a little relieved when Isabella had moved on.

  But if she’d been married, wouldn’t her mother have known about it? Wouldn’t she have attended the wedding?

  Now, Isabella looked up, into the hard, handsome face of the man standing so near. He didn’t look like nothing to her. Isabella gave her head a little shake. No, her parents would not have lied about this. There was no reason for it!

  “I’m calling my father,” she said as she began to scroll through the phone’s contacts. “He’ll know the truth.”

  Adan stiffened as if
she’d slapped him. “Do you mean to tell me that your father really does know you’re here?”

  Isabella frowned. “I already said so, didn’t I?”

  He swore in Arabic, a vile curse that shocked her with its vehemence and profanity. She’d been in the States for more than a year now—was it closer to two?—and she’d heard a lot of foul language. But she wasn’t accustomed to hearing it in Arabic. In Jahfar, she’d been cosseted and protected—a lady who had been bred to marry a powerful sheikh someday.

  Until her accident changed everything.

  He grabbed the phone out of her hand. “You will not call him.”

  Isabella reached for the phone, but he held it just out of range. She folded her arms and glared at him. She should be relieved. “Then I guess you’re lying to me about being married. Because my father could expose the lie, right?”

  “If it amuses you to think it, by all means do so.” He tucked the phone into his breast pocket. She tried not to let her gaze stray to the hard muscle exposed by the open V of his shirt. If she’d seen him on the beach, she’d have thought he was magnificent. No doubt about it.

  But he was hard and cold, and she had no business finding him attractive. Not to mention, he was lying.

  “If that’s not what you’re worried about, then why can’t I call him?” she challenged.

  “Because I intend to deal with him myself, when we return to Jahfar.”

  Isabella’s blood ran cold for reasons she couldn’t begin to articulate. Jahfar. The desert. The hard, harsh landscape of her father’s heritage. It was her heritage, too, and yet there was something primitive about it that she couldn’t quite make her peace with. The idea of going back caused a wave of panic to rise like bile in her throat.

  “I’m not going with you.”

  His dark eyes slid down her body, back up again. “And just how do you propose to stop me from taking you, Isabella?”

  “I’ll scream,” she said, her heart thudding a million miles an hour.

  “Will you now?” He was so cool, so smug, that a knot of fear gathered in her stomach and refused to let go. He would throw her over his shoulder and haul her bodily out of here. He was big enough and bold enough to do it.

  “They won’t let you take me. My friends will help,” she said with as much bravado as she could muster.

  His laugh was not in the least bit amused. “They are welcome to try. But Isabella, I have my own personal security. If anyone touches me, they will assume it is an assassination attempt. I cannot be responsible for the measures they might take.”

  Ice coated the chambers of her heart. He was every bit as cold and cruel as he seemed. And she had no doubt he would take delight in hurting anyone who attempted to stop him.

  “It’s no wonder I can’t remember you,” she said bitterly. “You’re a tyrant. Being married to you would be hell on earth, I’m sure. Any woman would do better walking into the desert to die than staying with you.”

  The corners of his mouth tightened. “Would to God that you had truly done so and saved me the trouble of dealing with you now.”

  She couldn’t say why, but her heart constricted. Why did she care? He meant nothing to her. She didn’t even like him.

  “If we are married, then why don’t you save us both a lot of trouble and divorce me? You’re a Jahfaran male. The power is yours,” she said as coldly as she could.

  Would to God that you had truly done so and saved me the trouble …

  His cruel words echoed in her head. She meant nothing to him. She was a problem, an embarrassment. An issue to be dealt with.

  It was too much like her childhood, when she’d felt like an object that her parents fought over after the divorce. An issue they would never solve. She’d tried to be good, tried to be so good and perfect for them both. But she could not please them, no matter how she tried.

  Isabella swallowed angry tears. She was finished with trying to please anyone but herself.

  “If only it were that easy,” he growled. “But circumstances have changed, and we must return to Jahfar.”

  “You can’t simply expect me to leave with you when you’ve given me no proof. To me, you’re a stranger. I don’t know you, and I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  His eyes hardened. “What proof would you have me give you? Shall I tell you that we met only a week before we married, and that you were as frightened and meek as a lamb? Or perhaps you’d like to hear that the wedding feast went on for three days and cost in excess of a half-million American dollars? Or that your father was supremely pleased that he’d managed to wed you to a prince?”

  Isabella’s stomach went into a free fall. “A prince? You’re a prince?”

  “I was,” he said, and though she didn’t know what he meant by that, she didn’t ask.

  She wiped damp palms across her sarong. It simply couldn’t be true. Status was everything in Jahfar. If her father had managed to arrange a marriage with the royal family, he’d have been so proud. He would not have lied about it.

  “Tell me something about me,” she said, apprehension fluttering inside her belly along with the first swirling current of doubt. “Tell me something no one else knows.”

  “You were a virgin.”

  She stamped down on the blush that threatened. Was a virgin? “That wouldn’t have been a secret. Tell me something I might have told you, something personal.”

  He flung his hands wide in exasperation. “Such as? You weren’t very talkative, Isabella. I believe you once said that your single goal in life was to please me.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” she answered, her voice little more than a whisper. Because she had been raised to please a man, to be the perfect wife, and it was exactly the sort of thing she would have been expected to say. But to actually have said it? To this man?

  “Enough,” he said, slashing a hand in the air before reaching into his khakis and pulling out a cell phone. “We are leaving.”

  “Wait just a damn minute,” Isabella cried, closing the distance between them and grabbing his wrist before he punched the buttons. He wasn’t listening to her, and she wasn’t about to meekly accept his decree.

  Heat sizzled into her where she gripped him. So much heat. Her fingers couldn’t span his wrist.

  He gazed down at her with glittering dark eyes. His sensual mouth was flat, hard. She wondered what he looked like when he smiled. Black stubble shadowed his jaw, so sexy and alluring that she wanted to reach up and feel the roughness against her palm.

  His gaze settled on her mouth, and she suddenly had a picture in her head of him kissing her. The image was shocking. And she didn’t know whether it was a memory or a desire.

  Yet her body responded to the very real longing it called up, softening, melting, aching. The moment spun out between them until she felt as if they must have been standing this way for hours.

  He swore softly in Arabic, and then he broke her grip on his wrist and tangled both his hands in her hair. Something dropped and hit the woven rug beneath their feet. Her heart thundered in her chest, her throat. He took a step closer until he was inside her space, dominating her space. She wanted to pull away, and yet she couldn’t do so. She didn’t like men who tried to dominate her—

  And yet …

  And yet …

  Hands still tangled in her hair, he tugged her head back, exposing the column of her throat. He was so much taller than she was. She should feel vulnerable and afraid, but she did not.

  “See if you remember this,” he growled.

  His head descended and her eyes dropped closed without conscious thought. He was going to kiss her, and she realized with complete shock that she wanted it. How could she want it when she didn’t even like him?

  But she did. And she knew she would hate herself for the weakness later.

  His mouth didn’t claim hers, however. Instead, she felt the touch of his lips—those hard, sensual lips—in the tender hollow of her throat. She gasped as sensation rocked her, th
robbed deep in her core.

  His tongue traced the indent of her collarbone. He pulled her head back farther, forcing her to arch her body against his. Her breasts thrust into his chest, into the warmth and solidity of him. Her nipples were aching peaks against the thin cups of her bikini. Surely, he knew it, too. She was embarrassed—and not embarrassed.

  Her hands tangled in the silk of his shirt, clinging for dear life as his mouth moved up her throat, his kisses stinging her with need.

  And then he claimed her mouth. She opened to him, let him sink into her, met him as an equal. The ache inside her chest was new, and not new. She thrust away thoughts of a possible past she couldn’t remember and tried to focus on the now.

  On the way he kissed her as if she was the only woman in the world. The heat between them was incredible. Had she really been chilled only moments ago? Because now she wanted to tear at the layers of clothes between them, to remove all barriers, to quench this fire the only way it could be quenched: by opening her body to him, by joining with him until the fire burned itself out.

  If what he said were true, then how many times had they begun just like this? How many times had they lost themselves in each other’s embrace after a scorching kiss? She couldn’t ever remember being with this man—being with any man—and yet her body knew. Her body knew.

  One hand left her hair, spanned her rib cage, his fingers brushing beneath her breast. She couldn’t stop the little moan that escaped her as he gently pinched her nipple through the fabric. The sweet spike of pleasure shot through her, connecting to her center. Liquid heat flooded her, so foreign and familiar all at once.

  She became aware of something else then, as her body ached for more touching, more soft exploration. Of something thick and hard pressing into her abdomen. The first ribbon of unease rippled inside her. This couldn’t be a good idea.

  She couldn’t give herself to him. She simply couldn’t. She’d already let it go too far.

  She should have never touched him. She didn’t understand it, but it had been like setting a match to dry tinder.

  She could feel an answering change in him, as if he too were confused and wary about what was happening between them. Before she could push him away, he stepped back, breaking the contact between their bodies.