Strangers in the Desert Read online

  Because he didn’t really care for her, did he?

  “Sleep, Isabella,” he said.

  “Adan,” she said when he was at the door.

  “Yes?”

  She swallowed. Her throat hurt from crying. “I’m sorry.”

  He merely inclined his head before pulling the door shut with a sharp click.

  Adan didn’t sleep well. He kept tossing and turning, kicking off the covers, pulling them back again. In the next cabin, he imagined Isabella huddled beneath the blankets and sleeping soundly.

  He had to admit, when she’d walked out of the bathroom earlier with her face scrubbed clean, he’d been gutted by her expression. She’d been crying, he could tell that right away. Her skin had been pink from the hot water she must have used, but her nose was redder and her eyes were bloodshot. She looked as though she’d been through hell.

  And maybe she had. She’d seemed so stunned as she’d absorbed the news about their marriage, about Rafiq. About her death.

  Adan pressed his closed fist to his forehead. He had no room for sympathy for her. He had to do what he’d come here to do. His country depended on it. His son depended on it.

  He would not risk Rafiq’s happiness. Isabella was his mother, but what kind of mother was she? She’d abandoned her baby. Even if she truly didn’t remember doing it, she had. And she’d been in possession of all her faculties at the time. What had happened after, he did not know, but she’d chosen to leave.

  Whether she’d truly walked into the desert or whether it was a fiction she’d cooked up to cover her tracks, he wasn’t certain. But whatever the truth, her father had helped her.

  He would deal with Hassan Maro soon enough.

  Right now, he had to deal with Isabella.

  Adan threw back the covers. There was no sense in lying here any longer when he could get some work done instead. After he’d showered and shaved, he dressed in a white dishdasha and the traditional dark red keffiyeh of Jahfar.

  A new shift of flight attendants was busily preparing breakfast in the galley. When they saw him, all activity immediately stopped as they dipped into deep curtsies and bows. He was still getting used to it, really. As a prince, he’d received obeisance, but not to the level he now did as a king. It was disconcerting sometimes. He was impatient, wanted to cut right to the matter, but he realized—thanks to Mahmoud’s tutelage—that the forms were still important to people. It set him apart, and there were still those in Jahfar who very much appreciated the traditions of their ancient nation.

  “Would you like coffee, Your Excellency?” a young man asked.

  “Yes, thank you,” Adan replied. “Bring it to my office.”

  He went into the large space and sat down behind the big wooden desk. His computer fired up instantly, and he checked email. Then he brought up a window and typed in a search phrase: selective amnesia.

  The coffee arrived, and Adan drank it while he read about dissociative amnesia, systematized amnesia and a host of other disorders. It was possible, though rare, for someone to forget a specific person and all the events surrounding that person. Did Isabella know it, too? Had she looked it up and decided to use it as an excuse?

  And yet that would have required that she had known he was coming. Adan frowned. Whatever the case, he would have her examined by a doctor when they arrived.

  He picked up the phone and called his assistant in Jahfar. Adan ordered the man to request that Hassan Maro come to the palace the next day, and then asked him to find a specialist in psychological issues.

  An email from Jasmine popped into his inbox as he was finishing the call. He opened it and read her chatty missive about the fitting for her bridal costume and the preparations for their wedding feast.

  A shaft of guilt speared him. He hadn’t told her where he was going when he’d left.

  He’d known Jasmine since they were children. There’d never been a spark between them, but they liked each other. And she was kind, gentle and would make a good mother to Rafiq, as well as to their future children.

  Jasmine was a safe choice. The right choice.

  Adan worked a while longer, eating breakfast at his desk, and then emerged to find Isabella sitting in the same seat as last night, her bare legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles as she studied the papers in her fists. The papers from last night, he realized.

  She looked up as he approached. There was no smile to greet him, as there once had been. She still seemed nothing like the girl he’d married. That woman had been meek, biddable and sweetly innocent. It hit him suddenly that she’d been as forgettable as a table or a chair, or any other item you counted on but didn’t notice on a daily basis.

  This woman was sensual, mysterious and anything but biddable. There was a fire in her. A fire he’d never observed before. And he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  Her face without all the makeup was as pure as an angel’s. Her hair was as wild as yesterday, dark gold with lighter streaks that didn’t come from a salon. He’d only ever seen her with long, straight locks that she usually wore in a loose chignon. This was a completely bohemian, surfer-girl style that he wasn’t accustomed to.

  She was wearing a dress today, a blue cotton sundress that showed too much skin for his liking, and a pair of sandals.

  “You slept well?” he asked.

  Her green eyes were still smoky, though not as smoky as yesterday when they’d been surrounded in dark makeup. She looked troubled, not rested.

  “As well as can be expected, I guess.”

  He understood the sentiment.

  “We will arrive in Jahfar in another three hours or so,” he said.

  She set the papers aside. “And what happens then, Adan?”

  “Many things, I imagine,” he replied, purposely keeping it vague.

  “When can I see … Rafiq?”

  He noticed that she swallowed before she said his son’s name. His son, not hers. Not anymore. She’d given up that right two years ago. And he would not subject Rafiq to any confusion, not when he was about to marry Jasmine.

  “You cannot, I’m afraid. It is out of the question.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ISABELLA stared up at him, wondering if the shock and hurt she felt were showing on her face, or if it was only inside that she was being clawed to ribbons. The pain was immense, but she refused to cry. She was finished with crying. She’d cried in the bathroom and she’d cried in her bed in the night while the plane’s engines droned endlessly on, but she would not cry again.

  Nor would she accept his decrees as if he were her own personal dictator.

  “Perhaps I shouldn’t have phrased it that way,” she said. “It wasn’t truly a question.”

  He looked so hard and handsome in his dishdasha and headdress. His dark eyes glittered in that hawklike face. His lips, no matter how they flattened or frowned or grew firm with irritation, managed to be much more sexy than she would like them to be.

  “You cannot see him,” he pronounced. “It will confuse him.”

  Anger burst in her belly like a firecracker. “He’s two, Adan. How will it confuse him?”

  He blew out a hard breath. “You know nothing of him. You will not presume to tell me what is best for my son.”

  “Our son.”

  He got to his feet in a swirl of robes. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw one of the flight attendants backing away. Everyone treated him as if he were a god. As if he controlled their destinies and made the sun shine or the rain fall on their rooftops.

  She would not do the same.

  Isabella shot to her feet and faced him squarely. Everything she’d known about herself and her life was in the gutter now, and he thought she would meekly accept his decrees? Especially a decree that regarded her child?

  “I’m his mother,” she said before he could turn and walk away from her.

  “You gave birth to him,” Adan snapped. “But it takes more than that to make a mother.”

  She clenched her
hands into fists at her side. Her heart pounded, and the remnants of her headache made her temples throb oh so lightly.

  “I realize that.”

  “Do you?” he said, his jaw rigid with anger. “When, precisely, did you have this revelation?”

  “Adan—”

  “Did you consider it in the moments before you made your decision? Those last moments before you left your infant alone in your father’s house?”

  Every word was like a physical blow. And yet she could not back down. She had to be firm, had to stand up under the onslaught, or be crushed forever by his fury and derision.

  “I left him alone? There was no one else in the house?”

  His jaw flexed. “There were servants, but that’s not the same as a mother.”

  Her heart hurt. Why had she done such a thing? Why? “And you would continue to deprive him of a mother now that you’ve found me?”

  “He does not need you,” Adan said, and her heart shattered anew.

  “How do you know?” she flung at him. “Is this merely because you’ve decreed it must be? Or do you truly know what’s in the mind of a child?”

  “Don’t test my patience, Isabella.” His voice was a feral growl.

  And she didn’t care. She took a step closer, hands on hips, and glared up into his glittering obsidian eyes. “Then why in the hell am I here, Adan? What do you want from me?”

  “You know what I want. You’ve already named it.”

  Her blood began to beat harder in her veins. Her head felt light suddenly. Dark spots swam in her vision.

  No. She would not be so silly as to pass out simply because he wanted a divorce.

  She didn’t really know him. Didn’t love him. His rejection shouldn’t matter.

  It didn’t matter.

  But the child did. Rafiq. Her baby. The baby who was also a stranger to her, but who was a part of her flesh and blood. He carried her DNA. He was half her. She would not give him up when she’d just found him.

  “I won’t divorce you,” she said, her voice as low and hard as she could make it. It didn’t even come close to his, however.

  “You don’t have a choice, Isabella. Have you forgotten that we are Jahfaran?”

  She thrust her chin out and shoved her hair from her face. “By Jahfaran you mean that you hold all the power. No, I haven’t forgotten that. But I don’t intend to make it easy for you.”

  He blinked. “You,” he said very dangerously, “don’t intend to make it easy for me?”

  And then he burst into laughter, startling her with the richness of the sound. It was funny, of course, because he was right: she had no power. There was nothing she could do, really.

  Still, she didn’t intend to go down easily. “I’ll fight you. Whatever it takes, I’ll do it. I won’t let you take my child away from me before I’ve ever had the chance to know him.”

  He closed the distance between them, looming over her like a tall and menacing shadow. “You made your choice two years ago. You have nothing to fight me with.”

  They stared at each other for several moments.

  And then he lifted his hand. She flinched, but refused to cower. His fingers touched her—so softly, so lightly. They stroked down her cheek, her neck, back up the other side to the opposite cheek. Rivulets of flame trailed in their wake. Her skin prickled with heat, cooled and then heated again.

  Her lips parted, her tongue darting out to moisten them. His gaze sharpened, followed the motion.

  “You had it all, Isabella,” he said softly, so very softly. “A wealthy husband, a child and the possibility of more. But it wasn’t enough for you. We weren’t enough for you. Tell me why I would ever give you that chance again.”

  She swallowed. His eyes were full of emotion, though she wasn’t sure which emotion.

  A thought struck her like a lightning bolt. She could hardly believe it was possible, considering how he’d told her they’d barely known one another, but what if it was? What if it explained everything?

  “Were you …” She swallowed again. “Were you in love with me? Is that why you’re so angry?”

  He looked surprised. But then he shook his head slowly, his eyes mocking her. “Not at all. It was you who loved me.”

  She stiffened beneath his touch, that soft stroking of her skin that she shouldn’t be allowing and yet couldn’t seem to pull away from. “How do you know that?”

  This time the expression on his face was one of pity. “Because you told me so.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she said automatically. If she’d been in love with this man, wouldn’t she have known it? Wouldn’t she feel some sort of connection even now, even with her memory damaged?

  “Believe what you wish, Isabella. It does not change the truth.” His hand dropped away. She wanted to protest, wanted to ask him to keep touching her, but she did not. “And yet it was a lie, wasn’t it? Because if you had loved me—loved us—you would not have run away.”

  “This is very convenient for you,” she said, her soul aching. “If I protest or disagree, you simply tell me that I did this terrible thing, knowing I cannot argue with you. Knowing that I don’t remember what truly happened.” She put her fists on her hips and glared at him. “How do I know you weren’t involved? What if everything you say is a lie?”

  “There was a time long ago in Jahfar,” he said, “when calling me a liar would have got you a death sentence.”

  “Well, thank God we live in enlightened times!” she snorted.

  Behind Adan, another flight attendant had stopped with one foot in the air as if she had been arrested in motion. She pivoted and started to walk away.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Isabella exploded. “Why does everyone tiptoe around you like you’re about to chop off their heads?”

  She hurried past Adan and caught up with the woman. “If you wish to speak to him, please come do so.”

  The girl bowed her head. “His Excellency is busy. I will come another time.”

  Isabella’s blood boiled. She’d had it with his high-handedness, and she didn’t care if he was the prince of the universe. People had jobs to do, and they couldn’t do it with him carrying on like a wounded lion.

  “You wished to ask if we wanted drinks? Food?”

  “Drinks, Your Highness.”

  Isabella was taken aback at the title and almost corrected the girl.

  Until she remembered. She was a princess, at least for the moment, and though the staff hadn’t seemed to know it when she’d boarded, they certainly knew so now that she and Adan had been arguing so loudly.

  “I would like water with lemon, please.” She turned to look at Adan, who was still glowering in the same spot. “Your Worship, would you like anything to drink?”

  She thought she saw his jaw grinding. “No.”

  “Very well.” She turned back to the girl. “I’ll just have that water, then.”

  “Yes, Your Highness.” She dipped into a curtsey and was gone, hurrying toward the galley at double speed.

  “I don’t know how you live with yourself,” Isabella said. “Terrorizing women, demanding obedience and glaring at everything in sight. Wouldn’t you like, just once, for someone to want to talk to you without being terrified about what you’ll do or say?”

  His expression was stone. “This will no doubt come as a surprise to you, but I don’t terrorize anyone. They obey me because it is my due.”

  Isabella returned to her seat and sank down into it. “You are a deluded man, then. Because from where I’m sitting, you pretty much terrorize everyone.”

  “You don’t seem terrorized,” he remarked somewhat wryly.

  “I’m trying very hard not to be.”

  The flight attendant returned with a glass of mineral water and a plate of sliced lemons. She set it on the table in front of Isabella and curtsied again. “Will that be all, Your Highness?”

  “Thank you, yes.”

  The girl then asked Adan if he would like anything after al
l. He replied that he would not, and she disappeared into the galley.

  Isabella squeezed a lemon slice into the glass and sipped the cool, bubbly water. It felt good against her throat, which was sore from a night of singing and crying. She pointedly ignored Adan, staring out the window instead. It was day now, and they were high over the clouds.

  “You have changed, Isabella.”

  She looked up at him, her heart flipping at the heat and anger in those dark, dark eyes. “Everything has changed,” she said softly. “It’s adapt or die. I prefer to adapt.”

  “You will soon be returning to Hawaii, so do not adapt too much.”

  Her stomach tightened, but she refused to react. “You won’t frighten me away, Adan. No matter what you do, you won’t frighten me away.”

  “It would be unwise of you to plan for a future in Jahfar,” he warned. “You will only be there as long as it takes to sort out the legal tangle of you being alive rather than dead.”

  “I will not be silent. And I will not fade away into the night like a ghost, no matter how you might wish it.”

  He considered her for a long moment. “And yet, that is not your choice to make.”

  Stepping off the plane onto Jahfaran soil was like stepping from a refrigerator into a blast furnace. The sun beat down on the white tarmac, reflecting light into her eyes. Isabella wore sunglasses, but she felt as if her corneas were burning nonetheless.

  She’d forgotten how bright, how hot, how desolate Jahfar could be. Especially compared to the lush verdancy of Hawaii.

  In the distance, date palms lined the runway. Farther away, stark sandstone mountains loomed in the background. It was home, and it was foreign.

  Three black Mercedes limousines sat nearby, and a team of dark-suited men with earpieces waited stoically beside them. Several men in white dishdashas, wearing traditional keffiyehs, stood in a cluster near the bottom of the stairs. A red carpet had been rolled out from the plane to the cars.

  Adan preceded her down the stairs. The men at the bottom sank to their knees and touched their heads to the ground as he approached. Isabella stopped short. This was the greeting given to the ruler, not to a royal family member.