Midnight in the Desert

Show some initiative? Dull coins of aggravated red blossomed over Ruby’s cheekbones and her sultry pink mouth compressed. Where did someone who had so far dismissed all her helpful suggestions get the nerve to taunt her with her lack of initiative? It was only an hour and a half since she had met her future husband at his hotel to sign the various forms that would enable them to get married in a civil ceremony and he was already getting on her nerves so much that she wanted to kill him! Or at the very least kick him! A high-ranking London diplomat had also attended that meeting to explain that a special licence was being advanced to facilitate their speedy marriage. Raja, she had learned, enjoyed diplomatic immunity. He was equally immune, she was discovering, to any sense of fashion or any appreciation of female superiority.

Stalking up to the rail of the town’s most expensive boutique, Ruby began to leaf through it, eventually pulling a red suit out. ‘I’ll try this one on.’

The prince’s beautifully shaped mouth curled. ‘It is very bright.’

‘You did say that a formal publicity photo would be taken and I don’t want to vanish into the woodwork,’ Ruby told him sweetly, big brown eyes wide with innocence but swiftly narrowing to stare intently at his glorious face. He was gorgeous. That fabulous bone structure and those dark deep-set eyes set below that slightly curly but ruthlessly cropped black hair took her breath away every time.

The saleswoman took the suit to hang it in a dressing room. With fluid grace Raja lifted his hand and let his thumb graze along the fullness of Ruby’s luscious lower lip. His dark eyes glittered hot as coals as he felt that softness and remembered the sweet heady taste of that succulent mouth beneath his own. Tensing, Ruby dealt him a startled look, her lips tingling at his touch while alarm tugged at her nerves. As his hand dropped she moved closer and muttered in taut warning, ‘This is business, just business between us.’

‘Business,’ the prince repeated, his accent scissoring round the label like a razor-sharp blade. Business was straightforward and Ruby Shakarian was anything but. He watched her sashay into the dressing room, little shoulders squared, hair bouncing, all cheeky attitude and surplus energy. He wanted to laugh but he had far too much tact. He didn’t agree with her description. Business? No, he wanted to have sex with her. He wanted to have sex with her very, very much. He knew that and accepted it as a natural consequence of his male libido. Desire was a predictable response in a young and healthy man when he was with a beautiful woman. It was also a positive advantage in a royal marriage. Sex was sex, after all, little more than an entertaining means to an end when children were required. Finer feelings were neither required nor advisable. Been there, done that, Raja acknowledged in a bleak burst of recollection from the past. He had had his heart broken once and had sworn he would never put it up for a woman’s target practice again.

Even so, once Ruby was his wife Raja had every intention of ensuring that the marriage followed a much more conventional path than she presently intended. Obviously he didn’t want a divorce. A divorce would mean he had failed in his duty, failed his family and failed his very country. He breathed in deep and slow at that aggrieved acknowledgement, mentally tasting the bite of such a far-reaching failure and striving not to flinch from it. After all there was only so much that he could do. It was unfair that so much should rest on his ability to make a success of an arranged marriage but Raja al-Somari had long understood that life was rarely fair. The bottom line was that he and everyone who depended on them needed their prince and princess to build a relationship with a future. And a fake marriage could never achieve that objective.

Over the three days that followed Ruby was much too busy to get cold feet about the upheaval in her life. She resigned from her job without much regret and began packing, systematically working through all her possessions and discarding the clutter while Stella lamented her approaching departure and placed an ad in the local paper for a new housemate. The day before the wedding, Hermione, accompanied by her favourite squeaky toy and copious instructions regarding her care and diet, was collected to be transported out to Ashur in advance. The memory of her pet’s frightened little eyes above her greying muzzle as she looked out through the barred door of her pet carrier kept her mistress awake that night.

The wedding was staged with the maximum possible discretion in a private room at the hotel with two diplomats acting as official witnesses. Accompanied only by Stella, Ruby arrived and took her place by Raja’s side. His black hair displaying a glossy blue-black sheen below the lights, dark eyes brilliant shards of light between the thick fringe of his lashes, Raja looked impossibly handsome in a formal, dark pinstripe suit. When he met her appraisal he didn’t smile and his lean bronzed features remained grave. She wondered what he was thinking. Not knowing annoyed her. Her heart was beating uncomfortably fast by the time that the middle-aged registrar began the short service. Raja slid a gold ring onto her finger and because it was too big she had to crook her finger to keep the ring from falling off. The poorly fitting ring struck her as an appropriate addition to a ceremony that, shorn of all bridal and emotional frills, left her feeling distinctly unmarried.

It was done, goal achieved, Raja reflected with considerable satisfaction. His bride had not succumbed to a last-minute change of heart as he had feared. He studied Ruby’s delicately drawn profile with appreciation. She might look fragile as a wild flower but she had a core of steel, for she had given her word and although he had sensed her mounting tension and uncertainty she had defied his expectations and stuck to it.

One of the diplomats shook Ruby’s hand and addressed her as ‘Your Royal Highness’, which felt seriously weird to her.

‘I’m never ever going to be able to see you as a princess,’ Stella confided with a giggle.

‘Give Ruby time,’ Raja remarked silkily.

Colour tinged Ruby’s cheeks. ‘I’m not going to change, Stella.’

‘Of course you will,’ the prince contradicted with unassailable confidence, escorting his bride over to a floral display on a table where the photographer awaited them. ‘You’re about to enter a different life and I believe you’ll pick up the rules quickly. Smile.’

‘Raja,’ Ruby whispered sweetly, and as he inclined his arrogant, dark head down to hers she snapped, ‘Don’t tell me what to do!’

‘Petty,’ he told her smoothly, his shrewd gaze encompassing the photographer within earshot.

And foolish as it was over so minor an exchange, Ruby’s blood boiled in her veins. She hated that sensation of being ignorant and in the position that she was likely to do something wrong. Even more did she hate being bossed around and told what to do and Raja al-Somari rapped out commands to the manner born. No doubt she would make the occasional mistake but she was determined to learn even quicker than he expected for both their sakes.

Chin at a defiant angle, Ruby gave Stella a quick hug, promised to phone and climbed into the limousine to travel to the airport. She would have liked the chance to change into something more comfortable in which to travel but Raja had stopped her from doing so, advising her that while she was in her official capacity as a princess of Ashur and his wife she was on duty and had to embrace the conservative wardrobe. His wife, Ruby thought in a daze of disbelief, thinking back to the previous week when she had been kissing Steve in his car. How could her life have changed so much in so short a time?

But she comforted herself with the knowledge that she wasn’t really his wife, she was only pretending. Boarding the unbelievably opulent private jet awaiting them and seeing the unconcealed curiosity in the eyes of the cabin staff, Ruby finally appreciated that pretending to be a princess married to Raja was likely to demand a fair degree of acting from her. Instead of kicking off her shoes and curling up in one of the cream leather seats in the cabin, she found herself sitting down sedately and striving for a dignified pose for the first time in her life.

Soon after take-off, Raja rose from his seat and settled a file down in front of her. ‘I asked my staff to prepare this for you.’ He flipped it open. ‘It contains photos and names for the main members of the two royal households and various VIPs in both countries as well as other useful information—’

‘Homework,’ Ruby commented dulcetly. ‘To think I thought I’d left that behind when I left school.’

‘Careful preparation should make the transition a little easier for you.’

Ruby could not credit how many names and faces he expected her to memorise, and the lengthy sections encompassing history, geography and culture in both countries made distinctly heavy reading. After a light lunch was served, Ruby took a break and watched Raja working on his laptop, lean fingers deft and fast. Her husband? It still didn’t feel credible. His black lashes shaded his eyes like silk fans and when he glanced at her with those dark deep-set eyes that gleamed like polished bronze, something tripped in her throat and strangled her breathing. He was drop-dead gorgeous and naturally she was staring. Any woman would, she told herself irritably. She didn’t fancy him; she did not.

Raja left the main cabin to change and reappeared in a white, full-length, desert-style robe worn with a headdress bound with a black and gold cord.

‘You look just like you’re starring in an old black and white movie set in the desert,’ she confided helplessly, totally taken aback by the transformation.

‘That is not a comment I would repeat in Najar, where such a mode of dress is the norm,’ Raja advised her drily. ‘I do not flaunt a Western lifestyle at home.’

Embarrassment stirring red heat in her cheeks, Ruby dealt him a look of annoyance. ‘Or a sense of humour.’

But in truth there was nothing funny about his appearance. He actually looked amazingly dignified and royal and shockingly handsome. Even so his statement that he did not follow a Western lifestyle sent an arrow of apprehension winging through her. What other surprises might lie in wait for her?

A few minutes later he warned her that the jet would be landing in Najar in thirty minutes. When she returned after freshening up he announced with the utmost casualness that they would be parting once the jet landed. She would be flying straight on to Ashur where he would join her later in the week.

Ruby was shattered by that unexpected news and her head swivelled, eyes filled with disbelief. ‘You’re leaving me to travel on alone to Ashur?’

‘Only for thirty six hours at most. I’m afraid that I can’t be in two places at once.’

‘Even on what’s supposed to be our wedding night?’ Ruby launched at him.

The prince shut his laptop and shot her a veiled look as silky as melted honey and somehow that appraisal made her tummy perform acrobatics. ‘Are you offering me one?’

The silence simmered like a kettle on the boil. Her cheeks washed with heat, Ruby scrambled to her feet. ‘Of course, I’m not!’

‘I thought not. So, what’s the problem? The exact date of our marriage will not be publicly announced. Very few people will be aware that this is our wedding night.’

Ruby almost screamed. He was not that stupid. He was seriously not that stupid and his casual reaction to her criticism enraged her. She breathed in so deep and long she was vaguely surprised that her head didn’t lift off her shoulders and float. ‘You’re asking me what the problem is? Is that a joke?’

Raja uncoiled from his seat with the fluid grace of a martial arts expert. Standing very straight and tall, broad shoulders hard as a blade, Raja rested cool eyes on her, for he was not accustomed to being shouted at and he was in no mood to become accustomed to the experience. ‘Naturally I am not joking.’

‘And you can’t see anything wrong with dumping me with a bunch of strangers in a foreign country? I don’t know anyone, don’t speak the language, don’t even know how to behave,’ Ruby yelled back at him full volume, causing the steward entering the cabin with a trolley to hastily backtrack and close the door again. ‘How can you abandon me like that?’

The prince gazed down at her with frowning dark eyes, exasperated by her ignorance. Clearly she had no concept of the extensive planning and detailed security arrangements that accompanied his every movement and that would soon apply equally to hers. Familiar as Raja was with the military precision of planning a royal schedule set in stone often months in advance, he saw no room for manoeuvre or a change of heart. ‘Abandon you? How am I abandoning you?’

Made to feel as if she was being melodramatic, Ruby reddened and pursed her sultry mouth. ‘You’re supposed to be my husband.’

Taken aback by the reminder, Raja quirked an expressive ebony brow. ‘But according to you we’re only faking it.’

‘Well, you’re not faking it worth a damn!’ Ruby condemned with furious bite, strands of hair shimmying round her flushed cheekbones, eyes accusing. ‘A husband should be loyal and supportive. I don’t know how to be a princess yet and if I make mistakes I’m likely to offend people. Hasn’t that occurred to you? You can’t leave me alone in a strange place. I don’t know how to give these people what they expect and deserve and I was depending on you to tell me!’

Unprepared for his gutsy bride to reveal panic, Raja frowned, setting his features into a stern mask. ‘Unfortunately arrangements are already in place for us to go our separate ways this afternoon. It is virtually impossible to make last-minute changes to that schedule. We’re about to land in Najar, I’m expected home and you’re flying on to Ashur by yourself.’

Suddenly mortified by the nerves that had got the better of her composure, Ruby screened her apprehensive gaze and said stiffly as she took her seat with determination again, ‘Fine. Don’t worry about it—I’m sure I’ll manage. I’m used to being on my own.’

Ruby didn’t speak another word. She was furious with herself for revealing her insecurity. What on earth had she expected from him? Support? When had she ever known a man to be supportive? Raja had his own priorities and they were not the same as hers. As he had reminded her, their marriage, their very relationship, was a fake. As, to be fair, she had requested. Her soft, full mouth curved down. Clearly if she wasn’t sleeping with him she was on her own and that was nothing new….

CHAPTER FOUR

THE instant Ruby stepped out of the plane the heat of the sun engulfed her in a powerful wave, dewing her upper lip with perspiration and giving the skin below her clothes a sticky feeling. In the distance an architectural triumph of an airport building glinted in the sun. A man bowed low in front of her and indicated a small plane about fifty yards away. Breathing in deep and slow to steady her nerves, Ruby followed him.

At the top of the steps and mere seconds in her wake, the prince came to a dead halt, rare indecision gripping him.

‘You’re supposed to be my husband … loyal and supportive.’

‘How can you abandon me?’

His stubborn jaw line clenched. He gritted his teeth. He could not fault her expectations. Would he not expect similar consideration from her? He was also a very masculine guy and it went against the grain to ignore her plea for help. At a time when her role was still so new to her, even a temporary separation was a bad idea. Of course she was feeling overwhelmed and he was well aware that people would be only too willing to find fault when she made innocent mistakes. He strode down the steps, addressed the court official waiting to greet him and politely ignored the surprise, dismay and the sudden burst of speech that followed his declaration of a change of plan. All the signs were that the little plane parked on the asphalt was almost ready to take off and, determined not to miss his chance to join his bride, Raja headed straight for it. His security chief ran after him only to be waved away for so small a craft had only limited room for passengers.

Ruby buckled her belt in the small, stiflingly hot compartment. She had never flown in so small a plane before and she felt utterly unnerved by her solitary state. When a young man approached her with a bent head and a tray to proffer a glass she was quick to mutter grateful thanks and grasp it, drinking down the fragrantly scented chilled drink, only to wince at the bitter aftertaste it left in her mouth. She set the empty glass back on the tray with a strained smile and the steward retreated again.

A split second later, she heard someone else board and Raja dropped down into the seat by her side. Astonished by his reappearance, Ruby twisted round to study him. ‘You’ve changed your mind? You’re coming with me?’

Raja basked in the glowing smile of instant relief and appreciation she awarded him.

Ruby recalled him asking her if she was offering him a wedding night. Although she had said no, his change of heart made her worry that they had got their wires crossed. But wasn’t that a stupid suspicion to cherish? A guy with his looks would scarcely be so desperate that he would nurture such a desire for an unwilling woman.

The same young man reappeared with a second glass but when he focused on Raja, he suddenly froze and then he fell to his knees in the aisle and bowed his head very low, almost dropping the tray in the process.

Raja reached for the drink. The steward drew the tray back in apparent dismay and Raja had to lean out of his seat to grasp the glass.

‘What’s wrong with him?’ Ruby whispered as the steward backed nervously out of the plane again. As the door slammed shut the engines began revving.

‘He didn’t realise who I was until he saw me up close. He must have assumed I was one of your guards when I boarded.’

The plane was turning. ‘I have guards now?’

‘I assume they’re seated with the pilot. Of course you have guards,’ Raja advanced, gulping back the drink and frowning at the acidic flavour. ‘Wajid will have organised protection for you.’

As a wave of dizziness ran over Ruby she blinked and took a deep breath to clear her head. ‘I’m feeling dizzy … it’s probably nerves. I don’t like small planes.’

‘You’ll be fine,’ Raja reassured her.

Ruby’s head was starting to feel too heavy for her neck and she propped her chin on the upturned palm of her hand.

‘Are you feeling all right?’ Raja asked as her head lowered.

‘Just very, very tired,’ she framed, her hands gripping the arms of her seat while the plane raced down the runway and rose into the air, the craft juddering while the engines roared.

‘Not up to a wedding night?’ Raja could not resist teasing her in an effort to take her mind off her nerves.

At that crack Ruby’s head lifted and she turned to look at him. The plane was mercifully airborne.

The pupils of her eyes had shrunk to tiny pinpoints and Raja stared. ‘Have you taken medication?’ he asked her abruptly.

‘No.’ Ruby heard her voice slur. All of a sudden her tongue felt too big and clumsy for her mouth. ‘Why?’

Raja could feel his own head reeling. ‘There must have been something in that drink!’ he exclaimed in disbelief, thrusting his hands down to rise out of the seat in one powerful movement.

‘What … you … mean?’ Ruby mumbled, her cheek sliding down onto her shoulder, her lashes drooping.

Raja staggered in the aisle and stretched out a hand to the door that led into the cockpit. But it was locked. Blinking rapidly, he shook his fuzzy head and hammered on the door, his arm dropping heavily down by his side again. Everything felt as if it were happening to him in slow motion. His legs crumpled beneath him and he fell on his knees, a bout of frustrated incredulous rage roaring up inside him and threatening to consume him. Ruby was slumped unconscious in her seat, her face hidden by her hair and he was in no state to protect her.

Ruby opened her eyes to darkness and strange sounds. Something was flapping and creaking and she could smell leather along with the faint aromatic hint of coffee. She was totally disorientated. Add in a pounding headache and the reality that her teeth were chattering with cold and she was absolutely miserable. She began slowly to shift her stiff, aching limbs and sit up. She was fully dressed but for her shoes and the ground was hard as a rock beneath her.

‘What … where am I?’ she mumbled thickly, the inside of her mouth as dry as a bone.

‘Ruby?’ It was Raja’s deep accented drawl and she stiffened nervously at the awareness of movement and rustling in the darkness.

A match was struck and an oil lamp hanging on a tent pole cast illumination on the shadowy interior and the man towering over her. She blinked rapidly, relief engulfing her when she recognised Raja’s powerful physique. Adjusting to the flickering light, her eyes clung to his hard bronzed features. In shocking defiance of the cold biting into her bones he was bare chested, well-defined hair-roughened pectorals flexing above the corrugated musculature of his abdomen. He was wearing only boxer shorts.

‘My goodness, what happened to us?’ Ruby demanded starkly, shivering violently as the chill of the air settled deeper into her clammy flesh. ‘What are we doing in a tent?’

Raja crouched down on a level with her, long, strong thighs splayed. His stunning bone structure, composed of razor-sharp cheekbones, slashing angles and forbidding hollows, momentarily paralysed her and she simply stared, mesmerised by a glorious masculine perfection only enhanced by a dark haze of stubble.

‘We were kidnapped and dumped out in the Ashuri desert. We have no phones, no way of communicating our whereabouts—’

‘K-kidnapped?’ Ruby stammered through rattling teeth. ‘Why on earth would anyone want to kidnap us?’

‘Someone who intended to prevent our marriage.’

‘But we’re already—’

‘Married,’ he slotted in flatly for her, handsome mouth hardening into a look of grim restraint as if being married was the worst thing that had ever happened to him but he was too polite to mention it. ‘Obviously the kidnappers weren’t aware of that when they planned this outrage. Apparently they assumed that our wedding would take place at the cathedral in Simis the day after tomorrow. In fact I believe a reconciliation and blessing service is actually planned for that afternoon.’

‘Oh, my word,’ she framed shakily, struggling to think clearly again. ‘The kidnappers were trying to stop us from getting married? But if we’re in the desert why is it so cold?’

‘It is very cold here at night.’ He swept up the quilt lying in a heap at her feet and wrapped it round her narrow shoulders.

‘You’re not cold,’ she breathed almost resentfully, huddling into the folds of the quilt.

‘No,’ he acknowledged.

‘Kidnapped,’ she repeated shakily. ‘That’s not what I came out here for.’

‘It may not be a comfort but I’m convinced that no harm was intended to come to you. I was not supposed to be with you. I invited that risk by changing my travel plans at the eleventh hour and boarding the same flight,’ the prince explained with sardonic cool. ‘The kidnappers only wanted to prevent you from turning up for our wedding, a development which would have offended my people enough to bring protesters out into the streets.’

‘So not everybody wants us to get married,’ Ruby registered with a frown, shooting him an accusing glance. ‘You didn’t tell me that some people were so hostile to the idea of us marrying.’

‘Common sense should have told you that but the objectors are in a minority in both countries.’

‘How do you know all this?’

‘Our captors were keen to explain their motives. The drugged drink didn’t knock me out for as long as you. I began recovering consciousness as a pair of masked men were dragging us into this tent. Unfortunately I was so dizzy I could barely focus or stand and they pulled a gun on me. I don’t think they had any intention of using it unless I managed to interfere with their escape,’ he explained heavily and she could tell from his discomfited expression just how challenging he had found it to choose caution over courage. ‘It would have been foolish to risk injury out here while you were incapacitated and without protection. I believe the men were mercenaries hired by a group of our subjects to ensure that you didn’t turn up for the wedding—’