Desert Hearts

“Yes. That’s fine. Thanks again.”

“My pleasure, miss. I’ll get that coffee now.”

“Black, please.”

“Black it is.”

Rachel brought her seat upright and looked out the window. Were they as high over the earth as they’d been before? It was hard to tell. The long flight, the change in time zones … all of it was disorienting—though not as disorienting as being plucked out of your own life at the command of a prince.

Was he still seated in the middle of the plane? She wanted to turn around and look but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

What was he doing? Was he asleep? Was he working on those papers he’d taken from his attaché case? Was he staring out the window the way she was while he planned his next move?

She could find out.

She didn’t have to make a point of looking at him. All she had to do was rise from her seat and walk to the lavatory in the rear of the plane.

She needed to do that, anyway, sheikh or no sheikh.

Quickly, before she could change her mind, Rachel rose to her feet.

He was still seated where he’d been all along. His seat was halfway reclined; he looked completely relaxed, long legs stretched out, big shoulders pressed against the leather seat-back, hands folded loosely in his lap.

And his face …

Her breath caught.

It was an incredible face.

His eyes were shut; his lashes, so thick and dark a woman would kill for them, lay arced against his chiseled cheekbones. Stubble smudged his jaw.

He was—there was no other word for it—beautiful.

Dark. Sleek. A magnificent predatory animal.

A panther.

His eyes flew open and met hers. His pupils contracted; she saw his mouth thin.

Heat flared in her belly.

She stared at his mouth, remembered the silken feel of it against hers …

Stop it!

She wanted to run, but you didn’t try to escape from a panther. You stood your ground.

Head up, eyes straight ahead, she walked briskly past him to the lavatory, shut the door—

And fell back against it, heart at full gallop.

This had to stop.

He was the enemy. He was a very dangerous enemy. There was no reason for her to be attracted to him. She’d never been drawn to bad boys at the age some girls were, and she’d certainly never been drawn to the grown-up version.

Bad boys were Suki territory, not hers.

Okay. A couple of deep breaths. A couple of slow exhalations. Then she stepped away from the door.

The bathroom held a marble sink and vanity, a glass-enclosed shower, a toilet and glass-fronted cabinets neatly stocked with folded towels, packaged soaps, toothbrushes and pretty much everything anyone could want.

Rachel gave the shower a look of longing but, no, she wasn’t going to use it. The thought of stripping naked with only the door between the Sheikh and her brought back the memory of what had happened this morning. Or yesterday morning. Or, dammit, whatever day this was and that had been …

What did the day matter?

It was what had happened that counted.

Karim, his eyes going dark as he looked at her naked body. His hands cupping her breasts, his fingers feathering over her suddenly erect nipples, the liquid heat gathering low in her belly …

A moan rose in her throat.

She bit it back and stared at herself in the mirror.

“He caught you by surprise,” she said.

Her reflection returned the stare. Really? it said in a sly voice. So what are you saying, hmm? That you’ve never been caught by surprise before?

Rachel blinked.

Why was she wasting time and energy over this? What happened next was all that mattered. She had to be prepared to deal with it.

But not looking like this.

Looks were important. Another Mama-ism, like the one about first impressions and, again, true enough. Look weak, people saw you as weak. Look tough, they figured that you were.

Right now, she looked pitiful.

Red-rimmed eyes. The pallor that came of exhaustion. Hair that was half in, half out of a ponytail.

“You,” she told her reflection, “look worn and defeated. Is that how you want his Imperial Sheikhiness to see you?”

The answer was obvious.

So she got busy. Used the toilet. Ran water into the sink. Washed her hands and face with a soapy liquid that smelled like lemons. Brushed her teeth. Yanked her hair free of the band that constrained it and then combed it again and again until it was tangle-free.

Then she stood tall and looked into the mirror again.

“Better,” she said.

Not much, but anything was an improvement.

A deep breath. A toss of her head. Then she unlocked the door, started up the aisle …

The plane hit an air pocket. Not much of an air pocket, just enough to make her stumble. The problem was that it happened just as she reached the seat where he was sitting.

Not again, she thought as his hand shot out and closed around her wrist.

The panther was wide awake.

His fingers were warm and hard against her skin. Rachel looked at him. He looked at her. Say something, she told herself, and she forced a polite smile.

“Thank you.”

“Amazing.”

“What?”

“That ‘thank you.’ Surely that’s a phrase I never thought to hear you say, habibi.”

He was smiling. It wasn’t much of a smile, only a tilt of his lips, but it was so private and sexy that, just for an instant, she wanted to smile back.

She didn’t, of course. All the sexy smiles in his no doubt considerable repertoire wouldn’t be enough to lull her into forgetting who he was and what he wanted.

“I am polite when politeness is appropriate,” she said coolly.

This time, he grinned.

“Nicely done. It takes talent to deliver a remark that sounds polite but is really an insult.” He tugged on her hand. “Sit down.”

“Thank you, but I’m fine.”

“Two thank-yous—only one with real validity. Sit down, please. Is that better?”

What now? If she refused, would he let go of her, or would he force her to take the seat next to his? Finding out might not be worth what it would cost in terms of losing face over such a stupid game.

Rachel shrugged and slipped into the seat nearest to him.

“Good,” he said, and let go of her wrist. “Moira’s bringing us coffee. And something to eat.”

“She’s bringing me coffee at my seat. And I’m not hungry.”

“Don’t be foolish, Rachel. Of course you’re hungry. Besides, in my country, refusing to break bread with someone is a discourtesy.”

“We’re not in your country.”

“But we are.” The flight attendant came down the aisle, pushing a small wheeled cart laden with trays of fruit, cheese and small sandwiches as well as a silver coffee service.

To her horror, Rachel’s belly growled. Karim grinned.

“So much for not being hungry.” He waved the attendant away, poured two cups of coffee, then picked up a plate and filled it with tiny sandwiches and fruit. “And so much for not being in my country.” He looked at her as he handed her the plate, silverware and an enormous linen napkin. “I am a prince.”

“So you’ve made clear.”

“I am my country’s diplomat.”

“How nice for you,” Rachel said sweetly.

“It means that wherever I live is a part of Alcantar.” Karim sipped his coffee. “My home in New York. My weekend place in Connecticut.” He paused. “This aircraft. When you are in those locations you are subject to the laws of my people. Do you understand?”

“I’m an American citizen. You can’t simply—”

“This is not subject to debate. It is fact. When you are on what you Americans would call my turf, the laws of Alcantar apply.”

Rachel’s hand shook. Carefully, she put down the coffee cup.

“Stop talking in circles,” she said flatly. “And stop telling me you can do whatever you wish about Ethan. I’m a citizen. So is he. End of story.”

“Perhaps you’d let me finish speaking before you start lecturing me.” Karim waited. Then he cleared his throat. “I have been thinking …”

“Am I supposed to be impressed?”

He wanted to laugh. So determined to show no weakness—but he’d noticed how her hand had trembled. She was, indeed, an interesting woman. Tough and tender at the same time. Loving, at least to the child.

Would she be like that in bed?

Dammit, he had to stop his thoughts from wandering.

“We are adults,” he said calmly. “And we both want what is best for the boy.”

“Ethan, you mean.”

“Yes. We want the right thing for him. There’s no reason we should be enemies.”

“And what is it you see as the right thing, Your Highness?”

“Please. Call me Karim.”

What kind of game was this?

Rachel sipped her coffee, hid her confusion in the cup. This was a new approach but she wasn’t buying it, not for a second.

Maybe he’d spent the flight reviewing the situation and he’d decided it would be simpler to have her cooperation than to fight for it.

And maybe it took one liar to see through the falsehoods told by another, because it was painfully obvious that they didn’t want the same thing for Ethan at all.

She wanted her baby to be raised with love and warmth.

He wanted him to be raised as Rami’s son. And just look at how well that had turned out for Rami, she thought coldly.

“I’m glad we agree on the importance of Ethan’s welfare,” she said politely. “But—”

“Why did my brother abandon you?”

The question took her by surprise.

“You know, I really don’t want to talk about—”

“Why not? I should think you’d have a lot to say about a man who was your lover, who made a child with you and then left you both.”

“That’s in the past. And—”

“Did he not make any financial arrangements for you and the baby?”

Rachel put down her cup.

“I appreciate your concern, Your Highness, but as I said, that’s in the past.”

“And this is the future with which my brother should have been concerned. He made no provisions for you or the boy, did he?”

She stared at him. His face was taut with anger. At Rami, she realized, not at her.

It made her feel guilty about the lies she’d told him, the one enormous lie, and wasn’t that ridiculous?

“Did he walk out? Did he at least tell you he was leaving?”

Rachel shook her head.

“No,” she said softly. That, at least, was true.

There was a silence.

“But he cared for you,” Karim finally said.

Rachel didn’t answer. A couple of seconds went by. Then he cleared his throat.

“I know it won’t change things but you should know that he was not always so—so uncaring. Our childhoods were—difficult. The things we experienced changed him.”

“And they didn’t change you?”

“I am sure they did, but we chose different ways of dealing with those experiences.” A shrug of those wide, masculine shoulders. “Who can explain why one sibling takes one approach to life and the other—”

“No one can explain it,” Rachel heard herself say.

“That’s kind of you, but—”

“It isn’t kind at all. It’s just a fact. I have—I have a sister. And—and I have better memories of her when we were little than I do of the years after.”

Karim nodded. “She is not like you,” he said quietly.

“No. We’ve always been very different.”

“And she would not fight me to keep her child, as you surely will, even though I will raise him as a prince.”

“No,” Rachel said quickly, “I don’t care that he’s a prince. He’s—he’s—”

She clamped her lips together, but it was too late.

Karim’s eyes were dark and unreadable, but there was a harshness in his voice that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

“It is too late to deny it, Rachel. The boy is Rami’s.”

She stared at him. That was what this had been about. It hadn’t been a peace offering. It had been a clever way of getting her to confess that Rami had fathered her baby.

What a fool she’d been to think this man might truly have a heart, or to forget that he was the enemy.

Rachel put her cup and plate on the cart.

“You keep missing the one thing that matters,” she said coldly. “Ethan is mine.”

“He is a prince.”

“He is a little boy. And he has a name.”

“What has that to do with anything?”

“You never use his name. You speak of him as if he were a—a thing. A commodity.”

Karim dumped his plate on the cart and shoved the cart away.

“This is ridiculous! Will it make you happy if I call him by the name my brother chose for him? Fine. I’ll do that. I’ll call him—”

Rachel shot to her feet.

“Your brother didn’t name Ethan. I did.”

Karim rose, too. If only he didn’t tower over her. She hated having to look up at him, to give him that seeming authority over her.

“In that case,” Karim said stiffly, “I apologize for him yet again. Apparently, he ignored all his responsibilities.”

“Dammit, stop apologizing for him!”

“It is my duty. I understand that he hurt you, but—”

“Hurt me?” Rachel slapped her hands on her hips. “I hated your brother!”

“And yet,” Karim said coldly, “you slept with him.”

Her cheeks heated.

“You let him put a child in your womb.”

She turned away from him and started up the aisle. Karim went after her, caught her by the shoulder and swung her toward him.

“What kind of woman are you? You hated him. But you slept with him. You let him give you a child.”

Her mouth trembled. If ever she’d wanted to tell the truth, it was now. But she couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t—

“Things—things happen,” she said, knowing just how ugly the answer sounded.

Karim’s mouth twisted with distaste.

“Is that what you say when you give yourself to a man? That things happen?”

“It wasn’t—it wasn’t the way you make it sound.”

“I’ll bet it wasn’t.” He caught her chin, forced her to look into his eyes. “Was he flush with winnings when he first bedded you?”

Rachel’s hand shot up. He caught it, caught both her wrists and imprisoned them against his chest.

“How much did you cost him? How much did it take to overcome your hatred, habibi?”

“You bastard! You miserable bastard! You don’t know anything about me. Not a damned thing—do you understand? Not one single damned—”

His mouth closed over hers.

She fought him. Struggled. And then, as before, the earth tilted beneath her feet and her mind emptied of everything but the taste of him, the feel of him, the way his arms closed around her.

He lifted her off the floor, his mouth angling over hers, plundering hers, and she tunneled her fingers into his hair as he drew her hard against him.

“I hate you,” she whispered against his mouth even as she kissed him, even as she gasped at the feel of his hands cupping her bottom. “I hate you, Karim, I hate you …”

A bell rang. It rang again, and then the pilot’s disembodied voice announced that they’d be landing in five minutes.

Karim set her on her feet. His face was all planes and angles; his eyes were dark.

Her own eyes stung with tears.

“If you ever do anything like that again …” she said, and then she clamped her lips together.

She was as much to blame as he. He’d started the kiss but she had fallen into it.

Tears of rage stung her eyes. At him? At herself? It didn’t matter. This wouldn’t happen again.

She wouldn’t let it.

She spun away, took a seat and belted herself in. The wheels kissed the runway. As soon as the plane came to a stop she undid her seat belt and got to her feet, but not in time to prevent the Sheikh from clasping her shoulder and pulling her to him.

“Welcome to New York, habibi,” he growled. “And do not make promises you won’t be able to keep.”

He bent his head to hers. Captured her mouth. She groaned, felt her body flush with heat …

And she bit him.

Bit his bottom lip hard enough to make him jerk back and let her go.

A spot of crimson bloomed against his flesh. He touched his finger to it, looked at her, and then his eyes narrowed.

“If you want to play games,” he said softly, “I’ll be happy to accommodate you.”

She wanted to respond, to make some clever remark, but her brain refused to function.

Karim kept his eyes on hers as he lowered his head again, kissed her again, a slow, lingering kiss. She tasted the salt of his blood, the heat of his hunger. She wanted to tear her lips from his but she didn’t, she didn’t—

He raised his head, looked into her flushed face with a hot glint of triumph in his eyes.

Then he brushed past her on his way to the exit door.

A chauffeured black Mercedes was waiting for them.

The driver held the door open.

The interior of the car was handsome and urbane—except for the baby seat.

The man had thought of everything.

How far was it to the hotel?

Rachel was exhausted, as desperate for sleep as she’d ever been in her life. She needed a long, hot shower, some sleep and then—

Then, freedom.

The Mercedes merged onto a multi-lane highway. What time was it, anyway? It was too dim in the car to read her watch properly. Did it say four p.m.? That was the time in Nevada, and this was New York, which meant it was—

“It’s seven,” Karim said. “In the evening.”

Rachel looked at him. “Thank you,” she said coolly, “but I didn’t ask.”

“You didn’t have to. I know you’re probably feeling disoriented.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Your Highness, but I’m not.”

“Of course you are.”

What would she gain by arguing? Instead, she stared out the window. The ride into the city seemed endless, but finally they were on a wide street, tall buildings on one side, what seemed to be a dense park on the other.

Where was the hotel?

She turned toward him. “How much further to the hotel?”

“What hotel?”

“The one where you’re stashing Ethan and me.”

He laughed. God, she wanted to slap his face!

The Mercedes pulled to the curb. The door swung open. The hotel, Rachel thought. But the man who bent down and peered into the car wasn’t a hotel doorman because what hotel doorman would all but click his heels and say, “Welcome home, Your Highness. I trust you had a good trip.”

“Home?” Rachel said. Her voice rose. “Home?”

“My home,” Karim said coldly. “My little piece of Alcantar.”

Ethan began to wail. Karim reached for him. Rachel tried to stop him. Ethan screamed louder.

“Let go of the boy,” Karim said quietly, and, really, what choice was there?

She let go, watched her baby all but disappear in the arms of the only man she’d ever hated more than she’d hated Rami, more than she’d hated the endless chain of men who had tromped through her mother’s life.

The doorman stared at her. Then he held out his hand.

“Miss?”

She slid across the soft leather seat, ignored the extended hand and marched to the lobby door. The doorman rushed by her and managed to open it just as she reached it. She breezed past him, past a high desk with another uniformed flunky seated behind it.

“Miss,” he said, as politely as if this kind of circus took place here every day.

Karim was waiting for her, standing beside an elevator with Ethan in his arms.

A smiling, gurgling Ethan.

Traitor, Rachel thought, as she stepped inside the elevator car.

Unless she was willing to walk away from her baby—and that would never happen—she was now, to all intents and purposes, the Sheikh’s prisoner.

CHAPTER EIGHT

SOMEWHERE around three in the morning, even New York City finally slept.

Not Karim.

He stood at one of the floor-to-ceiling windows in his darkened bedroom, bare-chested, wearing only gray sweatpants that were a leftover from his days at Yale. Behind him, the rumpled bed offered mute testimony to the hours he’d spent tossing and turning.

Ridiculous.

He should have been exhausted.

He hadn’t slept at all last night, and his day had started with the discovery that his brother had a child. Add in his confrontations with Rachel, the five-hour flight from Nevada to New York, the hours spent in his study, trying to catch up with the messages and emails on his cell phone and his computer …

He’d fallen into bed somewhere after midnight. Sleep should have come quickly.

It hadn’t.

Instead, he’d envisioned Rachel in a guest suite down the corridor. What was she thinking? What was she doing? Had her anger at him eased or was she still breathing fire as she had hours earlier, when she’d found out he wasn’t taking her to a hotel but to his home?

The memory almost made him laugh.

He’d never seen a woman so furious. And she hadn’t been shy about letting him know it.

He couldn’t think of another woman in his life who’d have objected to spending the night with him—but, of course, she wasn’t really spending it with him.

If she were, he wouldn’t be asleep now, either. He’d be in his bed with her in his arms …

“Hell!”

Karim strode into his bathroom, turned on the sink faucet, bent his head under the flow of cold water and took a long drink while the water cooled his face. He toweled off with impatient strokes and then went back to the window again.

He was not a man given to erotic imaginings. Why would he be, when there was always a woman eager to offer the real thing?

He wasn’t given to insomnia, either, no matter how long or difficult his day had been.

And yet he was standing here, wide awake.

Eighteen stories below, Fifth Avenue was deserted save for an occasional taxi or some unlucky dog owner being pulled along at the end of a leash. Central Park was a hushed dark green jungle on the opposite side of the street. Beyond the park, even the glittering lights of the Manhattan skyline seemed dim.

Wonderful, Karim thought grimly. The entire world was asleep except for him.

He’d never needed much sleep, four or five hours was more than enough, but he wasn’t fool enough to think he could get through a day of decision-making without some kind of rest, and tomorrow was going to be a day filled with decision-making.

After speaking with his P.A. he’d set up two meetings: breakfast with a Tokyo banker at the Regency, then midmorning coffee downtown, at Balthazar, with an official from India. At noon, he’d have lunch in the boardroom with his own staff.

He’d been away from his office far too long. He had business to conduct and he also needed to touch base with his people.

And then there was the rest.

Karim’s mouth thinned.

At two o’clock he’d meet with his attorney.

He and Rachel.

He knew it would not be easy to negotiate a custodial arrangement with her. She was going to be difficult.

What would it take to get her to give up her rights to the boy? She’d said she never would but that was talk. People always had a price. Women, especially.

Yes, they liked his looks. They liked his virility. But he knew damned well they liked his title and his wealth even more.

That was surely how Rami had caught Rachel’s attention. Money, a title …

But Rami hadn’t had money. The proof was in that desolate little apartment where he’d lived with her. As for the title … Rachel found titles laughable.

He found that amusing, because he wasn’t impressed by them, either. He had, at least, earned his own fortune, but he’d been born to the silly string of honorifics. He hadn’t done a thing to earn them but he’d grown accustomed to others not seeing things that same way.

Most people, especially women, heard who he was and began to act as if this was pre-revolutionary France and he was the Sun King. They gushed. They fluttered their lashes. He’d been on the receiving end of more than one curtsy and it always embarrassed the hell out of him when it happened.