“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. Were 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?

He gazed down at her with glittering dark eyes settling 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.

About the Author

LYNN RAYE HARRIS read her first Mills & Boon® romance when her grandmother carted home a box from a yard sale. She didn’t know she wanted to be a writer then, but she definitely knew she wanted to marry a sheikh or a prince and live the glamorous life she read about in the pages. Instead, she married a military man and moved around the world. These days she makes her home in North Alabama, with her handsome husband and two crazy cats. Writing for Harlequin Mills & Boon is a dream come true. You can visit her at www.lynnrayeharris.com

STRANGERS IN THE DESERT

LYNN RAYE HARRIS

www.millsandboon.co.uk

In memory of Sally Jo Harris, beloved aunt-in-law, intrepid adventurer, and amazing human being. I can’t believe I will never get to talk about books, travel, great coffee and fabulous food with you ever again. You brought joy wherever you went, and you left us too suddenly. We miss you.

CHAPTER ONE

“… THE possibility she is still alive.”

Adan looked up from the papers his secretary had given him to sign. He’d been only half paying attention to the functionary who’d been speaking. Since his uncle had died a week ago, there’d been so much to do in preparation for his own coronation that he often did as many things at once as he could. “Repeat that,” he ordered, every cell of his body revving into high alert.

The man who stood inside the door trembled as Adan focused on him. He bowed his head and spoke to the floor.

“Forgive me, Your Excellency. I said that in preparation for your upcoming nuptials to Jasmine Shadi, we must investigate all reports that reach us in regards to your late wife, since her body was never recovered.”

“It was never recovered because she walked into the desert, Hakim,” Adan said mildly, though irritation spiked within him. “Isabella is buried under an ocean of sand.”

As always, he felt a pang of sadness for his son. Though Adan had lost a wife, it was the fact Rafiq had lost his mother that bothered Adan most. Theirs had been an arranged marriage, not a love match. While he hoped that Isabella had not suffered, he could drag up very little emotion for her.

Isabella Maro had been beautiful, but she’d been unremarkable in every other way. Quiet, lovely and well-suited to performing the duties of their station, she’d been exactly what his wife should have been. And though he hadn’t been the heir to the throne then, he had no doubt she’d have made a lovely queen.

A lovely, bland queen.

It wasn’t her fault. Though she had been half-American, she’d been raised by her father as a traditional Jahfaran woman. He would never forget that when he’d met her shortly before their wedding, he’d asked her what she wanted out of life. She’d told him that she wanted whatever he wanted.

“There has been a reported sighting, Your Excellency.”

Adan gripped the pen he’d been signing papers with and spread his other hand flat on the desk. He needed something solid to hold on to. Something to remind him that he wasn’t in the middle of a nightmare. In order to ascend the throne formally, he needed a wife. Jasmine Shadi was to be that wife, and he was marrying her in two weeks time. There was no place in his life for a phantom.

“A sighting, Hakim?”

Hakim swallowed. His nut-brown skin glistened with moisture, though the palace had been modernized years ago and the air conditioners seemed to be working fine.

“Sharif Al Omar—a business competitor of Hassan Maro’s, Your Excellency—recently returned from a trip to the island of Maui. He says there was a singer in a bar there, a woman who called herself Bella Tyler, who resembled your late wife, sire.”

“A singer in a bar?” Adan stared at the man a full minute before he burst into laughter. Isabella had survived the desert and now sang in a bar on a remote Hawaiian island? Impossible. No one ever survived the burning Jahfaran desert if they weren’t prepared.

And Isabella had not been prepared. She’d wandered alone into the deepest wastes of Jahfar. At night. A sandstorm the next day had obliterated every trace of her, though they’d looked for weeks. “Hakim, I think Mr. Al Omar needs to see a doctor. Clearly, Hawaiian sunshine is somehow more brutal than our Jahfaran sun.”

“He took a picture, sire.”

Adan stilled. “Do you have this picture?”

“I do, sire.” The man held out a folder. Mahmoud, his secretary, took the file and set it on the desk in front of Adan. He hesitated only a moment before flipping open the cover. Adan stared at the picture for so long that the lines started to blur. It could not be her, and yet …

“Cancel all my appointments for the next three days,” he finally said. “And call the airport to ready my plane.”

The bar was crowded tonight. Tourists and locals alike jammed into the interior and spilled out the open walls onto the beach below. The sun had just started to dip into the ocean, and the sky was turning brilliant gold when Isabella walked onto the stage and took her place behind the microphone. The sun sank fast—much faster than she’d ever believed possible when she’d first arrived on the island—and then it was gone and the sky was pink, the clouds high over the ocean tinged purple and red with the last rays.

It was a brilliant and beautiful sight, and it always made her heart ache and seem full all at once. She’d grown accustomed to the melancholy, though she did not know from where it sprang. She often felt as if a piece of her was missing, but she didn’t know what that piece was.

Singing filled the void, for a brief time anyway.

Isabella looked out at the gathered crowd. They were waiting for her. They were here for her. She closed her eyes and began to sing, losing herself in the rhythm and feel of the music. On the stage, she was Bella Tyler—and Bella was completely in control of herself and her life.

Unlike Isabella Maro.

She slid from one song into the next, her voice wrapping around the words, caressing them. The lights were hot, but she was used to the heat. She wore a bikini and a sarong for island flavor, though she did not sing many island songs. Her eyelids felt weighted down beneath the makeup she wore. She always applied it thickly for the stage, or it wouldn’t show up in the bright lights. Around her neck she wore a white puka-shell necklace. A matching bracelet encircled one ankle.

Her hair had grown and was no longer twined in the sleek knot she’d once favored. It was heavier, blonder and wild with seawater and sunshine. Her father would be horrified, no doubt, not only at the hair but also at the immodesty of her dress. She smiled into the microphone, thinking of his reaction. A man in the front smiled back, mistaking the gesture. She didn’t mind; it was part of the act, part of the personality of Bella Tyler.

Except that Bella wouldn’t go home with this man. Or any man. It didn’t feel right somehow. Had never felt right since the moment she’d come to the States. She was free now, free from the expectations and duty her father had raised her with, and yet she couldn’t shake the idea she had to save herself for someone.

“Bella Tyler, ladies and gentlemen,” the guitarist announced when she finished the last song. The bar erupted in applause.

“Mahalo,” Isabella said as she shoved a strand of damp hair behind her ear. “And now we’re going to take a little break. We’ll be back in fifteen.”

As she left the stage, she grabbed the glass of water that Grant, the club manager, held out for her, and headed into the back for a few minutes’ rest. The room she went to could hardly be called a dressing room, and yet it was where she stowed her stuff and applied her makeup for the evening. She flopped onto a chair and propped her bare feet on a bamboo trunk that served as a coffee table.

Laughter and disembodied voices from the beach came to her through the thin walls. The rest of the band would work their way back here eventually, if they didn’t grab a cigarette and head outside to smoke instead. Isabella tilted her head back and touched the icy glass to her collarbone. The coldness of it was a pleasant shock as moisture dripped between her breasts.

A few moments later, she heard movement in the hall. She could sense the moment when someone stopped in the doorway. The room was small, and she could feel that she was no longer alone. But people were always coming and going in Ka Nui’s, so she didn’t open her eyes to see who it was.

But it wasn’t a waitress grabbing something, or one of the band members come to join her, because the person hadn’t moved since she’d first sensed a presence.

But was the visitor still there—or was she imagining things?

Isabella’s eyes snapped open. A man stood in the entry, his presence dark and overwhelming. Raw panic seized her throat tight so that she couldn’t speak or cry out. At first, all she saw was his size—he was tall and broad and filled the door—but then she began to pick out individual features.

A shiver slid down her backbone as she realized with a jolt that he was Jahfaran. Dark hair, piercing dark eyes and skin that had been burnished by the powerful desert sun. Though he was dressed in a navy blue shirt and khaki pants instead of a dishdasha, he had the look of the desert, that hawklike intensity of a man who lived life on the edge of civilization. She didn’t know why, but fear flooded her in waves, liquefying her bones until she couldn’t move.

“You will tell me,” he said tightly, “why.”

Isabella blinked. “Why?” she repeated. Somehow, she managed to scramble to her feet. He was so tall that she still had to tilt her head back to look up at him. Her heart thundered in her breast as she realized he was terribly, frighteningly angry.

With her.

His gaze skimmed down her body. When his eyes met hers again, they burned with disgust. “Look at you,” he said. “You look like a prostitute.”

The cold fear that had pooled in her stomach began to boil as anger stirred within. How typical of a Jahfaran male. How absolutely typical to think he had a right to criticize her simply because she was female, and because he did not understand her choices.

Isabella drew herself up. She thrust her chin out, propped her hands on her hips and gave him the same thorough once-over he’d given her. It was bold, but she didn’t care. She owed this man nothing.

“I don’t know who you think you are, but you’re welcome to get the hell out of my dressing room and keep your opinions to yourself.”

His expression grew lethally cold. “Don’t play games with me, Isabella.”

She took a step back, her pulse thrumming in her throat at breakneck speed. He’d used her name—her given name—and it stunned her, though perhaps it should not have. Clearly, he knew her father, and he’d recognized her somehow. Perhaps they’d met in the course of her father’s business dealings. A party, a dinner.

But no. She didn’t recognize him. And she was sure that she’d never have forgotten a man like this if she’d met him. He was too big, too magnificent—and much too full of himself. He would have been impossible to ignore.

“Why would I play games with you? I don’t even know you!”

His eyes narrowed. “I will know how you came to be here, and I will know it now.”

Isabella drew herself up. How dare he question her as if he had a right? “You’re bright. Figure it out.”

He took a step into the room, and the room shrank. He overwhelmed the space. He overwhelmed her.

Isabella wanted to back away from him, but there was nowhere to go. And she would not cower before this man. It seemed vitally important somehow that she did not.

“You did not do this alone,” he said. “Who helped you?”

Isabella swallowed. “I—”

“Is everything okay here, Bella?”

Her eyes darted past the stranger to Grant, who stood in the door, his fists clenched at his sides. The stranger had turned at his entrance. Grant’s expression was grave, his blue eyes deadly serious as he tried to stare the man down.

She could have told him it wouldn’t work. The man stared back at Grant, his expression not softening in the least. The last thing she wanted was a fight, because she did not doubt that Grant would try to defend her. She also didn’t doubt that he would lose. There was something hard and cold about this man. Something fierce and untamed.

“I’m fine, Grant,” she said. “Mr … um, the gentleman was just leaving.”

“I was not, in fact,” he said, his English oh-so-perfect. The cultured tone of his voice proclaimed him to be from an elite family, the ones who usually sent their sons to be schooled in the United Kingdom.

“I think you should go,” Grant said. “Bella needs to rest before she goes back on.”

“Indeed.” The stranger turned back to her then, and she felt the full force of his laserlike attention. “Sadly, she will not be returning to the stage. Isabella is coming with me.”

Fury pounded through her. “I am not—“

He reached out and grasped her arm with an iron fist.

His fingers didn’t bite into her, but they were firm and in control. Commanding.

Shock forced Isabella to go completely still as her body reacted with a shudder at the touch of his skin on hers.

But it wasn’t revulsion she felt. It wasn’t terror.

It was familiarity. It was heat and want and, underlying that, a current of sadness so deep and strong she wanted to sob.

It stunned her into immobility as she tried to process it.

Why?

“Hey,” Grant protested. “Let her go!”

At the same time, Isabella looked up in confusion. “Who are you?”

A shadow passed over his face before it hardened again. “Do you really expect me to believe you do not know?”

Anger and despair slashed through her in waves. It made no sense. And yet he hated her. This man hated her, and she had no idea why. Somehow, she found the strength to act, wrenching herself free from his grip.

Isabella hugged her arms around her torso as if to shield herself. She couldn’t bear to feel the anger and sadness ripping through her a moment longer. Couldn’t bear the currents of heat arcing across her nerve endings. The swirling confusion. The crushing desperation.

Grant had disappeared, but she knew it was so he could fetch one of the bouncers. He’d be back at any moment, and this man would be thrown out on his arrogant behind. She was going to enjoy that.

“Of course I don’t know you,” she snapped.

“On the contrary,” he growled, his dark eyes flashing hot, “you know me very well.”

Her heart pounded at the certainty in his voice. He was insane. Gorgeous, but insane. “I can’t imagine why you would think so.”

“Because,” he replied, his voice laced with barely contained rage, “you are my wife.”

CHAPTER TWO

SHE gaped at him like a fish. There was no other way to describe it. If he didn’t know better, he’d think she truly was shocked. Adan’s mouth twisted. Who’d have thought that little Isabella Maro was such a fine actress? He’d had no idea, or he’d have paid her much closer attention.

Because, clearly, she’d duped him. Duped them all.

And he was going to find out why.

She hadn’t acted alone, of that he was certain. Had she had a lover who’d helped her to escape?

The thought lodged in his gut like a shard of ice.

What a cold, cruel woman she was. She’d abandoned her baby son, left him to grow up motherless. She’d cared more for herself than she had for Rafiq.

Adan hated her for it.

And he hated this stirring in his blood as he looked at her. It was anger, yes, but it was something more, as well. His gaze slid over her nearly naked body. She was wearing a red bikini with a tropical-print sarong tied over one hip. Her nipples jutted through the meager fabric of her top, drawing his attention. He remembered, though he did not wish to, the creamy beauty of her breasts, the large pink areolas, the tightly budded nipples in their center. He remembered her shyness the first time they’d made love, the way she’d quickly adapted to him, the way she’d welcomed him into her bed for an entire month of passionate nights.

He’d stopped going to her bed because she’d fallen pregnant. Not because he had wanted to, but because she’d become so sick that lovemaking was out of the question.

“Your wife?” She shook her head adamantly. “You’re mistaken.”

Behind him, he heard the heavy stomp of footsteps. And then the man she’d called Grant—the man who’d looked at her with his heart in his eyes—was back, a large Samoan by his side.

“I’ll ask you once more to leave,” Grant said. “Makuna will escort you out.”

Adan gave them his most quelling look. He had a six-man security team outside. Not because he’d expected trouble, but because he was a head of state and didn’t travel without security. One signal to them, and they would storm this place with guns drawn.

It wasn’t something he wanted to do, and yet he wasn’t leaving without Isabella. Without his wife.

“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, throbbed 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.

The loss of his mouth on hers was almost a physical pain. She wanted to reach for him, pull him back, but she would not do so. She could not ever do so.

He looked completely unaffected as he bent to pick up his phone from where he’d dropped it when he’d shoved his hands into her hair.

Her lips tingled, her skin sizzled and her breathing wasn’t quite the same as before he’d kissed her.

“Why did you do that?” she asked, her voice thick. It would have been so much easier if he had not.

He looked at her then, his golden skin so beautiful, his eyes still hot as they slipped over her. How many women had melted under the force of that gaze? How many had taken one look at that face and body and burned with need?

Hundreds. Thousands.

Her included.

“Because you wanted me to,” he said.

She shook her head to deny it, but stopped abruptly. What would be the point? She had wanted him to kiss her. But she knew what it felt like now, and she would never be so weak again. “Now that you have, I’d like you to go,” she said firmly.

“You and I both know that’s not going to happen, Isabella.”

Isabella drew in a sharp breath. The man had a hearing problem. “You can’t force me to return to Jahfar. I’m an American citizen, and there are laws here that prevent such things.”

He looked so coolly elegant, in spite of his casual clothing, in spite of the way she’d crushed his shirt in her fists and wrinkled the fine silk.

“Nevertheless, you will go—”

“There’s no reason,” she insisted.

“There is every reason!” he thundered, the fine edge of his temper bared at last. “You will cease being so selfish, Isabella. You will do this for Rafiq, if for no other reason.”

Isabella hugged herself as a river of ice water poured down her spine. She was tired and confused and ready for this to be over. “I’m sorry you think I’m being selfish, but I’ve told you the truth. I don’t know you. And I don’t know who Rafiq is, either.”

Adan’s eyes were so cold in his handsome face. Like black ice as he gazed at her with unconcealed contempt. He was angrier than she’d yet seen him.

He pronounced the next words very precisely, each one carefully measured, each one like a blow to her subconscious as the full effect landed on her with the force of a sandstorm whipping through a purple Jahfaran sky.

“Rafiq is our son.”

CHAPTER THREE

THE interior of Adan’s private jet was sumptuous, but Isabella hardly noticed. She’d been in shock since the moment he’d told her they had a child. It had felt as if someone was slicing into her heart with a rusty knife. How could she have given birth to a child and not know it?

It was surreal.

But as much as her mind kept telling her that everything he said was impossible, her heart whispered doubts. Her heart said that something had happened to her two years ago, and that a car wreck didn’t explain it nearly as well as she would like.

She’d gone with him then. She’d let him take her back to her condo where she’d packed a suitcase and called the landlord to tell him she would be gone for a couple of weeks. Adan had stood by impassively, not saying a word as she’d readied herself. He’d looked around the small living space as if it were completely foreign to him. As if he were horrified she would live there.

Which, she supposed, he probably was. He was a prince of Jahfar. Princes did not live in studios that weren’t much bigger than a large shoebox.

They’d ridden to the airport in silence, then boarded the sleek Boeing business jet and taken off shortly thereafter. Now they were somewhere high over the Pacific Ocean, and Isabella sat in a large reclining leather chair and stared out the window at nothing but blackness. On a small table in front of her was an untouched glass of papaya juice. She shivered involuntarily. She’d put on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and grabbed a light jacket, but still she was cold.

“Would you like a blanket, ma’am?” one of the flight attendants asked.

“Thank you, yes,” Isabella replied. Her voice sounded scratchy, distant, as if she weren’t accustomed to using it. The attendant returned with the blanket and a pillow. Isabella wrapped herself in the plush fabric. This wasn’t one of those cheap excuses for a blanket used on major airlines these days. It was thick and soft and smelled like spice.

A few moments later, Adan sank into the chair across from her. She hadn’t seen him since shortly after they’d gotten airborne. He’d said he had business to attend to and had disappeared into his private office. Now, he clutched a sheaf of papers. His gaze was disturbing. She wasn’t sure if it was because of the kiss they’d shared in Ka Nui’s, or simply because he caused something to tighten inside her every time he looked at her.

Or maybe it was because he despised her.

“You haven’t touched your drink,” he said.

“I’m not thirsty.” She dropped her gaze, conscious suddenly that she was still wearing heavy stage makeup. She hadn’t thought to wash her face in the rush to grab her suitcase and change clothes. He hadn’t rushed her, but she’d felt as if she had to hurry. As if the answers were thousands of miles away and she needed to get there as soon as possible.

“I thought you might like to see these,” he said, holding out the papers.

She took them cautiously, not really certain she did want to see them, but knowing she had no choice but to look. For herself. For her sanity. Not because he was forcing her to, but because she needed to know.

Her heart began to thrum.

She looked at the first sheet. It was an article from Al-Arab Jahfar.

Prince Weds Daughter of Prominent Businessman.

There was a photo of her and Adan. He was so handsome in his traditional clothing, with a ceremonial dagger at his waist. He looked solemn, as if he were performing a duty.

Which he no doubt had been. We met a week before the wedding …

She was smiling, but she didn’t look happy. Her dress was a beaded silk abaya in a deep saffron color. She wore the sheerest hijab, the fabric filmy and beautiful where it skimmed her hair.

She glanced up, saw Adan watching her closely. He was sprawled in his chair like a potentate, one elbow propped on the armrest, his index finger sliding absently back and forth over his bottom lip. His dark eyes gave nothing away.

Isabella slid the article to the bottom of the pile. The next one sent her heart into her throat.

It was a birth announcement. Rafiq ibn Adan Al Dhakir, born April fourth.

Tears pressed against the backs of her eyes. She wanted to sob. She bit her lip, hard, to stop the tears from coming. She wanted to shove the papers at him and tell him to take them away, but gritted her teeth and told herself she would do this. She would look at them and she would survive it.

Because everything she’d known, everything she’d believed—about herself, about her parents—was shattered and lying broken at her feet. She wasn’t who she thought she was.

She was this woman, this Princess Isabella Al Dhakir, who had a baby and a husband. Who should have had a perfect life, but who was sitting here broken and alone.

She uncovered the next article with trembling fingers.

This one proclaimed her missing. From her father’s house, where she’d gone to visit after the birth of her child. Evidence suggested she’d walked into the desert. A sandstorm had stopped the rescue effort for three days. When it resumed, there was no trace of her.

She thought of her father’s house at the edge of the wilds of Jahfar. He loved to tame nature. He had a pool, fountains and grass on the edge of the hottest, starkest land imaginable.

And she had willingly walked alone into that desert?

The fourth article made the numbness creep over her again. It was small, a quarter sheet, the words stark against the white background.

Dead …

She quickly flipped to the next page. A marriage contract, spelling out everything her father and Adan had agreed to. She didn’t read it. She didn’t need to.

She closed her eyes and dropped the papers on the table between them, then clasped her hands in her lap so he wouldn’t see them shaking. She was his wife. The mother of his child.

And she couldn’t remember any of it. Isabella tried so hard to conjure up an image of a baby in her arms, but she couldn’t do it.

What was wrong with her? How could a mother forget her own baby? She turned her head away on the seat back and dug her fingernails into her palms. She would not cry. She could not cry in front of him. She couldn’t be weak.

“Do you still wish to deny the truth?” Adan asked.

She shook her head, unable to speak for fear she would lose control.

“Why did you do it, Isabella? Why did you leave your baby son? Did you not think of him even once?”

It took her several moments to answer.

“I don’t remember doing it,” she forced out, her voice barely more than a whisper. “I don’t remember anything about that … that night. In the newspaper.”

She thought he wouldn’t believe her, that he would demand to know the truth, demand she stop lying. But he blew out a breath and looked away before turning to pierce her with his dark stare again. “Tell me what you do know, then. Tell me how you got to Hawaii.”

She wanted to be defiant, but she was too mentally drained to conjure up even a hint of strength. “I was in Jahfar, and then I was at my mother’s house in South Carolina,” she said, hugging the blanket tighter. “I don’t remember when I left, or how I got there. My father says it’s because of the accident. Because I hit my head in the crash and was in a coma for five weeks. I don’t remember the accident, but the doctor said that was normal.

“After, I spent time recuperating at my mother’s before I moved out on my own.”

“You didn’t want to return to Jahfar?”

“No, not really. I thought of it from time to time, but my father told me to stay in the States. He said he traveled a lot now, and there was no reason for me to return yet.”

“Hawaii is rather far from South Carolina,” he mused.

It was, and yet she’d been pulled there by homesickness. “I missed the sea, and the palms. I went there for a short vacation but ended up staying.”

“Why did you change your name?”

“I didn’t change it. Bella Tyler is a stage name,” she said, not wanting to admit that she’d wanted to be someone else, that calling herself by another name had been an effort to make her feel different. More confident. Less alone.

“And why were you singing in a club, Isabella? Did you need money?”

He no doubt thought so based on the size of her condo, but it was perfectly adequate for Maui. And more expensive than he might imagine.

“No. My father sent me plenty. But I sang karaoke one day, for fun. The next I knew, I was performing.”

A disapproving frown made his sensual mouth seem hard. “A lounge singer.”

Isabella felt heat prickle over her skin. “I like to sing.

I’ve always liked to sing. And I’m good at it,” she said proudly.

“I never heard you sing before tonight.”

“I sang plenty growing up, but it was for myself. If I never sang for you, then I suppose I was afraid to. Afraid you would disapprove.”

“I might not have,” he said softly.

“I must have thought so.”

“Perhaps you did.” He was unapologetic.

Isabella clutched the blanket in a fist. This was such an odd conversation. She was married to this man, and yet he was a stranger to her. They were strangers to each other, if this conversation was anything to go by.

“We must not have spent a lot of time together,” she ventured.

“Enough,” he said, his eyes suddenly hot, intense.

Isabella dipped her head, hoping she wasn’t blushing. Clearly she wasn’t a virgin, and yet she couldn’t remember anything about her first sexual experience with him. About any sexual experience with him.

“How long were we married before … the baby?”

“You were pregnant the first month. And you disappeared only a month after Rafiq was born.”

She pressed a hand to her stomach beneath the blanket. It was so hard to imagine she’d ever been pregnant. “So we weren’t together a year.”

He gave his head a shake. “Not quite, no.”

She was trying so hard to process it. Because they were married. He hadn’t faked a bunch of documents to prove it to her. These were printed copies of actual newspaper articles.

Far more likely—and harder to understand, quite honestly—was the fact her parents had lied. Oh, she didn’t really expect that her mother had orchestrated this fiction Isabella had been living with—or that she’d had a problem going along with it. No, it was her father who’d done so.

And Isabella couldn’t figure out why.

Was Adan abusive? Had her hurt her? Was her father simply being protective?

She considered it, but she didn’t believe that was the case. Because Adan had been very angry with her, yes, and he’d been arrogant and presumptuous. But he hadn’t for one moment made her feel physically threatened. If he had, she wouldn’t be here.

Or at least not willingly.

She was uncomfortable with him—but not because she feared him.

Isabella pressed two fingers to her temple. It was so much to process.

“Does your head hurt?” Adan asked suddenly.

She was surprised at the answer. “Yes.” She’d been so focused that she hadn’t realized her temple was beginning to throb. Soon, the headache would spread to the other side. And she’d left her migraine medicine on the kitchen counter. She didn’t get them often, but when she did, they weren’t in the least bit pleasant.

Adan pressed a button on his seat and a flight attendant appeared. He ordered a glass of water and some ibuprofen. When it arrived, she gulped down the tablets, though she didn’t expect they would do any good.

“Perhaps you should sleep,” he said. “There’s a bedroom at the back, and a bathroom where you can wash your face.”

She should sleep, and yet she couldn’t quite yet. “Do you have a picture of him?” she asked quietly.

The corners of his mouth grew tight. Then he pulled out his cell phone and pressed a few buttons. When he held it out to her, the breath caught in her throat.

The little boy staring at the camera was adorable, of course. But it was more than that. She gazed at his face in wonder, searching for signs of her own features. She saw Adan easily in the dark hair and dark eyes. But the chin, that was hers. And the shape of the nose.

A tear slipped free and slid down her cheek. “He’s two now?”

Adan nodded as he took the phone back. She wasn’t ready to stop looking at the photo, and yet she couldn’t ask him to let her see it again.

She’d missed so much. So damn much. His first word. His first step. She scrubbed a hand across her face. Her head throbbed. Her stomach churned. She wasn’t sure if it was the headache or the heartache causing it, but she felt physically ill.

Isabella shot to her feet. Adan rose with the grace of a hunting panther, his brows drawn together. “What is wrong?”

“I have to—the bathroom.”

Adan pointed and Isabella bolted for the door. She made it just in time, heaving the contents of her stomach into the toilet. When she finally straightened, she caught sight of her face in the mirror. She looked like hell. Like a girl who’d got into her mother’s makeup and put way too much on in an effort to look more grown-up.

Isabella turned on the taps—bronze taps on an airplane, so much fancier than the usual airline bathroom—and began to scrub her face with hot water and soap. The tears started to flow as she scrubbed. She tried to stop it at first, but then decided to let herself cry. He would never hear her with the water running.

She scrubbed hard, as if she could scrub away the past two years and clean her memory free of the black curtain cloaking it at the same time. Her head continued to pound, but she cried and scrubbed until the makeup was gone and her tears were finished.

She hoped Adan would be gone by the time she returned to her seat—in his office, or sleeping in one of the staterooms—but she wasn’t that lucky.

He looked up as she approached. His expression didn’t change, but she was certain he hadn’t missed a thing. She looked like hell. Her face was pink and her eyes, though not puffy yet, soon would be from the crying.

“You are ill?” he asked.

“It’s the migraine,” she replied, shrugging. “If I have my medicine, it doesn’t get that bad, but without it …”

“You did not bring this medicine, I take it.”

“I was a bit preoccupied.”

“Tell me the name of this drug,” he commanded. “It will be waiting for you when we arrive in Jahfar.”

She said the name, then folded herself back into the reclining chair.

“You should lie down on a bed.”

She waved a hand. “I’d rather not walk that far right now, if you don’t mind.”

He rose, and before she knew what he was about to do, he’d come around to her chair and reached for her. She started to protest, but her head hurt too badly to put up much of a fight as she was lifted against his chest.

He was warm, hard and so solid. She felt safe for the first time in years. Safe.

And yet it was an illusion. Now, more than ever, she needed to guard herself against emotion. Because she was emotionally raw right now, vulnerable.

She felt so much. Too much.

She could feel his heart beating strong beneath the palm she’d rested on his chest, could smell the delicious spicy male scent of him. He carried her toward the back of the plane and into a room that contained a double-size bed. The sheets were folded down already, and the lights were dim. Heaven for her throbbing head.

He set her on the bed and she lay back, uncaring that she wore jeans. Adan slipped her shoes from her feet and then pulled the blanket over her. She closed her eyes, unable to watch him as he cared for her.

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.

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