“Marriage!” The word rang out again before she could hold it back.

But who could blame her? Last morning, she’d woken up never expecting to see Rashid again. This morning, she woke up in his bed.

“Of course. I took your innocence.”

“You didn’t ‘take my innocence,’ I gave it to you. And will you stop being so archaic and so—so… Azmaharian?”

“You’re refusing to marry me?”

Her heartstrings shook at the darkness in his rumble. “I’m refusing to introduce the concept of ‘marriage’ at this point.”

And if displeasure could take form, it would wear just that face. “Marriage between us now is not a concept, it’s a necessity.”

Dear Reader,

When Rashid Aal Munsoori walked into the DESERT KNIGHTS trilogy’s first book, The Sheikh’s Redemption, and hijacked the spotlight during his scenes, he intrigued me the most of all my Mills & Boon® Desire™ heroes to date. With each glimpse he revealed of himself, I knew I had my darkest, most tormented, most ruthless Desire hero yet. I couldn’t wait for him to tell me his whole story. And for a heroine to undertake the seemingly impossible task of soothing this scarred beast and laying his demons to rest.

But I knew I had my work cut out for me. For what woman could see through his armor of disfigurement and distance, let alone persevere until she’d uncovered the passionate, forever-man he could be?

Then I discovered I had already created that heroine. Laylah Aal Shalaan had appeared in To Tame a Sheikh, the first book of my previous trilogy, PRIDE OF ZOHAYD. And she told me she’d loved Rashid all her life. Did that turn the unapproachable Rashid inside out!

What followed was a roller coaster of emotions as Laylah unraveled the bands around Rashid’s soul and replaced them with those of her love, only to discover at her happiest that their relationship had all been a lie. Or was it?

Read on and learn the truth behind the secrets that wrap up DESERT KNIGHTS among the upheavals that the lovers have to survive to reach their happy ending. I hope you enjoy reading their story as much as I did writing it.

I love to hear from readers, so email me at oliviagates@gmail.com. And please stay connected with me on Facebook at my fan page Olivia Gates Author, and on Twitter @OliviaGates.

Thanks for reading!

Olivia

About the Author

OLIVIA GATES has always pursued creative passions such as singing and handicrafts. She still does, but only one of her passions grew gratifying enough, consuming enough, to become an ongoing career—writing.

She is most fulfilled when she is creating worlds and conflicts for her characters, then exploring and untangling them bit by bit, sharing her protagonists’ every heart-wrenching heartache and hope, their every heart-pounding doubt and trial, until she leads them to an indisputably earned and gloriously satisfying happy ending.

When she’s not writing, she is a doctor, a wife to her own alpha male and a mother to one brilliant girl and one demanding Angora cat. Visit Olivia at www.oliviagates.com.

The Sheikh’s Destiny
Olivia Gates

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To the one who inspires all those

powerful, ultra-romantic, luscious heroes.

Thank you for being you.

One

Laylah Aal Shalaan felt a shiver burn down her spine.

It wasn’t the below-zero Chicago December evening. That would have caused ice, not fire, to shudder through her veins.

This sensation had scalded through her so many times during the past few weeks, it was as if she were having hot flashes. Which would be some record at age twenty-seven. But then she held other unwelcome records. Like being the only female born to her family in forty years. Why not throw in premature menopause, too?

Not that she really thought abnormal hormones were at work here. An outside influence was. One she couldn’t detect when she’d tried to investigate it, though she’d been certain of its cause for some time.

Someone was watching her.

This felt nothing like having the security detail she’d once had breathing down her neck. Those men had never tried to hide themselves, and to hell with her personal space. Though she shouldn’t have resented them. They’d been doing their job. Of course, with her safety no longer among anyone’s priorities for the past two years, there were no more guards dogging her steps.

Not that she thought that she needed protection. She observed normal safety protocols, like anyone who lived in Chicago did. And since she’d exiled herself from Zohayd and come to live in the Windy City, she always had.

Until tonight.

Usually she would go home with Mira, her business partner and roommate. But Mira had left to see her father, who had been taken to the E.R. in another state. So here she was, alone at night for the first time in more than two years, leaving the deserted building from the back exit that opened onto an equally empty back street.

Not that that had anything to do with what she now felt.

She’d entered the building accompanied by the sensation of being enveloped in that watchful force field. She’d stepped out only to be caught in its electrifying embrace again.

Strangest part was, she didn’t feel threatened by that unwavering intent. Just burning with curiosity and… excitement?

She looked across the street at three parked cars. The nearest had a man slamming the hood, getting inside and driving away with the exhaust firing. The next one, also nondescript, was pulling away from the curb, too. The farthest one, a late-model Mercedes with dark windows, looked empty.

Before she could decide where the influence was radiating from, the second car suddenly floored its engine.

Before she could draw another breath, the car screeched to a halt beside her and its doors burst open. Four men exploded out. She’d barely taken two running steps when they swarmed her.

Hulking bodies and coarse faces, distorted with vile intent, filled her vision. Blood and time thickened, hindering her heartbeat and reactions as hands sank into her flesh, each dig creating a bolt of outrage and terror.

Dread exploded in her chest, fury in her skull as she lashed out with everything she had, even as shards of dialogue lodged into her brain.

“Iz only one, man.”

“Tom said there’d be two. You better not pay half now.”

“Iz the one we want. Ye’ll get yer dough.”

“You said she’d fall at ‘ur feet sniveling but she ain’t no pushover. She almost kneed me.”

“An’ she might’ve scratched m’eye out!”

“You quit snivelin’ an’ stuff ‘er in the car.”

Each word sank a talon of realization into Laylah’s brain. This wasn’t a random attack. They knew her routine.

No. They couldn’t be the presence she’d been sensing!

They dragged her closer to the car. Once they shoved her inside, it would be over.

She exploded in another manic struggle, drawing blood and shouts of pain and rage until a jackhammer collided with her jaw. Agony turned her brain into shrapnel.

Suddenly, through the vortex of crimson-blotched darkness, one of her attackers seemed to be sucked away as if into a black hole. He slammed into the side of the building with a sickening crunch.

A second assailant turned away, but a hair-raising crack sent his blood arcing inches from her face. His terrified gaze bored into hers before his body slammed into her as if from the impact of a speeding car. He took her down with him.

She struggled under his dead weight, fear pulsing through her disorientation. Who had come to her rescue? Would they turn on her once they had finished off her attackers?

The body pinning her down was heaved away. She wriggled up frantically on the freezing sidewalk and saw… saw…

Him.

A fallen angel. Huge, dark, ominous. Frightening in his beauty, radiating power and menace. Almost impossible to bear looking at, yet equally impossible to look away from.

And she knew him. She’d known him all her life.

But it couldn’t be him. Not only had he changed almost beyond recognition, but what would he be doing here? Now? When she’d been certain she’d never see him again?

Was her jolted brain conjuring up an imaginary savior?

If so, why not one of her cousins who were as well equipped to fill the role? Why him?

Why Rashid Aal Munsoori?

But with her senses stabilizing, no doubt remained. It was Rashid. A remote, if steady, presence in her life during her first seventeen years. The man she’d had a crush on since before she could remember.

He was now facing the remaining two attackers like a monolith, his one-of-a-kind face carved from the coldness of the night, majestic head almost shaved, juggernaut body swathed in a coat that flapped around him like angry creatures from the abyss.

The men recovered from their shock, charged him, snarling, slashing switchblades at him. Dread deluged her.

Unfazed by her shout or their attack, Rashid maneuvered like a matador fielding raging bulls, harnessing the mindlessness of their charge against them. His arms and legs lashed out in a choreography of deadly precision, his methods merciless, flawless, as second nature as breathing was to her. He looked like an avenging demon reveling in vanquishing the loathsome quarry he lived to prey on.

By the time she pulled herself to her feet, Rashid had the two men plastered against the building. One had lost consciousness. The other hung in the air, feet kicking feebly.

Over the night’s moaning wind, she heard rumbles issuing from Rashid. They didn’t sound human.

For a crazy moment, she thought they might not be. That he did have some… entity inhabiting him, one that wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less than taking those men’s lives.

That conviction broke her paralysis. “You’ll kill them!”

At her choking protest he turned his head and… ya Ruhmaan.

Merciful God—what had happened to him? He barely resembled the man she’d obsessed over all her life. The eerie blankness in his eyes, the serene viciousness baring his teeth. Like a beast in killing mode.

And that scar…

“And?”

She shuddered. His voice. It completed the impression. That some demon occupied him, had taken him over, was metamorphosing his body to suit its nature and needs, was using his voice to transmit its darkness and danger.

This man who’d once been Rashid was serious in his question. He had no compunction about killing in principle, and none at all about snuffing out the lives of the thugs he’d conquered.

There was no way to appeal to the mercy of this creature. He had none. Of that she was certain. She couldn’t use fear of consequences, either. She was as sure he felt no fear of any sort. He seemed to feel nothing but violence and vengeance. It was as if he’d stepped in to punish the criminals, not to save her, the victim.

Only appealing to his logic remained.

“And there’s no need.” She could barely form words in her frozen, constricted throat. “You’ve already beaten them—to a pulp. None of them will be out of intensive care anytime soon.”

“Putting them back together will be a gross waste of medical resources. I should spare society the cost of their continued existence.” He turned his eyes to the man wriggling and whimpering in his hold. “Scum like this don’t deserve to live.”

She ventured closer, feeling as if she was interrupting a lion’s kill. “A death sentence is over the top for their crime, don’t you think?”

Still looking at the struggling man, Rashid said, “The ones they’ve committed so far, you mean. They would have probably ended up killing you—”

“No, man…” The man choked, terror flowing from his eyes. “We were only… goin’ to hold ‘er… for ransom. A bro recognized ‘er for a princess… from one o’ those filthy rich oil kingdoms… said we’d get… serious dough… for ‘er. We weren’t going to hurt ‘er… or touch ‘er…” he spluttered the qualification when Rashid squeezed his throat harder. “I… swear. Danny got carried away when she hit him… and you probably killed him for it… but I didn’t do anything to her… don’t kill me… please…”

In spite of everything, she pitied this flimsy creature in the body of a brute. He’d been reduced to blubbering in the grip of a force the likes of which he hadn’t known existed.

The imbalance of power should have been in their favor, four hulks versed in violence. But Rashid had overpowered them like a superior feline would a pack of rats.

But it was as if he didn’t even feel her there, had been debating with his inner demon the actions he should take, finding only approval from it.

She had one last shot before this situation passed the point of no return. Give him, and that demon, something to appease their merciless convictions.

She ventured a touch on his arm, flinched. Even through the layers of clothes, electricity arced from the steel cables he had for muscles to strike her to her toes.

She swallowed a lump of agitation. “Wouldn’t you rather they live to suffer the consequences of their crimes? You’ve probably given them all some permanent disability.”

When his dark gaze turned to her again, it felt as if he was seeing her for the first time, letting her and her words breach the barrier of his implacability.

Suddenly, he unclenched his hands. The men, both unconscious now, thudded to the ground like sacks of bricks.

Relief shuddered through her, the freezing air filling her lungs. Rashid had killed before. But it had been as a soldier in three wars. Here, it would have been different. And she couldn’t have even those thugs’ deaths on her conscience.

As he stood appraising his handiwork, she sensed his demon scratching at its containment to be let loose to finish its job. But Rashid seemed in control of their symbiosis again, back to being the ultramodern desert knight who had the world at his feet and everyone in it at his disposal.

He produced his cell phone, called the police then an ambulance. Then he turned to her. “Did they hurt you?”

At his question, she suddenly felt the imprint of their hands all over her arms and back. But the epicenter of pain was the left side of her jaw. Her hand flew to it instinctively.

He urged her below a streetlight. She stumbled at the feel of his hand on her arm, then again as he kicked one of the thugs in the head when he began to stir. The contrast between his violence with her attacker and his gentleness with her was staggering.

Once within the circle of light, his hand moved hers away from her face so he could examine it.

“Maybe I will kill them after all.”

She almost flinched at his verdict, attempted to make light of it. “For a right hook?”

“That was the beginning of the abuse that would have left you scarred for life, if not physically then psychologically. They do deserve to die.” She grabbed his arm as he moved, feeling she had as much chance of stopping him as she would a hurricane. His muscles eased beneath her frantic fingers. “Relax. I’ll only make them wish I had killed them.”

“How about you leave it to the law to deal with them?”

His hooded eyes grew heavier with disapproval. “You’d rather let them get away with it?”

“Certainly not. I just believe in appropriate punishment.”

Those lethal eyes flared ebony fire. “What would be appropriate for abusing and kidnapping a woman, putting her through hell fearing for her life, before maybe ending it?”

She bit her lip at the terrible scenario that could have come to pass if not for him. “When you put it that way, a death sentence doesn’t look too extreme. But that didn’t happen.”

“Only because I stopped them.”

“And now we can’t punish them for what could have been, only for what actually was.”

“That’s according to the law—here. Where I come from only hadd’al herabah is appropriate punishment for this heinous crime.”

She shuddered again as she imagined the ancient punishment sanctioned in their home region for those caught red-handed in major crimes like this—amputating an arm and a leg from opposing sides.

Deeming the subject closed, he turned to the fallen goons. And she saw it. A glistening wetness below his coat.

Sick electricity forked through her as she grabbed his arm, jerked him into the light. He pulled away from her frantic grip, made her grasp him to restore her balance. Her hands sank into the unmistakable warmth of blood.

She tore them away, looked down at her crimson-stained palms before looking up at him in horror. “You’re injured!”

His gaze moved from her upturned hands to his midriff before travelling up to hers. “It’s nothing.”

“Nothing?” she exclaimed. “You’re bleeding! Ya Ullah!”

Something like… annoyance? Impatience? simmered in his eyes. “It’s just a scratch.”

“A scratch? Your whole left side is drenched in blood.”

“And?” There he went again with that and of his. “Are you squeamish? I hope you won’t faint.”

“Squeamish?” she exclaimed. “It’s you I’m worried about…”

Dread clogged her throat, more suffocating than anything she’d felt on her own account. His nonchalance had to be shock. His wound had to be severe to bleed that much, to not have registered its pain yet. Adrenaline and cold must be all that was keeping him on his feet. By the time the ambulance arrived, it might be too late…

Stem his bleeding. Buy him time.

Tearing her scarf from around her neck, she lunged at him, pressing its creamy softness against the tear in his sweater. He stiffened, his hands covering hers as if to push them away.

She threw her weight at him, pressing him back against the side of the building, panting now. “We must apply pressure.”

He stilled against her, stared down at her, his face a mask. Was he on the verge of losing consciousness?

He undid her hands, replaced them with his. “I’ll do it.” She sensed that he would, not because he believed he needed it, but to keep her away. “You can go now.”

Huh? He didn’t only want her to stay away, but to go away?

She shook her head, hands smeared in his blood trembling. “I have to be here when the police arrive.”

He reached for her hands, wiping them clean with the other end of the scarf. “I’ll say they attacked me. Those lowlifes will welcome my adjustment. A jury will give them a lesser sentence for attacking me rather than you.”

“But you wanted them to get the harshest punishment possible.”

“Whatever sentence the law passes won’t be that. I am bound by no such limitations, and I’ll make sure they’ll never think of doing this to anyone else ever again.”

“You mean you want them to get off lightly so you can administer your own brand of justice…?” She threw her hands up in the air. “What are we talking about? You’re injured. And I’m going nowhere but to the E.R. with you.”

“Since I’m not going to the E.R., the only place you can go now is home.” At her head shake, his voice hardened. “Take my car and drive a few blocks away. My guards will come to escort you back home. They’ll come up with you to make sure the coast is clear and will stand guard until we make sure this abduction plan had no contingencies.” When she didn’t move or answer he exhaled forcibly. “Go now, before the police arrive. You’ve been through enough on those scums’ account. Walk away and forget this ever happened.”

“I can’t and won’t leave you. And you will go to the E.R. Is that your car?” She indicated the imposing Mercedes.

He nodded. “I stopped to send a file from my phone.”

“And that’s when you saw me being attacked.”

He didn’t nod again, his gaze growing incapacitating.

“Give me your keys.” A formidably winged eyebrow told her what he thought of her demand. “I’m driving you to the E.R.”

“As you pointed out, I can’t leave the crime scene. The police will be here in minutes.”

“They can take our statements at the E.R. You might succumb to hypothermia and shock in those minutes.”

“I will succumb to nothing. I’ve had injuries a dozen times worse, endured them for days in conditions that make these pleasant in comparison.”

She knew he wasn’t exaggerating. She couldn’t imagine what he’d endured in war, couldn’t bear to think what kind of injury had given him that blood-curdling scar that slithered like an angry snake from his left eye down to his jaw, neck… and below.

Noticing her eyes on his scar, his lips compressed. “As you can see I’ve survived far worse. Don’t concern yourself over this glorified paper cut.”

Retorts fired in her mind, froze on her tongue. What did he think her? A selfish twit who’d grab the easy way out and run away?

But if he thought so, then…”You don’t recognize me?”

That eyebrow rose again. “I need to know someone to come to their rescue?”

“That’s not what I meant.” She knew he’d defend to the death anyone in need of his superior powers. He’d once made a career of it as a warrior. He’d clearly never stopped being one.

He just as clearly hadn’t recognized her.

Then he said, “Of course I recognized you. Just like the one who sent those goons did. You’re more recognizable than you evidently think you are, Princess Laylah.”

So he did recognize her. Which actually shouldn’t have been a sure thing. There’d been far… less of her when he’d last seen her, and she’d been wearing glasses back then, too. He’d always made her feel he’d never seen her, the way he’d look through her, like he had everyone else. Even now, nothing in his demeanor indicated that he knew her. The reticent Rashid she’d known had become impenetrable.

“I saw you many times around the city before tonight.”

Would this man stop surprising her? “Y-you did? Where?”

“I have offices in this building. You also frequent the restaurants I do.”

He had been the presence she’d felt!

Now that made sense. As did the fact that he hadn’t thought of acknowledging her until he’d been forced to, to save her life no less. She’d always known Rashid had been a far-fetched dream, but he’d become an impossible one after he’d turned from her closest cousins’ best friend to their mortal enemy.

“You clearly don’t recognize me,” he added.

“I’d as soon not recognize myself, Sheikh Rashid.”

Everything in him seemed to hit Pause. The wind, the whole world followed suit.

Okay. That had come out too… revealing. Another attack of what her mother called her “crassness affliction.” She’d thought she had it under control, but it seemed she couldn’t control her brash candor any more than her mother’s family could their crooked ways.

So be it. She’d never be able to give him anything of equal value to what he’d given her tonight, so she’d at least give him the truth. He could do with it as he wished.

It appeared he was at a loss what to do with it. Her confession had clearly stunned him.

His response, when it finally came, was to pretend he hadn’t heard it and to pursue his previous point. “Back my statement, that they attacked me and not you, and I will go to the E.R.”

He was trying to spare her the postattack ordeal, from the investigations through to the trial.

Still…”I can’t let you bear the burden of this mess.”

Those daunting shoulders barely moved in dismissal. “In comparison to the messes I deal with daily, this is a breeze.”

She’d bet. Rashid had created his IT development empire from scratch in record time. He must have dealt with endless obstacles and adversaries to remain at the top of such a cutthroat field. And it would be a mess for her, sabotaging the peaceful life and low profile she’d struggled to create since she’d left Zohayd.

“Okay.” The tension gripping the night eased, until she added, “But only if you let me drive you to the E.R.”

“You think I won’t keep my word?”

“I think you’d keep your word even if it meant your life.”

Another long, empty stare greeted her statement, which she now realized signified surprise. “Why this stipulation, then? You think I can’t drive myself?”

It was her turn to shrug. “I’m taking no chances.”

His grimness deepened until she was certain he’d say no.

Suddenly, he handed her the bloody scarf. She fumbled with it as if with a hot coal as he fished inside his coat for a pen and a notebook. He scribbled a few lines, tore the paper out, bent and tucked it onto a thug. A calling card on gifts for the police?

The thug stirred as Rashid whispered in his ear before slamming him into the ground, snuffing his consciousness again.

Calmly rising, he retrieved the scarf from her limp fingers, turned on his heels and crossed the street to his car.

He was leaving?

She watched him go, at a loss for what to do.

Instead of taking the wheel, he walked around to the passenger’s side. Then, leaning over the car’s top, he looked across the distance at her. “Coming?”

Her heart gave a thunderclap of relief as she stumbled into a run, her four-inch stilettos a staccato of eagerness on the asphalt.

In seconds she was inside the posh car, heard faint sirens in the distance as the door closed behind her with a muted thud.

Trembling with the urge to throw herself at him and hug him, she turned to him. “Thank you.”

He ignored that. “Are we waiting for them after all?”

“Oh, no.” She fumbled for the ignition, discovered that the car was running, the motor so smooth it didn’t produce sound or vibration. The car was such a dream to handle that even in her state, she drove to the nearest E.R. without incident.

As she parked, he turned to her. “Now drive home. I’ll have the car and a driver at your disposal from now on.”

He was almost out of the car before she flung herself after him. “I’m coming in with you.”

His stare was even more spectacular in close quarters. “The deal was to drive me here, not escort me inside.”

She clutched his arm tighter. “New deal, then.”

“You have nothing to thank me for.”

Now he answered her earlier thank you.

“I wasn’t thanking you for saving my life, since I figured you’d have an allergic reaction to that. I was thanking you for letting me bargain with my safety for yours. Don’t revert to being an aggravating superhero and insist on walking into the night alone.”

After yet another long stare, he turned and exited the car.

Her heart constricted with disappointment and anxiety. If she persisted now, she’d be imposing on him.

Well, tough. That big, bad warrior would just have to use his endless stamina to put up with her concern.

The moment she was out of the car, her heart gave that boom that only he provoked. He was standing at the E.R. entrance, his pose worthy of the superhero she’d likened him to, one hand braced on his lean hips, the other still gripping her bloody scarf.

He was waiting for her.

She ran toward him, her heartbeat overtaking her feet.

Before she reached him, those cruelly sensuous lips twitched. Was that a smile? She wouldn’t know. She’d never seen him smile.

Before she could make sure, he turned and strode inside.

He had her running to keep up with him, demonstrating that her concern was needless. And that he wouldn’t make it easy for her to see her purpose through.

Once she knew he’d be okay, she’d show him exactly how much she’d put up with to be with him. That, if he let her, she would follow him to the ends of the earth.

Two

All through the admission process, Rashid felt Laylah’s presence a breath away.

He couldn’t take one without it mixing with the scent and heat of her body and her worry.

He found himself barely breathing so both wouldn’t deluge him further. But rationing that involuntary act turned out to be easier than stopping another supposedly voluntary one. In spite of his intention to demonstrate that her presence was unnecessary as well as unimportant, his gaze kept going back to her like iron filings to a magnet. When no one, certainly never a woman, had ever commanded his unwilling response.

But Laylah Aal Shalaan wasn’t anyone. There was no one else in the world that he remembered from the day of their birth.

He’d just turned eight when she was born, the first female offspring in the Aal Shalaan family in forty years. It had only been a week after he’d met her maternal and paternal cousins, Haidar and Jalal, and begun a friendship that had lasted for the next two decades.

She’d grown up under his gaze, always in his orbit, glowing brighter every day with a radiance that had progressively dismayed him. He’d thought it so unfair, for her to be so matchlessly beautiful on the outside, when she could possess no beauty at all on the inside. Not when she was the daughter of a house of serpents.

Now that she’d matured, the injustice had been exacerbated.

His gaze returned to her again and again, documenting her every nuance. Hair and eyes the color of the richest chocolate and brushed with sunlight, skin of honeyed velvet and warm sunsets, a body of lush vitality and femininity and a face of a peculiar brand of splendor and harmony. But it was what those most unusual features radiated that perplexed him.

How could they transmit such… sweetness? Such… genuineness? The woman was descended from ruthless bitches and hardened criminals. There was no way any of that could be real.

Yet he was forced to believe one thing was real. Her concern for him. Its purity and intensity singed him.

But that could be explained away. By gratitude. To her lifeline in this harrowing experience. Once fright and shock drained away, so would her simulation of humanity and good nature.

Then he’d be free to resume thinking the worst of her. And treating her accordingly without the least remorse.

For now, he had to get out of her range. He needed to get his act together. To plan his next step.

“I’m coming with you.”

At her blurted-out declaration, Rashid turned at the door of the treatment room. That eloquent eyebrow of his made her feel like an illogical species in the presence of a Vulcan.

He’d so far let her accompany him through the admission procedure. When the police had arrived, he’d fielded doubts about her being involved in the attack, lying with spectacular smoothness when they’d asked about her bruise.

According to him, it had been a basketball to the face during a one-on-two match with Mira—whom he’d always seen with her in the times she’d only sensed him—who’d back up anything she’d say. Just like the thugs would back up anything he said.

Not that those policemen would investigate any further. She had a feeling they realized the truth but seemed to appreciate his motivation for adjusting it wholeheartedly. They’d behaved as if they realized they were in the presence of a superior force who’d taken the pursuit of justice far beyond their level. The bare bones of his background had left them—and her—awed. They’d left the E.R. shaking his hand for what he’d done to those repeat offenders and slapping his back for how ruthlessly he’d done it.

It was the female E.R. doctor who answered her. “Only family members can accompany patients.” She turned her awed eyes to Rashid. “Or if the patient specifically asks for your presence.”

And you’d rather he didn’t ask, Laylah almost retorted.

She tried cajoling, something she was abysmal at. “You’ve come this far. Might as well let me go all the way.”

His eyes confirmed that she had failed to learn that survival mechanism as an endangered estrogen-based species in her family’s testosterone jungle. Then he presented her with that unyielding back as he preceded the woman into the treatment room.

By the time thirty minutes had passed and more and more doctors had rushed into the room, she was certain they’d discovered his injury was catastrophic, and they’d been trying to contain the situation—and failing…

“I can’t believe your luck, lady.”

Laylah started, her nerves jangling. It was the E.R. nurse who’d first met them. She was exiting the treatment room.

Nurse Norma McGregor smiled widely at her. “Not that you were almost kidnapped, but that this god happened by and swooped in to save you.”

She barely remembered Rashid’s version in time. “Uh… that isn’t what happened…”

“Oh, I know what he said happened, but I’ve seen the men he ripped apart. That had to be to punish what he’d consider a far more serious crime than attacking him. Attacking you. I also don’t buy that story about your bruise. You two don’t feel like you know each other enough for basketball. But don’t worry. The boys in blue will swear on his version, so we can discuss the truth.”

Laylah released the air trapped in her lungs. “You’re uncanny at reading people.”

Nurse McGregor tinkled a laugh. “Comes with the territory.”

“I didn’t want him to give the police a false statement…”

“But he insisted,” Nurse McGregor put in. “And it makes him even more of a god. Shouldering this for you will save you no end of aggravation.”

“Yeah. And he’d already saved me from far worse. If not for him, I would have been somewhere in the underbelly of Chicago by now, wondering if I’d survive. Instead, it was he who… who…” She had to stop as the tears finally began to flow.

Nurse McGregor frowned. “Hey, easy, girl. This is going to hit you hard when you process what happened and what could have happened. So don’t fight it. Seek help.”

Laylah wiped away her tears. “This isn’t about my reaction. It’s his wound…”

“Seeing that much blood disturbed you, huh?”

She shook her head. “I was a volunteer paramedic in my country. I’ve dealt with all kinds of injuries. But to see him hurt because he came to my defense…”

Comprehension dawned in the woman’s blue eyes. “So it’s because he’s your knight in darkest armor that his superficial injury is making you so upset!”

“What superficial injury takes this long to take care of?” Laylah cried.

The woman waved. “Oh, his wound is long taken care of.”

Laylah frowned. “So why are doctors rushing in there and not coming out?”

Nurse McGregor grinned. “That has nothing to do with how he is and everything to do with who he is.”

“Huh?”

“You can’t tell me you didn’t notice the women fighting to take his case?”

She hadn’t. With Rashid around, everything else in the world became inconsequential, almost invisible.

Nurse McGregor chuckled. “Well, they did, when normally they wouldn’t be caught dead with such ‘first-year-intern’ injuries. Then Doctor Vergas threw her weight around as E.R. director and snapped him up.” Laylah had noticed that. “Boy, did he give us a hard time, ordering us to get him sutures, saying he had more experience suturing wounds than all of us combined. But Doc Vergas convinced him to let her do it using the one thing she figured would get through to him.”

“And that was?”

“You, of course.”

“Huh?”

“She said if he didn’t let her suture him, she’d have you come in to talk sense into him. He allowed her to sew him up without further resistance.”

Oh.

He’d conceded only when threatened with the prospect of seeing her?

Was that good, bad or terrible?

Nurse McGregor sighed dramatically. “Even when he caved, he wouldn’t take his sweater off, just raised it. But the inches we saw of him were… whoa.” A hand frantically fanned her face. “Maybe we wouldn’t have survived seeing the whole package, after all.”

TMI, Laylah almost blurted out. TMDI. Too much distressing info. She could do without more stimulation of her fantasies starring Rashid. Coupling concepts like “‘all the way”‘ and “‘the whole package”‘ with him wasn’t good for her psychological health.

The woman went on. “Man, it’s like he isn’t human. First that body, and then he didn’t make a sound as we stitched him up when he’d refused local anesthesia or painkillers afterward. Then there’s that presence, even when he didn’t look at us or say a word.”

Layla was intimate with Rashid’s influence from lifelong experience. But…”All E.R. personnel have come out, including you. So who are those people who keep pouring into the room? What’s going on?”

“That’s what I meant when I said it’s all about who he is. After we were done, he said he’d make a donation to the department. Then he mentioned a number. That’s when we E.R personnel stampeded out, to spread the word and investigate him on the internet And we found out exactly who we have in there.”

That must have been a shock. Rashid was worth a few dozen billions. Men of his caliber had entire hospitals at their beck and call and health insurance that would airlift them anywhere in the world if they sprained their ankle. It was actually odd that he’d consented to go to a regular E.R., even for a “glorified paper cut.”

Nurse McGregor flicked her head toward the room. “So those illustrious figures you saw storming in there? They’re department heads, each trying to sell him on a project that needs funding.”

He was in there talking business? Leaving her out here going out of her mind?

With a smile that must be as brittle as her nerves, she said, “Thanks for the recap and everything else, Nurse McGregor.”

Then she marched into that till-now off-limits room.

Sure enough, Rashid was swarmed.

Not that he appeared concerned. Even surrounded by people like a rock star by groupies, he towered a head over everyone, that vast energy he emitted engulfing the scene. He was wearing only his bloody slate-gray sweater. His coat was hooked carelessly from a finger over his back.

She’d thought that coat had made him more imposing. But stripped of its obscuring folds, the symmetry and strength that infused his every line, the power and perfection that filled and strained against the cashmere, ruined as it was, were…

What had the nurse said? Yeah. Whoa.

No wonder god had been the only word the woman had found to describe him. He did look the part, presiding over his worshippers with all the contained might and forbearance of one.

He saw her the second she entered. In fact, his gaze had been pinned on the door.

Had he been expecting her to disobey hospital rules? But that wasn’t what had kept her out. It had been his unspoken, and this time non-negotiable, demand. So had he been expecting her to disregard his wishes? And had he been watching the door so intently because he’d been worried she would? Or only as his means of escape from those who would devour him whole?

There was no way to read the answer on that heart-wrenchingly gorgeous face he wore like a mask. But she let him read her own thoughts in the gaze that clashed with his.

His response was to raise that eyebrow in a calm, Still here?

She folded her arms over her chest, letting him know he could spend the night holed up in here, wheeling and dealing, and she’d stand right here and wait for him to be done.

A glint in his fathomless eyes acknowledged he was aware of her intention.

Then he turned his gaze to the man standing closest to him. “Mr. Hendrix, please send your proposal to my corporation’s email with E.R. in the subject line. I’ll get back to you within two weeks.” Voices rose, trying to get the same offer. He cut them all short. “Give Mr. Hendrix your proposals. I’ll do what I can.”

Without one further look at anyone, he walked away. She could see they wanted to cling to him, but there was no way anyone could stand in Rashid’s way once he’d made up his mind. They parted for him like the Red Sea for Moses.

He didn’t slow down as he reached her, only inclined his head at her as he exited the room, his earlier silent inquiry now a statement. “You didn’t leave.”

She hurried after him, stumbling on legs that felt mismatched as his scent, even over the overpowering hospital smells, filled her lungs. “You thought I would?”

He spared her a sideways glance from his prodigious height. “You should have.”

“Yeah, right.” Her gaze flitted to the pristine white bandage peeking below what now looked like viscous ink on his sweater. She felt nauseated that his flesh had been torn, again, this time for her.

“Are you all right?” she asked. Her breathlessness had nothing to do with almost running to match his endless strides.

He gave her a look that pointed out that she was the one having trouble keeping up. “I don’t look it?”

You look more than all right. You look divine.

She barely bit back the words. “Looks can be deceiving. Especially yours.”

Both eyebrows rose this time. “I wish I’d known I had chameleonlike powers before. That would have come in handy during my black ops days.”

So after being a war hero he’d veered into ultimate warrior territory. A natural progression, really. Only the most formidable soldiers made it and survived in that utmost-skill, maximum-peril world.

Had that been what had shaped him into this force of darkness? He’d always been complex, but his current depths must have been forged in experiences she couldn’t even imagine. The brutal demands and dangers of a black ops life fit the bill.

She cleared her tightening throat. “I meant your skin. It’s so…” Polished and bronzed and tough, so touchable… so lickable… She clamped down on the overheating thoughts. “Tanned. Anyone less… opaque would be pale as a ghost from blood loss by now.”

His eyes moved dismissively away. “It’s clear you’ve never seen what blood loss looks like.”

She quickened her steps to capture his fixed-ahead gaze. “I do now. I was a volunteer paramedic through college in Zohayd.”

Had she managed to stun him again? That she could decipher a flicker in his eyes meant that she had. And then some.

Did it surprise him that much that she’d volunteered, and in such an occupation? Was he surprised to discover she wasn’t what her mother had tried so hard to make her—a pampered pawn?

“Then you must know all this blood only looks dramatic. I’ve got liters still circulating about, doing its job, and the loss is merely an incentive for my body to produce a replacement, something I’ve always found revitalizing.”

Her jaw dropped. “You find blood loss revitalizing?”

“It does jog my body out of a rut. Before you wonder, I don’t have proclivities for inflicting it on myself for kicks, but when it does happen, I look at the bright side.”

She and Nurse McGregor had been right. There was something more than human about him.

“You’re still not convinced, even when your paramedical experience is telling you I’m right.”

He was. But…”I—I just can’t stop thinking how much worse it could have been…”

“But it wasn’t. You can stop guilt-tripping.”

He was wrong about that. It wasn’t guilt. It was this… fear for him, even when she knew that danger had been averted.

He sighed. “What will convince you that I won’t keel over? I assure you I don’t intend to for roughly the next fifty years.”

The out-of-nowhere flashes of his dry-as-tinder sense of humor amazed her.

Her lips quivered. “I’ll hold you to that.”

Another sideways glance, longer this time, and even more unsettling. But he said nothing more as he navigated out of the hospital and into the freezing night.

She fought the urge to take his hand as they crossed the road. Driving him here and escorting him inside were two things he’d grudgingly consented to. Literally holding his hand was another level of infringement altogether. And she’d rather not be exposed to more eyebrow action.

But she was, in response to her rushing to take the wheel.

He reinforced that eyebrow’s censure by remaining outside, his bulk blocking the passenger-side window.

A button wound it down. “Get in already.”

He only stood there, uncaring of the icy wind as his coat flowed around him like a magician’s cape. “You’d rather drive yourself home instead of giving me directions?”

She thought of saying yes, just so he’d get in from the cold. But even if she didn’t suffer from advanced candor, she wouldn’t bargain with him with anything less than the full truth.

She looked up at him with her unequivocal intention. “I’m driving you home.”

Widening his stance, he shoved his hands in his pants’ pockets, evidently having no problem with haggling over this all night. “Our deal wasn’t open-ended. It ended when you heard with your own ears that my injury was trivial.”

“So the injury wasn’t as bad as you’re used to, and the blood loss turned out to be a kick. But the stitches must be hurting like hell, especially since you went all Rambo and refused anesthesia and painkillers. Even if you have an inhuman pain threshold and feel nothing, bottom line is, I’m still driving. And I won’t just drop you home and leave. I’m coming in with you.”

That silenced him. For at least thirty seconds.

Then he leaned down, looked straight into her eyes, the night of his own eyes deep enough to engulf her whole.

Slowly, distinctly, he said, “I’ve been in three wars, princess. I forget how many other lesser scale, if sometimes even more vicious, armed conflicts. Not to mention all those missions I undertook with one-way tickets because coming back at all, let alone in one piece, was a one in a hundred shot at best. I’ve seen and done and had done to me some of the absolute worst things imaginable. Two-dozen stitches actually feels nostalgic now that I’ve left the battlefield behind for the boardroom. I assure you, I can tuck myself into bed.”

That image filled her with heat. How many women had fought for that privilege, had had that pleasure…?

She bit her lip at the disconcerting projections. “I’m sure you can also lug the whole world on your back, Sheikh Atlas. But that doesn’t mean that you have to, or that you have to do it alone. No matter what, you’re not alone tonight. You got those stitches in my defense, so that makes them mine, too, and I have an equal right in deciding how to view them. You think they’re negligible or nostalgic, I think they’re premium grounds for fussing. You evidently find being fussed over an alien concept, but you’ll have to suck it up, since fuss over you I will. So you might as well give in, get in and let me take you home.”

Judging by the infinitesimal widening of his eyes, she’d definitely flabbergasted him. She’d bet no one had ever dared talk to him like that.

When he finally spoke, his voice was an octave deeper, if that was possible, “I really don’t need—”

“I know you need nothing from anyone.” Now that she had him miraculously off-balance, she had to strike the red-hot iron of his indecision and get the obdurate man in from the cold. “It’s a given you can take care of yourself at the absolute worst of times, having done so all your life. But you won’t tonight. Tonight, I take care of you.”

Three

She’d pushed her luck too far.

From the way Rashid was looking at her, as if she were an alien life form, she feared she’d done worse. Instead of persuading him to get into the car, she might have convinced him to walk home on foot.

What the hell. Might as well go all the way.

She leaned farther so she could look up at him. “If you’re thinking of calling a cab, I’ll follow it. If you decide to walk, I’ll cruise along beside you. Or I’ll get out and walk with you and you’ll have my hypothermia on your hands and your conscience.”

He clearly couldn’t believe his ears.

She grinned up at him. Stick around and, according to my family, you’ll hear plenty of pretty unbelievable stuff.

Before she could utter another word he was in the car, and she sat back quickly into her seat, stunned by how fast he had moved.

She blinked at him. How could someone of his height and bulk flow so effortlessly? It was as if he had a stealth mode and tricked her senses into not registering his movement.

Had they taught him that in black ops training? Or were those powers of undetectability why he’d been sought for the position in the first place?

After closing the window, he presented her with his profile. Not even his horrific scar detracted from its hewn perfection.

Ya Ullah, but he was utter beauty.

Her one complaint was that he’d almost shaved off his hair. She’d once made a profound study of how its lush silkiness framed his masterpiece of a face, how its virile hairline outlined his lion’s forehead, how it captured light only to emit it in glimmers of raven gloss. She’d been grateful when he’d kept growing it so there’d been more of it for her to delight in. When she’d been twelve or thirteen, he’d worn it in a ponytail midway down his back. She’d lived for the times when he’d unbound it.

Even when he’d joined the army, he hadn’t gotten a military cut. But now he had barely half an inch to adorn his warrior’s head. That was an injustice of massive proportions.

Burning to ask why he kept it so ruthlessly cropped, she waited for him to say something. Like where to drive.

His continued silence told her she should figure out what to do with the rest of her one-sided plan. He’d contribute nothing more.

She started the ignition, cranked up the heater, turned back to him. “I’ll need directions.”

Without a word, he set the GPS then resumed his position.

So. The silent treatment. Two could play at this game.

Twenty minutes later, cruising the powerful car down almost-empty streets on the outskirts of the city, she’d long realized that that was easier bragged about than achieved.

She’d spent a lifetime yearning to talk to him and failing. Now she wanted to make up for all of those frustrating times. She wanted to deluge him with a thousand questions, yammer on about all the things she’d longed to say to him all her life.

But his silence was like a barrier. It made her awareness of him highly distressing. She felt as if his every breath expanded in her own chest, as if every impulse powering his magnificent body quivered through her nerves.

Then she felt him slide a discreet glance her way.

She tore her gaze from the road to his face. For a fraction of a second she saw something… unguarded.

It was gone before she could latch on to it, but she felt he was wrestling with something. Irritation? Humor? What?

“You understand that was blackmail.”

All her hairs, perpetually at half-mast around him, stood on end as the velvet night of his voice poured into her ear.

Her lips wobbled. “I choose to call it persistence. In response to your pointless resistance.”

“My resistance wasn’t pointless. Just useless.”

Her grin widened as she returned her eyes to the road. “That it was. But pray tell, what was its point?”

“That you shouldn’t be with me. That it’s inappropriate.”

“Oh, no. You’re not pulling our region’s traditions on me, of what’s ‘appropriate’ behavior for women, especially the variety stigmatized by spinsterhood.”

“You’re not a spinster.”

Her laugh dripped in sarcasm. “Tell that to my family, especially my dear mother. I’ve been a spinster in her eyes for over ten years.”

“Ten years ago you were a child of seventeen.”

He knew her age!

She tried not to grin like a fool at the discovery. “And I was already past my prime then. You know girls in our region are expected to interest men in acquiring them earlier than that.”

Instead of debating her, he only said, “Any reason why you don’t find this situation inappropriate?”

Was he for real? “Because we’re not in Azmahar or Zohayd?”

“Our behavior shouldn’t change based on geography. Wherever we are, we remain who we are. You—more than anyone from our region—should always observe said ‘traditions.’ As you realized tonight, they’re not only set to limit your freedom, but to protect you.”

“You’re not saddling me with the responsibility for tonight’s attack. Tonight was a fluke…”

“You can’t afford flukes. Or to think that guards would ‘cramp your style.’“

“Is that why you think I don’t have guards? Seems you haven’t kept abreast with the latest developments.”

“Why don’t you update me?”

“Sure. Where did you last leave off the soap opera that is my family life? You know the basics, how the whole mess started. Two brothers marrying two sisters to unite two kingdoms, and instead of being satisfied with their enviable lots of wealth, status and healthy children, becoming each others’ worst enemies.”

His gaze plunged into his own realizations. “You discovered how things stood between your parents, and your uncle and aunt.”

“Only from the time I knew who they were.”

That she’d always known seemed to interest him. At least she thought that was what that last heavy-lidded glance signified.

She sighed. “Then it all came to an inevitably explosive end when my mother and aunt plotted against their husbands and got caught, divorced and exiled. That’s where the part about my guards comes in. All my life, until her exile, my mother was obsessed with one thing. That she, the lofty Princess Somayah of Azmahar, not end up as a second-rate princess, known only for being sister to Queen Sondoss of Zohayd and married to King Atef’s brother. She had me hounded by a platoon to safeguard the asset she hoped would bring her an alliance that would elevate her to her sister’s higher royal status, and rid her of dependence on my father’s family. My father, who’s always been mired in gold-digging mistresses, only sent guards after me to evict hers in his petty feud with her. Once their toxic relationship was thankfully over, they dismissed me from their minds, the one thing they’d rather forget bonded them forever. So, I’ve been guard-free since I left Zohayd.”

His jaw hardened. “Why didn’t you ask your uncle Atef or your cousins for replacements? Why don’t you hire some yourself?”

“I never ask anyone for anything, let alone round-the-clock protection. And while my software development business is taking off, my liquid assets are tied up in its operating capital. Most important, I really felt I didn’t need protection. I came here to start a new life as just another single woman living in the city. I paid attention to my safety. This was the first time I ran into any trouble.”

“It only takes once.”

She exhaled. “True. But it didn’t happen because I was negligent. Someone was determined to hurt me. They would have found a way no matter what I did. And I’m grateful you happened along.”

A long moment of silence followed her statement.

At length, he exhaled. “As a princess of Zohayd, you must never be without protection. And you should never be with a strange man, let alone offer to drive him home.”

Oh, man. He was going all protective and disapproving on her. As if she needed to find him any yummier.

“You are strange—” in a uniquely and incredibly exciting way, her grin told him “—but not a stranger.”

That majestic head inclined in delicious curtness. “Not a total stranger, granted, but still one.”

“Oh, come on, Rashid. Next you’re going to say I need a mehrem.” In other words, an adult male of her kin whom she couldn’t marry to chaperone her in the presence of males she could. “How about you stop behaving as if we don’t know each other?”

“We don’t.”

A huff of incredulity burst out at his emphatic declaration. “Yeah, right. I’ve known you all my life.”

“You’ve seen me from afar for a portion of it.”

“Yeah, a portion comprising its first seventeen years. And the ‘from afar’ bit was your doing. It sure wasn’t for lack of trying to come closer on my part.”

There. Her crass candor was getting into gear. But boy, had she tried to come closer.

She’d tried to be everywhere he was while he’d been in Zohayd, had found every reason to be in Azmahar when he’d been there, striving for a chance to talk to him. Yet no matter her ingenuity, she could count on one hand the quasi-exchanges they’d ever had. The one thing ameliorating her disappointment had been that Rashid was like that with everyone. Not that he’d been that reserved with others. And not that she’d ever given up.

After he’d joined the army and his appearances had become more sporadic, she’d obsessively done everything she could to be around for the rare visits. But war between Azmahar and Damhoor had erupted mere months after he’d enlisted. Then he’d been reported missing and thought dead….

Ya Ullah, she’d never known such desperation. Or such relief when he’d turned up weeks later, alive and leading his squad back to civilization. She’d almost died of frustration when she hadn’t been able to go with Haidar and Jalal to greet him at his return. But she’d gone to the ceremony where he’d received Azmahar’s highest medal of valor. She’d still had to ambush him to congratulate him, tell him how thankful she’d been for his safety. But he’d been more aloof than ever before.

He’d drifted farther away from then on until he’d seemed to disappear off the face of the earth. He’d resurfaced almost three years ago, just as the upheaval in Zohayd had erupted, as her closest cousins’, Haidar’s and Jalal’s, enemy, and subsequently the enemy of her whole family.

No one knew what had happened between the former best friends to tear them apart so viciously. She didn’t even know if it was the same thing that had alienated Haidar and Jalal themselves. All she’d known was that she had to be resigned that she would never see him again. That she’d never had any chance with him, anyway.

Now fate had brought him exploding back into her life, only for her to find he’d become this exhilarating delight of a man who was still making her struggle for every inch closer…

The GPS announced that they’d arrived at their destination.

Bringing the car to a stop, she squinted up through the windshield.

He lived in a… warehouse?

His next words confirmed it. “Now that you’ve driven me home, I’ll have someone tail you to yours.”

She took the key out and handed it to him. When he wouldn’t take it, she placed it on his lap and took off her seat belt. “Which part of ‘I’m taking care of you tonight’ didn’t you get?”

His gaze bathed her in such calm contemplation it had blood fizzing in her ears. “This comes from being one of the two prized female Aal Shalaans, right?”

“Uh… what does?”

“The expectation that men will do your bidding. You’re used to saying ‘jump’ only for your male kin to ask ‘how high?’“

One thing for sure, she’d jump if only he said to. She’d stay in the air until he said down, too.

No need to tell him that just yet. For now, she’d let him believe she was an old hand at getting her way. If he believed she was more effective than she really was, it made it more likely she’d sway him, too. Good press was everything, after all.

She smiled. “Invite me in, Rashid.”

“That’s an ill-advised demand, princess.”

“Will you stop with this ‘princess’ business? You’d better, if you don’t want me to ‘sheikh’ you.”

“‘Sheikh’ away. Boundaries are essential.”

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Can we take our boundaries inside? I’m dying for a cup of tea. I promise to make you one.”

“I don’t drink tea.”

He didn’t, huh? She might just discover he didn’t eat food, either, his sustenance being evil souls. And he’d already gorged on four for dinner.

“You must have other beverages in your place.”

“Tap water.”

Her lips twisted. “You won’t put me off, you know.”

“I’m stating facts.”

“Next you’ll say you have nothing to eat but dried dates.”

His shrug should have been immortalized on video as the template for nonchalance. “It’s not far from the truth.”

Water and dates, huh? The sustenance of desert nomads. It actually fit that he, having lived years in survival mode through hardships and deprivation the likes of which she couldn’t imagine, would be programmed to exist on the bare necessities. Even now that he was a billionaire, he hadn’t gone soft or become dependent upon modern comforts and conveniences. He might drive a car only his kind of money could buy, but he reverted to his adversity-thriving true self in a heartbeat.

We remain who we are, no matter where we are.

And who he was, was the best thing she’d ever known.

She grinned into his brooding eyes. “Water and dates work for me.”

“Fine. You can come in.” Not much of an invitation, but she’d take it. She was sizzling with eagerness to. At least, she was before he doused it. “Until your escort arrives.”

Before she could object, he was out of the car in yet another impossibly effortless move.

Her exit wasn’t as graceful, nor was her progress to catch up with him at the door of what looked like a deserted warehouse below an equally empty, old, industrial-looking brick building.

As he pointed a remote at the huge steel door, she nodded at the deserted area. “See this? There’s no one around like there always is in our region. No malicious eyes to monitor my visit or wagging tongues to weave it into a scandal. Why are you worried?”

“Why aren’t you?”

“Because I can’t worry about anything with you around. Because I feel safer with you than I ever did in my life. Why else?”

Another episode of inertness descended on him. She was quickly learning that indicated astonishment. Even shock.

His next words reinforced that belief, his eyes narrowing a fraction. “You believe I pose no danger of any sort?”

“Definitely not to me.” The words were out before she realized he might mean a different kind of danger… the sexual kind.

If only. With this avenging archangel, she was safer in that arena than she was in her currently all-female environment. A depressing thought if any ever was.

He pressed the remote and the door opened with the whirr of a perfectly oiled machine, belying its weather-beaten appearance.

Before he turned away, he belatedly commented on her wholehearted assertion. “Interesting.”

You can say that again, she thought, watching the receding streetlights paint shadows across his back as he forged deeper into the darkness, a sorcerer becoming one with his lair.

He left the lights off. On purpose, she was sure, to rattle her. Punishing her for behaving so “inappropriately”?

Too bad for him it wouldn’t work. Not only did she have no fear of darkness, it was true she’d fear nothing with him by her side. Maybe they did lack some knowledge of one another that closer interaction would have fostered, but she did know the essential him. His essence had touched hers so profoundly that he starred in her very first memory.

Deciding to call him out on his efforts to intimidate her, she said, “Let there be light, Rashid. Only so neither of us breaks a toe against a cabinet or something.”

At her mockery, there was light. Not a sudden burst, but a dawning of golden, sourceless illumination so gradual her vision didn’t have to adjust to take in her surroundings. A vast, 50-foot-ceilinged warehouse-to-loft conversion. There was one word for it: Spartan. She now truly knew what the word meant. It was this: a warrior’s dwelling. Sparse, utilitarian, austere. It was also more. A piece of ancient Azmahar, before oil and technology had transformed its distinctive heritage into yet another twenty-first-century Westernized hybrid. Every line and surface, and what little furniture there was, was steeped in Azmahar’s history, bearing the stamp of its authenticity in a muted palette of desert-inspired tones.

“Of course.” She realized she’d said that out loud when he turned to her. “Now that I’ve seen this place, I realize nothing else—and nothing less—could have suited you. Or… contained you.”

“Contained me?” His gaze swept the place before he leveled that bone-melting stare back on her. “Quite the bottle, isn’t it?”

A laugh burst out of her. “You do fit the genie profile. Especially with the way you materialized out of thin air tonight.”

Shrugging out of his coat, he moved deeper into the huge space. “I’m sure that satisfies your sense of dramatic license far more than the mundane explanation.”

Removing her coat as well and following him farther into the room, she faced him as he stopped before a fireplace and held out her arms for the logs he’d picked up. “I’ll do that. You sit down.”

“So it’s not ‘jump’ this time, but ‘sit,’ eh? What next? Roll over? Beg?”

A chuckle bubbled out as she tried to imagine him doing any of that. But the funny actions only turned to licentious images in her head. Oh, the images.

Trapping a moan, she grinned. “Maybe. And maybe I’ll ask you to jump to that mezzanine. I bet you can jump tall buildings in a single bound. But even superheroes need to put their feet up once in a while. As you’re going to do tonight.”

Without a shadow of a smile in return, he handed her the logs and left her to start a fire. He sank down on top of a woolen kelim woven in Azmahar’s national colors and motifs. Leaning on one of two huge complementing cushions, he proceeded to watch her like a black panther would contemplate a contrary gazelle.

His gaze made her more distressed with each breath; its touch unleashing impulses she’d believed would be forever banked with him forever out of her life.

As he would be after tonight.

But tonight was still here. As was she. And she would make the most out of this windfall.

With the fire going, she turned to him. “You’re hungry.”

“I am?”

“Judging by your size and muscle mass, you must require quite a lot of sustenance frequently. It’s been almost four hours since you came to my rescue. So yes, you’re hungry now.”

It could have been the play of firelight. But she could swear an obsidian flame started flickering in the depths of his eyes.

He inclined his head, casting his face in deeper shadow, depriving her of closer investigation. “So you don’t just order your males around, you tell them how they feel, too.”

“‘My males?’“ A laugh overcame her. “Ya Ullah, what a concept.” His intensity ratcheted up until she had to look away, had to walk to the open-plan kitchen at the far end of the gigantic space. “So… food. Please tell me I’ll find something more than water and dates in there.”

“I can still call someone to follow you home now rather than later.”

“No, thanks.” Arriving at the kitchen, she looked around. “You weren’t exaggerating, were you? No fridge? So how do you eat? Out? Or do you exist on takeaway? Or have a cook come in regularly?”

“No cook. I get fresh ingredients delivered daily, use them up, rinse and repeat.”

That actually sounded like a very healthy way to live. He was the picture of vigor and virility, so he was doing it right. Very.

She leaned across the island, luxuriated in watching him coming closer. “So where’s today’s consignment?”

He stopped before her. “I intended to have dinner out.”

“Until me.”

“Until you.”

The way he said those words… Was there tenderness in his tone, or was it her imagination again?

She cleared her tight throat. “So how am I supposed to feed you? You don’t even have dates, do you?”

“I have all kinds of dried fruits.” He pointed toward the cupboards behind her.

“I can use those. For dessert. For the main course, I bet you can get anything delivered at any time.”

He brooded at her for what felt like an hour.

Her gaze began to waver. He was going to outstare her and…

He suddenly looked heavenward, as if asking the fates just what they’d thrown in his path tonight. Then he inhaled sharply, exhaled as forcefully.

Wow. She’d done it. She’d dragged a full-blown reaction out of him. A human one, to boot.

Her internal celebration hiccupped as he recaptured her in the crosshairs of his focus. “Fine. I’ll have whatever ingredients you require delivered. What do you want to feed me?”

She barely managed not to jump and pump a fist into the air.

Another minibattle won!

Her smile was so wide she doubted her lips would revert to their former size. “What do you want to eat?”

In response, he produced his cell phone, called someone named Ahmad then handed her the phone.

As he walked away he said over his shoulder, “Surprise me. You’re superlative at it, after all.”

Four

Surprise had long given way to ever-expanding disbelief as Rashid watched Laylah prowling all over his place, “taking care of him.” She was now in his kitchen again, preparing him dessert.

This was not going according to plan.

Why was he letting her do this to him? He should be the one setting the pace, calling the shots.

Yet, since she’d pounced on him with her scarf and concern in that alley, he’d been letting her steer him. And this alien experience of being taken care of only got more… incapacitating.

No one had ever done anything like this for him, to him. He’d never let anyone near enough to even try. Not even Haidar and Jalal. He’d once rejected all their efforts to impose their brand of caring on him. He’d since lived happily alone.

Zain. So “happily” didn’t apply. He had no idea what happiness was. He’d heard people describe it. He’d observed them living it. It was what Haidar and Jalal appeared to be eyeballs-deep in now, with their brides. He’d never experienced anything remotely resembling their conditions and he’d been fiercely thankful for that. They’d been… compromised. Their power was no longer their own; their priorities forever messed up. He’d been unwavering in his belief that he wasn’t equipped to succumb to anything like that so-called happiness, that there was nothing to jog his ironclad order and intentions. Happiness, and everything else that people wanted, was for other men. Men with no mission.

Then tonight had happened. She had happened.

Laylah Aal Shalaan. This… shock.

Instead of the self-centered and self-serving spoiled witch he’d expected her to be, a budding edition of her black-hearted mother and aunt, there was this… being who seemed to exude a pristine nature and an overwhelming generosity of spirit. He’d spent the past hours looking for chinks in her act. He’d found none.

So he was floundering. Not only because she was not following the script he’d had in mind but because he wasn’t.

He kept doing the opposite of what he’d intended to do. He kept doing everything in his power to sabotage his own plans.

Instead of grabbing this opportunity that had hurled itself at him, he’d found himself shaking it off as if it burned him. He’d done everything to push her away, when he’d been following her for weeks, planning how to get close. She’d had to push him and pull at him until he’d let her come here. When he should have suggested it, or at least not fought against it with all he had.

But he had fought her every step of the way, his resistance becoming fiercer the more she’d clung. He’d tried all he could to talk her out of giving him what he’d planned to manipulate her into.

So no, nothing was going as planned. Everything was going far better than anything he’d dared hope for.

And that more than disturbed him.

He’d never been in a situation like this. He always had a plan, then followed it to the last meticulous detail. Whenever he seemed to be improvising brilliantly, he was only following one of the contingencies he’d made allowances for.

The only time he hadn’t done that to the letter, he’d almost paid with his life. He had paid with his mutilation.

Even then, he hadn’t veered off his planned course that far. He’d never let anything or anyone sabotage his plans that much.

But she was doing so by setting his plans on hyperdrive. What he’d hope to achieve in weeks had been condensed into hours. He hadn’t needed a strategy to get her where he wanted her. He was the one who needed to come to terms with how fast his plan was working when he hadn’t even meant to initiate it. He was the one who was wondering what had hit him. The one who had to struggle to catch his breath.

Her enthusiasm might turn out to be as deleterious to his plans as her flat-out rejection could have been. Being so uncharted and unpredictable, it could prove even more catastrophic.

His heart thudded as she flashed him a smile before resuming her work, humming some merry tune.

Maybe he was overthinking it. Maybe he should not question his good luck.

But how could he not? Nothing like this had ever happened to him. He’d never been exposed to anyone like her. Was it any wonder he had no skill set in place to handle it or her?

And that was why he was succumbing to her coddling. He kept searching through his head for a method to regain control of the situation. But he found no precedent with which to deal with her.

The paradox was that she was overriding him with the sheer force of her… openness, her guilelessness. Her eagerness. Three qualities he had no experience with.

He should be using her willingness to do anything for him, her unwillingness to leave him, to his advantage.

Yet said advantage was the last thing on his mind. Thinking at all wasn’t among his capabilities right now. His faculties were all engaged in surrendering to whatever she wished to do, for him, to him. In dreading the time when she had to leave.

These unknown reactions could be due to blood loss after all. Or the brush with resurrected insanity.

He watched her move toward him, her undulations the essence of femininity, yet not in the least studied, as spontaneous as everything else about her. Her face was open for him to read, the smile that spread those full, flushed lips transmitting something he’d never thought to see. Pure pleasure at being with him. And it wasn’t gratitude. It was far more. He couldn’t think how this could be.

But why think? Or analyze why she wanted to be here, why he wanted her here? Why everything was going so perfectly? It was an alien concept, but maybe he should just go along with it.

Maybe this time, having his original plan destroyed wouldn’t end in disaster.

“I’ve discovered one thing you’re not superlative at!”

At her triumphant declaration, Rashid raised his eyes in utmost deliberateness from the bowl he’d just wiped clean.

Anyone would have quaked under the impact of his gaze.

Laylah did quake. With an excitement that was getting harder to contain. Being with him was like being hooked to a source of inexhaustible energy. Like being infused with a narcotic, an upper. She did feel high. On him. On life, now that he was near.

Her delight had soared as she’d engaged him in repartee until the delivery of her requested items, then as she’d prepared them. When he’d sauntered into the kitchen and started working alongside her, she’d run to fetch a cushion, placed it where she’d have the best view of him and patted it. He’d stood there staring at that cushion, the picture of disbelief.

When he’d finally grumbled that this was worse than black ops conditioning, she’d spluttered in laughter. Hilarity had become fierce sweetness as that indomitable force had sat down where she’d indicated, letting her have this pleasure.

And pleasure it had been, the likes of which she’d never experienced. She’d never enjoyed cooking as she had for him, never enjoyed eating as she had with him. And then there had been the delight of watching him devour everything she’d prepared, and listening to his rumbles of enjoyment as he’d demolished the honey-glazed salmon, sautéed vegetables and avocado-based salad.

He’d just finished the khoshaaf she’d made soaking dried fruits in honeyed water and topping them with toasted almonds and spices. He’d scooped the last drops of syrup as if he’d coax the bowl to give up more, showing her how much he wished there was. He’d been vocally appreciative of her effort and not a little stunned at her skill. He’d admitted he’d thought he’d have to suffer ingesting whatever she’d imagined passed for cooking and be done with it. As it was, he could have eaten ten times as much. Not that he’d accepted second helpings. He’d insisted he never ate that much at a time, nor that elaborately.

Every word, no matter how it betrayed his preconceptions of her, had been a caress to her heart.

Now he was waiting for her to qualify her statement that there was something he wasn’t perfect at.

“Math,” she elaborated. “You counted the ‘prized female Aal Shalaans’ wrong. I’ve been one of three for a while now.”

Those divinely sculpted lips curled on that pout/twist combo that made her inside quiver. Her fingers itched to explore their dips and swells, her lips their…

He interrupted the cascade of imagery. “Aih, since discovering that Aliyah, now queen of Judar, is one. I hear she, too, had perfected the art of twisting untwistable men around her little finger.”

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