From desert captive to convenient queen!

The borders of Sheikh Tariq’s kingdom are permanently closed—just like his ironclad heart. After rescuing lost archaeologist Charlotte from the desert, he can’t let her go. And when he requires a bride, their mutual desire compels Tariq to crown Charlotte as his queen!

Innocent dreamer Charlotte thought passion was for other people—until Tariq proves how deliciously wrong she is! The pleasure of their marriage bed makes her feel alive. But the intensity of her connection with Tariq makes Charlotte feel something infinitely more dangerous...

JACKIE ASHENDEN writes dark, emotional stories, with alpha heroes who’ve just got the world to their liking only to have it blown wide apart by their kick-ass heroines. She lives in Auckland, New Zealand, with her husband, the inimitable Dr Jax, two kids and two rats. When she’s not torturing alpha males and their gutsy heroines she can be found drinking chocolate martinis, reading anything she can lay her hands on, wasting time on social media or being forced to go mountain biking with her husband. To keep up to date with Jackie’s new releases and other news, sign up to her newsletter at jackieashenden.com.

Also by Jackie Ashenden

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Destroyed

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King’s Price

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Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Crowned at the Desert King’s Command

Jackie Ashenden

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09797-0

CROWNED AT THE DESERT KING’S COMMAND

© 2019 Jackie Ashenden

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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To Dr A R Coates.

So long and thanks for all the fish.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

Extract

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

CHARLOTTE DEVEREAUX DIDN’T often think about her death. But when she did, she’d hoped it would be when she was very old and tucked into bed. Or maybe in a comfortable armchair, quietly slipping away over a very good book.

She hadn’t imagined it would be of heatstroke and dehydration after getting lost in the desert trying to find her father.

He’d told her he was going to the top of the dune to get a better view of the dig site—nothing major. But then someone had mentioned that they hadn’t seen Professor Devereaux for a while, so Charlotte had decided to go and see if she could find him.

She’d gone to the top dune where he had last been seen, only to find it empty. As all the dunes around her had been.

She hadn’t been worried initially. Her father did go off on his own so he could think, and he was a very experienced and eminent archaeologist who’d been on many digs in his time. The desert was nothing out of the ordinary for him and the idea of him getting lost was unthinkable.

As her father’s assistant, she wasn’t entirely inexperienced herself when it came to a dig and finding her way around it, and yet somehow, when she’d turned around to go back to the site, it had vanished. Along with her sense of direction.

Again, she hadn’t been worried—her father had talked a lot about how the desert could play tricks on a person’s perception—so she’d strode off confidently the same way she’d come, retracing her steps, expecting to come across the site pretty much straight away.

Except she hadn’t. And after about ten minutes of striding she’d realised that she’d made a mistake. A very grave one.

Of course she hadn’t panicked. Panicking wouldn’t help. It never did. The trick, when you got lost, was to stay calm and stay where you were.

So she had. But then the sun had got so hot—as if it were a hammer and she was the anvil. And she’d known that she was going to have to do something other than stand there otherwise she was going to die. So she’d started moving, going in the direction she’d thought the dig site would be, yet still it hadn’t materialised, and now she was slowly coming to the conclusion that she was lost.

It was a bad thing to be lost in the desert.

A very bad thing.

Charlotte paused and adjusted the black and white scarf she wore wrapped around her head. She hated the thing. It was too heavy and too hot, and gritty due to the sand. It was also usually damp, because she was constantly bathed in sweat, but she wasn’t sweating now and that was also a bad thing. Not sweating was a sign of heatstroke, wasn’t it?

She squinted into the distance, trying to see where she was going. The sun was beating her to a pulp. A number of black dots danced in her vision. That was probably another sign of heatstroke too, because she was now starting to feel dizzy.

This was the end, wasn’t it?

The rolling golden sands were endless, the violent blue of the sky a furnace she couldn’t seem to climb out of. The harsh, gritty sand under her feet was starting to move around like the deck of a ship and there was a roaring in her ears.

The black dots were getting bigger and bigger, looming large, until she realised that, actually, they weren’t dots in her vision. They were people, a whole group of them, dressed in black and riding...horses?

How odd. Shouldn’t they be riding camels?

She took a shaky step towards them, hope flooding through her. Were they some of the assistants from the dig? Had they come to find her? Rescue her?

‘Hey,’ she yelled. Or at least tried to. But the sound escaped as more of a harsh whisper.

The people on horses stopped, and she must be in a bad way because it wasn’t until that moment that she remembered that the assistants didn’t ride horses and they certainly weren’t swathed in black robes, the way these people seemed to be. Neither did they wear... Oh, goodness, they were swords, weren’t they?

Her heartbeat began to speed up, and a chill was sweeping through her despite the intense heat.

Her father, who’d been managing the dig, had warned everyone about how close the site was to the borders of Ashkaraz, and how they had to be careful not to stray too far. Ashkaraz had closed its borders nearly two decades ago and the current regime did not take kindly to intruders.

There were stories of men draped in black, who didn’t carry guns but swords, and of people who’d accidentally strayed over the border and never been seen again.

Rumours about Ashkaraz abounded—about how it was ruled by a tyrant who kept his people living in fear, banning all international travel both out of and into the country. All aid was refused. All diplomats and journalists turned away.

There had been one journalist reputed to have smuggled himself into Ashkaraz a couple of years back, escaping to publish a hysterical article full of terrible stories of a crushed people living under a dictator’s rule. But that was it.

Basically, no one knew what went on inside the country because no one—bar that journalist, and plenty doubted that he’d even been there anyway—had ever been there and come back.

Charlotte hadn’t listened much to the stories, or worried about how close to the borders they were. Mainly because she had been enjoying spending time with her father and was more interested in the archaeology they were doing than in rumours about a closed country.

Now, though, she wished she’d paid more attention. Because if the people approaching her weren’t assistants from the dig, then they were people from somewhere else.

Somewhere frightening.

She squinted harder at the group on horseback. Oh, goodness, was that a...a person, slung over the back of one of their horses? It seemed to be. A person with distinctive pale hair...

Her heart constricted, recognition slamming into her. She’d recognise that hair anywhere, because her hair was exactly the same colour. It was a family trait. Which meant that the person currently slung over the back of that horse was her father.

Fear wound around her, as cold as the sun was hot. He must have got lost, like she had, and they’d picked him up. And now they’d found her too...

A tall figure in the middle of the group swung down off his horse—and it had to be a he, given that women weren’t generally built like Roman gladiators—the sunlight catching the naked blade thrust through the belt that wound around his hips, and the chill that gripped Charlotte intensified.

He came towards her, moving with the fluid, athletic grace of a hunter despite his height and build and the shifting sand under his feet. She couldn’t see his face, he was covered from head to foot, but as he came closer she saw his eyes.

They weren’t so much brown as a dense, smoky gold. Like a tiger.

And all at once she knew that her doubts had been correct. That this was definitely not a search party come to rescue her. A group of men draped in black with swords at their hips could only mean one thing: they were Ashkaraz border guards and they were not here to rescue her. They were here to take her prisoner because she had almost certainly strayed into the wrong country.

The man came closer, looming over her, his broad figure blocking out the hammer-blow of the sun.

But even the sun wasn’t as hot or as brilliant as the gold of his eyes. And they were just as relentless, just as harsh. There was no mercy in those eyes. There was no help at all.

You fool. You should have told someone where you were going. But you didn’t, did you?

No, she hadn’t. She’d just gone to find her father, thinking she’d only be a couple of minutes. It was true that she hadn’t been paying attention to where she’d been going, as she’d so often done as a child, lost in whatever daydream had grabbed her at the time, since that had been better than listening to the screaming arguments of her parents as they’d battled each other over her head.

Even now, as an adult, she found it difficult to concentrate sometimes, when she was stressed or things were chaotic, her mind spinning off into its own fantasies, escaping reality. Though those moments of inattention didn’t usually have such terrible repercussions as now, when she was left with the choice of either turning and running away from the terrible man striding towards her across the hot sand, or falling to her knees and begging for her life.

What did these guards do to people who strayed over the borders? No one knew. No one had ever escaped. She and her father were going to be taken prisoner and no one would ever hear from them again.

Running was out of the question. Not only was there nowhere to run, she couldn’t leave her father. Wouldn’t leave him. He’d had no one else but her since her mother had moved to the States nearly fifteen years ago—and, though he wouldn’t exactly win any father-of-the-year awards, his career and all the digs he’d taken her on had instilled in her a love of history and ancient peoples that the dreamer inside her found fascinating.

She had a lot to thank him for, so she’d follow him the way she’d always followed him.

Which meant that she was going to have to throw herself on this man’s mercy—if, indeed, he had any.

Fear gripped her tight, and darkness crawled at the edge of her vision. Her lips were cracked, dry as the desert sand drifting around her feet, but she fought to remain upright. She was an idiot for wandering away from the site, it was true, but she wasn’t going to compound her mistake by collapsing ignominiously at this man’s feet.

She would be polite and reasonable, apologise calmly, and tell him that she hadn’t meant to wander into his country by mistake. That her father was a professor and she only a lowly assistant, and they hadn’t meant any harm. Also, could he please not kill them, or throw them into a dungeon, or any of the rest of the things her over-active imagination kept providing for her?

A hot wind kicked at the black hem of the man’s robes, making them flow around his powerful thighs as he came to a stop in front of her. He stood there so still, as if he was a mountain that had stood for millennia, as enduring and unchanging as the desert itself.

Charlotte held tight to consciousness and something about his merciless golden gaze hardened her spine, making her square her shoulders and straighten up.

She tried to get some moisture into her mouth and failed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she forced out. ‘Do you speak English? Are you able to help me?’

The man was silent a long moment, and then he said something, his voice deep enough that she felt it in her chest, a subtle, sub-sonic vibration. But she didn’t understand him. Her Arabic was rough, and the liquid sounds bore no resemblance to the minimal words she knew.

She felt very weak all of a sudden, and quite sick.

The man’s golden eyes seemed to fill her entire vision, his stare hard, brutal, crushing utterly her hope of rescue and of mercy.

She would get neither from him and that was obvious.

‘I’m so terribly sorry,’ Charlotte whispered as the darkness gathered around her. ‘But I think the man you have on that horse is my father. We’re quite lost. Do you think you could possibly help us?’

Then she fainted dead away at his feet.

Tariq ibn Ishak Al Naziri, Sheikh of Ashkaraz, stared impassively at the small body of the Englishwoman collapsed on the sand in front of him.

Her father, she’d said. Well, that cleared up the question of who the man was.

They’d found him unconscious on one of the dunes. After finding him, Tariq and his border guards had then spotted the woman, and had been tracking her for a good twenty minutes. Her zigzag path and the way she’d blundered across the border straight into Ashkaraz made it clear she had no idea where she was going, though what she’d murmured just now clarified things somewhat. She’d obviously been looking for the man currently slung over Jaziri’s horse.

Tariq had been hoping she’d turn around and make her way back over the border again, ensuring that she wasn’t his problem any more, but she hadn’t. She’d spotted them instead and had just stood there, watching him approach her as if he was her own personal saviour.

Given that she was clearly suffering from heatstroke and advanced dehydration, she wasn’t far wrong.

He didn’t touch her just yet, though, because you could never be too suspicious of lost foreigners wandering over his borders—as the incident with the man who’d been armed and hoping to ‘free the people of Ashkaraz from tyranny’ had proved only the week before. One of his border guards had been severely injured and Tariq didn’t want that to happen again.

It was probably why Faisal—his father’s old advisor, who’d now become his—had been unhappy about Tariq approaching this woman himself rather than letting one of his guards do it. But protecting his subjects was his purpose, and he didn’t want another injury simply because one guard had been a little careless when dealing with an outsider.

Tariq knew how to deal with them; his guards generally did not.

Especially a woman. They could be the most dangerous of all.

Except this woman didn’t look very dangerous right now, crumpled as she was on the sand. She was dressed in a pair of stained, loose blue trousers and a long-sleeved white shirt, with a black and white scarf wrapped around her head, which was paltry protection from the desert sun.

She did actually seem to be unconscious, but since it could be difficult to tell, and Tariq was naturally suspicious, he nudged her experimentally with the toe of his boot. Her head rolled to the side, her scarf coming loose and revealing a lock of hair pale as moonlight.

Yes, very definitely unconscious.

He frowned, studying her face. Her features were fine and regular and, though he preferred women with stronger looks, she could be said to be pretty. Currently the fine grain of her skin was flushed bright red from the heat and burned from the sun, making the pale arches of her eyebrows stand out.

English, no doubt, given the sunburn. Certainly when she’d spoken he recognised that cut-glass accent, which meant the man they’d picked up was likely English too.

He gave her another assessing look. Neither she nor the man were carrying anything, which meant their camp, or wherever they’d come from, couldn’t be far away. Were they part of a tour party, perhaps? Although tour parties generally didn’t come this far into the desert—they stuck to the edges, where it was cooler, safer. From where they could easily get back to the air-conditioned luxury of their hotels and away from the sun and the heat and the rumours of a closed country where men patrolled the borders wearing swords.

‘Two foreigners in the same stretch of desert,’ Faisal said dryly from behind him. ‘This cannot be a coincidence.’

‘No, it is not. She saw the man on Jaziri’s horse. She said something about her father.’

‘Ah...’ Faisal murmured. ‘Then we can safely assume she is not a threat?’

‘We assume nothing.’ Tariq let his gaze rove over her, scanning for any concealed weapons just to be sure. ‘All outsiders are a threat, unconscious or not.’

And it was true—they were. That was why his father had closed the borders and why Tariq had kept them closed. Outsiders were greedy, wanting what they did not have and uncaring of who they destroyed to get it.

He’d seen the effects of such destruction and he would not let it happen to his country. Not again.

There were always a few, though, who thought it fun to try and get inside Ashkaraz’s famous closed borders, to get a glimpse of the kingdom, to take pictures and post them on the internet as proof of having got inside.

There were some who couldn’t resist the lure.

They were always caught before they could do any damage. They were rounded up and had the fear of God put into them before being sent on their way with tales of brutality and swords—even though his soldiers never actually touched any of the people they caught. Fear was enough of a deterrent.

Though not enough of a deterrent for this woman, apparently.

‘If she is a threat, she is not much of one,’ Faisal observed, looking down at her. ‘Perhaps she and her father are tourists? Or journalists?’

‘It does not matter who they are,’ Tariq said. ‘We will deal with them as we have dealt with all the rest.’

Which involved a stint in the dungeons, a few threats, and then an ignominious return to the border, where they would be summarily ejected into one of their neighbouring countries and told never to return again.

‘This one in particular might be difficult,’ Faisal pointed out. His tone was absolutely neutral, which was a good sign that he disapproved of Tariq’s decision in some way. ‘She is not only a foreigner but a woman. We cannot afford to treat her the way we treat the rest.’

Irritation gathered in Tariq’s gut. Unfortunately, Faisal was right. So far he’d managed to avoid any diplomatic incidents following his treatment of outsiders, but there was always a first time for everything—and, given the gender and nationality of the person concerned, Ashkaraz might indeed run into some issues.

England wouldn’t be happy if one of its own was roughly treated by the Ashkaraz government—especially not a woman. Especially not a young, helpless woman. The man they might have got away with, but not her. She would draw attention, and attention was the last thing Tariq wanted.

Then there was the issue of his own government, and how certain members of it would no doubt use her as ammunition in their argument on how closed borders didn’t help them remain unseen on the global stage, and how the world was moving on and if they didn’t have contact with it, it would move on without them.

Tariq didn’t care about the rest of the world. He cared only about his country and his subjects. And, since those two things were currently in good health, he saw no need to change his stance on reopening the borders.

His vow as Sheikh was to protect his country and its people and that was what he was going to do.

Especially when you’ve failed once before.

The whispered thought was insidious, a snake dripping poison, but he ignored it the way he always did.

He would not fail. Not again.

Ignoring Faisal’s observation, Tariq crouched down beside the little intruder. The loose clothing she wore made it difficult to ascertain visually whether she carried weapons or not, and since he had to be certain he gave her a very brief, very impersonal pat-down.

She was small, and quite delicate, but there were definite curves beneath those clothes. There were also no weapons to speak of.

‘Sire,’ Faisal said again, annoyingly present. ‘Are you sure that is wise?’

Tariq didn’t ask what he meant. He knew. Faisal was the only one who knew about Catherine and about Tariq’s response to her.

Given what that led to, he has every right to question you.

The irritation sitting in Tariq’s gut tightened into anger. No, he’d excised Catherine from his soul like a surgeon cutting out a cancer, and he’d cut out every emotion associated with her too. Everything soft. Everything merciful.

There was no need for Faisal to question him, because what had happened with Catherine would never happen again. Tariq had made sure of it.

Though perhaps his advisor needed a reminder...

‘Do you question me, Faisal?’ Tariq asked with deceptive mildness, not looking up from the woman on the sand.

There was a silence. Then, ‘No, sire.’

Faisal’s voice held a slight hint of apology. Too slight.

Tariq scowled down at the woman. Obviously, given Faisal’s clear doubts, he was going to have to deal with this himself.

‘I can get a couple of the men to have a look around to see where she and the other foreigner have come from,’ Faisal went on, perhaps hoping to assuage him. ‘We could perhaps return them both with no one any the wiser?’

It would be the easiest thing to do.

But Tariq couldn’t afford ‘easy’. He’d instituted the law to keep the borders closed and he had to be seen to uphold it.

A king couldn’t afford to be weak.

Hadn’t he learned his lesson there?

You should have listened to your father.

Yes, he should. But he hadn’t.

‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘We will not be returning either of them.’

He leaned forward, gathering the woman up and rising to his feet. She was so light in his arms. It was like carrying a moonbeam. Her head rolled onto his shoulder, her cheek pressed to the rough black cotton of his robes.

Small. Like Catherine.

Something he’d thought long-dead and buried stirred inside him and he found himself looking down at her once again. Ah, but she wasn’t anything like Catherine, And, anyway, that had been years ago.

He felt nothing for her any more.

He felt nothing for anyone any more.

Only his kingdom. Only his people.

Tariq lifted his gaze to Faisal’s, met the other man’s appraising stare head-on. ‘By all means send a couple of men out to see what they can discover about where these two have come from,’ he ordered coldly. ‘And get in touch with the camp. We will need the chopper to be readied to take them back to Kharan.’

He didn’t wait for a response, turning and making his way back to the horses and the group of soldiers waiting for him.

‘Perhaps one of the men can deal with her?’ Faisal suggested neutrally, trailing along behind him. ‘I can—’

‘I will deal with her,’ Tariq interrupted with cold authority, not turning around. ‘There can be no question about her treatment should the British government become involved. Which means the responsibility for her lies with me.’

There were others who remembered the bad times, when Ashkaraz had been fought over and nearly torn apart following Catherine’s betrayal, and they wouldn’t be so lenient with a foreign woman again.

Not that he would be lenient either. She would soon get a taste of Ashkaraz’s hospitality when she was taken to the capital of Kharan. They had a facility there especially for dealing with people who’d strayed into Ashkaraz, and he was sure she wouldn’t like it.

That was the whole point, after all. To frighten people so they never came back.

His men watched silently as he carried her over to his horse and put her on it, steadying her as she slumped against the animal’s neck. Then he mounted behind her and pulled her back against him, tucking her into the crook of one arm while he grabbed the reins with the other.

‘Continue with the patrol,’ he instructed Faisal. ‘I want to know where this woman comes from—and fast.’

The other man nodded, his gaze flickering again to the woman in Tariq’s arms. Tariq had the strangest urge to tuck her closer against him, to hide her from the old advisor’s openly speculative look.

Ridiculous. The doubts Faisal had would soon be put to rest. Tariq was a different man from the boy he’d once been. He was harder. Colder. He was a worthy heir to his father, though he knew Faisal had had his objections to Tariq inheriting the throne. Not that Faisal or the rest of the government had had a choice in the matter since his father had only had one son.

Still. He had thought Faisal’s scepticism long put to rest.

It is the woman. She is the problem.

Yes, she was. Luckily, though, she would not be a problem much longer.

‘You have objections?’ Tariq stared hard at the older man.

Faisal only shook his head. ‘None, sire.’

He was lying. Faisal always had objections. It was a good thing the older man knew that now was not the time to voice them.

‘As my father’s oldest friend, you have a certain amount of leeway,’ Tariq warned him. It would do him good to be reminded. ‘But see that you do not overreach yourself.’

Faisal’s expression was impassive as he inclined his head. ‘Sire.’

Dismissing him, Tariq nodded to Jaziri and a couple of the other guards in unspoken command. Then, tugging on the reins, he turned his horse around and set off back to base camp.

CHAPTER TWO

CHARLOTTE WAS HAVING a lovely dream about swimming in cool water. It flowed silkily over her skin, making her want to stretch like a cat in the sun. It moved over her body, sliding over her face, pressing softly against her lips...

There was a harsh sound from somewhere and abruptly she opened her eyes, the dream fragmenting and then crashing down around her ears.

She was not swimming in cool water.

She was lying on a narrow, hard bed in a tiny room, empty except for a bucket in the corner. A single naked bulb hung from the ceiling. The floor was cracked concrete, the walls bare stone.

It looked like a...a jail cell.

Her heartbeat began to accelerate, fear coiling inside her. What had happened? Why was she here?

Her father had wandered away from the dig site and she’d gone to find him, only to get lost in the desert. Then those men on horseback had turned up, with her father slung over the back of a horse, and there had been that other man in black robes. That powerful man with the golden eyes, watching her. Tall and broad as a mountain. He’d had a sword at his hip and his gaze had been merciless, brutal...

A shudder moved down her spine.

He must have rescued her after she’d fainted—though this wasn’t exactly what she’d call a rescue. He might have saved her life, but he’d delivered her to a cell.

Slowly she let out a breath, trying to calm her racing heartbeat, and pushed herself up.

This had to be an Ashkaraz jail cell. And that man had to have been one of the feared border guards. And—oh, heavens—did they have her father here too? Had they both joined the ranks of people who’d crossed into Ashkaraz, a closed country?

And you know what happens to those people. They’re never heard from again.

Charlotte moistened her suddenly dry mouth, trying to get a grip on her flailing emotions. No, she mustn’t panic. Plenty of people had been heard from again—otherwise how would anyone know that the country was a tyranny run by a terrible dictator? That its people lived in poverty and ignorance and were terrorised?

Anyway, that line of thought wasn’t helping. What she should be concentrating on was what she should do now.

Pushing aside thoughts of dictators and terror, she swung her legs over the side of the horrible bed and stood up. A wave of dizziness hit her, along with some nausea, but the feeling passed after a couple of moments of stillness. Her face stung, but since there was no mirror she couldn’t see what the problem was. Sunburn, probably.

Slowly she moved over to the door and tried to open it, but it remained shut. Locked, obviously. Frowning, she took another look around the room. Up high near the ceiling was a small window, bright sunlight shining through it.

Maybe she could have a look and see what was out there? Get a feel for where she was? Certainly that was better than sitting around feeling afraid.

Charlotte stood there for a moment, biting her lip and thinking, then she shoved the bed underneath the window and climbed on top of it. Her fingers just scraped the ledge, not giving her nearly enough leverage to pull herself up. Annoyed, she took another look around before her gaze settled on the bucket in the corner.

Ah, that might work.

Jumping down off the bed, she went over to the bucket, picked it up and took it back to the bed. She upended it, set it down on the mattress, then climbed back onto the bed and onto the bucket. Given more height, she was able to pull herself up enough to look out of the window.

The glass was dusty and cracked, but she could see through it. However, the view was nothing but the stone wall of another building. She frowned again, trying to peer around to see if she could see anything, but couldn’t.

Perhaps she could break the glass?

Yes, she could do that, and then...

A sudden thought gripped her. Carefully, she examined the window again. She was a small woman, which had proved useful on many occasions, such as in hiding from her parents when the shouting had got too bad, and maybe it could be useful now?

Or maybe you should just sit and wait to see what happens?

She could—but this wasn’t just about her, was it? She had her father to consider. He might be in another jail cell somewhere or he could even be dead. Dead and she would never know.

You really will be alone then.

Cold crept through her, despite the sun outside.

No, she couldn’t sit there, helpless and not knowing. She had to do something.

Decisive now, she stripped off the white shirt she was wearing—her scarf seemed to have disappeared somewhere along the line—and wrapped it around her hand. Then she hammered with her fist on the glass. After a couple of strikes against the crack already running through it, the pane shattered beautifully.

Pleased with herself, she made sure that there were no sharp shards there, waiting to cut her, and then before she could think better of it she wriggled through the window.

A large man wouldn’t have made it. Even a medium-sized man would have had difficulty.

But a small woman? Easy.

She fell rather ignominiously to the ground, winding herself, and had to lie there for a couple of moments to get her breath back. The sun was incredibly hot, the air like a furnace. Definitely she was somewhere in Ashkaraz, that was for sure.

But then she was conscious of a sound. A familiar sound. Traffic. Cars and trucks on a road...horns sounding. People talking...the first few bars of a very popular pop song currently hitting the charts rising.

Puzzled, she pushed herself to her feet and found herself standing in a narrow alley between two tall stone buildings. At the mouth of the alley there appeared to be a street, with people walking past.

Despite her fear and uncertainty, an unexpected thrill of excitement caught at her.

She was in a closed country. A country no foreigner had seen for over twenty years. No one except her.

As her father’s assistant she’d become interested in archaeology and history, but it had always been society and people that had fascinated her the most. Ashkaraz was reportedly a throwback to medieval times, a society where time had stood still.

And you might be the first person to see the truth of it.

Nothing was going to stop her from seeing that truth, and she eagerly started towards the mouth of the alleyway.

Nothing could have prepared her for the shock of seeing an Ashkaraz street.

Part of her had been expecting horses and carts, a medieval fantasy of a middle eastern city, with ancient souks and camels and snake charmers. But that was not what she saw.

Bright, shiny and very new cars moved in the street, beneath tall, architecturally designed buildings made of glass and steel. People bustled along on the footpaths, some robed, some in the kind of clothes she would have seen on the streets in London. In amongst the glass and steel were historic buildings, beautifully preserved, and shops and cafés lined the streets. People were sitting at tables outside, talking, laughing, working, looking at their smartphones.

There was an energy to the place, which was clearly a bustling, successful, prosperous city.

Definitely not the poverty-stricken nation with a beaten-down populace crushed under the thumb of a dictator that the rest of the world thought it to be.

What on earth was going on?

Amazed, Charlotte stepped out onto the footpath, joining the stream of people walking along it, oblivious to the glances she was receiving.

There was a beautiful park up ahead, with a fountain and lush gardens, lots of benches to sit on and a playground for children. Already there seemed to be a number of kids there, screaming and laughing while their indulgent parents looked on.

This was...incredible. Amazing. How was this even possible? Was this the truth that Ashkaraz had been hiding all along?

She was so busy staring that she didn’t notice the uniformed man coming up behind her until his fingers wrapped around her arm. And then a long black car pulled up to the kerb and Charlotte found herself bundled into the back of it.

She opened her mouth to protest, but there wasn’t even time for her to scream. Something black and suffocating was put over her head and the car started moving.

The fingers around her arm were firm—not hurting, but definitely ensuring that she couldn’t get away. Fear, coming a little late to the party, suddenly rose up inside her, choking.

Did you really think you could escape from that jail cell and start wandering around like nothing was wrong?

She hadn’t been thinking—that was the problem. She’d got out of that cell and then been caught up in the wonder of the city outside it.

Charlotte slumped back in the seat, trying not to panic. Now, not only was her chance to escape gone but so was her father’s.

And it was all her fault.

The car drove for what seemed like ages and then slowed to a stop. She was pulled out of it and then taken up some steps. Sun and heat surrounded her for a second, and then she must have been taken inside because the sun had disappeared, to be replaced by blessedly cool air. Her footsteps echoed on a tiled floor, and there was the scent of water and flowers in the air.

She couldn’t see a thing through the black fabric around her head, and her sense of direction was soon gone as she was pulled down more corridors, around corners, and up yet more stairs.

Were they taking her back to that cell? Or were there worse things in store for her? Would they perhaps murder her? Make her disappear? Hold her prisoner for ever?

She was just starting to be very, very afraid when she was pulled to a stop and the fabric covering her head was abruptly tugged off.

Charlotte blinked in the bright light.

She appeared to be standing in a large room lined with shelves, containing lots of books and folders and filing boxes. The exquisite tiled floor was covered in thick, brightly coloured silk rugs, the walls also tiled, in silvery, slightly iridescent tiles. There was a window in front of her that gave a view onto a beautiful garden, where a fountain played amongst palms and other shrubs, as well as many different kinds of flowers.

A huge, heavy desk made of time-blackened wood stood before the window. The polished surface was clean of everything except a sleek-looking computer monitor and keyboard, and a small, elegant silver vase with a spray of fresh jasmine in it.

This was certainly not a jail cell. In fact, it looked like someone’s office...

She blinked again and turned around to see two men stationed on either side of the double doors. They were dressed in black robes with swords on their hips, their faces absolutely impassive.

She would have thought the robes and swords only ceremonial, except they didn’t have the clean and pressed look she would have expected. The fabric of their robes was dusty and stained around the hems, as were the boots the men wore. And although the edges of the swords were bright, was that...blood she could see on the steel? Surely it couldn’t be.

Charlotte stared, her heartbeat getting faster and faster, and then suddenly from behind her came the sound of a door opening and closing.

She turned back sharply to see that a man had come into the room from a door off to her left, and he was now standing beside the desk, staring at her.

He was very, very tall and very, very broad, built more like an ancient warrior than a businessman. The muscles of his chest and arms were straining the white cotton of his business shirt, and the dark wool of his suit trousers pulled tight around his powerful thighs.

His face was a harsh composition of planes and angles that nevertheless managed to be utterly compelling, with high cheekbones and an aquiline nose, straight black brows and a beautifully carved mouth.

‘Handsome’ was far too bland a word for him...especially as he radiated the kind of arrogant charisma reserved only for the very powerful and very important.

But that wasn’t what held Charlotte absolutely rooted to the spot.

It was his eyes. Burning gold, with the same relentless, brutal heat as the desert sun.

It was the man who’d approached her in the desert. She was sure of it. She’d never forget those eyes.

He said nothing for a long moment and neither did Charlotte, since she couldn’t seem to find her voice. Then his gaze shifted to the men behind her and he gave a slight tilt of his head. A couple of seconds later she heard the door shut behind her, the men clearly having obeyed some unspoken order and left.

The room abruptly felt tiny and cramped, the space too small to accommodate both her and the man in front of her. Or maybe he seemed to get larger and more intimidating, taking up all the air and leaving none for her.

She lifted her chin, trying to get her heartbeat under control at the same time as trying to hold his relentless gaze, but she couldn’t seem to manage both—especially not when he moved suddenly, coming over to the desk and standing in front of it, folding his arms across his massive chest.

Bringing him quite a bit closer.

She resisted the urge to take a step back, hating how small and insignificant his sheer size made her feel. It was exactly the same feeling that had filled her when her parents had argued and she’d hidden under the dining room table. They’d never noticed that she’d left her seat—which was ironic, since more often than not they had been shouting about her.

Clasping her hands in front of her to prevent them from shaking, Charlotte took a small, silent breath. ‘Um...do you speak English?’ Her voice sounded thin and reedy in the silence of the room.

The man said nothing, continuing to stare at her.

It was extremely unnerving.

Her mouth had dried and she wished her Arabic was better. Because maybe he didn’t understand English. She wanted to ask him where her father was and also to thank him for saving her.

He put you in a cell, remember?

Sure, but maybe that hadn’t been him. He might look like a medieval warrior, but the suit he was wearing was thoroughly modern. Perhaps he was an accountant? Or the chief of the jail she’d been put in? Or a government functionary?

Yet none of those things seemed to fit. He was too magnetic, too charismatic to be anyone’s mere functionary. No, this man had an aura about him that spoke of command, as if he expected everyone to fall to their knees around him.

Sadly for him, she wouldn’t be falling anywhere in front of him.

Except you already have. In the desert.

That, alas, was true.

‘I’m s-sorry,’ she stuttered, casting around for something to say. ‘I should have thanked you for saving my life. But can you tell me where my father is? We got lost, you see. And I... I...’ She faltered, all her words crushed by the weight of his stare.

This was silly. Her father could be dead or in a jail cell and she was letting this man get to her. She couldn’t get pathetic now.

Perhaps introducing herself would help. After all, she’d had no identification on her when she’d collapsed, so maybe they had no idea who she or her father were. Maybe that was why she had been put in the cell? Maybe they thought she was some kind of insurgent, hoping to...?

But, no. Best not get carried away. Keep thinking in the here and now.

‘So,’ Charlotte said, pulling herself together. ‘My name is—’

‘Charlotte Devereaux,’ the man interrupted in a deep, slightly rough voice. ‘You are an assistant attached to an archaeological dig that your father, Professor Martin Devereaux is managing in conjunction with the University of Siddq.’

His English was perfect, his accent almost imperceptible.

‘You both come from Cornwall, but you live in London and at present are employed by your father’s university as his assistant. You are twenty-three years old, have no dependents, and live in a flat with a couple of friends in Clapham.’

Charlotte could feel her mouth hanging open in shock. How did he know all this stuff? How had he found out?

‘I...’ she began.

But he hadn’t finished, because he was going on, ignoring her entirely, ‘Can you tell me, please, what you were doing out there in the desert? Neither you nor your father were anywhere near your dig site. In fact, that is the whole reason you are here. You crossed the border into Ashkaraz—you do understand that, do you not?’

She flushed at the note of condescension in his voice, but took heart from the fact that he was talking of her father in the present tense.

‘Are you saying that my father is alive?’ she asked, needing to be sure.

‘Yes,’ the man said flatly. ‘He is alive.’

Relief filled her, making her breath catch. ‘Oh, I’m so glad. He wandered away from the site, the way he sometimes does, and I went to try and find him. I walked up a dune and somehow—’

‘I am not interested in how you got lost, Miss Devereaux,’ the man interrupted, his voice like iron, his golden stare pitiless. ‘What I am interested in is how you somehow got out of a secure facility.’

Charlotte swallowed. Briefly she debated lying, but since she was in a lot of trouble already there was no point in making it any worse.

‘I...smashed the glass and crawled out of the window.’ She lifted her chin a little to show him that she wouldn’t be cowed. ‘It really wasn’t that difficult.’

‘You crawled out of the window?’ he repeated, his voice flat, the lines of his brutally handsome face set and hard. ‘And what made you think that was a good idea?’

‘I’ve heard the rumours,’ she said defensively. ‘About how people who stray over your borders disappear for ever, never to be seen again. How they’re beaten and terrorised. And I didn’t know what had happened to my father.’ She steeled herself. ‘I saw an opportunity to escape, to see if I could find him, and so I took it.’

The man said nothing, but that stare of his felt like a weight pressing her down and crushing her into dust.

You’re really for it now.

Charlotte gripped her hands together, lifted her chin another inch and stared back. ‘We’re British citizens, you know. You can’t just make us disappear like all the rest. My dad is a very well-respected academic. Once people realise we’re missing they’ll send others to find us. So you’d better tell whoever is in charge here that—’

‘No need. All the interested parties already know.’

‘Which interested parties?’

His face was impassive. ‘Me.’

‘You?’ Charlotte tried to look sceptical and failed. ‘And who exactly are you?’

‘I am the one in charge,’ he said, without any emphasis at all.

‘Oh? Are you the head of the police or something?’

It would explain his aura of command, after all.

‘No. I am not the head of the police.’

His eyes gleamed with something that made her breath catch.

‘I am the head of the country. I am the Sheikh of Ashkaraz.’

Charlotte Devereaux, all five foot nothing of her, blinked her large silver-blue eyes. Shock was written across her pretty, pink features.

She should be shocked.

She should be quaking in those little boots of hers.

He’d only just been notified of her escape and her jaunt down Kharan’s main street, and to say that he was angry was massively to understate the case.

He was furious. Absolutely, volcanically furious.

The fury boiled away inside him like lava, and only long years of iron control kept it locked down and not spilling everywhere, destroying everything in its path.

Because he had no one to blame for this incident but himself. He was the one who’d elected to bring her back to Kharan and not to follow Faisal’s advice to return her and her father to the dig site from which they’d come.

No, he’d decided to handle her himself, to make sure she was taken back to Kharan and had the medical treatment she required. Her father had needed more, and was still unconscious in a secure hospital ward. She had been transferred to the facility where they kept all illegal visitors to Ashkaraz.

Normally those visitors tended to be men. They were not usually little women who could wriggle through small windows. He hadn’t even known the cell she’d been put in had a window.

Not that it mattered now. What mattered was that this woman had escaped and had somehow stumbled unchecked into Kharan, and she had seen through the lies he and his people told the world.

Far from being a nation stuck in time, mired in poverty and war, it was prosperous and healthy, its population well-cared-for and happy.

And it was a wealthy nation. A very wealthy nation.

A nation that had to hide its wealth from the rest of the world or else be torn apart by those desperate to get their hands on it—as had occurred nearly twenty years earlier.

He couldn’t allow that to happen again.

He wouldn’t.

Catherine had been at the centre of it twenty years ago and now here was Charlotte Devereaux, another foreign woman causing another diplomatic incident.

This time, though, he would not be a party to it, the way he had been with Catherine. He’d learned his lesson and he’d learned it well, and he would not be giving this woman the benefit of the doubt.

‘Oh,’ she said faintly. ‘Oh. I... I see.’

Her voice had a pleasant husk to it. Somewhere along the line she’d lost her scarf, so her silvery blonde hair hung in a loose ponytail down her back, wisps of it stuck to her forehead. The angry red of the sunburn she’d got out in the desert had faded slightly, leaving her pale skin pink. It made the colour of her eyes stand out, glittering like stars. She wore the same pair of loose blue trousers she’d had on in the desert, though the white shirt had gone, leaving in its place a tight-fitting white tank top.

It did not escape his notice that, though she was small, she had a surprisingly lush figure.

‘I am sure that you do not see,’ he said, forcing those particular observations to one side. ‘Because your little excursion has put me in a very difficult position.’

She gave him a cool look that pricked against something inside him like a thorn, needling him. ‘Indeed? How so?’

It was not the response he’d hoped for. In fact, nothing of her behaviour was the response he’d hoped for. She should be afraid. As any woman—or any person, for that matter—who’d woken up to find herself in a jail cell would be. Especially given the rumours she must have heard about Ashkaraz.

She should be terrified for her life, not standing there giving him cool looks as if he was nothing more than a mere functionary and not the king of his own country.

‘Miss Devereaux,’ he said, his anger still raw. ‘You are not at all showing proper deference.’

She blinked those glittering silvery eyes again. ‘Oh, I’m not? I’m sorry. I don’t know the customs—’

‘You would curtsey before your queen, would you not?’ He cut her off coldly. ‘I am king here. My word is law.’

‘Oh,’ she repeated, lowering her gaze. ‘I didn’t mean to offend.’ Then she made an awkward curtsey, her hands fluttering at her sides.

He narrowed his gaze at her. Was she making fun of him? He didn’t think so, but you could never tell with foreigners.

It didn’t improve his temper.

Then again, he shouldn’t be taking his temper out on her, full stop. A king should be above such things, as his father had always told him. A ruler needed to be hard, cold. Detached from his emotions.

Except he could feel his anger straining at the leash he’d put on it. He wanted her on her knees, begging his forgiveness.

Are you sure that’s the only reason you want her on her knees?

Something shifted inside him—a strange pull.

She was...pretty. And, yes, there was a physical attraction there. Perhaps that accounted for the reason this particular woman tried his temper so badly. Not that an attraction would make the slightest difference. As he’d told Faisal out in the desert, he’d treat her exactly the same way he treated every other intruder.

‘It is too late for that,’ he said implacably. ‘You have offended already. You escaped your cell and found your way into the city.’

She was standing with her small hands clasped, but this time the expression on her face wasn’t so much cool as uncertain.

‘Yes, well...as I was going to explain, I didn’t mean to. I just wasn’t sure what you were going to do with me or my father.’

‘We would have done what we do with all illegal visitors to Ashkaraz. You would have both been sent back to your home country.’ He paused. ‘But we cannot do that now.’

Her pale brows drew together. ‘Why not?’

‘Because you have walked down the main street of Kharan and seen the truth.’

‘What? You mean all the nice buildings? The new cars and smartphones and things?’ Her mouth, full and prettily pink, curved. ‘It’s such a beautiful city. How is me seeing that a problem?’

‘Because you will tell other people, Miss Devereaux.’

What he had to tell her now wouldn’t be welcome, yet she had to understand the gravity of the situation.

‘And they will tell others, and so it will go on until the whole world learns the truth. And I cannot let that happen.’

She was still frowning. ‘I don’t understand...’

‘Of course you do not. But you will have plenty of time to work it out.’

Another ripple of uncertainty crossed her face. ‘That sounds ominous. What do you mean by that?’

‘I mean that we cannot send you back to England. We cannot send either of you back to England. You will have to remain in Ashkaraz.’ He paused again, for emphasis. ‘Indefinitely.’

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