Desert Sheikh vs American Princess (12 page)

Six

"N
O
,"
SAID
S
UZETTE
, crossing arms over her full bosom. "Faridah is not available today."

The large woman's frame filled the doorway to the kitchen, but over her shoulder, Noelle caught a glimpse of a slim figure in Disneyfied purple practically sprinting away.

"I just want to explain--" Noelle pleaded with the human roadblock.

"You may explain another time."

It had been three days since she talked to her parents. Since then, she'd felt... heavy. She'd tried running, but given up after a few minutes. She just couldn't get there. Her pace was off, was slow, and she just couldn't make herself keep it up. Maybe getting on the treadmill was the answer. Her stepmother and Walid would probably both like that a lot better. Maybe they were both right, that she should just give up and let other people tell her the best things to do.

"Look, I know I screwed up, Suzette," she said. But what had Faridah expected? That she actually was some kind of legendary hero come to save Askar from
absolutely nothing
? It wasn't as if Noelle had ever promised her anything. "I didn't tell her the truth about what I wanted to do in the market."

Suzette's frown was epic, seeming to take up her entire face. Well, the entire doorframe, really. "You deceived her and tried to run away from her. There is no excuse for this."

Suzette was right, and Noelle fought back against her sudden guilt. Faridah had helped her, had believed in her. Noelle had repaid her lying to her and by ditching her ass.

But no excuse? How about being kidnapped? How about everyone in this palace contributing to keeping her here, one way or another? They might not know what was happening to her, but they fed Walid, dressed him, drove him around. Every one of those things helped him do as he pleased.

She almost spat out the whole story. But what could these women do about it? Even if they knew Walid held her hostage, she had no idea if they'd help her or be on the side of their beloved ruler. Especially now that she'd raked Faridah over the coals. He was their king and they seemed pretty loyal. She might find her freedom even more restricted than it already was.

"I'm not some legend come to save you, you know. I'm just a woman who happens to be here right now," she said. "You guys were the ones who decided I was sent here by fate or some shit to rescue a guy who clearly doesn't need rescuing. You can't make me into somebody I'm not."

Isn't that right?
Noelle asked Bonnie.

Silence.

Bonnie?

No little kid voice responded. Huh. What was with that?

"We shall see," stated Suzette, and closed the door in her face.

There's nothing to see
, Noelle somehow kept herself from shouting at the heavy wooden slab.

I'm going to feel guilty about this
, she reminded herself as she stormed off toward her room, intending to suit up and run off the buzzing excess energy zipping through her veins.

No,
not
guilty. I'm not going to feel guilty about this.
She'd gone to apologize, after all. That was what she owed Faridah, an apology for ditching her and making her worry. Nothing more.

Just because Faridah indulged in some adolescent magical thinking and infected everyone around her did not mean that Noelle now had the job of becoming a storybook princess. The real world wasn't like that.

The weird paralysis in her fingers, which now started at even the thought of Faridah, retreated the more she reasoned away the younger girl's faith in her.

Besides, her parents were right. Angelique had said it. Other people took care of her, not the other way around. She'd never been able to hold down a job for long, never even finished her college degree.

Look at what had happened in Askar. She'd been blindsided by her own kidnapping, had let an imaginary voice talk her into jumping out a window, and couldn't even managed to escape when she was guarded by one unsuspecting chick barely out of her teens.

Face it
, she told herself.
Walid is smarter and has more resources. Every time I try something, he's there before me and takes away more of my freedom after. Any more escape attempts and I'll end up imprisoned in the tower myself. Walid can just send Faridah to slip cheese slices under the door.
He could trust her not to facilitate any escape attempts, since she now hated Noelle.

Her stomping pace had taken her back to her guest room in record time. All she wanted to do was get into her running gear. She'd try the treadmill this time. Maybe then she'd be able to think straight.

Hey, there weren't any guards at her door. What did that mean?

Whatever. She'd never be able to escape anyway, so even just trying was wasted effort. Running now. Thinking later.

She threw open the door to find a very attractive Arabic guy just starting to button up a crisp, clean white shirt.

You don't have to do that
, she bit back as he fastened the two sides over his darkly haired navel. An outie, she noted with appreciation.

He was slimmer than Walid. Not as wide. And his chest was the same golden as the rest of him--no tan line. Hmmm, this guy shirtless in the sun. Now that was definitely something she would spend some time looking at.

Speaking of which, he was now looking at her, an intrigued look in his eyes. Dark eyes with distinct amber rims.

Which meant, her sluggish brain informed her, he was one of two people.

She started to notice other similarities to Walid. A trace of the aristocratic nose. The strong jaw line.

But not the widening smile. That was all his own, a devilish grin that was a personalized, golden-engraved, hand-delivered invitation to sin.

"You look like you could use a drink," he said.

"Who are you?" she asked, but she knew. One of Walid's brothers. "Walid lite?"

He showed even more white teeth. "Something like that."

"Ithnan?" she guessed. But more likely he was the other one. The one without a country to run. The single one.

"Ithnan the sequel. This time, it is personal," he said, not missing a beat. He strode over to her, still with most of his buttons undone. "Walid did not mention me, then?"

She shrugged.

"Of course he would not. I am his dissolute, disgraced, and disappointing youngest brother, Thale." He nodded to her, but managed to make even just a tiny dip of the head both elegant and impertinent.

Her frustration faded. "You sound like my kind of scum."

He scratched the three-day stubble on his jaw line. "Is that why you rudely barged into my room?"

Right. Her stuff wasn't in this room anymore. So that explained why the guards weren't outside. This was the guest room. She'd stayed here for nearly a week, but she slept in Walid's suite now. In his arms, actually. "I got lost," she lied. "Sorry."

"I am not so sorry. I am saved from seeking you out."

She cocked her head at him.

"I heard my uptight brother had an American woman here. I thought I would evaluate how--how do you say it?" He searched for the phrase in an overdramatic fashion. "
Stuck up
you are."

She looked him straight in the eye. "Oh, so stuck up. You can't even imagine."

Thale's shirt whipped behind him as he whirled and fell backward into a comfy chair. He posed like a Calvin Klein model, his wide legs an invitation to step between them. Without a trace of self-consciousness, he looked her over.

"So, you are sleeping with my brother for money. Good for you."

Oh, this was a game she could play. Was very good at, in fact. Snobby flirting. This could be entertaining.

"I'm rich, actually," she informed him as she strode to a chair across from him and tossed her hair. She arranged her body for maximum distraction, crossing her legs tightly and leaning slightly back to lift and separate. "So very rich. Don't need your brother's money or anyone else's."

Thale's eyelids lowered lazily. "Just toying with his heart, then? I have heard women like small, cold, hard things, but do you not like them much shinier? Diamonds, not lumps of coal."

Noelle felt the corners of her mouth twist up in a Grinch-like smile. Finally. Someone who got it. Someone who saw through Walid's good-guy image.

"I like you," she said. "Let's drink."

Thale threw up his hands in dramatic exasperation. "That is what I said to begin with. Why have we wasted all this time?"

*****

"You don't think your dad will pay up to get you out?"

Five glasses (or was it six? So hard to tell with Thale pouring) of the third-best champagne in Walid's cellar later, Noelle had told him everything. Way more than she meant to.

She blinked at him, trying to get the fuzziness beneath her eyelids to clear. Probably shouldn't have had that last glass. Or couple glasses.

Hell. Who cared? What was he going to do about it? Thale didn't have any power of his own, not like his brothers, who each ruled a freakin' country. He didn't have any money to float her father's debt--she wouldn't let him anyway. She liked him too much for that.

He could tell Walid, she supposed. Naaaaaah. From the way he trash-talked his brother, she didn't see that happening.

"I'm stuck here until your brother realizes he's not getting his cash back. What's his problem anyway?" she asked, her tongue thick in her mouth. "Aren't you guys swimming in oil?"

Thale shook his head gravely. "Can't swim in oil. It's lighter than water. Sinking only."

"I swam in oil once. Well, soaked in it. Pure vitamin E. Best beauty treatment money can buy. Great for the skin." She drained her glass. "Felt greasy for days."

At some point, Thale had removed his shoes and propped his heels on the antique table sitting between them. Now, he wiggled his bare toes. "I did the fish that eat the dead skin off your feet."

"Me too." She and Thale had so much in common it was scary. Not like her and Mister Kidnaps-Women-for-Giggles. "Tickles."

"Yeah, or you can just walk on the beach on Grand Cayman. It'll do the same thing."

"There's feet fish there?"
 

"No, it's just nice. And it ex--ex--" He took a deep breath. "Exfoliates. How long will you stay here?"

She sighed and curled herself up in the chair. Her shoes were also on the floor. Around here somewhere. Who needed shoes, really? Not them.

"Forever. Should learn Arabic. And the pirate princess who lives in my head is all quiet now."

Thale's eyes went wide. "Oh, that's not good. Why'd that happen?"

She didn't know. And it was bad. She needed Bonnie while she was here. Bonnie could go away once she got back to San Fran, but for now... Noelle needed Bonnie to help get her through this.

"Hey." Wait a second. She squinted at Thale. "Where'd your accent go? And you're using contractions."

He sniffed the air. "I do not know what you speak of."

He'd slipped into a fake accent. Or maybe his first accent had been the fake one--the one he was back to now. But while he'd been relaxed, he'd talked a different way. More casual, and very familiar, though she couldn't quite place the speech pattern. His words didn't hold the kitchen staff's Askari twang or Walid's upper-crust pseudo-British tone. The accent had heavy American overtones, and she felt like she'd heard it before.

"You have weird speech patterns," she told him. "Sometimes you talk like an Askari person, and sometimes you talk all American. But I can't quite place your American accent. It's so familiar. I know I know it, but I don't know where I know it."

"You're drunk," he said, then stiffened a bit. "You are intoxicated. Have some more."

As he filled her glass, which some part of her knew she shouldn't let him do, he asked, "What does the pirate princess do?"

She sipped the champagne, letting the bubbles tickle her tongue and nose. "She wanted to escape. Guess she's given up."

"A pirate princess never gives up," Thale said, as if he knew all about it.

"Maybe sometimes they do."

"Have you tried hitting a guard over his head and taking his uniform?" he asked.

"Why does everyone want me to do that?" she asked. "I don't even think the women in the kitchen will help me anymore. I kinda betrayed Faridah. You could smuggle me out. In your luggage or something."

Thale blew out a half-laugh. "But then my brother would refuse to pay for my feet fish."

"The only way I'm getting out of here is if he kicks me out, and he's not going to do that anytime soon. Why are we drinking the third-best champagne again?" she asked. "I forgot."

"Because if we started drinking lotsa bottles of the best or second best, someone might tell him and stop us."

"Ah," she said. "You're very clever. I keep trying to escape, but all I do is piss him off."

That's a brilliant idea.

"I know," she acknowledged. "Thale, why does your voice sound like a little kid now? Are you a ventriloquist?"

Piss him off so he'll kick us out.