Desert Sheikh vs American Princess (9 page)

Run for it!
shouted Bonnie.

She could make it--weave between the cars like some action heroine in a burqa. Or not. Maybe she'd get wrecked in a mass of honking, exploding twisted metal.

She bounced on her toes, readying herself to make a dash through the traffic.

Then it stopped, as if someone had waved a magic wand. Or maybe... turned a traffic light red.

One other good thing about burqas, she decided, was that they hid your embarrassment. She joined the crowd crossing the street--duh, at the crosswalk. Like normal people.

Once on the other side, she could smell freedom in the air. Only a block to go to the wrought iron gate that enclosed a courtyard with tall palms heavy with green and brown dates. The scent of the sea flavored the air here, salt along with the chemical smoke smell of some of the rusty cars that sped by alongside the occasional Jag or Alfa Romeo.

She was almost there. She wanted to throw off the burqa and skip like a schoolgirl. No time for that now. Faridah--a lump caught in her throat at the thought of how she'd tricked the young woman--would notice she was gone soon. Walid wouldn't punish Faridah, would he? Wouldn't fire her, Noelle thought, her steps slowing.

She might,
Bonnie said.
Walid is going to be ma-ad.

No, no. She couldn't feel guilty about what would happen to Faridah. As a prisoner, her first duty was to escape, no matter what.

Maybe she could call Walid right before getting out of Askar, put in a good word for Faridah.

Not far now. She'd be on American soil in a couple minutes...

Then she saw the limo.

The long, shiny car lurked at the curbside in front of the embassy. Her throat lump turned into a globe. The car had zero outward signs of belonging to the palace. No crests on the doors, no flags on the hood.

Somehow, she knew that Walid had sent it.

She prepped herself for a sprinter's crouch... But
wait
. No. The burqa covered her from head to foot. She had total anonymity here. Mr. Lodhi-Rajput had been afraid to even talk to her. No man would dare accost her on the street--she looked just like the few other covered women she'd seen. She had no reason to run, or even hurry.

She might just keep this burqa.

We could have all kinds of adventures,
Bonnie put in.

Noelle nearly laughed as she held her back straight and maintained her casual pace toward the embassy. She could walk right by the limo. Even if Walid had sent it, his guards would be looking for an American woman, not a devout, covered-up Askari lady. They couldn't even talk to her without causing a scene.

Two steps away from the limo--and only a few more from the entrance to the embassy--the vehicle's door opened. A tall guard oozed out, looking straight at her.

"Miss Oldrich," said the guard, indicating the open door. "Please get in."

A couple of people in the crowd looked over the guard who dared to disrespect the woman in the burqa. When they realized what they saw, they shrugged and moved on.

The lump in Noelle's throat was now so big she had to struggle to talk around it. "Walid really does like his female security."

The guard could have given Brienne of Tarth a run for her money. And maybe the bear that the female knight had once been forced to face. This African (or was it Askari-African?) woman could shove her into the back seat of the car with one pinky while drinking a full-fat latte.

A decidedly male hand came out of the darkness in the limo's back seat, waving her in.

Noelle gave a shoulder-shaking sigh.

"Miss Oldrich," insisted the guard.

"Hang on," she said, gazing at the embassy for just one more second. The breeze grazed the twin flags dangling from poles that extended from the front of the otherwise colorless building. White stars on a blue background and red stripes waved goodbye. Old Glory had never seemed like more of a symbol of freedom to her than this moment.

Five

T
OLD
YOU
HE
'
D
be mad,
Bonnie said.

He's not the only one
, Noelle responded, as she felt the limo roll into traffic.

After thanking the guard, whose name was apparently Kitoko, Walid lounged back against the limo seat, watching Noelle from under heavy-lidded eyes. His silence seemed more dangerous than his exasperated voice ever had.
 

"Who gave me away?" she demanded.

Faridah. She didn't want to think about it. But only Faridah knew she'd left the palace.

Walid inhaled slowly, exhaled slowly. As if he was the one who needed to release tension. He flipped a button and the tinted glass between the front and back seat whirred up. He waited while the barrier locked into place.

"No one," he said.

"Try again." Her eyes got hot. "Okay, maybe you could have posted a guard outside the embassy as a precaution, but then it would just be the guard. Why would
you
be here?"

*****

Why was he here? Why pursue her personally when he should be trying to formulate an alternative plan, since there were only sixteen days left before the debt must be paid?

He had
felt
it. Felt her leave the palace. No one had needed to tell him. He hadn't realized that her spirit had infected his home until that spirit was gone.

He'd been speaking to his education minister about the man's latest idea for improving schools in rural areas and a sudden emptiness had assailed him. He'd known instantly what had happened.

As for coming to the embassy, that had been a guess. He considered what he would do under Noelle's circumstances and decided that getting to the U.S. embassy would be the best chance she had at leaving Askar. She had no identification, so she could not board a plane. She had no money, so she could not travel to another city to put distance between herself and the palace.

So he'd come to the embassy.

When he'd seen her--and it had to be her--in the full cover of a burqa, unaccountable anger had passed through him. First, he'd been angry at her body-baring runner's outfit. Now, he felt rage at seeing that same body covered.

He made no sense, even to himself. Especially to himself.

Now the uncontrolled emotion running through him was quite different. He wanted nothing more than to pull her into his arms and kiss her in relief. That she had not disappeared from his life forever, one way or another.

She, however, sat on the same seat as he did, her long legs crossed under her ankle-length skirt, and faced stubbornly forward. Wore the same granite look that she had when he had told her that she would remain in Askar for a time. This time, he could only examine her expression in profile, her chin lifted, eyes chilled, mouth gritted.

"I do not have to explain myself to you," he informed her. The truth? He could not even explain the situation to himself. "You had no money, no identification. In a country where you do not understand the customs and you do not speak the language. Anything could have happened to you and I would not have been able to prevent it."

The small hairs on the back of his neck made themselves known. He had meant only to keep her with him. For the ransom, of course. But if she'd been harmed...

The crisis of watching her descend from a treacherous rope came plummeting back into his mind. Again she seemed to him to personify Askar itself. Now, she had run from him, tried to escape. What did that mean for his rule? Did it presage his failure?

"Yeah," she said, her mouth screwed up wryly. "A rogue sheikh could have kidnapped me and held me for ransom."

"I have never been a rogue anything in my life."

"Well, maybe you should have."

"This is not a joke, Noelle." He fought to keep his tone even. "Any number of worse things than having a pleasant holiday in a luxurious palace could have happened to you."

She shrugged. "Deira is perfectly safe, which you should know, since you live here. Besides, it's your fault for not letting me leave. Anything happens to me, I blame you."

"Finally," he said. "We agree. You are my responsibility. I bear the burden of what happens to you while you reside in my country, as I bear the burden for what happens to Askar. And if I am to take the blame, then I must have the
control
."

She lurched toward him, her green eyes wide with flashing anger. "You will never control me."

"To that end," he said, "you will now take up residence in the guest room in my own apartments. If others cannot monitor your movements, I shall have to."

Which raised the question, who would monitor
his
movements? No, he could control himself, even if she slept in the next room. As tempting as Noelle was, her dislike of him and his self-discipline would overcome any attraction between them.

"What?" Anger narrowed her eyes to sea-green slits.

"Be sensible, Noelle." He bit out each word, wondering where his own hard-fought control had flown.

"Would you be sensible if you were in my position?"

Sensible. Yes, of course. He was always sensible. Never impractical. "Yes." He restrained the exasperation that had come out in the one word. "I would simply wait for my father's wire transfer."

"Right." She nearly laughed out the word. "And you're sure he'd send it? Your dad did have two spare heirs."

He shook his head. Comparing her father to his? He'd seen the way her father coddled and protected her in a way his father would never dream of. Hikmat Al Kalam had been no less psychopathic with his own sons than he was with anyone else. A fact Walid had only realized since he'd ascended the throne and began to understand how deeply the man had lied to everyone around him, driven wedges into friendships, put his own interests before even that of Askar.

But leave his eldest son to rot in another man's palace? Never would his father have done that. Such a thing would have meant the time he'd devoted into training Walid to be a psychopath himself had been a waste.

"Of course my father would have paid. For me."

She cocked her chin and squinted at him in that way she had when she had picked up on some item of information he had not meant to let spill. "For you? But not for your brothers?"

Some voice inside him wished to tell her how his father had devoted all his time and attention to himself and did not even bother educating his other brothers. Walid had received classes from three different tutors while Ithnan and Thalatha had been left to learn on their own. And would have learned nothing if Walid had not shared his books, spend afternoons teaching lessons he had learned in the morning.

Why he imagined he should share such a thing with Noelle Oldrich, a quite random woman who had come into his life and would leave it soon, he could not fathom. "We are not speaking of my father, but yours."

Something in Noelle relaxed. He saw tension flow from her body as she melted back against the leather limo seat. Her raised eyebrows lowered gradually. She became altogether smaller, her outgoing personality contracting in upon itself.

He did not find this attractive.

"You're right," she said, on an exhaled breath. "I should stop playing these games. I guess my time in the palace could even be a pleasant vacation if I relax and just go with it."

He refrained from sighing himself. "Precisely. You have nothing to fear from staying a few days in Askar, in luxury, with a mansionful of servants who wait on your every whim. This situation will not be so objectionable if only you stop objecting to it."

She nodded all the way through this speech. At first subtly, then with increasing agreement.

"I guess you're right. I'll just try to enjoy my time in Askar."

"Now you see things clearly. Now you begin to make sense," he told her. Perhaps he did not have to move her into his apartments at all. Not if she was compliant. If she agreed to be rational about the situation.

A silent pause passed between them as the vehicle rolled on. Silence that allowed him to think.

"And you making sense should trouble me.
Kess ikhtak
." The uncharacteristic swear released some of his tension, but not nearly all. "You have done it again, have you not? You have no intention of stopping your efforts to escape, do you?"

She shot him a devious smile. Infuriating. And somehow comforting. "Nope." She popped the P in the word childishly. "So easy to tell you what you want to hear. I think you keep falling for that one because you're such an honest person. Don't you lie to anyone? I mean, you came right out and told me you were kidnapping me. Who does that?"

"I dislike deception. My father lied with skill and ease. Occasionally to no good purpose that I could guess." The layers of lies he had found in his father's papers had been truly impressive, if you were impressed by such things. Discharging his father's debts had been what had placed Askar, and therefore Walid, in the current desperate financial situation.

Partially.

The rest was Walid's own fault.

"His consistent, constant lying made others distrust him, which was not to his advantage," concluded Walid. "As I now distrust you."