Sheikh's Purchased Princess (20 page)

The man paused, and when he continued, it was with a frown, as if she had said it was a terrible idea and had asked for more options.

“And if you do not help us, we will make sure that no one ever sees or hears from your brother again.”

She made a small sound at that. She wanted nothing more than to return to the woman she had been a few hours ago, when there was nothing on her mind as pressing as the work that she had to do.

Peter and this man had changed everything. She couldn’t go back. All she could do was go forward, and that was how she was going to proceed.

She took a deep breath. When she spoke, her voice was level, even slightly aggressive.

“What do I have to do?” she asked finally.

The man beamed at her.

“It is good to see family sticking together,” he said.

Now, two days later, she was sitting in the Khanour airport, her small carry-on bag sitting innocuously on her lap. Inside were her clothes, a few souvenirs for family members whom did not strictly exist, and one tightly wrapped paper package.

The man had assured her there were no drugs in the package. Instead, he said it was a piece of art that was destined for American hands. A small thing, nothing more than trifle, but Irene could read between the lines. She knew to be very afraid.

There was a very hot trade in antiquities in the world right now. The man who had recently become sheikh of Khanour had put a stop to most of the illegal and even legal ways to acquire Khanour art, declaring that national treasures needed to stay in the country. Of course, that had sent interest in the art of the country where she was staying sky-high. This man seemed to be interested in taking advantage of the trend, and he needed someone relatively unassuming and trustworthy to take the artifact to the United States.

Now Irene started counting backward from one hundred for the eighth time. She had lost count each and every time she had started it before, but perhaps now it would be different.

She was just giving it up as a bad job when she saw a handsome young Khanour man in a sharp Western-style blue suit watching her. She knew she had made a mistake as soon as he smiled slightly and approached her. She had been told not to attract attention, and now she wasn’t sure whether she should move seats or simply smile and send the man off as soon as she could.

“Are you flying out soon?” the man asked, settling down in the seat next to hers.

Irene smiled weakly at him. Despite the dire nature of her own situation, she couldn’t help but remark on how handsome this man was. Like many Khanour men, he had dark olive skin and jet-black hair, but instead of the brown eyes she had seen throughout her stay, his eyes were an arresting pale green. He was tall and moved with the grace of a natural athlete… or a natural predator. Something about the way he looked tugged at her mind, as if he was someone she had met before, but she shrugged it away.

“I am,” she said. “My plane leaves in just under an hour.”

Irene hoped that would be enough for him, but he nodded knowingly.

“Ah, and where are you headed?”

“The United States,” she offered, and when that still did not seem to be enough, she added, “I’m going home to Pennsylvania.”

He smiled a little.

“Home has a good ring to it, doesn’t it? I’ve just landed at home myself.”

Despite herself, she glanced curiously at him. The men who had given her the package had told her that she was to act natural at all costs. Perhaps this was natural? Talking with someone who was simply not involved in this mess was at least a little calming.

“If you’ve just landed at home, you don’t really seem to be in such a hurry to get there,” she observed. “Unless you live at the airport?”

He chuckled ruefully, shaking his head.

“Fortunately for me, I do not,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to live here. The lines for the falafel are simply too long.”

She smiled a little at his joke.

“I’m sorry,” she said with a little shrug. “I’m sure it’s none of my business what you do or where you go…”

“I don’t mind,” he said, and to her surprise, he seemed to be making himself comfortable in the seat next to her. “If you don’t mind my asking, you don’t seem so eager to get home yourself. Or am I reading this wrong and you are simply afraid of flying?”

Irene knew she should have seized on the excuse. She had a fear of flying, and she needed to concentrate on calming herself down before they took off. Could he please leave? That was the natural thing to say, but instead, a strange version of the truth came out.

“My brother’s in trouble,” she said, her voice soft and pitched only for his ears. “He’s… he’s my twin, and he’s always been the one that couldn’t stay out of trouble, and I guess he’s in it again. I need to fly back home and see if I can help.”

The man’s eyebrows shot up, and he regarded her with renewed curiosity.

“That sounds serious,” he observed.

“It’s terribly serious,” she said, then spoke out loud her greatest fear. “And I’m afraid that even if I do all this, it still isn’t going to get him to a good place. He’s dug himself into some serious holes before, but this one feels different. It feels like this one is too deep by far, and I don’t know if I can help.”

To Irene’s horror, she felt tears well up in her eyes. Whatever else tears might be, they were not subtle or inconspicuous, and she blinked them back rapidly.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I know you didn’t come over her to comfort a woman who must seem insane.”

He smiled at her, pulling out a crisp white handkerchief and handing it to her.

“I’m the one who intruded on your thoughts, and for that I am sorry. I was watching you across the concourse, you see, and when I saw you, something stopped me in my tracks. There was a girl who seemed as if she should have everything going for her. Instead, she sits and looks as if her world has ended.”

“My world hasn’t ended,” she said, a slight smile on her face. “At least, not yet.”

“Yes, because you still have to fly to your brother’s rescue and play hero,” he said with a laugh.

“I’m not a terrible superheroine,” she protested. “I can’t fly, but I can get on a plane, and I don’t have super strength, but I’m pretty darned stubborn.”

He laughed at her, but there was a kindness to it. Despite her success in life, there had been remarkably little kindness, and a part of her bent toward him, like a sunflower turning toward the light.

“I don’t doubt it,” he replied. “I have every faith that you will pull your brother out of whatever hole he has fallen into.”

Somehow, the conversation was helping. The stranger was right; this was simply one more hole that Peter had fallen into. She had saved him many times in the past. She would save him again.

“You said that I was a girl who should have everything going for me,” she said. “What did you mean?”

“It seems shallow perhaps, to say it now, but I simply meant that you looked so lovely sitting here. You’re a beautiful woman, little heroine, all fair hair and pale skin, and those blue eyes of yours could stun a rampaging bull and drop him to his knees. What could a beautiful woman have to be upset by?”

Irene shook her head at him, half-amused and half-frustrated.

“Have you ever talked to women?” she retorted. “Women, whether they are good-looking or not, have plenty of problems.”

“Name one,” he challenged her, and it was such an absurd argument that she simply said the first thing that came to mind.

“Mostly, it begins and ends with men,” she said, and then to Irene’s surprise, they both burst out into laughter.

“All right, all right, I deserve that,” he said. “At least, when I relay it to my female cousins and my aunts later on this week, that is what they will say. And when they ask, who shall I say imparted that particular pearl of wisdom upon me?”

“Irene Bellingham,” she said with a slight smile. “From Kingston, Pennsylvania. And when I’m telling this story to my girlfriends, who did I embarrass myself in front of when I had too much coffee and too little sleep?”

“You can call me Raheem,” he said, and he offered her his hand.

She thought that he was going to shake her hand, but instead he turned it palm down and kissed the knuckles gently.

Somehow, just that little touch sent shivers of electricity bolting through her. The sensation of his skin touching hers, his mouth brushing across her knuckles, was all it took to make her catch her breath.

He pulled back, and the look on his face was just as startled as hers, though he quickly hid it.

“It seems that we have quite a connection, Miss Bellingham. Do you think it is possible to explore that connection later on, when you return to my country?”

For a moment, she wanted nothing more. There was something about this man who called himself Raheem. When she was with him, she didn’t feel afraid or preoccupied with worry about other matters. She hadn’t forgotten what her errand was all about, but somehow, for the last little while, she hadn’t thought about it.

“I’m sorry,” Irene said with genuine regret. “I don’t think I’m going to be returning to Khanour after this.”

Even as she said it, something about it broke her heart. This was a land she had spent more than six months researching, and the art, the culture, and the people called to her, embracing her as nothing ever had before. However, after she had run her dangerous errand, it was simply too likely that she would have to stay in the United States, never to return.

“Ah, a shame, then. Well, if I am ever in Kingston, Pennsylvania, I know that someone who I very much want to get to know better lives there.”

She smiled and then flinched a little as the flight attendant announced her boarding.

“I should go,” she said, standing up and fretting with her bag. “I… thank you for coming over to talk with me.”

He grinned, and there was a little bit of regret and wistfulness there.

“I am glad that I decided to come speak with you as well,” he said softly. “Time spent with someone so lovely is never wasted.”

She smiled, even if it was a little wan.

“Go home,” she said. “You’ve been putting it off long enough.”

He laughed, and then he would have turned to disappear into the crowd if someone hadn’t snatched her bag.

Irene was so startled that she could only shriek, but at the last moment, she managed to wrap her arm around the strap to hang on. The only thing she achieved was getting knocked to her side as the thief regained his footing and kept going.

That’s it
, she thought.
They’re going to shoot us both, and it will be all my fault…

Then, to her shock, Raheem sprang into action, racing after the thief and seizing the back of his jacket before he had even gone a dozen feet. A crowd gathered to cheer him on as he shook the weedy little thief hard.

“Give it back,” he said, his voice carrying an iron-hard tone of command. “Come on, you little pissant…”

The thief, sullen and furious at his capture, threw her bag to the ground, and to Irene’s horror, the tightly wrapped paper package rattled out to roll a short distance before catching up next to a railing. She started to reach for it, but Raheem, after handing the thief off to airport security, reached it first. He caught it up in his hand, but in the middle of handing it to her, he froze.

In all of the ruckus, a corner of the paper had peeled away, revealing an unmistakable shine of pure yellow gold.

Instead of handing it to her, he straightened up to his full height, ripping the paper away to reveal what was inside.

Irene had had no idea what she was carrying, and when she saw it, her heart skipped a beat. It was a golden statue of a gorgeous little roe deer, curled up with its legs tucked underneath it and its delicate horns curving from its head. Her well-trained historian’s mind told her that it was a fine example of early Islamic period art, a time when the Middle East led the world in art and science. The deer was delicately rendered by the hand of a skilled artist, and to a trained eye, there was no chance of mistaking what it was. It was nothing less than a national treasure, one that was beyond price when it came to history and importance.

When Irene looked up at Raheem, the fury in his eyes made her take a step back She wanted to run, and she wanted to hide, but she could do nothing besides stand there like a stunned deer herself, waiting for the wolves to come and finish her off.

“Do you know what this is?” he asked, his voice vibrating with anger. “Do you have any idea?”

She couldn’t speak. Her throat was closed up with guilt and pain and fear. It was over. Her life was over. Her brother’s life was over. All she could do now was maintain her silence.

He stared at her, and for a moment, she was afraid that he would come and shake her, perhaps even strike her. The men who came to take her by the arms were almost an afterthought. They did not offer the same kind of fear and terror that Raheem did. He looked as if she had personally betrayed his country, offered insult to his relatives. In a very real way, she had. 

“What do you want us to do with her, Your Highness?” one of the guards asked deferentially, and for a moment, Irene had no idea what he was saying or who he was addressing. Then she noticed that every eye was on Raheem, who surveyed the situation like a man with infinite control over the world.

A number of emotions flickered over Raheem’s face. She could not track them at all. In the middle of what was one of the lowest points in her life, all she could do was watch Raheem’s face, as if she could see her fate and Peter’s there.

“Take her to the precinct,” he said finally. “I will be in contact with the chief of police and the international crime head.”

When he spoke like that, a part of the puzzle clicked into place. He had told her to call him Raheem, but that was just the start of it. She had thought him handsome, but she had ignored the part of herself that insisted she had seen him before.

As a matter of fact, she had seen his face on the news, on the Internet, and even on the magazine racks on her way through the airport. The man who had been comforting her, flirting with her, soothing away her fears, and making her smile, was none other than Sheikh Raheem ben Ali, the lord of Khanour and ruler of the country from which she was stealing.