To Tempt a Sheikh (12 page)

His eyebrows knotted. “People can be misguided in their good intentions.” His brow cleared, his lips quirking. “What I find amazing is that you didn't set them straight.”

“Oh, I did.”

He chuckled before gentle seriousness descended over his face. “Were their deaths recent?”

“It
feels
like yesterday. And like a few lifetimes ago.”

“I know what you mean.”

Her heart kicked. “You've lost loved ones, too?”

He shook his head, his gaze heating. “I meant knowing you. It's so vivid it feels perpetually new, yet so powerful it feels as if you have been there all my life, a part of my being.” Now what could she say to something so—indescribable?
And worse, that sounded so spontaneous and sincere? Good thing he didn't let her struggle for a comment, but went on. “But I don't have a comparable experience when it comes to losing someone that dear. My mother died when I was five, so I hardly remember her. So tell me,
ya talyeti,
talk to me about your loved ones.”

“I feel I lost them simultaneously, even though they died seven years apart. Okay, let me start at the beginning.” She let out a shuddering exhalation, let him draw her closer into him, then began. “I never knew my biological father. I knew
of
him, but he didn't want a wife and a kid, let alone two. We had our mother's family name until she married the man I consider my father when Todd and I were two. As I grew up and learned the whole story, I thought my mother the luckiest woman on earth and my father—the man whose name I carry now—the best man in existence. I never saw anyone more in love or right for each other than they were.

“The only problem was, my father was almost thirty years older than my mom. He'd never been married before, always said he'd been waiting for her. For all of us. When I was in my second year in med school, right before his eightieth birthday, he passed away in his sleep, beside my mom. She never recovered. Seven years later, she overdosed on a concoction of the prescription meds I'd been begging her for years not to take. I could have saved her if I was there, but only Todd was home. By the time the ambulance arrived, it was too late.”

For long moments after she fell silent, Harres said nothing. Then they entered their cottage, and he pulled her into his embrace, pressed her head against his endless chest.

They stood like that, sharing, savoring, her body throbbing to the tempo of the powerful heart beating below her ear.

Then he kissed the top of her head. “
Ana aassef, ya nadda jannati.
I'm sorry.”

He said nothing more. Then they went about their bedtime routine. Once in bed, hearing him moving in the other room, she had a sudden realization. Why she'd always given up on any attempt at a relationship so early, so easily.

With her parents' example, she'd set her own bar high. Every connection she'd attempted had fallen miles below it. She'd soon given up on trying, had been resigned that she'd never have anything like they'd had, and that if she couldn't, she'd rather be alone. She'd become content with a life full of activity and purpose.

Now there was Harres.

 

“It's…huge.”

At Talia's exclamation, Harres pressed his hard body to her back, murmured in her ear, “Yes, it is.”

She nestled back against him, cast her gaze over the depression of
el waha
—the oasis that sprawled below them.

It had taken the past four days to cover the place on horse back. Now, on top of Reeh—or Wind, the white horse Harres had ridden on his charge back to save her—she had the best vantage point yet to appreciate it all from.

It seemed the explosion of life among the barrenness of the desert fed the conditions that fueled its proliferation in an endless cycle of balance and symbiosis. Date palms and olive trees numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Wildflowers and cacti were impossible in beauty and abundance. Farmed fruits and vegetables, especially figs, apricots, berries and corn, were astounding in size and taste. And besides horses, camels, sheep, goats, cats and dogs, there were innumerable representatives of the animal kingdom, all like the residents, unstressed and unthreatened.
Deer and foxes let her walk up to them, a few let her pet them. Even reptiles and birds humored her when she cooed to them and presumed to offer them food and seek their acquaintance.

She sighed her pleasure again. “Scratch huge. It's endless. It goes on forever.”

Harres chuckled as he unwrapped her from his arms, jumped off the horse and reached up to carry her down. His effortless strength and the cherishing in his glance and touch as she slid down his body sent a current through her heart.

“We can see about three miles to the horizon if we're on the ground, farther the higher up we go. Since we're three hundred feet up, we can see for about twenty miles. And since the oasis measures more than that on its narrowest side, you can't see its end from any point, making it look endless.”

She whooped, loving his explanations. “You should consider a career as a tour guide, if ever princes are no longer in demand….” She bit her tongue. Not something to joke about with a dethroning conspiracy going on in his kingdom. He only grinned at her, showing her he knew she'd meant nothing, enjoyed her joke. Grinning back in relief, she said, “I can now see how this place earned its mystical reputation.”

“So it's worth the ordeal I put you through coming here, eh?”

“I would have welcomed a trash dump if it had water and shelter. But it isn't because this place meant life to us that I find it amazing. It is a paradise, like you said. Mostly because of its inhabitants. Everyone is so kind and bright and wise.”

She left out the main reason why she found this place enchanting. The present company.

For minutes, as sunset expanded its dominion over the oasis, boosting the beauty to its most mind-boggling, he guided her to a spring of crystalline water enclosed within a canopy of palms. The air was laden with sweet plant scents and heady earth aromas, its temperature seeming to be calibrated for perfect comfort, all year round as he'd told her.

As they stopped by the spring, she said, “It would be so easy to live here forever.”

If Todd was with her, she amended inwardly, or at least out of prison.

Harres spread a rug at her feet, looked up. “Wouldn't you go out of your mind without modern conveniences?”

She sank down on the rug, reached for their food basket. “Sure, I'd miss a few things. Hot showers for one. And the internet. Uh…I'm sure there's more I'd miss, but I'm drawing a blank right now.”

He got out glasses. “How about medicine?”

“Oh, I'd practice it here like I have been so far. I'd probably do far more good in the long run than I do patching up people who go out and drive recklessly or OD again.”

He raised a slice of apricot to her lips. “But you're a very complex being,
ya nadda jannati,
a product of dozens of centuries of human evolution. I am best qualified to judge how sturdy and tenacious you are, but beyond the comforts you'd substitute with the pleasures of healthy living and labor, you'd itch for what the people here can't conceive, need challenges they can't provide.”

He knew her too well. And she could say the exact same of him. She nodded. “Probably. It's just the simplicity, the contentment and tranquility that breathes in this place is enchanting. If I had my way, this would be normal life and the bustle of the twenty-first century would be the vacation.”

“Then you will have your way.”

It felt like a pledge. As if he never meant this to end.

Yet she had no illusions, no hopes. Oceans of harsh realities, mountains of obstacles existed between them.

She was a commoner from another country and culture and he was a prince with a binding duty to his people. Then there was Todd's ordeal. She had no idea what securing his freedom would mean, to Harres, to his family. Even if there could be a solution that didn't end up harming them and making her Harres's enemy, he was probably—like that woman her brother had fallen in love with—intended to marry for king and kingdom.

Not that she'd ever put Harres and marriage together in a linear thought where
she
was concerned.

She now watched as he braided palm leaves into an ingenious basket for her fruits. Then she said, “You know, I came here thinking all of you Aal Shalaans were pampered perverts, mired in excess, useless at best, and helpless without your guards and gadgets, that all there was to you was unearned wealth and inherited status.”

His nimble hands had stopped midway through weaving his own basket, his eyes becoming somber, contemplative. Then he inhaled. “So what did you think of me specifically?”

She owed him the truth, no matter how ugly it was. Feeling shame surge into her cheeks, she said, “When I first heard the tales of your valor and victories? I thought you were the most obnoxious of the lot, playing at being a hero, taking credit for the achievements of the true but faceless heroes, or at best relying on the safety net of your men's lives and your endless resources to play the role of Zohayd's Guardian Prince. I thought you'd show your true colors when you were stripped of your force field of assets.”

He put a palm over his heart. “Ouch. And now you
think all that plus a few more choice put-downs and denigrations?”

She cast him a reproachful glance. “You know what I think now.”

“Tell me.”

The way he'd said that. The way he looked at her. As if he couldn't live without this vital knowledge.

Breath left her. “You know what you are. You have a whole kingdom who revere the dirt beneath your feet.”

He sat up slowly. “Reverence doesn't matter to me. I never do anything in anticipation of anyone's thanks or admiration. I surely don't expect either, or care if I get them.”

Her lips twitched. “Too bad. You'll just have to keep your chin up and take shiploads of both like the worshipped prince you are. Judging by the way the oasis inhabitants treat you, you're far more than that to them. And it
is
only you, not the whole royal family. You personally have done so much for them.”

“I only do what I am in a position to do. I don't deserve credit or gratitude for doing my duty, but I would have earned disrespect and disrepute if I didn't.”

“As you say around here, ‘squeeze a lemon on it,'” she teased.

“So I can stomach the queasiness of adulation? Do you at least believe I never expect, let alone crave, any of it?”

“Oh, yes. I saw you squirming when they told tales of your glories last night. You sure don't crave anyone's adulation.”

“I didn't say
that
.”

Her heart punched her ribs. “You…crave mine?”

His nod was solemn. “I crave your acceptance, your approval.”

“Uh…you have been around the past two weeks, right?”

He rose until he was on his knees, towering over her. “I need to hear it,
ya nadda jannati,
in your inimitable words. What you think of me is the only validation I have ever craved.”

She struggled with an attack of arrhythmia. But he'd demanded. And the truth was his due, the least she could give him when she owed him her very life.

She gave it to him. “From the first moment, you forced me to reassess you. With every action and word, you showed me you are all that's advertised and far more. Stripped from all the trappings of your power, you proved to be the total opposite of what I thought, with stamina and resourcefulness and bravery that constantly awe me. You showed me you take your duty to protect anyone weaker than you, at whatever cost to you, more seriously than I thought possible in this day and age. I believe you're one of a kind, Prince Harres Aal Shalaan.”

His gaze lengthened, heated, until she felt she'd burst into flames. Just when she was about to whimper,
please, enough,
he took her hand, buried his face in its palm for a long moment.

Then raggedly, still against her flesh, he whispered, “You honor me with your opinion. I will always strive to deserve it.”

From then on, the atmosphere seemed charged with emotion, intensifying each sensation into near distress.

As if by agreement, they barely spoke as they had their meal. She was thankful for the silence. It gave her the chance to deal with her upheaval and face herself with more truths.

There were Aal Shalaans who hadn't hesitated to destroy Todd's life to gain their ends, but she could no longer dip
the whole family in the bile of her anger and prejudice. And just as she didn't know who exactly among the Aal Shalaans and Ghada's family were culpable, there could be sides to the story that would change her perspective. Whatever
that
became, she now believed, from Harres's example, that the Aal Shalaans weren't an evil regime that deserved to be deposed.

Which led her to more realizations. And a decision.

Soon it got chilly and they rode through the now sleeping oasis back to the cottage under the blaze of a full moon.

Inside, they took turns bathing.

The moment he came out into the sitting area, she began. “I decided something when I thought I was dying.”

His smile froze, his face slamming shut. “Don't say that again. Don't even think it.”

“I need to tell you this.” She waited until he gave a difficult nod, then went on. “When I thought it was over, I thought that if I had a chance to do things over, or a second chance to put things right, I'd do what I really wanted to do, with no thought to obstacles or misgivings or consequences. Then you saved me. And I got cold feet.”

He didn't ask her to elaborate. He just stared at her, seriousness seizing his face fully for the first time.

She knew this would lead nowhere. And it made no difference.