Protecting the Desert Heir

Rihad’s teeth were on edge, his body tense. He left the bridge behind him and headed west, wanting absolutely nothing at that moment but to get to his plane and get the hell out of here, back to his own land. His throne. The familiarity of his country, his rule. Before the tension in him exploded into something he couldn’t control.

That such a thing had never happened before—that he had never been quite this tense in the whole of his life before he’d laid eyes on this woman—did not bear thinking about.

“I have no intention of leaving you by the side of the road,” he assured her, and there was possibly too much dark intent in the comment, because she scowled at him in response. “Not yet anyway.”

“You’re a true gentleman. Clearly.”

And Rihad laughed then, because it was funny. All of this was funny, surely, however little familiarity he had with such things. He was a king pretending to be a driver. She was the mistress who had ruined his dead brother’s life. And he felt more alive trading insults with her than he had in years.

In fact, he couldn’t recall when he’d ever felt quite like this, for any reason.

He’d obviously gone mad with guilt and grief.

“I want us both to be very clear about who you are,” Sterling said then, leaning forward in her seat, and her scent teased at him, honey and sugar with the faintest hint of a tropical bloom beneath. It made his hands clench into fists against the steering wheel. It made him hard and needy.

It made him feel like a stranger to himself. Like the hungry, selfish man he’d never been.

Rihad couldn’t bring himself to analyze it. He concentrated on the road instead.

“I am perfectly clear about who I am,” he told her.

Or perhaps he was telling himself—because he had been. When he’d exited his private jet mere hours before. When he’d arrived at Omar’s apartment building, dismissed the driver who waited there and sent his team inside to secure this woman so he could have the pleasure of evicting her himself. He’d known exactly who he was.

And nothing has changed since then, he told himself harshly.

Or would.

“You are a man who thinks it’s appropriate to mock and insult a woman, first of all,” Sterling said in that precise way of hers that he really shouldn’t find so fascinating. It was only that no one had ever dared use a tone like that in his presence before, he assured himself. He was intrigued intellectually, nothing more. “Congratulations. Your mother must be proud.”

He laughed again, with significantly less mirth than before. “My mother died when I was twelve years old.”

“A great blessing, I think we can agree, so that she might be spared the knowledge of who you’ve become in her absence,” Sterling said, so matter-of-factly it took Rihad a moment to realize how deeply she’d insulted him. And then she kept going, unaware that no one spoke to him like that without consequences. No one would dare. “You are also a man who finds it amusing to speculate about the lives of strangers. Openly and repulsively.”

“Are you not a kept woman?” he asked, making no attempt to soften his tone. “My mistake. What is it you do, then, to support yourself?”

“You are ill-mannered and rude, and that was evident at a glance, long before you opened your mouth.” She laughed then, an abrasive sound that made his hackles rise. “I’ve met more honorable pigs.”

“Be very careful,” Rihad warned her. Because he had limits—even if, he was well aware, anyone who’d ever met him might have thought he’d crossed them a long while back. “A man does not react well to the questioning of his honor.”

“Then a man should act as if he has some,” she snapped.

“Yes, of course,” Rihad snorted. “And how would I prove that I am an honorable man to one such as you, do you imagine? Will you be the judge? A woman who—”

“Is pregnant?” Her voice was icy then, so cold he almost overlooked the fact that she’d interrupted him. Something no one had done since his father had died, and no woman had ever done, as far as he could recall. “So scandalous, I know. It’s almost as if every single person walking this earth came about their presence here some other way.”

“I must have mistaken you for someone else,” Rihad murmured as he made the final turn that would lead them to the airfield, which was just as well, because he thought his temper might flip the damned SUV over if he didn’t put some distance between the two of them, and soon. “I thought you were the mistress of Omar al Bakri.”