CHAPTER FIVE
AN HOUR LATER, Josie was in the tent, bathed, comfortable and wearing clean clothes. And more determined than ever to escape.
Okay, so her phone didn’t work and her impulsive escape attempt had been laughable. But she couldn’t stay here. Whatever Kasimir thought, she couldn’t just be patient. She had no intention of abandoning Bree for weeks in her ex-boyfriend’s clutches and trusting all would be well.
Why had Kasimir even insisted on keeping her here? There was no reason he couldn’t have her sign some kind of letter of intent or something, promising to give him the property. Something just didn’t add up. She felt as if she’d become almost as much a prisoner as Bree was. Two prisoners for two brothers, she thought grimly.
And yet...
Josie brushed her long brown hair until it tumbled softly over her shoulders. Somehow, he’d also made her feel free. As if she, of all people, could be daring enough to travel around the world, learn to drive on a Lamborghini and boldly catch a powerful man in a lie.
You are reckless, Josie. Powerful. Fearless.
Could he be right? Could that be the voice inside her, the one she’d ignored for so long, the one she’d been scared to hear?
Dropping the silver-edged brush, she pulled her hair back into a ponytail. Well, she was listening to it now. And that meant one thing: maybe she would have accepted being in a cage once...
But she’d be no man’s prisoner now.
Josie stood up in her pale linen trousers and a fine cotton shirt she’d found in the wardrobe, in her exact size. She’d just come back from the bathing tent, where she’d been delightfully submerged in hot water and rose petals. As she’d watched the Berber servants pour steaming water into the cast-iron bathtub, she’d felt as though she was in another century. In Africa. In Morocco.
“He’s called the Tsar of the Desert,” one of the women had whispered. “He came here with a broken heart.”
Another woman tossed rose petals into the fragrant water. “But the desert healed him.”
A broken heart? Kasimir? If she hadn’t already heard his story about his lost love, Josie would have found that hard to believe. With a shiver, she pictured him, all brooding lips and cold eyes...and hard, broad-shouldered, muscular body, towering over her. A man like that didn’t seem to have feelings. She would have assumed he didn’t have a heart to break.
But now she knew too much. An orphan who’d been stabbed in the back by his beloved older brother. A romantic who’d waited to lose his virginity, then fallen for his first woman, even planning to propose to her. If she’d known Kasimir when he was twenty-two...
Josie shivered. She would have fallen for him like a stone. A man with that kind of strength, loyalty, integrity and kindness was rare. Even she knew that.
She knew too much.
Now, as she left his tent, she looked out at the twilight. Stop having a crush on him, she ordered herself. She couldn’t let herself get swept up in tenderness for the young man he’d once been—or in desire for the hard-eyed man he’d become. She couldn’t get caught up in the romance of the desert, and start imagining herself some intrepid lady adventurer from a 1920s movie matinee. Kasimir was not some Rudolph Valentino-style sheikh waiting to ravish her, or love her.
No matter how he’d looked at her an hour ago.
I never should have kissed you. I was wrong. Josie, I’m sorry.
She pushed away the memory of his haunted voice, and hardened her heart. She couldn’t completely trust him—no matter how handsome he was, or how he made her feel. There was something he wasn’t telling her. And she wasn’t going to stick around to find out what it was.
The air was growing cool in the high desert. She saw the darkening shadows of dusk lit up by torches on both sides of the oasis. It looked like magic.
She’d find a chance to escape. And this time, she wouldn’t just run off. She’d figure out a plan. She’d seen horses on the edge of the encampment. Perhaps she could borrow one. She’d never been much of a planner. Bree had the organized mind for that. Josie was more of a seat-of-your-pants type of girl.
She’d figure it out. She’d seize her chance. Sometime when Kasimir wasn’t looking.
Josie looked for him now, turning her head right and left. She pictured his handsome face, so intense, so ruthless. No wonder, under the magnetic force of his complete attention, she’d once felt infatuated—at least before she’d realized he was a liar and kidnapper. Her brief crush wasn’t anything to be embarrassed about. With Kasimir’s chiseled good looks, electric-blue eyes and low, husky voice—and the sensual stroke of his practiced fingertips, rough against her skin—any woman would have felt wildly attracted. But her crush was over now. Her hands tightened. She wasn’t going to let him stop her from doing what she needed to do.
But it couldn’t hurt to be fortified with dinner before her escape. Her stomach growled. Calories would give her energy, which would give her ideas. Josie looked around for the dining tent. The sun was setting at a rapid pace.
A man in an indigo turban bowed in front of her. “Princess,” he said in accented English.
Princess...? She blushed. “Oh. Yes. Hello. Could you please tell me where Kasimir—Prince Kasimir—might be?”
The man smiled then gestured across the encampment. “You go, yes? He waits.”
“Yes, of course,” she stammered. “I’ll hurry.”
Josie went in the direction he’d pointed. She wasn’t sure she was going the right way, until she suddenly saw a path in the sand, illuminated by a line of torches in the dusk.
She followed the path, all the way up the spine of the tallest sand dune. At the top, she discovered a small table and two chairs on a Turkish carpet, surrounded by glimmering copper lanterns.
Kasimir rose from one of the chairs. “Good evening.” Coming forward, he bent to kiss her hand. She felt the heat of his lips against her skin before he straightened to look at her with dark, sizzling blue eyes as he said huskily, “You look beautiful.”
She gulped, pulling back her hand. “Thank you for the clothes, and the bath,” she said weakly. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long.”
He gave her a warm smile that took her breath away. “You are worth waiting for.”
Silhouetted in front of the red-and-orange twilight, Kasimir looked devastatingly handsome in the long Moroccan djellaba with its intricate embroidery on the edges and loose pants beneath. His head was bare, and the soft wind ruffled his black hair as he pulled back her chair. “Will you join me?”
Holding out her chair was such an old-fashioned, courtly gesture. And in this setting, with this particular man, it was extremely romantic. In spite of her best efforts, a tremble rose inside her. I do not have a crush on him anymore, she told herself firmly, but apparently her legs hadn’t gotten the message, because they turned to jelly.
She fell into her chair. He pushed it back beneath the table, and as she felt his fingertips accidentally brush her shoulders, she couldn’t breathe. She didn’t exhale until he took his own seat across the small table.
“How lovely,” she said, looking around them. “I never would have thought a table could be brought up here. It’s enchanting....”
“Yes,” he said in a low voice, looking at her. “Enchanting.”
Their eyes locked in the deepening twilight, and spirals of electricity traveled down Josie’s body to her toes, centering on her breasts and a place low and deep in her belly. Looking at the hard angles of his chiseled face, she felt uneasy. She suddenly wanted to lean across the table, to touch and stroke the rough dark stubble of his jawline, to run both her hands through his wind-tousled black hair....
What was she thinking? Nervously, she looked down at the flickering lanterns that surrounded the carpet. She was relieved to see four servants with platters of food coming up the path illuminated by torches in the dusk.
“I’ve ordered a special dinner tonight that I hope you’ll enjoy,” her captor said softly. “Would you care for some white wine?”
She gulped. “Sure,” she said, trying to seem blasé, as if drinking wine in the Sahara with billionaire princes was something she did every day. Oh, good heavens. With her billionaire prince husband.
Pouring wine from a pitcher into a crystal-and-gold goblet, he handed it to her. Smoothly, she lifted it to her lips. She didn’t much like the smell, but she took a big drink anyway.
Then she sputtered, and nearly choked. Making a face, she pulled the glass away from her lips.
“Don’t you like it?” Kasimir asked in surprise.
“Like it?” She blurted out. “It tastes like juice that’s gone bad!”
He laughed, shaking his head. “But Josie, that’s exactly what wine is.” He tilted his head, giving her a boyish grin. “Though I don’t think the St. Raphaël winery will be using those exact words in their ads anytime soon. No wine, huh?”