Duty, Desire and the Desert King

“All thanks to you,” Georgina whispered. “You said there were no princes, but you found one for me!”

Georgina stepped back, and Ralf leaned down and dropped a kiss on Rou’s cheek. “I will always be in your debt, Dr. Tornell.”

And then Ralf and Georgina were turning their attention to Zayed, heartily welcoming him, and thanking him for coming.

“It is my pleasure,” Zayed answered smoothly, “and I offer you my family’s warmest congratulations on your marriage.”

“Thank you,” Ralf replied. “But tell us, have you news of Sharif? We’ve only just heard. It was on the television earlier.”

“Was it?” Zayed answered. “I didn’t think they were going to go public for another few days.”

Ralf and Georgina exchanged swift glances. “Is it true that there’s no sign of the plane? That it just totally disappeared from the radar?” Ralf persisted.

Zayed nodded.

“And Jesslyn?” Georgina asked. “Is she… Was she…?”

“She wasn’t with him, no. Nor the children, thank God.” Zayed’s expression shifted, hardened. “Although they were all supposed to be together.”

“I can’t believe it,” Ralf said, more to himself than the others. “Sharif is so…. so…Sharif.”

Zayed inclined his head, and Ralf quickly recovered and reached out to clasp Zayed’s shoulder. “We are praying for him, and all of you. We must not lose hope. And if there is anything we can do, any way we can aid the search, or help the queen, you only need to say the word.”

The wedding couple moved on.

Rou was silent for a moment after Georgina and Ralf walked away, but then she turned to Zayed, her expression fierce. “What’s happened to Sharif?”

“I’ve told you—”

“You haven’t.”

“He’s missing. His plane disappeared ten days ago. But I told you—”

“No, you didn’t tell me.” Her voice cracked. “You definitely didn’t tell me. You said throne, Sarq, kingdom. You didn’t say Sharif. You didn’t say he was missing. You didn’t. And you should have.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Her eyes shimmered with tears. “He’s my hero. I adore him, and I’d do anything, absolutely anything, for him.”

CHAPTER THREE

THEY’D agreed they’d meet in the morning, at nine in his hotel lobby.

They were to start afresh.

At least that’s what she’d told Zayed. But Rou spent a sleepless night in her hotel bed, tossing and turning with the weight of her thoughts and the enormity of her dread.

She adored Sharif. She feared Zayed.

She’d promised to help Zayed but only because of Sharif.

If she hadn’t been the recipient of the Fehr scholarship at Cambridge. If she hadn’t been mentored by Sharif for six of her eight years at university. If she hadn’t admired Sharif so terribly, maybe she could walk away from Zayed now, but she had been a Fehr scholar, and Sharif had been her mentor, and she did think of him as the older brother she never had.

Sharif was missing. And Sarq was in turmoil.

Of course she’d help Zayed. How could she not? But she’d limit the time she spent with him and would monitor his proximity. There was no reason she couldn’t work with him over the phone, or via e-mail and fax. She’d just sit down with him in the morning, get the paperwork started and then complete the rest from a safe and sane distance.

The key thing was getting Sharif found, and Zayed back to Sarq where he could assume leadership until his brother returned.

Because Sharif would be found. Sharif would return—alive. It had to be. There was no other possibility. Not for his wife, Jesslyn, or his four children, or his country. Sharif was too well loved.

Zayed, on the other hand, was not as well loved. Rou knew from the little Sharif had said that Zayed, the middle brother, was the family black sheep, and had been for much of Sharif’s life, a thorn in his side.

Just as he was fast becoming a thorn in hers.

The next morning, Zayed’s bodyguards preceded him out of the hotel elevator and then took up positions as Zayed crossed the expansive marble lobby floor in search of Rou.

After a moment he spotted her, seated at a low table across the lobby, dressed in a sober gray skirt and jacket.

This morning her hair was drawn tightly back from her face in a severe knot at her nape, her thin body angled away from the table as she hunched over her computer leaving just her legs exposed. And they were, he noted with some surprise, endless legs. Long, shapely legs. Truly remarkable legs.

Zayed slowed his pace, frankly admiring the long legs that curved to the side of the gold chair, low kitten heels, her skirt a demure hem length, her sheer stockings revealing pale skin beneath.

Then, as if on cue, she with the long legs and severe blond chignon turned her head and looked directly at him.

He exhaled.

And she was back to being plain, uptight Dr. Tornell. In all fairness, Rou Tornell wasn’t greyhound ugly, but she wasn’t beautiful. She couldn’t even be called pretty. This morning she wore glasses, dark tortoiseshell glasses that looked stark against her pale skin, perching too large on her small, straight nose. Her mouth was thin. Her chin strong.

Zayed, so rarely amused by anything, nearly smiled now. Little Miss Muffet. That’s what she was. And he was the spider.

The only thing he didn’t know as he sat down across from her was how such a prim and proper Miss Muffet ended up with legs of sin?

Rou noticed Zayed’s peculiar expression as he took a seat in the upholstered chair across from hers. “Everything all right?” she asked.

“I haven’t heard anything new,” he answered, “if that’s what you mean.”

She nodded once. It was what she’d meant and Zayed, satisfied, opened his briefcase and pulled out folders, notebooks, handouts.

He slid one of the stapled handouts toward her. “I’ve already filled out your client profile, including family background and medical history.”

She glanced at the packet in front of her. They were her own confidential client forms. “These are my forms,” she said, clearly surprised.

“I told you, I did my research.”

“But where did you get these?”

Zayed shook his head, reading her like a book. “It wasn’t your assistant. I just did some legwork.”

Rou’s eyebrows shot up. “Don’t cover for Jamie—”

“It was Pippa, if you must know. I phoned her and she was happy to send me copies of her paperwork. My secretary made me clean copies.” But Zayed was already moving on. “This is the Myers-Briggs personality test you use. I’ve completed it, as well, although I could have told you what I am—I’ve been tested before—but I was certain you’d want the proof in front of you.”

“You’ve left me very little to do,” she protested, although her tone indicated she was only half joking.

“Not at all. Now comes the important part. You find her for me. That is what all these forms lead to, isn’t it? Mate selection?”

Mate selection, Rou echoed silently.

Those were her words, from her own material, but it sounded so dry, so businesslike coming from him. She looked up at him, and as her gaze met his, her heart did a crazy lurch, a disturbing feeling that made her feel off-kilter.

Rou didn’t appreciate the way her pulse had begun to race.

It hadn’t raced this way in years, either. It’d been so long since she’d felt this desperate giddiness, this awful breathlessness. It’d been, well, since Lady Pippa’s wedding, when she’d allowed herself to be charmed by Zayed.

Only Zayed hadn’t been charmed. He’d found her dull and ridiculous, and he’d said so to Sharif.

You can’t let him do this to you again, she admonished herself severely. You’re not attracted to him, and it’s not emotion making you feel this way, either. It’s down to hormones and chemicals, silly involuntary chemicals like dopamine and adrenaline

. You don’t even like him. You resent him. You despise him. And you only respond this way because he makes you nervous, he makes you afraid.

And it was true. Every time she was around him, her heart raced, and her stomach got this sick, nauseous feel. As if she were on a rocking boat. Or a plane dancing in a turbulent wake.

Or trapped in the backseat of a car with her parents screaming.

Zayed’s hand was suddenly at her elbow. “Are you going to faint?” he asked.

“No.” She pulled forcefully from his grasp. “I’m perfectly fine.”

“You’re looking very pale.”