“Put me down. Damn you, put me—”
He yanked the door open, dumped her inside the closet. She dived for the door, but she was too late. It shut in her face, and then she heard a scraping sound against the wood. Amanda rattled the knob, pounded her fist against the door until she was panting, but it was useless.
The sheikh must have jammed a chair under the doorknob.
She was trapped.
All she could do was listen to the murmur of voices. The sheikh’s angry, Dawn’s apologetic. After a while, she couldn’t hear anything, not even a whisper. She could imagine Dawn, cowed into submission, while her abominable brother stood over her, glowering. Glowering was what he seemed to do best.
“Bastard,” Amanda said softly.
Tears welled in her eyes. Tears of anger.
“Oh, hell,” she whispered. Who was she kidding? They were tears of shame. Her rage at the sheikh’s accusations, at what he’d done to her camera, at how he’d treated her, was nothing compared to the rage she felt at herself.
How could she have kissed him? Because she had kissed him; she’d have done more than that if she hadn’t mercifully come to her senses just before Dawn came into the room. She’d lost control of herself in Nicholas al Rashid’s arms. Done things. Said things. Felt things…
Let go, her husband used to say. What’s the matter with you? Why are you such a prude when it comes to sex?
Well, she hadn’t been a prude tonight. She’d behaved as if she were exactly what the sheikh had accused her of being.
“Oh, hell,” Amanda said again, and she leaned back, slid to the floor, wrapped her arms around her knees and settled in to wait until His Royal Highness, the Despot of Quidar, deigned to set her free.
It wasn’t a very long wait. But when the door opened, it wasn’t the despot who stood outside. It was Dawn.
Amanda scrambled to her feet. “What happened?”
“Nick is furious.”
“Not half as furious as I am.” She peered past Dawn. “Where is he? I haven’t finished telling him what—”
“He took his stuff and went to one of the guest rooms to change.” Dawn glanced at the diamond watch on her wrist. “By now, he’s probably downstairs.”
“Yeah, well then, that’s where I’m—”
“Mandy.” Dawn caught Amanda’s hand. “What happened before I got here?”
Color swept into Amanda’s face. “Nothing happened,” she said, and wrenched her hand free. She smoothed down her dress, tugged uselessly at the torn strap and wished she knew what had happened to her other shoe. “Your brother caught me in here and jumped to all the wrong conclusions.”
“Uh-huh.” Dawn managed a smile. “So he thought I’d arranged a gift for his, uh, for his pleasure?”
“He most certainly did. As if I’d ever—”
“I know. Sometimes it’s not easy dealing with Nicky.”
“That’s because his head is as hard as a rock.”
“Do us both a favor, okay? Don’t say things like that to him. You can’t call him names, not when he’s angry. It isn’t done.”
“Maybe not in your country, but this is America.” Amanda hobbled past Dawn, eyes on the carpet as she searched for her shoe. “Freedom of speech, remember? The Bill of Rights? The Constitution? Ah. There it is.” She bent down, picked up her shoe and grimaced. “The heel is broken. Okay, okay, that’s it. Tell your brother he owes me for the camera and now for a pair of shoes.”
“One dress, too, from the looks of it.” Dawn hesitated. “You guys must have really tussled over that camera.”
Amanda was glad she had her back to Dawn. “Yes. Yes, we did.”
“The thing is, I never figured you’d get caught alone in his bedroom. I was sure I’d get here before he came home.”
“Well, you didn’t.” Amanda heard the sharpness in her own voice. She stopped, drew a breath and turned around. “Look, what happened isn’t your fault. Anyway, now that your brother knows the truth—”
“Well, he’s not sure he does.”
“You mean he still thinks you arranged for me to—”
“No. No, not that.” Dawn sat down on the edge of the bed, sighed and crossed her legs. “Mandy, try to see things from his perspective. I mean, you saw that awful photograph on the cover of Gossip. People try to get close to him all the time just so they can find out personal stuff about his life.”
“I’d sooner get close to a python.”
“I know how you feel. But Nick is sensitive about invasions of his privacy.”
“Your brother is about as sensitive as a mule. And you know damn well that I wasn’t invading anything.”
“Of course. And he’ll know it, too.” Dawn blew out her breath. “Just as soon as the party is over.”
“Yeah, well, you can explain it to him by yourself.” Amanda slung her evening purse over her shoulder and limped to the door. “Because I am out of here.”
“You can’t.”
“Oh, but I can.” She looked back as she curled her hand around the knob. “I feel sorry for you, Dawn. You’re trapped with His Arrogance, but I’m…Dammit! This—door—is—stuck!” Dawn said something so quietly that Amanda couldn’t hear it. “What?” she said, and rattled the knob again.
“I said, the door isn’t stuck. It’s locked.”
Amanda stood perfectly still. When she let go of the knob and looked around, her face was a study in disbelief. “From the outside?”
“Uh-huh.” Dawn swung her foot back and forth. She seemed to be contemplating her black silk pump. “I guess some nutcase owned this penthouse before Nicky did. Lots of the doors have locks on the—”
“I don’t care who owned it, dammit!”
“I’m just explaining…” Dawn licked her lips. “Nicky locked the door.”
“Nicky locked…” Amanda clamped her lips together. Be calm, she told herself, be very calm. “Let me understand this. Your brother locked this door the same way he locked me into the closet?”
Dawn peered intently at her shoes. “Right.”
“And you let him do it?”
“I didn’t let him do anything.” Dawn looked up. “He just did it. He has the right.” Amanda laughed. Dawn’s face pinkened. “Mandy,” she said, “I know this seems strange to you—”
“Strange? Strange, that a man I hardly know doesn’t think twice about locking me up?” Amanda grabbed for her dangling shoulder strap. “That he feels free to try to rip my clothes off? To tumble me into his bed?”
A grin, a real one, curled across Dawn’s mouth. “Oh, wow,” she said softly. “So that wasn’t true, huh? Nicky’s little speech about losing his shirt when you were fighting over the camera.”
“The truth,” Amanda said stiffly, “is that your dear, devoted brother is a lunatic. And so are you, for letting him lock that door.”
Dawn shot to her f
eet. “I didn’t ‘let’ him. I told you that. Nobody ‘lets’ him, don’t you see? My brother is the future ruler of our kingdom. His word is law.”
“For you, maybe. And for anybody else who’s willing to live in the Dark Ages.”
“Now, you just wait a minute before you say—”
The door suddenly swung open. Amanda spun around and glared at the man she despised.
How calm and collected he looked. While she’d been cooling her heels behind locked doors, the Sheikh of the Universe had been readying himself for his party. His dark hair was still damp from the shower; his jaw was smooth. She could see a tiny cut in the shallow cleft in his chin.
Good, she thought grimly. Maybe he wasn’t as calm as he looked. The son of a bitch had cut himself while he shaved. She only hoped she was the reason for his unsteady hand on the razor. From the way he’d looked at her before and from how he was looking at her now, it was pretty obvious that Nicholas al Rashid wasn’t accustomed to having anyone, especially a woman, talk back to him.
Women probably told him lots of other things, though. That he was exciting. That he was gorgeous, especially in that tux and pleated white shirt. That he could make a woman forget everything, even the code she lived by, with one kiss….
Amanda drew herself up. Snakes could be handsome, too. That didn’t make them any less repulsive.
“You have one hell of a nerve,” she said, “locking us in this room.”
Nick looked at his sister. “Dawn?”
“This is the United States of America in case you haven’t—”
“Dawn, our guests are here.”
Amanda strode toward him. “Are you deaf?” Her words were rimed with ice. “I’m talking to you.”
Nick ignored her. “Thanks to this unpleasant incident, I am not at the door to greet them.”
Dawn cast her eyes down. “It’s my fault, Nicholas. I apologize.”
“I’ve decided to forgive you.”
A glowing smile lit Dawn’s face. “Thank you, Nicky.”
Amanda made a little sound of disgust. Nick decided to go on pretending she was invisible.
“But this is the last time. One more transgression and you return home.”
“Oh, give me a break.”
Dawn shot Amanda a horrified look. Nick merely tilted his head toward her. “Did you have something you wished to say, Ms. Benning?”