Master of the Desert

He made no allowances for the fact that she was young and vulnerable, and she couldn’t decide if she liked that or not. Her brother smothered her, believing she required his constant supervision, whereas this man was more like a warrior from one of her fantasies, and had no time to waste on indulging her. Tall, dark and formidably built, in her dreams she would think of him as a dark master of the night, intense and ruthless, the ultimate prize—in reality, he made her wish she had never left home.

She continued to watch him furtively through a curtain of hair. She’d had no alternative but to board his yacht. She had swum to the point of exhaustion, and when she’d seen his boat looming out of the mist she hadn’t thought twice about seizing her chance.

As soon as he finished the call, she quickly drew up her feet and locked her arms around her knees, burying her head to avoid his penetrating stare. But he was ignoring her again, she realised, peeping at him.

She studied him some more as he moved about the cabin. He was spectacularly good-looking, with deeply bronzed skin and wild, black hair that caught on his stubble. The firm, expressive mouth, the earring, the look in his eyes, his menacing form all contributed to the air of danger surrounding him. He might look like her ideal man, but this was not one of her fantasies, and she was so far out of her comfort zone she was having to make up the rules as she went along. But there was no question he could melt hearts from Hollywood to Hindustan, and would certainly make a great Hollywood pirate, with those sweeping, ebony brows and that aquiline nose.

Then she remembered that real pirates were scrawny, smelly, ugly and mean.

As she whimpered at the memory of them, he whirled around. ‘What’s wrong with you now?’

‘Nothing,’ she protested. She’d get no sympathy here.

CHAPTER TWO

‘YOU must never put yourself in such a vulnerable position again,’ he told the girl sternly.

She looked at him in mute surprise, but he cut her no slack. If he eased up she’d think taking chances in the wilderness was acceptable, whereas he knew that if the visibility had been better, and helicopter gun-ships from his air force had been flying over the yacht when she boarded, his snipers might have shot her.

‘My boat was attacked by pirates,’ she protested. ‘I jumped overboard and swam for my life. What else was I supposed to do?’

He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had challenged him. In a world of bowed heads and whispering obedience, it was almost a refreshing change. But the girl’s safety came first, and for the pirates to be captured he had to warn her off ever doing anything similar again, and find out everything she could tell him. ‘Save the attitude,’ he barked, ‘And stick to the facts.’

She blinked and rallied determinedly, and as her story unfolded his admiration for her grew. It also made him doubly determined that she must learn from the experience. ‘You seem to have confused some romantic notion with reality,’ he observed acidly when she paused for breath. ‘This part of the Gulf is no holiday resort, and you’re lucky these are only scratches.’

It had been a relief to find that none of her injuries was serious and was what he might have expected after hearing she’d jumped overboard. ‘This will sting,’ he warned, loosening the top on a bottle of iodine. To her credit, she barely flinched as he painted it on. The only sign that it hurt her was a sharp intake of breath. She had beautiful legs, coltish and long, and her skin was lightly tanned, as if she had only recently landed in the Gulf. ‘What brought you to these shores—a gap year?’

‘Sort of.’

She winced—from fear of discovery that she was doing something she shouldn’t, he guessed—but before he could question her she hit him with, ‘What brought you here?’

No one questioned him. He had to forcefully remind himself that here on this desert island they were anonymous strangers and she couldn’t know who he was. He shrugged. ‘The storm.’

That was the simple answer. Sailing grounded him; it reminded him he was not only a king but a man, and that the man owed it to his country and his people to go hunting for his humanity from time to time. Whether he would ever be successful in that quest, only history would judge. ‘And where did you say you were heading?’ he prompted.

‘I didn’t say, but I’m heading for Sinnebar,’ she admitted grudgingly when he held her stare.

She was hiding something, he concluded when her gaze flickered away.

‘Do we have to talk now?’ she muttered, playing the hard-done-by card.

‘If you want the pirates to escape…’