To Touch a Sheikh (12 page)

It had been better than heaven. Amjad in real life was better than her most exaggerated dreams of him. And how she'd dreamed. She constantly sizzled with the enormity of what she felt for him.
Eshg.
That emotion that he'd so adorably bared his fangs and growled didn't exist only to go on and demonstrate in everything he did and said that it
did…

A one-note noise jerked her out of the luxury of her musings.

Before she recognized it, it deluged her mind with melancholy impressions. Of lost chances. Of years without Amjad.

Then she realized it was his phone, ringing for the first time since they'd come here. Her unease crystallized into fear. That
it would somehow take him away from her like it had after the bomb scare.

Which was stupid to the max. First, of course he'd get phone calls after ten days of absence. He must have turned his phone off after he'd assured everyone of their safety and on again to touch base with his people. Everyone must be eager to contact him. Second and foremost, Amjad might not have said it, but he was hers. Nothing would take him away from her again.

She let it ring. Amjad would call back when he returned.

But the ringing ended only to start again almost without pause, sounding like someone shrieking in ratcheting hysteria.

Maybe it was an emergency. Something that needed his intervention. Something they had to go back for right away.

Amjad hadn't even brought up their return. He seemed to have forgotten the outside world. As she had.

But it was intruding on them now. He might not have any choice but to let the world crash in on their magic.

She rose, pulled on his shirt and headed outside. Her heart shivered with foreboding as she neared the phone as if it was a grenade with the safety pin missing.

It's just a phone, you drama queen. Just take it to him.

She picked it up, glanced at the screen, shook her head at her pointless action. As if she'd recognize the number.

As she crossed to the corridor leading to the door, something made her take a closer look and…she did!

It was her
father's.

She froze, her thoughts stumbling over each other, tangling.

Her father must know that the sandstorm had abated. Days ago. He must be
very
curious to know what was keeping them.

Would she come clean to him?

Why would she? He hadn't to her. And then he'd probably go all fatherly and horrified on her. The last thing she needed was him butting in on her and Amjad's relationship. He'd already almost spoiled it once. And if he started demanding that Amjad do “the honorable thing,” she might have to strangle him for real!

She inhaled, pressed Talk, put the phone to her ear, and almost had her eardrum blown out.

She snatched the phone away in shock. And that was before she deciphered her father's yelling.

He was calling Amjad every filthy name the region had ever spawned. Some she hadn't thought it had.

With her heart missing beats, she ventured the phone closer to her ear again. The invective continued unabated. Her father
was
on the warpath. Good thing she'd been the one to get his call.

After many false starts, she shouted,
“Father!”

“Maram,
b'nayti!
” her father exclaimed in surprise. “What did that mad monster do to you? I don't care how powerful he is or if I'm not in his league. I swear I'll avenge you. I'll make him rue the day he brought you into this—”

“Father…
Father!
” She had to shout again to abort his ranting. “Calm down, okay? Amjad didn't do anything to me. I'm fine. Better than fine. He saved me—”

“He
didn't
save you.”

Here we go.
The rant about how Amjad had “ruined” her, how he'd “pay” if he didn't “fix his mistake.”

She overlapped his rage. “You
know
he did. But if you're talking about afterward—”

Her father cut her off, shrieking now. “
He didn't save you!
That insane bastard
kidnapped
you. He's holding you
hostage!
”

A
fter a moment of stunned silence, Maram scoffed, “Overreacting much? So it's been ten days, but it's not like I haven't gone radio-silent for longer, or that I ever report to—”

“I went out of my
mind
when I heard of the sandstorm.” Her father continued ranting as if she hadn't spoken. “I thought you were dead until I gathered that no one was looking for Amjad and I realized. It was
all
a plan. He knows that region like no other, knew the sandstorm was coming, arranged to kidnap you under its cover. I called him hundreds of times to negotiate your return, but that scum never answered. No one connected with him would take my calls. He wanted to wreck me with fear for you first before he made his demands—”

“Holy horror stories, Father,” she exclaimed, cutting him off before he gave himself a heart attack. “Did you have a relapse? This
has
to be fever-induced.”

“Put that bastard on. Let's have this out.”

“I'm
not
letting you talk to Amjad in this state.”

He went silent. Following his uncharacteristic explosion, that unsettled her. Before she could voice her alarm, he spoke again, rage drained, leaving his voice a thread of sound.

“What has that snake told you?”

She exhaled heavily. “He's told me plenty, but let's not open
that
snake pit. You know what you offered him, what you made him think of me, of both of us.”

“And I'm thankful he turned me down and saved me from my folly. I saw the error of my ways, but that didn't save
you.
He not only kidnapped you, but he also managed to turn you against me. It makes me ill thinking how far he's taken advantage of your gravely misplaced hero worship of him.”

That
was more like it. Back on the track of her charted expectations. “Amjad didn't take advantage of me. I'm not some teenager with a crush on a dangerous bad boy. Amjad is—”

He cut her off again, his bleakness more effective in silencing her than his fury. “Is a merciless madman who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. I only wish his original plan, of kidnapping
me,
had worked, that I hadn't sent you in my place and put you in his power. I wish he'd scared and repulsed you and made you his unwilling captive, rather than hiding his real face and intentions and conning you into being his willing pawn. It will be so much worse when you realize the depth of his deception and cruelty.”

Man.
He seemed to believe the unbelievable things he was saying. That Amjad had planned to kidnap him under cover of the sandstorm, had kidnapped her in his stead when he hadn't shown up.

But Amjad had said he'd called her father, and his phone hadn't rung once. Her father said Amjad had not only never called, but had kept his phone off to make him squirm about her fate.

One of them was lying. Who was obvious. Her father.

And though he'd already used—or tried to use her—to his gain, with and without her knowledge, it still crushed her he'd so passionately ply her with such damaging lies to keep her away from Amjad, now that he had a better-for-his-interests groom planned for her….

“From now on,
you
deal with that turncoat.”

Maram jerked.
Amjad.

He closed the door, laughter traversing his beloved voice. “She now wants her ‘girlfriend' and your girly get-togethers and cooing heart-to-hearts.” He appeared at the edge of the corridor, his beauty blazing with indulgence and amusement. “Call me, the male nuisance, when it's time for dirty work and heavy lifting, apparently my only use to her n—”

He stopped, his smile fading like drenched embers.

He must have felt her agitation even before his eyes sought its reason, the phone held limply at her side. Her father's voice was emitting from the speaker, contorted to a cartoonish parody.

Her heart hammered. She didn't want him involved in this. Didn't want him despising her father any more than he already did.

“Amjad, let me handle…”

The rest of her words dissipated.

Amjad knew it was her father. It was in his eyes. The venom of abhorrence, followed by the flame of aggression, then the ink of dismay. Now his face was gripped with resignation. That of someone whose plans had been prematurely exposed?

Wow. Her father
had
gotten to her. Amjad must only think her father was calling to stir up trouble. As he was.

Before she could insist she'd handle this, Amjad moved closer, eyes now heavy with…apology? Anxiety? Anguish?

She
wouldn't
speculate. He'd explain everything. She'd believe him as she always did.

He silently held out his hand, demanding the phone. Her hand rose, surrendering it and the whole situation—which she suddenly felt would decide the course of her life—to him.

After a moment's hesitation, as if he was loath to have her father's voice sully his hearing, he put the phone to his ear. He turned his face away as he did. But she'd seen it. The transformation that came over him as he geared himself to address her father.

He looked almost…demonic.

She shuddered. And that was before she heard his low snarl.

“Shut up, Prince Aal Worthless. You have something of mine. Return it and we'll…forget this ever happened. The only call I'll take again is my brothers', telling me you've come to your senses and complied.”

He almost drove his finger through the screen, hurled the phone to the settee, dragged his hands down his face, reversed the path of exasperation until he bunched his hair in a vicious grip.

She couldn't even tremble. Couldn't think. Wouldn't. If she did…if what she'd heard, what it meant, registered…

He leveled suddenly bloodshot eyes on her. “I'm sorry, Maram. I forgot to turn the ringer off when I last used the phone, forgot to take it with me.”

That was what he was sorry about? That his oversight led to her making contact with her father, hearing his accusations?

Not sorry that they were…true?

And her world collapsed in on her. They
were
true.

After a frozen eternity, she heard a voice. Alien, and hers. Asking the one thing to be asked now.

“Am I your hostage, Amjad?”

He flinched. “You weren't supposed to know any of this.”

“I'll bet. But I know now.”

His looked as if he wanted to hurt himself for being so stupid that she now did. “This is between me and your father. It has nothing to do with you. With us.”

She again heard the lifeless voice that was all she could produce now. “You're holding me hostage to extort him. How is that nothing to do with me?”

“Stop saying that. You're
not
my hostage.”

“What am I then?”

“You're my…” He stopped, seemed unable to go on.

And she realized. Why he couldn't bring himself to say she was his lover. Even to placate her.

Because she wasn't. Never was, never would be.

It had all been a lie.

He spoke again, words sounding like broken glass shredding their way out of him. “However it started, we both know everything has changed irrevocably.”

“Turns out everything
I
thought I knew is not true.”

“You know plenty that is. What matters. What you don't know is irrelevant.”

“How can it be irrelevant after you went to such lengths to plan this? Why did you? What is it of yours that my father has?”

“It's just dirty,
petty
politics. Please, stay out of it.”

“Even if I wasn't a ‘dirty, petty' political adviser, how can I stay out when you've dragged me into the middle of it? The least you can do is tell me what you've made me a pawn for.”

“You're
not
a pawn. Stop saying that. Stop
thinking
it.”

“I
heard
you, Amjad. Your implied threat that the return of what's his—me—depends on that of what's yours, whatever it is…deafened me.”

His whole face contorted. “That was for your father's ears only.
You
know I would do anything to keep you safe.”

She shook her head, numbness deepening. “I thought I knew many things. They were wrong. Maybe
all
I know is wrong.”

He reached urgent hands out to her. She stumbled back.

Everything was collapsing inside her as this new reality overlapped with her illusion, what she'd been living in so wholeheartedly, what he'd constructed so seamlessly.

And she had to know. The reason behind his systematic deception of her. “It can't be politics. There's nothing going on politically between Ossaylan and Zohayd. Is this over GulfTech Futures? You want back the stocks you threw away and he acquired?”

“You think I'd even lift a finger over something so trivial?”

“It isn't trivial. The stocks have appreciated half a billion dollars since you let them go.”

“They could appreciate a hundred billion and it wouldn't have made me consider going after your father.”

She shook her head. “I can no longer believe anything you say.”

He looked as if she'd turned a knife in his gut.

Wow. She was still seeing and feeling what he wanted her to see and feel. Even now that she knew the truth.

He finally rasped, “Then believe evidence you can make sure of yourself. I let them go because their growth is based on leaked false data and the conglomerate will crash and burn within the year. I even advised your father, before I knew what he was up to, to cut the stocks loose while he had the chance.”

“What was he up to?”

He held up his hands. “Maram,
arjooki,
there's no reason to dredge it all up. I should have dealt with this from day one, should have resolved it by now. But I was bent on seeing through my stupid plans, then I forgot all about them, landing myself deeper in this mess. But I'll make sure it's over in no time.”

“You mean if my father ‘comes to his senses and complies.' What if he doesn't?”

“I don't give a rat's ass what he does anymore. Maram—”

Everything inside her snapped.
“Just tell me!”

After a moment during which his body seemed to expand with the need to force her to relinquish her quest for the truth, he squeezed his eyes shut, let out a ragged exhalation. Then, bleakly, he told her.

She'd thought nothing could be worse than what she'd already learned. She'd been too wrong to bear.

Her father, stealing the Pride of Zohayd jewels, plotting the downfall of the Aal Shalaans to usurp the throne of Zohayd, caring nothing for the devastation he'd cause in his quest for power.

It was incomprehensible that he could formulate a conspiracy of such magnitude. She knew her father. He was incapable of such convoluted coldness and overriding ambition. The most he was capable of had been the manipulations of using his daughter for a promotion up the princely ladder and the entrenching of his standing in the region, things he'd believed had been for the general best, hers included.

But maybe she didn't know him after all. As it turned out she
didn't know Amjad. Amjad, the man she'd thought incapable of anything but extreme honesty, who'd instead been lying to her with every breath for the last ten days.

She still had to know one more thing. “You thought I was in on my father's conspiracy? That was why you had no problem with kidnapping me?”

His eyes dulled with what so uncannily simulated dejection. “You know what I thought you were in on.”

“Yeah, my father's schemes to ‘acquire' you and Haidar. So you didn't even need justification to use me as a stick to bludgeon my father with. Everyone always said you were an indiscriminating raider who would do anything to gain your objective. Turns out only I was blind about you.”

He lunged for her as if to stop her conclusions in their tracks, his face clenched with denial and dismay. “You're the only one who ever saw me for what I really am, Maram. Don't doubt everything about me or what we shared now.”

She stumbled out of reach, groping for the deadness that was descending on her, needing its oblivion. “What did we share? The prerequisite tryst when a male and female are secluded? A sexual adventure starring the paranoid prince and the promiscuous princess he kept maddened with lust by his calculated elusiveness and—”

He cut across her toneless words. “There was
nothing
calculated about anything I said or did from that goddamn moment you got down from your four-by-four. But are
you
taking all you said and did back? You're saying it was only lust that kept you coming after me until you breached my barriers and ended my resistance?”

His air of hurt—the injustice of it, the sheer undetectable fakeness of it, even now—crested, loomed over her like a tsunami.

Then it all crashed on her, pulverizing the numbness that had encapsulated her so far, decimating her, heart and mind.

From the wreckage, a thick whisper bled from her lips.
“Believe what you will. As I will. I'm sure the worst I can believe now won't be as bad as the truth.”

She staggered around and he caught her arm, the agitation in his touch, in his eyes gouging her with misery.

His hoarse words cut deeper. “You want to talk ‘believing the worst'? How about that it wasn't even lust that drove you, but an insidious plan to make me send everything but you to hell, starting with my plan and Zohayd's fate? To tie me up in so many knots I'd be unable to move against your father for fear of losing you, leaving him free to plot the downfall of my kingdom?”

 

The moment the words were out, Amjad lunged as if he would snatch them back before they reached her ears, sank into her mind. He did bite down on them so viciously that he drew blood.