referendum was for him to lose his right to the throne, and the only way for that to happen was to prevent his marriage.
His father’s will, Khalil mused, had been a ridiculous piece of legal architecture that showed him for the brutal dictator he truly had been. Had he wanted to punish both his sons? Or had he, in the last days of his life, actually regretted his treatment of his first-born? Khalil would never know. But he would take the opportunity his father’s strange will offered him to seize the power that was rightfully his.
‘There you are.’ Khalil smoothed her skirt over her knee, felt her tense body relax only slightly as he eased back. ‘I see your skirt is torn. My apologies. You will be provided with new clothes.’
She stared at him, studying him as you would a specimen or, rather, an enemy: looking for weaknesses. She wouldn’t find any, but Khalil took the opportunity to gaze back at her. She was lovely, her skin like golden cream, her heavy-lidded eyes grey with tiny gold flecks. Her hair was thick and dark and gleamed in the candlelight, even though it was tangled and gritty with sand.
His gaze dropped to her lips, lush, pink and perfect. Kissable. There was that desire again, flaring deep inside him, demanding satisfaction. Khalil stood up. ‘You must be hungry, Your Highness. You should eat.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Suit yourself.’ He took a piece of bread and tore off a bit to chew. Sitting across from her, he studied her once more. ‘I am curious as to why you agreed to marry Aziz.’ He cocked his head. ‘Not wealth, as Thallia is a prosperous enough country. Not power, since you are already a queen. And we know it isn’t for love.’
‘Maybe it is.’ Her voice was low, pleasingly husky. She met his gaze unflinchingly but he heard her breath hitch and Khalil smiled.
‘I don’t think so, Your Highness. I think you married him because you need something, and I’m wondering what it is. Your people love you. Your country is stable.’ He spread his hands, raised his eyebrows. ‘What would induce you to marry a pretender?’
‘I think you are the pretender, Khalil.’
‘You’re not the only one, alas. But you will be proved wrong.’
Her grey-gold gaze swept over him. ‘You genuinely believe you have a claim to the throne.’
His stomach knotted. ‘I know I do.’
‘How can that be? Aziz is Sheikh Hashem’s only son.’
Even though he’d long been used to such an assumption, her words poured acid on an open wound. A familiar fury rose up in him, a howl of outrage he forced back down. He smiled coldly at this woman whose careless questions tore open the barely healed scars of his past. ‘Perhaps you need to brush up on your Kadaran history. You will have plenty of time for leisure reading during your stay in the desert.’ Although he knew she wouldn’t find the truth in any books. His father had done his best to erase Khalil’s existence from history.
She stared up at him unblinkingly. ‘And if I do not wish to stay in the desert?’
‘Your presence here, I’m afraid, is non-negotiable. But rest assured, you will be afforded every comfort.’
Elena licked her lips, an innocent movement that still caused a hard kick of lust he instantly suppressed. Queen Elena was a beautiful woman; his body, long deprived of sensual pleasures, was bound to react. It didn’t mean he was going to do anything about it.
Perhaps the most attractive thing about her, though, was not her looks but her presence. Even though he knew she had to be frightened, she sat tall and proud, her grey eyes glinting challenge. He admired her determination to be strong; he shared it. Never surrender, not even when the whole world seemed to be against you, every fist raised, every lip curled in a sneer.
Had she faced opposition and hardship? She had, he knew, suffered tragedy. She’d taken the throne at nineteen years of age, when her parents had died in a terrorist bombing. She was only twenty-three now and, though she looked very young, she seemed older in her bearing, somehow. In her confidence.
She rose from her seat, every inch the elegant queen. ‘You cannot keep me here.’
He smiled; he almost felt sorry for her. ‘You’ll find that I can.’
‘Aziz will send someone to fetch me. People will be looking.’
‘Tomorrow. By that time any tracks in the desert, any evidence of where you’ve gone, will have vanished.’ He glanced towards the tent flap, which rustled in the wind. ‘It sounds as if a storm is brewing.’
Elena shook her head slowly. ‘How did you manage it? To get a false message to him, convince the pilot to land somewhere else?’
‘Not everyone is loyal to Aziz. In fact, few are outside of Siyad. You know he has not been in the country for more than a few days at a time since he was a boy?’
‘I know he is very popular in the courts of Europe.’
‘You mean the country clubs. The gentleman playboy is not so popular here.’
Elena’s eyes flashed gold. ‘That’s a ridiculous nickname, given to him by the tabloids.’
Khalil shrugged. ‘And yet it stuck.’ Aziz, the playboy of Europe, who spent his time at parties and on polo fields. He ran a business too, Khalil knew; he’d started up some financial venture that was successful, if just an excuse for him to party his way through Europe and avoid the country of his birth.
Aziz didn’t even care about Kadar, Khalil thought with a familiar spike of bitterness. He didn’t deserve to rule, even if he hadn’t been a bastard son.
‘No matter what you think of Aziz, you can’t just kidnap a queen,’ Elena stated, her chin jutting out defiantly. ‘You’d be wise to cut your losses, Khalil, and free me now. I won’t press charges.’
Khalil suppressed a laugh of genuine amusement. ‘How generous of you.’
‘You don’t want to face a tribunal,’ she insisted. ‘How can you become Sheikh if you’ve committed a crime? Caused an international incident? You will be called to account.’
‘You’ll find that is not how things are done in my country.’
‘My country, then,’ she snapped. ‘Do you think my Council, my country, will allow its queen to be kidnapped?’
He shrugged. ‘You were merely detained, Your Highness, as a necessary measure. And, since Aziz is a pretender to the throne, you should be grateful that I am preventing a marriage you would undoubtedly regret.’
‘Grateful!’ Her eyes sparked with anger. ‘What if your plan fails?’
He smiled coldly. ‘I do not consider failure a possibility.’
She shook her head slowly, her eyes like two grey-gold pools, reminding him of a sunset reflected on water. ‘You can’t do this. People don’t— World leaders don’t do this!’
‘Things are different here.’
‘Not that different, surely?’ She shook her head again. ‘You’re
