favorite time of year.
“Yes.” With one finger tip she traced the glass. She loved her little house, loved the hammock slung up in the backyard, loved the idea of owning something of her own, something that no one could take away.
And like that, they were there, reaching her quiet street with the dogwoods and Japanese maples and crepe myrtles she so loved.
“Your house,” he said, slowing the car, drawing to a stop in front of her house.
“Yes.” Heartbreak wrapped around her chest, tight, vise-like. Was her freedom over? Slowly she turned her head, looked at Kalen Nuri intently. “Tell me again, tell me you’re not an emissary for my father.”
“I’m not an emissary for your father.”
She didn’t miss the faint mocking note in his voice, nor the strength he exuded just sitting there. There was nothing rough or rustic about Kalen Nuri, just a strength she couldn’t place and the sense of power, unlimited power…
He could have been the Sultan. He could have worn the crown easily. If it weren’t for the fact that his brother Malik was first born, Kalen Nuri could have been king. He was certainly proud enough. Confident enough.
“But you’ve spoken to my father?” she persisted, dazzled by the gold in his eyes, seeing the gilded grains of desert sand beneath the blaze of North African sun.
“No.” The corners of his eyes creased. “There’s little love lost between your father and me. He’s forced to tolerate me because I am Malik’s brother, but I dislike him intensely. And he knows it.” A deep groove formed next to Kalen’s mouth. “And I am here because he would not like it.”
His words were met by silence, but there was nothing quiet between them, nothing still about the night. The night crackled with tension, electricity, like a dark sky before a storm but tonight the sky was clear. Just moon, and stars and beneath the moon and stars the tension grew.
Being near him like this, talking so, made her head spin, her body hum. She fought to clear her mind now. “You said I had to pick my poison.”
“Yes.”
“You, or them, you said.”
“I did.”
“Why are those my only two options?”
For a moment he didn’t speak and then his broad shoulders shifted, a careless shrug. “Because who else will take on your father? Who else will turn his world inside out to prevent this marriage from taking place?”
She was missing something, there was a piece to this puzzle she didn’t see, didn’t understand, and she desperately wanted to understand. “I don’t want a man,” she said after a moment. “I do not need a man.”
“Want and need are two different things. You might not want me, Miss al-Issidri, but you need me.” He paused for emphasis. “There are worse things than accepting my protection.”
“You mean like being forced home to marry Mr. Abizhaid?” Hot brittle laughter formed in her chest. “I think I’d rather handle this my way,” she said, reaching for the door handle. “Unlock the car. I’m getting out.”
She heard the doors unlock. “And you do know you have visitors in the house?” he answered calmly.
Three, he’d said and she glanced at the house but saw nothing amiss, just the light left on in the entry hall that she always left burning when she knew she’d return late. “I see no one.”
“They’re not going to hang a Welcome Home sign, laeela.”
Laeela. Darling, love. An Arabic endearment that was like the kiss of the silken Saharan sands. No one had ever called her laeela before.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” She swung the door open, stepped out, slammed the door shut. “Thanks for the lift, Sheikh Nuri.”
The sedan’s door opened again just as quickly as Keira shut it. “You need my help.”
“No,” she said, backing away, “I need my car. If you really want to help me, help me get my car back from the stadium parking lot. That way I can get to work in the morning.”
He laughed softly, approached her even as she continued backing away. “You really think you’re going to work tomorrow?”
There was danger in his voice, a soft warning she couldn’t ignore and she stopped moving long enough to meet his gaze, hold it.
There was nothing threatening in his expression but there was something else.
Knowledge.
Cynicism.
Mistrust.
Despite his dark tailored coat and the expensive leather shoes on his feet, he was a man with the sun and the wind and the desert in his eyes. More Berber than Western. Sheikh not European.
He was everything she didn’t know, everything she’d never understood. Keira turned, took a panicked step toward her house, and then another, and another until she was running up the porch to the front door. Her front door swung open so abruptly that Keira barely had time to register the man standing in the doorway—her doorway—before he opened his arms and grabbed her, thick arms enfolding her.
It happened so fast she didn’t even scream. One minute she was running for shelter and the next she was imprisoned and her mind went dark, blank, the blank from years past when terror was too great, when physical pain overrode mental pain and everything went quiet. Still.
Helplessly she turned her head, looked toward the brick walkway and Sheikh Nuri was there. Watching.
If only someone had been able to help her. If only someone had done something. If only someone…
You’re not sixteen. You’re a woman. Fight, Keira, fight.
And finally her vocal cords opened and she screamed. She wouldn’t die, wouldn’t fade to nothing this time. She wasn’t going to disappear, wouldn’t become air and light, wouldn’t lose herself again.
Thrashing now, her fear turned her into a demon horse, all thunder and hooves. Then panic gave way to rage. She wasn’t going to be hurt again. She’d never let herself be hurt again and her body came to life, elbows jabbing at ribs, feet kicking, aiming for knees.
“Put me down,” she demanded, “put me down now. I won’t go.”
And still she kicked and jabbed and she knew she got her assailant at least once good and hard as she heard a soft oath from behind her, a hiss of air between clenched teeth. “I won’t go,” she repeated, swinging her legs wildly, trying to connect with his groin, or a knee.
Desperation laced her brain. Sheikh Nuri could stop this. He could help her. He’d said he would.
But he said nothing, he simply stood there and all she knew was that she wouldn’t go back to Baraka, she wouldn’t be returned to her father’s house against her will.
Her desperate gaze found Sheikh Nuri’s and she hated him and
