roughness in his voice. For a moment his mask slipped and she glimpsed something almost savage in his expression. “Because…”
Her voice faded as she got lost in his light eyes, and it crossed her mind that he might be the world’s richest sheikh, but he wasn’t entirely modern. Beneath his elegant, tailored suit and polished veneer was a man of the desert.
Because Sheikh Al-Koury wouldn’t employ a pregnant, unwed woman, not even if she were American. It was a cultural issue, a matter of honor and respect. Emmeline might not be able to type quickly or place conference calls or create spreadsheets, but she’d spent enough time in the United Arab Emirates and Morocco to be familiar with the concept of hshuma, or shame. And an unwed pregnant woman would bring shame on all close to her, including her employer.
“It’s just stress,” she said. “I’m just … overly upset. But I’ll pull myself together. I promise.”
He looked at her so long and hard that the fine hair on Emmeline’s nape lifted and her belly flip-flopped with nerves. “Then pull yourself together. I’m counting on you. And if you can’t do your job anymore, tell me now so I can find someone who can.”
“But I can.”
He said nothing for several moments, his gaze resting on her face. “Why Ibanez?” he asked at last. “Why him of all people?”
She hunched her shoulders. “He said he loved me.”
His jaw hardened, mouth compressing, expression incredulous. “And you believed him?”
She hesitated. “Yes.”
Sheikh Al-Koury choked back a rough growl of protest. “I can’t believe you fell for his lines. He says those lines to everyone. But you’re not everyone. You’re smart. You’re educated. You should know better.”
“I didn’t.”
“Couldn’t you detect a false note in his flattery? Couldn’t you see he’s fake? That his lines were too slick, that he’s as insincere as they come?”
“No.” She drew a swift breath, making a hiccup of sound. “But I wish I had.”
Makin battled his temper as he stared down at Hannah where she knelt on the floor, her shoulders sagging, her long chestnut hair a thick tangle down her thin back.
Someone else, someone soft, might be moved by her fragile beauty, but he refused to allow himself to feel anything for her, not now, not after she’d become a temptress. A seductress. A problem.
He didn’t allow his personal and professional life to overlap. Sex, desire, lust … they didn’t belong in the workplace. Ever.
“I respected you.” His deep voice sounded harsh even to his own ears, but he’d never minced words with her before and wasn’t about to start now. “And I’m not sure I do anymore.”
She flinched, visibly stung, and his gut tightened, an uncomfortable cramp of sensation, and then it was gone, pushed away with the same ferocious intensity he’d applied to the rest of life.
He didn’t cater to anyone—male or female. It went against his belief system. Makin had been his parents’ only child and they’d been a very close, tight-knit family. His father, a powerful Bedouin ruler and Kadar’s royal prince, was nearly twenty years older than Makin’s French mother, Yvette.
When he was growing up, his parents had rarely discussed the past, being too focused on the present, but Makin had pieced enough details together to get a picture of his parents’ courtship. They’d met when his mother was just twenty and a film student in Paris. She was beautiful and bright and full of big plans, but within weeks of meeting Tahnoon Al-Koury, she’d accepted his marriage proposal and exchanged her dreams for his, marrying him in a quiet ceremony in Paris before returning to Kadar with her new husband.
Makin had only met his maternal grandparents once, and that was at his father’s funeral. His mother refused to speak to them so it’d been left to Makin to introduce himself to his French grandparents. They weren’t the terrible people he’d imagined, just ignorant. They couldn’t understand that their daughter could love an Arab, much less an Arab confined to a wheelchair.
Makin had grown up with his father in a wheelchair and it was neither terrible nor tragic, at least not until the end. His father was beyond brilliant. Tahnoon was devoted to his family, worshipped his wife and battled to maintain as much independence as he could, despite the degenerative nature of his disease.
Makin was twenty when his father died. But in the years Makin had with him, he never heard his father complain or make excuses, even though Tahnoon lived with tremendous pain and suffered endless indignities. No, his father was a proud, fierce man and he’d taught Makin—not by words, but by example—that life required strength, courage and hard work.
“You don’t respect me because I wanted to be loved?” Hannah asked huskily, forcing his attention from the past to the present.
He glanced down, straight into her eyes, and felt that same uncomfortable twinge and steeled himself against the sensation. “I don’t respect you wanting to be loved by him.” He paused, wanting her to understand. “Ibanez is beneath you. He’s self-centered and vulgar and the women who chase him are fools.”
“That’s harsh.”
“But true. He’s always at the heart of a scandal. He prefers married women or women recently engaged like that ridiculous Princess Emmeline—”
“Ridiculous Princess Emmeline?” she interrupted. “Do you know her?”
“I know of her—”
“So you can’t say she’s ridiculous—”
“Oh, I can. I know her family well, and I attended her sixteenth birthday in Brabant years ago. She’s engaged to King Zale Patek, and I pity him. She’s turned him into a joke by chasing after Ibanez all year despite her engagement to Patek. No one respects her. The princess has the morals of an alley cat.”
“That’s a horrid thing to say.”
“I’m honest. Perhaps if others had been more honest with Her Royal Highness, she might have turned out differently.” He shrugged dismissively. “But I don’t care about her. I care about you and your ability to perform your job with clarity and efficiency. Don’t let Ibanez waste another moment of your time. Nor my time, for that matter. Everything about him bores me.” His gaze held hers. “Are we clear?”
“Yes,” she said huskily.
“Then pull yourself together and take a seat in the main cabin so we can depart.”
Using the vanity kit provided in the bathroom, Emmeline washed her face, brushed her teeth and ran a comb through her hair. The thick dark hair still looked strange to her. Emmeline missed her golden-blond color. Missed her wardrobe. Missed her life.
This is how Hannah must have felt when thrust into Emmeline’s life.
Lost. Confused. Angry. And Emmeline knew she was the one who’d put Hannah in that position. Changing places with Hannah had been Emmeline’s idea. There was no benefit for Hannah. Nothing to be gained by masquerading as a princess. It was Emmeline who’d
