Sheikh's Castaway

And made intoxicating love to her for the first time in that small sailing yacht at the height of a storm. Noor had been a virgin, but that moment had answered all her dreams. Oh, it had been worth waiting for!

“Of course you will marry me,” he told Noor, his voice harsh with passion. “We will make our life and raise our children in Bagestan.”

It was far too soon; of course it was. Her cousin Jalia said it, and Jalia was right. But Noor’s head was whirling. Everything on her personal horizon seemed to have changed in one heartbeat. In the sea of confusion that had surrounded her since her father’s announcement, she had one spar—that Bari wanted her. That Bari was sure, and knew what he was doing.

She had flown home only to make her arrangements and return to Bagestan for the huge wedding, organized with breathtaking speed, that practically all of Barakati and Bagestani society would be attending.

And then, with the ceremony only minutes away, her one spar had been torn from her. She had learned what a fool she was, what a fool he was making of her.

Bari knew what he was doing, all right, but he didn’t love her. He wasn’t marrying her for love. He didn’t even want to marry her.

The islands! her brain suddenly shouted at her. There are islands out here! How could she have forgotten that? She had flown over the scattered group of islands with Bari. Al Jeza’ir al Khaleej, he had called them. The Gulf Islands.

“They have been uninhabited since the forced evacuation,” he had told her. “Except the biggest, which has a luxury hotel complex. The Gulf Eden was one of the ways Ghasib drew foreign currency into his coffers. Built by a huge international hotel chain to cater to very wealthy foreigners.”

His tone had been filled with contempt, and Noor had dropped her eyes and omitted to mention that she had almost gone there herself once. Only her father’s absolute diktat had stopped her.

This looks like my chance at last, she told herself dryly. But where were the islands? How far away? Her eyes dropped to the chart again, searching. Please, God, show me a way out of this.

Two

Sheikh Bari al Khalid lifted his head and watched his runaway bride over the back of the passenger seat separating the cockpit from the luggage space where he was hidden.

How dared she abandon their wedding in such a way? How dared she run away from him like this? Without a word—no announcement, no explanation, not even so much as a blink of apology!

What sort of man did she think he was, to put up with such insult?

The heady mix of fury, shock and disbelief—if that were all!—that had driven his actions was now, however, tinged with grim amusement. So the airport was clouded over. That was a dangerous situation: his bashful bride couldn’t fly in cloud, and she couldn’t land on water.

How richly she deserved this dilemma!

She was a fool to have chosen this method of escape. The weather had been volatile and unpredictable ever since the ending of the drought a few weeks ago, a fact she knew well. As an inexperienced pilot she should never have risked coming up alone.

A sardonic smile stretched his mouth, making him aware of how his jaw was clenched. He would like to leave her longer in this predicament, teach her a sharp lesson. Hell, he’d like to hide here till she was on her last gallon of fuel and begging fate for release. How he would enjoy seeing her desperate with regret and remorse!

But he couldn’t risk it. Her calm might give way to panic without warning. And a few seconds of that would be enough to kill them.

No, Noor clearly couldn’t be trusted to keep her head in the face of adversity.

Her head? She couldn’t even be trusted to keep her word!

Well, she would be made to keep it. Of that he was determined. She would not escape. She had promised herself to him, and she would keep her promise.

He stood up and moved forward between the rear seats. “Caught in your own trap,” he snarled when he was behind her. “What did you expect?”

“Bari?!” Noor’s gasp sounded like tearing silk against the hum of the engine. Her head snapped up and she blankly took in the glaring black eyes, the darkly handsome face, the imposing figure magnificently sheathed in purple silk and draped with pearls. His dress sword hung from his hip.

She frowned. “Damn! I’m hallucinating!”

“I wish you were!” he said between his teeth. “I wish we were both hallucinating! Insanity would be preferable to learning what kind of woman you are!”

He lifted the bundle of her veil that nestled in the right-hand seat and tossed it onto the floor behind her with fierce contempt, as if this symbol of their wedding made his stomach heave. Noor felt its drag against the headdress of fresh white roses still pinned to her hair.

Then, expertly manoeuvring the jewel-encrusted scabbard, he edged into the space and sat. With a deliberation that somehow infuriated her, he buckled himself into the harness.

“I have control,” he announced formally and, with unhurried grace, his actions completely distanced from his vengeful mood, he engaged the secondary controls. The plane responded to its master’s touch with a purr.

“Are you real?” Noor asked, wondering, Am I totally crazy? She had resigned control to what might be only a phantom. Was this why planes fell from the sky without explanation? Because the man flying it existed only in someone’s desperate imagination?

“You will see how real I am,” Bari growled. She had never seen that generous, sensuous mouth so narrowed. He must be real. Why would her mind trouble to conjure up a vision that only terrified her further?

“I guess you’re the answer to my prayer!” she realized with a jerky laugh. “Some sense of humour God has!”

“Do you call this scenario God’s doing? You are fool enough to think that, in acting like a barbarian, you carry out God’s will?”

His tone was scathing, and her flesh shivered as the first delicate tendrils of shame reached through her blind panic to touch Noor’s soul.

Bari’s eyes moved to the instrument panel. Since she was in the pilot’s seat, he had to crane. She felt the plane alter course in a broad arc, out over the sparkling sea. There was no cloud in this direction, but even if it caught up with them, she knew Bari was fully rated on instruments.

“How did you get here? You just materialized?”

His voice whipped her. “Do you imagine it was difficult to trail a white limousine with a bridal veil streaming from the sunroof through the streets? Nor was it difficult to guess that you planned to take the plane.”

He was wrong there. She hadn’t planned it. She had driven to the plane only when she realized that in her panicked flight she had taken nothing with her, neither her handbag nor a change of clothes. She had to have cash, but she didn’t dare go to the palace—it would be the first place they looked for her. And if they found her, they’d take her back to the wedding.

The thought of returning back among the wedding guests, having to explain herself when no explanation would be good enough, had appalled her. Then she had remembered that Bari kept emergency fuel money in a secret compartment in the plane. In the swamp into which she had cast herself, she had grabbed at that one frail straw.

She had discovered the plane fuelled and ready for their honeymoon journey. Only then had the thought of flying away from the impossible problems she’d created suddenly and crazily occurred to her.

“Only the why of such barbarian, uncivilized behaviour escaped me.” The words came at her in sharp, broken shards, as if he chewed up glass as he spoke. “Even a child raised in the streets would hesitate to act as you have done!”

His contempt came out through lips that had practically disappeared. Noor flinched. She had never seen such an expression on his face before. She had never seen anyone so angry, and she had to admit he had some cause. But she couldn’t accept such wholesale criticism, such overwhelming blame.

“You got to the plane ahead of me, and instead of talking to me you hid, and you’re calling me childish?” she snapped.

“No doubt you would have relished a public confrontation, Noor, but I did not. We will return to the house and you will marry me without comment, or any public airing of your unforgivable actions.”

“Return to the house?” Her voice climbed in startled objection as she suddenly realized he had been altering course to fly back to Bagestan. She straightened with a jerk. “What are you doing? Where are you going?”

“We will land at the dock and walk up to the house and apologize to our guests for the delay. Then we will take our vows,” he said with the clarity that only the coldest fury can impart. “A little late. But the bride is allowed that, I believe.”

She stared at him. What arrogance! Noor’s doubts about her behaviour were conveniently swamped in outrage. “Maybe you didn’t notice that the bride changed her mind, Bari! I’m not going to marry you!”

“You did not change your mind,” he informed her contemptuously. “You would not be acting like this if you had ever intended to marry me, of course. But you chose the wrong man. I do not play these Western games, Noor. You said you would marry me. You will do so.”

“It’s no game! Turn this plane around!” she screeched. How dare he brush her off when he must know her reasons for what she did? At the very least, he suspected! Who did he think he was?

“Who do you think—”