Sheikh Protector

Pretty badly. Then again, when it came to gunshot wounds, she wasn’t sure there was such a thing as “good.”

“The steering wheel,” he said more urgently.

Julia stared at him. Was he crazy? Apparently, because he was letting go already, just expecting her to grab on as he pulled a gun—a gun—from under his suit jacket with his still-functioning right hand.

She had no idea that he’d been armed. She hadn’t run around with armed men all that much before, smart girl that she’d been. Past tense, definitely. Everything that had been normal in her life had changed the second she’d set foot in Beharrain, and she was losing hope of being able to reclaim her old, sane life anytime soon.

First step was to stay alive.

She grabbed for the steering wheel as Karim twisted in his seat and returned fire.

Wow. Okay, guns were deafeningly loud when going off next to one’s ear. You learned new things every day, she thought. Except all this, including how to evade armed pursuit, was stuff she didn’t want to learn.

Insane. She really, really shouldn’t have come here. This was another world. She didn’t belong. She might not even survive it. Anger welled inside her, at her own stupidity for having come, and at the man next to her who could have let her go the night before, but hadn’t. She could be back in Baltimore by now. At that moment, she hated Karim with the same fierceness that she hated the situation she was in.

“You know, if you didn’t go around kidnapping people and bullying them into doing whatever you want, maybe everyone wouldn’t be trying to kill you!” She might have been yelling a little. She was a smidgen on the stressed side.

He squeezed off another shot. “Everyone isn’t trying to kill me. These are probably the same people who put the bomb in the car yesterday.”

“That’s comforting. I take it all back then,” she snapped. “Could you please turn back to the road?”

She glanced nervously at the stick shift. As long as he kept the speed steady, they were fine. But if they had to slow for anything, she had no idea what to do with it.

Not that slowing seemed to be in his immediate plans. He was pushing the gas pedal nearly to the bottom, making maneuvering difficult to the extreme. He’d almost flipped them a few minutes ago, and she had a feeling he might succeed yet. Another experience she would have preferred to leave out if it was all the same to the gun-happy sheik next to her.

He shot another round, then—miracle of miracles—did as she asked and took back the wheel. He floored the gas and was able to gain a little more distance between them and the car that followed.

“You could drop me off here. Anywhere.”

He didn’t bother with a response.

They zoomed by the entrance of the boulevard that his palace was on.

“Obviously, you have some problem areas in your life.” She looked behind them pointedly. The attackers were now three cars behind. “Maybe if you dealt with those, you’d have less time to meddle in the lives of others.”

“I don’t meddle. Stop nagging.” He executed another maneuver.

“I don’t nag. Where are we going?”

He frowned as if he hadn’t considered that. Okay, to be fair, he’d been kept pretty busy with getting shot and all.

“They’ll expect me to go back home and might head us off,” he said.

“MMPOIL?” There was security at the company. She’d seen a number of guards while asking around for Aziz.

“I don’t want to bring this fight to a building full of my employees. They—” he jerked his head to indicate the men who followed them “—might expect that, too. They’ve probably been following me long enough to know any place I could go. Wherever I go, someone might be there waiting.”

Death was waiting for them all around. Not a happy thought. Don’t panic. Breathe.

Her gaze fell on her purse in her lap, settling on the magnetic room cards visible in the front pocket. “We could go to my hotel.” An idea was forming slowly in her mind. She needed to get away, and not just from the men who were shooting at them, but away from it all. Her brain worked furiously at one possible solution.

He seemed to be considering her suggestion, looking in the rearview mirror. “The Hilton downtown.” He nodded.

So he knew where she’d been staying. Obviously, he had checked her out. What else had he found? It didn’t matter. The important thing was that he was going along with her idea.

He took the next exit and was there in minutes. They had been closer than she’d thought, not knowing the city. The sparkling high-rises, all glass and steel, were testaments to modern architecture, mixed in with ancient mosques and minarets. The sight was breathtaking but foreign, and she got disoriented too easily. The day before, after careful instruction from the concierge, she’d only been able to find MMPOIL after three tries, going around in circles for over half an hour.

In hindsight, it would have been better if she hadn’t found the place and Sheik Karim Abdullah at all.

“Do you have a card for the underground parking?” He cast a sideways glance at her as he pulled up to the gate.

She fished out her parking pass and handed it over to him. The gate opened. They were in. Her plan might work yet. Her number-one objective was to keep her baby safe. To achieve that, she would do whatever was necessary. And since being around Karim was the opposite of safe, what she needed was to get away from him.

Keep cool. Keep thinking. Give nothing away.

He glanced into the rearview mirror one more time before shutting off the motor and tugging off his blood-soaked jacket. His tie came next. He tried to wrap it around the wound. She got out and walked around to help him, doing her best not to look at all the blood as she pulled the silk tight.

Another scar, she thought, and was beginning to wonder just exactly what sort of life the Dark Sheik lived. She had a feeling she didn’t want to know. Had Aziz been like this when he was at home? Somehow she couldn’t picture it. She tied off the length of silk.

Karim didn’t wince. “Thank you.”

She stepped back. “It doesn’t mean I forgive you. I just don’t want to have to explain to my baby later why I let his uncle bleed to death.” He was lucky that family was so important to her.

The corner of his mouth twitched, which annoyed her. She hadn’t been trying to be funny. She meant every word she’d said.

He pulled the jacket back on, its dark fabric hiding most of the bloodstains. Not that it mattered in the end. They were lucky enough to make it to her room without running in to anyone, although the elevator ride was a tad tense on the way up.