Midnight at the Oasis: His Majesty's Mistake

“Sheikh Al-Koury, certainly I’m allowed to have a voice.”

“A voice, yes, provided it’s not impudent.”

“Impudent?” Her laugh was brittle. “I’m not a disobedient child. I’m twenty-five and—”

“Completely out of line.” He leaned toward her, but she didn’t shrink back. Instead she lifted her chin, staring boldly into his eyes. He felt another raw rush of emotion, his temper battling with something else…curiosity…desire… none of which, of course, was acceptable.

But there it was. This was a new Hannah and she was turning everything inside-out, including him.

And he didn’t like it. Not a bit.

“You disappoint me,” he said brusquely. “I expected more from you.”

She tensed, pale jaw tightening, emotion flickering over her face, shadowing her eyes.

For a moment she looked fierce and proud and rather bruised.

A fighter without arms.

A warrior taken captive.

Joan of Arc at the stake.

He felt the strangest knotting in his chest. It was an emotion he hadn’t felt before, and it was hot, sharp, uncomfortable. He didn’t like it. He didn’t want to feel it. She worked for him, not the other way around. “I don’t know what game you’re playing, but it’s over. I’ve chased you from Palm Beach to South Beach but I’m not chasing anymore. Nor am I negotiating. It’s my way, Hannah, or this is where it ends, and you can begin looking for a new job tomorrow.”

He saw her chest rise and fall as she took a swift breath, but she didn’t speak. Instead she held the air bottled in her lungs as she stared at him, a defiant light burning in her intensely blue eyes.

How could he have ever thought Hannah so calm and controlled? Because there was nothing calm or controlled about her now. No, nothing calm in those mysterious lavender-blue eyes at all. She was all emotion, hot, brilliant emotion that crackled in her and through her as though she were made of electricity itself.

Who was this woman? Did he even know her?

He frowned, his brow furrowing with frustration as his gaze swept over her from head to toe. At work she was always so buttoned-up around him, so perfectly proper, but then, she hadn’t dressed for him tonight, she’d dressed for Alejandro, her lover.

The thought of her with Ibanez made his chest tighten again, as something in him cracked, shifted free, escaping from his infamous control to spread through him, hot, hard, possessive. For reasons he didn’t fully comprehend, he couldn’t stand the idea of Ibanez with her, touching her.

She was too good for Ibanez. She deserved so much better.

His gaze rested on her, and it was impossible to look away. Her satin dress was a perfect foil for her creamy skin and the rich chestnut hair that tumbled down her back. The low square neckline accentuated her long neck and exquisite features. He’d known that Hannah was attractive, but he’d never realized she was beautiful.

Incandescent.

Which didn’t make sense. None of this really made sense because Hannah wasn’t the sort of woman to glow. She was solidly stable, grounded, focused on work to the exclusion of all else. She rarely wore makeup and knew nothing about fashion, and yet tonight she appeared so delicate and luminous that he was tempted to brush his fingertips across her cheek to see what she wore to make her appear radiant.

The tip of her tongue appeared to wet her soft, full lower lip. His groin hardened as her pink tongue slid across and then touched the bow-shaped upper lip. For a moment he envied the lip and then he suppressed that carnal thought, too, but his body had a mind of its own and blood rushed to his shaft, heating and hardening him, making him throb.

“You’re threatening to fire me, Sheikh Al-Koury?” Her incredulous tone provoked him almost as much as that provocative tongue slipping across her lips.

“You should know by now I never threaten, nor do I engage my employees in meaningless conversation. If I’m speaking to you it’s because I’m conveying something important, something you need to know.” He was hanging on to his temper by a thread. “And you should know that I’ve reached the end of my patience with you—”

“Not to be rude, Sheikh Al-Koury,” she interrupted, before making a soft groaning sound. “But how far away is the airport? I think I’m going to be sick.”

For Emmeline, the rest of the short drive to the executive airport passed in a blur of motion and misery. She remembered little but the limo pulling between large gates and then onto empty tarmac next to an impressively long white jet.

She was rushed up the stairs, aided by a flight attendant, and then escorted into a bedroom and through a door to a small bathroom.

The flight attendant flipped on the bathroom lights and then closed the door behind her, leaving Emmeline alone.

Thank God for small mercies.

Perspiration beading her brow, Emmeline crouched before the toilet. Her hands trembled on the pristine white porcelain as she leaned forward, her stomach emptying violently into the toilet bowl.

The acid that burned her throat was nothing compared to the acid eating away in her heart. This was all her fault … she had no one else to blame. She’d been weak and foolish and insecure. She’d reached out to the wrong man in a moment of need, and to make matters worse, she’d approached Hannah, dragging her into this.

Remorse filled her. Remorse and regret. Why wasn’t she stronger? Why was she so needy? But then, when hadn’t she craved love?

Gritting her teeth, she knew she couldn’t blame her parents. They’d done their best. They’d tried. The fault was clearly hers. Apparently even at an early age she’d been clingy, always wanting to be held, needing constant reassurance and affection. Even as a little girl she’d been ashamed that she’d needed so much more than her parents could give.

Good princesses didn’t have needs.

Good princesses didn’t cause trouble.

Emmeline did both.

Emmeline’s stomach churned and heaved all over again, and she lurched over the toilet, sick once more.

Tears stung her eyes. How could anyone call this morning sickness when she was ill morning, noon and night? She flushed the toilet again.

A quiet knocked sounded on the door. “Hannah?”

It was Makin Al-Koury. Emmeline’s stomach performed a wild free fall which didn’t help her nausea in the slightest. “Yes?”

“May I come in?”

No. But she couldn’t say it. She was supposed to work for him. That meant she answered to him. Emmeline’s eyes stung. “Yes.”

The door softly opened and a shadow fell across the floor.

Blinking back tears, Emmeline glanced up as Makin filled the doorway. Tall and broad-shouldered, his expression was grim. There was no sympathy in his light gray eyes, no gentleness in the set of his jaw or the press of his firm mouth. But then, there’d been no gentleness earlier when he’d yanked her through the nightclub, pulling her onto the street, his hand gripped tightly around her wrist.

Even now, with her knees pressed to the cold tiled floor, she could feel the unyielding grip of his hand on her wrist, the heat of his skin against hers.

He’d been furious as his limousine traveled from the nightclub to the airport, and from his expression as he towered above her, he still was.

“Can I get you something?” he asked, his deep voice a raw rasp of sound in the small space.

She shook her head. “No. Thank you.”

“You are sick.”