Midnight at the Oasis: His Majesty's Mistake

“Thank you,” she whispered.

He drew another breath as he considered her pale, tense face and rigid posture. Her shoulders were set, her spine elongated, her chin tilted. It was strange. Everything about her was strange. Hannah had never sat like this before. So tall and still, as if she’d become someone else. Someone frozen.

Which reminded him of last night on the airplane. His brow furrowed. “You talked in your sleep last night,” he said. “Endlessly.”

Her eyes met his and her lips parted but she made no sound.

“In French,” he continued. “Your accent was impeccable. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were a native speaker.”

“You’re fluent in French?”

“Of course. My mother was French.”

She flushed, her cheeks turning dark pink. “Did I say anything that would embarrass me?”

“Just that you are in terrible trouble.” He waited, allowing his words to fall and settle before continuing. “What have you done, Hannah? What are you afraid of?”

A tiny pulse leapt at her throat and the pink in her cheeks faded just as quickly as it had bloomed there. “Nothing.”

She answered quickly, too quickly, and they both knew it.

Makin suppressed his annoyance. Who did she think she was fooling? Didn’t she realize he knew her? He knew her perhaps better than anyone. They’d worked so closely together over the years that he quite often knew what she would say before she said it. He knew her gestures and expressions and even her hesitation before she gave him her opinion.

But even then, they’d never been friends. Their relationship was strictly professional. He knew her work habits, not her life story. And he had to believe that if she’d gotten herself into trouble, she had the wherewithal to get herself out of it.

She was strong. Smart. Self-sufficient. She’d be fine.

Well, maybe in the long term, he amended. Right now Hannah looked far from fine.

She’d turned white, and he saw her swallow hard, once and again. She looked as if she was battling for control. “Do you need us to pull over?” he asked. “Are you—”

“Yes! Yes, please.”

Makin spoke sharply to the driver and moments later they were parked on the side of the narrow road. She stumbled away from the car, her high heels sinking into the soft sand.

He wasn’t sure if he should go after her—which is all he’d spent the last week doing—or give her some space to allow her to maintain some dignity.

Space won, and Makin and his driver stood next to the car in the event that their assistance was needed.

Even though it was still relatively early in the day, it was hot in the direct sun, with the morning temperature hovering just under a hundred degrees Fahrenheit. It was a very dry heat, he thought, sliding on his sunglasses, unlike Florida with its sweltering humidity.

Florida was fine, but this was his desert. This was where he belonged. They were just a few kilometers from Kasbah Raha now, and he was impatient to reach the palace.

He spent several months each year at Raha, and they were usually his favorite months.

Every day in Raha he’d wake, exercise, shower, have a light meal and then go to his office to work. He’d break for a late lunch and then work again, often late into the night. He enjoyed everything about his work and stayed at his desk because that’s where he wanted to be.

He wasn’t all work though. He had a mistress in Nadir whom he saw several times a week when there. Hannah knew about Madeline, of course, but it wasn’t something he’d ever discuss with her. Just as Hannah had never discussed her love life with him.

Makin’s cell phone suddenly rang, sounding too loud in the quiet desert. Withdrawing the phone from his trouser pocket, he saw it was his chief of security from the palace in Nadir.

Makin answered in Arabic.

As he listened, he went cold, thinking the timing couldn’t be worse. Hannah was already struggling. This would devastate her.

Makin asked his chief of security to keep him informed and then hung up. As he pocketed his phone, Hannah appeared, her graceful hands smoothing her creased turquoise cocktail dress. As she walked toward him, she gave him an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry about that.”

He didn’t smile back. “You’re still sick.”

“Low blood sugar. Haven’t eaten yet today.”

Nor had anything to drink, he realized, remembering now that she’d no coffee, tea or juice on the flight, either.

Makin spoke to his driver in Arabic, and the chauffeur immediately went to the back of the gleaming car, opened the trunk, and withdrew two bottles of water. He gave both to the sheikh and Makin unscrewed the cap of one, and handed the open bottle to Hannah.

“It’s cold,” she said surprised, even as she took a long drink from the plastic bottle.

“I have a small refrigerator built into the trunk. Keeps things cool on long trips.”

“That’s smart. It’s really hot here.” She lifted the bottle to her lips, drank again, her hand trembling slightly.

Makin didn’t miss the tremble of her hand. Or the purple shadows beneath her eyes. She was exhausted. She needed to eat. Rest. Recover.

She didn’t need more bad news.

She didn’t need another stress.

He couldn’t keep the news from her, nor would he, but he didn’t have to tell her now. There was nothing she could do. Nothing any of them could do.

He’d wait until they reached the palace to tell her about the call. Wait until she’d had a chance to shower and change and get something into her stomach because right now she looked on the verge of collapse.

“Shall we?” he asked, gesturing to the car.

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_f1916aac-fb89-5353-8917-ad965f58f2f3)

EMMELINE slowly rolled the cold water bottle between her hands, pretending to study the arid landscape, when in truth she was avoiding Makin’s gaze.

She knew he was looking at her. Ever since they’d stopped alongside the road, he seemed quieter, grimmer, if such a thing were possible.

Earlier, by the side of the road, she’d thought she heard his phone ring but she’d only stepped around the car for a minute or two, so if he had talked to someone, it had been a short call.

Her sixth sense told her the call had something to do with her.

Maybe it was paranoia, but she had a cold, sinking sensation in her gut that told her he’d begun to put two and two together and things weren’t adding up.

Had he figured out the truth? That she wasn’t the real Hannah Smith?

Still worried, Emmeline saw a shimmer of green appear on the horizon. The shimmer of green gradually took shape, becoming trees and orchards as the desert gave way to a fertile oasis.