Surgeon Sheik's Rescue

Surprise rippled through her. She opened her mouth but words eluded her. In her mind she could see Derek’s photo, Tariq fleeing the burning jet, such fierceness, such pain in his eyes as he tried to save his fiancée. Guilt sliced through her and she cursed the hungry newshound inside her own body.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I...there are no easy words for something like this. And I suspect you don’t want platitudes, anyway.”

“You’re right, I don’t.” He strode over to the hamper on the table, opened the lid of the wicker hamper as he spoke. “What did you bring?”

“Actually it’s from Madame Dubois. I have no idea what’s in there.”

He pulled out a bottle of Chateau Luneau cabernet franc and his gaze ticked to hers. “She knows what I like,” he said very quietly. “And so do you—this is what you were drinking in the restaurant.”

Tension shimmered. A piece of wet wood hissed in the fire, and Bella could hear wind moaning up in the turrets somewhere. She thought she could also hear the distant crash of waves at the foot of the cliffs upon which they were perched, the rhythmic thrust of the Atlantic—a pulse as old as time. She shook herself.

“Madame Dubois told me about the wine,” she said quietly. “She also told me you dined at Le Grotte every Tuesday night. I went there to meet you. I had hoped to strike up conversation through the wine, and then ask for a tour of the abbey.” She forced a laugh, but it felt hollow. “The wine just about broke my budget.”

A twitch of amusement ran along the right side of his mouth. Or had she imagined it? Whatever it was, something seemed to shift in the color of the evening.

From the hamper he removed a round of cheese and a box of crackers. He set them on the table. Reaching in again, he pulled out two wineglasses and a corkscrew. He held the glasses up, crooked his brow.

Ridiculously, Bella felt her cheeks flush again. She told herself it was the warmth of the fire finally getting through after her cold ride. Yet there was something so damn sensual about this dark, damaged man, something so barely restrained it overwhelmed her, and more. It set her nerves tingling for the feel of his touch against her skin.

“Madame insisted I bring the hamper,” she said, her voice thickening. “Estelle Dubois maintains the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. She seems to think every single woman must be in search of a male.” Even as the words came out her mouth she wished she could take them back. Bella was suddenly floundering, in part, she realized, because she’d been attracted to Tariq—both physically and mentally—long before this moment.

To find him alive, to actually be in his powerful presence, was rattling her. Because Tariq Al Arif in the flesh more than exceeded Bella’s expectations. Everything about him exuded the aura of a Saharan prince from an exotic country steeped in ancient, desert tradition, and standing so near him, she didn’t feel quite real. Again she felt like an Alice that had slipped through some kind of fairy-tale looking glass. Bella in the castle with the scarred “beast” of a prince.

“And you’re not?”

She coughed, eyes watering. “Not what?”

“Looking for a man.”

The heat in her cheeks deepened and she felt irritated by her body’s betrayal. “Like I said, I had a bad breakup with my ex. I came to get away from all that, quite frankly.”

“So it was serious, this relationship of yours?”

“I thought it was.”

Tariq angled his head slightly, reading her. Then he set the wineglasses on the table, picked up the bottle of wine and the corkscrew.

Turning his back to her he struggled to uncork the bottle.

Bella went quickly up to him. “Here, let me.” She reached out, taking the bottle and opener from him. Her hand brushed against his skin as she did, and heat shocked through her. Bella froze, met his eye.

Anger crackled from him in waves. She understood. He’d been a top neurosurgeon and now he couldn’t even open a bottle of wine without fumbling.

“I can see you’re left-handed,” she said softly, averting her eyes from his crippled fingers, focusing instead on twisting the corkscrew, heat still rippling through her. “It must be difficult—” she popped the cork “—adjusting to the use of a nondominant hand.”

A muscle began to work at his jaw.

She poured the wine, handed him a glass, careful not to connect with his skin again.

“Will you ever fully regain use of your left hand?” she said quietly.

Will you ever operate again, play the cello, ride a horse...

He stared at her, intense, silent. Bella began to feel self-conscious.

“I apologize—I’m stepping out of my bounds tonight. What I really—”

“I might regain all the refinement of a wooden club,” he said, taking a deep swallow of his wine. She watched his Adam’s apple move under dusky skin. “If I do the physiotherapy.”

Madame’s words sifted into Bella’s mind.

A private ferry came over from the mainland with gymnasium equipment. A woman came with it... I think she had something to do with the gymnasium equipment, perhaps a personal trainer. But she left very abruptly, the next day...

He’d fired his physiotherapist.

“You’re not doing the exercises?”

He turned and strode to the fire, stared into the flames, glass in hand, firelight dancing in the burgundy liquid.

“To put it simply,” he said, still facing the fire, his voice low and deep in his throat. “The brain-to-limb connection is one of the hardest to regain. Sometimes, I’ll be holding an object in my left hand, then I get distracted, and the thing just drops from my fingers because the neurological connection is missing.”