Heart of a Desert Warrior

When he was telling her they had no future in words that could not be denied.

Russell squeaked. Catherine’s look tinged with concern. Iris’s heart ached with memory while she fought to maintain a facade of indifference.

Sheikh Hakim frowned. “My cousin is correct. It would be neither safe, nor appropriate for you to camp in such a manner.”

Iris could see her escape route disappearing in front of her eyes while the chilly sense of dread inside her grew. She couldn’t give up without a fight, though. “I assure you, I’ve been on several field assignments, in the States and abroad, and never had a problem with it.”

Just not in the Middle East.

“Nevertheless, I am responsible for the safety of those within my borders,” Sheikh Hakim said with a shake of his head. “Asad is right, a two-person camp in the mountains is an unacceptable option.”

Asad simply looked at her with an immovable expression she would never forget. He’d used it also when he said goodbye. “As I told you earlier, I will see to your safety.”

“My safety isn’t your responsibility.”

“On the contrary. I have decreed that it is.” Sheikh Hakim’s friendly manner dissipated in the face of his arrogant assurance.

Right. And Sheikh Hakim was a very important client. His country was paying CC&B a great deal of money for this survey. She was compelled to accept the way he wanted the field work handled. Either she backed out of the assignment, or accepted the constraints surrounding it, including Asad as her liaison.

She’d accepted that backing out of the assignment wasn’t an option before she ever left the States.

“Not having a moving camp could make the initial sample gathering and measurements take significantly longer,” she said by way of her final sally.

“Swift is not always better,” Sheikh Hakim said implacably. “Your safety must come first.”

“Would you be more comfortable with a male team lead?” she asked, seeing a possible way out. If the sheikh asked for it, her career wouldn’t be affected adversely. It was understood that some parts of the world did not deal as well with female geologists. “My superiors could arrange for my immediate replacement if that would make you more comfortable.”

“Not at all. I am confident your work will be more than acceptable,” Sheikh Hakim said smoothly.

Russell was staring at her like she’d offered to dance naked on the tabletop. Okay, so normally, she’d bristle and fight tooth and claw to avoid being replaced simply on the basis of gender, but these were special circumstances.

“It surprises me you would make the offer.” Asad sounded just as disbelieving of her words. “I remember a woman who would not stand for the idea that men made better geologists than their female counterparts.”

“I didn’t say he would be a better geologist.”

“Naturally not. You graduated at the top of your class, did you not?”

“I’m surprised you know that.” But then it might well have been included in the information CC&B had supplied about her to Sheikh Hakim.

Asad shrugged again. “I kept up with you.”

No, really, he hadn’t. She’d never heard from him again after he left, though a mutual friend had told Iris when Asad had married a year after returning to his home. She’d spent the weekend crying off and on, for once Iris’s studies unable to assuage the ache of loneliness and grief.

Then she’d buckled down, determined not to let anyone or anything stand in the way of the one dream she had left. She’d even continued her studies in Arabic, though until this assignment, she’d had no chance to use them in more than a few written translations and phone calls.

“I’m surprised your wife isn’t with you,” she said to change the topic and to remind herself forcibly why this man could not be allowed past her defenses.

No matter what the circumstances she would be forced to live in over the coming weeks.

And really? Where was the man’s wife? What woman would prefer to stay at a Bedouin encampment when she could be visiting the local palace? And how did his wife feel about Asad promising protection and guidance to his former girlfriend?

But then, that at least, was an idiotic question. No way did the princess know anything about Iris.

Iris certainly hadn’t known anything about Princess Badra when she’d been dating and sleeping with Asad.

Asad had known, though. He’d known he had no intention of spending his future with Iris. He’d known he planned to marry the virginal princess, not the American geology student who spent every night in his bed for ten months.

He’d seduced her anyway, treating Iris like his girlfriend when she was nothing but his mistress.

An old-fashioned word for an ugly, outdated position she would never have willingly taken. Or so she told herself.

The most painful truth of all, the one that had woken her in nighttime sweats more than once, was that even had she known he would never be hers, Iris was not sure she would have been able to walk away from what he offered her naive, love-struck, nineteen-year-old self.

“My wife died two years ago.” Asad’s voice pushed into Iris’s raw thoughts.

She met his eyes in genuine shock and polite words tumbled out of her mouth in stark reaction. “I’m sorry.”

Asad didn’t reply, but looked back at her with an expression both predatory and implacable.

The room and people around them faded from her awareness for a frozen moment as she met his gaze, her body frozen in shock, her mind blank with reaction and her heart stuttering in horror.

A married Asad was bad enough, but a widower? The thought sent terror shaking through her not-so-mended heart.

The helicopter blades whirled overhead, making discussion within the bird impossible except over the shared radio pieces. Asad had his fill of public discourse the night before when all he’d wanted to do was drag Iris out of the dining room and take her somewhere they could be alone.

He could not pretend what he wanted to do was talk, either, though it was not entirely off the agenda.

It had taken considerable self-control to stop himself from going to visit her in her room, but he needed to follow his plan. A plan that had a better chance of success once she was living in his encampment, not minutes from the royal airfield at the palace.

The level of animosity in Iris’s expression and voice when she wasn’t doing her best to suppress it, surprised him. It had been six years since he’d returned home. Surely she was not still angry at the admittedly abrupt end to their association.

Had he to do it over again, he would have handled it differently. But when they’d been together, he hadn’t realized she’d been thinking in terms of the future, either. He’d assumed from her actions and circumstances that she knew nothing they did together could be permanent. He hadn’t counted on her Western viewpoint on feminine sexuality, or her ignorance of his status.

In his arrogance, he’d believed everyone knew he was a future sheikh. It was no secret after all. But Iris did not gossip, and she was a geology student who, he learned later, knew next to nothing about the students in her own discipline, much less the others that attended the large university with her.

When she’d told him she loved him, he’d taken it as his due. The usual response of a female in a sexual relationship with a man, but he hadn’t believed she meant it.

He still wasn’t sure he bought the idea of everlasting love, though his cousin’s marriage to Catherine was something special. Even Asad could see that.

Nothing like his own marriage, which had been nothing more than a series of lies and subterfuge.

Still, he could have been kinder when he had to end their months-long affair. He realized that now.

He would never admit to anyone but himself that his harsh and immediate withdrawal had been the result of feelings he wasn’t used to dealing with. He’d become more attached to Iris than he’d expected to. And much to his chagrin, had realized at the end of their time together, that she, more than anyone or anything else, had the possibility of undermining his carefully laid plans.

So, he had walked away. And stayed away.

And had forced his mind to shut down every time he thought of her until his ill-fated wedding night, when inevitable comparisons and conclusions had to be drawn. Conclusions that had destroyed what was left of his own naive beliefs about women and sex.