Midnight in Arabia: Heart of a Desert Warrior / The Sheikh's Last Gamble / The Sheikh's Jewel

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.

Iris hadn’t been a virgin, but she’d been honest, loyal and surprisingly innocent. He’d believed Badra untouched, but that had been a lie of monumental proportions, as was so much about her. The woman who had considered herself too good for a Bedouin sheikh had traded on deceit and Asad had not even had a glimmer until their wedding night.

Even so, his anger at Badra had muted over time to be replaced with indifference. So that when she had died all he had felt was relief to be free of her, only marginally tinged by sadness for their daughter, who saw less of her mother than the Parisian clothiers Badra favored.

Once married, he’d been unable to keep thoughts of Iris completely banked. Though that surprised him, he chalked it up to the fact that they had been even better friends than they were lovers. He’d kept up with her academic and work career, but had stayed away from her personally. He was not Badra. Asad did not cheat.

He did not understand this passionate fury barely contained in Iris, not after so much time. He slid a glance at her only to find her looking out the window of the helicopter, her eyes too unfocused to be seeing anything of real interest in the desert below.

Her body and attention turned from him, but he would change that. It had been six years. Two years since his wife’s death. Enough time for all that he had planned. He would wait no longer.

The low mountains loomed much closer than at the palace when the helicopter made its descent for landing.

“Hey, where are the camels?” Russell asked as he climbed out of the helicopter right after the pilot.

Asad did not answer. He had not liked the way the field assistant referred to Iris proprietarily, and with such familiarity, the night before. Though he doubted very much that the two shared a relationship outside of work, Asad felt possessive of the friendship that had not been allowed to flourish by his marriage.

He offered his hand to help Iris alight. After a moment of inaction while she stared at his hand as if it were a snake set to strike, she very clearly gritted her teeth and then reached out to take it.