The Desert Sheikh's Innocent Queen: King of the Desert, Captive Bride

Once seated in the car, their driver sped on and off highways and Liv marveled at the way Sheikh Fehr traveled.

She’d never met anyone who owned his own jet and employed his own pilot and flight crew. Even though she worked in the travel industry, she thought of flying as booking a ticket on a commercial airline, then going to a crowded airport for an endless wait in a long security line. Maybe it was just the U.S., but modern travel meant canceled flights, missed connections, lost luggage, no meal service and irritated flight attendants. In short, flying was far from luxurious, and definitely not glamorous. But Sheikh Fehr’s jet was sumptuous, as was his fleet of cars.

The fact that he had access to a fleet of cars in different countries, never mind the security, made her wonder about him, and his power.

What kind of man could accomplish the things he did?

What kind of man risked life and limb for a stranger?

Unless he did it for money.

Hiding her worry, she shot another glance his way. Could he be a mercenary of sorts?

The thought made her skin crawl, nearly as much as her disgusting black prison-issued robe and lank headscarf did.

Self-consciously she reached up and touched the headscarf she still wore. The flight attendant hadn’t worn one and Liv wondered now if it was still necessary. “Can I take this off?” she asked.

“Please. In Jabal we didn’t have a choice, but here in Egypt, and my country of Sarq, it’s optional.”

“Some women want to wear the veil?”

“They view it as protection, shielding them from leering eyes and inappropriate advances.” His gaze swept over her. “You will need something else to wear though. That’s obviously a prison-issued robe.”

Liv plucked at her robe’s stiff, coarse fabric. “I can’t stand this thing,” she confessed, her voice dropping. “It’s all I’ve worn since they arrested me and I hate it. I never want to put it on again.”

“You won’t have to. And once we’re at the hotel, I’ll make sure the robe’s properly disposed of.”

“Thank you.” Tears inexplicably burned the backs of her eyes and she had to squeeze her eyes shut to hold the emotion in. She was just tired. Overwhelmed by the day. There was no reason to cry. She’d be home soon. If not tonight, then tomorrow. And everything would be all right. She just needed to call her mom, or Jake. Once she heard their voices she knew she’d be okay.

“So we are staying in Cairo overnight?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He shifted, shoulders shrugging impatiently. “My pilot was concerned about the plane. He was afraid there was a fuel leak and wanted it checked out before we flew again.”

“Sensible.”

“Yes.”

But from his tone, she knew the sheikh didn’t agree and she was hit with another wave of homesickness. She was tired of strangers, tired of short-tempered men and women. She just wanted to go home. Back to the people who knew her and loved her, and back to people she loved.

“Can I call my brother now?” she asked, her voice wobbly with the threat of tears.

“Maybe we should wait a little longer, until you’ve seen the doctor.”

His words were a one-two punch and Liv stiffened. “A doctor? Why?”

“It’s routine. Standard practice whenever someone’s been released—”

“How often do you do this?” she interrupted.

“Often enough to know that you need to be checked out and cleared for travel.”

“But I’m fine,” she insisted. She didn’t want anyone touching her, didn’t want anyone looking at her or poking at her or coming near her. She’d had enough of that at Ozr. “I’m fine.”

His dark gaze pierced her. “It’s not an option, Miss Morse.” His tone hardened. “You have to. I can’t take any chances. You’ve been in Ozr for weeks. The place is a breeding ground for all sorts of diseases.”

“I doubt I’ve caught anything and if I have, I’ll deal with it at home.” With my doctor, she silently, furiously added.

Sheikh Fehr might have rescued her from Ozr, but she couldn’t completely trust him. She didn’t trust anyone here anymore. These countries and cultures were far too different from hers.

Her longing for home had become an endless ache inside her. She missed her mom and brother. She wanted her mother’s delicious Sunday pot roast, and her melt-in-your-mouth mashed potatoes and the best brown gravy in the world.

She wanted Pierceville with its sleepy Main Street and big oak trees and the old Fox theater where they still showed movies. She missed Main Street’s angled parking and the drugstore on the corner and the two bakeries with their cake displays in the window.

“You won’t be given permission to leave the country if you’re not cleared for travel.” He spoke slowly to make sure he was heard. “And if you’re not cleared for travel, you don’t go home.”

Home.

That word she understood, that word cut through her fog of misery.

Turning away to hide the shimmer of tears, Liv stared out the car window, the stream of traffic outside a blur.

“Whose rule is that?” she asked thickly. “Yours, or the government’s?”

“Both.”

Biting her lip, it crossed her mind that maybe, just maybe, she’d jumped from the frying pan into the fire.

Khalid Fehr watched Olivia turn her face away from him. She was upset but that was her choice. He had to be careful. He took tremendous risks in helping people. At the end of the day, once someone was safe and en route to their home, he wanted to go home himself, back to his beloved desert.

The desert was where he belonged.

The desert was where he found peace.

“The doctor’s a personal friend,” he said quietly, only able to see the back of her head, and then when the sun struck the outside of the window, it turned the glass into a mirror, giving him an almost perfect reflection of her pale, set face.

She looked lost, he thought. Gone. Like a ghost of a woman.

Her fear ate at him all over again, stirring the fury in him, the fury that was only soothed, calmed, by acts of valor.

It was ridiculous, really, this need of his to save others, this need to unite families torn apart, to return missing loved ones to those who waited, grieved.

He wasn’t a hero, didn’t want to be a hero, and this wasn’t the life he’d ever wanted for himself. He’d loved his studies, had enjoyed his career, but that all ended when his sisters died.

Thinking of his sisters reminded him of Olivia and her brother Jake and all her family had gone through in the past five or six weeks since she disappeared. “I’m trying to help you,” he said quietly.