Strangers in the Desert

He would not be moved. “Gather your things. We’re leaving.”

Married.

Isabella shook her head. It was impossible. But a knot of fear lodged in her stomach like a lump of ice. She had a few fuzzy spots in her memory, it was true, and yet, how could this man be a part of it? How could she possibly forget something as monumental as a husband?

She could not. It was out of the question. Besides, her parents would not have kept this from her. Why would they do so? What terrible thing would make them do so?

There was one way to clear this up. Isabella turned and grabbed her purse, digging through it for her cell phone.

“What are you doing?” Adan asked.

She whipped the phone out and held it up triumphantly.

Her hair was in her eyes, stuck to the lipstick on her mouth, but she didn’t care. She knew she looked wild. She felt wild.

Crazy.

He’d said she was dead—that everyone in Jahfar believed she was dead.

But her father knew she wasn’t, so how could that be?

When she’d asked questions about her accident, he’d told her it was better if she did not know the specifics. She’d been in a wreck, and she’d fallen into a coma. There were drugs, pain meds, and they were making her memory fuzzy. It was nothing, he’d insisted.

Nothing.

Her mother, typically, hadn’t known anything about what Isabella’s life in Jahfar had been like. Beth Tyler had been gone from the country for ten years, and though she’d seemed pleased when Isabella came to stay with her, they’d both been a little relieved when Isabella had moved on.

But if she’d been married, wouldn’t her mother have known about it? Wouldn’t she have attended the wedding?

Now, Isabella looked up, into the hard, handsome face of the man standing so near. He didn’t look like nothing to her. Isabella gave her head a little shake. No, her parents would not have lied about this. There was no reason for it!

“I’m calling my father,” she said as she began to scroll through the phone’s contacts. “He’ll know the truth.”

Adan stiffened as if she’d slapped him. “Do you mean to tell me that your father really does know you’re here?”

Isabella frowned. “I already said so, didn’t I?”

He swore in Arabic, a vile curse that shocked her with its vehemence and profanity. She’d been in the States for more than a year now—was it closer to two?—and she’d heard a lot of foul language. But she wasn’t accustomed to hearing it in Arabic. In Jahfar, she’d been cosseted and protected—a lady who had been bred to marry a powerful sheikh someday.

Until her accident changed everything.

He grabbed the phone out of her hand. “You will not call him.”

Isabella reached for the phone, but he held it just out of range. She folded her arms and glared at him. She should be relieved. “Then I guess you’re lying to me about being married. Because my father could expose the lie, right?”

“If it amuses you to think it, by all means do so.” He tucked the phone into his breast pocket. She tried not to let her gaze stray to the hard muscle exposed by the open V of his shirt. If she’d seen him on the beach, she’d have thought he was magnificent. No doubt about it.

But he was hard and cold, and she had no business finding him attractive. Not to mention, he was lying.

“If that’s not what you’re worried about, then why can’t I call him?” she challenged.

“Because I intend to deal with him myself, when we return to Jahfar.”

Isabella’s blood ran cold for reasons she couldn’t begin to articulate. Jahfar. The desert. The hard, harsh landscape of her father’s heritage. It was her heritage, too, and yet there was something primitive about it that she couldn’t quite make her peace with. The idea of going back caused a wave of panic to rise like bile in her throat.

“I’m not going with you.”

His dark eyes slid down her body, back up again. “And just how do you propose to stop me from taking you, Isabella?”

“I’ll scream,” she said, her heart thudding a million miles an hour.

“Will you now?” He was so cool, so smug, that a knot of fear gathered in her stomach and refused to let go. He would throw her over his shoulder and haul her bodily out of here. He was big enough and bold enough to do it.

“They won’t let you take me. My friends will help,” she said with as much bravado as she could muster.

His laugh was not in the least bit amused. “They are welcome to try. But Isabella, I have my own personal security. If anyone touches me, they will assume it is an assassination attempt. I cannot be responsible for the measures they might take.”

Ice coated the chambers of her heart. He was every bit as cold and cruel as he seemed. And she had no doubt he would take delight in hurting anyone who attempted to stop him.

“It’s no wonder I can’t remember you,” she said bitterly. “You’re a tyrant. Being married to you would be hell on earth, I’m sure. Any woman would do better walking into the desert to die than staying with you.”

The corners of his mouth tightened. “Would to God that you had truly done so and saved me the trouble of dealing with you now.”

She couldn’t say why, but her heart constricted. Why did she care? He meant nothing to her. She didn’t even like him.

“If we are married, then why don’t you save us both a lot of trouble and divorce me? You’re a Jahfaran male. The power is yours,” she said as coldly as she could.

Would to God that you had truly done so and saved me the trouble …

His cruel words echoed in her head. She meant nothing to him. She was a problem, an embarrassment. An issue to be dealt with.

It was too much like her childhood, when she’d felt like an object that her parents fought over after the divorce. An issue they would never solve. She’d tried to be good, tried to be so good and perfect for them both. But she could not please them, no matter how she tried.

Isabella swallowed angry tears. She was finished with trying to please anyone but herself.

“If only it were that easy,” he growled. “But circumstances have changed, and we must return to Jahfar.”

“You can’t simply expect me to leave with you when you’ve given me no proof. To me, you’re a stranger. I don’t know you, and I’m not going anywhere with you.”

His eyes hardened. “What proof would you have me give you? Shall I tell you that we met only a week before we married, and that you were as frightened and meek as a lamb? Or perhaps you’d like to hear that the wedding feast went on for three days and cost in excess of a half-million American dollars? Or that your father was supremely pleased that he’d managed to wed you to a prince?”

Isabella’s stomach went into a free fall. “A prince? You’re a prince?”

“I was,” he said, and though she didn’t know what he meant by that, she didn’t ask.

She wiped damp palms across her sarong. It simply couldn’t be true. Status was everything in Jahfar. If her father had managed to arrange a marriage with the royal family, he’d have been so proud. He would not have lied about it.

“Tell me something about me,” she said, apprehension fluttering inside her belly along with the first swirling current of doubt. “Tell me something no one else knows.”