Red Hot Lovers: 18 Contemporary Romance Books of Love, Passion, and Sexy Heroes by Your Favorite Top-Selling Authors

by Milly Taiden

  “Not that I've discovered. Anyone who knows her all point to a small bakery shop, which I plan to visit soon. Someone mentioned she used to exercise horses for a local, but that was all. She isn't in charge of any stable of any size or note.”

  Ahsan grunted and stepped into his suite, closing the door behind him. “All right, so she works as a baker's aid in a small town--”

  “Village. That's a better description.”

  “Village. If she has nothing to do with horses, or stables, then why the hell did she say so at the gala, and how did she even get an invitation? It's not like just anyone can walk into those gatherings.” Something was way, way off here. The facts weren't adding up.

  “That's the million dollar question. Even more, where did she get the horse that I presume arrived for the race? She had to call someone to get it sent, someone with the money and pull to make it happen on short notice.”

  Eli hit on Ahsan's thought at the same time. “Exactly. I was just wondering the same thing. Do you think she's working in tandem with a rival breeder? But that still doesn't fit, because I approached her, she didn't approach me. I'm not even sure she knew I existed until I stepped in on her 'friend' at the gala.”

  “No, that does not make sense to me, either. Besides that, why would another breeder go through all that subterfuge instead of just outright challenging you to a race if they wanted one of your horses so bad? It's too much work,” Eli added.

  Ahsan didn't like the direction his thoughts were taking him. Something more serious was wrong here, and he wanted to know what.

  “You can't find the sister anywhere, either?”

  “No. She lives with Sessily, apparently, but neither woman has been seen for a while. Maybe the sister came to Dubai, and is still there waiting on Sessily to return.”

  “Maybe,” Ahsan said. “Let me know what you find out at the bakery. Talk to her boss, or a co-worker barring the boss, and get back to me as soon as possible.”

  “I will. Ahsan, be careful.” Eli disconnected.

  Ahsan shoved the phone into his pocket and paced to the windows overlooking the courtyard. He watched the palms sway in a light breeze while he put his mind to the task of figuring out the mystery that was Sessily Pavel.

  One thing was for sure: she wasn't who she said she was. Knowing she'd lied sat ill with him, left a bad taste in his mouth. He was still puzzled over her ability to call and get a mount sent on a moment's notice, however, if she'd come from what appeared to be a very modest background. Did a baker's aid have the kind of cash to have a horse flown from one country to another overnight?

  Maybe her father had left her all his money when he went off to war. Unlikely, he thought to himself. Even then, it was thousands and thousands of dollars to rent a jet and pay for the fuel, never mind the pilot and any other personnel. If they had that kind of money, Sessily's neighbors and friends or acquaintances would have likely pointed out some big house or another, and Eli hadn't mentioned that.

  So what was her game? What was her agenda? What the hell did she want with him? Because he was surely her target.

  Target. His conversation with the other members of the Royal Elite came back in snippets. Bashir was out to wreck his reputation, and maybe something along more sinister lines. His brother had sent the harem to the gala to not only push his buttons, but to send a message to his peers.

  Could Bashir have planted Sessily, too? Picked her for her looks and took a great chance on fate? Maybe she was one of his lovers, in on the plot, willing to do his bidding to further her place among his mistresses.

  The thought made him sick. He had to be wrong. That was too coincidental—wasn't it? Or was it masterful planning, bringing him to the woman to help throw off the scent?

  If so, what was Sessily's motive in the palace? What had she hoped to learn? They were all questions he had no answers for.

  But he knew who did.

  Fury drove him from his office and his suite with a bang of doors that startled his guards. No one dared say a thing. He stalked the halls of his grandiose home, not seeing the finery, the inlaid gold, the priceless artifacts placed here and there.

  Instead of knocking when he got to her room, he flung the door open and stepped right in. “Sessily! I wish a word. Now.”

  That tone, used with any of his employees, would have sent people scrambling.

  So far, silence.

  When she didn't immediately appear, he searched her room. Her things were still hanging in the closet, her suitcase tucked neatly into the corner. There were feminine bottles and a make up kit on the bathroom counter, but no Sessily. Exiting her suite, he made his way downstairs, putting the word out to several of his staff that he wanted his house searched for his guest. It was a quicker way of going through the rooms than doing it all himself. That might take an hour or so, considering the size and scope of the palace.

  A half hour later, when he was beginning to lose patience, one of his guards found him.

  “She went to the stables. I sent a man to fetch her,” he said.

  Ahsan grunted a reply, but didn't wait. Leaving the palace, he headed for the stables himself, intent on taking her aside to have a little talk where few would hear them.

  Halfway there, he encountered another of his staff jogging up from the stables.

  “Your Excellency--”

  “Ahsan.” He did not stand on ceremony with his staff, even though many of them continued to try and use the more proper honorary. The man bowed his head, looking fretful.

  “Ahsan. She said she was only going to say goodbye to her mount. She is not in the stables now, so I assume she went back to the house.”

  “You're sure? You checked everywhere?” He pulled his phone out as his employee nodded agreement. She was not in the stables. A quick call to other staff in the palace got a more serious search for Sessily underway. Ahsan scanned the front of the stables, wondering where she could have gone, and headed back to the homestead. It was a big building; she could be anywhere.

  Two hours later, his staff confirmed what he'd come to suspect.

  Sessily was gone.

  ***

  Chapter Twelve

  The unrelenting heat seared her skin, her scalp, her lungs. Sessily couldn't believe just how scorching the desert could be under a midday sun and, for the fifth time, had to stop and sip from her remaining water bottle. She'd rationed the water as best she was able, but now she was down to the last three swallows.

  It wasn't enough. Not nearly enough. Her throat was dry as a bone.

  Tucking the empty bottle into her pocket in case she miraculously came upon a water source, she lifted a hand to shield her eyes and scanned the horizon.

  More nothingness. For hours she'd searched and searched for the air strip, positive she'd gone the right direction the evening before. No lights had ever come into view, however, and so she'd subtly altered her course, thinking she'd overshot her initial estimation.

  Now all she could see was sand dunes and desert in every direction. She wasn't even sure which direction she'd come from. What a fool she'd been to think she could just march away and conquer a desert that had probably claimed an endless number of lives.

  She'd left without thinking to bring a visor, sunglasses or lip balm. Or more importantly, sunscreen. And she was suffering for the lack. The skin of her forearms had surpassed tan and were approaching burnt territory, along with her cheeks, forehead and nose. A few times she'd drawn the collar of her shirt up over the back of her head, desperate for relief. Too awkward to walk that way for long, she'd reluctantly tugged it back into place.

  How much further until she saw signs of life? A road would give her encouragement, at least, and give her a solid direction to travel. Even if it led back to the palace. At this point, she would accept whatever happened just to survive the day.

  Trudging over a hard-packed section of compressed terrain, she considered changing direction yet again. What if she was walking in circles, thinking she
was putting more distance between herself and the palace, when in fact she kept cycling through the same landscape? Everything looked so much the same, she couldn't tell if she'd been here before or not.

  Something had to give. She needed water, and she needed it fast. Her legs were weak and she didn't know how long she would last upright if she didn't come across some kind of haven. Even shelter from the sun. Something. Anything.

  An hour and a half later, she knew she was in trouble.

  Serious trouble. Her throat was so dry that she coughed every time she swallowed and her body didn't want to move forward even one more step. Blistering heat seared her skin, and tears pricked the back of her eyes from the burning pain. She'd taken to walking with her arms folded over her front in an attempt to alternately shield them as much as possible. The silk shirt was soaked between her shoulder blades, down her spine and along her ribs from the profuse sweat of physical exertion.

  Using the side of a small dune to try and take cover from the wind, she knelt down and made a small ball of herself. Just a few minutes to rest, to give her body a break from the relentless pace of walking. She swallowed convulsively several times, misery drawing a tear from the corner of an eye.

  She'd thought it would be so easy to find her way. To bump across the private air strip and simply follow the road to temporary salvation. This far out in the open, her cell phone had no signal, so it was useless to try and call for help. She also couldn't access the map application to help guide her in the right direction. How frustrating to know she had the capability to save herself if only the technology worked.

  Sessily couldn't imagine what might have happened to Iris. The morning had come and gone, and Ahsan was still alive. Bashir, a man of his word, must have exacted his revenge.

  Tormented by her failure to free Iris and find civilization, Sessily endured the elements while giving her body a chance to rest and recuperate.

  *

  Hot, hot, hot. In delirium's grip, Sessily flinched as something icy flicked across her face. Surfacing from a black out, she groaned and sloppily waved a hand toward her cheek, thinking the sun had finally begun to sizzle skin from bone.

  Another flicker of ice seared her arm and her forehead. Muddled voices, accents thick and heavy—Ahsan's accent—penetrated the rush in her ears.

  Oh God, he'd come to save her. He wasn't the devil after all.

  Hands lifted her from the sand. She had the odd thought that her body might melt between the fingers that held her, become one with the dunes. Listless, she had the dizzying sensation of motion. Water touched her chapped lips, lips that didn't open far enough, fast enough, and she choked.

  A male voice, as if from a great distance, rattled commands down at her.

  Ahsan. Always bossing her around. She got a swallow down, and another.

  Then she knew nothing more.

  *

  Darkness greeted her when she opened her eyes. Night must have fallen in the desert, Sessily thought. Yet she couldn't see any stars, didn't feel the arid desert air on her sunburnt skin. Something softer than dirt plumped against her back and she sat up suddenly, weaving back and forth with a fresh dizzy spell.

  “Ahsan?” Her voice squeaked out, like a rusty hinge. He'd found her and brought her home. Yet she got no answer. And why was it so dark? He hadn't left even one light burning to help her see.

  Slowly, carefully, she set her feet on the ground. Groaning, she set a hand down on the mattress and realized it wasn't the lush bedding of the palace.

  Lights snapped on overhead, so bright it blinded her.

  “What are you doing? Shut those off, I can't see.” Throwing a hand up, she attempted to block the glare. Had Ahsan lost his mind?

  “It is very unfortunate you did not follow through with our plans,” a masculine voice said, thick with accent.

  It was not Ahsan's voice, but Bashir's.

  A cold chill raced down Sessily's spine. Blinking away the blurriness from her vision, she finally focused on the Crown Prince sitting in a chair across the room. Flanked by two security guards—as if she might have the strength to best him in a fight—Bashir studied her like a bug under a pin. In light robes, face rounder and fuller than his brother's, with the same dark eyes, Bashir clasped his hands in his lap.

  “I couldn't follow through.” Sessily belatedly remembered she needed to cover her tracks. To give a reason for not poisoning the Sheikh. “He left the palace without warning.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “He left before I had an opportunity to do anything.” It was a bald faced lie. Sessily sold it as truth because she had to. Because her and her sister's lives might depend upon it.

  Bashir leaned his head back. When his man bent down to listen, Bashir whispered something, then looked at Sessily again. The guard left the room.

  “Did he leave because you told him of the plan?” Bashir asked.

  “No. I didn't tell him, I didn't tell anyone. Why would I when I know you've got my sister here?” Fear helped burn away the last vestiges of sleep and confusion. She needed to be sharp despite the physical pain she was in. Someone had given her water, at least, because her tongue didn't feel made of cotton and she could swallow without too much effort. Likewise, her arms and face had been smothered with some sort of salve to help take the sunburn sting away.

  “Perhaps because you've become smitten with him? The way you used his name when we roused you out of the desert sounded intimate.”

  Had she said Ahsan's name aloud when she thought he'd come to save her? The memory was vague and muddled. And why had she forgiven the Sheikh so easily, anyway? Perhaps knowing she wouldn't die had sent her into a state of false euphoria.

  “Delirium, most likely. How did you find me, anyway?” she asked, emboldened by her clearer mind.

  “The phone. We had GPS tracking on it the whole time. It took us a while to figure out that you'd actually—stupidly—left the palace to take on the desert and hadn't gone on a sightseeing jaunt with my brother. That was the delay in recovering you.” He cocked his chin, never taking his eyes off her.

  Sessily refused to squirm under his gaze. Of course they'd tracked the phone. She should have known. “Where is my sister?”

  “You are in no position to ask questions. I told you what would happen should you fail to perform your intended duties,” he said, calm and collected.

  “And I told you, he left! What was I supposed to do? I want to know where my sister is.” Fear made her tongue even bolder. What did it matter if she'd caused fatal harm to her only sibling?

  “If you do not have a care with your tone, you will shortly join her,” he said with the calm bleeding away to something more openly ominous. “In case you do not realize it, you have lost the only bargaining chip you owned. I sent you on an errand that you failed to complete. You have become dead weight.”

  Sessily pinched her lips closed over a tart reply. He hadn't expressly said Iris was dead, which meant there was always hope.

  Rising, he departed the room with his guard in tow. A lock clicked in their wake.

  Sitting forward, she propped her forehead against her palms, a ginger pose thanks to the sting of the sunburn. Although her skin had been treated, it hadn't taken away every ounce of pain. Tonguing her chapped lips, she considered her options.

  Right now, there didn't seem to be many.

  ***

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Someone must have been waiting for her on the road, too far away to see in the dark,” Ahsan said. He washed the foul taste from his tongue with a drink of liquor. Pacing his office, he looked down at the phone on his desk, at the speaker specifically, and waited for Leander, Mattias and Chayton to give their input. He'd filled them in on everything else already.

  “Sounds like it. I doubt she'd risk her life by wandering off through the desert. Probably the same people who provided the horse picked her up and took her...somewhere.” Leander's voice cracked over the speaker.

  “Knowin
g what we know about Bashir so far, and our earlier concern that he may be out for revenge or something of that nature, I think your guess that she's with him is correct,” Mattias added. “What he wanted her to do in your home is still a question with no easy answer. Unless he simply wanted an 'inside' person to keep track of your movements. Report back your comings and goings, or visitors.”

  “Do you really think she's one of his mistresses?” Chayton inquired.

  “I don't know.” Ahsan had another drink. He'd consumed several shot glasses full of cognac already. “You could be right, Mattias. Maybe he took a huge chance that I'd be attracted to her and she'd wind up at the palace. It was a big gamble.”

  “I'm unconvinced she's not been compromised some other way. Her sister is missing, which suggests to me the idea of blackmail has to be considered along with everything else,” Chayton added.

  “I gave her every reason to trust me. She should have just said something.” Ahsan didn't want to believe that Sessily would have kept up the ruse after everything else. Yet, what did they have between them? Some hot looks, a few laughs, and conversation that might have been all lies on her part?

  “She might have been too afraid to confide in you. There could be more reasons we don't know about. Was there anything else she said that seemed out of place?” Leander asked.

  Ahsan's glass hit the desk with a thud. How could he have forgotten the incident in the stall earlier with the man who'd handled her so roughly? Sessily had insisted the man was just upset about the pink slips—but what if he'd been threatening her? Scaring her further? Pressing Bashir's power home so she wouldn't sway?