Her Desert Knight

by Jennifer Lewis

  It was sad how quickly her optimistic, romantic glow had turned cynical.

  Will you meet me?

  She drew in a deep breath and approached the phone as if it were a snake that might bite her if handled wrong. No.

  Did he really think she’d want to see him after he let Laura paw him at the party? He must live in a world of illusion. Then again, of course he did. He’d grown up as one of the storied Al Mansurs, with their millions in oil wealth and everything handed to them on a platter. He was used to women bowing at his feet and doing whatever he wanted.

  She’d certainly done it easily enough, and she hadn’t even known who he was at first.

  Dani half waited for him to text again, explaining that Laura meant nothing to him, and she—Dani—was the only woman he cared about. That was probably beneath his dignity, though. He’d certainly never mentioned his other woman friends to her. Likely he thought them none of her business.

  Are you at home?

  She hesitated for a moment, holding the phone in her hand. If she told him she was at home he’d probably come over, and embarrass her even further in front of her father and brothers.

  Her fingers twitched to reply. She could vividly picture Quasar typing on his phone and being confused and possibly hurt by her brusque responses. She didn’t want to hurt him. She cared about him. Her feelings for him were confusing and intense and she’d almost begun to think they might be that elusive and dangerous thing she’d once called love.

  She wasn’t falling down that rabbit hole again, though. Her heart wanted to text Quasar back. To make plans to meet with him. To fall into his arms, to believe whatever he promised and float along on a rose-scented cloud of bliss for as long as she could.

  But she’d tried that approach to life once. Ignoring warning signs. Being nice. Hoping for the best. Smoothing things over when they got rocky. Trying to save everyone’s feelings but her own. And she wasn’t doing that again.

  Ever.

  Then she heard a knock on her window.

  Ten

  The sound of knuckles rapping on the glass made Dani jump and drop her phone. She spun around and a barrage of confusing emotions assaulted her as she saw Quasar’s face emerge from the evening gloom outside her window: relief that he cared enough to come; horror that once again he’d ignored etiquette to pursue her; and fear that she’d fall immediately under his seductive spell.

  He knocked again, more softly this time, to draw her from her frozen indecision. She realized she had to open the window. After yesterday’s experience of being stuck in her room with the bars locked from the outside, she’d found the key and snuck it into her desk drawer. She drew it out, pulled up the window sash—pressing her finger to his lips to warn him into silence—and handed it to him.

  He slid the key into the lock at the bottom of the barred grating. She watched his moonlight-dusted profile, sharp cheekbones, proud nose, characteristically tousled hair. Looking at him made a girl forget about common sense and what was right.

  The lock clicked open and he lifted the large, heavy iron grid that hinged from the top, eased himself under it and opened the window. In a few brief seconds, he was inside her room and standing on her carpet.

  “You can’t stay,” she whispered. “My father and brothers are home.”

  “I know. Come with me.” He gestured at the window with his chin.

  She shook her head silently. She could hear the TV from down the hall. Al Jazeera news on full volume. It was unlikely that anyone would hear them if they kept their voices down. “We can talk here,” she said softly. “It’s time to end this madness and go back to our separate lives.”

  “You can’t be serious.” He stepped toward her and seized hold of her hands. “A few hours ago you liked the idea of coming with me.”

  “That was before I saw you with Laura.” The confession was an instant weight off her mind. That was the true reason she’d changed her mind—totally and irrevocably—about moving to Boston with him. She’d caught a glimpse of the real Quasar, in his own element, and felt like the outsider she would be if she were foolish enough to try living with him.

  He squeezed her hands and she felt an echoing squeeze in her heart. “Dani. Laura was important to me. That’s all over. Now she’s simply an old friend.”

  “I think she wants to be a lot more than friends.”

  “She’s very touchy-feely, but she’s really like that with everyone. Besides, it doesn’t really matter what she wants. I know what I want and that’s you.”

  Dani swallowed. She wished he wasn’t holding her hands so tightly so she could pull away and put some space between them.

  “Maybe you can’t admit to yourself that you really want her back.”

  She saw the familiar twinkle of humor in his eyes. She wasn’t sure whether to be reassured that he found her worries amusing, or appalled that he could find humor even when she was trying to dump him.

  “I don’t want her back. I don’t like to talk about past relationships, as I think it’s more respectful to both parties to keep everything private, but I was relieved when our relationship ended. I don’t want a woman who lives to see and be seen, and who gets restless if she stays in one city for more than two weeks. I want someone calming and steady, whose resources come from within and who prefers peace and intimacy to a glittering crowd.” He squeezed her hands again and took another step closer until his chest was almost touching hers. “I want you.”

  Her heart leaped and she cursed it. The sincerity in his voice clawed at her. Now that they were alone together again, all her doubts and fears seemed to shrivel away and the grand hopes and dreams he inspired reinflated and threatened to warp her perspective. “I know you think that now. That you really believe it. But I felt like the outsider at that party, like she claimed you and owned you and I was an intruder. I know she’s only one of many women you’ve dated, and I just can’t compete with them. I don’t want to. I’ll be jealous and resentful and hate myself. Why didn’t you tell her to take her hands off you?”

  He frowned. “I should have. I was thoughtless and assumed too readily that you knew I was yours and only yours. From now on, no woman shall touch me but you.” He lifted her hands to his mouth and kissed them.

  A strange sensation shivered through her belly. “You can’t promise that. What are you going to do? Beat them off with a stick?”

  “If necessary.” The look in his eyes suggested that he was entirely serious. “Or perhaps I can carry a khanjar at my belt and slice at them if they try.”

  She giggled. It was impossible not to. She could totally picture Quasar with the traditional dagger tucked into his Armani suit.

  Then she stopped laughing. “I’m scared. Everyone who knows me will think it’s wrong, that I’ve lost my mind.”

  “Do you listen to them, or to your heart?” His eyes narrowed, and he peered into hers with what looked like the wisdom of a thousand years.

  “I listened to my heart before, and it was wrong. I thought I’d met my life partner and I tried to make it work but he was cruel and destructive to me. I don’t trust my judgment anymore.”

  “I love you, Dani. I want you by my side. What will it take?”

  She blinked, staring at him. Cool resolve crept over her. “If I’m not happy, you’ll let me go, no questions asked?”

  He frowned again. He seemed to be considering her words. “Though it would pain me to let you go, I’ll agree.”

  “Even if I ask you to let me go right now?” This was the ultimate test. He’d refused once. Did he respect her enough to do what he promised?

  He gave her a confused look. “You want me to leave right now?”

  “And never come back.”

  His mouth moved, as if he were at a loss for words. “I can’t promise that.” His regal brow fu
rrowed. “I can’t.”

  “See? You can’t promise you’ll let me go. You want me to be yours, no matter what the cost to me. I’ve played by those terms once and I won’t do it again.” Her own determination strengthened as she stood up to him.

  She watched his chest rise as he drew in a steadying breath. “You want me to leave you—forever—to prove how much I love you?”

  What she asked didn’t make any sense, but she was going to lose him either way. She couldn’t go with him and plunge herself into a life of uncertainty. She nodded, her lips pressed together.

  Quasar raised her hands to his lips again. His blue eyes were shadowed with darkness as he kissed them one more time—so softly—sending tremors of sensation and emotion to her toes. Then he bowed, turned to the window, climbed out and walked off into the night. Her heart breaking, she watched his white shirt disappear into the darkness.

  He did it. He promised he’d let her go, and he did. And the worst part was that now she loved him more than ever.

  * * *

  Quasar’s heart pounded so hard it could break a rib. He was glad of the brisk walk to where he’d parked his car a couple of blocks away. He understood where Dani was coming from. She’d been pushed around, told what to do, what not to do, and she had to be sure she was in charge of her own destiny.

  As a man used to being in control of his life and that of many people around him, it didn’t sit well at all to just walk away. It was hard enough to leave when he knew he’d see her the next day. Now she expected him to go back to his life and forget all about her?

  No way.

  He’d go back to his life—what there was of it without her in it—and breathe through each day until she came to her senses and claimed him. That was the only reason he’d been able to leave. He knew it was a test. It was easy to fail, very hard to pass.

  And who knew how long the test would last?

  He’d ached to wrap his arms around her and draw her into his embrace. His skin had crawled when Laura kept touching him earlier, but he’d never needed a strategy for keeping a woman at arm’s length so he’d never developed one. From now on he’d wear invisible armor—projected in his bearing—that kept anyone but Dani from even touching him.

  He wouldn’t text her. He wouldn’t call her. He wouldn’t show up at her usual haunts, or hover outside her window like a ghost.

  But he would win her back.

  * * *

  “You’ve taken leave of your senses,” Salim growled. He rose to his feet and towered over his desk. “You’ve lost all perspective on reality.”

  “I love her.”

  Light blasted through the window of Salim’s austere, white-walled office with its view out over the glittering ocean. Quasar had come to tackle an important hurdle on the road to winning Dani over.

  “You love her so much that I need to take a piece of land worth millions—billions in future revenue—and simply give it away to a man I detest who’s wasted untold hours of my time and thousands of rials with his meritless lawsuits.”

  “I’ll buy the land from you at market value.”

  “The market value is in no way commensurate with the value that land has to me as the site of my future flagship hotel.”

  “Then I’ll pay whatever value you set.”

  “Even if it’s fifty million dollars?” Salim arched a brow. “That, in fact, is an approximate figure for my construction costs alone. I have big plans for this property.”

  “I won’t be able to simply write a check for that amount. I’ll have to free up some assets, but I can have the money for you by the end of next week. Tell me which account you’d like it transferred into.” He pulled out his phone to type in the information.

  “You really have taken leave of your senses.”

  “Quite the opposite, brother. I’ve finally come to my senses.” He smiled.

  “But she hasn’t even agreed to marry you.”

  “I haven’t asked.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because she’d say no.”

  “If she doesn’t want you, why would you risk fifty million dollars trying to win her favor?”

  “She does want me.” He cocked his head. “She’s afraid of herself, though. She’s afraid of making a poor choice. I have to prove to her than I’m an excellent choice, and I won’t stop until I’ve done that.”

  Salim sighed, and sat back in his big leather chair. “I know how you feel, brother. I’ve been there myself. There’s no pain more acute than the loss of a woman your happiness depends on.”

  “Elan told me that Sara would only come live with him if he agreed not to marry her. She didn’t want to be trapped or tied down by convention. It seems that sometimes we Al Mansur men have to learn to let our women fly free before we can convince them to come nest with us.”

  Salim laughed. “And Celia made me sign a contract promising that she and Kira could leave whenever they wanted. But neither myself nor Elan had to pay fifty million dollars for the privilege of being with our wives.”

  “Daniyah Hassan is a very special woman. I’ve never felt the kind of peace and happiness I know in her arms. I had no idea it was even possible.”

  “That’s sweet and romantic, brother, but I’m extremely attached to that piece of land. Why don’t you give your princely sum to her father in exchange for it? I’m sure one million would buy him off with a smile, never mind fifty.”

  “Dani says her father won’t take money for the land. The whole affair has dragged on so long that it’s personal. He won’t stop until he gets the land back.”

  “The courts would never side with him.”

  “Are you willing to wait twenty years for that outcome? Surely you can buy another piece of property. Maybe one of those big houses along the shore? Or perhaps Hassan will gladly sell it back to you for money once he’s had the satisfaction of walking on it. I doubt he has any plans for it other than a quick sale.”

  “True. You can buy it from me for fifty million and give it to Hassan for nothing, then I’ll buy it back from him for five. I’m suddenly seeing this as a very profitable venture.” Salim grinned. “If you’re really madly in love enough to go through with this, then may your sweetheart come running to you before you come back to your senses and realize how nuts this all is.”

  “Great.” Quasar grinned back. “I’ll need the SWIFT and IBAN numbers for the transfer.”

  “No need for all that fuss.” Salim reached across the table and shook Quasar’s hand firmly. “I’ll take a check.”

  * * *

  Dani returned from a trip to the local American school in an upbeat mood. She’d applied for an advertised position as a teacher’s aide, and been told that she had a good shot at getting it. While assisting in a classroom wasn’t the position she’d studied and trained for, it was a job and would provide income and independence to get her back on her feet. She was almost whistling with joy as the taxi dropped her off at the house.

  “Dani!” Her heart sank when she saw her father in the doorway with an anxious expression on his face. Uh-oh. He’d be angry that she’d gone out, yet again, without a male family member to escort her. She couldn’t possibly expect to find a job, let alone keep one, if she had to wait until he or one of her brothers had the free time to take her somewhere.

  “Something extraordinary has happened.” His eyebrows were jumping all over the place. He didn’t look angry, though. If anything he looked stunned.

  “What is it?”

  He waved a big brown envelope in the air. “A courier just delivered this package. It contains a deed to the property on Beach Road. And a contract that conveys the title back to me. All that I have to do is sign it and send a token ten rials to seal the deal.”

  “Ten rials? Is this a joke?”

  “The
token amount makes it legal. Quasar Al Mansur says he wants to gift the property to me outright and return it to our family.”

  Her mouth hung open. That property was worth millions. And she’d seen how passionate his brother Salim was about it. Had he persuaded his brother to part with it just because of her?

  It didn’t seem possible. “Let me see.”

  Her father handed her the envelope and she pulled out an old deed typed on yellowed paper. There was also a contract for the change of ownership, signed by Quasar and requiring her father’s signature. The part that made her heart thud, however, was a letter from Quasar insisting that he wanted to return the land as a gesture of goodwill between their families.

  He’d been true to his word and not contacted her since she sent him back out through her window three days earlier. She was impressed that he’d managed to obey her wishes, when he was clearly a man used to demanding—and taking—what he wanted.

  She was even more impressed that she’d managed to stay strong enough not to call him herself. Her mind and body ached with missing him. At night she craved the feel of his arms around her—even though she’d never felt them around her at night, only during snatched sojourns in the heat of the day.

  Taking time apart from him allowed her to breathe. To think. Now that she had time to ponder, she was glad she hadn’t run away with him. They barely knew each other and what she knew about him was alarming. If she’d accepted his “grant,” she would have basically been an expensive mistress, which wasn’t how she wanted to start out her new life. She thought he’d soon get over their whirlwind affair and move on. She’d be just another in a long line of women he’d earnestly adored and left behind.

  But discovering that he wanted to give her father a piece of land worth millions put an entirely different spin on the situation. It proved he was serious. Even if money was virtually no object for him personally, he’d had to persuade his brother to shelve his hotel plans—which couldn’t have been easy—and he’d gone to the trouble of having the legal paperwork drawn up.