by Penny Jordan
The Ruler frowned. 'Who were they? I must see that they are recompensed, although no one has made any complaint to me of such an attack.'
'Nor will they do, I fancy,' Xander told him dryly. 'For one thing the attack took place in the empty quarter beyond Zuran's border, which is where El Khalid has his base and, for another, the merchandise we relieved them of was counterfeit currency.'
'Ah. No wonder they haven't lodged a complaint!'
'Although there have been hints and boasts from El Khalid of his involvement with some very important person, I have not as yet seen Nazir or any of his men making contact with him.
'However, if, as I suspect, Nazir plans to have you assassinated during one of your public appearances on our National Day, he will have to meet up with El Khalid soon. Coincidentally, El Khalid has let it be known that he intends to hold an important meeting which we are all to attend, but as yet he has not said either when or where this is to be.'
'And you think that Nazir will be at this meeting?'
'Probably. I suspect his hand will be the one that guides its agenda, yes. He will want to ensure that the men chosen to accompany Khalid on an assassination mission can be relied on. Nazir won't want to risk using any of his own men, of course, so, yes, I believe he will be there. And so shall I.'
The Ruler frowned. 'You aren't concerned that Nazir may recognise you?'
'Disguised as a Tuareg?' Xander shook his head. 'I doubt it. It is after all their custom to cover their faces.'
The Ruler was still looking concerned.
'So, Highness, you are pleased then, with the progress of the new hotel complex development? I heard much praise of our country's existing tourism facilities whilst I was visiting our embassies,' Xander announced smoothly, looking warningly at his half-brother as he caught the soft sound of someone walking quietly towards them.
The greenery parted to reveal the small but powerfully stocky figure of the man they had just been discussing coming towards them, his fingers covered in heavy jewel-encrusted rings, his venomous glance resting resentfully first on Xander and then on the Ruler himself. Ignoring Xander completely, he bowed stiffly to the Ruler.
'Nazir.' The Ruler greeted him coolly. 'What brings you here? It's not often you can spare the time from your duties as our Minister of Internal Affairs to visit us socially.'
'I am extremely busy, it is true!' Nazir responded self-importantly.
'I hear there was some trouble earlier in the souk,' Xander murmured.
Immediately Nazir shot him a suspicious look. 'It was nothing… A petty thief was causing some disruption, that is all.'
'A petty thief? But you were there yourself!'
'I happened to be in the area. Besides, what business is it of yours how I conduct my duties?'
'None, other than that of a concerned citizen,' Xander answered him blandly.
His mouth compressing, Nazir turned away from him, deliberately keeping his back to him as he addressed the Sheikh. 'I understand, Your Highness, that you have ignored my advice and that you are choosing not to have the armed escort of my personal guard to ensure your safety during the National Day celebrations.'
'I am most grateful to you for your concern, cousin, but we must remember at all times our duty to the people. Our guests from other nations—especially those we hope will support our growing tourist industry—will not be reassured as to the stability of our country if they think that its ruler cannot go amongst his own people on such a joyful occasion without a phalanx of armed guards.'
'And then, of course,' Xander drawled sotto voce into the tension-filled silence that followed the Ruler's gentle words, 'one must always wonder who guards the guards…?'
A murderous look of hatred crossed Nazir's face. 'If you are suggesting—' he began savagely.
'I am suggesting nothing.' Xander stopped him coldly. 'I am merely stating fact.'
'Fact?'
'It is already proven that the presence of heavily armed personnel can lead to relatively small incidents getting completely out of hand.
'I'm sure that none of us wants to have to explain to the ambassador from another nation that one of their nationals has been shot to death by an over-enthusiastic and under-trained guard.'
'We will talk of this again, cousin, in private,' Nazir informed the Ruler grimly, pointedly ignoring Xander as he bowed briefly and left.
The Sheikh frowned as he exchanged looks with his younger half-brother.
'Our cousin forgets what is due to you, Xander,' he said angrily.
Xander gave a dismissive shrug. 'He has never hidden the fact that he has no liking for me, or my mother.'
'And your father? Our father was the greatest ruler this country has ever had! Nazir would do well to remember that! Nazir was unkind to you when you were a small child, I know, Xander, and neither I nor my father knew of his cruelty towards you then.'
'I learned to deal with it and with him.'
'Both he and his father hated your mother. They resented the influence she had over my father. And then when he made her his wife…'
'He might dislike me, but it is you he wishes to overthrow,' Xander pointed out dryly before adding, 'I have to return to the desert before my absence causes any comment. I was concerned earlier that Nazir might have become suspicious of me after he had his men turn the souk upside down looking for me, but I have learned since that it was another Tuareg they were looking for!'
'The official story is that you have only returned to Zuran briefly and are leaving the country again tonight to enjoy a well deserved rest. It is a pity you do not have time, though, to look over our new joint ventures. Your mares have produced a handsome crop of new foals, and the first phase of the marina development is approaching completion.'
Xander smiled a flash of strong white teeth against the golden honey of his skin.
The Ruler was famous throughout the world for his involvement in the world of horse racing.
As they turned to walk back to the palace the Ruler turned towards him. 'I am not sure that I should be allowing you to do this, you know,' he told him seriously. 'You are very dear to me, my little brother. Even dearer than you know. Your mother was the closest I had to a mother myself. She opened my mind to a wealth of knowledge. It was her influence on our father that led to him thinking about the long-term future of our country and when she died I believe he himself lost the will to live. I have lost both of them, little brother. I do not wish to lose you.'
'Nor I you,' Xander answered him steadily as they embraced one another.
'Hello there, beautiful! How about coming out with me tonight? I hear that His Highness is holding a very grand reception to celebrate the start of the racing season, and then afterwards we could go on to a club.'
The light-hearted invitation she was being given by the group's bachelor photographer made Katrina smile. Tom Hudson was an unashamed and incorrigible flirt, but one could not help but like him.
She started to shake her head, sunlight bouncing off the soft waves of her shoulder-length hair, but before she could say anything Richard broke in sharply.
'We are all here to work, and not to socialise, and you would do well to remember that, Hudson. Besides, we've got an early start in the morning,' he reminded them.
In the uncomfortable silence that followed the expedition leader's outburst, Tom pulled a wry face at Richard behind his back.
For all that he was very highly qualified, Richard was not popular with any of them, although it was Katrina who suffered most from his presence.
'He's gruesome,' Beverley Thomas, the only other female member of the group, commented later, giving a small shudder as she sat on the edge of Katrina's bed.
The luxurious private villa that had been put at the team's disposal was built on traditional lines, with the women's quarters apart from those of the men, and additional staff accommodation.
At first it had bemused Katrina to discover that she and Bev were to be locked into their quarters at
night, but now in view of unwanted advances from Richard she was heartily glad of the fact that they were expected to adopt the country's customs.
'I can't help feeling sorry for his wife,' Katrina admitted.
'Mmm, me too! Not that he likes us mentioning her. You do realise that he's well on the way to developing an obsession with you, don't you?'
When she saw the apprehensive look Katrina was giving her she relented a little and added, 'Well, perhaps calling it an obsession is going a bit too far, but he's certainly determined to get you into his bed.'
'He might want to but he's not going to,' Katrina assured her determinedly. 'I could cope with his unwanted advances, Bev, but it's when he starts using his position as expedition leader to punish me for rejecting him that I start to worry. This is my first job and I'm only on probation.'
'Try not to let him get to you,' Beverley advised her, stifling a yawn. 'I'm off to bed. It's been a long day and, as dear old Richard reminded us, we've got a pre-dawn start in the morning.'
Katrina smiled. Personally she was looking forward to their expedition into the desert to examine one of the area's desert ridges known as wadis.
She should be sleeping. It was over an hour since she had come to bed but every time she closed her eyes she was confronted with a disturbing mental image of the man with the golden eyes, as she had privately nicknamed him.
And it wasn't just the colour of his eyes that was imprinted on her memory. Her body quivered as fiercely and delicately as though strong fingers had plucked a single chord on a lyre.
This was ridiculous, she told herself stoutly. A woman of twenty-four with a doctorate in biochemistry could not submit herself to some foolish, primitive sexual response to a complete stranger. And not just a stranger, but very probably a criminal as well! But her fingertips were already investigating the smooth curve of her mouth, restlessly seeking the imprint of his on hers. Her memory was faultlessly replaying to her everything that she had felt beneath the hard domination of his kiss.
Angrily she tried to deny what she was feeling. Her parents had been a pair of highly qualified scientists totally devoted to one another; they had lived for one another and died with one another when they'd been killed after the site they had been excavating had collapsed on them.
She had been seventeen at the time. Not a child any more, but not an adult either. Her parents, both only children, had had no other family, and their deaths had not only orphaned her but left her both with an aching need for someone to love her, someone to complete her, and with a deep-rooted fear of those feelings and the vulnerability they created within her.
Because of that she had buried them very deep inside herself, too immature and too frightened to cope with them. Instead she had concentrated on her studies, cautiously allowing herself to make friends, but not allowing anyone to get too close.
At twenty-four she had considered herself to be reasonably well adjusted and emotionally mature, but now… It was most definitely neither well adjusted nor emotionally mature to feel the way she did about a stranger.
Let's analyse this, she told herself determinedly.
You are in a different country with different customs; a country, moreover, that has always fascinated you, which is why you were so keen to come here, why you learned Zuranese in the first place. Additionally you were on an adrenalin high brought on by an automatic fight or flight response to an unfamiliar situation. Of course such a highly charged situation was bound to affect you.
To the extent that she responded physically to a man she didn't know? A man she obviously should have been on her guard against?
Everyone was entitled to one little mistake, she tried to comfort herself. And, after all, it was extremely unlikely that she would ever see him again. She didn't want to accept how much that knowledge depressed her.
CHAPTER TWO
« ^ »
The sun was just starting to rise over the horizon as they drove out of the villa in a convoy of sturdy, well-equipped four-wheel-drive vehicles heading for the desert. To Katrina's dismay, Richard had insisted that she was to travel on her own with him in the vehicle that he was driving.
'You'll be much more comfortable here with me in the lead vehicle,' he told her, laughing as he added unkindly, 'The others will all be choking on our dust.'
It was true that the speed at which he was driving was throwing up a heavy cloud of fine sand, but Katrina would still far rather have been with someone else.
'Why don't you relax and close your eyes?' Richard suggested oilily. 'Catch up on your sleep. It's going to be a long drive. But drink some water first. You know the rules about making sure we don't get dehydrated.'
Obediently she took the open bottle of water he was handing her and drank from it.
Perhaps it would be a good idea to try to sleep, Katrina acknowledged fifteen minutes or so later as she stifled a yawn and then gave in to a sudden overwhelming temptation to close her eyes. If only so that she could avoid having to make conversation with Richard. And she did feel extraordinarily sleepy. Probably because she had spent far too much of the night thinking about the man with the golden eyes. As she drifted off to sleep she felt the vehicle start to pick up speed.
It was the late afternoon sun that finally woke her as it shone in through the windscreen. The realisation of how long she had been asleep made her sit bolt upright in her seat and turn to Richard in consternation.
'You should have woken me,' she told him. 'How much longer will it be before we reach the wadi?'
It was several seconds before Richard answered her, the look in his eyes as he turned his head towards her making her feel sharply apprehensive. 'We aren't going to the. wadi,' he replied smugly. 'We are going somewhere much more secluded and romantic… Somewhere where I can have you all to myself. Somewhere where I can show you…teach you…'
Katrina stared at him in dismay, hoping that she had misunderstood him, but it was obvious from the look on his face that she had not.
'Richard, you simply can't behave like this! We have to go to the wadi. The others will be expecting us…'
'They think that we've had to turn back,' he announced calmly. 'I told them that you weren't feeling very well. It was a good idea, I think, to get you to drink that water, which had some sleeping tablets in it.'
Katrina stared at him in horror.
'Richard, this is ridiculous. I'm going to telephone the others right now and—'
'You can't do that, I'm afraid.' He gave her a self-satisfied smile. 'I've got your mobile. I took it out of your bag when I stopped to tell the others we were turning back.'
Katrina couldn't believe what she was hearing.
'This is crazy! Let's just go and join the others and forget—'
'No!' He silenced her passionately. 'We are going to the oasis. I've been planning how to get you to myself for days, and this is the perfect opportunity and the oasis is the perfect place. It is in the empty quarter of the desert, a veritable no man's land, and this should appeal to you, Katrina, with your love of this region's history. It was once used as a stopping-off place by the camel trains.'
Katrina stared at him. Her throat had gone dry and her heart was thudding uncomfortably hard with apprehension. It wasn't that she was frightened of Richard exactly, but there was no denying that his behaviour pointed uncomfortably towards, if not an obsession with her, then certainly an unpleasant and unwanted preoccupation with her, just as Bev had shrewdly suspected.
'Look, there's the oasis,' Richard declared unnecessarily as the dusty track wound between a rocky outcrop revealing a clutch of palm trees and other vegetation, beyond which lay the blue shimmer of water.
As Richard stopped the vehicle Katrina acknowledged that in different circumstances—very different circumstances—she would have been entranced and fascinated by her surroundings.
The vegetation surrounding the oasis was unexpectedly lush and thick, especially on its far bank. At one time surely a river must have run here
, for what else could have carved a path through the steep rocky escarpment on the other side of the oasis? Perhaps even a waterfall had plunged down the smooth, sheer rock face.
Certainly there must be an underground spring filling the oasis itself, or perhaps an underground river. But, undeniably beautiful though the oasis and its surroundings were, Katrina had no wish to remain there on her own with Richard.
Somehow she doubted that he would be responsive to any attempt from her to persuade him to abandon his plans, which meant that if she was to escape she would have to find a way to distract him long enough to allow her to get her hands on the vehicle's keys and drive off in it before Richard could stop her.
'I've brought a tent with me and everything else we will need.'
'Oh, how clever of you!' Katrina told him, trying to sound impressed. 'I'll stay here, shall I, whilst you unpack everything?'
Richard shook his head at her.
'No, I'm afraid you can't do that, my dear! I haven't gone to all this trouble to have you do something silly like trying to run away from me!'
He couldn't make her move, Katrina comforted herself, but a few seconds later, after she had told him quietly that she was not prepared to get out of the vehicle, she realised she had under-estimated the lengths he was prepared to go to.
'Well, in that case, my dear, I'm afraid you leave me no option but to use these.' He reached into his pockets and produced a pair of handcuffs. 'I really wish it wasn't necessary to do this, but if you refuse to do as I ask then I am going to have to handcuff you to the door of the vehicle.'
She had been wrong not to feel afraid of him, Katrina acknowledged as a cold sweat broke out on her skin. He had already locked the doors of the vehicle and if she allowed him to handcuff her inside it then she'd be trapped.