Desert Orchid: The Desert Princes: Book 1 (35 page)

Was she really free?

Did Khalid seriously believe that he could get away with not telling her that he'd headed an interrogation team in
her
palace? With her own father? And that she'd not hear about it? What was this? What did Khalid think he was doing?

His grey eyes were dark today and that told her he was holding something back.

"What did you do?" she asked him in a tone that made it very clear her demand was an order and not a polite request.

He blinked in surprise.

And after a couple of seconds he opened his mouth to respond, but she beat him to it.

"Do not even think to lie to me. Our relationship, personal and professional, will not thrive on a foundation built on untruths. Surely you have learned that lesson, Khalid." She spun around and stalked past him into her rooms to find Arabella and Bruce Monroe standing to attention near the entrance doors. And one look at her bodyguard's face had a liquid anger roar through Charisse's system.

How
dare
they keep secrets from her?

Khalid again stood behind her.

"I didn't want you upset, or hurt, by him again," he said.

She spun around and he flinched when his eyes met the anger in hers.

Good.

Her pointy finger poked his strong chest with each word.

"Sit down and tell me nothing but the truth, the whole truth."

He sat.

Slumped on one of her sofas, he ran his hands through his hair in a move that signalled his utter frustration.

But before he could speak, Bruce Monroe stepped forward.

"Your Highness, your father was apprehended two days ago and brought here. You were asleep, resting after your ordeal."

Khalid interrupted, "Arabella was not happy about keeping you out of it, so don't blame her or Bruce. The decision not to tell you was taken by me and me alone." His eyes met hers and held. "And I'd do it again in a heartbeat, Charisse. No way was I going to permit that man to hurt you again, to damage you, either physically or emotionally."

She read the love, the utter devotion, in those dark eyes and found her anger with him slowly deflate like air releasing from a leaky tyre.

Now her gaze met Arabella's.

"I want the truth. All of it."

It was a command and her bodyguard nodded once.

"Chanteluelle said he wanted to see you, to give you his condolences on the death of King Amir. When that didn't fly, he then went on the attack saying that you were mentally unstable, yada, yada, yada."

Bruce then took up the tale, "It was clear he had an agenda. If we caught him, the decision had already been made to use Sodium Pentothal, the truth serum. I had a list of prepared questions regarding the timeline of how you came to be here. Who were the major players. And more importantly, what he wanted from you now, and why he wanted you dead."

Khalid sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees and nodded in agreement with everything Bruce said, and then spoke,

"Chanteluelle told us that if he was hurt in any way then two young girls, your half-sisters, would disappear. It appears the leopard didn't change his spots. Under questioning, he admitted he was readying them to sell to the highest bidder. We have since learned that the warlord, Hussein Ba-Touma, believes
he
is now the rightful owner of the eldest girl."

Charisse felt the numbness in her heart fade to be replaced by a fist of solid ice.

Hussein Ba-Touma was an Arab, true. But he was also regarded as a terrorist, a people-trafficker, drug dealer and worse. The man was more dangerous than Yusuf Hassam Nazari, Omar's cousin. Was it possible the two warlords were working together?

Then horror of the plight of the girls gripped her heart.

She had half-sisters?

"He's had plenty of time to make another family," she whispered. Khalid looked at Bruce, and Charisse caught that look. "What is it?"

"The girls are seventeen and nineteen. The youngest's name is Poppy and the eldest is Willow. He fathered them while he was still married to your mother," Khalid said in a gentle voice, to soften the blow.

Charisse just shook her head.

"Nothing the man did would surprise me, Khalid. And that includes having affairs or fathering children out of wedlock." But now her brow creased. "I'm finding the fact that he had only daughters quite spooky."

Bruce cleared his throat. "Actually, he's fathered a number of children with different women, including a son. They range in age from the two girls down to a twelve year old boy and a six year old girl. Four in total."

Head spinning with all these revelations, Charisse sank to the edge of a sofa and simply stared at the soldier.

"I have four siblings?"

Khalid's eyes searched her face.

"The girls look like you. It's the eyes," he explained.

Her heart was beating so fast Charisse pressed her fist against the spot.

"I remember my father once said that he'd chosen my mother very carefully. Natural blonde, willowy build, good genes. I suppose he did the same with theirs."

Arabella crossed her arms and her eyes narrowed. "Like designer daughters?"

Exactly like designer daughters, Charisse realised. And now she wondered, had she lived, what might have happened to Mia? She felt physically sick.

"There's a big market for slim, blue-eyed natural blondes, educated well, etc. If they're untouched, they command a high price," she whispered.

A bone-deep anger with her late father was now battling through shock.

Her head was spinning.

Could this nightmare possibly get any worse?

"How do you know this?" Bruce Monroe stepped forward.

Charisse raised her head to look up at his face.

And she read a fury that matched her own.

"Amir was a collector of information. He kept a datAbbase of who, and how, they run their business. Human trafficking is a trade that spans the globe. He believed it flourishes in the twenty-first century because too many people in positions of great power have an interest in its continued success. It's not just people who are traded. There are weapons, drugs, money laundering and information, too. However, finding the heart, the person or persons controlling the trade is almost impossible.

"Amir believed that, he or they, are based in Afghanistan and have safe houses, or hubs as he liked to call them, in the mountains of the Hindu Kush and Pakistan. And people like my late father, powerful and corrupt in deed and in heart, are perfectly placed to ensure trade flows smoothly."

Now she looked at Bruce. "You believe Hussein Ba-Touma is the mastermind?"

"According to your father, Ba-Touma is the spider in the middle of the web. The money-man. The power. He's the best lead we have. Your Highness, I need all of King Amir's notes and the datAbbase."

She nodded. "Of course. But first we must find my sisters."

"Their mother is dead," Bruce told her. "They attend a boarding school in Switzerland. Since we released your father, we've been in a race against time. Wallace is leading a team to retrieve the girls and bring them here."

Charisse wasn't stupid.

She understood exactly what the soldier wasn't saying.

"You knew my father was going to die?"

Khalid heaved a big sigh.

"Sheik Abbas made sure a recording of part of Bruce's conversation with your father reached Ba-Touma. It was only a matter of time. I doubt his death was an accident. As far as I'm concerned none of us has blood on our hands." He paused to look her dead in the eye. "I'd do it again, Charisse."

For a never-ending moment, she simply stared at the man she loved.

A man who was prepared to take a terrible risk to ensure the safety of his wife and his country.

And all the while Charisse asked herself if what Khalid had done was wrong.

Perhaps.

However, justice was served.

And searching her heart, she found she was not sorry.

"Chanteluelle wanted you dead or silenced," Bruce Monroe told her. "I'm no psychologist, Your Highness, but I command men. And I know how to read the good and the bad. I'd say your father was almost certainly a psychopath. Do not mourn him."

She nodded in agreement.

"I feel glad he's dead. Does that make me a bad person?"

"Nope," Arabella stated. "It makes you human." Her bodyguard shuffled her feet. "May I speak with you, alone?"

Charisse nodded in agreement, wondering what was coming next.

As Khalid led Bruce from her apartments, she indicated that Arabella take a seat.

"I just want to say that I was wrong to ask you to help me leave the palace. I was wrong to put you in an untenable position with the El Haribe family. I am responsible for the situation I now find myself in. And it's up to me to fix it."

Arabella's cheekbones were hot, and so were her eyes, with something that looked like shame and a deep remorse.

"I'm a firm believer that some things happen for a reason. If you hadn't left, you'd never have found Omar's spoor. You saved my life, Bella. None of us, and especially Khalid, will forget it."

Dark eyes met hers.

"He's a good man, Highness. He held firm with your father. Never wavered from his course. He will make a fine King."

Charisse smiled. "He's found himself."

"He found someone to love with all his heart. Someone to care about before himself." Then Arabella gave a softly deprecating laugh. "Jeez, listen to me having a Hallmark moment."

Her queen wasn't fooled, she could see the underlying anxiety, the worry, on her friend's face.

"Sarif is a good man, too. He deserves the truth. What are you going to do?"

"After I've spoken to him, I'm going home. Not to my family... I can't face them yet. I've saved enough money to be independent until the baby comes and until it starts school."

Charisse let out a breath she'd no idea she'd been holding.

Thank God Arabella was going to keep her baby. But the logistical complications of such a decision was giving her a headache. And she realised that whatever her friend decided for her future, and her child's future, was none of her business. However, she was able to offer practical and financial help.

"Your baby is part of our family. I have an apartment in London. You are free to use it for as long as you wish. And Amir left you a legacy in his will, to be given to you when you left my service. I will be checking in on you on a regular basis."

Arabella opened her mouth, probably to refuse, but then her eyes filled and she nodded once.

"Thank you. I accept... I'm going to miss you, this place."

They rose and Charisse hugged her friend, held her close.

"And we are going to miss you. May God go with you and keep you safe, Bella."

Once she and Khalid were alone in her apartments, Charisse felt that hot, hard, little bubble in her throat beat back the pain, the anxiety.

There was still no news of her sisters.

What if they were too late?

What if Hussein Ba-Touma got to them first?

"We need to find them, Khalid."

He took her face in his hands.

"I will take you wherever, and whenever you want to go. Can you trust Wallace Monroe and his team to find them?"

"Yes." Charisse struggled for calm and found it when he pressed his mouth to hers. "I need you. I couldn't do this without you."

He raised his head, eyes twinkling into hers.

"Twice in as many days, must be a record."

At her blank look, he smiled.

His nose nudged hers. "You said you need me. You've had a miserable day. But, baby, you've made mine."

"Because I need you?"

"Because you need me. And, I have Laurel Ashford flying in to talk to us. She's on her way."

Shock made her eyes too big. "What?"

"I don't care if you're annoyed. You need her help. Actually, I need her, too."

And just like that, Charisse fell a little bit more in love with her husband. He'd admitted for the first time that he needed to talk to a professional, to get closure.

"She's the best."

Khalid nodded. "I know. I read Amir's letters in his files. It seemed like a good plan for me to talk about... stuff. Charisse, you're hurt, mentally if not physically. You need help to handle what your father and Omar did to you this time. Finish it. Laurel can help you. Help both of us."

She hugged him tight.

And couldn't find the words to tell him how far he'd come in such a short time, of how terribly, terribly proud she was of him.

"You're right. Good thinking, Rock Star. It's good she's coming. No point in me putting it off. It will hurt to talk about what happened, to relive it. Then the healing can begin."

Khalid kissed her again.