Desert Sheikh vs American Princess (7 page)

"What about Ithnan?" she asked. "The King of Zallaq."

Walid's face hardened. "I would not ask him for anything. Nor should he give it. My father handed him over to the ruler of a hostile country as a hostage and I failed to protect him."

"Uh, he rules his own country. He's not a hostage."

A muscle twitched in Walid's jaw. "He was eight years old at the time. Twenty-two years ago."

She did some quick math. And guessing. "And you were what? Maybe eighteen?"

"Ten."

"What? Seriously? I thought you were older than that, closer to forty. Must be the gray hair." Walid's narrowed eyes told her he was definitely serious. "But first off, you were just a kid. How could you have stopped your father and some other adult--both monarchs of countries--from doing what they wanted? That's crazy."

If it were possible, Walid went even stiffer. "I am his older brother. I should have saved him. My rescue attempt failed due to my lack of foresight. I allowed my younger brother to take me off course. I never even left the city, much less reached the border. My father's guards discovered us at the bus station quite easily."

"Again," she reminded him, "you were ten. The fact that you even tried to get to him is amazing."

"It was my responsibility." The words were softer, had less self-blame than his earlier attempts at beating himself up. "I suppose at that age you played with dolls and had tea parties."

She frowned. "At that age, I fell out of trees and skinned my knees trying skateboarding."

We would have been much better at it if your dad hadn't taken the board away. We just needed practice,
stated Bonnie.
Tell him that.

She ignored the pirate princess. "Plus, you're only thirty-one?"

Walid raised a hand to his temple self-consciously. "My hair began to grow in gray when I was twenty."

"It's hot," she assured him. "Don't get me wrong. I just thought--"

He cut her off just as she realized she'd called him hot, and a blush was starting to inch up her neck.

"You find it attractive? Is age not weakness?" he asked clinically, inviting her gaze. Asking for her approval.

Maybe he wasn't as confident as she'd thought. Not if he asked for random near-strangers to assess him for critical feedback.

At least it chased off her embarrassment. "Oh yeah," she admitted. What she didn't admit was how much she'd like to take his buns in her hands and just
squeeze
. "Silver fox."

"I am a small desert mammal?"

"You don't know the expression?" she asked. "Did you go to college in Askar? I just assumed you went to Harvard or Oxford or something."

His lips twitched down. "My father never would have permitted such a thing. I attended a few classes at the University of Deira, but I was taught mostly by the best private tutors."

Wow. And she thought
she
had a sheltered life. He'd never even attended school.

"Mine pulled me out after one term," she shared. "I got drunk at a frat party. I guess it was for my own good."

One short term. She'd been loving her classes, too. She'd taken general arts with the plan of picking a major after the Christmas break. Maybe Psych. Then there was that pre-Thanksgiving party...

She shrugged. "Fox--it's a term for an attractive person. I guess small desert mammals are supposed to be sexy."

He joined her on the window ledge. The
small
window ledge. It meant his masculine thigh pressed against hers. The heat of him seeped through the fabric of his trousers.

He leaned in to her. Close. Oh so close.

Way too close. Close enough to... to kiss her.
 

He did have the most amazing lips. Curved like a seashell on the bottom. Deep divot in the top that pointed downward, as if to indicate exactly where to kiss.

Not that she didn't know that already.

They seemed locked in time, hovering in a frozen instant. Only her jumpy heart moved, pounded loud. How could he not hear that erratic beat?

"So now I am sexy?" he asked, breaking the moment.

Ooooh, big mistake telling him that. Looking away from him, she felt one of her epic blushes threaten to creep down from the already hot tips of her ears.

No matter how hot he was, he was still her kidnapper.
Quick
, she told herself.
Deflect
.

"Where's the Palm of Askar?" The question rushed out of her.

*****

Walid inhaled the warming midday breeze. Normally, the air up here smelled slightly of the ocean, but pure and clear. Today, with Noelle so close beside him, all he could detect was the scent of her, the expensive floral scent she wore so well.

He could have rescued the agreement with Al Khalili by taking his oldest daughter for his wife, and more importantly, taken her dowry to pay some of what Askar would soon owe. But seeing Noelle sprint around the palace courtyard... She had seemed so free, so wild... The broad smile on her face that seemed to exist for herself alone...

If only Askar could be that free.

He could not do it. Could not make an agreement to wed an unknown woman hidden behind a veil. Besides his distaste for pretense, he envisioned the progress of his country as more equality, more freedom, more self-determination. Fewer restrictions on people's lives.

More people running in gym clothes on the streets.

He had not been angry when Al Khalili had made an excuse and departed. And so the deadline counted down.

But now Noelle asked about the Palm.

"Lost," he finally told her, when he shook himself out of his fantasy of finding the jewel and ending this crisis. "No doubt in the hands of some private collector, hidden from the world. Last seen before German invaders sacked the palace during World War II. Sheikh Osman, the sheikh at the time--my great-grandfather--did his best to keep the Palm safe, but ultimately failed."

Perhaps his great-grandfather had been the first in an ancestral line of failures. First Osman, then his own father. Then himself.

"The Nazis got it?" Noelle queried, her tone hinting at disappointment. As if she herself had some stake in the jewel.

He shook his head. "As I said, Sheikh Osman hid the Palm, knowing the Nazis desired it for its supposed connection to the djinni who gifted it to my family. He also commissioned an elaborate map of clues to the location where the treasure is hidden. The invaders found the map and searched the land until the day they were forced to leave Askar by Berlin's defeat. In the meantime, they imprisoned Osman. In this very room. He did not survive his incarceration. He had sent his young son to safety in Canada and not given him the location. And so the Palm became lost."

Noelle twisted her head to look out the window, out to the sea. "If he couldn't have it, no one could, I guess."

"He did everything in his power to keep the jewel out of hands that would have turned the wealth to evil. The Palm would be priceless today."

"Well, that would have bought the Nazis a lot of tanks." Noelle laughed. "But it's not possible. Emeralds aren't worth that much. The largest one ever sold was only worth a couple million."

"Ah. The Palm is not an emerald, but a flawless green diamond of the purest color. It most likely came from the same mine as the famed Dresden Green, but the palm was twice the size. The color is a result of natural irradiation." Not many knew the jewel was, in fact, a diamond of the second rarest color. Why he chose to share this information with her, he did not fully understand. "And with the fame of the Palm, it would likely fetch a great deal more than the asking price at auction. Especially if it were found now after its long absence."

"That's so cool. But you wouldn't auction it."

In a heartbeat,
he didn't tell her.
To make up for my sins.

"I suppose the map is lost, too. I'd love to see it."

"No," he found himself saying. "I have the map, but it does not lead to the Palm. My great-grandfather created it to hide the jewel, not reveal it."

"What? I don't get it."

"The German commander, with a directive to find the Palm at all costs, spent the occupation interpreting a map that is full of obscure clues, and yet leads nowhere. I have the map, but it does not show the location of the Palm. My great-grandfather created it as an unsolvable puzzle. It led the Nazis around Askar on a fool's errand." As he told the tale, she watched him with all her attention. An intriguing habit. When he spoke to most people, he could tell their minds whirled through other spaces--what consequences his words held for them, possible responses, negotiating tactics--but Noelle simply listened. She even leaned toward him, unconsciously as far as he could tell, as if every word mattered to her.

She slumped in her seat on the window as she understood that the map was not some challenge to be solved.

"His revenge from beyond the grave," he concluded. An impractical sentiment. Impossible. Yet he enjoyed the idea of his ancestor reaching out from his own death to cause pain to the people who would have harmed Askar and its people.

"Oh." She scraped her toe against the tiles of the floor, an idle gesture. "I'd still like to see the map."

"Perhaps," he conceded.

A moment of silence hung over them. When had he last simply sat with another person in this manner? His life was filled with people, certainly. People who assisted him with his tasks, who presented him with problems. People who negotiated with him, or thanked him for his efforts on their behalf. But rarely did he enjoy quiet reflection or intriguing conversation with them.

And there was also the vanilla scent of her skin. The soft swish of her hair. The brush of her full breast against his arm as she turned toward him.

Noelle toed the floor again, her expensive sandal scraping the tile. "So he died here?"

He understood that she meant his great-grandfather. The one who had refused to make concessions to the Germans, and had paid for it with imprisonment and death.

There was no reason to tell her any more about his family history. And yet he did. "No." Walid indicated the empty air outside the window with a nod of his chin. A window large enough for a man to leap from. Or be pushed out of. "Out there."

Noelle's face tightened as she attempted to interpret what he was not saying, and then cleared as she understood.

"Yikes," she said. "That's grim. And you come up here for fun? The place where your great-grandfather died and your ancestor was imprisoned? I guess it's one way to get away from it all."

"My ancestor--" What did she speak of? Then he remembered she had arrived at this room in the company of Faridah, who worked in the kitchen. "Noelle, do not tell me that you believe fairy stories of princes locked in towers."

She stuck her bottom lip out and crossed her arms under her breasts. "Of course not. I just wanted to come up here for the view."

He let her lie go. "I come up here because no one else will. I enjoy the peace for my meditation. I have no distractions here. At least, I did not until you arrived."

As it turned out, Miss Noelle Oldrich was proving to be very distracting.

Four

T
REASURE
. M
AP
.
T
HE
pirate princess pouted, three days later.

Escape. Faridah will be here soon. She promised to come to my room with what we need. This is going to work, I promise
, Noelle responded.

She couldn't stop herself from pacing, fast-walking from one side of her guest suite to the other. Ugh. So cliché. Excited energy filled her, making her want to run, dance, do anything but wait here quietly. She'd be back in the States soon, out of captivity. Then the piratey, princessy voice inside her head could take a hike and everything could go back to normal.

Ironically, it had been Bonnie's idea of hitting a guard over the head that had made her think of this plan. Bonnie had been right about needing a disguise to get out of the palace. She'd just been wrong about the fake mustache.

This culture provided her the perfect disguise. Full head-to-toe anonymity. Unquestioned privacy.

The burqa. The mother-loving burqa.

A knock on the door. Faridah. It had to be. Noelle hustled over to let the younger woman in.

Treasure map,
insisted Bonnie.

*****

"So what do you wish to buy for His Majesty?" asked Faridah, the light in her eyes so brilliant that Noelle's stomach churned.

Betraying Faridah was the one flaw in this plan.

She'd told the young woman that she needed a burqa because Sheikh Walid would frown on her being seen in public. That was not a lie. She did leave out the reason he would frown on it--that her being seen meant she'd escaped from the palace.

But Faridah had brought the garment and they had walked through the palace gates. Just walked right through security, Faridah, today in head-to-toe mint, with reusable shopping bags slung over her shoulder, Noelle with every part of her draped in thin, light blue fabric. She had never felt so free.