Читать книгу Strangers in the Desert - Lynn Harris Raye - Страница 8

THE interior of Adan’s private jet was sumptuous, but Isabella hardly noticed. She’d been in shock since the moment he’d told her they had a child. It had felt as if someone was slicing into her heart with a rusty knife. How could she have given birth to a child and not know it?

It was surreal.

But as much as her mind kept telling her that everything he said was impossible, her heart whispered doubts. Her heart said that something had happened to her two years ago, and that a car wreck didn’t explain it nearly as well as she would like.

She’d gone with him then. She’d let him take her back to her condo where she’d packed a suitcase and called the landlord to tell him she would be gone for a couple of weeks. Adan had stood by impassively, not saying a word as she’d readied herself. He’d looked around the small living space as if it were completely foreign to him. As if he were horrified she would live there.

Which, she supposed, he probably was. He was a prince of Jahfar. Princes did not live in studios that weren’t much bigger than a large shoebox.

They’d ridden to the airport in silence, then boarded the sleek Boeing business jet and taken off shortly thereafter. Now they were somewhere high over the Pacific Ocean, and Isabella sat in a large reclining leather chair and stared out the window at nothing but blackness. On a small table in front of her was an untouched glass of papaya juice. She shivered involuntarily. She’d put on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and grabbed a light jacket, but still she was cold.

“Would you like a blanket, ma’am?” one of the flight attendants asked.

“Thank you, yes,” Isabella replied. Her voice sounded scratchy, distant, as if she weren’t accustomed to using it. The attendant returned with the blanket and a pillow. Isabella wrapped herself in the plush fabric. This wasn’t one of those cheap excuses for a blanket used on major airlines these days. It was thick and soft and smelled like spice.

A few moments later, Adan sank into the chair across from her. She hadn’t seen him since shortly after they’d gotten airborne. He’d said he had business to attend to and had disappeared into his private office. Now, he clutched a sheaf of papers. His gaze was disturbing. She wasn’t sure if it was because of the kiss they’d shared in Ka Nui’s, or simply because he caused something to tighten inside her every time he looked at her.

Or maybe it was because he despised her.

“You haven’t touched your drink,” he said.

“I’m not thirsty.” She dropped her gaze, conscious suddenly that she was still wearing heavy stage makeup. She hadn’t thought to wash her face in the rush to grab her suitcase and change clothes. He hadn’t rushed her, but she’d felt as if she had to hurry. As if the answers were thousands of miles away and she needed to get there as soon as possible.

“I thought you might like to see these,” he said, holding out the papers.

She took them cautiously, not really certain she did want to see them, but knowing she had no choice but to look. For herself. For her sanity. Not because he was forcing her to, but because she needed to know.

Her heart began to thrum.

She looked at the first sheet. It was an article from Al-Arab Jahfar.

Prince Weds Daughter of Prominent Businessman.

There was a photo of her and Adan. He was so handsome in his traditional clothing, with a ceremonial dagger at his waist. He looked solemn, as if he were performing a duty.

Which he no doubt had been. We met a week before the wedding …

She was smiling, but she didn’t look happy. Her dress was a beaded silk abaya in a deep saffron color. She wore the sheerest hijab, the fabric filmy and beautiful where it skimmed her hair.

She glanced up, saw Adan watching her closely. He was sprawled in his chair like a potentate, one elbow propped on the armrest, his index finger sliding absently back and forth over his bottom lip. His dark eyes gave nothing away.

Isabella slid the article to the bottom of the pile. The next one sent her heart into her throat.

It was a birth announcement. Rafiq ibn Adan Al Dhakir, born April fourth.

Tears pressed against the backs of her eyes. She wanted to sob. She bit her lip, hard, to stop the tears from coming. She wanted to shove the papers at him and tell him to take them away, but gritted her teeth and told herself she would do this. She would look at them and she would survive it.

Because everything she’d known, everything she’d believed—about herself, about her parents—was shattered and lying broken at her feet. She wasn’t who she thought she was.

She was this woman, this Princess Isabella Al Dhakir, who had a baby and a husband. Who should have had a perfect life, but who was sitting here broken and alone.

She uncovered the next article with trembling fingers.

This one proclaimed her missing. From her father’s house, where she’d gone to visit after the birth of her child. Evidence suggested she’d walked into the desert. A sandstorm had stopped the rescue effort for three days. When it resumed, there was no trace of her.

She thought of her father’s house at the edge of the wilds of Jahfar. He loved to tame nature. He had a pool, fountains and grass on the edge of the hottest, starkest land imaginable.

And she had willingly walked alone into that desert?

The fourth article made the numbness creep over her again. It was small, a quarter sheet, the words stark against the white background.

Dead …

She quickly flipped to the next page. A marriage contract, spelling out everything her father and Adan had agreed to. She didn’t read it. She didn’t need to.

She closed her eyes and dropped the papers on the table between them, then clasped her hands in her lap so he wouldn’t see them shaking. She was his wife. The mother of his child.

And she couldn’t remember any of it. Isabella tried so hard to conjure up an image of a baby in her arms, but she couldn’t do it.

What was wrong with her? How could a mother forget her own baby? She turned her head away on the seat back and dug her fingernails into her palms. She would not cry. She could not cry in front of him. She couldn’t be weak.

“Do you still wish to deny the truth?” Adan asked.

She shook her head, unable to speak for fear she would lose control.

“Why did you do it, Isabella? Why did you leave your baby son? Did you not think of him even once?”

It took her several moments to answer.

“I don’t remember doing it,” she forced out, her voice barely more than a whisper. “I don’t remember anything about that … that night. In the newspaper.”

She thought he wouldn’t believe her, that he would demand to know the truth, demand she stop lying. But he blew out a breath and looked away before turning to pierce her with his dark stare again. “Tell me what you do know, then. Tell me how you got to Hawaii.”

She wanted to be defiant, but she was too mentally drained to conjure up even a hint of strength. “I was in Jahfar, and then I was at my mother’s house in South Carolina,” she said, hugging the blanket tighter. “I don’t remember when I left, or how I got there. My father says it’s because of the accident. Because I hit my head in the crash and was in a coma for five weeks. I don’t remember the accident, but the doctor said that was normal.

“After, I spent time recuperating at my mother’s before I moved out on my own.”

“You didn’t want to return to Jahfar?”

“No, not really. I thought of it from time to time, but my father told me to stay in the States. He said he traveled a lot now, and there was no reason for me to return yet.”

“Hawaii is rather far from South Carolina,” he mused.

It was, and yet she’d been pulled there by homesickness. “I missed the sea, and the palms. I went there for a short vacation but ended up staying.”

“Why did you change your name?”

“I didn’t change it. Bella Tyler is a stage name,” she said, not wanting to admit that she’d wanted to be someone else, that calling herself by another name had been an effort to make her feel different. More confident. Less alone.

“And why were you singing in a club, Isabella? Did you need money?”

He no doubt thought so based on the size of her condo, but it was perfectly adequate for Maui. And more expensive than he might imagine.

“No. My father sent me plenty. But I sang karaoke one day, for fun. The next I knew, I was performing.”

A disapproving frown made his sensual mouth seem hard. “A lounge singer.”

Isabella felt heat prickle over her skin. “I like to sing.

I’ve always liked to sing. And I’m good at it,” she said proudly.

“I never heard you sing before tonight.”

“I sang plenty growing up, but it was for myself. If I never sang for you, then I suppose I was afraid to. Afraid you would disapprove.”

“I might not have,” he said softly.

“I must have thought so.”

“Perhaps you did.” He was unapologetic.

Isabella clutched the blanket in a fist. This was such an odd conversation. She was married to this man, and yet he was a stranger to her. They were strangers to each other, if this conversation was anything to go by.

“We must not have spent a lot of time together,” she ventured.

“Enough,” he said, his eyes suddenly hot, intense.

Isabella dipped her head, hoping she wasn’t blushing. Clearly she wasn’t a virgin, and yet she couldn’t remember anything about her first sexual experience with him. About any sexual experience with him.

“How long were we married before … the baby?”

“You were pregnant the first month. And you disappeared only a month after Rafiq was born.”

She pressed a hand to her stomach beneath the blanket. It was so hard to imagine she’d ever been pregnant. “So we weren’t together a year.”

He gave his head a shake. “Not quite, no.”

She was trying so hard to process it. Because they were married. He hadn’t faked a bunch of documents to prove it to her. These were printed copies of actual newspaper articles.

Far more likely—and harder to understand, quite honestly—was the fact her parents had lied. Oh, she didn’t really expect that her mother had orchestrated this fiction Isabella had been living with—or that she’d had a problem going along with it. No, it was her father who’d done so.

And Isabella couldn’t figure out why.

Was Adan abusive? Had her hurt her? Was her father simply being protective?

She considered it, but she didn’t believe that was the case. Because Adan had been very angry with her, yes, and he’d been arrogant and presumptuous. But he hadn’t for one moment made her feel physically threatened. If he had, she wouldn’t be here.

Or at least not willingly.

She was uncomfortable with him—but not because she feared him.

Isabella pressed two fingers to her temple. It was so much to process.

“Does your head hurt?” Adan asked suddenly.

She was surprised at the answer. “Yes.” She’d been so focused that she hadn’t realized her temple was beginning to throb. Soon, the headache would spread to the other side. And she’d left her migraine medicine on the kitchen counter. She didn’t get them often, but when she did, they weren’t in the least bit pleasant.

Adan pressed a button on his seat and a flight attendant appeared. He ordered a glass of water and some ibuprofen. When it arrived, she gulped down the tablets, though she didn’t expect they would do any good.

“Perhaps you should sleep,” he said. “There’s a bedroom at the back, and a bathroom where you can wash your face.”

She should sleep, and yet she couldn’t quite yet. “Do you have a picture of him?” she asked quietly.

The corners of his mouth grew tight. Then he pulled out his cell phone and pressed a few buttons. When he held it out to her, the breath caught in her throat.

The little boy staring at the camera was adorable, of course. But it was more than that. She gazed at his face in wonder, searching for signs of her own features. She saw Adan easily in the dark hair and dark eyes. But the chin, that was hers. And the shape of the nose.

A tear slipped free and slid down her cheek. “He’s two now?”

Adan nodded as he took the phone back. She wasn’t ready to stop looking at the photo, and yet she couldn’t ask him to let her see it again.

She’d missed so much. So damn much. His first word. His first step. She scrubbed a hand across her face. Her head throbbed. Her stomach churned. She wasn’t sure if it was the headache or the heartache causing it, but she felt physically ill.

Isabella shot to her feet. Adan rose with the grace of a hunting panther, his brows drawn together. “What is wrong?”

“I have to—the bathroom.”

Adan pointed and Isabella bolted for the door. She made it just in time, heaving the contents of her stomach into the toilet. When she finally straightened, she caught sight of her face in the mirror. She looked like hell. Like a girl who’d got into her mother’s makeup and put way too much on in an effort to look more grown-up.

Isabella turned on the taps—bronze taps on an airplane, so much fancier than the usual airline bathroom—and began to scrub her face with hot water and soap. The tears started to flow as she scrubbed. She tried to stop it at first, but then decided to let herself cry. He would never hear her with the water running.

She scrubbed hard, as if she could scrub away the past two years and clean her memory free of the black curtain cloaking it at the same time. Her head continued to pound, but she cried and scrubbed until the makeup was gone and her tears were finished.

She hoped Adan would be gone by the time she returned to her seat—in his office, or sleeping in one of the staterooms—but she wasn’t that lucky.

He looked up as she approached. His expression didn’t change, but she was certain he hadn’t missed a thing. She looked like hell. Her face was pink and her eyes, though not puffy yet, soon would be from the crying.

“You are ill?” he asked.

“It’s the migraine,” she replied, shrugging. “If I have my medicine, it doesn’t get that bad, but without it …”

“You did not bring this medicine, I take it.”

“I was a bit preoccupied.”

“Tell me the name of this drug,” he commanded. “It will be waiting for you when we arrive in Jahfar.”

She said the name, then folded herself back into the reclining chair.

“You should lie down on a bed.”

She waved a hand. “I’d rather not walk that far right now, if you don’t mind.”

He rose, and before she knew what he was about to do, he’d come around to her chair and reached for her. She started to protest, but her head hurt too badly to put up much of a fight as she was lifted against his chest.

He was warm, hard and so solid. She felt safe for the first time in years. Safe.

And yet it was an illusion. Now, more than ever, she needed to guard herself against emotion. Because she was emotionally raw right now, vulnerable.

She felt so much. Too much.

She could feel his heart beating strong beneath the palm she’d rested on his chest, could smell the delicious spicy male scent of him. He carried her toward the back of the plane and into a room that contained a double-size bed. The sheets were folded down already, and the lights were dim. Heaven for her throbbing head.

He set her on the bed and she lay back, uncaring that she wore jeans. Adan slipped her shoes from her feet and then pulled the blanket over her. She closed her eyes, unable to watch him as he cared for her.

Because he didn’t really care for her, did he?

“Sleep, Isabella,” he said.

“Adan,” she said when he was at the door.

“Yes?”

She swallowed. Her throat hurt from crying. “I’m sorry.”

He merely inclined his head before pulling the door shut with a sharp click.

Adan didn’t sleep well. He kept tossing and turning, kicking off the covers, pulling them back again. In the next cabin, he imagined Isabella huddled beneath the blankets and sleeping soundly.

He had to admit, when she’d walked out of the bathroom earlier with her face scrubbed clean, he’d been gutted by her expression. She’d been crying, he could tell that right away. Her skin had been pink from the hot water she must have used, but her nose was redder and her eyes were bloodshot. She looked as though she’d been through hell.

And maybe she had. She’d seemed so stunned as she’d absorbed the news about their marriage, about Rafiq. About her death.

Adan pressed his closed fist to his forehead. He had no room for sympathy for her. He had to do what he’d come here to do. His country depended on it. His son depended on it.

He would not risk Rafiq’s happiness. Isabella was his mother, but what kind of mother was she? She’d abandoned her baby. Even if she truly didn’t remember doing it, she had. And she’d been in possession of all her faculties at the time. What had happened after, he did not know, but she’d chosen to leave.

Whether she’d truly walked into the desert or whether it was a fiction she’d cooked up to cover her tracks, he wasn’t certain. But whatever the truth, her father had helped her.

He would deal with Hassan Maro soon enough.

Right now, he had to deal with Isabella.

Adan threw back the covers. There was no sense in lying here any longer when he could get some work done instead. After he’d showered and shaved, he dressed in a white dishdasha and the traditional dark red keffiyeh of Jahfar.

A new shift of flight attendants was busily preparing breakfast in the galley. When they saw him, all activity immediately stopped as they dipped into deep curtsies and bows. He was still getting used to it, really. As a prince, he’d received obeisance, but not to the level he now did as a king. It was disconcerting sometimes. He was impatient, wanted to cut right to the matter, but he realized—thanks to Mahmoud’s tutelage—that the forms were still important to people. It set him apart, and there were still those in Jahfar who very much appreciated the traditions of their ancient nation.

“Would you like coffee, Your Excellency?” a young man asked.

“Yes, thank you,” Adan replied. “Bring it to my office.”

He went into the large space and sat down behind the big wooden desk. His computer fired up instantly, and he checked email. Then he brought up a window and typed in a search phrase: selective amnesia.

The coffee arrived, and Adan drank it while he read about dissociative amnesia, systematized amnesia and a host of other disorders. It was possible, though rare, for someone to forget a specific person and all the events surrounding that person. Did Isabella know it, too? Had she looked it up and decided to use it as an excuse?

And yet that would have required that she had known he was coming. Adan frowned. Whatever the case, he would have her examined by a doctor when they arrived.

He picked up the phone and called his assistant in Jahfar. Adan ordered the man to request that Hassan Maro come to the palace the next day, and then asked him to find a specialist in psychological issues.

An email from Jasmine popped into his inbox as he was finishing the call. He opened it and read her chatty missive about the fitting for her bridal costume and the preparations for their wedding feast.

A shaft of guilt speared him. He hadn’t told her where he was going when he’d left.

He’d known Jasmine since they were children. There’d never been a spark between them, but they liked each other. And she was kind, gentle and would make a good mother to Rafiq, as well as to their future children.

Jasmine was a safe choice. The right choice.

Adan worked a while longer, eating breakfast at his desk, and then emerged to find Isabella sitting in the same seat as last night, her bare legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles as she studied the papers in her fists. The papers from last night, he realized.

She looked up as he approached. There was no smile to greet him, as there once had been. She still seemed nothing like the girl he’d married. That woman had been meek, biddable and sweetly innocent. It hit him suddenly that she’d been as forgettable as a table or a chair, or any other item you counted on but didn’t notice on a daily basis.

This woman was sensual, mysterious and anything but biddable. There was a fire in her. A fire he’d never observed before. And he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Her face without all the makeup was as pure as an angel’s. Her hair was as wild as yesterday, dark gold with lighter streaks that didn’t come from a salon. He’d only ever seen her with long, straight locks that she usually wore in a loose chignon. This was a completely bohemian, surfer-girl style that he wasn’t accustomed to.

She was wearing a dress today, a blue cotton sundress that showed too much skin for his liking, and a pair of sandals.

“You slept well?” he asked.

Her green eyes were still smoky, though not as smoky as yesterday when they’d been surrounded in dark makeup. She looked troubled, not rested.

“As well as can be expected, I guess.”

He understood the sentiment.

“We will arrive in Jahfar in another three hours or so,” he said.

She set the papers aside. “And what happens then, Adan?”

“Many things, I imagine,” he replied, purposely keeping it vague.

“When can I see … Rafiq?”

He noticed that she swallowed before she said his son’s name. His son, not hers. Not anymore. She’d given up that right two years ago. And he would not subject Rafiq to any confusion, not when he was about to marry Jasmine.

“You cannot, I’m afraid. It is out of the question.”