Sheikh Seduction
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She didn’t want to sit around in a desert full of murderers any longer than was absolutely necessary. The people they’d buried were an effective reminder just how dangerous the place was.
“We buried only seven,” she realized belatedly. “There were ten of us. Who’s missing?” She’d tried as much as she could not to look at the bodies as they’d buried the men.
“They took Husam. Perhaps he was injured at the end and could no longer fight. I didn’t see him.”
“And they tried to take me. Why?”
“Husam’s father is a wealthy man. They might have recognized the son. Could be they wanted you for themselves, or to sell at Yanadar or to ransom you to your foreign family.” Tariq’s face was getting darker and darker as he spoke.
Her chest tightened at the prospects he was enumerating. Yanadar? Did that have something to do with the sex trade he’d mentioned? She rubbed her arm where she’d been grabbed, and found her skin still tender. “But then why didn’t they take me? At the end?” She fingered the bump on the back of her head. She certainly couldn’t have defended herself.
“They thought you were dead.” He paused a beat. “Sorry about that.”
For a moment she didn’t understand. Then the hard object that had hit her made sense all of a sudden. He’d been the only person near enough to hurt her. He’d still had his gun back then. “You hit me?”
“I couldn’t be sure if you could pull off playing dead. I had no bullets left. They were closing in.”
He’d knocked her out, then draped his bleeding body over her and pretended the bandits had shot both of them. There’d certainly been enough blood to be convincing.
“I still don’t see what they would want with me. If they were going for ransom, why not grab Jeff, too? The sex slave thing…” She shook her head. “Seems too far-fetched, frankly.”
“Don’t count on it.” He dug into his pocket, then held her rings out on his open palm. He could afford to take his attention off the road now. They were going over flat terrain, and it wasn’t as if he would cross the center line and veer into oncoming traffic.
“Thanks…for saving these,” she said, although her jewelry was pretty low on her list of priorities at the moment. She noticed suddenly that his watch was already on his wrist. He must be attached to it, she decided.
“If they saw anything valuable on either of us, they would have taken it. And if they had to grab us and move us around, they might have realized we weren’t dead. Or they would have…” He fell silent and looked back at the so-called road.
Would have what? She was about to ask when she thought of the driver with his finger missing. She nodded, grateful that Tariq had had the presence of mind to think of everything.
“Husam was at your meeting this morning?” he asked. “The more I think about it, the less I believe this could have been a random attack. They might have known he was coming, and lain in wait for him.”
“What about the two men in the other car?”
He thought for a second. “Minor managers. And nobody tried to take them. They were shot in cold blood.”
“An assassination? Maybe they were the true target.”
“But then why take Husam? I think that’s the real clue,” Tariq said.
She tended to agree with him. “When the others went up to the helipad, he stayed behind to make a call. He sounded…I don’t know. I didn’t understand anything he was saying. But he sounded angry and stressed. Maybe he told whoever he was talking to that he was headed for the desert. Maybe he was betrayed?” She didn’t much care for Husam, but she hated to think of anyone in the hands of ruthless bandits. God knew what they would do to him.
“Possible,” Tariq said, tight-lipped. “Did he know at that time that you’d be taking the cars instead of the chopper? You were still heading for the roof when we met.”
“I was told as soon as I got up there that the helicopter needed repairs. Someone could have called him already. Maybe that’s why he never went up.”
“Was there anything strange about your leaving? Do you remember him talking to anyone else in the hallway? Have you noticed anyone watching him?”
“No, but at the meeting…” She hesitated, not wanting to sound like a complete idiot.
“At the meeting?” Tariq’s gaze was sharp as he studied her face.
“He was looking at me. A lot.”
His expression softened, a corner of his mouth turning up. “For that, you must forgive us.”
Meaning what? That he thought Husam liked the way she looked, and maybe he shared that feeling? Husam’s interest left her cold, but the possibility that Tariq would be attracted to her sent heat skittering through her. There had to be another explanation to his words. She wasn’t about to ask.
She remembered another detail. “We were supposed to visit the well this morning. When we were delayed, Husam recommended that we not go until tomorrow. Jeff wouldn’t hear of it. Maybe Husam had a premonition.”
Tariq tapped his long fingers on the steering wheel as he considered that. “Why was Husam with you, but none of the others you met with?”
“The site supervisor was expecting us. We were supposed to take the chopper without escort. Husam decided only midmeeting that he would come along.”
They drove in silence for a while, until Tariq leaned forward and narrowed his eyes, gesturing toward the horizon. “The oasis. We are almost there.”
She stared ahead through the steam that rose from under the hood. Then stared harder still as the scene unfolded before them. Instead of the tourist picture her mind had conjured, straight ahead was an abandoned construction site in the middle of nowhere, a ghost town of steel and cement.
Tariq slowed and looked toward the west for a long moment, making her nervous. Did he see something? She searched the distance, looking for any dark spots that might be approaching trucks.
“What? What do you see?” Dread and fear were choking her. Don’t let it be bandits! Anything but that.
But when he spoke, the news he shared with her was even more frightening, his voice as grim as his expression.
“We better hurry. There’s a sandstorm coming,” he said as he stepped on the gas.
Chapter Three
He wasn’t the sort of man who dealt well with failure. Seeing the abandoned construction site that had been his pet project set Tariq’s teeth on edge. Yet it was nothing but a minor annoyance compared to the rage that he felt over the attack, over his men being killed, over Sara Reeves being put in danger. He was mad at himself, too, for not anticipating it, for being unable to do more.
The Hummer was barely rolling. At this stage, they would have moved faster on foot, but he didn’t want to abandon the vehicle in plain sight.
“This is the oasis?” Sara stared at him with incredulity in her expressive blue eyes that said she found the place hideous.
She, on the other hand, was beautiful, even covered with sand and blood. And what kind of man was he to notice things like that after what had just happened to his men?
“It will be,” he stated. He didn’t need one more person to question or make fun of his enterprise, whether she had the most beguiling eyes he’d ever seen or not. “Who was Jeff Myers to you?”
More than a business partner; on that Tariq would stake his life. He’d seen the way the man had looked at Sara when he thought nobody was watching.
She glanced away. “An old friend.”
He waited.
“We were supposed to get married. B. T. Reeves was my father’s company. Jeff brought needed capital and got half the firm for it. I inherited the other half after cancer took Dad.” She pressed her lips together as if she’d said too much. “Everything was supposed to work out perfectly with the two of us getting married.” She seemed compelled to explain, anyway.
“Except the wedding never happened.” Tariq wanted to know why, realized this wasn’t the time to ask.
“Where is the water?” She seemed eager to move off the subject.
There’d been plenty of tension between her and her partner; Tariq had read that clearly in the car before the attack. Judging from the man’s quiet resentment and sullen attempts to dominate her, she must have been the one who’d broken off the relationship. Jeff Meyers had wanted to regain control, probably to get her back. Tariq couldn’t blame him.
He thought of the tender way she had buried the man she no longer loved, no longer even liked, if their earlier interaction was any indication. But she had worried that his body should be found for his family. She was loyal to the end.
And right now, she was gazing at Tariq expectantly.
Yes, the water. “Under the sand.”
He pulled the Hummer inside one of the buildings, which had walls standing but no doors or windows yet. They hadn’t gotten that far with the project.
She jumped out. “There aren’t any palm trees.”
Her innocent remark pricked him more sharply than it should have.
He wasn’t daft; nobody needed to explain to him what an oasis should look like. Tariq tempered his irritation. He was getting too sensitive about this venture and all the questions that still swirled around it in the media—damaging publicity financed by his enemies.
“Can’t put in landscaping until all the heavy machinery is out of here.” He saw the place as it would be when the work was completed, this room a banquet hall fit for the most discriminating guests. He shook off the sense of frustration as he strode out the back of the building.
“It’s not what I expected.” She trailed after him.
He’d spent his life escaping other people’s expectations. He wasn’t about to start worrying about hers, regardless of whatever unreasonable attraction he felt for her. “The oasis will be a resort with a capital O.”
“Ah,” she said, but appeared uncertain still, her face softening, giving him a glimpse of what she was like with her defenses down. Of course, every expression was appealing on Sara Reeves.
“There was a real oasis here, but the well dried up about fifty years ago.” He searched for the best place to weather the storm, noticing as he did so that the satellite dish was missing. Probably knocked down by the unusually savage storm they’d had a week ago. “When we were looking for a site for a new project and had some surveys done, we found plenty of water. The water table is now deep below the bottom of the well our ancestors dug in the sand.” The desert had gotten drier and drier over the last century.
“So you’re from around here?” She gave him a searching look. “You talk like an American.”
“I lived in the States for a while.” Sometimes he thought it’d been too long, sometimes too short. He watched as her gaze flitted over his buildings. She didn’t seem impressed. It annoyed him more than it should.
“MMPOIL is branching out?” she asked.
“The oil won’t last forever.”
Now was the time to set up other businesses, to start to develop other industries. His people’s future depended on these initiatives, and he took them seriously, even though he’d received plenty of ridicule as a result. His generation had grown up oil rich. They’d seen nothing else, could imagine nothing else. They couldn’t fathom that the revenue and the lifestyle it brought would ever end. And if any such unpleasant thought did cross their minds, they took care of it with a shrug and an insha’ Allah—it’ll be according to Allah’s will.
“This place is huge.” She looked back at him finally. She had eyes the shade of the desert sky right after a rare rain took all the sand particles out of the air. A captivating blue that brightened further the few times she let her guard down, never longer than seconds at a time.
The top of her head was even with his nose. She was slim but strong, inside and out. She might bend, but she wouldn’t break. She had nearly maimed the bandit who’d grabbed her.
Tariq forced his gaze away from her lips, which might look soft if she ever relaxed. “Twenty acres. Someday it’ll be a five-star resort that will draw visitors from all over the world.”
He also had a convention center complex in mind for another location, closer to Tihrin, and a long list of other projects he fought with his enemies to bring to fruition. All things that were suddenly low on his list of priorities.
He headed toward the cluster of luxury villas, the most completed buildings. No doors or windows here, either, but the floors were tiled and the roofs finished, the sunken pools in the bathrooms set up with plumbing, if not yet hooked up to water.
“Wow, this is amazing,” Sara said, with a fair dose of surprise in her voice as she took in the brilliant colors of the mosaic tiles depicting scenes from nature, similar to those at the ancient ruins to the west of them.
“We’ll get water and look for the satellite dish.” The latter had to be near the tall building it’d rested on, probably buried in sand. They had used it during construction to amplify cell phone signals, since the nearest tower was so far away. Tariq needed to talk to his brothers, and let Omar, Husam’s father, know about his son’s abduction, although the kidnappers might have contacted him by now.
Tariq sympathized with the anguish the man must be in, and to a degree, he blamed himself. He should have noticed when the bandits took Husam, and done something to prevent it. He owed as much to Omar, an old family friend who had been there for Tariq’s father until the end. But Tariq had been so focused on Sara, and sure that Husam could hold his own…. No time to dwell on all that now. Before he could be of any help to Husam, he first had to save Sara and himself.
Water. Satellite dish. Car.
If for some reason he couldn’t get a connection, he would fix the Hummer with whatever scraps he could scrounge, and take Sara to the nearest town as soon as the storm blew over.
“You work with the sheik, you must have his direct line,” she was saying. “Even if you think someone from your company might be involved, we could tell him to send only his most trusted men.”
She’d be surprised to know just how few trusted men the sheik had. “Stay here,” Tariq murmured.
The building provided shade, the windows strategically placed so that even without air-conditioning the cross breeze would bring relief to the occupants. He moved through the villa, squinting against the sun when he stepped outside and headed for the trailers the workers had used before they left. Padlocked. He strode back to the Hummer for the tire iron and used it to bust the lock on one door.
The four cots inside made for cramped quarters, and the air was stale, still carrying the smell of sweat that clung to the bedding. He dug through a tin chest at the foot of one bed and took the single clean blanket. His next stop was the canteen. There, he got a twenty-liter pot, used the tire iron to break the Plexiglas in the vending machine, and filled the container nearly to the brim with small packages of snacks, before returning to the villa.
“Hungry?”
She was sitting on the floor with her back against the wall, eyeing the food he carried.
He tossed the blanket onto the floor and spread it out with her help, then poured his loot in the middle. “I’ll go get water.” And he’d keep an eye out for that satellite dish. On the off chance he had been the main target of the attack, he wanted to warn his brothers. If someone was after control of MMPOIL, they would be next.
“What can I do to help?” She stood gracefully, although she had to be exhausted both physically and emotionally. She walked to the door with him.
“See if there’s anything left in the car we might need while we’re here.” He hurried toward the main water pipe, keeping her in his line of sight as she made her way back to the Hummer.
She disappeared inside the building only briefly, soon coming back into view with what looked like an armload of garbage.
When the pot was filled, Tariq started to return, but something caught his eye near an outlying building.
“I’ll go look around,” he called out, waiting until she reached the villa before he did so. His gaze settled on the shapeless business suit she wore—probably in deference to the customs of his country. Idly, he wondered how she dressed at home, in her own element. His mind readily skipped to form-fitting, skin-revealing outfits he’d seen plenty of during his time in California.
He thought of those years with nostalgia. Nothing would ever be that simple for him again. He had grown an impenetrable shell in the four years since he’d been back in Beharrain, an armor needed to protect him from his enemies, from the pain of betrayals. Only lately had he been realizing that while it served its purpose of staving off attacks, his shield was also beginning to imprison him.
He set the water down and strode toward the distant lines in the sand. Sara Reeves had asked him to send for his most trusted men. Truth was, he did not, could not, trust anyone except Omar—the man who had been a mentor to him since his return—and his brothers. He would ask his brothers for help. He wanted to get Sara away from danger, wanted to be back in the city himself, back in his own element. Once the sandstorm passed, tracking the bandits would be impossible, all signs of them erased. He would have to use other avenues to investigate.
Omar and all his manpower and wealth were probably working on finding Husam already.
The tire tracks came from the west and disappeared into a partially completed building that would be a hotel someday, fashioned after a famous medieval palace that had stood along one of the caravan routes many hundreds of years ago. Tariq preferred modern architecture like his company headquarters, but the resort had been designed to please tourists and fulfill their expectations.
Clenching his teeth, he kept his eyes fixed on the ground. It looked as if a number of trucks had passed in and out during the last couple of days. Any earlier and winds would have swept away the tracks by now. This was the season for sandstorms.
Tariq entered the building carefully. Only the first two floors were standing, nothing but the load-bearing walls. He checked around, but didn’t find anything beyond some trash and cigarette butts. A gust of wind rose and pushed against him as he came out and strode across the sand.
“I got all the empty bottles,” Sara said as he walked in with the pot of water. “We can fill them up for the road.”
He nodded. In the desert, water was always the first thought—and the last.
“And I got everything that would burn,” she added. “In case we need to start a fire. I found a lighter.”
He listened to the desert for a few seconds, not liking what he heard. The winds heading for them were strong. “We’ll probably stay the night.” There was plenty of scrap wood around the construction site, and what she’d gathered would make perfect kindling.
She deposited her load in a corner, then gestured toward the door. “So what happened here? Why was this place abandoned?” She brought the bottles to him.
“Put on hold,” he corrected. He wasn’t the type to give up on something he’d started. Although some said his years of living abroad had washed the Bedu blood from his veins, apparently, enough remained. He would not give up the fight. “Permits were recalled.”
Suddenly, and without any explanation, about three months ago. Just like everything else he’d tried to do, this project had met an impenetrable wall. He had a hard time getting new businesses off the ground. And even MMPOIL, which tens of thousands of his people depended on for survival, was regularly sabotaged. Tariq had managed to keep the company together only with sheer will and unending vigilance.
He didn’t want to think that Omar had been right when he’d opposed the new projects. Tariq had put it down to the old man’s age. But perhaps Omar knew the country better and was more realistic.
A pang of guilt pricked Tariq at how much he owed Omar. And now he had let his mentor down by losing his eldest son.
“Did you have a bad builder? You’d think people who worked for a sheik would pay attention. Why were the permits revoked?” Sara tilted her head, exposing her graceful, slim neck, an expanse of creamy skin.
“Politics. Who knows?”
Her blue eyes hardened. She probably knew something about corporate maneuvering.
Tariq could go back at any time to the life and the company he had left behind in Sacramento. He’d been a valued executive there. Their doors would always be open to him, they had said. Staying there would have been easier. Certainly safer. But his fate, his destiny awaited in the desert he barely knew, and with the people who treated him as a foreigner. People whom, nevertheless, he loved. He cared little about the danger to his life, only to the degree that it would affect those who worked for him, and depended on him for their own safety.
His men had been killed today, Husam taken. The bandits had meant to take Sara, too. That had to be a coincidence. They’d seen her and wanted her; what man wouldn’t? He couldn’t fathom her being in any way connected to them. But he couldn’t let any option go unexamined.
“Is this your first trip to the Middle East?” He watched her closely as he unscrewed the caps.
“And likely the last,” she said. “No offense.”
He could detect no telltale sign of deceit in her gestures or her voice. She had clear, honest eyes. If someone wanted her kidnapped, it would have been so much easier to do from her hotel, at night when she was alone, rather than when she was with a convoy that included armed guards. And who would have known about them going by car instead of taking the chopper, anyhow?
He thought of something else. When he did make his call, he was definitely going to ask for the helicopter to be looked at for signs of tampering. Until he knew more about that, he would focus on their only clue so far: Husam.
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