Royal Affairs: Desert Princes & Defiant Virgins: The Sheikh's Virgin Princess / The Sheikh and the Virgin Secretary / Desert Prince, Defiant Virgin

Spider? Scorpion?

His senses on alert, Karim prowled silently over to the large bed and stared down at the princess who was now sprawled on her back, one arm flung upwards, her cheeks flushed.

Evidently she was still asleep, which meant that her distress was caused by nothing more than a bad dream. So perhaps her conscience was pricking her, after all.

Slowly he returned the knife to his belt, his attention held by the expanse of creamy bare shoulder revealed by crumpled bed-sheet. Forcing his gaze upwards, he noticed the faint sheen of sweat on her brow, and then she cried out again and this time he saw the trickle of tears on her cheeks.

Shocked by the sight of those tears, Karim froze.

Completely out of his comfort zone, he then took an involuntary step backwards, retreating from such a visible display of emotion as he would a wild beast.

In fact, he would have been far more comfortable rescuing her from the jaws of a lethal predator. He hated tears. In early childhood he’d been given endless opportunity to observe the many uses of female tears, but even he had never before witnessed a woman cry in her sleep.

Reluctantly, he was forced to acknowledge that these were real emotions, not those constructed specifically to extract something from a man, and he stood frozen with indecision as those silent tears ripped holes through his iron-clad defences in a way that no physical weapon would have done. Suddenly he felt raw and exposed as long-forgotten images settled over his brain like a toxic cloud.

His natural aversion to emotional scenes stifled his ability to think clearly, and he stood paralyzed. What was he supposed to do? He knew nothing about dealing with a woman whose tears were genuine.

And then he realised that he didn’t have to do anything.

She was asleep, wasn’t she?

No action was required on his part.

Relieved to have reached that conclusion, Karim was about to return to his bed when she gave another cry, and this time the sound was so tortured that he sat down next to her.

What was he doing?

What did he know about comforting anyone? It was far more usual for him to be the cause of female tears.

Deciding that by far the simplest and safest solution would be to wake her up so that she could solve the problem herself, he reached out a hand and gave her shoulder a firm shake.

She awoke instantly with a horrified gasp, her eyes wide and terrified.

‘Go away!’ She sat bolt upright, her expression stricken. ‘Don’t touch me!’ Her fist powered into his stomach with surprising force, and the breath hissed through his teeth as pain radiated across his abdomen.

‘It’s me,’ he grunted, closing his fingers over her fist before she could do any more damage, ‘Karim. You were dreaming.’

As he waited for the blankness in her eyes to fade and the pain in his muscles to settle, he reflected on the fact that the princess hadn’t been exaggerating her claim that she could manage perfectly well without a bodyguard. No one could have described her as defenceless.

So how could a woman who could deliver a punch like that appear vulnerable?

Her breathing was rapid and she gave a little shake of her head, her cheeks still wet with tears. ‘Sorry. I—I had a dream.’

‘Yes.’ Relieved that the problem appeared to be solved, Karim released her hand and started to stand up, but she grabbed his arm.

‘Wait a minute. Don’t go. Please don’t leave me.’

Her request was so unexpected that he simply stared at her. What did she expect him to do? ‘You’re awake now.’

‘It’s all still in my head. It was so clear …’ Her fingers tightened on his arm and he had little choice but to sit down again.

‘Think about something else,’ he advised swiftly, and she made a sound that was somewhere between a sob and a laugh, fully awake now.

‘Sorry. This isn’t what you signed up for, is it? Go back to bed, I’ll be fine.’ With obvious reluctance, she released her desperate grip on his arm and bent her knees up to her chest, cuddling them like a child. ‘I’m sorry if I disturbed you.’ She was shaking so badly that Karim could feel the movement on the mattress, and he gave an impatient sigh.

‘It was just a dream, Alexa.’

‘Yes.’ Her teeth were chattering and she buried her head in her arms. ‘Go back to bed.’

He should have done exactly that, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to leave her, and that impulse puzzled and exasperated him. ‘What was the dream about?’

Her head lifted and she looked at him, tears spilling out of her eyes and onto her cheeks. She made no sound, but simply blinked a few times and then brushed her tears away impatiently. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘You need to go back to sleep,’ he said roughly. ‘Whatever it was all about, the memory will have gone in the morning.’

‘Not all memories are so easily erased.’ She spoke softly, as if afraid that to raise her voice might make those memories still more vivid. ‘I thought this would be a fresh start. I thought that I could finally leave it all behind. But it comes with you, doesn’t it? It follows you everywhere, because it’s been there for so long, it’s part of who you are.’

Was she talking to herself or to him?

Was she seriously expecting some sort of response?

Karim had no idea what she was talking about, but it sounded disturbingly like the sort of touchy-feely conversation that a woman ought to have with another woman. ‘What follows you?

‘The past. It’s always there. You can never shake it off.’

Confronted with a more clearly defined problem to deal with, Karim relaxed slightly. It was obvious that she regretted the things she’d done in her past, and that was hardly surprising, given just how wild her behaviour had been. Evidently her impending marriage to the Sultan had made her wish that she’d behaved with a little more restraint in her youth, which meant that it was her conscience that was disturbing her sleep.

‘The past is the past.’ Wishing that she’d stop shaking, he kept his words blunt. ‘There is never any point in looking back. It’s over and done with.’

‘That isn’t true. Don’t you ever look back?’

‘No,’ Karim said shortly. ‘The past is over. The future is the only thing that matters. And your future requires us to leave at dawn. If you don’t get some sleep soon you’ll be too tired to travel.’

‘I don’t want to go back to sleep. Can we leave now? I’m scared, Karim.’

‘We’re not leaving. Lie down.’

For once, she didn’t argue. Like a child obeying a parent, she lay down, and Karim stared at her shivering, half-naked form with exasperation. Wasn’t she going to pull the covers up?

After a moment’s hesitation he reached out and tugged the sheet up over her shoulders, covering her body and at the same time pondering on the entirely new experience of tucking a beautiful woman into a bed that he wasn’t sleeping in. As he rose to his feet her hand shot out and her slim fingers gripped his arm again.

‘Will you stay? Just for a moment.’

Her fingers tightened on his arm and he covered them with his own. Her slender fingers were freezing cold, and he rubbed his hand over hers and then realized what he was doing and released her instantly. ‘You’ll be fine now.’

What was he doing?

What instinct had driven him to offer comfort when he was so inexperienced in that particular skill?