Innocent in the Desert: The Sheikh's Impatient Virgin / The Sheikh's Convenient Virgin / The Desert Lord's Bride

‘My grandfather thinks it’s his duty to marry me off and before you say anything I know this is the twenty-first century, but that’s the way he thinks. It’s been instilled in him since birth that a woman needs the protection of her family or a husband. I think in time he’ll see that I’m more than capable of looking after myself, but I’m his only granddaughter. There’s plenty of boys but I’m the only girl.’ So Eva was making allowances and, to give him his due, so was her grandfather.

‘In the meantime he’ll force you to marry this guy who might have halitosis or a beer gut …’

‘No beer,’ Eva said, recalling that, beer or not, several of her male uncles and cousins carried more than a few extra pounds around their middles. ‘Or for that matter, coercion.’

‘But they do expect you to marry … what’s his name?’

‘Karim Al-Nasr,’ Eva supplied, her brow puckering at the thought of her prospective spouse. He would certainly make a politically expedient husband.

King Hassan had obviously considered it a good sales pitch when he had brought babies into the conversation. Though Eva had no problem with babies—she definitely wanted some of her own one day—when they were mentioned in connection with a man she had never met, her first instinct was to run!

‘No, they won’t force me, but if I don’t, which clearly I am not going to, it will feel like I’m throwing all their kindness and warmth back in their faces.

‘I know it seems weird to you and me, Luke, but it is their way. I just thought it would be a lot easier if it was this Prince Karim who did the rejecting.’

‘And you not being some innocent virgin is going to be a deal breaker, Eva?’

Her eyes dropped. ‘They’re very traditional.’

‘Nobody’s that traditional, Eva.’

Eva smiled and thought, You’d be amazed!

‘This is, as you’ve already mentioned, the twenty-first century and you haven’t spent the last twenty-three years in some cloistered desert palace.’ His eyes made the journey from the top of her glossy head to her size-five feet and he sighed. ‘Also you are exceptionally hot.’

Eva accepted the compliment and the mock leer that went with it with a roll of her eyes and a dry, ‘And they say romance is dead.’ She didn’t like the worryingly speculative light that had appeared in Luke’s blue eyes as he removed his glasses and stared hard at her again. She could almost see the cogs turning as she added a shade uncomfortably, ‘Shall we leave my sexual credentials out of this, Luke? Will you or won’t you?’

‘Pretend to be your live-in lover?’ He carried on looking at her in a way that made Eva uneasy and loosed a laugh, adding, ‘Try and stop me.’

Eva clapped her hands in relief. ‘You’re an angel.’

‘And you’re a virgin,’ Luke announced, his grin broadening as her blush confirmed his suspicions. ‘The girl who is writing her thesis on how the sexual revolution affects twenty-first-century woman is a virgin princess!’ He rubbed his hands together gleefully. ‘I just love it!’

‘Shut up and put your razor in my bathroom.’

‘Now that is an offer no man could refuse.’

The doctor, a physician renowned in the field of childhood cancers, did not normally feel apprehensive when he dealt sound advice to parents. Especially exhausted ones like this father, who had stood beside his daughter’s bed for four days straight.

But he felt a tremor run through him as he approached the tall, imposing figure who, despite the fatigue that was etched in every line of his stern, hawkish features and the classic glassy look of total exhaustion in his disturbing penetrating platinum eyes, was standing ramrod straight, staring out of the window as the nurses made the slight figure in the bed comfortable.

Every so often he would turn and look at the figure, the pain in his eyes when he thought no one was observing belying the stern composure of his expression.

‘Prince Karim?’

The tall man turned his head. ‘There is news?’

The doctor, struggling to maintain eye contact, shook his head. This was not a man who looked as if he would be receptive to advice, and, though he gave the impression of someone who had iron control over his emotions, under the surface there was an almost combustible quality. This disturbing characteristic had become more conspicuous the longer he had gone without rest. ‘As I said, Prince, we will not know the results until tomorrow.’

‘But if the levels are within the safety parameters you will continue?’

The doctor nodded. ‘We will, but you do realise that even if we are able to continue with the treatment, there are no guarantees … This treatment is still unproven.’

The man’s cautious manner was beginning to irritate Karim. What was the point of caution at a time like this? A time when doing nothing would mean Amira died.

His thoughts veered sharply away from the possibility—the doctors warned probability—he utterly rejected. The muscle that ticked like a time bomb in his lean jaw was half hidden by the day’s growth of stubble that shadowed his lower face as he clenched his fists at his sides and thought, It will not happen.

Ignoring the painful white light that exploded behind his eyes when he turned his head sharply and suppressing the primal urge to hit out, he responded with careful stilted courtesy to the medic.

‘I am aware of the statistics, Doctor.’ His glance slid to the heavily sedated figure in the bed, a person who had nothing to do with cold number-crunching, and he felt rage at the sheer helplessness of the situation. A man who normally had no problem facing the reality of a situation, he was breaking all his own rules.

It was his job to care for his child, to make her safe; relinquishing that role to others went against every instinct he had.

‘Prince, I really think you should rest.’

‘I’m fine.’

Despite his instant impatient dismissal of the suggestion, at one level Karim was aware that his vigil was beginning to have both physical and mental consequences.

His reflexes were slow, his thought processes … well, they were worse than slow. He struggled to concentrate on the simplest of tasks, and when he had signed the papers that Tariq had without explanation held out for his signature—Tariq had been a tower of silent, stolid strength—the tremor in his hand had rendered his signature virtually illegible.

‘Your daughter does not know you are here. She is heavily sedated.’

Karim’s lips compressed. He knew he would be of little use to his daughter if he could not function. ‘I will be here when she wakes.’

‘Of course, but in the meantime you could get a few hours’ rest. We have rooms here …’

There was a pause before Karim reluctantly nodded his head.

The doctor, who had been standing there with his fingers crossed, let out a sigh of relief. ‘Fine, I will arrange for—’

‘Just give Tariq the details,’ Karim said, already losing interest in the conversation as he walked back to his daughter’s bedside.

The doctor, who found the man in question—an individual of indeterminate age who wore full traditional dress and possessed a face that looked as though it had been carved from granite—only slightly more approachable than his royal master, gave a weak smile of assent.

‘The room is adequate,’ Tariq said, managing despite his colourless tone to suggest that it was anything but. He inclined his head respectfully and held the door. ‘I will wake you in four hours.’

‘Two hours.’

‘As you wish,’ the man who was officially designated his aide, but was in reality a great deal more, agreed, managing despite his respectful tone to convey extreme disapproval. ‘I will position the guards at the end of the corridor. I have left a cup of tea by your bedside—it might help you sleep.’

‘Fine,’ Karim said, following the direction of Tariq’s nod with his eyes but very little interest.

He was sure that had the guards decided to tap dance outside his room it wouldn’t prevent him sleeping.

It turned out he was wrong. Far from sliding into blissful unconsciousness the moment he lay down, his brain went into overdrive.

For half an hour he lay there staring at the ceiling, tasting the bitter aftertaste left by the herbal tea he had obediently swallowed even though he hated the stuff, a fact Tariq was aware of—it was an uncharacteristic oversight on his part. He was conscious of an intense overwhelming weariness in every cell of his body, but his brain just wouldn’t turn off.