Desert Prince, Defiant Virgin

‘There is no shortage of people to bring the princess what she needs.’

Molly gave a rueful grimace and felt foolish. ‘Of course there is. I just can’t get used to that.’

‘To what?’

‘The fact that there are people to tie her shoelaces if she wants.’ And Beatrice seemed so normal.

‘I forget that you knew Beatrice before she was married. Have you been friends long?’

Molly, never comfortable with the lie, shrugged and mumbled, ‘It feels like for ever.’ Which was true; her rapport with Beatrice had been instant. She doubted she could have felt closer if Bea had been one of her own sisters.

When they reached the courtyard a four-wheel drive was waiting there for them. Tair spoke to the man behind the wheel, who got out and, with a courteous nod in her direction, retreated.

‘I prefer to drive myself.’

Molly dragged her eyes from the vehicle to the man she was going to share it with and felt her stomach muscles tighten nervously. Suddenly this didn’t seem like such a brilliant idea.

‘Should I change?’ she asked, lifting a hand to her head. ‘I should probably tidy up and get something to cover my hair. Look, you don’t have to wait for me—you go. I’ll make my own way to the hospital.’

‘You look fine as you are.’

Tair slid into the driving seat but still Molly hung back. She recognised the reason for her reluctance and knew it was ridiculous, but the thought of being in an enclosed confine with this man and his sexual magnetism scared her witless.

Though wasn’t magnetism meant to work both ways? If so this must be something else because he wasn’t drawn in her direction, reluctantly or any other way!

He glanced across at her, with one dark brow elevated, looking more like a dark fallen angel than ever. ‘Are you coming?’

‘I was just…’ She stopped, her eyes sliding from his as she realised she could hardly tell him his aggressive masculinity made her feel raw and uncomfortably vulnerable.

A spasm of irritation crossed his dark features as she continued to hesitate. ‘Do you want this lift or not?’

Molly told herself to calm down. This was just a lift; she wasn’t signing away her life. All she had to do for Tariq and Bea was to survive for twenty minutes in this man’s company.

‘Well, if it’s no bother.’

CHAPTER FOUR

MOLLY had assumed that Tair was taking a short cut to the airport when he turned off onto a dirt track, but after they had been travelling for forty minutes it occurred to her that short cuts were meant to be…well…shorter.

Were they lost?

They hit another bump in the road and Molly let out an involuntary little cry as she was jolted.

He flicked her a brief sideways glance. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Fine.’

Tair turned his attention back to the road and she slid a covert look at his patrician profile. He didn’t look like someone who didn’t have a clue where he was. He looked like someone who always knew exactly where he was going. On the other hand, she supposed, men were notoriously reluctant to admit when they were lost.

Her lips curved into a secret smile as she looked at him and thought how he was definitely all man. The gusty sigh that lifted her chest caused his eyes to find her face once more.

‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

‘I bit my tongue, that’s all.’

Feeling the guilty heat rise to her cheeks, she fixed her gaze on her hands clasped primly in her lap. Adjusting her regard onto the arid scenery they were driving through, she thought how there wasn’t a single landmark in the miles and miles of featureless desert. It had to be very easy to miss a turning out here. It wasn’t as if there were signposts or, for that matter, anything else.

She averted her gaze from the bleak landscape with a shudder, unable to see the beauty in this empty land that Beatrice spoke of. Presumably her mother had seen no appeal in it either.

‘I suppose satellite navigation must be essential out here,’ she remarked casually. The vehicle they were in was equipped with it, but Tair had not switched it on.

His broad shoulders lifted in a shrug. ‘Useful, I suppose, if you are not accustomed to negotiating the desert terrain.’

‘Which you are?’

‘Which I am,’ he agreed. ‘It is in my blood.’

Molly could have listed the constituents of blood and to her knowledge the items would not include a sense of direction. She kept a discreet silence on the subject but possibly her scepticism showed because he volunteered further information to back up his claim.

‘My mother came from a Bedouin tribe, and my grandfather is the sheikh of his tribe.’

Her eyes widened. As she glanced at him it was impossible not to see him as a romantic figure in flowing desert robes. ‘People still live that way?’

‘The tribal way of life is dying out,’ he admitted.

It was hard to tell from his expression if he considered this a bad thing or not.

‘But there are some like my grandfather who keep tradition alive.’

‘Your grandfather is alive?’

He flashed her a grin and for a brief moment looked less austere and stern. ‘My grandfather is very much alive, but Mother died when I was a child.’

‘Mine too.’ Which was about the only thing they could possibly have in common.

‘You have no family?’

Her eyes dropped as she shook her head. ‘Dad is alive and I have two stepsisters, and two half-brothers.’

His brows lifted. ‘A large family.’

Families were a place Molly did not want to go! She was beginning to wish she had stuck to a safer subject like the weather.

‘Big queues for the bathroom,’ she said, trying to close down the subject, though she couldn’t help but wonder what his reaction would be if she said, Actually I’m Tariq and Khalid’s half-sister—my mother divorced the king.

His blue eyes looked over at her face. ‘But you could not have been lonely growing up.’

Did that mean he had been? Did lonely little boys turn into men as self-reliant as this one? Despite the extreme unlikelihood of this, an image of a dark-haired little boy with lonely blue eyes flashed into her head. The sort of little boy you’d want to pull into your arms.