Indira Jackson - Rayan - Son of the Desert

Thanks to my husband who succeeded in convincing me to publish the book. Also I would like to thank Hannah, Tina and Geoff who did a great job helping me with the English translation.

Indira Jackson

Rayan strolled along the aisle of the plane. He was bored. It was already the fourth time that he had gone back and forth – fortunately he had already survived two-thirds of the flight time. He just hated regular flights!

His jet suffered some technical defect in Munich, which would have taken too long to repair for him to wait and so he booked a first-class-flight at short notice. The eight first class seats of Lufthansa’s A330-300 gave you the uppermost amount of luxury, which one could find on a regular flight, yet it was a totally different world to fly with your own private jet.

One could almost get the same amount of relaxation out of the comfortable reclining seats of the Airbus as within his Learjet. However, the presence of that many people in the narrow space of the cabin was enough to test his patience.

This feeling was intensified when thinking about the 48 Business-Class travellers. Whereas for the 161 passengers that had to "struggle along“ and squeeze themselves in the regular class, he almost felt sorry for them.

He had just reached the end of the aisle of the plane again, when the captain asked everybody aboard to fasten their seatbelts. Turbulence!

Rayan was on the way to get back to his own seat at the very front when a petite blonde, deeply engrossed in reading a magazine, caught his attention.

It seemed to be just one of the typical tabloids, but that was not what fascinated him - it was more the content of the article that was striking: it was a report about him - another one. He had stopped caring about these reports a long time ago and the majority of newspapers were very much aware that his lawyer had the means to silence them. For most of them the subsequent legal wranglings that would arise were not worth it and, therefore, the interest of the media in him had dropped significantly. Only from time to time a smaller article would appear about him. When checking out more details, Rayan realised that the lady had made specific efforts to collect all different kinds of information from the press about him.

As the seat beside her was empty, he just could not resist the challenge – he smiled mischievously to himself. This was going to be fun and on top of this, it would help him to kill some of the remaining flight time!

"Excuse me, would you mind if I take this seat next to you for a couple of minutes? You know, the turbulence …,“ he asked in perfect German with only a slight accent, thanks to his German grandmother.

The young woman was too distracted sorting out information from the different articles, to react immediately, so he had to repeat the question. Only then did she look at him, a little confused.

“Sure. Go ahead. No problem“, she said with slight hesitation. You could read on her face that in spite of her polite words it actually was a problem, as she did not want to be interrupted. Nevertheless that did not bother Rayan at all – he realized in that moment that she had beautiful green-blue eyes, which reminded him of the colour of the forests of Germany.

Therefore he sat down and fastened the seatbelt like they had been asked to do.

"You seem to be a real fan“, he stated sneakily, pointing at her paperwork, and added: “Who is the guy? A movie star?“

Again the reply was this intense gaze that clearly told him to mind his own business. Then she looked him in the eye for a couple of seconds and Rayan was afraid she might have recognized him. However, what he saw instead was that she was attracted to him. He smiled at her and watched her icy persona melt away.

“No. You know … I am an author and I am writing a book.“ Obviously she wanted to impress him and not to be mistaken as some kind of “groupie“.

"Well isn’t that interesting?“, he said with a double meaning that only he himself could understand and added in his mind "unbelievable - now they even write books about me …“

"And who has this guy murdered to earn this kind of attention?“, he asked again provocatively.

“No one!”, she answered, sounding offended. “He is just a fascinating personality: rich - with big influence within Europe and he is also well connected to America.“

Again Rayan could suppress only with effort a smirk and thought "if only you knew… “.

He started to really enjoy this game and decided to exaggerate a little more: "Ah yes. Now I know who you are talking about. It is the guy that has invented the computer – what was his name again, Bill Gates?“

The answer was again the critical gaze from those wonderful green eyes and for a moment he was afraid he had taken the game too far.

"No, he is Arab – a real Sheikh!“, she took the effort to answer.

"I see! Oil and such? Well, no wonder he is rich“, he replied harmlessly.

Now her voice had a conspirative tone: "No. No oil! That is the curious thing: no one knows exactly where he gets his money from and, as far as I know, no one up to now has asked this question openly …“

“And that would be just what I need”, Rayan thought ironically to himself.

The following one-and-a-half hours literally flew by. He asked her questions and she shared with much enthusiasm her knowledge about “the Sheikh”.

Rayan was intrigued with how much energy she talked about "her project“ and "her book“.

He noted how she looked attractive when her emotions got the better of her. Some strands of blond hair had become loose from her ponytail and hung a little wildly around her face, which only deepened her natural charisma. She had used just a tiny bit of makeup to underline her natural beauty, so therefore he could see that her cheeks had turned red. While she described to him her ideas, using quite a lot of gestures, her green eyes flashed. He regretted mildly that unfortunately in the end she would end up in a dead-end street. Because a book about him? Absolutely ridiculous – No way!

It was his friend and bodyguard Ibrahim, with a meaningful look at his watch from afar at the front of the cabin, who reminded him that not much time was left until touchdown and that he still had to change his clothes before getting off the plane …

Consequently, he politely excused himself, thanked her for the nice conversation and said as he was leaving: "I get around a lot in the world. Who knows? Maybe I will meet your Sheikh. Then I will give him your greetings Miss …?“ "Carina, Carina Hartmann“, she said with that beautiful smile of hers.

A moment later Rayan passed by Ibrahim and went through the curtain that separated the first class from the rest of the plane.

The look from those mesmerizing dark-blue eyes had gotten under Carina’s skin so much that she realised only too late, that he had never introduced himself.

"Dear passengers, we have to ask you for your patience for a moment until a special guest has left the aircraft. Please excuse the inconvenience that this may cause you. “

Carina could hardly believe her eyes: from where she was seated she had a good view of the front exit and this special person turned out to be her new, mysterious acquaintance from first class. However, he was no longer dressed in his chic polo-neck and jacket, instead he had changed into a typical traditional Arab robe; this dark blue garment suited him incredibly! But why had he changed?

Two additional men were with him: one of them was the dark-looking guy that had stood guard at the entrance to first class. It became clear now to her that he was not his acquaintance, but rather a body-guard.