Jane Porter - The Desert Sheikh's Innocent Queen - King of the Desert, Captive Bride

“I doubt I’ve caught anything and if I have, I’ll deal with it at home.” With my doctor, she silently, furiously added.

Sheikh Fehr might have rescued her from Ozr, but she couldn’t completely trust him. She didn’t trust anyone here anymore. These countries and cultures were far too different from hers.

Her longing for home had become an endless ache inside her. She missed her mom and brother. She wanted her mother’s delicious Sunday pot roast, and her melt-in-your-mouth mashed potatoes and the best brown gravy in the world.

She wanted Pierceville with its sleepy Main Street and big oak trees and the old Fox theater where they still showed movies. She missed Main Street’s angled parking and the drugstore on the corner and the two bakeries with their cake displays in the window.

“You won’t be given permission to leave the country if you’re not cleared for travel.” He spoke slowly to make sure he was heard. “And if you’re not cleared for travel, you don’t go home.”

Home.

That word she understood, that word cut through her fog of misery.

Turning away to hide the shimmer of tears, Liv stared out the car window, the stream of traffic outside a blur.

“Whose rule is that?” she asked thickly. “Yours, or the government’s?”

“Both.”

Biting her lip, it crossed her mind that maybe, just maybe, she’d jumped from the frying pan into the fire.

Khalid Fehr watched Olivia turn her face away from him. She was upset but that was her choice. He had to be careful. He took tremendous risks in helping people. At the end of the day, once someone was safe and en route to their home, he wanted to go home himself, back to his beloved desert.

The desert was where he belonged.

The desert was where he found peace.

“The doctor’s a personal friend,” he said quietly, only able to see the back of her head, and then when the sun struck the outside of the window, it turned the glass into a mirror, giving him an almost perfect reflection of her pale, set face.

She looked lost, he thought. Gone. Like a ghost of a woman.

Her fear ate at him all over again, stirring the fury in him, the fury that was only soothed, calmed, by acts of valor.

It was ridiculous, really, this need of his to save others, this need to unite families torn apart, to return missing loved ones to those who waited, grieved.

He wasn’t a hero, didn’t want to be a hero, and this wasn’t the life he’d ever wanted for himself. He’d loved his studies, had enjoyed his career, but that all ended when his sisters died.

Thinking of his sisters reminded him of Olivia and her brother Jake and all her family had gone through in the past five or six weeks since she disappeared. “I’m trying to help you,” he said quietly.

“Then send me home,” she answered, her voice breaking.

His jaw jutted. She wasn’t the only one who couldn’t go home yet. He couldn’t, either, and he wasn’t much happier about it than she was.

Anytime he took these human rights cases on, he moved swiftly, moved a person in and out in a day. These rescues always took place within twenty-four hours and then he was home again, back in his quiet world of sky and sand. Back in anonymity.

Today was different. Everything about today’s rescue was different. And that didn’t bode well for any of them.

A HALF hour later they reached the famous Mena House Hotel, a historic hotel on the outskirts of Cairo.

Liv leaned forward to get a glimpse of the historic property but saw little of the hotel’s entrance with the dozen black cars lining the drive and virtually blocking the front door.

“It looks like the President of the United States has arrived,” she said, staring at all the cars and security detail. “I wonder who it’s for?”

“Us,” he answered cryptically, as security moved toward their car, flanking the front and back.

She jerked around to look at him. “Why?”

He shrugged as the door opened.

“Your Highness,” one of the men said, bowing deeply. “Welcome. The hotel is secure.”

Liv didn’t move. She couldn’t. Her body had gone nerveless. “Who are you?”

“I’m Sheikh Khalid Fehr. Prince of the Great Sarq Desert.”

And then it came together, all the missing pieces, all the little things that hadn’t added up. Sarq. Fehr. The family name, Fehr. “Your brother is King Fehr,” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“You’re … royalty.”

His broad shoulders shifted. “I didn’t ask for the job. I inherited it.” And then he climbed out of the car.

They were escorted through the opulent, gilded lobby to a private elevator that glided soundlessly up to the royal suite, which occupied the entire penthouse floor.

Their suite consisted of two enormous bedrooms and ensuite baths opening off a central living area. The suite was dark, the windows curtained, but then the butler drew the curtains back and the suite was flooded with late-afternoon sunlight, and the most astonishing view of the Great Pyramid.

“Incredible,” Liv murmured, standing at the window, hands pressed to the glass.

“There’s a balcony in each of the bedrooms,” the butler offered. “Very nice for a morning coffee or evening nightcap.”

She could only nod. She didn’t want to move, or be distracted. She just wanted to stand here and feast on the most amazing thing she’d ever seen.

The golden stone pyramid soared … gigantic, mythic, spectacular.

This is why she’d traveled so far from home. This is what she’d wanted to see. Ancient wonders. Relics of a glorious past.

But then Khalid Fehr spoke. “The doctor is here, Olivia.”

Her insides did a quick freeze and she slowly, reluctantly turned from the window. A woman in a dark slack suit and wearing a dark scarf around her shoulders stood next to Khalid.

“I’m Dr. Nenet Hassan,” the woman said briskly. “I’m a friend of Sheikh Fehr’s from university. The exam won’t hurt, and it won’t take long, either. We’ll just step into your room and get it over, shall we?”

Liv wouldn’t even look at Khalid as she headed for her bedroom with Dr. Hassan close behind. She didn’t want the exam, didn’t need a checkup, but no one seemed to be listening.

Fortunately, the exam was as quick as Dr. Hassan had said and in less than ten minutes the physician was putting her instruments away. “You’re healthy,” Dr. Hassan said. “And I know you’re dying for a bath so go ahead, enjoy. I’ll have a word with Sheikh Fehr and see myself out.”

Khalid was waiting for Nenet as she emerged from Liv’s room. “Well?” he demanded.

“She has some bruises but they’re not specific to any injury.”

“She hasn’t been beaten?” Khalid asked bluntly.

“She does have marks and the odd bruise or cut, but that’s to be expected. It’s a well-known fact that the female guards are far harder on the female prisoners than the male guards are on the men. They’re just more aggressive, although the abuse leans toward the mental instead of the physical.”

“What about drug use?” he asked.

Nenet lifted her head, and her somber brown gaze searched his. “You suspect her of using?”

“No. But you never know.”

The doctor’s expression remained speculative. “I didn’t see needle marks, or anything else indicative of drug abuse.”

“Good,” he answered, turning away to look out the same window that had so completely captured Liv’s imagination earlier.

“Do you really intend to marry her?” Nenet asked, catching Khalid off guard. “Or is it just another baseless rumor?”

His forehead creased and he turned from the window to look at the doctor over his shoulder. “How did you hear?”