Jane Porter - The Sheikh's Virgin

The match burned out. Keira looked away, flattened. She wanted to shake her head, shake away the vision that burned her eyes, her mind, burned into her all of the time.

She might be able to forget his brow, his cheekbone, his jaw, but she’d never forget his eyes. Amber-gold eyes.

Amber-gold eyes surrounded by long dense black lashes. Eyes that didn’t smile. Eyes that just stared through one, all the way to the heart, all the way to the soul.

No one had eyes like that. No one had ever looked at her the way he did. No one but Kalen Nuri.

Her own childish desert fantasy.

Inexplicable tears scalded the back of her eyes and she gripped her wineglass tightly. How terribly infatuated she used to be…

What a silly crush it’d been…

“Sheikh Nuri,” she breathed his name, unable to look at him.

His dark head inclined, his expression blank. “S-salamu alikum.”

The traditional Barakan greeting, Peace on you.

The wrong answer from what had once been the right man.

Her lips parted, air slipped out. Kalen Nuri was here. Stood just a foot away. The shock returned, hit her hard, a blow to the breastbone, a fierce punch that knocked the air from her, making her head light, nerves taut, everything too wobbly.

It had been years since she last saw him…and now he was here but he wasn’t her friend. Of that much she was certain.

“You can’t tell me that my father didn’t send you.” Her words were terse, anger pitching her voice low. “You can’t lie to me, too.”

He shrugged. “I can tell you the truth. But it’s your choice whether to listen. Your choice what to believe.”

“I want the truth.”

“I know what your father intends for you.”

He wasted no time, said it so bluntly that she couldn’t look away, and as she stared at him the craziest things happened inside her—inarticulate words like you’re here, you’re really here—even as her rational mind told her that he was more dangerous than anything her father had arranged for her. “My father works for your brother.”

Kalen made a dismissive gesture. “Your father works for himself.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t trust my father.”

“No.” The sheikh studied her just as intently as she had examined him. “Do you trust your father?”

“He’s my father.”

“Youthful naiveté.”

“Naiveté?”

“It’s a kinder word than stupidity.”

Her surge of temper didn’t help the pounding that had begun at the top of her skull. “What do you want?”

“As I said, to give you options.”

She said nothing, just stared at him.

Sheikh Nuri’s mouth curved but the shape wasn’t kind. “You don’t have to marry Mr. Abizhaid.”

Something inside her twisted up tight. No, she thought silently mocking herself. I used to want to marry you. “Really? And what’s wrong with Ahmed Abizhaid?”

“He’s old, he’s hairy, he’s heavyset.”

“So?”

“He has children from his first marriage older than you.”

She said nothing.

“He’s notorious for his fanaticism.”

Keira grit her teeth together, refusing to speak. She sensed that Sheikh Nuri was enjoying himself at her expense.

“And he has questionable political ambitions.” The sheikh lifted his hands, an expressive gesture of laying the facts out for her. “But if this is appealing…”

His voice drifted off and she looked away, saw the lights of the city flicker, the distant white and red streams of light indicating the freeway traffic. “It’s not appealing, and you know it.”

“You need my help.”

“I don’t want your help.” She didn’t want anything from any man. Once she’d been trusting, once, yes, she’d been naive, but she wasn’t the foolish girl of the past.

“So you’ll cut off your nose to spite your face?”

“You know nothing about my nose, or my face, Sheikh Nuri.”

“I know that lovely face will be veiled and hidden if you don’t allow me to help.”

She couldn’t answer. Terror filled her. She knew the life Sheikh Nuri described, knew of the women’s quarters, the secret women’s world and she didn’t want it. Couldn’t bear it. She’d never been Barakan. She’d finished university with honors, had been hired as a communications director for Sanford Oil and Gas, an international firm based in Dallas, and she traveled, worked, succeeded. Succeeded beyond her wildest expectations.

How could she have her freedom stripped? How could she go back to what she’d escaped?

No. No. She wouldn’t be segregated. Wouldn’t be veiled. Would never allow herself to be hidden as though she were something to be ashamed of. “I haven’t lived in Baraka since I was four,” she said.

“Your father has already sent people for you.”

Keira went hot, then cold.

“There are three men waiting at your house this very moment.” He paused, let his words sink in. “They’re not going away without you.”

“I won’t go home then.”

“Your father has infinite resources. He’ll find you wherever you go. And there his men will be. Waiting.”

“No.”

“Yes. And you know it’s true.”

She closed her eyes, hating him, hating the words he said. He was right. She knew he was right. Her father got what he wanted. Her father always did.

“Face the truth, Miss al-Issidri. It’s me. Or them. Pick your poison.”

PICK her poison?

Her father, or him? Disgusted, she groaned inwardly, her body seething with tension. “I’m not playing this game, Sheikh Nuri.”

“Maybe you aren’t, but your father is. Three men are waiting at your house now. They’ve a car, a plane, a flight plan. You go home and you become theirs.”

Her disgust intensified, as did her fear. Thoroughly chilled, she craved a wrap to keep her warm. “Why should I believe you?”

“Why should I lie to you?”

He sounded so perfectly reasonable and yet none of this made sense. She hadn’t lived in Baraka for years. She’d had little contact with her father these past seven years. Why would he force her into an arranged marriage now?

And what about her father’s plans would bring Sheikh Nuri to her doorstep?

This was about business or economics, she thought, and she wanted no part in either.

“You’ve ulterior reasons for being here,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at the party still in full swing. Sheikh Nuri was one of the richest, most powerful men in the world. He was the special guest. He was the reason her boss wanted her here tonight.

“Yes.”

“You wanted me here tonight, didn’t you?”

“You’re the only reason I’m here.” He extended an arm in her direction. “Shall we go and take care of business?”

She looked at him, the dim moonlight playing across the hard features of his face, and suddenly she felt sixteen again. Head over heels in love with a man easily ten years her senior and she knew their lives were so different but she wanted part of his world anyway.

“Business?” she repeated numbly, and for a moment she was that sixteen-year-old, the one who felt so painfully alienated in school, so dark and foreign compared to the beautiful English roses, the one that missed her ballet classes, the intensely disciplined world of dance, the one who never shared what she felt with anyone but kept all her secrets buried deep in her heart.

“The men invading your home.”

Sheikh Nuri had a car waiting. The interior of the car was dark, the tinted windows allowing little exterior light to penetrate.

She practically hugged the corner of her seat, her hand wrapped convulsively around the door handle.

Small spaces, dark spaces made her skin crawl and it took all of her concentration to keep from breaking into a cold sweat.