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“Are you coming here?”
“I.” Emmeline hesitated. “I … don’t … know,” she repeated, stumbling a bit, feeling dishonest, because she knew the answer. She could never go to Raguva. Not now.
Tense silence stretched over the line and then Hannah asked tightly, “What do you mean, you don’t know?”
Emmeline stared at the tall red mountains visible beyond the palace walls. She felt just as jagged as the mountain peaks. She’d flown all night, was seven weeks pregnant, and thousands of miles from Miami where Alejandro lay in critical condition. “I’m in Kadar.”
Silence stretched over the line. “Kadar?” Hannah repeated wonderingly. “Why?”
Emmeline’s shoulders rose, hunching. “Sheikh Al-Koury thinks I’m you.”
Hannah exhaled hard. “Tell him you’re not! Tell him the truth.”
“I can’t.” Emmeline felt dangerously close to just losing it. It’d been such a difficult few weeks and she’d been so sure that she could turn things around, make it all right. But instead of things improving, they’d taken a dramatic turn for the worse. “I can’t. Not before Sheikh Al-Koury’s conference. It’d ruin everything.”
“But everything’s already ruined,” Hannah cried, her voice rising and then breaking. “You have no idea what’s happened—”
“I’m sorry, Hannah, I really am. But everything’s out of my control.”
“Your control. Your life. It’s always about you, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t mean it that way—”
“But you did mean to send me here in your place and you didn’t intend to come right away. You used me. Manipulated me. But how do you think I feel being trapped here, pretending to—” Hannah broke off abruptly.
The line went dead.
Hannah had hung up.
Emmeline stared at the phone, stunned. But what did she expect? She had done an amazing job of messing up Hannah’s life.
Makin had met briefly with his staff after leaving Hannah’s room and spent fifteen minutes in his office listening to updates from his various department managers before dismissing them all with a wave of his hand.
He couldn’t focus on the updates. His thoughts were elsewhere, back with Hannah in her room.
Telling Hannah about Alejandro’s accident had been far harder than he’d imagined. He hadn’t liked giving her bad news. It didn’t feel right. He’d never felt protective of her before, but he did now.
Maybe it was because she wasn’t well.
Maybe it was knowing she’d had her heart broken.
Maybe it’s because he was suddenly aware of her in a way he hadn’t been before.
Aware of her as a woman. Aware that she was very much a woman. A highly desirable woman. And that was a problem.
Mouth compressing, he rose from behind his desk, left his office and set off to meet the Kasbah’s director of security, who had promised to give him a tour of the guest wings and go over the security measures in place for the safety of their guests.
The tour was interrupted by a phone call with information that Alejandro was out of surgery and in recovery. He hadn’t woken yet, and while the prognosis was still grim, he’d at least survived the nine-hour operation. For Hannah’s sake, he was glad.
Call concluded, he and the security director passed through a high, arched doorway and stepped outside. “Which families will be in that building?” he asked, struggling to get his attention back on his life, his work, his conference. He wasn’t a man who was easily distracted, but he seemed unable to focus on anything other than Hannah right now.
“The Nuris of Baraka, Your Highness. Sultan Malek Nuri and his brother Sheikh Kalen Nuri, along with their wives. Sheikh Tair of Ohua.”
“And in the building to my right?”
“Our Western dignitaries.”
Makin nodded. “Good.” He was relieved to see that not only was security prepared, but the Kasbah looked immaculate.
While all of Makin’s various homes and palaces were beautiful, Kasbah Raha always took his breath away. The Kasbah itself was hundreds of years old, and lovingly preserved by generations of the Al-Koury family, the colors mirroring the desert—the pink of sunrise, the majestic red mountains, the blue of the sky, and the ivory-and-gold sand.
It was remote. And it was the place he worked best. Which is why he’d never brought Madeline to Raha. Raha was for clarity of thought and personal reflection. not desire or lust. He’d never wanted to associate a carnal pleasure such as sex with Raha, either, but suddenly, with Hannah under his roof, he was thinking about very carnal things instead of focusing on the conference.
