Читать книгу: «Desert Hearts», страница 3

“It was my brother’s home, not yours. You lived here with him. You were his mistress.”

“Wrong on both counts. This apartment is mine.”

“And my brother just happened to have the key.”

His tone was snide and self-confident, and if it weren’t for Ethan, she’d have slapped it off his all-too-handsome face.

“My mistake for giving him one. He moved in with me, not me with him. And, for the record, I’ve never been anybody’s mistress. I’ve always supported myself and I damned well always will.”

There it was again. Fire. Spirit. Absolute defiance. Her eyes were snapping with anger even as she kept her voice low for the baby’s sake, kept stroking her hand gently down his back.

Karim watched that slow-moving hand.

The feel of it would soothe anyone. A child. A beast.

A man.

Without thinking, he reached out and touched the baby. His fingers brushed accidentally against the curve of the Donnelly woman’s breast.

She caught her breath. Their eyes met. Color rushed into her face.

“The boy is asleep,” Karim said softly.

“Yes. He is.” She swallowed hard. He could see her throat arch. “I—I’m going to take him into the bedroom, change his diaper and put him down for a nap.”

“Fine,” he said briskly.

He watched her walk away with the dignity of a queen, back straight, only the slightest sway of her hips.

He wanted to laugh.

What an act! The personification of dignity in a cheap costume.

It was an act, wasn’t it? The way she held herself. The love she seemed to show the baby. Her adamant refusal to name Rami as the child’s father, as if she suspected what Karim’s next move would be.

She wasn’t stupid; far from it. Surely, she knew he would demand custody of the boy.

And he would get it. A DNA test, quickly performed, would settle things.

She was—whatever she was. A dancer. A stripper. She was broke or close to it, judging by where she lived.

And he was a prince.

There was no doubt which of them would win in a court of law—if this ever got that far.

But there was no need for that to happen.

Rachel Donnelly would not give up the child without a fuss. If he were generous, he’d say it was because she cared for the boy but he was not feeling generous. He was feeling deceived. By Rami. By fate. And now, for all he knew, by a woman who was an excellent actress, making a show of being a caring mother.

Whatever her motive, she could not be permitted to keep the boy.

That was out of the question.

He would not leave the child to be raised in squalid surroundings by a woman who, at best, might euphemistically be called a dancer.

With him, the boy—Ethan—would have everything Rami could have given him. A comfortable home. The best possible education. The knowledge of his ancient and honorable past.

He would not have a mother but Rami had not had one, either. For that matter, neither had he, and he was none the worse for it today.

Karim looked at the closed bedroom door and frowned. What was taking her so long? Changing a diaper could not be a complicated procedure.

Did she expect him to stand here, cooling his heels?

He had things to do. Settling Rami’s debts, of course. And now he’d have to make arrangements for taking the child to Alcantar. What would he need? Clothes? Formula? The boy’s birth certificate?

Not really.

He had diplomatic status. Only the State department had the authority to question him, and they would not do so.

What else would he require?

Of course.

A nanny.

That was the primary requirement. A woman who’d be capable of knowing a baby’s needs. She could care for the boy from now until Karim had him back home, where he could make more permanent arrangements.

Relatively simple, all of it.

Assuming Rachel Donnelly didn’t cause trouble—but why would she? He would write her a handsome check and if she balked he’d make her see how much better off her son would be in his new life as a prince in his father’s kingdom.

He might even agree to permitting her to visit a couple of times a year—

And, dammit, he was wasting time!

Karim strode to the closed door and rapped his knuckles against it.

“Miss Donnelly?”

Nothing.

“Miss Donnelly, I cannot spend the entire morning waiting for you. I have other business to conduct.”

Still nothing.

Hell.

Was it possible there was another exit from the apartment? A window that opened on an outside stairway?

Karim flung the door open.

The furnishings were spare.

A chest of drawers. A chair. A crib, Ethan sound asleep in it, his backside in the air.

And a bed.

Narrow. Covered in white. The only color came from the bra, the thong, the dark mesh stockings that lay in a tiny heap in its center.

His belly knotted.

His gaze flew to a half-open door, wisps of steam curling from it.

The sound of running water drummed in his ears, or was it the beat of his pulse?

Get out of this room, a voice within him whispered. She’s in the shower, naked. You don’t belong here.

Instead, he took a step forward. Then another.

Ah, God.

He could see into the bathroom. Into the small stall shower. Condensation clouded the glass but he could see her. See her as Matisse or Degas might have painted her—just the hint of that lovely face, that exquisite body.

The water stopped.

Get out, he thought again, but his feet seemed rooted to the floor.

She slid the shower door open.

And he saw her without the glass.

Her hair, wet and streaming over her shoulders, almost hiding the rounded perfection of her breasts.

Her waist, surely narrow enough for his hands to span.

Her hips, ripely curved.

Her legs, long enough so he could almost feel them wrapped around him.

And the golden curls at the juncture of her thighs, guarding the female heart of her.

She didn’t see him. Wet strands of her hair hung over her eyes.

He watched as she reached toward the towel rack, her hand fumbling for a white bath sheet.

That was when he moved.

Grabbed the terrycloth bath sheet before she found it.

His fingers brushed hers. She cried out, swiped the hair from her eyes.

“No,” she said, “don’t—”

Karim threaded his hands in the rich, wet gold of her hair. Lifted her face to his and took her mouth in a hard, hungry kiss.

It was what he’d wanted to do that first time.

Then, he’d been able to stop.

No way could he stop now.

She struggled.

He persisted.

And the kiss changed.

It took all his determination to gentle it into something soft and seductive.

His lips moved gently over hers; he whispered her name, whispered how much he wanted her, first in his own language and then in hers.

Everything within him slowed. He wanted the kiss to last forever …

She stopped struggling. She sighed. Her lips clung to his. Her hands rose, touched his chest.

He could feel her trembling, but not with fear.

He felt his blood roar. Felt the earth tilt.

Now, everything in him said, take her now …

Karim shuddered.

Then he lifted his head, wrapped the towel around her and got the hell out of the bathroom, out of the apartment, out of the honeyed trap that had surely been set by his brother’s clever, beautiful mistress.

CHAPTER FOUR

RACHEL stood where he’d left her, clutching the bath sheet as if it could shield her from him.

Too late, her body hummed, much too late.

He’d already done what he’d wanted. Touched her. Kissed her. Taken her on an emotional rollercoaster ride that had taken her from terror to—to—

She jumped at the sound of the front door slamming.

He was gone.

Gasping for air, trembling, she sank down on the closed toilet.

Her brain seemed to be in free-fall. She couldn’t think, couldn’t make sense of anything.

What had just happened?

Maybe the better question was, what hadn’t happened?

The Sheikh had forced himself on her.

He’d walked in while she was naked, drawn her against him, kissed her …

And then he’d let her go.

Why?

Rachel shuddered.

He could have done anything he’d wanted. There’d been nobody to stop him. Certainly not her. He was too big, too strong, that hard body, those sculpted muscles hidden beneath the expensive suit.

She’d have fought him but he’d easily have overpowered her …

A moan broke from her throat.

He had overpowered her.

Not just physically.

Mentally.

How else to explain that infinitesimal moment when his mouth had gentled on hers, when his touch had eased and she—and she—

Rachel swallowed dryly.

Never mind that.

His actions had all been deliberate. Terrifying her with a display of strength, the old I-am-Tarzan-you-are-Jane thing.

She knew how that went.

It was a typical male ploy.

The men she dealt with when she waited tables. The ones who were her bosses now in the casino. The players. They were the worst of all. They tossed around their money, showed off their power, stank of cologne …

He hadn’t.

Karim.

The Sheikh. The Prince. Whatever he liked to call himself.

No cologne on him. Just the clean scent of himself. The hot scent of a man who wanted a woman

And yet he’d let her go.

Rami would not have done that.

She’d always sensed it in him, the need to dominate, to take what he wanted and to hell with anyone else …

Rachel thrust her fingers into her wet hair and drove it back from her face.

She wasn’t dealing with Rami; she was dealing with his brother—and now that she’d had a minute to think, she could see that the brother was a much more wily adversary.

She understood what he’d done. Taken her in a deep, hard kiss and then suddenly turned it into something that was soft, seductive and almost tender.

He’d wanted to confuse her. And he had. That last instant when he’d been kissing her, when she—when she’d had some kind of response to the feel of his mouth on hers …

No. No!

Rachel took a deep breath.

She hadn’t responded. Not the way he’d wanted. Her reaction had been intuitive. Instinctive. Whatever you wanted to call it.

The I-can-survive-anything woman who lived inside her had taken her straight to automatic pilot.

Let the kiss happen. Stop struggling. That was all she’d done.

She wasn’t like Suki.

Money, power, good looks didn’t turn her on.

Rachel rose to her feet. She felt better. In fact, she felt fine. Strong. In control.

She even had a plan. Well, a plan of sorts.

And she was wasting precious time, dissecting the ugly little scene as if it mattered when she knew that it didn’t.

Karim, the Sheikh of All he Surveyed, would be back.

She didn’t have any doubt about it.

Her make-up bag was on a shelf over the sink. Quickly, she opened it, opened the tiny medicine cabinet, swept lipsticks, mascara, eyeliner, aspirin, everything that was there straight inside.

Of course he’d be back, she thought as she pulled a comb through her hair, then secured it in a ponytail.

The man was a lot of things but he was far from stupid.

She knew that he’d seen straight through her lies. Not the one she’d acted out, as if she’d kissed him back when she damned well hadn’t.

The other lie. The bigger one.

Not admitting that Ethan was his brother’s child.

He knew that he was.

She’d seen it in his cold-as-ice eyes. He didn’t have proof yet. That was the only reason he hadn’t pushed the conversation further—but he knew.

What he didn’t know, couldn’t possibly know and absolutely must never know, was that Ethan was not hers.

On the face of it—with Suki gone who knew where and Rami dead—she had as much of a claim to the baby as the Sheikh.

She was his aunt.

He was his uncle.

It should have been a draw—but it wasn’t. He had unimaginable wealth. She worried about next month’s rent. He had power over a kingdom. She had the power to choose which shift she worked at the casino.

Rachel hurried into the bedroom, pulled open dresser drawers, yanked on a bra and panties, T-shirt, jeans, socks and sneakers.

She had to get out of town, and fast.

The baby was still sleeping. Thank God for small favors. She’d let him sleep until she was ready to leave …

Her breath caught.

The door. The front door. Maybe the Sheikh had only slammed it shut to fool her. Maybe he was still here. And even if he’d left, so what?

He had that damned key.

She flew through the tiny apartment, breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the living room was empty, secured the lock, grabbed a wooden chair from beside a rickety table and jammed it under the knob.

Let him try and get past that.

A sheikh. A prince. An egotistical anachronism who thought the world had stood still for the last few hundred years and that he could do anything he wanted.

Anything.

Like take her baby.

“Wrong,” Rachel said aloud as she went back to Ethan. “Wrong, wrong, wrong. Dead wrong.”

The baby was hers.

Nobody was going to take him from her.

By now, Ethan was awake and fretful. He’d been out of sorts lately; there was a tiny pale spot visible in his pink gums where he was cutting his very first tooth.

Ordinarily she’d have taken him in her arms, settled into the old rocker she’d bought at a Goodwill thrift shop and talked to him—he liked being talked to—but time was a priority now.

“Hey, little man,” she cooed as she leaned over the crib, “guess what we’re going to do?”

The look he gave her—mouth down-curved, eyes scrunched—said that he didn’t much care. Rachel plucked a soft plastic teething ring from the foot of the crib and held it out. The baby’s plump fingers closed around the ring and brought it to his mouth.

Good.

She’d bought a few minutes of peace. That was all she needed.

Her suitcase was in the rear of the closet. She took the case out, tossed it on the bed and unzipped it.

Okay.

She packed another pair of jeans. A handful of Ts. Bras. Panties. Socks. A sweater. A zippered hoodie. It all went into the suitcase.

“Ta-da,” she told Ethan, still chomping on the brightly colored teething ring. “See how quick that was? Now it’s your turn. Any thoughts about what you feel like wearing for our trip? You mean I didn’t tell you the surprise? We’re going traveling. Doesn’t that sound exciting?”

The baby made a rude sound.

“Okay. Maybe not.” Rachel pulled open the drawers that held Ethan’s clothes. Sleepers. Onesies. Socks. Tiny shirts and sweaters, a pair of grown-up-looking overalls she hadn’t been able to resist. “I admit I used to hate it when Mama told me we were going on a trip. She’d take us out of school, Suki and me, just when we’d finally settled in.” What else? Diapers, of course. A couple of crib blankets. “Well, I’ll never do that to you, little guy. I promise.” What was she forgetting? Ah. Formula. Bottles. Little jars of strained fruits and veggies. A quick detour to the kitchen, then back to the bedroom. “I’ll find us a place where we can settle down and have a garden and maybe even a kitten.”

Rachel paused.

Was that even anywhere near true?

Her mother had run from bill collectors and scandal, but somehow or other those things had always managed to find her anyway.

This was different.

She was running from a prince with the resources of the world at his fingertips.

Rachel shuddered. She wasn’t going to think about that now.

Other things were more vital.

Should she head for the airport and blow a stack of cash on a plane ticket, or head for the bus terminal and the first bus out of town?

No contest.

The airport.

She could get away faster and farther, and speed and distance were of paramount importance.

She’d put half her money on a ticket to wherever, half in reserve for when she and Ethan got there. She had a credit card, too. It was pristine; she’d kept it for emergencies and if this wasn’t an emergency, what was?

She’d go as far from Vegas and Rami’s brother as that combination of cash and credit would take her. San Francisco, maybe. Or Biloxi, where there were riverboat casinos.

Then she’d get a room, a cheap one, and give herself a couple of days to figure out her next step.

“Ffft,” Ethan said.

It made her laugh. Her baby could always do that; he was the one bit of joy she could count on.

“Well, maybe,” she said, “but at least it’s a plan.”

Not much of a plan, but it was a start.

Suki had always teased her about what she’d called “Rachel’s obsession with planning” but without some kind of blueprint you could end up like Mama or Suki or half the women in this town.

And that—being kept, living on a man’s largesse, being a … a possession—was never, ever going to happen to her.

As for leaving Las Vegas …

She was ready. More than ready.

Vegas had never been more than a stop on the road to something better. She’d only come here after Suki had called, babbling with excitement as she told her that two of the casinos were hiring new dealers.

“It’s a great job,” Suki had said. “They’ll train you and then you can make a lot of money.”

Maybe once. Not anymore. The economy was in the toilet. The need for new dealers had gone with it. Rachel had ended up waiting tables, then working the room at the casino—and wondering how she could have been so stupid as to have listened to her sister.

For one thing, if anybody had been hiring dealers why hadn’t Suki applied?

For another, Suki hadn’t bothered mentioning that she was living week-to-week in a furnished room.

The real reason she’d wanted Rachel to come west was because she’d known Rachel would be resourceful, find a job and an apartment, and she could move in.

She hadn’t even asked if her boyfriend, Rami al Safir, could move in, too. He’d just strolled out of Suki’s room one morning and after that he had become pretty much a permanent fixture.

A non-bill-paying fixture.

“Fool,” Rachel muttered.

But then, she reminded herself as she stuffed a few diapers, a box of baby wipes and some plastic Baggies into a tote, if she hadn’t come to Las Vegas she wouldn’t have Ethan.

The baby gave a pathetic little sob. He’d lost his teething ring through the bars of the crib. Rachel picked it up, wiped it off and gave it back to him.

He flashed a happy smile.

“Yes,” Rachel said, “you’re right. This is a fresh start for us both.”

A new town. A new place to live. A job that wouldn’t put her in costumes that made men see her as an item they could purchase.

A fresh start. Definitely. And all because of a man who thought his money, his titles, his gorgeous good looks—because, yes, he was good-looking, if you liked the type and she certainly didn’t—all because of his Sheikhiness, the Prince.

The baby blew a loud, wet bubble. Rachel grinned.

“My very thought,” she said.

Okay. Diapers? Check. Formula? Check. A few tiny jars of baby food? A bottle in a small insulted bag? Double check.

And that was it.

Goodbye, Sheikh Karim.

Hello, brand-new life.

Rachel scooped Ethan up and bundled him in a crib blanket printed with prancing blue giraffes. Then, the baby in the curve of one arm, her purse over that shoulder, the diaper bag over the other, she hoisted the suitcase from the bed and walked briskly through the apartment to the front door, shoved the chair out from under the knob, undid the locks and without a single backward glance headed down the stairs.

She was happy to be leaving Las Vegas. She’d been planning on it, only waiting to save a little more money, but what had happened this morning made that irrelevant.

Rachel paused on the ground floor landing.

Dammit. The taxi. She’d neglected to phone for one. And she hadn’t called Mrs. Grey to say she wouldn’t be needing her to babysit anymore.

No problem.

She could do both things as soon as she got outside and dug her cell phone from her purse.

Wrong.

She couldn’t dig out her phone, or call Mrs. Grey, or phone for a taxi.

She couldn’t do anything because when she opened the door to the street the first thing she saw was a shiny black car at the curb, its rear door open.

The second thing was the Sheikh, leaning against the fender, arms folded, eyes narrowed, mouth set in a thin line.

Rachel stopped dead. “You,” she said.

It was a painfully clichéd reaction and she knew it.

He seemed to think so, too, because a smile knifed across his lips.

“Me,” he said, in a voice that reminded her of steel swathed in silk. His gaze dropped to her suitcase. “Going somewhere?”

She felt her face heat. “Get out of my way.”

He smiled again, moved toward her, took the suitcase from her suddenly nerveless fingers, the diaper bag from her shoulder, and dumped them into the back of the car.

That was when she saw the baby seat.

Her stomach dropped.

“If you think—”

“Put the boy in the seat, Rachel.”

“How did you—?”

He gave a negligent shrug. “A cell phone and a title can do wonders,” he said dryly. “Go on. Put him in the seat.”

“You’re crazy if you think you’re going to take him from me!”

“He is Rami’s,” Karim said coldly

“He is mine!”

“And that is the only reason I’ve decided to take you with me.”

She blinked. “Take me with you where?”

“There are details to arrange.” A faint look of distaste passed over his face. “And I have no intention of dealing with them in this place.”

“I don’t—I don’t know what you’re talking ab—”

“Oh, for God’s sake, woman.” Karim stalked toward her. He stopped inches away, towering over her, his face stern, hard as granite. “Don’t play dumb. It doesn’t become you. I want my brother’s child. You’ll want recompense.” He paused. “Unless you’re willing to give him to me right now.”

Rachel stood as straight and tall as she could. For the first time in her life she wished she were wearing those damned stiletto heels.

“If you think I’d ever do that—”

“No. I didn’t think it, but then, anything is possible.”

“What’s possible,” she said, “is that I’ll scream for help. There are laws in this country—”

“Laws against an uncle wishing to see to the welfare of his dead brother’s child? I think not.”

“You don’t give a damn for Ethan’s welfare! You just want to steal my baby, take him far away and bring him up to be—to be a clone of you!”

Karim laughed. She felt a rush of fury sweep through her.

“You’re a despicable person!”

“Shall we deal with this in a civilized manner or not?”

Rachel stared up into that beautiful, emotionless face. Then she brushed past him, buckled Ethan into the baby seat and started to get into the car beside him.

The Sheikh closed his hand tightly around her elbow and drew her onto the sidewalk.

“You will sit in the passenger seat,” he snapped, “next to me. I am not your chauffeur.”

Rachel glared at him.

“You are not anything honest or decent,” she said.

It wasn’t much of a line, but at the moment it was all she had.