Strangers in the Desert

“Tell me something about me,” she said, apprehension fluttering inside her belly along with the first swirling current of doubt. “Tell me something no one else knows.”

“You were a virgin.”

She stamped down on the blush that threatened. Were a virgin? “That wouldn’t have been a secret. Tell me something I might have told you—something personal.”

He flung his hands wide in exasperation. “Such as? You weren’t very talkative, Isabella. I believe you once said that your single goal in life was to please me.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she answered, her voice little more than a whisper. Because she had been raised to please a man, to be the perfect wife, and it was exactly the sort of thing she would have been expected to say. But to actually have said it? To this man?

He gazed down at her with glittering dark eyes settling on her mouth, and she suddenly had a picture in her head of him kissing her. The image was shocking. And she didn’t know whether it was a memory or a desire.

About the Author

LYNN RAYE HARRIS read her first Mills & Boon® romance when her grandmother carted home a box from a yard sale. She didn’t know she wanted to be a writer then, but she definitely knew she wanted to marry a sheikh or a prince and live the glamorous life she read about in the pages. Instead, she married a military man and moved around the world. These days she makes her home in North Alabama, with her handsome husband and two crazy cats. Writing for Harlequin Mills & Boon is a dream come true. You can visit her at www.lynnrayeharris.com

STRANGERS IN THE DESERT

LYNN RAYE HARRIS

www.millsandboon.co.uk

In memory of Sally Jo Harris, beloved aunt-in-law, intrepid adventurer, and amazing human being. I can’t believe I will never get to talk about books, travel, great coffee and fabulous food with you ever again. You brought joy wherever you went, and you left us too suddenly. We miss you.

CHAPTER ONE

“… THE possibility she is still alive.”

Adan looked up from the papers his secretary had given him to sign. He’d been only half paying attention to the functionary who’d been speaking. Since his uncle had died a week ago, there’d been so much to do in preparation for his own coronation that he often did as many things at once as he could. “Repeat that,” he ordered, every cell of his body revving into high alert.

The man who stood inside the door trembled as Adan focused on him. He bowed his head and spoke to the floor.

“Forgive me, Your Excellency. I said that in preparation for your upcoming nuptials to Jasmine Shadi, we must investigate all reports that reach us in regards to your late wife, since her body was never recovered.”

“It was never recovered because she walked into the desert, Hakim,” Adan said mildly, though irritation spiked within him. “Isabella is buried under an ocean of sand.”

As always, he felt a pang of sadness for his son. Though Adan had lost a wife, it was the fact Rafiq had lost his mother that bothered Adan most. Theirs had been an arranged marriage, not a love match. While he hoped that Isabella had not suffered, he could drag up very little emotion for her.

Isabella Maro had been beautiful, but she’d been unremarkable in every other way. Quiet, lovely and well-suited to performing the duties of their station, she’d been exactly what his wife should have been. And though he hadn’t been the heir to the throne then, he had no doubt she’d have made a lovely queen.

A lovely, bland queen.

It wasn’t her fault. Though she had been half-American, she’d been raised by her father as a traditional Jahfaran woman. He would never forget that when he’d met her shortly before their wedding, he’d asked her what she wanted out of life. She’d told him that she wanted whatever he wanted.

“There has been a reported sighting, Your Excellency.”

Adan gripped the pen he’d been signing papers with and spread his other hand flat on the desk. He needed something solid to hold on to. Something to remind him that he wasn’t in the middle of a nightmare. In order to ascend the throne formally, he needed a wife. Jasmine Shadi was to be that wife, and he was marrying her in two weeks time. There was no place in his life for a phantom.

“A sighting, Hakim?”

Hakim swallowed. His nut-brown skin glistened with moisture, though the palace had been modernized years ago and the air conditioners seemed to be working fine.

“Sharif Al Omar—a business competitor of Hassan Maro’s, Your Excellency—recently returned from a trip to the island of Maui. He says there was a singer in a bar there, a woman who called herself Bella Tyler, who resembled your late wife, sire.”

“A singer in a bar?” Adan stared at the man a full minute before he burst into laughter. Isabella had survived the desert and now sang in a bar on a remote Hawaiian island? Impossible. No one ever survived the burning Jahfaran desert if they weren’t prepared.

And Isabella had not been prepared. She’d wandered alone into the deepest wastes of Jahfar. At night. A sandstorm the next day had obliterated every trace of her, though they’d looked for weeks. “Hakim, I think Mr. Al Omar needs to see a doctor. Clearly, Hawaiian sunshine is somehow more brutal than our Jahfaran sun.”

“He took a picture, sire.”

Adan stilled. “Do you have this picture?”

“I do, sire.” The man held out a folder. Mahmoud, his secretary, took the file and set it on the desk in front of Adan. He hesitated only a moment before flipping open the cover. Adan stared at the picture for so long that the lines started to blur. It could not be her, and yet …

“Cancel all my appointments for the next three days,” he finally said. “And call the airport to ready my plane.”

The bar was crowded tonight. Tourists and locals alike jammed into the interior and spilled out the open walls onto the beach below. The sun had just started to dip into the ocean, and the sky was turning brilliant gold when Isabella walked onto the stage and took her place behind the microphone. The sun sank fast—much faster than she’d ever believed possible when she’d first arrived on the island—and then it was gone and the sky was pink, the clouds high over the ocean tinged purple and red with the last rays.

It was a brilliant and beautiful sight, and it always made her heart ache and seem full all at once. She’d grown accustomed to the melancholy, though she did not know from where it sprang. She often felt as if a piece of her was missing, but she didn’t know what that piece was.

Singing filled the void, for a brief time anyway.

Isabella looked out at the gathered crowd. They were waiting for her. They were here for her. She closed her eyes and began to sing, losing herself in the rhythm and feel of the music. On the stage, she was Bella Tyler—and Bella was completely in control of herself and her life.

Unlike Isabella Maro.

She slid from one song into the next, her voice wrapping around the words, caressing them. The lights were hot, but she was used to the heat. She wore a bikini and a sarong for island flavor, though she did not sing many island songs. Her eyelids felt weighted down beneath the makeup she wore. She always applied it thickly for the stage, or it wouldn’t show up in the bright lights. Around her neck she wore a white puka-shell necklace. A matching bracelet encircled one ankle.

Her hair had grown and was no longer twined in the sleek knot she’d once favored. It was heavier, blonder and wild with seawater and sunshine. Her father would be horrified, no doubt, not only at the hair but also at the immodesty of her dress. She smiled into the microphone, thinking of his reaction. A man in the front smiled back, mistaking the gesture. She didn’t mind; it was part of the act, part of the personality of Bella Tyler.

Except that Bella wouldn’t go home with this man. Or any man. It didn’t feel right somehow. Had never felt right since the moment she’d come to the States. She was free now, free from the expectations and duty her father had raised her with, and yet she couldn’t shake the idea she had to save herself for someone.

“Bella Tyler, ladies and gentlemen,” the guitarist announced when she finished the last song. The bar erupted in applause.

“Mahalo,” Isabella said as she shoved a strand of damp hair behind her ear. “And now we’re going to take a little break. We’ll be back in fifteen.”

As she left the stage, she grabbed the glass of water that Grant, the club manager, held out for her, and headed into the back for a few minutes’ rest. The room she went to could hardly be called a dressing room, and yet it was where she stowed her stuff and applied her makeup for the evening. She flopped onto a chair and propped her bare feet on a bamboo trunk that served as a coffee table.

Laughter and disembodied voices from the beach came to her through the thin walls. The rest of the band would work their way back here eventually, if they didn’t grab a cigarette and head outside to smoke instead. Isabella tilted her head back and touched the icy glass to her collarbone. The coldness of it was a pleasant shock as moisture dripped between her breasts.

A few moments later, she heard movement in the hall. She could sense the moment when someone stopped in the doorway. The room was small, and she could feel that she was no longer alone. But people were always coming and going in Ka Nui’s, so she didn’t open her eyes to see who it was.

But it wasn’t a waitress grabbing something, or one of the band members come to join her, because the person hadn’t moved since she’d first sensed a presence.

But was the visitor still there—or was she imagining things?

Isabella’s eyes snapped open. A man stood in the entry, his presence dark and overwhelming. Raw panic seized her throat tight so that she couldn’t speak or cry out. At first, all she saw was his size—he was tall and broad and filled the door—but then she began to pick out individual features.

A shiver slid down her backbone as she realized with a jolt that he was Jahfaran. Dark hair, piercing dark eyes and skin that had been burnished by the powerful desert sun. Though he was dressed in a navy blue shirt and khaki pants instead of a dishdasha, he had the look of the desert, that hawklike intensity of a man who lived life on the edge of civilization. She didn’t know why, but fear flooded her in waves, liquefying her bones until she couldn’t move.

“You will tell me,” he said tightly, “why.”

Isabella blinked. “Why?” she repeated. Somehow, she managed to scramble to her feet. He was so tall that she still had to tilt her head back to look up at him. Her heart thundered in her breast as she realized he was terribly, frighteningly angry.

With her.

His gaze skimmed down her body. When his eyes met hers again, they burned with disgust. “Look at you,” he said. “You look like a prostitute.”

The cold fear that had pooled in her stomach began to boil as anger stirred within. How typical of a Jahfaran male. How absolutely typical to think he had a right to criticize her simply because she was female, and because he did not understand her choices.

Isabella drew herself up. She thrust her chin out, propped her hands on her hips and gave him the same thorough once-over he’d given her. It was bold, but she didn’t care. She owed this man nothing.

“I don’t know who you think you are, but you’re welcome to get the hell out of my dressing room and keep your opinions to yourself.”

His expression grew lethally cold. “Don’t play games with me, Isabella.”

She took a step back, her pulse thrumming in her throat at breakneck speed. He’d used her name—her given name—and it stunned her, though perhaps it should not have. Clearly, he knew her father, and he’d recognized her somehow. Perhaps they’d met in the course of her father’s business dealings. A party, a dinner.

But no. She didn’t recognize him. And she was sure that she’d never have forgotten a man like this if she’d met him. He was too big, too magnificent—and much too full of himself. He would have been impossible to ignore.

“Why would I play games with you? I don’t even know you!”

His eyes narrowed. “I will know how you came to be here, and I will know it now.”

Isabella drew herself up. How dare he question her as if he had a right? “You’re bright. Figure it out.”

He took a step into the room, and the room shrank. He overwhelmed the space. He overwhelmed her.

Isabella wanted to back away from him, but there was nowhere to go. And she would not cower before this man. It seemed vitally important somehow that she did not.

“You did not do this alone,” he said. “Who helped you?”

Isabella swallowed. “I—”

“Is everything okay here, Bella?”

Her eyes darted past the stranger to Grant, who stood in the door, his fists clenched at his sides. The stranger had turned at his entrance. Grant’s expression was grave, his blue eyes deadly serious as he tried to stare the man down.

She could have told him it wouldn’t work. The man stared back at Grant, his expression not softening in the least. The last thing she wanted was a fight, because she did not doubt that Grant would try to defend her. She also didn’t doubt that he would lose. There was something hard and cold about this man. Something fierce and untamed.

“I’m fine, Grant,” she said. “Mr … um, the gentleman was just leaving.”

“I was not, in fact,” he said, his English oh-so-perfect. The cultured tone of his voice proclaimed him to be from an elite family, the ones who usually sent their sons to be schooled in the United Kingdom.

“I think you should go,” Grant said. “Bella needs to rest before she goes back on.”

“Indeed.” The stranger turned back to her then, and she felt the full force of his laserlike attention. “Sadly, she will not be returning to the stage. Isabella is coming with me.”

Fury pounded through her. “I am not—“

He reached out and grasped her arm with an iron fist.

His fingers didn’t bite into her, but they were firm and in control. Commanding.

Shock forced Isabella to go completely still as her body reacted with a shudder at the touch of his skin on hers.

But it wasn’t revulsion she felt. It wasn’t terror.

It was familiarity. It was heat and want and, underlying that, a current of sadness so deep and strong she wanted to sob.

It stunned her into immobility as she tried to process it.

Why?

“Hey,” Grant protested. “Let her go!”

At the same time, Isabella looked up in confusion. “Who are you?”

A shadow passed over his face before it hardened again. “Do you really expect me to believe you do not know?”

Anger and despair slashed through her in waves. It made no sense. And yet he hated her. This man hated her, and she had no idea why. Somehow, she found the strength to act, wrenching herself free from his grip.

Isabella hugged her arms around her torso as if to shield herself. She couldn’t bear to feel the anger and sadness ripping through her a moment longer. Couldn’t bear the currents of heat arcing across her nerve endings. The swirling confusion. The crushing desperation.

Grant had disappeared, but she knew it was so he could fetch one of the bouncers. He’d be back at any moment, and this man would be thrown out on his arrogant behind. She was going to enjoy that.

“Of course I don’t know you,” she snapped.

“On the contrary,” he growled, his dark eyes flashing hot, “you know me very well.”

Her heart pounded at the certainty in his voice. He was insane. Gorgeous, but insane. “I can’t imagine why you would think so.”

“Because,” he replied, his voice laced with barely contained rage, “you are my wife.”

CHAPTER TWO

SHE gaped at him like a fish. There was no other way to describe it. If he didn’t know better, he’d think she truly was shocked. Adan’s mouth twisted. Who’d have thought that little Isabella Maro was such a fine actress? He’d had no idea, or he’d have paid her much closer attention.

Because, clearly, she’d duped him. Duped them all.

And he was going to find out why.

She hadn’t acted alone, of that he was certain. Had she had a lover who’d helped her to escape?

The thought lodged in his gut like a shard of ice.

What a cold, cruel woman she was. She’d abandoned her baby son, left him to grow up motherless. She’d cared more for herself than she had for Rafiq.

Adan hated her for it.

And he hated this stirring in his blood as he looked at her. It was anger, yes, but it was something more, as well. His gaze slid over her nearly naked body. She was wearing a red bikini with a tropical-print sarong tied over one hip. Her nipples jutted through the meager fabric of her top, drawing his attention. He remembered, though he did not wish to, the creamy beauty of her breasts, the large pink areolas, the tightly budded nipples in their center. He remembered her shyness the first time they’d made love, the way she’d quickly adapted to him, the way she’d welcomed him into her bed for an entire month of passionate nights.

He’d stopped going to her bed because she’d fallen pregnant. Not because he had wanted to, but because she’d become so sick that lovemaking was out of the question.

“Your wife?” She shook her head adamantly. “You’re mistaken.”

Behind him, he heard the heavy stomp of footsteps. And then the man she’d called Grant—the man who’d looked at her with his heart in his eyes—was back, a large Samoan by his side.

“I’ll ask you once more to leave,” Grant said. “Makuna will escort you out.”

Adan gave them his most quelling look. He had a six-man security team outside. Not because he’d expected trouble, but because he was a head of state and didn’t travel without security. One signal to them, and they would storm this place with guns drawn.

It wasn’t something he wanted to do, and yet he wasn’t leaving without Isabella. Without his wife.

“It’s okay, Grant,” he heard her say behind him. “I’ll talk to him for a few minutes.”

Grant looked confused. But then he nodded once and tapped Makuna on the arm. The two of them melted away from the door, and Adan was once more alone with Isabella.

“Wise decision,” he said.

She sank onto the chair she’d originally been sitting in. Her fingers trembled as they shoved her riot of dark golden hair from her face. Her heavily made-up eyes stared at him in confusion.

“Why would you think I’m your wife? I’ve never been married.”

Anger clawed at his insides. “Deny it all you like, but it won’t make it any less true.”

Her brows drew down as she stared at him. “I don’t know why you’re telling me this, or why you think I’m your wife. I’ve never met you. I don’t even know your name.”

He didn’t believe it for a moment. “Adan,” he said, because arguing about it was pointless when she insisted on carrying through with her fiction.

“Adan,” she repeated. “I left Jahfar a long time ago. I think I’d remember a husband.”

“I won’t play this game with you, Isabella,” he growled. “Do you really expect me to believe you don’t remember? How stupid do you think I am?”

She frowned deeply. “I never said that. I said I didn’t know you. I think you’ve confused me with someone else. It’s not unusual for men to try and get close to me in this business. They see me sing and they think I’m available for an easy hookup. But I’m not, okay?”

Adan wanted to shake her. “You are Isabella Maro, daughter of Hassan Maro and an American woman, Beth Tyler. Nearly three years ago, you and I were wed. Two years ago, you walked into the desert and were never seen again.”

He couldn’t bring himself to mention Rafiq to her, not when she was so obviously trying to play him for a fool.

She blinked, her expression going carefully blank. And then she shook her head. “No, I …”

“What?” he prompted when she didn’t continue.

She swallowed. “I had an accident, it’s true. But I’ve recovered.” Her fingers lifted to press against her lips. He noticed they were trembling. “There are things that are fuzzy, but—” She shook her head. “No, someone would have told me.”

Everything inside him went still. “Someone? Who would have told you, Isabella? Who knows you are here?”

She met his gaze again. “My parents, of course. My father sent me to my mother’s to recover. The doctor said I needed to get away from Jahfar, that it was too hot, too … stressful.”

Fury whipped through him. And disbelief. Her parents knew she was alive? Impossible.

And yet, he’d hardly seen Hassan Maro since Isabella had disappeared. The man spent more time out of the country these days than he did in it. Adan had chalked it up to his business interests and to grief over the loss of his only daughter, but what if it were more? What if Maro were hiding something?

Was the man truly capable of helping his daughter to escape her marriage when he’d been so thrilled with the arrangement in the first place?

Adan shook his head. She was lying, playing him, denying what she knew to be true simply because she’d been caught. She’d survived the desert, there was no doubt, and she could not have done so without help.

But whose help?

“I have never heard of selective amnesia, Isabella,” he growled. “How could you remember your parents, remember Jahfar—yet not remember me?”

“I didn’t say I had amnesia!” she cried. “You did.”

“What do you call it, then, if you say you know who you are and where you come from, but you can’t remember the husband you left behind?”

“We’re not married,” she insisted—and yet her lower lip trembled. It was the first sign of a small chink in her armor, as if she knew she’d been caught and was desperate to escape.

Adan hardened his resolve. She would not do so, not until he was finished with her. She had much to answer for. And much still to pay for.

She clasped her hands in front of her body. The motion pressed her breasts together, emphasized the smooth, plump curves. A tingle started at the base of his spine and drifted outward.

No.

Adan ruthlessly clamped down on his libido. Was he so shallow as to allow the sight of a woman’s half-naked body to arouse him, when the woman was as treacherous as this one? When he had every reason to despise her?

“Let’s turn this around, then,” she said, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. “Assuming for a moment that you’re correct, that we are married—where have you been and why didn’t you come for me sooner?”

“I have been in Jahfar,” he ground out. “And, as you very well know, I believed you to be dead.”

Her face grew pale beneath her tan. “Dead?”

He was tired of this, tired of the caginess and obfuscation. He’d flown through several time zones and had had no sleep in his quest to learn if the picture were true, if the woman holding a microphone and peering up at the camera as if to a secret lover was indeed his wife. He’d told himself it wasn’t possible. She could not have survived.

But then he’d walked into this bar and seen her standing there, her face so familiar and so strange all at once, and he’d known the truth.

And he was done being civil. “You walked into the desert, Isabella. What you did after that is anyone’s guess, but you did not come back out. We searched for weeks.”