Desert Sheikh vs American Princess Read online

  Her frustration faded. "You sound like my kind of scum."

  He scratched the three-day stubble on his jaw line. "Is that why you rudely barged into my room?"

  Right. Her stuff wasn't in this room anymore. So that explained why the guards weren't outside. This was the guest room. She'd stayed here for nearly a week, but she slept in Walid's suite now. In his arms, actually. "I got lost," she lied. "Sorry."

  "I am not so sorry. I am saved from seeking you out."

  She cocked her head at him.

  "I heard my uptight brother had an American woman here. I thought I would evaluate how--how do you say it?" He searched for the phrase in an overdramatic fashion. "Stuck up you are."

  She looked him straight in the eye. "Oh, so stuck up. You can't even imagine."

  Thale's shirt whipped behind him as he whirled and fell backward into a comfy chair. He posed like a Calvin Klein model, his wide legs an invitation to step between them. Without a trace of self-consciousness, he looked her over.

  "So, you are sleeping with my brother for money. Good for you."

  Oh, this was a game she could play. Was very good at, in fact. Snobby flirting. This could be entertaining.

  "I'm rich, actually," she informed him as she strode to a chair across from him and tossed her hair. She arranged her body for maximum distraction, crossing her legs tightly and leaning slightly back to lift and separate. "So very rich. Don't need your brother's money or anyone else's."

  Thale's eyelids lowered lazily. "Just toying with his heart, then? I have heard women like small, cold, hard things, but do you not like them much shinier? Diamonds, not lumps of coal."

  Noelle felt the corners of her mouth twist up in a Grinch-like smile. Finally. Someone who got it. Someone who saw through Walid's good-guy image.

  "I like you," she said. "Let's drink."

  Thale threw up his hands in dramatic exasperation. "That is what I said to begin with. Why have we wasted all this time?"

  *****

  "You don't think your dad will pay up to get you out?"

  Five glasses (or was it six? So hard to tell with Thale pouring) of the third-best champagne in Walid's cellar later, Noelle had told him everything. Way more than she meant to.

  She blinked at him, trying to get the fuzziness beneath her eyelids to clear. Probably shouldn't have had that last glass. Or couple glasses.

  Hell. Who cared? What was he going to do about it? Thale didn't have any power of his own, not like his brothers, who each ruled a freakin' country. He didn't have any money to float her father's debt--she wouldn't let him anyway. She liked him too much for that.

  He could tell Walid, she supposed. Naaaaaah. From the way he trash-talked his brother, she didn't see that happening.

  "I'm stuck here until your brother realizes he's not getting his cash back. What's his problem anyway?" she asked, her tongue thick in her mouth. "Aren't you guys swimming in oil?"

  Thale shook his head gravely. "Can't swim in oil. It's lighter than water. Sinking only."

  "I swam in oil once. Well, soaked in it. Pure vitamin E. Best beauty treatment money can buy. Great for the skin." She drained her glass. "Felt greasy for days."

  At some point, Thale had removed his shoes and propped his heels on the antique table sitting between them. Now, he wiggled his bare toes. "I did the fish that eat the dead skin off your feet."

  "Me too." She and Thale had so much in common it was scary. Not like her and Mister Kidnaps-Women-for-Giggles. "Tickles."

  "Yeah, or you can just walk on the beach on Grand Cayman. It'll do the same thing."

  "There's feet fish there?"

  "No, it's just nice. And it ex--ex--" He took a deep breath. "Exfoliates. How long will you stay here?"

  She sighed and curled herself up in the chair. Her shoes were also on the floor. Around here somewhere. Who needed shoes, really? Not them.

  "Forever. Should learn Arabic. And the pirate princess who lives in my head is all quiet now."

  Thale's eyes went wide. "Oh, that's not good. Why'd that happen?"

  She didn't know. And it was bad. She needed Bonnie while she was here. Bonnie could go away once she got back to San Fran, but for now... Noelle needed Bonnie to help get her through this.

  "Hey." Wait a second. She squinted at Thale. "Where'd your accent go? And you're using contractions."

  He sniffed the air. "I do not know what you speak of."

  He'd slipped into a fake accent. Or maybe his first accent had been the fake one--the one he was back to now. But while he'd been relaxed, he'd talked a different way. More casual, and very familiar, though she couldn't quite place the speech pattern. His words didn't hold the kitchen staff's Askari twang or Walid's upper-crust pseudo-British tone. The accent had heavy American overtones, and she felt like she'd heard it before.

  "You have weird speech patterns," she told him. "Sometimes you talk like an Askari person, and sometimes you talk all American. But I can't quite place your American accent. It's so familiar. I know I know it, but I don't know where I know it."

  "You're drunk," he said, then stiffened a bit. "You are intoxicated. Have some more."

  As he filled her glass, which some part of her knew she shouldn't let him do, he asked, "What does the pirate princess do?"

  She sipped the champagne, letting the bubbles tickle her tongue and nose. "She wanted to escape. Guess she's given up."

  "A pirate princess never gives up," Thale said, as if he knew all about it.

  "Maybe sometimes they do."

  "Have you tried hitting a guard over his head and taking his uniform?" he asked.

  "Why does everyone want me to do that?" she asked. "I don't even think the women in the kitchen will help me anymore. I kinda betrayed Faridah. You could smuggle me out. In your luggage or something."

  Thale blew out a half-laugh. "But then my brother would refuse to pay for my feet fish."

  "The only way I'm getting out of here is if he kicks me out, and he's not going to do that anytime soon. Why are we drinking the third-best champagne again?" she asked. "I forgot."

  "Because if we started drinking lotsa bottles of the best or second best, someone might tell him and stop us."

  "Ah," she said. "You're very clever. I keep trying to escape, but all I do is piss him off."

  That's a brilliant idea.

  "I know," she acknowledged. "Thale, why does your voice sound like a little kid now? Are you a ventriloquist?"

  Piss him off so he'll kick us out.

  "Piss him off?" she asked.

  "Ventril--ventril--" Thale sucked his tongue for a second. "That word you said is a really long word for a drunk person. Hey, are you talking to the pirate princess?" Thale asked. "Tell her I said 'ahoy.'"

  I like him, the voice in her head said. He can be our cabin boy, if he swabs the deck.

  Bonnie. Relief curled through her. She wanted to throw her arms around the preteen and squeeze her until she popped.

  Welcome back, she told her friend.

  That's captain to you, scurvy swab.

  Aye, aye, Noelle said, her smile widening.

  One aye is sufficient. And pissing Walid off is a really good idea.

  "Whenever I piss him off, he takes away some of my freedom." Had she said that out loud? Oh well. Thale might help with the plan.

  "Ha. When I piss him off, he kicks me out."

  Exactly, Bonnie agreed.

  "Hey," Thale said. "Maybe he'd do the same to you. Decide that you're too much trouble to keep here."

  "Or he could throw me in the dungeon," she pointed out.

  "At least you'd be doing something," he said.

  He makes a good point.

  She nearly told Bonnie to hush, then thought better of it. Bonnie should definitely stick around. For now.

  "Thale, if I wanted to piss Walid off, where would I start?"

  He looked up to the ceiling, as if the answer was there. "I'd hit him in his cars."

  "Cars?" she asked.

/>   "Oh, yeah," Thale said. "You didn't know about this? He's got an entire garage of shiny, fast cars. But we can't go down there."

  She couldn't help smiling. "His Majesty told me I could go anywhere I wanted to. Er, can you act sober?"

  He took another swig of champagne. "I have been doing it since I was seventeen."

  *****

  As it turned out, Walid hadn't been lying about letting her go wherever she wanted. When she and Thale showed up at the special elevator that only went to Walid's private underground parking garage, they'd walked right past the guards. She did notice one of them reach for his radio just as the elevator doors slid shut the last inch.

  So they probably didn't have long before they were forcefully invited to leave.

  "What kinda cars does Walid have?" She didn't remember the limo that picked her up outside the embassy being anything special. Except for being a limo. It hadn't even been a stretch, but maybe he'd been trying to fly under the radar as he dragged her back to incarceration. Made sense.

  One of Thale's pupils was more dilated than the other, but he managed to walk a straight line. Good trick. "I forget them all. Some Ferraris. Couple Lamborghinis. An old Rolls. One Porsche. And his Veyron."

  "A Bugatti Veyron?" she said. "That's one of the most expensive cars in the world."

  "His favorite. So that's the one you should damage."

  "Pfft." She scoffed. "Damage a Veyron. That's like spitting on the Mona Lisa. I'm not that evil."

  "Do you want out of here?"

  Hmm. He had a point. Still, her clenching gut rebelled at the thought. Would she go that far? It wasn't exactly like vandalizing an irreplaceable painting. Da Vinci was dead, but Bugatti Inc. was very much alive. If he had the Super Sport model, it would cost him two point seven million dollars. He could get another one, right.

  The elevator was so quiet that a second passed before she realized it had stopped. She was about to be in the presence of the best street-legal car on earth. The Guinness World Record holder for fastest production car in the world.

  "Maybe I could get him to let me drive it first," she mused. "Or just spill something on it. Something that could wipe off easy."

  "We should have brought something to spill on it." The doors of the elevator opened so quietly a ninja would have to admire the silence. "Here we are."

  They stepped from the well-lit elevator into an expansive garage with only emergency lighting glowing at their feet. She blinked into the darkness.

  "One second." Thale's voice echoed in the cavernous room. "I've got the light."

  The fluorescents hummed and clicked on.

  She'd blinked into the darkness, adjusting her eyes. Now, she blinked into the light, unable to believe what she saw.

  More precisely, what she didn't see.

  Where are the cars? Bonnie asked. I thought we came to wreck some cars.

  No use arguing with the pirate princess about wrecking or not wrecking cars. There were no cars to wreck. Just a room the size of a hockey arena, only with thick concrete pillars evenly spaced throughout, and a few work areas around the outside.

  "Thale?" she asked.

  "Huh." Thale stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans. "Must have loaned them all out, I guess. Maybe check Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi?"

  "Right, I'll just pop off to Abu Dhabi," she said, an eye roll in her tone. Hey, she was starting to feel a bit more sober. "What is going on here?"

  "Who knows. I'm sure it's nothing."

  Bonnie? Got any brilliant ideas?

  I'm with you, said the pirate princess. This means something. I don't know what, though.

  The huge space wasn't exactly empty, though you could have held a nice soccer game in there if you didn't mind the pillars. She saw the limo and a late model steel-gray Aston Martin. And that was all.

  "Why would Walid get rid of his cars?" Maybe his brother would have a better insight. "It makes no sense to me. Was someone threatening his cars and he hid them to keep them safe or something?"

  Hey, like the jewel. Hidden treasure? Her internal pirate princess got a little excited about the concept.

  "I do not know." Thale sounded a little less drunk than he had been.

  "Maybe someone is threatening him, not the cars." Was Walid's life in danger? Had the kitchen staff been right about their king needing to be rescued? She hadn't met anyone with a grudge against him--except possibly her father. But no. If he had to choose between getting revenge for her and maintaining business ties with a potential associate, Winston Oldrich would take the potential for profit all day long.

  "Why do you care about this?" Thale eyed her as if she'd said something interesting. "He kidnapped you, after all."

  "Thanks for the reminder."

  He shrugged. "If something happened to him, you would be free, would you not?"

  "That would be a good thing." Her words didn't hold the enthusiasm she felt for getting out of here. In the end, she didn't want to see Walid hurt. Yeah, he'd kidnapped her, but it wasn't like he was holding a gun to her head. It was a civil kind of kidnapping, and if her father was a reasonable guy, she'd be back in the States now.

  Thale chuckled. "You have nothing in common with him, you know."

  "Nothing," she agreed. "But that's a weird thing to say."

  "Is it?" he asked. "You and I, however, have a great deal in common."

  "Oh, I know. Like the foot fish." She smiled at him. "We should hang out after this is over. I'd like that."

  "I would enjoy that as well." Thale's face darkened. For an instant, he looked wa-ay too much like his serious, focused, and determined brother. He took a couple steps toward her, forcing her to move back. Geesh. She'd heard that people in the Middle East had smaller personal spaces, but this was ridiculous. He now had her backed up against one of the concrete pillars.

  He smells good, Bonnie pointed out.

  She had to agree. The scent of freshly ground coffee hung on him. Very nice. And he had an innate rakish sexiness to him, the promise of pleasure.

  Her hands were on his shoulders--had she put them there? Thale was great. They got along amazingly. They loved the same things. His mouth was also very nice. It would be so easy to just pull him down to her and take those lips for a test drive...

  He lifted a finger to her chin, tilted her face up.

  "I want to get you out of here, Noelle," he told her. "I truly do. Even more because blondes are my type. But I wished to rescue the last one, too."

  "The last one?"

  "Yes," he said, oddly. "But the last one was for Ithnan. I believe you are for Walid."

  "What's that supposed to mean, I'm for Walid?"

  Thale stepped away from her, and for once the smile on his face was edged with sadness. "I wish you were for me."

  "Hey." She crossed her arms over her chest. "I can be for whoever I want. Mostly, I'm for me."

  Yeah, agreed Bonnie. Then she paused. What are we talking about?

  "Certainly," he replied, blandly.

  Ooooh, no way could she stand yet another Al Kalam brother dismissing what she wanted, getting the upper hand on her, not taking what she said seriously. In that second, she would do anything to wipe the scoffing look off his face. "Oh yeah?"

  She marched up to him, slapped a hand on the back of his neck, and wrenched his face down to a more manageable level. Then she kissed him.

  *****

  Walid did not take the time to remind his guards that he had given the strictest orders that no one was to enter his garage. They attempted apology, which he ignored, having no time to lose entering the elevator.

  He was known for his automotive collection--if anyone found out what had happened to it, questions would be asked. Questions he had no intention of answering.

  He should have known better, should have reiterated his orders to the guards that there was one location forbidden to her. As such, they had imagined his instructions that she had the run of the palace included his garage.

  Co
uld this elevator not go faster? He punched the button again, knowing the futility of doing so.

  And yet it worked. Or seemed to. The elevator slid to a stop.

  As soon as the metal doors opened far enough to permit it, he stepped out.

  To see his brother kissing Noelle Oldrich.

  His blood turned to acid in his veins. Cold rage burned in his eye sockets. He could feel the muscles and bones in his brother's neck under his palms as he squeezed, constricting Thalatha's air supply. His fingers twitched to turn that mental picture into reality.

  "Walid," said Noelle. Just his name. Nothing else.

  She had broken the kiss, and was now looking at him with judgment in her eyes.

  He realized he'd been advancing on them far too quickly, his jaw set in belligerence. Violence had been his intention.

  The sight of his brother touching Noelle Oldrich had been enough to strip away his discipline and turn him into a thoughtless animal.

  Glass walls slammed down around him, cutting off his senses, making everything distant.

  "Miss Oldrich." His voice sounded as if it came from far away. "This area is private. May I ask what you are doing here?"

  She tossed her hair defiantly, but the creeping blush on her neck told a tale of embarrassment. "You said I had the run of the palace, that I could go wherever I wanted. You said I could make myself at home."

  "And you decided to make yourself at home by damaging some of the things I most value."

  Her nostrils flared. But the indignation seemed forced, telling him he had come to a correct conclusion. "Where are you getting that one? I just wanted to look at your famous car collection."

  "No, you did not. If you wished to do such a thing, you would have requested to do so. I would have arranged it."

  Thalatha inserted himself into the conversation. "I brought her here. It is my fault. As usual."

  A special exhibition at a museum. On loan to various friends. Out being waxed. The lies tasted like sawdust on his tongue. "That is not your concern."

  She stuck to the topic with tenacity. "Did something happen to them?"