Strangers in the Desert by Lynn Raye Harris Read Free Book Online Page A

without being terrified about what you’ll do or say?”
    His expression was stone. “This will no doubt come as a surprise to you, but I don’t terrorize anyone. They obey me because it is my due.”
    Isabella returned to her seat and sank down into it. “You are a deluded man, then. Because from where I’m sitting, you pretty much terrorize everyone.”
    “You don’t seem terrorized,” he remarked somewhat wryly.
    “I’m trying very hard not to be.”
    The flight attendant returned with a glass of mineral water and a plate of sliced lemons. She set it on the table in front of Isabella and curtsied again. “Will that be all, Your Highness?”
    “Thank you, yes.”
    The girl then asked Adan if he would like anything after all. He replied that he would not, and she disappeared into the galley.
    Isabella squeezed a lemon slice into the glass and sipped the cool, bubbly water. It felt good against her throat, which was sore from a night of singing and crying. She pointedly ignored Adan, staring out the window instead. It was day now, and they were high over the clouds.
    “You have changed, Isabella.”
    She looked up at him, her heart flipping at the heat and anger in those dark, dark eyes. “Everything has changed,” she said softly. “It’s adapt or die. I prefer to adapt.”
    “You will soon be returning to Hawaii, so do not adapt too much.”
    Her stomach tightened, but she refused to react. “You won’t frighten me away, Adan. No matter what you do, you won’t frighten me away.”
    “It would be unwise of you to plan for a future in Jahfar,” he warned. “You will only be there as long as it takes to sort out the legal tangle of you being alive rather than dead.”
    “I will
not
be silent. And I will not fade away into the night like a ghost, no matter how you might wish it.”
    He considered her for a long moment. “And yet, that is not your choice to make.”
    Stepping off the plane onto Jahfaran soil was like stepping from a refrigerator into a blast furnace. The sun beat down on the white tarmac, reflecting light into her eyes. Isabella wore sunglasses, but she felt as if her corneas were burning nonetheless.
    She’d forgotten how bright, how hot, how desolate Jahfar could be. Especially compared to the lush verdancy of Hawaii.
    In the distance, date palms lined the runway. Farther away, stark sandstone mountains loomed in the background. It was home, and it was foreign.
    Three black Mercedes limousines sat nearby, and a team of dark-suited men with earpieces waited stoically beside them. Several men in white
dishdashas,
wearing traditional
keffiyehs,
stood in a cluster near the bottom of the stairs. A red carpet had been rolled out from the plane to the cars.
    Adan preceded her down the stairs. The men at the bottom sank to their knees and touched their heads tothe ground as he approached. Isabella stopped short. This was the greeting given to the ruler, not to a royal family member.
    Adan spoke with the men, and then they were standing and he was striding down the carpet toward the cars. She was stuck in place, trying to process what she’d just seen, and wanting more than anything to turn around and climb back up the stairs. Part of her—the small, scared part—wanted to rewind the past twenty-four hours and go back to the way it was before she’d known about Adan and their son.
    Adan reached the car and turned to look at her. At that moment, something inside her broke loose, broke her foothold on the steps, and she was running down them and hurrying to his side. She would not let him leave her behind. She would not cower from this, or from the hard truths that awaited her when she spoke with her father again.
    He stepped back to let her inside the car, then climbed in beside her. The door shut solidly behind them and then the car was moving.
    Isabella ran a nervous hand along the skirt of her sundress. Where was her bravery of earlier? Where was the woman who’d stood toe-to-toe with