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

him? Who had challenged him and threatened him?
    She didn’t know, but she did know she was having trouble catching her breath. Moisture pooled in the valley between her breasts. She should not have run in this heat. She’d been gone too long and she was no longer accustomed to it.
    Adan reached down into what she realized was a small refrigerator and then thrust a bottle of cold water at her. “Drink this before you pass out.”
    Isabella twisted the top off and took a gulp. “I’d forgotten how hot Jahfar is,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t betray her unease. She wanted to appear calm, unruffled, though she was anything but.
    “You seem to have trouble remembering quite a lot of things,” Adan said coolly.
    Isabella ignored the taunt. “That was the greeting for a king.”
    She couldn’t see his eyes behind his mirrored sunglasses. But his lips thinned. “Precisely.”
    “You are the king? I thought the king was an Al Nasri.” Her heart was beginning to throb. What had she walked into? What awful, tangled mess was this?
    “My cousin and his family died in a boating accident last year. I became my uncle’s heir, as I am the oldest of my brothers. My uncle died a little over a week ago.”
    Her breath stopped in her chest. It was too much. “I am not … I can’t be …”
    “The queen? No, you aren’t,” he said firmly. “Nor will you be.”
    “But if you are king?”
    His mouth turned down. “I cannot be formally invested until I am married. It is the law. I am the acting king until the coronation.”
    Isabella resisted the urge to roll the cold bottle against her neck and chest. She would never be cool enough, especially now that her heart beat so hard and her skin prickled with the nearness of this man. “I’m afraid I don’t understand. You
are
married.”
    He slipped the glasses from his face and tossed them down on the seat beside him. His eyes speared her, so hard and cold in the frame of his handsome face. And hot. How did they manage to be hot, as well?
    “Twenty-four hours ago I was a widower. You have thrown a bit of a spanner in the works, as the charming saying goes—but we will take care of that shortly. Once we do, I can proceed with the wedding that you have interrupted.”
    “Wedding? You’re getting married?”
    “This is what I have said.”
    Hurt and fury warred within her. Of course he would have moved on, and of course he would have had to remarry if he thought she were dead. But now that she was back? Now that she knew they had a child together?
    “Are you in love with her?” she asked. Because if he was, if he’d found someone he adored who adored him in return, how could she stand between them?
    And how could she
not
, when her child’s future was at stake?
    “That is none of your concern,” he said shortly.
    Her heart thrummed. “That means no, then. Because if you were, you wouldn’t mind saying it.”
    His fingers drummed the leather seat. “You do not know this.”
    “I do,” she insisted. “No one in love minds that question. Unless the relationship is forbidden for some reason.”
    His gaze sharpened. “Have you been in love recently, Isabella? Do you speak from experience?”
    She dropped her gaze, unwilling to let him see even an ounce of her loneliness over the past couple of years. Her certainty that someone was out there for her, but that she had not yet found him.
    “No.”
    He gripped her chin in his fingers and forced her headup. His eyes searched hers. “You belong to me,
habibti.
I would not take it kindly if you have a lover.”
    “I don’t see why it would matter,” she said. “You can’t wait to be rid of me.”
    Something flashed across his face—and then he abruptly let her go. “Yes, this is true. The sooner it is done, the better. It is time Rafiq had a proper mother.”
    It was as if he’d taken a hot dagger and thrust it through her heart. Isabella had to restrain herself from doing violence to him. He was