Desert Sheikh vs American Princess (35 page)

He laughed again. She didn't see what was funny. "Honey--"

"Nope." She cocked her head at him, as if that would help her see him from a new angle. "What did you want from me?"

Her parents blinked at her.

"I was a fun kid, you know. Just the way I was. I worshipped you. I did everything to please you. But it was never enough. I stopped being myself and tried to make myself into the person I thought you wanted me to be, and you could never say even just one nice thing about me." She turned to Angelique. "I don't know why you helped him turn a great kid into a shadow of yourself, but you weren't even better. Maybe even worse, since you could have walked away."

"Noelle, I just wanted my daughter to be happy and safe," her dad said.

"I
was
happy. Don't give me that. You wanted
you
to be happy."

Her father turned his eyes to the floor. "It was your mother. You were just like her. When she was little, she was a tomboy, just like you." He lifted his chin, met her gaze straight on. "She wrapped her car around a tree taking a stupid risk. When you asked for that stupid jetski..."

Lost in memories, he didn't seem to be able to articulate what he'd felt then. Fear, mostly, she guessed.

Fear was no reason not to live your life, she'd learned. Regret was its own prison, she'd seen in Walid. But both of them had broken out now.

"When I asked for that jetski, you should have gotten me an instructor so I could learn to ride it safely." As if she wasn't in control of it, her head began to shake slowly. "You two wrecked my childhood and I almost let you wreck the rest of my life. I forgive you, but I'm done with you now. You can leave of your free will, or Kitoko can drag you out. You pick."

"Noelle. Baby." There was a note in her father's voice she'd never heard before. Desperation.

"I don't think I'm your baby anymore, Dad." She'd depended on him and Angelique, once. Now, Walid had come into her life. Suzette, Faridah, and Kitoko, too, plus Mr. Lodhi-Rajput. She had a great feeling about Gwen, her soon-to-be sister-in-law, and Walid's brother Ithnan, but they hadn't spent much time together yet.

A new family was gathering around her. She no longer needed to pursue the love of people who wanted to change her into someone safe and boring.

You're missing someone from that list
, offered Bonnie.

No, I've got everyone
, she said, scanning the room.

Everyone in the room. But not everyone.

She could figure that one out later. Now, it was time to say goodbye to old things, and start new.

"You were so afraid of losing me," she told her parents. "Now you'll never see me again."

Walid put his arm around her shoulder as if he could physically shield her from the emotional hurt.

Her father was the first to turn away from her, she noted, with a pang under her ribs. Angelique seemed clamped to the spot, unable to move.

"Noelle," she said, her French accent thick with emotion. "Noelle,
ma petite
, I am sorry."

"Too late. You should have been sorry a long time ago."

Angelique's eyes went glassy with thick tears she tried to blink away. "I have your email address. I will write you. Perhaps in time..."

Noelle didn't encourage her. But if Angelique wrote, she would listen to what she had to say. Perhaps in time...

"
Au revoir
, Angelique."

After her parents had exited--her father with his head high, Angelique with a final look back--Gwen rushed to her side. "Rushed" being a relative term for the now painfully pregnant woman.

"Noelle, are you okay?"

With Walid's grip tight on her hand providing all the support she needed, how could she not be okay? "I won't let them take any more happiness from me. Especially not today."

Gwen nodded. "Ithnan, this would be a great time."

"I was thinking the same thing." Ithnan shot a loving look at his wife at the same time he snapped his fingers at a waiting servant, who responded by passing him a golden box with a big red bow on it. "Allow us to present this gift, from the people of Zallaq to the people of Askar, a small symbol of respect and esteem between our nations."

A box. The hairs on the back of her neck went cold with the memory of opening a box about the same size, with Ithnan and Gwen watching. Her teeth clenched. How dare her new in-laws remind them of the Palm that had been sold to a private collector.

Walid reached into the box and lifted out...

The Palm of Askar, glinting out from its setting in a now-restored crown.

"Oh my God," said Noelle. "Oh my God."

The color drained from Walid's face. He looked from the Palm to his brother, then back down at the Palm. Then back to his brother. His lips parted and nothing came out.

When he did speak, he was practically incoherent. "I cannot. Brother. There are no words."

Ithnan raised an eyebrow. "I have managed to disconcert you. I count it an excellent endeavor. The Palm belongs here, Walid. Remember that I was born in Askar as well."

"How can we ever repay this debt?" Walid seemed genuinely at a loss. But his fingers were locked around the crown like they were cemented there.

Ithnan waved a hand. "I will probably take advantage of you in some trade negotiation in the future. Already, I have approached Ms. St. Martin to build her hotel in Zallaq instead of Askar."

Walid snapped out of his distracted state to bark at his brother. "You will not--"

"Boys." The sharpened note in Gwen's voice warned she wasn't putting up with this crap. She looked to Noelle to back her up.

Noelle shrugged. There didn't seem to be any malice in the exchange. "Maybe some friendly competition is a good thing."

Gwen rolled her eyes. "I was hoping another woman in the family would mean I wasn't quite so outnumbered. Ah well, the sun is starting to set. Time to get you two hitched."

"We're both outnumbered, Gwen. There's three of them, remember?" Before she even finished her statement, she stiffened and turned to Gwen, who was having the same response.

Three of them
. Noelle grabbed her fiancé's elbow. Bonnie had tried to warn her.
Everyone in the room. Not everyone.

"Thale," said Gwen.

Noelle's pulse blew up like a firecracker. "He said he'd be here. Has anyone seen him?"

"Thalatha? He likely got distracted by a blonde," suggested Ithnan.

"Or simply forgot the date," added Walid.

Gwen made a noise low in her throat. "I'm not sure Thale is as flaky as you guys think."

"Me too. I thought I was the only one. Maybe something happened to him," Noelle said. She pulled her phone out of her clutch and thumbed over to the Twitter app. "Hmm, no. He says he's in New York. He was supposed to be back yesterday. Here's a selfie of him in Times Square."

"Enough about my brother," Walid put in. "This is the time to think of ourselves. I have waited long enough to make you mine."

"Pirate princesses don't appreciate being referred to as possessions, Walid." She put away her phone. "Even if we do appreciate the sentiment."

"I apologize, of course. We have waited long enough to be united, then," he corrected. "But you will no longer be a pirate princess. You are about to become a pirate queen."

She blinked at him. "Rats. I never thought of that. I spent all this time trying to be a pirate princess. What am I supposed to do now?"

"We must muddle through as best we can, I suppose." Noelle heard a distinct eye roll in his tone.

"I guess it's okay." Since none of the guests seemed to be looking, she gave his ass a gentle squeeze. "So long as I've got a pirate king by my side."

He captured the offending hand in his own. "Forever, my love. Forever. Now"--he nodded toward the waiting officiants, the setting sun throwing light over them as golden as the rims in his eyes--"we have a window to jump out of."

Epilogue 2.0

T
HALE
A
L
K
ALAM
woke with a full body ache and a sensation of dread.

Also, he seemed to be tied to a chair.

When he tugged his hands, as hard as he could, something bit into his wrists. Ropes also fastened him to the legs of the chair. Someone very much wished for him to stay exactly where he was.

His mind was full of fluffy sand, blowing in a breeze. He should probably know why he was tied to a chair, but for the moment, the reason eluded him. One thing he did know for certain; being tied to a chair was not a good thing. It did not indicate security and a pleasant immediate future.

He appreciated security and pleasant things. Never more than right now. He would fill his life with security and pleasant things if he had the choice.

As he blinked the clouds out of his eyes, the place where he was sharpened and focused. A hotel room. That was not unusual. He stayed in many hotel rooms. After a while, they all melded together into one forgotten memory.

This hotel room, though. The marble floors covered with an intricately woven carpet. The hand-carved headboard of interlocking mathematical shapes. The windows that swept to points at the top. The Arabesque details would seem to indicate that he was in the Middle East. That seemed unlikely, as he rarely stayed in hotels in the Middle East. He preferred to take advantage of the hospitality of his friends and relatives.

But where else would there be a hotel that looked like someone had injected modern conveniences into the Thousand and One Arabian Nights?

The question held its own answer. Someone had done exactly that, and her name was Zahra St. Martin

He was in New York, of course. At Hotel Scheherazade. It could be nowhere else.

That was the piece of information he needed. The Lego blocks of his memory began to snap into place. He'd come to New York to clear his mind. Or to fill it with things. Things that were not his soon-to-be sister-in-law Noelle Oldrich. She of the tight bottom and shiny blonde hair.

He had always fallen hard for blonde hair.

Which is why he had taken an interest in the blonde at the bar, twitching and looking over her shoulder as if someone had been following her. Danica, her name had been.

At first, he'd assumed she had hit the tanning bed with a vengeance, but then he'd gotten a better look, and seen the one dark almond-shaped eye that her hair did not hide. The blonde was an intriguing contrast to her Asian features. At the time, he'd thought the ice-white hair with a Jessica Rabbit wave gave her the air of a femme fatale. 

After he'd spoken to her, she turned into a damsel in distress. 

That had been before she'd tased him and tied him to a chair. After, he would have reconsidered his initial position, if he had been conscious at the time.

Which brought him up to now.

Tied to a chair.

In a hotel in New York.

The washroom door opened, and out stepped Danica.

The scarlet dress seemed vacuum-sealed to her body, showing off her flat stomach, slim hips, and excellent, excellent cleavage.

He had always liked red. His favorite color, in fact.

"I do not know how that man is getting you to do this, but I can help you. I have powerful friends. If you will simply give me my mobile, I will call my brother and whatever your situation is, you will soon be free of it." He nodded at his dark gray jacket, which he had bespoke from a Saville Row tailor who did not serve anyone below the rank of Earl, resting on a turquoise silk bedspread a few feet away.

The easiest path to rescue would be to contact the police, but that would result in unnecessary complications, and possibly public embarrassment. There might be a trial where he would have to admit that he had fallen for the lure Danica put out. All he had to do was dial three little numbers.

He was normally a fan of taking the easiest path, but in this case, the second easiest path was the better one. Calling his second eldest brother, Ithnan, sheikh of the country of Zallaq. His eldest sibling, Walid, would send the police. Ithnan would send a small squad of people well trained in making problems go away quietly.

All that it would cost him would be the inevitable lecture that followed.

The expertly drawn crimson pout was fading from Danica's mouth. Her eyes (make that singular, since one of her eyes still hid behind a curtain of blonde waves) seemed smaller. Apparently she had removed a set of false lashes.

"I told you to stop calling me Danica. That's not my name."

He shrugged as well as he could with his hands confined behind him. "You look like a Danica."

"I gave you every chance to talk," she said. An odd statement since they'd first spoken only hours ago. Possibly longer, depending on how long he'd been out cold. "Now you can shut up until you tell me one thing."

Danica reached behind her and pulled out a gun. "Where is the Eye of Sadad?"

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