The Sheik and the Runaway Princess (8 page)

Sabrina waited for him to say more but he didn’t. Had he never told his mother the details of his first few years at the boarding school? He’d told Sabrina. Was that because she was so insignificant as to not matter or because they shared the experience?

Cala turned back to her. “You had much the same situation, didn’t you?” she asked. “You spent your school year with your mother and your summers in Bahania?”

Sabrina nodded. “It was always a shock to go from one place to the other. For security reasons my mother never told anyone who I was. As I grew old enough to tell my friends on my own, I didn’t say anything because I thought they either wouldn’t believe me or things would change.”

Cala glanced at her son. “I believe you shared her opinion.”

“It was a secret city, Mother. I couldn’t talk about it.”

Cala changed the subject, mentioning the opening of a new wing in the medical clinic. They discussed the unusually cool spring weather and the latest nomadic tribal council meeting. Sabrina found herself liking Kardal’s mother. The woman was gentle and kind without being spineless. Kardal treated her with great respect. He also glanced at Sabrina from time to time, his eyes almost twinkling, as if she shared a secret with him.

She wasn’t sure what it could be, but she liked the feeling. It made her shiver nearly as much as his kiss had.

“I’ve issued an invitation,” Cala said when the meal had finished. Sabrina collected the last of the plates and put them on the tray.

“Do I need to be concerned?” Kardal asked lazily. “Will twenty women be invading the castle? Should I plan a trip into the desert?”

His mother busied herself folding her napkin. “No women.
Just one man.
King Givon.”

“The king of El Bahar,” Sabrina began. “Why—”

Kardal rose to his feet. His expression turned dark and forbidding as he glared down at his mother. “How dare you?” he demanded. “You know he is not welcome here. If he tries to step one foot in the City of
Thieves
, he will be shot on sight. If necessary, I will do it myself.”

He stalked from the room and slammed the door behind him.

Sabrina stared after him, bewildered. “I don’t understand,” she whispered. “King Givon is a wonderful ruler. His people adore him.”

Cala sighed. “Kardal would not care about that. I had hoped time would heal the wound, but I see that I was wrong.”

“What wound? Why does Kardal hate King Givon?”

Cala bit her lower lip.
“Because Givon is his father.”

Cala stayed for several minutes before excusing herself, but when Kardal’s mother finally left, Sabrina saw tears glinting in her eyes.

King Givon was Kardal’s father? Sabrina couldn’t believe it. The king of El Bahar was known to have been a devoted father all his life, and before his wife’s death, they were supposed to have been wildly in love.

She paced the length of her room for a few minutes,
then
headed out to find Kardal. She ran into one of the servants and got directions to his private quarters.

The imposing wood doors with an enamel seal nearly made her turn back, but she had the feeling that Kardal would need to talk to someone tonight. They had more in common than she would have thought so maybe she could help with this. Squaring her shoulders for courage, she knocked once,
then
entered.

Kardal’s rooms were large, filled with incredible antiques. She entered a tiled foyer with a fountain trickling in the corner. To her left was a dining area with a table that seated twenty. She recognized the ornate style of eighteenth-century
France
—a time of excess that produced beautiful furniture. She crossed the living area and saw the balcony doors were open.

Some inner voice drew her out into the evening coolness. Below were the lights from the city and in the distance, the darkness of the desert. She sensed more than saw movement and approached the man leaning against the wooden railing.

“Kardal?” she whispered, not wanting to startle him.

He didn’t say anything, nor did he move away. She walked toward him and stopped when she was next to him. His face was expressionless. As twilight turned to night, his features blurred.

They were silent for a long time, but she found she didn’t mind the quiet. There was something restful about the desert. The occasional voice drifted up to them.
Laughter.
So much life all around them, hidden from the rest of the world in this fabled city.

“I’ve only been here a few days,” she said without thinking, “yet I can’t imagine being anywhere else.”

“I never wanted to leave,” Kardal replied. “Even when I knew it was for the best.”

He leaned forward and rested his forearms on the wood railing. “You don’t understand, do you?”

“Not any of it,” she admitted. “I never knew King Givon was your father. Of course I didn’t know much about the city or its inhabitants so I suppose that’s not a complete surprise. But I thought…” Her voice trailed off. “I don’t know what I thought.”

“It’s a long story,” he warned.

She glanced at him and gave him a slight smile. “I might be your slave, but I have amazingly few duties. So I’m free to listen.”

He nodded briefly,
then
began. “Centuries ago, before the discovery of oil, there existed what was called the
silk road
. It was a path through the desert, linking
India
and
China
with the west. Trade between the near and far east supported dozens of economies. When the
silk road
was open, many flourished. When it was closed, countries suffered. Over time the nomads found they could
made
a good living by offering protection for merchants. Those who dwelled in the City of
Thieves
learned they could make more by preventing theft than by stealing.”

“Quite a change in the way of doing business,” she said, listening intently.

“Agreed.
El Bahar and Bahania have been good neighbors for hundreds of years. What most people don’t know is that the City of
Thieves
is intimately involved with the two countries. There is a symbiotic relationship between the three governments. Five hundred years ago the prince of the city controlled the nomads. He collected a percentage of all goods passing through the desert. Today I collect a percentage of the oil. In return my people keep the desert safe from terrorists and the oil fields free from attack.”

“Rafe,” she said softly. “He’s not here for castle security at all.”

“The castle is part of his responsibility,” Kardal told her.
“But not the main part.
My nomads can only do so much to protect the desert. The use of technology has been growing over the years.”

She touched his arm, resting her fingertips on his shirt. She could feel the heat of him, and his strength.

“What does this have to do with your father?”

He glanced down at her,
then
returned his attention to the night sky. “El Bahar, Bahania and the City of
Thieves
are bound by more than economics. There is also a blood tie. When there is no male heir for the city, either the king of El Bahar or the king of Bahania joins with the oldest daughter, staying with her until she is pregnant. If the child is a boy, he’s the new heir. If the child is a girl, the king returns each year until a son is born. My grandfather had only one child…a daughter.”

Sabrina withdrew her fingers and pressed them against her chest. “That’s barbaric,” she said, shocked by what he was saying. “He just shows up and sleeps with her? They don’t even get married?”

Kardal shrugged. “It is the way it has been for a thousand years. The kings alternate so that the blood lines stay connected but still healthy. Two hundred years ago the king of Bahania performed his royal duty. It was King Givon’s turn this time.”

Sabrina shook her head. Nothing made sense. “But your mother was so young.”

“Just eighteen.”

She tried to imagine herself in that position, having to take a stranger into her bed for the sole purpose of getting pregnant. “It could have just as easily been my father,” she breathed. “That would have made us half brother and sister.”

She wasn’t sure but she thought he might have smiled briefly. “That would have made things more interesting,” he told her. “But we are not related. Although I’m not sure your father would have treated my mother any differently.”

His anger returned. “Givon never cared about her. He simply did his duty and walked away. Not once in the past thirty years has he been in touch with either of us. He never acknowledged me.”

Sabrina felt his pain. “I know,” she said softly, leaning toward him but not touching him. “I know exactly what it feels like to be rejected by a parent. There’s a horrible combination of not wanting to care and desperately wanting to be noticed.”

“My feelings don’t matter,” he said into the darkness. “Thirty-one years after the fact, my father is finally ready to admit I exist.” He shook his head. “It’s too late. I won’t receive him.”

“You have to,” she said urgently. “Kardal, please listen to me. You have to see him, because if you refuse, everyone is going to know the rejection still hurts and you don’t want that. Your people will assume you’re sulking. That is not the measure of a good leader. Face him because you don’t have a choice. Don’t let him see that he still matters.”

He turned on her. “He doesn’t matter. He never mattered.”

She held her ground and met his furious gaze. “He matters a lot and that’s what makes you so angry. Whatever you tell yourself, he’s still your father.”

He continued to glare at her. Eventually some of the heat left his gaze. “You are not as I imagined,” he said.

Despite the tension in the air, she couldn’t help chuckling. “I know what you thought of me before so that’s hardly a compliment.”

“I mean it as one.” He touched his fingers to her face. “I have much to consider. Your counsel is most wise. I will not dismiss it simply because you’re a woman.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, knowing he was actually being sincere. The man might have gone to school in the west, but desert sand flowed through his veins. He made her crazy.

Worse, she wasn’t sure she would change even one thing about him.

The next morning Kardal’s assistant, Bilal, knocked on his door, then stepped inside to announce that Princess Cala was here to see him. Kardal hesitated. For the first time in his life, he didn’t want to see his mother. He’d spent most of the last night and this morning trying to forget what she’d told him. That King Givon was coming to the city.

He nodded at Bilal and told the young man to show her in.

Cala swept into the office. She wore jeans and a T-shirt, and looked more like a western teenager than a nearly fifty-year-old mother. Her long hair hung in a braid down her back.

“I thought you might refuse to see me,” she said as she plopped down in the seat across from his. “You were in quite the snit last night.”

“Snit?”

She shrugged. “You were obviously upset with both the situation and with me.”

“Upset?”

“Do you plan to repeat everything I say?”

“No.” He placed his hands on his desk. How could he explain what he was feeling? Why did he have to? Shouldn’t his mother understand?

Cala crossed one leg over the other and smiled at him. “I liked Sabrina. She’s very nice.”

It took him a second to catch up with the subject change. “Yes. I was surprised as well, although I’m not sure I would use the word ‘nice’ to describe her.”

“What word would you use?”

“Spirited.
Intelligent.”

He thought of her advice the previous evening. That he couldn’t refuse the king’s visit because then he would be showing that Givon mattered to him. Not that he did. Kardal had stopped caring about his father a long time ago.

“I had suspected you two had much in common. I’m pleased that’s true,” Cala told him. “Have you decided what to do about the betrothal?”

“No.” Although the thought of being married to Sabrina was less distressing than it had been. “She is willful and still has much to learn.”

“And you can be a real idiot sometimes. I tried to raise you to believe women are the equal of men.”

Kardal raised his eyebrows. “I do not recall that lesson.”

“Of course you don’t.” Cala put both feet on the floor and leaned toward him. She drew in a breath. “Kardal, I’m sorry you’re upset about Givon’s visit. I had hoped that you would be willing to listen and understand now that you’re older.”

He sprang to his feet. “I have nothing to say on the subject.”

His mother’s dark eyes pleaded with him. “What about what I have to say?”

“It is not important.”

She stood and glared at him. “I hate it when you get this way. You talk about Sabrina being stubborn, but you’re the worst in that respect. You didn’t even ask me why.”

“Why what?”

“Why King Givon is coming for a visit. Why after all this time he’s finally making an appearance.”

Kardal didn’t want to know, but he also wasn’t about to admit that to his mother. Instead he inclined his head, indicating she could tell him.

“I asked him,” she said simply. “He stayed away because I told him he wasn’t welcome in the city. Last month I sent him a message requesting his presence here.”

He could not have been more shocked if she’d slapped him. “You invited him?” The sense of betrayal left a bitter taste on his tongue.
Cala?
“After what he did to you?”

She took a step toward him. “I’ve told you dozens of times, Kardal. There’s more to the story than you know. I invited him because it’s time we laid the past to rest.”

“Never,” he announced. “I will never forgive him.”

“You have to. It’s not all his fault. If you’d just let me explain.”

He turned to his computer and touched several keys. “Please excuse me, Mother. I have much work to do.”

She hesitated for a minute or two,
then
left his office. Kardal continued to stare unseeingly at the computer screen. Finally he swore, stood and left the room as well.

Sabrina consulted the dictionary on her lap,
then
returned her attention to the ancient text on the small table in front of her. Old Bahanian was a difficult language in the best of circumstances. When written in a curvy script and seven-hundred-year-old ink, it was practically impossible.

Picking up a magnifying glass, she brushed away some dust with her gloved fingers. Was that an r or a t, she wondered. Did the—

The door to her quarters flew open and Kardal stalked into the room. She stared at him thinking that he never walked or stood like a normal person. He was forever looming and pacing and sweeping around. Even as she watched, he unfastened his cloak and tossed it on the bed, then moved to stand next to her.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

She set down the magnifying glass,
then
pulled off her gloves.
“Trying to read this text.
Unsuccessfully,” she added. “It’s something about camels, but I can’t figure out if it’s a bill of sale or instructions for care.”

He looked at the paper. “Why does it matter which?”

“Because it’s an old document related to a way of life that is lost to us.
We’ll discover the truth about that time through the mundane.
Which, by the way, is not why you came to see me.
What’s wrong?”

He threw up his hands and paced to the window in her room. Once there, he stared out into the desert. “My mother invited him. That’s why he’s coming. She actually wrote him. What was she thinking?”

Energy poured from him, filling the room and making Sabrina wish there was something she could do to ease his suffering. Kardal was a strong man. From what she’d heard on her walks through the castle, he was well respected and honored as a wise ruler. But in this matter of his father, he was as confused as anyone else would be.

She put the dictionary on the table and went to stand next to him. “Which bothers you more?” she asked. “That he’s coming or that your mother invited him?”

He turned his dark eyes on her. His mouth twisted. “I don’t know. It’s been thirty-one years. I’ve never met him. What am I supposed to do now?”

“Pretend he is just another visiting dignitary. Have a state dinner with fabulous food and wine. Talk about world events and don’t let him see that you care.”

“I don’t care.”

He spoke forcefully, but she saw his pain and confusion. A part of her wanted to reach out to him. After all, they had a version of this circumstance in common. But she didn’t know him well enough to predict how he would react to an offer of comfort. And the thought of being physically close to him made her nervous.

Instead she crossed to her desk and pulled out a drawer. Taking a modern pen and paper out, she pushed aside the text and dictionary, then sat.

“We need a plan,” she said firmly. “I’m serious about the state dinner. What else do you want to do while he’s here? What about a tour of the castle? It’s been thirty-one years, right? I’m sure there have been changes.”

“We’ve modernized,” Kardal admitted, moving toward the table.

She glanced around at her room, her gaze lingering on the lanterns and the lack of running water. “Obviously the remodeling didn’t get this far,” she said dryly. “Okay, item one, the dinner.” She wrote. “Item two, tour of the castle and that security stuff that Rafe is in charge of.”

Kardal pulled out a chair and sat next to her. He wore a loose linen shirt and dark trousers. Even casually dressed, he appeared powerful and just a little scary. At least that’s what Sabrina told herself to explain the rapid beating of her heart. It couldn’t possibly be because he was sitting close to her, could it?

“The air force,” Kardal said.

Sabrina opened her mouth,
then
closed it. “Excuse me?”

“The air force,” he repeated. “That is why Rafe is here. He’s working with another American in Bahania. In the past few years it has become apparent that nomadic tribes and electronic surveillance isn’t enough to keep the desert safe. We need airplanes to patrol the area. Rafe and Jason Templeton, who is Rafe’s counterpart in Bahania, both have military experience. Your father and I hired them to get our air force up and running.”

“You’re kidding,” she said, still in shock. “You’re going to have a military presence here in the City of
Thieves
? And my father is doing the same?”

“We have valuable resources to protect. Not just the oil. Minerals are being mined. When tensions run high, we are vulnerable. My grandfather was a wise man in many ways, but he resisted technology. I don’t share his view.”

“I guess not.”

Sabrina supposed that when she thought about it, some way of protecting the country made sense. Bahania, like El Bahar, had remained neutral as much as possible throughout the past several hundred years. But situations arose that forced action.
Or at least protection.

“What about El Bahar? Will they participate?”

Kardal frowned. “Hassan wants to invite Givon, but I have resisted. With my father coming here, I may not have a choice in the matter.”

“At the risk of starting trouble, wouldn’t everyone be safer if the three of you presented a united front?”

“Perhaps.”
He looked at her. “Yes, of course. But for now I would rather be stubborn.”

“Just so you’re willing to admit it.”

They were sitting closer than she’d realized. She could see the flecks of gold in Kardal’s irises and the dark line where his whiskers began on his cheeks. Her gaze drifted to his mouth and she remembered what it had felt like against her own. He hadn’t tried to kiss her again. Was that because he hadn’t been pleased with what had happened before? Was he angry because she’d pushed his hands away?

She wasn’t going to get any answers to her questions, she told herself. There was no way she was going to ask them and he wasn’t likely to volunteer the information.
Time to return to the subject at hand.

“Do you think the air force is the reason Cala invited Givon here?
So that you would have to include him?”

“Perhaps.
My mother rarely interferes with issues of state, but she understands the ways of the world. I frequently seek her counsel.”

“But not in this matter.”

“No. We disagree about King Givon.” He tapped the table. “You are right about the state dinner, however. It is necessary to act as if this visit is no different from any other. Would you plan that for me?”

His request surprised her. Her father rarely let her plan more than her own wardrobe. “Yes.
Of course.”

“I’ll instruct the household staff to consult with you on every detail.”

She nodded, more pleased than she could say. “I’ll put together a menu,
then
discuss it with you.” A thought struck her. “If you like, I could find some El Baharian treasures in the vault and use them to decorate the dining room and the king’s rooms.”

Kardal grinned. “Tweaking Givon’s nose?”

“Just a little.
Do you mind?”

He smiled at her.
“Not at all, although I’m beginning to see that while it’s very pleasant to have you on my side, I would not want you for an enemy.”

She made a few more notes,
then
set down her pen. “Kardal, you have to really be prepared for this. Seeing your father is going to be a bigger deal than you imagine. If you don’t get ready, you won’t be able to do more than react when you see him.”

He stared into the distance. “I know. But how does one prepare for such an event? I can imagine it, as I have dozens of times in my life. I see him in my mind’s eye, but he doesn’t speak. After all this time, what is there to say?”

“I wish I knew.” Sabrina thought about her own father whose greetings to her usually consisted of an absent, “Oh, you’ve returned.”

“What do you want to say to him?” she asked.

Kardal leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know. I have many questions, but I’m not sure I still care about the answers. It was different when I was younger. However, I will consider your advice.”

She wanted to point out that considering and taking were two different things. She also thought he was wrong. He might be older, but she doubted his feelings for his father had changed very much over the years.

“Will King Givon come alone or bring his sons with him?”

“My mother didn’t say and I have not clarified that with her.” Tension filled his body. “I will speak with her today and let you know so that you may plan accordingly.”

“Thanks. I’ll make sure the appropriate
number of rooms are
ready.”

Kardal shook his head. “His sons,” he repeated slowly.
“My half brothers.
I have never met them. They are married, they have children.
Nieces and nephews.”

“I know,” she told him. “It’s weird. I have four half brothers. Of course most of them are only half brothers to each other. My father wasn’t like yours. He didn’t see the need to stay loyal to one woman.”

She stopped and pressed her fingers to her mouth. “Sorry,” she said quickly. “I didn’t mean…” Because King Givon hadn’t been faithful to one woman and Kardal was the result of that indiscretion.