After all, what were the chances it was the same man who had done such a good job decimating her heart six years ago that she hadn’t gone on another date until after she graduated? That it was the one man that she had hoped to live the whole rest of her life without ever seeing again?
Small. Almost nonexistent.
Right? Right.
So, her Asad had been part of a Bedouin tribe and, as she’d found out at the end, slated to be sheikh one day.
It didn’t have to be the same man. She was praying it wasn’t the same man.
If it was her Asad—or rather the Asad: he’d never really been hers and she had to stop thinking of him that way—she didn’t know what she would do. Working toward the coveted position of senior geologist with Coal, Carrington & Boughton Surveyors, Inc., she couldn’t refuse this assignment based on personal reasons. Not when she had been back in the office and definitely not now that she was already in the country.
She wasn’t about to commit career suicide. Asad had taken enough from her. Her faith in love. Her belief in the rosy, bright future she’d ached for and dreamed of. He didn’t get her career, too.
“What did the diamond say to the copper vein?” Russell’s youthful voice pulled her out of her less than happy thoughts as they made their slow way down the stairs.
She rolled her eyes. “That joke is as old as the bedrock in Hudson Bay. The answer is—nothing, minerals don’t talc.”
It was a hoary old joke, but when he laughed, she found herself joining him.
“I’m glad to see you still have a sense of humor.” The deep voice coming from the hall below didn’t sound happy at all.
In fact, it sounded almost annoyed. But Iris didn’t have the wherewithal to worry about that little inconsistency. Not when the rich tones that still had the power to send her heart on a drumroll and to spark little pops of awareness along her every nerve ending belonged to a man she had truly believed she would never see again.
She stopped her descent and stared. Asad looked back at her, his dark chocolate gaze so intense, she felt the breath leave her lungs in a gasp.
He’d changed. Oh, he was still gorgeous. His hair still a dark brown, almost black and with no hint of gray, but instead of cropped close to his head like it had been back in school he wore it shoulder length. The different style should have made him seem more casual, more approachable. It didn’t.
Despite his European designer suit and their civilized surroundings, he looked like a desert warrior. Capable. Confident. Dangerous.
His brown eyes stayed fixed firmly on her. Serious and probing. The humor that used to lurk there nowhere in evidence.
He had close-cropped facial hair that only added to his appeal, as if he needed any help in that department. He’d filled out since university days, too, his body more muscled, his presence every bit that of a man of definite power. At six feet three inches, he had always been a presence hard to ignore, but now? He was a true Middle Eastern sheikh.
Wishing, not for the first time, that she could ignore this man, she forced herself to incline her head in greeting. “Sheikh Asad.”
“This is our liaison?” Russell croaked, reminding her that he was still there.
It didn’t help. The young intern was no competition for her attention to Asad and the feelings roiling up from the depths where she’d buried them when he left her.
Putting his arm out to Iris, Asad showed no sign of noticing Russell at all. “I will escort you to the others.”
Her frozen limbs unstuck and Iris managed to descend the remaining stairs. Giving in to her urge to ignore at least his suggestion, she stepped around his extended arm and headed to where she’d met earlier with Sheikh Hakim, his wife and their adorable children. If she was lucky, the dining room would be in the same part of the palace.
“Do you know where you are going?” Russell asked from behind her, sounding confused.
Asad made a sound that almost sounded like amusement. “I do not believe Iris has ever let a lack of certainty stop her from going forward.”
She spun around and faced him, long-banked fury unexpectedly spiking and with it not a little pain. “Even the best scientist can misinterpret the evidence.” Taking a deep breath, she regained the slip in her composure and asked with frigid politeness, “Perhaps you would like to the lead the way?”
Once again, he offered his arm. Again she pushed the bounds of polite behavior and ignored it, simply waiting in silence for him to get on with showing them where they were going.
“Just as stubborn as you ever were.”
And she wanted to smack him, which shocked her to her core. She was not a violent person. Ever. Even in the past, when he’d hurt her almost beyond bearing, she’d never had a violent thought toward him. Just pain.
“That’s our Iris, as immovable as a monolith.”
Asad didn’t ignore Russell this time. He gave the younger man a look meant to quell.
Seemingly oblivious, the college intern grinned and put his hand out to shake. “Russell Green, intrepid geological assistant, one day to be a full-fledged senior geologist with my own lab.”
Asad shook the younger man’s hand and inclined his head slightly. “Sheikh Asad bin Hanif Al’najid. I will be your team’s guide and protector while you are in Kadar.”
“Personally?” Iris asked, unable to keep her disquiet out of her voice. “Surely not. You are a sheikh.”
“It is a favor to my cousin. I would not consider relegating the duty to someone else.”
“But that’s unnecessary.” She wasn’t going to survive the next few weeks if she had to spend them in his company.
It had been six years since the last time she’d seen this man, but the pain and sense of betrayal he’d caused felt as fresh as if it had happened only the day before. Time was supposed to heal all wounds, but hers were still bleeding hurt into her heart.
She still dreamed about him, though she called the images she woke to in the dark nightmares rather than dreams.
She’d loved and trusted him with everything inside her, believing she finally had a shot at a family and a break from the loneliness of her upbringing. He’d betrayed both her emotions and her hopes completely and irrevocably.
“It is not up for discussion.”
Iris shook her head. “I … no …”
“Iris, are you okay?” Russell asked.
But she had to be okay. This was her job. Her career, the only thing she had left in her life that mattered, or that she could trust.
The only thing Asad’s betrayal had left her with. “I’m fine. We need to join Sheikh Hakim.”
Something glimmered in Asad’s dark chocolate gaze, something that looked like concern. She wasn’t buying it, not even if someone else gave her the money to do it.
He hadn’t been concerned about her six years ago when they had been lovers; it was too far a stretch to think he was worried about her now, when they were little more than strangers with a briefly shared past.
Asad did not offer his arm again, but turned and began walking in the direction she’d been going to begin with.
So she had guessed right in this instance.
Go her. Sometimes her intuitive thoughts were on target, at least when it didn’t come to people.
“So Asad tells us you went to the same university.” Catherine smiled without malice, genuine interest shining in her gentian-blue eyes.
Nevertheless,