She shrugged. “But true. And that’s why I won’t be going home, and why I won’t be asking for forgiveness or mercy. I don’t have to tell my parents anything. I’m twenty-five, of majority, and have access to the trust set up for me by my late grandfather. If I am careful, it’s more than enough for me to live on.”
“And your child?” he asked. “If you walk away from them, he or she may never be accepted by your family.”
“I am sure he—or she—won’t be,” she said after a moment.
“Certainly not, if you plan on running away … hiding in the English countryside?”
“I wouldn’t be hiding. I’d be living quietly, raising my child with, I hope, some privacy and dignity—”
“You hope?” His mouth tightened. “Is that your bright plan? To hope to have some privacy and dignity?” He made a rough, low sound of disgust. “Good luck, Your Highness. You’re going to need it.” With another low, derisive snort, he turned around and walked away.
She drew a quick breath, feeling as if he’d slapped her. “I might be running away but you’re great at walking away,” she called after him, hands curling into fists, her voice vibrating with emotion.
“What?”
“You can do it because you have power,” she said as he turned to face her. “Most of us can’t. We have to stand there and take it. But you don’t have to. You’re a man, and one of the world’s richest. Everybody needs you. Everybody wants your approval or your protection. It must feel good.”
He started back toward her. “How dare you speak to me in that tone of voice? You are a guest in my home. You are completely dependent on me—”
“I didn’t ask to be.”
“No, you didn’t ask. You forced yourself on me by impersonating my assistant.”
“Then let me go.”
“I would love you to go.”
She visibly flinched, stung. And yet, why did she care what he thought? Why did he have the power to hurt her? Swallowing hard, she walked around the pool and toward the house. “Great. That makes two of us. If you’ll have a driver take me to the airstrip, I’ll fly out immediately.”
“With what plane?”
She stopped short. “The one you were going to send Hannah on.”
“Oh, my plane. But that was for Hannah. You can send for your own.”
“I don’t have my own plane.”
“I guess you’ll need to ask your parents.”
She clamped her jaw tight. “That’s exactly what I meant when I said you love your power. You want the world to think you’re this good, caring person. You put on conferences and host events and fund research, but you do it to prove you are superior.”
“Someone should teach your some manners.”
“It won’t be you. You have none.”
“Perhaps I should drop you off along the desert highway. see if any of my good Bedouin tribe members happen along and let you hitchhike a ride home. Or they may not. You might end up as desert road kill.”
“What a gentleman.”
“No. Wouldn’t claim that one at all. But then, why do I need to be a gentleman? You’re no lady.”
“Having fun now, are you?”
A hot light flickered in his silver eyes. “No. Not at all. So help me understand what it is you want from me. Do you want pity? Sympathy? Poor Emmeline, poor little princess, she’s been so mistreated—”
“Go to hell,” she gritted, walking past him into the living room. He was so appallingly chauvinistic. So arrogant and self-righteous that she couldn’t even believe this was the same man she’d kissed last night. And last night had been lovely. For a moment last night she’d felt something beautiful and good but all the goodness was gone, leaving her shaken and disillusioned.
“Where are you going?” Sheikh Al-Koury demanded, his sharp voice followed her into the living room.
“To finish packing. Your Bedouin tribesmen sound delightful compared to you.”
WHEN Makin Al-Koury decided to act, he acted swiftly. And this time he’d acted so swiftly Emmeline’s head still spun.
She couldn’t quite believe she was seated on his jet as it taxied down the runway preparing for takeoff only thirty minutes after she’d told him his Bedouin tribesmen sounded delightful.
In retrospect, it probably wasn’t the smartest thing to say. But then, Emmeline had struggled with containing her emotions ever since she was a child. One day she would learn control. One day she’d bite her tongue.
But until then, she’d suffer the consequences as she was suffering now.
Because she wasn’t just flying to Brabant. She was being accompanied home by Sheikh Makin Al-Koury who had decided that she couldn’t be trusted to make it home to see her parents. No, he’d decided to escort her all the way to the d’Arcy palace and leave her in her parents’ care.
What a prince.
The jet was picking up speed, racing down the narrow black runway they’d landed on just twenty-four hours before.
It was déjà vu. Everything was as it had been—they were buckled into the very same seats they’d sat in on the way to Raha. She felt the same emotions, too. Anxiety. Dread. Fear of the unknown.
Emmeline felt Makin look at her as she choked on a gasp when the jet lifted off the ground in a dramatically steep ascent.
“Nervous flyer?” he asked.
“No.” She forced herself to take a deep breath. She wasn’t a nervous flyer, but she certainly hadn’t expected to spend the rest of the day in Makin’s company. It had been a tough morning and now it would be a very long day. “Just a little queasy from takeoff.”
He hesitated, before asking gruffly, “Do you need anything?”
Her head snapped up in shock, lips parting slightly at his audacity. Did she need anything? Was he serious?
He was hauling her—by force—across the Middle East to Europe, to return her—against her will—to the royal palace in Brabant, and he wondered if she needed anything?
This. This was exactly what she didn’t get. This is exactly what she didn’t understand about him.
If he was so angry with her—and he was—then why did he care about how she felt? Why ask her about her comfort, or pretend to care about her well-being?
“Aren’t your first guests arriving this afternoon?” she answered, suppressing her confusion, realizing she’d never understand him.
“Yes.”
“You won’t be there.”
“I am fully aware of that.”
“I thought this conference was so important to you.”
“It is.”
“Then shouldn’t you be home, welcoming everyone, instead of flying twenty-nine hundred miles to haul me before my parents?”
“I thought it prudent to get you out of Raha before my guests arrived.”
She saw his expression and understood. “You thought I’d be disruptive.”
She saw that she’d hit the nail squarely on the head.