and find out this was all a bad dream, that Omar had never gotten in that car in France, that it had never spun out of control on its way back into Paris—
But the door beside her opened abruptly then and Rihad stood there before her.
Because, of course, it was him. Rihad. The sheikh. The king. The more-feared-than-respected ruler of his fiercely contested little country on the Persian Gulf. The older brother who had consistently made Omar feel as if he was a failure, despite how much Omar had looked up to him. As if he was less than Rihad somehow. As if the deepest truths of who he’d been had to be hidden away, lied about, concealed where no one could see them—especially not the brother who should have loved him unconditionally.
Omar had loved him, despite everything. Sterling had not been similarly handicapped.
“There has been no mention of this pregnancy in any of the papers,” Rihad said in his dark, authoritative way. “No hint.”
“Guess why?” she suggested, hoping all the pain she’d like to inflict on him was evident in her voice. “Guess who we didn’t want to know?”
“You were both fools.”
Sterling glared at Rihad as the light wrapped around him and made him look something like celestial. How had she managed to convince herself this man was merely a driver? He fairly oozed power from every pore. He was the physical embodiment of ruthlessness no matter how the summer sunlight loved him and licked over the planes and valleys of his fascinating face. He exuded ruthless masculinity and total authority in equal measure, and she’d thrown herself directly into his hands.
He stared down at her, that mouth of his in a sardonic curl, his dark gold gaze bright and hot and infinitely disturbing, until Sterling thought she might not be able to breathe normally again. Ever.
“I believe this is the part where a good driver helps a fine, upstanding lady such as yourself from the vehicle,” he said in that smooth way of his, like silk and yet with all that steely harshness beneath it. “Without any commentary involving terms she might or might not like.”
“I think you mean insults, not terms.”
“I think it’s time to get out of the car.”
Then he held out his hand and there was no pretending it was anything but a royal command.
“I’m not getting on that plane,” Sterling told him.
Very carefully and precisely, as if perfect diction might save her here. Save her from him. As if anything could.
“It was not a request.”
She could see then how much he’d been acting the part of the supposed servant before, because he wasn’t bothering with that any longer. He was a stern column of inimitable power, his will like a living thing coiled tight around both of them and the whole damned airfield besides, and she couldn’t understand why he’d played that game with her in the first place. This was not a man who pretended anything, ever, she understood at a glance. Because he didn’t need to pretend. This was a man who took what he wanted as he wanted it, the end.
But she was not going to let him take her. Not without a fight.
“Perhaps you’re misunderstanding me, Rihad,” she said, deliberately using his first name to underscore how little she respected him.
She felt the ripple of that impertinence move through him and then beyond him, through the line of his men, where they stood in a loose ring around him and the SUV, protection and defense. The disapproval washed back over her from all sides, but the gleam in Rihad’s dark gold gaze merely edged over into something more shrewd as he considered her.
As if she was an animal in a trap, she thought, and he was deciding how best to put her out of her misery. That was not a restful notion.
Sterling pushed on. “I would rather die than go anywhere with you.”
He leaned toward her in the open wedge between the door and the body of the SUV and every single nerve inside of her went wild. Sharp and hot and alert—something so much like pain it very nearly toppled her before she realized it wasn’t really pain at all. Merely an exquisite reaction—pure sensation, storming all over her—that she didn’t recognize and didn’t know what to do with.
It was almost impossible to keep herself from reacting, from throwing herself backward across the wide backseat and scrambling for safety—not that there was any available to her, she understood in a shattering instant. Not really. This man might not hurt her, physically, not as long as she was pregnant with the heir to his kingdom—but then, there were worse things.
She’d seen so many of them firsthand.
“Please believe me,” Rihad said softly then, so softly, though, that it only made her understand on a deep, visceral level how truly lethal he was. “I would arrange that if I could.”
“How charming,” she breathed, trying desperately not to sound as panicked as she felt. “I love threats.”
He smiled. “I would have done so years ago if I’d believed for one second that it would ever come to this. But let me assure you, any interest I appear to have in you is about the child you carry, not you. Never you.”
“This is Omar’s child,” she snapped back at him, struggling to keep her jangling, shimmering reaction to him to herself. “And since he is gone, that makes the baby my responsibility, not yours.”
“That is where you are wrong,” Rihad told her, his tone as merciless as that harsh look on his forbidding face. “If that child is indeed my brother’s—”
“Of course it is!” Sterling threw at him.
And only realized once she had said it that it was hardly strategic to tell him so. If he thought the child was someone else’s, if she could have convinced him of that, he might have let her go. Something in that dangerous dark gold gleam in his gaze told her he’d reached the same conclusion.
“Then, as I have explained, it is potentially next in line to rule my country.” He shrugged. “Your wishes would be of less than no importance to me at any time, but in a situation such as this? Which affects the whole of my country and its future?”
He didn’t have to finish the thought. That hard, sardonic twist to his lush mouth did it for him.
She tried again. She had no choice. “I refuse to go anywhere with you.”
“Get out of the car, Sterling,” he ordered her, steel and warning, and there was nothing but sheer power in his gaze. It rolled through her like fire. Or perhaps that was her name in his mouth while he looked at her like that. “Or I will take you out of it myself. And I rather doubt you will enjoy that.”
“Wow.” Sterling let out a small, brittle laugh. “This has been quite a morning for exploring the dimensions of your character, hasn’t it?”
“Hear this now,” he replied, his voice a hoarse kind of softness that made her shiver, his gaze dark and so powerful as it held fast to hers. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for my country. Nothing at all.”
“How heroic.” But she was far more shaken by that than she should have been, when it wasn’t even any kind of direct threat. “I think we both know the truth is less noble. You’re nothing but a reactionary Neanderthal who is never challenged, never questioned, never forced to face the consequences of his actions.”
“You appear to have your al Bakri brothers confused,” Rihad replied with a certain soft menace that made her think she’d landed a blow. “I am not the renowned playboy who lived a life of leisure and debauchery. That was Omar. I am the one who cleaned up his messes. Again and again and again.”
She wanted to scream. Throw things. But she only curled her hands into fists and glared. “I take it you mean me. I am the mess.”
“You are not a mess, Sterling.” He sounded kind, but she could see that look