Falling for Her Reluctant Sheikh
highlight_author
Amalie Berlin
highlight_reads
16.3K
highlight_chapters
14
Chapter One
BOBBING ON WHIPLASH desert winds, Dr. Adalyn Quinn’s helicopter dropped and paused, dropped and paused, descending in the aeronautical equivalent of two steps forward, one step back, each jostle adding another crack to her already brittle nerves.
Digging her nails into her seat base, she pitched forward, stiff and straining against the seat belts across her hips and torso. The overly snug belts, while uncomfortable, felt illogically safer than wobbling about like week-old gelatin, as she had been.
Her older brother tried but had never quite understood the cold, black pit of fear that sank in her middle when she even thought of travel, so there was no way for him to comprehend the abyss that had been trying to swallow her sanity during the long hours of this godforsaken journey. The one he’d tossed her into.
He’d thought himself helpful when he’d said, “Take those antianxiety medicines you never take, to help your trip.”
Because remaining calm while dying a fiery death? So much better than feeling acute terror without pharmacological filters. Sure, she could concede that point. But having her wits artificially addled when she’d probably need them to escape burning, twisted wreckage—supposing she lived that long? Less brilliant.
The idea that one of the vehicles wouldn’t crash was the thought that sounded like fantasy. Naturally, her airborne catastrophe would happen on this last leg of her trip, worlds away from lace balconies and her safe, quiet life.
Her stomach curdled as they fell another few feet. She just had to hold on a little while longer.
The pilot’s voice crackled in her headphones, alerting her to their landing at the former airport site for the Kingdom of Merirach. As if she couldn’t feel it. As if every shift of the wind didn’t brutalize her mind with images of crashes and broken, twisted bodies. After nearly twenty-four hours of this self-inflicted mental torture it would be easy to think she’d become numbed to it, but that primal fear still had the ability to tighten her body until her shoulders stretched stiffly, like old boot leather. She wouldn’t have been surprised if at any second her skin cracked and her collarbone snapped in half.
Broken.
Twisted.
Body.
They touched down with a jolt, bounced twice and settled. She immediately began fumbling with the latches on her belts, trying to get free. To get out of the flying death trap. To get to him.
Adalyn had a rule about putting her life or well-being into someone else’s hands. A simple rule really...don’t do it! But right now it comforted her to think that the distance between her and safety could be measured in feet. He’d be waiting for her.
Jamison’s best friend.
The one she’d never met because she didn’t travel, but to whom Jamison had sent her.
He’d be there, and he’d take her to a nearby hotel where she could eat the protein bars she’d brought for sustenance, drink water purified by her special tablets and sit in the dark with the earplugs she’d brought to create the illusion of solitude.
She could rest. Sleep. Sleep was what she needed. Sleep and alone time somewhere without wheels attached. If she had all that, it might lower her blood pressure enough that she couldn’t see her clothing move from the force of each beat of her heart...
“Door,” she said, dragging the headphones off and hanging them from the armrest on her seat. And then again, “Door.”
Why were they moving so slowly?
She needed out.
Tomorrow she would officially see her patient, work on diagnosing and outlining a treatment plan, then go the heck home.
End of adventure.
The only thing she had going for her now was the darkened interior of the helicopter. No one could see her expression. She didn’t have to work so hard to keep it all hidden as she had on the other planes and vehicles. The last thing she wanted was to put her issues on display and have someone label her hysterical—one of the most offensive words she’d ever learned and had heard daily in the months after the crash.
Outside the chopper, in the not-too-far distance, a ring of headlights provided the only light source, aside from the blinking things on the helicopter controls. Even she—the Queen of Never Ever Traveling—knew what an airport looked like at night. Runways. Dual bands of lights. A big building with lots of people inside. Lots of light.
Here there was only darkness and the cars. One more dangerous vehicle for her to climb into before she reached her assignment.
It really wasn’t any wonder that someone living in a country so recently torn apart by civil war would have sleep difficulties, but she was here anyway.
Seconds later, the door slid open and a blast of cold air surprised her lungs, sending her into a coughing fit. But with the help of her black-suited entourage, she still scrambled from the helicopter. Once her feet hit solid ground she hunched forward and ran toward the cars, clueless as to whether or not the men followed.
Only when she reached the cars, far outside the reach of the rotating blades of death, did she straighten and look back. Two of her escorts—men in suits who’d met her at the airport of the neighboring kingdom—had made the run with her and the rest now gathered her embarrassing amount of luggage and followed.
Should she tip them? Was that expected? Insulting? Her travel book had said nothing about how to treat the servants of a royal house.
The man who had been her translator reached her side and herded her toward one of several identical sport utility vehicles with darkened windows. Though he was careful not to touch her, he wrenched open the back door of the vehicle and gestured to her with such force that she climbed in.
Unlike when he’d retrieved her, the man didn’t even attempt English this time. With so little sleep and such a terrible grasp of the language, Adalyn couldn’t even tell where the words started and stopped in whatever he’d said. He could’ve even said one of the couple of hundred words she’d managed to learn, and she wouldn’t have known it.
How much farther would they have to go?
Once she stopped moving, her body caught up with her lungs—recognizing the cold finally—and she folded her arms across her chest and rubbed them to try to increase their warmth.
“You should’ve worn a jacket.”
The low male voice broke through the sound of her pounding heart and shivering breaths, the first indication she wasn’t alone in the car. She turned and as her eyes adjusted to the low lighting after the blinding headlights she could make out a traditionally robed figure not two feet away in the seat beside her.
“I thought I was coming to a hot place. I was told that it was chilly at night, but I thought that just meant I needed long sleeves, not a parka.”
A soft sound—trapped somewhere between a sigh and a chuckle—answered her. Like strained amusement.
“Are you Khalil?” Please, say yes. She’d made it all the way to his country—surely he would meet her at the airport?
Loud voices outside the vehicle cut through the air and her fellow passenger’s voice dropped to a sharp whisper. “Yes. We will speak further at the palace, Adalyn. It isn’t far.”
“Palace? I thought we would be working in a clinic environment. And I’d stay at a hotel.”
“I do not sleep at a clinic.”
“Right... Sorry...” Of course he wouldn’t sleep at a clinic. Why had she thought that? Because it was familiar. Because that’s how things worked where she practiced...at her clinic. But this place was not New Orleans.
“Later I will explain.” His words clipped the frosty air with short, abrupt sounds. If she could still see her breath, his words would’ve probably floated away in blocky cubes, formed by hard right angles and razor edges.
The front car doors opened, the suited men climbed in and for seconds she could see him under the light of the dome, but he’d already turned away, cutting off the conversation with body language. It was a technique she often used, or had used enough to recognize it.
He fixed his gaze out his window, though at what she couldn’t guess. Nothing, unless he had the night vision of a cat.
The status of her rescue mission suddenly seemed like a charade, as capricious and dangerous as a ride in anything with wheels. Like the large vehicle she was in. It started rolling and banished all other thoughts from her mind—just as cars always did for her. Even now, years later, having to ride in a car felt like a forced march to her own execution.
The only thought that stayed with her as she analyzed every bump and turn for the telltale feeling of a wreck in progress was: What had Jamison gotten her into?
It couldn’t have been more than a couple of miles’ travel, but it took ages. By the time they stopped, her jaw hurt from clenching and she felt just a little light-headed from her breathercise.
Khalil climbed out as soon as the vehicle stopped rolling, before Adalyn could even really get a glimpse of him. “See her settled in the suite adjoining mine.” All she could make out was a tall man with dark robes and the traditional dress that by turns intrigued and worried her.
Once those words were out—and in English, no less—he immediately switched over to his native tongue, leaving no doubt that he wasn’t speaking to her. Well, the sooner she got to her suite, the sooner she could sleep and, she prayed, stop shaking...
* * *
Khalil tugged on a clean shirt. A dress suit. At this hour... Since he’d been in Merirach, he hadn’t worn much but the robes, at least when he was in the palace and bound to the demands of his position, but Western dress would probably set her more at ease.
If he was honest, it was more than that. The robes that tradition dictated reminded him what he was doing there, and the responsibility he carried. Of who he was supposed to be. Not himself. But now, dealing with her, he didn’t want to be Sheikh Khalil of Akkari, Regent of Merirach, he wanted to be Dr. Khalil Al-Akkari—the son not born to rule. Maybe it would help them both deal with the situation if they came at it as equals.
Tomorrow he’d have to go back to the robes that helped people in his host kingdom identify him as the current regent, and she’d have to become used to seeing him in them.
Knowing Jamison’s history meant he knew the history of his chubby little sister, too. Jay always referred to her as the world’s biggest introvert. A homebody who considered a trip to the library or bookstore to be her portal to all things exotic. Anyone would be leery of traveling to a country so recently out of a civil war, but someone who never traveled—not even on the best of circumstances—compounded the size of the favor he’d owe her for agreeing to come such a long way to help him out.
It was late so he skipped the tie—he wanted familiarity, not formality. Just to be courteous.
The other courteous thing would’ve been to send one of the family jets to retrieve her, at least then she would’ve arrived sooner and had an easier journey, but that would’ve just triggered questions from his elder brother. Malik always had questions. The sort of questions Khalil had no desire to answer. And if things worked out with Adalyn, questions he’d never have to answer.
He stepped through the door to the adjoining room where she’d been settled, and froze in his tracks. Her back was to him, all supple skin on display, so pale he’d swear she’d never even heard of the sun. The only thing covering her was a scrap of white cotton panties stretched over the plump little cheeks on display as she bent over the bed and dug around in the suitcase for clothes.
She’d had the same idea to change.
She just hadn’t been as quick about it as he had.
She really wasn’t the chubby little girl he’d seen in pictures...
Khalil’s mouth watered so sharply that his jaw ached.
He swallowed, shocked by the pang of want that shot through him.
Smooth, slender and curved...she looked like a cool, life-giving oasis in a barren landscape.
Not yet aware that he’d entered, she continued by straightening with another scrap of white cotton she shook out and pulled over her head.
Khalil closed his eyes, a baby first step that allowed him a small measure of control of his body, control he needed to force a half turn away from her. When he knew he’d be facing the wall, he opened his eyes again, but he could still see her in his peripheral vision.
Damn.
He closed them again. It was either that or give in to the powerful urge to look. Clearing his throat was the best warning he could think of to soften the surprise of his arrival. “I apologize, I should’ve knocked.”
She squawked and then there was a thump, along with some other commotion he couldn’t identify. If it had taken effort to look away, it took even more not to look back.
“Should I come back?” he asked, because he had to do something...
“Yes!” The word erupted from her and set him in motion. As he reached for the door, a more tentative babble came from behind him, “No, wait. You can stay, just don’t turn around for a minute.”
She muttered something beneath her breath, disgruntled words he couldn’t make out. If she was anything like her brother, those words wouldn’t be fit for company anyway.
Khalil stayed in place and stared hard at the carved wooden door.
Count the lines in the wood grain.
Don’t think of the mostly nude woman behind him.
And for God’s sake, don’t look.
He lost track of the lines and had to start again. Keeping control of his mind and actions was easier when he wasn’t tired, but he’d been in the palace for nearly a week this time around... Tired wasn’t a strong enough word for what he was—he was exhausted in a way that even heart-accelerating doses of caffeine couldn’t help.
“You can turn around. I guess I’m decent.” She didn’t sound at all certain.
When he turned back, it was to overly bright eyes and pink cheeks. He locked his gaze to hers in another effort to exert control over his baser impulses. “You don’t look like your picture...” Which was not the way he’d intended to start this conversation.
“Sorry.”
Why was she apologizing? He was the one who’d barged in.
She tugged at the bottom hem of her short dressing robe, the fidgeting making clear her response: sorry was a verbal fidget.
In the picture he’d seen, she’d been at least thirty pounds heavier and the victim of an unfortunate complexion issue. She’d worn glasses and had kept her hair pulled back in a haphazard ponytail. She’d looked like someone studious and intelligent. And now...she looked like a dark-haired pixie with large green eyes. And breasts he could clearly see the shape of through the slinky blue material of her robe.
Eyes! Look at her eyes!
He’d had a reason to come into the room...
“Your equipment...” He grasped for his train of thought.
She clutched the robe tighter, eyes widening further as her voice hitched. “My equipment?”
“Not that equipment...” It was all he could do not to groan at yet another verbal misstep. It didn’t help that he’d put her one door away from him, like a shiny-new mistress. And, sweet mercy, did she ever look the part of timid virgin, blushing and stammering the first time her body was exposed to a man’s eyes.
For the first time in Khalil’s life he wished he could take advantage. Tear that robe off her, coerce and tease until she lay back on the thick bed behind her...and welcomed him with open arms. And legs. His eyes wandered down, past the hem of the silky material to the smooth, pale, shapely legs...
For God’s sake, look her in the eye.
“My men have brought your medical equipment to the palace.” He cleared his throat, which had gone dry again. “Where would you like it delivered?”
“Oh.” She shifted around again, fidgeting with the belt and the hem again, anywhere the material folded or covered her. “I assumed that I was placed in this room so that I would have access to your room to monitor you as you sleep.”
With a quick hop—which sent too many interesting places jiggling—she rounded the suitcase and perched on the corner of the bed. Her knees clamped together and she resumed smoothing the fabric down her thighs, willing it to cover more of her body than it had when she’d been standing. “Monitors here, but the camera equipment in your room. I know that sounds really creepy, but it is recorded so I can review it the next day to make sure that I didn’t miss anything, but after that it gets erased. Otherwise I’d just have to hover at your bedside and watch you sleep.”
A short nervous laugh escaped her before she clamped her lips shut, the very picture of distress despite the laugh. “I doubt anyone would be able to get any rest if they felt like someone was standing there, leering at them. My aunt’s cat used to do that in the morning when she wanted me up. Just sit there and stare... And it always worked. Woke me right up.”
Babbling, a sign of nerves. Definitely nervous. Maybe shy, too, if the way she worked to keep him from even seeing her knees was anything to go by. And all that wasn’t what he should be focusing on.
He’d known she would need to monitor him, he was familiar with the method in which sleep studies were conducted, but the way she described watching him sleep only made him think of that long dark hair spread across cool white cotton pillows...and the slinky robe slipping over pale, soft flesh.
She added, “It’ll take several hours to set up all the equipment so I thought maybe we would do it tomorrow. I really won’t be of any use to anyone until I’ve had at least eight hours.”
Right, she was tired. He should say something, stop her babbling.
“Of course.”
Had he ever dated a woman so shy and modest? If he had, he should probably remember her if that appealed to him so much. He’d think less of any man who confessed this sort of reaction to innocence. To think himself capable of it. That emotion could be named by the taste of bile at the back of his throat.
But the sudden, intense aversion to the thought of accepting her help disgusted him even more.
Help was the whole reason for her to be there. He should just tell her everything right now. That would replace the sweet, nervous innocent with something uglier, a reflection of the blackness devouring him from the inside out. She’d give him her pity, at best, and she sure as hell wouldn’t sit there, barely clothed, trusting him to fake his way through the actions of a good man.
“I doubt the equipment is going to be very helpful. My problem is I don’t sleep. I’ve got insomnia. And when I fail to fall asleep, I don’t tend to stay in bed for hours, trying. Not a lot to monitor when that happens. Which happens a great deal of the time.” He’d opened his mouth, said words, but not the right ones. His throat refused to let those words pass.
“Well, you have to sleep sometime. I mean, you’re not a drooling idiot right now, and after you miss enough sleep—well, I’m sure you’ve noticed the effects. But there are also other effects that are actually quite dangerous. We all have a maximum amount of time we can go without sleep and then our brains start taking micro-sleeps when we’re trying to work. Or trying to drive. Insomnia sounds like a pain in the butt, but really it can be very dangerous.”
Dangerous, like his reaction to her. “So your solution to it is?”
Solution? The only one he needed right this second was the one that would keep him from ogling his oldest friend’s little sister.
“There are a lot of different treatments, and sometimes that means a sleeping pill if you’re at a state where it’s gotten very dangerous for you to stay awake.”
He’d never consciously liked the idea of innocence before. Before he’d come into the room and been tantalized by the nearly nothing she’d had on—coupled with his weakened state—this was certainly a natural reaction. Not just another flaw in his character.
“Lose this battle so you can live to keep fighting the war. On another day. Night.”
He just had to remember who she was and what she was to him. It shouldn’t matter to him what she thought of him, so he should be able to tell Adalyn the truth and actually get the help he’d dragged her around the globe for, not send her to treat imaginary illness.
“You know,” she continued, “if the battle is a desire to sleep the natural way. Sleep aids aren’t the greatest thing in the world, but sometimes they are necessary as you’re trying to retrain yourself and your bed habits.” She yawned, reminding him that she was tired, too. Probably jet-lagged.
And she’d stopped smoothing her robe closed. Definitely tired.
He remained standing as stiff as his suit by the door. “I have sleep aids but, as you said, I try not to use them. I may have dragged you across the world for nothing, Dr. Quinn.” Doctor. Not Adalyn. Speak to her professionally, and perhaps his thoughts would follow that lead.
“Am I getting that you don’t want me to be here? Did Jamison twist your arm into agreeing to this?” Her gaze sharpened and she stood, her head tilting and those pretty green eyes fixing on him with an intensity that faked alertness. And a little bit of hope. “Because if you really don’t want me here, we could take a day or two and just diagnose and prescribe a treatment and I could go home, rather than sticking around to see you through whatever you need to get right. Jamison could be satisfied with that.”
“It’s not that I don’t want you here,” he said before it became clear she was offering him an out. She didn’t want to be there any more than he wanted her there. They could put on a brief show of his treatment, enough to satisfy Jay, and then she would happily go home. “I just don’t sleep well at the palace. Or at all. I sleep...” He rubbed his brow, pausing as he paced to a chair and sat. Her fatigue amplified his own. “I sleep better when I’m not in the palace.”
“Do you keep an apartment somewhere else? Or are you referring to before you came to this kingdom to do the regent thing?”
“I don’t keep an apartment. It’s a tent.” Why was he telling her this? Letting her witness his trouble would lead to questions, the bane of his existence. The prospect of her finding out seemed worse than the whole world finding out, and he couldn’t even bring himself to care how sexist that seemed to him—not wanting to be treated or rescued by the sweet creature his inner caveman salivated over. He didn’t want her to know any of it, his weakness, his shame.
“I take short medical missions out into the desert to treat those who live in camps far from medical assistance. I’m a doctor, it is just who I am, and I want to hold on to that part of myself while I’m doing my duty for my country and my family, and not let my skills grow rusty for lack of use, as they would if I stopped practicing and became a full-time bureaucrat.”
“And when you’re on your medical missions in a tent, you sleep better?” she said, fixating on that part.
What she should be fixating on was the fact that he didn’t sleep here in the palace. If she were to continue to treat him, she’d have to go, too. “I can’t explain it, but I should’ve thought about that before you came all this way. I know you have no desire to come out into the desert with me, and the equipment would be useless there anyway. Apologies, Adalyn.”
She sat back down on the edge of the bed, thoughtful frown firmly in place. “How long are the missions?”
“Many days.” Not that many, but more than two. He would disappear for weeks on end if he could get away with it.
“And people don’t know you’re doing this?”
She should sound less interested, not more.
“I keep a small staff here, and I’m always available via satellite phone. Since this is not my home country—it’s my mother’s kingdom—the people here, especially those out in the desert camps, don’t know what I look like. I go by a different name. We have a fake logo sprayed onto the trucks. It’s...”
“Tricky.” She grinned as she said the word and then yawned wider than she had before. “Well, I have a theory about the sleeping in the tent thing. But if you only take a short trip when you go, I’m assuming it’s fairly frequent short trips?” She stopped, shifted on the bed some more and tried again. “I can go...on one trip. And that would be a few days of monitoring when you’re actually sleeping. And then we can tell Jamison that we worked on a treatment plan for you to implement.”
“The sun is brutal, Adalyn. You will burn to a crisp. And the heat, if you’re unused to it...”
“Where I live it gets very hot. And humid. Super-humid. So humid that mold is a massive problem. I can handle heat. And wear sunblock. We’ll be going in a vehicle anyway, right? Something with a roof?” She frowned momentarily, eyes sliding to the side beneath pinched brows. That was the kind of look he wanted from her. Uncertainty.
Uncertainty her words did not share. “I can go from the vehicle to the tent and not have to be in direct sunlight too much.” She stood and wandered toward him but passed by to reach for the doorknob. “I hate to kick you out of a room in your home, but I’m really very tired. I think I have jet lag. Jamison never adequately described it to me before. It’s awful.”
He took the hint and rose to move that way. “The way my schedule is arranged, I really should head out in the morning.” Before she had time to rest up.
She opened the door and held it patiently for him. “What time?”
“It’s best to travel in the morning, before the heat of the day.”
“What does that translate to in numbers?”
“Six to ten, give or take.”
She looked at the clock, no doubt calculating just how few hours of rest she’d be getting if she actually went through with the plan. “Okay. I’ll be ready at six.” Another yawn and then she wandered back to the bed, leaving him at the door. “Try to rest if you can. We’ll start tomorrow.”
Pulling down the blankets, she crawled in—robe and all—and reached for the clock to set it.
She’d never go. In the morning, after she’d had a few hours to reset her brain and remember how much she hated to travel, she’d come to her senses and he could trundle her back off to the helicopter pad and send her home. “Good night, Adalyn. Thank you for being willing to try.”
“No offense, Khalil, but I did it for Jamison. I’m sure you’re a nice man and that you deserve help—it’s torture to be kept awake, like real torture, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone—but if anyone else had asked me to come, you’d be on your own.”
She clicked off the light and he allowed himself a tiny smile. He’d probably do anything for Jamison, too; he was closer than Khalil’s real brothers had ever been. “Duly noted. And you have tried to do that by coming all the way here to meet with me.”
“I’ll see you at six,” she said again, then sat up so he could see her only by the light spilling through the door to his chamber. “And, Khalil? Knock first next time. I wouldn’t want to cause you years of therapy.”
What did that mean? She’d already lain back down and burrowed into the pillow, effectively shutting him out. “Sleep well, little sister,” he murmured, shutting the door behind him. Calling her “Doctor” hadn’t done anything for his libido. Maybe calling her “little sister” would be able to keep him from thinking about the lush flesh he’d seen on display.
Jay needed a talk about sending his innocent, pretty little sister off to foreign countries and men who might take advantage of her.
Men of weaker constitution than Khalil.
