It took Rico only a few hours to make the necessary arrangements. By nightfall he was on a plane to Abkar’s capital city, where the following morning he picked up the all-terrain SUV he’d bought over the phone. The palace where Halina was staying was three hundred miles north of the city through inhospitable desert, a landscape of huge, craggy boulders and endless sand. She really must have wanted to get away from him.
Of course, she could have been banished there but, judging from all the gossip Rico had heard through the private investigator about how the Sultan spoiled his four daughters, Rico doubted it. This was a choice Halina had made. A decision to hide from him.
He drove the first hundred miles before the sun got too hot, his body taut with suppressed energy, his mind focused with grim purpose on the task ahead.
When the sun reached its zenith he stopped the Jeep and sheltered under a rock from the worst of the midday heat. Along with the SUV he’d arranged for provisions to survive in the desert for a week. He always made sure to be prepared in every situation, even one as extraordinary as this.
As for when he arrived at the palace... His mouth curved grimly. He would be prepared then, as well.
He stopped again for the night and then drove as soon as the first pearly-grey light of dawn lightened the sky. The sun had risen and bathed the desert in a fierce orange glow by the time he arrived at the palace, a remote outpost that looked as if it had been hewn from the boulders strewn about the undulating dunes.
Rico parked the SUV far enough away that he wouldn’t be noticed and grabbed a pair of binoculars. From this distance the palace’s walls looked smooth and windowless; the place truly was a fortress, and the nearest town of any description was over a hundred miles away. Halina had chosen as remote a place as possible to hide from him, but it was no place for a young pregnant woman. The sooner he got Halina out of there, the better.
As the mother of his child she belonged with him—by his side, in his bed. As the mother of his child, she would raise that child with him, so he or she would never know a day without love, would never feel abandoned, an inconvenience to be discarded. A child needed both mother and father, and Halina would be there for their child and for Rico...as his wife.
CHAPTER FIVE
HALINA GAZED OUT of the window of her bedroom at the endless desert and suppressed a dispirited sigh. She’d been at Mansiyy Rimal, the Palace of Forgotten Sands, for nearly a month and it had been the longest month of
her life. The prospect of spending several more months here filled her with despair, but it was better than contemplating what might come after that.
The week after her night with Rico was a blur of misery and fear. Her father, always so genial and cheerful, had become a complete stranger, cold and frightening in his fury, and Halina had shrunk before him, afraid of a man who had had only cause to spoil and indulge her until now.
He’d forced her to take a pregnancy test as soon as possible, and when it had come up positive the bottom had dropped out of Halina’s stomach—and her world. She’d waited, barricaded in her bedroom, forbidden even to see her younger sisters, on whom she was now considered a bad influence, while her father negotiated on her behalf. He wanted her to marry Prince Zayed after all, now that she was spoiled goods and unsuitable for any other man. And Prince Zayed had seemed willing to go ahead, although reluctant.
Halina had used her last remnant of strength to resist such a fate, especially when she’d seen how Zayed and Olivia had fallen in love with each other. She’d thought she could bear a loveless marriage, but not when her husband so obviously cared for someone else.
Her steadfast refusal was the straw that had broken the remaining remnant of her father’s terse goodwill. Halina still couldn’t bear to think of the torturous aftermath, those days of despair and fear. Eventually, in cold fury, her father had sent her here to this remote outpost in the cruellest stretch of desert, with only a few stony-faced staff for company, to remain until she gave birth.
After that she had no idea what would happen to her or her child, and that was something that filled her with terror. The Sultan had warned her that he would take her child away from her, but Halina tried to believe that once his grandchild was born he would relent. Her father loved her. At least, he had once. Surely he couldn’t be so cruel, despite how she’d disappointed him? Yet he’d already shown just how cruel he could be.
Escape was an impossibility—she was constantly watched by the palace staff, and in any case there was three hundred miles of inhospitable desert between her and the nearest civilisation. She was well and truly trapped.
Halina turned from the window, surveying the spartan room that was to be her bedchamber for the coming months. The palace was a barren place both inside and out, without any modern conveniences or amusements. All she had were a few books, some drawing materials and endless time.
Halina pressed one hand to her still-flat stomach, trying to fight the nausea that had become her constant companion a few weeks ago. She felt lonelier than she’d ever imagined feeling, and far more grown up. She looked back on her evening with Rico and wanted to take her old, girlish self by the shoulders and give her a hard shake. What on earth had she been thinking? Why had she gambled her future away for a single, reckless encounter? The sex, fabulous as it had felt at the time, most certainly had not been worth it.
Restlessly Halina plucked a sketchbook from the table and a few charcoal pencils. She’d always enjoyed sketching, and now she had endless hours to hone her skill. Not that there was much to draw but craggy rocks and sand dunes.
A sudden commotion from outside her room had Halina stilling, the charcoal barely touched to the paper.
‘You cannot, sir!’ Ammar, one of the palace staff, exclaimed, then the door was thrown open so hard it rocked on its hinges, swinging back and hitting the wall.
Rico Falcone stood there, dressed in desert camouflage fatigues, his sharp cheekbones flushed, his eyes glittering. Halina’s mouth dropped open and she found she couldn’t speak.
‘You,’ he said in a low, authoritative voice, ‘Are coming with me.’
Ammar burst in behind him. ‘You cannot take the Princess!’
‘The Princess is pregnant with my child,’ Rico returned evenly, the words vibrating with taut anger. ‘She is coming with me.’ His tone left no room for disagreement.
For a second Ammar looked uncertain. He wasn’t trained to defend the palace; it was remote, as forgotten as its name, and he was nothing more than a steward, meant to fetch and carry. Sultan Hassan had never anticipated anyone looking for Halina, much less finding her. She was here with a skeleton staff who were more used to cooking and gardening than wielding arms or defending the ancient stone walls.
‘Halina.’ Rico stretched out one hand. ‘Come now.’
Halina would have resented his commanding tone if she’d felt she had any choice. But when the alternative to going with Rico was mouldering in this palace, and then in all likelihood having her baby taken away from her, she knew what she’d choose. What she had to choose. Wordlessly she rose from where she sat and crossed the room to take his hand.
The feel of his warm, dry palm encasing hers sent a shower of untimely sparks through Halina’s arm and then her whole body. Quite suddenly, and with overwhelming force, she remembered just how much she’d been attracted to Rico. How he’d overpowered her senses, her reason, everything. And how completely dangerous that had been.