Desert Sheikh vs American Princess (30 page)

The plan that had sprung into his mind would work. He could solve Askar's problem and unite the three kingdoms. And all he had to do was something infinitely more frightening than jumping out a window. Not to mention give up the future that had been planned for him since he was born.

Yet it was the right thing to do. And, when the dust settled, he would have a chance at a pirate princess.

Ahoy
, said something in his head.

Before he lost all courage and returned to sanity, he walked across to his brother and scowled at the circle of people who'd been having a conversation with him until they all bowed to him and left.

"Ithnan," Walid said, in Arabic, when they had privacy. "May I speak to you?"

His brother eyed the places where, moments ago, several people had been standing. "Apparently."

He inhaled air that tasted thick with both failure and hope. "I wish to ask for your help. I have long hid my country's--no, my
own
vulnerability from you. I fear to reveal it now."

"Brother, you preserved Zallaq when you could have taken advantage. Without your calm nature and care for the people of both Askar and Zallaq, we could have been at war for years now, and both our countries would have been easy prey for the influences that are affecting others at this point. I know you have reasons not to trust me, but I have every reason to trust you and to repay you for the changes you have facilitated in my life."

As he listened to his brother's speech, spoken as if it had been prepared for some time, Walid grew more certain of his plan. And more shamed that he had ever allowed their father's caustic ideas to rule his life.

Ithnan had become a wise, just man. His union with Gwendolyn had completed his transformation into an honest one as well.

An ideal ruler. Zallaq could do no better. Neither could Askar.

Ithnan placed his hand on Walid's shoulder. "I can do nothing but promise your secrets will remain with me if you choose to share, say... that Askar needs to borrow the money to complete its portion of the pipeline project?"

His mouth went dry. "You know about that."

"The signs were there, if you know how to read them."

"Or if you have spies in Askar."

"I did not need them," Ithnan assured him. "Father cannot have left Askar in a good financial position, and then there was the matter of the investment with Oldrich. One does not have to be a spy to note that a hotel is not being built where a hotel was intended to be built. And now you are marrying that girl for the sake of her money."

"Very well. Askar does not have the funds to continue its financial commitment to the Nahr pipeline," he admitted. The words turned out to be less painful than the anticipation of them. "I had thought of borrowing the funds from you, but that is not the best course of action."

"If you wish to marry that girl, I cannot stop you, but I am ready with the means to free you from having to do so." Ithnan adjusted the cuffs of his shirt beneath his finely tailored suit jacket, which Walid had noted was a particular quirk of his. The motion indicated his brother's discomfort. The two of them were still repairing their broken relationship, so his brother did not want to say it, but Ithnan was adamantly against him wedding Kalilah.

"I had not planned to ask you for the money. I wished to ask you--" Walid took in a deep breath, perhaps the last one he would take as king. "Do you want to rule Askar?"

Ithnan's eyebrows rose and his jaw fell. His gaze darted over Walid's shoulder, most likely to where his wife stood.

"I am serious," he assured his brother. "You will have to take on the debt of the pipeline, of course. But this makes sense for all of us. Zallaq and Askar will never again be in conflict, and you can reunite Sadad as well, when the time comes."

He would make up for his cooperation with Father. There would be no more guilt. Even now, just by speaking of these things, he felt freer, more certain of himself. He had regrets, but they would be in his past.

As for his future, it could contain a certain pirate princess. All he would have to do was rescue her from the tall tower of her family's influence.

An intriguing challenge, especially when one was penniless.

"Brother..." Ithnan began, but did not seem to know what to say. "I cannot..."

A germ of something began to grow under his ribs. It took him a moment to identify what. To his surprise, the growing emotion was amusement.

To see his calm, assured brother tongue-tied and caught off guard? A pleasure. He felt devilish, like a small child who had thrown a lizard in someone's dinner just to see the person react. His entire body had lightened.

Was this how Noelle had felt when she rebelled against him? If so, he could see why she took such pleasure doing so. This sensation of lightness and superiority could easily be addictive.

He really must do this kind of thing more often in the future. Starting now. Continuing with some sort of large gesture that would put the same stunned and confused look that Ithnan wore onto Noelle's face. "You are the best man for the job, I think,
akhi al-sagheer
. I will be happy to help with the transition. An enormous coronation is in order. Gwendolyn will be radiant, I think."

Ithnan simply blinked at him, unable to react, unable to speak.

Walid clapped his hand on his little brother's shoulder. "Perhaps you should call your wife over and inform her she is soon to acquire a new crown--"

At that moment, a female voice rang out, drowning the string quartet and ending every conversation in the ballroom.

"Stop the wedding!"

Instinct took over. He was sprinting toward Noelle--because it had to be Noelle and no other--before he remembered that he should maintain dignity in front of his guests. Then he recalled where he was and how he should be acting, and he realized he no longer cared.

The crowd parted for him, and there she was. Noelle, her beautiful eyes frantic, being restrained by some guards who were looking to each other in confusion. For weeks, they had been tasked with preventing her from leaving, and now they must drag her away?

He ended the guards' hesitation with a quick hand gesture indicating that they should cease.

"Stop the wedding," Noelle repeated, as if she were in some television drama. Her hair appeared as if it had been through a hurricane. The lower half of her face was covered with dusty smudges. The skirt she wore was ripped far up the thigh. And, for some reason, she wore a hat that he recognized as being from the uniform of his security staff.

She had never looked more beautiful to him.

A sudden pain exploded in his shoulder, as if he'd been punched. As he rubbed the injury, he looked down at his fierce-faced sister-in-law, who was cradling a closed fist.

"You're an idiot," she told him, as she stepped forward to talk to Noelle.

*****One hour earlier*****

This is what I wanted
, Noelle reminded herself, not for the first time.
I wanted to leave, and he let me leave.

Still, the last time she'd been in the back of this limo, Walid had drawn her onto his lap and kissed the stuffing out of her.

Then he'd pushed her away. Just like now.

She considered the minibar as her driver sped the vehicle down the divided highway. Enormous palm trees swayed in the median, reminding her of her failure at Agatir.

I guess you won, though,
Bonnie said.
He let you go. Whoopee.

Oh, go suck an egg
, she told her invisible friend.
Did you help? Did anything you got me to do help at all? All we did was nothing.

We tried.

It didn't work. Nothing we tried worked. Just like nothing in my life has ever worked.

Yeah, so?
Only an eleven-year-old could put as much belligerence into two words as Bonnie did.

So, what's the point? It was all a waste
, she returned.

The point is to try things until they do work. Do you think I got to be captain on my first day?

Bonnie, didn't you declare yourself captain on the first day? Why yes, yes, I think you did
, she fired back, not bothering to mention that a) Bonnie was a figment of her own imagination, and b) there was no boat to be captain of.

Well, okay, maybe that's a bad example. But we would have escaped eventually
.

Or not
, she countered.

Stop it,
Bonnie yelled.
Stop giving up!

Everything is against me, though. I mean, I might as well go back to San Francisco and do whatever Dad wants.

You are the worst,
pouted Bonnie.
Why do I hang out with you? What happened to the chainsaw? No real pirate would ever talk that way.

That would be because I'm not a pirate
, she pointed out.

Of course you are, Noelle. You always have been. You just forgot for a while, that's all. You let other people stop you. Knock it off. You're a pirate and I can prove it.

Oh, this'll be good. Hit me with your best shot
, Noelle fired back, rolling her eyes at nobody.

If you aren't a pirate, how do you know where the treasure is?

But I don't...
The thought faded away in her mind, replaced with clues falling into place like the most perfect game of Tetris ever. Walid's great-grandfather. A map that hid things instead of showed them, except for one clue. And her, knowing Walid, and knowing who was like Walid.

That chapel. That ceiling with lights flashing down onto an altar that didn't match the decor.

Oh, Sheikh Osman was so
good
. And, in the end, he really had given the one clue that anyone really needed to find the Palm.

If, of course, they happened to be a pirate princess.

I know where the treasure is!
she screamed at Bonnie in her head.

Told ya
, said a very self-satisfied eleven-year-old imaginary friend.

Noelle's brain practically whirred. She could solve this. She could fix everything.

But first, you have to get back,
Bonnie said.

Right.

Noelle hit the intercom button discreetly hidden in the leather console of the seat. "Driver, turn the limo around. We're going back to the palace."

"I must take you to the airport, miss," he told her. "You will be getting on a plane back to your home."

She hit another button and the privacy screen went down. "No, no, you don't understand. Hey, aren't you the guard from that day Walid told me he was kidnapping me?"

The guard-slash-driver blushed.

"It's okay, buddy," she assured him, getting to the edge of her seat and resting her chin on the ledge of the window that opened into the front seat. "But you owe me one, so take me back to the palace and we'll call it even."

"I cannot grant your request, miss."

Desperation hit her like a wall. She had to do something. It was all on her, but somehow, she was going to make it happen.

She scanned for options. Strangle the driver with his seatbelt? Could she pretend to have a gun? Offer him money? If only she actually had some...

"Please buckle your seatbelt, Miss Oldrich."

"Will you stop the car if I don't?" she asked, the words tripping out as fast as they would come.

"No, miss. But it is safer in case of an accident."

She whipped out her cell. She stumbled over the passcode twice, then took a breath and got it on the third try. Yes! She had one bar. And one percent juice. She needed to dial fast--but who could she call?

Before she came up with a number, the screen went dark.

Damn it. Now the driver was her only chance.

"You don't understand. I can save him. I can save everyone."
 

"I cannot grant your request." His calm tone made her even wilder. Why couldn't he understand that she could make everything better if he would just turn the car around?

"I will hang you from the yardarm, you scurvy land-lubber of a flea-infested cur."
 

She saw a pair of confused eyes reflected in the rearview mirror. "Nonetheless."

She tried another tactic. Probably also doomed to fail. She stuck her nose in the air. "Do you know who I am?"

"Noelle Oldrich, miss. A woman who is going to the airport."

And
, prompted Bonnie,
who else?

A pirate fucking princess
, she answered.

"This is a kidnapping. I don't want to go the airport. I want to go back to the palace."

"The palace you spent three weeks trying to escape from," pointed out the driver. Then he started muttering in Arabic.

"Yeah, but now I have to get back by sunset. The engagement is at sunset." The Askari sun was dipping dangerously low now. She had half an hour, maybe, before Walid did something idiotic.

She stabbed at a button on the door. The window came down, hot wind blowing into the limo. As soon as she had enough space, she stuck her head out. Like a crazy person.