Hostage of the Hawk (13 page)

He dug his heels hard into Najib's flanks. The horse rose on its hind legs, pawed the air, then spun away with its rider sitting proudly in the saddle.

It was the last Joanna saw of Khalil.

T
HE
doorman pushed open the door and smiled as Joanna stepped from her taxi and made her way towards him.

‘Evening, Miss Bennett,' he said. ‘Hot enough to fry eggs on the pavement, isn't it?'

Joanna smiled back at him. ‘Hello, Rogers. Yes, but New York in August is always pretty awful.'

The lift operator smiled, too, and offered a similar comment on the weather as the car rose to the twelfth floor, and Joanna said something clever in return, as she was expected to do.

It was a relief to stop all the smiling and stab her key into the lock of her apartment door. Smiling was the last thing she felt like doing lately. With a weary sigh, she stepped out of her high heels and dropped her handbag on a table in the foyer.

Sam kept saying she'd developed all the charm of a woman sucking on a lemon, and she supposed it was true—but in the three months she'd been back from Casablanca she hadn't found all that much to smile about.

Joanna popped off her earrings as she made her way towards her bedroom. She was vice-president of Bennettco now, she had an office of her own, a staff, and even her father's grudging respect.

So why wasn't it enough? she thought as she peeled off her dress and underthings.

She stepped into the blue tiled bathroom and turned on the shower. The water felt delicious but she couldn't luxuriate beneath it for long. In less than an hour, Sam was picking her up. They were going to another of the endless charity affairs he insisted they attend, this time at the Palace Hotel.

A mirthless smile angled across her lips as she stepped from the shower and towelled herself dry. The Palace. She had been to it before, knew that it dripped crystal chandeliers and carpeting deep enough to cushion the most delicate foot. But she remembered a real palace, one that boasted no such touches of elegance, yet had been more a palace than the hotel would ever be.

Damn, but she wished she hadn't seen that little squib in the paper at breakfast! ‘Jandaran Prince Consolidates Hold on Kingdom, Seeks Financing for Mining Project', it had said, and she'd shoved the paper away without reading further, but it had been enough. A rush of memories had spoiled the day, although she couldn't imagine why. She didn't care what happened to Khalil. She had never loved him. How could she have, when they came from such different worlds? It was just that she'd been frightened, and despairing, and there was no point pretending he wasn't a handsome, virile male.

An image flashed into her mind as she reached for her mascara. She saw Khalil leaning over her, his eyes dark with desire. Joanna, he was whispering, Joanna, my beloved...

Her hand slipped and a dark smudge bloomed on her cheek. She wiped it off, then bent towards the mirror again and painted a smile on her lips. What had happened in Jandara was a closed chapter. No one even knew about her part in it, thanks to Sam.

‘I didn't tell a soul,' he'd said, after she'd finally reached Casablanca.

‘Not even the State Department?' she'd asked, remembering shadowy fragments of something Khalil had said the night he'd abducted her.

‘Not even them. I was afraid I might compromise your safety. How could I know what an animal like Khalil might do if I called out the troops? That's why I couldn't give in to his demands. I figured once I did, the bastard might kill you. You understand, don't you?'

Joanna had assured him that she did. Sam hadn't been saying anything she hadn't thought of herself. Sending Abu after her had been the only way he'd thought he could rescue her. As for Abu—Sam had been duped, he'd said with feeling.

‘The guy had me fooled. How could I have known what he really was like?'

Joanna slid open the wardrobe in her bedroom and took a sequinned blue gown from its hanger. The only fly in the ointment was that the proposed mining deal had gone down the tubes. Khalil had wasted no time making sure of that. Within twelve hours, Abu had been sentenced to life imprisonment, Khalil had been restored to the throne of Jandara, and the Bennett contract had been returned by messenger, accompanied by a terse note, signed by Khalil.

‘We will develop the property ourselves.'

Sam had turned red with anger and cursed and then said hell, win some, lose some, what did it matter? He had his Jo back. That was all that counted.

Joanna whisked a brush through her hair. He was right. That was what counted, that she was back, and if sometimes, at night, she awoke from dreams she could not remember with tears on her cheeks, so what? She was getting ahead rapidly at Bennettco and that was what she wanted. It was all she wanted.

She glanced at the clock. It was time. Quickly she stuffed a comb, tissues and her lipstick into an evening bag, slipped on a pair of glittery high-heeled sandals, and made her way out of the door.

Sam was waiting at the kerb in his chauffeured Lincoln. ‘Hello, babe,' he said when she stepped inside. ‘Mmm, you look delicious.'

Joanna's eyebrows rose. ‘What gives?'

He chuckled as the car eased into traffic. ‘What do you mean, what gives? Can't I give my girl a compliment?'

‘You're as transparent as glass, Father,' she said with a wry smile. ‘Whenever you want something from me and you expect a refusal, you begin laying on compliments.'

He sat back and sighed. ‘I was just thinking, on the way over here, what a terrible time that bastard put us through.'

Joanna's smile faded. ‘Khalil?'

He smiled coldly. ‘What other bastard do we know? To think he locked you up, treated you like dirt—'

‘I really don't want to talk about him tonight, Father.'

‘Did you know he's in town?'

She shrugged, trying for a casual tone. ‘Is he?'

Sam grunted. ‘Abu may have been a brute,' he said, ‘but Khalil's no better.'

Joanna looked at him. ‘You know that's not true!'

‘You're not defending him, are you, Jo?'

Was she? Joanna shook her head. ‘No,' she said quickly, ‘of course not.'

‘It burns my butt that the man treated you the way he did and gets rewarded for it,' Sam said testily. ‘There he is, sitting in Abu's palace, snug as a quail in tall grass, counting up the coins in the national treasury.'

Joanna closed her eyes wearily. ‘I doubt that.'

Sam chuckled. ‘But we'll have the last laugh, kid. I've seen to that.'

Joanna turned towards her father. There was something in his tone that was unsettling.

‘What do you mean?'

‘We may have lost the mining deal—but so has Khalil!'

‘He's not. He's going to put together a consortium himself.'

‘He's going to try and milk a fat profit straight into his own pockets, you mean.'

‘No,' Joanna said quickly. ‘He'd never—'

‘How do you think he'll like having the world hear he wanted the fortune tucked away in those mountains so badly he killed for it?' Sam said, his eyes glittering.

Joanna stared at her father. ‘Killed who?'

‘Abu. Who else?'

‘But Khalil didn't kill him. He's in prison. And it isn't because of the fortune in those mountains, it's—'

‘For God's sake, Jo!' Sam's voice lost its cheerful edge and took on a rapier sharpness. ‘Who cares what the facts are? I'm telling you I've come up with a way to put a knife in that s.o.b.'s back for what he did to us!'

‘Us?
Us
? He didn't do anything to us. I was the one he took, the one whose—'

‘What? What were you going to say?'

She stared at him in bewilderment. She knew what she'd been going to say, that she was the one whose heart was broken. But it wasn't true. She was defending Khalil, yes, but not because she loved him. It was only because it would be wrong to lie about him, to raise doubts in the minds of his people.

‘You can't do something so evil,' she said flatly.

Sam's face hardened. ‘Listen to me, Joanna. Khalil's trying to put together this mining deal, sure. But when the banks and the power brokers know the truth about him, how he abducted you and how he treated you—'

‘But they won't.' Joanna's eyes flashed with defiance. ‘The story's mine, and I'm not going to tell it.'

Sam's mouth thinned with distaste. ‘It's useless, treating you as if you understood business! You're not the son I wanted, and you never will be.'

Tears glinted on Joanna's lashes. ‘Well,' she said, ‘at least it's finally out in the open. I'm not, no, and—' The car jounced to a stop at the kerb. Joanna grabbed her evening bag from the seat. ‘We can discuss this later, Father.'

‘Jo. Wait!'

She snatched her hand from his and reached for the door, too angry and upset to wait for the chauffeur to open it. Sam cared about protocol, but it had never meant a damn to her.

‘Joanna,' Sam said sharply, but she ignored him, swung open the door—and stepped straight into a bewildering sea of cameras and microphones.

‘Miss Bennett!' Someone shoved a mike into her face. ‘Is it true,' an eager voice asked, ‘that you were abducted and held for ransom by the new ruler of Jandara?'

Joanna stiffened. ‘Where did you—?'

‘Is it true he abducted you because he'd demanded bribe money from your father's company and your father refused to pay it?'

She spun towards Sam, who had stepped out of the car after her. ‘Did you do this?' she said in a low voice.

His eyes narrowed. ‘We'll discuss this later, you said. I think we should stay with that idea.'

‘Answer me! Did you set this up?'

‘Do unto others as they do unto you, Jo,' Sam said out of the side of his mouth. ‘Khalil's in New York, his hat in his hand. It's my turn now.'

Joanna's mouth trembled. ‘You would lie about Khalil, let the media swarm over me, all to get even?'

Sam glared at her. ‘Business is business, Joanna. How come you can't get that straight?' He pushed past her, making it look as if he were defending her against the press, and held up his hands. ‘My daughter finds this too emotional a topic to talk about,' he said. ‘I'll speak on her behalf.'

He launched into a tirade against Khalil, about his greed and his barbarism, about how he'd been angered by Bennettco's refusal to pay enough
baksheesh
and how he'd stolen Joanna in retaliation, then demanded a king's ransom for her return—

‘No,' Joanna said.

The microphones and cameras swung towards her and Sam did too, his eyes stabbing her with a warning look.

‘The only reason we've decided to come forward now,' he said, ‘is because my daughter refuses to let Prince Khalil trick our bankers into investing in—'

‘No!' Joanna's voice rose. ‘It's not true!'

‘Do you see what the bastard did?' Sam roared. ‘She's still afraid to talk about how he imprisoned her, starved her, beat her—'

‘It's a lie!' Joanna stepped past her father. ‘Prince Khalil asked for no ransom, no bribes. He's a good, decent man, and my father's trying to blacken his name!'

There was a moment's silence, and then a voice rang out.

‘Decent men don't abduct women.'

There was a titter of laughter. Joanna lifted her chin and stared directly into the glittering eyes of the video cameras.

‘He didn't abduct me,' she said in a clear voice.

‘Your father says he did. What's the story, Miss Bennett?'

What had Khalil said, the night he'd taken her? That he could tell the world she'd run off with him and be believed, that no one would doubt such a story. Joanna took a deep breath.

‘I was with Khalil because I wanted to be with him,' she said. She heard her father growl a short, ugly word and her voice gathered strength. ‘The Prince asked me to go away with him—and I did.'

A dozen questions filled the air, and finally one reporter's voice cut through the rest.

‘So, you don't hate the Hawk of the North?'

Joanna's lips trembled. ‘No,' she said, ‘I don't hate him.'

‘What, then?' someone called.

Joanna hesitated. ‘I—I—'

‘Well, Miss Bennett?' another voice insisted, ‘how do you feel about him?'

Joanna stared at the assembled cameras. How did she feel about Khalil? What did she feel?

A woman reporter jostled aggressively past the others and stuck a microphone under her nose.

‘Do you love him?' she said, her crimson lips parting in a smirk.

Joanna looked at the woman. The time for lies and deceit was past.

‘Yes,' she whispered, ‘I do.'

She heard Sam's groan, heard the babble of voices all trying to question her at once, and then she turned and fled into a taxi that had mercifully just disgorged its passengers.

* * *

Joanna stalked the length of the terrace that opened off her living-room. The night had proven even warmer than the afternoon; the long, white silk robe she wore was light against her skin but even so, she felt as if she were smothering.

But she knew it had little to do with the temperature. She was smothering of humiliation, and there was nothing she could do about it.

She groaned out loud and sank down on the edge of a
chaise longue
. How could she have made such an ass of herself?

I love him, she'd said—but she didn't. She
didn't
love Khalil, she never had.

So why had she said such a preposterous thing? Anger at Sam, yes, and pain at how he'd been prepared to use her, but still, why would she have made such an announcement?

She rose and walked slowly into the living-room, just as the clock on the mantel chimed the hour. Four a.m. If only it were dawn, she'd put on her running shoes, a T-shirt and shorts, and go for a long run through Central Park. Maybe that would help. Maybe—