The Prince of Pleasure (2 page)

"Pardon me?"

"You're here on oil business."

"I am, yes."

"Surely you want help from our satellites, perhaps access to our seismic technology, and the senator has friends in high places."

Khan's smile had vanished. "I'm afraid you've jumped to conclusions, Ms. Cruz. I am not interested in help from the senator or his friends. I've come to discuss Altara's oil development plans with those best suited to advise me."

"I must admit, I'm surprised by your willingness to admit you need advice from anyone."

"Laurel," Travis had said in a low voice, "the prince is my guest."

"Of course." Her smile had been saccharine-sweet. "But aren't we all supposed to address him as 'king'?"

"Try speaking directly to me," Khan had said coldly. "You'll get better answers."

"I doubt that."

Travis had groaned. "I'm sorry, man. I don't know what—"

"Don't apologize on Ms. Cruz's behalf, Travis." Khan's eyes had narrowed to icy slits. "And don't try to silence her. I'm fascinated. She is obviously a woman with strong opinions."

"And you're not accustomed to women with opinions," "Laurel Cruz had said, her eyes as cold as his, "or, at least, to hearing those opinions expressed.

Another time, he might have laughed.

His newly-appointed Minister of Education was a woman. His personal assistant, who was privy to all the secrets of running the kingdom, was a woman. He was about to appoint a woman to head up the newly-instituted Ministry of Health.

"How nice," he said, with a twist of his lips that bore little resemblance to a smile, "that you are so well-informed."

Travis had cleared his throat.

"Listen," he'd said briskly, "I hate to break this up but—"

""Women like me
are
well-informed. And that's going to be the eventual end of you and men like you."

"Jesus, Laurel," Travis had hissed, "what's the matter with you?"

"Nothing's the matter with me," Laurel Cruz had snapped. "I'm simply making the most of an opportunity to ask questions."

"I have not heard a question yet," Khan had growled. 

"Well, here's one. Do you ever think about the people who grovel before you, Mr. al Hassad? Probably not—but if you do, have you ever wondered if they do it out of choice—or because it is what you and your kind expect?"

Khan had felt a vein in his temple start to throb.

"And what, exactly, is 'my kind,' Ms. Cruz?"

"You expect subservience," she'd said, answering her own question instead of his, her chin lifted, her eyes shot with cold fire. "Blind obedience. Being treated as if you own the world, especially by women. Men like you, Mr. al Hassad, are barbarians!"

By then, she'd been breathing hard. Khan had barely been breathing at all. What he'd been was half-crazed with rage.

He'd taken a step forward. She'd taken a step back. As far as he was concerned, that was the first good thing that had happened since Travis had made the mistake of introducing them.

"I am addressed as Prince Khan," he'd said, his voice low and hard. "Or as Your Highness. And if we should ever have the misfortune to see each other again, you will also remember that you are to show me the respect I am due." One step more and his body brushed hers. Despite his anger, he felt the fullness of her breasts, smelled the light floral scent of her hair. That he was aware of her as a woman drove his rage even higher. "If we were in my country, you would do those things on pain of death—and what a pity it is we are not."

The still-functioning part of his mind had wanted to laugh at the stupid, cheesy lies—but when the color drained from her face, he'd felt a kind of bitter triumph. He knew she was trying to come up with some kind of response, but she failed.

It was time to walk away.

"My regards to the senator," he'd said, and he'd moved past her, through the remaining knot of guests, and stepped through the open French doors to the patio.

Travis had come after him.

"Khan. I'm sorry about that."

"Forget it."

"You're our friend. Our guest. And Laurel—"

Khan had whirled toward him.

"What was that all about?"

"Well, she's an attorney. A hotshot attorney. And—"

"And, what does that have to do with anything?"

"She's into human rights. Women's rights. Maybe you read about an incident here a year or so back. A bunch of cretins who'd come here from a place nobody could pronounce or find on a map, raped a woman. A girl, really. She was, I don't know, fifteen, sixteen. Anyway, she was a bloodied, beaten mess. Somehow, she got home to her folks—and her brothers killed her because they said her rape had dishonored the family."

"And?" Khan said coldly. "I am responsible for this?"

"No, of course not. See, while Laurel was in law school, she worked with the Justice Project. They're the ones who try to get—"

"I know what they do," Khan said impatiently. "They work to set aside the sentences of those who've been wrongly imprisoned."

"Yeah. Well, Laurel started up something similar, except her idea was to get justice for victims like this poor girl."

"I can almost hear you saying 'but.'"

 "But," Travis said, "there was some kind of hush-hush diplomatic intervention in Washington, way up the food chain, on behalf of a couple of small, wealthy, oil-rich countries. Laurel's funding was shut down; the couple of D.C. politicos who'd shown an interest in what she was doing suddenly went deaf, dumb, and blind—"

"In other words, yes, I
am
responsible because I am from a small, wealthy, oil-rich country."

"No!" Travis threw out his hands. "All I'm saying is, if you try to see this from Laurel's side of the fence—"

"Am I the ruler of some hellish piece of earth whose name nobody can pronounce?" Khan had said in white-lipped fury. "Does my nation treat women that way? Do I have anything to do with such barbarism?"

"Of course not. But—"

Khan had raised his hand. "Travis. It wasn't your fault. Let's drop it."

"Sure," Travis had said, after a long, deep breath. "Okay. We'll drop it. Come back inside. Have a drink. Let me introduce you to some other people."

"In a minute."

Travis had started to say something. Then he'd shrugged, clapped a hand on Khan's shoulder, and gone back inside the house.

Twenty minutes, perhaps more, had gone by, and he was still on the patio, anger burning a hole in his gut.

He hated what had just happened.

And hated that it had happened before.

Not the same sort of accusation, no, but he'd been judged by outsiders who didn't know him or his nation or his people. He'd been spoken of as if he were a medieval monster.

And yes, he knew there were places were women were still thought of as property, treated as second-class citizens, that though his father had never physically abused his mother, the way autocratic way he'd dealt with her might well be the reason she'd run away and died in the sudden sandstorm that had sent her car spinning, finally burying it in the ever-shifting, endless sands of the desert…

What was he doing?

So what if Laurel Cruz thought she knew all there was to know about him? So what if she believed his cultural beliefs were those of a barbarian?

The only barbaric thing about him was that a few minutes ago, he'd thought of her and sex in the same instant, but what could you expect of a man who'd been going, non-stop, for God knew how many hours?

Exhaustion was equally barbaric.

He needed some rest. A long, hot shower instead of the quick under-the-spray, out-of-the-spray thing that had been all he'd had time for in the bathroom on his private plane. He needed some time alone where he could be himself, not a man cursed with a hatful of titles.

He took a deep breath. Ran a hand through his hair. Straightened his maroon silk tie, his dark blue Savile Row suit jacket.

Good. Excellent. He was much calmer now.

All he lacked was a smile, and he managed that just as he walked into the living room. Caleb, Jake and Travis were waiting, looking as if they were ready to pick up the pieces.

"Khan?" Jake said. "You okay?"

"I'm fine."

"You sure? Because we can end everybody home—"

"No. Why would you do that?" He glanced around him. Excellent. No one was looking at him, which surely meant that no one had noticed the little scene that had taken place earlier. And Laurel Cruz was gone. That was even better. "Give me a minute to wash up. Then I want to meet the rest of your guests."

"Sure. The downstairs lav is—"

"I remember where it is." Khan clapped Jake on the back, flashed smiles at Travis and Caleb. "I'll be right back."

What he needed was to splash his face with cold water, because he wasn't quite as calm as he'd insisted. If he were, he wouldn't have found himself looking for the Cruz woman…

And there she was, in the foyer, standing with her back to him as she put on a tan leather jacket.

Did she somehow sense his presence? She must have, because she went still. Then, slowly, she swung around and looked at him.

 Her eyes widened.

Just for an instant, she looked wary.

Then she clutched the edges of her lapels. Her chin rose, her gaze zeroed in on his. It was a combative stance, and she erased any doubt when she flashed him a smile filled with contempt.

He could almost feel his blood pressure climb for the sky.

To hell with this, he thought grimly, and started toward her.

It was sheer pleasure to see that look of contempt change to one of fear. She was a woman with foolish opinions, he thought grimly, but she was not a fool.

She swung away from him, went quickly to the massive front door, opened it, and stepped out into the night.

Khan followed her.

She was heading for a red Honda parked in the gravel driveway. By now, she was damn near running but he was bigger, stronger and faster.

It was no contest.

He reached the Honda with seconds to spare.

"You were right," he said in a low, dangerous voice.

"Get out of my way!"

"Don't you want to know what you were right about?"

She reached in her pocket, took out her keys, started to point them at the car. Khan plucked them from her hand.

"You said I always get what I want. Then you called me a barbarian."

She started past him, back toward the house. He grabbed her by the shoulders.

"Let go of me," she gasped. "Let go, damn you, or I'll—"

"And what I want right now," he said, "is this."

Laurel read what he was going to do in his eyes, in the way his muscles tensed, in the way he looked at her mouth.

Then he lowered his head to hers.

Terror sent her heart racing.

"No!"

He laughed. She pushed against his chest, tried to twist her face away, but it was useless. He thrust one hand into her hair, cupped the back of her head, and it was all over.

The best she could do was steel herself for his kiss, meant to punish. To subdue. To reinforce what she already knew about men like him, that he didn't give a damn for anyone but himself and the few exalted souls he considered his equals.

She tensed, waited for his mouth to assault hers.

Wrong.

He brushed his lips over hers, did it again, then settled his mouth against hers in a kiss that was gentle and soft.

He slid his hand down her spine, drew her against him, lifted her into him. And he went on kissing her, kissing her until a breathless little sound escaped her throat, until she felt her lips soften, mold against his, part under his…

That was when he put her from him.

She blinked. And found herself staring up into eyes the frigid green of a winter sea.

"Possessed by a barbarian," he said in a low voice. "What a hell of a fate to suffer."

She wanted to say something witty or, at least, insulting. She couldn't. Her mind was a blank. All she could do was watch the Prince of Altara stride past her, get behind the wheel of a black Land Rover, and gun the engine to life.

The Rover sped off, leaving a spray of gravel in its wake.

The Wildes had offered Khan a guest suite at
El Sueño.

"The staff will be there," Travis had said, "so you won't have to live on take-out pizza." They'd all laughed, thinking back to some of their more memorable college meals. "Other than that, you'll have the place to yourself."

"He's right," Caleb had added. "Travis and I both spend the week in Dallas, and Jake's been bouncing between our two condos until he deploys to Afghanistan." 

"He means I stay with one of them unless I have a better offer," Jake had said, with the knowing wink of a confirmed bachelor, "and I always do."

That had resulted in more laughter.

Khan had to admit, the idea had been tempting.

He liked the ranch, even though  calling half a million acres of prime real estate a 'ranch' always struck him as a little strange, but this was Texas. Everything was big here.

In the end, he'd opted for a luxury suite at a high-rise Dallas hotel. It made more sense. He'd be spending a lot of time in the city, attending meetings and presentations. Staying in town would make thing simple.

Except, he thought as he entered the hotel lobby after another long day, nothing about this trip was turning out to be simple.

The more meetings he had, the more he thought of new questions. The more answers he heard, the more details he needed. He was starting to think that a trip he'd assumed would last a few days was beginning to chase its own tail and might well drag on for two, even three weeks.

Not a problem.

In his father's time, connections between Altara and the States had been complicated. The rest of the world had moved on; his father had still relied on telephones and fax machines.

 The phones had been close to useless. There was an inevitable lag between what was said on each end. Even worse was sometimes hearing the echo of your own voice when you spoke.

Faxing was not much better. You faxed a question or a comment, waited until someone printed it out, read it, located the person it was meant for …

Khan had tried to convince his father to install cell towers and to equip his ministers and their staffs with computers. His father's position had been that there was no need to accept all those Western ways.

One of Khan's first acts, on assuming the throne, had been to have cell towers installed throughout the kingdom, and to arrange for computers to be purchased for virtually all government employees.

The result was that Altara had leaped onto the world stage, and that he could be in instant contact with his people. If anything urgent came up, there'd be no delay in handling it.

In other words, he could stay in Dallas as long as necessary. Making decisions about the most effective ways to develop the new oil fields was the most important item on his agenda, and if that meant spending additional time here, so be it.

It was certainly not a hardship.

He liked the city and always had. It was, he thought, quintessentially American, a dazzling blend of urban chic and Western charm. He liked the women, too. Most were smart and sophisticated, nothing like Lauren Cruz whose only interest had been in insulting him—

And why think about her?

He couldn't imagine ever having to deal with her again.

And where was the damned elevator? There were six, but he'd been standing in front of them for at least ten minutes and not even one had arrived.

Khan took a deep breath.

Okay.

He'd been waiting two minutes at the most. It only felt like more than that because he was no longer the only person waiting for an elevator to arrive.

Standing in a crowd, even a small one, made him uncomfortable. He knew it was inevitable that the longer he stood still, the better the odds that someone would recognize him.

He preferred to travel without bodyguards, much to the distress of his security chief; Jamal had complained that it was not wise but Khan had found certain anonymity in cities. Dress like everyone else, walk briskly, avoid eye contact and you could stay under the radar—

Barbarian or not.

Damn! The woman had really gotten to him. And that was ridiculous. Why should the ignorant comments of a stranger mean a damn?

He reached out and stabbed the call button again.

The one caveat about going unrecognized was that you had to keep moving. Otherwise, your luck ran out. Somebody would look at you a certain way and you could almost see the pieces falling into place. Then they'd blink, pause, stare…

As two women were suddenly doing.

A short redhead and a plump brunette. He saw it happen, out of the corner of his eye, the start of recognition, the way one jabbed the other in the ribs.

Khan bit back a groan. What was that phrase TV cops always used?

 He'd been made.

What now? Walk away? Head for the fire stairs?

If his bodyguards had been with him, the problem wouldn't have occurred. In public places, they surrounded him, led him through lobbies, out of buildings, even cordoned off an area, if necessary.

But he hated it.

The sense of isolation from the real world—and yet, was that really any worse than being gaped at as if he were an object, the way the redhead and the brunette were gaping now?

A bell chimed discreetly. Not one bell. Two. The doors to a pair of  side-by-side elevator cars slid open.

Everybody stepped into one..

Khan didn't move. Unfortunately, neither did the two women.

The doors to the first elevator slid shut.

The doors to the second began to do the same.

Khan sighed, reached out quickly, put a hand on the edge of one door.

"After you, ladies," he said politely.

The women giggled as they entered the car. He stepped in after them.

"What floor?" he said, still politely.

"Nine," one said. 

He nodded, pressed the button for nine, then for the concierge level, flashed a quick, impersonal smile. Then he turned his back to the women, folded his arms over his chest, and gazed at the ceiling as the elevator rose.

Maybe they wouldn't say anything—

"Who are you?" one said.

"'You're somebody," the other said, "We know that, but who?"

Khan felt his jaw flex.
Do not answer.
That was the first rule of what he thought of as Celebrity Survival.

And it was his fault.

Walk briskly, keep moving—and blow your coverage by staying in one place for more than a couple of days. Until today, nobody at the hotel had recognized him. Well, the manager knew who he was, of course, and the front desk clerks, but they'd made it a point to avoid divulging his presence to anyone else.

Now, that anonymity was over.

"He's a prince," the first woman hissed, "I saw his picture in one of those magazines at the checkout."

"You mean, that English guy, Prince Charles?"

"No way. The English guy is old!"

"Then, the other one? Willie? Harry? Something like that."

Khan stood rigid, only the muscle in his jaw moving. 

That was the other part of being recognized that drove him crazy. People talked about him as if he weren't there.

The Cruz woman had done that, the other night. Except, she hadn't been excited about his being a prince. She'd been disdainful—and why did he keep wasting time, thinking of her? That whole situation was over and done with.

This one wasn't. He knew the two women were still gaping at him.

The car gently bounced to a stop. The doors swished open.

The women didn't move.

Khan reached to the control panel, pressed the button that kept the doors from closing.

"Your floor, ladies."

"Tell us who you are," the brunette said. "Because we know that you're somebody, right?"

"Everybody is somebody, madam."

His attempt at cheap philosophy was a waste of time. 

 "I know!" The redhead beamed from ear to ear. "You're that guy who was in
People 
last week. The sheikh."

"Ohmygod," the brunette squealed, "a sheikh!"

Khan's eyes narrowed. He could almost feel something giving way inside him.

"I am not a sheikh," he said. "I am not even a rattle. Or a roll."

"Huh?"

Who could blame her? Word play wasn't going to work. Neither was courtesy. He stood straighter, used every bit of his six foot, two inches of height to tower over them.

"Out!" he roared.

A second later, he was alone.

"Wonderful," he muttered, as the car started rising again.

What a great guy he was, and what a great trip this was turning out to be. In less than forty-eight hours, he'd terrorized two women whose only crime was buying into the entire, vapid idea of celebrity…

And made an ass of himself by doing his best to convince a crazed feminist that her assessment of him was accurate.

He was, indeed, a barbarian.

The car stopped. The doors opened, and he started briskly down the carpeted hall toward his suite.

He was also a fool to have Laurel Cruz in his head again.

Khan frowned as he jabbed his keycard into the lock, opened the suite door and stepped inside the sitting room.

What was that old American saying? Honesty was the best policy. Well, the honest truth was that he couldn't stop thinking about her… or, more accurately, how badly he'd reacted to her taunting.

He certainly hadn't thought about the kiss.

Why would he think about it? About the silken feel of her mouth under his, the honeyed taste? Why would he think about that little sigh or moan or whatever sound he'd thought she'd made as he kissed her?

 It had probably been his imagination and even if it hadn't been, so what?

If she'd made a sound at all, it had surely been one of disgust.

Except—except there'd been that one instant, barely a heartbeat long, when she'd leaned into him so that he'd felt the softness, the warmth of her…

He muttered something short and sharp, slammed the door shut, tossed the keycard into the small crystal bowl that stood on an ormolu table near the door, and shrugged off his suit coat.

Enough.

He was tired and, thanks to the women in the elevator, irritable.

What he needed was a shower, a cold drink and a few hours away from talk of oil wells. And he could have all those things, tonight.

By some miracle, he was free of commitments until the morning, meaning he wouldn't have to smile politely and chat pleasantly or do anything except veg out on the sitting room sofa, hit the remote for the flat screen TV that dominated the opposite wall, and find something mindless to watch. Basketball. American football. If he was lucky, real football, what Americans called soccer.

Whatever he did, he was not going to think about the woman or the kiss—and, hell, was he out of his mind? He'd just vowed not to think about Laurel Cruz and what was he doing?

He was thinking about her.

Khan's frown deepened as he headed for the bedroom.

Time was supposed to put things in perspective. Her hostility had been out of line. So had his reaction to it. End of story, so why was he still replaying the scene in his head?

 The answer was simple.

A lifetime of understanding the importance of self-control. Of diplomacy. And he'd blown it in, what, ten minutes?

Impatiently, he kicked off his shoes, peeled off his tie, his shirt, his trousers and Jockeys. The shower was big, all glass; the water was hot. He flattened his palms against one of the transparent walls, bowed his head, and let the spray beat down on his neck and his shoulders.

It took time until he felt the tension begin to leech from his muscles. When it did, he lowered the temperature, scrubbed his face, his body, turned the water to cold, and let it wash away the last of the day's stress.

Stress, more than exhaustion, was the reason he'd overreacted the other night. 

He'd been on the go for weeks. For months.

Until his father's death, he'd spent most of his time living in New York, managing Altara's business affairs. His father had died unexpectedly—a heart attack that struck with unforgiving force. Khan had gone from running what was, in effect, an enormous corporation to running a country. He'd traveled to a dozen cities around the world, met with heads of state in all of them as a way of assuring them that Altara was still committed to stability in its role as the most important of the Black Gold nations. He'd implemented changes within the kingdom so it could take its rightful place in the modern world.

He wouldn't have said it aloud but he could, to himself.

He'd accomplished a lot. 

What he needed now was some down time.

Starting tonight. 

He toweled off, ran his hands through his still-wet hair, and dressed for comfort. Faded jeans. A well-worn Columbia University sweatshirt. Barefoot, he went to the wet bar in the sitting room, took a bottle of Montrachet from the mini-fridge and poured himself a glass.

Better. Much better, he decided, as he stepped onto the terrace and sank into a rattan lounge chair.

What would the Cruz woman think if she saw him now? Dressed like a thousand other guys, enjoying a glass of wine, just laying back and being himself.

She was so sure she knew all there was to know about him. About his culture. Would she be surprised to know Altaran customs were a centuries-old mingling of East and West? That he and his people wore jeans, drove cars, raised their kids and wanted bright futures for them? That their concerns were pretty much the same as everyone else's?

"Laurel is just outspoken," Travis had said the next day, casually but in a way Khan knew meant his friend was upset that such a thing had happened in his family home.

 Khan had smiled tightly and said yes, she most certainly was.

But then, Travis hadn't seen all of it.

He hadn't seen that kiss.

Khan rose, went inside, refilled his glass, and went back out to the terrace.

Autumn in Dallas was pleasant. Shorter days, yes, but the weather was still warm, making the chilled white Burgundy even more welcome.