The Sheik Who Loved Me (15 page)

“Yes?” Lancaster’s voice was gruff on the other end.

“It’s Jayde,” she said.

She heard a sharp intake of breath. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Is…is Gibbs okay?”

“The lucky bugger is in excellent health. He was picked up by a fishing vessel. Good ploy with the amnesia, Ashton. We’ve been waiting for you to check in.”

“It…it wasn’t a ploy,” she said. “It was for real.”

Silence stretched over the distance. “But you’re fine now, right? You remember everything now?”

“Yes. But I’ve been compromised. I need to be brought in, ASAP.”

“They know who you are?”

“No. It’s…I’m not able to…the amnesia compromised me.”

“Ashton.” Her handler’s tone was gruff. “We
need
you there right now. You’re right inside his home. We couldn’t have orchestrated this better if we had tried. You have to hold steady.”

She scrunched her eyes up in frustration.
What did the man want? Did she have to beg?
“Lancaster, I can’t stress this enough, I’ve been irrevocably compromised. Besides, I believe Rashid is innocent.”
And I trust him. And he’s made me feel things I never thought possible. And I’ve made love to him. I…I love him.
She choked on a ball of tears that lurched into her throat.

Again silence stretched. “You have any proof of his innocence?”

“No.”

“And Rashid has no idea who you are?”

“No.”

Silence again. “We have new intel, Ashton. It came in late last night. Hear me out,
then
make your decision. If you still need out, we’ll mobilize ASAP.”

“I’m listening.”

“You just may be right. There is a chance David Rashid could be innocent.”

Her heart blipped, kicked into a light staccato beat. She
knew
it! In her gut she just knew it.

“The CIA operative undercover in Libya has made a breakthrough. He saw Tariq Rashid leaving the Falal base in Libya near the Azar border two days ago. He’s one of them.”

“Tariq is
Falal?
” she whispered.

“Yes. And according to the operative, Tariq is the one organizing Rashid uranium and oil shipments for the Falal. His brother may not even know about the deals, since it is Tariq Rashid who is now in control of those mines. We have also just learned that the Falal is funding the dissidents in Azar. The Falal is using the Azar rebels to disguise a renewed attempt to seize the Rashid oil fields and uranium mines. Once they have those under their full control, they’ll be in a position to mount a coup and take the whole country.”

“But the Falal is really just an underground arm of the Libyan government…” Her brain reeled as it hit her. “Lancaster, that means Libya is trying to annex Azar using the Falal. It means David and the Force du Sable are not just fighting against rebels, they’re fighting a whole damn country.”

“That would be the assumption from the recent intel, yes.”

“But Tariq…it just doesn’t make sense. Why would Tariq belong to a group fighting his own brother, a group fighting to take over the Rashid mines, his own mines, his own country?” Then with a sinking realization she knew. Once a fundamentalist, always a fundamentalist. Tariq had never forgiven his half brother. David Rashid had been deceived by his own flesh and blood. He was being destroyed from the inside out. And Tariq was running the show.

“There’s still the chance that David Rashid could be behind this, Ashton. He could be orchestrating this.”

“No, I don’t believe it.”

“One way or another the Rashids are central to whatever is going down in Libya and Azar. And whatever it is, it’s going to end up compromising global stability. If David Rashid is innocent, we need proof.”

“I’ll get you proof.” And by God she would. She’d stake her life on the fact that Tariq was deceiving his brother. The bastard. “I’m staying on Shendi.”

“Ah, there’s the Ashton we know.”

Fire burned bitter in Jayde’s gut as she replaced the receiver. She knew just how the revelation of Tariq’s betrayal would cut David to the core. He would feel that he had failed to keep his promise to his father. This was the stuff that went to the very heart of what motivated the man. But…she couldn’t tell him without blowing her cover.

Jayde’s heart sank like a stone. Keeping her cover, staying on Shendi, meant she would now knowingly be deceiving the man she had come to love.

She couldn’t do it.

But she had to. In order to prove his innocence, to protect him from a traitor, an enemy within the walls of his own home. His own brother. She stared at the phone. What had she just done?

She felt as if her very soul had been ripped in two by divided loyalties. She pushed her hair back from her brow with a shaky hand. God, David was going to hate her when he found out what she’d done. In trying to help him she was killing any hopes of a future with him. Who was she kidding? There
was
no hope for a future. David would never believe her amnesia was real once he learned who she was. He’d think she’d deceived him and Kamilah from the start. So what difference would it make to see the mission through now? None. Apart from the fact she might save him from the evil of his half brother.

Jayde sucked in a breath, filling her lungs until they felt they would burst. But as she did, she sensed a presence. Someone was watching her from behind. A cold dread seeped through her. Very, very slowly she turned around.

He stood rigid in the doorway, blue eyes crackling with sparks of fury, the muscles of his neck corded and tight.

“David!” she gasped. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Who were you talking to?” His voice was flat, dangerous.

Jayde’s eyes shot to the phone, then back to him.

How much had he heard?

“I said, who were you talking to?” he demanded.

“I…I called the embassy.”

“Bull!” He stepped into the room, slammed the door shut behind him, locked it, pocketed the key. “Who the hell
are
you?”

She forced panic away. She told herself she was trained for this sort of thing. But she couldn’t kid herself. Nothing in this world had prepared her for the situation in which she found herself now.

He grabbed her wrist, tightening his fingers around her like a metal cuff. He yanked her toward him. His eyes lanced hers, stabbing clean through to her soul. “Who was on that phone?” he growled. “What’s this about my brother? What about the Falal?”

She stared up into his ferocious eyes. Beyond the crackling anger, she could still read deep pain. A pain she had put there. And she couldn’t lie to him. Just couldn’t. She knew in her gut that he was innocent. And if his brother was working against him, he deserved to know it.

Jayde drew in a shuddering breath. Telling him would be one hell of a gamble. One that could cost lives if her gut was wrong. And it would most certainly cost her her job, right or wrong. But at this instant she didn’t care about her career. Before she’d met David, her job had been her life, her colleagues had been her family, and a sense of duty to her country had been her sole driving force.

But this man had sneaked in when her guard was down, and he’d changed her in some profound way. He’d put the missing part of her soul back into her heart. And life was no longer simple.

Deceit or truth? The choice hung over her head like a sword of Damocles. Her mouth went bone dry. She tried to swallow.

His fingers tightened painfully around her wrist. He was waiting for her response…for the thread to break and the sword to fall.

Tariq waited until he was absolutely certain she’d hung up. Then he clicked the receiver carefully back into place. His hand trembled. Perspiration pricked along his top lip. He swiped it away. He’d been exposed. This was far worse than he could have contemplated. He had to think fast. He had to move fast.

David’s fingers squeezed her wrist, and rage circled his heart like the winds of a terrible storm. He’d been betrayed by a woman he desperately wanted to believe in. A woman who’d made him dream once again of a future.

He was an idiot. He should have listened to Tariq. Instead he’d fallen into a trap as old as time. He had little doubt after hearing her on the phone that she was some kind of spy.

The question now was simply, who was she spying for?

She stared up at him with her huge innocent green eyes. But this time he knew they were a lie. “Who was on that phone?” he snarled.

“David, I…I’m…I’m not the person in that passport. I…I’m not married.”

A crazy wave of relief swooped through David’s stomach so fast he almost threw up.
She wasn’t married.
But the sensation bottomed out instantly. He tightened his grip, yanked her closer. And as he did, his nostrils flared in reflex at the scent of her. In spite of himself, his loins stirred involuntarily. Her body was so close to his he could feel her quick nervous breaths against his lips. His blood began to heat.

A dangerous cocktail of adrenaline, rage and furious desire began to spurt through his veins. A dark and primal voice whispered through him that she was fair game now. She didn’t belong to another man. And she sure as hell wasn’t the vulnerable amnesiac. He need feel no guilt, no shame in taking her now. Right here, on his desk. Hard and fast. His breathing quickened. His blood boiled with rage and lust. His eyes bored into hers.

But instead of challenge, instead of the latent confidence he was used to seeing in those bewitching eyes, a look of uncertainty…and of fear stared back up at him.

It totally threw him.

“Who the hell
are
you then?” he demanded, his voice hard and strange to his own ears.

She sucked in a shaky breath. “David, you have to understand, the
only
reason I’m going to tell you this is because I believe in you. You
have
to understand that.”

The desperation in her tone, the insecurity in her eyes set him on edge. “What are you talking about?”

“What I’m going to tell you cannot go beyond these walls. Can you promise me that? Can I trust you, David?”

He could feel her pulse racing wildly under the pressure of his fingers.

“Trust?”
He snorted. “Who are you to talk of trust?”

“My name is Jayde Ashton. I’m an agent for the British government.”

Anger and an unexpected jolt of sharp pain pierced his chest. He grabbed her jaw with his free hand, jerked her face up to his. She winced in pain.

“What in hell do you want from me,
Jayde Ashton?
Did you get what you came for? Was I a nice, easy lay? Will it please the British government?”

“Don’t do this David—”

“Don’t do what? Pretend I didn’t fall for a professional? Pretend I wasn’t taken by your lying sinful eyes?” He shoved her brutally away from himself. “You’re a spy!” He spat the words out in disgust. He raised a finger, aimed it at her face. “Tell me what you came for, then get the hell off my island!”

Shock, hurt, ghosted her features then was gone. She steeled her jaw, took a deep breath. “I’m going to give it to you straight, David. I owe you that much.”

“You sure as hell do.”

“If you are guilty, you will kill me for this.” She straightened her spine, squared her shoulders. “
That
is the measure of my trust in you, David. I am prepared to tell you the truth. I am prepared to tell you what I am doing here because…because I just believe—” her voice caught “—I believe in you. With my heart. And if I’m wrong, I don’t care. I don’t care if I die.” Her eyes glistened with hot emotion. “Because…I have nothing I want to go back for. Not anymore.”

A spasm of shock quirked through him.
Him, kill her? Was she crazy?
His anger shifted. Confusion swirled through him. Then he clenched his teeth. This was probably just another game, another ploy.

“If I am guilty of what?” he demanded.

“I work for MI-6, the British secret service—”

“I know what MI-6 is,” he snapped.

She swallowed. “My partner and I were sent to set up a perimeter surveillance system of your island—”

“Why?” he interrupted. “Why me?”

“You’re a person of interest to the British Government.”

“And
that’s
why?”

“No.” She cleared her throat. “Two months ago the U.S. National Security Agency picked up intelligence that led to the U.S. interception of a yellowcake uranium shipment from Libya to Korea. It was a rare kind of uranium, David. The kind that made headlines two years ago, the kind being used in cutting-edge nuclear technology.”

His chest tightened. He knew exactly what kind of uranium she was talking about. It came from only a few mines in the world. He owned two of them.

“It came from
your
mines, David. It was being shipped to Korea by the Falal in return for sophisticated centrifuges and other nuclear-weapons hardware and technology. What the U.S. discovered is only a small portion of what is coming from your mines. The rest is going straight to the Falal and the Falal is enriching your uranium and using the Korean hardware to manufacture nuclear weapons for Libya. Falal, David, is a covert arm of the Libyan Government.”

David’s heart kicked against his rib cage. He said nothing. He felt sick. This couldn’t be true.

“The U.S. also learned that illegal oil shipments from Rashid mines were making their way onto the black market and that the funds generated from them were going to finance the Falal. Because it’s your company and because you are a British citizen, U.S. intelligence alerted MI-6. The agencies are cooperating. On the surface Libya had abandoned its nuclear-weapons program. But now we have proof the Falal has simply taken it underground. It still exists, and your mines are fueling it.”

David felt the blood drain from his head. “It cannot be true.”

“It
is
true.”

“It can’t be. I’d know about it. Or…or Tariq would. It couldn’t be done without at least one of us being aware.”

“Yes,” she said, watching him intently.

He reeled at the implication. “You’re trying to tell me my own brother knows about this!”