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  “Don’t let us interrupt you,” she said with a smile.

  “You aren’t.” Osman rose to his feet. He really was tall. Broad shoulders, too. She straightened her own shoulders and tried not to look or feel intimidated. “My brothers and I were just exclaiming over how happy we are to have visitors to share our festival with the rest of the world. I suspect Westerners can learn a lot from the people of Ubar.”

  “About what?” Allan sat rather confidently down on the cushions opposite Zadir and Amahd. Sam’s chest swelled with pride.

  “About family, love and community.” Osman beamed. “In America, you have the saying ‘it takes a village to raise a child.’ Here, we are fortunate enough to have an entire nation to help with every stage of life from birth to death.”

  Sam sat down on the sofa again. “Allan’s from a big extended family of three generations of Italians, so he has some experience of what you’re talking about.” She smiled at him, only to see his expression turn stony. “I only had my parents, because they both moved to L.A. from the Midwest to pursue careers in Hollywood. I was an accident, and a lot of the time they were too busy to supervise me much. Still, I managed to make it to adulthood, and here I am.”

  She wished she could stop babbling! It must be nerves. She wondered what time it was, but she’d grown so used to using her phone for everything that she hadn’t worn a watch in years. She hadn’t seen a single clock in the entire palace. Even a sundial would be useless now that it was night. She guessed it must be after nine o’clock.

  An enigmatic smile spread across Osman’s mouth while she spoke. “My brothers and I have spent so much time abroad that we almost forgot the powerful role of family in creating happiness. Our father saw fit to insist in his will that we all return home to claim our birthright.”

  “Couldn’t you have just said no?” Sam looked from one brother to the next.

  “Never.” Osman crossed his arms. “A sense of duty is in our DNA right along with eye and hair color.”

  Sam admired the DNA that gave him such unusual and haunting eyes. “So you just picked up and came back here, leaving your lives behind?”

  “More or less.” It was the first time she’d heard Amahd speak. The quietest and most serious of the three had a softer voice than the others, and even deeper if that were possible. “None of us had families or children. My business has capable people in charge.”

  “I’ve always been rather a nomad, moving from place to place.” Zadir kicked his head back a little, surveying her through slate blue eyes that had probably charmed a lot of women in their time. “My business is buying and selling luxury real estate. I still have an apartment in New York and a house in Paris.”

  “So none of you is married.” Sam found this interesting. “How come you haven’t participated in the traditional ceremony we’re about to witness?”

  There was an awkward silence. Osman took a swig from his coffee, Zadir lifted a brow, and Amahd cracked his knuckles. She’d apparently hit on a sore spot.

  “Are you planning to participate in the festival tomorrow?”

  “No way,” muttered Zadir, his words almost covering the murmured “too busy” from his brother Amahd. “Besides, in our culture the oldest must marry first. It’s tradition.”

  She turned her gaze to Osman. “And you?

  He regarded her steadily for what felt like a full minute. His face was unreadable, deadly serious, and she began to wonder if she’d really offended him.

  “Royals are anything but exempt from the traditions of the land. We are responsible for their perpetuation.”

  “So you’re going to catch a bride when you’re at the festival with us tomorrow?”

  He paused again, staring into her eyes. She couldn’t tell if he was doing it to intimidate the heck out of her—it was working—or if he was thinking about something else and was miles away in his mind. “Perhaps,” he said at last, letting the word roll over his tongue.

  That would be quite something to catch on camera. “The future king claims his bride” would be a lovely tagline for the project. Once again, she was salivating at the prospect of the footage they’d capture tomorrow, as long as Allan could get over himself enough to shoot it. She snuck a glance at Allan and found him staring at the brothers with an almost hostile expression on his face.

  She slid closer and put her arm around him. She wanted to reassure him that even though they were in an exotic palace with the three best-looking men she’d ever seen in her life, he was still the man she intended to spend the rest of her life with. Allan slid his arm around her, and she felt his chest rise. She enjoyed the sensation of him claiming her in front of these other men, even though there was something silly about letting this kind of machismo dictate her own behavior.

  Osman knocked back his coffee and flung the cup down on a big brass tray. “We have an early start tomorrow, so perhaps we should all retire.” There was an edge to his voice. Or maybe she was being oversensitive. “I trust your rooms are satisfactory?”

  “They’re quite wonderful, thank you. I feel privileged to enjoy your hospitality.” She squeezed Allan, hoping to coax some similarly flowery gratitude out of him.

  “Very nice, thanks,” he managed.

  They all rose to their feet, and she tried not to feel too awkward about the three brothers towering over her as she nodded to them and wished them a good night. She wanted to ask Allan to come to her room, but they were flanked by staff members so it felt awkward and she had to make do with a hissed, “Be ready by dawn, okay?”

  Back in her room, she washed and climbed into bed, exhausted and overstimulated from all the excitement of the day. She was trying to meditate and deliberately relax all the muscles in her body, starting with her toes, when she heard a knock on the door.

  She sat up. “Allan?”

  “It’s Osman.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  What was she supposed to say? “Go away” sounded good, but not entirely appropriate since she was his guest.

  Sam climbed out of bed, heart hammering. She wore white cotton pajamas with tiny yellow dots on them, and she hoped they weren’t too translucent. “Uh, can I help you?”

  “May I come in?”

  She swallowed. “Sure.” Since the door didn’t have any kind of lock on it, so she supposed it was kind of him to ask nicely.

  The door opened slowly to reveal Osman dressed in a long, pale shift of much thinner fabric than his daytime attire. The light from the hallway shone through it, throwing his physique into silhouette.

  Goodness. He had a surprisingly muscular build for someone who wielded influence rather than a sword, though for all she knew he had plenty of experience with a sword as well. This region was once known for its furiously aggressive warriors.

  “We must talk.” His smooth, deep voice did nothing to set her at ease.

  “Oh. Why?” She attempted to sound businesslike.

  “To plan for tomorrow. The festival begins shortly after sunrise, so if you want to capture the opening moments we should leave half an hour before dawn.”

  She nodded. She’d have to let Allan know about the earlier departure. Though neither of them would know what time it was without their phones. “That sounds sensible. I’m fine with starting even earlier if you want to leave a margin for error.”

  He studied her for a moment, seeming to take in her polka-dot pajamas without doing anything so crude or obvious as sliding his gaze over her body. She just felt like he was doing that as her skin heated and sizzled under the flimsy fabric. That taunting half-smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “There will be no error.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.” A goofy smile was creeping across her mouth. What the heck? She tried her best to put a stop to it. Why did he still stand there staring at her? Once again, her nipples attempted to communicate with him and she hoped they weren’t visible, but she didn’t intend to look down and check.

  “Will that be all?” she said brightly, l
ike a servant taking her master’s orders. She really wished he’d leave. Something about his presence sent her all off-kilter. The room grew hotter by the second.

  He took a step toward her and lifted her hand to his lips. She gasped as he kissed her fingers. All the tiny hairs on her hand and arm pricked up with awareness, and she tried hard not to let her knees buckle.

  What was he playing at?

  “I’m truly pleased to share our festival with you.” He lowered his head almost humbly. “I think you’ll find it’s the experience of a lifetime.”

  He still held her hand, and her palm had started to sweat.

  “I’ve been looking forward to it for a long time.” She almost stammered the words. Embarrassing! She’d acted cool in front of heads of state before, even the president of the United States himself, so why was she quivering like a nervous schoolgirl around this man?

  She tugged gently on her hand, hoping to retrieve it. He held it for a split second, just long enough to make her eyes widen, then he softly let it go so it slid through his fingers. She lifted it and tucked an imaginary strand of hair behind her ear. Anything to distract her from the disturbing sensations coursing through her errant body.

  He bowed slightly, which only drew attention to the way the light behind him accented his heavy muscling. “Good night, Samantha.”

  “Good night,” she breathed.

  When the door closed behind him, she sat down hard on the bed. She felt as if a gale-force wind had ripped through the bedroom and tossed her like a ragdoll. Worse yet, her body still hummed with rogue sensations and stray flashes of heat.

  Which didn’t make any sense. Allan was much more her type, with his soft, blue gaze and his gentle, hesitant touches. In fact, she was going to visit him right now to get her mind off the overbearing Osman!

  She waited until Osman had plenty of time to exit the hallway, then she opened the door carefully and peered out. No one about. She crept down the hallway about twenty feet to Allan’s door, praying that no one would see her. She suspected that midnight visits between unmarried couples were frowned upon in this traditional culture.

  Not that it seemed to slow Sheikh Osman’s roll, of course.

  She didn’t knock. Instead, she tried the handle, which moved down smoothly, but when she tried to push the door open it didn’t budge. Could his room have a lock? She tried again, this time heaving her body weight against the door.

  Still nothing. “Allan,” she whispered. “It’s me, Sam.”

  “Coming.” She heard a heavy object being dragged across the floor. She tried not to chuckle as she realized Allan must have shoved a piece of furniture against the door.

  He opened it wide enough for her to slip in, then closed it behind her.

  “Do you really think this would stop anyone?” She gestured to an ornately carved blanket chest—or something of that nature—that had left pale scrape-marks on the time-worn stone tiles.

  “Nope, but it would slow them down enough for me to jump out of bed and get ready.” His blue eyes flashed with defiance.

  Sam decided not to mock him. She’d come here to show him—or was it herself?—how much she cared about him. “I miss you.”

  “It’s only one night. What do you do when I’m traveling?”

  “I hug your pillow.” She smiled. It was true. Although she’d been single most of her life and living with Allan less than eighteen months, she missed his warm body in their bed when he wasn’t there.

  “That’s surprisingly sentimental of you.” He raised a sandy brow.

  She shrugged. “You don’t think of me as romantic?”

  “You’re usually too sensible to get sidetracked by anything as irrational as romance.”

  “You’re probably right. Still, maybe we’ll both get swept up in the excitement of the festivities tomorrow and decide to join in!”

  “Hardly.” He crossed his arms over the long-sleeved Ramones T-shirt he wore as pajamas. “We’ll be too busy recording it for posterity. Which is why we should get some sleep right now.”

  How could she sleep in such a frazzled state? Her body still hummed with stray energy that Osman had put there. “I think we should share a bed.” She said it with a hint of seductiveness in her voice. Admittedly, she wanted affection as much as sex, but some warm lovemaking would be nice, too, to help to dispel all the tension of the day that seemed to have driven a wedge between them.

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Why not?” She gestured around the softly lit chamber with its wall hangings and ornate furniture. “We may never get to make love in such a beautiful setting again. Tomorrow we’ll probably be in the Al Cheapo Motel, if we can even find one now that we’ve blown our reservation. The town will be packed for the festival. Next we’ll be bunking in the Land Rover.”

  “Frankly, I’d prefer that. Here I feel like we’re at the mercy of his majesty and his hordes of mysterious staffers. Who are all these people, anyway? There must be fifty different people working here.”

  “He’s a source of local employment,” she said with a shrug.

  “He’s an Old World pasha used to being waited on hand and foot. I think it’s disgusting. When he finally gets the throne he came running back for, he’ll probably be a despot of the worst magnitude.”

  “Possibly.” She sighed. “Still, the palace is lovely.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I suppose you’d rather live here than a walk-up in Carroll Gardens.” There was a hint of wariness in his voice.

  “Of course not. I’m sure the bagels here are terrible. Still, it’s a bit like spending the night in a fairy tale. Can’t you just enjoy it as an unexpected honeymoon adventure?”

  “How can we be on our honeymoon if we haven’t married yet?”

  “Now you’re being overly traditional,” she scolded. “I think it’s quite progressive to have the honeymoon first. Maybe we can even skip the whole marriage thing.” Truth be told, she’d had some nagging doubts about that lately. Everyone said that marriage changed things. On the other hand, she did want to change things. She’d like to have children, for example.

  “So now you don’t want to be married?” He cocked his head.

  “Of course I do. It’s just that we don’t have to rush into it right away when we have so many deadlines. And maybe marriage is not such a great idea if you don’t want to sleep with me.” She was only half kidding.

  “Baby,” he uncrossed his arms and stepped forward, then placed his arms around her. “This room could be bugged or who knows what. I wouldn’t be able to relax.”

  “Oh.” Disappointment unfurled in her chest. “I suppose we should both get some sleep, then.”

  “Exactly.” He squeezed her cheek gently as if she were a toddler. She wanted to frown but managed not to. There was no use pouting and being childish with Allan, all it did was make him go quiet.

  “Anyway, I came to tell you we have to leave half an hour before dawn. Will you be able to wake up?”

  “I’ll wake you, baby.”

  “Great.” She managed a bright smile, then exited the room with a sinking heart. For some reason it truly bothered her that he wouldn’t sleep with her, at least to offer some companionship and comfort, if nothing else. She wondered what Sheikh Osman would do in similar circumstances and quickly came to the conclusion that he’d flash those intense eyes and invite her under the covers.

  Of course that was just fantasy. She probably wasn’t sheikh Osman’s type at all. She could picture him with a buxom blonde or a shapely Nubian goddess, not a willowy brunette who rarely wore heels over one inch.

  She checked in the mirror to make sure she’d removed all her sultry eye makeup. If she shed a tear or two—which hopefully wouldn’t happen—she didn’t want the evidence smeared all over her face when the sun rose.

  The blare of trumpets woke Osman from a dream that he was an eagle circling over an empty landscape. A glance at the windows confirmed that dawn was still some time away. The head
of the household staff had apparently insisted on waking every living soul in the palace simply because their lord and master needed to get up early.

  Sometimes it could be exhausting to assume the mantle of tradition.

  He climbed out of bed and stretched, anticipation sending a much-needed surge of adrenaline to his muscles. He hadn’t been to this festival since he was a boy of eight or so, when he and the rest of the family accompanied one of his older cousins to find her mate.

  Several of his relatives had met and married their partners there since, but he’d been too busy jetting from meeting to meeting to attend. As far as he knew, they were all still married, which wasn’t exactly unexpected given the forbidden status of divorce.

  He emerged from the shower to find his two brothers lounging on the cushions in his bedroom suite. “You two are not coming.”

  “What do you mean, bro? We need to get married, too. None of us can assume our new roles without a wife.” Zadir’s mischievous grin ticked him off. And they’d both dressed for a celebration in robes of rough-woven silk.

  “I’m the oldest, and I must marry first.”

  “That doesn’t seem fair when I’m the youngest and the most sensible.” Ahmad scowled. “You two better hurry up. Especially since we can’t exactly date here. If I even look at a girl, her family starts calculating their bride price.”

  “You’ll get your turn. Just be patient.” Osman pulled on his raw-silk robe. “I plan to claim my bride today.”

  Zadir clapped his hands together. “This I have to see. She’s going to slap you across the face.”

  “She’ll do no such thing. Samantha Bechtel will answer the call of destiny with dignity and grace.” He let a smile wander across his mouth.

  “In your dreams. And her boyfriend will punch you.”

  “He’s not her boyfriend.” He wrapped a colorful sash around his waist and tucked an ornamental dagger into its folds. “They slept separately last night. I checked.”