Innocent in the Desert: The Sheikh's Impatient Virgin / The Sheikh's Convenient Virgin / The Desert Lord's Bride. Trish Morey

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      The plaintive cry elicited an unexpected twinge of sympathy from Karim. He ignored it; sympathy was not what she needed.

      She needed to wake up.

      ‘You think that makes any difference?’

      ‘Of course it makes a difference.’

      ‘Do not be so naïve!’ Karim, his expression contemptuous, studied her indignant features.

      ‘I’m not naïve!’ A hopeful look appeared on her face. ‘What about an … injunction?’

      ‘A good idea,’ he conceded. ‘If what they had printed was not essentially true.’

      ‘True!’ she yelped. ‘It’s total rubbish!’ She opened the paper with a rustle and found a headline. ‘Right,’ she said, stabbing it with her finger. ‘For a start I’m not a—’

      ‘Virgin, true,’ he said, picking up on a totally different aspect. ‘The virgin princess stuff makes a good headline, but as I imagine every lover you have ever had will be coming out of the woodwork to contradict that in rival papers, demanding a retraction would be pointless. Do you not think,’ he added grimly, ‘I would kill this story if I could? It is not in my power to do so—believing the world is the place you wish it to be does not make it so. Your grandfather hoped that you would gradually accept that your life had to change. He clearly underestimated your stubbornness.’ His mouth lifted briefly in a humourless smile as he added half to himself, ‘Or possibly overestimated your intelligence …?’

      Eva’s eyes flashed, but before she could respond to the insult he added, ‘He now accepts that it was a mistake.’

      ‘You have been discussing me with my grandfather? How dare you!’

      ‘The announcement of our marriage will appear in the relevant places tomorrow.’

      The autocratic pronouncement took Eva’s breath away. It was unbelievable but he really seemed to think she would agree. ‘And I have no say in this?’ she asked, adopting an interested tone.

      He shrugged and, leaning back into his seat, closed his eyes. ‘Not a lot. Now, if you don’t mind, I have things to do.’

      Eva ground her teeth and fixed the impossible man with a glimmering glare. Did he really think that she was going to sit still for this manipulation?

      ‘I do mind.’ If he actually fell asleep she would kill him, she really would … Now that, she thought longingly, would really make a headline worth reading. ‘Let me tell you …’

      Karim opened his eyes. ‘No, let me tell you, Princess,’ he said with the manner of a man who had exhausted his patience, ‘or better still let me show you …’ This alternative would be admittedly brutal, but effective.

      ‘Show?’ she echoed, unable to understand a word of what he said to the man sitting up front in the driver’s seat. ‘What are you doing? What did you say to him? Stop this car immediately!’ she added, tugging at the door handle, which didn’t budge.

      Eva, fighting the rising tide of panic, turned her head sharply, causing her hair to whip around her face as she faced him. ‘You do know we have a law in this country about kidnap?’

      As she studied his profile with angry eyes her expression grew abstracted; he looked like a man who made his own laws.

      Which was, she reminded herself, not an admirable quality. Fitting her scowl back in place, she grumbled crankily, ‘Just what sort of world would it be if we all went around making up the rules as we went along?’

      It would be chaos … much as her life was at the moment. She was suddenly filled with a nostalgic longing for a time when she was oblivious to the existence of her exotic relations and the only prince she knew existed in the pages of books and magazines!

      The blacked-out glass panel that separated them from the two men in the front of the car was back in place before Karim responded.

      ‘You want to get out, fine … feel free.’

      She tilted her head to look at him with confused suspicion. ‘What?’

      ‘I’m not kidnapping you, I’m rescuing you, Princess,’ he murmured softly.

      ‘I do not need rescuing.’ Not until now, anyway, she thought as his platinum eyes captured her own. ‘And I’m not a princess.’

      ‘You really do struggle with reality, don’t you, Princess?’

      The throbbing ache between her thighs was real and utterly mortifying. ‘This is not real.’ Any minute now she would wake up, and she would not be lying in anyone’s arms.

      ‘This is a theme I have already touched on, but as you are clearly a slow learner I will repeat myself … Saying something, even with shrill conviction, does not make it so, Princess.’

      Eva lifted a hand to cover the base of her throat, where she was conscious of a pulse frantically leaping.

      ‘Do not call me that … and I’m not shrill.’ Shrill would have been an improvement on breathy. The longer his eyes held hers, the stronger a hold the languid lethargy that had invaded her limbs became.

      She disliked the entire out-of-control floaty feeling almost as much as the man who had caused it … without even trying.

       What if he tried?

      This horrifying thought made the idea of flinging herself from the moving vehicle not seem totally crazy and actually, the longer she considered it, the better an idea it became.

      ‘Take me home!’ She clenched her jaw against a grimace, shocked by the undercurrent of desperation in her shrill demand. ‘I …’ The rest of the words were lost when, without warning, he leant across her.

      She froze, stopped breathing, stopped thinking, but carried on feeling … The sensual input was painful. His dark head was close enough for Eva to smell the scent of his shampoo, close enough for her to feel the heat of his body.

      The moment did not last, but it was long enough for a drugged lethargy to wash over her and invade her limbs, then the door opened.

      Eva didn’t move. She looked at her avenue of escape blankly and felt her stomach dip as she thought about the tensile strength in the arm that brushed against her breasts.

      He was no longer touching her, but she was even more painfully aware of the tingling sensation in her nipples and the mortifying gush of liquid heat low in her belly.

      He was all hard bone and muscle, raw and male …

      Her delicate blue-veined eyelids fluttered, her lashes quivering against her flushed cheeks before they lifted and their glances locked.

      ‘You should not fight it. Marriage does not have to change everything … You and I have been enjoying empty sex outside marriage. I see no reason that we cannot carry on doing the same within marriage.’

      The cynical observation hit her like a blast of cold air.

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