“This. I took the liberty of removing it at the clinic before I did anything else.”
As he glanced at the shiny object held in the doctor’s palm, Rashad drew in a ragged breath. It was a round gold medallion with a half moon inscribed—the symbol of the Shafeeq royal family.
Only when a new male member was born was another one minted. Rashad had been given his when he’d come of age at sixteen. They were all worn around the neck on a chain, but Rashad had broken with tradition and had asked for his to be fashioned into a ring he could use as his personal seal for important documents. He kept it in the desk of his office here at the palace.
For this woman from another continent to be in possession of one, let alone wearing it, simply wasn’t possible! Yet the truth lay in front of him, mere inches away.
How had she come by it?
Without hesitation he pocketed the medallion before returning to the woman. With great care he found the little catch to remove the chain, aware of the softness of her creamy skin against his bronzed knuckles; such skin the women of his tribe didn’t possess.
Their patient made a little sound, then moved her head to the other side, as if she’d felt the slight caress of his flesh against hers. He held his breath, half hoping she’d wake up so he could look into her eyes and see through to her soul to where she kept her secrets.
The other half of him hoped she’d stay asleep, thus prolonging the moment when she had to be told she’d almost died. There was a penalty for experiencing the terrible beauty of the desert. Sometimes the price was too great, but this foreign woman had been willing to take the risk. Why?
He stared at the medallion, fingering its smoothness until his jaw hardened. An ill wind boded no good. His mother had said it many times. Nothing about the woman or the medallion added up.
Confounded by the situation, he pocketed the chain with the medallion, then turned to the doctor whose shrewd gaze told its own story. There were few secrets between the two of them. “You were right to tell me about this, but say nothing to anyone else.”
“My lips are closed tighter than the eye of the needle, Your Highness. My nurse wasn’t allowed to undress and bathe the patient until I’d safely removed the medallion.”
In the past the doctor had saved Rashad’s life on more than one occasion, and Rashad trusted him completely. “I owe you a great deal. Thank you for taking care of her.”
The doctor nodded. “I’m going home. Call if you need me. I’ll look in on her later.”
As soon as he left, Rashad went through the suitcases left by the maids. He did a thorough search of both, looking for a clue that would help explain this mystery, but he turned up nothing.
To his surprise the woman had packed with no frills. Unlike most females, her underwear and nightgowns were modest. Two dresses for evening, one a simple black, the other cream. A pair of high heels, some sandals and a sweater. The rest, practical clothing for the desert. A small kit with few cosmetics or makeup. She packed like a person used to traveling light.
Rashad knew better than to prolong his stay at the woman’s bedside. His thoughts would wander down different paths, distracting him from his mission to unmask her. Like the fragrant white moonflower, she held her secret within her petals, only revealing it in full moonlight when no one was watching.
For the good of the family he’d sworn a holy oath to protect, he would wait until daylight to learn how she’d come by the medallion.
Once he’d said goodnight to the nurse, he strode down a long hallway to his own second-floor suite on the other side of the palace and dismissed his staff. He needed to be alone. After pouring himself a cup of hot black coffee, he wandered through to his bedroom. Reaching for the woman’s passport, he sat down in a chair to study it.
Lauren Viret. Twenty-six. Few people looked good in a passport photo, but she was one woman who couldn’t take a bad picture. Even lying there unconscious, her beauty had reached out to him, stirring him on some deeper level.
Address: Montreux, Switzerland.
Montreux. The town where the Shafeeq family did their banking. When he had stayed there in order to do business, he had sometimes skied at Porte du Soleil, only a half hour from the Swiss town with its exuberant night life. Rashad had no use for casinos or partying. On the other hand, his forty-year-old cousin Faisal, the ambitious son of his father’s younger brother Sabeer, frequented the place on a regular basis, mostly for pleasure.
Rashad liked the snow, but he much preferred flying to Montreux in summer. The sight of Lake Geneva from the bedroom balcony of the family apartment mesmerized him. So much blue water to be seen, with steamers and sailboats, when he’d been born in a land with so little of the precious element above ground. Below the Arabian desert there was a vast amount of water, more than the uninformed person knew.
For years he’d been working to find a way to channel more of it to the surface to water flocks and irrigate crops. A fertile land for the growing population of his people. That was his next project in the years to come, but for the moment he was keeping his plans a secret from his uncle’s family living nearby. There’d been enough jealousy from that sector to last a lifetime.
Rashad took a deep breath before studying the street address listed in the passport. It was in the wealthiest area of the town bordering the lake. Who was paying for Lauren Viret to live among the pieds-a-terre of royals in Montreux?
Where and how had she come by the medallion? There were only eight in existence.
Reaching the limit of his patience, Rashad closed the passport and tossed it on the nearest table, a beauty inlaid with mother of pearl. It was late. He had no answers to this riddle and needed sleep. Tomorrow he’d get to the bottom of it by drawing close to her. It was a task he found himself looking forward to with uncommon anticipation.
“MADEMOISELLE? ARE YOU AWAKE?”
The same gentle female voice Lauren thought she’d heard during the night broke through soporific waves to reach her consciousness. She felt something being removed from her nostrils.
“Can you hear me, mademoiselle?”
Lauren tried to communicate, but it was difficult because her mouth and throat felt too dry to talk. As she tried to sit up, her head reeled and she realized the back of her hand had something in it. What on earth?
“Lie back and drink,” the woman urged. She spoke English, but with an accent. Lauren felt a straw being inserted between her lips and she began sucking on it. Cool water trickled down her throat.
“Heaven,” she murmured and continued to drink. Suddenly every nerve ending in her body seemed to come alive, like a drooping plant whose roots took in the moisture that worked its way to the leaves.
Her eyelids fluttered open, but she had trouble focusing because she could see three women with the same dark hair and lab coat standing over her. “Are you a doctor?” she questioned.
“No. I’m Dr. Tamam’s nurse. How do you feel?”
Lauren started to shake her head, but that only made her feel worse. “I—I don’t know,” she stammered.
While the nurse removed the IV from her hand, Lauren tried to get her bearings. The hospital room wasn’t like any she’d ever seen before. It was huge with sumptuous green and aqua accoutrements, bringing the apartment of a harem to mind. As her head continued to whirl, she realized she could be dreaming all this and wished she could wake up.
A remembered feeling of suffocation took over. Panic gripped her. “Help me—I can’t breathe—” she cried, unable to stem the