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CHAPTER ONE

HE CAME IN through the window.

Olivia Taylor looked up from the blanket she’d been folding, her mouth dropping open in wordless shock. She was too surprised to be scared. Yet. He was dressed all in black, his body underneath the loose garments tall, lithe and powerful. A turban covered his hair but beneath it Olivia saw his face and the determination blazing in his steel-coloured eyes.

She drew a breath to scream when he moved swiftly towards her and slipped a hand over her mouth. ‘I won’t hurt you,’ he said in Arabic, his tone brusque and yet also strangely gentle. It took her a moment to make out the words; she’d learned some Arabic living in the Amari household, but it was still of the schoolgirl variety. She’d been hired to speak only English to the three youngest Princesses.

He continued speaking and her shocked mind struggled to understand. ‘That is my solemn vow, and I will never break it. Just do what I say and no harm shall ever come to you. I swear it on my life.’

Olivia stood there rigidly, his hand on her mouth, the scent of his skin in her nostrils. He smelled of horse and sand and sweat and musk...and, strangely, it was not unpleasing. Her mind was spinning with terrifying numbness, around and around, unable to latch onto any coherent thought. She couldn’t think. She could barely breathe. Shock gave way to fear, making her dizzy. It was as if everything were happening underwater or in slow motion, yet far too fast, because already the man was propelling her to the window, and somehow she was going, going, her legs weak as water, her insides sliding around like jelly, her mind a blank canvas of fear and shock.

Halina was in the next room. The door wasn’t even closed, not properly. She could hear her friend humming under her breath. How could this be happening? She’d only come in here, to Halina’s bedroom, to put away her evening gown and tidy up a bit. Halina had just returned from what she’d claimed was an interminable dinner with her parents to discuss her future. Her fiancé. Olivia knew Halina didn’t want to get married, and certainly not to a rebel prince she’d never met.

‘He’s practically an outlaw,’ she’d said as she’d thrown herself on the sofa in her sitting room with a gusty sigh. ‘A criminal.’

‘I heard he went to Cambridge,’ Olivia had countered mildly, used to her friend’s theatrics, and Halina had rolled her eyes, determined to play up to whatever audience she had.

‘He’s been living in the desert for ten years. He’s probably gone completely savage. I don’t even know if he speaks English.’

‘If he went to Cambridge, I’m sure he speaks English. And in any case your parents don’t want you to marry him until his title is fully restored and he’s back in the capital, in his palace,’ Olivia had reminded her. She’d been governess to Halina’s three younger sisters for four years, and she was well versed in all the family’s hopes and plans.

Halina had been engaged to Prince Zayed al bin Nur since she was ten years old, but a decade ago his family’s rule had been overthrown by a government minister—Fakhir Malouf—and Prince Zayed, only just returned from university, had been forced into exile in the desert to fight for his throne.

Civil war had happened in spurts and bursts over the years, Zayed’s band of rebels to Malouf’s crack troops. Halina’s father had insisted on honouring the betrothal, but only when Zayed’s power was fully restored...and who knew when that would be?

But surely this man had nothing to do with that. Why did he want her? Why was he here?

Already he was at the window, one hip braced against the ledge, one hand gripping her upper arm, the other still over her mouth. She could taste the salt on his skin. His breath fanned her ear as he spoke, making her shiver.

‘Please, do not be afraid.’

Strangely, she believed him. He didn’t want her to be scared—and yet he was abducting her. Her frozen brain finally thawing into gear, Olivia started to struggle, her body arching against the man’s as she attempted, uselessly, to free herself from his hold.

‘Don’t do that.’ The words were quiet and lethal as his grip tightened on her, his hands like iron bands on her body. Inflexible and impossible to break, yet still strangely gentle. Olivia stilled, her heart thudding, knowing instinctively if she didn’t escape now there would not be another good opportunity. And if she didn’t escape...

Her mind blurred and blanked. She could not imagine what this man wanted with her, what he intended.

‘I said I wouldn’t hurt you.’ The faintest edge of impatience had entered the man’s low, steady voice. ‘This is for the best, for both of us.’ Which made no sense at all. There was no best for her in being kidnapped. How had this man been able to climb in through the window of Halina’s bedroom?

The royal palace in the desert kingdom of Abkar was several miles from the capital city, remote and guarded by a high stone wall, patrolled by dogs and soldiers. Hassan Amari took no chances with his precious, beloved family. And yet here was this man, dark, strong, utterly in control. Something had gone very wrong at some point and Olivia couldn’t imagine why or how.

The man turned her towards him. His face was very close, his lashes surprisingly long and lush, his eyes not merely grey, as she’d first thought, but a startling, mossy grey-green. His cheeks, nose and mouth were all hewn of harsh lines, giving Olivia an even stronger sense of the grim determination and inflexibility she’d seen in him from the moment he’d come through the window.

‘I will keep you safe.’ Looping a rope around her waist, he heaved her over the window to plummet down into the desert darkness.

The breath whooshed from Olivia’s lungs and she was too startled to scream as the air streamed past, her heart suspended in her chest. Then the rope jerked taut and she landed with a heavy thud in another man’s arms. He righted her quickly, her feet on the ground, but before she could scream he had covered her mouth with a scarf and tied it.

The man who had come in Halina’s bedroom was scaling down the side of the palace wall, as stealthy and graceful as a panther. He landed lightly on his feet, his grey-green eyes narrowing at the sight of the gag on Olivia’s mouth.

‘I’m sorry,’ the other man said in a low voice. ‘I did not want her to scream.’

The man nodded shortly as Olivia’s mind whirled.

What was going on? Why had they taken her?

The man looked back at her, a faint smile curving that rugged mouth. ‘Come,’ he said and, taking her by the elbow, he drew her towards several horses that were tethered by the palace wall.

Horses? How on earth were they going to get out of the palace on horses? The only way was through the front gates, tall and towering, topped with iron spikes and guarded by Sultan Hassan’s private soldiers.

The man heaved her up on a horse and Olivia sprawled inelegantly across its back. She’d never ridden, unlike Halina and her sisters, who had been practically raised on horseback. The man quirked an eyebrow, seeming almost amused by her ineptitude, and then righted her, swinging up to straddle the horse behind her so she was nestled closely between his hard-packed thighs.

He snaked one arm around her waist to draw her even more tightly against him; Olivia could feel his heart thudding against her back, the heat of his body warming her right through. His scent invaded her senses. She’d never been so close to a man before.

‘Let’s ride,’ the man said in a voice that managed to be both soft and commanding, and they headed off, Olivia watching in disbelief as they rode right through the palace gates, not a soldier in sight. Had these men taken over the palace? Had there been some kind of attack and no one had even realised?