Hide-and-Sheikh
An Exerpt

She'd found her target. He lounged near the makeshift bar, his perfect teeth glinting as he smiled at some dark-haired bimbette. In the warehouse-cum-nightclub in New York's garment district, lights flashed, strobe-quick and bright, or slower, in garish colors that painted the party-goers in even more ghastly shades than they'd painted themselves. Except for that man, her night's mission. The Sheikh of Araby.

Or rather, the Sheikh of Qarif, to give him his true name. As she maneuvered her way toward him, Ellen watched the lights turn his handsome face pink, then sickly green, then dappled blue, but his perfection continued unblemished. He knew it too.

He threw back that chiseled profile in a laugh that had to be calculated to show off his best features: those dark sultry eyes, the straight white teeth, the high, carved cheekbones. His picture hadn't done him justice.

Oh, it had amply illustrated his movie-star features, but it hadn't said a word about the sexuality that oozed like honey from his every pore. Ellen kept the wry twist from her faint smile at the sight of the little girl bees buzzing around him. She couldn't let him see past the mask she wore to her real purpose. He might be the best-looking, sexiest man she'd seen in the last dozen years, but he was still her target.

And, as mama always said, beauty's skin deep, but ugly goes clear to the bone. Somebody's mama had said it, even if Ellen's never had. She'd known spoiled, rich playboys. One of them she'd known very well.

Davis Lowe had been born with a golden spoon in his mouth and upgraded to platinum at his first opportunity. He'd swept her off her middle-class feet with his charm and his money and brought her into his world, where she'd met his spoiled playboy friends. Because of Davis, she'd learned these rich men were all the same.

Whether they were from New York or New Delhi, they all expected the world to bow and scrape and cater to their every whim. At least this one offered a nice view.

Finally, he reacted to Ellen's laser-beam stare. He looked up and met her gaze. Ellen held it a long moment, allowed a hint of a smile to brush her lips, then she turned away and began to count seconds.

One... She found a place at the sawhorse-and-planking bar, and ordered a gin and tonic. Seven, eight, nine... Would she have to look at him again? The pretty ones were often tougher to get to. Ellen tossed her hair back over her shoulder. Long, straight, dark blond hair with golden highlights, it was one of her best weapons.

"Hello."

Bingo. He was hooked. Fourteen seconds. Not her best time, but not her worst either. If "the look" didn't get them, the hair usually did.

Ellen turned and gave her sheikh a once-over. That high-beam smile of his could prove near-lethal at close range. She raised a cool eyebrow. The effect was somewhat destroyed by the fact that they had to lean close and shout full volume to be heard over the pounding music.

"Hello?" she said. "That's all you can come up with? What kind of line is that?"

He shrugged. "It is no line. I said hello. If you want a line, I am sure many other men here would be happy to provide one."

His English was impeccable, overlaid with a faint hint of the foreign, and a fainter hint of a...Southern drawl? He wore a short-sleeved raw silk navy shirt unbuttoned over a plain white T-shirt. A T-shirt that must have been bought a size too small, given the way it strained over the man's lean but well-muscled torso. Khaki slacks finished the ensemble. Not what one would expect from the scion of a royal family, despite the fact that it looked good on him. Darn good. Did she have the right man? Ellen studied his face again, comparing it to the memorized photo in her head. This was her target. No mistake.

She lifted a shoulder in a casual shrug. Cool and calculated would serve her better with this one. He would be used to women falling over themselves to please him.

"I don't need a line." She accepted the drink from the bartender and took a sip, schooling her expression against the taste. Fruity concoctions with paper umbrellas, the kind she preferred, didn't blend with the sophisticated image she wanted to project tonight.

He grinned and pushed his hand back through his thick, sable hair. "That is just as well," he said, "because I do not have any idea what to say next. Whatever I say will sound like a pick-up line."

Ellen found herself charmed by his apparent openness, and told herself it was an act. It had to be. Nobody with "prince" in front of his name could be this transparent.

"Have you any suggestions?" He propped an elbow on the bar and leaned. The wattage in his smile seemed to go up.

"My name is Ellen." She put her hand out to shake. She had to keep him on a string until she knew she could reel him in.

"Names. Good." He took her hand and squeezed gently. "Call me Rudy."

Rudy? Ellen ran through the list of names they'd given her, half-a-dozen or more, all belonging to the target. Of the few she could actually remember, Rashid was one, and it didn't sound anything like Rudy. Neither did any of the others.

"Rudi, with an i," he said. "I prefer the way it looks written that way."

She shook the hand still holding hers. "How do you do, Rudi-with-an-i. It's nice to meet you."

Whatever he wanted to call himself made no difference to her. But it did surprise her a bit. Why not use his real name? Unless he was more security conscious than he appeared. Ellen stopped herself from searching the room for bodyguards. She knew where his bodyguards were. She'd sent them there herself.

"So." He glanced down at their still-clasped hands, and the brilliance of his smile suddenly took on a heat that Ellen felt clear down to her toes, which curled in their strappy sandals. "Now that we have the formalities over, why don't we..."

His words trailed off as he bent over her hand and pressed a kiss to its back, a kiss that sizzled across her skin straight to the libido she'd thought long ago starved to death.

Why don't we what? Curiosity resurrected her dormant desire. Nothing else had for years.

"Dance," Rudi said.

"Dance?" That's all he wanted to do?

Feeling numb and yet feeling every nerve-ending spark and sizzle, Ellen let him lead her by the hand--the same hand he'd kissed--onto the dance floor. Rudi tugged, spinning her skillfully into his arms. Never mind that the band clashed and wailed, and thumped out raging heavy-metal rock that made the flashing lights shudder with vibration. Rudi held her close and danced what Ellen could only describe as some kind of cross between a tango, a foxtrot and sex with clothes on.

Or maybe the sex part was just in her head.

This dance, seen objectively, wasn't much different from the hundreds of others Ellen had danced. Rudi's hands rested lightly at her waist, her hands on his shoulders. They moved back and forth to the music in the limited space allowed on the crowded dance floor. But with every brush of Rudi's hips against hers, the heat turned a notch higher.

Ellen's hands curved over Rudi's shoulders, shaping themselves to his lean musculature. He was sleek and strong, beautiful like one of those horses they raised in his part of the world.

He laughed, a very male sound, his eyes flashing pleasure at her, and Ellen realized her hands had slipped. Now they rested on the broad slope of his chest. With another laugh, Rudi whipped off the unbuttoned shirt he wore to let the T-shirt beneath show off his physique. Ellen didn't have to fake her approval. She liked the way he looked. Entirely too much.

He snapped out one end of the shirt, reached out and caught the other end so that it passed behind Ellen. Then he used it to draw her in closer, until they touched hip to hip. Holding her only with the shirt pulled snug around her waist, Rudi swayed, his eyes twinkling.

"Join me," he shouted over the crashing music. "Do you not know how to rumba?"

She pushed at him, her fingers curling into his chest. "This doesn't sound like a rumba to me."

Rudi deepened the swing of his hips, his thighs getting friendly with their sensual nudging against hers. "The beat is in your blood. Feel it inside you."

Was it getting hotter in here? Or was he just making her crazy?

He leaned in, until his lips brushed her ear. "Feel it, and let it out."

Rudi did something with his hands and the shirt around her jumped several inches higher, drawing her slowly in, bringing her breasts toward that white-clad chest.

Confusion struck her. This was a new dilemma. She needed to tempt him, keep him close until the final moment. But she'd never before been tempted herself. She wanted to touch him, to let her breasts settle against that solid chest, and that would be entirely unethical. She wasn't supposed to like her targets.

The music paused to allow the gasping musicians time to catch their collective breath. In the startling, deafening silence, Ellen broke away, tugging the navy shirt from his hands. She stared at him, panting almost as hard as the band. Why? She hadn't done anything strenuous.

Rudi's smile faltered a second, then returned. "Let me buy you a drink." The white of his T-shirt contrasted with his deep tan. He was gorgeous and nice. A deadly combination.

Ellen had to get this done and get out quick, before she got in over her head. It was for his own good. And for hers. They'd both be better off if she just got it over with now.

"I have a better idea." Still holding his extra shirt, Ellen caught Rudi's hand and led him from the dance floor.

"Where are we going?"

"You'll see." She threw him one of her patented mysterious smiles, her hair swinging around her shoulders.

Rudi followed her out of the warehouse, bemused by his luck. Ellen was the most beautiful woman he'd seen in his entire life, and he'd seen a lot of beautiful women. But they never came on to him like this. Not to Rudi.

Only Rashid ibn Saqr ibn Faruq al Mukhtar Qarif could get women at the snap of his fingers. And then it was the money and the power that attracted them, not the man.

Money and power were as much of an illusion as Rashid. Or maybe Rudi was the illusion. Sometimes he wasn't sure which of his personas was the real one. But he did know that the money and the power belonged to his father, not to him.

Down the street outside the warehouse, Ellen hailed a taxi. The streetlight gleamed along her slender, mile-high legs as she got in. Rudi stared, half-hypnotized, until Ellen leaned out the open car door.

"Are you coming?" she asked, a smile curving her luscious pink lips. A smile that promised nothing and everything at the same time, that dared him to find out what secrets hid behind it.

He shouldn't. He had doubtless terrified and infuriated his family enough, vanishing as he had. The bombs back in Qarif were real. The terrorists were real. But the terrorists were still in Qarif, trying to transform the country into a miniature Afghanistan. This woman could not possibly be a terrorist. Just look at her.

Rudi followed his own suggestion as she waited without a hint of impatience for him to make up his mind. She was a blond goddess, a Valkyrie escaped from Wagner's opera. Her straight dark gold hair spilled over her shoulders like yesterday's sunlight, streaked with the brighter shine of tomorrow's dawn. Long thick lashes shaded eyes whose color he couldn't decide in the uncertain light. A high forehead, straight narrow nose, prominent cheekbones and full mouth completed her classically beautiful face.

But it was not the beauty of her face or her sleek athlete's body beneath the simple black dress that drew him. Perhaps it was the hint of mischief in her eyes, or the mystery in her smile, the feeling that she played some secret game and he did not know the rules. She challenged him, dared him to play. Rudi had never been able to pass up a dare.

He stepped off the curb and got in the cab. Satisfaction flickered across Ellen's face a brief second before she hid it behind that smile. Rudi did not object. She had won only one hand. He intended to win the game.