She finally whispered, “I—I don’t know what to say.”

He sat back, his imposing frame sprawling in the contentment of someone who’d fulfilled his purpose. “You do. A three-letter word. Beginning with a Y and ending with an S.”

A thousand fears screeched in the darkness of her mind. And she closed her eyes and prayed. That when she said it, it would only mean Ryan’s salvation, and not her damnation.

She opened her eyes, stepped off the bleak, yet familiar, cliff of resignation into the abyss of the unknown.

And whispered the dreaded, “Yes.”

The trip to Jizaan passed in a blur of distress.

Fareed, with Emad and the flight crew, orchestrated a symphony of such lavish luxury that it almost snapped her frayed nerves. She was so unused to being waited on, so uncomfortable at being on the receiving end of such indulgence, when she was unable to repay it, too, that it exhausted her.

After the first three hours, she’d escaped by sleeping the remaining eight hours to their refueling layover in London. She’d taken refuge in sleep again in the second leg of the journey, leaving Rose and Ryan to plumb the jet’s inhabitants’ ceaseless desire to spoil them.

She was floating somewhere gray and oppressive when she felt a caress on her hand.

She jerked out of the coma-like sleep knowing it was Fareed. Only his touch had ever felt like a thousand volts of disruption.

“I apologize for disturbing your slumber, but we’re about to land.” His eyes glowed like embers even in the jet’s atrocious lighting, his magnificent voice soaked in gentle teasing. “I hope fourteen hours of sleep managed to provide a measure of rest.”

She would have told him they sure hadn’t if her throat didn’t feel lined with sandpaper. She rose from the comfort of the plane bed, returning it to its upright position, feeling as if she’d been in a knock-down drag-out fight.

Apart from everything that disturbed her past, present and future, she knew why she felt wrecked. She might have been hiding in unawareness, but she’d felt him as she’d slept, and his thoughts, the demand, the promise in them and her struggle against them, had worn her out.

Rose waited until he left to approach her with Ryan, eyeing her in sarcastic censure. “That was sure record-breaking.”

“You mean you and Ryan staying awake for that long?”

Rose huffed. “Oh, we slept, around an hour on each leg. We were savvy enough to take advantage of that once-in-a-lifetime experience. While you are either stupid, or stupid not to grab at all that…God offers.”

From the proof of undeniable experience, Gwen knew that Rose, the only “aunt” she’d ever had, had only her best interest at heart. She’d always counted on her outspokenness to make her face the truth when she shied away from it. But now that smack of reality only made her sink deeper into despair.

Rose had no idea how…impossible everything was.

She was almost thankful when Fareed returned, bringing with him another dose of disturbance. She wasn’t up to more evasive maneuvers with the other unstoppable force in her life.

She was unequivocally thankful when Rose engaged Fareed in conversation during landing. It left her able to pretend to look outside her window when she saw nothing but her internal turmoil.

They were really in Jizaan.

After touchdown, Fareed got up and took Ryan from Rose.

Gwen jumped up, tried to take him. Fareed looked down at Ryan. “Which ride do you want, ya sugheeri?”

Thorns sprouted in her stomach at the loving way Fareed called Ryan his little one.

Ryan, who seemingly understood anything Fareed said in either English or Arabic, looked back at her with dimples at full blast. Then he bobbed in his arms, spurring him to move.

There. She’d gotten her answer.

As Rose preceded them out of the plane with Emad, Fareed kept a step behind her.

His bass purr hit her back. “I’m not competing with you for his favor.”

She slanted him a glance over her shoulder, almost winced at the incredible sight of him, as immaculate and fresh as if he hadn’t been up for the past twenty-four hours, after a month of grueling surgeries, too. He towered over her, his shoulders broad enough to blot out the whole world, virility and gorgeousness radiating off him in shock waves.

Looking ahead before she stumbled, she murmured, “It never occurred to me that you were.”

“And he’s not choosing me over you.”

A mocking huff broke from her. “Could have fooled me.”

His deep chuckle resonated in her bones. “He’s not. I’m just the new toy.”

She would have chuckled, too, if she’d been able to draw more air than that which kept her on her feet and conscious.

And that was before he took her elbow, offered the support he must have felt she needed, smiled down at her. “You really should be happy we’re enjoying each other’s company so much.” Her knees almost lost their solidity as seriousness tinged his gaze. “But I can’t be more relieved that he likes and seeks me. The coming time isn’t going to be easy, and trusting me is going to make everything so much better for him.”

He was that thoughtful? She’d only ever known one other person with that kindness.…

Memories lodged into her heart like an ax. She clamped down on the pain. She couldn’t afford to let those overwhelm her now. She needed to be at her strongest, her most resolute. For Ryan. And for her own struggle.

She passed by a time zones clock, blinked at its verdict. Four-thirty in the afternoon in L.A., 5:30 a.m. in Jizaan. Exactly twenty-four hours from the moment she’d staggered into his orbit.

She felt as if her life before those hours had been someone else’s, someone whose memories were sloughing off to be replaced by this new reality that had no rhyme or reason.

Then she stepped out of the jet and into another realm.

Her career had taken her all over the world, other desert kingdoms included, but Jizaan felt…alien, unprecedented.

The least of it was the airport itself, what she’d caught glimpses of from the air, what had the design, ambition and otherworldliness of a horizon-dominating space colony.

Everything else was painted with a brush of hyperreality. The star-sprinkled sky midway between the blue of eternity and the indigo of dawn had the vibrancy of another dimension, the stars the sharpness and abundance of another galaxy. The desert winter breeze that kissed her face and ran insistent fingers through her hair, even when jets’ exhaust should have tainted it, felt cleansing, resuscitating. The whole atmosphere was permeated by echoes of a history rife with towering passions, unquenchable feuds and undying honor. She felt it all tug at her through her awareness of Fareed, whose blood ran thick with this land’s legacy.

She stole a look at him, found him looking down at Ryan, his expression laced with fondness. Ryan, secure in Fareed’s powerful grasp, was looking around, his face rapt as he inhaled deep, as if to breathe in the new place, make it a part of him.

Her heart constricted. If only…

“Ahlann wa sahlann bekom fi daari-wa daarakom.”

Fareed’s deep tones caressed every one of her nerves—until she translated what he’d said.

He was welcoming them to his home. And theirs.

She knew this was simply the ultragenerosity the region was known for, where they offered guests their homes as theirs. She still felt as if a wrecking ball had swung into her. She swayed with the force of the phantom sensation.

Fareed grabbed her tight against his side.

He’d probably saved her, this time from a plunge down a flight of steel stairs. But being ensconced in his heat and hardness, his concern was unendurable.