The Sheikh's Destiny (Harlequin Romance) by Melissa James

life, and made me a man again.’
    For a moment she stared at him, and though he couldn’t seeit, he felt the blood pounding in her veins and her pupils dilating with the desire too intense and glowing to leave room for doubt. He was only holding her hands, and she wanted him…
    So her words shocked him. ‘My delusions might be thin, my lord, but they’re all I have, and I’m not ready to let go of them. So please leave me to mine, and I’ll leave you to yours.’
    Simple words, yet they cut to his heart like the sharpest of scimitars, tearing at their desire and leaving it slashed and bloodied on the ground.
    She turned back to cleaning the rubbish without a word. The shining, impish dawn star who’d made this hell of a journey the happiest time he’d known in years had withdrawn again, replaced by the quiet, uncommunicative woman of the first day.
    Would he never learn to keep his thoughts to himself?
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    Coward, coward. The word rang in her head like a shrieking alarm, awakening her from this half-life, as he’d called it. Pretending what we do justifies our past choices.
    Did he have any idea how much he’d hurt her?
    He’d taken her hands so sweetly, arousing her as much as he terrified her; then he’d dissected her life choices like an emotional surgeon. Tearing her soul to shreds without knowing the reason why she’d run in the first place…and realisation hit her with the thought.
    She wasn’t falling in love with him; she was in love with him. God help her for the world’s biggest idiot, she’d let her guard down and fallen for a man she could never have. A beautiful stranger whose soul she’d recognised in moments; a smile from her dreams. At the worst time she’d met her soulmate, all her fantasies come to life in one man…
    You can never have him. You’ll always be alone, she reminded herself in fierce pain, and huddled a little further away from the warm, living temptation just a touch away.
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    Hana tried her best to keep that distance every night as they travelled, but, oh, he made it so hard by staying only a step from her at all times, kept talking to her as if she were answering…and he kept smiling , making her want to step right into his arms…
    Three interminable days later, when the thin crescent moon was high in the night sky, the creek bed that had served as their cover had widened and flattened to half-marshy ground and the worst of the desert had given way to thin, straggling bush, they finally reached the elusive water source.
    She moved forward, out of the cover of the trees, but, too close as usual, he pulled her back. ‘Wait.’
    She frowned, then nodded as she saw the barbed wire stretching around the waterhole. A warlord had control, and someone was bound to be watching.
    â€˜We’re out of water!’ She’d been hoping for one miracle in their quest: an unguarded water source. ‘What do we do now?’
    Alim’s grin was startling in the deep night. ‘We rely on the trained ecological engineer to find water.’
    She blinked. ‘I thought you were a research chemist?’
    â€˜I took geology and environmental studies to balance the knowledge.’ He moved back into the shadows of the trees. ‘Look for the tallest tree here, where the shrubs are bunched closest together.’
    With new respect for this ruler of her ancestral home who hadn’t once complained on their desperate journey, who’d given help as much as he’d needed it, and who cared about the planet as well as fame and his country, she did as he asked.
    â€˜Quick and quiet as you can,’ he whispered. ‘I doubt the forest will be left unchecked all night. It’s too tempting for enemies to hide in.’ He grinned at her with dogged determination.
    He was being strong for her; he knew she was falling downinto despair. She nodded in shame and turned away, searching