The pilot shrugged. “I tell her it not right to go up alone, but she was crying.”
Was he truly helping her? Lying for her? Whoa. They had definitely not asked him to say that.
Maaz’s gaze swung to hers. “Why were you crying?”
“Because she was falling in love with the American,” Daria crooned from her brother’s side. “I guess she understands now how weak Americans are and accepts her place with us.”
If you say so.
Weak? Owen Metcalfe was the strongest man she’d ever met. As for accepting her place, it was most definitely not among the al-Zahranis. Leighton did the most familiar thing she could summon among these royals—she looked down. Feigned deference.
A shout came from the camp, turning everyone in that direction.
Nasir stomped toward them, hand clamped around Owen’s arm. “He is here!”
Maaz stormed in that direction. “Where have you been?”
Once he extricated his arm from the grip, Owen rubbed his shoulder and scowled at the thugs of Jeddah grouping up on him. “Sitting on the rise.” He thumbed toward Leighton. “When I saw her get in the balloon, I wanted to keep an eye on her.” He was a brilliant actor. “Since it seemed nobody else was watching out for Nouri.”
“Your job was to stay with her!” Maaz bit out.
“Kind of hard to do when your enforcers”—Owen nodded to Ghalib—“stop me at every turn. Had to resort to more subtle tactics.” He shrugged. “Can’t have it both ways—keeping me from her and demanding I protect her.”
“He’s just trying to get her back,” Daria whispered. “He doesn’t deserve her.”
“Everyone and their dog knows that,” Owen snapped. “Nouri is better than every person on this field.”
Breath staggered through Leighton at that declaration. Was he trying to get killed?
Don’t look, don’t look.
She looked. Could not help it. Those beautiful crystalline eyes seemed to harness the power of the moon itself. Glorious, intense.
“Do not let him have his job back,” Daria said to her brother. “He?—”
“Unfortunately,” Owen spoke, “that is a decision only King Faruq can make, since my contract is with him.”
The crown prince stepped over to him, and it took everything in Leighton to plaster ambivalence and neutrality across her features. But she’d tensed.
“Come,” Rayan said softly, turning to her. “You do not?—”
“The king trusts my counsel,” Maaz said clearly, loudly, since Owen had challenged his authority. “On all threats, especially to our family. Tomorrow, I will drag you before him and make sure he knows how you have lied in order to gain access to his daughter.”
Daughter. So in order to set themselves against Owen, they claimed her now? After locking her in a dungeon, beating her, and?—
“Dinner, then everyone rest. We have an early start,” Maaz barked and strode away from the gathering.
“Can you believe that rancid American?” Aliyah complained as she threaded her arm through Leighton’s. “Does he really think we need him?”
I do. I most definitely need him.
Rayan and Aliyah ushered her back across the field, up the path to camp…straight toward Owen. It took everything in her not to make eye contact. Instead, she lifted her jaw, not to show indifference but to convince the royals she would not be a problem. To show her strength. That he could trust her to keep their pact.
Yet, even as she moved past him, it crushed something deep in her to act so cold toward him as everyone else was doing. To see him so cruelly isolated and targeted.
The next morning on the plane, Owen was forced to the rear, guarded by Ghalib and Nasir. With the way Rayan and Aliyah stayed near Leighton—Daria had returned her affection to Hassan once more and had little to do with her now—she was even more a prisoner than when they’d shut her in that windowless concrete cell. Practice perfected over the years saved her sanity on that hours-long flight, then the drive from the airport to Omnia Palace.
Her heart raced as they emerged from the armored SUV and she stepped aside. Behind them came a grunt and muttered oath. She glanced back and saw Ghalib and Nasir shove a hood over Owen’s head.
