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born there. And I’m just a pediatric nurse. I never worked with the surgeons.”
    Silently, she cursed the irony that the deceased person whose identity she’d bought had also been born in D.C. That fraudulent passport was supposed to be her ticket to freedom. A way to hide from Sam and her own past. Now it could be her ticket to prison.
    Her nursing papers and accreditation were fake, too.
    And if Zakir found out she was a fraud, she could face extradition, lose her orphans. She had to get to them before he learned the truth of who she was.
    He hooked his knuckle under her jaw, tilting her chin up,forcing her to look into his eyes. “Nikki, if I find out that you are lying to me, about anything—”
    “I’m not.”
    “I sincerely hope so, because if I learn that you are here under false pretenses, or that you have come to harm my family or my country, I will spare you no mercy. Because, Nikki,” he said very quietly, his mouth coming closer to hers, his breath feathering her lips, “treachery in Al Na’Jar must be punished by execution. It is the law.”

Chapter 4
    D awn had broken, but already the heat was blistering as Zakir waited in the palace courtyard for Nikki to appear. Soldiers lined the ancient turreted walls, black figures silhouetted against a harsh sky. The flag of Al Na’Jar snapped in the hot desert wind, but the direction of the wind had shifted and it was no longer thick with the red-gold sands of the Sahara. Today the sky above was eggshell-blue, clear as glass. It would grow whiter, almost colorless, during the next hours as the sun climbed to a fiery zenith. Desert temperatures would soar further.
    Dogs moving like shadows at his side, Zakir paced in the shade under the arches, the bejeweled scimitar sheathed at his hip bumping gently against his thigh as he moved, the clip of his riding boots ringing out loud on stone. His armed Gurkhas stood with watchful black eyes, their features obscured by the cloth of their red turbans. Their galabiyas—or long white tunics—were cinched at the waist with leather belts from which their sheathed kukri knives hung. The men werealso armed with semiautomatic weapons, and they remained strategically and subtly positioned between Zakir and the Sheik’s Army soldiers at all times, watching for signs of treachery among the soldiers.
    No one trusted anyone, and shadows lurked within shadows even under the starkly bright skies of the Sahara morning.
    In the middle of the courtyard a convoy of black Humvees gleamed in the heat, drivers waiting inside as supplies were carried by palace staff over the flagstones toward them.
    Impatient, Zakir checked his watch, then suddenly he spotted Nikki being escorted by guards down the sweeping black marble stairs. They were led by Alar, his mother’s maid-in-waiting, who had been attending to the prisoner.
    Zakir’s heart quickened.
    He stopped pacing and stood to face her, squaring his shoulders and hooking his hands behind his back. He inhaled deeply, lifting his chin as he watched her approach.
    With approval he noted she was suitably dressed for her trip in a long dark skirt and white blouse with long sleeves. A midnight-blue scarf covered her hair and a translucent veil adorned with small crystal beads covered her nose and mouth. Similar pieces of crystal were sewn along the tops of the slippers she wore and the stones winked in the sunlight as she walked tall and confident toward him.
    Her eyes were fixed exclusively on his, and as she came closer a thrill chased up Zakir’s spine.
    But while he enjoyed watching her, Zakir warned himself that the eyes of a deeply traditional people were also watching him. As were the eyes of his hidden enemies. When it came to courtship and the relations between a man and a woman, Al Na’Jar was a complex country, one where traditionalists still killed lovers over transgressions of protocol.
    Even perceived missteps could result in death.
    He needed to be seen to be observing