from him. “My parents had similar ambitions for me. Basically, from the moment I was born, the expectation was that I would follow in my father’s footsteps.”
“That had to have been tough,” Aurora said.
Khaleel shrugged. “There were times when I was glad that I knew that I would be doing with my life—even if I wasn’t necessarily sure that it was what I had chosen. But there were other times when I thought that if I had to go with my father to one more energy conference, or one more board meeting, I would lose my mind and start a punk band just to give him a reason to disinherit me.” Khaleel smiled wryly. “He never did, though.”
“How long ago did he pass, if you don't mind me asking?”
Khaleel finished off his food and set his plate aside. “Just over six months ago,” he replied, sighing. “It was sudden. He was on a private jet, flying back from a meeting in Montana. There was an engine failure, and the plane went down.” Khaleel shook his head, a sorrowful look on his face.
“You must have been devastated,” Aurora said, thinking of her own parents; how would she react if they were to die so suddenly?
“I was crushed.” Khaleel said quickly, then paused, considering. “In terms of the business, I can’t say that I was ready, precisely. But my father had been coaching me for ten years, preparing me to eventually take control of the company. His will had been prepared since before my eighteenth birthday, just in case something should happen to him.” Khaleel sighed, just as their server came in with the second course.
“So with your father deceased…” Aurora looked around the yacht.
“I attended his funeral and stayed at home for some time to comfort my mother,” Khaleel said. “I set up a board of family members to run the company while I'm deciding what to do about the situation. They aren’t in permanent positions of power, but they are my representatives. Father’s will allowed me to set it up that way.”
“That explains how you’re able to get away like this,” Aurora said, smiling slightly.
“I’ve always managed to find ways to get away,” Khaleel said playfully. “As soon as I turned eighteen I gained access to my trust fund, and I started doing whatever I could to get away.”
“Is there some kind of tension between you and your family?” Aurora frowned as she began to eat her second course.
“Yes and no,” Khaleel replied. “It's been impressed on me since I was a child that I was supposed to be the responsible one, the child who would become the family’s head. It was expected that I would get married at least five years ago—my parents even began to meet with matchmakers, hoping to find a suitable partner for me, to hurry things along, as it were.” Khaleel shook his head, his lips twisting into a wry smile. “I told them in no uncertain terms that if they arranged a marriage for me, I would take my money out of my accounts, go to South America, and become an artist.”
“They must have taken that well,” Aurora said with a snicker.
“Father did, surprisingly,” Khaleel said. A fleeting expression of sadness flickered on his face. “He said that he and my mother hadn’t had an arranged marriage, and he agreed to back off until a moment came where I absolutely needed to have an heir.” Khaleel examined the bubbles in his glass of champagne. “It was one of few times that he concerned himself with my personal life.”
“I would assume he was a busy man,” Aurora said hesitantly.
Khaleel nodded. “Very busy. He was always going somewhere, always working late. He took vacations with my mother, getting away for a week or so, once or twice a year, but I think that was mostly so that he could remember how to be a husband.”
Khaleel chuckled ruefully before continuing. “He had no concept of work–life balance, as they call it now. He would work nonstop for weeks on end, and I wouldn’t see him at all—and neither would mother. And then he’d come home and distribute presents and treats, and tell mother that they would be visiting Aruba or Hawaii or Sweden the next day.”
“I can think of worse ways to make up for an absence,” Aurora said dryly.
“I suppose you’re right about that,” Khaleel admitted. “But it's strange; my father was my hero, but I barely knew him until I became an adult. Even then, I’m not sure I ever fully understood him. He was proud of me, I know that, but I don’t think he actually said ‘I love you’ to me more than a few times in my entire life.”
“It’s weird,” Aurora said softly, as the server exchanged their plates on the table. “We both had a lot of pressure on us as kids to go into a certain field.”
“Everything in my life was geared towards me taking over the family business,” Khaleel said. “It was never assumed that I would do anything other than run my father’s empire.” He pressed his lips together.
“Is that why you’re running away? I remember you said yesterday that everyone has something they’re running from.”
Khaleel looked at her sharply for a moment and then smiled, finishing off his plate. “I think that’s enough about me for now.”
“If you’ve said all you want to say, I’ll respect that,” Aurora said lightly.
Khaleel put his napkin down on the table and looked around the room. “Would you like to take a break from eating for a moment?”
Aurora shrugged. “That depends what for.”
“I would like to dance with you—if you don’t mind.”
Aurora looked at Khaleel speculatively, wondering why he was treating her so well; she was his captive, someone he could turn over to law enforcement the moment they returned to port. If he did, she couldn’t actually have blamed him for it.
“I’d love to,” she said, setting her napkin aside. She stood and Khaleel was at her side in a moment, leading her away from the table. He held her hand lightly in his as he walked the few feet to a sophisticated sound system.
“This is one of my favorite songs,” Khaleel said, selecting something on a computer screen. The title and artist details were written in Arabic, impossible for Aurora to read, but when the song began to play, she could tell instantly why he loved it. The haunting melody and unusual, soft beat filled the air, immediately making Aurora want to dance whether or not Khaleel was interested in dancing with her. He led her out onto the balcony attached to the dining room and let his hands rest on her waist, slowly shifting to the beat. A low, crooning voice, singing in words that Aurora couldn’t understand, came in above the melody, and she found herself swaying with Khaleel, draping her arms over his shoulders.
They fell into the rhythm together, their bodies moving as one. Aurora thought briefly of the dream she’d had of Khaleel the night before and heat coursed through her veins, desire thrumming along her nerves at the closeness of his body, the feeling of his movements like a coiled predator waiting to strike.
She had always thought of herself as an awkward dancer; she never seemed to be able to fully follow her partner, finding some other part of the beat, constantly self-conscious about missing a step. But with Khaleel, as the music flowed around them, she felt as if she could dance all night, as if they could keep moving for hours and never fall out of sync.
“You know you’re an extraordinary woman, don’t you?” Khaleel murmured.
Aurora started slightly but didn’t lose the beat in surprise at his words. “Because I can dance?”
“No,” Khaleel said, shaking his head slowly. “Because you are truly unlike any woman I’ve ever met in my life. You’re free; free in spirit, free in your thoughts. I don’t know anyone who would spend three months wandering through foreign lands on their own on a whim.” His hands tightened slightly on Aurora’s waist and she suppressed a shiver at the hot jolt of desire that crackled through her. “And in spite of all your jokes, I think you see me as a real person—not just a walking bank balance.”
“Well you didn’t just see a thief when you met me,” Aurora pointed out. “Why would I judge you for your wealth when you didn't judge me for being broke?”
Khaleel smiled again. “S
ee? That interest in fairness, in getting to know me as a person. I’ve never been with someone who would actually do that.”
“That seems kind of sad,” Aurora said ruefully.
“You have no idea,” Khaleel confirmed.
The music had ended, but they still continued to dance, the dinner at the table utterly forgotten. Aurora wasn’t sure how much the champagne played a role, but as she looked up into his eyes, she realized that in spite of only knowing him for two days, she was starting to truly like the Sheikh; he was playful, fun, intelligent, and obviously compassionate. If she really had been one of his employees, she thought he would treat her with the exact same level of respect that he had shown her from the beginning.
But she knew, too, that no matter how much she might like the man, her life was far too complicated to let herself fall for him. You can’t fly under the radar if you’re going after a billionaire Sheikh, she thought sadly. If Jon knew that she had met a wealthy man, the threats would only become more vicious. Aurora knew that she could never bring herself to ask Khaleel for help in solving her problems; she had learned from her situation with Brandon that she had to take care of her own needs.
Khaleel pulled her closer and she could feel the warmth of his body sinking into her skin. It was so tempting, the closeness and her intuition told her that if she wanted to, she could easily suggest to the Sheikh that they retire to his quarters. But it would be wrong—she couldn’t string the man along after he had shown her so much kindness.
“I need to go back to the mainland tomorrow,” Aurora said quietly, and Khaleel pulled back slightly, looking at her intently. “I think you can guess why.”
He sighed and nodded. “I understand,” he said. He pressed his lips together, looking resigned. “We can’t stay away from things forever, can we?”
“Unfortunately not,” Aurora said. She smiled sadly up at him, wishing with all of her heart that she could somehow find a way to stay on the yacht, in Khaleel’s arms, indefinitely. It was so tranquil and serene—so different from her life in Miami.
Before Aurora could react, Khaleel leaned in again, his hands shifting around to her back to press her body to his. He brushed his lips against hers, a feather-light touch at first, but gradually he deepened the kiss, his tongue sliding against her skin, silently asking entrance.
Aurora shivered against him, feeling the pent-up desire that had started the night before with her vivid dream. Before she lost the ability to think coherently, she thought briefly that he kissed so much better than even her dream had imagined.
Something deep down between her hips began to tighten as the kiss continued, and Aurora felt her body heating up more and more with every passing moment, her nerves tingling as Khaleel’s hands shifted on her body, never quite straying away from her waist.
He broke away from the kiss abruptly, leaving Aurora breathless and wandering, panting slightly as she tried to recover from the flood of desire that had washed through her.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Aurora chuckled lowly. “No, but I’ll be fine after a good night’s sleep,” she said, shaking off the reverie that the kiss had thrown her into.
He cautiously released her, and Aurora stepped back, taking a quick, deep breath. A gust of wind caught her dress and Aurora struggled to keep from exposing herself as the yacht lurched in the water.
She felt something tug at the top of her dress and glanced down to see that, in their passion, she and Khaleel must have dislodged the flower she’d worn as her sole decoration. The yacht lurched again and Aurora fell back against the railing, her flower tumbling off of the front of her dress and into the water below.
“No!” Aurora looked down into the dark waves, trying to catch some sight of the bloom. The temptation to climb up onto the railing and jump after it flitted through her mind.
“It’s all right,” Khaleel said, taking her hand lightly in his own. “Don’t go in after it.”
“I won’t,” Aurora said, sighing as she pictured the flower—something she had come to think of as part of her—sinking into the murky depths.
“We’ll make landfall tomorrow afternoon,” Khaleel said quietly. “Do you want to finish dinner? I’m pretty sure I could send word to Lucas and he’d come up with the most thrilling dessert ever, guaranteed to make you forget all your worries.”
Aurora smiled and shook her head. “I think I just want to go to bed,” she said sadly. “Thank you so much for dinner, though. It was absolutely delicious, and the dancing was wonderful. I'll never forget it.”
Khaleel kissed her cheek softly and stepped back, and Aurora turned away from the balcony to walk back to her room.
Back in her quarters she slipped the sandals off of her feet and took the dress off, admiring it for a long moment before setting it aside.
Aurora sighed, thinking of the struggles ahead of her. You have to do it, so there’s no point in worrying over it, she thought firmly, putting on a pair of pajamas and crawling between the blankets on her bed. She just hoped that she could find some solution to the problem of paying Jon back.
TWELVE