Sweet Revenge

clouds and a dot of land that was Cyprus. Jaquir was almost in reach. The waiting was over.
    Adrianne settled back. Beside her in the cushy seat of the private jet, Philip dozed. His suit jacket, his tie, even his shoes were on the seat behind them so that he could stretch out unencumbered and take advantage of the last stage of their journey. Adrianne was fully dressed, fully awake, and fully aware of each minute that passed.
    They’d made desperate love after their takeoff from Paris. Or perhaps it had been only she who had been desperate. She’d needed that wild, mindless intimacy of flesh against flesh as much as she’d needed the comfort and serenity that followed.
    Most of her life had been devoted to this homecoming. Now the years had whittled down to minutes, and she was afraid. It wasn’t a fear she could explain to herself or to Philip. The emotion didn’t make the hands clammy or leave a taste of copper in the mouth. It rolled unsteadily in the stomach and beat, a dull ache, behind the eyes.
    She still had the image of her father that had formed in a child’s mind, with the intense love and fear that accompanied it. She could see him as he had been then, an athletically trim man with an unsmiling mouth and strong, beautiful hands.
    For two decades she had lived under Western law, Western tradition, Western beliefs. Never once had sheallowed herself to doubt that she was, in every way, a Western woman. But the truth, long buried, was that she had bedouin blood, and that blood might respond in a way no American woman would understand.
    Who would she become once she was back in Jaquir, living in her father’s house, bound by the laws of the Koran and the traditions decreed and enforced by men? Much sharper than the fear of being caught, of being imprisoned or executed, was the fear of losing the woman she had worked so hard to become.
    That fear kept her from making promises to Philip. It kept her from saying the words that came so easily to the lips of other women. She did love him, but love wasn’t the soft, silky words the poets spoke of. Love, with its twin edges, was the one factor that weakened so many women, that pushed them to compromise their own wants, their own needs for the needs and wants of another.
    The plane dipped. The sea seemed to rise up toward them. Nerves taut, Adrianne laid a hand on Philip’s shoulder. “I have to get ready. We’ll be landing soon.”
    He came awake instantly, recognizing the tension in her voice. “You can still change your mind.”
    “No. I can’t.” Rising, she moved across the aisle to open a flight bag. “Remember, after we deplane we’ll be taken to the terminal in separate cars. There’s customs to deal with.” While she spoke, she bound her hair in a black scarf until no wisp showed. “That can be a humiliating process, but Abdu’s influence should take the edge off. I won’t see you again until we’re inside the palace, and I can’t say when that will be allowed. Outside, there can be no contact at all. Inside, because I am not full-blooded, and am believed to be marrying a Westerner, the rules will be somewhat more relaxed. Don’t come to me under any circumstances. If and when possible, I will come to you.”
    “Forty-eight hours.” While he knotted his tie he watched her cloak herself in the black
abaaya.
It covered her from neck to foot, as drab as sackcloth. More than her eyes or the color of her skin, it made her a woman of Islam. “If you haven’t found a way to contact me by then, I’ll find you.”
    “And be deported at the very least.” It was the veil that bothered her the most. Rather than attach it, Adrianne let itdangle from her fingers. With his suit jacket smoothed over his shoulders, Philip looked very British and suddenly foreign. She ignored the ache in her throat where her heart had begun to pound. The gulf was widening. “You have to trust my judgment in this, Philip. I intend to spend no more than two weeks in Jaquir, and I intend to leave with the necklace.”
    “I’d rather you made that we.”
    “We, then.” With a hint of a smile she waited until he’d stepped into his shoes. “Just make sure you convince Abdu that you’ll make me a proper husband. Oh, and haggle over the bride price.”
    He stepped closer to take both of her hands. They were steady against his, but cold. “How much do you figure you’re worth?”
    “A million would be a good starting point.”
    “A million what?”
    It was