A ll taut, tanned muscle and flashing blue eyes, Zadir Al Kilanjar was trouble. Ronnie Baxter could see that from a mile away. Right now she sat only a few feet away across the aisle of a private jet, flying from one business meeting in Dubai to another in Bahrain. For the first hour of the flight, she'd buried herself in a thriller, while he scrolled and typed on a sleek piece of technology.

"Veronica, right?" His deep voice penetrated the silence of the cabin.

She steeled herself to meet his gaze. "Yes." She didn't know him well enough to tell him that everyone called her Ronnie. He might think she liked him or something.

"Am I imagining things or did the engine just cut out?"

She tugged her earbuds out. She used them to block out the outside world more often than she cared to admit. The cabin hum sounded normal to her. She glanced out the window at the forbidding desert below. "We're still flying."

"I suppose we are." He flexed his arms, pulling his white T-shirt tight over a broad chest. It really wasn't right for a man to look that good when he stretched. "I feel like we should be there by now."

She tugged her eyes from his hard, flat stomach. "It's difficult for me to judge. This is my first trip to the Arabian peninsula and everywhere seems to be thousands of miles apart with nothing but sand in between."

"Not on this flight." She noticed the slight dimple in his left cheek. Definitely trouble. Cute slightly British accent, too. "We're going from one part of the coast to the other."

She turned and frowned at the dunes below. "Then shouldn't we be near water?"

"Yes. If you see land it means we're coming down any minute."

A nasty feeling snuck over her and she put down her e-reader. "Look out the window."

He gave her a curious glance. He'd pulled down the blind on his side before takeoff and sat in the aisle seat. He probably traveled so often that he found the spectacular earth-from-space view routine. No doubt the region's perpetual sunshine was simply annoying screen glare. He leaned over, giving her an uncomfortably intimate view of his sculpted backside, jerked up the blind and peered out the oval porthole on the far side. "Holy shit."

He turned back quickly. "It looks like we're over the Rub' Al Khali. The Empty

Quarter."

Another glance out her window confirmed the view of nothing but peaks and valleys of sand, blistering blue sky pressed down against them. The harsh sun cast shards of light off the plastic plane window. "What does that mean?"




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