Nicole was wearing a stunning, pale pink dress, chasing after Kadeen as he looked back at her, laughing. They were in a wide, open field, filled with the scent of poppy flowers, when the sound of Kadeen’s cellphone interrupted them, and her dream was over.

Blinking open an eye, Nicole took in the sight of Kadeen’s naked back as he reached over and grabbed his phone, rubbing his eyes before he looked at the screen to see who was calling. He scowled.

Nicole was about to ask who it was when he answered, surprisingly, in English.

“Hello, Mama.”

Mama?

Nicole could hear a woman’s voice on the other end of the line, though she couldn’t make out what she was saying. She tried not to listen in, but a part of her really wanted to see how Kadeen was with his parents. All he had said was that the pressure they put on him had led to him leaving for New York, and based on the tone of the woman’s voice, that sentiment was still strong.

Nicole stretched, trying to bask in the wonders of the night before. To say it had been wonderful was an understatement. Kadeen was amazing in every possible way, and she’d woken up hoping they could continue on in the romantic vein they’d found in his home country.

Then she heard one phrase, very distinctly, from his mother.

“Your fiancée is anxious for you to help her with the wedding, Kadeen! You can’t keep shirking your responsibilities like this!”

A bucket of cold ice fell over Nicole’s plans.

So Kadeen’s parents were pushing him, were they? He just didn’t feel like mentioning that they were pushing him to be present for his future wife?

Nicole felt sick to her stomach. All this time, while Kadeen had been gallivanting around New York, getting a reputation for himself, there was some poor woman here, in Al Qazar, wishing and hoping he would be there for her.

And Nicole was in his bed!

Kadeen ended the phone call only moments later, though it didn’t sound as though his mother was satisfied with the end of the conversation. Nicole could hardly care.

She threw off the comforter and shrugged into her clothes, all while the Sheikh sat in silence. Unable to bear it another second, she turned on him, her eyes flashing with anger.

“You didn’t think it might be prudent to tell me you had a fiancée before luring me into your bed?” she spat.

Kadeen stared at her with that cold, businesslike expression he’d always worn at work. Even though he was sitting in bed with no shirt on (damn his sculpted chest!), he might as well have been wearing a three-piece suit, sitting behind his enormous desk.

“It’s complicated,” he said. “There’s no need to worry yourself over my trifling affairs, though, Nicole. I think it’s time we heed Imogen’s request. I’ll stay here and finish things up with the painting. You can get back to New York and finish up the piece that Imogen called about, so we can deliver it on time.”

Nicole stared at him in disbelief. “That’s it? That’s all you have to say to me after…this?” She waved helplessly around the room, not wanting to give words to what had happened the night before.

Clearly it hadn’t meant anything, anyway.

“Don’t be dramatic, Nicole. These things happen. If you could please get ready, I’ll ensure the jet is ready for you by the time you get to the airport.”

Torn between wanting to throw a lamp at his head and wanting to keep her job, Nicole stared at Kadeen for one more moment, in some vain hope that he might crack into a smile and tell her that this was all some kind of prank—that he wasn’t really that terrible.

When his expression remained unchanged, she grabbed her purse from the floor and headed out the door, not bothering to look back.

When she reached her room, a newspaper was on the floor, and she nearly slipped on it. Scooping it up, she shoved her key into the slot, opening the door. An image on the paper caught her eye, and she looked at it closely.

It was a picture of Kadeen leaving a coffee shop. The wording was all in Arabic, but Nicole got the feeling that that was the reason his parents had found out he was in the country. Glaring at the image, she threw the paper on the floor.

She made quick work of packing her bag before stepping back into the hallway. A naïve part of her hoped once more that she might see Kadeen down the hall one more time. Perhaps he would come after her and apologize.

Unsurprisingly, that didn’t happen.

When Nicole reached the lobby, there was a limo waiting for her out front. She hesitated for a second before getting in, feeling like she’d sold her principles for the sake of a night of passion with a man she should have known better than to get involved with. Realizing she had no other way to get to the airport, she slid in and closed the door. The limo’s cabin felt empty as she was driven back to the private airport.

How? How had she allowed herself to get seduced by a known womanizer? Nicole berated herself the whole way there, allowing just a few tears to escape before wiping them away and forcing herself to be strong.

The limo pulled up on the runway, where the pilot was standing in front of Kadeen’s private jet, waiting for her to come aboard. When she stepped out of the car, the pilot nodded to her and took her bag from the limo driver.

“Never a dull moment, eh miss? The boss says I’m to take you back to New York for another urgent matter. You must be quite the conservationist!”

“Yeah,” Nicole murmured, trying to return his smile and failing.

The pilot’s cheerful attitude faltered just slightly at her wan expression, but he seemed to chalk it up to jetlag and nodded to her before heading toward the cockpit. The plane’s engine roared to life, and Nicole watched Al Qazar grow smaller and smaller as they took off into the sky above.

How had such a beautiful country managed to capture her heart, just to break it within a day?

And, more importantly, what was she going to do when Kadeen returned to New York, and she had to see him again?