Leeteuk hadn’t been out of the room for five minutes before Sora started down that long, tortuous road of self-examination. What, she asked herself, was she doing? She had to get out of Anaiza before Sheik Leeteuk returned!

How, in the blink of an eye, could she be hopelessly in love with him? He embodied every physical trait she thought worth having in a man; tall enough that she’d doesn’t feel overgrown next to him, tanned enough, handsome with incredible deep, warm eyes that she got lost in. Falling I love with a desert prince made as much sense to Sora s jumping out a plane without a parachute. It was pure suicide.

Of all the dumb luck, to fly halfway around the world and land in a war zone to find her Prince Charming. It could only happen to her. What could she possibly do with a man whose idea of chivalry meant locking a woman away in a desert palace? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

She was a career woman. She had worked hard to achieve her place at Kang Industries. Was she going to throw away all those years of working like a cow to match the standards of excellence her father and her eldest brother set? The competition was tough in aeronautics. She hadn’t any edge at the plant. No, if anything, she’d had to prove herself over and over again by being better than anyone else. Was she going to throw away her education because she finally found a hunk with bedroom eyes that hit all her warp-speed buttons?

It became even less plausible when she stopped and considered where the sheik was coming from. Forcing herself to be brutally realistic. Sora admitted that Leeteuk could have his pick of any woman he wanted the world over. He stood light-years above from her middle-class reality. She came from family roots firmly planted in suburbia. When all the veneers were stripped away, the Kang were a family of thinkers. Mechanics. Good ones, yes. Specialist, definitely, but mechanics and thinkers, all the same.

Leeteuk Park Haji Haaris may have Korean blood in him but he is a prince. He lived in centuries-old marble palace. Educated in private schools, nothing but the best. He could probably trace his bloodline all the way back to Alexander the Great.

So it had been an act of folly to get involve in a mad romantic fling. The fact that she was disoriented by the tumultuous events of the past forty-eight hours made her attraction feel foolish.

Determined that such impulsive behaviour would not sabotage her again, Sora came to a decision. She would go to Kuwait by whatever method opportunity presented her, find her father and Uncle Jack and go home.

Morning brought a few surprises, among them then discovery of a rooftop garden adjacent to her bedroom. It was uniquely private, isolated from all the other levels of the huge house. 

Bright awning and clusters of potted palms provided shade and shelter to escape the building heat. Sora was used to heat. Though Korean by blood, she was board and raised in Texas together with her other siblings. 

All morning, the courtyards below busted with activity. Sora watched the movements with curious eyes. 

It had been early evening when she and Leeteuk had parted; he to meet the messenger from Saudi King, she to sit alone and stew about the lingering effects of unchecked desire.