The Duke's Runaway Princess Page 0,55
so that her brother can’t track her cell phone. She even takes the battery out when she’s finished so he can’t find her. She’s very careful so I’m sure she’s fine, just running a little late.”
Zarah’s resistance to their relationship finally made sense to him. He almost smiled at how she’d tried to ignore him and avoid him but she should have realized the inevitability of their relationship. There was no way they could have kept that kind of passion silent. He’d experienced lust before, but what they had between them was something altogether different. It was love, dammit! She should know that by now!
His heart softened at the memory of their first time together. There was no way she could have known what they would be together because she’d never been with another man. She was too tender, too trusting, he thought. And something was very, very wrong.
“Try calling her cell phone, okay? Give me a call when you find out anything. If you hear from her, tell her to call me immediately.”
“Where are you going?” Suzanne called out to him since he’d already rushed out of her apartment and was halfway down the stairs.
“I’m going to make some calls. I have people at the airport. They can tell me if she’s gone through customs yet or if she’s still in the country.”
Suzanne rushed down the stairs, standing in the middle of the sidewalk in her blue, fluffy robe and bare feet but she didn’t care who saw her if Zarah was in trouble. “What if she hasn’t left the country?”
“Then I get my security team to find out where she is,” he said with absolute determination a moment before he ducked into his powerful car and drove away, tires peeling along the pavement as the car hurried to obey the commands of its anxious driver.
Six hours later, Derrick was furious with himself as well as with Zarah. She should have trusted him enough to tell him what was going on. If she had, they could have avoided this whole nightmarish day. He’d contacted his friends in the UK Border Agency and found out that Zarah had probably left the country several hours ago. They said that one plane with the Tasain royal seal had arrived last night and had already logged a flight plan for today in order to return to Tasain. It had left four hours ago but they didn’t have a passenger log. Normally, even foreign dignitaries were required to go through the proper channels, although those checks were streamlined for them and public areas eliminated. But in this case, he could only make an educated guess that Zarah had been on the plane due to the timeline of her disappearance and the plane’s takeoff.
So here he was, sitting in his own private jet and flying across Europe in order to get her back. From her brother, no less!
Derrick was furious at the situation and his fingers kept touching the ring in his pocket, knowing what he should be doing right now instead of flying around the world to retrieve the woman he loved. He was on the phone now with anyone who could get him an audience with Zarah’s brother. Once he got that meeting, he had no idea what he was going to do, but he’d figure it out once he knew that Zarah was safe and unharmed.
He ran a hand through his hair with frustration as his mind went through all the different torture methods this brother might have used on Zarah to bend her to his will. He gritted his teeth and swore that if he’d harmed a hair on her head, he’d rain down so much trouble on the brother and Tasain he’d never see the end of it!
His plane finally landed and as soon as he’d touched ground, he received a phone call from Joe who told him that he had a meeting set up with the sheik the following morning. How Joe had made that happen, Derrick had no idea, nor did he care. Joe owed him several times over for favors done in the past.
By the time Derrick was walking into the palace the next morning, he was ready to spit nails. He needed to see Zarah and make sure she was okay before he did anything so he had to remain calm and in control. Losing his temper wouldn’t get him anywhere.
Zarah moped along the hallway, her mood so depressed she couldn’t even think. She’d begged to