“It is just a day.”
“It’s the day I was attacked. And the day I realised the man I lost my virginity to was lying to me – was using me.” She gripped the wall behind her for support, hating herself for showing this weakness to him but needing him to understand. “I can’t marry you today.”
“It must be.” He sighed heavily, and for a moment she wondered if he was feeling her same regret, wishing things were different. “The Haddad family will waste no time putting this into the press. If you do not marry me, if you are not my wife, you will only be my mistress – and your place in the palace will never be accepted. Those people out there,” he nodded towards the window, “are here because word has spread that I am here. That I am to marry.”
“My God.” She spun away from him, lifting shaking fingers to her temple. “It’s absurd.”
“Your parents must have known they were playing with fire to involve you with that family.” The words were a grim condemnation. “We will marry now, and my officials will announce the wedding, removing any ability the Haddad family has to make trouble.”
She swore softly, the harsh word surprising Khalifa. He didn’t know how, but he just knew she was someone who didn’t use bad language often. He understood her pain and desperation but he was powerless to remove it.
And he didn’t blame himself for that.
She had been made a pawn by her parents.
It was her place in life now to fulfil that destiny. He compressed his lips.
“You may have an hour.”
“An hour?” She shuddered, turning her back to him and wrapping her arms around her slender waist. Sixty minutes.
He studied her for a moment, the fragility of her body, the surrender conveyed by the lines of her frame as her shoulders curved and her head dipped forward. And he hardened his heart. “I’ll send Aïna in to attend to you.”
“Who’s Aïna?”
“She will be your Mistress.”
“My mistress?” Kylie spun around, her face pale. “What?”
“You will have dozens of servants responsible for your care. She is the primary; the one who you will speak to. The others report to her. You need only concern yourself with Aïna. Anything you want, she will arrange. Clothes. Food. Entertainment. She is your liaison.”
Kylie swallowed and nodded. She had been briefed on the hierarchical structure of life in Argenon. Even as a member of the Haddad family, as she’d expected to become, she’d been told there would be several servants at her disposal. But dozens?
“It seems a bit excessive.”
He walked towards her, lifting a hand to cup her cheek. His touch, his exotic fragrance, him. Her heart thundered through her, her blood was a tsunami dousing her with awareness from the inside out.
“Choose which battles you want to fight, lanaria.”
He stroked her cheek with the pad of his thumb and she sucked in a sharp breath, her eyes latching to his, looking for reassurance, for hope, for familiarity. Looking for a hint of the passion and need that had laced through him in Sydney. Looking for the man she’d fallen into bed with and, as she’d thought at the time, anyway, maybe even a little bit in love with.
His thumb moved slowly over her flesh and desire zipped through her. As surprising as it was unwanted, given the events of the preceding hour. She swallowed, powerless to step away, unwilling to put any space between them. Her body swayed slightly, against her will, against her knowledge, bringing her closer to him and she felt him stiffen, felt his body acknowledge her nearness. Just a little closer and they’d be welded together. Closer still, and her lips would find his. Her eyes fluttered shut. She needed that. To kiss him. To be kissed by him. She needed him to obliterate the heaviness of all of this and to remind her of what made sense.
Strangely, that was them.
Not like this, but as they’d been in Sydney.
But her cheek was suddenly bare and her body alone. He stepped backwards, and her eyes flew open. His expression was as hard as stone when she looked to his face.
No hint of the passion that had weakened her and filled her with memories.
“Aïna will be right in.”
He was gone then, in a flurry of robes and thwarted desire.
* * *
“So that’s it?”
She stared out at the passing city, her mind numb, the ring he’d placed on her hand heavier than lead.
“What were you expecting?” He asked, amusement lifting the words but not her heart.
“I was told the ceremony would take hours.”
“Ordinarily, yes. That’s true.”
She cast a sidelong glance at her husband. The evening had wrapped around them, but the back of the car – she didn’t even know what make or model it was, just that it was big – had a row of pale lights in the door handles that cast him in a golden glow. He was unreadable. A very handsome, very closed-off man.
Her husband.
She was alone.
In a foreign country.
She wished like hell that she’d let Mel come, instead of telling her to wait, to come in a few months when the dust had settled. What she wouldn’t do for a heart to heart with her best friend in that moment. Mel always knew what to say to make it better!
But there was no Mel close at hand.
She sunk back in her seat, staring broodingly out of the window. She wasn’t aware of the way Khalifa turned to study her, the way his eyes lingered on the set of her face, the blonde tangle of her hair or the body that was visible to his inspection. The dress was barely a sheathe.
He balled his hands into fists where they sat beside him, his fury something he was struggling to contain. It had nothing to do with Kylie – or so he told himself. He wasn’t sure he cared what happened to her. She’d had every chance to escape this marriage and she’d walked into it with open eyes, open arms.
She was lucky he’d swooped in at the last minute and put the thing off. What would she have done if he hadn’t arrived when he did? Would she have married Fayez regardless of the realisation that he wasn’t Khalifa?
Would she have married him? Let him make love to her? Would she have pretended it was her first time?
Anger surged.
And out of nowhere, he pictured her.
Not Kylie, but Selena. Beautiful, brave, and ultimately broken. A woman who’d been foolish enough to fall in love with Fayez, to buy his lies, to love him and let him make love to her. Who’d lived – barely – to regret ever having met him.
He hadn’t rescued Kylie because he cared about her. He’d rescued her because he wouldn’t let Fayez Haddad do to another woman what he’d done to Selena.
No one deserved that.
And yet … his eyes dropped to his bride – no, his wife – and something dark churned his gut. She’d been willing.
How little she must value herself and her life to fall in with such bizarre plans.
“So what now?”
The question came from a long way away. Her voice was tiny and he was distracted by the past, by unpalatable thoughts and memories.
But he understood her query instantly. She was wondering about what their married life would entail.
His lips were a grim slash in his face.
“You will live in the palace, with me.”
“With you?” Her head spun around so fast that her hair whipped a little against the backseat of the car. “With you?” She repeated softly, her eyes not quite holding his.
“Yes, azeezi. Though you will have your own apartment, at night, you will come to my bed.”
Chapter 6
KYLIE WAS TREMBLING like a leaf in the breeze. She stared straight ahead as seven attendants – seven! – moved around her body. Apparently the preparations that had been made for her to marry Fayez Hadded were not sufficient for this.
Her marriage to Khalifa.
No, no. Not Khalifa. Sheikh Sultan Khalifa Al Asouri. Or Sheikh, as Aïna had softly advised Kylie she should refer to her hus
band while in public. Sheikh!
“And what will he call me?” She asked with obvious umbrage.
“Whatever he likes.” Aïna’s amusement was obvious. “But usually this would be by your title too.”
Kylie had bit back another retort. None of this was Aïna’s fault.
She lifted her arms as one of the servants rubbed the orange scented oil into the flesh beneath her breasts, and she shivered.
Her body had been massaged and moisturised all over so that she practically glistened. Her hair had been redone, removing any sign of the mess Fayez had made of it. It was plaited now into a single long braid that had been wound around her head like a crown, and a fine rope of diamonds had been threaded through it, so that her hair shone as well. She lifted a finger to it and felt the little lumps with disbelief.
The overt wealth was something she wasn’t sure she could ever accept.
“And here?” She heard one of the servants ask Aïna in their native tongue.
Kylie frowned. “The bruise,” she murmured. She’d forgotten all about it.
The servant’s cheeks darkened to a mulberry stain and Aïna tsk-ed. “You speak to me,” she said softly. “Protocol prevents you from talking to any other domestic.”
“What? That’s stupid. These people are … have seen me naked.” Her own cheeks bloomed with colour. “But I’m not allowed to talk to them?”
“It’s an ancient custom,” Aïna sympathised. “Dating back hundreds of years when servants could be put in prison for talking to the royal family.”
“I’m not going to have anyone thrown in jail,” Kylie said with a shake of her head. “And I doubt Khalifa will either.”
The servants visibly reacted to Kylie’s use of his name and she winced. God. This was going to be a nightmare.
“It is an adjustment, I know,” Aïna soothed.
“Do you?” Kylie’s smile was dismissive, her manner unknowingly abrupt. “Do you have any idea what I’ve left behind?”
“Mmm,” Aïna’s smile was enigmatic. “You are not the only one who has been in training.”
Kylie stood as one of the servants held a loop of fabric for her, intuitively knowing to put her feet in the middle section. Three women pulled it upwards, over her sensitive, smooth, oily skin, until it was just beneath her bare breasts. And then they worked the ribbons, lacing it over her shoulders and under her arms, until her upper body was a delicate criss cross of fabric.
“What does that even mean?” She asked, momentarily distracted by the beauty of what she was watching. The fabric was a pearlescent cream, and the dress was so much more beautiful than that which she’d been given to wear to the first wedding. The real wedding. The ribbons were pale too, but on closer inspection there was a gold thread running through them.
“It is what you would have worn had your wedding been more … traditional,” Aïna blushed. “This robe is a ceremonial Argenese gown, reserved for royal occasions.
“Really?” Kylie frowned. “It’s kind of… revealing.”
Aïna’s smile was once more mysterious, as though she knew something that Kylie didn’t. It wasn’t ill-meant – but Kylie’s sense of being an outsider grew.
“It is not yet finished.” Aïna winked, her pretty dark face crinkling with the action. “See?”
And she turned away, retrieving a swathe of fabric from another servant, a smile still lingering on her face.
Kylie hadn’t got an answer to her original question. What had Aïna meant about their both having been in training? Only she didn’t get a chance to ask. In that moment, Aïna placed the fabric over Kylie’s shoulders, draping it simply, and yet with stunning effect. She looped it in front of Kylie and then wrapped it behind her back, tying it in a large bow that made her look like a butterfly. There was a stiffness to the fabric that held the ‘wings’ firmly in place.
She bit down on her lower lip, moving closer to the mirror. Her makeup had been removed, wiped off carefully, and in its place a layer of facial oil that smelled like rosehip and vanilla had been applied. The woman who stared back at her was familiar but completely unrecognisable.
“You are ready.”
“Am I?” She responded softly, lifting her fingers to her hair and feeling its bumps and curves, then lower to the fabric that swathed her body.
“Yes, Your Highness.” Aïna’s smile was encouraging. “Come.”
Kylie swallowed, nerves settling around her shoulder like a chain. She fell into step behind her Mistress, even as every bone in her body was filled with anxiety and adrenalin and something else, something warm and fluid that radiated from the pit of her stomach.
The room she’d been in was to be her wardrobe. And yet, it was unlike any wardrobe she’d ever seen. It was almost the size of her apartment in Sydney, with rows of shelves and hanging space, like a boutique. Shelves and shelves for shoes, and then, in the middle, two sofas and two arm chairs, with a low table between them. There was a wall for make up and hair, and an ensuite just for the wardrobe.
It defied explanation.
But then, so did the whole palace. On the edge of the city, it was surrounded by a moat – an actual moat – and there were alligators in the water. The very idea had made her throat hurt as they’d been driven over the bridge. The palace itself was enormous; a pale white in colour with a golden roof and tiny turrets everywhere. The garden was beyond beautiful, at least, what Kylie had seen of it, with palm trees making formal rows and bougainvillea planted over walkways. There was a sense of inside being a part of the outside too, Kylie had appreciated as they’d moved through the corridors. The windows were enormous – non-existent in some instances – and the night air had blown in straight from the desert, smelling like sand and the past and something else. Something indefinable.
Khalifa had parted from her almost as soon as they’d returned, his expression inscrutable, his bearing unapproachable. And his own army of servants had been waiting, forming a sort of line behind him.
“Aïna will bring you to me.”
She hadn’t known what to say and so she’d nodded, a response he’d apparently considered acceptable because he’d left without any further acknowledgement.
That had been hours ago.
Kylie had no idea of the time, only that it must have been very late because her body was tired, and she felt as though she’d been being beautified for hours and hours.
Still, she held her head high as she moved behind Aïna, willing to be distracted by the beautiful tapestries that hung from the walls, and the floors that were covered in ancient mosaics. Stories were in the tiles, but she had no ability to read them, as they moved too swiftly through the palace. She would do so another time, when she was at her leisure to explore.
It was not a long way from her wardrobe though, and before she knew it, Aïna paused outside a pair of golden doors. Wide and thick, they looked like they could withstand the force of a thousand storms. There were guards on either side but they didn’t acknowledge either Aïna or herself as they approached.
Aïna knocked on the door with the confidence of someone who knew her place in the palace.
She heard his call from within, and the sound of his voice, so deep and confident, and the knowledge of what would happen next, made her pulse trill inside of her.
Aïna smiled at her, and then pushed the heavy doors inwards with apparent ease. Like she’d done it before?
Kylie suppressed the little kick of envy.
It was misplaced and foolish.
And certainly unwanted.
But all thoughts – every single one – disappeared from Kylie’s mind when she followed her Mistress into the room. Could it be called that? ‘Room’ was such a bland word, so boring, and this was unlike anything she’d ever imagined. The ceiling was made of thick glass, so that the desert sky was visible above her. She looked up, catching the twinkling stars and held her breath as her gaze dropped lower. The walls were white, and yet there were inner-walls that delineated the
space, and those walls were made of something almost like lace. Carved, and very fine, they cast shadows and caught light, and beneath her feet, the ground was marble. Only, in the middle of the room there was water, and it was lit from beneath so that it shone like turquoise. A pool?
And on one side there was a bed – enormous, just like the one on the boat. Her cheeks flushed pink with the unwanted memory. The bed could be reached by following the marble floor, but once in the bed, it would be a simple matter to dip into the water.
Candles had been lit against the walls, so that they flickered and cast golden balls around the room and there was music playing. Soft and foreign and magic. Flute? Guitar? She couldn’t pick the instrument; she knew only that she liked it.
It was a room fit for royalty, but so much more than that. It was a folly. An abstraction. A fantasy. The bedlinen looked to be made of gold, and there was a table just to her left which was full of fruit and breads.
And beyond it, her husband.
He stood watching her, still dressed in the ceremonial robes, his arms crossed over his broad chest, his face expressing nothing.
“You may go.”
He spoke to Aïna without looking in her direction and yet the Mistress bowed low, winking at Kylie as she straightened and stepped back through the doors. They were pulled closed behind her with a thud and Kylie jumped, despite the fact the noise hadn’t been loud.
Khalifa lifted his hand in the air, silently beckoning that Kylie should come to him. His finger crooked and his eyes held hers, but her legs wouldn’t move. Her body was frozen to the spot. She swallowed, willing herself to be calm, to remember that this had always been in her plans, and yet she couldn’t. She stared at him, but she didn’t move, so that he made a small noise of frustration and closed the distance between them.
God, he looked beautiful and he smelled even better.
At his nearness her gut clenched with an aching need to be in his arms, to be held by him. Only what was the point? In Sydney she’d believed they’d made love as the beginning to something special. But it hadn’t been. It had been a ruse. A plan to end the Haddad family’s claim to the throne.
MARRYING HER ENEMY & STOLEN BY THE DESERT KING Page 19