Idran sputtered for a moment, but he knew that Jurid was the more powerful ruler. Slowly, he backed out, trying desperately to save his dignity. “I will leave you to discuss…things…with my daughter. I look forward to a fruitful relationship with Tular.” With that, he was gone.
Jurid turned to look at Tamara and she threw herself into his arms. For a moment, he was surprised by her vehemence, then his arms closed around her and he buried his nose in her hair, holding her close.
“Has he ever hit you?” he asked, tightening his arms around her. He needed to hold her close, to know that she was unharmed. He felt her trembling and tried to absorb her fears and to share some of his strength.
“It’s over now,” she whispered, clinging to him. “Thank you.”
He closed his eyes at the horror of that fat slob slapping her. His woman! Damn it, Tamara was his woman! She was so damn beautiful and when she’d stood there, proud and defiant, he’d wanted to kill that man!
He pulled back slightly, but didn’t release her. “If he ever touches you again, I will destroy him!”
She touched his cheek as she smiled. “It’s okay. He’s gone now.”
“You don’t understand,” he started to say, but she leaned into him, resting her cheek against his chest.
“I understand. And I’m sorry. I used to know how to protect myself. But I’m out of practice.”
He shuddered again, tightening his arms around her. “You shouldn’t have to!” he hissed. “He’s your father! He should be protecting you from harm, not you trying to protect yourself from him.”
“Yes, in an ideal world, that’s the way things should go.” She snuggled closer. “But I was away at school for most of my youth, so he didn’t really hit me all that much. My mother knows to keep her voice low and to stay out of his way. She has a system with the servants to protect her.”
“That’s ridiculous!” he snapped, horrified.
“That’s the way he is. And because he’s in power, it’s not going to change.” Tamara snuggled against his chest and his fingers wove into her hair. He wanted to pick her up and carry her off to the car where he could fly her to his country and protect her forever. But that wasn’t Tamara. She was independent and strong.
Besides, he wanted her to choose him. He wanted her heart and soul. But she wasn’t willing to give him that. And after what he’d seen with her father, he understood why. She didn’t trust him yet.
But she’d given him her body. Was that enough?
It would have to be, he told himself. Because the idea of a future without Tamara in it was unacceptable.
He turned and nodded to his guards, two stood sentry at the front door and he knew that another two would be standing at the back entryway.
“I came here to talk to you, love.” She looked up at him and his gut clenched. “I have to leave. I wanted to stay and be with you for a bit longer, but I have responsibilities back home.” He saw those eyes shutter and knew that he was losing her. She was closing down, shutting him out. “I want you to think about something while I’m gone.”
She pulled out of his arms and leaned back against the desk, folding her arms over her stomach. His gaze dropped to her breasts but he quickly lifted it back up to her face.
“I want you to think about setting a date for our wedding,” he said, watching her carefully. Before she could completely shut down, he took her hands, trying to open up her body language in the hopes of opening up her mind. “We’ve had a great week together. I know that you don’t love me. But I think we could forge a marriage based off of mutual respect.” She looked down and he stroked the backs of her hands with his thumbs. “We don’t need love, Tamara. We have desire, which is strong. And I respect you. I think that you respect me as well. That should be enough for a strong marriage.”
She looked out the window, but he couldn’t read her eyes. She looked lost, as if she was in pain, and he didn’t know why. If he could figure that out, he’d take her pain away in an instant, make her smile again.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have time. Already, he’d put off his meetings for several hours just so he’d have time to talk with her, to settle this between them. He hadn’t come to London to force this issue, but after spending a week in her arms, in her company, he knew what he wanted. He wanted Tamara. Forever.
But he wanted her to come to him willingly.
Yes, he could force the issue. Her parents had signed a treaty with his country. The betrothal was legally binding. If he and Tamara both agreed to set the betrothal aside, that would be one thing. But he wanted her. He wanted all of her, damn it!
“Will you think about it?” he asked.
She looked back up at him, her eyes shuttered. “Yes,” she finally replied. “Yes, I’ll definitely think about it.”
“Good,” he told her. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed his guard signal to him, indicating that they needed to hurry. “I’m leaving some guards to watch out for you. I know that you don’t like having someone follow you around, but you are still my fiancée. Unfortunately, that puts you in danger. So, I need to protect you. They will stay out of your way as much as possible, okay?”
“That’s fine.” She bit her lip and he ached to kiss her again. So instead of waiting, he lowered his head and brushed his lips against hers. “I hope that you will miss me,” he murmured, then pulled away.
Before he could do more, he released her hands and left, forcing himself to step into the waiting limousine that would take him away.
Chapter 10
“Sire,” his head of security stopped just outside of his office doorway. Jurid turned and looked at the man, noting the grim expression.
“Come in,” he called out, and moved away from the windows. It had been three days since he’d left Tamara in London and he still ached for her. He was going to call her tonight and talk to her, get her to talk about her feelings regarding setting a date for their wedding.
“We’ve had more chatter,” his guard announced.
That got his attention and his head snapped up. “More than usual?”
“This is very specific, Sire, and we’re not sure what it means. There are threats coming from every direction and the data we’ve pulled up indicates that there is an imminent threat to the palace.”
Jurid’s eyes narrowed as he thought about Tamara. “Tell me more.”
The guard laid out several documents on Jurid’s desk, explaining the issues the security team had discovered. There was a direct threat, and it all seemed to be aimed at Tamara. A particular group seemed to be waiting for her arrival in the country, thinking that their wedding was imminent.
“Damn, I’m glad that she didn’t come back here then,” he said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Okay, so how long will it take you to find these people? I don’t want Tamara in danger.”
“She’s safe in London, Your Highness. The conversations we’ve uncovered seem specific. She is only in danger if she comes to the palace. Whoever is doing this considers her only to be a threat if she comes to Tular. At least, that’s our interpretation of the chatter.”
He looked at the documents spread out in front of him. “I concur. My enemies either don’t want me married or they don’t want the connection to Nadir. Either way, Princess Tamara is in danger.” He stood up and the guard straightened as well. “How long will it take you to discover the source of this threat and neutralize it?”
“My team is working on it now. I can give you daily updates, but these people are deep. I suspect that we can resolve this in a week, but I hesitate to guarantee that timing.”
He nodded, still frustrated. “I understand. Let me know what you find out.”
The man left and Jurid walked over to look out the window. He’d asked Tamara to think about setting a wedding date. He’d considered bringing her here to discuss it further. Would it make a difference if he told her that he loved her? That his world wasn’t right unless she was with him? Would she care that he felt like only
half a man when she wasn’t by his side, or that he struggled to sleep when she wasn’t pressed up against him?
All good questions and he wanted answers. But he also wanted her safe. If he told her that there was a danger in the palace, what would she do?
With a sigh, Jurid accepted that he didn’t know. She might come here, or she might follow orders and stay away.
So for now, he wouldn’t call her. Perhaps he would double her guard though. He might not be able to have her close by to him, but he could ensure her safety.
Chapter 11
“Hey there!”
The friendly voice nearly made Tamera burst into tears. “Willow?” she whispered, fighting back the emotions clogging her throat.
“Tam? What’s wrong?” Willow demanded.
“Nothing,” she replied. “Nothing at all!” At least, that’s what she wished was the truth. Reality…sucked!
“You’re lying. What’s wrong?”
Tamara laughed, already feeling a little better. “I promise I’m…”
“You’re doing it again. I can hear it in your voice. You don’t want me to worry, but that’s not gonna happen. So, spit it out or I’m calling Lana and we’ll do the martini thing to try and cheer you up.”
Tamara smiled, leaning back in her chair. “You’re threatening me with martinis?”
Willow chuckled, realizing the stupidity of the threat. “Okay, well then how about if I phrase it like this, if you don’t tell me what’s going on, we’re going to get you so drunk, you won’t be able to run the next morning.”
Tamara made a face. “Okay, you got me there.”
“So spill it.”
Tamara smiled again, but the smile quickly faded. “Oh, you know. Man problems.”
“You fell for your fiancé?” she whispered delightedly. “Oh, Tam! That’s wonderful! Your betrothal has been a concern for as long as I’ve known you. Now that you…”
“He left two weeks ago and I haven’t heard from him since,” she interrupted, fighting back the sadness that colored her voice. “I thought things were going well,” she explained. “He asked me to consider setting a wedding date, but he was sweet, not pressuring me at all.” She sniffed and blinked back more tears. “Then he left and…didn’t call me.”
“Have you called him?”
“I tried. I left a message but his assistant said that he wasn’t available and would get back with me as soon as there was time in ‘his highness’ schedule’” she mimicked sarcastically. “So far, crickets. Silence. Nada.”
“I get it,” Willow laughed, then turned serious. “Um…were you going to set a wedding date?”
Willow was silent for a long moment. “I was going to talk to him about it,” she hedged.
“Well, that’s progress!” she gushed.
“Not really. Since he hasn’t called me back, I can’t tell him how furious I am about his lack of communication.” She stood up and started pacing. “Seriously, how dare he come here and make me…well, say things and…do things and…just make me care for him. Then not speak to me!”
“Uh oh,” Willow sighed and Tamara could see her friend’s expression from thousands of miles away. Willow’s pretty, blue eyes would turn worried and she’d be biting her lip, trying to formulate a plan.
“Don’t do anything,” Tamara warned.
“I wasn’t!” she argued. Too quickly.
“I know you, Willow,” she came right back. “You’re thinking. And thinking means that you’re coming up with a plan. You’re scheming and planning and that’s never a good thing.”
“Wait a minute,” she argued. “That time that you said not to do anything to the other room,” she sneered, referring to the girls who had roomed across the hall from them during boarding school, “I had an epic plan and you knew it!”
Tamara threw back her head, laughing. “Please tell me that you’re not referring to the time that we stole their school jackets and sewed the hems of their sleeves up so the three of them were walking around campus looking ridiculous.”
Willow’s smile came through the phone line loud and clear. “Oh, that was classic, wasn’t it?” She sighed. “And then…”
Tamara laughed. “I know! It was better the next day when we shortened all of their skirts! They kept tugging them down throughout the day until Ms. Dunworthy marched them all into the administration office to get new skirts!”
They laughed together, delighted with the memory. “Good times,” Tamara sighed as she leaned back in her chair once again.
“Okay, just so ya know, I’m on a flight...”
“You are not!” Tamar countered.
Willow laughed. “I am too! Even if I didn’t have some odd news, I’d still be flying over to London to be with you. It sounds like you need some girlfriend time and Mike just isn’t cutting it right now.”
“What odd news?” she asked, determined to think about someone else’s problems for a moment.
“Well, you know how my dad sort of…” Willow trailed off.
“Kicked you out of the house at thirteen and sent you off to boarding school because he has a weird obsession with his wives that is both distasteful and psychologically abusive to his one and only daughter?” Tamera filled in.
Willow chuckled. “Well, yes. You put it much more eloquently than I ever could,” she teased. “But yes, my father’s obsession with his numerous wives and mistresses was very weird, but that’s not what I meant. Just that…well, don’t you think it is weird that he never mentioned any other family?”
Tamara was silent for a long moment. “Are you telling me that you found your mother?”
“No!” Willow grunted. “Good grief, no. I have no idea where she wandered off to, but when it came to the parent awards, my idiotic father won the prize where I’m concerned.”
“That’s not saying much,” Tamara pointed out.
“Agreed,” Willow replied. “But more than that, I’d always been so angry over my father’s actions that it never occurred to me to ask about other family members.”
There was silence while Tamara thought about that too. “Now that you mention it, you’re right. We never wondered why your aunts or uncles never offered to take care of you, visited, or…well, anything.”
“Not much of a stretch, since that didn’t happen in your case either.”
“Yes, but in my case,” Tamara pointed out, “it’s because they all consider me beneath their notice. You know, being a female and all.”
“Right. You’re such a weak, impertinent miss,” she teased back. “But lo and behold, I just got a letter from a solicitor, or whatever you guys call the legal people in Britain, informing me that I’ve inherited a house from my grandmother.”
“A grandmother? You have a grandmother?” Tamara gasped, sitting up straighter in her chair.
“Had a grandmother,” she replied. “She passed away several months ago. She’d been looking for me all over the United States, but my father never answered her calls so she wasn’t ever able to contact me. She’d been sending me letters over the years, trying to contact me.” She was silent for a moment. “Tamara, during high school, I was only about fifty miles away from my grandmother and my father never even mentioned her to me. I never knew that she existed.”
“Oh, honey!” Tamara soothed. “The crimes continue to stack up against that man, don’t they?”
“Yes,” she sighed. “I can’t believe that I had someone so close by, someone I could have gotten to know and maybe…” she stopped, not finishing that statement.
“Someone who could explain why your father was such an ass?” Tamara filled in.
“Yeah. Something like that. I mean, what kind of a man kicks his daughter out of the house at thirteen?”
Tamara chuckled. “Well, I can give you several hundred examples,” she replied, referring to the girls who had attended The Burling School with them. Every year, about a hundred and twenty-five new girls arrived, wide-eyed and terrified as they entered the s
tone walls of the boarding school. Some of them were genuinely loved by their parents. Some of the girls were terrors and their parents had dumped the responsibility on strangers to finish raising them during the teen years. And others, like Tamara and Willow, had been tossed out of their houses for reasons that didn’t quite make sense. Of course, in Tamara’s case, her father had sent her off to school “to train to become a wife”.
“We’re all a bit messed up,” Willow laughed, but the sound was stilted.
“Okay, so you have…had a grandmother. What does that mean?”
Willow’s smile came through in her next words. “It means that I’m on a flight into London’s Heathrow airport at three forty-five tomorrow afternoon. And it also means that I’m taking you out for martinis as soon as I check into my hotel room.”
“Hotel? You’ll stay with me!”
Willow laughed. “No way! Your place is tiny. There’s no way…”
“Right,” Tamara agreed with amusement. She turned to her computer. “I’ll have a place ready for you. There’s an apartment on the water that has been vacant for three weeks. It needs someone to stay there for a while.”
“I don’t plan on staying in London for long. I want to find this house and see it for myself. I want to poke around and maybe find out what this long, lost relative was like, what she thought about and…well, just get to know her. I didn’t get to meet her in real life because of my father. So I have to get to know her through her house and maybe, just maybe, she’ll have left some letters or documents, maybe even a diary that will tell me more about who she was.”
“That sounds great! But I’ll pick you up at the airport tomorrow. Text me your flight information.”
“I can just…”
“Text me!” Tamera insisted. Willow’s issues included a fear of being a burden. During the dark hours of the night when they were supposed to be sleeping, Tamara, Willow and Lana would talk about their families. It had always been easier to talk about issues in the darkness. It wasn’t as real without the bright light of day glaring at them, revealing their secrets. But at night, they could talk, speculate, and just…wonder. Fantasize about what other families were like. What were normal families might be doing at that point in time? Willow had always wondered what she’d done wrong with her step mothers, why they couldn’t stand living with her. And why her father never loved her enough to protect her from their machinations.
Awakened by the Passionate Sheik (The Ladies of The Burling School Book 2) Page 12