by Maisey Yates
And she could be a part of that new beginning. But not if she called Tariq. Not if she let fear push her into running.
No, she wasn’t going to run.
She could do this. She might not ever claim credit, but she could start her role as Sheikha of Shakar by doing something valuable.
She trusted Zafar. The realization was a slightly shocking one, but it was the truth. She might not like it an overabundant amount, but she trusted the core of his character. And that was what counted.
“Breakfast in the courtyard tomorrow,” she said, because she was sure someone could arrange it. “We’ll talk silverware.”
“I haven’t had very much in the way of real conversation in the past fifteen years, and you want to talk silverware?”
“I told you, the art to getting along with people is bland conversation. How much more bland could it get?”
* * *
It turned out that nothing with Zafar could feel bland. Especially not since she was sitting with him in a garden that rivaled anything she’d ever seen. Lush green plants and shocking orange blossoms punctuated by dots of pink covered every inch of the wall that protected the palace from the rest of the world.
The combination of the thick stone wall, the fountains and the shade made the little alcove comfortable, even at midmorning. She had a feeling that by afternoon it would be nearly as unbearable as most other places in Al Sabah, but for now, it was downright pleasant.
“I ordered you an American breakfast,” she said, putting her napkin in her lap and folding her hands over it. “Bacon and eggs.”
“Do you think that many politicians will be eating bacon and eggs?”
“Fact of life, Zafar, everyone likes bacon. Turkey bacon, by the way, in case you have any dietary restrictions.”
“I am not so devout,” he said.
It didn’t really surprise her. Zafar seemed to depend only on himself. Though, there were people here in the palace. People who had loyalty to him. People he seemed to care for in a strange way.
“It has made the paper,” he said.
“What?”
“That I threatened Ambassador Rycroft. He said he saw me in person, and that I am clearly a wild man. That when you look in my eyes you see something barely more advanced than a beast. Of course the press was giddy with his description as they would so love to crucify me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“This means that my presentation is more important. That this project we are conducting is all the more important.”
She nodded slowly. “I understand.”
“I have spent too many years alone,” he said, his voice rough.
“The men that are here,” she said, picking up her fork, “how often did you travel with them?”
“Once a month we might patrol together, but many of them had home bases, while I felt the need to keep moving. To keep an eye on things.”
“You said you didn’t make a lot of conversation?”
“We didn’t. We traveled together, did our best to right the wrongs my uncle was visiting on the desert people. Some of them were men, and the children of men cast out of the palace when my uncle took control. Others, Bedouins who suffered at the hand of the new regime. We didn’t get involved in deep talks.”
“Why is that?”
“Someone had to keep watch. And I was always happy to let my men rest. Though we did spend time telling stories.”
“Stories?”
“Morality tales, of one sort or another. A tradition in our culture. A truth wrapped in a tale.”
She’d heard him do that. Weave reality into a story. Blanketing it so it was more comfortable to hear.
“So you were an army unto yourselves? Out there in the desert?”
“Nothing half so romantic. We were burdened with the need to protect because our people were under siege. It was all born of necessity. Of loss.”
“If your people had any idea of what you’d done for them...they would embrace you as their ruler. I know they would.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps what happened in a desert out beyond the borders of the city will make no difference. Perhaps they will only remember what happened here.”
“What happened here?”
Zafar gritted his teeth. He hated to speak of it. Of the day his parents died. The day he and his people lost everything.
He hated even more to speak of his role in it, but he didn’t have a lot of other options. She had to understand.
She had to know why he was so despised.
“Things had been tense. There were rumors that the royal family might be the target of an attack. And routines were changed, security measures were taken. The sheikh and his wife were preparing to go into hiding until the threat had passed. But there was a breach in the security. And the time that the royal family was to leave the palace was given to their enemies. They never had a chance at escaping. What was meant to be a wholly secure operation, moving them until the threat was over, became the end.”
“And how did you get the blame for this, Zafar? I don’t understand.”
“It was my fault,” he said. “And I have spent every year, every day since then, fighting to atone for the destruction I brought on my own people. This is why the papers, why the people, are so anticipating my downfall. My exile was very much deserved. I was responsible for the death of my mother and father, the sheikh and sheikha. And the people of Al Sabah have long memories. They won’t forget who they would rather have on the throne. And they won’t forget why their most beloved rulers aren’t with us any longer. And it’s because of me.”
CHAPTER SIX
ZAFAR COULD SEE the dawning horror in her eyes, and he was almost glad of it. Because they needed something to break this strange band of tension that was stretching between them, pulling them closer to each other, even as they tried to resist.
Even as he tried to resist. With everything he had in him.
But there was something so very fascinating about her. Something so tempting. But he knew what would happen if he touched her. War aside.
It would be like pouring water on the cracked desert earth. He would take everything she had, soak it in for himself, and at the end of the day, the ground on his soul would still be dry.
“You couldn’t have done anything on purpose, Zafar.”
“No,” he said, his voice harsher than he intended. “I didn’t do it on purpose, and in many ways that makes it much worse. I was a fool, manipulated into giving the truth because of trust. Because of love.”
She blinked slowly a few times, a look of confusion on her face, as if the idea of him being in love, the whole concept, seemed foreign and unbelievable to her.
Reassuring. That he didn’t in any way resemble the soft, stupid boy he’d been. Years in the desert had hardened him, and he was damned grateful for it.
“But if it was an accident...” she started.
“No. There is no excusing it.” He didn’t want to tell the story. Didn’t want to speak of Fatin or the hold she’d had on him. About how, during a time of extreme turmoil for his country and his family, he’d only been able to think of one woman. Of how he’d wanted her.
He’d been able to spare no thought for anything else. For anyone else.
Thank God he’d cut that out of himself, that weak, sorry emotion. He’d sliced out his heart and left it to burn beneath the desert sun. Until he was impervious, until he was too hard and too weathered by the heat and wind to care about a damn thing.
Nothing but the cause. Nothing but the purpose.
And she had to realize that. She had to know. What manner of boy he’d been, what manner of man he’d become.
Why he’d had to bury that boy, deep, and destroy everything tender inside of him so that he would emerge
better. So that he would never again cause such unthinking destruction.
“As with most tales, this one starts with a woman.”
Ana’s breath caught. She was instantly consumed with curiosity. About the woman. The one who had created emotion in Zafar. Emotion he seemed to be lacking now.
She noticed he liked to tell her things this way. As though they were nothing more than tales, and he was nothing more than the storyteller. Not a player in the piece.
“She was a servant in the palace. She had been for a long time. Beautiful, and smart. Ambitious. She didn’t want to be a serving girl all of her life. She wanted more. And she was willing to do whatever needed to be done to get it. Including seducing the young prince of the royal family she served.”
He looked detached, cold. Once again, this wasn’t an interaction, nor a heartfelt confession, it was a performance piece. A bit of the oral tradition the Al Sabahan people were famous for.
And yet the fact that it was personal, the fact that, though he was making the woman the star of the story, he was at the center of it, and he refused to tell it in that way, made it chilling. As cold as his eyes.
“She was his first woman. And that made him incredibly vulnerable to her. So when she asked what the new schedule was, when the sheikh and sheikha would be moved for their safety...he told her. Everything. Because in that moment, with his body sated from making love, and his heart full of hope for the future, their future, he would have given her anything she asked. And what she asked was such a small thing. Just little questions. With answers that had the power to shift the landscape of an entire country.”
It was hard to latch on to the words. Hard to make sense of them. He was giving facts, honestly, but wrapped in a story, though she knew it was true. But he was holding back his emotion. Keeping it from his voice. Keeping it from her.
“Zafar...how did you...how did you survive that?”
“I wasn’t the target. It was easy to get rid of me in a different way.”
“I didn’t mean physically.”
“It was simple enough. I identified the problem, and I cut it out. Metaphorically. Were this a real tale, I would have cut my wicked heart out quite literally and left it to dry in the desert and gone on without it in my chest deceiving me. As it is, I put away feeling, emotion, and I focused on purpose. On reclaiming Al Sabah, not for me, but for my people.”
“And the boy who gave it all for love?” she asked, looking at the hardened man in front of her and wondering, for just a moment, if it was even possible that the Zafar of the story and the Zafar standing in front of her had ever been one and the same.
“I left him out in the desert,” Zafar said.
He’d been destroyed and remade out there. She could see that.
“Don’t romanticize it,” he said, his tone hard.
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t lie to yourself. Don’t try to make it seem like a misguided romantic gesture. It was nothing more than a sixteen-year-old boy using his balls as his brain. There is nothing romantic in that. A man in love is weak after an orgasm and she knew it. She exploited it. But there is no excusing it. She would have had no power had I been stronger. And though it’s far too late to make it better, it could never happen again. Not to me. There is no allegiance I hold stronger than the allegiance I have to the people of Al Sabah. And there is nothing I would ever do to compromise it.” His dark eyes glittered dangerously. “Nothing.”
And she knew he meant that she would be caught up in that lack of compromise, too. That no matter what she wanted, no matter how long she was held at the palace, if it would compromise his vision for what constituted safety and success for his people, he would use her to that end.
It made her shiver inside. In that deep, endless place that Zafar’s presence had created. Or perhaps, he hadn’t created it; he’d just helped her discover its existence. Either way, it was disturbing, and taking up more of her than she wanted it to.
It was also far too strong for her liking.
If she wasn’t careful, it might get bigger, take up more room inside. Obliterate her control. And she couldn’t have that.
She had a mission. And it had nothing to do with heat and shaking and tightening stomachs.
She was going to help civilize the Sheikh of Al Sabah, and hopefully secure the future of two nations.
It really was nice to have a project. To be necessary. She knew what it was like to keep atoning.
She felt like she was still sweeping up the broken glass from something she’d destroyed years ago. And she would keep on going until she got every last shard.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ZAFAR HAD NEVER seen so much paperwork in his life. Laws, regulations, pages of tax code, various things to look at, read, sign and start over. Every time he put a dent in a stack of papers, the pile was refreshed with more.
The air was stale. Damned stale. He wasn’t used to being indoors like this. Enclosed in stone, feet thick. It was like being buried above ground. Doomed to sign his name over and over for all eternity.
In short, he was in hell.
He stood and inhaled deeply. A rush of that stale, paper-laden air hit him hard, and his stomach pitched. He wasn’t used to this. He craved heat and space. He closed his eyes, but rather than the vision of the desert he expected, he saw a pale blonde with full pink lips.
He opened his eyes and scooped up his pen, and the stack of papers he was currently working on, and walked out the door of his office, storming down the corridor. Perhaps he wouldn’t use an office. Perhaps he would do all of his work outside.
As if you need to make yourself appear more unconventional. Or unhinged.
He continued down the corridor and found himself heading, not toward the courtyard, or toward the front entrance, but toward Ana’s room.
Flames roared through his blood, and he couldn’t credit it. He’d gone for very long stretches at a time without female companionship. In truth, his sex life had been largely dormant. He had lovers he typically managed to see once or twice a year. But there had also been times when he’d gone more than a year without making a visit.
He was past the one-year mark now since the last time he’d had sex, if he wasn’t mistaken. Which could explain why that pale little temptress had burrowed her way into his mind like she had.
Just a dry spell. Dryer than the damned desert.
Emotion he’d eliminated the need for. But not sex. Still, it was rare to crave it like this.
He pushed open the doors to her chamber, like they were the flaps on a tent, without knocking. He wasn’t in the habit of observing those sorts of conventions.
“Talk to me,” he said, walking across the room and sitting in one of the cream upholstered chairs, setting his paperwork on his knee.
Ana was standing there, frozen, pale eyes owlish, her curves hinted at by a thin gray T-shirt and low-riding shorts that revealed the full length of her ivory legs. He wondered who had thought to provide her with such clearly Western attire. But then, there was no reason for her not to dress in the way she found most comfortable. She was in hiding from the public, after all.
“What are you doing in here?” she asked.
“I cannot abide that office. It’s far too small. Talk to me while I finish this.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
“I don’t know. Salad forks. I don’t give a damn. Let’s have a conversation. I will be expected to do that in my position, I imagine?”
“Why don’t we talk about why you knock on a woman’s bedroom door before you enter?”
“Boring. I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Well, I do, I only just put my top on. I was changing.”
He looked up and their gazes clashed, heat arcing between them. His blood rushed south,
racing to his member, hardening him, making him ready. In case. Just in case the heat wasn’t one-sided.
It didn’t matter. It couldn’t happen.
Somehow, it only made her seem more tempting. Only made his blood run hotter.
“But I didn’t see anything I shouldn’t have, so it’s moot. Now talk to me.”
“It’s nice weather we’re having. Oh, wait, except it’s not, because the weather is never nice here. It’s hotter than the depths of hell, and it’s so dry when I went to scratch an itch on my arm I bled. I bled, Zafar.”
“Do you require lotion? I can have some sent.”
“Yes. I do require lotion,” she said, sniffing. “And some nail polish. And some makeup. I received a whole new wardrobe, but not that. A flatiron wouldn’t go amiss, either. My hair is rebelling against the dry.”
He lifted one shoulder. “If you wish.”
“I’m not usually this precious. I promise. But I’m bored. I don’t want to walk around outside because it’s oppressive and I don’t know Arabic well enough to read the books. I suppose internet access is out of the question?”
“You suppose correctly.” He looked down at the papers on his lap. “If you’re so bored, use this as a chance to begin your project. Teach me civilized conversation. Tell me about yourself. I told you about me.”
She sighed and shook her head, shimmering golden hair falling over her shoulders. She truly was beautiful. He could see why the Sheikh of Shakar had been so eager to acquire her, and potential oil transactions were not the only reason. Clearly.
Tariq probably thought himself to be the luckiest man on earth. A marriage that would strengthen his country and wealth...and a wife who possessed such poise and beauty.
Truly, Al Sabah would suffer by comparison. He would never be able to find her match.
“Me? Boring. I’m from West Texas, though for most of my life I’ve only spent school holidays there. My father is an oil tycoon. He has a knack for finding black gold. He’s mainly made his finds on private land and made both him and the landowners very wealthy—”