The Sheikh's Bargain Bride (Desert Kings)

by Fraser, Diana

  They walked in silence until they reached the courtyard garden that divided their rooms. The gentle sound of water splashing in the fountain broke the heavy stillness of the night. The white blossom of the jasmine and orange trees appeared almost luminescent under an indigo sky filled with the brilliance of a new moon and innumerable stars. Anna had never seen so many. It seemed in the darkness of the desert that light, of any kind, shone more brightly. She looked up into his eyes whose own darkness was now rimmed with the same silver light.

  “I can’t be bought, Zahir.”

  “I have no wish to purchase you. I wish to make you happy.”

  She sucked in her breath sharply, turned away and entered her room alone. She would not cry in front of him.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Through the open window Zahir watched the curtains to Anna’s room sway in the cool night breeze, across the courtyard.

  Happy? Did he really want to make her happy? He wanted her in his home, yes; wanted her in his bed, yes. But happy?

  He moved away abruptly and opened the western window that looked out over the hammada plains and took a deep breath. Sometimes he longed for the open spaces and air of the desert, where the only dictates were ones of survival.

  Life had been simple then.

  He pressed both hands onto the wall either side of the window and closed his eyes tightly.

  From what deep instinct had those words surfaced? He shook his head. He didn’t even want to know. He refused to know. The only reason he wanted her happy was because he wished to seduce her. Pure and simple.

  He quickly undressed and got into bed determined to rid himself of the uncontrollable thoughts that haunted him. He needed the chaos to end. He willed his body and mind into the old numbing pattern that had enabled him to control not only himself but others, that had kept him and his men alive during ten years of desert warfare. And that he needed now, more than ever.

  She would have to tell him.

  She brushed her hair vigorously until it shone in the morning light and then stopped suddenly, arrested by the look of apprehension in her eyes.

  But how do you tell a man that the child he believes to be his nephew is in fact his own child?

  She took a deep breath and continued to brush her hair.

  God knows. But she’d have to find a way. She’d intended never to tell Zahir that Matta was his own son. For years she’d worried that he would take Matta away from her. But now the worst had happened and it turned out that it wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened. Maybe, for Matta, it was the best.

  Whatever else she might think of Zahir, he had given her son a home and a family like none she could have given him. And not only that, he’d given her the gift of completing her education: a gift she hadn’t imagined in a million years.

  He deserved to know. And he also needed to know another fact of which he was very obviously unaware—that Matta couldn’t have been Abduallah’s son because she’d never lain with Abduallah, that Abduallah had no interest in her in that way because she was the wrong sex.

  Suddenly she felt his presence. She turned sharply to see him silhouetted against the already bright sunlight.

  “Zahir! Haven’t you heard of knocking?”

  “The doors were open. I imagined that you would have closed them if you wished for privacy.”

  “Privacy? What’s that? I have a child remember. I keep my door open for him. Not that it would matter, he’d come in anyway.”

  “Your western ways are very strange to me. We will need privacy when we are married.”

  She felt herself blushing as her mind followed the drift of his thoughts. “Really?” She looked him firmly in the eye.

  “When we make love.”

  She could feel his eyes caressing her as surely as if his fingers touched her lips and his hands traced the curves of her body. She took a deep breath.

  “Remember, that’s not part of the agreement.”

  “It doesn’t need to be.” His eyes held both reassurance and heat: a delicate balance that stopped her from running but didn’t stop her from wanting. She swallowed.

  “Turn around, Anna.”

  She narrowed her eyes, not trusting him. “I promise not to lie you on the bed and take you here and now. Not yet, anyway.” It was all she could do to suppress the tiny intake of breath that his words provoked. She couldn’t move. Instead he moved around behind her.

  “Hey, what are you up to?”

  “Stay still.” He lifted her hair gently and dropped a heavy, cold strand of necklace around her throat. “I wanted to give you these by way of apology.”

  “You, apologize?”

  “I should have told you about the wedding before you learnt about it from my sister.”

  “Yes you should. But there are so many things you should have done that I’m surprised you’ve chosen only this one to apologize for.”

  “It is only this that I regret.” He finished clipping the necklace in place. “It was my mother’s, of course, and now yours.”

  She fingered the chunky stones and lifted it to see a thick strand of emeralds and diamonds shoot light onto the walls and ceiling as she turned it in her hands.

  “My God. It’s beautiful.” She looked into his eyes. “Are you sure? Do you really want me to have this?”

  “We are getting married, Anna. It should be yours. I want you to have it.”

  She was acutely aware of his chest so close to her back that the impulse to rest against its strength was near impossible to resist. But she did resist. She focused on the necklace in the mirror, and then glanced at him from under lowered lashes. His eyes glowed too, perhaps a reflection from the necklace.

  “Thank you. It’s beautiful.”

  “You are beautiful.” He frowned slightly and almost absently hooked a thick strand of hair away from her necklace, as if to admire the necklace better. “But you need to hurry. Fatima will be waiting for you. And I will be leaving for a few days, as tradition demands.”

  She sighed. “Yes, I know. Fatima told me. I’m nearly ready.”

  She scooped her hair up into a French twist and struggled to contain it within the antique ivory comb that Matta had given her when she’d first arrived.

  “Here let me help.”

  With a practiced twist he swept her hair up and caught it with the comb.

  “Where did you learn that trick?”

  “The comb also belonged to my mother. I used to watch her get ready, help her sometimes.”

  “Your mother?” She turned to stare at him. “I thought you hardly remembered her?”

  There was a long silence. “One remembers moments, fragments of memories.” He opened the door and stood to one side. “Fatima will be waiting for you.”

  They walked down the sun-streaked corridor in silence for a few moments as Anna absorbed the images that raced through her mind: of a boy who so intently watched a beloved mother do her hair that he could replicate the same twist and tuck two decades later, of a boy who lost her when he was far too young.

  “Please, tell me more about your mother. Abduallah never talked about her.”

  “He was too young. He never knew her and mother never knew him.”

  “She would have liked him as well as loved him.”

  “Of course. We all did. He would have had a great life if only he had not surrounded himself with negative influences.”

  She stopped abruptly at the entrance to the library. “We have to talk. You blame me, but you don’t know the full story.”

  “I know the end of the story. He died. That is enough.”

  “No, really, there are some things you need to know.”

  He shook his head. “No. There are some things you need to know. Abduallah wasn’t just my brother, he embodied all that I was fighting for. Those years spent half-starving in the desert, blood on my hands and blood in my heart, it was his image that I held in my mind; it was the only thing that kept me sane. Everything I did I did so that
he could be free to lead a good Bedu life. Nothing could sully that image. Nothing. So don’t try.”

  “I wouldn’t, I couldn’t, sully his image. But he was a man with problems—”

  “His only problem was that he left Qawaran and met people who took advantage of him.”

  “People like me I suppose you mean.”

  He closed his eyes briefly and sighed.

  “No. I don’t believe you took advantage of him. I believe you genuinely cared for him but it was the influence of others that led to his death.”

  “I’m sorry. But—”

  He placed his hand on her lips. “Anna, please, leave me my memories of him.”

  Slowly she nodded her head. He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. He knew something—perhaps only a little—but he knew enough to know that he didn’t want to know any more.

  “I must go now but I will see you when I return, the night before the ceremony.”

  She felt a flutter of nerves and he narrowed his eyes.

  “You know what to do at the ceremony?”

  She nodded. “I’ve been over it with Fatima. It’s just that there are so many people here, so much expected of me.”

  “When you enter the room, just look at me.”

  She smiled. “And wouldn’t you just like that?”

  He smiled a secret smile, turned and walked away, his soft leather-clad footsteps the only sound in the echoing hall.

  She watched him leave, aware for the first time that this strong man had an inner vulnerability that he had carefully encased in stone. He was doing his best to ensure that nothing got through to it. If Abduallah had embodied Zahir’s hope for the future, what would it do to Zahir to know that Abduallah had been careening headlong down a path to self-destruction long before he met Anna? What would he do if he knew that the very traditions that Zahir held dear had destroyed Abduallah? As a gay man—albeit a celibate one—Abduallah believed, rightly or wrongly, that he could never live up to his family’s and culture’s expectations of him and he’d hated himself for it. The hate had eaten away at him until he’d wanted to destroy his body, just as surely as his soul was being eaten away. And there had been nothing Anna could do to help her best friend.

  No, she’d not tell Zahir. He would continue to despise her for her apparent disloyalty to Abduallah and for the lies she’d told to keep his secret, but she could bear it for the sake of Abduallah and the memories of her friend that lay deep within the heart of his family.

  From her vantage point, tucked in a cave carved out of the sandstone escarpment high above the palace by one of the many springs, Anna watched Zahir’s convoy of four-wheel drives bump across the desert returning towards the palace.

  For three days and three nights Zahir had been absent, out in the desert with his people. But now he was returning. She realized with sudden clarity that she’d missed him. He was so strong she wanted to cling to him; he was so inwardly vulnerable she wanted to fight for him; he was so infuriating she wanted to scream at him. He was everything that was contradictory and she’d missed him.

  She wanted desperately to see him but knew it unlikely. He’d be busy. She closed her eyes and remembered how he looked at her, with the heat and intensity she’d become used to. At first it had been too fierce. But it had gentled, she realized, just as her own bitterness had faded. The heat was still left but all the destructive emotions had fallen away.

  She took the necklace from her bag and held it up to the light that split into rainbows as it passed through the multi-faceted stones. She closed her eyes. But even then, closing her eyes, closing her heart, against such light failed to stop it from entering. What point was there in denying it then?

  Zahir stopped on the threshold of the cave and looked down at Anna. Her lips were curved into a faint smile as if dreaming of something wonderful. Her face was lightly flushed, the soft sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of her nose making her look ridiculously young. She looked well, better than when she’d arrived. The good food and rest had nourished her. He watched as her eyelids flickered lightly and drifted open.

  “What were you dreaming of? You looked so peaceful.”

  “Thinking I’m dreaming of you Zahir?” Her tone was gently teasing.

  “No. I don’t wish to inspire such peace.”

  She laughed. “And you don’t. Believe me.” She smiled up to him. “Come, lie here and I will tell you what I was dreaming of.”

  He raised his eyebrows but to his own surprise found himself lying on his side, facing her.

  “So obedient.” A smiled played on her lips.

  “Only because it allows me to watch you more closely.”

  “Close your eyes.”

  “Now that I will not do.”

  She sighed. “OK then, just listen. What do you hear?”

  “Water.”

  “Exactly. I was dreaming of rain. Not the thunderous sort, but really soft, gentle rain. The sort of rain that is scarcely stronger than mist but can penetrate hard-packed earth. That’s the kind of rain I was imagining.”

  “We get rain here.”

  “Yeh, right. When?”

  “Soon. The rains will come soon. And then you will see miracles happen.”

  They were only a foot away from each other, but neither came any closer.

  “Miracles. Do they happen? I don’t think so.”

  “Then you know very little. Miracles happen if you open your eyes and see.”

  The humor fell away from her expression as she searched his eyes. “My eyes are open now.”

  “And what do you see.”

  “You.”

  “And am I not a miracle?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “In a way, yes. It’s a miracle that just one person can contain such conceit.”

  “No,” his expression remained serious. “I mean it, Anna. You’ve performed a miracle on me. Without me knowing how you’ve done it, you’ve robbed me of my anger. That, is a miracle.”

  “And what has replaced your anger?”

  He reached out his hand then and gently touched her cheek with the tip of his index finger.

  Anna closed her eyes involuntarily at his touch. It was the merest of brushes but it held the strength of a match lighting her skin and body with fire.

  She pressed her eyes more firmly closed as his finger whispered a caress, tracing the line of her cheekbone and round beneath her ear, before the back of his fingers brushed lightly beneath her jaw. Time seemed to have slowed, allowing her mind and body to register each tiny movement against her skin. Physically it was as soft as a puff of warm wind against warm skin: no contrasts, scarcely any contact. But sensually his touch was like the caress of fire on ice that had kept itself frozen for too long.

  It was only when she no longer felt the heat of his touch that she could gather enough control over her emotions to open her eyes. She didn’t want him to see what she was feeling. Not yet.

  What she saw when she opened her eyes was an unexpected tenderness in those exquisitely lashed dark, dark eyes.

  “Tell me Anna, why won’t you let me make love to you?”

  She didn’t reply immediately. Answers formed in her mind: bright, quick, facile ones that had always been part of her mask and sharp, defensive ones that she’d turned to when she’d felt her mask slipping. But neither could help her now. Only the truth.

  “You know why.”

  He shook his head. “No. Tell me.”

  “You’ve made my life hell the past four years.”

  “That was then. This is now. I believe I have ceased to make your life hell.”

  “Because you have what you want.”

  He nodded. “That is so. So tell me, do you still hate me?”

  She frowned. “You took my son without my permission, you’ve blackmailed me into marrying you. What do you think?”

  “I don’t know. That is why I am asking. I am hoping that you realize why I did these things now. Do you still hate me?”

&nb
sp; How could she, looking into his eyes? No, she felt no hatred, only desire. But still she could not say it, couldn’t admit that all he had predicted was coming to pass.

  “I, I can’t think of that now.”

  She pulled away, desperate to place some distance between them—physical and emotional. He stood up first and pulled her to standing beside him.

  “Then when?”

  “Isn’t it enough that I’m marrying you? Tomorrow I’m going to be paraded before your people like some trophy and that, I am not looking forward to.”

  “If it is any comfort most of it is for our people. We have the starring role but only for a little while. The rest of the time is for them.”

  She nodded and looked out over the plains.

  He reached over and took her hand. His thumb rubbed down the length of the back of her hand.

  “I want to hate you.” Her voice was low. She didn’t pull her hand away.

  “But you don’t.”

  She shook her head.

  “So what’s changed?”

  “You. Understanding you.”

  “Good. Come here.”

  “No. I am seeing Matta now, he’s been practicing a dance for him and his cousins to perform at the wedding.” She tried to pull away awkwardly. “I must go. Now.”

  He smiled and continued to hold her hand; his grip was gentle but firm.

  “Matta is fitting in very well.” Zahir turned her hand in his, studying it with an appreciation that sent shivers down her whole body. “His language, his behavior, one would never know that he hadn’t been born in Qarawan.”

  “He’s done well. I’m so proud.”

  “You have brought him up well. You have given him the foundation upon which he can step forward into what must have seemed a strange culture to him.”

  “I gave him love, that was all I could do.”

  “That was obviously enough.”

  She closed her eyes as his hand brushed the back of hers in a fleeting caress that sent shivers of excitement down her arm.

  “Zahir, I must go.” But she made no move to leave, transfixed by the look on his face.