by Holly Rayner
husband’s. “We pulled it off,” she agreed, and took a sip.
She swam carefully, on her back, keeping her glass above the water. It felt strange, the weight of the rings on her finger, the feeling that she and Zayed would part ways as if nothing had happened between them, so soon after being involved in such a big scheme together. The thought that she might never actually seen him in person again made Zelda sadder than she expected it to. Maybe he was feeling the same way? She looked up at him curiously, feeling the fuzziness of alcohol in her brain. She wasn’t drunk, but she wasn’t exactly sober, either.
After a moment, Zayed climbed into the pool with her, keeping his distance as he enjoyed the cool water. “You know, I could almost be envious of my friend,” Zayed said, floating on his back.
“You could always buy your own private island,” Zelda pointed out. “Build yourself a nice house on it; get away sometimes.”
“I’m not very good at really, truly getting away,” Zayed admitted. “Even on the yacht, on the way here, I was busy trying to broker deals, trying to find someone to marry, all those things.”
“Maybe you’d have been better off going with the arranged marriage route,” Zelda said, more playfully than she felt. “Then you’d have had a real wife.”
“I have a real wife,” Zayed said. “Unless you signed something other than your real name on the paperwork, you are truly my wife, Zelda.”
Zelda looked at him sharply. “There’s something that’s been bugging me,” she said, moving to refill her glass of champagne from the bottle. She felt just brave enough to ask the question that had tickled the back of her mind ever since the end of the reception, when they’d climbed into the helicopter.
“Go ahead,” Zayed told her, moving towards the edge of the pool and treading water there. The sun had begun to set, and Zelda found herself briefly distracted by the splash of colors across the horizon: rose, gold, orange, burning red, and honey-yellow.
“I’d have thought that you would be in the city right now,” Zelda said finally, turning her attention back onto her new husband. “The whole point of marrying me was so that you could make that business deal. Why put it off now?”
Zayed smiled, and Zelda recognized it as the same warm, open smile she’d seen on him when he’d been nursing her back to health after her ill-advised escape attempt. “Where else would I rather be than right here, on my honeymoon, with my wife?”
Zelda’s heart began beating faster in her chest. “What—what do you mean? You said you didn’t expect anything romantic from me,” she said, taking a sip of champagne to moisten her suddenly dry throat.
“I didn’t expect it, and I don’t expect it still,” Zayed told her. “But I never said that I would never have feelings for you, Zelda. I didn’t expect to, but it’s happened. If you want to go back to the US, and leave me behind, I understand. But I want you to know that I care about you.”
Zelda stared at Zayed, stunned by the admission. “You do?”
The Sheikh nodded. “I discovered that when you ran away,” he said softly. “I was so worried for you, so terrified that you would die in the desert.” He shook his head slowly. “And then, when I found you, I felt so relieved.”
“I have to admit,” Zelda said hesitantly, “that when I realized it was you out there, that you were giving me water, I was relieved. And not just because I knew I wasn’t going to die.”
Zayed chuckled. “I stayed with you all night,” he admitted. “I couldn’t make myself leave your bedside until I knew you would be okay.”
“But how did you get the plane ticket?”
Zayed dismissed that with a wave. “Phone,” he said simply. “I had to do something with myself in the late hours of the night, while I was waiting.” He smiled again and poured himself more champagne. “And then…” he shrugged. “I just realized that I cared about you much more than I thought I would; much more than I ever intended.”
“And that was why you made sure that I could leave if I wanted to,” Zelda said, shaking her head in wonder.
Zayed nodded. “I figured that you didn’t try and flee into the desert because you thought I would be cruel to you,” he said, giving her a wry look. “I thought it must have been something to do with your conscience.”
“It was,” Zelda confirmed. “It was while I was at the fitting with Tahirah. She made a comment about my mom being proud of me, marrying such a great, wealthy man.”
“And you had moral qualms about me being wealthy?”
Zelda chuckled and shook her head. “No,” she said. “About my parents. The fact that they didn’t know where I was, didn’t know that I was going to be getting married. And I remembered my mom’s advice about marriage.” She shook her head again. “Basically, I thought then that it would be a better idea to leave before the engagement party. Forgive me my foolishness.”
The Sheikh smiled faintly. “I assume your mother told you that you should only marry for love, not for social advantage?”
Zelda shrugged. “Not so much that—just that she would rather I was married to a poor man and happy...rather than a rich man just because it was convenient.”
Zayed nodded. “And that was what you were doing with me?”
Zelda looked into her champagne flute. “Yes and no,” she said. She took a deep breath and set her glass aside, feeling nervous in spite of what Zayed had told her. “I thought there was no future—nothing real—between us,” she said, meeting his gaze. “I still don’t know for sure, but I guess…” she swallowed. “I care about you a lot more than I thought I would, when you made the proposal.”
Zayed smiled slowly, gesturing for her to go on.
“I was really— I felt sad that we were going to be parting ways so soon, and so happy when I realized you were coming here with me, but so conflicted all at the same time.” Zelda laughed, shaking her head as tears began to form in her eyes. “I’m babbling on like an idiot.”
Zayed didn’t say anything. Instead, he closed the distance between them, swimming deftly through the water. He wrapped his arms around her waist, and before Zelda could completely understand what was happening, he brushed his lips against hers.
Zelda could feel the hard muscles under his surprisingly soft skin, pressed to her body; for a moment she could do nothing but hover in Zayed’s arms in the water, shocked at the kiss. But then he began to deepen the contact with her lips, holding her tighter, and Zelda’s heart beat faster in her chest. This was the kind of kiss they would have shared if she had let it happen in the garden, the night before the engagement party; this was the kind of kiss they should have had at the altar and didn’t.
Zelda melted against Zayed, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, pressing her body against his, letting him deepen the kiss until she was almost giddy with breathlessness. He broke away from her lips for just a moment to kiss her each of her cheeks, slowly, softly, and then claimed her mouth with his own once more, his tongue exploring, his lips firm and soft against hers, heat blazing up between them so intensely that Zelda was shocked that the water wasn’t boiling around them.
Suddenly, Zayed broke away from her lips once more, pulling back just enough to look Zelda in the eyes. She panted slightly, bowled over by the kiss, and as soon as she was able to focus on his face, Zayed spoke.
“Tell me honestly, Zelda,” he murmured. “Don’t be afraid to lie to me, and please don’t tell me what you think I want to hear. Do you think you can stay with me, and be my wife, truly?”
Zelda held Zayed’s gaze for a long moment, seeing all the openness that had so eluded her almost the whole time she had known the billionaire sheik. She pressed her lips to the spot between his mouth and his nose, and then to his forehead, and then to his lips, pulling back before she could give into the temptation for another passionate, satisfying kiss.
“I’m done running away from everything,” she told him finally. “In you, Zayed, I’ve finally found someone that I truly want to stick around for, someo
ne I want to stay with.” She smiled, and saw the Sheikh smiling with her. “I want to stay with you. I want to be your wife.”
Zayed brought his lips down on hers once more, and Zelda gave into the embrace with abandon, letting her hands wander over her husband’s shoulders, over his back. She could taste the champagne on his lips, and an underlying warm sweetness, something that made her want to keep kissing him forever, or at least until she ran out of breath.
Finally, Zayed pulled back, looking into her eyes, and Zelda saw his eyes darkening with desire. “This is going to be a real honeymoon,” he murmured, smiling slowly.
“Is it now?” Zelda squirmed in his arms, slithering out of his grip to kick away from the wall, delving playfully through the water. At some point during their conversation, the sun had finished its descent, and lights had come up around the pool, obscuring the darkness of night around them.
“It will be,” Zayed confirmed, pursuing her in the water with an unmistakable gleam in his eyes.
“You’ll have to catch me first,” Zelda told him, giggling.
“I thought you said you were done running,” Zayed countered.
Zelda laughed out loud, narrowly evading his grab for her. “I’m not running,” she countered. “I’m swimming!”
The Sheikh laughed at her, and Zelda considered letting him catch her sooner, before discarding the idea.
“If you can catch me before I can get back to the champagne, I’ll concede that you’ve won.” She darted away from Zayed again, and felt the movement of his pursuit in the water behind her. She decided then that she would let him catch her—but only after she got to the champagne.
SIXTEEN
Two Months Later
Zelda looked at herself in the mirror, shaking her head in amusement. The dress she was wearing was a far cry from the ornate gown Tahirah had made for her first wedding—but it was no less beautiful for being less formal. The ceremony they had agreed to would be shorter, too, but Zelda was certain it would be just as lovely, just as heartfelt. In fact, she was sure that it would be even more so.
It was two months since her sham wedding to Zayed, and as Zelda put the finishing touches on her own makeup, she thought about everything that had happened between them since then. She had informed her parents that she was safe; she’d done that the morning after the first night of her “honeymoon” with Zayed, in a quick email that went to both of them. At that point, Zelda had only known that she and Zayed wanted to truly be together, not what the shape of her life would look like with him. Prior to that, they had only received the briefest of text messages during her trip to Murindhi, telling them that she was okay, before she had turned her phone off. She still hadn’t turned it back on, nor had she checked her email.
She and Zayed had been busy in the two months since their wedding; Zayed had completed his business deal, purchasing a rival hotel syndicate and assuming the leadership of both companies. He’d worked hard to make sure that everything was in place, and exactly as it should be, so that the two of them could take a real honeymoon after renewing their vows in a more personal, more genuine ceremony, which was to take place later that day. Two months to plan the renewal of vows in a much simpler ritual had made it much easier on both of them to come to an agreement of what they wanted; it was going to be an intimate ceremony, at a prime Murindhi venue--with only a dozen guests.
Zelda looked at herself in the mirror, turning her head one way and then the other. The makeup wasn’t as striking as it had been for her wedding with Zayed, but she thought that she looked good, more true to herself. Zayed will think that you look good anyway, she reminded herself with a little smile.
She hadn’t quite gotten used to the super-wealthy, super-glamorous people that surrounded Zayed, but even still, Zelda had managed to overcome her sense of being an impostor—especially once she had convinced him to clear the air about her true identity. That being said, she hadn’t grown up working with stylists and designers; she hadn’t lived a life of wealth and prestige until she’d started living with Zayed. Even if she wasn’t quite as easy going about fashion, or the need for so many fripperies, Zelda thought that she’d managed to impress more than a few of Zayed’s circle. He’d been right that her parents’ emphasis on her education stood her in good stead with people who’d gone to boarding schools and the best private academies.
Zelda stood back from the mirror and gathered the last few things she would need before she and Zayed left the house for the venue in the city. She had a bouquet—a small one, in comparison with her wedding bouquet, and made up of roses instead of Murindhi blooms, but it was every bit as beautiful. She also had a few pieces of jewelry for the occasion, which were not quite as ostentatious as her original wedding jewelry had been, nor as heavy. Her wedding band was gone from her hand; Zayed had taken it two weeks before to have it altered for the purposes of their vow renewals, along with his own.
“Zelda? Are you ready?” Zayed’s voice cut through her thoughts, coming from the other side of the bedroom door.
Zelda had playfully insisted that he couldn’t see her while she was getting ready, in a mimicry of the rules for her wedding day. But since they were going to the venue together, which was one of the hotels that Zayed owned and the first piece of his empire as a billionaire, she couldn’t exactly keep herself hidden from him the entire time before the ceremony began, nor did she want to.
“Coming,” she called back, checking herself in the mirror one last time before turning to leave the room.
Zelda smiled to herself; all of the traces of sadness she’d felt on the day of her legal wedding to Zayed were gone; the fact that they had agreed to stay together, and the fact that they were making an honest marriage out of a sham wedding, made Zelda happier than she would have imagined possible only a few months before.
She stepped out of the bedroom she shared with Zayed and met her husband’s gaze. “Not as involved as my first wedding outfit, but not bad, right?”