“I can’t think why,” she said, but there was a look of guilt on her face. Just when he had thought he’d been barking up the wrong tree.
“What is it?” He pushed, feeling suddenly sickened by the certainty that she was going to reveal the affair to him.
“I think he used to fancy me, that’s all.” She bit down on her lip. “It was a long time ago. He never did anything about it, and I was always glad.”
The photographs had been explicit. Though Julia had looked either passed out or wasted in most of them. Why had she sent them to him? By mistake? To hurt him? To make him chase her down? Zayn had been too proud to confront her then. After all, he was a Sheikh, and above begging. His pride had forced him to accept her decision and return to his life. But that course of action had been wrong. He should have confronted her, and begged her to at least explain herself.
Could she explain now? Would she want to?
He opened his mouth but closed it again, when the sound of a high pitched sound carried through the rustling leaves and reached their ears.
“What was that?” Julia asked, spinning on her heel and crouching down to look beneath the shrubby tops of the trees. The view through the spindly trunks was better, and as she did a slow three hundred and sixty degree turn, she saw a pair of skinny little legs running so fast they were almost blurry.
A woman’s voice, familiar somehow, speaking and laughing in Arabic, chased after the girl and Julia straightened. A blinding head ache exploded in her temple and she had to hold Zayn’s arm for support.
“Julia? What is it?” His face was ash beneath his golden skin.
“I…” She waited, only a few seconds, for the little girl to reach them. “Maysan,” she breathed out with relief. The little girl threw herself at Julia’s legs with a big, bursting laugh, and Julia laughed, though her eyes were burning with tears. “I remember you.” She crouched down once more and put her arms around the little girl. Already, she felt more substantial than she had done the first time they’d met. Strange pieces of memory came back to her, but they were disconnected, as if in a film.
“I didn’t know you were here,” Adina said in English, walking with her elegant gait down the rows of trees to where they stood. She pressed a kiss against Zayn’s face, frowning a little as she registered the thunderclouds in his expression.
“Julia is not yet well enough to see people,” he intoned warningly.
Julia shook her head. “No, Zayn, this is helpful. Seeing you again, Adina, so much is coming back. You love desserts.”
Adina’s laugh was beautiful, like musical chimes and crashing waves. “Guilty as charged.”
“And you are looking after Maysan,” she guessed with a surging sense of relief.
“Thanks to you, yes. You told Zayn to call me, the day of your accident. She’s been staying here with us since then.”
“I’m so pleased,” Julia said earnestly. She knew there were still pieces to glue together. And she’d worked out just how to unearth them. The certainty that he was intentionally keeping her in the dark had grown. And out of nowhere, she realized she didn’t trust her husband. Not now, and not before the accident.
“Zayn, I have a terrible head ache suddenly. Do you think we might return home?”
* * *
Though Zayn had been incredibly attentive and watchful since her accident, he was a busy man, responsible for generating a small fortune every day. Meetings were unavoidable, though he’d cancelled or rescheduled as many as possible. All Julia had to do was wait; to wait until his next meeting took him from the home. As it happened, it was the morning after their trip to the palace. Her memory was fading in and out, but each time it faded in, it brought sharper clarity and detail into focus.
It would not be long before she had the answers.
“What will you do while I’m out?” Zayn asked, standing in the kitchen dressed in one of his immaculate, hand-stitched suits, sipping his thick black coffee.
Julia lifted her own mug to her lips and drank down the steaming brew gratefully. “I’m sure I’ll find something to keep me busy.”
She waited until his chauffeur driven car had left the compound-like house before setting her plan into action. With a fresh cup of steaming coffee, she moved slowly through the house. His office was on the ground floor, at the end of a long, tiled corridor. True to his word, there were hardly any staff members around, and besides that, who would care that she was entering his domain? She was his wife. Their house was hers as much as his, wasn’t it?
His laptop was open on the desk. He must have been using it that morning, because it was still opened, and no password was necessary to access the files.
Her heart was racing, pounding in her chest, as she sat down in his executive leather chair and set to work. Her coffee she placed to her left, but it was quickly forgotten.
She wasn’t really being sneaky. All she wanted was to see their emails. Surely she had every right to go through the correspondence that she herself had sent him? They had sent copious love letters to one another in the early days, and she just knew it would have been a component of their rediscovered relationship. She was so certain that the truth would be in their shared emails, that she hadn’t dared ask him, lest he say no. Because, for whatever reason, her husband was hiding something from her, and she needed to know what it was.
With unsteady fingers, she typed her own email address into the search bar at the top of the email program, and waited while a little wheel spun frantically, telling her the search was underway.
The screen remained mostly blank, though. There were hardly any emails, she realized with a frown, and most of them dated back years.
One in particular had an attachment, and with a curious frown, she clicked into it immediately.
And froze.
The first picture didn’t make any sense. She checked the date on the email and made a small noise of shock. It had been sent four years ago, and from her email account, but she’d never seen the photos before in her life.
It looked like her. Lying on the bed like that. She leaned in closer and looked properly at the picture. It was her. Unmistakably. There was the mole on her left thigh, clear as day. Why did he have these pictures, and where had he got them?
She scrolled lower and her sense of disbelief grew. Andrew! What the hell? Photographs of her and Andrew in bed together? It was unbelievable. Preposterous. And damned invasive, too.
She leaned back in his chair and closed her eyes, as his gently voiced enquiries yesterday came back to her. He’d been insistent that she’d been in a relationship with Andrew. He hadn’t seemed to believe her when she’d denied it. And now she knew why.
In the background of the pictures, she could just make out a gold statue, and a sense of panic gripped her as she realized what night these photos had been taken.
The end of year dinner, her first semester at law school. She should remember it well except she hardly remembered a thing. Different to her current memory loss, this one had been an instant black hole in her knowledge. She’d woken up the morning after the awards dinner feeling groggy and confused, with no recollection of the prior twelve hours. The last thing she recalled clearly was accepting the academic award, and then a champagne or two later, she’d been out of it.
Bile rose in her throat and she clamped her lips shut. She refused to vomit. She refused to give in to the grief and realization that were threatening to tear her apart. But like dominoes that had been stacked too closely, memories seared into her brain, flying at her hard and fast, collapsing noisily all around her.
It happened instantly and completely, so that she blinked, and remembered who she had married and why.
Julia had never felt angrier in her life, and she knew it for a fact, because now she remembered everything.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
She wasn’t sure how long she sat on the balcony, waiting for Zayn. It could have been just a few minutes, for all she was aware. Only the steady progress
of the sun through the sky gave her any idea that a more considerable block of time had passed. In the end, it must have been hours, because the stars were starting to twinkle overhead when his convoy made its stately entrance through the security gates.
She gripped the pictures tightly in her fingers, then forced herself to relax her hold as the paper began to crease under the pressure of her thumb. She didn’t know what she wanted to say to him, but she needed answers.
She heard him walk out onto the deck, but she didn’t turn to face him. Her face was a mask of grim reflection, and she kept her head forward, looking out but not seeing dusk blanket the city.
“Julia,” Zayn said, and his tone of voice was so wary that she knew instantly. He knew something was different.
“Why didn’t you tell me about these?” She asked stonily. She couldn’t look at him, so she simply extended a hand in his direction, waiting for him to take the pictures. He didn’t need to. The images were burned into his brain, so that one quick glance at the paper told him what she had discovered.
“You have remembered?” He ran his hands through his hair, and came to stand beside her.
“Yes,” she hissed, whipping around to face him now. “I’ve remembered everything.” Tears stung her eyes and she dashed at them angrily. “You’re an arsehole!”
He flinched but Zayn was a master of emotions, and the more emotional she became, the more important he found it to conceal what he felt. “Calm down, Julia.”
“Calm down?” She sobbed harshly. “What the hell, Zayn? What are these pictures?”
His face was cold. “You tell me. You are, after all, the one who emailed them to me.”
She blanched beneath his words. “I didn’t.” She shook her head fiercely. “I’ve never seen these pictures before in my life.”
“Why lie now? When there is so much water under the bridge? After all, we are husband and wife. It was years ago.”
“I mean it, Zayn. I have no recollection of this. I certainly didn’t send the images to you.”
He made a frustrated hissing noise under his breath. “I’ve waited so long for your explanation, and this is all I am to expect? A lie? And not even a very convincing one?”
“You really think I’d be so awful as to go to bed with Andrew, take photographs, and email them to you, the man I believed I was madly in love with at the time?”
“All evidence points to that conclusion,” he said frankly.
“Why would I do that?”
He scanned her face thoughtfully. “I believed it was because you’d been raised selfishly. That you wanted more of my attention than I was able to give you, and so you tried to earn it by making me jealous.”
For some reason, Julia laughed, though she was not even close to amused. “You’re kidding me? You’re a bloody genius, and that’s what you came up with?”
She spun back to the view and gripped the railing with both hands. “Why didn’t you talk to me? Then, I mean.”
“And give you what you wanted? You know I have more pride than that, Julia. To beg at the feet of a woman with so little regard for her body and her dignity…”
“I can’t believe this.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “So this marriage was your way of getting me back for some years’ old betrayal?”
“Not just that,” he contradicted honestly. “I always thought you would make a perfect royal wife.”
She shook her head angrily. “I told you the day you ‘proposed’ to me that I don’t want to be Queen.”
“And I said nothing,” he reminded her firmly. “I made you no promises.”
“But you knew how I felt. If you cared about me at all, why did you let me go through with this?”
“Because I wanted you,” he said honestly. “And I was prepared to do whatever it took to bring you to Naman as my wife.”
“Why?” She asked quietly, rubbing her hands along the smooth metal of the balustrade.
“Because I wanted you.” He repeated slowly.
“Like a possession,” she remembered with a shaking voice.
Zayn didn’t answer. Though he had known it was imminent, in some ways, he had not been prepared for the return of her memory just yet, and he certainly wasn’t ready to answer questions about the photographs.
“Amal has wanted to abdicate for years. It stands to reason your country will accept the transition more readily if you appear to have settled down. Married, maybe even with a child on the way.”
“Yes.” His eyes glowed in his symmetrical face and Julia fought the tide of nausea rising in her.
“But Zayn, you must have had any number of women begging to marry you.”
“The circumstances of our marriage made me believe you would always be loyal to me. After all, without my assistance, your father would be destitute by now.”
She nodded, sick comprehension dawning on her. “You really did want a wife you could control.”
“It’s more than that. I wanted you. Completely. I hadn’t stopped thinking about you in four years. I knew I had to marry you.”
“So you forced me to marry you. Real suave, Zayn.”
“Did I really have to force you?” He grabbed her shoulders and spun her around to face him. His eyes trapped hers in his analytical gaze and she felt a huge wall of sadness hit her in the face.
“What do you mean?” She asked, though she knew.
“You might not have slept with him, but you ended up in bed with Andrew. And I still couldn’t stop wanting you, despite despising you for your betrayal. I believe you despised my tactics, but are pleased with the result.”
She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “The result? Being married to you?”
“Exactly.”
She turned her head away from him resolutely. “You’re wrong.”
“Then explain your reaction to me last week. When you woke from your coma, you were jumping with joy that I was your husband. You told me I’m the love of your life.”
Her mouth gaped. How dared he use that against her? “And you told me you loved me! What were you thinking, Zayn? You’ve been playing a part this last week. Why? Once you had me as your wife, why pretend to be so doting and devoted?” But she didn’t need him to answer. Realisation dawned on her in an unwelcome rush. “You wanted to know about Andrew. You thought I might tell you in my amnesia fogged state. That’s why you were asking me about him yesterday. Oh my freaking God. I can’t believe you’d go to these lengths… we slept together, Zayn!”
“At your instigation,” he reminded her defensively.
“I thought we were in love! I thought our marriage was as it seemed!” She shrugged out of his arms and took a step backwards. “How could you do this to me?”
“Stop.” He held up a hand imperiously, knowing it was essential that he take control of the situation. He expelled a long, calming breath. “You’re nearly hysterical, and I have no patience for it. I will leave you to calm down, now.” He began to walk slowly towards the house.
“Stop? Stop? I’m nearly hysterical?” She stormed after him, and planted herself squarely between him and the elegant building. “You’re damned right I’m nearly hysterical. Everything has been a lie! You ruined my life and enacted some barbaric revenge plan on mis-information. You schemed to make my dad’s company fail, so that you and you alone could bail him out, and in doing so buy me! All because you were angry that I’d apparently cheated on you? Well, newsflash, Zayn. You were wrong! It never happened. On my life, and my father’s life, I swear to you, Andrew and I have never so much as kissed.”
He regarded her intently, but not by a flicker of his expression did he show any softening to this woman he’d married. “Then how do you explain these photos?”
She lifted her eyes to his face cautiously. “I can’t.” She thought back to that night. “That night is a complete blur.”
His look was scathing. “Another convenient memory lapse?”
“There is nothing convenient about it.” She winced in
pain. “I had some champagne, and then everything went blurry.”
Zayn crossed his arms over his chest, but his mind was going into overdrive.
“Anyway,” she tilted her chin proudly, “I don’t think I’m the one who owes you an explanation. It wasn’t long after that photo that you started seeing woman after woman, making sure to get your picture in every gossip magazine in the world. How did you think that made me feel?”
“Honestly? I hoped it would hurt you.”
She made a noise of indignant complaint. “Why?”
“No one cheats on me and gets away with it. It’s as simple as that.”
She pressed her lips together. “I didn’t cheat on you though. I swear.”
“Yes, you’ve said as much already.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“Frankly, no.” He pointed to the incriminating pictures. “Whatever happened, you ended up half naked in bed with a man who is obviously besotted with you.”
“So that’s it, then? On that basis, you believe I deserve whatever punishment you see fit to dole out to me? God, Zayn, how could I have ever believed I was in love with you?” She couldn’t stand it a moment longer. She turned her back on him and fled into the house. She kept running, until she’d reached the secret sanctuary at the top, where they’d spent that first disastrous night. It had been a sign of what was to come, only she hadn’t known it then. She hadn’t known that pain and misunderstanding would litter their marriage.
* * *
The office was nothing like Zayn had expected. Set on the outskirts of East London, the small legal aid building was dilapidated and disorganized. He waited, conscious that he made the small waiting room seem like a doll’s house with his broad chest and long legs. If it hadn’t been for his desire to dot all of the ‘I’s and cross all the ‘T’s, he wouldn’t have bothered coming.
Bought by The Sheikh Page 10