Bought by The Sheikh

by Clare Connelly

  “Adina says you are to be my aunt,” Maysan spoke in her own language and was translated by Adina.

  Julia smiled in agreement. “I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect niece,” she responded, reaching down and kissing the top of Maysan’s head.

  Moments later and Maysan went to play with a box of toys Amal had seen brought to Zayn’s home. “How she’s changed in such a short time,” Julia said with true contentment, as she watched the child happily investigating the brightly colored array of amusements in the box.

  Maysan was rounder and fleshier, and the pallor of poverty was gone completely. Her skin glowed with pleasure and health; her hair was soft, silky, washed and brushed, and her clothes were without stain. But most importantly of all, she seemed to carry herself with an air of confidence that could only have been inspired by the total adoration of her adoptive parents.

  “I’m very happy for you both,” Julia repeated, turning to face her sister in law.

  “I am sorry that we have rushed you,” Adina spoke, impervious to the thunderous look on Zayn’s face. “But we had to adopt her swiftly, to ensure she didn’t go into foster care. Even we aren’t above those adoption laws, it would seem.”

  Julia nodded, as the explanation served to confirm her suspicions. “You’re abdicating the throne,” she said to Amal.

  Behind her, Zayn was completely still.

  “Yes. I am.” He lifted his eyes to Zayn. “It should always have been Zayn.”

  “I think you do yourself a disservice,” Julia said quietly. Inside, she was a whirlpool of emotion. The earlier conversation was still raw, and now this knowledge that Zayn had acted without her opinion or consent was like a match being struck and held to a tin of kerosene. She had hoped he had changed. That his high-handed tactics were slowly giving way to cooperation and trust, but he had so much to learn.

  It was a long night, but finally, it drew to a close. Once the newly formed family had departed, and Zayn and Julia were alone again, he spoke immediately. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” he said honestly.

  Julia lifted her eyes thoughtfully. “You know how I feel about being in the spotlight. About being in Adina’s role … And yet you went ahead with it anyway.”

  He stiffened as he registered that she really was enraged, in a dangerous, silent kind of way. Despite the performance of the century, convincing Adina and Amal that her emotions were completely positive, she was angry with him, and had been nursing her temper all night.

  Zayn spoke slowly, trying to make her understand. “Even before we married, it was almost agreed between Amal and me. His loathing of the title is profound, and so was his unhappiness.”

  Her eyes flared. “And so you decided to throw me under the bus instead of him?”

  He had been educated abroad and understood her colloquialism perfectly. Besides, it was a perfect use of it. He had put Julia’s wishes last on his list, and simply hoped she would fall in with his plans. Or at least accept them, once she saw it was a fait accompli.

  “You will adapt,” he urged confidently, pulling her into his arms and pressing a kiss against the sensitive skin at the base of her neck.

  “I won’t,” she contradicted. Feeling like a noose was tightening around her neck, making breathing almost impossible, she forced herself to say what she’d realized earlier that night, when Adina had announced their adoption. She lifted her hands and pressed them against his chest, fingers splayed against his muscled torso. “I might have, if you’d given me the choice, Zayn.”

  “You still will,” he said firmly, but Julia shook her head.

  “No, you don’t understand. It’s the last straw. You have a terrible habit of steamrolling me, and making my decisions for me. Of putting me in a position where I simply have to go along with your wishes. I want you to think about this long and hard, Zayn. When was the last time you remember actually asking me what I wanted, rather than telling me?”

  He rubbed a hand over his stubbled chin, refusing to admit defeat. “I asked you to marry me.”

  Her laugh was genuine, but also maniacal, because she realized that hoping Zayn could understand her point of view was like him expecting her to wake up speaking Arabic. It wasn’t something that could happen overnight.

  “You didn’t ask me to marry you, Zayn. If you had done so, I may well have said yes. But you bullied me. You railed me into it. And you lay down all the terms of our union.” She lifted her chin. “I can’t do it anymore. I’m sorry.”

  His face froze with total shock, and she felt a stab of sorrow for him. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I’m sorry. I am. I love you, Zayn, with all my heart, but you’re bad for me, and if I stay here like this, I think you’ll continue to make unilateral decisions with my life.” She stood on tiptoes and kissed him on the lips, and her heart throbbed painfully with the anguished realization it might be the last time she ever felt his lips on hers. With legs that were shaking beneath her, she moved towards the door of the room.

  “You can’t leave.” His voice was thick with disbelief.

  Julia turned slowly and looked at him with sadness. “Because of our deal?”

  “To hell with the deal,” he swore. “Didn’t you hear me before? I love you. I’ve never said that before. I’ve never felt half of what I feel for you. Damn it, Julia, you said you love me. How can you throw that away?”

  “I’m not throwing anything away. I’m just… I’m just saving myself.”

  “Stop,” he said imperiously, falling into step behind her. “I’ll tell Amal that I can’t do it.”

  “No,” her voice was little more than a whisper now. “Adina’s right. You were born to rule. You love Naman and you love the crown. You just don’t love me enough to fit in with all that.”

  “You don’t have to be in the spotlight,” he negotiated reasonably, trying desperately to find a way to make it work.

  “You are missing the point. You made this decision without speaking to me. You deliberately lied to me when we got engaged. You see only the goal and the path to achieving it. I’m not just another object to be won. If this marriage was ever going to work, it would have needed compromise, respect and trust. We have none of those things.”

  “Julia…”

  “NO!” She screamed, pushing at his chest, and finally giving in to the tears that had been welling in her throat. “Don’t you get it? You’re breaking my heart all over again. Please, if you really love me, you’ll just let me go.”

  Zayn reached a hand up and brushed it gently through her hair, feeling a strange lurching sense of panic grip him as he nodded in agreement. “I do love you, Julia. If you ever change your mind…”

  She sobbed quietly as his words hit home. He was going to do it. He was going to let her go. She should have felt pleased, but her insides were twisting painfully.

  With one last, passionate kiss, filled with all their heartbreak and despair, their marriage was at end.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  What the hell had he been thinking?

  Zayn stared out of the palace windows onto the Quince grove beneath, but all he saw was an imprint of Julia, as she had been that afternoon. So happy and sublime, so elegant yet vibrant, weaving her way through the trees, asking questions about his childhood. He let out a small groan of frustration. It had been four long, tedious, difficult weeks, and despite the frenetic schedule he made himself keep, he could think of little else but his wife. Her absence was like a physical pain inside of him, one that he was struggling to ignore.

  He had never allowed something of such value slip through his fingers. Even before, when he’d been sure she’d cheated on him, he’d worked out a plan to get her back. His grim smile was humorless, as he reflected on the spectacular stupidity of that particular plan. He was a smart man, who should have known better. Nothing that you had to steal was truly worth possessing. Only her love, freely given, would answer this gaping hole in him. And she’d made it abundantly clear that she wasn’t
able to forgive him this time.

  * * *

  The climate in London turned on a dime, and the day which had started with such gloom, hinting cruelly of the Autumn that was to come, had transformed, as if by magic, into a perfect late Summer’s afternoon. As Julia meandered down the back streets of Knightsbridge, towards her small inner-city flat, she couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit of pleasure. Nothing compared to her usual love of the warmth and the city, and the vibrant locals who inhabited it, but a small part of her was still alive.

  For the most part, though, her body was an empty shell, going through the motions of life while her mind and heart were like tiny little shell-shocked beings, reverberating with distress at the sudden desperation that greeted her each day. Life without Zayn had been almost impossible to contemplate four years ago, but now… now that she’d lived with him, and been with him in the most intimate of ways, she didn’t know if she would ever adjust to this new state of existence.

  “Jules!” Georgie waved enthusiastically from the coffee shop they’d agreed to meet at. “Over here!”

  Julia nodded self-consciously, and side-stepped a mother with an old-fashioned perambulator style baby buggy to make it to her friend. Georgina was the epitome of glamour, as always, in a floating maxi dress with sparkling ballet slippers. Her long hair had been blow-dried to within an inch of its life, so that it hung in perfectly straight sheets from her beautifully made up face.

  From somewhere deep within, Julia dredged up what felt like a smile. “Hey, there, Georgie girl,” she employed their usual greeting, earning a flicker of a smile from her best friend.

  “I’m not fooled, Jules,” Georgie observed wryly. “You’re still miserable as they come, aren’t you?”

  Julia shrugged. “I’ll get over it.”

  “I know you will, darling. But you’re the happy one! I need you to get back to normal so I can become all maudlin and arty again. We can’t both be gloomy, you see.”

  Julia knew Georgie was telling a joke, but she wasn’t really able to concentrate. “Shall we get our coffees to go?”

  Georgina scrutinized her friend carefully. At least she’d put on normal clothes today. The eclectic fashion mis-haps of recent weeks had been truly mortifying. It had taken all Georgie’s patience as a friend not to march Julia back into her apartment and order her to change, most days. It was almost as if she’d just reached into her wardrobe and put on whatever she’d touched first. Which is precisely what she had been doing.

  It just so happened that today she’d managed to find an ensemble that didn’t scream tragic heart-break, coming through! In fact, the black singlet top and grey harem-style pants were remarkably on-trend, particularly when teamed with the strappy wedge sandals and messy pony-tail. Georgina had undertaken a university degree to placate her parents – her real passion was fashion and she was in the throes of selecting between an internship at Vogue and Harpers & Queen, so she rightly considered herself an expert in all things sartorial.

  “Let’s skip the coffee. I’ve got a bottle of Pinot Grigio in my bag. Let’s go back to your place, put on some vintage Madonna and get silly.”

  Julia looked at her with a frown, trying to compute what her friend had suggested. She wasn’t sure she particularly cared where they went or what they did and so she nodded her agreement.

  Julia’s flat was only a short walk from the café and as they made their way past the bustling pubs and restaurants, she tried her hardest to concentrate on what Georgina was discussing, but all she could think about was Zayn. What was he doing? Where was he? Had he already chosen her replacement? Undoubtedly options were thick on the ground for someone like him. Was there any chance at all that he was as miserable as she was? Was he wondering if they’d been the stupidest morons on the face of the earth to walk away from their marriage? Her certainty that their marriage couldn’t work was eroding day by day, leaving only desperation and pain in its place.

  “So which do you think? I mean, Vogue is like the bible, but Harpers & Queen has such cachet. Which would you choose?”

  Julia shook her head, clearing away the depressing cobwebs. She angled her face to stare directly in Georgie’s hazel brown eyes and grimaced. “I’m being a terrible friend, aren’t I?”

  “Yes,” Georgie said honestly. “I take it you weren’t listening to my monologue on the tyranny of options?”

  Julia couldn’t help but grin. “I’ll tell you this much. You should re-think a career as a writer. Your use of words is too funny to be wasted on fashion.”

  “Meh.” Georgie shrugged. “You go where the heart leads.”

  Was that true? Julia stopped walking and stared straight ahead, at the brightly painted door to her apartment building. Should she be going where her heart was leading her? Where she ached to be? With Zayn? Could she trust him enough to believe it could work? Because her heart wanted him desperately. It was her mind that was providing all the stumbling blocks.

  “What is your heart telling you?” She tried to focus on Georgie’s predicament, instead of her own emotional minefield.

  Georgina pulled a face. “I’m not one hundred percent certain, but I rather suspect the answer will lie at the bottom of this wine bottle. So let’s get to it.”

  With a small shake of her head, Julia laughed and pulled her key from her bag. “Sounds good to me. Only we’ll have to drink from coffee mugs; I seem to have broken all my wine glasses.”

  “That’s because you only use them for fruit juice and they’ve all burst into pieces in complete shame. It could be the first case of wine-glass suicide in the world. We’ll make up for it tonight; let’s go show those coffee cups the best time they’ve seen in ages.”

  Julia laughed again and spontaneously hugged her best friend. “Thank you, Georgie. I know I’m not a lot of fun at the moment. I really appreciate you sticking by me.”

  “Don’t be silly, Jules. You’ve seen me through enough crap to last a lifetime. I’m just sorry Andrew turned out to be such a douche.”

  Julia shook her head in disagreement, pushing the heavy wooden door open with her toe. “He isn’t,” she insisted, grabbing her mail from the hall stand and leading the way up the carpeted flight of stairs to her first floor apartment. “He isn’t like that now, and he wasn’t really like it then. We both know how drug-addled he was.”

  “How can you defend him?” Georgina asked, fuming. “He’s my cousin and I’ve dropped him like a hot potato for what he did to you. I mean, lacing your drink with vodka? And breaking up your relationship, too?”

  “Zayn broke up our relationship,” she demurred automatically. “But I really don’t want to talk about it. I’ve forgiven him; you should too.”

  “Maybe. When hell freezes over.”

  A sound from downstairs caught Julia’s attention and she leaned over the banister. The elderly tenant who lived beneath her had a habit of hearing the minute Julia arrived home, and she almost always had a small favor to ask of her. This afternoon was no different. Julia rolled her eyes at her friend and put her keys into Georgie’s hands. “Here. You go in; I’ll just go see to whatever it is Miss Trunchbull wants today.”

  Georgie laughed, because the description of the statuesque and rotund senior citizen was perfect.

  In the end, it was simply a matter of helping her send an email. Julia waited until she’d heard it go into the mystical ether and headed back upstairs.

  The door was wide open, but Georgie was just standing on the threshold. Slowly, she turned around, and her face was almost split in two with the most ridiculous smile Julia had ever seen.

  “What in the world has got into you?” Julia asked, curious.

  “Just… look.” Georgina stepped aside to allow her best friend access to the apartment.

  Or what used to be her apartment.

  Now it looked like the escape plan for every long stemmed red rose that feared a death in captivity. “What the heck?” She pushed into the apartment, overwhelmed by the sweet fragranc
e the roses lent the atmosphere. She spun around, but every single surface was covered in vases and pots of roses. She walked from the lounge room to the kitchen, then the dining room, and finally to her bedroom. Her Laura Ashley quilt cover was barely visible beneath the thick blanket of red roses.

  There was only one man capable of such a lavish gesture. With her heart racing, she ran back into the lounge, calling out, “Zayn?”

  “I found this.” Georgie was fingering a shiny grey envelope. The writing on the front was bold and cursive, and she recognized it instantly.

  Unsteadily, she took the envelope, casting her friend a look of disbelief as she lifted the triangle tab and slid the thick cardstock rectangle out.

  “Trust. Respect. Compromise. I can do all three; let me prove it to you. Come to my house at seven o’clock.”

  Her lips lifted in a small smile as she traced her finger tip over the writing. Even on paper, he was bossy. It was just so like him. But she’d come to realize that his habit for issuing directives wasn’t the worst trait a man could have. In fact, she actually liked his baldly honest approach to life.

  Georgie read the card over Julia’s shoulder and then hugged her friend. “Thank God you are getting back together. I was seriously considering killing you if this depressing fog continued any longer.”

  “We are not necessarily getting back together,” Julia said firmly. “You know me. You know I couldn’t be married to someone who rides roughshod over my decisions.”

  “I think,” Georgie said teasingly, gesturing to the room, “he’s trying to tell you that he wants to change.”

  Julia couldn’t help it. She smiled properly now, as butterflies spread through her body and her heart began to thud heavily against her ribcage.

  In the elegant streets of Kensington, where many ambassadorial residences were concealed behind security fences and tinted windows, was the official residence of the Namani Royal Family. Julia had been here several times when they’d dated before, and gaining entry was not difficult. Besides, Zayn must have advised his security team that she was expected.