Desert Jewels & Rising Stars

by Sharon Kendrick

  The double doors to the palace were opened by two armed guards who stood still, faces stoic, as she and Adham passed them and walked into the outer chamber.

  The palace in Turan was beautiful, but it was comprised of hand carved stone and antique, woven tapestries, sedate next to the inlaid marble that covered the domed walls and ceiling in the entryway of the Umarahn palace. The floors were black high-gloss tile, the walls a deep green and blue, with fine gold filigree separating the different stones. There was so much color—color that was designed to show the riches of its owner.

  “So,” she said, exhaling, “this is my palace?”

  A short laugh escaped Adham’s lips. “Indeed it is, Principessa.” The Italian version of his usual name for her made her heart trip. His accent was more pronounced when he spoke Italian—a language he was obviously less comfortable with than English. She found it very sexy, his heavy Arabic accent putting a unique stamp on her native language.

  She turned her face away from him sharply. There was no point in lingering over all the things about Adham she found attractive. Not when she was about to meet her future husband.

  She gritted her teeth, fighting the sting of tears again.

  A man dressed in flowing robes came sweeping into the room, and Isabella’s heart sank. But as he walked closer she could see that it was not her fiancé. She’d only seen a couple pictures of Hassan, but she remembered his face.

  “Numair.” Adham inclined his head.

  “Sheikh Adham,” the other man returned.

  So she’d been right. He was nobility of some kind, an important man. Not simply a bodyguard.

  “I am here to see High Sheikh Hassan. I bring him his bride.” Adham’s words were clipped, his manner formal.

  Numair looked to the side, as though he were reluctant to look at Adham directly. “Hassan is not here. He is on retreat.”

  Adham stiffened. “And how long will he be gone?”

  This time Numair turned shifty eyes to her. “He is to be … delayed until the wedding, I’m afraid.”

  “I see. Please bring someone to show the Princess to her room.”

  Relief washed through her. She didn’t have to face Hassan. Not today. Not for another two months. But she was still to be confined to the walls of the palace. Would Adham leave her here alone? The idea made her stomach churn with nerves.

  “You will not accompany me?” she asked, hating the obvious fear that edged her voice.

  “It would not be appropriate,” he said tightly, not looking at her, his eyes fixed ahead, his hands locked behind his back. “Hadiya will show you to your chambers.”

  A small girl with glossy dark hair and a sweet smile came into the room as if on cue. “Salaam, “ she said, inclining her head, and Isabella returned the greeting.

  Isabella followed Hadiya, but she was powerless to stop herself from looking back at Adham. His eyes were fixed on her, intensity blazing from them. She felt the heat burn through her, her stomach contracting sharply. She whipped her head back around and turned her focus to where she was headed, her heart thundering madly.

  “These are the women’s quarters,” Hadiya said. “Men are not allowed.” A slight sparkle lit her dark eyes. “Of course they do not always follow the rules.”

  Would Adham? He was a man who seemed to live to enforce rules, to ensure that honor was upheld. Which probably excluded visits to the women’s quarters. She wasn’t sure how to handle that. It felt as though he was her lifeline.

  Isabella could only offer a weak smile.

  “The High Sheikh had this room prepared for you months ago—for after the wedding.”

  Isabella nearly sighed with relief. She would have her own room. In her own wing of the house. That way, at least, she would have some space from her husband. The word made her stomach clench.

  Hadiya opened a massive door and revealed a spacious room draped in swathes of fabric in rich, saturated colors. They hung from the ceiling, and were draped so that they gathered around the bed like an extravagant canopy. There were doors that led out to what looked like a walled garden. So this was her cage. It was gilded nicely. She would say that for it.

  “Thank you, Hadiya,” she said.

  The girl inclined her head. “I’ll bring your things in later.”

  “Thank you,” Isabella repeated, somewhat inanely.

  When Hadiya left Isabella fought the urge to give in to her grief. Instead she walked across the high-gloss jade floor and went to stand at the window, pulling the heavy blue drapes back. The garden was lovely—an oasis with man-made waterfalls and flowering trees and bushes. There was a carved stone bench in the middle of all of it.

  It was clear that real effort had been put into the space, although it hadn’t been tailored to her likes and dislikes specifically. It was simply an elaborate space designed to please any woman. And she did like it, so it would be childish to find fault with it simply on principle.

  She pressed her forehead against the glass, felt the heat from outside, and hoped that it might warm the chill that was spreading through her.

  “Isabella.”

  Adham’s husky voice made her pulse jump. She turned and her heart stopped. He was standing there, her bags in his hands.

  “I thought men weren’t allowed here,” she said.

  “We aren’t.” He set her bags down at the foot of the sumptuous bed.

  “You’re breaking the rules. Doesn’t that violate your code of honor? “

  “I’ll risk it.”

  “Are you leaving?” she asked.

  He nodded curtly, and she hoped that the devastation she felt wasn’t evident on her face. “I have other business to deal with.”

  “Babysitting another princess?”

  A small smile curved his lips. “You’re the only one.”

  “Good.” And she meant it. She didn’t want to think of him with another woman. Although just because he wasn’t princess-sitting it didn’t mean he wasn’t going to find a woman. One of the women he had an arrangement with.

  “We’re installing a new rig in our oil fields. I like to be on site for major events like that.”

  “You do so much, Adham,” she said. “What have I done?”

  “You’ve seen the Eiffel Tower. You have a picture.”

  “Yes.” Now it really did feel as if tears were imminent. Her throat was aching with the effort of holding them back. “I don’t have a picture of you, though.”

  “Bella.” he said, the name so soft and sweet on his lips that her body shuddered.

  “Just one.” She reached for her purse and pulled out her camera, aiming it at him. His facial expression didn’t change.

  “Didn’t anyone teach you that you need to smile for pictures?” she asked.

  Then he smiled, and she felt a tear escape as she captured the moment she’d so longed to see. “You should smile more,” she said softly, touching the screen, the image of Adham.

  “I don’t smile?”

  She shook her head. “Not enough.”

  “I used to.”

  “What happened?”

  A shadow passed over his handsome face, his dark eyebrows locking together. “I had to grow up much faster than I should have. That life experience we’ve talked about. I know you feel you’ve been overprotected, but trust me, Bella, it is better than seeing what I have seen.”

  His hand flexed as he lifted his arm, as if he meant to touch her, but then he dropped it, clenching his hand tightly into a fist. “I’ll see you again at the wedding.”

  He turned and left there, alone, feeling as though something inside her had broken.

  “Where are you?” When Hassan finally answered his phone, Adham was on the point of losing his temper with his older brother.

  “I’m at the summer palace.”

  Adham tamped down a surge of annoyance. His brother was at their recreational home—a place they had gone as children for vacations. Before they had lost their parents.

  “
Well, I am here in Maljadeed, with your bride, only to discover that you are not.”

  “You were supposed to entertain her in France.” His brother actually sounded angry—a rarity.

  Adham’s pulse quickened at the thought of how he might have kept Isabella entertained had they stayed in Paris. She had become too great a temptation. Hassan was the most important person in his life, the last remaining member of his family and his king. Betraying him was unthinkable. Isabella was only a woman, a beautiful woman, but beautiful women were plentiful. He would be able to find another one now, to help take the ravenous edge off his libido.

  “She wished to come here.” A lie, but in the circumstances he felt it a well-justified one.

  “I cannot come back just yet.”

  “And I cannot stay here, if that is what you have in mind.”

  “Adham, please stay with her. I would not ask this of you if it were not so important.”

  “What is so pressing that your bride becomes my responsibility?”

  There was a long stretch of silence before Hassan spoke again. “I am with Jamilah.”

  “Jamilah”

  “She is … I am in love with her, Adham. And soon I must marry Isabella. Jamilah will not have me then. She has told me. She will not be my mistress—and, believe me, I have begged her to change her mind. But what can I do? The contract is signed. I need these last moments. I cannot leave her now.”

  His gut response to his brother’s pronouncement was anger. Anger at the thought of Isabella being betrayed, that his brother was willing to be unfaithful to Isabella once he had made vows to her. He shut it off, ignored it. His loyalty lay with Hassan, not Isabella.

  “And you intend me to stay here with your fiancée while you toy with your girlfriend?”

  “I am not toying with her,” Hassan said, his voice rough. “I have only these two months; do not ask me to sacrifice them.”

  “I would not,” Adham said, clipped.

  “Then stay with Isabella, so she does not feel abandoned. I cannot imagine she would wish to be left there at the palace with no one but staff to keep her company.”

  “Of course not.”

  “You could take her to see some of the city. Show Isabella her new home. I’ll bet she would enjoy seeing the oasis at Adalia.”

  She would enjoy it. She would want to take pictures.

  “I will owe you for this, Adham,” his brother said, his voice pleading.

  Adham gritted his teeth, his grip on the phone tightening. “Yes, you will.”

  “I’ll be indebted to you for this. Gladly.”

  Adham gave his brother a curt farewell and snapped his phone shut. He had thought to escape the hell of unsatisfied longing he’d been living in back in Paris. He had thought that he would be getting away from his future sister-in-law, gaining distance, plus time with another woman, so that when he saw her again on the day she was to become his brother’s wife he would feel nothing.

  She is only a woman.

  There was no reason that she should tempt him. Yes, she was beautiful—sexy beyond belief. But she was nothing more than an innocent virgin. Virgins held no appeal to him. He enjoyed women with experience. Women who excelled in coy flirtation and sexual games. Women who kept their emotions in control at all times, who were as hardened and cynical as he was. Not women with eyes that were unguarded windows to their souls.

  Isabella was not meant for a man like him. He would only tarnish her. He could not give her what she deserved, and neither did he want to. She needed someone who could treat her with softness, possibly offer love—which he had no doubt, given a couple of years to forget his woman, Hassan could do.

  Adham had lost the ability to love when he’d watched his mother fall to the ground at his feet, her life snuffed out by an assassin’s bullet. His father had met with the same end. Only he and Hassan had remained. Adham had been able to keep Hassan barred from the room—had spared him the sight, spared him the injury.

  But he had seen. He had watched his parents die in front of him. It was only by a twist of fate the bullet he had taken hadn’t killed him too.

  Years in military service and protecting his country had helped the wounds created on that day to scar over, to harden completely. There had been times when he had been forced to choose between his own life or the life of his enemy. The fact that he lived was testament to the choices he’d made.

  He could not offer a woman love. Did not know how to be a husband or a father. His hands—hands that had taken life—could never cradle a child.

  Even if Hassan were not in the picture, he would not touch Isabella.

  There would be no taking the edge off tonight. Yes, there were women who worked in the palace who would be willing to come to his bed, but he would not take advantage of them in such a way. And, no matter what his plans had been, he would not sleep with one woman while picturing the face of another.

  He stalked into the bathroom that connected to his chambers. The only way he would be able to relax tonight would be with the aid of a cold shower.

  When Isabella emerged from her room the next morning to find some breakfast, Adham was sitting at the dining table, with nothing but a mug of coffee placed in front of him.

  “I thought you would have left.” She hoped the surge of happiness that had just rocked her wasn’t totally obvious in her tone. It disturbed her, the intensity of the joy that overtook her when she saw that he was still there, when she saw he hadn’t abandoned her.

  “Hassan is detained, and shall be until the wedding. He has asked that I stay with you so that you are more comfortable.” There was no warmth in his voice. It was clear by how he spoke that he didn’t want to be with her.

  “Did he order you to stay?”

  “No. But I would not feel right about leaving you here by yourself.”

  “I would be fine.” Three servants came into the room, one carrying a carafe filled with coffee, one with a platter of fruit, the other with two bowls of some kind of hot grain cereal. “And I would hardly be alone,” she said, as one of the bowls was set in front of her.

  “Should there be a security issue, I would feel better being here.”

  “Is that a possibility?”

  “It’s always a possibility. When Hassan is here it will fall to him to protect you, but as he is not I will ensure that you’re safe.”

  “Thank you,” she said stiffly.

  She was glad he was staying. In fact she was much happier about it than she should be. And that made her wish he had left. What was the point of nurturing her feelings for him? Feelings that were growing along with her attraction to him, despite her best efforts.

  “If you wish to explore I could take you to see Adalia. It’s an oasis about two hours from here that the royal family has used for centuries. In times of war, or imminent threat, they would escape to the desert and wait until the danger had passed.”

  The idea of escaping the confines of the palace made her feel as though a band that had been slowly tightening across her chest had loosened, enabling her to breathe again.

  “Yes, I would like that.”

  “You will have to change into suitable clothes. Hadiya can help you with that.”

  Suddenly she was brimming with excitement again. She wasn’t simply going to be locked in the palace until the wedding. She was going to be with Adham.

  And, as foolish as it was, she felt that if she was with Adham the most important piece of her life was in place.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ISABELLA could tell they were getting closer to the oasis when the sparse scrub brush that lined the road began to grow taller, the color deepening, giving way to a line of cypress trees that reached to the faded blue sky.

  “You were right,” she said softly, her eyes trained on the horizon, on the flat topped rocks that looked as though they had been set right on top of the red sand, “it is beautiful.”

  “And dangerous.”

  “Life is dangerous, though, is
n’t it, Adham?”

  She noticed his knuckles whiten as he gripped the steering wheel of the off-road vehicle more tightly. “It can be.”

  “You know that more than most people, don’t you?”

  “Why do you ask that?”

  “Because you’re always telling me how much life experience can take from you. I imagine you must have personal experience with that.”

  “I was in the military,” he said, his voice clipped. “You see things … do things that are not always easy. But it was to protect my country and I cannot regret it.”

  “But you do.” She looked out of the window, at the fruit trees that were starting to appear with increasing frequency. “Have you ever been shot?” She didn’t really want to hear the answer—didn’t want to imagine him in so much pain.

  “Yes. I have also had to use my weapon against others.” He paused, and the full meaning of his words gripped her, took root. “No matter the reasoning, taking another man’s life is not something to find pride in.”

  She shook her head. “You wouldn’t. I know you wouldn’t. You would have had to have good reason.” She believed it. Absolutely and implicitly. She knew Adham would never harm someone unless it was to save his own life, or the life of an innocent party.

  “You know this for sure?”

  “You’re a good man, Adham. Even when you irritate me I don’t doubt that.”

  “I irritate you?” he asked.

  “Sometimes. But I know that I irritate you as well.”

  “Sometimes,” he agreed easily.

  She was glad to hear some humor in his voice. Especially after the bleakness she’d heard when he’d spoken of his time in military service.

  “Is this man-made?” she asked, staring at the rock crag that seemed to have grown straight out of the desert sands, arcing over them slightly, providing very heavy cover from the midday sun and making shade for trees and animals beneath its bulk.

  “No. This is God’s provision. Even in the desert there is life, if you know where to look.”