by Heidi Rice
He had played with fate too many times before, he had known the risks always, had been so careful to guard against them, but with Kasia it had never even entered his head. Was that significant? Was there some comfort in knowing their fates had already been sealed?
‘Is everything okay?’
He turned to find her watching him, her hands clasped against her breasts, the rings on her fingers glinting.
The surge of renewed yearning was unmistakeable even as his mind reeled with the implications of what had just transpired. He examined her artless expression, looking for signs of duplicity.
Had she planned this? To trap a prince? The broken-down Jeep, the gunshot, the long night as she’d helped him through the nightmare and then come to him at the waterside?
It seemed unlikely but plausible, until he remembered the storm.
No, she could not have planned that. Perhaps she had simply seen an opportunity and acted on it. Bitterness rose in his throat, but he swallowed it. Whatever her plots and schemes to get them here, he must take the lion’s share of the blame. He was in charge of his own libido.
He was the one who had chosen to seduce her without knowing enough about her. And had lost control so spectacularly—as soon as he had pressed his face into the sweet seam of her sex and tasted her arousal.
Whatever her reasons, her motives, whichever one of them was to blame, the consequences were stark and inescapable.
Shifting onto his side, he placed a hand on her cheek and hooked the riot of midnight hair behind her ear.
‘I should not have taken you without protection,’ he said, feeling humiliated all over again about his loss of control. ‘There is no excuse. But a pregnancy hardly matters. Now we are to be wed.’
Her eyes popped wide. She scrambled into a sitting position, her brows shooting up her forehead.
‘What?’ she said, her tone raw with shock.
Interesting. Either she was the greatest actress he had ever seen, or she had not planned to trick him into marriage.
He took some solace from that. He had not been the only one to lose their head in the intense heat of their lovemaking.
He propped his head on his hand and studied her, convinced her shock was entirely genuine. And actually quite beguiling.
A delicious blush darkened her skin. She was exquisite. Perhaps this marriage would not be such a hardship.
‘You were a virgin, Kasia,’ he said, because she looked as if she was waiting for an explanation. Although he did not know why. However long she had been out of the kingdom, surely she must know of the sacred marriage laws of the Sheikhs, being Narabian. ‘Even though I am a bastard, the blood of the royal house of Nawari flows in my veins,’ he prompted, but still she looked clueless. ‘So we must now be married.’
‘But I can’t marry you. I don’t even know you. There won’t be a baby, I’m right at the beginning of my cycle.’
He frowned. Okay, she looked more than shocked now, she looked panicked.
‘A pregnancy is not the reason. Honour dictates it,’ he continued, his throat closing on that one crucial word.
Honour. The one thing his father hadn’t been able to steal from him. His honour had sustained him, through the loneliness, the pain, the starvation, the thirst, and the many other humiliations of being a boy without a people. Honour had ensured his survival. Had driven him to fight and fight until he had eventually triumphed. Not just finding a people, but becoming their Chief.
His honour meant everything to him and he could not compromise it. Not for anything. Or anyone. Not even himself.
‘I have taken your maidenhead,’ he added. ‘To maintain my honour, I must make you my wife and my consort.’
* * *
‘But that’s...’ Kasia pulled in a few precious breaths, trying to stop herself from hyperventilating, not easy when she was edging towards hysteria. ‘You can’t be serious.’
Raif stared at her, his frown only making him more handsome. But she was so over the ripples of awareness making her sex throb.
‘I am absolutely serious,’ he said. ‘We have no choice now.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. There’s always a choice.’
‘Kasia.’ He pressed his palm to her cheek, making the traitorous ripples worse. ‘You must calm down...you are breathing too fast.’
She jerked her head back. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t have a sensible conversation with him, especially not when he was looking at her with that pragmatic intensity.
She’d heard of the Law of Marriage of the Sheikhs. The ancient, archaic law was written into the country’s scrolls. Scrolls she had studied along with Cat, once upon a time. She had once whispered about the old law furtively with her school friends. How it was a dream come true, a way for nobodies like them to become queens.
But it wasn’t a dream any more, it was a nightmare.
The old law hadn’t even occurred to her when she’d neglected to mention her virginity to Raif. Because she’d been far too caught up in the moment to think about anything. Not even contraception!
Standing up, she grabbed her T-shirt and tugged it on. She couldn’t stay here and have this conversation. It took a while for her to find the armholes because she was shaking so hard.
Why hadn’t she given a lot more thought to the repercussions of sleeping with Raif? He was clearly autocratic and arrogant. But what had been so exciting and seductive before she’d slept with him seemed fraught with disaster now.
She didn’t want to be married to a stranger. She was supposed to be returning to Cambridge. This trip was to do preliminary research for a PhD in the eco-systems of the Narabian desert she was hoping to get funding for.
The intimacy of what they had shared would be tarnished for ever by his callous demand that she succumb to his will. And for what? To maintain his honour? What about hers? She was a person, an individual, with her own free will. He couldn’t ride roughshod over her future, her choices, because she’d been too caught up in the moment to warn him of her virginity.
She’d always promised herself that when she married, if she married, she would marry for love. She wanted the kind of fairy-tale romance Cat and Zane shared. She would never marry for duty or honour. And especially not to a man who didn’t seem to know the difference between honour and duty and love.
She tugged on her shorts, suddenly desperate to escape the stifling tent, and the scene of her downfall, the lingering scent of sex only emphasising her stupidity.
If you slept with a man you didn’t know, what the heck did you expect?
That had been her mistake. Not just trusting him, but trusting her own judgement. Because there was an element of what she’d done that made her remember her mother. The woman she hadn’t seen since she was a girl.
‘I can’t be your mother any more, Kasia. Your grandmother will take good care of you.’
Her mother had abandoned her—because she could no longer bear the shame of having a child out of wedlock. Of being ostracised, vilified, damned for her pregnancy when she was alone. But Kasia had paid a far greater price, forced to grow up without her mother and battle for years the insecurities her absence had wrought—and all because of customs that punished people for loving in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
She did up the buttons of her shorts with clumsy fingers.
But as she went to leave the tent, he grasped her elbow.
‘Where are you going?’ he demanded.
‘I need some air, and some time to think. And to wash.’
He’d put on his pants, thank goodness, but even so desire echoed in her sex as her gaze connected with his broad chest. She could see the red marks etched into the tattoo covering his shoulder where she had held him in the throes of passion.
What had she been thinking? Giving herself to him, without a thought to any of the consequences?
She could hear the steely determination in his voice.
But this was madness.
Why should they honour a code that had been set down hundreds of years before they were even born?
‘I need to be alone for a bit,’ she said. ‘To consider all this. It’s a lot to take in.’
He let his hand drop. Then he nodded. ‘Okay, go to the pond and bathe, I will pack up here. We must travel to the Golden Palace before nightfall. Speak to your relatives.’
What? Panic clawed at her throat. ‘But I don’t have any relatives. Not since my grandmother died. Maybe if we just don’t tell anyone about...’
‘We cannot lie, that would be an even greater breach of honour,’ he interrupted her, his frown deepening. ‘If you have no relatives, then I will make the request for your hand to my brother. He is your employer, yes?’
He was moving too fast. She didn’t want Zane and Cat to know what she’d done. She certainly didn’t want to put them in the middle of this situation. They would, of course, support her decision. They weren’t barbarians like Raif. But from the few times Prince Kasim had mentioned his half-brother it was obvious their relationship was problematic at best, and probably delicately balanced politically.
Good grief, her stupidity could start a new war.
The panic started to consume her.
Breathe—just breathe. And don’t add any more drama than you absolutely have to.
She forced her lungs to function. Struggled to think. ‘How far are we from the palace?’ she asked, as a plan began to form in her head.
‘A day’s ride, to the north,’ he said.
Oh, thank goodness.
‘Okay,’ she said as a strange calmness descended. ‘I won’t be too long.’
He grasped her arm. ‘Do not despair, Kasia,’ he said, his voice strained.
Her heart beat heavily against her ribs.
‘We will find a way to make this work,’ he said.
She nodded. Because she couldn’t bring herself to speak.
Arguing with him was pointless. And she’d never been very good at disguising her feelings. If he knew how frantic she was, and how determined not to go through with this madness, he might not let her leave. But as she left, she couldn’t resist glancing over her shoulder.
He stood, tall and proud and indomitable, trusting her to return.
She couldn’t help hating herself a little as she headed towards the oasis, then doubled back through the trees. She didn’t take any time to saddle his horse, simply used the corral’s railings to mount the huge beast.
She hadn’t ridden a horse for five years. But she had been an accomplished rider, as happy riding bareback as with a saddle. She prayed the ability hadn’t left her as she kicked her bare heels into the horse’s flanks. It snorted and reared, but she clung to its mane, her thigh muscles straining, the tenderness in her sex rubbing against the ridge of its spine.
She heard a shout and saw Raif run out of the tent, his face a mask of surprise and then fury as his stallion cleared the fence in one bound.
She dug her heels into the horse’s sides, bent her head low over its neck and allowed the beast to have its head, managing to direct it towards the north as it flew over the rocks and towards the dunes.
Tears blurred her eyes, but she didn’t look back this time.
She couldn’t.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘KASIA, IF SOMETHING happened to you, however traumatic, you know you can tell me, right?’
Kasia stopped folding her recently unpacked clothes back into her suitcase. Her best friend, Catherine Ali Nawari Khan, stood with her back pressed against the door of Kasia’s chamber, her face a picture of concern and distress.
Kasia nodded, determined to keep her voice calm and even. Or as calm and even as she could while the shame threatening to choke her since she’d arrived back at the palace an hour ago—heck, the shame that had been choking her since she’d galloped over the dunes and away from Raif’s encampment—expanded another few centimetres.
‘I just... I need to return to Cambridge.’ It was cowardly, but it was the decision she’d made as she’d ridden Raif’s horse.
She’d made a terrible mistake, not just sleeping with Raif but not telling him about her virginity. She’d put them both in an impossible situation—a situation that could have constitutional implications for both countries if Raif continued his quest to marry her—and the only way to remedy the problem was to leave. And leave quickly, before he followed her to the palace.
She’d had a lucky break, spotting the column of SUVs that had been sent out to search for her only an hour after leaving his encampment. They’d driven her straight back to the palace, where Cat and Zane had been waiting. There had been hugs and kisses, tears of joy and relief, but then had come the questions. What had happened to her? How had she survived after her vehicle had been buried? Was she okay now? Did she need a doctor?
She’d devised a deliberately vague story. She’d been rescued by a tribesman who had taken her to his encampment and then loaned her his horse to return to the palace once the sandstorm had settled. But as soon as Zane had suggested they contact the man and thank him for his help, she had known her story wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny for long. Not least because she suspected Zane knew she wasn’t telling the whole truth. As soon as he’d tried to probe into the facts—why hadn’t the man given her a saddle, where were her shoes, where did they return the horse as it was clearly a valuable thoroughbred—Cat had intervened, insisting Kasia be given time to bathe and eat and recover from her ordeal. But she’d known it was only a matter of time before Cat’s concern got the better of her.
Tears welled in her eyes. And Cat rushed across the chamber.
‘Kasia—oh, my God. I knew something was wrong.’ Gathering Kasia in her arms, she pressed a kiss to her forehead. ‘Did the man who rescued you assault you, is that it? Whatever happened, it’s not your fault, okay? You don’t have to leave. We’ll figure this out.’
Kasia shook her head, scrubbing away the tears of self-pity. She didn’t deserve Cat’s concern, didn’t deserve her friend’s comfort. And she was going to have to explain herself. Admit the humiliating mistakes she’d made while at the same time protecting everyone—Raif included—from the consequences.
‘It’s not that, he didn’t assault me. In fact, it was the other way around. I actually... I shot him.’
Cat’s eyebrows rose, but her gaze remained supportive and direct. ‘Is he dead?’ she asked flatly.
‘Goodness, no. He’s okay, it was only a flesh wound.’
‘All right,’ Cat said. ‘Well, that’s good, I guess,’ she added as if she weren’t sure.
A raw chuckle burst out of Kasia’s throat. ‘How can it be good?’ she said. ‘I still shot him.’
‘So what? If he was assaulting you, he got what he deserved,’ Cat said, with complete pragmatism. And Kasia felt the tears scour her throat again.
‘But he wasn’t assaulting me,’ she managed through the emotion thickening her throat. ‘He was rescuing me from the sandstorm.’
‘And you both survived, so it’s all good,’ Cat countered, gripping Kasia’s arms. ‘But something else happened, right? Something that’s made you think you have to leave. And that’s not—’
‘I slept with him and now he’s insisting we get married because I was a virgin.’ The words burst out of Kasia’s mouth in a flood, silencing Cat.
Her friend’s eyebrows rose again. ‘Okay,’ she said. Her eyes narrowed as she stroked Kasia’s arms in a gesture of solidarity K
asia wasn’t sure she deserved.
‘He definitely didn’t coerce you into sleeping with him?’ she asked.
‘No, no, he didn’t.’
If only he had, she might be able to let herself off the hook. But how could she, when she had been fully compliant, he’d given her a clear choice and she’d taken it. Heck, she hadn’t just taken it, she’d jumped at it. ‘It was absolutely, one hundred percent consensual.’
‘Are you sure, Kaz?’ Cat said gently. ‘If he was your first, sometimes the issue of consent can be more complex.’
‘Not this time. I wanted it to happen, very much,’ she murmured in the interests of full disclosure, the humiliating truth making her cheeks burn. ‘We’d spent the night together. He was exhausted and then he had this terrible nightmare... It was intimate and I totally objectified him. Because...’ The flush climbed up to her hairline. ‘He’s really, really hot. And when we did it, I enjoyed it. A lot. In fact, I had two orgasms. I really couldn’t have asked for a better experience for my first time. But afterwards...’
She sat down on the bed, scrubbed her hands over her face, trying to erase the brutal memory of his face, so indomitable, so proud, so unyielding—and yet so trusting. ‘He was adamant that his honour means we have to get married.’ She clasped her hands together in her lap, remembering the leap of her stupidly romantic heart when he’d suggested it.
For a moment she’d actually considered it. She’d been shocked, yes, but a tiny part of her had been flattered and excited. Because that teenager who had spun romantic dreams about Raif before she’d ever met him had leapt out of hiding. But that adrenaline hit had been quickly followed by the cruel, harsh jolt of reality as soon as he’d begun to talk about honour and duty.
Marrying Prince Kasim, marrying anyone in these circumstances, would be totally wrong. However hot he was, or however many orgasms he could give her. They’d been thrown together by chance and, yes, they had sexual chemistry. But that was all they had. They didn’t know each other.