by Andie Brock
I appeal to you today as my only brother...
CHAPTER NINE
IT WAS THE falcon soaring overhead that eventually gave away Zayed’s whereabouts, majestically cutting through the early-morning pale blue sky to land on his master’s outstretched arm.
By the time Nadia had reached them they were back at the weathering yard, the area where these pampered, highly trained killers spent their days. Nadia didn’t like these birds any more than they looked as if they liked her. Their sharp beaks and even sharper eyes made her decidedly nervous.
But the sight of Zayed with this falcon on his arm sent her heart rate, already beating fast from the exertion of hurrying here, whirring into overdrive. Wearing jeans and a thick grey sweater, he stood tall and majestic, looking even more dashingly handsome than usual in this rural setting, the bird perched on the worn leather gauntlet on his arm.
They both turned in her direction as she cautiously approached. Neither of them looked pleased to see her.
Nadia steadied herself. The excitement of her errand was tinged with more than a little anxiety of how Zayed would receive it.
She had woken early that morning, the realisation of what she had done the night before, rashly sending that email to Azeed, making her reach across for the laptop on her bedside table. She hadn’t supposed Azeed would reply. She would delete her message, then Zayed would never know what she had done.
But with a gasping intake of breath she’d realised she was wrong. For it had been there—a reply from Azeed Al Afzal. Impatiently pushing the tangled curls away from her face, she had clicked on the email with a shaking hand, her eyes darting over the message. And what she had seen was even better, more exciting than she could have hoped for.
Now Nadia just had to let Zayed know the good news.
‘Hello there,’ she started breezily.
‘What are you doing here?’ It wasn’t an auspicious start, Zayed obviously not in the mood for pleasantries.
‘I just thought I would come and find you.’ Nadia stopped in front of them, gulping down a dry breath, her chest rising and falling rapidly. ‘To tell you that you have a message.’
‘A message?’
‘Yes.’ She forced herself to look into his eyes. ‘An email. From Azeed.’
‘Azeed?’ A mixture of shock and hope crossed his face, twisting something deep inside her. The falcon ruffled its feathers.
‘I was checking the emails this morning, for the charity work, I mean, and I just happened to notice it.’ Nadia’s rehearsed speech tangled round her tongue, the piercing stares of both Zayed and the creature sitting on his arm proving difficult to ignore. ‘I thought you would like to know straight away.’
‘Yes, thank you.’ His words held a caution now, as did his eyes, boring into her, questioning, suspicious. Nadia braced herself, waiting for the interrogation.
‘This email, when did it arrive?’
‘Um, early this morning, I think.’
‘Early this morning.’ He repeated her answer, his eyes never leaving her face. ‘So it just happened to arrive when you were in possession of my laptop?’
‘Yes.’ Nadia’s casual reply wasn’t fooling either of them, as Zayed’s narrow-eyed stare clearly proved.
‘How very fortuitous.’
‘Well, actually—’
‘Save it.’ His voice harsh now, Zayed’s jaw clenched before he turned away from her, moving to transfer the reluctant bird onto one of the circular perches behind them. ‘I’ll see you back in the palace in ten minutes.’
Nadia hesitated. She was going to have to tell him what she’d done. But maybe she would wait until they were inside. Until they were well away from that bird.
* * *
‘Just what is the meaning of this?’
They were in Zayed’s office, the laptop open on the table in front of them, Azeed’s email filling the screen.
Nadia had waltzed in, bearing the laptop before her like some sort of prize, a swirl of floral scents, colt-like limbs and unconsciously sexy movements. Now she stood beside him as he sat glaring at the screen, breathing lightly as she looked over his shoulder, seemingly determined to mess with his self-control.
She was still wearing the skinny jeans she’d had on earlier, but now the jacket had gone, revealing a loose-fitting, sleeveless pink top. Somehow, on Nadia, it managed to be one of the sexiest outfits he had ever seen.
He had been out flying Kali, his favourite falcon, when he had spotted her in the distance, purposefully making her way towards him. His heart had done an inexplicable loop at the sight of her, which he had quickly channelled into annoyance. After all, he had gone out there to briefly get away from the burdens of his life and, apart from the impending war, Nadia was the biggest burden of all.
Despite all his efforts he was no closer to solving the problem of Harith. The threat of war showed no sign of abating and all the negotiating skills that he prided himself on, skills he had employed so profitably to make his own company so successful, counted for nothing when dealing with a country like Harith. It seemed as if war was the only language they understood.
He was no closer to solving the problem of Nadia, either. Or, more specifically, the infuriating attraction he felt for her. He had been so determined that this deceitful, duplicitous young woman would be a wife in name only, that no way in the world would he let himself be tempted to take her to his bed.
That first day, when she had told him who she really was, he had been sure that would be easy. His anger had totally consumed him, overpowering everything, even managing to blot out the heated sexual attraction between them, along with the feverish memory of the night they had just spent together. In an effort to claw back control he had convinced himself that this woman was anathema to him.
But time had taken that anathema, that seething anger, and turned it to molten rock. It was still there in the pit of his stomach, making its weight felt whenever he thought of the way she had lied to him. But time had done something else, too. It had curled round his defences, twisting insidiously inside him, tightening its traitorous hold.
For with each passing day his yearning for this totally impossible woman grew and grew. To the point where she only had to enter the room for his heart rate to ramp up to an alarming level, only had to be within six feet of him for the ache in his groin to start up.
It was in danger of driving him completely crazy. Especially when she insisted on meddling in his affairs. Especially when she damned well went and did things like emailing his brother behind his back.
‘Well, if you would just let me explain...’
‘Please do.’ Zayed leaned back in his chair, pushing it farther away from the desk, away from her, affecting a cool nonchalance that fooled neither of them. He was just about managing to control his anger, but they both knew it was there, simmering beneath the forced politeness.
‘I was working on the computer and I just happened to come across your emails to your brother, and I could see that you hadn’t been able to persuade him to reply to you and—’
‘So you read my personal emails?’
‘Not all of them. Not any of them except the ones to your brother.’
‘Oh, that’s all right, then.’
‘Anyway—’ Nadia dodged past the boulder of his sarcasm ‘—when I saw what you’d written I wasn’t surprised that Azeed hadn’t been persuaded to answer—’
‘Stop right there.’ Zayed sat bolt upright again. ‘Not only do you read my private emails but then you have the audacity to stand there and tell me what is wrong with them?’
‘Well, someone had to,’ Nadia fought back. ‘Because they were all wrong, Zayed. There was no emotion in them, nothing that sounded as if it came from the heart. You approached your brother as if he was just another business deal that you were trying to wrap up, that his disappearance was a mildly irritating mystery rather than something that actually meant anything to you.’
‘I did no such thing. That is not true. How dare you t
ell me how to speak to my brother when you have never even met the man? You know absolutely nothing about him.’
‘And neither do you, by the sound of it.’
The arrow of Nadia’s reply pierced his shield of anger and for a moment he could only glare at her. Was she right? Did he really not know his brother at all?
‘Anyway—’ she tossed back her head, using his silence to her advantage ‘—I knew I could do a better job.’
‘Did you indeed? So you took it upon yourself to email my brother—’ he turned back to the laptop, scrolling down to Nadia’s message ‘—this schmaltzy piece of fiction, in my name, without telling me?’
‘Yes, yes, I did. Because if I had asked you, you would never have let me do it.’
‘Too damned right I wouldn’t. You had absolutely no right to do this.’
‘But the point is, it worked, Zayed. You might call it schmaltzy, but Azeed saw it for what it was. A message from the heart.’
‘Your heart, Nadia. Not mine.’
Nadia gave him the full force of her glittering eyes. ‘Maybe that’s because you don’t know where to find yours.’
Zayed knew exactly where his heart was. He could feel it trying to fight its way out of his rib cage. Outrage at what Nadia had done, anger that she dared to challenge him in this way, combined with a horrible sneaking feeling that she might possibly have a valid point, had it bucking like a rodeo horse in his chest.
‘Look.’ She took a step closer, gesturing to the laptop screen. He caught the warm, lemony scent of the curtain of hair that swung across one side of her face before she tucked it behind her ear. ‘You may not approve of my methods—’ she waited for his snort of understatement to die away ‘—but thanks to my message, not only are you in contact with your brother again but he is agreeing to help arrange a meeting with my family.’
And that was what this was all about, wasn’t it? Nadia’s sole focus. He could see her face alight with excitement, hear the hope and optimism shining in her voice. This was what the whole charade of their marriage had been set up for, to try to find a way to secure peace.
He ran a hand over his brow, leaving it across his eyes while he collected his thoughts. Wanting to save her country from the horrors of going to war with Gazbiyaa was the most noble of ambitions. It was what he wanted, too, more than anything. So why did it irritate the hell out of him? Why did it hurt?
‘I suppose you think you have been very clever?’ He lowered his voice, the dark, mocking tone he had been aiming for somehow sounding more like petulance.
‘No, not clever.’ She had moved closer to him again, too close. ‘I just want to try to find a way forward, Zayed, that’s all. The same as you do.’
‘Okay, fine.’ He stood up abruptly, the chair skittering away behind him, reaching forward to close the laptop with far more force than was necessary. ‘I accept that your intervention has proved successful in this instance.’ Intervention has proved successful. Since when had he become so pompous? ‘Just don’t expect me to start thanking you for it.’
‘I won’t.’ Nadia smiled sweetly at him. ‘I already know that pride of yours would never let you.’
Zayed shot her a vicious stare. God, she was an infuriating, smug, self-righteous, sanctimonious piece of work. He would have liked to have put her across his knee, to pull down those jeans and expose the pale buttocks and then...maybe run his hands over the soft rounds of flesh, feel the goose bumps rising beneath his touch before sliding his fingers down between her...
‘You will email your brother back, won’t you?’ Nadia’s bossy instructions brought him coldly back to his senses. ‘Right away, I mean. Make sure that he knows you want this meeting as soon as possible?’
‘I’ll tell you what—’ Zayed growled, a new wave of bitterness temporarily numbing the sexual ache that was gripping his body ‘—why don’t you do it for me, Nadia? I’m sure you would do a much better job.’
He watched Nadia hesitate, unsure. ‘Well, if you would like me to I’d be quite happy—’
‘No!’ He bit back the barely contained rage. ‘I would not like you to. I will email my brother what I want, when I want.’
‘Yes, of course.’ She turned, heading for the door, one hand jammed into the back pocket of her jeans. ‘But I should do it now.’ She glanced back. ‘And if you want me to look over it first, before you send it...’
Zayed folded his arms over his rigid rising chest. He aimed a look at her, holding her steady in his gun sight, a look that held everything that he refused to say out loud. It scorched a pathway between them that finally succeeded in having Nadia hotfooting it from the room.
Exhaling a long breath, Zayed moved the chair back to his desk and sat down heavily. Opening the laptop, he saw Azeed’s email staring back at him. He would read it again now, slowly this time, without the anger blurring his vision.
Dearest brother,
I thank you for sparing the time to contact me during what must be a period of great turbulence and anxiety for you.
He was certainly right about that. Zayed read on.
My heart goes out to you as I now know that yours does to me. I am humbled by your conciliatory words and beg your forgiveness for my silence.
He leaned his elbows on the desk, covering his nose and mouth with his cupped hands. Suddenly he wanted a drink—and it was still barely 10:00 a.m.
It was born of an anger that should never have encompassed you, an anger that was aimed at my father and my changed circumstances. Futile, of course, but I hope you will understand.
But now your generosity of spirit has made me see it is time to move forward. I will gladly do all I can to help facilitate a meeting between you and the sheikh, as you have requested. It will be a relief to be able to use the newly discovered Harithian blood in my veins to some good.
Your loving brother
Azeed
Zayed looked away from the screen, running a hand over the top of his head, guilt and shame coursing through him.
Guilt that he had never valued his brother for the man he was, never tried to get to know him. And shame that he had always been too busy with his own life, making his first million, chasing the next deal and bedding a string of beautiful women along the way, to even realise it.
It wasn’t as if he didn’t value friendship. He would have laid down his life for his three sworn blood brothers, Stefan, Christian and Rocco. The Columbia Four. The bond between them was unbreakable, despite the unexpected pressures that had been put on them this year. But what about his real brother, his true blood brother? At least, the 50 per cent of it from their father. What had he ever done for him?
I am humbled by your conciliatory words. If anyone was humbled it was him. Humbled by the way Azeed had taken the crumbs of comfort of Nadia’s words and gobbled them up like a starving beast. Nadia had been right. He had approached Azeed in totally the wrong way.
And the dire situation with Harith? Had he approached that the wrong way, too? Was Nadia right about that, as well?
Zayed got up from his chair and strode over to the window, placing the flat of his palms against the glass as he gazed across the skyscape of the scorching city, at the people scurrying around far below. His people. His city. His kingdom.
This could be his chance to put things right. To make peace with his brother and maybe even find peace for his country. One thing was for sure: he was going to give it a damned good try.
Removing his hands from the window, he watched his palm prints fade away. Suddenly he knew what he had to do. He had to confide in Azeed, tell him about Nadia, exactly who this new wife of his was, none other than the daughter of the sheikh of Harith. Something he hadn’t told a soul—not even his three most trusted friends.
If Azeed was going to contact Sheikh Amani on his behalf, he deserved to know the truth; he had to know the truth. His brother had been subjected to too many lies. His whole life had been a lie. Now it was time for the lies to stop.
But ther
e was still one falsehood he was going to conceal. The fact that his marriage was a sham. He would tell his brother that Nadia was an Harithian princess but not that she had tricked him into the marriage, that it was a marriage in name only. His pride could only take so much of a battering.
Besides, once he was sure that relations between Gazbiyaa and Harith were sufficiently stable, he and Nadia would divorce and that would be the end of this whole horrendous debacle. There was no reason for the truth to ever come out. The thought of which should have raised his spirits, but instead left him with a hollow emptiness inside.
Because Nadia, this deceitful, conniving young woman, who taunted and riled him, who tested the limits of his patience and self-control beyond any endurance, had somehow managed to bury herself beneath his skin, lodge herself somewhere so deep inside him that he knew he would never be rid of her. He would never be rid of the craving ache of hunger for her that was now his constant companion.
It wasn’t just the sexual need, although there was no doubt about that. His body had long since abandoned all subtlety where Nadia was concerned, leaping to attention, screaming for attention, so desperate for her that its urgency frightened him with its power.
But there was more than that, something more complex, more dangerous. Something that was just her, the essence of Nadia. If he could bottle it he would have a potion capable of mass destruction of the heart.
Nadia challenged him, confronted him and made him question everything about himself. But the biggest question was, how would he ever be able to let her go?
CHAPTER TEN
AFTER HOURS OF nothing but the uncompromising beauty of the desert for company, and dusk fast approaching, Nadia was relieved to see the brown tented roofs of a small settlement coming into view. The journey had been long and uncomfortable, but it finally looked as if they had almost reached their destination.
‘Is that it?’ She pointed into the distance, worried that if she took her eyes off the encampment it might disappear like a mirage.
‘Yep.’ Zayed narrowed his eyes to follow her gaze, his hands gripping the steering wheel. ‘We’ve made good time.’