Bound to the Sheikh: An ancient debt. A deathbed promise. A marriage of duty and obligation. Desire too strong to control.

by Clare Connelly

  Tears sparkled in her eyes. “I … you …”

  His mind was spinning; his body was shaking. How was it possible? She had worked as an escort! True, he hadn’t looked into the firm more fully than that. But she had been an escort. And she’d confirmed it for him! She’d told him how many men she’d been with…

  He shook his head and brought his focus back to his wife, and back to that moment. “Hush, hush,” he murmured quietly, kissing her gently while he moved slowly inside of her. He felt her relax, and her body begin to move once more with pleasurable waves of intensity. He held her tight as he gently tipped her towards her first sexual orgasm.

  She was terrified, and he was furious. With her? With himself? He couldn’t have said. He only knew that she deserved a hell of a lot better than this as her first time.

  He waited until her waves of pleasure had subsided, her moans quietened, and silence throbbed heavily in the room, and then he pulled away from her. Unsatisfied and unable to care.

  He pushed up on one elbow so that he could study her carefully. “Laurie,” he was still. Watchful. Her eyes were shut. “You have worked as an escort.”

  She kept her gaze drawn. “I told you. I served as a translator. That was all.”

  He shook his head in disbelief; the magnitude of his error was pounding through him. “You are so … beautiful. You are stunning. It doesn’t add up.”

  A single tear rolled out of her cheek. “I’m sorry you still feel that way. I had no interest in sleeping with any of my clients.”

  “And yet you slept with me.”

  “You’re my husband,” she whispered.

  “Yes, but this is not a real marriage. We are not a real couple. I am not a husband that you would have chosen.”

  “And I’m not a wife you would have chosen,” she said sadly, her words weak. “And yet here we are.”

  She opened her eyes, but closed them again as soon as they landed on his arousal.

  “You should have made me understand. I would not have taken this from you if I’d known.”

  “Wouldn’t you?” She queried.

  “Of course not. For whatever reason you’ve remained … innocent … your first time should have been with a man who both loves and respects you.”

  Her heart was in agony. He lifted a hand and gently wiped away the tear on her cheek.

  He stood uneasily. It was rare for Sheikh Afida Masou-Al to apologise, for the simple reason that he rarely felt his behaviour warranted it. But now?

  “I regret this,” he said seriously, sombrely. It wasn’t enough. The words were insufficient. “I am sorry.”

  She pushed up on her elbows, her eyes chasing him as he moved towards the door.

  “You’re going?”

  He closed his eyes against the wave of self-recriminations. “I am leaving you alone, as I should have done all along.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The lights flickered distractingly overhead, and there was a gentle hum of technology. “I’m sorry about them,” Laurie tilted her head towards the two palace guards who made up part of her constant security detail.

  “Of course, madam.” The officious gentleman with shiny shoes and a shinier head nodded nervously. For the tenth time in a minute, his small dark eyes darted towards the door.

  Laurie suppressed a smile. She was making him nervous. Her! Little Laurie who had always been compassion itself, was intimidating this high-ranking hospital board member. She supposed it was the gown. Black, with jewels beaded around the neck and sleeves, it was regal, expensive and uncomfortable. While Aktarian royalty didn’t wear crowns, the women wore beaded diamond headpieces when out in public and as the woman who had married the most powerful man in the land, hers was particularly ornate. Strands of sparkling white diamonds looped in and out of the braid she wore, and the official’s eyes, when not flicking to the door, were lifting to the gems.

  “Fatima,” he exclaimed with visible relief a moment later, when the door pushed inwards. “Allow me to introduce her royal highness, Laurena Masou-Al.”

  It was the first time she’d heard her married name and it sent a judder of awareness down her spine. Also a sense of dishonesty. She wasn’t his wife. Not really. And yet she held his name.

  In the two days since the wedding, she’d only seen her husband in the presence of others. He did not attempt to see her privately, and when they were surrounded by family or officials, or even servants, he was cordial but removed. He barely risked touching her.

  Had what they shared been so offensive to him? Had he been so disappointed in her lack of experience? She pushed away the thoughts and stood gracefully; not by a flicker on her face did she show any hint of the turmoil she was feeling.

  “Mrs Katabi,” Laurie couldn’t help but smile at the sight of the woman Elena had described.

  “Your highness,” the older woman used the title appropriately, but she spoke with such a quiet dignity that Laurie knew with certainty that Fatima didn’t easily defer to anyone.

  “Please, call me Laurie.”

  The woman dipped her greying head forward. “And you should call me Fatima.” Without blinking her gaze away from the new royal, Fatima spoke clearly. “Leave us now.”

  The man was dismissed, and gratefully so. He left with a small nod in Laurie’s direction.

  “What can I do for you, your highness?”

  “Laurie, please,” she repeated.

  Fatima waved a hand in the air and her bracelets made a jingling noise. “Sit.”

  Laurie returned to the leather chair. “One of my husband’s cousins, Elena, mentioned the work you do here.”

  Fatima had a direct stare, and she employed it now. Without speaking or visibly reacting, she was prompting her royal guest to continue.

  “I want to help.” Laurie leaned forward a little in her chair. “That is to say, I mean to help. You.”

  Fatima arched a thick, greying brow. “Why?”

  “Many reasons.” She forced herself to smile. “I think I can make a difference, and I would like to. A life isn’t lived unless it has purpose.”

  “And you do not feel yours has purpose?” Fatima queried with genuine interest. “You have just become a powerful woman. You have much purpose.”

  “Yes,” Laurie shrugged. “And I intend to use my power to make a difference. Starting here.”

  Fatima hadn’t felt excited in a long time. She’d worked very hard at a thankless and often unrewarding role. No matter how much money she raised, it rarely succeeded in stemming the tide of loss. Death was inevitable, and never more so than in the halls of hospital. “How?”

  Laurie, who had struggled to make ends meet for so long, could still hardly believe the offer she was able to make. “Money,” she said simply. “I seem to have rather a lot of it at my disposal. And I want to donate it to the hospital. Specifically to the oncology ward, by preference, but I will leave it at your discretion to guide the funds in whichever direction you feel they are best employed.”

  Fatima juggled the burgeoning sense of hope with care. After all, she had faced disappointment before. She nodded slowly, her expression impossible to read. “Of course we’d be delighted with your assistance.”

  “Good.” Laurie addressed one of her security agents without turning around. “Please bring me my cheque book.”

  The agent moved with silent efficiency, gliding over the linoleum floor. He handed the black book with gold pages to the Sheikha.

  “Thank you,” she murmured, flipping it open to the first page. Each cheque was a work of art. The paper shone, and there was a royal crescent embossed heavily into the centre. She ran her finger over it.

  “Do you have a pen?”

  “Of course,” Fatima was fascinated. This small woman, with her dainty features, expensive clothing and ornate jewellery, seemed to be not just a woman, but an angel in the flesh.

  Laurie’s cheeks glowed self-consciously as she scrawled out the amount. She was almost completely emptying the
bank account of the sum Afida had deposited. And she didn’t care! The past had taught her to be prudent, and so she was, leaving just enough for an emergency. As if she would ever need to think of such matters again. Her lips lifted in a wry smile as she scrawled her name with a flourish and then pulled the paper from the book.

  Fatima’s gaze dropped to it, and then lifted to Laurie. She was nearly speechless. “Is this … genuine?”

  “Of course.” Laurie, always a spontaneous and deeply feeling woman, reached over and wrapped her hands over Fatima’s. “We’ve both suffered a loss from which we can never recover. You have dedicated your life to helping others facing a similarly desperate truth. We all do what we can.”

  Fatima’s eyes sparkled as she nodded. “I had heard about your mother.”

  “Had you?” Laurie was surprised.

  “Of course, there has been media coverage of your wedding, and about you as part of that.”

  “I see.” Of course there had been. She was now someone of interest, in this country at least.

  “This bothers you?”

  Laurie was surprised by the connection she felt to a woman she barely knew. She swallowed. “I don’t like to think of my mother reduced to a small sentence in a back-story of my life. She was so much more than that.” Her eyes, her foolish eyes, glistened again with the threat of tears. “My mother was a great woman. Were there any justice in the world, she would be here today.” She shook her head. “She isn’t, but I would like to make this donation in her name.”

  Fatima squeezed Laurie’s hands. “She would be proud of that.”

  “I know.”

  “When I lost Mishel, my son, I wondered for years about the purpose of it all. His wonderful, short life was one of fate’s cruelties. Or so I thought at the time. For having known him and his soul, and the fire in his tiny little belly, how could I ever live without him? How could I exist in a world that now lacked his promise?”

  Laurie nodded. “And when did you come to accept this?”

  “I didn’t. I still don’t. Even now, I see men who are the age he would have been, and I think to myself, why him? Why is this man alive, standing in front of me, and not my Mishel? With life, and death, there is no rhyme nor reason, and often just a sense of pervasive grief.”

  Laurie exhaled. “Yes. And yet, if I may? I don’t mean to sound patronising. I defer to your wisdom and insights.” She cleared her throat. “But I have thought often, since losing my mother, that I simply assumed a greater responsibility to live for her. It sounds trite, I know. But whenever I catch myself bemoaning something small, something insignificant, I am able to see how trivial it is.”

  “Very true. And yet in practice, it can be difficult to keep it uppermost.”

  “Yes.” Laurie had a tingling sense of rightness, sitting in the electronically illuminated office, kept cool with the buzzing of an ancient air conditioner.

  “Would you like a tour of the hospital, Laurie?”

  “I would.” She smiled brightly. “Thank you.”

  It was much as Elena had described. Thirty years earlier, it might have been modern and advanced, but now it was in need of major renovation.

  Despite the enormous sum she had donated, Laurie quickly realised that more would be necessary.

  If she wanted to truly make a difference, she would need to speak to her husband.

  And so she found herself, later that day, when the sun was beating unrelentingly and sweat had pooled in the cavity between her small breasts, going in search of the Sheikh.

  They hadn’t drawn battle lines, exactly, but neither had attempted to invade the other’s privacy since their wedding night. Doing so now filled her with a sense of trepidation, and conversely, a great feeling of power. After all, she could hardly continue to ignore him. They were married, and she intended to make a life for herself in Aktaria for as long as it was there for her.

  Her marriage filled her with sadness and rejection, but there was still so much good that had come from the union.

  David Angove was a new man. Having allowed Afida to wade into his business concerns and provide temporary relief, he was finally able to see the bigger picture. And any doubt that Laurie had felt, any wondering about whether or not she’d jumped into this marriage without properly looking for another option, had evaporated.

  She had done what was necessary, and her father’s happiness justified it. All of it.

  A search of Afida’s room showed him missing. She was about to leave, to search for Elon instead, when a servant forestalled her. “Excuse me, madam,” he said reverently, inclining his head so as not to make eye contact with her.

  “Yes?”

  “His highness is on the pool promenade.”

  “The pool promenade?” A searing recollection of the area upstairs came to her and she nodded slowly. “Thank you.”

  While her matter was not urgent, and could have waited, her nerves could not. They were stretching taut, ready to snap, and she knew that the sooner she saw him, the better it would be.

  She moved swiftly up the narrow staircase, until she emerged into the bright sunshine.

  He was swimming. Fast and powerful, he cut through the water with ease. His skin was dark, his muscular back broad. She followed him hungrily, her eyes devouring his progress. He completed three laps before he seemed to sense an intrusion and paused. His eyes lanced her instantly; they were clear and glowing.

  This had been a terrible idea! What had she been thinking? Generosity be damned! He didn’t want her. Not as a wife, not as a lover, perhaps not even as a houseguest.

  He had already paid so much for their marriage; and here she was, about to demand more money from him!

  Her skin glowed pink from a combination of the heat of the day and her own sense of foolishness.

  “Your highness,” he murmured, taking in her slightly frantic looking appearance. Oh, she was as regal as ever. Her hair, wild and unkempt the first time he’d seen her, was now contained into a fabulously elaborate style. Her make up was flawless, the gown flattering. And yet he wished, with a pang, that she could be as she had been that evening in Calmington.

  “I’m …” her tongue traced the outline of her lower lip. “I’m sorry to have bothered you,” she said with a small shake of her head.

  “You have, so do not make it pointless.”

  Her eyes flashed with a dark emotion. “It was a silly idea,” she mumbled, turning to leave.

  “Stop.” His word was imperious; she halted immediately. “Come here.”

  She felt that she should ignore him and just go. The temptation to do just that was strong. The doorway was behind her. Only her feet seemed to have a mind of their own. They drifted across the warm tiles, until she reached the end of the pool.

  “It’s hot today.” She cringed. Of all the ridiculous observations, surely that had to top the list. It was meltingly warm, hardly something that needed to be pointed out to Afida.

  “Not in here.”

  She eyed the water with undisguised jealousy. “I can imagine.”

  “Why imagine when you can swim?”

  Her eyes widened. “That’s okay, I’ll wait until, um, later.”

  “Until I’m not here?” He inserted with a dry smile.

  “Something like that.”

  “What can I do for you, Laurie?”

  Business-like. Good. That she could deal with. She crouched down, so that she was closer to his eye level.

  “I was speaking with Elena before the wedding. At the breakfast.”

  He recalled, vividly, his frustration at not knowing what their hushed words were about.

  “Yes,” he prompted, pulling himself out of the pool so that he could sit beside her. His body was naked except for a brief pair of shorts. His legs, strong and tanned, were columns of masculine power.

  Water pooled from him onto the coping.

  Laurie toyed with the beading on the collar of her dress. “Specifically, we were talking about a friend of
hers who’s recently passed away. Cancer.” She said the word with distaste.

  “I know of this.”

  “Please don’t do that,” she said with quiet resolve.

  “Don’t do what?”

  “Cut me off impatiently. You have a very bad habit of rushing me, and it makes me nervous, and I never get around to saying what I mean, and then you seem to get angry when you don’t have all the answers. So please, just let me get there in my own time.”

  It would have been difficult to say which of them was more surprised by her statement. Laurie, though she knew it to be true, had never intended to pull him to task. And Afida had, in good conscience, not realised how greatly he had been stifling her communications.

  “Please, continue,” he invited with a small nod that betrayed none of his sentiments.

  “Thank you.” She swallowed, and her fingers worked a little harder on the intricate jewelled beading at her neck. “Elena felt she could confide in me, because of my mother.”

  “Marjorie,” he said, his eyes searching hers.

  “Yes, her name was Marjorie.” Surprise jolted through her. “Had you met her?”

  “Yes.”

  Laurie looked at him with a strong thud of emotion. “You did?”

  “Twice.”

  “Oh! I hadn’t realised. I never …”

  “You were away at boarding school. I had dinner with your parents, and then hosted them on a holiday on one of my islands.”

  “You knew my mother.” For some reason, this information moistened her eyes and she looked away, blinking at the tears.

  “I was very sorry for your father to have lost her. For both of you. She was an admirable woman.”

  Laurie’s lips lifted at the insufficient description. “She was perfect.” She shook her head gently. “When my mother got sick, my father began to mismanage things, as you know.” She blinked at the strength of the memories. “His inattention, combined with the global financial crisis, saw a huge devaluing in his assets. I was shocked, frankly, at how quickly he went from affluence to poverty. He and I agreed that mum shouldn’t know anything about it.”