by Unknown
“I will never be your lover, Ashim.”
“I didn’t expect you to meekly say yes. We have seven hours flying time and then a day together in my land and if you choose to leave then you can.”
She could hardly breathe.
“We do need to talk,” Ashim said.
“There’s nothing to discuss. It was a one night stand.”
“Two nights,” Ashim corrected. “I remember both very well as do you.” He watched as she shrugged. “Is that shrug your attempt to tell me that it meant nothing?”
“Yes.”
“Liar.”
She got up and walked to the galley and stood there, trying to clear her head and yes, she hid behind her rings, but she needed them more than ever now.
“If you insist on working,” Ashim stood at the entry to the galley, “then I’d like to have lunch—the menu is very tempting.”
“If you’d like to take a seat then I shall bring it.”
“We shall eat together.”
“No,” Emily responded. “We shan’t.”
She brought him socco with cracked pepper and the sides they had eaten together last night.
But how the hell could she pretend they had meant nothing when, with each course, she replicated the meal they had shared.
“So good,” Ashim said, biting into a plump prawn that she had seared in truffle oil. He took her back to a time when she had tasted the same but with his jeaned thigh pressed to her bare one.
He dizzied her mind because, even as she served him his meal, even as she snapped back smart retorts and refused his requests that she join him, Emily was fighting not to tell him that she had not cheated when she had been with him.
She wanted to reveal her truth.
He declined dessert and turned on music and it was Blaze.
“How Am I”
Still she did not know.
“Emily….” Ashim stood. The music throbbed and his eyes called for her to come and dance but she just glared at him. “Dance.”
“No.”
“Come to bed then,” he said, “we can talk there, just as we might have this morning.”
“Before you went through my belongings.”
He ignored that, Ashim wasn’t here to split hairs.
“Would you have told me about him then?” Ashim asked and Emily swallowed.
Would she have?
“And would you have told me you were royal?”
“Yes,” Ashim answered. “And I would have told you how complicated that made things for us. I would have told you that a woman who loves her career and does not want babies would find it difficult to accept what I wanted to offer.”
Emily swallowed but Ashim had not finished.
“I would have told you that if you gave up your career for me that I would fly you to the moon and back as often as you chose but,” he added, “I would have asked you to have our baby.”
Now she met his eyes.
“I was about to ask you to be my wife. Then I found what I did and realised it could never be.”
He was both sad and angry.
“I’m not proud of what I can offer you now though I do.” He headed to the bedroom. “Come in when you’re ready.”
He left her alone and while, yes, she took her work seriously this was no ordinary shift. Emily sat on one of the sofas her feet tucked up under her, nursing a large cognac and staring at the door he was behind and trying not to imagine them tumbling on that silk bed and hot, make up kisses.
And she tried to resist not telling him her truth, wondering if he’d insist then that she be his wife.
The wife of a man, so arrogant that he would suggest she leave her life behind. A man who would take both a wife and a lover?
He didn’t buzz.
Not once did he buzz and she sat as the plane slid through the sky until she could not, not know and she stepped in and closed the door and went to where he lay.
“You’d blow up someone’s marriage?” Her laugh mocked her own question as she remembered Ravel. “But of course you would. And you’d take a wife and a lover… I don’t like your morals, Ashim.”
“I’m not a huge fan of yours,” Ashim said. “Have the guts to leave, clearly you don’t love him.”
And he tapped right into her deepest shame.
“I don’t know if I loved him.” Emily shouted it out; she shouted out words that she had sworn to take to the grave.
“Loved?” Ashim checked and the agony of her sob gave him his answer.
She cried.
Not a little.
She cried as she had the night Stephen was taken to theatre, and then she cried as deep as she had the night he had come back but his mind had gone.
And then she had had to stop crying and became his carer, his advocate, but Ashim let her cry now.
Ashim let her cry and, unlike others, he didn’t ask questions nor did he tell her she felt, how she must miss him, he just lay her on the bed and let her weep.
“He died last year.” Emily gulped. “I didn’t want to leave his rings behind at the hotel. It was the first time I’d taken them off.”
“Was that night your first time since…”
Ashim closed his eyes in regret as to how poorly he had judged her when she nodded.
“Come live with me,” Ashim said, “and let me take care of you now…”
“I can’t share you.” Emily said. “Can a widow marry?”
And her question revealed to them both the depths of her feelings for him and though it should make him smile it did not.
He had grown up with the teachings and his mind scanned ancient laws and searched for a loophole and it nearly killed to answer. “No. I have to be your first love.”
Ashim saw the brief hope die in her eyes as he answered her.
“What happened to your husband?”
Emily shook her head; she simply could not give this man any more of herself than she already had.
“You would have to denounce your love.”
“I shan’t,” Emily said. “Ever. I loved him once, I loved him first.”
She was proud of that, at least.
“I will speak with my father.”
“Will it do any good?”
“I don’t think so.” His answer was honest. “My father is an immutable man. Nothing moves him, not even the pleas of his people…”
“What about your mother?”
“She died.” Ashim didn’t elaborate, for this painful conversation was about them.
He stroked her hair that was lighter for one day spent with him and Emily closed her eyes to the touch of his fingers.
“When did she die?”
Ashim was not used to such pertinent questions.
The death of such a young queen was something that could not be discussed.
And yet it was about to be.
“When I was four,” Ashim dragged out the answer. “When Khalid was born.”
“What was she like?”
His mind wandered back to that time was but it was black and as confusing now as it had been then.
“I don’t remember her,” Ashim admitted. “I don’t even remember her dying.”
“Ashim?”
She took him back to a far from perfect day.
“I just remember that everything changed,” Ashim said and then he focused not on that appalling feeling, he spoke of them. “Come and see my country, my home, and I will speak with my father.”
But, even as she nodded and accepted his request, Ashim knew that a life as his lover could never be enough.
Emily wanted the one thing he could not give.
Sole access.
Soul access.
Chapter Sixteen
His country was one she had never travelled to and its sight was unexpected.
She stared out of the window as they descended and looked down at the endless, gold desert that she thought might never end but of course it gave way.
Canyons formed ri
vers and Emily watched as solitary homes appeared and then villages and then the grids of townships and then the skyline of a city that was both ancient and modern.
It took her breath away as the captain brought them in on the final approach she caught the first glimpse of the Arabian Sea and the glitter of a modern metropolis that blended with old.
Home was a jeweled palace.
She saw it first from the sky, for it was set higher in the landscape than even the tallest of skyscrapers. Emily, who was very used to flying, caught her breath as the captain brought them in on the final approach.
So too did the people catch their breath as commuters saw the royal plane.
One of the princes must be home.
The king never left.
As he led her through the reception area of the palace, her shoes clipped on the marble and she had terror in her stomach at the thought that at any moment she might see the king.
“He’s in his wing,” Ashim told her.
He had called ahead to ensure that and so instead of the king Emily was met by a smiling woman, whom Ashim introduced to her.
“Jamal will take you to your suite,” he said. “I am going to speak with my father.”
“And then?”
He didn’t know.
Emily was led up a long and curved set of stairs and then she passed a wall lined with portraits. She saw Ashim dressed in military uniform and it was daunting both to see and to know that it might be a side to him she could never, in person, know.
There was a portrait of a similar looking though younger man, though he did not wear military and she guessed him to be Ashim’s brother, Khalid. The one whose flight she should have been on!
But then her breath caught as she saw the man whom Ashim was now discussing her with right now.
Sheikh King Oman Al Raquar—the ruler of Alzaquan.
Dressed in finery, his robe was gold and his keffiyeh was black and roped in gold. He was regal, imposing and his glower, even captured in oil, had Emily shiver and she knew then that it was hopeless—Ashim could never convince him to change the rules to accommodate them.
He could not.
“I’ve answered that already.” Oman sat in his study, backed by advisors and elders, did not so much as consider his son’s plea—to marry the woman he knew now he loved. “Never.”
“She’s a widow,” Ashim said. “Her husband has been dead for a year.”
“Marriage is for life,” Oman shook his head. “And how can you say you love her when you met her just a few days ago?” Oman was enraged that his son had brought a woman here without invitation and not proud of his behavior towards her. “You are thinking with your cock. And anyway, what could she give our people? A union with Sheikha Jasmine would double our army, Princess Ahia would mean oil…”
“We have all that,” Ashim said.
“The people need to know you are married to a woman who knows our ways and who benefits our kingdom. Not some slut you brought back to your yacht.”
“How dare you insult a woman you have never met!” Ashim reared but the king would not back down.
“If I remember my briefings rightly it was some married actress you hit the headlines with just a few months ago. Do you want me to be grateful that the current one does not bring three babies with her?”
Ashim closed his eyes for a second.
“I expected so much more from you, Ashim.”
It was as hopeless as Ashim had known it would be.
And, if by some miracle he did persuade the king that they might marry, what then?
Emily didn’t even want children.
“You need to tame your ways, Ashim,” the king continued, “and the people need to know that you have settled.”
“No, the people need to see that I am married. They need royals that engage and speak with them instead of announcements about decisions that have been made behind closed doors.” They were getting away from the point. Ashim had confronted his father over and over about his remoteness and he reminded himself that he was here to fight for his love.
His love.
Ashim first acknowledged it fully then. This was love, more emotion than he had ever known, and that made him push for more.
“I want you to meet to Emily”
“I have no wish to meet your lover.” Oman looked at his son. “That is all she can ever be.” Oman was a tough bastard but he had standards and his lips curled in distaste as he looked at his son. “My wife had been dead for a quarter of a century and I did not invoke it. I never expected you to use that old rule.”
“Change it then,” Ashim sneered. “You’re the king.”
“And you want to be.”
“Not yet, but I do want to start making changes,” Ashim answered. “I don’t want to be here sitting idle, waiting for you to die, just so my country can move on.” Ashim would not back down. “You will extend an invitation to Emily for dinner tonight,” Ashim warned and then he politely bowed and left.
Oman looked to his senior advisor.
“Was that a threat?” the advisor asked.
“Of course not.” Oman shook his head. “Ashim loves his country and his people. He would never give it away for a woman he has known for less than a week. He needs to remember that I am still king.”
*
Emily’s suite was sumptuous.
Set at the end of long corridor, she had been led into a luxurious space. One that was dressed in feminine shades and by the French windows there was a vast sunken bath that looked out to desert.
The suite was, Emily had noted, tucked well away from the main body of the palace.
She stepped out onto a large balcony and breathed in the fierce heat. There were steps to a beach, she looked up and back, and there were no windows that looked out to here.
It was, she knew now, where the mistress lived.
She stepped back inside and saw that Ashim was there.
“I presume that it didn’t go well?” Emily said when she saw his grim expression.
“No.”
“Are you even allowed to be here?” Emily asked.
“I can be here any time I choose to be,” Ashim said and then he sat her down and gently walked her through the cruel rules they would exist by if she remained.
“As my lover, as my mistress, when we are away from Alzaquan, I can love you, we can make love and laugh and—”
“But what happens when we are here?” Emily interrupted.
“Sex,” Ashim said. “No kiss, no caress, no discussion or endearing words—that would be offensive to the future queen.”
“Children?” She wanted to know all the details even if it stung every pore on her skin to hear them.
“You said that you don’t want to have children.”
“I do.”
Emily knew herself more now.
“You could have children but…” He remembered sitting in the desert as a young man and frowning as he was schooled. “They would be kept apart from me, and not allowed to be seen with me out of the palace, so they could not travel with us.”
She thought of their children kept out of sight and playing alone on a secluded beach as Ashim offered one final insult.
“They would not be royal.”
“They would be bastards?” Emily checked and he nodded. “Bastard,” she said and she lifted her hand and all her revulsion and rage she delivered to his cheek.
Ashim saw her hand coming and he could have moved, he could have stopped her as easily as he blinking, but he accepted her slap. “I take it that’s a no.”
“Do you want me to repeat?” Emily checked because yes, she would slap the other cheek.
“I was wrong to ever ask you,” Ashim conceded. “I was angry when I did. I couldn’t live that life. I could not do it to you or to myself, and I could not do that to my wife. There are many reasons I left Alzaquan,” Ashim admitted. “There are so many rules that I want to change but my father had refused to give me the power I need
to do so.”
“Does he have a lover?”
“No.” Ashim shook his head. “He is angry at me for even suggesting that I take one and, for once, I agree with him.”
He looked over when Jamal came to the door and he nodded for her to come in.
“The king has requested that you dine with him tonight,” Jamal addressed Emily.
“What does that mean?” Emily turned to Ashim.
“I insisted that he meet you,” Ashim said. “I wanted him to meet the woman I want to take as my wife.”
“And would you be there?”
“Of course.”
“Might it change anything?”
“I shan’t be backing down to him,” Ashim said. “If you agree to come then Jamal will prepare you.”
“And if not?”
“I fully understand why. I don’t expect it to be a pleasant meal.”
A milky bath run by Jamal and filled with oils did not calm Emily’s terror as she looked out to the desert that would not allow their love. She was petrified to meet the king and even a little cross with Ashim for putting her through a meeting that could only prove futile.
Not cross, Emily thought as she stepped out of the bath and into a warm robe.
He was fighting for their love to exist in the open and so too must she.
How?
Jamal dressed her in a crushed velvet robe and the color was the deepest red. Emily looked down at curves that were discreetly covered and yet subtly enhanced and it was the robe of a seductress, rather than a future bride Emily knew. When Jamal went to paint her face, Emily shook her head.
“I’ll do it.”
She put on her own makeup, she was not going to meet the king rouged and oiled as Ashim’s whore.
So her makeup was subtle and she knew from her job to put her head down and not speak till greeted.
Ashim could see she was shaking in terror as Emily knelt and took her place at the lavish low table and she tucked her feet behind her so as not to offend.
“So,” the king said, “you met three days ago?” He would not be making this pleasant.
“I saw Emily’s flight come in,” Ashim answered for her, “and as you know, there are no coincidences…” Emily frowned, she had thought it a chat up line and Ashim saw her confusion. “It was a gulfstream jet,” Ashim said, “it lurched a little to the left on its final approach.”