Claimed by the Sheikh

by Rachael Thomas

  With this in mind, she held her head high as they exited the lift, her arm once more loosely wrapped in his. They made their way towards the dining room and she sensed a ripple of silence following them, as if everyone they passed stopped to look.

  She glanced at his profile. The strength and pride there left her in no doubt that he was aware of the reaction his presence was causing, just as she’d told him only moments before. A gentle hush fell on the dining room as they entered; it seemed to last an eternity, but it must have only been seconds before the maître d’ came forward and showed them to their table.

  The table, situated discreetly away from other diners, with candles, a single red rose, was set for two. It was beautifully romantic, but a table for lovers.

  ‘I thought you were meeting others.’ She could scarcely breathe the words out, horribly aware of the hitch in her voice.

  ‘I changed my plans.’ He dismissed the maître d’ and pulled her chair out for her, his smile more beguiling than she’d seen as he invited her to sit. His charm offensive was well and truly on show.

  ‘Why?’ she asked as she took her place, all too aware of him standing right behind her chair.

  He rested his hands on her shoulders and, as he leant down to her, she looked up, suddenly finding her face close to his. So close she could see clearly into the inky blackness of his eyes before her attention was drawn to his mouth as he smiled.

  ‘It is time we got to know one another.’ Each word was heavy with intent. ‘Properly.’

  ‘But...’ she began before becoming too flustered to continue. Flustered as much by his nearness as the meaning in his words.

  ‘You are my wife, Amber, and tomorrow we will be in the presence of people important to me. It would look strange, would it not, if we knew nothing of one another?’

  His smile held a hint of provocation behind the charm, but at least she knew he wasn’t entirely serious. He didn’t really want to get to know her; it was merely a device to stop others prying too closely. A trickle of relief defused the bewildered feeling he’d caused and she reminded herself of his harsh terms, the cruel bargain he’d driven.

  As he sat opposite her, his back straight and regal, she allowed a smile to spread over her lips. ‘I’ll be your wife in public,’ she said so softly he had to lean forward to hear her. But, from the look on his face, he hadn’t missed her last words or the determination in them. ‘But not when we are alone.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  KAZIM HAD PONDERED Amber’s words as they returned to their suite. Was she really refusing to be his wife in every way? Everything they’d spoken of over the meal had been merely small talk, as if they were strangers passing the time of day. His intention had been to get to know her better, but instead she’d become more distant, more unobtainable.

  Was she setting him a challenge? Or pushing him away?

  ‘You looked very beautiful tonight,’ he said as he closed the door of their suite a short while later. Would she slip further away from him now they were alone? ‘Very much like a princess.’

  A little shocked, he admitted to himself that he didn’t want her to slip away, but maybe it was for the best. Because right now he wanted more—much more—just as he had on their wedding night. Instinct told him that to make love to her would be different from any other woman. It was not just the fact that she was his wife. It was the way he wanted her, not only with fiery blood in his veins but with something much deeper, unknown and new.

  But what if the temper he’d inherited from his father surfaced as it had threatened to do on their wedding night when he’d thought of those rumours? What if behind closed doors he became the abusive bully his mother had had to put up with? He hated the fact that he looked like his father and he just couldn’t take the risk that he could also be like him in other ways.

  Amber turned and looked at him and, despite being only a few strides from him, the distance seemed as endless as the dunes of a desert. ‘I felt like a princess.’ Her voice was hardly above a whisper, but her bronze eyes watched him anxiously and a vice-like grip clutched at his chest as vulnerability showed through her armour.

  He moved closer, watching her. She stood and looked at him and he took a deep breath, forcing cooling control into his body. He wanted to reach for her, to kiss her lips, her face, her body. He wanted to claim her as his own and it was that very fact that held him back.

  He’d already been far too hard on her. He had no right to claim even a kiss.

  ‘You are a princess,’ he stated emphatically, focusing his thoughts on other things. Just saying those words made him want to find out what had happened since she’d left the palace. ‘Why did you take a job in that Parisian club, Amber?’

  The colour drained from her face in seconds but she remained strong and resolute before him, indignation sparking off her like fireworks. She watched him suspiciously as he moved towards her.

  ‘I told you, Kazim—nobody knew who I really was, not even Annie.’ Her voice, though just above a whisper, was strong.

  Did she really think that such assurances were enough? He needed to know more and intended to get answers. He wasn’t going to be put off. He had to know. He’d been more than generous. Something wasn’t right. Why had she felt the need to work in such a place and live in the terrible excuse for a flat he’d seen?

  ‘But why there?’ He narrowed his eyes suspiciously, wondering again about that rumour from her time at the English boarding school. Her display on their wedding night had already proved that attending it had corrupted her far more than anyone else knew.

  ‘When you’re not prepared to use your own identity, it’s difficult to get a job, Kazim. I took whatever I could and am grateful to the women in the hostel for telling me about the job.’ She raised her brows in challenge, standing tall and resolute before him as she waited for her words to sink in.

  Then, with a haughty flash of her smile, she walked away from him. He watched the sexy swaying of her hips as she made her way to the bedroom, mesmerised and knocked completely off course. It was almost as if she was taunting him with her body—again. Just as she had on their wedding night, drawing his focus away from what was important with the lure of her body.

  One word leapt to life in his mind. Hostel. Shock mingled with hot need, making any kind of reply impossible. What did she mean—hostel? He shook his head, trying to free himself of the thumping desire that rushed through him just from watching her—desire that was distracting his usual rational thoughts.

  ‘What hostel, Amber?’ Quickly he refocused his attention, not prepared to let the moment slip by. She was hiding things from him, tormenting him, and he didn’t like it one bit. ‘I think you’d better tell me exactly what you’ve done since you left Barazbin—and with whom.’ The doubts he’d had about her on their wedding night surfaced again.

  She sighed, but her rigid body told him she was resigned to having this discussion. ‘For a while I lived in a hostel in Paris. I didn’t have help from anyone and I had nowhere to live so, princess or not, it’s what I had to do.’ She’d walked back from the bedroom to stand in front of him once more, apparently abandoning the idea of closing the door on him. ‘Some of the girls there told me I’d easily get work at the club. I had no idea what sort of place it was.’

  ‘But you still took the job.’ He stated the obvious as he looked down into her face.

  ‘I needed the money. Besides, I met Annie there, who offered me a place to live.’ Her brown eyes looked beseechingly into his and he swallowed down hard on the guilt that threatened to drown him.

  ‘So, Annie offered you a place to live?’ He probed further, needing to know all of it. He couldn’t afford to read her story one morning, splashed all over the front of a newspaper. Not now they were about to return to Barazbin.

  ‘She was struggling, looking after Claude and work
ing, we got on well, so it made sense. Neither of us had anyone; her parents had gone back to England, refusing to have any more to do with her.’ She looked up at him innocently, her explanation as plausible as the sunrise in the morning.

  Guilt tore through him. He’d done this to her. If he hadn’t been so wrapped up in his problems he’d have realised sending her away wouldn’t help either of them. He’d been so damned determined not to be like his father. He raked his fingers through his hair, knowing he’d been worse—much worse—than that bully.

  He took Amber’s hand in his and looked down at her. ‘I should never have sent you away. I had a duty to you as a husband and I failed.’

  ‘And now you are forcing me to go back, blackmailing me, using an innocent child.’ Accusation hung in her every word.

  ‘Not blackmailing, Amber, striking a deal. One which will see us both getting what we want. I thought we’d settled that argument.’

  He watched as her teeth sank into her lower lip, indecision sweeping over her face. She looked the picture of innocence and he began to wonder if the rumours he’d heard of her just before they’d married really held any truth. Had they just been malicious palace gossip because of the English blood which flowed in her veins...?

  ‘Tell me about what happened when you were in England, when you were at the boarding school.’ He watched her face pale, but she lifted her chin and looked him in the eye.

  It had been those rumours of her time at the English school which had clouded his judgement on their wedding day, made him doubt his bride’s innocence even before her little dance. Now he wondered if they had forced him to think things that might not have been true, despite the fact that he’d wanted to disregard them, but the way she’d acted had made him question his judgement.

  ‘There is nothing to tell; not when you have already condemned me.’ Her retort flew at him so fast that the pain of each word hit him hard in the chest.

  ‘So it is not true?’ He stepped closer, her stance and angry glare asserting that it wasn’t, and he regretted having listened to palace gossip.

  ‘No, for what it’s worth. I was in the hotel room, not to meet with a man but to save a friend’s reputation. She was the one meeting her lover, not me.’ She maintained her frosty expression.

  ‘That’s it?’ Her simple words didn’t come anywhere near the scandal that had whispered its way into his palace within hours of their wedding.

  ‘A friend had taken a lover, a married man, and she’d been meeting him regularly.’ Amber paused to look up at him and he kept his expression impassive, hoping his silence would encourage her to continue. ‘One day her lover asked her to bring a friend, saying we would all go out.’

  ‘You went, as the friend.’ It was slowly beginning to make sense. She’d been set up, sold to the highest bidder for her story.

  She swallowed, lowered her eyes briefly then looked back up at him. ‘This other man was a reporter on the hunt for the scandalous story that would make his career. I didn’t know this and foolishly told him things I shouldn’t have. My friend and I returned to school, the same way we got out, through a back window. The next day I got the letter.’

  ‘How did you deal with that?’ Kazim couldn’t recall anything in the papers and surely his advisers would have mentioned the scandal during their marriage negotiations.

  ‘My mother can be very formidable when necessary.’ Amber smiled a light smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes and it touched him that she’d shared it with him. If only he hadn’t heard the rumour on their wedding night. His pulse leapt at the thought.

  ‘Then I believe you.’ He stepped closer, not sure if he really believed she was completely innocent, but right now he wanted to and he needed her to trust him. He needed the world to see a couple reunited and happy about it.

  * * *

  Amber looked into the increasingly dark depths of Kazim’s eyes and her stomach tightened. ‘What exactly do you want, Kazim?’ she whispered so softly she wondered if she’d actually spoken.

  ‘What I want? Right at this minute?’ His voice deepened and became husky as he stepped closer to her. ‘I want you.’

  She dropped her chin and looked down, not trusting herself. Surely she’d misread the passion that swirled in his eyes. From what he’d said about the rumours, he’d thought she was far from a virgin on their wedding night. Had that been what had made him reject her so harshly?

  Should she tell him that she’d made only one mistake? Throwing herself at him. Should she let him know the only man’s lips to have touched hers since their wedding night had been his? She pressed her fingers to her lips, remembering his kiss just a short while ago.

  ‘You didn’t want me on our wedding night.’ She tried to move past him but he reached out and took hold of her arm, keeping her in front of him, leaving her no option but to look up into his face.

  ‘I didn’t want to be married. Marriage was a duty. That was all I ever saw it as.’ He kept his voice calm. ‘You weren’t what I was expecting. I was angry—at you and my fate.’

  She gazed up at him, all the pain she’d felt that night now drowning her. She swallowed hard then took a deep breath. ‘I made one mistake, Kazim, one moment of madness, and because of that you punished me, sending me away, publicly humiliating me and my family. My father still hasn’t forgiven me for it.’

  ‘None of that matters now,’ he said as he brushed her hair back from her face, a gesture so full of tenderness that her breath caught in her throat. Could she really believe him? Her heart wanted to, but in her head a voice screamed caution.

  She covered his hand with hers, stilled the caress that was almost loving. Just that one touch was enough to set light to her body, to ignite the slumbering heat into a wave of red-hot fire. If she didn’t step away from him, break the contact, she would be engulfed and then she would want more. But wanting more from a man who had rejected her was insane.

  ‘It matters to me, Kazim.’ She pulled back from him and his hand dropped to her shoulder, preventing her from moving any further away. ‘I can’t go back to Barazbin. I can’t be your wife, your princess, not when that one silly moment will always be between us, always causing you to look at me with disgust.’

  ‘I don’t want it to be that way, Amber.’ His voice had deepened and become husky once more, raw emotion in every word. ‘The truth is I want you.’

  Her heart thumped loudly in her chest, an echoing pulse pumping around her body. He wanted her. It was as if, piece by piece, he was dismantling the wall of protection she’d erected around herself.

  She shook her head and moved away from him, away from the temptation of his touch, his smile and his kiss. She wanted him too, so much that she could throw herself into his arms and plead for him to make her his, but such actions had caused all the pain, all the heartache she’d been living with for almost a year.

  This time she would be strong, she would resist the powerful urge to be his, to allow his touch to claim her or his kisses to force her to surrender. This time she would be the innocent she was.

  ‘No, Kazim.’ She forced the words out, firmness injected into them as she tried to buy herself time so that she could gather up her wayward emotions once and for all. ‘I need to know you have kept your side of the deal.’

  He undid his tie, pulling it down until it hung loosely, and then opened the top button of his shirt, revealing olive skin, dusted with hair. She knew she shouldn’t look but she couldn’t help herself and when she moved her gaze back to his face it was to see a satisfied smile playing sexily at the corners of his mouth.

  ‘I’m not sure you are in a position to demand terms, Amber.’ His eyes sparked with mischief, tying her stomach in knots.

  She laughed softly, hardly able to believe the throaty sound came from her. ‘You were the one to seek me out, Kazim, so surely that makes you the one w
ho shouldn’t be making demands.’

  ‘Is it not you who seeks reassurance that you will get what you want?’ He stepped closer to her again and she moved backwards, her legs meeting the sofa, leaving her no option but to sit down.

  The softness cushioned her as she sat but instantly she wished she hadn’t. He seemed so much more powerful as he towered over her. She watched, helpless to drag her eyes away, as he took off his jacket, tossing it onto a chair before sitting next to her, his arm along the back of sofa behind her head, bringing him unbearably close. So close she could smell his aftershave, the spicy scent unable to completely cover the essence of pure male.

  He came even closer and she knew he wanted to kiss her, just as she knew to allow it would be her undoing. She looked into his eyes, saw the molten bronze swirling in their depths, and knew she was lost.

  His hand touched her face, caressed her cheek then pushed her hair behind her ear. The warmth of his touch as he looked down at her melted her reservations. Was it so wrong to want your husband to kiss you?

  It was wrong. So very wrong and she couldn’t allow it. As if the very thought provoked the action, he brushed his lips lightly over hers, teasing and tempting her. She tried to resist, tried to move away, but his hand slipped around the back of her head, keeping her lips firmly against his.

  ‘Kazim...’ She pushed her hands against his chest, shocked by the hardness beneath her palms and the way her heart skittered like a leaf blown about in the wind. ‘Please, I can’t. Not yet.’

  Her voice echoed with appeal and as he sat back against the softness of the sofa she let out a breath of relief. The tenderness she’d thought she’d seen in his eyes moments ago was gone, replaced with granite hardness, and his lips that had set light to hers were pressed into a firm line. His mood had changed and the only reason she could see was that she hadn’t responded to him, hadn’t answered the primal call of her body for his.