My Desert Rose

by Kalia Lewis

  Katie gulped as an all too familiar panic assailed her and her knees shook, she couldn't do this.

  Tariq caught the worry on her face as he finished giving instructions to Thebes. Without even thinking, he took hold of her, swept her up into his arms and made for the stairs.

  "What are you doing?" she asked in his ear.

  "I'm following the Roman tradition of carrying the bride over the threshold."

  Despite her nerves and her earlier anger at him, she giggled. "Put me down you idiot."

  He grinned at her. "Not until we reach our suite."

  "Our suite?"

  Surprised blue eyes tried to search his, but he turned his eyes away. "Ah, about that," he murmured into her blonde hair as he carried her along the corridor. She smelled of lilacs. "It's expected of us to live as husband and wife."

  Katie tensed in his arms. "You didn't mention that we would be sharing a room!" It came as a blow. In fact, she hadn't thought about any sleeping arrangements or what would be expected. Dread hit her stomach. In truth, other than her 'no sex' rule, she hadn't really bargained herself a good deal out of this joke of a marriage, she'd just gone along with Tariq's plans.

  They came to a set of slightly open, white double doors. Pushing through them, Tariq carried her into the most opulent room Katie had ever seen.

  "Holy cow," she whispered.

  A long room with cream walls, decorative white coving and beautiful soft lighting from three crystal chandeliers made her catch her breath. Tariq put her down and her feet sank into the thick white carpet. Gold sofas covered in little cushions sat in a U-shape as they faced the bank of glass arched doors, which opened out onto three balconies. A gilded dining table and six matching chairs were to the side of the sofas and at each end of the room columns flanked further double doors.

  Tariq pointed to the doors on her right. "They lead to our bedroom and two dressing rooms, each with a separate bathroom. And that one at the other end leads to my office and meeting room."

  "Where's the kitchen?" she joked.

  He cocked his head. "Kitchen?" he echoed. "I don't understand."

  Katie laughed softly at his confusion. "It's just that I'm now used to living in a little town house in the middle of a city where I can virtually open the fridge door from my sofa."

  Tariq pulled a face and then shrugged. "It's okay, little moheet, we can have a fridge put next to the sofa for you."

  Now she laughed outright. "You're not serious are you?"

  The look of humour lit up her face and he smiled at the innocent beauty shining through those eyes of hers. "If that's what you're used to..." he trailed off when he saw that shadow of anger pass over her face again. What had he said wrong this time?

  Katie threw her hands up in the air. "And what if I asked for a whole set of fridges or even a solid gold pool table to match the dining suite. Can I have those things too?"

  What was eating at her? He blinked cautiously. "Anything is possible?"

  For some reason his answer rustled her feathers even further. Why, she didn't know. Perhaps it was the realisation that she couldn't go back to her life in England, and she hadn't even said goodbye to it. Everything she'd worked hard for was now down the pan. All of her appointments to showcase her latest photographic art would have to be cancelled. She tapped her foot nervously. "I could go utterly mad living here!" she declared before looking him directly in the eyes and stating, "When this is over, Tariq, I'm going home to my little two-up-two-down house."

  "Two-up-two-down..." he repeated, "But Katarina, this is what you were born into. This is who you are."

  "No, it's not," she snapped at him. "This is from another time, another place, one I've since put behind me. It was this very way of living that was responsible for the death of my family!" Turning away from him, she marched down the length of the room and threw open the double doors at the end before slamming them shut behind her.

  This time the opulence of the room didn't lift her spirits. It was more like receiving a sharp slap. The humongous bed, the patio doors, the huge walk-in bathroom with the double showers and the spa baths. It all felt wrong. Empty. Dropping onto the cream chaise longue in her dressing room, Katie put her head in her hands and allowed the sob that had been threatening to show itself all day, emerge. This wasn't right. Tariq wasn't playing fair at all. This lifestyle that he'd brought her to was not for her.

  Life as Katarina ended when she was six years old. Vivid memories clawed at the walls of her mind. It was a normal day as she left school and climbed into the limo to be taken home just outside of the town of Harran in Turkey, near the Syrian border. Upon arriving at the electric gates to the magnificent property, she’d been shocked to see them crashed through. The guard was lying in a pool of blood outside the gatehouse, he’d been shot. When they reached the house the front doors were hanging off their hinges. Katarina's face was glued to the car window. The driver had told her to stay put as he got out of the car and ran into the house, looking for his wife and young child.

  Katarina hadn't listened. An inexplicable pull was tugging at her from the house, so she’d climbed out of the car that day and crept silently to the front doors. Knowing what was to come, would she have stayed in the car? It was a question she'd asked herself many times since, but in an odd way, seeing what had happened with her own eyes had also been her confirmation, otherwise, she may have never believed it.

  It was the smell that hit her first. It was an acrid smell. She now knew it to be the smell of fear and blood. In the entrance hall, Yannia, the young maid from Hungary, who had told her happy stories about her homeland, was lying at an odd angle on the floor. Her neck had been broken. Katarina stifled a sob. All she could think about now was her mama and papa. Should she run upstairs and hide? Then she remembered that her mother would always be in the lounge embroidering at this time, waiting for Katarina to come home. They would then drink milk and eat cookies together.

  Following through into the lounge, Katarina was almost too afraid to look around the vast double doors. It was a shoe that caught her eye first. It was her mother's and it was lying there without a foot in it.

  Anxiety filled her little body as she looked further around the door. The sight that met her eyes wasn't something that her little brain even knew existed. Lying there, as though entwined asleep, were the bodies of her beautiful mother and father. Blood oozed from the slit in her mother's throat, dripping onto her golden-blonde hair, making it look like a red flamed halo. The bump of her large pregnant stomach now lay still and lifeless. Only that morning Katrina had laid her head upon it, feeling her healthy baby brother kick from inside. Now she knew she would never meet him.

  What was more disturbing was the utter look of grief that had frozen on her father's face. A knife protruded from his back and it appeared that he'd spent his last breaths cradling her mother in his arms. Shocked to the core of her being, Katarina began to shake uncontrollably, her kidneys and bowels opened and she let out a blood curdling scream.

  Everything that had happened after that was a blur. Even the flight over to England to live with her aunt and uncle had been like watching the memory through a haze, as if it was happening to someone else. It was only the patience and love from both of them that drew her out of her shell and began the process of healing. By the time a year had rolled around, she was ready to go to back school and be a child again.

  The one thing that surprised her about her new life was how she liked having a small house to live in. There were no hiding places or vast spaces of emptiness. But now here she was, right back in that life again, only this time she was an adult. It didn't matter how far you ran, the past always seemed to catch up with you. Well, she wasn't about to be drawn back into an identity that no longer existed.

  A gentle knock came at the door. "Katarina," Tariq called.

  "Katie!" she yelled back. "My name is Katie!"

  "Okay," he soothed. "Katie, come on out, let's get something to eat and talk about this
."

  She blew her nose on the tissues that she'd found in the bathroom. "Okay, just give me a minute." In these last few minutes she'd made a decision. The past she couldn't do anything about, but the future she could. All she had to do was get through this thing with Tariq, reconnect with her father and move on.

  Chapter Four

  Tariq was not the most patient man. If he were, he wouldn't have kidnapped Katie and then basically coerced her into this marriage. Maybe if he'd taken after his mother, he would have gone to see her in her home, discussed everything thoroughly with her and then given her the option to say no. However, time was running out. Men's lives were at risk. Families were being destroyed and his business was taking a severe battering.

  A groove was appearing in the white carpet as he paced the length of the room. For months he'd been looking at ways to catch the power behind the pirates. The man who’d survived had told him that he'd seen his brother and the leader of the pirates talking on the ship as it docked. Every avenue he'd been down since to gather more information had led to a dead end until he’d received Tristan's email. Opening it, he’d found the wedding invitation and a bunch of pictures of Tristan and Annabelle's daughter, April, taken by the photographer, Katie Sharpe. There was a small thumbnail picture of Katie and he knew then that she was his solution.

  If he could prove his brother and his wife's involvement with photographic evidence, then he could end this affliction, but not just any photographer would do. Most people knew of his family and exactly who he was. Running an undercover operation of this magnitude could not be trusted to anyone other than himself and someone extremely close to him, like a wife.

  Seeing Katie on that thumbnail and the quality of her work made perfect sense that she was to be the one. What he wasn't prepared for was who she was. At first, his research showed her to be a talented individual, brought up in a small village before obtaining a photographic degree at the local university. There were some details exposed in relation to a few boyfriends that had made him feel uncomfortable, but it was uncovering the deed poll for a name change that had led to his greatest discovery.

  Not only was Katie exquisitely beautiful, and extremely talented with strength of character, she was the daughter of Sheikh Allah Turan. Allah had been a great leader of his people, moving them from Syria into Turkey before Katie was born and becoming an ambassador for peace with Turkey until the take-down of his community by an extreme fundamentalist group, who had wanted to teach him a lesson. It had cost him the death of his wife, his unborn child, the loss of his daughter and the siege of his oil wells.

  Upon further research, Tariq found that the Sheikh hadn't died that day. A trip to Turkey had confirmed this and revealed that Allah had lived his life in hiding. This gem of a discovery is what sealed the deal. No-one of Tariq's country and faith could deny Katie's lineage and his right to choose her as a wife.

  The double doors at the far end of the room opened and Katie emerged. Tariq gulped at the vision in front of him. Dressed in a long red silk sheath, he was mesmerised by the swirling silk as she moved towards him. Her hair was piled on top of her head with little golden tendrils hanging down. The subdued and almost haunted look upon her face did nothing to distract him from her elegant beauty.

  Earlier, he'd asked Thebes to order them a light dinner of creamy chicken in a slightly spicy tarragon and butter sauce, with tiny roasted potatoes and salad. A choice of little petits fours for dessert finished off the meal. It had been delivered ten minutes ago on covered hot plates.

  As she neared, Tariq pulled out a dining chair and gestured for her to sit. "I don't know about you," he said lightly, as he sat opposite her and took the lid off the largest plate. "But I'm quite famished."

  Ravenous hunger gnawed at her stomach. "Me too," she admitted. "The last time I ate was yesterday at the wedding."

  Guilt filled Tariq. "I'm so sorry," he replied in dismay. "I haven't looked after you very well so far, but," he smiled brightly at her, "that changes from this moment on, so come on, let's dig in."

  Katie breathed in the delicious aroma as Tariq spooned little roast potatoes and chicken onto her plate and then slathered them with the creamy sauce.

  They ate in companionable silence for a while. It wasn't that she didn't want to talk to him. It was just that his presence did funny things to her insides. There was this energy between them that seemed to vibrate through the air. Whatever was happening, it was causing her to be acutely aware of every move he made. She'd even bet that her newly sensitised nerve endings were making the food taste like heaven, as it rolled over her taste-buds.

  Finally stuffed, she pushed away her plate. "Now that is how to cook chicken!" A bit of sauce had dropped onto her finger and so she put it to her lips and licked it off. The room suddenly crackled with tension and she looked up into the two desire-fuelled eyes of Mr. Dark and Dangerous. A flutter of excitement hit her low in her belly.

  When she'd entered the room earlier, she'd immediately registered his change of white shirt into a black one. This only added another layer of mystery to him as it mixed with his olive skin, black hair, shadowed jawline and those chocolate drop eyes. Utterly devastating, she thought, as she squirmed in her seat. "So, you promised me the down and dirty on you."

  The smouldering look in his eyes intensified. Oops, wrong choice of words. "I mean information, you promised me information about you?" she said sharply enough to break the spell.

  "I did, didn't I," he drawled, as he dropped the intense look and leaned back in his chair. "So, ask away."

  "Well, let's start with a simple question. What's your favourite colour?"

  "Oh, that's easy to answer. Blue." Then he smiled mischievously. "And yours is purple."

  "How did you know that?" she trilled at him. "Seriously, that’s kinda spooky for a stranger to know your favourite colour without you even telling them."

  Tariq shrugged noncommittally. "I have my ways of finding out information."

  Averting her eyes to look at the plate of desserts, she coloured slightly knowing that he knew everything about her. "Okay, but we're talking about you, not me." She picked up a chocolate petit four. "What's your favourite music then?"

  "That's irrelevant. You won't have heard of them," he replied.

  "But I need to know in case I'm asked." She bit into the petit four to find a liquid chocolate centre. "Yum," she sighed.

  He watched in fascination as a sliver of gooey chocolate ran down her chin. Her tongue came out to lap it up and his crotch tightened in response. "It's a group called i Muvrini and a particular favourite song of mine is called Alma."

  She popped the rest into her mouth and sucked on its sweetness. "Will you play it for me?"

  "Maybe some other time." There was no way he could risk standing up and exposing his growing erection. Also, that piece of music deserved a different type of appreciation. Its haunting melody wouldn't work with his thoughts of slowly stripping the red dress off the curvaceous, sexy woman opposite.

  "Okay, I have a good one for you. How many girlfriends have you had?" she asked in a shy voice.

  He chuckled. "You mean lovers?"

  Feeling a little embarrassed at her own nosiness, she flapped her hand in front of her. "Yeah, whatever you prefer to call them."

  "I’m thirty-five, little moheet. There have been many, but none that were serious. What about you?"

  Exactly how many does he mean by many? she wondered. "Well, other than the standard teenage fumble to end the agony of being a virgin, I’ve had two serious relationships. One lasting six months, and that was pretty intense and one lasting a few years, but he was a lazy lover." She clamped her mouth shut. Once again her tongue had run away with her.

  Three lovers had touched her buttery skin and been intimate with her? He tried not to let his reaction show on his face, but it felt like someone had just winded him. The thought of her being with someone else was not a nice thing to ponder on, yet he knew that it was logical. The wom
en in his country were expected to marry untouched, but her English upbringing had allowed her to have that kind of freedom. It wasn’t right for him to make a judgment. The restrictions in his country had caused him to take lovers with Mediterranean backgrounds who had similar beliefs to Katie.

  Coughing slightly at the awkwardness that had descended between them, she asked his now serious face, "How come you’ve been allowed to marry someone of your choice? Aren’t your parents supposed to choose for you?"

  He shuddered at her question. "They did try."

  Now she was intrigued. "What happened?"

  "I turned the woman and her family down, so she married my brother instead."

  She gasped in shock. "You mean Amira was supposed to marry you?"

  Tariq nodded as he remembered the whole messy affair. "She wasn’t exactly happy about my decision and she virtually begged me to reconsider."

  Katie put two and two together. "Do you think this is why your ships are being taken by pirates, as in some sort of revenge?"

  "The thought had crossed my mind," he replied honestly. "But without proof..."

  "This is real, isn’t it?" she whispered.

  "Yes." He gave her a tight smile.

  A heavy weight settled in her stomach. The realisation that actual people had died was slowly sinking in. Perhaps Tariq's decision to kidnap her really hadn't been made lightly. "Isn't there any other way to deal with the pirates?"

  "No. Many countries suffer from their violent pilfering and there is no regulated police or security. It's down to each country to protect its own ships and men."

  "How can someone knowingly have innocent men killed?" she murmured more to herself than Tariq. A thought struck her. "Will your brother and Amira be there tomorrow evening?" Without him even uttering a word, she knew his answer from the look on his face. "How exactly do you want me to behave?"