So, yes. It had been desire. Which meant it could not happen again.
Such a threat to his self-control could not be borne and he’d have to do something about it. He wasn’t going to be a slave to his emotions, not again.
Once he’d been ruled by them, a wild, uncontainable boy who’d become a wild, uncontainable young man. Who’d disrespected his father’s rules and teachings. Who’d fought any authority and raged against any limits put on him. He’d been impossible, arrogant, selfish and irresponsible.
And he’d paid for it. He was paying for it still.
So no, there would be no more kisses. No more losing his patience. No more anger. There would only be clear, cold purpose, focusing on the things he’d made his life’s work.
The throne. Marriage. Peace for Al-Harah.
Fixing the country you broke.
His footsteps echoed in the hallway as he walked.
Yes, that too. That was all there was.
That was all there could be.
By the time he got to Safira’s apartments he’d found the cold place inside himself. Where nothing could touch him. Where his purpose shone with an icy light.
Pausing before the door a moment, he gripped tight to it in his mind, making sure he was armored against the wild heat of her presence. Then, not bothering to knock, he pushed open the door and strode in.
The team had obviously left, the apartment empty but for the woman sitting on the bed with her hands clasped in front of her. She looked up as he entered, her eyes widening slightly. Then she stood up.
He came to a stop and, despite everything, his breath caught.
In dusty robes with dirty cheeks she’d had an elemental, untamed kind of beauty, raw as an uncut diamond.
In a golden gown, the shining, tawny mass of her hair pinned loosely with jeweled combs, that beauty had been honed and cut, polished until it glittered.
There would be many VIPs from his government and Al-Harah aristocracy here tonight, as well as dignitaries from other countries and a significant media contingent. Some of them doubted his claim to the throne. Some of them mistrusted his claim that he’d found their princess, while others didn’t believe he was going to marry her. But regardless of their political leanings, all of them were curious.
One look at her though, and all those doubts would be silenced.
She looked like a Kashgari, a princess in truth. And he would claim her before all of them.
He strode forward to where she stood, circling her, studying the fall of the gown. The robes she’d worn earlier had hidden her figure but he’d gotten a good enough impression of it when she’d been in his lap. Now, here it was in all its lithe, supple glory. The gown was moderately simple, form-fitting and off the shoulder, following the line of her body down to her knees where it kicked out into folds of molten gold. It wasn’t modest, the neckline showing too much dark honey skin for modesty, and no doubt that would scandalize his old-fashioned court.
Through the ice he’d surrounded himself in, another emotion crept. One he was familiar with. Possessiveness.
It would not do, of course. Possessiveness implied desire for something and there were only a few things he’d allowed himself to desire: the throne and peace for his country. Certainly not a woman.
He halted in front of her. Something inside urged him to put more distance between them, but he ignored the warning. He would have to be close to her tonight, so he may as well test the boundaries of his self-control now.
“The team has done well,” he said.
The graceful line of her throat moved as she swallowed, her chin lifting, the look in her eyes defiant. “I did as you asked. I let them dress me up like a … a doll.”
They’d made her up subtly, dark mascara and eyeliner, a sweep of gold shadow on her lids that made the color of her astonishing eyes more intense. There was more gold on her cheekbones, a light sheen of it on her shoulders.
What would it taste like if he licked it off her skin?
Out of nowhere, desire came seeping in through the cracks in his self-control like water through the shattered hull of a boat. It would sink him if he wasn’t careful.
“You do not look like a doll,” he said, keeping his tone absolutely expressionless. “You look like a princess, as you should.”
She looks like her mother. The mother who died because of you.
Ruthlessly he crushed that particular thought.
Safira looked away from him, the expression on her face tight with some emotion he didn’t understand. “I do not like it.”
“Why not?” It didn’t matter to him whether she liked it or otherwise since her feelings on the subject wouldn’t change the facts. And yet he felt compelled to ask. Almost as if he wanted another piece of her to add to the little pieces he already had.
Her mouth, luscious with deep red lipstick, tightened, golden lashes sweeping down to veil her gaze. “I suppose because I … do not feel like myself.”
Despite himself, his chest tightened at the lost-sounding note in her voice.
Because he remembered that feeling. Years ago, after his mother had told him the secret that had ruined both him and his country, it used to dog him. And that same feeling had driven him to take the action that had precipitated the civil war.
The reminder was timely. “But this is who you are, Safira,” he said brusquely. “You will have to get used to it.”
Her lashes swept upwards, her intense blue-green eyes meeting his. “But what if I don’t want to get used to it? What if I prefer being who I was?”
“What? A simple, desert tribeswoman?” He stared steadily back at her. “You were never that, no matter how much you wanted to be. You were born a princess and it’s time you accepted your role.”
Anger flickered through her gaze and across her face. “You were not born a king and yet here you are, accepting a role that isn’t yours.”
It wasn’t anything he hadn’t heard before and yet for some reason the words caught him like a blow. They made him want to justify himself and his reasons for taking the throne, which wasn’t something he’d ever felt it necessary to do before.
And he wasn’t going to start now.
“I do not have to explain myself to you,” he said coldly. “The war ended when I became sheikh. People stopped dying. That is all that matters.”
She stared at him. “That’s all you care about? That people stopped dying?”
“You think that isn’t important?”
“Well, of course it is. But other things are important too.”
“What other things?” He was starting to get impatient with the conversation. It was pointless and time was running short.
Safira blinked. “Happiness? Freedom? Joy? What about—”
“Indulgences,” he interrupted harshly. “That is all they are.”
“But—”
“This conversation is over. I have something I need to give you before we get to the ballroom.” Without waiting for her response, he reached into the pocket of his trousers and brought out the box containing the necklace he normally kept in a safe in his office. A very old, very precious necklace.
He’d taken it because it was a gift that every sheikh of Al-Harah gave to their intended brides. A declaration of intent. A claim. And when Safira appeared in front of everyone wearing it, both his intent and his claim would be obvious. No one would be in any doubt as to whom she belonged.
Opening the box, he drew out the necklace.
Safira’s eyes widened and recognition flooded her face. “That’s …” She trailed off, her voice hoarse.
Of course she recognized this necklace. The last woman to wear it had been her mother.
A sharp, bright little spark of pain glowed deep in her eyes and he felt something shift inside him in response. An old reflex, a muscle memory. Protectiveness.
A man’s heart is weak. Never listen to what it says, Altair.
The old saying, one of his father’s favorites echoed in h
is head. The one that used to drive him mad when he’d been a teenager, with a heart full of selfish desires and wants. The only one he listened to now.
Altair forced away the thin thread of feeling. “Yes. It is the necklace each sheikh of Al-Harah gives his bride. You will wear it tonight.”
Moving behind her, he laid the necklace around her throat. It was a choker style, like a collar, an intricate filigree of gold inset with emeralds and sapphires, and it fit her perfectly.
She made no protest as he fastened it at her neck, but as his fingers brushed her skin, he felt the quiver that went through her. Was that in reaction to his touch or to the feel of the necklace? The knowledge that her mother had been the last to wear it?
The shifting sensation in his chest grew tight. He wanted to see what the necklace looked like and yet he knew that if he saw the expression on her face and there was pain there, no matter what his father used to say, the feeling inside him would only get worse. And he couldn’t afford that.
Quickly he stepped away from her, turning toward the door. “Come,” he said flatly. “We have a party to go to.”
* * *
The palace’s ballroom was huge and it was absolutely full of people. More people than Safira could remember seeing in her entire life. Used to the wide-open and uncrowded spaces of the desert, she couldn’t move for a moment as she and Altair were announced.
Hundreds of pairs of eyes were focused on her as she stood at the top of the stairs that descended into the ballroom, the crowd a colorful, glittering blend of faces and fabrics and jewelry. Cameras flashed, murmurs sighing like the wind in the high desert mountains.
She could feel the heavy weight of the necklace around her throat like a hand slowly squeezing the air from her lungs, just as the smooth fabric of the flimsy gown was slowly squeezing all that was left of Safira from the “princess”.
Her mother’s necklace. More memories she didn’t want. She remembered it from the many parties and balls her mother had attended, where it had glittered around her neck like a handful of colored stars thrown onto a field of gold. Safira had always loved it and had asked her mother on more than one occasion if she could have it. Yvette had laughed and told her of course she would have it, it just wouldn’t be her mother who would give it to her.
And Yvette was right. It wasn’t her who’d given it to Safira. It had been the sheikh and she’d hated him a little bit for that. For not warning her, for not telling her what it meant before he’d taken it out of the box.
But then as he’d told her, he was a man who didn’t care about anything but his throne and the fact that people were no longer dying. And while it was true that those things were far more important than her or her feelings, and she respected that he cared about them, would it have been too much to ask for even a little awareness from him? That he knew putting on her dead mother’s necklace would be difficult for her? Just a small sign, it didn’t have to be much.
Yet apparently it was too much to ask. Like Sayed, he didn’t see the person she was, he only saw the princess he was going to marry.
It was you he kissed, though. You he wanted.
Safira took a shaky breath as all the eyes of the nation turned to her.
No, she couldn’t think about that. She’d been doing a very good job of pretending the kiss had never happened and there was no reason to stop doing so now.
If only the man beside her was just as easy to ignore. But ignoring him was like trying to ignore the heat of the desert sun at midday.
Used to him in a T-shirt and the dusty trousers of the desert, or the dark suit of the day before, she hadn’t been expecting the impact of him in a black jacket and black trousers, black tie and snowy white shirt.
The sight of him had stolen the breath from her body and the moisture from her mouth.
Hard. Beautiful. Powerful. The stark simplicity of the clothing merely highlighting the dark charisma of the man.
He’d stalked around her like a predator and she’d had to hold herself so still in order to calm the wild beating of her heart and the frantic pulse of the blood in her veins.
Then he’d stopped right in front of her, his amber eyes so remote and cold. Yet she knew what lay under that emotionless exterior of his, what he was keeping deep inside.
Molten heat.
She wanted to take it, wanted to close that distance between them, but she’d curled her fingers into her palms instead. She wasn’t going to leave herself so vulnerable the way she had back in his office.
Cameras flashed, reminding her of where she was and who she was facing. The whole wide world staring back at her, here in the place where her parents had died.
Perhaps it was even here, in this very room, that they’d been killed. Were people remembering that? Did they see her parents in her? Did they wonder why she had lived when they had died?
Inexplicable dread gathered in the pit of her stomach.
And then, unexpectedly, Altair closed his hand around hers. The warmth of his skin was like a shot of pure alcohol, soothing and yet exciting at the same time, and she had to tell herself to breathe before she forgot how to do it.
Looking at him would have given herself away, so she kept her gaze on the people ahead of them, the heat from his hand like an ember against her palm.
The touch steadied her and she found herself twining her fingers around his and holding on.
You and I. Together. We will change an entire country.
He’d told her it was time she accepted the role she was born for and perhaps he was right. Perhaps it was time. Not only accept it, but prove herself worthy of it. Do her parents proud, let their sacrifice be not in vain.
She steeled herself, following him down the stairs, and soon they were engulfed in a crowd of people, all pushing forward with questions and well-wishes.
Altair controlled the crowd effortlessly, answering all their questions in cool, measured tones, introducing her to people as they went. The people who’d dressed her and prepped her had told her the sheikh would answer all the questions and do all the talking, she wouldn’t have to say a word. That had been reassuring initially and as they moved through the crowd, she still felt grateful mainly because she couldn’t think of what to say. She didn’t have the practice with social small talk that he did or know the little foibles of the court.
But as they went on, she began to resent the strange dread that had stolen her voice from her and rendered her silent. Because it wasn’t right that he should be the one to tell her story. About how the lost princess, hidden for years in the desert, had been brought up by the tribes and now was returned to her rightful place. The last of the Kashgari. The woman who would be his bride, his sheikha.
Shouldn’t she be the one to tell it? Didn’t he trust her to speak? Weren’t they supposed to be doing this together?
Yet every time she wanted to say something, she would become conscious of the weight of people’s stares. Of the judgment in their eyes.
Here she is, the last of the Kashgari. Is she worth all this fuss? Fifteen years in the desert and it shows. She always was such a difficult child. She has the eyes of her mother, but she’s certainly not as poised or as graceful. She hasn’t got her father’s steadiness either. Pity her parents did not have another child …
And a response would lock in her throat, nothing coming out.
It made her furious with herself.
“Are you sure this is her?” one of the more pompous of the Al-Harahan government officials said as he peered down at her.
“Yes.” Altair’s voice was flat with certainty, displeasure at being questioned edging his tone. “The DNA test proved it.”
“Hmmm.” The official wrinkled his nose. “Forgive me, she’s a pretty enough thing, but as your sheikha? We need someone strong and stable, highness. Especially in these difficult times. And if you remember, there were always doubts about her even when her parents were alive. I mean, they were certainly courageous in sending her into hiding but,
really, what was the point of it?”
Safira stilled as a surge of hot rage went through her and if she’d had a knife anywhere she would have put it through the stupid, ignorant man’s liver. How dare he speak about her as if she wasn’t there, as if even her life was worth nothing.
Altair opened his mouth to reply, but she got in first. “The point,” she said, finding her voice from somewhere, “was to keep me alive. Would you prefer it if I had died along with them?”
A dense silence fell as everyone in the immediate vicinity stared at her.
She stared back, suddenly shaking with anger. “Well?” she demanded. “Is that what you all wanted? Would it have been better for me to have been killed along with my parents?”
The astonished silence deepened.
“You are tired, princess,” Altair’s deep, dark voice broke in smoothly, as if she’d said nothing untoward. “Perhaps you need to rest?” His arm slid around her waist, heavy and proprietary, ready to draw her away.
Safira looked sharply up at him, anger and inexplicable dread tearing at her chest. The look on his face was impenetrable, but the glow in his cold amber eyes was not. She could read the warning in them loud and clear. Stop talking.
But she couldn’t keep all that anger inside her like he could. And she wasn’t going to stay silent any longer.
With a sinuous movement, she twisted out of his hold. “I am not tired,” she said angrily. “And I don’t need a rest. What I need is to stop hearing that my parents made a mistake in saving me.”
“Safira.” He smiled at her, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “No one is saying that. Calm down. Why don’t you come with me and we will discuss it?” He reached for her again.
“Don’t touch me!” She took a couple of steps back, knocking into a passing waiter carrying a tray of glasses. The waiter stumbled, the tray tilting, the wine glasses crashing and shattering on the beautifully tiled floor of the ballroom.
Never Refuse a Sheikh Page 6