“That’s not true,” she protested, fighting the tears that threatened. She’d desperately hoped she’d be the one to tell him the truth, that she could explain it all to him rationally and make it all be okay. “Everything we’ve shared has been based on love.”
“Love?” He laughed bitterly. “Don’t flatter yourself, Cara. I don’t love liars and you are a liar, a woman without honor.”
Each of his words was like a bullet shot into her heart, evoking tears of pain and regret. “Omar, I know I should have told you the truth before we married. And every day since our wedding, I’ve wanted to tell you the truth, but I was afraid.”
She could tell by the implacable expression on his face that there was nothing she could say to alleviate his anger. He was immersed in it, wearing it like an impenetrable mantle around him.
She quickly swiped at the tears that had escaped her eyes. “I’m sorry, Omar. Please forgive me. I know what I did was wrong, but I wanted to be your wife, I wanted to share your life.”
“You and your sister played a game with my honor, with my future. Perhaps you found the entire thing amusing, a childish game played by twins, but I find nothing amusing about it.”
“No, it wasn’t like that,” she exclaimed.
He drew a deep breath, a forceful arrogance on his face.
“It doesn’t matter now. It’s done, finished. I’ve seen the marriage certificate and you are legally my wife.”
His gaze was cold and distant. “But don’t worry, Cara, I will not divorce you.” His voice was laced with disgust. “You will continue to get your wish of being my wife. In public you will continue to be my loving, supportive wife. We will stand united before the people of Gaspar.”
Cara sighed with a touch of relief. Maybe it was going to be all right, after all, she told herself. He was angry now, but at least he wasn’t demanding that she pack her bags and return to Mission Creek.
“And now you may choose whichever guest room you wish to call your own,” he continued. “I will let you know when I wish for you to join me here, but unless you are invited, you are not welcome.”
She stared at him in horror. He was banishing her, banishing her from his bedroom, from any piece of his heart where she might have resided. “Omar, please. Don’t do this. Let’s talk about this.”
There was no succor in the dark coldness of his eyes as he gazed at her. “You wanted to be married to me and so we are married. But the conditions of our marriage have now changed. You have changed everything with your lie and manipulation. Now go to bed, Cara. I’ll have the servants move your personal belongings from this room in the morning.”
He turned away from her, as if he could no longer abide to look at her, and her heart crumbled with despair. She wanted to plead with him, try to make him understand the forces that had driven her to do what she had done.
Did it not count for anything that she had pretended to be her sister because she had fallen in love with him?
Still, she knew now was not the time to try to explain to him. He was beyond angry, and until some of his anger left him, she knew that anything she said would fall on deaf ears.
Surely by morning, after sleeping a night alone, he would soften. Surely by morning he would forgive her and they could continue to build a life together, a life based on love.
With tears still blurring her vision, she walked to the bedroom door, then turned back to look at him.
Once again he stood at the door leading to the garden, only his broad back visible to her. “Omar, I know what I did was wrong, but I was afraid to tell you the truth. I was afraid I would lose you.”
He turned, his face a harsh mask of expressionless granite. “Then, your fear has come true, for you have lost my respect and admiration.” He presented his back to her again.
The fear Cara had faced when Donny Albright pulled out a gun and pointed it at her was the same kind of fear she felt now. It was the fear of her life.
Staring at Omar’s broad back, she saw the shattering of the future she’d hoped to build with him, the destruction of dreams she’d wanted to share with him. The fear of losing him ripped through her, and she ran from the room, from him, stifling the sobs that begged to be released.
She didn’t choose one of the spare rooms, she simply ran into the guest room closest to the master suite. It was a spacious room decorated in turquoise and peach. The adjoining full bath was luxurious, but she hardly noticed as she grabbed a washcloth from the closet and buried her face in the soft cotton.
She had known he would be upset when he learned the truth, but she hadn’t expected his cold disdain, his unequivocal dismissal of her.
How she wished she could go back in time, back to the moment when he’d first appeared on her doorstep. That had been the time for her full confession, when she should have told him that it was she, and not Fiona, who had been writing to him, she, and not Fiona, who had fallen in love with the beautiful words and the man who had put them together.
But there was no going back now.
She didn’t know how long she sat in the bathroom, the washcloth pressed against her face to catch the seemingly endless stream of tears.
Finally, when she was exhausted both mentally and physically, she went back into the bedroom and pulled the spread from the bed, then crawled beneath the cool, crisp sheet.
No scent of Omar lingered in the bed, no welcoming warmth radiated from his body, and her heart ached with the coldness and unfamiliarity of the half-empty bed.
Surely by morning his heart would soften, she told herself. Despite what everyone had told her about sheiks not loving, Cara knew in her heart that Omar loved her. She felt it in his gaze, in his kiss and in his lovemaking. She’d felt it when they spoke of the future, the children they would have and the life they would live.
Or was it simply a crazy hope that made her believe Omar loved her?
She fell asleep with no answer in her heart, only the deep pain of regret and remorse echoing inside her.
No familiar birdsong awakened her, no sweetly drowsy strong male arms pulled her close to herald the new day. She had never felt so alone as she did in that first moment of awakeness the next morning.
The events of the night replayed in her mind, and the tears she’d thought spent threatened to erupt again. But she didn’t have time for tears. She had a marriage to save.
It was just after six-thirty when she stepped out of the shower and quickly dressed. Omar usually had his morning coffee between six-thirty and seven, and she wanted to be there with him to see if perhaps some of his anger from last night had subsided.
She hurried toward the breakfast nook, her heart thudding madly in her chest as she saw he was already seated there.
Always before, these early-morning moments had been used as a time for them to connect with each other, to talk about their plans for the day.
But it was evident by the newspaper opened before him that this morning was going to be different. “Good morning,” she murmured, testing the waters.
“Good morning,” he replied. His voice was cool, and he didn’t look up from the paper.
She poured herself a cup of coffee from the silver carafe on the table, frowning as her gaze lingered on his handsome features. She sipped her coffee, aware of thick tension in the air, a tension she was desperate to break.
“Omar, could we talk?” she finally asked.
His eyes, so dark, so cold, left the paper and glared at her. “We have nothing to talk about. I said everything I had to say to you last night.”
“I’m not sure what role you expect me to play in your life.”
A smile curved his lips. It was not a pleasant smile. “Your role is to be my good and dutiful wife, to see to my needs and my pleasures.”
“And what do I get in return for being a good and dutiful wife?” she asked.
“The admiration of my people and the riches that are mine.”
“I don’t care about admiration or wealth,” she s
coffed fervently. She placed her hand on his arm, needing physical contact after a night of isolation and despair.
In the instant that her fingers made contact with his bare arm, she saw a flare of something in his eyes, a spark of warmth. There for a moment, then gone as he moved his arm from her touch and stood.
“I have directed two of the maids to remove your things from the master bedroom. I have a day of meetings and won’t be back here until after seven.” He didn’t wait for her reply, but turned and left the breakfast nook, taking more than a piece of her heart with him.
Omar had never experienced the depth of anger that raged through him, but it was an anger tempered with painful disappointment.
It had taken him hours to fall asleep the night before. He’d tossed and turned, going over every moment of every day he had spent with her, wondering which twin had been with him at which time. Who had written the letters that had so enchanted him?
Over the past three weeks, he’d quoted back to her words she had written to him…but had she been the woman who had written those words, or had her sister?
He’d finally told himself it didn’t matter who had done what—the bottom line was he’d been hoodwinked into marrying a woman he hadn’t intended to marry.
The marriage was legal and had been consummated, and under no circumstances would he consider a divorce. A divorce would be an admission of a mistake and would undermine his standing with the people of Gaspar.
For better or worse, he was married to Elizabeth Cara Carson, a woman he didn’t even remember meeting at the cotillion so long ago.
The moment he stepped out of his private quarters, Rashad was waiting for him. The little man greeted him with a subdued nod, and instantly Omar realized that Rashad knew what was going on.
“Did you know the truth?” he asked as they walked down the grand stairway.
“Yes,” Rashad replied, not even pretending not to know what Omar was talking about.
“How long have you known the truth?”
“Since the day of the marriage,” Rashad replied.
A sense of outrage gripped Omar. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t feel it was my place. You seemed happy.”
Omar wanted to yell at the man who had been as much a friend as a personal aide, but he bit back the terse words.
“I am very angry, Rashad,” he finally said.
“Yes, Your Highness.” They walked for a few minutes. Rashad finally broke the silence. “Will you be very angry for long?”
Omar frowned. He felt as if the foundation of all he’d known had disappeared, as if a mask had been ripped off the woman he’d married and beneath the mask was a stranger, a lying, conniving stranger.
“Yes, Rashad,” he finally replied. “I think I’m going to be very angry for a long time.”
Twelve
It was just after seven that evening when Cara heard Omar enter their quarters. She had spent the day thinking, trying to figure out how to fix what she had broken, how to assuage Omar’s anger with her.
If she hadn’t seen that flicker of emotion at the table that morning when she’d touched him, she would have spent the day in total despair. But that brief whisper in his eyes had given her an unexpected jolt of hope.
She had dressed carefully for the evening, choosing a long, casual moss-green dress that she knew complemented her eyes and clung to her figure. The neck line was just low enough to give a glimpse of cleavage. She’d put it on with seduction in mind.
She couldn’t believe that Omar’s desire for her had died with his knowledge of the truth, and she couldn’t believe that his desire wasn’t based on loving her. She just had to remind him of those things.
She met him in the living room. “Welcome home, Your Highness,” she said demurely. “I took the liberty of drawing you a hot bath to relax you before the evening meal.”
He looked at her in surprise. “Why would you do that?”
She gazed down at the floor at his feet. “I’m just trying to be a good and dutiful wife and anticipate your every need.”
She held her breath, wondering if she would only manage to stir his ire further with what she’d planned. Surely he would see how sorry she was, how much she loved him, if she played the role he requested of her.
“Fine, a bath sounds good.” He didn’t look at her again, but instead disappeared into the master suite.
She released the breath she’d held, wishing she’d seen a softening in him, a spark of caring in his eyes, a hint of yearning. But there had been nothing there except the cold darkness that had first appeared the night before.
She waited several minutes, then went into the bathroom. He was already in the tub, and the room smelled of the scented oils she’d added to the hot water.
“What do you want?” he asked, his voice curt.
“The question should be what do you want,” she countered smoothly. She grabbed a washcloth from the closet and approached the edge of the sunken tub. “Perhaps my husband would like me to wash his back?”
He didn’t reply verbally, but leaned forward and presented her his broad, beautiful back. It was ridiculous how nervous she felt as she bent down at the edge of the tub and wet the washcloth.
She’d stroked his back many times in the course of the past couple of weeks, but this suddenly felt as if it would be her first time touching his smoothly muscled form.
The ache that had been in her chest since the night before intensified as she ran the washcloth across his shoulders.
He was tense, his muscles knotted beneath the skin, and she smoothed the cloth across those muscles in an attempt to relax them. He released a deep sigh, as if finding her actions intensely pleasurable.
What she wanted to do was press her lips against his wet flesh. What she wanted to do was strip off her clothes and join him in the huge tub, see his eyes light with the fires she’d come to love, feel his arms wrap around her.
But she did neither of those things. She was afraid of his reaction, terrified that she’d be rebuffed and her heart would not survive the wound.
As she continued to wash his beautiful skin, she slowed the movement of the cloth across his back, caressing more than washing. He sighed again, a sigh that spoke of exquisite pleasure. It emboldened her, and she moved the cloth lower. She gasped in surprise as he twisted around and grabbed the cloth from her hand.
“That’s enough. Thank you, but I’d like to finish my bath alone.”
He was aroused. She could tell by his breathing and could see the physical evidence through the clear water as he straightened. A sharp wave of arousal swept her.
It was the desire not just to make love with him, but to have him hold her close enough that she could feel the reassuring beat of his heart, to have him smile at her with sweet gentleness in his eyes.
It was the desire to have everything go back to the way it had been between them, when there had been nothing but sharing and laughter and love.
“Are you sure there’s nothing more I can do for you?” she asked softly.
“Your presence is no longer required, Eliza—Cara.”
His dismissal hurt, and as she turned and left the bathroom, the pressure of tears ached in her eyes. She told herself she was expecting too much, too soon.
Less than twenty-four hours ago he had somehow learned the truth about her identity. Surely as more time passed, his anger with her would fade and he would realize the woman he’d fallen in love with, the woman he’d wanted to marry, had been she all along.
But the next three days brought no softening of Omar. They began each day with a silent breakfast. He read the paper and seemed to ignore her presence.
When they attended a meeting or dinner engagement as a couple, he treated her respectfully but with a painful distance. And at night, he retired to the master suite alone; she slept in the bed in the guest room, wondering if this would be her future with her husband, a future of isolation and loneliness, a future devoid of love.<
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When they spent time together alone, she continued to play the role of devoted wife, drawing his baths, making certain his favorite foods were served and doing whatever else she could to please him. She massaged his feet, turned down his bed and tried to anticipate whatever his pleasure might be. She considered it penance for her sin.
But nothing she did seemed to penetrate through the shell of indifference he wore around himself. In the time since they married, she’d discovered Omar to be a man of enormous sexual appetites and they had made love every night from the day of their marriage until he’d discovered the truth. It worried her that four nights had passed and he hadn’t touched her in any way. It worried her that he seemed to have no problem with not making love to her.
It was early Wednesday morning when she left her quarters and walked to the other side of the palace to talk with Hayfa. She needed the advice of another woman, the advice of somebody who knew Omar well.
Her knock on the door to Sheik Abdul’s quarters was answered by a maid whose physical appearance led Cara to believe the woman was not a native of Gaspar. She was a pretty little woman, about fifty years old, with light brown hair and eyes the color of a cloudless sky.
“I’m here to see Hayfa,” Cara said to the woman.
“Of course. If you’ll follow me.”
“Wait.” Cara smiled at the woman. “Your name wouldn’t happen to be Jane, would it?”
“Yes, it is.” The woman’s pale blue eyes widened in obvious surprise.
“And you’re originally from Montana?”
She frowned. “How did you know?”
Cara offered her a reassuring smile. “Rashad mentioned you to me.”
At the mention of Rashad’s name, Jane’s cheeks colored slightly. “I can’t imagine why that man would bore you by talking about me.” Despite her words, Cara could tell that the woman was pleased that Rashad had spoken of her.
“He’s very fond of you,” she told Jane. “I think with a little encouragement he’d be even more fond of you.”
Promised to a Sheik Page 14