Promised to a Sheik

by Carla Cassidy

  She paused and drew a deep breath, her voice softer as she continued. “I’m not trying to make excuses for what I did, but I do want to try to explain.”

  “The reasons that drove you are unimportant,” he replied, refusing to be moved by anything she might say.

  “Perhaps they are unimportant to you, Omar, but they are important to me.” She sank back into the chair opposite him. “When you first showed up at my cottage, I was stunned, and I told myself there was no real harm in having just one meal with you. Then I walked into that private dining room that you had filled with flowers, and I realized I was in love with you.”

  Despite his intention to the contrary, her words slipped through his anger to pierce his heart. He got up from the table, needing to distance himself, needing to break eye contact with her, for in her eyes he saw her heart.

  “What I did by keeping the truth from you was wrong, Omar,” she exclaimed, the sound of a sob rising in her voice. “But I did it because I loved you and I was so afraid that if you found out the truth, you wouldn’t want a pale, sorry imitation of the vivacious, beautiful woman you had seen at that cotillion so long ago.”

  Omar slammed a fist down on the countertop. “You made a fool of me.” The words ripped from his throat. “You made a mockery of our marriage.”

  Wearily she nodded her head. “So, how long do you intend to punish me, Omar? Weeks? Months? Years? My crime was a lie based on love for you. Please, tell me what my sentence is to be.”

  “You talk too much about love,” he said angrily. “I told you before, a sheik doesn’t love the way normal men love.”

  “Stop saying that. Who told you that, anyway?” For the first time since they’d begun their conversation he saw a flash of anger in her eyes.

  She rose and walked over to where he stood, stopping mere inches from him. As always, the scent of her stirred him, which only increased his ire.

  “Was it your father?” she asked. “Because if it was, then he lied to you, and I have a feeling if you ask him about your mother, you’ll discover that sheiks do love.” Tears tracked down her cheeks. “And if you don’t love me, can’t love me, then, please let me go. Divorce me.”

  He reached out, grabbed her and pulled her tight against him. “Never. I don’t give up what is mine. I will never divorce you.”

  He could feel her heartbeat against his chest, the frantic flutter of a captured bird. Her cheeks were wet with her tears, and he fought the impulse to reach up and gently wipe them away.

  “If you won’t divorce me, then, forgive me,” she said softly.

  “I can’t do that,” he said stiffly.

  Like a dervish wind, she spun out of his arms and stepped away from him. Her eyes glistened with the remnants of her tears and a renewed flare of anger. “If you cannot find it in your heart to forgive, then, you will never be a great sheik, only an adequate one. You can’t be a good ruler and not have any forgiveness in your soul.” Tears once again spilled from her eyes. “And if you can’t forgive me, then, you aren’t the man I thought you were.”

  She laughed bitterly. “You thought I was my sister when you married me, and I thought you were a man with a loving heart and a gentle soul. I’d say we’re even when it comes to deception.” She turned and ran from the kitchen before he could reply.

  He returned to the table and sat down, trying to forget the sight of her tearstained face, the depth of emotion in her voice.

  He finished drinking his cup of coffee, then shut off the coffeemaker and went to his bed, where her perfume lingered in the air.

  Sleep was a long time in coming for Omar that night. Cara’s words danced in his head, while the thought of her woeful tears ached in his chest.

  Damn her. Damn her for confusing him. A sheik was not supposed to entertain confusion, especially when it came to a woman. And a sheik was supposed to guard his heart when it came to love. Wasn’t that what he’d heard over and over from his father?

  And what had she meant by telling him to speak to his father about his mother? What could she know of her father’s relationship with the woman who had died at his birth?

  He awakened the next morning later than usual and left immediately for a morning of meetings. But he found it difficult to concentrate on business.

  Cara consumed his thoughts. Her words about him never being a great sheik because of his unforgiving nature rankled.

  He wanted to be a great leader for his people. He had a feeling she had said that just to hurt him. It had been another manipulation to try to get her way, to try to get him to forgive her.

  But how could he forgive a woman who had lied about something as basic as her name, a woman who had taken his name in a legal ceremony under false pretenses?

  When he’d looked at the marriage certificate, he’d realized that at least she hadn’t lied on it. She’d signed it Elizabeth C. Carson.

  He looked at Rashad, who sat at his right hand and was taking notes. Rashad had known the truth but hadn’t told him. Rashad had let his feelings about Cara be known. He adored her, and he’d been unable to hide his displeasure with Omar this past week.

  Elizabeth Cara Carson. Her name went around and around in his head. What difference does her middle name make? a tiny voice asked. She makes you happy, so what difference does it make if her beauty mark is on a different side of her lips?

  By the time his morning meetings were finished, he was feeling irritable and tired. But he decided to seek out his father, bothered by what Cara had said to him the night before.

  He found Sheik Abdul in the garden with his three wives. His face lit with pleasure as Omar approached where they sat at the patio table.

  “My son, what a pleasant surprise,” Sheik Abdul exclaimed.

  Hayfa stood to offer her son her chair. He kissed her on the cheek, than sat in the chair she had vacated. “Have you come for lunch?” Hayfa asked.

  “No, thanks. But I would like a few minutes alone with my father.”

  “Certainly,” Hayfa replied, as the other two women rose from their chairs.

  Sheik Abdul waited until his wives were out of sight, then he turned to his son, his dark eyes filled with speculation. “I have heard through the grapevine that the past several days my son has had the sting of a scorpion.”

  Omar frowned. “A bit of an exaggeration,” he said defensively. His father continued to gaze at him, his eyes sharp and wise. “All right, I’ll admit it, I have been rather irritable lately,” he finally confessed.

  “The oil negotiations are finished?” Sheik Abdul asked.

  Omar nodded. “A fair arrangement that will assure Gaspar future prosperity.”

  “Then, it isn’t business that has you unusually contentious?”

  Omar sighed and looked away from his father. Flowers. Everywhere around them were flowers, and of course his thoughts turned to his wife.

  Within minutes he was telling his father everything—about the letters he had written and the ones he had received, letters he’d assumed had been from Fiona. He told his father about Cara’s lie and how he had only realized the truth the week before, after the celebration dance. He repeated to Sheik Abdul what Cara had told him, about why she’d done it and why she hadn’t told him the truth.

  “So, what do you intend to do?” his father asked when he’d finished speaking. “Do you wish to divorce her?”

  “No.” The answer sprang quickly to his lips. “We are married, and I have no intention of changing that fact.”

  He frowned and eyed his father steadily. “Tell me about my mother.”

  Pain darkened his father’s eyes. “What does she have to do with any of this?”

  “I’m curious, that’s all. You never speak of her.”

  “There is no point in speaking of her. She is gone.”

  There was a tension in his father’s voice, a whisper of pain that surprised Omar. “Father, I have always believed you are a wise man, and it was you who taught me that sheiks don’t love with their
hearts, that to love is a form of weakness. Did you love my mother?”

  Sheik Abdul averted his gaze from Omar’s and instead focused on some point in the distance. For a moment silence reigned between the two men. Omar waited patiently, knowing eventually his father would answer his question.

  “Antonia was like no other woman I had ever met,” he finally said. “She was like the joyous birdsong of a new morning, a cool cloth on a fevered brow. Had I not been a sheik, she’d have made me feel like one. She gave me laughter and joy, friendship and passion.”

  He looked at Omar again, his eyes radiating the emotion that was in his heart. “Did I love her? Aside from you, I have never loved anyone as profoundly, as deeply as I loved Antonia. When she died, she took with her any capacity I might have had to love another woman in that same way.”

  So, this must have been what Cara had wanted him to hear, Omar thought. He recognized that his father’s admission of loving his mother certainly belied what his father had tried to teach him about love.

  “My son.” Sheik Abdul reached across the table and gripped Omar’s hand firmly in his. “I have done you an enormous injustice in attempting to shield your heart from love. My only excuse is that I never wanted you to feel the kind of pain I felt when I lost your mother.”

  He released Omar’s hand, then leaned back in his chair. “You were so in love with this Fiona?”

  “No,” Omar scoffed. “I only met her once, years ago. She was quite beautiful, but no more so than Cara. It was the letters I received that captured my heart.” Captured his heart. His own words surprised him, and suddenly he realized why he was so angry with Cara.

  He stood abruptly. “I must go,” he said. “I need to discuss some things with my wife.”

  “Take care, son,” Sheik Abdul exclaimed. “A woman’s heart is a fragile thing.”

  Omar nodded. “I know. However, I have suddenly come to realize that in love, all hearts are created equal.” With these words, Omar left his father at the table and headed for his quarters—and Cara.

  “Elizabeth…Cara,” he called the moment he walked into their quarters.

  There was no reply. He walked down the hallway to the bedroom that she had been using since he’d banished her from the master suite.

  The room was neat, the bed made, and everything in order. He turned to leave the room and nearly ran over one of the maids. “Ah, Sahira, where is my wife?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, Your Highness. She called for a car about an hour ago and left.”

  “She didn’t mention where she was going?” he asked.

  “She did not say…but she had a suitcase with her.”

  “A suitcase!” Shocked, he raced back into the bedroom and flung open the closet door. Most of the clothing she had brought with her was gone.

  “Guards!” he yelled.

  Fifteen

  She would be home in plenty of time to shop for Christmas.

  Cara stared out the glass windows of the Gaspar public airport, trying not to think of all she was leaving behind: the haunting beauty of Gaspar, the friendliness of the people and, most importantly, Omar.

  She looked at her watch and frowned. Upon arriving, she had quickly discovered that the small Gaspar airport had only about twenty flights in and out daily, none of which was a direct flight to the United States.

  With changing planes and layovers, it would be twenty hours or so before she got back to her little cottage in Mission Creek, Texas.

  She turned away from the window when the landscape blurred from her ever-present tears. She picked up her suitcase and walked to a row of chairs, sinking down in the last one, nearest the gate where she would eventually board her plane.

  Drawing a deep breath, she thought over the events of the night before. Her love for Omar hadn’t changed. It burned in her heart, seared through her soul, but she’d realized after her argument with him that she couldn’t remain with him.

  She refused to play his love slave for another day, another minute. She loved him, but she loved herself too much to be satisfied with just his physical love and nothing more.

  Funny, the Cara she had been before meeting him might have stayed, might have been desperate and willing to accept whatever crumbs he was willing to throw in her direction. But in his love she’d found her own strength—the strength to walk away from him and his unforgiving eyes.

  Aside from Omar, there were many things she would miss, like the friendships she had made with his stepmothers. Hayfa, Jahara and Malika would always have a special place in her heart, but even their friendship couldn’t make her stay another minute.

  She would not be subservient to any man—not even Omar, who seemed to feel she owed it to him because of her deception. She had apologized and she had loved him and that should be enough for him, but of course it wasn’t.

  Again tears stung her eyes, and she closed them, willing the tears away. After leaving Omar in the kitchen the night before, she had cried enough tears to last two lifetimes.

  Something good had survived despite the heartache. She no longer had any desire to be just like her sister. In the weeks that she had spent with Omar before he’d realized the truth, she had found herself. Maybe someday she would be able to thank him for that.

  She consciously willed her thoughts away from Omar and instead thought of her little cottage and the life she was returning to. Her life would be different there because she was different. She wasn’t sure what the future held for her, but she would never again feel as if she were functioning in the shadow of her sister.

  “Your Highness?” A deep voice spoke from behind her as a hand touched her shoulder.

  She turned in her seat to see three uniformed palace guards. “Yes?”

  “We are here to accompany you back to the palace,” the eldest of the three said.

  “Thank you, but that isn’t necessary,” she replied. “I have no intention of returning to the palace.”

  The guard frowned, looking pained. “I’m afraid our orders are to take you back to the palace.” The other two guards stepped closer.

  Cara stood and faced the three of them. “Well, I’m changing your orders,” she retorted.

  “Your Highness, we take our orders from Sheik Al Abdar, and he has ordered us not to return without you.”

  Cara watched in horror as one of the guards pulled out a pair of handcuffs. “You have got to be kidding me,” she exclaimed. She looked from one very serious face to the other.

  “We can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way,” the guard explained. “It’s entirely up to you.”

  Cara had the wildest impulse to run for the ladies’ room, but she had a feeling they would follow her in without a second thought. They were on a mission, doing their sheik’s work, and nothing was going to deter them.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she exclaimed with aggravation. She picked up her suitcase and looked at them expectantly. “Fine, take me back and let’s get this over with.”

  A car awaited them at the curb. She was placed in the back with a guard on either side, and she steeled herself for what was to come.

  Apparently Omar wanted a final confrontation. Fine, he would have one. His high-handedness in sending guards for her only confirmed that he was a man without a heart, a man who had fooled her as completely as she had fooled him.

  The ride to the palace was a silent one. The guards seemed uncomfortable, and she wondered how many times in the past they’d had to hunt down and bring back one of Omar’s women.

  Probably never, she thought. She would guess that women didn’t leave Omar. Omar left women.

  Well, he was about to experience a first. Her mind was made up. She would not stay and play his game of love.

  Still, as the palace came into view, tears once again threatened, and her chest tightened with a suffocating ache. This was to have been her home, the place where she would have children and grow old with her husband.

  Now the palace represented on
ly the pain of dreams lost, of futures forsaken and love denied. She hoped he didn’t intend to make this difficult on her.

  It would be nice if her last impression of Omar was one of acquiescence and not one of pride and anger. She just wanted him to let her go.

  “We are to escort you directly to the throne room,” the guard said as they exited the car.

  The throne room. So, he was to meet with her in a room where the aura of his power was almighty. He didn’t want to meet with her as husband and wife, but as sheik and his property.

  A surge of anger displaced her pain, and she wrapped that anger around her like a defensive suit of armor as she stalked toward the throne room.

  He sat on the oversize, ornate chair that was his throne. He was in full sheik costume, wearing a long white silk robe with gold embroidery and a white turban trimmed in tiny gold beads. The white made the darkness of his eyes more profound and the hue of his skin richer and deeper.

  She could tell even from a distance that he had an arrogant tilt to his head. His mouth was a harsh slash of displeasure as he eyed her. He looked every inch the powerful ruler, every inch the handsome man she loved.

  “You would leave me?” His voice thundered in the otherwise empty, cavernous room.

  She hesitated a moment, then replied. “You had already left me.” Her voice sounded small, tinny, and she cleared her throat self-consciously. “Did you know your guards were going to handcuff me to get me back here?”

  “They had their orders to do whatever necessary to return you to where you belong.”

  “I don’t belong here,” she exclaimed, and fought against the thick emotion that tried to crawl up her throat.

  “Come closer, dear wife. I want to look into your eyes when I speak with you.”

  She remained in place. “We have nothing to talk about.”