The Sheikh's Destiny (Harlequin Romance)

by Melissa James

  ‘YOU can’t marry her,’ Malik al-Sud said, his tone deferential yet firm. It reminded Alim of Hana. ‘This is impossible—it’s a fantasy based on her saving your life, my lord. The country won’t accept her as your wife.’

  ‘That’s what I’ve been telling him,’ Hana said, for once in sync with her father.

  ‘It’s only been a few weeks. You can’t know if it’s real, what you want, what you’re feeling,’ her mother added.

  Her brother and sisters nodded in agreement. Alim saw the same disbelief in six pairs of eyes…especially in Hana’s. Fury filled him at her lack of faith in him, but he controlled it. ‘If you won’t believe in us, Sahar Thurayya, then I’ll have to believe for both of us—because I am going to marry you.’ He bent and kissed her, feeling the little catch of breath in reaction, the tiny purr in her throat.

  He lifted his head and smiled at Malik al-Sud, seeing the fire in the older man’s eyes.

  He frowned and shook his head, an infinitesimal movement Hana wouldn’t feel. He wasn’t going to answer the unasked suspicion, and hurt Hana over again. Even now, her family should know her better.

  ‘You’ve raised a fine, principled woman, sir,’ he said quietly, ‘a woman who’s a queen in every way but birth…and if she doesn’t marry me, the people will have to be content with my brother as my heir, because I won’t marry.’

  Dead silence met his pronouncement—then Hana moved out of his arms. ‘I told you, Alim, this is ridiculous. You think you love me, but you haven’t been home a day. And I—I told you what kind of man I wanted…’ But the telltale hiccup gave her away.

  He shook his head. ‘When you gave your heart, it would be for life,’ he repeated her father’s words in strong deliberation. ‘You gave it to me, Hana. You said the words.’

  Her eyes were cold, bleak. ‘That was before we arrived here.’ She waved at all the opulence he took for granted after all these years, because this was home. ‘I grew up in a house the size of this room. I caught buses and trains when I wanted to go somewhere. I’m more Australian than Arabic in many ways. It isn’t just about the people’s reaction, Alim, or the press. I—I do care for you, but this life isn’t what I want!’

  Looking in her eyes, he saw the absolute sincerity—and something died inside him. ‘You mean that.’

  He heard the doors closing behind her family.

  Hana’s eyes were drenched in tears, lovely pools of green-brown finality. ‘I’ve spent five years in huts and camps, working with people who have nothing. This—’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t be what I’m not, Alim. I couldn’t live this way, not when friends, people I love…’

  Strange, but coming here today, he hadn’t thought about how his childhood home would affect a woman who’d lived with death by starvation every day of the past five years. He’d been too busy thinking of their families, of making her see they were meant to be together. Coming here, he’d finally made peace with Fadi’s death, come to terms with his future, and the only question that remained in his mind had been when Hana would marry him.

  Now, without even looking around, he saw the palace through Hana’s eyes—the gold lining the walls, the knickknacks worth thousands and millions, meant to impress dignitaries who’d been there, done that a hundred times, in every other nation—

  He saw in his mind’s eye the multimillion-dollar cheques for racing a million-dollar car around a circuit…the oil that had turned his country from a rural backwater barely known outside the emirates to a world player. Riches, power, and the trappings of wealth everywhere…he saw all his life’s achievements through her eyes.

  Then he saw the people of Shellah-Akbar risking their lives to save him, people lean with hunger and bent with long hours of hard physical labour every day. He saw Hana in her burq’a, her capable hands saving his life, her sacrifices for his sake.

  He was trapped here, unless he lumbered everything back on Harun’s shoulders—and as Hana had said, he’d had one shot at disappearing. He couldn’t do it again. He could offer to give it all away to please her, to save others, and still it wouldn’t be enough.

  For the first time in his life, Alim was speechless.

  ‘I think it’s best if I go to my sister’s house,’ she said quietly, breaking into his inner darkness, but not lightening it as she’d always done before. She knew.

  ‘You’re running again.’ He felt his jaw tightening. ‘You can go anywhere in the world, you can escape again, do the noble thing and return to the life we lived before. But it will always be running away from the hard option.’

  Her gaze turned from him. ‘I know,’ she mumbled.

  He brought her back to face him. ‘I might not have a choice any more, but inside I’m still the guy in the truck. This isn’t the life you think it is. Yes, I live in luxury, but being the leader of any country is as hard as anything you’ve done in the Sahel in many ways—and from now on, it’ll be harder, Hana. I’ll be working for those I now know.’

  Her eyes glimmered softly, tears and pride combined. ‘I know that, Alim. You’re a truly good man.’

  It was a farewell he refused to believe. ‘My job would be easier if I had someone beside me. A woman who knows and understands the common people—who’s lived the life of those who suffer the most. A permanent reminder for me never to forget, or to become arrogant.’ He kissed her again. ‘You can take the hard option or the easy one, Hana. Save a few with your hands, or save hundreds of thousands with your courage and great heart. You can take on a new job with a real challenge, working night and day for the good of so many more at a time than one village alone.’

  He saw the doubt in her heart, the uncertainty in her eyes, and had to be satisfied with that. ‘I’ll be here, waiting,’ he said, a soft growl.

  ‘Don’t. Don’t wait for me, Alim.’ Her voice cracked. ‘Thanks for the escape kit. Thank you—for everything.’

  And she was gone.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said softly to the air she’d left behind. He breathed in lavender—she must have put on some from the bottle he’d given her—and felt aching loss.

  As she’d predicted, the world media didn’t take long to dig up her story—and Hana became a celebrity and disgrace at once.

  Sheikh’s Saviour is a Drug Runner’s Ex-wife!

  She didn’t have to read the papers to know that all she’d done through the years counted for nothing. Even saving Alim’s life meant less than the scandal they could create to sell papers. They found Mukhtar and called the prison for his point of view. They found out about Latif, and, though Latif refused to comment, they ran the whole sordid story as they saw it, and speculated on her relationship with Alim.

  Sex sells.

  She wanted to laugh and cry at once. Such exquisite irony: the virgin who’d slept with two brothers at once, and seduced a sheikh. What would she do next?

  Alim had taken up his duties with a vengeance. According to the papers, he’d had the villagers resettled in the countryside west of Sar Abbas, the capital, and gave them land with water and all they needed to restart their lives. He’d given a speech on his life the past three years. The passion in his words as he spoke of life in the Sahel, as relayed on TV, brought such longing to her heart she couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. Oh, how she loved him…

  He was creating a foundation for the forgotten people, calling for funds to send engineers and geologists to find water, to buy generators and pumps so every village could have a water source. He talked about his time in captivity, and how he hated that his ransom would create a further cycle of misery for the innocent.

  Alim was as good as his word. He was using his position to help others. Taking the hard road and making something of it in a way one single nurse in a village never could.

  For the first time in years Hana knew how it felt to be trapped physically. She was holed up in her sister’s house with hundreds of people outside, and she couldn’t hide. She couldn’t run to the next place, and put her fears and her misery behi
nd her. She couldn’t run from her family when they wanted to talk, to get close, to ask her about Alim.

  For the first time in years, she had to deal with her feelings instead of hiding behind others’ problems, using them to ignore her own, or to feel good about herself and her sacrifices. My Hana, always needing to be the strong one, the clever one, the fastest and the best. When will you learn to love yourself, and know that all you need to be loved is just to be yourself?

  Fourteen-year-old words of wisdom had finally caught up with her. Stuck in Tanihah’s house there were no excuses any more. She couldn’t hide behind her grades or her job or her burq’a, her family’s betrayal or her lower position in life. The mirror she’d outrun for so many years was being held right up to her face, and she was the one holding it.

  Alim was right: she was a coward, and no matter how dangerous a place she went to next or how many lives she saved, she was still a frightened child trying to prove she was strong. She’d chosen Latif for safety; she’d run from Mukhtar—and she was running from Alim, using birth and a lie to keep herself at a safe distance from him. But this time it hadn’t helped; she loved him more every day, ached for him, and struggled against the knowledge that the only thing keeping them apart was her fear.

  When you give your heart, it will be for life…

  Almost two weeks after the story hit the news she sat in her niece’s room, on the bed she shared with Atiya, needing space and quiet. When night fell, and they’d finished prayer—Ramadan had begun, and eating in the hours of sunlight was forbidden unless you were a child—she came to eat with the family, and answered their questions at random, giving them stark honesty but not even knowing she did. The doorbell had stopped ringing at last, but the sharks were surrounding the house still, hoping for some juicy gossip. Hana barely noticed that either. Totally lost in the self-knowledge she’d avoided all her life. Thin delusions, as she’d said to Alim, were stripped away and she saw the person she was.

  To her shock, she didn’t hate herself as much as she’d feared. She was a coward, but one who’d saved lives. Yes, she ran from emotion when it became too hard, but now she was facing the hardest emotions of her life, she was okay. She hid behind her position, behind Alim’s position so she didn’t have to say, Yes, I’ll stop running and I’ll marry you—

  And to change that one, she’d have to face Alim again.

  And do what? she asked herself wearily. There was no getting around the facts as presented by the media—her birth wasn’t and never would be good enough, her fake marriage put Alim way out of her reach—unless she could make the changes herself.

  If you won’t marry me, I’ll live alone.

  I’m thirty-seven, not a boy. I know what I want. I want you.

  I’ll be here waiting.

  It came to this: she could be a safe, lonely coward for the rest of her life, or she could finally live. Live with the man she loved, and make a difference to the world.

  She waited for a lull in the family dinner conversation, and threw her bomb. ‘I want to tell the media the truth. All of it, about Mukhtar and why I was in the Sahel.’

  They all turned to stare at her, even the children at the small table.

  She held her father’s unfathomable gaze with one of her own. ‘I love Alim,’ she said, and it felt amazingly good to have it out there. ‘I want a future with him.’

  ‘It won’t happen while the people believe the worst,’ her father agreed, still with that Sphinx-like face.

  Her mother said in a muffled voice, ‘Many don’t believe the worst, Hana. The letters to the editor are overwhelmingly in your favour.’

  She hesitated, but decided to say it. ‘It will embarrass the family, make you look bad.’

  Her dad’s eyes swept the table and everyone on it. ‘I made choices I believe others will understand—and if they don’t, then it’s a judgement I deserve.’ He pushed back his chair. ‘This is my responsibility.’

  ‘Dad…’ she mumbled, using the loving title for the first time since returning.

  He smiled at her. ‘You need to find that man of yours and tell him how you feel. Leave the story to me. Trust me, nuur il-’en. I won’t let you down this time.’

  With tears in her eyes, she too stood, walked around to her father and touched his arm: the closest she’d voluntarily come to him in five years. ‘Thank you, Dad.’

  There was only one way. She called the number on the card Alim’s driver had given her—Alim’s private number. ‘Hi. It’s me. I’m stuck in my sister’s house, surrounded by the media. Can you send a car for me, with some men to help me through the crowd?’

  ‘Of course.’ Alim’s voice was reserved, so tired. ‘Do you need anything more?’

  ‘I need to see you. We need to talk.’ She gulped and coughed to clear the thickness in her throat. ‘Can I come to you?’

  ‘I’ll come to you.’

  ‘The house is surrounded, Alim. In the palace they can’t get to us, or put cameras through the windows. Tell the guards to come to the back door and knock four times.’

  ‘All right, then. I’ll be waiting for you in my private study.’ He sounded so neutral…

  What more did she deserve? But now, this night, she wasn’t giving in to fear again. This wasn’t about protecting herself from pain. She’d done that for too many years, and had only emptiness as her reward. She hung up and raced for the shower…

  Fifteen minutes later, she was ready when a knock came at the back door. She opened it, and two burly, exquisitely dressed guards ushered her down the stairs and around the front. The press, all avidly listening to her father, made a dash for her as she ran to the saloon car, but the guards yelled, ‘Miss al-Sud has no comment,’ and elbowed any intrepid reporter out of the way.

  The trip to the palace was followed by a dozen cars, and a few racing motorbikes with photographers snapping pictures of her.

  The gates opened. The car drove around the back. The guards handed her out and raced her up the stairs, inside and to the left.

  They opened the doors for her, and in another exquisite room, quietly appointed in cherrywood and strong masculine pieces, Alim stood by the empty fireplace, his forehead resting on his hand. ‘Hi,’ she said when the guards closed the door behind her.

  He didn’t look up, didn’t turn to her. ‘Hi.’

  He sounded so unutterably weary, her heart jerked. ‘A rough few days?’

  ‘A rough few weeks,’ he agreed. ‘I’m exhausted, Hana, so let’s get this over with.’

  For the first time since their rescue, he wasn’t opening his heart to her. He was expecting a kiss-off…or maybe he wanted one.

  I will not run. I won’t be a coward again! Alim deserved to know how she felt.

  But as she drew close to him she chickened out. ‘I thought you should know Dad’s with the press now, telling the true story, about Mukhtar, Latif and me…and you.’ She took a step to him, and another, her heart aching.

  ‘My press secretary told me. It’s already on the TV,’ Alim said on a sigh. ‘That’s good of your father. Your name’s being cleared. They’ll all love you again.’

  ‘But that wasn’t why I came,’ she blurted out, angry with herself for being so weak. ‘I came to say…to say…’ She sighed in self-fury, and closed her eyes and said whatever came to her head. ‘I can’t do this any more, Alim. I can’t lie to myself and pretend—’

  ‘Pretend what, Hana?’ he asked, his voice hard and ragged at once. ‘While you’ve been hiding out with your family to support you, I’ve been facing the press, the people, learning the job over again. Harun and Amber left the same day you did. He’s gone incommunicado and left me with everything. I’m doing it alone, barely getting three hours’ sleep a night, so can we get this over with?’

  She blinked at him…but saw in his words the blunt honesty of a man on the edge of falling down. A man who desperately needed her but wouldn’t say it. Expecting her to run again and refusing to fight any longer. He accepted h
er as she was, even now…

  At that, Hana forgot her needs and fears, and ran to him. She put down the box she’d brought on the desk beside them, and took him into her arms. ‘You’re not alone. I’m here,’ she whispered, kissing his cheek, holding him—and it felt so good to be giving, this time in honesty. ‘I came to give you something.’

  ‘Do I want it?’ he muttered into her hair, holding onto her as if she were a lifeline, breathing in deeply, and she was glad she’d put on the lavender again.

  She smiled. ‘I hope so.’ Reaching behind her, she brought the box to him. ‘Open it.’

  He looked down at the sandalwood box he’d given her in the car weeks before. ‘Why…?’

  ‘Just open it,’ she insisted softly. She couldn’t wait much longer.

  He opened the box. On top of the emergency escape kit he’d given her was her burq’a. He stared at the contents, then looked up at her, his eyes hollow with exhaustion. There was a question there.

  ‘Read the note,’ she said quietly.

  He found it beneath the burq’a. Hana cannot run without these. And he looked at her again. Either he wasn’t getting it, or he wanted her to say it.

  She reached up and kissed those poor, tired eyes, one by one. ‘I’m giving them to you. I’m entrusting you with my treasures, Alim. I won’t run without them, and I don’t want to run without you. You’re my peace, my best friend, my love. If you can’t disappear when the going gets tough, neither will I.’ She held his face in her hands and said, ‘I won’t be a coward any more. I love you, Alim, and whatever you need me to be—whatever the country will allow me to be for you—I’ll be it.’

  With a swift movement, he tossed the box in a far corner. ‘Hana,’ he said hoarsely, turning her face and kissing her mouth like a man parched. ‘My star, you’d better mean this, because I’ll never give you this box back. I’ll never let you go again.’

  ‘Good,’ she said, intense with all the emotion she’d kept from him all this time, giving him everything but the one thing he’d needed: herself. Now she was open to him at last, and she’d never hide from him again. ‘I need you so much, Alim. I need to be beside you every day of my life. If the people won’t let us marry—’