Syed stared out at the old city without seeing the ancient buildings that were fringed by desert sands. “I have tried.”
“Try harder.”
“If I told you to forget about Violet, would you?”
Zahir’s expression flashed with a strong emotion. “It’s completely different. She is my wife.”
“So? Why can’t I marry Sarah?”
“Because it would kill father! He is close to death, and news of it would surely end him.”
Syed compressed his lips, his eyes hard in his handsome face. “I can’t explain in words how I felt for her; how I feel for her…”
“She is not suitable.” Zahir spoke the words quietly but there was a steely determination in them that Syed knew he ought to heed.
“Oh?” Syed demanded. “And why not?”
“We have talked about this already.”
“Five years ago we talked about it,” Syed was adamant. “When I was engaged to another woman. To a princess of a country we want a good relationship with. My engagement has ended. I am free now.”
“Yes, free, but not to marry Sarah Smith. Never to marry her.”
Syed made a sound of muted anger. “Why not? What’s wrong with her?”
“You ask this question seriously?”
“You haven’t even met her,” Syed snapped.
“I have, however, seen the dossier on her. A waitress in an American bar? Who grew up in a trailer park? She is, quite literally, trailer trash. Can you really expect our Kingdom to accept her as your bride?”
Syed wrapped his fingers around the railing of the balcony until his knuckles glowed white. “She is so much more than that. The dossier makes her sound common. And she’s not. Zahir, she is the most spectacular woman I’ve ever known.” And though Syed hadn’t cried since their mother died, he felt an overwhelming emotion as he thought of Sarah and her beautiful uniqueness. “She is a brilliant artist; a photographer who can capture emotion and mood with a single picture. She is kindness and compassion, and grace and beauty. Zahir, she is more worthy of royal life than I am.”
Zahir’s lips curled in an amused smile. “And it does not hurt, I suppose, that she has just the kind of figure you go crazy for?”
“It was never just about sex,” Syed said simply.
“Perhaps not.” Zahir turned to face him, propping his hands on his hips. “But it is all it can ever be again. Go. Sleep with her, if that is what you need to get her out of your mind once and for all. But when you come back to Kalastan, I do not want to hear this woman’s name again. Sarah Smith is not welcome in our kingdom. Understood?”
CHAPTER ONE
The town was just as he recalled.
Small, old-fashioned and faintly smelling of pine needles. His eyes lifted past the flat rooves of the main street towards the forest beyond.
Strange that the trees had not grown much.
Five years.
A frown pulled at Syed’s face, like a branch being weighted by too many persimmons.
The trees hadn’t grown but that didn’t mean other things hadn’t changed.
Five years.
Had it really been so long since he’d held Sarah Smith in his arms?
Out of nowhere, his body stirred with the memory of that pleasure. Her soft flesh, her generous curves.
She may not still live in the little house with the green door, of course.
She might have left. Moved to a bigger city. Forgotten all about him.
Was it possible? When she had burned his dreams, night after night?
There was only one way to know for sure.
*
The stench of liquor was now, she feared, deep inside her organs.
At first, it had just been her shirt. Then her skin, and now, her muscle and deep tissue were surely saturated in it. Fantasies of a long, hot shower to wash away the double shift were tantalising, but just out of reach. She shot a glance at her slim-gold wrist watch.
It was an hour before Lexi’s bed time.
Hardly time to read her a book, give her a bath and share a meal.
She paused two doors down from her own and pressed her finger on the ringer. The scuffle of many little feet sounded from within, bringing, as always, a smile to Sarah’s face.
Caitlyn opened the door. At eleven, she was the self-appointed leader of the gang – the six or so children her mother took in each evening to care for and earn extra money.
“Hi honey,” Sarah smiled, not mentioning the clown-like makeup on Caitlyn’s face.
“We were doing dress-up,” she giggled, explaining anyway. “I was the model.” And she curtseyed, revealing two little bodies behind her own.
“And a very good model, too.”
“Want to come in?”
Sarah adored her neighbours. Caitlyn’s mother, Jenny, was cheap childcare and she truly loved the kids in her care. But she could talk the hind legs off a donkey and Sarah had already suffered through enough banal small talk that day. “I’m late,” she apologised. “Lexi will be exhausted.”
Caitlyn shrugged. “I’ll go get her.”
“Thanks.” Sarah rubbed her hands together as a cold wind rustled past. It was the beginning of Autumn and the season’s change was all around her. She tilted her head towards the sky, admiring the crisp view of the stars, and the heavenly fragrance of the pine plantation.
He’d spotted her as soon as she’d turned the corner. Just as she’d approached her door, he’d gripped the handle of his, readying himself to step from the confines of his luxurious vehicle. But then she’d stopped, two houses before reaching the green door. She was chatting now.
His impatience grew, but the certainty that Sarah was still here, in Iron Oaks, answered at least one of his questions.
The tiny little figure that hurtled out of the door and ran at her jeans-clad legs a moment later answered another. And this one left something like iron in his mouth.
“Mommy!” Lexi wrapped her chubby arms around Sarah’s legs, her fingers splayed wide across the back of Sarah’s knees.
Sarah scooped down, lifting Lexi up against her chest. “Hi, baby girl.” She kissed Lexi’s cheeks, smiling when she saw the little girl had green eye shadow and garish pink lipstick.
“She was a model, too,” Caitlyn explained helpfully.
“I can see that. Tell your mom ‘thanks’.”
“Sure thing.” Caitlyn pushed the door closed and Sarah turned back down the street, covering the short distance to her home with Lexi bouncing on her hip.
“You look like you’ve been to the beauty parlour,” she drawled, raking her gaze over her niece’s face with another smile.
“Uh huh. I have.”
“I see.”
“Did you have a good day, mama?”
Sarah’s heart turned over. Mama. Such a beautiful word. A word that should have been filling her sister’s heart and mind. Instead, it was Sarah who got to enjoy the delicious sense of being loved and needed by this adorable little person.
“I had a great day,” Sarah’s voice was thick with emotion. She reached into her bag with one hand and felt around for her keys. “Did you have a good day?”
Lexi tilted her head to one side. “I think so.”
Sarah laughed. “You think so?”
“I didn’t like the lunch.”
Jenny, a committed vegan, often served meals that could be, at best, described as economical, at worst, slosh. “Oh. What was it?”
“There were little seeds in it.”
“Seeds?”
“Like hard circles. Lumps.”
“Lentils?” Sarah guessed, pushing the door inwards and stepping into their small house with relief. The bathroom was immediately to the left.
It beckoned to her from her mind, a warm shower a tantalising talisman. Soon, she promised herself, putting Lexi down inside the door. The little girl sat on the floor immediately and began to unlace her shoes. Though she was only three, she was impressively self-sufficient.
“Good job,” Sarah murmured, stepping around her and sliding her well-worn ballet slippers from her feet before scooping down and collecting up the envelopes that had been thrust through the mail slot.
A roll of adrenalin charged her blood as she saw the first two postmarks – electricity company and gas company. She’d have put all the money she didn’t have on the fact the envelopes contained more than just a merry little ‘hi’. Mentally counting her bank balance, including what she’d earned from her double, and the tips she had folded into the back pocket of her slim-fit jeans, she figured she might be able to cover at least one of the bills this month.
“Okay, little love,” she forced an over-bright smile to her face. “Let’s get you dinner.”
She padded down the hall and into the kitchen, stuffing the bills between the microwave and the basket of spices, and pulled a packet of pasta from the pantry.
There was a thumping noise before she could split the plastic. The door? She poked her head into the hallway just as Lexi pulled the door inwards, her tiny hand adept and turning the knob.
Sarah cursed inwardly. She’d forgotten to latch the chain across – a precaution she always employed to stop this exact thing from happening.
“You’re a big man.” Lexi’s observation was as true as it was shocking. Sarah couldn’t help the noise of garbled surprise that escaped her mouth as she stared down the hallway and into the past.
Syed.
His Royal Highness Syed Al’Eba, she corrected mentally, the flare of betrayal at how he’d lied to her not even remotely diminished by the years that had passed.
His eyes were boring into her, as though he too was assessing her through the veil of passed-time. Seeing her as she’d been, reconciling and accounting for what she was now.
And she knew how that comparison would end.
Five years ago, she’d been twenty-two and full of hope and aspiration. She’d been on the brink of leaving Iron Oaks.
She’d been tanned, fit, and happy. Vibrant.
She withdrew into the kitchen for a second, closing her eyes and waiting for the mounting tide of panic to subside. Only a second. Long enough to pull herself together and step into the corridor with renewed confidence, or the appearance of it, at least.
“What are you doing here?” She asked, the words pleasingly cold, her manner off-hand. She walked quickly, though, and scooped Lexi into her arms, nestling her back onto her hip.
“He’s a big man, mommy,” Lexi said thoughtfully, her head tilted to the side once more, as she examined him.
And he was big. All over. Tall, like all the men of the powerful royal family, with broad shoulders, and a muscled physique. His eyes were darker than the night, his nose straight and his jaw squared.
But it was his mouth she had loved first.
A mouth that had defied her expectations and recited poetry and philosophy while his body looked built for wars. The contradictions of this man had been never-ending. Until they had ended. Even that had been a contradiction, for he had made her love him, and then he had left. He had been sad until she’d fixed him all up, and then he’d left.
Without a word of warning or goodbye.
“I asked what you are doing here?” She repeated, making an effort to keep her voice calm even when her temper was spiralling almost out of control.
It was a damned good question, but he was powerless to answer it when his own questions were tripping over themselves. In his mind, Sarah hadn’t changed. Not much, anyway. But the woman in front of him was nothing like he remembered. His eyes narrowed as he catalogued the alteration. The Sarah he had known before had been curvaceous, bordering on plump. All soft and round and perfect to wrap his arms around and hold tight to his body. This woman was reed-thin, beyond even what was considered fashionable. Her hair, once a long, blonde mane that had curled down her back, that he’d curled his fist around and tilted her head back to receive his kisses, had been cropped into an elfin style around her face that only served to emphasise the slash of her cheek bones. Apart from the smattering of freckles over the bridge of her dainty nose, she was unrecognisable.
“I came to see…” The words trailed off, as his eyes sought hers, searching them, studying them.
“You came to see what?” She stroked her hand over the child’s back automatically. He could tell it was a gesture she had performed many times, with a mother’s instinct. She had a child? She had married?
Instant revulsion twisted his gut. “I came to talk,” he said, remembering that he was Sheikh Syed Al’Eba, a man born to command and rule. The words rang with confidence.
“You can’t be serious?” She murmured, stroking Lexi’s hair now, it’s soft, downy curls springy beneath her touch.
Syed drew himself to his full height. “Do I look like I am joking?”
“I haven’t seen you in years, and you turn up on my doorstep wanting to … talk?”
His lips curled in a derisive smile. “It does not look like you have been pining for me in my absence.” He nodded towards Lexi, his implication clear.
It was on the tip of Sarah’s tongue to correct his error. Though the mistake was a natural one to make – they looked alike, and their bond was unmistakable. Sarah had raised Lexi almost from birth.
But she didn’t correct his assumption. Instead, she tightened her grip around Lexi. “I have to get my daughter into bed.” It was hardly a lie. With no living parents, it had been easy to adopt Lexi, and heaven knew Sarah thought of the little girl as her daughter in every way.
“I will wait.”
Sarah’s jaw dropped. “You’ll wait?” She stammered, perplexed and furious at the same time. “You’ll wait?” She repeated, as though saying it might make more sense of his assertion.
“The lounge,” he nodded towards the room behind them.
How many nights they had spent in that small, cosy room? Sarah’s skin prickled with remembered pleasures. Pleasures so long ago relegated to the back of her mind, to the recesses of hope and the graveyard of possibilities. What the hell was he doing in her house?
It was a question that demanded an answer, but not until she’d put Lexi to bed. “There’s a bar around the corner,” she said stiffly. “You can go and wait there, thank you, while I spend time with my daughter.”
Unused to being directed, it brought back a startling revelation.
She hadn’t known of his position in society. When they’d met, he’d been a man, and she’d been a woman, and they had spoken to one another as equals. He had enjoyed seeing her flex her muscles, at one point; watching her dictate her wishes to him.
Then, he had been her equal, and now?
“Fine.” He nodded curtly. “One hour.”
“Two,” she bartered, thinking again of the shower she desperately needed. Especially if she was going to meet this man with anything like her best food forward.
“One,” he said darkly. He flicked a smile at Lexi. “Good night, little star.”
Shivers ran down her spine. Nashin. Starlight. That’s what he’d called her.
The words swirled around them even as he left, closing the door behind him. The term of endearment that had made her feel stellar haunted her for all the minutes of his absence.
In the end, an hour was barely enough time. Sarah raced through bedtime, guiltily thinking of the evening she’d had planned. Lexi was fed a hasty dinner of leftovers, bathed in record time, read only three pages of her favourite book and tucked under the covers with a rushed kiss.
Sarah had just stepped out of the shower, thrown on an outfit, and peeked in to check on Lexi when there was a slightly-restrained knock at the door.
She stroked a hand over Lexi’s curls, tucked Mr Bear into the crook of her arm, and then walked out of the bedroom and down the stairs as though her body wasn’t quivering like a feather on the wind.
As she reached the door, she paused, her hand hovering just above the handle. Why was he here?
Five years ago,
she had fallen in love with him. Or lust? Either way, he had buried himself inside of her soul. She’d understood his loss and grief, and she had felt powerful beyond belief to see how their chemistry could chase pain from his mind and heart.
He’d arrived in her life broken by death, and she’d patched him back together.
Then he’d left.
He’d used her. He’d used her sympathies for sex. And when he had felt whole again, he’d crept out of her bed, out of her life, with only a single hand-written note cast on the kitchen table. ‘I have to leave.’
Sarah had heard of people feeling nauseous in anxious circumstances, but the way her stomach was flipping and flopping went beyond simple sickness. She half-thought she might pass out.
Flames of the past licked at the soles of her bare feet. She drew the door inwards on a curse of remembered pain.
Everything she had loved about him slammed into her. She stared at him, his face that she knew every single damned line of, his dark hair, his haunted eyes, and her heart leaped through her body.
He was just the same.
Which was all the more reason to stay away from him. He was the same man who had broken her heart and chosen to leave her without a backwards glance.
She straightened her spine, pouring into it the kind of iron that could only be formed by nights of devastation and emptiness. “Yes?” She stood just inside the door, not moving to allow him inside.
“How are you?”
It was so far from what she’d expected that she let out a short, sharp laugh. Fog drifted from her; the temperature had dropped rapidly in the evening. Was he cold? He who was used to sand-swept desert nights and the sun on his back? She hoped so.
“After five years, that’s what you came here to say?”
“No.”
“So?” She gripped the door more tightly, her fingers seeking strength.
“Who is the child?”
Straight to it, huh? “My daughter.”
A muscle pounded at the base of his jaw. Out of nowhere, she remembered the way it had done that when he’d been tense and searching for the right words. The words to describe how it had felt to have watched his mother die. To have held her hand as life ebbed from her body. And Sarah had listened with no concept that only six months later his words would become a gruesome reality she understood all too well, for having lived the same loss. Not of a mother, but of a sister.
The Sheikh's Stolen Bride: The only way to make her happy was to make her his... (The Sheikhs' Brides Book 2) Page 15