by Penny Jordan
She braked and selected reverse gear, but as she turned the steering wheel she heard a sickening crunch of metal against something hard, and when she accelerated forward the car did not move.
‘Wait there,’ she ordered Kazim, trying to keep the tension from her voice as she opened the door and jumped out onto the sand. A hurried inspection revealed that one of the back wheels had become tightly wedged between two rocks; the metal rim was buckled, and even if she could free it, it was clear that the vehicle would be undriveable. She was trapped in the vast, dark desert where the temperature had already plummeted.
She saw Kazim shiver, and knew in that moment that she had made the biggest mistake of her life. What had she been thinking of? The desert was an alien environment to her, and she must have been crazy to have risked driving across it alone. She had put Kazim’s life at risk, and now she felt sick with fear and guilt. Zahir had said he thought she was insane, and right now she could offer no defence against his accusation.
‘Erin, I want to go back now.’
Kazim sounded tired and Erin hastened to reassure him. ‘We will, soon,’ she said soothingly as she opened the rear door and wrapped her jacket around him.
‘Zahir and me are going to play trains when we get home.’
‘That’ll be great.’ She smiled at the little boy, anxious to hide her fear from him. She certainly couldn’t reveal that she had no idea how they were ever going to get back to the palace.
Soon Kazim’s breathing slowed and he fell asleep. Erin curled her arm around him and stared at the twin beams of light that shone from the headlights. She knew she risked flattening the car battery by leaving them on, but she couldn’t bear sitting in the pitch-black. There was nothing she could do until daylight, but as time slipped slowly by she acknowledged that Zahir must have discovered by now that she had gone, and he would be desperately worried about Kazim.
Something suddenly caught her attention. She screwed up her eyes and peered into the night, her heart leaping when she realised that the lights in the distance were not a figment of her imagination. They were coming closer, and soon it was clear that they belonged to vehicles which were speeding across the desert; she could make out three sets of headlights and she felt weak with relief. Zahir must have organised a search party. But mixed with her joy at being found was trepidation. He was going to be furious with her—and she deserved every bit of his anger.
Minutes later the four-by-fours halted, and Zahir sprang from the lead vehicle. His expression was unfathomable as Erin quickly alighted from her car, but she caught the blaze of molten fury in his eyes and shrank back while he reached inside and lifted a still-sleeping Kazim into his arms. Members of the palace guard grouped around her, dark and unsmiling, and Zahir spoke to them in Arabic before he placed the toddler in the back of the second four-by-four, where the nanny was waiting.
Erin briefly caught sight of Bisma’s anxious face, but the young Arab girl looked away from her. The guards climbed into the rear two cars and within seconds they were racing back across the desert with Kazim—leaving Erin alone with Zahir.
‘Get in.’ He held open the door of his four-by-four and she quickly complied. He had every right to lose his temper, even shout at her, she reminded herself, but he remained ominously quiet when he slid into the driver’s seat, and when she dared risk a glance at him her heart lurched. Even now, when he looked as though he could happily commit murder, he still had a devastating effect on her. Dressed in black jeans and matching sweater, he was dark and dangerous but undeniably the sexiest man she had ever laid eyes on, and she simply could not control her reaction to him.
The silence shredded her nerves, and she was relieved when he started the engine. ‘I’m sorry about damaging the car,’ she muttered when it became clear that he intended to ignore her for the journey back to the palace. ‘I realised I’d taken the wrong road to Al Razir and I was trying to turn round.’ She paused, and then added in a low voice, ‘I don’t suppose you’ll believe me, but I was going to bring Kazim back to the palace.’
Zahir said nothing, and with a heavy sigh she gave up. In the far distance she could see the red tail-lights of the other two cars, but when they reached the fork in the road Zahir turned away from them and sped off in the opposite direction.
Confused, Erin felt a frisson of unease. ‘Where are we going? The palace is behind us, isn’t it?’
Zahir finally deigned to acknowledge her presence and speared her with a brief, hard glance before looking away, as if the sight of her sickened him. ‘I’m taking you to Al Razir,’ he said, in a cold voice that froze Erin’s blood. ‘From there you will be escorted to the airport. You are booked onto a flight to England.’
Sheer panic churned in Erin’s stomach. ‘But what about Kazim?’ she whispered.
‘He is being driven back to the palace,’ Zahir told her, still in that icy tone. ‘As I have explained, many times, it is his home now.’ His tenuous hold on his self-control gave way and his anger exploded. ‘I can’t believe you drove off into the desert with him. Your behaviour was stupid and irresponsible. The guards who had been assigned to watch over Kazim have been sacked for their incompetence,’ he added, his voice shaking with fury.
‘It wasn’t their fault,’ Erin said miserably. ‘Your personal assistant is the one to blame. He helped me to get away, and even told me where I would find a car.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous—why do you imagine I would listen to your lies?’ Zahir rounded on her furiously. ‘Omran told me how he had caught you rifling through my desk, and he was deeply apologetic that he had not guessed you had stolen the car keys.’
‘I did not steal them—he gave them to me—’ Erin broke off, hurt mingling with anger at the look of scathing contempt in Zahir’s eyes. It was clear that he had absolute faith in his personal assistant. ‘Omran is sneaky and two-faced, and if you want my advice you should keep a close eye on him.’
‘Fortunately I do not have to listen to your advice—indeed, with luck I will never have to see you again once you are back in England,’ Zahir snapped.
‘I won’t go without Kazim,’ Erin cried wildly. ‘I’ve told you I will never leave him.’ In desperation she caught hold of Zahir’s arm, so that the car swerved, and he swore savagely and braked. Tears poured down her face as she fumbled with the door catch. ‘I won’t be separated from him, do you hear? I’ll walk back to the palace if I have to.’
The sand was a reasonably forgiving surface when she jumped from the moving car, but it was hard enough, and she lay where she had landed, winded and struggling to breathe. Zahir had stopped the four-by-four a little way ahead and was already running back to her, shouting furiously in a mixture of English and Arabic. He dropped down next to her, breathing hard as he ran his hand over her, checking for any broken bones.
‘You are the craziest woman I have ever met,’ he grated. ‘You could have been hurt.’
‘I don’t care.’ Erin scrubbed her wet face with her hand and glared at him. ‘Kazim is my son, and I won’t leave him.’
Zahir shook his head impatiently. ‘Why do you want him? You have Ingledean, and my brother’s fortune. What further use can Kazim be to you?’
‘I love him,’ Erin yelled. ‘What do I have to do to make you believe that I don’t care about the house or the money? You can have them. I’ll sign over my inheritance to you, and then maybe you’ll finally understand that the only thing I care about is Kazim.’
I am convinced that her love for Kazim is genuine. Zahir recalled his father’s words, and his eyes narrowed on Erin’s tear-streaked face. She wasn’t lying. Even he, hardened cynic that he was, could see that her desperation to be reunited with the little boy was not some ploy designed to persuade him to offer her more money. She’d said she would give up Ingledean and her inheritance, and he could no longer deny that whatever else she might be she was a truly devoted mother. But he could not simply drive her back to the palace. The situation was more complicated than sh
e knew.
‘Take me back with you,’ she whispered, her eyes shimmering with tears. ‘Please.’
‘I can’t.’ Zahir jerked upright and reached down to help her to her feet. ‘My father is aware that you fled from the palace with Kazim,’ he said heavily. ‘He also heard that we had been alone in my office and that you were later seen looking…’ He paused fractionally and even in the dark Erin could see the tide of colour that ran the length of his cheekbones. ‘Looking distressed. The King believes that I have dishonoured you simply by the fact that we met without the presence of a chaperone. To protect your honour and prevent further gossip in the palace he has decreed that I must make arrangements for you to return immediately to England. The only way you can continue to live at the palace,’ he went on, when Erin opened her mouth to protest, ‘is if you become my wife.’
Erin shook her head, as if she could somehow retrieve her sanity. But the grim expression on Zahir’s face told her she wasn’t losing her mind. He was deadly serious. ‘I don’t want to marry you,’ she faltered, wondering if she had cracked a rib when she’d jumped from the car, because it suddenly hurt to breathe. ‘And I’m quite sure you don’t want to marry me. If you explained to your father that nothing happened between us, and that my…’ she flushed ‘…my honour is intact, surely he would relent…?’
‘No,’ Zahir snapped with a finality that made her heart sink. ‘Besides, I would be lying if I told the King that nothing happened between us. If we had not been interrupted I would have made love to you, and we both know it.’ He shrugged his shoulders and stepped closer, his eyes suddenly gleaming with sexual promise.
In the velvet-soft silence of the desert Erin was acutely aware of him; of the way that his breathing had quickened, and the sensual heat that emanated from his lean, hard body.
‘I would also be lying if I told my father that I did not want to marry you,’ he murmured.
Erin gaped at the utter unexpectedness of his statement, and a quiver of longing ran through her. He couldn’t possibly mean he had fallen in love with her, she told herself sternly. Fairytales were for children—and she didn’t even want him to love her. Which was just as well, she acknowledged, as his next words swiftly put paid to her silly dreams.
‘I cannot risk you ever trying to take Kazim again,’ he said harshly. ‘As my wife, I will know exactly what you are up to every hour of the day and night—particularly at night,’ he added, his voice thickening with a primitive need he made no effort to disguise. ‘You cannot deny the attraction between us, Erin—not now, and certainly not when you are in my arms. When I kiss you I know you share my hunger. And a mutual need for sexual satisfaction is as good a reason as any to get married,’ he stated bluntly.
‘You can’t marry for…for sex,’ Erin argued, desperately trying to quell the rush of sensual awareness that was making her heart race. ‘What about love?’
Bisma had said that Zahir had been in love with the bride his father had chosen for him. She did not know why he had not married her, but surely it proved that he could fall in love with the right woman—and he’d made it clear that that woman was definitely not her.
Zahir’s brows winged upwards in the look of haughty arrogance she knew so well. ‘Love is a vastly overrated emotion, I’ve always thought,’ he said coolly. ‘But if you need another reason other than the fact that we practically combust whenever we’re within five feet of one another, you can console yourself with the knowledge that we both love Kazim and we are both determined to be good parents to him.’
He reached out suddenly and caught her chin, tilting her face so that he could stare into her eyes. Erin immediately focused on his mouth, and her tongue darted out in unconscious invitation. She was facing the most serious decision of her life, but part of her wished he would stop talking and just kiss her senseless, before tugging her down onto the sand and making her his beneath the brilliant stars that studded the night sky.
A slow, satisfied smile curved Zahir’s lips. ‘You can always close your eyes and pretend that you’ve sacrificed yourself for Kazim when I make love to you every night,’ he taunted. ‘Or you can behave like an adult and admit that you want me as much as I want you—that way we’ll have a lot more fun as we learn to pleasure each other.’
‘Don’t say things like that.’ Erin felt the blood rush to her face as heat suffused her whole body. She was sure he was deliberately trying to shock her, but she could not quell the quiver of anticipation that his words evoked. ‘Are you saying that if I did agree to become your wife you would expect us to have a proper marriage?’ she queried shakily.
‘Do you honestly believe we could last five minutes alone with each other without doing this?’ he countered, lowering his head before she had time to react, and claiming her mouth in a hot, hungry kiss that demolished any thoughts she might have had of resisting him.
His lips parted hers with bold assurance, and his tongue slid firmly between them to explore her with an eroticism that left her trembling. From the moment he touched her Erin was lost to his skilled mastery. He believed she was experienced, and her eager response to him must reinforce that belief. He did not know that for Erin every thrust of his tongue inside her mouth, the sharp nip of his teeth on her earlobe and the sensuous glide of his lips against her throat, were new and wondrous and utterly irresistible. She could not fight the feelings he aroused in her that made her breasts ache for his touch and caused molten heat to pool between her thighs. From the moment she’d first seen him at Ingledean she had fallen under his spell, and every time he kissed her he enslaved her more.
She could feel the hard ridge of his manhood pushing insistently against her pelvis, and when he slid his hand down from her breast to her hip and then suddenly swung her into his arms, she thought for one frantic moment that he intended to lay her down on the sand and make love to her properly. Her stomach muscles clenched with a fevered longing she could no longer deny, but then dipped in disappointment when he carried her over to the four-by-four and dumped her on the front seat.
He rounded the car and jumped in beside her, then paused with his hand on the ignition key and stared at her, his expression shuttered. ‘It’s your choice, Erin,’ he said harshly. ‘Ahead lies Al Razir, and from there Ingledean, or you can agree to marry me and I’ll take you back to the palace and Kazim.’
He sounded as if he couldn’t care less which option she chose, and his uninterest stung Erin’s already raw emotions. ‘That isn’t a choice, it’s blackmail,’ she said bitterly. She swallowed, and then said tightly, ‘All right, I’ll marry you. But I want you to understand that my decision is purely for Kazim’s sake.’
Zahir fired the engine and turned the four-by-four back towards the palace. ‘Just keep reminding yourself of that when you’re writhing and begging beneath me, sweetheart,’ he taunted her with a grin. And then he leaned across and dropped a stinging kiss on her lips, drowning her angry retort and leaving her silently seething for the journey back across the desert.
CHAPTER SIX
THEY were married five days later. None of Zahir’s numerous relatives, whom Erin had met at three lavish banquets in the run-up to the wedding, seemed surprised by the speed of the arrangements, or by Zahir’s decision to marry his brother’s widow.
‘Everyone is so proud of Zahir for choosing to honour an old custom of Qubbah and take on the responsibility of Faisal’s wife and child,’ Princess Fatima, the oldest of King Kahlid’s children had explained, when she sat with Erin during one of the dinners that lasted for many hours and courses. ‘Zahir has earned a reputation as a playboy prince these past few years, and he preferred to live at his bachelor apartments abroad rather than here at the palace. My father is pleased that he is now prepared to do his duty and marry you.’
Fatima did not mean the words unkindly. Like Zahir’s other two sisters, she was friendly and welcoming and seemed genuinely eager to be Erin’s friend. But she lived in a culture where arranged marriages and duty towards
family were expected, and it was clear she believed Erin should feel grateful that Zahir had decided to ‘take her on’.
Even though she knew Zahir had only asked her to be his wife for Kazim’s sake, the idea that he regarded marrying her as an unwelcome duty did nothing for Erin’s self-confidence. And if he was anticipating fireworks in the bedroom as a consolation prize, he was going to be disappointed, she thought bleakly.
Since the night he had brought her back to the palace they had not been alone. Even when they had flown on his private jet to Dubai, for a shopping trip like no other Erin had ever experienced, they had been accompanied by Fatima, and a host of staff whose job had been to carry the dozens of bags of couture clothes, shoes and accessories that Zahir had insisted she must have for her new life as the wife of a prince.
Each night they had dined with the King or attended banquets held in their honour, and there had been no opportunity for Erin to reveal to her husband-to-be that, far from being the hot-between-the-sheets siren he was expecting, she was a virgin.
It was her own fault, she had brooded dismally on the morning of her wedding. She had lied to him, and he thought that she and Faisal had shared a ‘normal’ marriage. Amazingly, he had not realised the level of her inexperience even when he’d kissed her. She must be a quick learner, she decided ruefully. Either that or she was as morally deficient as her mother, because when she was in Zahir’s arms nothing seemed more important than assuaging the burning need for sexual fulfilment that he aroused in her.
To her relief, the wedding was a simple, low-key event compared to the extravagant banquets during which she had been conscious of the curious stares of the hundreds of guests who had been keen to see Prince Zahir’s future bride. The ceremony took place in one of the palace state rooms—a breathtakingly opulent room with a pink marble-tiled floor and walls inlaid with gold, and magnificent crystal chandeliers suspended from the ceiling, glistening like diamond tears.