Hidden In the Sheikh's Harem

by Michelle Conder

  ‘Have you seen the way he looks at her? H. O. T. Hot,’ Pansy said. ‘Oh, look, there’s the girl I saw earlier with the goody bags. Yoo-hoo, over here.’

  Feeling a small glow at Pansy’s observation that Zach looked at her in some special way, Farah watched as a much younger woman in a tiny bikini sauntered over with a basket of small delicately fringed purses inside.

  ‘What’s in them?’ Tia eyed the bags with bored interest. ‘If it’s not diamonds, I’m not interested.’

  ‘Chocolates,’ the woman said.

  ‘Oh, definitely not, then.’ She shuddered as if the woman had said snakes.

  ‘I’ll take one,’ Cherry said, reaching into the bag. ‘What about you, Panse? Amy?’

  ‘Which is which?’ Pansy eyed the three different-coloured purses.

  ‘There’s dark, white and a combination of the two.’

  Pansy selected the combination. ‘Farah?’

  ‘Oh...’ Farah scanned the small purses, suddenly remembering the other night when Zach had ordered strawberries and chocolate sauce and proceeded to eat most of them. Off her. She couldn’t prevent a small smile from sneaking across her lips and her heartbeat quickened. ‘Dark, please.’

  ‘Really?’ Amy stepped forward to eye the selection. ‘I’d choose the white if I were you.’ She rifled through the purses as if hunting for the perfect specimen. ‘Zach is more a vanilla kind of guy.’ She glanced up at Farah through a veil of thick lashes. ‘If you know what I mean.’

  Farah blinked, wondering if she’d heard her right. When she saw Pansy’s wide-eyed stare and Tia’s amused smirk, she knew she hadn’t misinterpreted the other woman’s subtle put-down. Heat rushed into her face, making her insecurities spike. She bent over the basket, pride insisting she choose the purse holding the dark treats. This woman might be right about Zach’s preferences, but he wasn’t hers any more, and Farah took some comfort from Zach’s earlier reassurance that Amy was in his past.

  ‘Maybe he’s changed,’ she said casually, attempting to calm her galloping heartbeat. ‘Five years is a long time.’

  Amy’s small smile could have frozen the sun. ‘Five years?’ She cocked her head, as if confused. ‘I meant last week.’

  Last week? Farah felt herself reel and couldn’t stop the barrage of questions from flooding her brain. Had Zach lied when he’d said Amy was in his past? And what of the tender consideration he’d given her over the past few days? Had that just been his way of making the best of a bad situation?

  ‘Oh, look, there’s Morgan O’Keefe,’ Amy said. ‘If you’ll excuse me?’

  There was a short, loaded silence as they watched Amy saunter across the crowded deck and then Pansy patted her arm. ‘Don’t mind her,’ she said. ‘She was obviously looking to start a row.’

  ‘She’s jealous,’ Tia said offhandedly. ‘She was sure she was the next Princess of Bakaan but it didn’t come off. Move on, I say.’

  ‘Oh, right, like you’ve moved on from Gary?’ Pansy chortled.

  ‘Do not mention that man around me,’ Tia hissed, making the other two girls burst into peals of laughter.

  Farah watched them, feeling as if she was listening to them from afar, a sort of numbness working its way through her system.

  ‘Ready to go?’

  Zach appeared at her side and Farah pinned a bright smile on her face. ‘Of course.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘OKAY, OUT WITH IT,’ Zach said, shutting the front door to the apartment and turning to face Farah.

  She paused on the first step of the stairs. ‘Out with what?’

  He came towards her and shoved his hands in his pockets so that he didn’t put them on her. Once they were there, her clothing was coming off, but he could tell there was something weighing on her mind that needed to be dealt with first. ‘Whatever’s bothering you.’

  ‘There’s nothing bothering me.’

  She continued up the stairs and he followed, trying to keep his eyes off the sway of her bottom in those jeans. ‘Pull the other one, it’s got bells on it.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  Seeing her pained look, he sighed. ‘It’s just an expression.’ He stopped her at the top of the stairs, his eyes searching hers. ‘Talk to me,’ he said softly. She smiled brightly as she had on the yacht and he wondered if she truly expected him to fall for it. ‘Please,’ he added.

  ‘Okay...’ Her throat worked as she swallowed. ‘What’s a threesome?’

  ‘A what?’ Zach nearly choked at the question. Now, that he hadn’t been expecting. ‘How— Who—’ He shook his head. ‘Why are you asking about threesomes?’

  ‘One of the women said that you like them.’

  ‘Ah, I see you’ve been listening to gossip.’ His eyes searched hers but she kept her gaze averted, so he guessed that wasn’t the real question on her mind, but damn...

  He ran a hand through his hair before moving into the kitchen to pull a bottle of water from the fridge, pouring them both a glass. Really he should have just ditched the party when he’d first thought to. Ironic when the whole purpose of coming to Ibiza had been to see his friends and immerse himself in his old lifestyle, to get his spark back. Now all he wanted was to immerse himself in Farah. In fact it was all he could think about. Even when flying over the water in Damian’s jet boat, at speeds that usually wiped all thought from his mind, he’d compared it to the joy of waking with her in his arms.

  Not wanting to dwell on what that meant, he focused on explaining a threesome to her. ‘Okay, well, first a threesome is sex with three people.’ When she stared at him blankly, he continued. ‘At the same time.’

  ‘Oh.’ She blinked. ‘I figured it was something sexual but I thought perhaps it was three different positions or something.’ She leaned her elbows on the counter top and absently ran a hand up and down the glass of water. ‘Is it two men and a woman or two women and a man?’

  Zach coughed into his hand. ‘It can be either. Why? Are you interested?’

  She raised limpid brown eyes to his and her nose wrinkled. ‘I’ve never thought about it before, but...not particularly.’

  He blew out a breath. ‘Good because I don’t share. Which should answer your question as to whether I’m into them or not. But, as interesting as that little diversion was, it wasn’t the reason behind your quiet state.’

  Surprise flickered in her eyes before she lowered them. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I have good instincts.’

  ‘You mean you’re cocky.’

  ‘That, too.’ He smiled to try and lighten the mood. ‘Tell me I’m wrong.’

  ‘You’re wrong.’

  ‘Farah!’

  ‘Okay, fine. Did you see that woman Amy last week?’

  Zach blinked. Hell he hadn’t been expecting that one, either. ‘No. I haven’t seen Amy for five years. Why do you ask?’

  ‘No reason.’

  She moved into the living area and he followed. ‘Farah, don’t fob me off. Why did you ask?’

  ‘She implied that you had...’ She shrugged. ‘But it was probably my mistake.’

  Possibly. Or possibly Amy had wanted to cause trouble between them because she was upset that he hadn’t shown any interest in catching up with her. She had definitely been put out to find him married and maybe that was his fault. ‘Amy emailed me last week asking to catch up tonight,’ he admitted.

  Something he’d completely forgotten about until just now. In fact it had been a shock to see her at the party and even more of a shock to realise that he felt nothing for her. Maybe she’d picked up on that and also that he was completely enamoured with his new wife.

  Was that how he felt about Farah? Enamoured?

  Looking at her now, her bedroom eyes large in her face, her hair tumbling around her
stiff shoulders, her curvy figure outlined to perfection... A sense of destiny whispered across the surface of his mind. The fact was he couldn’t remember ever making outrageously arrogant statements to Amy or any other woman just to make her laugh because it lit something up inside him, nor had he wanted to watch her do the simple act of rubbing the sleep from her eyes in the morning, and he certainly hadn’t wasted time on a TV program other than sports just because he’d wanted to hold her in his arms for a little longer.

  ‘So you had arranged to see her?’

  It took Zach a full minute to shift his focus from what his mind was trying to tell him to what Farah had asked. When he did, he grimaced. ‘Yes, but that was before we married and as I said before, I have no intention of being unfaithful to you. You said you believed me.’

  She moved over to the wall of windows and stared outside. ‘I do.’

  Zach sucked in a slow breath. He’d expected her to be happy at his declaration so he was beyond perturbed when she ignored him in favour of staring out at the darkness. Did that mean she didn’t believe him?

  ‘I can see the look of doubt on your face but I’m telling you the truth.’ Amy really was in his past because, regardless of what happened between him and Farah, it had been obvious to Zach tonight that his brother had called it right about Amy years ago.

  Wanting to eradicate the far away look on Farah’s face, he slipped his hand down to hold hers, coming into contact with the silk purse he’d vaguely noticed on the drive to the apartment. ‘What’s this?’

  She stared at it as if she didn’t realise she was still holding it. ‘Chocolates. They were giving them out at the party. Do you want one?’

  No, he didn’t want one. ‘I want to know whether you believe that I will be faithful to you first.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Farah—’

  ‘They’re dark, though,’ she said, holding up the chocolates as if that somehow made a difference. Personally Zach couldn’t care if they were gold-coated and he frowned at the bag.

  ‘You do like dark chocolate, don’t you?’

  He heard the tremor in her voice and sighed. ‘I love dark chocolate.’

  That made her lip tremble even more and yet again he found himself at a loss as to how to communicate with this woman. So he said nothing, just stared out at the dark bay beyond the window and waited.

  ‘Dark, isn’t it?’

  Zach’s eyebrows drew down. They were going to talk about the weather now? ‘That it is.’

  He tried to keep the impatience from his voice when he answered but he wasn’t sure he’d succeeded when she stiffened.

  ‘I could have chosen white chocolate instead.’

  What the— ‘Farah?’ He turned her to face him and saw a glittering wetness in her eyes. If this was Amy’s doing he’d throttle her. ‘Habiba, sweetheart... What’s...?’

  ‘Am I too dark for you?’

  He shook his head. ‘Too dark?’

  ‘My skin, my hair, my eyes. I realised tonight that I’ve only ever seen you photographed with fair-haired women and Luke said you had never intended to marry a Bakaani woman. Is that why...? Is that...?’

  Zach swore roughly. Perhaps he’d bury Luke and Amy together. ‘Listen to me,’ he ordered. ‘I did say that once but I was young and stupid and rebelling against my father’s expectations of me. I’m married to you now so none of that matters. It’s in the past.’

  * * *

  Was it?

  Farah desperately wanted to believe him, she really did, but it wasn’t easy. How could he want her when she so obviously didn’t fit his criteria of the ideal woman? And, oh, how she hated the feeling of insecurity that rose up inside her. The feeling that no matter how hard she tried she would never be good enough.

  Placing her hands flat against the window, she spread her fingers out like starfish against the cool glass. The move gave her a sense of vertigo and she suddenly knew what was at the root of her current mood. She suddenly knew why it was so important that Zach hadn’t chosen her and why Amy and Luke’s comments had hurt so much. She suddenly understood that, even though she had guarded her heart so closely and for so long, she had done the foolish thing of falling in love with her husband.

  She, who had imagined that such a thing would never happen to her. She, who had always believed that love and marriage limited a woman’s chance at happiness—and still did. Bile collected at the base of her throat. How had she been so stupid?

  ‘Farah.’ Zach stepped in behind her and splayed his fingers over the top of hers, somehow anchoring her when what she wanted was to spin out into the ether and never come back. Holding her hips roughly, he pressed his groin against her bottom, his erection hard and unyielding through the denim of his jeans.

  Sweet sensation swept through her and she couldn’t prevent a small gasp from escaping her lips as instant heat and moisture collected at the juncture of her thighs.

  ‘Does that feel like I think you’re too dark?’ he growled.

  Confused and confounded by the depth of her feelings for this man, Farah didn’t know what to say without revealing how she felt.

  ‘Does it?’ he repeated gruffly.

  She shook her head. ‘No. But you could be...you could be thinking of someone else.’

  The growl turned rough and came from deep in his chest. One of his hands fisted in her hair and brought her eyes to his in the glass. Then he slid his other hand over her belly until it met the snap on her jeans. One flick and the button was released, followed by the zip, and then his hand was on her and in her, and Farah’s head fell back against his shoulder as she surged between the firmness of his fingers in front of her and the ridge of his erection behind her.

  ‘Yes,’ he growled, the fingers of his other hand going beneath her T-shirt to rub across both her nipples at once. ‘You’re mine, Farah. All mine.’

  Her climax built almost instantly and, just when she was reaching for it, he removed his fingers and worked her jeans down her hips.

  ‘Not without me.’ Within seconds he had his own jeans open and then he was there, bending her forward, her hands splayed once more on the glass, as he pushed into her in one powerful thrust. ‘Look at me,’ he demanded, surging hard. ‘Look at me when I take you.’ His eyes never left hers as he established a driving rhythm that left her in no doubt as to who was in control. ‘Watch my face while I’m inside you. See for yourself that it’s you who does this to me, it’s you who makes me so damned out of control it sometimes scares me.’

  He groaned as Farah pushed back and shattered in a shower of sensation, her body pulsing around his flesh and sucking him in deep. ‘Hell, Farah.’

  He spilled his release inside her and Farah collapsed limply against the glass, her only support the man breathing heavily at her back who had one arm wrapped around her middle and the other planted against the window.

  He leaned forward and nuzzled the sweaty hair that stuck to the nape of neck. ‘I didn’t mean for that to happen. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s okay.’

  ‘I’ve just wanted you all damned day and to hear you say what you did—’ He stopped abruptly and adjusted his jeans before picking her up in his arms and carrying her across the room to their darkened bedroom.

  He placed her on the bed and stripped off her clothing before switching on the bedside lamp, bathing them both in a golden glow. Then he stripped off his own and came over the top of her, all dominant and elementally male. Farah felt her heart kick behind her rib cage; she’d never seen him so wildly masculine before, so completely out of control.

  Holding himself off her with the strength in his arms, he stared down at her. ‘I want you to trust me, Farah.’

  Trust him...

  ‘I want you to rely on me.’

  She didn’t doubt she could on some le
vel, but one day he would see that she wasn’t enough for him and what then? ‘Relying on others isn’t easy for me. It’s—’

  ‘I’m not asking you to rely on others,’ he said fiercely. ‘I’m asking you to rely on me. I won’t hurt you, Farah.’ He rolled to the side and took her with him. ‘In fact you need to know that, if you ever want to leave, you only have to say so.’

  ‘Leave?’ She was in such a confused state she wasn’t sure that he wasn’t asking her to leave.

  He smoothed the hair back from her forehead. ‘I mean, I won’t chase you or force you to stay like my father would have done. Like he tried to do with Nadir’s mother.’ Farah had heard the story about Nadir’s mother, who had been trying to leave the sheikh with her daughter and had died in a tragic car accident when he’d had them followed. ‘If we can’t make this marriage work, you are free to go.’

  Farah’s mouth suddenly felt dry. ‘You really mean that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But how? Under Bakaani law a woman is not free to leave her husband.’

  ‘Not yet she isn’t. But that is another ancient law that is in the process of being changed.’

  She stared up at him. ‘And my father?’

  ‘Your father goes free from this moment on.’

  His words were a pledge that Farah knew he would keep and once again she felt overwhelmed by the depth of her emotions for this man. She buried her head against his shoulder knowing that there was nothing she could give him that equalled all that he could give her. All that he had given her.

  She felt the brush of his lips against the top of her head and felt like weeping—she, who never cried.

  ‘It’s okay, my little Zenobia.’ He sighed and gathered her closer. ‘We’ll return to Bakaan tomorrow and start our marriage properly. Everything will be good. You’ll see.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  BUT TWO WEEKS later things weren’t good, they were frustratingly bad, and Zach had no idea how to rectify the situation. Ever since their return from Ibiza, Farah had seemed to withdraw from him both physically and mentally and not even bringing her beloved stallion to the palace had made her happy.