Hidden In the Sheikh's Harem

by Michelle Conder

  He stared down at the list of law reforms he’d been sitting on for a week now. One of them was the new legislation giving women the right to apply to the courts for a divorce, the law he had promised Farah he would implement so that she could walk away from him if she wanted to.

  Right now he had a feeling she’d do just that and he knew he didn’t want that to happen. It was being so blasted busy that was getting in the way. Since they’d been back, they’d had to attend one state dinner after another as important world leaders came to Bakaan to discuss global issues and future strategies. Having pledged to help Nadir ride out the changes in Bakaan, Zach had done what was required of him and he had also kept his promise to include Farah. Which was both a boon and not, because she had taken to her role as regional ambassador so wholeheartedly that at this rate she could run the country singlehandedly by the end of next week. In fact, she worked so hard she’d often go to bed exhausted. So exhausted that lately he hadn’t wanted to disturb her when he’d come to bed and let her sleep. Maybe that accounted for his sullen frame of mind—a build-up of sexual repression.

  But he knew that wasn’t it. He knew it was because he’d realised some time over the past couple of weeks he’d actually fallen in love with his wife and that she did not love him back. And, even worse, he couldn’t help but wonder if her withdrawn state was because she had got what she wanted from him when he’d promised that he would not prosecute her father if they should divorce. Perhaps all she was waiting for was for the divorce laws to be changed and then she’d make her move.

  Frustrated and agitated, Zach pushed back from his desk and strode to the window. His office overlooked the stables and his eyes immediately zeroed in on Farah, standing in the sunshine brushing down her stallion’s sweaty coat.

  The damned horse got more of her attention than he did and he now regretted bringing it to the palace. He’d done it a week ago to surprise her. He’d wanted to lift her spirits and show her how he felt, how much he appreciated her, and—he could admit now—he’d wanted her to tell him that she loved him, or at least cared for him—but she hadn’t.

  She’d wrapped her arms around the blasted horse’s neck and told him she loved him instead. And the damned thing had looked like it would lie down and die for her.

  Rubbing at the persistent tension at the back of his neck, Zach wondered what to do about his marriage. Logically he knew that he should just let her go—if that was indeed what she wanted—but he knew he hadn’t offered her that so far because he wasn’t sure that he could. Even now some deep-seated part of himself that must surely date back to his barbarian ancestors warned him that he couldn’t.

  It was almost laughable to think that he had once prided himself on how emotionally grounded he was when the truth was that right now he felt about as emotionally grounded as a log. He, who had fought in war zones, who had raced boats at over two-hundred miles per hour, and who had started up his own company without any financial backing was afraid to tell his wife how he felt.

  Pathetic.

  He watched her lead Moonbeam into the stable, her curvy bottom outlined to perfection in her jodhpurs. A grim smile came to his lips.

  It was time he stopped pussyfooting around the edges of this marriage and confronted her head-on. If she happened to throw herself at him, and make love to him in the stables as a result, all the better. If she wanted out, well... hell, he’d give her that, too.

  * * *

  As Farah housed Moonbeam for the night she couldn’t help but remember the day Zach had brought her beloved horse to her.

  ‘Is the blindfold really necessary?’ she’d asked nervously.

  ‘Yes.’

  She sniffed the air. ‘We’re in the stables.’

  ‘Correct.’

  Then he’d removed the blindfold and she’d stared at her white stallion, completely mute. When she’d found her voice, it was to whisper, ‘What? How?’

  ‘I had him brought here for you.’

  ‘Oh, I love you,’ she’d blurted out, throwing her arms around Moonbeam’s neck, when she’d noticed the frown on Zach’s face. She’d repeated the words over and over as if she’d been talking to the horse all along, but of course she hadn’t, and it had nearly been one of the most singularly embarrassing moments of her life.

  Even so, she’d ached to have Zach take her in his arms, but he’d become even more remote and told her he’d leave her and Moonbeam to get reacquainted.

  It had been like that a lot lately—Zach leaving her alone to do her work while he took meetings. Zach leaving her alone to have breakfast while he pounded out a circuit on his treadmill. Zach coming to bed late and then hardly touching her...

  Farah felt a lump form in her throat. She knew he was busy and she had no wish to change that but what she’d love to change was the way he seemed to hold part of himself back from her. It was as if he was already regretting their marriage, and she couldn’t help but wonder if their trip to Ibiza hadn’t triggered a realisation in him that he had been seriously short-changed in being forced to marry her.

  Oh, he had tried to reassure her that that wasn’t the case, but what else could he have said? That, yes, he did regret it and would now risk inciting a war for his own selfish ends?

  Once she would have believed him capable of such a thing. She knew that was no longer true. She knew that honour and integrity was the most important thing to him. As it was to her.

  But at the expense of his happiness? Of her own?

  With her head aching, she positioned Moonbeam’s chaff bucket and leant her forehead against his shoulder as he ate. Lost as she was in thought, she didn’t immediately hear anyone come up behind her.

  ‘Farah?’

  Whirling around at the sound of her name, she stared dumbfounded as Amir stood in the doorway to Moonbeam’s stall with one of her private security detail as escort.

  ‘Amir!’

  ‘I hope this is not an intrusion, Your Highness,’ her guard said. ‘The palace staff said you were here and Mr Dawad was very insistent.’

  ‘It’s fine. Thank you.’

  Bowing low, the guard left, and Farah stared at Amir, only then realising how much she really missed being around the familiar faces of her village.

  ‘Is it my father? Has something happened?’

  Amir walked towards her. ‘No, he’s good, although he is concerned about you. I think he regrets pushing you into this marriage.’

  ‘Oh.’ He and her both, she thought tiredly.

  ‘He would like to know if you are happy. As we all would.’

  ‘Amir...’

  ‘Before you say anything, I would also like to apologise for my behaviour prior to all this blowing up. I was pushing you because I’m in love with you but that was wrong.’

  Farah let out a slow breath. ‘Oh, Amir, I... I didn’t realise.’ She had assumed he had only been trying to cement his place as the future leader of Al-Hajjar.

  He gave her a faint smile. ‘I know. So are you happy, Farah? Because if you’re not I could take you away from all this.’

  Farah closed her eyes against his words. She longed to be able to tell him outright that she was not only happy but positively joyous, that she had never been happier, but she wasn’t and she had never been able to lie. And his declaration of love made her feel truly awful. It struck deep in her heart because she knew how unrequited love felt and it was debilitating. Every bit as debilitating as she had known love would be and there was no satisfaction in being proved correct.

  ‘I’m not unhappy,’ she hedged. Not a lie exactly. It wasn’t unhappiness she felt, just a bone-deep sadness that Zach would never return her feelings.

  ‘That’s not good enough, Farah. That’s a cop-out.’

  He reached for her hands but before he could touch her a furious voice made them both jump
.

  ‘Who the hell let you inside the palace?’

  Jumping almost sky high, Farah turned to face her husband.

  ‘Greetings, Your Highness.’

  She threw Amir a dark look to let him know that she did not appreciate his silky tone. ‘Zach, Amir was—’

  Zach shook his head at her. ‘I’m asking him, not you.’

  Brought up short by the reprimand, Farah blinked.

  ‘I asked what you’re doing here?’

  Amir squared his shoulders, although the faint tremor that ran through him slightly mitigated any authority he tried to establish with the move. ‘I’ve come to visit with Farah. Or is that not allowed?’

  ‘No, it is not allowed.’ Fury emanated from every tense muscle in Zach’s body.

  ‘Zachim—’

  ‘It’s fine, Farah.’ Amir did not take his eyes off the prince. ‘I can go.’

  ‘Yes, you can,’ Zach snarled, his eyes alight with murderous intent as Amir paused beside him and whispered something under his breath.

  Farah couldn’t hear what it was but it only made her husband’s eyes turn colder. He raised his hand and security was there in an instant to do his bidding.

  Mortified at the way he had just treated Amir who had only been trying to make amends Farah stared at him. ‘Why did you treat my friend like that?’

  ‘Why did he come into my home unannounced?’

  ‘Your home?’

  ‘Don’t play semantic games with me, Farah. What did he want with you?’

  ‘He wanted to make amends.’

  Zach made a scathing noise in the back of his throat. ‘He is not welcome here.’

  Affronted by his easy dismissal of her wishes Farah bristled. ‘He is welcome here.’

  Blowing out a breath he stopped in front of her. ‘I did not come here to argue with you.’

  ‘Then stop being such an egomaniac,’ she bit out, trying to keep the hurt from her voice. ‘If I want to entertain a friend, then I will.’

  Feet planted wide apart, he glowered at her. ‘Not if I forbid it.’

  ‘Not if you...?’ All the confusing, unsettling emotions she’d been feeling ever since they’d returned to Bakaan coalesced into anger. Anger at herself, at him, anger at their whole, damned miserable arrangement. ‘Don’t you dare try and dictate what I can and can’t do. I’m not your possession.’

  She didn’t have time to say anything else because Zach was on her, his mouth crashing down over hers in a demanding, controlling kiss that left her in no doubt just what he could and couldn’t do. ‘Yes, you are. You’re mine, Farah. Don’t ever forget it.’

  His! Of all the... Forgetting her non-violence policy Farah lashed out at him, welcoming the spurt of adrenaline that came with a good fight.

  Within seconds, however, he’d subdued her. ‘Temper, temper, my little wild cat.’

  ‘Oh.’ Farah tossed her hair out of her face. ‘You great, big, patronising—’

  She didn’t get any further because Zach’s mouth covered hers again, his tongue duelling with her own and, oh, it felt so good to be held by him like this, so good to be kissing him with all the pent-up passion she’d been unable to express.

  Moaning, she arched into him, melting against him as he hitched her thigh up over his hip, angling his body into hers so that she was in no doubt as to how aroused he was. ‘You are mine,’ he breathed against her mouth. ‘And if I don’t want you to see someone because I deem it unsafe, then you won’t.’

  Incensed by his words, by her own traitorous body, Farah shoved against him, only coming up against the horse stall for her efforts. ‘I can protect myself if that’s what you’re worried about,’ she panted.

  ‘Like now?’

  He forced her hard up against the brick wall, his thigh wedged between her own in a move reminiscent of when he had trapped her in the alleyway.

  Moonbeam shifted restlessly behind him, disturbed by all the pent-up emotion circulating in the room. A feeling of utter helplessness came over Farah and the weight of despair descended on her shoulders. Any hopes she had been harbouring that Zach cared for her, that he might one day want her with him because he respected her as his equal, dissolved into nothing. ‘I hate you,’ she said, unsure if it was him she hated or just herself for loving someone who did not love her in return.

  ‘I don’t give a damn.’ He released her and swiped his hand across his mouth as if to wipe her taste away.

  He didn’t give a damn how she felt? ‘Nice to know,’ she said, before turning with as much dignity as she could muster and walking away from him.

  * * *

  Zach watched as she slowly walked away from him and nearly put his fist through the wall.

  Where had all that anger come from? He hardly recognised himself. He, the king of communication, had just acted like Cro-Magnon man with an obsession.

  Just thinking about it brought him out in a cold sweat. Usually he was great with women—even-tempered, patient, considerate. Just then he’d been...he’d been... Well, he hadn’t handled himself at all well. He could admit that.

  It had been the confident expression on Amir’s face and his snide, ‘I knew you wouldn’t be able to make her happy,’ as he’d walked past him that had done it.

  Zach hated to admit it, but he’d got the better of him, because it had struck too close to the bone. And the whole time afterwards he’d been wondering what Farah had told him. What she had revealed to make the soldier so sure of himself.

  I hate you.

  ‘Great going, Darkhan. Maybe you can develop an app that will show men how to get their wives on side.’

  Not.

  He stopped pacing when he reached the back of the stable and clasped his hands over his head, trying to reassemble his thoughts. One of the junior staff members caught sight of him and quickly scurried for cover.

  First, he listed mentally, you might hate the guy but you can’t dictate who she does and doesn’t see. You know that.

  Second, you need to pull back. Get some perspective on how this marriage is going to work.

  And third... Third, he just needed to apologise to her for being such an idiot.

  Feeling that his emotions were on simmer instead of a rapid boil, he took a deep breath and went in search of her.

  When he found her in their living room reading a work file, it pulled him up short. Nice to know their argument hadn’t interrupted her focus.

  Glancing up as he approached, her eyes turned wary. He stopped and took a deep breath. ‘I was wrong to yell at you. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she dismissed politely.

  ‘Of course it matters,’ he said just as politely.

  ‘Look, Zach...’ She hesitated. ‘Things haven’t really been the same since we returned from Ibiza and if we’re honest—’ she took a breath ‘—which I like to think that we always have been with each other, then I can’t see things getting any better between us.’ She looked up at him then. ‘Can you?’

  Zach nodded as if he agreed but really he was thinking that he’d been right to assume that she wanted out of the marriage. She did but she was hardly being honest about it.

  ‘The truth is,’ she continued, ‘we’re both victims in this situation.’

  Victims? ‘You’re only a victim if you think you’re a victim,’ he bit out tautly. ‘And I am no victim.’

  ‘Well, that’s easy for you to say. You’re a man and a prince.’

  ‘I don’t care what I am.’

  ‘Fine.’ She sighed heavily. ‘I was only trying to make this easier.’

  Zach paced across the room to put some distance between them. ‘You were trying to say that now that I won’t prosecute your father there’s no reason for us to stay married. How’s that for
honesty?’

  She flashed him a pained look. ‘That’s not the only reason but with the past laid to rest it certainly means that there’s nothing holding us together any more.’

  Nothing. There was that word again.

  Zach looked at her and saw her eyes shiny with tears. Or was it defiance? Because she had done nothing but defy him all along and he...he’d been arrogant enough to assume that she would eventually fall for him as almost every other woman had. That he could make this marriage work from sheer will alone.

  The truth was he hadn’t wanted to disappoint his mother, who had suffered so many disappointments in her life, and he hadn’t wanted to disappoint himself. But when you broke it down, he’d enjoyed the sex—a little too much in retrospect—and he’d done what a lot of women he’d been with had done with him: he’d mistaken lust for love.

  ‘Zach?’

  Talk about feeling like a chump.

  He turned back to her. ‘That’s fine,’ he heard himself saying as if he were an actor on set. ‘I can see you’ve thought this through and, really, I’ve been so busy I haven’t. But you’re right. We have nothing holding us together.’

  * * *

  Shaken by Zach’s ready acceptance of everything she’d said, Farah got up and restlessly moved around the room. She noticed that the orchid bloom, the gift from his mother, had fallen from its stem and laid on the table. Carefully she picked it up and cradled it in her palm, gently stroking the dying petals. She couldn’t help but think it was an omen, as if fate was directing her.

  And she knew all about fate from the way her mother had died so senselessly. They were all at the mercy of it. Fate gave and fate took away, but in the meantime everyone was in control of their own destiny, and somewhere along the line she had forgotten that.

  Forgotten her desire for independence and self-reliance. She’d let herself imagine—or rather hope—that Zach was the man for her when really their whole relationship was built on an unfortunate set of circumstances instigated by her father.

  Placing the broken petals of the orchid gently back on the table she turned to him.