The Sultan's Choice

by Abby Green

Samia had looked at that schedule at the start of the week and her heart had sunk. She’d been spurred into action, doing her own research. She stood up on a wave of hot anger. ‘I don’t want to sit on committees to talk about things and never do them. And, as valuable as the charity circuit is, I want to do something useful—not just be a figurehead while other people do the work. I’m perfectly prepared to put in the hours being seen, but that’s not enough.’

  Sadiq stood too, and put his hands on the table, not liking the way he was thinking of Samia’s insecurity around crowds and being seen, and how much it moved him to see the way she seemed so determined not to let it get to her. He felt something harden inside him, and knew he was reacting to the increasingly familiar sense of threat this woman posed.

  ‘This is not the time nor the place for this discussion, Samia, but there is one thing to consider—what happens when we have children?’

  Samia gritted her jaw, dismayed and disappointed to see this hitherto hidden traditional side of Sadiq. ‘If and when we have children I would expect to be able to use the crèche facility which has been set up, and in doing so demonstrate that we’re rulers of the people who do not see themselves as unapproachable. And I would continue doing as much important work as I could—just as you would.’

  Samia was articulating what Sadiq himself would have agreed with on any other occasion and with any other person. But here, with her and all the ambiguous feelings she aroused, Sadiq was frigid. ‘Tell me, have you already sought out an area for this crèche?’

  Samia was determined not to be intimidated. ‘I have, actually, and there is a perfect spot near to the staff entrance of the castle. It’s got a green area, which could be developed into a playground, and there’s a huge bright room which could be converted from the storeroom it currently is.’

  Sadiq instantly knew where she was talking about, and it did have potential. But for some reason he felt compelled to shoot it all down. He was reacting viscerally again, and hated that he was, but couldn’t seem to stop it. He wanted to relegate Samia to some place where he wouldn’t have to deal with her. Much as he had all week. Avoiding any contact by day and then using the nights to let his already shaky control go.

  Each morning he’d woken up and hoped for some sense that clarity was returning, or her sensual hold over him was diminished, but if the way his body felt so hot and hard right now was anything to go by he was in for a long wait. ‘I’ve been running this country on my own for well over a decade, Samia. You will fulfil the role of my queen. I don’t need a wife with a busier schedule than my own. I don’t want you starting something off only to grow bored with it, leaving it to overworked staff to finish off.’

  Samia was shaking she was so incensed. ‘I wouldn’t do that. You chose me to be your wife and I’m not going to settle for a life of posturing and preening.’ To her utter horror, she felt tears threaten. ‘You know I’m not like that. I told you from the very start and you wouldn’t listen. I can be useful and I intend to be.’

  Terrified she’d start crying in front of him, and of the emotion gripping her, Samia turned around and rushed from the room. She walked with tears blurring her vision until she found a quiet spot, and then hid away and tried to stifle the gulping, shuddering breaths. She knew exactly why she was so upset. The realisation had started to hit her outside Sadiq’s office. She had fallen in love with her husband, and all of those iron-clad assertions that she would never be so stupid had just crumbled to dust.

  She was upset because she’d gone in there today hoping … for what? she asked herself angrily as she wiped at her stinging cheeks. That he would jump up and tell her how brilliant she was? What amazing ingenuity she had? She’d been naive to think he would just allow her free rein to do what she liked.

  He was right. He’d been running the country very successfully, alone, for a long time. He was hardly likely to welcome a couple of bright ideas along with a rush of enthusiasm as something solid to work on. But she was hurt that he didn’t know her well enough by now to know that she wouldn’t be so inconsistent as to start something and not finish it.

  Composing herself, Samia left her hiding place and went to find Yasmeena, whom she’d promised to have lunch with that day. She hoped that the surprisingly astute woman wouldn’t notice her turmoil.

  Samia reassured herself stoutly that she couldn’t have fallen in love with Sadiq. She was mistaken. She was overemotional, that was all. She nearly stumbled, though, when she thought again of the crèche and had an image of Sadiq bending down to scoop up a dark haired toddler from the sandpit.

  For a moment the pain was so intense that Samia thought she might have to make up some excuse and avoid lunch, but exerting all her self-control, she pasted a bright smile on her face and kept going.

  A couple of days later Samia was in her office, looking at the schedule of events, and fear was rising within her. Next week was to be the start of her official duties, as the marriage festivities and honeymoon period were formally finished. This was a schedule of daytime events, and was considered part of her queenly duties—alone. She wouldn’t have Sadiq’s solid presence by her side. She could already picture the charity/social scene brigade of women who orchestrated these events and she shuddered. They would assess her in an instant and find her lacking.

  Just then her door opened and Sadiq filled the space, broad shoulders blocking out the light. Samia felt that awful rush of emotion and dampened it down. She was still angry with him. She had wanted to be able to turn her back on him when he’d come to bed the previous nights, but with awful predictability within seconds she’d been incapable of remembering her name, never mind saying no to Sadiq.

  Conversation had been nil, but Samia had woken up during the night and found herself wrapped tightly in Sadiq’s embrace. She’d stayed awake for a long time, relishing the contact she knew he’d break free of as soon as he woke.

  She strove for cool uninterest now. ‘Can I help you?’

  Sadiq’s mouth twitched ever so slightly and Samia flushed. Even now he was laughing at her. But then he strode in and her mind blanked. He plucked the sheet of paper she’d been studying out of her hands and perused it, before calmly tearing it in two.

  Samia looked open-mouthed from it to Sadiq. ‘What did you do that for?’

  ‘Because your secretary is going to draw you up a new schedule and it’ll consist only of the events that you wish to go to.’

  Samia repeated stupidly, ‘Secretary? I don’t have a secretary.’

  Sadiq indicated for Samia to get up and follow him, and said, ‘You do now. It sounds like you’re going to be busy enough to need one.’

  Struck dumb, Samia followed Sadiq out of the room and into another one, much bigger, just down the hall. It was bright and airy, and the castle workmen who were busy putting up shelves stopped working and bowed deferentially.

  Sadiq said brusquely, ‘Leave us, please, for a moment.’

  The men filed out and Samia turned around. There was a huge desk, complete with computer, printer, fax machine. A small anteroom was obviously the secretary’s office.

  She was almost too scared to look at Sadiq—afraid of what he might see on her face. ‘What is this …? Why have you done this?’

  He sighed and she looked up. His face was unreadable. ‘The truth is that I did have a preconceived notion of the role my wife would fulfil, and was quite happy to acknowledge that it wouldn’t impinge on my own role at all. Merely enhance it.’ He smiled tightly. ‘I should have known that you wouldn’t be happy with that. I like your ideas. And I’m sorry for doubting your ability to start them and finish them. I watched my father do that for years—when he died and I took over he’d left behind him a trail of destruction and half finished projects. I vowed not to let that happen again. I’ve wielded control for so long that it’s challenging to allow myself to hand some of it over now.’

  More moved than she wanted to show, Samia said quietly, ‘I thought this marriage would be a partner
ship … apart from everything else.’

  ‘It is, Samia. I want you to be happy here.’

  Samia’s heart ached at his gesture, and ached in a different way at his impersonal words. She wouldn’t be truly happy here unless a miracle happened and the block of ice in Sadiq’s chest melted. But this was a start. She smiled, and her heart thumped when she saw his eyes flare. They had chemistry too, and that was something to build on.

  Feeling optimistic for the first time in days, Samia said simply, ‘Thank you. I appreciate this, and I won’t let you down.’

  Sadiq felt a physical pain somewhere in the region of his chest at the sheer happiness in Samia’s face. And he felt better than he had in days. A black mood had pervaded his whole being ever since their last exchange, and his conscience hadn’t allowed him to continue functioning until he’d rectified the situation.

  Before Samia could see how her happiness seemed to be having a disturbing effect on him, he grabbed the two hard hats he’d left on the desk earlier and handed one to her. ‘Come on. I’ve something else to show you.’

  A few minutes later Samia couldn’t stop the tears from stinging her eyes. Sadiq had brought her to the back of the castle, where construction work was already starting on a crèche and playground. That potent image of Sadiq and a little toddler rose up again and wouldn’t leave her alone. It was like a taunt.

  When Sadiq turned and saw her glistening eyes, and asked sharply, ‘What is it?’ Samia panicked and muttered something about grit getting in her eye.

  To her utter surprise Sadiq immediately picked her up into his arms and, despite her heated remonstrations that she was fine, took her straight to the castle’s full-time nurse. Samia was brick-red with mortification, absolutely certain that the nurse would see full well that she’d just been crying and had lied shamefully. But to her abject relief Sadiq said he had to go to a meeting and left her saying something about working late. Samia was too distracted to care.

  It was only when she lay in bed alone that night that she frowned slightly, trying to remember that Sadiq had said. A little dart of emotion made her breath hitch. The fact was he’d done a great thing today, and changed the anatomy of their marriage and Samia’s role within it in one fell swoop. But apart from that, the distance between them was as great as ever.

  Sadiq didn’t seem remotely interested in involving Samia in any aspect of his life that wasn’t about sex or official duties. There was no suggestion of dinner, or meeting for lunch. No suggestion of a relationship. And why should there be? she remonstrated with herself. She was the one yearning for more, not him. He’d got exactly what he wanted from this marriage, even if she was demanding a bigger role than he would have expected or liked.

  But she couldn’t help thinking back to those few days of the honeymoon, when it had felt as if they’d really been getting to know one another. Samia had enjoyed spending time with him. They’d talked. But she didn’t need to be reminded that their conversation over dinner when he’d told her about his father had been their last conversation of any depth or substance. Clearly that had been an aberration that Sadiq had no intention of repeating.

  Samia finally fell asleep, and tried not to mind very much that she had no idea where Sadiq was.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THREE weeks later Sadiq was sitting in his study with a glass of whisky in his hand. He grimaced at himself. This was becoming a habit. Work until his vision blurred, wait around, and then go to bed. Invariably when Samia was already asleep or half asleep.

  Each night he told himself he would be strong enough to resist her lure, that he wasn’t some animal, a slave to his base instincts, but when he pulled back the covers and saw those delicate curves … that long hair … fire consumed him and he jumped into the pit. Every night. And she gave with the wild abandon he’d grown addicted to every night.

  He grimaced again. Since when had his shy wife grown so un-shy that she felt comfortable sleeping naked? The thought of her now, naked in the bed, made him grip the glass so tight that it cracked in his palm. Sadiq saw the trickle of blood fall on his robe, and for a moment pain blocked out the ever-present awareness, and he had an insight into why people might seek pain as a sort of anaesthetic.

  He smiled at his own bleak humour and got up to tend to his cut. The good mood he’d been in for days after showing Samia her new office, telling her that she had carte blanche to do pretty much whatever she liked, was wearing off and being replaced with something much darker and more insidious.

  It didn’t help that he was well aware that he was doing his utmost to avoid spending any time with his wife. Because whenever he was alone with her he couldn’t think straight. All rational thought went out of the window and he found himself filled with bizarre longings that had nothing to do with lust—although that was ever-present—and more to do with something more intangible. Like the urge he’d had in Nazirat to take Samia deep into the desert.

  It was too reminiscent of the moods he’d seen grip his father. What more evidence did he need than the fact he was breaking glasses in his hand just thinking of Samia? She was dangerous.

  Sadiq patched up his hand and caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror. His eyes were glittering as if he had a fever. His jaw was stubbled with a day’s growth of beard. He looked a little wild. He suddenly realised that this situation was untenable, and a surge of anger at Samia and her innocently sleeping presence made him switch off the light and stride from his study.

  The following evening Samia was looking at her pink face in the steamed-up bathroom mirror. She knew it was crazy to feel disappointed—the chasm that currently existed between her and Sadiq was no place to be bringing a baby. If she’d thought that his volte-face about her involvement in their marriage had signified a change, then she’d been mistaken. If anything, Sadiq was growing even more distant. She put her hand to her flat belly and bit her lip. She’d just seen the spotting which signified that she wasn’t pregnant.

  She heard him moving in the bedroom outside and tensed. They were going to a function being held in the castle that evening—an acknowledgement of Sadiq’s fundraising for charities. Taking a deep breath, she tightened the robe around her body and went out. Sadiq was stripping off his shirt and immediately Samia’s pulse went into overdrive.

  He caught her look and his mouth curled. ‘Don’t look at me like that, habiba. We don’t have time to make something of it.’

  Samia flushed, and flushed even harder when she thought of how their lovemaking last night had been imbued with something almost desperate. She’d only noticed the makeshift bandage on Sadiq’s hand afterwards, and the red stain of blood. Her heart clenching, she’d asked, ‘What happened?’

  He’d taken his hand back and said brusquely, ‘Nothing. Just a glass that broke.’

  And, practically jackknifing off the bed, he’d then informed her that he’d just remembered a speech he had to work on, and pulled on some clothes and gone back to his office. Samia knew he’d only returned to their bedroom to shower that morning. So he must have slept in his office.

  She thought of that now, and wanted to feel relief as she said, ‘There’s something I should tell you.’

  He looked at her, naked now apart from form-fitting boxers that held a distinctive bulge.

  Samia swallowed. She had to get sex off her brain. ‘I’m not pregnant.’

  For a long moment Sadiq was silent. She couldn’t read his reaction. And then he just calmly pulled on his pants and said, ‘Good. That’s good. Thank you for letting me know.’ His eyes flicked her up and down and she felt it like the lash of a whip. ‘We’re leaving in twenty minutes.’

  Chin hitched up, Samia said, ‘I’ll be ready.’

  And she was—with not a hint of her reaction on her face to his emotionless response to the news that she wasn’t pregnant.

  An hour later Sadiq was still coming to grips with the fact that he’d felt disappointed to hear that Samia wasn’t pregnant—as if something elusive
had slipped out of his grasp. He’d had an almost primal urge to make love to her when she’d said that, as if to ensure that she did get pregnant when she’d expressly told him she didn’t want that.

  He felt weak, at the mercy of something he had no control over. She’d taken his injured hand in hers last night, and the feel of those small cool hands had provoked an urge to put his head on Samia’s breast and have her hold him. It had been strong enough to make him run. And he’d spent the night on the couch in his office, waking with a dry mouth and in a foul humour that was getting fouler by the minute.

  Especially when he saw Samia across the room, laughing up into the face of a handsome man whom Sadiq recognised as one of his scientists involved in environmental research. He knew Samia had been having meetings with them last week, and to think she was cultivating a relationship—no matter how innocent—with this man was enough to propel him across the room in seconds. He took Samia’s arm in his hand, relishing the feel of the delicate muscles. She was his. The other man backed away hurriedly, as if Sadiq had just snarled at him like an animal.

  He heard Samia’s husky voice. ‘Sadiq? Is everything okay?’

  He looked down at her and something solidified inside him. ‘No,’ he bit out grimly. ‘Everything is not okay.’

  Samia watched him locking the door behind them. He’d all but marched her into an empty anteroom, and the fierce look on his face scared her slightly. ‘What’s going on, Sadiq?’

  ‘What’s going on is that I leave your side for two minutes and you’re flirting with another man.’

  She gaped at him. ‘Flirting? I can assure you that I was not flirting. Hamad was telling me about his two-year-old son, if you must know.’

  Sadiq rocked back on his heels, hands in his pockets. He said almost musingly, but with a dangerous undercurrent, ‘When we first met you would have had me believe that you’d be quaking in your shoes in a situation like that, and yet you’re remarkably eager to leave my side and talk to relative strangers.’