The Sultan's Choice

by Abby Green

  Hurt scored Samia’s insides. She wasn’t about to let him know how vulnerable she still felt in those situations, or why the only reason she felt she could deal with them was because he was by her side, or nearby. Even just to see him across a room was enough.

  She tossed her head, knowing she was playing with fire. ‘Are you accusing me of lying, Sadiq? Pretending that I was shy and insecure? And am I not meant to leave your side? I thought part of my brief as your queen of convenience was to work.’

  She couldn’t stop now. ‘Because that’s what this marriage is, isn’t it, Sadiq? It’s just a job, with a bit of sex thrown in. You can’t even be bothered to pretend it’s anything else and have one evening meal with me. We have nothing to discuss.’

  Sadiq moved fast enough to shock Samia. He was right in front of her, saying harshly, ‘You’ve certainly shown me intriguing facets to your personality that weren’t in evidence when we first met.’ His eyes were bright with a feral glitter as they dropped down and took in where her cleavage was revealed in the silk of the simple dress. ‘And there’s plenty we could discuss, Samia.’

  She took a step back, railing against the evidence that he resented the aspects of her that had started to emerge as if from a long hibernation, and fought the dismayingly familiar lure to merge with this man. ‘I’m not talking about sex, Sadiq. I’m talking about the fact that you want an identikit wife and that’s not what I am.’

  Her voice was bitter. ‘Obviously you’d prefer it if I’d stayed shy and gauche, but you’re the one who has been encouraging me to overcome that shyness. You can’t have it both ways, Sadiq. Perhaps there’s no point to this marriage if you can’t see that?’

  He went very still. ‘What are you saying? That you want out?’

  Samia blinked. It felt as if they had jumped about three levels up from where she’d thought they were. For the first time in years she stuttered. ‘N-no. I mean, I d-don’t know. I didn’t mean that. I just mean that we don’t seem to have anything—’ she blushed ‘—but the sex.’

  The stutter got him right in the gut. That glaring sign of vulnerability underneath the thin veneer of bravado made something break inside Sadiq. His anger was defused and he saw in an instant how hard she was trying. He also recognised that she was all of the things she’d been that first day she’d met him and yet was also the emerging strong woman who had been repressed for so long.

  She was the woman who still clung on to his hand with a death grip for the first few minutes in a crowded room until she was comfortable enough to leave his side. She was the woman with the tattoo above her buttocks, who could dune-drive and throw herself into the building of a crèche with so much enthusiasm that only last week he’d found her in dusty overalls, making sweet tea for the workers and laughing with them.

  And she was the only woman he’d ever wanted to take deep into the desert and seduce in a bedouin tent erected just for her.

  Panic and a feeling of constriction so strong that Sadiq had to stop himself undoing his bowtie forced him to speak the words that had just formed in his head from somewhere deep and dark inside him. ‘If you want to leave this marriage, I’ll give you a divorce.’

  Samia looked at Sadiq, shock numbing her from the inside out. ‘If I want to leave, you’ll give me a divorce?’

  He nodded, his face once again a mask of inscrutability.

  Samia had the urge to slap him—hard. Feeling slightly desperate, she said, ‘But I’ve committed to this marriage, to you. I’m learning to find my feet … I’m happy here.’

  A voice mocked her. Really? You’re happy to be in this relationship with a man who doesn’t love you and never will?

  Suddenly insecure in a way she hadn’t felt for some weeks now, Samia looked at Sadiq, even though it was hard. ‘You want to divorce me.’

  He shook his head. ‘That’s not what I’m saying. I’m offering you the choice. I’d be quite happy to stay married, but I don’t think you’re happy.’ Liar, a voice mocked him. You’re going slowly insane.

  Samia wanted to sit down. ‘Why?’ she asked.

  Sadiq sighed deeply and ran a hand through his hair, leaving it dishevelled. The muted chink of glasses and the hum of conversation from outside went unnoticed. ‘Because you never wanted this marriage, and because I all but railroaded you into it. I don’t relish the prospect of a wife who is going to feel she’s in a situation she can’t leave and grow to resent the feeling of being trapped. I watched my mother go through that and I won’t be responsible for the same thing. I don’t want to bring a child into that environment. Needless to say, if you do want to leave it won’t affect my relationship with Burquat.’

  ‘You’ve thought about this,’ Samia said dully, the pain of that making her want to curl up somewhere.

  Sadiq curbed the urge to contradict her. It seemed to be a very simple equation in his head—hand Samia every tool or reason she might need to leave and she would leave. And he would feel sane again.

  ‘What if I don’t want to leave?’

  There was something slightly defiant in her tone, and it made Sadiq alternately panicked and euphoric. Angry at the fact that she was once again confounding his expectations, he said, ‘You’ll have to come to terms with what this marriage is, Samia. Unless things have changed for you this is still an arranged marriage, and we are together for many reasons—none of which is about love. So I can’t guarantee to be more invested than I already am.’

  Every word landed on Samia like a little bomb. It was as if she’d asked silently for him to really spell it out, because she wasn’t quite sure what he meant. To save herself from the final humiliation, she said coolly, ‘I know what the parameters of this marriage are, Sadiq, but I’d hoped that within that we could find some balance where we at least communicated beyond the bedroom.’

  Sadiq gritted out, ‘We’re communicating now.’

  ‘Yes, and it’s very clear. Can I have some time to think about this?’

  Sadiq felt unsteady for a moment, unsettled by Samia’s composure. ‘Of course. This isn’t something that has to be decided any time soon.’

  ‘It’s good to know there’s no pressure.’

  Sadiq heard the sarcasm dripping from her voice, and watched as his wife walked straight-backed to the door, turned the key and went back outside. He felt all at once light-headed, panicky and as if something incredibly precious was slipping away.

  When he got back to the main ballroom, though, and saw Samia standing talking to the same man he’d seen her with before, Sadiq cursed himself for giving her an option to leave at all. He should be divorcing her point-blank—because that was the only solution to this madness.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SADIQ paced impatiently in his office and checked his watch again. Where the hell was she? Samia had told him that morning that she would come and talk to him this afternoon. As the days had passed during the past week, and Samia had gone about her business as serenely as if nothing had happened, his control had become more and more frayed. Nerves wound to breaking point.

  The self-enforced sleepless nights on his couch in his study had provoked some much needed introspection. At first Sadiq had tried to block it out with alcohol, but in the end, disgusted with himself, he’d lain there and thought—really thought—about what he would do if Samia wanted to divorce, and why he’d offered it up as an option in the first place.

  And then something his mother had said had hit home uncomfortably. Sick of trying to pace away his sexual frustration in his office, one morning he’d sought some air and space and had come across his mother, sitting in a quiet courtyard in the shade. He’d had that immediate reflex to leave, but in a firmer voice than she usually used she’d asked him to join her, so he had.

  For the first time in a long time they’d sat in companionable silence, and finally she’d said, ‘This place is changing by the day. Can’t you feel it?’

  He’d cast her a glance and she’d gone on, not looking at him. ‘Your Samia�
��she’s a breath of fresh air. Just what we’ve needed for a long time.’

  The way the words your Samia had impacted on Sadiq had been nothing short of a block landing on his chest.

  And then his mother had said quietly, ‘It is possible, you know, to feel passion for someone and for it not to be a negative thing that has to be controlled. The difference is love. I had that once—before your father. The memory of it was the only thing that kept me sane. As well as you, of course.’

  And with those engimatic words she’d got up, pressed a kiss to his head and left him sitting there, reeling. Finally seeing things clearly for the first time in weeks.

  The phone rang on Sadiq’s desk now, and he snatched it up, answering curtly, ‘Yes?’ He couldn’t hide his impatience, but went very still as he listened to the voice on the other end.

  After a pause he said, distractedly, ‘Yes … thank you … I will.’

  He put down the phone. A mixture of emotions was making him feel dizzy, but the paramount one was abject relief. Samia couldn’t leave him now, even if she wanted to. He would deal with the matter of whether she wanted to or not when he found her.

  Samia knew she should have been in Sadiq’s study ages ago, but she couldn’t see him while she was still a sniveling, quivering wreck. Ever since she’d discovered the reason for her persistant nausea all week the tears hadn’t seemed to stop.

  She groaned out loud as she blew her nose again. She had to get it together so that she could stand before Sadiq’s cool, sardonic presence and not crumble. She’d been so strong all week—numbing herself to the pain, alternating between thinking that she would tell Sadiq she’d stay in the marriage because the prospect of not seeing him was too hard to bear, and vowing to herself that there was no other option but to divorce him and run. Before her heart broke into tiny pieces and could never be put back together.

  He’d even stopped sleeping with her, so evidently he was already getting used to single life again. That provoked a fresh bout of weeping, because it was futile thinking of this. It was all beside the point now.

  She heard a noise behind her and whirled around to see Sadiq, leaning against the closed library door.

  ‘How did you know where I was?’

  ‘I figured you’d be in the one place you feel safest.’

  Samia went pink. Why had she told him so much about herself? ‘If you’ve come to accuse me of pretending to be something I’m not again, then—’

  He moved forward, frowning. ‘You’re crying.’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ she lied, looking away.

  But Sadiq kept coming until he was right in front of her, tipping her chin up so he could see her face. She gritted her jaw. He was so damned arrogant. But that familiar scent wound around her and she had to stop herself closing her eyes and drinking it in deeply.

  Hating his effortless effect on her, when he could be so unmoved, Samia jerked away and wrapped her arms around herself. She was dressed in a long tunic and matching tight pants.

  She wasn’t prepared for what Sadiq said next. ‘Are you upset because of the pregnancy?’

  Shocked, Samia just looked at him. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘The doctor thought you had come straight to me to give me the news, so he rang with congratulations.’

  ‘Oh …’ Samia bit her lip.

  He would now know that there was no way she could leave the marriage. Afraid to see the trapped look in his eyes, she stared down at the carpet.

  ‘I’m not upset because of the pregnancy.’ She looked up again, steeling herself for whatever Sadiq’s reaction would be. ‘When the doctor told me, I was happy. Apparently spotting is common in the early days. My periods have always been light … that’s why I assumed I wasn’t pregnant.’

  Sadiq’s voice was firm. ‘But you are. And that changes everything.’

  Samia nodded miserably, and saw something flash in Sadiq’s eyes. ‘Are you upset because this means you can’t leave our marriage?’ he asked.

  Samia blinked back the onset of more tears. She half shrugged, half nodded, and shook her head. ‘No … I mean … yes. But not because of what you probably think.’

  The enormity of discovering about the baby had stripped Samia’s soul bare. She didn’t have the energy to be anything less than completely honest now, and she would just have to cope with Sadiq’s indifference as best she could. She had a baby to think about, and that was more important. She felt instinctively that Sadiq would be a good father.

  ‘I’m upset, Sadiq, because I’ve fallen in love with you. I don’t know what I would have told you today, but I would have chosen whichever option would make my heartbreak marginally less. I hadn’t yet figured out if that meant leaving you or staying here. But now …’ She put her hand on her belly. ‘Now I don’t even have the illusion of choice, and you’re just going to have to deal with the fact that, even though you’ve given me every opportunity to dislike you intensely, I love you.’

  Samia watched several expressions cross Sadiq’s face: sheer disbelief, shock, wonder and something like the sun breaking out from behind stormy clouds. Her pathetic heart started to thump but she had to ignore it.

  He came close to her again and she backed away, but hit a wall of books. He was smiling, but Samia felt like scowling. He put his hands on either side of her head and leant in, trapping her. Samia had a flashback to when she’d seen him kissing that woman in this very room all those years before. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t remembered it straight away.

  ‘You’re remembering, aren’t you?’

  Samia’s eyes widened. ‘Remembering what?’ He couldn’t possibly be talking about—

  ‘That night—in here, at my party. When you were sitting in a chair in the dark, like a scared little mouse in glasses.’

  ‘I—’ Heat was pulsing through Samia. She’d been about to deny it. ‘I was already here and you came in. And then that woman.’

  Sadiq grimaced. ‘Don’t remind me.’

  Samia was finding it hard to concentrate. She’d just told Sadiq she loved him and he hadn’t responded. And now his pelvis was against hers and she could feel his burgeoning response. And he remembered her from that night.

  His eyes were bluer than she could ever remember seeing them, and something imperceptible had softened in his face. It reminded her of when she’d seen him smile after dune-driving, with sheer exhilaration and joy.

  ‘Sadiq—’

  ‘Do you know why I remember that moment now?’

  She shook her head. He took a long strand of her hair that had fallen over her shoulder and wound it round his finger. ‘Because seeing you here in this room brought it back. I saw your embarrassed reaction to knocking over the table of drinks that night and in a split second you’d shown more emotion than I’d seen anyone show in years. It made me feel restless, unsatisfied. I was searching for something elusive that I’d never managed to find with any woman. A depth of passion. A depth of emotion. And the only person I have ever found that with is you. As soon as I walked in just now and saw your eyes I remembered that you’d been the silent witness to my isolation that night …’ His smile faded slightly and his eyes were intense on hers. ‘And the catalyst.’

  Samia was wondering if she was dreaming. ‘I wanted to come and say something, and then. she came in.’

  Sadiq nodded. ‘I felt like someone was watching me, and then when I turned around it was her and it felt all wrong. But then when we heard you … and I saw those big eyes just before you ran … I knew it had been you, and I sensed a kinship, a connection.’

  Samia looked away. She wasn’t dreaming. She was about to be humiliated. ‘No, you didn’t. You don’t have to say that.’

  He caught her chin and gently brought it back. He was deadly serious. ‘Yes, I did. And, yes, I do have to say that—because from the day you walked into my office in London that connection was there. I have done my absolute best from that day to avoid acknowledging it. When the explosive chemistry between us
became apparent I concentrated on that, determined not to admit that there could possibly be any emotional depth too.’

  Feeling very shaky and exposed, Samia said, ‘What are you saying, Sadiq?’

  ‘What I’m saying, my love, habibti, is that I’ve been fathoms deep in love with you for weeks, but I’ve been too afraid to admit it to myself. The more you revealed your true self, the more I fell in love with you—and the more threatened I felt. It’s been a perfect law of physics. The more you captured my heart, the more I had to push you away.’

  Not wanting to believe this for a moment, because it was too huge, Samia said, ‘You don’t have to say this just because of the baby.’

  Sadiq looked fierce enough to make her tremble. He put a possessive hand on her belly. ‘From the moment the doctor told me about your pregnancy all my preconceived notions flew out of the window. I’ve never felt such pure joy. I want to bring this child up with love. It’ll be my heir, yes, but he or she will be ours, first and foremost, and can do whatever they want. I was coming to find you to tell you exactly what I’m telling you, but then I found you crying and assumed you were upset because it meant you were trapped with me for ever.’

  He shook his head. ‘Forgive me for last week. I was so confused about how I was feeling I seriously believed for all of about twenty-four hours that encouraging you to divorce me was the solution. It was only when I stayed away from you and forced myself to see what that future would be like that I had to face up to myself.’

  Samia felt very wobbly, and tears were pricking her eyes. ‘Sadiq, I love you so much. If you’re just saying this—I don’t think I could cope if you don’t really mean it.’

  He took her face in his hands, concern in his eyes. ‘Samia, I can’t live without you. It’s that simple. The power of what I feel for you overwhelms me. I thought it was just passion—physical passion—and I’d seen what that did to my father. I thought I was displaying all of his crazy possessive and destructive traits. But the difference was that he never loved my mother. And love is the difference.’