Her fingers transferred to the opposing zip, loosening it so the dress fell forward, exposing the lace bra that concealed her neat breasts. She thought of the will and carefully removed the bra, placing it and the paper on the side table.
When she turned to face him, her sweet breasts exposed to him, he drew in a breath harshly.
His groin strained and his whole body was throbbing with a need that only she could quench. He forced himself to stay where he was, watching her slowly remove the dress that so beautifully showcased her figure.
Her eyes were haunted. Did she have any idea how much they told him? How her sadness blinked out at him, begging him to fix things? But how could he? The wound she suffered from could never heal. They had lost people they loved and life would never be the same.
Out of the ruins, though, came this.
Them.
The dress dropped to her feet in a rustle of fabric.
She wore a small scrap of fabric across her womanhood, and that was all. Her high heels were lost in the dress and she was grateful to shed them.
Why did she want him? How could she possibly put her physical needs so completely ahead of her emotional pain?
Because one wiped out the other.
Because in sleeping with him she could find relief. Dulling the reality for even the briefest of moments.
They made love as though they’d been doing so for years. Her body moved to anticipate his, they touched and kissed and tasted and teased, both taking something from the sweet perfection of their coming together.
They ascended the heavens together, their insatiable need temporarily answered. But Evie broke the spell as soon as her breathing had returned to normal. She pushed a hand to his chest, smiled in his general direction and rolled away, leaving only the mane of her magnificent hair for his inspection.
Her body was curled like a conch shell, angled away from him. The moon fell across her as a mythical blanket, shimmering magically on her skin. Moistened by perspiration, she glistened as she sighed deeply in her sleep.
Gently, he reached over and pulled the sheet higher then lifted a single Rinathi Da Ikta blossom from her hair.
He placed it on the edge of the bed before turning the other way. She had begged him to make love to her. Their bodies had moved in complete unison. And yet he knew she would not welcome his sleeping embrace.
And so he kept his distance, wishing he had the courage to take her in his arms.
* * *
“Come.” He stared at the back of the door, his face ghosting with the distraction that had engulfed him all morning. Thoughts of their wedding night had swamped his mind. Was she still asleep, as he’d left her hours earlier? It was only just ten o’clock now, and their night had been late.
He felt himself stiffen involuntarily, recalling the way he’d taken her. The way she’d arched beneath him, welcoming him and teasing him with her softness. The way her arms had reached for him and her mouth had curled distractingly, parting only to release her passion-infused breath.
She’d withdrawn from him almost instantly.
She couldn’t have expressed her distance any better had she read a manual. Her back had been turned to him all night.
The door pushed inwards and Nilam was the unwitting recipient of Malakhi’s scowl.
“Mal.” Sensing his friend’s mood, he paused just inside the door. “Is it not a good time?”
“Not particularly,” he said shortly, shaking his head to clear his thoughts. “But that’s not your fault. What is it?”
“Remember I said I needed to speak to you?”
“Yes.” He kicked back in his chair, stretching his long legs in front of himself. “About your sister.”
Nilam buried the bone of resentment. It wasn’t his place to point out that Leilani had been, until very recently, not just Nilam’s sister but the Sheikh’s lover as well. “Yes.”
“Evie said she wasn’t well. Has she recovered?”
Nilam’s cheeks flushed. “Your wife was not entirely honest.”
Malakhi’s eyes narrowed warningly. “In what way?”
Nilam shifted uncomfortably, crossing to the windows that overlooked the ancient wall of the palace. “You remember the papers you asked me to look into?”
“Sabra’s will? Of course.”
“It was binding. Legally.”
Malakhi nodded. “I know.” His expression didn’t shift. “It is a redundant conversation now. My marriage to Evie makes Kalem as much mine as he is hers.”
“Yes.” He cleared his throat.
“So? Destroy the papers.”
“Mal…”
The Sheikh leaned forward, pinning his friend’s back with a dark stare. “You are skirting around a confession. It has something to do with this? And your sister?”
“Yes.” Nilam turned but couldn’t look at Malakhi properly. Guilt was written all over his figure. “Leilani saw the document. In my office. She made a copy.”
Heat spiralled through Malakhi. “She what? For what purpose?”
Nilam was shaking now. For the first time he felt genuine fear of his friend. “I don’t believe she had a plan when she copied them. I know only that she was angry and hurt. You know how she cares for you.”
“Go on,” Malakhi demanded coldly, doing his best not to react until he had all the information.
“They argued last night. Leilani and Evelyn – Her Royal Highness. Leilani had consumed far too much liquor at the party. She was not herself.”
Malakhi shut his eyes for a moment, compiling the facts that he had. It was not enough to paint a proper picture. “And?”
“She showed the will to your wife. And threw a glass of champagne at her.” Nilam’s face had drained of all colour. “She knows how badly she behaved. She is beside herself today. Honestly, Malakhi, I fear for her, for what she might do to herself. I have left her under my father’s guard because she has become incoherent with her shame.”
“She ought to feel shame,” Malakhi hissed, standing quickly. “You tell me she took this document – a private legal document entrusted solely to you – and showed it to my wife? She chose to meddle, knowing what this marriage means to me, and the kingdom?”
“She loves you,” Nilam said quietly. “It’s not a defence. She had no right to act as she did. The mortification she feels spreads through our family, Mal. You must believe that. I come to you today with my sincerest apology and offer my immediate resignation.”
Malakhi spun to face his friend. His chest moved in time with his hurried breath. The dress. She’d changed. Why hadn’t she told him the truth?
“I will never forgive Leilani for this.” He was reaching for his watch, slipping it back onto his wrist. The gift from Sabra got in the way when he worked, but he always wore it otherwise. “My decision to marry Evelyn was in the best interests of everybody. Had I not married, she would have left the kingdom with the child. This could not be allowed to happen.”
“I know that,” Nilam said urgently. “I told Leilani as much. And if she hadn’t been drinking, perhaps she would have thought twice about telling Evelyn the truth.”
Malakhi shook his head. He stormed to the door and wrenched it inwards. “You will not resign,” he threw over his shoulder. “Not yet, anyway. Let me see how badly your sister has messed up before I make that decision.”
He slammed the door behind him, causing Nilam to jump.
In all his life he had never seen Malakhi Sitar-Omari so obviously filled with worry.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
She was not asleep.
Her slender frame was silhouetted by the bright sunshine. She wore a simple, flowing dress. A pale green in colour that, he imagined, would bring out the flecks of magic that danced in her eyes. Her hair was not yet brushed. It was out, long and a little messy.
It brought a smile to his lips even when he knew that things were seriously disturbed between them.
“Jamila,” he said as he approached. She turned quickl
y, a fleeting look of sadness on her beautiful features before she adorned her face with its usual mask.
“I didn’t expect to see you today.” The soft admission felt like a knife being thrust into his gut.
“Nilam came to talk to me.”
Her eyes shifted anxiously. “Oh?” She licked her lower lip; the only betraying gesture in her otherwise unreadable pose.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He saw the way her delicate throat muscles bunched as she swallowed furiously. “Tell you what?”
“Any of it,” he snapped with exasperation. “She fought with you? She assaulted you?”
“She was upset,” Evie said gently, her eyes knitted together as she recalled the scene. “And I can’t say I blame her.”
“My God.” Malakhi dragged a hand through his thick, dark hair. “She threw a glass of champagne at you?”
Evie bit down on her full lower lip. “I think she was as surprised by that as I was.”
“Why do you defend this woman?” His chiselled cheeks were slashed with colour.
She propped her hip against the door frame and shrugged. “Because. She’s upset. She loves you, and she’s had to endure the rapid usurping of her in your bed. And now, I’m your wife, which effectively buries any hopes she had of filling this role.”
“Marry Leilani? That would never have happened.”
“How can you be such a bastard? She loves you. She was your lover. And yet you treat with disdain the very idea that she might have come to harbour hopes for more?”
“Our relationship was not like that, I told you. There were limits in place at all times. We both knew …”
“You knew,” she muttered. “Just as you always know everything.”
The accusation was obvious. And he had no defence. There was nothing he could say to soften her hurt.
“I couldn’t let him leave,” he said finally, instead, his expression regal and implacable despite the concern he had that he had truly gone too far.
She looked at him long and hard, her shoulders square, her body taught. And he had no sense of what she was feeling, but he knew his own heart. He knew the regret and scorn he felt.
“I know that,” she said finally.
“You do?” Surprise fanned his sense of self-disappointment.
“Of course.” She gnawed at her lip thoughtfully and when she spoke it was with such calm unconcern that he had no option but to believe it genuine. “I see that.”
“What do you mean?”
“If I’d known about the will, I would have taken him back to Australia.” Her eyes battled his, and for a moment he felt a sting of her rage. “Our situations were reversed. I thought, wrongly, as it turns out, that you had the legal claim to him. That your right to have him in your life was greater than mine. And I did whatever I could to remain with him.”
Malakhi blinked his eyes shut on a nauseating wave of self-disgust. “Such as becoming my lover?”
“Yes.” She waved a hand through the air though he wasn’t looking at her. “And marrying you.”
“I couldn’t lose him,” he said thickly, blinking at her and begging her to understand.
“I know. And nor could I. We both did what we had to in order to stay in his life.”
“You speak as though this doesn’t bother you?”
The air between them crackled and he hoped for some reason he couldn’t comprehend, that she would shout at him as he knew he deserved. He certainly didn’t expect her wistful smile.
“Why would it? Neither of us thought this was a love match. It’s a marriage of convenience. That we are attracted to one another is a silver lining, but even that isn’t essential.” She moved closer to him, her face a study in calm serenity. “I ask only this: when that lust fades, as I’m sure it will, that you conduct any affairs … discreetly. I married you for the sake of Kalem and I want him to believe, at least, that we respect and value one another as people.”
His breath was hot on her temple. God! How had she got through it? The most devastating statement she’d ever had to make and she’d delivered an Oscar-winning performance.
“You’re saying …”
“I don’t love you,” she lied, a smile heavy on her mouth and her heart. “You don’t love me.” Evie shrugged. “The same can’t be said for Leilani. She adores you. Her heart is broken. I wish her brother had never told you what happened between us.”
“No?”
“What’s served by this? She was upset. I’m not.” Evie managed to pull off an expression that approached bemused. “Apart from feeling sticky from the champagne, that is. I am angry that you manipulated me, but I understand why you did it. I would have – and did – the same thing, when I thought our positions to be reversed.”
“So without the worry of losing Kalem, you wouldn’t have come to my bed.”
“And you wouldn’t have married me. Yet here we are.”
Darkness saturated his being. “Here we are.” It was impossible for Malakhi to define his emotional response. “What exactly did she say to you?”
Evie expelled a soft breath. “That’s really between her and me.”
Surprise tempered his mood. “You are saying you won’t tell me?”
She nodded slowly. “I don’t think she spoke wisely.” Evie considered her explanation. “In fact, I’d put money on the fact that she regrets what she said today.” She moved closer and sat on the edge of the bed. “But if I were to tell you, I doubt you’d take the same view.”
His pupils dilated with barely concealed impatience. “Should it not be my decision? If I wish to react harshly to whatever she’d said …”
“No.” Evie turned away from him and padded, barefoot, across the palatial space. Her dress pulled at her as she went, revealing her slender figure beneath the swathes of linen. “Because I think you’re angry I found out about the will. You feel, rightfully, that you betrayed Sabra’s wishes by lying to me. I think you’ll take that emotion out on Leilani.”
He felt as though he’d been punched in the solar plexus. Were he another man, he might have been able to agree with her; to tell her that’s just how he felt. But a man like His Royal Highness, Supreme Sheikh Malkahi Sitar-Omari? It wasn’t in his personality to confess fault.
“Whatever you may think of my feelings and actions, you assumed a role this weekend and that role brings with it an inherent right to respect.”
She made a small, tight laugh. “Let’s give your mistress a period of grace to adjust to that, hmm?”
“She is not my mistress.”
“But she has been for a very long time. And perhaps she will be again.”
Malakhi narrowed his eyes. “Is that what she told you? Did she threaten to come between us?”
“There is no us,” Evie warned carefully.
“You are my wife.”
“Yes, and to almost all of Ishala, that fact will not be in dispute. But there are some people who must know the truth. Leilani is one of them.”
His temper was rising; he hadn’t known himself capable of such darkness but it chewed at him now, coating his insides with rancid disgust. “Leilani is not relevant. She is nothing to me. Nothing to you. From this moment forward I wish you never to speak her name nor think of her again.”
“Fine,” Evie shrugged, again pretending that this would be easy – that she truly didn’t care.
It did nothing to help his mood. “And you are to tell me if she ever threatens you.”
Evie’s eyes startled to his and in that one swift reaction he saw everything she hadn’t shared. He saw her fear and resolve; her strength and vulnerabilities. “She didn’t threaten me.”
“You are lying to me now,” he deduced coldly. “And our marriage will not become a lie.”
“It already is,” she disputed rationally. “You lied about the necessity of marrying you.” She lifted a hand to forestall his objection. “I understand why you did it, but you still lied.”
In his life,
he had never been spoken to with such frankness.
“So let’s just get on with it.” She propped her bottom on the edge of her dressing table, her eyes scanning his face thoughtfully.
He nodded as though her proclamation made sense, but he was turning the problem over in his mind. “So tomorrow we go on our honeymoon.”
“As planned,” she agreed, her heart feeling shredding by a mincer.
Malakhi, on the brink of uttering something incredibly stupid, spun on his heel and stormed from the room, slamming a second door that hour.
* * *
Three weeks into their trip, Evie awoke with a start.
It was a warm night, but it was longing and anxiety that had caused her to stir suddenly.
She awoke sometime before dawn, her body coated in perspiration, and sat up straight in her bed. Though it wasn’t really a bed, she reminded herself, despite the luxurious furnishings and comfortable softness that had enveloped her all night.
The camp was just that: a camp. Several tents erected in the middle of a Bedouin community: desert sands stretching wide on either side, a few trees to provide an interesting horizon, and the stars overhead.
She pushed aside thoughts of how she might have felt, had things been different, yet her eyes still shifted to her husband. Lying beside her, his arms thrown carelessly above his head, his face tilted away from her, she felt her breath snag in her throat at the sight of his broad shoulders.
Her gut clenched and despite every reason she had to despise him, she wanted him. She wanted as much of him as he was willing to give for as long as he was willing to offer it.
With a determined shake of her head, she stood from the mattress. There was no sand underfoot; their tent was the last word in luxury. A rich burgundy carpet covered the entire floor, and the tent itself was the size of an apartment. She stretched her arms overhead, luxuriating for a moment in the freedom of her nudity before reaching for the outfit her maids had laid out for her the night before. She dressed quickly and silently and, with one last look at her sleeping husband, separated the calico doors and slipped into the desert.
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