The opening of the doors had caught his attention, and his eyes locked to hers instantly. Her heart did a strange little jump in her chest, and her skin paled.
She might not care if his family approved of their union, but it was suddenly very important to Sally that Khalid was proud of her.
She squared her shoulders and set her expression to one of icy disdain, and raised her brows at him. The man at his elbow was mid-sentence, but Khalid didn’t so much as acknowledge him. He began to cut through the crowd, which parted for him, making it easy to reach Sally.
“My Sheikha,” he said with a small bow. She tried to remember the hasty instructions Fadi had given her on their walk to the palace state rooms, but she hadn’t been properly paying attention.
“Khalid,” she said quietly.
“You look like an Emira should,” he said, but with such a cryptic tone to his voice that she was not sure if it was a compliment or not. He leaned down, so that he could whisper in her ear, “And though your clothes are regal and your hair perfect, I am going to spend the whole night wishing I could tear it all from you, so that you were naked before me.”
Her eyes flew to his in surprise. “Are you trying to make me lose my focus?” She asked with a shake of her head.
“I am trying to tell you that I have thought of you all day.”
Her palms were sweaty suddenly. “Khalid,” she murmured, her eyes scanning the room with self-consciousness.
And then, his laugh, soft and gentle, brought her face winging back to his.
“You’re teasing me,” she groaned, wishing her insides weren’t throbbing with arousal.
“Yes,” he agreed with a devilish grin. He leaned close again. “Which does not mean I am not speaking the truth.”
Her frown was brief. The arrival of his cousin caused her to recall hastily all of Fadi’s advice. She was regal. She was untouchable.
Oh, if only that were true!
She met Kaman’s gaze unflinchingly. “Your highness,” she murmured, a slight edge of disapproval in her tone.
His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Madam, you must allow me to apologise for my role in yesterday’s deception. My cousin commanded me to play the part, you see.”
Sally ignored Khalid’s presence, as difficult as she found it. “Yes, I can imagine.”
Kaman put his hands out, inviting her touch. She pressed her fingers to his and he squeezed them. “I am sorry about Tashana,” he said quietly, his touch gentle.
Sally felt the sting of tears once more and she blinked furiously. Kindness was the last thing she’d expected.
“She was an excellent woman. Her loss has been felt by many.”
Sally’s legs were weak. She felt as though the ground was lurching dramatically beneath her. Regal. Untouchable. “Thank you for your condolences,” she said with a surprising amount of decorum. Beside her, Khalid was watchful.
“Come,” Khalid interrupted. “It is time to meet the room.”
To meet the room! It sounded like a quaint expression. But it wasn’t. Once she had taken her place beside Khalid, a line formed.
His parents were first. The Sheikh Emir Iskander was every bit as imposing as his son. It was immediately obvious that they were cut from the same mould. Identical onyx eyes examined her as though concentration alone could explain the make up of her soul. “Saaliyah Ibarra,” he greeted her, his voice deep. “It is an honour to welcome you to Tari’ell.”
She put her hand in his extended palm, and dipped her head forward in a small nod. “The honour is mine.”
“It is a deed of great service you do, in forming this match. I have many hopes it will be the birth of a new era for our two people.”
“But no pressure,” she quipped, momentarily forgetting the importance of the meeting. She flashed him a mortified look and shook her head. “I mean, thank you.”
His laugh was a slow rumble. “No pressure indeed.”
He dropped her hand and moved along, to Khalid. He was studying her from unreadable eyes. Iksander whispered something in their own tongue, just quietly enough that Sally couldn’t hear it. And even if she had, their dialects were different enough that she wouldn’t have easily been able to understand.
“My mother, Hadiya, and my sister Jamil.”
Jamil. She who does not approve, Sally thought, her gaze speculative as she focussed on the two women. They were very similar, with the exception of their age. Both tall, and slim, though Jamil was strong-looking. Warrior-like, in the same way her brother was.
“Welcome, Saaliyah,” Hadiya said with a nod.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
“We are sorry we could not take better care of Tashana. I know how close you were.”
Sally’s fingers itched to toy with her necklace. “Yes, we were.”
Hadiya’s eyes were loaded with sincerity. “She was a wonderful young woman. We are all grieving her loss.”
The words should have been a balm to her soul, but they weren’t. Sally felt envy spike inside of her. Envy of her adored, deceased relative. It was a completely unworthy emotion and she was ashamed to have felt it.
“Jamil,” Hadiya murmured, putting a hand in the small of her daughter’s back.
“Welcome.”
Sally suppressed a smile. She could practically hear the grinding of Jamil’s teeth. She nodded in acknowledgement, briefly wondering why Khalid’s sister was so opposed to the union.
On the walk to the event, Fadi had run through a brief biography of the family. She knew that Jamil was twenty two, only a year older than she was. She had been educated in Tari’ell, but she’d holidayed frequently in Europe. Surely there was some common ground that could be discovered.
Khalid’s family moved on, but not before Sally caught the warning glance he shot his sister.
The entire crowd was next.
It all passed in a blur. Sally lost count of how many people she’d met but it must have been at least forty. By the end, her head was swimming and her throat was dry.
Finger food was being circulated on trays and Sally watched a particularly delightful platter zip past, loaded with some kind of deep fried savoury.
“Is that everyone?” She turned to face Khalid, momentarily knocked off course by the brooding intensity in his expression. His hair was pulled up again, in a bun on top of his head. He looked like an animalistic warrior. A man born to rule, but to rule in battle, not from a glitzy palace such as this.
“No.”
“No?” She fought the urge to sob. “How many aunts and uncles and cousins and nephews can one man have?”
“That is my family. But you must meet my advisors. Those who run the government.”
“Oh.” She nodded. “Tonight?”
He shook his head distractedly. “No. Not tonight.” His eyes shifted past her, and Sally turned on instinct to follow his gaze. A beautiful woman in a turquoise gown was watching them from the door. Malevolence hit Sally like a wave.
And though she was as innocent as the day she was born, she was not entirely stupid. “Someone you know?” She enquired with a saccharine quality to her voice.
“Someone I used to know,” he confirmed, focussing his attention back on Sally.
“She’s very attractive,” Sally prompted.
His lips lifted in sardonic agreement. “She has recently become engaged to one of my cousins.”
“I see. How … incestuous,” she couldn’t help remarking.
The sheikh’s laugh caught the attention of several nearby guests, if only because it was such a rare sound. He put a hand under Sally’s elbow. Her skin seemed to dance beneath his touch. “Careful, Saaliyah, or I will have reason to believe you are jealous.”
“Jealous?” She murmured with assumed amusement. “I hardly think so.”
His fingers moved over her flesh, drawing imaginary patterns against the fabric of her tunic. “You do not need to be. My relationship with Hannah ended months ago.”
“Months
ago?” Her eyes widened with a flash of pain. “You were engaged to my cousin while you were seeing her?”
He was inspecting her thoughtfully. “Yes.”
“So you were engaged to Tashana, and sleeping with her.”
He leaned forward, his lips so closer to her that she could have angled her head and kissed him. “Come with me.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. His touch on her arm was insistent as he guided her further away from the milling crowds. A narrow door led to a private room. It was small, but overwhelmingly grand.
“Are these actually gold leaf tiles?” She demanded distractedly, looking down at the sheened floor.
“Yes.”
Why couldn’t she catch her breath? She paced across the floor, shaking her head a little. Why was her temper spiking through the roof? Why were her hands shaking? She spun around and faced him, mollified slightly by the distance between them.
“Why does it bother you that I was in a relationship with Hannah?”
“That very beautiful woman who is now engaged to your cousin?”
“Yes.”
“You can pick your reasons,” she responded tautly. “It is disgusting and degrading for a woman to be handed around a family.”
His laugh needled her. “As I have been handed around your family?”
“I … Oh, that’s different, and you know it.”
“How?”
“You didn’t sleep with Tasha.”
“True.”
“But you were engaged to her and sleeping with Hannah.”
“Yes.”
“Are you sleeping with anyone now?”
The question made her body sag. Where had it even come from?
The Sheikh was as surprised by it as she. He studied her from the other side of the room, uncertain how to answer. And uncertainty did not come naturally to this man.
“Don’t answer that,” her watery smile was intended as an apology. “It’s not my business.”
And that, more than anything else, inspired a reaction in him. “You do not believe my sex life is your business? Despite the fact we will marry in just over a week?”
Her cheeks were warmed by a blush. She nodded emphatically. “I presume that if you were involved in that type of relationship while engaged to my cousin, you still are, despite your engagement to me.”
And though he couldn’t understand his motivation he found his feet moving him to her. He lifted her hand to his face and kissed it gently. “I am not. And I should have ended things with Hannah much sooner than I did.” He used his body to press her back against the wall, so that she was completely imprisoned by him.
And suddenly the idea of waiting a week to possess her seemed like a form of great cruelty.
Sally looked up at him, almost afraid to speak in case it broke the invisible string that was wrapping around them.
“Hannah and I were involved, on and off, for years. It is a habit I found hard to break.”
Desperate, agonizing guilt burned the soles of her feet.
“I understand,” she nodded distractedly. Of course she didn’t understand. The closest she’d ever come to passionately wanting another person had been inspired by this man.
“I don’t think so,” he said with a seriousness to his expression. He lifted a hand and cupped her cheek. His body was all hard planes and angles. She gulped as she felt the stirring of his arousal against her stomach. “I told you that I have a voracious appetite. It is not possible for me to indulge it with just anyone. I must be careful of gossip and indiscretion. I trusted Hannah. I knew she would not disclose our relationship. And I also knew she didn’t expect anything of me beyond what I was willing to offer.”
“Sex,” she parried with an insouciance that was new to her.
“Sex,” he agreed, baring his teeth in a tight smile. “But nothing more.” He lowered his mouth and nipped at the sensitive flesh of her ear lobe with his teeth. She yelped in surprise, but it quickly turned into a moan as he flicked his tongue against the same part of her, teasing her with his contact.
“Why …” she lifted her hands and gripped the fabric of his robe as her speech began to suffer the same strange lag as it had the night before. “Did she want … to marry you?”
He was impatient to feel her. More impatient than he had ever been for anything in his life. He lifted the hem of her tunic, so that his hands could touch the flat skin of her stomach. She shivered beneath his touch. He traced his fingers across her skin, and then slipped his fingers into the waistband of the pants.
She groaned.
“I told her my plan to end this war by marrying an Ibarra,” he said, moving his mouth to hers and kissing her hungrily. His body held hers pinned against the wall, and his hands slipped lower, so that they could grip her buttocks. She knew she should stop this highly improper situation, but there was absolutely no way in the world she had that kind of will-power.
“Any Ibarra,” she managed to whisper tartly, her hands curling around his neck, reaching for his hair.
He didn’t answer. He didn’t want to think about anyone but this Ibarra. “I find myself very impatient to make you my bride,” he muttered, dragging himself to a standing position but keeping his body hard to hers. His hands he slowly lifted away, and instantly wished he hadn’t.
“That would be your voracious sexual appetite?” She queried impishly. Her body was flooded with a need for him to touch her again.
“It must be.” He was answering her in kind – lightly, jokingly – but it sent a scurry of disappointment into her gut. It was certainly not for any other reason.
“Well,” her lips were tight. “There’s not long to wait now.”
Did she think not? He had known her for a matter of days, but Saaliyah Ibarra had clawed her way beneath his skin in a most unexpected and confusing way.
He had two instincts pulling his apart. The first was to indulge his desire to know her better. She was, after all, to become his bride, and the mother of his heirs.
His second instinct was to put as much space between them as possible. He needed a wife; he needed peace and unity in his land, and he needed the continuation of his royal bloodline.
He did not need a woman to begin taking over his mind.
“Khalid,” she interrupted his thoughts with a small whisper. “I didn’t know that you had paid a dowry for me.” A little line creased the skin between her brows.
He wasn’t sure he had the strength to keep her at a distance. He looked at her as if from a long way away. “What?”
He was terse. Angry. She dropped her gaze, and Khalid instantly felt regret. He softened his tone. “You asked about the dowry.”
“Yes. I didn’t know. My father didn’t mention it.”
Khalid couldn’t have said why that pleased him. “It is a standard protocol in unions such as ours.”
“An unnecessary one,” she said, her eyes begging him to believe her. “I wanted to do this.”
He stroked her cheek. Her pain was uncomfortable to him. “Would you like to give me a refund?” He teased, aiming to lighten her mood.
Her smile sent something loose in his chest. It ping ponged across his body.
“Yes.” She tilted her head to one side. “Unfortunately, I suspect my father might not agree.”
“No,” Khalid said with a shrug. “No matter. It is only money. And money I have plenty of.”
She rubbed her fingers against her temple. “But it makes me feel like an object that’s been purchased. Surely you can see that.”
“Yes,” he acknowledged. “I can. But it’s done now.”
“I don’t want to be something you’ve paid for.”
He stroked her cheek. “I do not view you this way.”
“But the money …”
“It is just how it is done.”
Her eyes sparked in her pretty face. “Not for our children.”
And she spoke with such conviction and such certainty that he found himself nodding. �
�You will be Emira in ten days. It will be your rule book to re-write, habibi.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Three days before the wedding, well before the sun had broken over the palace, Sally woke with a start.
She’d been dreaming of Tasha. They were children again. Young children, playing in the stream by Tasha’s home. It ran all the way to the ocean, and they used to sit with their feet in the water, putting bits of leaves or sticks in and watching them float out to sea.
They’d spent hours wondering where each piece would go. Perhaps as faraway, even, as Australia.
Her face, when she lifted her fingers to it, was wet with her tears. Her pillow too.
She sat up in bed, and pushed the covers away. “Why, Tasha?” She whispered on a heartbroken sob. “Why did you leave me? Why did it have to be you?”
She was sylph like as she paced across the large windows that framed a view of the mountains.
The sky, just before dawn, was a canvas of incredible magic. Milky, murky night, blotted by shining stars and wisps of cloud, it seemed to stretch forever. There was something almost eerie about that hour of day. Before man’s noise had begun, when the elements were boastful to their fullest degree.
Before she even realised what she was doing, she had pulled a black jumper on over her cotton nightgown and slipped her feet into a pair of black shoes.
The eagerness to be amongst the wilderness was a physical need, as great as thirst or hunger.
So too was her desire to be alone.
She opened her door slowly, taking great care not to allow it to make a sound. At that time of day, there wasn’t a single palace staffer in sight. Though she suspected there was still a fair amount of activity behind the scenes, the hallways were deserted. She moved swiftly and gracefully down the marbled floor.
When first she’d arrived at Tari’ell, she could never have imagined that she would come to instinctively understand the enormous sprawling building. But bit by bit, she’d learned the pathways and had understood its design.
It was simple, really. Centred around a vast courtyard, there were four distinct wings, each of them five stories high. The wing she was in was for esteemed guests, or travelling dignitaries. Khalid had a wing all to himself. One wing was for entertaining and boasted, amongst other mind-boggling attributes, a cinema, an opera theatre, and an indoor tennis court. The final wing was for the business of palace life. Enormous kitchens, meeting areas and state rooms were underscored by a rabbit warren of offices for palace staff.
Bartered to the Sheikh: Honour, duty, marriage ... and passionate desert nights Page 5