The Sheikh's Bought Wife Page 10

  ‘Go on,’ she said quietly.

  He shook his head as if to clear it. ‘When I was seven, my father had to go away to Maraban on business—so my mother took me to one of our houses high in the mountains, in the western reaches of Kafalah. I remember it as being a perfect holiday, because it was a spectacular springtime, when for once the wildflowers were all in bloom. In the mornings she used to take me fishing in one of the mountain streams and we would picnic there afterwards. It was such a quiet and peaceful place that we required less than the usual quota of bodyguards. Or so we thought.’ His mouth hardened as his words tailed away and he found himself lost in the painful landscape of what had happened, wondering if they’d been naïve to have considered themselves so safe.

  ‘Zayed?’ she prompted cautiously.

  He forced himself to continue because he had given his word that he would answer her question, but it was more than that. Suddenly he found himself wanting to expose the poison and the guilt to her and, yes, the shame. The bitter shame which would never leave him. Would Jane despise him for what he had done as much as he despised himself?

  ‘The jilted king came for my mother. His anger brewing and brewing, he had been biding his time for the perfect moment to take her back and now he had found it. She saw him from a distance riding up the mountain towards us and I saw fear in her face. Fear like I’d never seen before. She called for the bodyguards, but none came. Her fingers dug into my arms as she whispered into my ear and told me I must hide away and not make a sound. That I must be as quiet as if my life depended on it. I will never forget the way her voice sounded, or the urgency with which she spoke. And because I loved my mother and because I was too young to know any better, I did exactly as she said. I folded myself into the dark crevice of a cave and waited.’

  He clenched his hands into fists, staring down at their white-knuckled definition as if they belonged to someone else. ‘And they came for her,’ he continued hoarsely. ‘I heard the vicious curses they made as they took her away but she made no sound. She went willingly to her fate. And it was long after I heard the last of the horses’ hooves thundering back down the mountain path that I ran out to search for the guards.’

  His voice tailed off as he felt the powerful punch of pain to his chest.

  ‘Zayed?’ she said, again.

  ‘I found them mutilated,’ he said, his voice shaking with helpless rage. ‘Still alive but with their legs broken so they couldn’t mount a chase. There were no mobile phones then, of course. We had no instant means of communication. We were essentially helpless on the mountainside.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘Darkness was falling as I saddled up one of the horses and rode to the nearest village. I got lost several times along the way and it was almost morning by the time I got there, when all hell broke out. My father returned from Maraban and organised groups of men to search and find my mother.’

  Jane closed her eyes. She knew the end to this story for it was well documented. Zayed’s mother had been found lying dead after a rock had fallen on her during the long ride back to Mazbalah. A rock which had hit her skull and crushed it, like a melon. But up until this moment, she’d never known the reasons why. The abduction had never made it into the historical documents and the vagueness of the facts had enabled the establishment to make it sound like a terrible accident. Slightly confused, she looked across the sumptuous suite at Zayed, silhouetted so still against the window, his shadowed face ravaged with pain.

  ‘And your father?’ she whispered.

  He let out a long and ragged sigh. ‘He caught up with the King and challenged him to a duel and inflicted a fatal blow to his heart,’ he said grimly. ‘But in so doing—was himself mortally injured. They brought him back to the palace, where I spent those last hours by his bedside.’

  ‘Oh, Zayed.’ She clamped her fingertips over her lips as she pictured the scene. A little boy of seven, still grieving for his mother, while his father lay dying in front of him in the vastness of that gilded Kafalahian palace. What terrible loss and pain he had known at such an early age—why, it made her own fractured childhood seem like nothing. Instinctively she got up from the bed and walked across the room towards him because the distance between them seemed too great to say what she wanted to say. And when at last she was standing in front of him and could see the indescribable sadness in his black eyes, she whispered out the hopelessly inadequate words. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  He inclined his head in a stately gesture as he acknowledged them.

  ‘Do you want to tell me what happened next?’

  There was a pause before he nodded, his accented voice shattering the silence. ‘My father told me that what was done was done, and that was to be an end to it. He made me promise never to seek any more vengeance, nor to risk spilling my own blood for a cause that was now lost, because it would break my mother’s heart if I were to do so—and nothing could ever bring her back. One of the reasons we deliberately kept the circumstances so vague afterwards was to deter rival factions in either country from seeking revenge.’

  ‘That’s why you were brought up by courtiers as the youngest regent monarch the region had ever known,’ she said slowly.

  ‘Yes.’ There was a pause. ‘And that was what caused the final severing of my relationship with my grandfather. His daughter had been his heart’s joy. He blamed the Al Zawba family for interfering with her destiny and causing her death, and maybe he was right. If she hadn’t listened to her heart, she might be alive now. If she hadn’t married my father she would probably have lived to a ripe old age—’

  ‘Zayed, you can’t know that.’

  ‘Can’t I?’ His voice had become fierce. ‘Perhaps she would also have lived if I hadn’t listened to her instructions to hide myself away. If I had gone after them, or challenged the King—’

  ‘What? A seven-year-old boy, challenging a king?’

  ‘And why not?’ he argued fiercely. ‘Mightn’t it have struck at his conscience to realise just what he was doing by removing a mother from her son? But instead I just hid away, like a coward. I hid longer than I needed to hide. Too frozen with fear to dare to emerge.’

  ‘You did what you did because your mother asked it of you,’ she argued. ‘You achieved what any mother would have wanted for her child...you kept yourself alive.’

  He gave a bitter laugh. ‘Yes. I lived so that I might remember what I had done.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, Zayed. Deep down you must realise that isn’t true. Just as you must realise that your grandfather must have been seeking to make amends for his anger by leaving you Dahabi Makaan in his will—and you were big enough to accept that offer and to offer him your hand on his deathbed. Can’t you just concentrate on that—on the good things which eventually emerged from such a terrible situation? Because that’s all we can do in life, to make the best out of the bad things.’

  Zayed nodded. She was standing in front of him and in that moment he thought she’d never looked more beautiful. Maybe it was because her amber eyes were shining with fervour—as if her peace-making passion had the ability to cleanse his troubled soul. Did it? Had the telling of his story lessened some of its power over him? He wondered if the old saying was true—that a problem shared was a problem halved. And it wasn’t really a problem any more, was it? He had done what his mother had asked. Done what his father had asked, too. By the time he’d reached manhood there had been no vengeance left in Zayed’s blood—and no desire for subsequent wars with innocent lives lost. He had honoured all his promises—and if that had left him with an empty space where his heart should have been, was it really so surprising?

  ‘I repeat my demand that this goes no further,’ he said grimly. ‘I don’t want you writing up some learned essay on the subject after our divorce.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of doing that.’ She flinched. ‘You
told me that you trusted me.’

  ‘Yes.’ But at that moment he felt more than trust. He felt desire. He could feel it flooding his veins. Like honey, it thickened his blood and pooled to harden at his groin as he stared into the face of his bride. The autumnal sunshine made her hair resemble gleaming gold and he wanted to brush his lips over its silken spill. And more. Couldn’t he pull her into his arms? Bend his head and lose himself in the softness of her lips? Kiss her hard until she was writhing in his arms, wanting more? His mouth dried. Yet the crazy thing was that he didn’t really do kissing. It was almost too intimate an act of foreplay, which gave women unrealistic expectations. Kissing made them buy into the fairy tale of love, which he was incapable of delivering. He preferred the baring of breasts or that first indefinable taste, when you put your head between a woman’s thighs and licked her until she came in your mouth.

  Yet he could sense that Jane was hungry for him, too. He could feel the answering desire which was radiating from her curvy body. Temptation washed over him and his groin grew even harder as he thought about just giving in. For a split second he tensed, seeing the hopeful darkening of her amber eyes as if she anticipated what he was about to do. And never in his life had he wanted a woman more than he did right then.

  Until he remembered their deal.

  No consummation meant a simple dissolution of their marriage and that was the way he wanted it.

  The only way it could possibly be.

  ‘Why don’t you freshen up after your journey?’ he suggested and watched her body jerk, like someone who’d been stung. ‘I have papers which need my attention before tonight’s reception.’ He gave her a cool smile before walking back over to the desk. ‘And you’ll need to pretty yourself up before the party, won’t you?’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  JANE FELT HURT, even though she told herself she had no right to be. She tried to rationalise her thoughts in a way which usually came as easily to her as breathing but for once it was proving difficult. Okay, so Zayed had pushed her away straight after he’d taken her into his confidence and told her the full and shocking facts about his mother’s death. He’d been cold towards her at a time when they could have been close, when she could have offered him comfort. But why was she hankering after closeness when he’d explicitly said he didn’t want it? He’d told her about his past because she’d asked him about the nightmares, that was all.

  And no, he hadn’t kissed her, even though the expression in his black eyes had suggested he might. Why would he kiss her, when no sex was what explicitly defined their marriage? She should just be glad he’d trusted her enough to tell her what had really happened to his mother and father. Her heart should be full of empathy for his terrible experience.

  And it was. It was brimming over with sorrow for what he’d suffered. She wanted to put her arms around him and hug him tightly as she’d done on their wedding night, but she didn’t dare. Because she was aware that sexual desire was growing with each second she spent in his company.

  She could feel it in the heaviness of her breasts as she soaped them in the shower while getting ready for the official reception and in the restless ache between her thighs. At one point, impulse made her run her middle finger experimentally between her legs and she shivered before snatching it away again—scared of the intense physical sensations it provoked. Why now? she wondered desperately. Why should her body have tantalisingly come to life when she was trapped with a man who couldn’t touch her?

  Wrapping herself in a snowy bathrobe, she padded into the dressing room to study the selection of clothes which had been flown out from Kafalah. Row upon row of them were lined up—exquisitely embroidered silk tunics, all with matching trousers. There were western clothes, too. Couture dresses designed to fit like a glove. Slim skirts and gossamer-fine blouses. Shoes with spiky heels and silk stockings to wear with them, although so far she hadn’t tried either. Since they’d married she’d dressed as a Kafalahian woman but tonight she didn’t feel like one. She felt like an outsider. A cuckoo in the nest. A woman with no real place in this strange new royal world she found herself in.

  Was it that which made her ignore the Kafalahian tunics and pull on a shimmering floor-length dress in black, which was the ultimate in glamour and sophistication? She stepped back from the mirror, slightly alarmed to see that the designer gown was doing things to her body she hadn’t thought possible. The fabric clung to every pore, lifting and separating her breasts yet at the same time magically making her look as if she’d lost ten pounds. Her hair she left loose, clipping back the front strands with two of the glittering diamond clips she assumed Zayed would like to see her wearing.

  She didn’t hear him enter the dressing room and for once she barely registered the towel covering his groin and buttocks, because she’d become used to that, too. Didn’t matter how big the towel was, it never seemed big enough for Zayed.

  Tonight it was the look in his eyes which commanded her attention as it travelled in disbelief down her body before drawing her gaze to his, like a black flame sucking her in, the ebony fire flickering over her and growing in intensity. She waited for him to say something but he didn’t and as the silence grew insecurity plagued her—just as it had plagued her all her life. ‘You don’t like it?’ she said.

  ‘Don’t like it?’ He gave an odd kind of laugh. ‘What on earth gives you that idea?’

  She shrugged her shoulders awkwardly. ‘Because you didn’t say anything—and I can’t quite work out the expression on your face.’

  ‘That’s good. I don’t particularly want you to work out the expression on my face,’ he said obscurely. ‘But if you really want to know what I’m thinking, it’s that you’re going to make every man in the room tonight want to possess you.’

  Her hand flew to cover the shadowed line of her cleavage. ‘That wasn’t what I intended,’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘You think it’s too much?’

  ‘Not at all. The dress is perfectly decent, just that on you it looks...’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t quite put my finger on it. Maybe it’s because it’s a very sexy dress and you’re a total stranger to sex, and I’m the only one who knows that. Perhaps it’s the contrast of the pure and the provocative which makes it so captivating.’ He cleared his throat. ‘And since I’m about to get dressed myself, maybe you’d like to turn away—just like you always do—that is, unless you want to catch a glimpse of my naked body which is currently in a very uncomfortable state of arousal.’

  And wasn’t it crazy that for once she was tempted to call his bluff. To stand there and say insouciantly, okay, go ahead while she dared to look at all that honed and tawny skin. Because wasn’t her natural curiosity growing in tandem with her increasing frustration? Hadn’t she started wondering what it would be like to have an orgasm—her face perhaps wearing that dreamy look of bliss afterwards which she’d seen on the faces of the women in those erotic Kafalahian drawings?

  A lump rose in her throat. It was as if marriage to Zayed had made her look at her life and see all the things which were missing. She’d started to realise that if she wasn’t careful she could lock herself away until it was too late to enjoy some of the many pleasures available to her. All her youth and zest for living could just drain away, like the sand slowly trickling through an egg-timer. She could bury her head in her textbooks to her heart’s content but one day she might look up to discover wrinkles on her face and a wizened body no man would ever want.

  With a sigh, she went over to the window and watched a gardener raking up a few fallen leaves to add to a growing pile and when she turned round again, Zayed was dressed.

  ‘You’re wearing a suit,’ she said, surprised.

  ‘Given your own choice of wardrobe, I thought it might make us look less mismatched,’ he said drily.

  ‘Even if we are?’

  He raised his eyebrows before unclipping the lock
of a slim, leather box she’d only just noticed he was holding. ‘I think we can do our best to put on a unified front on our first social engagement as a married couple. And here is something which will indicate your significance in my life, Jane.’

  Before she could challenge him on that, he had pulled out a necklace from its bed of indigo velvet, lifting it up in a dazzle so bright that it actually made Jane blink as she stared at it in disbelief. Hanging from a glittering jet choker was a pear-shaped diamond as big as a giant teardrop and Jane thought she’d never seen anything quite so beautiful as she realised what she was looking at.

  ‘The Kafalahian Star!’ she gasped.

  He nodded. ‘You know of it?’

  Her throat felt so tight she could barely speak. ‘Of course I do. But I’ve only ever seen pictures of it. I didn’t even realise you’d brought it with you. I mean...it’s been in your family for centuries, hasn’t it?’ She touched her fingers to her neck. ‘Gosh. I don’t know if I can wear it, Zayed.’

  ‘Why not?’ He moved behind her to wind the choker around her neck and once again she was acutely conscious of the brush of his fingers. ‘Every Kafalahian Queen wears the Star for her first formal outing.’

  ‘It’s exquisite,’ she said slowly. But as her finger traced over the teardrop diamond she found herself thinking how shallow women could be. Even her, with all her supposedly lofty ideals, could be dazzled by the shiny sparkle of a pretty jewel!

  Their eyes met in the mirror and she identified the smoky darkening of his. When he looked at her that way it made her stomach turn to mush. It made her want to lean back against him and feel the warmth which radiated from his powerful body, but already he was moving away and opening the door with a faintly imperious gesture.

  ‘Come on. Let’s go.’

  And then they were descending the swooping curve of the grand staircase to the smattering of applause from the waiting guests below. Musicians struck up the opening chords of the Kafalahian national anthem as they walked into the vast ballroom and they both stood very still until the haunting melody had finished.