Читать книгу Desert Fantasies: Duty and the Beast / Cinderella and the Sheikh / Marrying the Scarred Sheikh - Barbara McMahon - Страница 13

THE mountain before her turned volcanic, the face glowing hot with the magma so close below the surface, eyes wild. She braced herself for the eruption, knowing she was courting disaster and yet feeling a strange sense of elation that she’d succeeded in throwing him so completely off-balance. But the expected eruption did not eventuate. Zoltan somehow managed to hold himself together, his rage rolling off him in searing waves of heat. ‘Is this some kind of joke?’

‘Rest assured, Sheikh Zoltan,’ she said, aiming for meekness. ‘I would never joke about such a thing. I am deadly serious.’

‘But you are my wife!’ he roared, rigid with fury. ‘Let me remind you of that fact, in case today’s ceremony had somehow slipped your mind.’

This time she could not help but laugh. ‘Do you seriously think for a moment I could forget, when I was handed over to you like little more than a stick of furniture?’

‘Oh,’ he said, pacing out the width of the Persian rug that took up one half of the room before turning to devour the distance back in long, purposeful strides, his thumb stroking his chin as if he were deep in contemplation of some highly complex problem. ‘I see your problem. You think it should have been all about you, the poor little princess forced to do her duty for once in her life? Do you think we should have got down on hands and bended knees and thanked you for so generously sacrificing yourself on the altar of martyrdom? For so generously agreeing to do what was your duty?’

She closed her eyes as she took a despairing breath, ignoring his barbs and insults except to use them to fuel her resolve. If she had a problem, it was standing not ten feet from her. ‘No, I don’t think that at all. For, while I’m not overly fond of finding myself a pawn in someone else’s game—a game, it seems, where I find myself a loser from the very beginning—I actually don’t think I’m the one with the problem here.

‘You needed a wife—a princess, no less—in order to be king and today you got one. So now you can be crowned King of Al-Jirad. You have my heartiest congratulations.’ She looked towards the door. ‘And now, if you wouldn’t mind leaving, Sheikh Zoltan, I will finish my correspondence.’

He stood, slowly shaking his head. ‘You are kidding yourself if you think that, Princess. You think this ends here? You know Al-Jirad needs an heir. Two at least before your work is anywhere near done.’

She angled her chin higher. ‘I acknowledge that my services are also required as some kind of brood mare. I do not particularly like it, but I accept that it is so.’

His eyes gleamed in the light. ‘Then what are you doing here and not already in my suite?’

‘Simple,’ she said, crossing her arms over her chest, refusing to be cowed. ‘I don’t know you. I won’t sleep with a man I don’t know, whoever he is, whether or not he believes he has some kind of legal entitlement to my breeding services.’

He came closer then, so close she could feel the air shift and curl between them, carrying his scent to her on a heated wave. It was all she could do to stand her ground and not turn and run, and only half from fear of his anger. The other half was from fear that, in spite of her anger and her hatred for him, she might yet be drawn towards an evocative scent that brought back memories of lying wrapped in his arms, close to his heated body.

She swallowed as he came close. But surely he would not try anything here, in her suite? Surely he was not that ruthless that he could come here to take what she had denied him elsewhere?

‘You don’t know me, Princess?’ He scooped the back of one finger down her cheek, an electric, evocative gesture that sent ripples of sensation radiating out under her skin. ‘Not at all?’

‘No,’ she said, hating it when he slid his hand around the curve of her throat. ‘I know practically nothing about you.’ She willed herself to be strong, to remember his cruelty and the fact he was using her, even as her skin tingled, her traitorous body yearning to sway into his touch. ‘And to tell you the truth, I’m not particularly fond of the bits I have seen.’

‘Strange,’ he mused. ‘When I had been sure there was a definite connection between us.’ He angled his head. ‘Did you not feel it then, when we kissed?’

‘I felt nothing but revulsion!’

‘Then I am mistaken. It must have been your sensual twin sister in my arms in that library. That woman was warm and willing and had a fire raging inside her that I longed to quench.’

She spun away, discomfited by his words. Shamed by the parts that hit too close to home. ‘You are very much mistaken!’

He stood there where she had left him like a dark thundercloud. ‘It is you who is mistaken, Princess, thinking you have a choice about this, barricading yourself away in your room like some kind of virginal nun seeking sanctuary when you should already be on your back working to provide Al-Jirad with the heirs it requires.’

Her blood simmered and spat, turned molten in her veins and seared its way under her skin. It was all she could do to swallow back on the bitter bile that ached to infuse her words. ‘How tempting you make it sound, Sheikh Zoltan. You paint a picture in which any woman would be mad not to want a starring role—on her back, ready to be serviced by the barbarian sheikh!’

She turned away, unable to look at him a moment longer, unable to banish the unwelcome pictures in her mind’s eye—and the unwelcome rush of heat that had accompanied them—needing air and space and everything she knew she would never find in this marriage where she was stuck with him for ever.

A hand clamped down on her shoulder and wrenched her around. ‘What did you call me?’

She looked purposefully down at his hand on her arm, and then up to him. ‘Only what you are. A barbarian.’

He smiled then, if you could call it that, baring his teeth like a wild animal before it lunges for the kill, his eyes alert and anticipating her every move. Her simmering blood spun faster and more frantic in her veins.

‘I seem to recall you calling me a barbarian once before, Princess,’ he said, tugging her closer, sliding his free hand down her arm, and then so slowly up again. ‘Maybe you are right. Maybe I am only a barbarian—the princess’s personal barbarian. Do you like the sound of that? Would that excite you? Does it heat your blood like it did yesterday in the library?’ He looked past her shoulder to the massive, wide bed that lay so broad and inviting across the room, and when he looked back at her his eyes gleamed with purpose. ‘Is that why you stayed here in your room?’ He looked down at the simple robe she was wearing, flicking the collar under his thumb, and she could tell he was working out how easy it would be to discard. ‘Is that why you changed out of your wedding gown, so that when I came and got angry, as you knew I must, it would be no challenge to tear off your robe and gown and bare you to my gaze?’

‘You kid yourself,’ she whispered, her breath coming rapid and shallow. She hated what he was doing to her body, hated herself for imagining the scene he portrayed and for wondering what it would be like to be taken by one so powerful. And she felt confused and conflicted—she hated him, and he was being a monster, yet still heat mounted inside her, still the excitement of his touch and his words tugged and awoke some deeply buried carnal self.

‘Do I?’ He touched the pad of his thumb to her parted lips, and she trembled and saw his answering smile when she did. ‘For, given that I am a barbarian, I could take you now and save myself the trouble of carrying you all the way to my suite.’

His predatory smile widened. He stepped in closer, let go his grip on her arm and used both his hands to scoop behind her neck and into her scalp, under the weight of her thick black hair. ‘Would you like that, Princess?’

She swallowed, having to put up her hands against his hard chest to stop herself from falling into him. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’ But she wouldn’t bet on it.

‘And maybe it would be better this way,’ he countered, lifting her chin, angling his head. ‘For some say familiarity breeds contempt. Maybe we should consummate this marriage now, right now, lest in time you decide you hate me.’

His face drew closer and she remembered all the reasons why it shouldn’t, remembered how she felt, remembered the promise that she’d made to herself. ‘I already hate you.’

His nostrils flared, his eyes flared, then immediately descended into utter blackness. She knew she was playing with fire. ‘In which case, sweet princess, what is the point of waiting? Let’s finish this now.’

‘No!’ She pushed against his chest with every bit of strength she could muster, twisting away from him, almost stumbling in her hurry to get away. ‘Get out! I do not want this! I do not want you!’

‘You are fooling yourself, Princess,’ he said, his chest heaving as his eyes burned like coals. ‘Once again your body betrays you. Why shouldn’t we finish what we started?’

‘I’ll tell you why,’ she said. ‘Because if you do not leave now, if you do not go, then it will be on your own head. And you need never seek my respect or love or even the tiniest shred of civility, because I will hate you as much as it is physically possible to hate anyone if you take what is not freely given!’

There were sparks spitting fire in her eyes, there was a bright slash of colour across her cheeks, and right now he burned for her—burned for this woman who was now his wife and yet not completely. He burned bright and hot, his blood heated and heavy in his groin, and it took every bit of the restraint civilisation had wrought over the aeons upon the male mind that he did not throw her bodily to the floor and take her now.

‘Then I warn you, Princess. Do not take too long to decide to give what you must, because when it all comes down to it, for the sake of Al-Jirad, I will gladly risk your hatred!’

He left her then and his blood turned to steam, his fury a living thing, tangling in his gut, fuelling his feet into long, purposeful strides. He should never have given her time to prepare. He should have accompanied her to his suite, got their necessary coupling over and done with before returning to his studies. Instead he had got lost in the endless pages and had given her too much time, it seemed. Time to think and plan and plot how she could evade her duty.

But it would not last.

In three days he would be crowned King of Al-Jirad, and like it or not, the princess must by then be his wife in all senses of the word. He had studied the pact in detail long enough to know that, searching for any way out, for any concessions.

He headed back to the library, back to his endless books and study. There was no point wasting time thinking about a spoilt princess and her pathetic, ‘I will not sleep with anyone I do not know’ now.

She would know him soon enough.

Her resistance would not last.

He could not afford to let it.

He’d already churned his way through twenty laps when he noticed Bahir at the end of the pool, and he cursed his decision not to return to his studies.

‘You’re up early,’ his friend said, sitting himself down on the edge of the pool as Zoltan finished the lap and checked his watch. ‘Barely six a.m. Honeymoon already over?’

Zoltan glared at him as he made a rapid change of plans. The ten extra laps could wait. He put his hands on the side of the pool and powered himself out, intending to grab his towel and just keep right on walking. He wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone this morning, let alone one of these clowns. They knew far too much about him as it was.

‘Uh oh,’ Bahir said behind him. ‘Maybe the honeymoon hasn’t even begun.’

‘I didn’t say anything,’ Zoltan protested as he bent down to scoop up his towel.

‘Brother, you didn’t need to. It’s written all over your body language. What happened? How could the princess manage to turn down the legendary Zoltan charm? Although admittedly all that brooding intensity must be tiresome to endure.’

He glared at his so-called friend. ‘There’s nothing to tell.’

Bahir grinned. ‘So long as it’s not because she plays for the other team.’ He whistled. ‘That would be one cruel waste.’

The urge to laugh battled with the urge to growl. He didn’t want anyone speculating about his wife’s sexuality. Besides, if Bahir only knew which team she’d openly speculated they all played for he wouldn’t think it nearly as funny himself. He sighed. Clearly Bahir would not stop until he knew. ‘She says it’s because she doesn’t know me.’

‘What?’

He shrugged. ‘She says she won’t sleep with any man she doesn’t know. Apparently—’ he ground out the words between his teeth ‘—that includes her husband.’

‘But she has to. I thought you said so.’

‘I did. According to the terms of the pact she has no choice.’

‘Did you tell her that?’

He thought back to their argument and how bitter and twisted it had become at the end. ‘Under the circumstances, I really don’t think it would have helped if I had.’

‘But she has to eventually, right? She has to give you heirs and she knows that?’

‘True.’

‘So don’t tell anyone in the meantime,’ Bahir said, shrugging. ‘I won’t tell if you won’t, kind of thing.’

He shook his head. ‘That won’t work. I have to swear on the book of Al-Jirad that we are married in every sense of the word. ‘

‘So lie.’

He shook his head. ‘That is hardly an honourable way to start my reign.’ He’d spent hours last night trying to work a way around the requirement—had lingered some time over that very option—until finally concluding that lying would not work even if he could bring himself to act so dishonourably. Besides, she would know the truth and she could hold that over him the entire time. It would not work if she could bring down the kingdom at any moment she chose.

His friend nodded. ‘True. Still, I can see her point of view.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Well, it has all been kind of sudden.’

‘It’s been sudden for everyone. And it’s not as if she has a choice.’

‘So maybe that’s what this is all about. She wants to feel like it is her choice.’

Zoltan looked up. ‘What are you talking about? Why should that matter?’

‘She’s a woman.’ He shrugged. ‘They think differently. Especially Jemeyan princesses.’

Zoltan looked at him. ‘So what did happen between you and her sister?’

It was Bahir’s turn to look uncomfortable. ‘It’s history. It doesn’t matter. What you have to worry about is how your princess feels right now. She’s a princess in a desert kingdom who has probably been hanging out all these years for her prince to turn up. She wants to be romanced. Instead she gets lumbered with you and told she has to make babies.’ He shrugged. ‘Frankly, who could blame her? Nothing personal, but who wouldn’t be a tad disappointed?’

‘Thank you so much for that erudite summation of the situation.’

Bahir was back to his grinning best. ‘My pleasure. So, what are you going to do?’

He snorted. ‘I don’t have time to do anything. I’ve got too much to do before the coronation as it is.’

‘Well, you’d better do something, or by the sounds of it there won’t be a coronation and Mustafa would be within his rights to come steal that pretty bride right out from under your nose—and next time he won’t leave you a window open to rescue her.’

‘I’ve been wondering about that,’ Zoltan said. ‘What was Mustafa waiting for? If he’d slept with her that would have been the end of it.’

‘Maybe,’ Bahir mused, ‘he was waiting to be married?’

Zoltan shook his head. That didn’t sound like the Mustafa he knew. ‘More likely he was so sure that nobody could find them that he thought there was no rush; he could take his time torturing her by telling her in exquisite detail exactly what he had planned for her.’

‘Then it’s lucky we found her in time.’

Was it? Zoltan wondered as he padded back into the palace. She sure as hell didn’t think so. He was still thinking about the words Bahir had used.

‘She wants to feel like it is her choice.’

‘She wants to be romanced. ‘

How could he do that? What was the point of even trying? Here in the palace it was like being in a fishbowl, full of maids and footmen and the ever-present Hamzah, uncannily always to hand when he was needed and plenty of times when he was not. How was he supposed to romance her and somehow study the necessary texts to complete the formalities he was required to before he could be crowned King?

It was impossible.

And then he remembered it—a holiday his family had taken when he was just a child, a shared holiday with his uncle, the then-King, and his family. In a spot not far from the Blue Palace, a jewel of a location on a promontory reaching a sandy finger out into the sapphire-blue sea. They had slept in tents listening to the waves on the shore at night, woken to the early-morning calls of gulls, fished, swum and ridden horses along the long, sandy beach.

Maybe he could take her there, where she could unwind and relax and forget about duty and obligation for a while and maybe, just maybe, tolerate him long enough that they could consummate this marriage.

He could only hope.

‘Where are we going again?’ Aisha asked as the four-wheel drive tore up the desert highway. Outside the car was golden sands and shimmering heat, while inside was smooth leather and air-conditioned luxury. And the scent of him beside her was mixing with the leather, evocative, damnably alluring and much too likeable—much too annoying. She was almost tempted to open her window and risk the heat if it meant she wouldn’t have to endure it.

‘A place called Belshazzah on the coast,’ Zoltan said without shifting his gaze from the road. The tracks of her nails, thankfully, were fading on his cheek. He stared at the road ahead, dodging patches of sand where the dunes crept over the road on their inexorable travels. A man in control, she thought, looking at him behind the wheel. A man used to taking charge, she guessed, unable to let someone else drive for him, so that the necessary bodyguards were forced to squeeze into the supply vehicles that trailed behind them. He looked good, his dark hands on the wheel, the folded-back sleeves of his white shirt contrasting with his corded forearms and that damned scent everywhere.

‘How far is it?’

‘Not far from the Blue Palace. No more than two hours away.’

Aisha buzzed down her window a few inches and sniffed.

‘Are you cold?’ he said, immediately moving to adjust the temperature.

‘Not really,’ she said, gazing out behind her dark glasses at a horizon bubbling under the desert sun. Not at all. When he’d turned up at her door this morning and asked if she’d like to accompany him to the beach encampment, she’d remembered the things he’d said to her last night and how close he’d come to forcing himself upon her and she’d almost told him where he could shove his beach encampment.

But something had stopped her. Whether it was the look in his eyes, that this unexpected invitation was costing him something, or whether it was just because for the first time he was actually asking if she would accompany him rather than telling her and riding roughshod over her opinions and views as was his usual tactic—whatever it was—she’d said yes.

‘And remind me again why we’re going there?’

He shrugged. ‘The palace is too big, filled with too many people, too many advisers. I thought you might appreciate somewhere a little quieter.’ He turned to her then. ‘So we could get to know each other a little more.’

Even from behind his sunglasses she could feel the sizzle his eyes sent her all the way down to her toes.

‘You mean so you can finally get what you expected you would get last night?’

He didn’t look at her, but she caught his smile behind the wheel. ‘Do you really think I need go to so much trouble when the palace is full of dark corners and secret places? Not exactly the kind of places you want to hang around and hold a meaningful conversation, but perfectly adequate for other, more carnal pleasures.’

Her window hummed even lower. She did not want to hear about dark places and carnal pleasures. Not when it made her body buzz with an electricity that felt uncannily like anticipation.

Impossible.

‘It’s not going to happen, you know,’ she said, as much for her benefit as his.

‘What?’

‘I’m not going to sleep with you.’

‘So you said.’

‘I hate you.’

‘You said that too. You made that more than plain last night.’

‘Good. So long as we understand each other.’

‘Oh,’ he said, taking his eyes off the road to throw her a lazy smile, ‘we may not know each other, but I think we understand each other perfectly.’

Dissatisfied with the way that conversation had ended, she fell silent for a while, looking out at the desert dunes, disappearing into the distance in all directions. She shuddered when she remembered another desert camp. ‘How do you know Mustafa’s not out here somewhere, waiting for you to make a mistake so he can steal me away and take the crown before you? Aren’t you worried about him?’

‘Are you scared, Princess? Are you worried now you should have consummated this marriage last night when you had the chance?’

She crossed her arms over her chest and turned her gaze pointedly out the window again. ‘Definitely not.’

‘Then you are braver than I thought. But you have nothing to fear. My sources say he’s moved out of Al-Jirad for now.’

‘So he knows he’s beaten and given up?’

‘Possibly.’

‘And he won’t be at the coronation?’

His jaw clenched, his hands tightening on the wheel. ‘He wouldn’t dare show his face.’

She hoped he was right. If she never saw the ugly slug again, it would be too soon. She looked around, wondering at the words he had spoken, about the punch his words had held. She wondered why he was so certain, and she guessed it was not all to do with her kidnapping.

‘What did he do to you?’

There was a pause before he spoke. ‘Why do you ask that?’

‘You clearly hate him very much. He must have done something to deserve it.’

He snorted in response to that. ‘You could say that. I grew up with him. I got to see how his twisted mind works first-hand.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Are you sure you want to hear this, Princess?’

‘Is it so bad?’

‘It is not pretty. He is not a nice person.’

She swallowed. ‘I’m a big girl. I can handle it, surely.’

He nodded. ‘As you say.’ He looked back at the road for a moment before he began. ‘There was a blind man in the village where we grew up, a man called Saleem,’ he started. ‘He was old and frail and everyone in the village looked out for him, brought him meals or firewood. He had a dog, a mutt he’d found somewhere that was his eyes. We used to pass Saleem’s house on our way to school where Saleem was usually sitting outside, greeting everyone who passed. Mustafa never said anything, he just baited the dog every chance he got, teasing it, sometimes kicking it. One day he went too far and it bit him. I was with him that day, and I swear it was nothing more than a scratch, but Mustafa swore he would get even. Even when the old man told him that it was his fault—that even though he was blind he was not stupid. He knew Mustafa had been taunting his dog mercilessly all along.

‘One day not long after, the dog went missing. The whole village looked for it. Until someone found it—or, rather, what was left of it.’

She held her breath. ‘What happened to it?’

‘The dog had been tortured to within an inch of its life before something more horrible happened—something that said the killer had a grudge against not only the dog, but against its owner.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The dog had been blinded. So, even if it had somehow managed to survive the torture, it would have been useless to Saleem.’

She shuddered, feeling sick. ‘How could anyone do such a thing to an animal, a valued pet?’

‘That one could.’

‘You believe it was Mustafa?’

‘I know it was him. I overheard him boasting to a schoolfriend in graphic detail about what he had done. He had always been a bully. He was proud of what he had done to a helpless animal.’

‘Did you tell anyone?’

Her question brought the full pain and the injustice of the past crashing back. He remembered the fury of his father when he had told him what he had heard; fury directed not at Mustafa but at him for daring to speak ill of his favoured child. He remembered the savage beating he had endured for daring to speak the truth.

‘I told someone. For all the good it did me.’

Choose your battles.

His uncle had been so right. There had been no point picking that one. He had never been going to win where Mustafa was concerned. Not back then.

She waited for more but he went quiet then, staring fixedly at the road ahead, so she turned to look out her own window, staring at the passing dunes, wondering what kind of person did something like that for kicks and wondering about all the things Zoltan wasn’t telling her.

He was an enigma, this man she was married to, and, as much as she hated him for who and what he was and what he had forced her into, maybe she should be grateful she had been saved the alternative. Because she would have been Mustafa’s wife if this man had not come for her. She shuddered.

‘Princess?’

She looked around, blinking. ‘Yes?’

‘Are you all right? You missed my question.’

‘Oh.’ She sat up straight and lifted the heavy weight of the ponytail behind her head to cool her neck. ‘I’m sorry. What did you ask?’

He looked at her for a moment, as if he wasn’t sure whether to believe her or not, before looking back at the interminably long, straight road ahead. ‘Seeing as we were talking about Mustafa,’ he started.

‘Yes?’

‘There is something I don’t understand. Something you told me when we rescued you.’

‘Some rescue,’ she said, but her words sounded increasingly hollow in the wake of Zoltan’s revelations about his half-brother’s cruel nature. Maybe he had saved her from a fate worse than death after all. ‘What about it?’ she said before she could explore that revelation any further.

‘How did you convince Mustafa not to take you right then and there, while he had you in the camp? Why was he prepared to wait until the wedding? Because if Mustafa had laid claim to you that first night he held you captive, if he had had witnesses to the act, then no rescue could have prevented you from being his queen and him the new king.’

She swallowed back on a surge of memory-fed bile, not wanting to think back to those poisoned hours. ‘He told me he did not care to wait, you are right.’

‘So why did he? That does not sound like the Mustafa I know.’

She blinked against the sun now dipping low enough to intrude through her window and sat up straighter to avoid it, even if that meant she had to lean closer to him in the process, and closer to that damned evocative scent.

‘Simple, really. I told him that he would be cursed if he took me before our wedding night.’

‘You told him that and he believed you?’

‘Apparently so.’

‘But there must have been more reason than that. Why would he believe that he would be cursed?’

Beside him she swallowed. She didn’t want to have to admit to him the truth, although she rationalised he would find that truth out some time. And maybe he might at least understand her reluctance to jump into bed and spread her legs for him as if the act itself meant nothing.

‘Because I told him that, according to the Jemeyan tenets, if he took me before our wedding night the gods would curse him with a soft and shrivelled penis for evermore.’

‘Because you are a princess?’

‘Because I am a virgin.’

‘And he believed you?’ He laughed then as if it was the biggest joke in the world, and she wasn’t tempted in the least to rake her nails down his laughing face again—this time she wanted to strangle him.

Instead she turned away, pretending to stare out of the window and at the sea, fat tears squeezing from her eyes, but only half from the humiliating memories of being poked and parted and prodded by the wiry fingers of some old crone who smelt like camel dung.

The other half was because it never occurred to Zoltan to believe her. It never occurred to him that she might be telling the truth, that she might actually be a virgin. And the rank injustice of it all was almost too much to bear. She angled her body away from him to mask the dampness that suddenly welled in her eyes.

To think she had saved herself all this time only to be bound to someone like him instead. The one thing she had always thought hers to give; the one thing she had thought hers to control, and when all was said and done she had no control at all. No choice. It was not to be given as a gift, but a due.

What a waste.

‘It would seem your half-brother is superstitious,’ she managed to say through her wretchedness to cover the truth.

And from behind the wheel, Zoltan’s words sounded as though he was still smiling. ‘Yes. He always was a fool.’