A Bride For The Sheikh (3 page)

James led his daughter into the entrance of the sultan’s palace.

“It’s a bit over the top, isn’t it?” Angelina said, pointing to a pair of huge gilt mirrors straight in front of her.

“That’s nothing,” her father replied. “Wait until you see the ballroom.” He handed over his invitation to the palace attendant, who was dressed in a long, white traditional robe, edged in gold. However, the gun at the attendant’s waist showed that his role wasn’t merely decorative.

Angelina felt nervous as the guard checked the invitation, but the man didn’t question her identity. Instead, he said, “Welcome, Mr and Mrs Smith, to the palace of His Royal Highness, Sultan Jafari Al Abid bin Akbar Tariq Khasid, blessed and most glorious ruler and custodian of Bezira and all its lands.” The guard gestured for them to go through.

“That’s a rather pompous title. Imagine having to say that to every guest all evening,” Angelina whispered to her father once they were out of earshot.

“He’s one of the richest men in the world, so I guess he can have people call him what he likes, as often as he likes.”

“But Dad, even when you had pots of money, you didn’t make people crawl to you. They didn’t even call you ‘Mr Smith’; you’ve always been just ‘James’ to everyone.”

“The kind of money that I once had was on a completely different scale than all of this, and as I said earlier, things are very different here. Now, let me introduce you to a few people.” James walked over to a small group of middle-aged men, who were dressed in evening wear like himself, and proudly introduced his daughter.

Angelina smiled and made polite conversation, but as she looked at their wives’ clothes, she began to wonder if she was a little bit underdressed. Angelina had picked out her best dress for the evening, a pale pink, chiffon gown that she’d found on sale a few weeks ago, knowing that she would need something smart to wear to formal legal functions in the years to come. She thought that it showed off her slender figure well and looked simple, but elegant. Around her neck was a silver chain that her father had given her for her twenty-first birthday.

However, compared to the other women in the room, Angelina appeared to be severely underdressed. Many of the older women in the ballroom were squeezed into heavily beaded and sequinned gowns that made every one of their bulges shimmer and sparkle under the immense crystal chandeliers that hung above them. At their throats were huge gems that would have made even Angelina’s mother look twice. In contrast to the sparkling Western women, there were a few women in the room who were completely covered from head to toe in black silk, with not even their eyes showing. Angelina wondered how they managed to find their way around the room.

Angelina continued to watch the people around her as if she were in some kind of gilded zoo cage while making polite, mundane conversation with the people around her. She told them about her studies in Britain and they, in turn, told her about their jobs in Bezira. Most of the men were engineers, some in construction, like her father, some in oil production. Many of the women were housewives, who seemed to spend most of their time shopping or eating out. A couple of the younger women were in business in Bezira and appeared to regard themselves as high-powered businesswomen and so had little time for a mere student like Angelina. The people who she really wanted to meet were the covered-up Arabic women, but she wasn’t introduced to any of them. She asked her father, but he said he didn’t know any local women and mumbled something about it not being the custom for Western men to mix with local women. However, after a few hours of vague conversation with expatriate women, Angelina saw a veiled person standing alone next to the buffet table. Realising that this was her chance to interact with a local Arab, she excused herself and walked over.

“These prawns look good,” she said, picking up a few and placing them on a gold-rimmed plate.

The woman stood mute next to her.

“Have you tried some of this?” Angelina asked, pointing to a two-foot-long slab of smoked salmon.

The woman didn’t reply. With a thick black veil obscuring her eyes, it was difficult to tell whether the woman was even aware of Angelina’s presence next to her.

“I don’t think I’ve tried this before. Could you tell me what it is?” Angelina tried again, spooning a small portion of a meat and rice dish onto her plate.

“It’s camel meat cooked with rice. It’s a local speciality. You must try some. It’s delicious,” came a male voice from the other side of her.

“I didn’t ask you. I asked this lady here,” Angelina replied before looking round at the person who had just spoken. Right next to her stood a young Arab man, dressed in a long white gown, over which he wore a black robe with a thick gold border. Angelina could see shock in his eyes, but there was no trace of anger in his voice when he said that he was only trying to help her.

“Thank you, but I was trying to talk to this lady, not you,” Angelina persisted.

“I don’t believe she speaks English. Maybe I could help you?” the man replied.

Since she couldn’t communicate with the woman, at least she could talk to an Arab man, so Angelina asked him about the different food on display on the buffet tables. The man explained each dish to her, some of which were familiar, like the smoked salmon, but many of which were not, like the camel meat, which was heavy in taste, but not unpleasant.

“What do you think of the food?” the man asked after Angelina had tasted a range of different dishes.

“It’s good, but there’s an awful lot of it. There must be enough food here to feed a small army! It’s all a bit over-the-top, don’t you think?”

“What do you mean ‘over-the-top’?” he asked, looking confused.

“The food, the people, this room, everything! Just look at the chandeliers. Each one must have cost thousands of dollars, not to mention the carpets, the mirrors, the marble floors.”

“This is what money can buy. Isn’t this what everyone wants? To be rich like this?”

“Not really, no. I’d be quite happy in a modest house with no marble and no chandeliers. There’s more to life than money.”

The Arab man laughed. “Such as?”

“Family, friends, love—things that money can’t buy.” Angelina blushed. She knew that what she was saying sounded cliché, but she meant it. She knew what it was like to have money and she knew what it was like to live without it, but she also knew that the important things in life didn’t come with a price tag. It was a lesson that her mother had failed to learn, but at least Angelina would learn from her mother’s shallowness.

“You say that you can’t buy love, but isn’t that what most people want when they get married? To marry someone rich, and perhaps handsome?” He winked at her.

Angelina felt that he was teasing her. He was an extremely good-looking man and she wondered whether he had thrown in the idea of people marrying handsome men to see how she would respond, but she did her best to ignore the sparkle in his large brown eyes and continued to make her point. “Maybe what you say is true for some people, but when I marry someone, it will be for richer and for poorer, in sickness and health, not just because they are rich and handsome now. Money and good looks don’t last forever, but a marriage should. For example, look at that woman over there.” She pointed to a tall, blond woman in a skin-tight, red satin dress that barely restrained an extremely ample cleavage. “A woman like that might look stunning now, but in twenty, thirty years’ time, she’ll be old, wrinkled, and fat. Will her husband still love her then?”

“Chrystal will make sure that her cosmetic surgeon keeps her wrinkle-free forever and she’ll certainly never let herself get fat. If she does, she’ll fire her personal trainer and get a new one. Chrystal takes her looks very seriously.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realise she was a friend of yours.” Angelina couldn’t believe that she’d put her foot in it so badly and on her first night in the country.

“Don’t worry, she isn’t. However, I would like it if we were friends. My name’s Rashid.”

“I’m Angelina, Angelina Smith. Pleased to meet you, Rashid.” She held out her hand. Rashid took it in both of his and held it tightly. Angelina felt a strange bond with him. It was as if she were being reunited with an old friend rather than being introduced to a stranger.

“I am very pleased to meet you, too. You know, you are far more lovely than Chrystal. Compared to you, she is but a plastic imitation of what a woman should be.”

Before Angelina could reply, Chrystal came sweeping across the room towards them. Rashid suddenly looked nervous.

“I have to go and make a phone call, but I’ll be back in a minute,” he said hurriedly and then rushed out of the room through a side door, leaving Angelina standing on her own by the buffet table.

As soon as he had gone, Chrystal changed direction and went to speak to someone else. Angelina was glad. Chrystal didn’t look like the kind of woman who she would have much in common with. She looked around for her father and soon spotted him on the other side of the room, sitting in a chair covered in gold gilding.

“Are you okay, Dad?”

“Just a bit of indigestion. Too much rich food.” His face was flushed and he was short of breath.

“Are you sure you’re okay? Maybe we should go home?”

“If you don’t mind, that might be best. I’ve got an early start tomorrow.” James stood up and smoothed down his slightly rumbled dinner jacket.

“Of course. Let’s go.” Angelina searched the room for Rashid, but he was nowhere to be seen. “Could you give me just a minute, Dad? I need to...”

“No problem. If you have to go to the toilet, I can wait. I’ll stay right here.” James sat down again on the chair.

She rushed over to the door that Rashid had used, but it was locked and there was no sign of him anywhere. She looked back at her father. His face was more flushed than it had been a few minutes earlier.

“Come on, Dad, let’s go home.”

“If you really need the toilet, I think they’re over there.” James nodded in the opposite direction of the room.

“No, I’m fine, thank you.”

“Who was that young Arab man you were talking to by the food table?” her father asked as he drove them home.

“No one, just someone I met. Nobody important.” However, even as she said the words, she couldn’t help but think that he had meant something to her. Somehow there had been a connection between them, and she wished that she’d at least had the chance to say goodbye to him before she left the party.

“Hamad, we’re not going to California,” Rashid said, holding his mobile phone to his ear.

“What? No beach babes, no Hollywood stars?”

“No, I’ve met her. We don’t need to go.”

“Met who? What are you talking about?” Hamad asked.

“My wife, or at least, my future wife. I’ve met her. She’s here now, at the party.”

“You aren’t talking about Chrystal, are you? Don’t tell me, she’s wearing a tight silky dress, showing off those amazing tits and you couldn’t resist. Rashid, let’s go to LA. There’ll be loads of girls with great tits, even bigger and better than Chrystal’s.”

“Forget about bloody Chrystal. I’m not interested in her and her plastic body. Hamad, listen to me. I’ve met the woman I want to make my wife. She’s gorgeous. She is everything Chrystal isn’t. She’s beautiful, in a natural way. She has a real body and real hair. She wants real things in life, like me. She’s not interested in money or being rich. And she even talks back to me. She’s not afraid to tell me what she thinks.”

“I talk back to you, and I tell you what I think.”

“Only because you’re my cousin and we’ve known each other forever. Everyone else just tells me what they think I want to hear.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what I think now. I think we need to get on the plane and go to California.”

“Hamad, why don’t you go without me? I’ll tell my pilot to take you. The plane’s all set to go tomorrow morning at six a.m.”

“You sure you don’t mind?”

“Of course not. Just don’t be late. You know how my pilot hates it when we keep him waiting.”

“No problem. But don’t get jealous when I come back with a couple of hot California beach babes.”

“I won’t. I tell you, I’ve found the woman I want to marry.”

“Who is this magic person?”

“Her name’s Angelina Smith
and I’m about to go and find out more about her.” Rashid said goodbye and hung up. He unlocked the door of the anteroom where he’d escaped to make the phone call. When he’d entered the side room, he’d turned the key in the door in fear that he might be disturbed. Then, when he heard the door handle turn, he knew he’d taken a wise precaution. It was bound to be Chrystal. Rashid was sure that her father, Jack, would have told her about the proposed marriage by now and it wouldn’t be long before Chrystal either told him how much she hated him, or—and this was more likely—tried to persuade Rashid to agree to marrying her, using all of her oversized assets in the process. Either way, Rashid didn’t want to speak to Chrystal; he wanted to find out more about Angelina.

So far, he knew that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever met. With her glossy chestnut hair and emerald green eyes, she easily out-shone all of the other women in the room. He also admired the way that she talked to him as if he were just a normal person. He hoped that she would continue to do so once she found out who he was. He also hoped that she was single. She didn’t seem to be married, as she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. With any luck, there’d be no boyfriends in the past to get in his way. As for her background and family, if she had an invitation to his father’s palace, she must be at least partly acceptable; his father, the sultan, only invited the most senior people to his private functions.

Rashid stepped back into the ballroom and began to look for Angelina, the woman he hoped would one day be his wife. However, Rashid looked everywhere and she was nowhere to be seen.

“I’m looking for Angelina Smith, the beautiful woman with the long brown hair, and wearing a pale pink dress. Where is she?” he asked one of the guards.

“Your Royal Highness, there are many guests here...” the guard muttered as an indirect way of saying that he didn’t know.

Every guard and attendant he asked said the same. They suggested that he look by the food, by the drinks, by the toilets, all of which he did, but without success. It was as if she had vanished into thin air, unlike Chrystal, who seemed to shadow him around the party. Finally, Rashid could avoid her no longer.

“Sheikh Rashid, Your Highness, how are you? You haven’t spoken to me all evening,” Chrystal purred into his ear.

“I’m busy at the moment.” Rashid tried to walk away, but Chrystal followed him and put her hand on his arm. He noticed that she was wearing the large gold bracelet he’d given her.

“What’s the matter? I can see that something’s troubling you.” Chrystal moved up against him so that her cleavage was directly in front of his eyes.

“It’s nothing, I’m fine. Now, if you’ll please excuse me.” Rashid took her hand off his arm, but she only responded by taking his hand in her own. He tried to let go, but she clasped his hand firmly in her own. He could feel the sharp ends of her nails prick his skin.

“Let go of my hand. People are looking. You know that it’s
haram
, forbidden, for unmarried and men and woman to touch each other in public.”

“But soon we will be married.” Chrystal ran her fingers through Rashid’s short, black beard until they rested on his lips.

He swatted her hand away as if it were a repellent insect. “We aren’t getting married. We hate each other, you know that.”

“But we didn’t use to fight. We could be together again like we were before. Do you remember when I...” Chrystal began to whisper in his ear a graphic description of the various sexual acts she had performed on him.

Instead of feeling aroused, Rashid felt physically sick as he remembered the nights he had spent with Chrystal’s overpowering body consuming his own. “And how many other men have you done those things to?”

“But I’ve only ever wanted you. It’s only ever been you.”

“What about all the terrible things you’ve done?” he asked. After they split up, Chrystal went around saying malicious things about Rashid to anyone who would listen, including his best friend, Hamad, which is how Rashid knew. She told everyone that Rashid had hit her and when those lies failed to make an impact in a country where such abuse was shockingly common, she told everyone that Rashid was lousy in bed and would never be able to consummate a marriage, much less impregnate a woman and have children. It was all lies, but Rashid was sure that some people believed her and sometimes he wondered whether even Hamad had his doubts about Rashid’s virility. A few times Hamad had joked about his own prowess in such a way that it had made Rashid think that he was hinting at Rashid’s own weakness. However, there was nothing wrong with Rashid’s sexual ability and he didn’t need whores like Chrystal trying to persuade people otherwise.

“I only said those things because I was upset,” Chrystal said, pouting. “When we split up, I was distraught. I didn’t know what I was saying. But we can forget all of that now, can’t we, now that we’re going to be together again?”

“I’ve already told you, we’re not getting married.”

“We’ll see, Your Highness.” Chrystal made a low bow, more to show him the full extent of her cleavage than out of any respect.

“Bitch,” Rashid muttered under his breath and went off in search of Angelina.

When he came to the entrance of the palace, he demanded to see the guest list. However, there was no mention of Angelina Smith or even a Miss Smith. Three guests were listed as Mrs Smith, one of whom he knew; she was a rotund, middle-aged woman, married to a British oil worker who’d been in Bezira for decades.

“Who are these other two guests?” Rashid asked, pointing to the other people listed as Mrs Smith.

“The wives of Mr Smith and Mr Smith,” the guard suggested.

Sheikh Rashid sighed in exasperation. “Did they both come tonight?” he asked, though the question was redundant as he could see ticks by their names, showing that they had. “Get me the head of security, now!” Rashid demanded. The guard began to speak rapidly into his phone and then stood waiting, looking everywhere but at Rashid.

The head of security was an older Arab man who had worked for the sultan for decades and had seen his job duties steadily increase over the years as the sultan’s power and wealth grew.

“Your Royal Highness, how may I be of assistance?” The man bowed low in front of the sheikh.

“There was a woman at the party this evening who wasn’t on the guest list, a Miss Angelina Smith. How do you account for that?”

“Is this true?” the head of security asked the guard.

The guard mumbled something in reply and then the head of security began yelling and shouting at him. Finally, he turned back to the sheikh and said, “This man is an idiot. I will have him fired immediately. In the future, all guests must show a picture identity along with their invitations. Please accept my sincere apologies for the oversight.” The man bowed low again.

“But it won’t help me find her now, will it?” Rashid replied.

“I will have the palace searched immediately and all exits blocked. As soon as she is found, we will hand her over to the police to do with her as they wish.” The police in Bezira had a terrible reputation for abusing people held in custody. Rashid had heard rumours and he was sure that at least some of them were true.

“You will do no such thing! You won’t let the police touch her. And anyways, she has already left.”

A tense silence followed while Rashid thought about what to do next. After a few minutes, he said, “The three people with the name Mrs Smith—get me their full details, everything we have on file for them: their address, telephone number, nationality, date of birth, when they came to Bezira, what they had for breakfast this morning, everything!”

“With all due respect, Your Highness, we don’t keep records on what people eat for breakfast, but we will start immediately.”

“I didn’t literally mean tell me what they ate.” Rashid sighed. “I just meant that I want as much information as possible and I want it as soon as possible.” Rashid knew that the clock was ticking. He only had thirteen days in which to find Angelina and make her his own; otherwise, he would be stuck with Chrystal for a wife.

The next afternoon, the head of security was shown into one of the many reception rooms in Rashid’s palace, carrying a small bundle of papers.

“At last! What took you so long?” Rashid asked as soon as he saw him.

“Your Highness, we worked as fast as we possibly could on this. I personally led a team of my best men to get you this information.”

“Okay, what have you got?”

The head of security opened up the three files and started going through them. The first Mrs Smith was the woman who Rashid already knew and he quickly brushed her file aside. The second Mrs Smith was the wife of a chemical engineer who had been in Bezira for less than a year. She had a rare blood type and had been born in Argentina, the daughter of an English diplomat. However, considering she’d been born more than fifty years ago and the records showed that she and her husband had been married for thirty-one of them, she quite clearly wasn’t the woman Rashid was looking for.

“This must be her. This must be the Mrs Smith I’m looking for,” he said, pulling out the third file. It now seemed possible that Angelina was married, despite the lack of a wedding ring, but Rashid still wanted to see her again, if only to look, just one last time, at what he couldn’t have and say goodbye.

“If you’ll excuse me, Your Highness, I think it’s unlikely.”

“Why’s that? This must be her. There were only three invitations in the name of Smith.”

The head of security opened up the file. “This particular woman caused us the most problems trying to find any information on her. It’s why I was so late getting these files to you. You see, we don’t have records on her in the country. I had to go through International Security.”

“Why’s that? We have records on everyone in the country. No one enters unless they complete very thorough forms and go through detailed checks, including a full medical. It’s what makes Bezira one of the safest places in the world. Why don’t we have any records for her?”

“Because she’s not here.”

“Not here? Of course she’s here. I spoke to her last night. Every single one of those Mrs Smiths came to the party. Their names were all ticked off on the guest list.”

“I’m very sorry, Your Highness, but she’s not in Bezira. In fact, she’s never visited our country. We had International Security double-check. This woman currently lives in a very expensive mansion in the south of England with a man named Timothy Heston. Her last visit outside of the UK was to Paris a couple of months ago. She stayed in a large suite at one of the best hotels. It seems that she is a lady of some means.”

“But how on earth did she get on the sultan’s guest list?” Rashid knew that his father was friends with a lot of very important and rich people, but that didn’t explain how this woman came to be invited to his father’s party, a party which it seems she didn’t have the good manners to attend.

“I think I can answer that.”

“Good. It’s about time I had some answers to all of this.”

“Mrs Smith may be living with Mr Heston, but it seems that she was, until recently, married to a man named James Smith, who is currently working here as a senior engineer.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Rashid said and he picked up a document, which seemed to be a copy of James Smith’s passport. Even though it was in black and white and the passport picture was a little blurred, something about the face seemed familiar. Rashid thought he could see the same dazzling green eyes as Angelina’s. “What other information do you have about this man?” he asked.