Desert Orchid: The Desert Princes: Book 1 (28 page)

"It’s a bedroom." He stalked around the room. Surely she wasn’t considering sex at a time like this? He turned to her. "Am I supposed to be flatt...”

His eyes fell on a photograph and he stopped dead.

With his heart battering against his chest, he stood rooted to the spot he stared at the opposite wall. At a huge black and white photograph of Jamila and her best friend Mia taken a couple of months before the accident that had taken their lives.

He couldn't breathe, couldn't think.

My God, they looked so happy.

Mia held a huge lizard in her hands, and their expressions were brimming over with gleeful delight.

Charisse sank to the edge of her huge bed and let out a deep sigh.

"I love that picture. I remember the day it was taken as if it was yesterday. It was a school trip to the zoo." She gave a soft laugh. "Our housemistress, Miss Brown, was terrified of reptiles. She was behind the camera, as you can tell by their naughty expressions."

Khalid squeezed his eyes tight and felt something rise up and snap and release inside him. He was beyond pain.

He fell to his knees, rolled onto the floor and curled into a tight ball.

The sound of an animal keening in tortured agony sounded in the room and he realised it was coming from himself.

Strong, determined hands placed a pillow under his head and a blanket over him. One of those strong hands gripped his. And Khalid clung to it like a drowning man going down for the last time.

He had no idea how long he lay there, it might have been hours, but at last the sea calmed.

For the first time in his life he felt anchored.

Throughout it all Charisse never stopped stroking his hair.

His throat felt raw and his voice hoarse as he spoke, "I killed them."

Charisse pressed her slim body into his back, her arm slipped across his waist to hold him tight.

Her hand was still gripped by his. "What do you remember?"

At last Khalid's shuddering breathing steadied and Charisse knew they were calm in the eye of the storm.

"The weather was glorious. A perfect Mediterranean day in May. No wind. The girls were so excited posing in their bikinis, like super models, they said. No longer girls, not quite women." He gave an unsteady laugh. "I remember Sarif saying Papa had already decided to chain Jamila to her room. She wasn’t getting out again until she was thirty. That she would give us all grey hair. And I remember Mama rolling her eyes."

The sob caught in his throat squeezed her heart, but she'd started this, so she would finish it.

"What happened next?"

"The boat was new. A Sun seeker, fast, shiny, sleek. Mia leapt aboard first saying it smelled new. Like a new car."

He squeezed her hand even harder, turned to lie on his back and stared unblinking into the ceiling.

Charisse leaned on her elbow, head on her hand. Her other hand was still gripped by his.

"It was just the three of us. Omar was to follow on another boat. The girls waved to Sarif and my parents standing on the dock. They'd posed for photos with Sarif telling them to behave like ladies." He frowned, eyes staring unseeing at the ceiling as his mind took him back to what he remembered of that day. "Jamila said,
‘This is pathetic, Khalid. Go faster.’
Mia was laughing. I pushed the throttle and the bow rose, it kicked forward. We were laughing and cheering..." Tears now ran into his hairline. His eyes met hers. And she read the heartbreak, the confusion.  "I don’t remember. I woke up in hospital." He squeezed his eyes tight shut. "I killed them."

"Why do you feel that? It was an accident."

He turned to her and stared into her eyes. "Why didn’t I see the resemblance when we met? You are so like Mia."

Khalid read utter trust, sympathy and empathy in those deep blue eyes.

And knew he didn’t deserve it.

"I’d been drinking," he admitted the truth.

Charisse jerked back, eyes wide and cool, and it broke his heart to see the shock and the anger. "How many?"

"I can’t remember."

"If you can remember conversations, then clearly, you must be able to remember how much alcohol you had to drink?"

Khalid frowned now and shook his head.

"I don’t know if I can remember conversations or if that’s what I was told was said."

Charisse held his gaze.

"Okay. Let’s think about this logically for a moment. Would your parents or your brother permit you to go out in a powerful boat with their most precious possession if they thought for a moment you’d been drinking? It doesn’t make sense!"

He shook his head.

She rose to her feet.

"Stay right there. I’ll be back in a moment." Turning to the wolfhounds who were watching them from the doorway, she made a hand signal and issued the instruction, "Guard him."

Khalid lay on his back staring at the fan on the ceiling lazily stirring the hot air and thought of the days and weeks after the accident. He’d been doped with morphine for a broken collar bone, six cracked ribs and a fractured skull. He could have sworn a voice told him he’d been drinking. That he’d killed those children. That his family would never forgive him.

His hand fisted now, what was the point of going over and over it all again?

Charisse entered the room carrying a thick file.

She dropped on the floor beside him and gave him a very level look.

"Take that expression off your face, Khalid. And stop thinking." She kissed him on the nose. "You think too damned much. Didn’t anyone give you the basic facts?" Flicking through documents and muttering to herself about stubborn fools, she pulled out a sheaf of papers.

"Here we are. Your blood tests. Hospitals do these as a matter of routine after any accident," she said as if talking to an imbecile. She pointed to a line which stated blood alcohol level. "What does it say?" She demanded and watched him read the result.

He sat up as she raised her eyebrows and a small weight lifted from his heart.

He cleared his throat, "Nil."

Charisse crossed her legs into the lotus position and flicked her fingers in a ‘come here’ gesture.

"Speak to me, Rock Star. If this fact is telling you in black and white that you were sober, why did you think you were drinking? If you look at the results more closely there is no trace of substance abuse. Not even an aspirin."

"I’ve never touched drugs." He read through the documents then lifted his head and stared into her face. "Where the hell did you get these?"

"Amir demanded copies of everything. He went over each fact with me." She tucked her hair behind her ears. "It helped me deal with acceptance." Then she rubbed her nose and didn’t quite meet his eyes. "And forgiveness."

His dark eyes snapped to hers. "You blamed me?"

"In the beginning, for a while, yes, I did."

He rose and tugged her to her feet.

His hand cupped her chin.

As he pressed his mouth to the side of hers, he felt her tremble as she continued,

"Mia’s death was a catalyst for a chain of events that brought me here. I blamed you for many things."

His hand smoothed the skin on the back of her neck and he pulled her closer, stared down into those amazing blue eyes and saw the truth there.

"But you don’t blame me now. Why is that?"

"Facts. I have the truth. It was an accident, Khalid. There were witnesses."

Khalid took a step back, but kept hold of her hand and those dark, intense eyes stayed on hers.

"I don’t deserve you."

Charisse pulled her hand from his as jumpy nerves danced in her gut.

She read guilt in those dark eyes.

And she knew this still wasn’t over.

"Tell me, Khalid. Did you love your sister?"

His eyes narrowed fractionally and she could see his brain trying to figure out where the conversation was going.

"Very much."

"Were you a good brother?"

His eyes never left hers and she read the truth. "Yes," he said.

"Did she love you, adore you?"

He blinked. "Yes."

Charisse moved to stand before the vast black and white photograph on the wall and stared into those beautiful, happy faces, and continued,

"How would Jamila feel, do you think, if she knew you were punishing yourself? Would she be proud of how you refuse to accept any happiness in life? How you refuse to give and receive true love? Is a life of misery what she would want for you?

"Do you want to know what I think?" she continued, turned and looked him dead in the eye. "I think she’d be ashamed of you, Khalid, and desperately, desperately sad."

The flash of pain in those dark eyes told her she'd shocked him.

He stood as if turned to stone.

A voice warned her he’d had enough, but she moved to a beautifully carved small bureau.

"I have many other photos of the girls in albums here. Why don’t you sit and go through them and the documents? Take all the time you need."

He didn't move, didn't say a word.

Backing out of the room, she was babbling and had no idea why, which made her nerves jump even more and her stomach clutch even harder. "I’ll be out here if you need me for anything."

Charisse closed the doors and puffed out a breath.

It was the look in his eyes that had unnerved her.

Dark, demanding and predatory. And... tempted.

Boris looked exactly like that when he’d spotted a roasted chicken when cook’s back was turned. If Charisse had not given him a warning look, the wolfhound would have swallowed it whole.

That same temptation was in Khalid’s eyes, too.

He was tempted to do something to her and she didn’t want to begin to think of what that might be.

And she realised he hadn’t answered her initial question.

The medical records had not been sealed.

The results clear for anyone who'd wished to check them.

Who
had told him he had been drinking?

She sighed.

Something was still very wrong.

Underneath that sophisticate, sexy shell, her husband was so incredibly vulnerable.

And why did that make her feel as weak as a newborn puppy?

Analysing the situation with her own unique brand of logic, Charisse couldn’t decide whether she liked or feared his vulnerability. Maybe both? How confusing was that?

Exercise, that’s what she needed.

It would clear her head.

Khalid studied Jamila’s happy face and felt more at peace with himself than he’d done for years.

Although the witness statements were garbled and confused, Amir had highlighted pertinent points on the papers. No matter how Khalid looked at it, what had happened that day had been an accident, caused by another boat crossing the bow of his, was the conclusion of what had happened on that fateful day.

However, the report also stated that speed had played a part in the disaster and he would have to live with that. At least now he wanted actually to live. For years he’d ridden the path to self-destruction. And his wife - his wonderfully brave wife - had forced him to confront and face his demons head on and deal with them.

He wasn’t stupid.

He knew he still had a long way to go to heal and to find acceptance, but Khalid felt as if he’d been given a miracle this day.

Now he picked up a photograph of a young Charisse with Amir. Khalid might be uneasy about his uncle's marriage but there was no doubt in his mind that Amir had adored his very young wife. No wonder, the woman was amazing.

These days he enjoyed their meeting of minds and how Charisse leapt ahead of him in her thinking and how she challenged him.

The sound of a splash caught his attention.

He tenderly placed the photographs on the table and went to find her.

He found her in her narrow lap pool and his first clear thought was, thank you God.

She had an amazing body, which was showcased in a stunning white two piece bikini as she swam in a leisurely crawl.

One of the many wonderful things he loved about her was the way Charisse could relax and switch off. Oh, how he envied her that ability. No matter how hard he tried, he never relaxed. This morning was their first day off from the demands of work, duty, and the people whose lives and issues dominated their waking hours. Now he nudged those duties to the back of his mind.

This morning they were just a man and a woman with lives and, God knew, problems of their own.

She turned to him and speared him with a glittering sapphire look. Those fabulous eyes never left his as she rose out of the water, showcasing her glorious body. Bypassing the chair that held her towel, she tugged her hair free of the topknot on her head and it fell in a silver shimmering curtain down her back.