In Too Deep (14 page)

Then she slammed back to the bed beneath him. Aftershocks surged in a current inside her. He'd drained her of every spark her nervous system was capable of. She felt irrevocably sated.

But she knew better. He'd whisper in her ear, touch her with his gaze, beckon with his fingers and she'd go up in flames again.

He came down on top of her, letting her feel his beloved weight for a minute, before he twisted to his back, taking her with him, draping her over him like a blanket.

He caressed her back and hair, still hard inside her. “It was merciful I lived these past weeks with only the memory of our first night together. If I'd known that our belated wedding night would be a thousand times better, I would have probably lost my mind.”

She smiled into his chest, gratification sweeping through her that his feelings so exactly echoed hers. “Or you might
not have tormented us so long. If I'd known, I might have provoked you into losing your control much sooner.”

“So you're admitting you provoked me on purpose.”

She giggled. “If only I could claim that I did.”

His chuckles revved below her ears as his arms tightened around her. Feeling him stir inside her, feeling her own body blossom once more for him, she sighed in contentment, “You know, you're overwhelming anyway, but in passion, you're annihilating.”

“Look who's talking.” In one swift move, he rolled her over, bringing her facedown as he mounted her from behind.

She arched into him, ready again, impatient. “That's not a complaint. I can't wait to be devastated, over and over.”

And throughout the night and early morning hours, she was.

S
abrina opened her eyes in her husband's bed.

Adham. Her husband. For real. At last.

For several golden moments, tranquil and content, she lay there, savoring the knowledge, the soreness of satiation.

But it had been so much more than sex they'd shared. Adham had deep feelings for her. They might not be as complete as hers were for him, but they were pure and powerful. And they were growing. She'd make sure they never stopped.

They might have started out the wrong way, for the wrong reasons, but it didn't matter. They were right for each other. Perfect. And her love for him had broken through his preconceptions, had made him release all the emotion he'd struggled to suppress, thinking he shouldn't feel anything for her, his convenient bride.

She now relived the moments when she'd opened her
eyes hours ago, arched into his embrace, offered herself to him. Even three-quarters asleep, she'd been disappointed to feel clothes instead of his nakedness pressing down on her. He'd said he needed to see Sebastian, telling her to sleep off the exhaustion he'd caused her. She
had
blinked out the moment he'd closed the door.

But her battery was charged now. Overcharged. And there was no way she could bear waiting for him to come home.

She'd go bring him back to bed herself.

Thirty minutes later, she parked her car in the driveway of the Tudor-style Hughes Mansion.

She was let into a cathedral-ceiling hallway, and the butler informed her that Adham and Sebastian were in the living room. She told him to point her their way—she'd announce herself. She wanted to see Adham's reaction to her presence—the first surge of pleasure that would light his eyes—firsthand.

She approached the door, debating whether to knock or just enter. The decision was made for her when she found the door ajar. She was about to make her presence known when something Sebastian was saying froze her in her tracks.

“I have to give it to you, Adham, that was one hell of a show you put on yesterday. I can't buy publicity like that. The Bridgehampton Polo Club will not only be associated with priceless horses and A-list celebrities but with the drama of the uncontrollable passions of desert princes and their gorgeous, rebellious American wives. I project attendance will triple next year.”

“Not that I'm unhappy the club might benefit from my actions,” Adham said, “but that wasn't among the things on my mind yesterday.”

“
If
you had anything on it at all, that is,” Sebastian
teased, “apart from chasing down and capturing your defiant bride. Defiant at first, anyway. Then you caught her, kissed her and…whoosh. She went up in flames in your arms. I bet all those enemies who're watching you for proof that your marriage isn't real no longer have a leg to stand on.”

There was a long moment of silence.

“How do you know about that?” Adham asked slowly.

“A sleazebag posing as a reporter came a few days ago to interview me, but mainly asked about you and your recent marriage. He tried to get me to give him anything that would paint your marriage as a business deal. He went on to say it's a common belief in your land that a bargained wife is an unsatisfied one who cheats to get back at the man who acquired her.”

“It's not a belief, just a rationalization to explain cheating wives and an effective weapon to smear men in high places, since the greatest dishonor in my culture is to have a cheating wife. It is a death sentence to a man's reputation if her infidelity results in children whom she passes off as his. This happened with my own parents. My father's political enemies used the marital difficulties my parents had after my older brother was born to cast doubt on my younger sister Layla's and my paternity.”

Sebastian whistled. “Well, I investigated that jerk, and found that he was sent by one Nedal Aal Ajam, renowned political enemy of the Aal Ferjanis, denouncer of the King and number one beneficiary if ever the royal family of Khumayrah was overthrown.”

“
Aih, hadda suheeh.
That's true. He would have latched onto any public discord between Sabrina and me to plant doubt about the authenticity of our marriage. Just like in my mother's case, who was herself only half Khumayran, they would have played on the fact that Sabrina is a foreigner.
In my mother's case, they said that she sought revenge as well as emotional and sexual freedom outside the restrictions of the loveless union. The lie that Layla and I were not the King's offspring chased us through half of our lives, until my father was forced to refute the allegations with medical evidence. Of course, his wrath was severe. Anyone who'd help spread the rumors paid dearly for their transgressions.”

“I can imagine. To force a king, from a culture as big on macho pride as yours, to defend his wife's honor and his children's legitimacy—that's huge. But the example he'd made of those who'd defamed you hasn't deterred others from trying the same trick?”

“The potential gains are great enough to risk consequences. And they don't need to go as far as the others went. If they can prove any of the royal wives unsatisfied, they won't need to cast doubts over the legitimacy of the union's offspring. It's enough to start a campaign of ridicule that a man who can't govern and fulfill his own wife isn't fit to govern a nation or fulfill its needs. Our political situation is complex enough at the moment that a battle on this front might tip the balance in our enemies' favor.”

“But you have nothing to worry about,” Sebastian assured. “Whatever those backstabbers are trying to do, after last night, there's no way anyone could say that Sabrina is unsatisfied. The woman is clearly crazy in love with you. The whole world now has photographic evidence of that fact.”

There was another moment of silence. Then Adham exhaled heavily. “I guess they do.”

Sabrina turned around, stumbled away.

She somehow found herself back in her car, agony clamping each muscle, her heart flapping in her chest
like a wounded bird. She dropped her head to the steering wheel.

It was far uglier than the worst thing she'd believed before.

She'd believed he'd seduced her for the land and a necessary heir. She'd thought he'd only put on a show in public, as Sebastian had so astutely realized, as a preventive measure against wagging tongues and social nuisance.

Then last night she'd come to believe he'd always been attracted to her but her father's deal had hardened his heart, making him treat their marriage as nothing but a business deal. She'd believed he'd lost control when she'd pulled away in public, acting spontaneously for the first time, baring his real desires, which he'd hidden from even himself.

She'd been a fool. He hadn't lost control. His actions had been
damage
control. Which he had to perform indefinitely. As long as his enemies watched him.

Her public rejection had been what he'd been guarding against all along, as it would have destroyed his projection of a blissful marriage that was vital to his image, to the stability of his ruling house.

So he'd seduced her again, to make her fall in with his plans.
Again.

And if she hadn't been so desperate to be with him again, she would have remained in his bed, unaware of the truth. She would have continued putting on the show he needed, fooling his enemies with the sincerity of her ardor.

And being made a fool of for the rest of her life.

 

Adham had left Sebastian an hour ago.

He'd been driving aimlessly ever since. For the first time in his life, he felt at a loss.

He needed some time to come to terms with what had happened last night. It had been more than explosive sex. It had been nothing like the first time he'd taken her.

This time, when he'd made her his, she'd made him hers.

His father had said this would be his fate, just as it had been his own—to find one irreplaceable woman where he least expected, to want her with everything in him, to love her till the end of his days.

But did she love him?

He'd felt his heart clench as if on a burning coal when Sebastian announced that she did, as a forgone conclusion.

For he truly didn't know.

He had no doubt she wanted him with every fiber of her voluptuous body. But what about her heart?

There were too many considerations that made him fear her heart wasn't involved. Or worse, couldn't and wouldn't be.

She had been at her lowest moments when she'd fallen into his arms. She had needed his support, in more ways than one. Now, she might still be reeling from her father's loss, needing to cling to him to fill the void of security. What if her feelings for him were gratitude and need mixed with lust? The gratitude he could do without, the need he accepted as her right as his wife, the lust he craved. But none of this constituted love. And he couldn't live knowing she didn't love him as wholeheartedly as he loved her.

There was one way to discover the truth. A test.

He dreaded the result. He didn't know if he could live with it if he learned that she didn't and could never love him. But he had to do it.

He couldn't live not knowing for certain, either.

Hours later, he returned home, and felt it immediately.

A psychic vacuum. An absence.

He tore through the house looking for her. But even as he dashed from one place to another, calling out her name, he knew.

She was gone.

On his third time storming to his bedroom, which had been theirs for only one night, he saw something he hadn't noticed before on his bedside table. A note.

He approached it as if it were a live grenade, unfolding it with the care of someone defusing a bomb.

But there was no defusing the destruction in the note.

Only four words.
I want a divorce.

A
fter the disbelief and devastation, Adham called Sabrina's cell phone for thirty minutes straight.

Each time the phone rang until it disconnected.

He careened through the house, raising hell, interrogating everyone within sight, not caring that he was revealing to his subordinates that he had no idea where his wife was.

He was at his wit's end when the bodyguards he'd asked to keep an eye on her, and whom he'd forgotten about in his madness, called. They'd said she'd gone back home. Her family home.

The two hours it took him to get to Grant Vineyards and Winery taught him the meaning of agony.

By the time he spotted her, a bright white figure in the distance among the verdant vines, he felt he'd aged two decades.

He strode after her receding figure through the uniform rows of vines that seemed to stretch into infinity, adding to
his impression that he'd never reach her. So much crowded inside him—anger, dread, heartache—he felt he'd explode with it all.

It felt like the distance between them widened instead of narrowed with each step. It was too much.

He bellowed with it.
“Sabrina!”

His shout seemed to freeze her and everything else, as if all existence had been paused. He felt as if his feet barely touched ground as he closed the distance separating them.

He came to an abrupt halt a foot away, vibrating with emotion. Her scent flayed him. He could discern every hair in the gleaming mahogany waves that cascaded down her back, feel each tremor her heart sent through her flesh. And he knew.

He was damned to love her, even without hope of reciprocation. What she evoked in him was the only thing he would ever want or need. And she didn't feel the same.

He could do nothing but accept it, and take whatever he could from her.

Feeling defeated for the first time in his life, he declared his surrender.

“So now you realize your power over me,” he rasped. “You're raising the stakes. Go ahead, Sabrina. If you want to make a new deal with new terms, then make it.”

She turned to him then, her face and voice inanimate. “I want one thing. To never see you again.”

He advanced on her. She tried to retreat. He wouldn't let her, grabbing her arm, shoving the dossier he'd brought at her.

Her fingers closed around it instinctively, her eyes blank, making him feel as if she didn't even see him.

But he had to try to make her see, try to make her
respond to him. “I thought this would show me if you felt anything real for me, but it's no longer a test. I can no longer afford it. You can consider all of this an incentive. And you can ask for anything at all in addition. Just stay with me, give us a chance. I know we started badly, but we can make this work. I know we can.”

She wrenched away as if his hand burned her. “This act will never work.”

So she'd been acting all the time?

The thought swamped him with a despondence so profound, it made him realize one thing. The most important thing.

Even if he found the right price to make her stay, it would kill him knowing she felt nothing for him.

He had to let her go, no matter the damages to himself, his heart, or his kingdom. No matter if she were already pregnant with his child. He'd rather be exiled from his homeland than live knowing he had her in every way but was forever exiled from her heart.

Unable to face her or bear the agony, he turned away.

“What
is
this?”

Her exclamation hit him between the shoulder blades, making him turn against his will, against his better judgment.

He found her flipping through the dossier, her frown deepening. The shuffling sounds chafed his nerves, snapping them one by one. He waited with thorns in his heart for delight to invade her eyes, once she realized all she wanted was hers for the taking, with nothing required on her part.

But it wasn't delight that filled her eyes. It was rage.

His confusion turned to stupefaction as she threw the dossier to the ground and proceeded to shred the contracts
and deeds for everything he'd promised her once she fulfilled her part of the deal.

“See this, Adham?” she shouted. “This is what I think of the deal you and my father made! You can take your land and assets and terms and shove them! You think I want to inherit my father's land and business? I want them
gone.
I want them to have never existed. They've been the cause of all the alienation I've felt my whole life. Everyone who's ever come within five feet of me had their eyes on them, including you. So if
you
no longer want the land, you can give it to charity or let the wild reclaim it for all I care. “
I
never wanted any of this. The only thing I ever wanted from my father was love, the only thing I wanted to do was help him. I chose my fields of study so I'd be the right hand he'd always implied a
son
would have been. I'm good for more than being married off and making babies like he—and you—thought. I certainly don't need either of you to ‘provide' for me. I am a professional any winemaking business in the world would hire in a flash at the salary I demand.”

Adham could only gape at her as she continued her furious tirade.

“As for you, the only thing I ever wanted from you was caring and respect. But those are alien concepts to you and the only thing I now
need
from you is an uncontested divorce!”

With each word from her trembling lips, realization and heart-bursting delight dawned on Adham.

She'd never wanted the things he'd thought she'd married him for. She hadn't been in on her father's deal, and had always thought their marriage was real. She'd
wanted
to marry him. Because she wanted him. Because she loved him!

So why did she want to leave him now?

“
Arjooki, ya habibati,
I don't understand. I love you—”

“Stop it!” she screamed. “Stop acting. I heard you, Adham. Today, with Sebastian. Your only concern is to allay doubts about our marriage so your enemies won't undermine your family's power. I understand it's a noble cause but count me out. Go acquire some other woman to do this job. I want—I
deserve
someone who doesn't have to pretend to want me.”

And everything fell into place.

He surged toward her. “
Habibati,
I beg you, listen to me—”

She beat his hands away. “Oh, I did. I've done nothing but listen to you and your lies since the day I met you. But I've listened to the truth today, and nothing you say can change that.”

He still vibrated with the elation of discovering her reciprocated emotions. But now, as her anguish flayed him, anxiety rose to supplant it as the extent of her misapprehension registered. He rushed to explain.

“But you misunderstood. I was discussing with Sebastian my predicament in retrospect, answering his questions about what my enemies had hoped to gain by approaching him.”

“Oh, please. Last night was about bringing me back under your spell, to be your worshipping fool and provide your enemies with photographic evidence of my enslavement. You must have also deemed it necessary to sleep with me again, to get working on the heir you need.”

His aching hands clenched on the need to drag her against him, make her listen to him, make her believe him. His heart stampeded with the rising dread that she might not, might close her heart to him, that he'd done it too much
damage to fix. But he couldn't accept that, never would. He'd make her believe him.

“No, Sabrina, that isn't how—”

She cut him off. “That is exactly how it was. But don't worry. There won't be any repercussions from divorcing me. You were lucky—the two times you slept with me happened to be at the exact wrong time.”

“I don't care if you never get pregnant,” he protested.

“Save it, Adham. And look at it this way. Our divorce will bring in even more business for the club. More people will be rabidly curious to see you next season with a new acquisition.”

He stared at her. Sabrina as he'd never seen her. A spirit that needed nothing and no one, that could not be tamed or bought, but would give her all willingly, endlessly only in the name of love. A tigress capable of slashing anyone who trespassed against her to shreds.

He knew he was fighting for his life here—for she was his life—but he couldn't control the thrill that took him over at discovering these new facets of her. The knowledge of the barbed steel beneath the silk and surrender would make him revel in them more. He couldn't wait to unearth more complexities, which he was now certain she possessed. But none of that would happen, his very life would be over, if he didn't convince her of his sincerity. As he must.

Ready now to take her bitterness, welcoming its pain in atonement for the pain he'd caused her, determined to wipe it away, he closed the distance she'd put between them.

“It was Sebastian who said what happened between us last night was good for business. But he was only right about one thing—I had nothing on my mind but you. I'd come to claim you, thinking that if desire was all you felt for me, that I was a fool not to let you have me. But you turned away and I lost all sense of place and purpose. All
sense, period. I had to get you back, make you succumb to the hunger that was eating at both of us.”

She shook her head, wrenched away. He caught her back, persisted. “But after last night, I was in agony. I didn't know if you were just taking whatever benefits you could from our situation while your heart remained untouched. I went back to our house to give you what I just gave you now, what you tore apart, what would have released you from any fear about your future. I thought if you chose to stay with me when you no longer had to, that it would mean you do want me beyond what I can provide.

“But you have given me more than I ever dreamed. As you have from day one. It was so good, so unbelievable between us from the start, that when your father approached me with his offer, I found it easier to believe that none of it had been true, that
you'd
been too good to be true. But you are my miracle. And the fact that you love me, after all your father and I did, is beyond a miracle.”

Her tear-filled eyes hardened.

His heart sank. “You don't still love me?”

“You are still acting. You just need a baby to tick off some royal requirement and don't want to go through the trouble of acquiring another wife. It was a very time-consuming enterprise for you, acquiring me. All those times you pretended to be interested in me must have been torture for you. A word of advice. Next time, forgo the pretense and just lay your terms on the table. I'm sure hordes of suitable women will snap up you and your cold-blooded deal in a second.”

“I only ever wanted you. The only pretense was when I pretended I didn't.” He stopped as more tears escaped her eyes, groaned. “But I can't ask you to believe me. Words mean nothing. I have to prove the truth of my feelings with actions.”

He got out his cell phone and dialed a number.

He spoke as soon as the line opened. “Angus Henderson? Sheikh Adham Aal Ferjani. I have a scoop for you. Record what I'm going to say so you have it in my own words. Are you ready?” He waited a second, gazing back at Sabrina's confused, apprehensive stare. Then he started. “This is Sheikh Adham Aal Ferjani of Khumayrah, and I'm here today to divulge the true circumstances of my marriage….”

 

Sabrina gaped at Adham as he recounted everything from the start. He painted his actions in their worst light, closing by saying he was fighting to convince his wife, the love of his life, to give him a second chance to atone for his sins against her, so he could prove his love and dedicate his life to her.

Then he ended the call. “Do you understand now I care only that you believe me and remain my wife, lover and soul mate?”

Sabrina could only stare at him in shock. Angus Henderson was one of the country's most famous celebrity reporters, who produced and hosted the most notorious shows in the history of modern media. And Adham had just told him everything about their marriage. Everything.

That Adham would expose himself like that! That he would think nothing of offering himself to the media to eat him alive as long as it proved his sincerity to her.

Her paralysis suddenly snapped, and she snatched Adham's phone, redialed the reporter's number. Angus answered at once. No doubt the reporter was rabidly eager to answer in case Adham had forgotten more juicy details to add to the explosive scoop he'd just secured.

“Mr. Henderson? This is Sabrina Grant—Princess Aal Ferjani—Mrs. Adham Aal Ferjan…” She panted, her
words and thoughts tangling. “Oh, you know who I am. Everything Adham told you was a joke. A dare. There is
no
truth in what he said, so please don't publish anything.”

There was a moment's silence on the other end, before the man's signature raspy voice answered, “I'm sorry to hear that, since I just broadcast his recording live. In fact, you, too, are on the air with me right now.”

“Oh, God, no….”

She felt she'd burn to ashes with mortification. Adham took the phone from her, assuring their live audience that he'd meant every word and wouldn't be issuing a retraction. Sabrina squirmed, protesting, but Adham only smiled down on her, hugging her to him as he terminated the call.

“Do you believe me now,
ya rohi?
”

She tore out of his arms and stumbled back. “Believe you? You painted yourself blacker than I ever had! What will that mean for you in your kingdom? I can only assume the worst. You big fool!” Then she threw her arms around him and smothered him in kisses. Tears flowed faster as his mingled with hers. He'd just proved he was as far gone in love with her as she was with him, and feared losing her as much. “Oh,
ya habibi,
” she sobbed, “I might have been reluctant to believe you right away, but I would have eventually. You didn't have to go to this extreme.”