Tamed: The Barbarian King (10 page)

Picking up his clothes from the ground, she shoved them into his arms. “Get dressed!”

He smiled down at her, and she couldn’t help smiling back. For one instant time hung between them, breathless with the anticipation of endless future joys.

Then she heard his men shouting, heard the pounding of machines against the earth. Heard a rush of heavy footsteps coming toward the cave, growing louder.

Sighing beneath her anxious, pleading gaze, he moved with rapid military precision, stepping into his boxers and black pants. As he pulled on his shirt, she peeked one last look at his handsome physique and marveled that she was the only woman who’d ever experienced the incredible pleasure of being in his bed. How was it possible? How was she so blessed?

She thought again of the reverent, hot, tender way he’d touched her in the night. And in the day…

“Sire? Sire!”

Kareef’s chief bodyguard peered over the piled sand at the mouth of the cave, then fell to his knee in gratitude and relief. Behind him were a dozen men, geared up as if for battle. “God be praised! That blasted mare returned riderless right before the storm hit the house. We thought… We feared…”

Buttoning his ragged white shirt, Kareef stood before them, tall and proud. He looked every inch a king.

“We are safe, Faruq. Miss Kouri and I were riding when we were caught in the storm and took shelter here. Thank you for finding us.” He gestured at the black stallion tied to the rock. “Please see Tayyib is cared for. He bore us well.”

“Yes, sire.”

“And my people? My home?”

“No injuries,” the bodyguard replied. “Little damage. A great deal of sand. We brought a doctor for you just in case.”

“I am unhurt. He will check Miss Kouri for injury.”

Faruq glanced at her uneasily, then bowed and backed away. She felt the other bodyguards giving her sideways glances, and her face grew hot.

“The helicopter will return us to the royal palace immediately,” Kareef said. He turned to her, holding out his hand. “Miss Kouri?”

As Kareef escorted her out of the dark cave, lifting her back into the hot white sun, he smiled down at her. And all her sudden anxiety disappeared as if it had never been.

He led her to the waiting helicopter, and she smiled at him, trying to ignore the grim-faced bodyguards trailing behind. They would manage to keep their affair secret for one more day. One more precious day before Kareef would be forced to realize he had no choice but to divorce her, and they each parted to face the separate lives that fate had decreed for them.

One more day, she thought desperately. No one would be hurt by one more selfish day. A single day could feel like a lifetime.

Kareef would find a way to keep it secret. She’d never seen a secret kept at the palace, but he could find a way. He was magic. He was power.

He was king.

Kareef’s shoulders were tight as he stormed through the corridors of the royal palace, scattering assistants in his wake.

Every minute of his schedule since his return to the city had been meticulously dictated by five different assistants and undersecretaries working in conjunction, overseen by the vizier. The king’s duties were endless.
Treaties to negotiate. False smiles under cloak of courtesy. Diplomacy. Politics. Saying one thing and meaning another. What did Kareef know of those?

He growled to himself. He was already learning far more than he’d ever wished.

He despised keeping Jasmine a secret.

She’d slept against his shoulder on the helicopter journey from the desert. He could still feel her, somehow still smell her intoxicating scent of oranges and cloves against his body, though he’d showered and changed out of his clothes and into white robes at the royal palace.

The moment he’d set foot back at the palace, he’d wanted to take her to his bedchamber; but she’d demurred, glancing at the endless secretaries and assistants waiting for him in the hallways. “Later,” she’d whispered, and with a sigh, he’d let her go. He’d told himself he’d be able to cut his meetings short and return soon to her little room in the servants’ wing.

That was ten hours ago. His elderly vizier, Akmal Al’Sayr, was still tearing his beard out at the days Kareef had missed. It seemed even being lost and half-presumed dead in the desert wasn’t enough to excuse a monarch from his duty.

It was now twilight, and he hadn’t seen Jasmine since they’d arrived at the palace. His entire day had been wasted. A day devoted to cold duty in a palace full of hidden corridors and sly whispers of gossip.

His hands tightened. He hated all this secrecy. He had to convince her to give up the marriage. He would smooth things over with Hajjar somehow. Once she agreed to call off her wedding, Kareef would be willing
to divorce her. When she agreed to be his long-term mistress.

How could my parents ever hold up their heads in the street, if I let myself be branded as your whore?

The word made him flinch. No. Damn it, no! If any man dared insult her, Kareef would throw him into the Byzantine dungeon beneath the palace. He would exile him to the desert without food or water. He would—

You would kill your own subjects for speaking the truth?
He heard the echo of Jasmine’s whisper in the cave.
Let me go. Set me free.

Clenching his jaw, he pushed the thought firmly from his mind. He would keep her as long as he desired her—whether that took ten years or fifty. He was young yet, only thirty-one. He would keep her for himself, and put off his own marriage as long as he could.

He quickened his pace down the hall, growling at any servant who dared to look his way.

Was Jasmine awake yet? he wondered. Was she naked beneath the sheets, with her dark hair mussed across the pillow? He felt rock-hard, aching for her. He went faster, almost breaking into a run.

“Sire, a word?”

In the hallway near the royal offices, he saw his vizier hovering in the doorway.

“Later,” he ground out, not stopping.

“Of course, my king,” the vizier said silkily. “I just wanted you to know I’ve begun negotiations for your marriage. You needn’t worry about it. I will present your bride to you in a few weeks.”

Stopping dead in the hallway, Kareef whirled into the reception room and closed the door behind them.

“You will arrange nothing,” he said coldly. “I have no interest in marriage.”

“But sire, these things take time. And you are not getting any younger….”

“I’m thirty-one!”

“After all the chaos caused by your cousin’s abdication, your subjects need the comfort and security of seeing the line of succession continue. A royal wedding. A royal family.” He pulled on his graying beard. “It might be difficult to find the right bride, a young virgin with the correct lineage and a perfect, unsullied reputation—”

“Why must she be a virgin?” Kareef demanded.

“So no one can ever doubt that your children are yours,” he replied, sounding surprised. “You must have an undisputed heir.”

Kareef clenched his jaw. “You will not negotiate a bride for me. I forbid it.”

The vizier returned his look with gleaming, canny eyes. “Because your interests are elsewhere?”

Kareef looked at him narrowly, wondering how much he already knew. The vizier’s spies were everywhere. He cared so obsessively about the security of the country, personal privacy meant nothing to the man. “What do you mean?”

His dark eyes affixed on Kareef. “It would be a grave mistake to insult Umar Hajjar, my king,” he said quietly. “I’ve heard he is returning from Paris tonight.”

Paris. So Kareef’s suspicions had been right. Hajjar had been spending time with his French mistress.

And Kareef was expected to give up Jasmine to a man who did not even care enough to be loyal to her?

Too angry to be fair, he clenched his hands. “I have no intention of insulting Hajjar. He is my friend. He saved my life.”

“Yes. Quite.” The older man cleared his throat. “The royal banquet begins soon, sire. Ambassadors and foreign princes have come from all over the world to celebrate your impending coronation. You will not wish to be late.”

Kareef ground his teeth. Making small talk with people he didn’t care about? “I will attend in my own time.”

The vizier tugged his beard. “It’s just a pity you don’t have your future bride on your arm for such a social event,” he sighed, then brightened. “Princess Lara du Plessis is attending with her father. She is a possibility as well. She’s very beautiful—”

“No marriage,” Kareef barked out. His mind already on Jasmine, he turned to go.

“You will find her in the royal garden,” the vizier called sourly behind him. “Where she does not deserve to be.”

Kareef whirled to face him.

Jasmine was right. There were no secrets in the palace. Akmal Al’Sayr knew them all.

Except one.

He did not know Kareef was already married.

“You will call off your spies,” he said grimly. “Leave her in peace.”

Akmal’s mouth twisted sharply downward, his lips disappearing into his long gray beard as he fell into dutiful silence.

“And find her a place at the banquet.”

The vizier looked unhappier still, his slender body drooping like a frown. But he hung his head beneath his sovereign’s decree. “Yes, sire.” He looked up, his beady eyes glittering. “But she can never be more to you than a mistress. The people would never accept such a woman as your wife, a woman who’s had so many lovers she threw herself from a horse to lose her nameless, ill-gotten child—”

Red covered Kareef’s gaze. In two strides, he’d grabbed the other man’s throat.

“It was an accident,” he hissed. “
An accident
. And as for her many lovers, she’s had only one. Me. Do you understand, Al’Sayr? I was her lover. The only one.”

The older man’s eyes started to bulge before Kareef regained control. He let him go. The vizier leaned over, holding his throat and coughing.

“Never speak of her that way again,” he spat out. With a growl still on his lips, Kareef whirled away in murderous fury, striding down the hall in his robes.

His heart was still pounding with rage when he found Jasmine in the royal garden in the twilight, sleeping on a cushioned seat in a shady, quiet bower. A book was folded upside down unheeded in her lap. He stopped, staring down at her, marveling again at her beauty.

She slept peacefully, like a child. The wind blew softly through the trees, rattling the leaves, brushing loose tendrils of dark hair across her face. She was wearing a fitted black sweater over a high-necked white shirt and a long black skirt. And below that—red canvas sneakers.

Her lovely face was bare of makeup, and beautiful in its natural simplicity. Modest, simple, like a maid.
She looked the part of a perfect wife and mother—the perfect heart of any man’s home.
Of his home.

He took a deep breath, calming down beneath the influence of her sweet purity, of her innocence. He smiled down at her. Then his gaze fell upon her hand, and he saw she still wore Hajjar’s diamond upon her finger.

Jasmine’s dark brown eyes fluttered open. A smile lit up her face when she saw him. Her smile struck through his soul.

“Kareef.” The sweet lilt of her voice washed over him like a wave of water. “Oh, how I’ve missed you today!”

He sat next to her, taking her hands in his own. “I thought the day would never end.”

“And once again, you’ve caught me in the royal garden.” Her expression became bashful, apologetic. “Where I should not be.”

“The garden is yours,” he said roughly. “You have the right.”

She tried to smile at him, but her expression faltered. She looked down at her hand, twisting the ring on her finger. “For now.”

A spasm of unexpected jealousy went through him as he looked at that ring, the physical mark of another man’s ownership. “Take that off.”

She looked at him in surprise. “Why?”

“Take it off.”

“No.”

“You’re not going to marry him tomorrow.”

Her expression became mutinous. “I am.” She rose to her feet. “And if you can’t accept that—”

“We won’t talk about it now, then.” He caught her wrist. “Just come to the royal banquet with me tonight.”

She looked down at his hand on her wrist.

“This is how we would be discreet?” she said. “Beside each other at the banquet, as lovers for all the world to see?” She shook her head. He saw tears in her eyes. “Admit I was right,” she whispered. “The palace separates us already. Let’s end this cleanly. We must part.”

He looked at her with a heavy heart. How could he change her mind, when he himself could feel the truth of her words?

But taking a deep breath, he shook his head. “One more night.”

“It won’t change anything.”

“Attend the banquet with me. Give me one last chance to change your mind, to convince you not to marry him. One last night.” He set his jaw. “Then, if you still wish to wed him—I will say farewell.”

He watched her face as her expression struggled visibly between desire and pain. “You will divorce me?”

“Yes.”

“On your honor?”

“Yes,” he bit out.

She gave him a slow nod. “Very well.” She reached out to caress his cheek, then hesitated. She glanced wryly at her red high-top sneakers. “I will go get dressed.” She bowed her head, then looked up. Tears glistened in her eyes. “Until tonight, my king.”

A half hour later, Kareef arrived alone to thunderous applause at the grand ballroom. Five hundred illustrious guests clamored for his attention, clamored for his gaze—
and he still hadn’t thought of a way to convince Jasmine to remain his mistress. Because there wasn’t a solution.

Jasmine wanted respectability. She wanted a family of her own. She wanted children.

As king, what could he offer her—except disgrace?

Greeting his honored guests, Kareef walked to the end of the long table, looking for one beautiful face. Where was she? Where had the vizier placed her? Without her calming presence, he felt like a trapped tiger in a cage, half-mad in captivity. He prayed to find her beside him at the table.

But when he reached his place, he stopped.