The Sheikh's Destiny (Harlequin Romance) (13 page)

‘They must be doing well to be able to afford the scent.'

‘The director got the original makers in touch with the Fair Trade organisation, and first sales were so good they began branching out into scented soaps. The whole village is part of the industry now.'

‘I wonder if we can get Shellah-Akbar interested in some similar kind of project.'

‘They have a new nurse,' she said, sadness touching her. She missed her friends, the sense of accomplishment at seeing babies grow; the serenity of having, not somewhere to hide, but somewhere to belong.

‘I've had preliminary reports from the region. Sh'ellah's not happy, even with the money from my ransom.'

Her stomach thudded. She knew what that meant: he'd been looking forward to having her, and would take it out on whoever he could. ‘Is everyone all right?'

He covered her clenched fist with his hand, opening it and threading his fingers through hers. ‘Don't worry, Hana. I told my brother they helped save my life, the risks they took to cover our traces.' He added, ‘Harun visited the five villages in the region yesterday. He gave them the choice of ongoing protection or a new home in Abbas al-Din, their own village in a safe, arable area under the sheikh's personal protection. Given Sh'ellah's rampages, many of them have chosen to come. Harun's negotiating with the government to look the other way while our special forces evacuate them.'

In a region where ‘negotiating' meant millions changing hands, she wondered how much they were paying to save these people who should mean nothing to them. She held tight to his hand, even knowing she shouldn't. ‘Thank you,' she choked.

‘My brother is a good man, and a strong ruler.' He bent to kiss her knuckles. ‘There are advantages to marrying me, Sahar Thurayya,' he murmured, between husky and teasing. ‘You'll find more as we go along.'

The shock of his words ran through her, his agenda out in the open when she wasn't ready for it. She dragged in a breath, pulled her hand from his and then said it, hard and blunt. ‘I can't marry you, Alim.'

‘Why not?' he asked, calmly enough. ‘Don't say you don't love me, Hana, not after the way you kissed me in the car. I won't believe it.'

Her stomach knotted; her diaphragm jerked, and she had to hiccup the words. ‘I'm already married.'

A
HOLE
opened up beneath him, sucking down all his hopes and dreams. Alim stared at the only woman he'd ever loved, thought of all the sacrifices he'd made for her sake, how she'd risked her life for him. ‘You led me to believe you were a widow.' The tradition was for the sheikh to wed a highborn virgin like Amber—but given the choice he intended to present the people, he'd believed they'd accept her, accept his marriage. But now…

‘I know.' So tiny, her voice, filled with shame.

‘You said you had no husband. You said that!'

She made a frustrated sound. ‘I don't.'

‘What?' He shook his head, trying to clear it; it felt as if the mud he'd washed off two days before had entered his brain. ‘You either have a husband or you don't.'

She wouldn't look at him. ‘I was married by proxy. I disappeared before they could force me to marry him, and I never returned. So I'm married, but I don't have a husband.' Her mouth twisted, and she mock-bowed. ‘Bet you've never met a five-years-married virgin before.'

His mind raced with the information even as his sense of betrayal grew. ‘You danced around the truth. You led me to believe you were free!'

‘You asked the first day. You were a stranger. What did you expect, my life story?' Flat words hit him like a slap, locking him out.

‘When I proposed to you—'

‘Stated your intention, you mean,' she retorted with a hard laugh. ‘You never asked me, never proposed…my lord Sheikh.'

He felt his nostrils flare at the goading title. ‘Okay, so it wasn't the most romantic proposal, but saving your life was taking up my energy at the time. I thought you'd understand.'

‘Oh, I understand. Yet another male knows what he wants, and I'm expected to fall into line, just like Mukhtar! He ruined my engagement to his own brother to cover up what he'd done. He thought marrying me by force would buy my silence. So he told my father and Latif that I'd
seduced him
.' She pressed her lips together, and wheeled away. ‘So I'm married, thanks to the El-Kanar family's male-oriented laws that allow them to buy and sell their daughters like dogs or cattle—and I'm a whore for touching you.'

Alim didn't need the dots connected to see the picture. His anger against her, his sense of betrayal withered and died; he saw her manic laughter the other day in its true light. It truly was
ironic
, as she'd said. He'd accused her of seducing him, just as Mukhtar had, yet she was still a virgin.

When he could recover his voice, he said, ‘Your fiancé believed his brother?'

She nodded.

‘And your family?' he asked, the diffidence unfeigned.

She shrugged. ‘Mukhtar told his family. The scandal devastated my parents, stopped me marrying elsewhere, and ruined my younger sister's chances of finding a good husband. To save Fatima, Dad went along with Mukhtar's plan. A woman can't testify against her husband in Abbas al-Din,' she finished in bitter mockery.

Dear God in heaven, what a mess,
Alim thought. In Abbas al-Din society, if Hana didn't marry the man she'd supposedly slept with, she'd be shunned—and the news would reach the community in Australia long before she could return there. So rather than marry a man she despised, she'd chosen to live as an outcast—but she'd lost everything.

No wonder she'd reacted so harshly to his slightest dictum, or mocked him for taking the lead. No wonder she'd turned him down flat for announcing their marriage as a fait accompli…

His mind raced to find a solution for her, his saviour, his love. Aching to reach out, to draw her against him and let her know she wasn't alone, he asked, ‘Do you know where they are? Your family, and Mukhtar?'

If anything, her back stiffened more. ‘I know you want to help me, but if he finds out where I am…even you can't interfere between husband and wife.'

The thought of her as Mukhtar's wife through lies and treachery sent fury flooding through him, a primal urge to find him and take him apart, piece by piece…but that was the last thing Hana needed right now. Only practical action could help her—and she had no idea of what he could do. ‘What is it you hold over him?'

She shook her head. ‘He's family now. Exposing him destroys my family.'

Moved by her loyalty in the face of so much loss, he reached out to her, let his hand fall. She didn't need his love, she needed—

She needs a miracle,
he thought grimly. It was a tangle past unravelling—but he had enough of the puzzle pieces to try to pull at the threads, and see what fell. She hadn't contacted any of her family in five years; she could only be going by what she knew then, a girl on the run.

He said the only thing he could say without causing her
further suffering. ‘All right, Hana. I understand. I won't pressure you any further.'

After a long stretch of quiet, she said huskily, ‘Thank you.'

She was crying in silence, and, bound by his promise, he couldn't reach out to her. They sat inches but miles apart. He ached to comfort her, his silence the only gift he could give.

He'd had such plans for tonight…but now he had other plans to make.

 

‘This isn't a good idea,' she said as she entered Alim's house in Mombasa as the sun began to set. The wide glass doors to the balcony had a gorgeous beach view onto the Indian Ocean, the warm breeze rustling through the palms lining the sand. The crashing of the waves felt like her heart, constantly pushing its tide against the immovable earth of her situation.

The table was set for two, with candles and soft lighting…

‘I've arranged for your accommodation in a bed and breakfast down the road.' Though the words were expressionless, her gaze flew to his face. ‘Your reputation is precious to me,' he said quietly. ‘As for all this—' his jaw tightened ‘—I ordered it when I believed we'd be engaged tonight. We might as well eat, and there are two chaperones here. My staff will never tell anyone you were here—and they'll take you to your accommodation when the meal's over.'

What could she say? He was putting her needs above his, and wasn't blaming her for the ruin of his hopes. ‘All right.' The words felt choked. ‘Alim, I—I am sorry.'

His eyes softened as he seated her at the table, removing her veil with such tender hands she wanted to cry. ‘You have nothing to be sorry for.'

He'd stopped calling her
my star
. He hadn't called her anything at all since he'd stopped fighting for what never existed in the first place. He barely touched her, and when he
thought she wasn't looking his eyes darkened with pain. He'd accepted it was over, before it had even begun—and, irrationally, she felt like screaming.
Aren't you going to fight for me?

Even if Mukhtar didn't exist, Alim could never marry the daughter of a miner—and she couldn't become his lover. It would destroy her family, and, no matter what they'd done, she loved them. They were good people, even if they'd put worry about what their world would think above her needs, and tried to hush up what they saw as their daughter's shame.

The meal was delicious, rice and curries of the region, lamb and fish with potatoes and traditional spices, and fried plantain. It was a shame neither of them ate much, only using food as an excuse to be quiet.

Soft music played from the CD, ballads that fitted the sunset, so soft and pretty from this south-eastern beach. After a while, Alim pushed his chair back. ‘This is ridiculous,' he said, with a violent touch.

‘Yes,' she agreed, relieved to be saying something, anything.

‘I can't pretend like this.'

‘I should go,' she said, soft, sad.

‘No.' He'd pulled back her chair and had her in his arms before she could move away. ‘Don't go,' he murmured, his cheek rough against hers. ‘I hate being with you knowing I can't have you, but being without you is worse.'

She ached to wrap herself around him, to share the kisses of this afternoon; but the time had gone, the words
I'm married
had made everything real. ‘This only makes things harder.'

He held her tighter. ‘Things have changed in my country. Proxy marriages have been illegal in Abbas al-Din since Fadi's rule. I don't know if your father knew that—'

She closed her eyes when they burned. ‘Even if that's true, I can't repudiate the marriage after all these years. It would humiliate Dad.'

‘He ruined you.' The words were filled with fury. ‘And don't you think your running away from the marriage he'd organised for you shamed him publicly, embarrassed the entire family? Don't you think clearing this matter will be better for them all?'

‘He'll never forgive me,' she whispered. ‘That's why I can never go back. And you—you need a suitable wife, a princess who knows how to help you.' She pulled back to look into his face, his beloved face, one last time. ‘Please, just let me go.'

‘I won't let you go, not knowing you live in hiding, never planning beyond your next escape—' He held her shoulders, his eyes blazing. ‘Come to Abbas al-Din. I'll buy you a house, and we can…'

‘I can't be your mistress,' she murmured, broken. ‘It would destroy my family's good name. I can't hurt them that way after everything else.'

‘You're the one who's suffered because of them,' he snarled. ‘After what they did to you, you care so much?'

She shivered and moved closer to him, burrowing into him as if the night were cold. ‘I thought I didn't. I want to hate them, but I can't. I can't—I have two sisters and a brother who are innocent of anything against me.'

Alim's mind raced like his cars around the circuits. ‘Then we'll marry here in Africa. We can stay here.'

‘No!' she cried. ‘You can't renounce your position for me. I'd always be the woman who stole the sheikh from his people—and my family would be humiliated again.'

‘So they're more important to you than what we have?' he grated out. ‘Or are you just making excuses to leave me? Was the way you kissed me in the car just a sham, a nice goodbye to the infatuated freak?'

‘Don't.'
She pushed at his chest. ‘I'm doing this for you. You know how much I feel for you—but this can't work. I'm the wrong woman for you!'

‘You think any woman of high birth is what's best for me?' Finally he released her. ‘You know I married a princess once, right? It was a nightmare. They said she died of a rare form of pneumonia—but the truth is Elira killed herself after the doctors said she couldn't bear the sons the nation needed from her. She was the perfect wife in public—but unstable, highly emotional in private, always screaming and crying, wanting what I couldn't give. In three short years she drove me nearly insane, Hana. I won't marry for reasons of state again.'

The words were so cold, bitter, she shuddered again. ‘Not all princesses are like that, surely?' She tried to laugh—but he moved away, his eyes blank. ‘We had a semi-affair of a week's standing. A few touches, a few kisses, can't become the love of a lifetime,' she went on, trying to smile, to be brave for his sake.

He interrupted her noble sacrifice with words dripping with ice. ‘I'm thirty-seven, not a raw boy. I know what I want. I want you. If you won't marry me because I'm a sheikh, I won't be one. Harun's become an outstanding ruler anyway—the people only want me because I was once famous. If you won't marry me, I'll live alone.'

How could a heart soar and crash at the same time? She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. ‘Sooner or later, you'll surely find a suitable woman you can…love—'

‘Will
you
?'

The savage words threw her into confusion. ‘Of course not, I've told you I can't—'

‘If he was dead, would you come to me—or would you find someone else? A suitable man—what is that to you?'

She shivered at his freezing tone. ‘I'd go home,' she said quietly.

‘And find someone else?' he pushed in a snarl. ‘Would you?'

She shrugged helplessly. How could she
stand
another
man to touch her after what she'd shared with him? Brief moments, enough to live a lifetime remembering…

‘Tell me, Hana. Say the words just once.'

A raw command filled with all the betrayed hurt he wasn't ashamed to show her. She gulped and looked at the floor. ‘I shouldn't.'

‘Hana, it's all I'm asking of you—well, all I'm asking it seems you
can
give me,' he amended, with such painful honesty her heart melted. ‘You made no vows to Mukhtar, so you won't betray your father; but only tell me if it's the truth—if your kisses were real, if your desire for me was true. If it wasn't, just walk out now and you'll never see me again.'

Alim was right: the vows made hadn't been
her
vows; she hadn't made them. Alim's pain melted her wavering resolution. Why not tell him how she felt, just one time?

She couldn't look at him as she said words she'd never said to any man. ‘I love you,' she said softly, and joy so poignant it hurt her soul spread through her, shining from within. Then she looked up into his eyes, glowing with bliss stronger, more lovely and heartbreaking for its being only for tonight. ‘I love you, Alim, I love you.'

His eyes were full of anguished love. How well he knew her; he knew she was saying goodbye. ‘I love you, Hana.' He pulled her into his arms, and all that was cold and dead in her came to beautiful life. ‘I love you.' And he kissed her.

Shouldn't, wouldn't, couldn't
all went out the window as she threw her arms around him and deepened the kiss to beautiful, pure passion that sent dark memories of Mukhtar's one attempt to arouse her spinning to the mental garbage. This didn't make her feel shamed or dirty, because it was Alim…