The Sheik's Secret Bride (19 page)

Her daughter’s pain cut through Liana like a knife. She knew that Chuck had let his daughter down, but until she heard Bethany glory in a man who picked her up when he said he would and took a few minutes to give her attention, she hadn’t realized how deep the wound went in her little girl. Tears flowed down
Bethany
’s cheeks and caused Liana’s eyes to burn as well.

How was she supposed to explain that what
Malik
had done was wrong? That no man, prince or not, could trap a woman against her will? But
Bethany
wouldn’t see marriage to
Malik
as a trap. For her it was
a dream come
true.

“I’m sorry,” Liana murmured, holding her daughter close. “I wish I could explain it better. We’re going to have to stay for a month, but that’s all. I want you to enjoy your time here, but don’t forget it’s just for a short time and then we must go home.”

Bethany
pressed against her shoulder and sobbed as if her heart were breaking. Which it probably was, Liana thought grimly. Sometimes being a parent was the hardest job in the world.

“I’m going to pray every night that we get to stay,”
Bethany
said, her voice still thick with tears. “I’m going to ask God to change your mind and make you want to stay here.” She raised her head and sniffed. “Or maybe you could fall in love with Prince
Malik
and then you’ll never want to leave.”

And pigs could fly, Liana thought.
In love with
Malik
?
Yeah, right.
In what lifetime?
The man had bullied her from the moment she’d set foot in his country. He’d brought her to the palace against her will, he’d tricked her into marriage and now who knows what more he expected?

Liana swallowed against the sudden tightness in her throat.
Bethany
stared up at her with such hope that she couldn’t help wishing there was a way to give her daughter everything she wanted.
Malik
had been good to her daughter, she admitted grudgingly. He’d been consistent and patient. From what Liana could tell he actually liked spending time with her.

He was also incredible in bed, not that his skills there excused anything or made the slightest bit of difference to her. All right, so he was good-looking and intelligent. And maybe their talk on the way to the desert had given her some insight into the stress of his life. After all, where did a Crown Prince go at the end of the day? How did he relax and to whom did he talk? From what she’d been able to tell,
Malik
was very much alone. So she was the tiniest bit honored that he felt he could trust her enough to share some of his life with her. But that didn’t excuse one thing he’d done and there was no way in this lifetime that she was ever going to do something so incredibly stupid as to fall in love with the man.

Later that afternoon,
Malik
returned to his father’s office. They’d both had urgent business to take care of, but the conversation about
Malik’s
marriage to Liana Archer couldn’t be put off forever.

Malik
knew the questions his father would have. Questions any sane person might ask. Why had he done it?
Malik
had asked himself the same question, but he wasn’t sure he was willing to share the answer with anyone. He could barely acknowledge it himself. Except for that one moment when he’d realized that
Bilal
had prepared for a wedding, not a welcoming,
Malik
had felt as if he could finally touch all he’d ever wanted. His decision had been impulsive. He might have to pay for it for the rest of his life, but he couldn’t regret it.

He walked into his father’s private office and found the older man waiting there, along with
Fatima
. He greeted them both, then stood in front of the sofa and braced his feet. An American expression came to mind—the best defense was a good offense. He glared at his father.

“You contacted
Bilal
and changed the ceremony,”
Malik
said.

King
Givon
shrugged. “I might have suggested something of the sort, but I never thought you’d go through with it.”

“Of course you did. Otherwise why bother?”

Fatima
leaned forward. Elegant as always, the Queen Mother looked much younger than her nearly eighty years. “
Malik
, it’s been so long since you’ve showed any interest in a woman. We thought we would plant the seed in your mind that she might be someone worth pursuing.” She waved a slender hand. “If you’d married her and not bedded her, or if you’d at least told her the truth, the marriage could have been annulled.”

Malik
drew his eyebrows together. “You meddled in my life and now you’re concerned because you got what you wanted?”

Fatima
sighed. “It seems we might have misjudged the situation. Liana is not one to take kindly to being tricked into marriage.”

“I can’t blame her for that,” he said blandly.

“But you’re the one who tricked her,”
Givon
said forcefully. “Why did you do it?”

Malik
shrugged. “I was surprised when I realized what
Bilal
was doing. I thought about taking Liana and leaving, or even telling her the truth and letting her decide.” He paused. “But she would have said no. There was also the matter of offending
Bilal
and his people. So I married her without her knowledge because I wanted her for my wife.”

“But she’s not going to simply allow this to happen,”
Fatima
said. “She’s furious, and I’m not sure I blame her. Our ways are not her ways.” She stared at her grandson.
“Why this one?
Why do you want this woman?”

He didn’t know how to answer that. “She intrigues me.”

“Heidi intrigued you,” the queen pointed out. “She saw past the title and duties to the man inside. Why is Liana different?”

Malik
considered her statement. He’d known Heidi for years. As a teenager, she’d been a frequent visitor to the palace. Somehow his position had never impressed her. Even now she took great pleasure in teasing him unmercifully.

Malik
smiled at the memory. “Heidi was always for Jamal,” he said. “Even when we were younger, I knew they belonged together. And even if they hadn’t, she and I would not have been right together. My feelings for her are purely brotherly.
Nothing more.”

“You care for her very much,”
Fatima
reminded him.

“I know.” With Heidi he could feel almost human. It was an immeasurable gift.

“So, you have a month in which to win your new bride,” his grandmother said.
“A month in which to make her fall in love with you and a month for you to learn to love her back.”

Malik
nodded, agreeing with all but the last. He would do his best to win Liana—to make her fall in love with him. But he would never love her, or anyone. He could not. Love was a weakness he could not allow himself. That was a lesson he’d learned at a young age and one that had never left him.

Knowing he couldn’t put it off any longer,
Malik
went in search of Liana. They had to talk about all that had happened. By now she knew that she was no longer employed by the
American
School
. She might have even called the American consulate. He wasn’t sure what they would have told her. Perhaps the truth—that in El
Bahar
, a desert marriage was still valid, and that for the next month she was his wife.

Wife.
He turned the word over in his mind. He’d been married before. But
Iman
had taken that simple word—wife—and had made it into something evil. She had defiled their marriage bed and had humiliated him a thousand times over. Worse, she had weakened him in front of his countrymen. There could be no greater sin.

But Liana was not
Iman
, he reminded himself. He had seen the truth of Liana’s character reflected in the artless conversation of her charming daughter. A child repeats what it hears and learns, and
Bethany
spoke of a warm, loving woman with a generous heart. She confessed to times of loneliness and poverty, but only casually. Liana had given her child all she had. She could not be more different from
Iman
.

He paused outside the guest-room door. After knocking once, he entered and found her alone, standing by the French doors overlooking the
Arabian Sea
.

Sometime since he’d seen her last she’d changed her clothes, exchanging her traditional blue gown for jeans and a T-shirt. Her long blond hair hung loose about her shoulders and he couldn’t help remembering how it had felt brushing against his thighs the previous night when she’d knelt in front of him and taken him in her—

“What do you want?” she asked, continuing to stare out at the view. She hadn’t turned to face him, nor was there any anger in her voice. She sounded tired and resigned.

“Where’s
Bethany
?”

“She ran to tell the horses the good news. That she was going to be living in the palace and could see them every day. I’ve informed her that we’re only here until the month is up, but she’s hoping for a miracle.”

Liana slowly turned to face him. She wasn’t wearing any makeup and her skin was pale. Except for the henna staining her hands, she looked like a typical American woman ready for a casual Saturday of housework and errands.

“I’ve been standing here trying to make sense of it all,” she said, raising her gaze to his face. “The truth is
,
I can’t. Why did you do this,
Malik
? Why did you trick me into marriage?”

“I didn’t know the ceremony had been changed until we arrived in the camp. Once I realized what they were doing, I went along with them.”

“Why?”

“I needed a wife.”

She stared at him.
“As simple as that?
No
explanations,
or excuses?”

“Do you want to hear any?”

“Not really.”

“I thought as much. So why bother? I’ve told you the truth.”

“You needed a wife?” She shook her head in disbelief. “Okay, say I buy that. Why me? There must be hundreds, no, thousands of women more suited to the task. I don’t know the first thing about your world. I don’t have family connections or the training. My idea of high fashion is buying a cotton blouse that’s not on sale. I don’t know how to make political small talk with visiting dignitaries, and I’m sure not beautiful enough to grace a magazine cover.”

Malik
studied her critically. Technically, she might not have the classic features of a beauty, but when he looked at her, he saw pure loveliness.
The face of the woman with whom he could almost be himself.
Someone worth bothering about.

“No man could be dissatisfied with your appearance,” he said.

“There’s a compliment.” She shoved her hands into her back pockets. “I don’t know what to say to you, or even what to think. My entire life is out of control.”

“Your life is very much in control.”

“Oh, yeah, and you’re the one doing the controlling. I hate that. Who gives you the right?”

“Ancient tradition allows—”

“Screw ancient traditions,” she said, interrupting him. She pulled her hands free of her pockets and approached him. “Who gave you the right to mess with my life and why on earth did you pick me?” She stopped a couple of feet in front of him and rubbed her temples. “Is that what the sex was all about? Did you do it just to keep me?”

How was he supposed to answer that? If they hadn’t made love, she would be free to leave him now. But that hadn’t been the reason he’d wanted to be with her. He weighed his options,
then
decided to speak the truth.

“If we hadn’t made love last night, I knew I would die.”
Perhaps not on the outside, but certainly in his soul where the last vestiges of his humanity clung by a thread.
Being with Liana had given him new life…if only for a short time.

She glared at him.
“Great line.
Did you think it up yourself?”

“It’s the truth.”

“Sure. And I’m the queen of…” Her voice trailed off.
“Never mind.
I might just be queen of something, after all.” She turned toward the window, then spun back to face him. “I don’t want this,” she told him. “I can’t believe I
came
half-way around the world only to end up with someone exactly like my ex-husband.”

Malik
stiffened. “Do not compare me with him. We are nothing alike.”

“Aren’t you? Chuck made all kinds of decisions without consulting me. He took our savings, which we had in theory agreed was for a down payment on a house, and bought a new race car and an engine and tires. He never asked
,
he just did what he wanted. Frankly, I can’t see that you’re any different.”