Undressed by the Boss (Mills & Boon By Request) (21 page)

‘Because there’s not that much to love? Because your definition of love and my definition are worlds apart?’

‘Why can’t you believe you’re worth loving, Casey?’

‘Average loving between two people I can buy into; family loving I can buy into. Loving a friend—I understand that too. But you’re a—’

‘A king?’ Raffa threw back his head and laughed.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘I’m a man,’ he said. ‘A man who loves a woman. I’m a man who wants one particular woman and can think of no other woman at his side. I want you to have my babies—lots of them. And I want you to help me with the development and growth of my country. And as for love—I want you to have it all.’

‘And you haven’t mistaken me for someone else?’

‘If you don’t want to stay—’

‘You’ll let me go?’ she said, confident he was asking her to give him the easy way out.

‘No,’ he argued. ‘I’ll make you my captive virgin of the desert.’

‘It’s a bit late for that.’

‘But not too late to smile, to hope—and, yes, even to dream.’

‘You can’t see what I’m thinking behind my veil,’ Casey said confidently, drawing the fabric over her face.

‘Ah, but you’d be surprised at just how much your eyes can tell me.’

‘The secret language of the veil,’ she murmured.

‘What?’

‘The secret language of the veil,’ Casey repeated. ‘I speak it and you understand.’

‘Like a true A’Qabani,’ Raffa agreed, lips tugging in wry amusement as he took the veil and moved it away. ‘But I prefer to look at your face, Casey Michaels. Because this is the face of the woman who’s going to stand at my side as my equal, and never, ever doubt herself again.’

T
HEY
chose a Bedouin ceremony. Or had the Bedouin chosen it for them? Casey wondered, stealing a glance through the heavy curtain over her bridal tent. It hardly mattered; she felt happy here—as if she belonged.

The women whose task it was to dress her were already gathering in small excited groups, adding to her own almost unbearable sense of anticipation. Her parents had been over in the country for a week and loved everything about the desert kingdom. They were already planning to seek instruction at the hands of the women who understood the seductive techniques of the silken veil.

The famed Bedouin hospitality and cultural heritage, together with the A’Qabani traditions of music, dance and art, had quickly won over all Casey’s friends and family, and if her parents found the thought of their daughter becoming a queen bewildering, they hid it well.

But who could resist Raffa? Casey wondered, watching him lead some of his men off to the desert on horseback at a gallop. He had been doing this for the past week—no doubt to work off some of his surplus energy. As tradition demanded he had been forced to keep away from her during this time. And if he was finding it hard, she was going mad for him, Casey thought dry-mouthed, pulling back from her vantage point.

Fortunately the women arrived at that moment to distract her.
They were going to decorate her hands and feet with intricate swirls of henna, and she had made hot sweet mint tea and
gahwa,
the intensely aromatic A’Qabani coffee, to welcome them. This
Laylat al Henna
ceremony was their gift to her of beauty, luck and health, and while they gathered in the privacy of her pavilion, like so many vivid butterflies, Casey found herself hoping some of their natural grace would rub off. She needed all the henna she could get, Casey concluded as the women got to work.

Musicians outside the tent provided a rhythmic background for these activities, playing an upbeat riff on the
dalouka,
a big drum, and on the one-stringed
rababa
violin. Some of the men must be dancing too, Casey realised, hearing their guttural shouts and the crack of whips as they stamped their feet on the hard, hot earth. There had been a riot of music and colourful dancing pretty much non-stop in the Bedouin encampment since Raffa had finally persuaded her that he was actually proposing she do more than stay in the country to work. There were banners and pennants everywhere, and even the horses boasted jostling tassels and silver bells on their saddle cloths, along with yet more silver in the form of coins on their gleaming leather bridles and brow bands.

And the bride? She had been bathed in scented water and massaged with sweet-smelling unguents during the traditional
Al Aadaa,
while the women teased Raffa until he agreed to pay, as tradition demanded, for their decorating his bride. And now this …

Casey examined her henna-decorated hands and feet in awe. ‘I have never seen anything more beautiful. You’re amazing,’ she exclaimed.

‘Don’t commit yourself to that statement until you have seen this,’ one of the young women told her.

‘What is it?’

‘The gifts that have arrived from your husband …’

Casey opened the stunning golden casket cautiously. Her eyes widened as she drew a sharp intake of breath. The fabulous sapphire necklace she had seen in Raffa’s strong room was there,
together with bracelets and earrings, and even ankle chains of blue-white diamond links. But beneath it all there was a simple roll of quite modern looking paper. Tied with raffia, there was a message tucked into its bow. Pulling it out, she read, ‘I wanted to give you the jewellery, but I know you’ll like this best. R.’

Still frowning, Casey glanced up to see the expectant faces of the women gathered around her. ‘I’ve no idea what this can be,’ she confided as she carefully brought out the scroll.

‘Why don’t you open it and find out?’ one of them prompted as they all exchanged excited glances.

‘You know, don’t you?’ Casey challenged them, starting to laugh. The young woman who had spoken out was the schoolteacher. She unrolled the sheet of paper carefully to find the children had drawn and painted a picture of Raffa and herself, hand in hand. ‘When did they do this?’

‘The same day you visited them,’ the teacher told her, hiding her smiles behind her hand. ‘It was the one picture they could all agree on.’

‘They knew? They knew before I did?’ Casey scratched her head in a most un-queenly manner.

‘Children know far more than we give them credit for,’ the young woman told her, already reaching for the fabulous jewels Raffa had sent as a wedding gift. ‘As you will find out …’

She was dressed in a robe of crimson silk, with silver coins decorating the chiffon veil covering her hair. More silver twinkled at her ankles and on her wrist, and round her neck the rich blue sapphires competed with the azure of her eyes. She was taken to Raffa’s black camelhair tent on a freshly shampooed and muzzled camel, sitting on a
houdach,
a specially adapted and ultra-comfortable saddle. She found Raffa waiting for her at the entrance. Dressed in a simple black robe, his head uncovered and his earring glinting in the late-afternoon sun, he might have been any A’Qabani waiting for his bride—apart from the very wicked expression in his eyes. That was how he
liked it and how she liked it too—no pomp and ceremony, just Raffa, the man, and the woman he loved. Theirs was a marriage of equals, Raffa had told her, his slumberous eyes turning solemn for once.

He helped her dismount, carefully arranging the folds of her robe and her veil, while the crowd stood hushed and tense around them. The touch of his hand was electrifying. She’d missed him. She’d missed his strength, his humour, his fast mind and his sex. However shallow that made her, she’d missed that most of all, Casey realised wryly as Raffa led her by the hand towards the elders of the village who were to perform the age old rites.

‘Sheikha.’

‘Sheikha Casey?’ Casey whispered with concern to Raffa, as the old man began to intone the words of the marriage ceremony. Had Raffa forgotten something? She began to worry when he didn’t respond. What she hadn’t realised was that he would address the crowd before the ceremony was over …

Casey had heard love expressed in words before, and she was addicted to love poetry, but to hear Raffa speak of her as his gift, his
atija,
a gift that had come to him unexpectedly and that he wanted to share with his people, was more than she had ever expected to hear from him.

‘Sheikha
Atija,’
he said, taking Casey’s right hand in his when his oration had ended. ‘If you don’t like the name,’ he whispered close to her ear, ‘you can choose another one.’

‘I love it,’ she assured him—full of delighted surprise. ‘Like the shawl you donated to the auction, it’s what I am—sensible and serviceable.’

‘Keep that last thought in mind,’ Raffa murmured without a flicker of expression on his face to betray the path his thoughts were taking. ‘I’m well overdue a service …’

‘So, are you happy with your new name?’ Raffa asked Casey later, when they were lazing on their enormous marriage bed in a secluded pavilion.

‘I’m very pleased with it.’

‘That’s good.’ Winding a lock of her glossy blonde hair around his finger to bring her close, he explained, ‘As that is the case, honour demands you please me in return.’

‘Oh, well, I’m sure I’ll think of something.’

‘I’m sure you will. Would you like to put my honour to the test?’

‘I intend to do so constantly,’ she assured him.

* * * * *

Nicola Marsh
has always had a passion for writing and reading. As a youngster, she devoured books when she should have been sleeping, and later kept a diary whose content could be an epic in itself! These days, when she’s not enjoying life with her husband and sons in her home city of Melbourne, she’s at her computer, creating the romances she loves, in her dream job. Visit Nicola’s website at www.nicolamarsh.com for the latest news of her books.

For my blog readers, who cheered me on with this one every step of the way.
Thanks, you’re the best!

B
ETHANY WALKER
stuck her tongue out at her reflection as she twirled in front of the floor-length mirror.

‘I look gross.’

Her cousin Lana smirked. ‘I officially pronounce you a bona fide nerd.’

‘I do look like a nerd, don’t I?’

Lana, queen of the nerds and loving it, pushed her tortoise-shell glasses further up her nose as her serious gaze travelled from the tips of Beth’s low-heeled black pumps to the top of her blonde hair pulled back in a tight bun.

‘You look exactly how a proper tour guide should. You’ll fit in at the museum, no worries.’

Beth screwed up her nose as she smoothed the stiff cotton of her ultra-plain white blouse. ‘How could you wear such hideous clothes?’

Lana quirked an eyebrow and picked up Beth’s discarded apple-green midriff top and cut-off denim shorts from the floor. ‘I could ask you the same question.’

‘Touché, cuz. Touché.’

Beth grinned, eternally grateful for the close relationship she shared with her cousin.

From the first moment Lana had stood up to her, a mousy six-year-old who refused to back down when the boisterous, pushy pain in the butt she used to be had tried to wrestle a doll out of her hands, their friendship had been cemented.

‘Anything else you want me to cram before I do this? Any last minute pep talk? Instructions? Ways to bore the entire city of Melbourne senseless as they troop through the museum?’

The corners of Lana’s mouth twitched. ‘There is one more thing.’

‘What?’

She didn’t like the gleam in her cousin’s eye, the one that screamed she wasn’t done turning a swan into an ugly duckling just yet.

‘Here.’ Lana opened the top drawer of her dresser and reached into the back. ‘You need to wear these to complete the look.’

Her heart sank as she saw the ugliest pair of glasses she’d ever laid eyes on resting on her cousin’s outstretched palm.

Shaking her head, she held up her hands in protest. ‘Uh-uh. No way. Haven’t I done enough? You’ve dressed me, prepped me, turned me into another you. You can’t make me wear those!’

Lana cracked up. ‘I know, I’m just kidding around. Though I hear these are the latest fashion statement for all the cool tour guides this year.’

‘I bet.’

Beth rolled her eyes, grimacing at the ugly black-rimmed glasses, ignoring the faintest ring of ‘four eyes, four eyes’ in her ears.

If she’d hated being a brain as a kid she’d hated wearing glasses more and the memories had lasted way too long; long enough until she’d got a part-time job and earned enough money to buy contacts at the age of sixteen.

As for the old saying ‘guys didn’t make passes at girls who wore glasses’ it had been all too true in her case and she’d set about correcting that impression the second those contacts slipped in. She’d transformed from shy geek to flirty femme fatale and hadn’t looked back.

‘You sure? It would complete your new look.’

Lana stood back, folded her arms and admired her handiwork while Beth felt like the bride of Frankenstein in her ugly shoes and uglier clothes.

‘You know I’m not really going to wear this get-up, don’t you? I’m merely doing this to humour you?’

‘Yeah, I know. You’ll probably rock up to the museum in a micro mini and halter top, right?’

‘Now that you mention it …’

Lana groaned. ‘Tell me again why I helped set up the interview for you.’

Beth patted her arm as she shimmied out of her cousin’s clothes and slipped back into her own, rehanging the awful suit and slamming the wardrobe door shut before she had to look at it for another second. ‘Because you think I’m the bee’s knees. Because blood is thicker than water. And any other soppy cliché you can think of.’

Lana’s mouth twitched, her patient expression one Beth had seen many times before. ‘So what are you really wearing?’

The image of her new David Lawrence raven pinstripe suit with the fabulous pencil skirt complete with flirty frill flashed across her mind and she did a little jig complete with arm twirl and cancan leg kicks.