MARRYING HER ENEMY & STOLEN BY THE DESERT KING

by Connelly, Clare

  The sun rose early in Argenon – or it did at this time of year, anyway. She pushed up on one elbow to check her beside clock and frowned.

  Because the clock her eyes landed on had rubies set in its face.

  And it all came flooding back, drenching her memory like the water beneath the bed. She was in Khalifa’s room. She’d fallen asleep?

  Was that any surprise? They’d made love again and again, their bodies insatiable after several days apart. Her cheeks flamed when she recalled waking him up, her kiss on his chest dragging lower, to his belly, before his hands had snaked around her wrists and pulled her up, straddling her over him and taking her easily.

  Heat wrapped around her and she looked for him instinctively, but the room was empty.

  The bed too.

  Except for … she frowned – a frown that quickly gave way to a smile when she spied the little piece of fruit on his pillow. It was orange and round, and she knew that if she peeled it it would be the sweetest thing she’d ever eaten.

  He’d remembered?

  Her heart did a little gallop in her chest. She grabbed the fruit in the palm of her hand and pushed out of bed, practically skipping back to her own room.

  Aïna was tidying the bed, and Kylie’s blush deepened as she pushed the door shut. She had grabbed one of Khalifa’s robes without thinking and certainty that Aïna would know exactly where she’d been – and with whom – filled her with embarrassment.

  But Aïna’s smile was the same as always, her eyes kindly. “Good morning, madam.” She went back to arranging the pillows and then straightened. “Your clothes have been laid out and breakfast is waiting.”

  “Thank you.”

  Kylie’s smile was still thick with self-consciousness as she slipped from the room and moved to her enormous bathroom. She shut the door behind her, clicking the lock into place and began the water running. She took the fruit with her, peeling it distractedly, leaving the outside on the bathroom vanity while steam filled the room.

  They’d been married over five weeks and, besides the last week, they’d made love often. Always at his instigation. What did it mean that he’d left the door open? What did it mean that he’d welcomed her to his bed? Slept with his arm heavy across her chest, holding her close, breathing in synchronicity with her?

  Did it mean anything? Nothing? Was it simply an extension of what they’d been?

  She pushed a piece of the fruit into her mouth, groaning as the flavours travelled through her body, smiling as she thought of his sweetness in leaving it for her.

  Was it normal for how they’d been apart?

  But the door… the door had been open. Did that mean anything?

  She gnawed on her lower lip, flicking it between her teeth. Water ran down her body – every nerve ending was hyper-alert, and though they’d made love again and again, she wished on every star in the heavens that he was there in that moment, touching her again, his hands on her body, feeling her softness, kissing the fruit from her mouth.

  Her groan was almost primal; it came from the very centre of her being, the place where hopes, dreams, needs and genesis existed.

  It was still so early in the day and suddenly the idea of spending at least twelve hours without her husband’s touch was unbearable.

  She cut the water off and dried herself quickly, then dressed even faster, barely noticing the beauty of the pale yellow dress that had been selected for her. She slipped her feet into the matching shoes and looped her hair into a low bun.

  She didn’t bother with makeup. Just a wipe of moisturizer and some gloss on her lips, then she moved out to Aïna. She was talking to three of Kylie’s maids but they paused when Kylie entered.

  “Aïna? What is my husband’s schedule today?”

  Aïna’s eyes widened with a hint of surprise – not once had Kylie bothered to ask about Khalifa’s movements, and then she nodded, dismissing the maids. “I will check.”

  “Thank you.” She walked towards her balcony, staring out at the desert, her heart in her throat.

  Aïna didn’t take long. She reappeared with an ipad and handed it to Kylie. The schedule was written in Argenese. Kylie studied it thoughtfully. It was a busy day, mainly filled with governance issues. She tapped her finger on the side, a frown scored on her face.

  “Would you care for breakfast?”

  Right on cue, her stomach gave a low-pitched growl and she nodded, still studying the day her husband had ahead of him. So many meetings and across so many issues. Questions formed in her brain faster than she could answer them.

  She knew nothing of his duties and responsibilities, and suddenly, nothing mattered more to her than finding out.

  “Aïna? I need your help with something.”

  * * *

  Khalifa pushed into his room late that night, still puzzling over the predicament of the fourteenth precinct. Crime on the rise, a police force that seemed at best inept and at worst corrupt and a funding issue that he couldn’t explain.

  The unpleasant suspicion that government officials were mismanaging affairs sat heavily in his gut. So too the certainty that he would need to travel there himself to investigate.

  He didn’t see the fruit at first. But when he registered the small orange orb, he frowned. Had Kylie missed it that morning? Had she failed to understand he’d left it for her?

  He moved towards it unconsciously, lifting it before realizing it had been used as a paperweight. A single piece of paper sat beneath it, pale with golden edges.

  A frown on his face, he lifted it and unfolded it, unaware that a smile smudged his lips to see her writing.

  From here I can see the mountain you conquered;

  From here I can see an ancient city.

  There were few places in the palace that boasted a view of both the desert and the town. He replaced the fruit and moved through the corridor that joined their rooms, his eyes automatically scanning her suite when he entered, looking for a sign of his wife.

  The doors to her balcony were open. He stepped out, looking for her. He found another piece of fruit and lifted it with undisguised curiosity.

  Eyes like onyx, hair like ash;

  Elegant and brave on a desert dash…

  It took Khalifa a moment to decode the clue but then he closed his eyes and pictured a beast with dark eyes and silver hair and he spun, replacing the fruit as he made his way out of Kylie’s suite. No hint of the day’s weariness remained.

  He practically sprinted out of the doors into the balmy night air.

  His horse was waiting, standing in the stables, saddled up with a note tucked under the bridle.

  Not quite as far as the mountains you showed me

  Travel that way though and then you will see…

  He laughed, lifting up onto the horse and giving him a kick forward. They rode as one, Khalifa low on the beast’s back, his eyes locked to the distance. It didn’t take long before he saw it – the glowing warmth of candles surrounding a calico tent.

  A smile crossed his face and something warmed him from the inside as he bent lower and rode faster.

  He dismounted at the same time he brought the horse to a stop, moving towards the tent with curiosity and … something else. Something he couldn’t quite put into words. Appreciation? Desire? A mix of the two?

  Four servants stood to the side of the tent but he barely registered their presence. His entire being was focused on his wife. He lifted the flap to the circus tent; and laughed.

  She was sitting in the middle of the space, legs crossed, in a long floaty dress, and balanced on her head was another piece of fruit.

  “Are you my final clue?” he asked with a grin.

  She nodded, dislodging the fruit so that it rolled over the brightly coloured mat beneath them, all the way to his feet. He crouched to scoop it up without taking his eyes off her.

  He peeled it, closing the space between them, his eyes locked to hers, then he pushed a quart of the fruit into his mouth. It was sweet, just as
always. He knelt in front of her, and his lips sought hers, pressing the juice of the fruit into her, watching as she tasted it and surrendered to its sweetness.

  “What is all this?” His question was gruff, surprising them both with an air of darkness to the words.

  “Well, Your Highness,” Kylie murmured. “I’ve been thinking.”

  “Yes? This much is obvious.”

  She grinned, and before he knew what she was doing, she pressed her hands to his chest and pushed him backwards, so that he leaned against the ground. She straddled him, but their clothes were a barrier to what was, otherwise, an invitation he was desperate to take up.

  “Over there,” she waved vaguely towards the palace, “you’re His Royal Highness Sheikh Sultan Khalifa Al Asouri. But here? You’re just a man who’s wandered into my tent.” She wiggled her brows and he laughed again.

  And ignored the fact he felt like the very laugh – the fact he was enjoying himself – was a betrayal to everything he knew. To the truth he kept from her, the feelings he knew he could never return.

  But was she right? Out here, beneath the ancient stars and inky sky, atop the sands that had seen wars and famine and triumph, could he simply be Khalifa?

  “I’ve fallen in love with you.” She said the words factually, as though they were discussing something as banal as the construction of the desert tent. “I don’t know when. I sure as hell don’t know how, given the … erm … manner of our interactions.”

  His eyes drew together and beneath her he shifted his weight, as though to dislodge her. But she stayed where she was, her finger pressed to his lips. “There is more going on here than either of us can explain. I have always believed my marriage to be a question of birthright and bloodlines – a matter of fate and destiny. Don’t you feel that, Khalifa? Don’t you feel the magic of what we are?”

  His breath was rough in his chest. He stared at her, his young wife, his beautiful wife, and guilt crushed him. “It… isn’t like that. It is not so simple.”

  And her smile could have set the world on fire. His breath latched in his throat as he saw the way it transformed her face, and transformed a part of him. “Out here it is.”

  Her kiss was gentle and sweet. A kiss akin to a smile. He felt it wrap around him and returned it. A kiss; a smile; a wish.

  “I believe the universe is ordered and sensible. I have always felt that life could be explained with the right equation.”

  He frowned, remembering belatedly that she’d studied mathematics at university. Now that he knew his wife better, it was an odd-seeming degree for her. No, not odd. Just not what he would have picked if given the choice.

  “Perhaps it’s because so much of my life didn’t make sense. Losing my parents… I spent years trying to fathom how the world could be so cruel. Knowing myself to be promised to another man, to another family… you’ve wondered at why I would carry on with that? Why I wouldn’t have run away from the wedding my parents had organized?”

  He was very still. Watchful.

  “I lost my family. I was alone in the world. But I wasn’t. Not really. There were other people out there who wanted me, who were fighting for me, who were giving me everything I could ever want because they needed to know I was happy. I belonged to a family even when I had none of my own.” Her eyes were suspiciously moist but she blinked away the hint of tears. “You hate the Haddads, but for a long time, I’ve loved them. If only because they wanted me when I was alone in the world.”

  Everything about her statement set him ablaze. The betrayal of her parents. The way she was turning the Haddad’s ownership of her life into a positive.

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because life is an equation and yet you didn’t have what you needed to make sense of me. I didn’t come here to marry Fayez because I felt obliged or because I’m weak or disempowered. I came because I have been desperate to belong to a family again.”

  He swept his eyes shut and his mind ran over the edges of her confession, moving quickly, decoding her algorithm, as she’d said. And everything about her explanation led him to one answer only.

  “Which perfectly explains why you believe yourself in love with me, azeezi. But it is just as much an illusion as the Haddads love for you. You are so desperate to belong that you are inventing something between us that isn’t there.”

  He could see that she hadn’t expected him to say that. Her face fell, the smile slipping for the tiniest fraction of a second before it was hoisted firmly back in place.

  “You’re wrong.”

  She dipped down and kissed him, and though he kissed her back, his mind was reeling.

  He wasn’t wrong; he never was. His wife, so strong and independent, had never seemed so vulnerable to him.

  Chapter 12

  HIS TRIP TO THE fourteenth precinct came at a perfect time.

  Though it had been amazing in many ways, like something out of the ancient fables that he’d grown up hearing, their night in the desert had also left him with a knot of uncertainty. He needed to clear his head and put space between himself and his wife – and the business to the south required his urgent attention, so it wasn’t as though he’d fabricated an escape.

  So why had he felt so strange leaving her in the small hours of the morning, three days earlier? He’d watched her sleeping and thought about waking her. About making love to her one last time before he left, as though he could imprint her on himself somehow. If only he loved her often enough, he could carry a small part of her with him.

  Odd thoughts that didn’t fit the truth of what they were, yet having spent four nights alone, his body was aching for her in a way that was making all rational thought impossible.

  “You had me sent for?”

  He blinked, his eyes blinded momentarily by the light that streamed into the parlour. His palace in the South was not large. Not, at least, compared to the principal palace. But it was beautiful and fine and the light fell through the door with a speckled pattern, courtesy of the ancient glass that was set in its frame.

  “Yes. Have a seat.” His eyes narrowed as he watched Selena walk across the room. She looked good. Not just good – well. Healthy. And happy. Her skin glowed and her hair shone. Her eyes too, if such a thing were possible.

  Out of nowhere he saw Kylie’s eyes, green like a cat’s and huge in her small face.

  His gut twisted.

  “Something bothers you,” Selena murmured, ignoring his instruction and crossing to him instead, placing a kiss on his cheek before kneeling at his feet. The greeting was one she didn’t need to observe. It was that of a servant to their master. It bothered him. He reached for her hand and tugged on it, encouraging her to stand.

  She smiled at him, a smile of warmth and friendship, and took the seat beside him. He didn’t immediately release his grasp on her fingers.

  “Yes.”

  She studied him thoughtfully; he felt the heat of her gaze on his profile and it only annoyed him more. He stood jerkily, crossing to the other side of the room and pouring a fragrant iced tea. “For you?”

  She shook her head, worry etched into her features. “Sheikh Sultan, you must tell me…”

  He laughed. “I know you’re cross with me when you use my title.”

  She batted her long, curling lashes and shook her head. “I could never be cross with you.”

  “Don’t be so certain.”

  “What have you done?” She pushed. “Is it the business here? I’ve heard about the gangs…”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I have a plan for that.” He thought of the chief of police he was going to relocate from the eighth precinct, confident that the right team would return civic safety to the streets. “This is a personal matter.”

  “A personal matter?” Selena pulled a face. “A personal matter for you?”

  He expelled a sigh. “It has to do with my … wife.”

  “Ah, yes, your wife. Tell me, Khalifa, how come there have been no receptions
welcoming her to Argenon? Is that not the usual procedure?”

  “I’m giving her a chance to settle in,” he said without meeting Selena’s eyes. And then winced. He had ordered Selena to come to him, though it had meant two flights and a long drive. He owed it to her to be truthful. “I’m worried.”

  “What about? She’s your bride. What do you think can happen?”

  He dragged a hand over the back of his neck, easing aching muscles. Muscles that he wished in that moment Kylie was touching.

  He pushed the thought aside.

  “I haven’t told you everything about her.”

  “No, you’ve told me precisely nothing about her,” Selena agreed. “And I, one of your oldest friends.”

  He nodded slowly. “My wife is Australian,” he said jerkily, the words the beginning of a story he thought perhaps he should have spoken earlier. “And she was not intended to be my bride.”

  “But you fell in love?” Selena teased, clasping her hands in front of her neat chest, her eyes sparked by mischief. “And people say you’re not romantic.”

  “We did not fall in love,” he said, ignoring the lie that was implied by the words. After all, Kylie claimed to love him. Guilt whipped across his back. “I stole her.”

  Selena was very still, suddenly, as his words clapped around the room. She was a staunch advocate for women’s rights, for the advancement of women in Argenon society. “You cannot steal a person, Khalifa. Not if they do not wish to be stolen.”

  I wanted so badly to belong; to be a part of a family.

  “She wanted to be married,” he said awkwardly. “And was prepared to marry a man she didn’t know. A man I believe would have hurt her badly.”

  “So you played the white knight and carried her to your bed? What am I missing? You do not need to marry a woman to save her from a disastrous marriage. You are ruler of the country. Your word is law. You could have prevented the marriage with a single act.”

  “Preventing the marriage wasn’t enough.” The words were a low growl. “I found myself wanting to do more. I knew that marrying her would be both an insult and punishment to the man’s pride.”