MARRYING HER ENEMY & STOLEN BY THE DESERT KING

by Connelly, Clare

  “Do you think he’s trying to tell you something?” Mel asked over her coffee, watching as Kylie carried the flowers inside and placed them somewhat unceremoniously on the occasional table near the balcony doors.

  “No idea,” Kylie shrugged with an air of non-concern. “I’m going for a run.”

  She ran faster and harder than ever before, and it was only when she stopped to catch her breath that she realised two things. She was crying. Her face was wet with tears and perspiration.

  And she’d come towards the harbour. Towards the boat ramp that had housed his mega yacht. Her eyes scanned the water hungrily and saw what, somewhere in her heart of hearts she’d known she was looking for.

  His boat was there, the flag of Argenon flying in the early morning breeze. Kylie sucked in a breath and turned around, needing to run. To run further, faster. Only a few minutes later she swore, a word violently sucked from her being.

  She needed to put an end to this.

  With a determined glint in her eyes, she turned back to the craft and began to run, one foot in front of the other and then the other until she was there, staring down the gangplank of a boat that she’d been on only once before… and under such difference circumstances!

  She groaned, her stomach in knots, her determination wavering. What if he wasn’t onboard?

  What if he was?

  “Good morning, your highness.”

  She jumped at least an inch off the ground, whirling around to see a guard of Argenon watching her, his face blank of emotion. “Oh. I…”

  “Would you like to come onboard?”

  She stared back at the guard as though he’d sprouted two heads. Would she? Did she dare?

  “Yes. Just for a moment,” she said distractedly, anxiety pummelling her insides, sweat coating her outsides.

  “Certainly.” He pressed a code on the gate to his left and the doors sprung open, inviting her to the bridge which would lead to the deck. With fingers that shook, she gripped the railing, moving with a sense of sinking dread towards the boat.

  The second her foot hit the deck, she saw him. Standing at the front of the boat (how come she still hadn’t learned the proper terminology?), his arms crossed, his eyes locked to the horizon.

  He turned though, as if sensing her presence. There was a wariness in him. An emotion she hadn’t encountered before in her powerful husband.

  And she wanted to run to him so badly! To push her legs into service, to close the distance, to throw herself against his broad chest, to wrap her arms and legs around his body and bring her mouth to his.

  But that was just a physical response, and hadn’t she decided they led her astray?

  And so she walked with as much dignity as she could muster, given that she was in her exercise gear and her hair was a wild mane down her back. She walked, but not all the way. Proximity brought dangers of its own. She paused at the edge, a hand on the railing, safety hidden in the metres that lurched between them.

  She didn’t bother with a polite greeting – what a waste of words.

  “I want you to stop leaving things at my door. I want you to leave me alone.”

  His eyes swept closed for a moment, and she thought she glimpsed actual pain in his face. But it was a lie. Like everything about them.

  “I can’t.”

  Her chest squeezed painfully. She sucked in a breath, trying to breath whole into the hollow.

  “Yes, you can. Just stop. Stop coming to me. Stop making me remember things I would much rather forget.”

  He took a step towards her and the delicate safety boundaries she’d established were eroded away. She moved backwards.

  “Why do you want to forget?”

  “Because. It should never have happened. It was stupid. Like a bad dream. And I want to pretend it was. I want to pretend you never existed. That he never existed. That Argenon never existed. I can’t do that if you’re leaving kothraki on my doorstep.”

  “Did you eat it?”

  “No. Of course not. I threw it out.”

  “You threw it out?” His eyes flashed with an emotion she didn’t understand but Kylie shrugged. What did it matter?

  “I don’t want anything that reminds me of you, okay? Please, just leave me alone.”

  “I tried to.” The words were torn from him, almost against his will. “I tried so hard to let you go, but I can’t. I’m sorry. I can’t let you go, azeezi.”

  She froze, her eyes wide, her lips parted. “Well, you have to. I live here now.”

  “Why?”

  The question caught her by surprise, wrong-footing her somewhat. “What do you mean?”

  “Why do you live here, instead of with me?” He took another step and this time she was so distracted by his questioning that she didn’t move away from him.

  “Because it’s my home.”

  “Is it?” He pressed a finger beneath her chin and the contact seared her flesh. She jerked away from him.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  “Because you can’t bear it,” he murmured, reminding her of their last encounter when she’d insisted exactly that.

  “Yes.” She ground her teeth together.

  “Because he touched you.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut and angled her body away. “No.”

  She heard, rather than saw, his sigh. “He threatened you. And he forced you to drink alcohol. He kissed you and he touched you. And you blame me.”

  Kylie sucked in a breath, his words opening wounds she had welded shut with the force of determination. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Fine. We don’t have to talk about it. But I’m not letting you run away either.”

  She whipped around, the accusation galling, all things considered. “I’m not running away! Our marriage served its purpose, didn’t it? You got back at him. Again and again. Believe me, he was livid. Great job. So leave me alone!”

  “I will not.” He moved closer, and when she flinched, he simply wrapped his arms around her and brought her body to his. She stayed resolutely unyielding, her body firm, her manner unwelcoming.

  But Khalifa held her and stroked her back and whispered in her ear and the slick of tears wet her cheeks once more. She sobbed against his chest, the grief and shock of that day welling inside of her and finally bursting the banks of the dam and she gave into his embrace, softening against him, taking strength from him. Needing him, just a little bit, and accepting that need.

  “I’m sorry,” he spoke the word soft and slow, caressing the sentiment against her ear, breaking it over her flesh. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  She shook her head, tired and angry. “Don’t. Don’t say sorry. Don’t act like you care…”

  “Oh, Lanaria, I didn’t think I did. I spent our marriage fighting you, fighting this, and I fought so hard that I blinded myself. How did I not realise what you mean to me?”

  He lifted his hands and cupped her cheeks, holding her face to his. “I married you to avenge Fayez’s past, yes. But truly, I don’t know if that’s true. I can’t say when this became about you and me, and no one else, but it has been for almost the whole time.”

  “Don’t.” She pulled away from him, his sweetness angering her more. “I don’t believe you.”

  “You must. Because I watched you walk away from me, and our marriage, and I told myself you deserved that freedom; you deserve to choose. But this last month has been a living nightmare. I need you in my life, Kylie.”

  “You need me in your bed. A fact you made abundantly clear over the course of our short marriage.”

  “Yes.” A dark, dusky groan. “I love you in my bed. That’s true.” He smothered a wry grimace. “But it’s more than that, just like you said.”

  “Like I said and you denied.”

  “Yes! I was an idiot! I thought I knew what love felt like. I thought I’d been in love before. I hadn’t. I’ve never known anything like this. What I felt for Selena was… admiration. Adoration. I wanted to prote
ct her and make her smile. That’s all. Love isn’t like that; not in my very recent experience. It’s not sanitary and contained. It’s all-consuming, and it’s wild and it’s surprising. I had no idea I felt this for you – I knew only that you came to take over every part of my life and my mind, so that without you there was nothing. Darkness. Desperation. Depression. And I am not a man who so easily admits these things to another soul. I tell you this so you can understand why I am here… because I can’t not be. Because I need you. I need you. Not because of Fayez. Not even because you are my wife. Because you are my other half and I recognise that with all of my body, my heart and my mind. Please, come home with me.”

  She sobbed, shaking her head from side to side even as his words passed like a rainbow into all her dark places, bringing joy and euphoria to the saddest aching holes of her being.

  “I thought that letting you go would set us both free. That I would start to breathe again. To feel like myself, and instead I have been suffocating. But I will go again, I will leave you, if you tell me now that it is truly what you want. If you can tell me that you have not been as agonisingly alone as I have been. If you have not been needing me like I have you. Tell me you want me to go, Kylie. Tell me you really want this to end and I will respect your wishes.”

  Pride, something she felt she’d lacked in the early part of their relationship, begged her to be strong. “I want you to go.”

  The words were a gauntlet. A threat and a challenge. A slap that kerthunked around the boat and slammed into his side. He reached for the railing, turning to the sea, gripping the metallic side of the boat with both hands.

  “This is truly how you feel?”

  She nodded, but her throat was thick with emotion and her eyes were wet with tears. “Don’t you see?” The words came out strangled. She cleared her throat; tried again. “I’ve spent my whole life without love but now that I’ve known it… I can’t come back with you. I can’t live in a marriage that has the power to rip me apart. I’ve already felt that. I can’t… I won’t risk it.”

  “I don’t want to rip you apart.” He shook his head, his eyes meeting hers with obvious urgency. “I want to put you back together. I want to remove every lingering hurt he inflicted, every pain I’ve given you, and then I want to hold you close and love you for the rest of your life. Love you like you have never dreamed of being loved. I want you in my bed, by my side, as my wife, a ruler of Argenon, a friend and counsel. I want you to laugh with me, to ride with me, to swim with me. I want you. All of you.”

  His words were so sweet. A balm she needed.

  But she had been stupid. Vulnerable. Gullible. She’d been it all before! What she needed, more than anything, was a guarantee – and there were no such things. Faced with the pain she’d already weathered and soul-withering loneliness, she knew which she would choose. She’d been alone before and survived. But you hadn’t known Khalifa then, a frustrating little voice chirruped in her mind. She ignored it. For the most part.

  Was the voice right?

  Should she take a risk?

  No. She couldn’t.

  “So prove it.”

  He blinked, his dark eyes showing his confusion. “Prove it?”

  “Sure. Prove to me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you mean what you just said.”

  “How?”

  She shrugged, tears sparkling on her lashes. “I don’t know. I don’t even know if it’s possible. But I’m done being stupid. I’m done taking chances. I’d rather be alone than live in misery, married to a man I know will never love me like I … like I want to be loved.”

  “And what if I am that man?”

  “You’re not.” Her voice cracked on the small rebuttal. “If you were … if you were … you would never have treated me like you did.”

  His jaw clenched together in silent acknowledgement of her words. “A mistake I do not intend to make twice.”

  Chapter 15

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING here?”

  Khalifa held a coffee cup out to Kylie, and her heart ratcheted up a gear with the pleasure of seeing her husband. Two days had passed since the day on the boat. Two days in which she’d wondered if he’d left the country and given up on her completely.

  “You asked me to show you why you should stay married to me.” He said it as a statement – a firm, unquestionable commitment.

  Kylie shook her head, and as Khalifa’s eyes drifted downwards, flaring wide with a heat she knew to be sensual in nature, she became distinctly aware of her state of undress. The nightgown she’d thrown on twelve hours earlier had not had an audience in mind and revealed far too much of her flesh to be in the company of this man.

  She crossed her arms defensively and he jerked his eyes upwards, his look so searing in its intensity that her heart rabbited hard in her chest and her stomach flipped over itself.

  “I asked you to prove to me that I can trust you not to hurt me again,” she pointed out, the words thickened by a corresponding rush of heat and need that was firing her blood.

  “Yes. And I intend to.” He took a step inside her apartment, brushing against her as he moved through the doorway, so that her senses were instantly charged with awareness. His scent, his strength, his warmth. She spun away, needing to regroup desperately.

  “Drink your coffee while you dress for the day, azeezi. I will wait.”

  “You’ll wait,” she repeated, this turn of events completely unexpected.

  “As long as it takes.” His eyes held hers and her throat constricted. The air in the room was thick, suddenly, as though she was fogged on all sides. She swallowed. It didn’t help.

  “I’m sorry for hurting you.” The words were hoarse with emotion. “I am sorry for lying to you. And for what he did to you.”

  “That’s not your fault.” She whispered the response, squeezing her eyes shut on a wave of remembering.

  “It is all my fault.” He took a step towards her, and she held her breath, waiting, wondering, if he was to touch her. To obliterate the feelings that were yawning inside of her.

  But he didn’t. At least, not physically. His eyes caressed her, though, and she felt them as though he was reaching for her.

  “I love you.” The words washed over her like a warm, salty wave. She felt them wrap her in the density of their necessity, and she swallowed them up, expelling a soft groan as they penetrated the last crevices that doubt had scored inside of her.

  “I…” She closed her mouth, not sure what she wanted to say. Not sure how she could answer. And then her feet were moving, pushing her towards him, and he was meeting her, wrapping her in his arms, his lips finding hers, and his kiss was so sweet and so perfect that she groaned, wrapping her arms around his neck.

  He lifted her off the ground, holding her body to his, kissing her as though his whole life depended on it and she kissed him back, answering his need.

  But it was over too quick. He pulled away, his eyes meeting hers with a mix of approbation and frustration. “This could get carried away.”

  She nodded and pressed her body closer to his. “I want to get carried away.” The words were groggy. Heavy with sensual need.

  “The next time we make love will be in our bed in Argenon.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Go and get dressed. Preferably in something dull and over-sized.”

  She arched a brow at both directives but spun on her heel, weaving through the apartment and into her room. Dull and over-sized? So that he wouldn’t want her? She shook her head. That was hardly fair, given that one look in his direction and she felt ready to combust. She pulled a pale yellow dress from the wardrobe. It fit like a glove, and while it had a modest neckline and clung to the knees, it hugged her body so tightly that it left little to the imagination. She fluffed her hair and pinched her cheeks then grabbed a floral print kimono and slung it over her shoulders, slid her feet into sandals and moved out of the room. He was staring at pictures on the wall when she emerged, but he turned instantly and his eyes took their t
ime, dragging from the top of her head to her feet and back.

  “This is not what I had in mind.”

  “No,” she nodded, a hint of defiance in her eyes. “Is that a problem?”

  “Of course not.” He padded a thumb over her cheek, his eyes sparking with emotion and her stomach lurched. He dropped his hand to hers, catching it, lifting it to his lips, and then walking with her through the apartment. As they passed the kitchen he paused, his eyes landing on the fruit bowl.

  “I thought you said you threw it out?”

  Her cheeks flushed at the lie. “I… meant to.”

  He laughed. “I’m glad you didn’t. I’m glad you gave it a second chance.”

  And, as their day sped by, Kylie had to admit she was similarly glad she’d at least left the door open a crack for her husband. After breakfast on his boat they’d gone to the Little Minds office, so that Kylie could see all of the children she’d worked with in the past. Khalifa admitted to having given the enormous donation and pledged an ongoing annuity which would make it possible for Little Minds to expand with confidence.

  They had lunch at the Argenese embassy and Kylie saw that an enormous portrait of her was hanging beside his. “I had them done as a surprise,” he murmured, wrapping an arm around her waist and bringing her close.

  And finally, they’d walked hand in hand along the soft sands of Bondi as the sun had dipped down.

  “I didn’t believe in fate until I met you.” His face was bathed in gold, and the water made soft lapping noises beside them.

  “Didn’t you?”

  “No. I believed in myself. How arrogant I was to think I could use you like I’d intended.” He shook his head. “What a fool! I deserved everything that happened to me.”

  “And what happened to you?”

  He stopped walking, his fingers curling around hers. “I met my match.” His wink was teasing, but his face was serious. “I met the one person on earth who can bring me to my knees. The one person I would do anything for. Anything. I met you.” He stroked his thumb over her hand and Kylie wanted, so badly, to give into the optimism and hope that beat in her breast.