Sheikhs: Rich, powerful desert kings and the women who bring them to their knees...

by Clare Connelly

  He laced his fingers through hers and lifted her hands out to the side. “You know, I’m suddenly impatient to take you home again.”

  Julia’s tongue darted out and moistened her dry lips. Since that first night they’d been together, she had become a keen student in the ways of passion, and her tutor was exquisitely talented. But the certainty that something was amiss was growing stronger.

  “That would be a waste of a trip,” she said in what she hoped was a mock-stern voice.

  “Indeed.” He pressed a kiss against her forehead and then reluctantly released her. “This way, my wife.”

  Together, they emerged from the cavernous corridor that went beneath the palace into a hill-side orchard. Lines and lines of shrub-like trees ran away from the palace, to the desert sands beyond the castle walls. Julia walked towards the closest tree and inspected the strange, bobbled fruits that were weighing the branches down with their abundance.

  “What are they?”

  “Quince. A true national icon. And further down, pomegranate.” He leaned forward and plucked a quince from the tree and handed it to her. Its flesh was warm from the beating morning sun, and it felt lovely in her hands.

  “What does it taste like?” She lifted it to her nose to smell it, but there was no fragrance.

  “Don’t eat it,” he warned quickly. “They’re terribly astringent raw. But cooked slowly, they are very good. I will have our chef prepare some for you.”

  Slowly, they meandered down one of the rows of trees. “When Amal and I were young, we used to spend hours out here, hiding from our governess.”

  “You had a governess?” She pulled a face. “Sorry, I guess I already know that.”

  “You’re frustrated,” he guessed accurately.

  She nodded. “I hate that I feel like I hardly know you, when I must know you intimately. I find I don’t remember even the simplest details about you, and it’s infuriating. I mean, I know you, and instinctively, I do remember. But there are so many blanks. I feel like I’m running blind.”

  “You have me to be your eyes,” he said, pulling her back into the crook of his arm, where she would always belong.

  Julia couldn’t tell him that that was exactly what she was afraid of. What if her gut was right, and there was something vitally important about this man that she couldn’t remember? Something he had done that she didn’t approve of?

  She groaned in annoyance. Patience had never been her forte, and she struggled now to simply ‘wait’ for the information to come back to her. Julia needed a proactive plan to jog her memory, and one was beginning to form. She let her mind tick over what she could do to uncover the truth for herself and tried to act completely natural.

  “Your governess. Tell me stuff. Pretend I don’t already know.”

  It was not difficult. After all, there was so much they hadn’t yet learned about one another. “It was only when we were young, and then in between school terms. Our father was adamant that we would both learn about governance.”

  “Almost as though he knew Amal wouldn’t want the job?” She pondered.

  He nodded slowly. “Perhaps. Or perhaps just planning for the contingency that one of us might not make it.”

  Julia’s jaw dropped, and fear clambered at her heart. “That’s a horrible thing to say.”

  His smile was grim. “The lineage of the royal family cannot be left to chance. We are one of the longest running monarchies in the world. It is a point of pride for my family that the bloodline continues.”

  Julia stopped walking instantly. As though her feet were stuck in cement. She lifted her eyes to his. “A baby.” She shut her eyes, trying to focus. “There’s something about a baby.”

  Zayn waited, barely breathing. Slowly, it was coming back to her. He knew he didn’t have long before their battle lines would be redrawn. “Do you remember something?” He said in as bland a tone as he could muster.

  Julia opened her eyes and pierced his soul with the intensity of her stare. “I don’t know. It’s right there. I just can’t grip it.”

  “Stop forcing it,” he said honestly. “It’s a good sign that you feel so close to remembering details. They’ll come back soon.”

  Zayn led her down another valley of trees, this one had the sweet fragrance of honey and Julia breathed it in with wonderment.

  “It must have been a beautiful place to grow up,” she observed as a flock of brightly colored birds flew overhead.

  “For the most part.” He plucked a blossom from one of the trees and held it out to her. Julia inhaled its intoxicating scent and smiled. It was like summer in a tiny pale bud. “And your childhood?” He prompted.

  “My childhood was idyllic.” She slid him a sidelong glance. “But I’m sure you already know that. Your memory isn’t the one that’s got big spongy holes in the dark matter.”

  He nodded. “But I like to hear your stories. I’ll never tire of it. Talk to me, and your thoughts might come back.”

  “Well, most of my childhood was spent scampering down country lanes with Georgie. I was fortunate. Most people like me end up in public boarding schools, but dad was adamant that I stay at home. He sent me to the local comprehensive and made sure he picked me up every single day.” She looked at him thoughtfully. “He was a very attentive father. I think losing mum so suddenly made him realize that the life is capable of sudden change and deprivation in the blink of an eye. He’s never taken anything for granted. I truly felt adored and appreciated every day of my life.”

  “He did a good job, then,” Zayn said admiringly, and not for the first time, a sharp stab of something like guilt tried to make itself known. But Zayn didn’t want to feel it,, and he resolutely prompted Julia to continue. “And high school?”

  “As you know,” she drawled quietly, “I went to boarding school for high school.”

  “Why the change?” Zayn asked.

  The faintest blush stole into her cheeks. “My headmistress insisted to dad that I was academically gifted. She said it would be neglectful of him not to pursue the best education available to me.”

  “And what did you think?”

  Julia threw him a casual smile over her shoulder, once again bringing the flower bud to her nose. “I was almost a teenager by then. The unstinting paternal affection was wearing thin, in the face of such temptations as nail polish and boys and fashion magazines and scary movies.”

  He raised his eyebrows knowingly. “You wanted to spread your wings.”

  “Yes. And it was at boarding school that I met Georgie. She was in my dorm, and we were as thick as thieves from the first day.” Julia frowned. “You know Georgie?”

  “Yes. I’ve met her twice,” he said, unable to keep the disapproval from his voice.

  Julia was becoming an expert at reading Zayn’s responses, and now, she was puzzled. “Do you and she not get on?” Her frown deepened. She found it hard to believe she could have married someone who didn’t like Georgie.

  “I don’t know her well enough to say. I know she values you a great deal, which makes me think well of her.”

  Julia tried to quell the strange sense of butterflies flapping in her stomach. “She is like a sister to me. And through her, I met Andrew, who is like a brother.”

  With great effort, Zayn kept his stride equal. “Nothing more than a friend, ever?”

  If she was ever going to be honest with him, surely it would be now, when her mind couldn’t easily keep track of the lies she’d told him in the past.

  “Andrew?” She poked out her tongue. “No. Never.”

  Fury and frustration weighed heavily on his chest at her continued deceit. He tried a different approach. “I would be jealous, of course, as I hate to think of you ever having cared for another man. But we are married, now, Julia. Your past is in the past.”

  The look she gave him was so obviously filled with confusion that he shook his head. Perhaps that night with Andrew had fallen through the cracks of her memory, too, for some reason. Afte
r all, he had incontrovertible proof that they had been together. Obviously not sexually, given his recent discovery that his wife had, in fact, been a virgin until very recently. But virginity didn’t mean she hadn’t been intimate with a man. There were many things a couple could do in bed together. The photographs were evidence they had been something more than the innocent friends she now claimed.

  He gritted his teeth as he thought of the spoilt brat who had taken Julia away from him, four years ago. He’d had an investigator look into Andrew at the time, and what he’d learned had confirmed his worst suspicions. He was a time wasting, entitled snob, who’d been born to a super-wealthy family, and been raised for a life of idleness. He also had a pretty impressive drug addiction, or he had back then.

  “Why do you think Andrew and I had a thing?” She asked perceptively. “He has always been a good friend to me, but nothing more.”

  Zayn thought about the last time they’d seen the boy, at her father’s house. He hadn’t imagined the lingering looks at Julia, the way he sought out opportunities to touch her. “Perhaps I’m imagining things,” Zayn placated. There was, after all, no sense ruining what little time they had together before her memory returned with arguments that could certainly wait. That were waiting for him, even now, fraying at the edges of this mock paradise.

  “I can’t think why,” she said, but there was a look of guilt on her face. Just when he had thought he’d been barking up the wrong tree.

  “What is it?” He pushed, feeling suddenly sickened by the certainty that she was going to reveal the affair to him.

  “I think he used to fancy me, that’s all.” She bit down on her lip. “It was a long time ago. He never did anything about it, and I was always glad.”

  The photographs had been explicit. Though Julia had looked either passed out or wasted in most of them. Why had she sent them to him? By mistake? To hurt him? To make him chase her down? Zayn had been too proud to confront her then. After all, he was a Sheikh, and above begging. His pride had forced him to accept her decision and return to his life. But that course of action had been wrong. He should have confronted her, and begged her to at least explain herself.

  Could she explain now? Would she want to?

  He opened his mouth but closed it again, when the sound of a high pitched sound carried through the rustling leaves and reached their ears.

  “What was that?” Julia asked, spinning on her heel and crouching down to look beneath the shrubby tops of the trees. The view through the spindly trunks was better, and as she did a slow three hundred and sixty degree turn, she saw a pair of skinny little legs running so fast they were almost blurry.

  A woman’s voice, familiar somehow, speaking and laughing in Arabic, chased after the girl and Julia straightened. A blinding head ache exploded in her temple and she had to hold Zayn’s arm for support.

  “Julia? What is it?” His face was ash beneath his golden skin.

  “I…” She waited, only a few seconds, for the little girl to reach them. “Maysan,” she breathed out with relief. The little girl threw herself at Julia’s legs with a big, bursting laugh, and Julia laughed, though her eyes were burning with tears. “I remember you.” She crouched down once more and put her arms around the little girl. Already, she felt more substantial than she had done the first time they’d met. Strange pieces of memory came back to her, but they were disconnected, as if in a film.

  “I didn’t know you were here,” Adina said in English, walking with her elegant gait down the rows of trees to where they stood. She pressed a kiss against Zayn’s face, frowning a little as she registered the thunderclouds in his expression.

  “Julia is not yet well enough to see people,” he intoned warningly.

  Julia shook her head. “No, Zayn, this is helpful. Seeing you again, Adina, so much is coming back. You love desserts.”

  Adina’s laugh was beautiful, like musical chimes and crashing waves. “Guilty as charged.”

  “And you are looking after Maysan,” she guessed with a surging sense of relief.

  “Thanks to you, yes. You told Zayn to call me, the day of your accident. She’s been staying here with us since then.”

  “I’m so pleased,” Julia said earnestly. She knew there were still pieces to glue together. And she’d worked out just how to unearth them. The certainty that he was intentionally keeping her in the dark had grown. And out of nowhere, she realized she didn’t trust her husband. Not now, and not before the accident.

  “Zayn, I have a terrible head ache suddenly. Do you think we might return home?”

  Though Zayn had been incredibly attentive and watchful since her accident, he was a busy man, responsible for generating a small fortune every day. Meetings were unavoidable, though he’d cancelled or rescheduled as many as possible. All Julia had to do was wait; to wait until his next meeting took him from the home. As it happened, it was the morning after their trip to the palace. Her memory was fading in and out, but each time it faded in, it brought sharper clarity and detail into focus.

  It would not be long before she had the answers.

  “What will you do while I’m out?” Zayn asked, standing in the kitchen dressed in one of his immaculate, hand-stitched suits, sipping his thick black coffee.

  Julia lifted her own mug to her lips and drank down the steaming brew gratefully. “I’m sure I’ll find something to keep me busy.”

  She waited until his chauffeur driven car had left the compound-like house before setting her plan into action. With a fresh cup of steaming coffee, she moved slowly through the house. His office was on the ground floor, at the end of a long, tiled corridor. True to his word, there were hardly any staff members around, and besides that, who would care that she was entering his domain? She was his wife. Their house was hers as much as his, wasn’t it?

  His laptop was open on the desk. He must have been using it that morning, because it was still opened, and no password was necessary to access the files.

  Her heart was racing, pounding in her chest, as she sat down in his executive leather chair and set to work. Her coffee she placed to her left, but it was quickly forgotten.

  She wasn’t really being sneaky. All she wanted was to see their emails. Surely she had every right to go through the correspondence that she herself had sent him? They had sent copious love letters to one another in the early days, and she just knew it would have been a component of their rediscovered relationship. She was so certain that the truth would be in their shared emails, that she hadn’t dared ask him, lest he say no. Because, for whatever reason, her husband was hiding something from her, and she needed to know what it was.

  With unsteady fingers, she typed her own email address into the search bar at the top of the email program, and waited while a little wheel spun frantically, telling her the search was underway.

  The screen remained mostly blank, though. There were hardly any emails, she realized with a frown, and most of them dated back years.

  One in particular had an attachment, and with a curious frown, she clicked into it immediately.

  And froze.

  The first picture didn’t make any sense. She checked the date on the email and made a small noise of shock. It had been sent four years ago, and from her email account, but she’d never seen the photos before in her life.

  It looked like her. Lying on the bed like that. She leaned in closer and looked properly at the picture. It was her. Unmistakably. There was the mole on her left thigh, clear as day. Why did he have these pictures, and where had he got them?

  She scrolled lower and her sense of disbelief grew. Andrew! What the hell? Photographs of her and Andrew in bed together? It was unbelievable. Preposterous. And damned invasive, too.

  She leaned back in his chair and closed her eyes, as his gently voiced enquiries yesterday came back to her. He’d been insistent that she’d been in a relationship with Andrew. He hadn’t seemed to believe her when she’d denied it. And now she knew why.

  In the bac
kground of the pictures, she could just make out a gold statue, and a sense of panic gripped her as she realized what night these photos had been taken.

  The end of year dinner, her first semester at law school. She should remember it well except she hardly remembered a thing. Different to her current memory loss, this one had been an instant black hole in her knowledge. She’d woken up the morning after the awards dinner feeling groggy and confused, with no recollection of the prior twelve hours. The last thing she recalled clearly was accepting the academic award, and then a champagne or two later, she’d been out of it.

  Bile rose in her throat and she clamped her lips shut. She refused to vomit. She refused to give in to the grief and realization that were threatening to tear her apart. But like dominoes that had been stacked too closely, memories seared into her brain, flying at her hard and fast, collapsing noisily all around her.

  It happened instantly and completely, so that she blinked, and remembered who she had married and why.

  Julia had never felt angrier in her life, and she knew it for a fact, because now she remembered everything.

  Chapter Eleven

  She wasn’t sure how long she sat on the balcony, waiting for Zayn. It could have been just a few minutes, for all she was aware. Only the steady progress of the sun through the sky gave her any idea that a more considerable block of time had passed. In the end, it must have been hours, because the stars were starting to twinkle overhead when his convoy made its stately entrance through the security gates.

  She gripped the pictures tightly in her fingers, then forced herself to relax her hold as the paper began to crease under the pressure of her thumb. She didn’t know what she wanted to say to him, but she needed answers.

  She heard him walk out onto the deck, but she didn’t turn to face him. Her face was a mask of grim reflection, and she kept her head forward, looking out but not seeing dusk blanket the city.

  “Julia,” Zayn said, and his tone of voice was so wary that she knew instantly. He knew something was different.