Monique had informed him over an hour ago that Rebecca would join him.
What kind of game was she playing at? Keeping him waiting for her own amusement? He was in half a mind to go to her room and... and what? Skip right to the end of the night?
He shook his head. He poured himself a small measure of brandy and swirled it around the crystal glass. Beyond the window, the deserts of Assan stretched endlessly. White sand met an inky black sky, and the stars carpeted the darkness as far as the eyes could see.
He loved his country.
He especially loved the desert. The cities were fine. Civilised. Neat. In some areas, architecturally stunning. But the expansive desert was where his heart belonged.
“Good evening,” Rebecca’s voice broke through his pondering like a hot knife on butter.
He turned slowly and felt his resolve weakening with one simple look. She was wearing the turquoise dress she’d worn that first night they’d been together, out in the Ba’tuk.
“Good evening,” he nodded his head, careful not to betray his awareness. “Please, take a seat. Can I get you a drink?”
He was all civility, she noted, taking the seat he’d pointed towards. What had brought about this dramatic change? For the hundredth time since he’d left for Fattid, she thought of him with another woman. It would explain why he was suddenly so unmoved by her.
“Rebecca?” He prompted. “A drink?”
She was looking at him as though he were speaking Greek.
“Drink?” He repeated slowly, holding his own in the air with a little shake.
“Sorry. I was miles away. Yes, please. Sparkling water with a wedge of lime.” Her voice was calm. Just as she had hoped.
He placed a glass of water on the table in front of her then slid into the seat opposite. He watched her dusty pink lips form a perfect circle around the straw as she sipped down the cool liquid.
“I trust your trip went smoothly?” She queried, replacing the glass.
He leaned back in his chair, perplexed. This afternoon she’d looked ready to rip his head off, and now, here was the other Rebecca. The one he could never fully understand. The one who kept secrets from him with masterly ease.
“It was hectic,” he answered honestly, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck. “But necessary.” That was a lie. He could have done most of the work from the palace. One advantage to being King was that people were always prepared to travel to you, rather than vice versa.
“Do you prefer spending time in Fattid, or here at the Palace?” She asked. Her question was completely appropriate, but something about the way she’d asked it frustrated the hell out of him. She was enduring this dinner, and going through the motions, but Rebecca wasn’t really there with him. He felt like he was being interviewed by a journalist. If he had decided to stick to their original relationship parameters, then she seemed to have likewise taken a step back from him. Their intimacy was gone.
Beneath the table, he squeezed his palms together until his knuckles were white. “Unequivocally, here. Fattid is beautiful too, but this is home for me.”
“You must have missed Assan when you were studying?” She asked without missing a beat.
“I was able to come back often.” He said simply, topping up her water.
“It’s not the same thing, though, is it?”
“No, it is not.” He watched her twirling her long blonde hair around her forefinger. “Did you go away to study?”
“No, I wasn’t--,” She had been about to say ‘allowed’ but quickly substituted, “able to.” His eyes narrowed slightly.
“Why were you not able to?” He leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on the table top.
“I couldn’t afford to live out of home. I worked while I studied, and the money I made from my part time job paid for my tuition and books, and left a little over to contribute to my board.” She spoke dispassionately, and her words were quite reasonable, but something flared as a red flag to Tariq.
“I’m surprised by that, frankly. I thought your adoptive parents seemed comfortable enough to be able to help you.”
She loathed Winona and Greg, but she wasn’t going to dignify them by even discussing them. “It wasn’t a hardship, really. I commuted to university and the time I wasn’t spending with friends at dorm meant I got great grades. Not to mention the hours I got to spend on trains, reading ahead to next week’s lessons.”
“So you were a geek?” He joked and it was such a teasing question that she almost lost her poise for a moment.
“Yes, I suppose you could say that,” she nodded stiffly, her pale blue eyes flaring as they met his.
“You’re not close to Winona and Greg.” It was an observation, not a question, and so she didn’t answer.
He sighed wearily. “Why are you not close to Winona and Greg?” He rephrased.
She bit down on her lower lip. “They’re very different to me.” She hedged finally.
“Different how?” He pounced.
Her groan was filled with exasperation. “Just different. Are you close to your parents?”
He kept a check of his temper. Just. “No. I love them. I respect them, but we are not an affectionate family.”
“Why not?” She pushed on with her line of questions, as a defensive mechanism as much as anything else.
“My father was in his fifties when I was born. He was absent frequently during my youth. My mother, too. I was raised by household staff. I do not bear them any ill-will. It is as it is. That is how many people in such positions raise their children.” He shrugged, and his eyes held hers. “I received an excellent education. Wanted for nothing.”
“Not such a bad way to grow up, you think?” She queried.
“I survived it.” He corrected. “But I’ll tell you this, my children will not be brought up by strangers.”
She felt her fingers loose cohesion and the glass began to slide, in slow motion, from her grip. She watched it fall towards the table, but Tariq was there as fast as lightning, reaching across and catching it in his grip.
“Sorry,” she murmured, looking down at the tablecloth. “I can be so clumsy sometimes.”
“Could it be that the thought of bearing my children caught you off guard?”
In truth, she hadn’t really thought that all their lovemaking could have already produced the response he was looking for.
She shook her head. “I ... I hadn’t thought about it.”
He frowned. “So you aren’t...”
“Pregnant?” She squirmed in her seat, suddenly her poise was well and truly a thing of the past. “No.”
His disappointment was genuine, but he hid it as best he could. “Ah well, we shall just have to keep trying then. Every cloud has a silver lining...”
She nodded but her mouth felt filled with saw dust. At least now she had her answer. The reason he’d been making love to her – no, attempting to make heirs with her – every opportunity he got was to make her pregnant.
Oh, how mortifying to realise that even in the throes of passion he’d simply been fulfilling his royal duty.
She would not let him see how hurt she was. She raised a steady, cool gaze to him. “What’s that other expression?” She pretended to think about it. “No time like the present. Shall we?”
And though she had surprised the hell out of him with her clinically issued invitation, his reply was immediate. “Yes.”
Rebecca felt her pulse skittering against the papery skin of her inner wrist as she stood and held a hand out to him.
He scraped his chair back and, ignoring her proffered hand, lifted her easily over his shoulder. “My room or yours?” He asked as he led her up the stairs to their apartments.
“Yours,” she responded quickly. She couldn’t bear to have him walk away from her again afterwards. She had learned that at least reserving that control for herself saved some of the bitterness from forming.
“As you wish.” He continued down the corridor unti
l they were outside his bedroom. He kicked the door open with his toe, barely registered as pain shot up his leg.
He eased her down beside the bed. “This dress...” he muttered, sliding the zip down, as he had done the first time. She watched him through lowered lashes.
“I’d forgotten,” she lied. She’d never forgotten a single thing about that night in the Ba’tuk.
“Had you?” He said sceptically. “I remember I kissed you here.” He took her nipple into his mouth and bit down with just enough force to make her jump.
She closed her eyes as he lifted her to the bed, a gentleness belying the desperation that surged through both. He was the master of her body, a King of this land, but absolute ruler of her. One touch and she went up in flames. The logical part of her brain knew he was just going through the motions, for the sake of begetting a royal heir, and yet she couldn’t quell the shiver of anticipation that assailed her.
As he took full possession of her body, she felt her ability to think disappear completely. She cried out as he drove her to an immediate climax, and then again, as he took his time bringing her back to the edge of heaven.
Afterward, Tariq lay beside his wife, watching as she pushed the passionate side of herself into the background and resumed her role as frigidly in control Rebecca. She levelled him with a gaze. “Welcome back,” she said calmly, almost dismissively, and now he really did see red. When she moved to leave his bed, he pulled her backwards, and lifted himself so that he pinned her down by straddling her waist.
“Where are you going?”
She looked at him as though he’d lost his faculties. “Away. You’ve done your duty. Implanted your seed.”
He threw his head back and groaned. “You’re offended.”
“That this is just about making a baby? I’m not offended. But the... business like formality of our sex life is hardly flattering.” She corrected calmly.
“Is that a complaint?” He asked quietly, his dark eyes probing her face.
She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t have you pegged for a man who would seek compliments.” Then, with tart acidity, “You are an exceptionally talented lover, Tariq. My problem is not a lack of satisfaction in bed.”
“Oh, I see. You’d like me to romance you a little before hand? Perhaps wake you with roses? Love songs?”
“Don’t be so facile.” She chided. “We both know romance doesn’t enter into our equation.”
His eyes narrowed, his face was unreadable. “And yet you are upset by what you perceive as my businesslike approach to you...”
“Absurd,” she muttered, shoving at his chest with her hand. This time, he let her wriggle out from under him. With effortless grace, she stood beside the bed and slipped a silk nightgown on over her head. The fabric clung to her curves like a second skin.
“I don’t think it is absurd. I think you’ve got just what you’ve always wanted, and now you find it’s not enough for you.”
“Just what I always wanted? And what, pray tell, is that?” She enquired archly.
“A wealthy husband. Money to burn.”
“Of course! I’d forgotten your first assumption that I must see money as a fair exchange for my virginity.” She fumed, pushing a hand through her long hair.
“If I weren’t the king of Assan, with the fortune that accompanies it, would you have married me?”
Her mouth gaped at him, her eyes were wide with shock. But she didn’t refute his assertion. She had needed someone like him to help her make a clean break from Winona and Greg. It had very little to do with money, and yet, without his money and position, they would always have been able to follow her. To ruin her life until they were no longer alive. The thought made her shudder.
“No denial, I see.” He compressed his lips. “Which reminds me.”
He pulled away from her and strode into the ensuite. He returned seconds later, carrying a small burgundy box. “Here. This is for you.” With a small flick of the wrist, he threw the box onto the bed beside where she stood. She reached down and snapped open the box automatically, and closed it again straight away. “Earrings?” She said slowly, her foggy brain struggling to grasp why he would give her such an obviously expensive present in the midst of an argument about money, of all things. “What are they for?”
He’d seen them at a market and known they would show off the deep blue of her eyes. “What do you think?” He said sardonically. Even Rebecca, his queenly bride, couldn’t hide the hurt as she put two and two together and got just what he’d hoped for.
He thought she was selling her body to the highest bidder, and now he was making payment. It made her blood run cold in her veins. Her heart thumped painfully in her chest, and her eyes stung with tears that she would not let fall.
Tariq saw the play of emotion as it crossed her face, but the contradiction he was hoping for never came. The anger he’d wanted to arouse, the flat out refusal of such a gift in these circumstances, either of which might have allayed his belief that money was the only reason she’d married him. It never came. Instead, she flashed him a withering smile, and walked her glorious silk-clad body towards the door. “Thank you. They’re lovely.”
It was only once she’d returned to the privacy of her own room that she gave in to the tears. Two drops slid out from her lashes and ran slowly down her cheeks. She’d never felt so hurt in her whole life.
Chapter Nine
Rebecca smoothed a hand over her suit jacket once more and then took a steadying breath. She felt terrible. She’d been too distraught the night before to sleep, and she’d had to apply a heavy dose of concealer beneath her eyes today to look even passably normal.
But she’d been waiting ten days – eleven, now – to speak to Tariq about something that was incredibly important to her. Whatever was happening between them, she was not going to let him intimidate her away from her purpose.
He was sitting behind his enormous timber desk, his back rigid, his face averted. He was alone, but so lost in thought that he didn’t even hear her enter his haven, until she cleared her throat.
“Rebecca,” he stood out of habit. She looked terrible. Thin and pale with two dark purple smudges beneath either eye. He had done that to her. He wanted to hold her tight and beg her to forgive him, but he was a proud man. Too proud to beg.
“What can I do for you?”
Businesslike. Crisp. Good. She could deal with this. The last thing she thought she could handle was another argument with him.
“I have a proposal I’d like to discuss with you.”
“I’m intrigued. Please. Take a seat.”
She took the chair he’d indicated and waited for him to do likewise.
“It’s about your school system.”
He did a double take. “The school system?”
“Yes.” Her face was filled with concentration. The concentration of ignoring the burning pain in her chest. The concentration of ignoring the desire that was threatening to flare up inside of her.
“Okay...” he tipped some ice tea into a glass and offered it to her, but she refused.
“Regionally, your percentage of children in education bodies is impressive.”
He inclined his head in recognition. “But it’s still got a long way to go. I’ve been looking into it, and I have a couple of suggestions for how we can immediately increase enrolments by fifteen percent.”
“You do?” He frowned. “I am sceptical, but please, do tell me.” The number of children not receiving an education had troubled him for years. He was, in truth, fascinated to hear her suggestions. But looking at her, so frail and vulnerable, he was finding it hard to concentrate on anything else. She was a beautiful butterfly and he’d damaged her. It filled him with a totally foreign sense of compunction.
“...I spent three months there.” She finished.
“Where?”
“Tariq, have you been listening to me?” She demanded.
“No. I’m sorry. I was...somewhere else. Please, start agai
n.”
“Tariq,” she snapped, “I am here to talk about a serious problem with Assan. You could at least give me the courtesy of your attention.”
He raised his hands in acknowledgement. “I agree. I apologise. Now, what were you saying?”
She began again. “I spent about three months in Australia as part of my degree.”
“I thought you weren’t allowed to leave the lounge room?” He interrupted thoughtfully.
She waved a hand in the air. The detail wasn’t important. The detail that she’d had to beg and plead for a year before Winona had finally agreed, on the basis that Rebecca would repay every dollar for the airfare, and also continue to pay her board whilst she lived overseas.
“For the most part, that’s true. But I did. I spent these three months in Australia. You know, it’s a huge country with these really remote communities sprinkled across the outback. Lots of children who aren’t able to attend school because of their location.”
He nodded. “Yes, I am aware of Australia.” He hadn’t intended to sound so condescending.
She stiffened her back. “In any event, they have what’s called The School of the Outback.”
At this, he frowned.
“Oh? No smug comment here?” She enquired archly, earning one of his rare smiles.
“Carry on.”
“So it’s a radio school. Children congregate in the community church or even in someone’s lounge room, and the classes are broadcast over the radio. It’s free, and the text books are available online. In communities in Assan, where there is no internet, we could provide the funding for school documents to be sent out. And, Tariq? The most exciting part? We can do an adult education syllabus too, for people who didn’t have the opportunity to attend school themselves. This could be your legacy. Creating the most educated generation of Assanians ever.”
Her idea was excellent, but it was her passion that took his breath away.
“I like it.” He nodded slowly. “I want you to help coordinate it.”
“You do?”
“Who better? For two years I have been hounding my education minister for ways to improve our statistics. In under a month, you’ve come up with the best idea I’ve heard so far. Of course it should be you who oversees it.”
Sheikhs: Rich, powerful desert kings and the women who bring them to their knees... Page 95
