by Lynne Graham
CHAPTER THREE
THE RACKET OF the helicopters nearby unnerved Zoe and she dressed in haste, flinching from the cling of her clothes to her still-damp skin. When a woman entered the bathroom to fetch her, she was grateful she had hurried and she walked out through the main tent, glad to be embarking on her journey home.
It was a surprise, however, when she was not escorted to the stationary helicopter she had espied earlier and was instead led into another tent, where a group of women were seated round a campfire.
‘The King is visiting,’ the woman opposite her explained to her in perfect English. ‘My husband, Omar, can only receive the King in his tent, which is, unfortunately, the one you have been using, which means that you will have to wait here with us.’
‘Your husband?’ Zoe studied the attractive brunette, who wore more gold jewellery than she had ever seen on one woman at the same time.
‘Sheikh Omar. The King is his uncle. I am called Farida...and you?’
‘Zoe,’ Zoe proffered, accepting the tiny cup of black coffee and the plate of sliced fruit she was given with a grateful smile. ‘Thank you.’
Hopefully she would be on her way home within the hour, she reasoned, munching on a slice of apple with appetite. ‘Where’s Raj?’ she asked curiously. ‘I thought he was in a hurry to leave.’
‘Prince Faraj is greeting his father,’ Farida framed with slightly raised brows.
Zoe coloured, wondering if her familiar use of Raj’s name had offended. ‘I didn’t know he was a prince,’ she said ruefully. ‘He said he was nobody of any importance.’
Farida startled her by loosing a spontaneous giggle and turned, clearly translating Zoe’s statement for the benefit of their companions. Much laughter ensued.
‘The Prince was teasing you. He is the son of our King.’
Zoe’s eyes widened to their fullest extent and she gulped. ‘He’s the bad-boy Prince?’ she exclaimed before she could think better of utilising that label.
‘The bad boy?’ Farida winced at that definition. ‘No, I don’t think so. He is my husband’s best friend and he took a dangerous risk coming here to see us. ‘
‘Oh...’ Zoe noticed that Farida didn’t risk translating her comment about Raj being a bad boy and resolved to be much more careful about what she said. According to Raj these people had had nothing to do with her kidnapping and they had looked after her well while she was unable to look after herself. She didn’t want to slight them.
After all, she knew next to nothing about Raj, had merely read that tag for him on a website she had visited, which had contained the information that he had been sent into exile years ago for displeasing his father, the King.
‘Risk?’ she found herself pressing, taut with curiosity. ‘What did he risk?’
‘That is for his telling—if he has the opportunity,’ Farida said evasively. ‘But do not forget that the Prince is the King’s only son, his only child in fact. He was born to the King’s third wife when he had almost given up hope of having an heir.’
Zoe nodded circumspectly, unwilling to invite another polite snub and swallowing back questions that she was certain no one, least of all Farida, would wish to answer. Stupid man, she thought in exasperation. Why on earth hadn’t he told her who he really was? It was not as though she could have guessed that he was of royal blood. She felt wrong-footed, however, and, recalling how she had assaulted him, gritted her teeth. It was his own fault though: he shouldn’t have crept up on her like that.
An adorable toddler nudged her elbow in pursuit of a piece of apple and Zoe handed it over, waving her hand soothingly at Farida, who rebuked the little girl.
‘No, my daughter must learn good manners,’ Farida asserted.
‘What’s her name?’ Zoe asked as the toddler planted herself in her lap and looked up at her with eyes like milk-chocolate buttons, set beneath a wealth of wavy black hair.
Farida relaxed a little then, and talked about her three children.
* * *
Accompanied by Omar, Raj strode into his cousin’s tent where his father awaited him, seated by the fire.
‘I thought I would find you here,’ his father informed him with a look of considerable satisfaction. ‘You are grown tall, my son. You have become a man while you have been away. Omar, you may leave. We will talk later.’
Raj’s appraisal of the older man was slower and filled with concern because he could see that Tahir had aged. It was eight years since he had seen his father in the flesh. His parent had been in his fifties when Raj was born twenty-eight years earlier and the agility that had distinguished Tahir then had melted away. From a distance, Raj had watched his father’s slow, painful passage to the tent, recognising that the rheumatoid arthritis, which had struck his parent in his sixties, now gripped him hard in spite of the many medical interventions that had been staged. He was still spry but very thin and stiff, the lines on his bearded face more deeply indented, but his dark eyes remained as bright and full of snapping intelligence as ever.
‘Sit down, Raj,’ the King instructed. ‘We have much to discuss but little time in which to do it.’
Raj folded lithely down opposite and waited patiently while the server ritually prepared the coffee from a graceful metal pot with a very long spout. He took the tiny cup in his right hand, his long brown fingers rigid as he waited for one of his father’s characteristic tirades to break over his head. Tahir was an authoritarian parent and had become even more abrasive and critical after the death of his third wife, Raj’s mother. Sadly, that had been the period when Raj had been most in need of comfort and understanding and, instead of receiving that support, Raj had been sent to a military school where he was unmercifully bullied and beaten up. From the instant Raj had left school, he and his father had had a difficult relationship.
‘I knew that Omar would run to you for help. He never had a thought in his head that you didn’t put there first,’ Tahir remarked fondly. ‘We will not discuss the past, Raj. That would lead us back to dissension.’
‘I’m sorry, but this woman...’ Raj began even though he knew the interruption was rude, because he was so keen to find out why his father had acted as he had and had risked an enormous scandal simply to take his brother down a peg or two.
‘You never did have a patient bone in your body.’ Tahir sighed. ‘Have sufficient respect to listen first. I want you home, Raj, back where you belong, as my heir.’
Raj was stunned. For a split second he actually gaped at the older man, his brilliant dark eyes shimmering with astonishment and consternation.
His father moved a hand in a commanding gesture to demand his continuing silence. ‘I will admit no regrets. I will make no apologies. But had I not sent you away, my foolish brother would never have plotted to take your place,’ he pointed out grimly. ‘For eight years I have watched you from afar, working for Maraban, loyally doing your best to advance our country’s best interests. Your heart is still with our people, which is as it should be.’
Raj compressed his lips and gazed down into his coffee, dumbfounded by the very first accolade he had ever received from his strict and demanding parent.
‘Do you want to come home? Do you wish to stand as the Crown Prince of Maraban again?’
A great wash of longing surged through Raj and his shoulders went stiff with the force of having to hold back those seething emotions. He swallowed hard. ‘I do,’ he breathed hoarsely.
‘Of course, my generosity must come at a price,’ the King assured him stiffly.
Unsurprised by that stricture, Raj breathed in deep and slow. ‘I don’t care who I marry now,’ he declared in a driven undertone, hoping that that was the price his father planned to offer him. ‘That element of my life is no longer of such overriding importance to me.’
‘So, no longer a romantic,’ his father remarked with visible relief. ‘That is good. A romant
‘I understand,’ Raj conceded flatly, shaking his hand to indicate that he did not want another cup of coffee, for any appetite for it had vanished. Sight unseen, some bride of good birth would be chosen for him and he and his bride would have to make a practical marriage. It would be a compromise, a challenge. Well, he was used to challenges even if he wasn’t very good at compromises, he acknowledged grimly. But he would have to learn, and fast, because it was unlikely he would have much in common with the bride chosen for him.
‘I should thank Hakem for bringing the Fotakis girl to my attention because I didn’t even know she existed,’ the King mused with unconcealed satisfaction. ‘I was outraged when I realised what my brother was planning to do. I was even more outraged when I realised that I had no choice but to approach Fotakis himself...the man who stole the beautiful Azra from me. But he has given his permission.’
Only then registering what the older man was proposing, Raj threw his head back in shock. ‘You’re expecting me to marry Zoe?’
‘And to do it right now, today. I brought the palace imam with me,’ his father told him bluntly. ‘This marriage would be your sign of good faith, your pledge to me that from now on you will act as a sensible son. Marry her and I promise you that nothing will stand in your path.’
‘Zoe wants to go home!’ Raj pointed out incredulously. ‘She will not want to marry me.’
‘Her grandfather has given his permission,’ the King pointed out with a frown of bewilderment. ‘A prince for a prince and a bridegroom less than half Hakem’s age, you make an acceptable substitute in Fotakis’s eyes. You have no choice in this, Raj. The girl is too great a prize to surrender, a huge gift to our people. No more popular bride than Azra’s granddaughter could be found for you. We will have a big state wedding to follow. I believe she is as beautiful as her grandmother. You should be pleased.’
Raj compressed his lips on the reality that his father was insane. He talked as though women still dutifully and happily married the husbands picked by their most senior male relative. But even in Maraban those days were long gone. It was now only men of his father’s venerable age who still expected the right to tell their offspring who they should marry.
‘Zoe wants to go home,’ he repeated steadily.
‘You have two hours to persuade her otherwise. I have already prepared an announcement to be made from the palace,’ the King told him solemnly. ‘Their Prince has come home and done his duty at last.’
‘Zoe was expecting to divorce Hakem within a few months,’ Raj reminded his parent tautly.
‘Yes, you can let her go once the fuss has died down. You can choose your own second wife,’ Tahir informed him with the lofty air of a man bestowing a gift on the undeserving. ‘I won’t interfere, although there is one exception to that rule. That whore, Nabila...you cannot bring her into the family under any circumstances.’
At the mention of that name accompanied by that offensive term, Raj lost every scrap of colour, his eyes lowering, his expression cloaked by his spiky black lashes, for he had just learned that his father knew what had happened eight years earlier between his son and his first love. Discomfiture filled him to overflowing but the meeting, Raj recognised by that final warning, was over. He vaulted upright with something less than his usual grace. ‘There is no risk of that development. I’ve not seen her in many years,’ he revealed stiffly.
‘Go and get ready for your wedding,’ his father urged, clearly not accepting the possibility that Zoe might refuse to marry him. ‘And send Omar in!’
* * *
Having had her breakfast, Zoe was ushered into another tent and left there alone. She checked her watch, shifted her feet, frustrated that she didn’t know what the cause of the hold-up was. When Raj entered, she spun fully round to face him and then she froze, remembering uneasily that he was a prince and that she had not treated him as she should’ve done. But then that was his fault, she reminded herself, lifting her chin again. He looked tense, the smooth chiselled bones of his face taut beneath his bronzed skin, his dark deep-set eyes curiously intent on her.
‘I thought you were in a hurry to leave,’ she reminded him, wondering why even that scrutiny could heat her up inside her skin as if she were being slowly roasted. He made her feel hot and bothered and uncomfortable and if that was sexual attraction, well, then she wanted no part of it. Those physical reactions were affecting her ability to behave like a rational being.
‘My father spoke to me and...our situation has changed,’ Raj admitted, half turning towards the open doorway, avoiding a more direct look at her, lest he lose his concentration.
Any man would’ve looked though, he assured himself. Her beautiful hair was restrained in a long braid but he still remembered that silken veil unbound. Her shapely legs were exposed by a short skirt. The matching top in soft pastels moulded to her rounded breasts, and on her feet were the most ridiculously impractical heels he had ever seen a woman wear in the desert. Of course, she hadn’t known that she would be waking up in the desert, but those towering heels, which still only contrived to lift her a couple of inches in height, were downright dangerous. At the same time, there was something absurdly feminine and cute about those tiny glittery sandals with their plethora of straps. He dragged in a deep breath, gritted his white even teeth. Cute? What was he thinking?
That it was safer to look at her feet than her breasts or her legs when his body was behaving as though it belonged to a sex-starved teenager. Since when had he been unable to control his libido? He could not recall ever having that problem before.
Zoe was very stiff, picking up on the undertones in the atmosphere while reading the physical tension he was putting out in waves. ‘Our situation?’ she queried, surprised by that designation.
‘Ours,’ Raj emphasised. ‘I don’t know how much you know about me.’
‘Well, you told me that you were nobody of any importance but Farida told me the truth—that you are the King’s son,’ Zoe countered in a tone of reproof. ‘I also know that you were sent into exile.’
‘Eight years ago,’ Raj clarified sombrely. ‘I refused to marry the woman my father chose for me because I was in love with someone else. There were other factors but essentially that is what caused my long estrangement from my father. You may not be aware of it but in my world a son is expected to be obedient and, to be fair to my father, I was a rebel from day one.’
More than a little disconcerted by that very personal explanation of his troubled relationship with his parent, Zoe coloured, her green eyes clinging to his brooding dark features and the fluctuating emotions he was striving to hide; only those expressive eyes of his continually gave him away, glimmering and glittering, alive with all the passion he struggled to contain. Unwilling fascination gripped her and she gave way to her curiosity. ‘What happened with the woman you loved? Did you marry her?’
‘No, she cheated on me,’ Raj admitted flatly.
‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered automatically, wishing she hadn’t asked.
‘You don’t need to apologise. It happened a long time ago when I was still young, trusting and naïve. I am not the same man now,’ Raj parried wryly.
Because that woman had broken his heart, Zoe registered, recalling her sister, Winnie’s heartbreak when she had had to leave the man she loved, after discovering that he was married. Zoe had never experienced anything that intense and she wasn’t sure she wanted to either. But then she had never had a boyfriend. After the attempted rape she had fortunately escaped, she had feared and avoided men. She had had one or two male friends at university who had stayed close to her for a while to test her boundaries, hoping she would warm up to them but it hadn’t happened. She had stayed apart and untouched and was much inclined to think that that was the best way to live. Without risk, without hurt, without disappointed hopes and unrealistic dreams of some fantasy happy future.
‘You said “our” situation,’ she reminded him, keen to steer the conversation out of deep waters. ‘What did you mean by that?’
‘My father has offered me a most unexpected suggestion,’ Raj framed with care, brilliant dark eyes locked to her heart-shaped face and the eyes bright as emeralds against her porcelain pale skin. The contrast was breathtaking. ‘He has asked me to come home and take my place as his heir again.’
‘My goodness, that’s wonderful news! I mean...’ Zoe hesitated ‘...if that is what you want?’
‘I want to come home with my whole heart. This is the first time I have been home in eight years,’ Raj admitted harshly, his sincerity bitingly obvious. ‘But unfortunately, the King’s proposition came with a key stipulation attached. My father has asked me to take Hakem’s place as your bridegroom and marry you.’
Zoe blinked several times and continued to stare at him, her heart thumping rapidly enough that it seemed to thunder in her ears. ‘But...but why? That’s a crazy suggestion!’
‘Not if you consider who you are,’ Raj pointed out with a wry twist of his wide sensual mouth. ‘Half our population are originally from your grandmother’s country and they were most resentful when my father and their Banian Princess failed to marry at the same time as the two states allied to become one. As a result, the royal family does not reflect the origins of both countries. If the King’s son were to marry Princess Azra’s granddaughter, it would be very popular with our people. Principally, that is why my father wants us to marry.’
‘But I never even met Azra. She died before I was born,’ Zoe argued. ‘It’s just an accident of birth.’
‘No, it is your heritage and a vital and proud heritage to those who remember the Princess and a country that now only exists as part of Maraban,’ Raj contradicted. ‘I should also mention that your grandfather and my father have been in touch—I should imagine only through an intermediary—and this suggestion that you remain here to marry me instead has been discussed by them.’
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