‘Thanks.’ She put down the box, and headed for the director’s office, sick with relief. Soon she’d be out of here, in a remote village where there was no radio blaring in the main tent, replaying the ongoing story of The Racing Sheikh and his capture by the warlord Sh’ellah, demanding a hundred million US dollars for Alim’s safe release. In the village she wouldn’t see newspapers with pictures of him as he was released two days before, so tired, with bruises on his face and arms that showed how brutal his stay with the warlord had been.
Everywhere she went, aid workers talked about him. Who’d have known? Sure, they never saw his face—he always hid it behind the full flowing scarves of an Arab man—but the quiet, withdrawn driver was The Racing Sheikh?
Women lamented missing out on a chance with him. Men wished they’d gone out in that wicked truck of his to see his skills firsthand. And Hana moved around the camp like a lonely ghost, waiting, waiting for word from him, for his voice…
I’m coming back for you…I’ll find you, Hana.
It obviously wasn’t going to happen. He was the sheikh again. He had a life that could never include her.
She walked through the flap—
‘You have the burq’a on again.’
The air caught in her lungs as her diaphragm seized up. Slowly she turned towards the main desk, hardly daring to believe—but he was there, he was there, standing by the side of the desk, and smiling at her as if it had been only hours since he’d seen her. Smiling as if she was something beautiful and special to him.
‘You’re out of hiding, I’m back in it,’ she said, when she could speak. Pulling the veil from her face, her hair, without even thinking about why she did…knowing they were alone without even checking.
He made a rueful face. ‘I’m clean at least.’
‘You look different without the mud.’ One step, another, and they were only inches apart—which of them was moving? She thought it was her, but she was in front of him too fast, shaking and gulping back more foolish tears. ‘You’re here.’
His smile was tender; his gaze roamed her face. ‘I told you I’d come for you.’ He added, ‘Sam’s gone for ten minutes. Any longer and someone could come in and find us.’
Hana barely heard him; she shook her head, mumbling, moving to him, ‘They hurt you…’ Her hands were on his face, trembling, drinking in his skin, warm, living skin—he was alive, alive. And she was crying again. ‘Alim, I was so scared—’ She put her hand over his heart, felt it beating. ‘You’re alive, alive.’
‘I’m alive,’ he agreed, still smiling with all that emotion shimmering in those dark-forest eyes. His fingers reached out, touched her cheek. Beauty ripping through her, stealing her soul with a touch.
Then without warning her bunched fist hit him, attacking without power, as weak as the knees buckling beneath her. ‘You frightened me half to death,’ she sobbed, collapsing against his chest and his arms enfolded her for the first time. ‘I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep for worrying. How could you risk your life like that, Alim? How could you?’
‘For you, it was for you,’ he murmured into her hair. ‘For my beautiful, brave dawn star, I’d sacrifice more than my freedom for a week.’
‘Don’t risk yourself for me, I’m not worth it,’ she whispered, tears raining down her face, aching for him. ‘You could have died, Alim! Your country needs you!’
‘Not as much as I need you.’
Simple words, stealing her breath. She stared at him, her eyes asking the questions her heart dared not risk.
He glanced at the watch on his wrist. Its understated magnificence stood between them like the fire-wielding angels barring the way to paradise; it must have cost more than she made in all the five years she’d been here. ‘The plane’s waiting. We have to go, Hana.’
A rock fell on her chest, constricting breath. ‘I—I understand.’ She wheeled away before he saw the devastation in her eyes.
‘I don’t think so. A delegation from the UN wants to speak to us about our experience, to know about the new borders and Sh’ellah’s weaponry and acts against people in the region. They’ll be at my house in Mombasa tomorrow.’
Joy streaked through her at the same moment as panic. She’d be with Alim again, if only for a short while. Where the UN went, so did the media. ‘I can’t!’
He gathered her hands in his. ‘I agreed to it on the condition that your face and identity were kept out of it. You have my word I’ll keep your identity out of any interview. But what we say could help the people of Sh’ellah’s region escape from his violent domination.’
‘Oh.’ She felt small-spirited and petty standing before him, thinking of herself when the people she cared about still suffered far more than she ever had. Hating that she still couldn’t face her reality…and that, too soon, she had to tell Alim the truth of why she couldn’t marry him, or be his lover. ‘Of course,’ she said, hiding the shivering inside. ‘I’ll get my things.’
‘Your things are already in the plane,’ he said, adding when she stiffened, ‘Neither of us has a choice, Hana. Sam’s going to tell those who ask that you’ve been reassigned, so there’s no connection between us anyone could take to the media. I’ve spoken of the nurse that saved my life, of course, but you’re still safely obscure.’
Strange, but, though he’d spoken without inflection, when he said ‘safely obscure’ she felt like the most miserable of cowards. ‘Thank you.’ She lifted her chin, refusing to apologise for or explain her life choices.
‘There’s a car right behind the tent. I have to ask you to walk to the front of the camp while I ride there, so if I’m recognised entering the car, we aren’t seen together.’
She nodded and, realising too late that she still had her hands on his chest, blushed and dropped them. ‘That’s fine.’
‘We’ll talk in the plane, Hana.’ His eyes glittered with soft meaning.
‘All right.’ She all but bolted from the room.
The director, Sam, had done his job well. At least six people wished her well at her new assignment as she headed for the gates, and she felt like a miserable liar. What was the difference? Wasn’t that what she’d been the past five years?
I can’t make myself lie to Alim. And that terrified her, given the ordeal facing her.
The car wasn’t fancy or designed to draw attention, she noted in relief as the back door opened, and she hopped in. The windows were tinted, and Alim sat in the furthest corner from the people milling around in front of the gates. The dark glass between the driver and passengers was pulled up, creating a sense of intimacy.
The car took off, purring with the quiet smoothness that screamed expensive. ‘Not quite as loud as the truck or the Jeep,’ she commented, aiming for lightness, her heart pounding hard at the look in his eyes.
He shook his head, moving closer to her. ‘It’s twenty minutes’ drive to the plane. I never said hello before.’ He tipped up her face and, before she could react, pulled aside the veil she’d replaced after leaving the office, and brushed his mouth over hers, soft, lingering, too soon over. ‘Hello, Sahar Thurayya. I’ve missed you…as you can probably tell.’
Her pulse beat so fast in her throat; she couldn’t make her tongue move or her mouth open. Their first real kiss…so gentle and chaste—he was treating her with the honour of—
She closed her eyes. Despair washed through her like a river’s surge, leaving her entire body feeling unclean in the wake of arousal she had no right to feel. One kiss, and she was so alive, so vivid and aching for him—but she could never have him, not as husband or lover. She gulped down the pain in her throat, but still couldn’t speak. All she could do was shake her head.
‘No?’ he asked softly. ‘You didn’t miss me? It’s hard to believe, given the greeting you gave me.’ The fingers at her chin caressed her skin. She shivered with the power of his simplest touch, chains far stronger than any Mukhtar could shackle on her. ‘Look at me, Hana.’
Long moments passed, b
ut the pain only grew worse as she hesitated. She lifted her lashes.
‘I know you said it doesn’t revolt you, but that was in a life-and-death situation. This time, I want you to look carefully.’ He pulled his light linen shirt over his head, leaving his chest and stomach bare—revealing the pinkish grafts over twisted scars running across one shoulder, half his chest and down over his stomach. ‘More surgery will help but there’s only so much anyone can do for such extensive second-degree burns. I’m trusting that the nurse in you will be able to refrain from feeling physically ill at the sight of me,’ he said, with a wryness that tore at her heart. ‘I have scars on my thighs as well, since some of the graft skin came from there when a couple of the other patches didn’t take.’
She didn’t have to ask where the rest of his skin came from. Fadi’s with me everywhere I go, he’d said. Yes, his pride and his pain in one, the eternal reminder of his loss; he did have Fadi with him wherever he went. His brother’s dead body had been his donor.
More tears rushed up, useless, bittersweet longing and empathy. Her trembling fingers touched his ruined skin, almost feeling the flame that had destroyed his clean flesh. Her fingers drank in the proof of survival against the odds. Oh, the agony he must have suffered!
His hands covered hers. ‘Do you find me revolting—not as a nurse, but as a woman?’ he said, guttural. ‘If so, it ends here. I’m for ever in your debt, Hana. What happens from here is in your hands. My future rests with you.’
She heard nothing after the word ‘revolting’. She pulled her hands out from under his, and the quivering grew as she touched him, yearning and pain intertwined. She didn’t realise she’d moved forward, falling into him, until her lips touched the mangled scars on his shoulder, her tears mixing salt to the warmth. And once she’d started, she couldn’t stop; it was beautiful, so unutterably exquisite that the thought of not touching him, not kissing him, was agony. She must, she had to kiss him again…
‘Alim,’ she whispered, the ache intensifying, a woman’s hollow throbbing of need for her man, unfamiliar and beautiful and addictive. She kissed the skin of his throat, chest and shoulder again and again, her mouth roaming over what he was now, what he’d always been, and both filled her with the deep anguish of feminine need, because his suffering had shaped him into the man she loved. ‘Alim, Alim.’ Breathless voice filled with the restlessness of desire unleashed, her hands growing fevered in intensity of wanting.
His hands lifted her face. ‘No, no,’ she mumbled in incoherent protest, palms and fingers still caressing him. ‘No, more, I need more…’
Then she saw his eyes, lashes spiky with tears unshed. ‘My Hana,’ he said, husky. ‘My sweet, healing star, you’ve sealed our destiny.’
With a cry she pulled him to her, falling backward, his aroused body landing on hers as their lips met. Her fingers twined through his hair, caressed his neck, moving against him and moaning in need, wanting more of him, so much more. So many years feeling half dead, living only for others, existing inside the shadows of fear; now she was alive at last. More kisses, deep and tender, growing more passionate by the moment, and, oh, at last she knew how it felt to be filled with love given and returned…
The car pulled up. Loud engine noises came from outside. They were at the airstrip. He was hovering just above her, smiling in such tenderness her heart splintered, and she came back to a sense of herself—who she was; what she was.
What she’d done to him…and to herself.
The happiness shining in his face shattered in silence. He helped her to sit up, tossed the shirt over his head before the door opened. She shoved the veil back in place, eyes lowered, mouth—foolish, needing mouth—pushed hard together to stop words tumbling out. Not yet, not yet. On the plane. In Mombasa. Anywhere but here and now.
The plane was a small jet, pure luxury in appointments. She’d never seen anything like it. Strapped into her seat beside him, she looked out of the window, waiting for him to speak, to ask the questions. Praying that, from somewhere deep inside, she’d find the strength to tell him.
They were in the sky before he spoke. ‘If I know you, you went straight back to work when you arrived at the camp, right?’
He sounded so ordinary. He was teasing her a little. It was a gift; he was moving past the awkwardness and embarrassment, allowing her time, letting her tell her story when she was ready. And she felt a smile form at the opening; she couldn’t stop it. ‘Well, I did shower and change. Not the best thing for open wounds or sick people, all that mud.’
‘It wouldn’t inspire much confidence in your hand-washing methods.’
She chuckled. It felt surprisingly good, the banter. With Alim, she could be herself, be teasing, silly Hana, and he liked it. ‘You should have seen people’s faces as I walked in. A friend stopped me from coming in, thinking I was a refugee, so dirty and everything crumpled.’
‘You definitely smell better now.’ He inhaled close to her. ‘No lavender though. What is that?’ he asked, sounding nostalgic, as if he missed the lavender—and she resolved to wear it again before she could stop the thought. Foolish woman, wanting to please him.
‘Spiced vanilla. A local soap made from goat’s milk. You know, Fair Trade and all that. The locals bring carts in and sell to whoever they can.’
‘They must be doing well to be able to afford the scent.’
‘The director got the original makers in touch with the Fair Trade organisation, and first sales were so good they began branching out into scented soaps. The whole village is part of the industry now.’
‘I wonder if we can get Shellah-Akbar interested in some similar kind of project.’
‘They have a new nurse,’ she said, sadness touching her. She missed her friends, the sense of accomplishment at seeing babies grow; the serenity of having, not somewhere to hide, but somewhere to belong.
‘I’ve had preliminary reports from the region. Sh’ellah’s not happy, even with the money from my ransom.’
Her stomach thudded. She knew what that meant: he’d been looking forward to having her, and would take it out on whoever he could. ‘Is everyone all right?’
He covered her clenched fist with his hand, opening it and threading his fingers through hers. ‘Don’t worry, Hana. I told my brother they helped save my life, the risks they took to cover our traces.’ He added, ‘Harun visited the five villages in the region yesterday. He gave them the choice of ongoing protection or a new home in Abbas al-Din, their own village in a safe, arable area under the sheikh’s personal protection. Given Sh’ellah’s rampages, many of them have chosen to come. Harun’s negotiating with the government to look the other way while our special forces evacuate them.’
In a region where ‘negotiating’ meant millions changing hands, she wondered how much they were paying to save these people who should mean nothing to them. She held tight to his hand, even knowing she shouldn’t. ‘Thank you,’ she choked.
‘My brother is a good man, and a strong ruler.’ He bent to kiss her knuckles. ‘There are advantages to marrying me, Sahar Thurayya,’ he murmured, between husky and teasing. ‘You’ll find more as we go along.’
The shock of his words ran through her, his agenda out in the open when she wasn’t ready for it. She dragged in a breath, pulled her hand from his and then said it, hard and blunt. ‘I can’t marry you, Alim.’
‘Why not?’ he asked, calmly enough. ‘Don’t say you don’t love me, Hana, not after the way you kissed me in the car. I won’t believe it.’
Her stomach knotted; her diaphragm jerked, and she had to hiccup the words. ‘I’m already married.’
Chapter Nine
A HOLE opened up beneath him, sucking down all his hopes and dreams. Alim stared at the only woman he’d ever loved, thought of all the sacrifices he’d made for her sake, how she’d risked her life for him. ‘You led me to believe you were a widow.’ The tradition was for the sheikh to wed a highborn virgin like Amber—but given the choice he intended to presen
t the people, he’d believed they’d accept her, accept his marriage. But now…
‘I know.’ So tiny, her voice, filled with shame.
‘You said you had no husband. You said that!’
She made a frustrated sound. ‘I don’t.’
‘What?’ He shook his head, trying to clear it; it felt as if the mud he’d washed off two days before had entered his brain. ‘You either have a husband or you don’t.’
She wouldn’t look at him. ‘I was married by proxy. I disappeared before they could force me to marry him, and I never returned. So I’m married, but I don’t have a husband.’ Her mouth twisted, and she mock-bowed. ‘Bet you’ve never met a five-years-married virgin before.’
His mind raced with the information even as his sense of betrayal grew. ‘You danced around the truth. You led me to believe you were free!’
‘You asked the first day. You were a stranger. What did you expect, my life story?’ Flat words hit him like a slap, locking him out.
‘When I proposed to you—’
‘Stated your intention, you mean,’ she retorted with a hard laugh. ‘You never asked me, never proposed…my lord Sheikh.’
He felt his nostrils flare at the goading title. ‘Okay, so it wasn’t the most romantic proposal, but saving your life was taking up my energy at the time. I thought you’d understand.’
‘Oh, I understand. Yet another male knows what he wants, and I’m expected to fall into line, just like Mukhtar! He ruined my engagement to his own brother to cover up what he’d done. He thought marrying me by force would buy my silence. So he told my father and Latif that I’d seduced him.’ She pressed her lips together, and wheeled away. ‘So I’m married, thanks to the El-Kanar family’s male-oriented laws that allow them to buy and sell their daughters like dogs or cattle—and I’m a whore for touching you.’
Alim didn’t need the dots connected to see the picture. His anger against her, his sense of betrayal withered and died; he saw her manic laughter the other day in its true light. It truly was ironic, as she’d said. He’d accused her of seducing him, just as Mukhtar had, yet she was still a virgin.
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