The Sheikh's Wedding Contract

by Andie Brock

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Until we can proceed with the divorce there are a number of other properties you could use. Or failing that, perhaps you would like to spend some time in Harith?’

  ‘Harith?’ Why was she doing this? Feigning surprise, looking at him as if he were the bad guy? Wasn’t this hard enough already?

  ‘Yes. You could help with some of the administrative stuff.’ She stared at him. ‘I don’t know, whatever, be more hands-on if that’s what you want.’ Impatience hardened his words now, her baffling reluctance to accept what he was saying seriously winding him up.

  ‘You want me to go and live in Harith?’

  ‘I am saying that you have served your penance.’ He glared back at her. ‘There is no longer any need for you to stay here in the palace with me. The prison gates are open.’ He gestured with a wide-armed sweep. ‘You are free to go whenever you want.’

  ‘I see.’ Her voice was very low, small. ‘And if I don’t want to go?’

  What was she trying to do to him? It was obvious how much she disliked him; it was written all over her face. From the dark frown that lowered her brows to the pulse that beat in her throat, like the twitch of a cat’s tail. Or the way she pursed together those soft pink lips, holding back whatever home truths she wanted to spit at him.

  What did she possibly have to gain from being difficult now, except perhaps to torture him further? Well, two could play at that game.

  ‘I am obviously not making myself clear.’ Pushing his plate away, Zayed turned in his seat to give Nadia the full force of his steely gaze. ‘As of now, Nadia, our wedding contract is terminated. I want you out of the palace and out of my life.’

  There was a moment of heartbreaking stillness.

  Zayed watched the flush slowly creeping up Nadia’s neck, her fingers trembling as they sought to halt it.

  ‘Fine.’ Suddenly she was up on her feet, the plates and glasses on the table rattling in protest as her hands gripped the cloth beneath them. She stiffened her spine, pulled herself up to as much height as she could muster.

  ‘But just before you fling me out onto the streets perhaps there is one thing I should tell you.’

  Zayed waited, something about the look on Nadia’s face snaring the breath in his chest.

  ‘I am pregnant.’

  Time stopped.

  Nadia stared at the man before her. Her every deep-rooted fear, every gnawing dread now realised in the black depths of Zayed’s eyes.

  He was horrified. Appalled. Aghast. So devastated that he couldn’t even speak. All the things she had known he would be when she had held that tester stick in her hand and stared at the two pink lines.

  ‘Pregnant?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Quite sure.’ Of course she was sure. She had known even before she’d done the test, immediately sensing the changes in her body when her period was no more than a couple of days late.

  ‘Hell!’ Zayed leaped to his feet, turning away from her before swinging back with a look of bitter desperation. ‘That night in the desert?’

  Nadia nodded stiffly.

  ‘How could I have been such a fool?’ He covered his eyes with his hand, blocking Nadia out from his private turmoil, as if he was trying to make her disappear.

  Well, she would, if that was what he wanted. Nadia gripped the back of her chair as she stared at the tormented figure before her. Her hands were shaking, her whole body in danger of joining in as a chill of dread swept over her. It was a dread that clawed at her with its icy fingers, pointing out the terrible truth. The dread of realisation that she meant nothing to him.

  Because, despite everything, until now Nadia had still hoped. A tiny part of her, a little kernel of optimism, had been clinging to the belief that maybe this news didn’t have to be so disastrous. Maybe Zayed would embrace the idea, maybe he would even embrace her, tell her everything would be all right. Now that foolish optimism lay raw and bleeding at her feet. The word disastrous didn’t even beginning to describe his reaction. There wasn’t a word in the English language hideous enough for that. Or for the way she was feeling right now.

  For not only had Zayed’s reaction told Nadia how he felt about her, it had confirmed how she felt about him. And it was that that unfurled the curl of misery inside her now, twisting its way brutally past her internal organs until it found its true victim—her heart. Where it mercilessly wrapped its tendrils around and around, its grip so tight that Nadia knew there would never be any release.

  She loved Zayed. Loved him with an all-consuming certainty. Like breathing, it was a love so fundamental, so basic, that at first she had hardly noticed it; it was just a part of who she was. Or maybe she had refused to notice it because, like breathing, to focus on it only caused an anxiety that she hadn’t known was there. Except, of course, she had known. She had most probably known from the very first moment she had seen him. When she had skidded into the stateroom wearing that loathsome outfit and been met by his deep, dark, searchingly beautiful eyes. But it was a love she had refused to acknowledge, even to herself, because she had known it would never be reciprocated, had known that she was totally alone with this one. She was in the dark and claustrophobic tunnel of love and there was no one sitting beside her.

  She could feel the force of those eyes on her now, still searching, only this time they were cold and harsh, searching for a way out of this appalling mess. Because that was obviously how he viewed it—their marriage and their baby. Yet another massive problem that had to be dealt with.

  Well, she refused to be his problem any more. She was done with that. Now she had to dig deep, deeper than she ever had before, to find the determination, the self-preservation, to get her through this. Her fighting spirit was her only weapon, but it was well honed.

  Years of suffering injustice and prejudice at the hands of her father and brother had seen to that. She had refused to bend to their will and she had won. Now she had another battle to fight, the hardest battle of her life. There would be no victors, that was for sure. But she had to protect herself from this onslaught of pain. Protect herself and protect her baby, their baby, that was growing inside her now. It was only a scrap of life at the moment, a miracle of dividing cells, but Nadia loved it already. The baby was her future. It would be her strength.

  ‘We are both equally responsible for what has happened.’ She fumbled her way back down onto her seat, fighting to control her trembling body, to stop him from seeing the agony she was feeling. ‘But please don’t feel you have to be responsible for anything else. If my penance is served—’ she quoted his phrase back at him, her voice hollow with effort ‘—then so is yours. I will do as you say, go back to Harith and have the baby there. You need have nothing more to do with me. With either of us.’

  ‘Don’t be so ridiculous.’ Zayed glared down at her, his fists balled by his sides, impotent anger pumping through him. ‘I didn’t know you were pregnant when I suggested you went back to Harith. Obviously that changes everything. Now we are tied together forever.’

  Tied together forever. Like a ball and chain. A life sentence.

  ‘No, you are wrong. I will take full responsibility for the baby. You can still have your freedom. You can still have your divorce.’

  ‘And you really think you could do that?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I do. The baby and I will be fine. We can manage perfectly well without you.’ She had to keep up the pretence, hold on to the bravado.

  ‘I can see I need to rephrase that.’ Zayed pulled up a chair and sat down heavily in front of her, leaning forward for emphasis, the harsh angled planes of his face just inches from hers. ‘When I said did you think you could do that I meant did you think I would let you do that.’

  Of course. How could she have got that wrong? How could she have thought that just for one moment he might have been looking at this through her eyes?

  Drawing in a deep, shuddering breath, she struggled to stop he
rself from screaming or fainting or a pathetic flailing combination of the two. She was a fighter. She would not let herself collapse before him.

  ‘It is not up to you to tell me what I can do or where I can go.’

  ‘I think you will find that it is.’ His voice was chillingly clear. ‘You are my wife, the sheikha of Gazbiyaa. And you are carrying my child. You will do as I say.’

  They stared at each other in total silence as the realisation of what he had said glinted between them, sharp and jagged, like the teeth of a saw.

  So it was out there. Nadia had come full circle. By escaping the rule of one tyrannical family she had ended up shackled to another.

  A family. It was the first time she had thought of them as a family: she, Zayed and the baby. Now that word, that image, all but broke her heart.

  She dragged her gaze away from his, from the sheer miserable sadness of it all. She wanted to howl or wail or beat at him with her fists to try to get through to him. To show him what he had done to her.

  But she wouldn’t do any of those things. Because she still had her pride. Grimly clinging on to that alone, she pushed herself up from the chair.

  ‘I am not prepared to discuss this any further.’ Standing tall now, she jutted back her shoulders to deliver one last, harrowing stare before turning on her heel.

  ‘Oh, no, you don’t.’ Zayed was behind her in an instant, his hand gripping the back of her arm. ‘Don’t think you can just run away from me.’

  Nadia turned into the granite wall of his chest, inhaling his masculine scent, his barely leashed power. It all but knocked her legs from under her. ‘I have never run away from anything in my life.’ As she angled her face up at him she felt her knees wobble, rubber where cartilage and bone had once been. She had to get out before she literally fell at his feet. ‘But right now I need to be on my own.’

  And with that she turned and stumbled from the room.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ZAYED WATCHED NADIA’S departing figure, so desperate to get away from him that she was tripping over her feet, reaching out to the door frame for support.

  Pregnant. How the hell could he have let this happen? How could he have been so careless? He who prided himself on his self-control at all times, his measured approach, the shrewd, calculating head on his shoulders. His friends might have ribbed him for it, but they relied on it, too, especially Stefan, whose hot-headed temper had been cooled by the practical Zayed many times over the years.

  But the mess he’d got himself into now was worthy of the most moronic of men, and the anger at his stupidity surpassed anything that Stefan could have thrown at him. It boiled inside him, heating his core with its molten power.

  What the hell had happened to his life?

  Nadia. That was what had happened. Since the second she had appeared before him in that ridiculous outfit his life had gone off the rails. And all his efforts to stop the runaway train had ultimately been futile.

  Raising his hands to his eyes, he pushed his knuckles hard against his closed lids, letting the flashes of light blot out the world for a second.

  Pregnant. The shocking news had hit him like a hammer blow to the head. He was going to be a father. Something he had vowed never to let happen, deciding long ago that he didn’t want the responsibility of bringing a child into this world. He had never wanted to marry, either, come to that. His parents’ fractured marriage had been more than enough to put him off that idea for life, and the fraught relationship it had fostered with his brother only confirming that marriage and kids were definitely not for him. He hadn’t been able to get out of that particular hothouse of tensions fast enough.

  And now here he was, back in Gazbiyaa, married and soon to be a father. The three things that up until a few months ago he would have sworn never would happen.

  Like falling in love.

  The words flew, unbidden, into his head and lodged there, refusing to budge, wilful and persistent. Was that what had happened to him? Was that why he had lost control of his life, of his head, of every flaming part of his body?

  He was in love with Nadia. Zayed turned the startling realisation over in his head. Of all the women he could have fallen in love with, of all the eligible, beautiful, uncomplicated women he might have chosen, the only one who had burrowed deep inside him and captured his stubborn, untouched heart was Nadia. No one had ever challenged him like Nadia; no one had ever made him feel the way Nadia did. And there was the irony. For Nadia was the one women he could guarantee would never love him back.

  He stared at the empty doorway, picturing the expression on her face when she had left. He shouldn’t have let her go, not like that. When she had told him she was pregnant his reaction had been cruel, heartless. He hadn’t even considered how she might be feeling. Shock had played a part, but it didn’t excuse his despicable behaviour.

  He should have handled the situation so much better. He definitely shouldn’t have done the heavy-handed ‘you will do as I say’ routine. That was as good as guaranteeing she would do the opposite. A cold thought ran through him like the blade of a stiletto. Supposing she was planning on leaving? Tonight.

  He had to find her, right away. He had to try to make amends, to stop her from doing anything stupid. He might not be able to make her love him but he could stop behaving like a jerk.

  With his feet pounding along the echoing corridors he headed for the palace courtyard, Nadia’s favourite bolthole, a huge surge of relief washing over him when he realised he had guessed right; she was there. She had her back to him, sitting on one of the benches under an archway, hunched over with her arms wrapped around her knees.

  Relief made way for pain. She looked so small. So alone. He wanted to take her in his arms and try to make everything right. If only he could.

  The trickle of water in the rill disguised the sound of his footsteps, and he was right behind her before she realised he was there, the light touch of his hand on her shoulder making her leap sideways. She shot him a lightning glance before looking away again, but it was enough for Zayed to see that she had been crying.

  ‘Nadia?’

  ‘Go away.’

  ‘Nadia.’ He walked round her until he was in front of her and, sitting down on the bench, lowered his head, trying to look into her face. Nadia went to swivel round the other way but he caught her shoulders in his strong grasp and held her firm. ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘I have nothing to say to you.’ The words were gulped between swallowed sobs. ‘Go away and leave me alone.’

  ‘No. I’m not going anywhere until you have heard what I have to say.’ He watched as a fat tear escaped and rolled down her cheek. The sight of it nearly crucified him. Reaching forward, he stopped its progress with his finger, feeling its wetness on his skin. Nadia’s tear. He had never seen her cry before, no matter how dangerous or frightening the situation. And she had already faced far too many of them.

  But now as he moved his hand beneath her jaw, as she raised her heavy-lidded eyes to meet his, the tears began to flow freely, silently, chasing each other down the side of her nose, down her cheeks, dripping into her mouth and from her chin. In true Nadia style, she never did anything in half measures. Cupping her face in his hands, Zayed felt them pooling into his palms, running down his forearms, more and more, as if they would never stop. His heart tugged inside him.

  ‘Nadia.’ What had he done to her? Pulling her body into a stiff embrace, he wrapped his arms around her, pinning her to his chest. Her sobs shuddered between them, each jarring jolt torturing him more than the last as the depths of her misery became ever clearer. ‘I’m so sorry.’ He whispered the words into her hair, inhaling the scent of her, the feel of her.

  He felt her move inside his arms like a small trapped creature, struggling feebly against the ring of his embrace that he had no intention of releasing. Finally she went quiet again and when she tried to raise her head he let her, looking down at her face, wet with tears, drained but still defiant. Still be
autiful.

  ‘I don’t want your apologies, Zayed.’ The fight was returning to her now, arching her spine. ‘In fact, I don’t want anything from you. But I do want this baby, and I will raise it on my own if I have to. In fact I would rather raise it on my own than subject it to life with a father who didn’t want it, who resented it, who couldn’t find it in his heart to—’

  Lowering his head, he covered her open mouth with his own, halting her words with his lips, breathing in her anger and her anguish, taking them away from her the only way he knew how. With a searing kiss.

  Nadia’s body, tense and rigid in his arms, slowly loosened and leaned into his, and that was all the encouragement he needed to deepen the kiss still further, to feel her more intensely. With the faintest of moans she started to respond, to give in to him, to the incredibly powerful connection between them. The fire and passion that never went away, no matter how much they fought or fell out or tried to deny it. The passion that had made a baby, a new life, that was growing inside Nadia now. Suddenly Zayed realised how incredible that was. How utterly, astonishingly amazing.

  But the thought was short-lived, wrenched away by Nadia’s sudden movement as she jerked back her head, gasping for breath and struggling to get away from him again. ‘Let me go!’ Her hands were trying to find purchase against the wall of his chest, her hair a mess of dark curls, her breasts rising and falling, crushed between them.

  Tightening his hold, Zayed trapped her flailing hands and held them against him, his eyes never leaving Nadia’s flushed and tear-stained face. He stared down at her, at the lips swollen from the force of his kiss, the thick strand of hair falling across her cheekbone, the clumps of wet eyelashes, weighting her eyelids as she blinked back at him, framing those extraordinary, beautiful eyes. ‘I’m not going to let you go until you promise you will listen to me.’

  ‘Well, we will be here a long time, then.’ Defiant to the last, Nadia struggled in his arms with renewed effort. ‘Because I don’t want to hear anything you have to say.’