Innocent's Desert Wedding Contract

by Heidi Rice

  The mask had returned, and her heart ached. But as he threw the sheet back, to climb off the bed, his gaze landed on the sheet beneath her and his whole body stiffened.

  His head jerked up and his gaze locked on hers, shocked and accusing. ‘Are you on your period?’ he demanded.

  She could have lied. A part of her wanted to lie. Knowing she must have bled last night and he had spotted the stains on the sheet.

  The truth would only make her more vulnerable.

  But there were too many lies between them already. Lies and half-truths. And she was tired of trying to maintain them all.

  So she shook her head.

  He swore and raked his fingers through his hair. ‘So you were a virgin last night? You lied to me?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Why? Damn it?’ he demanded, his face a mask of disbelief, the same horrifying disbelief that had crossed it when he had first taken her virginity.

  She clasped the sheet to her breasts and sat up, feeling so exposed now by his searing gaze—which was full of accusation, and even anger.

  ‘Why does it matter?’ she asked.

  She’d given herself to him, not once, but twice. And she refused to regret it, or apologise for it. The pleasure had been immeasurable, she could still feel the last orgasm rippling through her, but there was a greater significance to what she’d done that she wouldn’t hide from.

  ‘Because it gives me a responsibility I didn’t want. And you shouldn’t want either.’

  ‘What responsibility?’ she asked, confused now as well as wary. Why should her sexual experience—or lack of it—have anything to do with what they’d just shared?

  ‘You were untouched, you lied about it, but the consequences are the same. We can’t just get an annulment now.’ His eyes filled with suspicion and arrogance, and denial. ‘If you think you can trick me into intimacy, you’re wrong,’ he said, his gaze flat and so cold it chilled her to the bone.

  The words were like blows, the bitter rejection of what they had just shared hitting that tender part of her heart she’d opened to him. To them.

  How could she have been so misguided? she wondered. Karim wasn’t a highly strung horse, or a foal just out of its mother’s womb. He was a man, who had a great deal more power and experience than she did and that hadn’t changed. He might have been vulnerable for a moment, but he didn’t want her help.

  She couldn’t fix his past any more than she could fix her own. And it had been naïve of her to try.

  She gathered what was left of her dignity, while her sex was still throbbing from the urgency of his lovemaking, and scooted off the bed.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he demanded as she wrapped the sheet around her trembling body and headed towards the bath chamber where the maids had prepared her for his bed last night, without her even realising it. She’d been served up like a sacrificial lamb, and then participated in her own downfall.

  You’re such a fool, Orla, when will you ever learn? You can’t fix a person who doesn’t want to be fixed.

  ‘I’m going to take a bath,’ she said, planning to wash and leave as soon as was humanly possible.

  His rejection hurt, she realised, but not as much as her own stupidity, because she could still feel the deep pulse of yearning threatening to shatter her heart.

  She crossed the large room, desperate to escape as arousal rippled through her traitorous nerve-endings while he donned a pair of black pants. But as she walked past him, he grasped hold of her upper arm.

  ‘We’re not finished here. We need to discuss the possible fallout.’

  ‘What fallout?’ she asked, as she struggled to hold onto the tears she knew she couldn’t shed in front of him without risking the loss of the last thing she had left—her pride.

  ‘You could be pregnant,’ he said. His gaze strayed to her belly beneath the sheet, the thickness in his voice something she couldn’t interpret. ‘The first time… I didn’t take any precautions.’

  She nodded, her cheeks heating at the memory of that tumultuous joining, all the things she’d imbued it with that weren’t real—at least not for him—only damning her foolish heart more.

  ‘It’s… It’s okay,’ she said. ‘I wear a contraceptive patch. There won’t be any repercussions.’

  He frowned, but when she went to tug her arm free, his grip tightened. ‘Why do you use contraception, if I’m the only man you’ve ever had sex with?’ he asked.

  The heat in her cheeks ignited to sear her chest at the probing enquiry. The personal nature of the conversation felt far too intimate—which was no doubt as ridiculous as the pain in her heart, which refused to go away, given what they’d just shared, not once, but twice.

  ‘I used to have very irregular periods and…’ She pushed out a tortured breath. Why was it so hard to talk to him about her menstrual cycle? ‘They were very painful. The doctor recommended the pill to regulate them and help with the pain. It worked but I kept forgetting to take it, so I started using a patch.’

  It was probably way too much information. But still his eyes narrowed, and she realised he didn’t trust her. The irony would have been funny if her heart weren’t busy breaking into a million pieces at his cynical expression. How had they come to this?

  ‘I’m not lying,’ she said. ‘This time.’

  Something flickered in his eyes that almost looked like regret, but he let her arm go at last. As she turned to leave, though, his raw voice stopped her, tight with barely concealed fury.

  ‘If you think you can leave me now, it’s too late.’

  She swung round, the shattering pain in her heart threatening to consume her. She hadn’t wanted to leave him, had given herself to him freely, but he’d taken what she offered, and rejected it. And she could see on his face, that hadn’t changed. He was still closed, unyielding, unwilling to bend, unwilling to accept they could have had more.

  ‘I can’t stay, surely you can see that?’ she said, the battle to hold onto the tears, and keep her voice devoid of the jagged pain now clawing at her throat, making her jaw hurt.

  ‘This is a real marriage now,’ he said, his expression tense and wary and utterly uncompromising. ‘You don’t have a choice, and neither do I.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ‘WHAT DO YOU MEAN, she’s left? Where did she go?’ Karim glared at Orla’s prim, neatly dressed personal assistant, Jamilla. Unlike his other staff, she didn’t flinch instinctively at the sign of his temper, something that for once he found extremely annoying.

  He’d given Orla a full six hours to recover from the life-changing events of last night and this morning before having this conversation. But if she thought she was somehow going to avoid the truth by going walkabout in his palace she would soon learn that the power of the King was absolute.

  ‘I don’t know, Your Majesty,’ the woman said, not even blinking now, let alone flinching…

  Karim felt the slow-burning fury—and frustration—turn to something more volatile: panic. ‘Isn’t it your job to know where she is? You’re the Queen’s PA.’

  ‘She asked me not to ask her where she was going, so I did not,’ the young woman said.

  ‘She…’ His glare became catastrophic, but it was the twist of anxiety deep in his stomach that concerned him more. ‘She’s not in the palace grounds?’ The panic rose up to strangle him, the fear more real and vivid than it had ever been in his nightmares. Where could she possibly have gone? They were in the middle of a desert. The nearest town to the palace was over forty miles away. And she had no means of transportation.

  ‘I don’t believe so, Your Majesty,’ the young woman said. ‘She seemed quite distressed when she returned to her rooms this morning,’ she added. And he heard it then, the note of accusation, and loyalty.

  His temper flared, fuelled by the panic. And the guilt.

  He should neve
r have let Orla out of his sight.

  He’d needed time to calm down, to deal with the turmoil of emotions that had all but gutted him, while she’d stood in front of him, her eyes full of the pain he’d caused. At the time he’d been furious, convinced her virginity had forced his hand. She couldn’t leave Zafar now. Not after last night. An annulment was now out of the question. Because of the Law of Marriage of the Sheikhs, an arcane tradition that had existed in this region for hundreds of years, that stated if a king ever took a virgin to his bed, he must make her his wife. It had all been detailed in their engagement contract, something he was now convinced Orla hadn’t actually read.

  But once he’d calmed down enough to question his reaction, he’d begun to wonder where that trapped feeling had really come from when he’d spotted Orla’s blood on the sheets and realised the truth. Was it really because of an arcane law? When had he ever abided by the laws of Zafar? When had he ever even cared about the country’s customs? Or was it because she had blindsided him with her bravery and compassion and the heat that had only got worse each time they had sex?

  What had he really been furious about? That he would be forced to make this marriage real, or that he had known, despite everything, he couldn’t bear to let her go now?

  Was this about her virginity, or was it about his need, the need that had flared and pulsed inside him, a need he’d never even acknowledged existed until he’d met Orla? And the fear he could only ever be whole now with her in his arms?

  But he had to find her first to figure out the truth.

  The fear that something might happen to her before he could made the turmoil of emotion tie his guts into knots all over again. He glared at the assistant, satisfied to see her blink at last. He spoke to her in low tones, the menace in his voice a cover for the desperation. ‘Where did she go?’ he demanded again.

  ‘All I know is that she headed to the stables,’ the woman replied.

  The stables? The panic swelled and careered into his throat, making it hard for him to breathe, let alone think. He charged past the assistant. He would have to fire her another time.

  ‘Hakim, get to the stables now,’ he shouted as he strode into the office next door to his study. ‘Have a stallion saddled for me and then speak to the stablemaster… My wife has left the palace on horseback and I need to know where she went. I will meet you there in fifteen minutes.’

  ‘But, Your Majesty—’ The young man began, looking stunned.

  ‘Now!’ he shouted.

  He heard Hakim racing down the palace corridor towards the stables as he took the stairs to his suite two at a time.

  Why had he given her time to consider her options? To run away from him? Perhaps because he hadn’t really been able to think clearly ever since he’d met her?

  He arrived in his chamber and began stripping off the ceremonial robes he’d worn that morning to say goodbye to his official guests.

  Thank you for inviting us all to your wedding, Karim. It was wonderful to meet your wife. Orla seems smart and brave, both qualities she will need to adapt to the role of Queen.

  Queen Catherine Nawari Khan’s parting words—before she and her husband had escorted their children to Zane’s waiting helicopter—echoed in Karim’s head again as he yanked riding clothes out of his closet.

  He’d tried to dismiss the look in Catherine’s eyes at the time—full of empathy, but also concern. Had she guessed that he had been using Orla? That he needed her much more than she would ever need him?

  Guilt stabbed into his gut.

  If Catherine knew, a woman he’d only met a few times, did Orla know too…?

  That he simply did not have the courage to let her go. He’d seen the need in her eyes, not just desire, but something more than that, something that had terrified him while also making the yearning to keep her so much worse. And he’d chosen to exploit it.

  He should have guessed, though, that Orla was too stubborn and independent—too smart and brave—to settle for his demands. What he hadn’t counted on was that she would do something so reckless.

  After tugging on his riding clothes, he headed down to the stables.

  He had to find her. The panic kicked his heart rate up another notch.

  The Zafari desert was a dangerous place, especially at night. And there was less than two hours before sunset.

  Orla was his wife now, and his Queen, in every way that mattered, which made her his responsibility—and the sooner she accepted that, the better.

  Maybe he could never give her his heart… But she would always have his protection.

  He had failed one woman once, and it had eventually destroyed her.

  He would not fail another.

  Orla huffed out a breath as the beautiful white mare crested the rocky edge of the dune and she spotted the shimmer of water in the valley below.

  She tugged on the mare’s reins and the horse paused, waiting patiently for her next instruction despite the scent of the water making her nostrils flare.

  ‘Good girl, Sabella,’ she said, patting the horse’s sweaty neck.

  The oasis was stunning, just as Ameera had described it when she had given her directions to it that morning. A grove of palm trees and desert scrubs surrounded a large rocky pool, formed by a waterfall seeping from the rocks.

  Clucking her tongue and pressing her heels into the mare’s sides, she directed the horse down the rocky slope towards it, knowing she would have been just as relieved to see a puddle after three hours in the saddle.

  She shouldn’t have left the palace, shouldn’t have taken the horse, or the risk that she might get lost in the desert. A desert that, she had soon discovered, was as harsh and inhospitable as Ameera had warned her. But she hadn’t been able to stay, had known she needed time and space and distance before she faced Karim again.

  As Sabella reached the water, Orla climbed off the mare’s back and allowed the animal to stick her snout in the pool, while she tied the reins off on a rock. After taking the last sip from her water pouch, she set about removing the saddle bags filled with the gear she had packed for an overnight stay at the oasis. And then the saddle.

  She took care of the horse first, preparing her feed pouch for later and brushing her coat, before tethering her to a cooler spot under the trees. Then she set about putting up the tent and making a campfire in the shade, the water still beckoning.

  But with the tough ride now over, the chores failed to provide enough distraction to stop the painful thoughts that had been torturing her, ever since she had walked away from Karim that morning.

  ‘This is a real marriage now…’ His words shot through her mind again bringing with them that swift, painfully misguided burst of hope, which had been shattered less than a second later—before she’d even had a chance to acknowledge it, or the terrifying truth behind it—when he’d added, ‘You don’t have a choice, and neither do I.’

  Somehow she had fallen in love with this hard, intractable, emotionally unavailable man. Who she was now very much afraid could never love her back.

  What had happened with his mother…and his father…had scarred him in a way that had closed him off to even the possibility of love.

  She couldn’t save him if he didn’t want to be saved. Trying to make him want her, to make him love her, was a pointless task. All she would end up doing was hurting herself more. She’d realised as much when Ameera had told her about the Law of Marriage of the Sheikhs, and she’d finally understood why he had demanded she stay married to him.

  Something to do with her virginity. Nothing whatsoever to do with her, or the connection she’d thought had begun to develop between them.

  She needed this time in the desert alone to find the strength, not just to defy him, but to leave him and return to Kildare.

  After finally attaching the feed pouch to Sabella’s bridle so the horse could reg
ain the calories she’d lost during the arduous—and somewhat roundabout—trek to the oasis, Orla stripped off the dusty riding robes down to her panties and T-shirt.

  She stepped into the cool water, aware of the ripple of sensation as she submerged herself, wanting to wash away the feel of his touch on her skin. The feel of him, hard and possessive and hers, inside her body. And yet at the same time not wanting to.

  The sun was starting to sink towards the horizon at last, the heat still shimmering in a haze, but what should have been refreshing, rejuvenating, was anything but, the heated, painful memories still bombarding her and making her skin feel achingly sensitive, and her heart shattered.

  She ducked her whole head beneath the water, scrubbed her aching body, the tender flesh between her legs that still yearned to feel him thick and firm inside her.

  But as her breath got trapped in her lungs she was forced to lift up through the surface. The rushing sound of the waterfall covered the hasty beat of her heart, until she realised the pounding sound was getting louder and closer.

  She turned, to see a magnificent black stallion gallop to a stop at the water’s edge, and the man astride it—dressed in flowing riding robes—his face marred by a thunderous frown, jump down in one fluid movement and declare in a low voice, husky with barely leashed fury: ‘Get out of there. Now!’

  Karim.

  She shuddered at the temper on his face, but kept her chin firm and her breath even—or as even as she could manage while the emotions she’d come here to suppress raged through her again—as she walked out of the water.

  At last she stood on the banks, pushed her wet hair out of her eyes, and realised how far she’d come as his gaze raked over her body, making it flare and spark.

  Funny to think that the first time she’d ever seen him she had been soaking wet too. But that anxious, desperate girl was gone. She was a woman now, in so many ways, and she didn’t need to be scared of how she felt about him.

  ‘Why did you run?’ he said, his voice hoarse with fury… But as her gaze met his, her knees trembled, weakened by the pain she could see shadowing his golden eyes. Pain she realised he could not disguise.