The Sheikh's Arranged Marriage: The only thing worse than falling in love with the man she'd married was knowing he would never feel the same...

by Clare Connelly

  “No!” She shouted. “I’m not some toy that you can blow hot and cold with. Stop playing games with me.” She wrenched open the door to their hidden passage and stormed through it, slamming her own door shut as she entered her room.

  He pulled a pair of jeans on and then followed her, his own temper sizzling away at her habit of storming out on him.

  She was standing in the middle of her room, being wrapped in a robe by three of her attendants. Monique was amongst them, and he felt a small pang of guilt at having thrown these two women together like that. His eyes didn’t quite meet Monique’s as he only had eyes for his wife.

  “Leave us,” he commanded, waving a hand at the attendants.

  Wordlessly, they stopped what they were doing and filed from the room. Neither of them noticed the way Monique’s cheeks flamed.

  Rebecca threw him a look of pure disdain and then fumbled with the ties of her robe. He breathed out angrily and shook his head. “You should not keep walking out on me like that, Rebecca.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Does it hurt your pride, Tariq?”

  “No.” He said simply.

  She made a noise of frustration as she kept trying to fasten her robe. “Why did you send them away? I have no idea how to fasten this blooming thing.” She muttered, giving up finally and clutching the fabric together.

  His smile surprised them both. “Let me.” He took hold of the fabric, but instead of tying it together, he slid his hands beneath, linking his arms behind her naked back, still warm from the shower. “Rebecca, please don’t make the mistake of thinking I do not want you. With every fibre of my being, I am as attracted to you as you are to me.”

  Her look was sceptical. “It doesn’t seem like it.”

  “I could throw you on this bed and take you right now to make my point, if you’d like,” he promised seriously. “But you deserve better than to lose your virginity to someone simply indulging their own needs. I want you to be sure, when we are together, that it is what you truly want. I want you to feel confident. Comfortable. So that there’s no room for regrets. Your innocence is a very special gift, and I don’t want you to ever believe I don’t appreciate it.”

  Her heart was pounding at the sweetness of his words. The reassurance that he also wanted her. “Oh.” She sighed, and smiled back at him. “I see.”

  “Our situation is unusual.” He said thickly. “You would not even contemplate a relationship with me if it weren’t for the fact your parents and mine forged this contract.”

  “And nor would you.” She snapped, her good mood evaporating just as quickly as it had appeared.

  “Nor would I? What?”

  “Nor would you contemplate a relationship with me,” she said seriously. “I feel sorry for you, that your parents thought I was a woman you could be happy with. A special education teacher from England. You must been miserable when you discovered their selection.”

  He dipped his head. He had been, it was true. He had been enjoying his freedoms as a bachelor, and the idea of marriage to a stranger had filled him with unease. But that was before he’d met his bride, and felt the spark of desire. Before he’d seen her trying to better the lives of children who had nothing. Before he realised she was worth a million of any of the woman he’d been with in the past.

  “How I felt then is irrelevant. What matters is how we feel now. What we want now.”

  “I don’t want to feel like I’m some chore that you’re doing!” She flushed at the implication in her words. “I mean, I don’t want to feel that your wife is simply another royal duty.” She pulled herself up to her full height. “I married you with my eyes wide open. I obviously expected sex would be a part of our relationship.”

  “And I would like that very much...”

  She made a noise of dissent. “I don’t believe you. I think you’re trying to get your nerve up to sleep with me. Well, as far as I’m concerned, if I’m just going to be another notch on your bedpost, let’s just get it over with.”

  Anger speared through him. Resisting the urge to give voice to his feelings, he spoke calmly. “I came to see if you would like to join me for dinner, but I can see what a colossal waste of time it is to try talking to you when you’re in this mood.” He pulled open the heavy door. “When you are prepared to have a mature, adult conversation, then come and find me.”

  The door slamming in his wake made Rebecca jump. She collapsed weakly onto the side of her bed. She’d never really fought with anyone in her life. Winona and Greg had made her terrified to defy them, and as a byproduct of their strict form of cruelty, she’d lacked the confidence to argue with anyone else, either. Until now.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Ballet. It was her secret passion. Secret by necessity, and passion by design. She had no control over the matter.

  As a girl, she had danced until her toes bled, and her mother had indulged the fervent hobby of her only child with slavish determination. She’d taken Rebecca to ballet lessons four times a week from the age of three. By the time her parents had died, Rebecca was being courted by The Royal Ballet School. Only Winona hadn’t let her attend the auditions.

  “This is just a stupid pipe dream of my sister’s, Rebecca. She was a fool to make you think you could go anywhere with dancing. Look at you. You’re too tall to ever be good at ballet. The day she married into your dad’s hoity toity family she lost touch with reality. You, a ballerina? What a joke.”

  Rebecca had not, at that stage, been so totally brow beaten and she had argued, “But the headmistress herself of the RBS thinks I am good. She came to our concert last year and asked me to audition.”

  “Lies, fabrications. That’s your mother for you. Always building you up only to let you fail. You can’t do it, Rebecca. Forget about it. And another thing. Your uncle Greg hasn’t worked his arse off just so he can pay tuition fees to a school like that. Get real, girl.”

  And that had been the end of it. Rebecca had appeared to shelve her dreams of becoming a professional ballet dancer. And when she’d learned that one of her dearest friends from the ballet academy she had attended as a young girl had been paralysed by a fall at school, she had transferred her passion to another field completely.

  But ballet was still there. Her secret joy. Her secret love. Long concealed but never forgotten.

  Her argument with Tariq had left her with a strange pent up emotion. She’d tossed and turned all night, and when she had slept, it had been lightly and fitfully. At first light, before her attendants had even joined her, she dressed in a pair of black leggings and a fitted black singlet top and had crept from her room. On her first day in the palace, when she’d explored the rooms, she’d found a large empty hall that would be perfect for her needs. It had mirrors along one wall, and a corked floor. She had known instantly that it would serve as a makeshift dance studio.

  As she tiptoed out of the private royal residence, a security guard emerged from a groove in the wall. “Your majesty, I am to accompany you today.” He said formally, and Rebecca felt her heart race.

  “You scared me!” She exclaimed, bringing a hand to her chest while her breath steadied.

  “I apologise,” he murmured.

  “This was the King’s idea?” She demanded.

  “Yes. New orders for your protection.”

  She knew what had brought this on. Her tousle with the servant woman yesterday was no doubt something he didn’t want repeated.

  She sighed with exasperation. “Very well. Come along.”

  Rebecca shouldn’t take her bad mood out on this man, but she couldn’t help it. She stomped down the long corridor of the palace until she found her makeshift dance space. “Can you wait outside?” She asked once they’d reached the room.

  The guard shook his head. “No, madam. I must watch you.”

  “Very well.” She said again, and walked into the room. “Please close the door behind you.”

  He did as she’d asked.

  Well, Tariq might have wante
d her to have a security guard, but she doubted her husband would have liked the fact that the man was watching her like a hawk as she stretched and warmed up. He was so used to being under constant scrutiny that he could have had no concept of how intrusive she found it.

  She placed her iphone down on the table and turned the volume up as loud as she could. The sound of Giselle immediately soothed her frazzled nerves. After a sleepless night, she finally felt a sense of calm. She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. It was the last ballet she had learned, and the role of Giselle was to be her audition piece. She flexed her feet and took her first step. Tentatively at first, after a fortnight’s break from dancing, but then, the movements flooded back and she lost herself in the sweet sensation of dance.

  * * *

  Tariq had been sure she would follow him.

  Or at least that she would have come to see him the night before.

  Their fight had been stupid. They were both sexually frustrated as hell and it had been easy to snap at each other. But she hadn’t weakened. And now, he scanned her room, she was gone. Already.

  He frowned. It wasn’t yet seven o’clock. Where could she have crept off to so early in the morning?

  Thanking heavens he’d asked for an extra security detail to shadow her permanently, he pressed the intercom buzzer and asked his personal guard to locate her. The answer surprised him. She was in the rarely used old banqueting hall.

  He dressed quickly, into a suit his valet had laid out for him the night before, and shoes that had been shined to a high gloss. He was impatient to see her. To make sure everything between them was okay. Another ‘first’ for him.

  What the hell was she doing at this hour, and in the disused hall? It was a fair stroll from their bedrooms and his intrigue increased with each step he took. Perhaps she’d taken her motley band of servant children and formed a temporary school, he thought with a smile. That would be just the kind of thing she would do.

  The strains of classical music greeted him as he got closer and his puzzlement increased along with the volume. He quietly turned the handle, and met the eyes of a palace guard. With one hand, he silently dismissed the security agent to the exterior of the room. And then, he saw her. Eyes closed, face painfully beautiful as she experienced the emotion of the powerful ballet Giselle.

  She was mid-air, in a pirouette, and he watched, scarcely daring to breathe lest he break her concentration. Emotions darted through him. Admiration. Awe. Desire. And fear, at the difficulty of the move she was in the process of completing.

  Her whole body was fluid with a kind of grace he’d never seen before. She was tall, but she was suddenly weightless, and almost flying through the air with step and twist and turn. As she landed and began to spin around and around and around her eyes opened and landed flat on him.

  Not by a twitch of her body did she betray that she had seen him, and that his presence affected her. She continued to dance, like a true ballerina, and he watched, openly in awe.

  The music came to a close and so did her dancing.

  He clapped, slowly, his eyes hooded.

  “You are superb,” he said quietly, with a shake of his head.

  She waved a hand in the air, the confidence gone now the music had stopped. “Far from it. I’m not a natural dancer. But I do so enjoy it.”

  He frowned. “I’ve been to a fair few ballets, Rebecca, and I’ve never been as captivated as I was just then. When.. how did you learn?”

  “You’re just being kind,” she insisted modestly.

  “Damn it, you drive me crazy, Rebecca. How can you not know how beautifully you dance?” She turned away from him but he grabbed hold of her. “I mean it,” he demanded. “Who was it?”

  “Who was what?” She whispered, dropping her gaze.

  “The idiot who told you you’re not good enough? At dancing, or anything?”

  “No one,” she fibbed, not wanting to talk about her adoptive parents here. “It was just a childish fantasy. I grew out of it.”

  “Obviously you didn’t.” He took a step back and raised his hands in a gesture of defeat. “I didn’t come here to pick another argument with you.”

  She raised her chin. “Why did you come here?”

  “I was unhappy with how things ended between us last night. I came to make sure you were okay.”

  She shrugged. “I’m fine.”

  “Obviously.” He looked sideways. So only he had been driven crazy replaying every moment of their interaction the day before. “Yesterday you said you’d like to be involved in discussions regarding our transport situation. Is that still the case?”

  She nodded then realised he wasn’t looking at her. “Yes. Of course.”

  “Good.” He turned to leave the room. “Nine o’clock sharp. Your security escort will take you.”

  She heard him say something in Arabic to her guard as he disappeared through the double doors.

  She felt her whole body start to shake. Just the sight of him was enough to rob her of any sense of calm. She scooped up her phone. Nine o’clock start meant she had hardly enough time to shower and prepare for the first of the meetings she hoped to get involved with.

  In the end, she made it with a minute to spare. Dressed in a modest pant suit cut from a beautiful emerald green silk, paired with a crisp white blouse and white pearls, and with her blonde hair pulled back into a neat chignon, she looked far more sophisticated than she felt.

  As she walked into the room, Tariq stood, and everyone followed suit. The chair to his right was empty. “Ladies, Gentlemen, my wife, Her Majesty Queen Rebecca of Assan.”

  She smiled at the crowd with a false confidence and took up the seat he indicated.

  For the most part, she listened, but every now and again, Tariq would turn to her and ask what she thought. Rebecca was surprised to discover her nerves quickly faded completely. Faced with the very real transportation issues gripping Assan, she relished the chance to tackle the problem head on.

  The discussions went all day, but by the end of it, they’d at least agreed that arming drivers was not the way forward. As the various members of the meeting filtered through the door, Tariq remained behind, watching his wife.

  “You did well,” he complimented honestly when they were alone.

  She smiled at him. “So did you.”

  “I have been training for meetings like this all my life. Seeing you today, I would have guessed you had likewise.”

  “My job takes more diplomacy than you would imagine,” she said with a wry twist of her lips.

  “I would like to hear more about your job,” he said simply. “I have dinner plans with Eric this evening. Will you join us?”

  She shook her head. “Surely you’d prefer to catch up with your friend alone?”

  “You are my wife, Rebecca. Eric is an old friend. I would be pleased for you to get to know one another better.” I would be pleased to get to know you better, he added silently. He was being cowardly, pursuing her company with Eric there for safety. In truth he didn’t trust himself to be alone with her. He was trying to be patient, but all day he’d been tormented by the memory of her dancing, the way she’d moved through the air, so fluid and so sexy. Even now, he could feel the tinder paper of need catching fire.

  “In that case, I’d be delighted.” She gave him a tentative smile.

  “We’ll dine casually, in the Ba’tuk. Monique will show you.”

  He stood to leave but the irresistible smell of her perfume, a sweet jasmine and a spicy bergamot teased his nostrils. He placed a kiss on her cheek and took her hands in his. “I mean it. You were outstanding today. A natural.”

  Unaccustomed as she was to praise, his lavish words made her feel a thud of surprise. “Thanks,” she nodded awkwardly.

  A Ba’tuk, Monique informed her an hour later, when she was dressing for dinner, was an Assanian hut designed for outdoor eating. “We were once a nomadic people. Eating under the stars is inherent to who we are. It’s a corne
rstone of our culture.”

  The description weaved a spell around Rebecca, but she couldn’t have imagined the beauty and magic of the actual thing. Situated a solid ten minute walk from the royal apartments, the palace Ba’tuk was a thing of breath taking beauty. Where the palace was all splendour and grand proportions, the hut was far simpler in design. Four walls with windows like something she imagined Ali Babar had looked out of in each side, and a large fire pit it in the middle, overlooking a man-made lake that seemed to go for miles. On the edge of the lake were palm trees and bushes of tall reeds. With the sun setting and the sky being tinged with purples and oranges, and the dessert winds blowing sand gently towards her, Rebecca felt it was the most stunning scene she’d ever come across.

  While she doubted she’d ever grow accustomed to the constant presence of the palace security force, she had certainly come to expect their silent watchfulness throughout the day. Therefore, their absence on this evening was conspicuous.

  Rebecca raised her eyebrows as she stepped in through the doorway. Or, the hole in the wall large enough to accommodate a door, for there were no actual windows nor doors to impede the free flow of air through the hut.

  Crouched on the ground, stoking the fire pit, was her husband. She gulped at the sight of him. Dressed in a traditional flowing white robe, he looked fiercely powerful. His handsome head was dipped as he concentrated on the job at hand, so that only his autocratic profile and thick dark hair was visible to her.

  Nervously, she cleared her throat and rocked her foot side to side.

  “Rebecca,” he stood, placing the fire poker gently onto the tiled floor before coming to meet her. His dark gaze raked her from head to toe, and his lips quirked in unconscious approval. In just a simple navy blue dress that fell to her feet, and with her blonde hair plaited into a crown of gold around her head, she looked too perfect for words.

  Grateful that his robes disguised the physical proof of his insta-need for her, he settled with a chaste kiss on her cheek. “Please, have a seat. Would you like some wine? Iced tea?”

  “Iced tea would be lovely, thank you,” she said a little shakily, and licked her lips as she crossed to the brightly coloured cushions that were scattered on the ground.