by Nalini Singh
The obstacles in her path had grown to almost insurmountable proportions. Convincing Tariq of her loyalty would not be enough. He might eventually forgive her for not fighting for their love against her family, but she doubted it would be easy. But would he ever forgive the second staggering blow to his warrior’s pride?
And what if she caused a third, with the secret that had broken a child’s heart?
Panic threatened to choke her. No! No one would know about her illegitimacy! No one would shame her husband. Only her family knew, and they valued their position in society too much to let the truth slip out.
You think your prince would marry a girl who can’t even name her father? Keep dreaming, little sister.
Four years ago, Sarah had picked at her most vulnerable spot and then kicked hard. Jasmine still hadn’t recovered from the blow, because she knew her sister was right. How could Tariq accept her, much less love her, if even her adoptive parents hadn’t been able to?
He wouldn’t believe that she’d been so overwhelmed by the marriage ceremony, she’d forgotten the one vital fact that made her the wrong choice to be his wife. As a girl of eighteen, she’d planned to tell him…until Sarah had bluntly thrown the consequences in her face. Believing her sister, Jasmine had kept her hurtful secret, and her family had used it to batter her down when they’d asked her to choose.
“You will speak to me.” The rough order jerked her out of her maudlin thoughts. He liked her speaking to him, did he? Yesterday, he’d teased her that she chattered like a magpie.
Allowing a smile to escape, she let hope fill her heart about her ability to inspire love in this complex man. So the fight would be harder. So what? She’d almost died living apart from him. As long as there was the slightest hope, as long as her panther liked to talk to her, as long as he touched her body like he was starving for her, she’d persevere.
Maybe one day he’d trust her enough, love her enough, to accept all of her. Until then, she’d keep the secret she desperately needed to share, the anguish she needed to fight with his love, deep within her. And she’d make up for that one lie by fighting for other truths, however much it hurt.
“Tell me.” Her tone was quiet but determined.
“What?”
“Tell me exactly what they tried to do.”
“Mina.” Tariq’s annoyance was clear. “I have said that the past is the past. If you do not wish to fight, we will not speak of this.” His hard body moved behind her as he made an adjustment to the reins held negligently in his left hand.
“And I’m supposed to obey your decree without question?” She was unable to let such an arrogant presumption pass.
He was silent for a long moment. “No one challenges the sheik when he has spoken.”
“You’re my husband.”
“Yet you don’t act as a submissive wife should.”
His tone was so neutral that she almost missed the wry undertone. He was teasing her, no longer cold, as he’d been after the revelation in the oasis. Jasmine decided to continue her quest for the truth, despite his implied forgiveness for the pain she’d reawakened that morning. If she let it go now, Tariq would always refuse to discuss the past. An incredibly strong man, he needed a woman who would challenge him when required, not buckle under his demands.
“If you wanted submission, you should’ve gotten a pet.” She didn’t add that a submissive wife would bore him out of his aristocratic skull within a week.
His arms tightened around her. “No, Mina, I need no pet. Not when I have you to pet.”
The wordplay made her blush. “You speak English just fine when you put your mind to it,” she noted. “But I’m not going to be distracted.”
“No?” Under her breast, his arm suddenly came to life. Muscle flowed and shifted, caressing her without any visible movement.
“No.” Her voice was firm, though desire crackled through her like white lightning.
He slid his hand down to press against her stomach. Then, without warning, he said, “We stopped in Bahrain on our return, for diplomatic reasons. On the way from the airport, my car was separated from the cavalcade by two large trucks.”
“Hiraz?”
“I was not good company at that time.” Tariq’s quiet response drove another nail into the bruised flesh of her heart. “Hiraz was riding in the foremost car with two guards. Another two were in the following car.”
“You were alone.” Instinctively, her hands left the pommel and pressed over his.
“I am never alone, Mina.” His words were as close to a complaint as she’d ever heard. Even a sheik, she understood, needed privacy. A man like Tariq would need it more than most. “My driver is always a trained guard.”
“What happened next?” She was caught in the destructive grip of a past that could have physically stolen Tariq from her. As it was, the emotional damage caused by the attack was profound.
He leaned down and moved her headgear aside so he could whisper into her ear. The intimate gesture made her glad that they were riding at the back of the group.
“We took care of them.” His masculine scent surrounded her, his warmth an experience she didn’t want to escape.
“That’s all you’re going to say?” she protested, disturbed by the way he seemed to be withdrawing once again.
“There isn’t much else. They were religious zealots from a troubled nation who sought to kill me with their bare hands. I disabled three, my driver two.” He nuzzled her neck, a gesture so achingly familiar that tears threatened. The tone of his voice belonged to an exasperated man tired of a topic, rather than one bent on rebuilding an impenetrable wall.
“And the other guards took care of the rest after breaching the barrier of trucks?” she guessed.
Tariq drew back from her and pulled the covering close around her face. “You are too fair,” he grumbled.
“Maybe I’ll tan.” There was always hope.
His response was a disbelieving snort. “Enough of this. We will talk of other things.”
She might’ve argued with him, but he’d already relented a great deal after his initial refusal to speak about his life. Pushing her luck could backfire. “All right.”
“I don’t believe you.” He sounded so male, so put upon.
“Drat.” She fell back into the relationship as it had been before she’d learned the awful truth about how Tariq had been targeted for assassination because of his perceived weakness in loving her. She needed to feel his happiness, to find hope in his laughter.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
She thought he was referring to their fight. “This is a beautiful day. It’s a day to be happy.”
His chuckle startled her. “I was asking how your sweet bottom was feeling.”
She blushed and elbowed him. “Behave.” The last traces of frost were long gone. Fire surrounded her. She swallowed tears of bittersweet happiness. There would be no more pain this gorgeous day. She’d pretend that the world was perfect and that the man holding her so carefully loved her, too.
HOW EVER, THAT NIGHT, Jasmine couldn’t keep pretending that everything was okay. Not when her heart was threatening to break under the strain. “Would it be okay if I retired early?” she asked Tariq. The firelight, which had seemed so romantic the night before, now made her eyes feel dry and achy.
From his protective position slightly in front of her, Tariq glanced over his shoulder. “You do not wish to remain?” His voice had a dark edge that she couldn’t decipher.
“I’m tired. This is new for me,” she confessed, hiding one truth behind another.
Her husband moved until he was sitting next to her. Then, to her surprise, he pulled her against his seated form. Tariq rarely touched her in public. She hadn’t yet found the courage to ask him whether it was because he didn’t want to, or because of the circumspection demanded of his position.
“I apologize, Mina. You don’t complain, so I forget that this journey must be hard for you.” Deep, sensu
ous, caressing, his words washed over her like soft, welcoming rain.
She nestled her head against his shoulder, finding that some of her inner ache had disappeared. He held her as if she mattered. “Am I expected to stay because I’m your wife?”
His muscled arm firmed around her as he shifted her a tiny bit nearer, eliminating any hint of space between their bodies. “Your intelligence is one of the reasons you are my wife,” he murmured. “My people judge those not of our land. It’s a flaw in us and yet it’s so much a part of Zulheil that it may be our saving grace. We do not trust easily.” Jasmine had known that the first moment she’d met him.
“Even though they’ve accepted you because you are my chosen wife,” he continued, gazing down at her upturned face, “and you’ll receive obedience, the amount of respect you receive will be determined by a thousand things, among them your ability to endure this harsh land.”
She understood what he would never articulate. His honor was now bound inextricably to hers. It was a fragile link that could shatter as it had once before, and rip even this shaky relationship from her grasp. “I’ll stay. Just hold me?” She winced at the neediness of her voice.
He answered by touching her cheek with his free hand, his dark eyes fierce with what she wanted to believe was pride. Another knot melted inside her. When he looked away, she watched the play of the firelight on his face. He was at once beautiful and dangerous. A panther momentarily at rest. A warrior at home among his people.
Jasmine smiled. Her earlier frustration and pain had faded to a dull ache. Strangely content now, she stared up at the jewel-studded night sky, wondering if within those pinpricks there was a candle to light her way into her husband’s heart.
CHAPTER SIX
BY THE TIME TARIQ RETURNED from a last-minute consultation with one of the guides, Mina was curled up and half-asleep. No light from the campfire reached their bed and neither did the voices of the men. He stripped down to the loose pants designed by his ancestors to offer respite from the unrelenting heat of the desert, glad for the small lagoon that had allowed the entire party a chance to bathe.
Memories of watching over his wife while she swam sent familiar need racing through him, but it was clear that Mina was exhausted. Tenderness overwhelmed him. She looked so small and fragile, and yet she made him feel so much. Too much. Heart clenching with emotions he didn’t want to accept, he lay down beside her, wrapped her in his arms and let her rest. For a while.
Unfortunately, he didn’t get to wake her with slow, sensuous caresses as he’d wanted, because deep in the night she jerked upright beside him, and he could almost smell her fear. He reached up to pull her back into his arms.
“Tariq!” She turned blindly toward him.
“I’m here, Mina.” He succeeded in trapping her fluttering hands and held her tight against his body, disturbed by the too-fast thudding of her heart.
“Tariq.” This time her voice was a husky whisper, but no less desperate than her first fearful cry. She clutched at his shoulders with small hands.
“Hush. You are safe, my Jasmine.” He stroked the curved line of her spine, trying to calm her. When she continued to shiver, he flipped her over onto her back and pressed his body along the length of hers. Some of her tension seemed to seep out of her at the full-body contact. “Mina?”
“They hurt you.”
“Who?”
“The men in the trucks. I thought they took you from me.”
He hadn’t thought that his revelation would have this effect. “I am safe. They did not succeed. You did not lose me.” When she looked as if she disagreed, he held her tightly. “You will not worry about these things.”
Wrapped in Tariq’s strong arms, Jasmine felt her fears start to dissipate. “I’ll try. It was probably because I was tired.”
“We will not talk of it anymore.”
“Wait—” she protested.
He squeezed the breath out of her. “I have decided. You may sulk if you wish, but we will not talk more of it.”
“You can’t just decide that on your own,” she snapped.
“Yes. I can.” His voice was neutral, but she heard the steely determination. When he closed his eyes, she knew that any further words would only strengthen his resolve. Sighing, she conceded defeat…for tonight.
Wide-awake, she thought back over her nightmare. Unlike the dream, the real assassins hadn’t succeeded in killing him, but they’d broken the connection between her and Tariq, torn the emotional threads. Their taunts had destroyed whatever had been left after she’d walked away.
A man’s pride was a fragile thing.
A warrior’s pride was his greatest weapon.
A sheik’s pride upheld the honor of his people.
She had to learn to deal with the power of all three.
“WE’RE GOING TO FINISH what we started last night.”
“No. I will not have you disturbed.” Though Tariq wasn’t surprised by Mina’s stubbornness, his first duty was to protect her. The memory of how she’d trembled in fear made him hug her against his body as the camel picked its way across the golden sand.
“I’m a big girl. I can handle it.”
“No.” He would not allow her to be hurt.
“Tariq! Don’t do that. Don’t protect me by keeping me in ignorance.” In his arms, her small body was stiff with anger and frustration. “I’m not eighteen anymore.”
Her perception about his motives startled him, proving the truth of her words. “Perhaps not,” he allowed.
“Then the assassins—”
“You know all there is to know, Mina.” This time he acknowledged the quiet pain of the memories. “You know.”
After a small silence, she leaned back in his embrace. “I’m sorry.”
Unable to bear her sorrow, he held her close and told her stories of the desert and his people, and after a long time, she smiled again. And as they rode, he considered her persistence. Four years ago, she would never have challenged him. Since she’d returned to him, she’d never stopped fighting him. Some men would have been dismayed by the change. Tariq was intrigued.
ON THE MORNING OF THE fourth day, they rode into the small industrial city of Zeina. Despite their functional nature, the steel-and-concrete buildings of the city had been designed with curved edges and flowing lines. Overlaid with the omnipresent sand, the low-rise structures almost blended into the desert. The two-lane highway snaking out of Zeina in the opposite direction from their route showed how oil was moved out of such an isolated spot. To Jasmine’s surprise, they continued through the city and a good distance beyond, to where a number of huge, colorful tents sprawled across the desert sand.
“Welcome to Zeina,” Tariq whispered against her ear.
“I thought that was Zeina back there.” She jerked her head to indicate the city they’d passed.
“It’s part of Zeina. This is the heart.”
“No houses, just tents,” she mused out loud.
“Arin and his people prefer it this way. As they are happy, I have no right to question.”
She pondered that for a moment before asking, “I assume many of them work in the industrial section—how do they get there?”
Tariq chuckled. “There are camels for those who prefer the old ways but also several well-hidden all-terrain vehicles.”
“Why didn’t we travel in those?” She scowled at the thought of the abuse her rear had suffered.
“Some of the areas we passed through are too treacherous to trust even those vehicles. They also cause much damage to the delicate ecosystems of the desert. But, for commuting the distance to the metal city, they are useful,” he explained. “Arin’s people may be old-fashioned but they are also eminently practical. See the pale blue tents?” He pointed.
“There’s quite a few.”
“They appear the same as the others, but look closely.”
Squinting, she did. “They don’t move with the wind! What are they, plastic?”
&nb
sp; “A durable type created by our engineers,” Tariq confirmed. “Each houses sanitation facilities for use by four closely related families.”
Given the dimensions of the tents and the typically small size of Zulheil’s families, the allocation appeared generous.
“How ingenious.” Jasmine was impressed by the way old and new had been merged so creatively.
“Arin is certainly that.”
She met the intriguing Arin minutes later. He was a huge bear of a man with a short, neatly trimmed beard, but his warm smile took the edge off his menacing appearance.
“Welcome.” He waved them both inside his large tent after exchanging greetings. “Please, sit.”
“Thank you.” Jasmine smiled and sat down on one of the luxuriant cushions arranged around a small table.
“I forbid you to smile at this man, Jasmine.”
Jasmine stared at her husband in shock. “Did you just forbid me to smile at the man in whose home we are guests?”
Her subtle reprimand made her husband’s lips curve in an inexplicable smile and Arin howl with laughter. She looked from one to the other, belatedly aware that she’d missed something. When Tariq continued to smile with that hint of mischief in his eyes and Arin to howl, she threw up her hands. “You’re both mad.”
“No, no,” Arin answered, his shoulders shaking with mirth. “This one is just afraid of my power over women.”
Intrigued, Jasmine turned to Tariq for an explanation, but he just grinned. Shaking her head, she busied herself trying to follow their conversation, which could not be undertaken in English, as their host wasn’t fluent enough for the subtleties required.
“My apologies.” Arin seemed discomfited by that fact.
“Oh, please don’t say that,” she said earnestly. “This is your land. I should be the one to learn your language. While I’m learning, it would be better for me to be surrounded by it.”
The big man looked relieved. Tariq squeezed her fingers once in silent thanks. Warm, strong, male, his hand represented so much of who he was.
