For now, though, he had no promises he could make her; he didn’t know yet what his future held, or what place she’d take in it. But there’d be nothing, no future for them if he couldn’t even make her come to Abbas al-Din with him.
It felt as if he ripped his heart from his chest as he pulled away. ‘We leave in five hours,’ he snarled, but his fingers trailed slowly down her throat, across her shoulder, and he saw her quiver again. He wanted to shout in joy for the heady knowledge of how badly she desired him. ‘Sleep for an hour or two; you’ll need it. When you wake, we’ll walk on the beach and talk.’
Heavy-lidded eyes lifted to his, aching with as much painful wanting as anger, and he knew he’d won the battle—she’d come to Abbas al-Din, and face her family—but on the issue of marrying him, the war was far from over.
It was another incredible sunset, softer than the rich, rioting colours in western-facing Perth, but the soft rose tipped the foaming waves, and the palm trees lining the beach caught the rustling-soft breeze. A star winked at them from low in the sky, the first of the night.
‘It’s so beautiful, isn’t it?’ Hana murmured, awed, forgetting her fury with him for a moment. ‘Africa’s a place of such amazing contrasts. There’s so much beauty and faith, as well as the war and suffering.’
‘It’s the same as anywhere else, with the same people, good and bad,’ Alim replied. ‘Oil in Nigeria, gold and diamonds in South Africa, Mali and Mozambique bring the greed. But the beauty—’ He took her hand in his—she revelled in the simple connection to him, had been wondering why he hadn’t touched her during the half-hour they’d been walking—and said, softly, ‘The unique beauty of Africa is why I keep coming back. It—gives me rest.’
You give me rest.
The thought flew out of nowhere—or maybe it came from everywhere, everything he’d been to her. She’d never had a friend who could laugh with her and let her be herself; a man who listened to her and wasn’t too arrogant to learn from a woman; a man whose smallest smile made her day, whose touch, who cared enough to give her a compelling honesty that brought her out of emotional hiding, and face her cowardice. He’d looked inside her turbulent soul and calmed the storms; he brought her from a state of darkest cynicism to trust, tenderness and, unbelievably, forgiveness.
If she’d brought him back to life, he’d given her life. She could be what she’d always wanted to be: a normal woman, wearing rolled-up trousers and shirt, barefoot and holding hands with the man she—she—
Couldn’t resist, couldn’t turn from, could barely say no to.
And that was why she was going to Abbas al-Din. He’d literally kissed her into capitulation. Far more than merely desiring him, or liking him, she needed him. She loved him, had to be where he was. It was as simple as that—and as impossible.
Impossible was never more obvious than today, with so many reminders all around him, the armed guards keeping a discreet distance. His current location might be secret, but it wouldn’t take the media long to find out—and they’d want to know who she was. How long would it take them to find out? A day, a week? Drug runner’s ex-wife is our sheikh’s saviour…
Tonight, here on the beach, in the jet, would be their last hours alone together—and she intended to cherish them, even if they were surrounded by armed minders all the way.
They might as well flash a neon sign; Go home, low life, you can never have him.
‘I can see why you love Mombasa,’ she finally replied, her fatalism and her love tearing her heart in two. Run. Run as far and fast as you can…don’t leave him, now or ever…
‘I’m keeping the house,’ he said quietly. ‘The family of my housekeeper will look after the house while I’m gone, and I’ve given them the cottage out back to live in permanently.’ He led her around a late surfer who’d just flopped on his towel. ‘You’ve taught me to look outside myself, Hana. I thought being here, helping, was enough to justify my existence, and I could keep my life, myself, separate. I know now I can’t, and I don’t want to.’
Wonderful words, yet they sounded like a farewell, even before they boarded the jet. Yet he was smiling… Her gaze riveted to his mouth, her lips tingling and her body aching, she managed to say, ‘I didn’t do anything.’
Still with that tender smile curving his mouth he stopped, turned her around. Her heart pounded like the waves against the sand as he bent to her. The kiss was soft, sweet, perfect…and too soon over. ‘You’re like that,’ he murmured, pointing at that low-slung star, ‘like the story of those men who were led to the Christian Messiah. I was lost in the darkness of self-hate, and you showed me the way to redemption, to joy in living, without even knowing you did it.’
She couldn’t help it, couldn’t stop herself from lifting up on her toes, kissing him again—and then again. ‘You did the same for me,’ she whispered. ‘You saved me.’
‘We saved each other.’ He rested his forehead against hers, and she adored the intimacy of it while still aching for more. ‘Face the truth: we’re souls entwined, Sahar Thurayya. We need each other.’
Yes, their souls were entwined, and as far as she was concerned they always would be; but how could she believe this was anything but a lovely fantasy, a romantic idyll she’d treasure when she left him? When they reached Abbas al-Din, everything would change. She’d have family responsibilities again, and Alim would discover he was a sheikh, his country needed him—and he’d need a woman who could be a helpmate, a queen in every sense. And when that happened she’d let him go with a smile, doing her best not to show her life was over.
But for now he was Alim, the man whose soul was inextricably part of hers, who’d quietly reached inside her and taken her heart before she’d known it was gone. So she smiled back and murmured, ‘Yes,’ not wanting the dream to end. Not yet.
He moved his cheek against hers. ‘One day you’ll believe in us, my star,’ he murmured in her ear, making her shiver. ‘Maybe when we’re married ten years and have seven children.’
Uncomfortable with his perception, how finely tuned he was to her emotions, she laughed. ‘Hey, you want seven kids, you can give birth to them. I sure won’t be going past four.’
He chuckled, and kissed her cheek. ‘Four it is, then…so long as at least one of them is a cheeky girl who shows the boys how to not take themselves so seriously.’ When she didn’t answer—her throat had seized up with longing and useless dreams—he checked his watch, and made a smothered exclamation. ‘We need to head to the airstrip.’ Turning quickly, still holding her hand, he led her back towards the house.
When they arrived everything was already packed and in the sleek limousine—and the beautifully attired driver winced when Alim opened the door for her. ‘I’m too messy,’ she protested, reluctant to enter this gorgeous vehicle in rolled-up trousers and vest top, with bare, sandy feet and mussed hair. ‘Is there a garden hose here? I can wash it off, and not dirty the car.’
‘No need for that.’ Alim frowned at the driver, who immediately apologised gravely for any embarrassment he’d caused her, and offered to fetch her a towel, which made her feel worse. She whispered, almost squirming, ‘He shouldn’t have to clean up after me. It’s not right. It isn’t as if I’m anyone important.’ With a lowered gaze she walked to Alim’s front garden and turned on the tap, washing off the sand.
‘See what I mean?’ Alim’s laughing, rueful voice sounded right behind her, and she started, turning to him. ‘You teach me by example to not be so arrogant.’ He shoved his feet beneath the water, rinsing off and turning the tap off.
‘It’s your car, you can do as you want,’ she mumbled, feeling her blush grow.
‘Yes, I can, and I would have, but for you.’ He lifted her hand to his cheek, cradling it, and she forgot all about the watching chauffeur, his minders, the state of her hair or anything else. ‘You consider everyone. It’s something I’ve never had to do. Our parents trained us to treat all people as equals, and our position means we serve the people, but s
ome lessons need a brush-up.’ He kissed her palm.
Even as her eyes grew heavy and her body swayed towards him everything they’d been through suddenly overwhelmed her, and she needed—needed him. ‘Alim,’ she whispered.
He saw it; his eyes darkened. ‘I’m all yours once we’re in the car, Sahar Thurayya.’
Without thinking she turned and bolted for the limousine, and hopped in without waiting for the driver to hand her in. When Alim joined her, she barely waited for the door to close before she threw herself into his arms. ‘Hold me,’ she whispered.
The limousine took off smoothly, and the passion in his eyes gentled as he drew her closer, up into his lap. He held her close for a long time. ‘It’s been a hard time for you.’
She nodded into his shoulder. ‘I thought you were going to die when they took you—and then you come to me, but covered in bruises. They hurt you for my sake, Abbas al-Din loses millions to save me because you sacrificed yourself for me…and then, then you give me back my family, my freedom…’ She hiccupped.
‘Give me a chance; I’ll be everything you ever want or need, my star,’ he murmured into her hair. ‘I can even give you a happily ever after—but not with a prince. A simple sheikh will have to do for you.’
Simple? In a top-of-the-line limousine, about to board a first-class jet? She choked back a giggle. ‘Just call me Cinderella? I’m more like the little matchstick girl.’
Alim tipped up her face, his eyes full of tenderness at her deliberate roughening of her voice. ‘Do you see your ending as tragic as hers was? Need it be?’
All her smart cracks withered under the tender fire of his questions. He saw too much. ‘Maybe not tragic,’ she conceded, ‘I just don’t see the whole palace-and-prince/sheikh thing. It was never part of my dreams.’
He stilled, and she felt the question without his asking. ‘I dreamed of a man who came home to me at night, played chess or Scrabble or backgammon, and held me as we watched the news, and played with the kids and occasionally brought home dinner when I was tired,’ she said quietly. ‘All I ever wanted was an average guy who could accept me as I am.’
‘You can have all that,’ he replied, just as quiet, caressing her shoulder. ‘I’ve never tried to change you, Hana, only circumstances around you, for your sake.’ He lifted her chin, and kissed her lips. ‘I’d move mountains if it would make you happy.’
‘You already have,’ she whispered. That was what made it so hard. How could she have all her dreams come true in a man whose life gave her nightmares? ‘But average? It’s something you can never be.’ In any way, she thought, sadness piercing her.
‘I can. I have been for the past three years, Hana.’ He caressed her hair, and love swamped her. ‘If Harun is happy to continue as the sheikh, we can return here and—’ He frowned as she shook her head. ‘I realise that now the world knows where I’ve been it’ll be harder, but we could find another area that needs our combined skills.’
‘It’s useless,’ she said sadly. ‘You know it, Alim. People will know you…and they’ll sell your whereabouts for money. I can’t blame them for that—but your life would become a circus. Face it, you had one shot at disappearing, and you did it well—but it’ll never work again.’
‘Then we start our own aid programme, and run it as ourselves. I’m a multimillionaire in my own right, from my racing days. We can live comfortably enough even if I gave ninety per cent of it away.’ Then, as she sighed and shook her head again, he said, ‘Don’t tell me you don’t love me, Hana. I know you do.’
Unutterably weary, she climbed off his lap. ‘I haven’t had one good night’s sleep in two weeks, Alim. I’m tired, I feel numb and scared and in about two hours I have to face my family, the family I still don’t know how to forgive, and you’re asking me to change my life for you.’
Alim stilled. ‘Actually, it’s me constantly offering to change my life for you,’ he said harshly. ‘You don’t seem willing to give an inch. I guess that shows what I mean to you beyond desire. I guess it shows what those three words last night were worth to you. Was it anything more than a nice goodbye to you, Hana? Is what you feel just not worth the fight?’
Shame heated her cheeks. ‘We’re at the airstrip,’ she mumbled.
He climbed out of the car, and handed her out with grave courtesy, as if she were a dignitary instead of an aid nurse with bare feet and sand in her trousers. They walked up the red carpet and into the jet, a barefoot sheikh and his Raggedy Ann saviour, in silence.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ALIM watched in grim empathy as Hana grew paler, her fingers twitching more with every movement of the jet towards Abbas al-Din.
He’d forced her into this, and now he was facing the consequences in her silent misery. As she’d told him, she wasn’t ready to face a family pitifully eager to ask forgiveness, to make amends for the five years of unbearable loneliness and pain they’d caused her.
How could they possibly make amends? Even if Hana found forgiveness for them in her heart, how could she ever trust them again?
Then he noticed his own foot was tapping against the ground. He had to wonder if Harun could ever trust him again, either. He’d let his brother down as badly as Hana’s family had done to her. He’d even, by his desertion, forced Harun to marry a woman he, Alim, hadn’t been able to face as his wife. Harun had found no happiness with Amber, and that was Alim’s fault, too.
God help them both, this surely had to be a worse homecoming than the fabled prodigal son ever endured.
When a servant brought their bags with changes of clothing and shoes, Hana thanked the woman gravely and then walked into the gold-fitted bathroom without a word to him. She emerged in a beautiful ankle-length skirt the shade of sunrise, and a creamy long-sleeved shirt embroidered with tiny beads that shimmered as she walked. Plain sandals adorned her feet. Her hair was braided back. She wore no jewellery or make-up. She took his breath away.
She didn’t look at him as she sat, put her seat belt back on, and her hands and feet began twitching again. He came back from his change in the gold-and-scarlet attire expected—
Of what? A prodigal brother, a runaway sheikh?
She flicked a glanced at him, and her eyes slid down to her clothes, so simple and modest.
He felt the distance growing between them without a word spoken.
I’m still Alim, he wanted to shout; look at me, touch me, I still breathe and hurt. He’d thought her the one person who could look beyond appearances, and see him.
It seemed he’d never been more wrong.
As the jet began its descent Hana struggled not to throw up. The duality of love and betrayal, longing and anger tore her heart into shreds.
A hand touched hers, stilling the tremors. ‘It’ll be okay, Hana.’
Glad of an excuse to relieve hours of bottled-up anguish, she turned on him. ‘Are you telling that to me, or yourself? Look to your own reunion with your brother and the wife that should have been yours, because you know nothing of how I’m feeling right now!’
He turned his face away. ‘How can I know what you keep locked away from me? Your heart is like a tap that keeps switching from hot to cold, burning and freezing me.’
Her head, already buzzing, felt as if a swarm of bees inhabited it, but she sat straight and proud in her seat. She had enough to think about without letting the shame in. He’d saved her life, made this reunion possible, had erased Mukhtar from her life, and—
‘I’m just trying to make the farewell easier,’ she whispered so soft he wouldn’t hear, wanting to lay her arms on the flight table, her forehead on her arms; but then he’d know how weak and needing she was, how she longed for his comfort.
And that would wrinkle his silken magnificence.
Too soon, the jet made its descent, landing, and then they walked along another red carpet into another limousine—Alim must have asked for no welcoming party, for which she was grateful—and the whisper-quiet saloon purred towards the palace.
A whisper close to her ear, ‘The truck cost twice as much as this car. It was a top-of-the-line Mercedes. You didn’t seem uncomfortable in that.’
She turned to him in wonder. ‘It looked all beaten up.’
His brows lifted. ‘Drawing attention to myself wasn’t the point. Staying safe in a strong ride was the sole reason I bought it. I enjoyed taking off all the strips that showed its maker, and making it look so old. Taking a hammer to the panels and scratching the duco to—what was it? Billy-o?—was really fun.’
Her mouth twitched.
‘I suppose there are hammers and chisels, and sandpaper, somewhere at home,’ he mused. ‘I’ll have to check out the cellars, or ask the carpenter.’
She frowned, tilting her head in wordless question.
He shrugged. ‘If you’re only going to be comfortable with who I am if you only see me as a normal man when my ride looks broken down, and I’m covered in mud and bruises, I’ll have to make the arrangements.’
The coolness in the words made her flush. ‘You make me sound like a snob.’
Another half-shrug. ‘It isn’t me doing the judging, is it? It isn’t me not giving you a chance, or saying you’re not good enough.’
She gasped. ‘I never said you weren’t good enough!’
‘No, you said you weren’t. You judge yourself—but you have judged me. You tell me what I need in my life when I don’t even know what my future’s going to be yet.’
The Sheikh's Destiny (Harlequin Romance) Page 14
