by Tara Pammi
And suddenly, a small flicker of joy lit up in her chest.
However he coated it, this was personal. This was a small brick he had laid on the foundation of their life.
“Any chance that one element could be the groom?” Amira taunted, hiding the longing inside of her. “I saw this young man the other day—a poet that all the women are mad about, Zara said.” Adir’s brows tied into a thunderous frown and she gave into the laughter bubbling up through her. “He has the most wonderful smile, I think he’s the glaring one—your friend Wasim’s younger brother—”
The rest of her words were swallowed up by his warm mouth. A swift, hard kiss of possession. Of utter masculine claim. A reminder that she belonged only to him. Heart thudding, Amira clung to him as he devoured her mouth.
“Do not push me, habiba. I already hang on a knife edge of balance.”
Amira didn’t misunderstand the dark glitter of desire in his eyes.
“My wedding dress... Galila and I once went shopping at this designer boutique in Abu Dhabi. This dress...it was the most gorgeous thing I’d ever seen.”
“Why didn’t you buy it?”
She shrugged. “My father wouldn’t pay for such an expensive dress and for Zufar to pay for it, I would have had to jump through ten hoops. It was probably sold years ago but I remember the design very well. Nusrat is a dab hand at sewing and the women here, Zara says, they do such intricate work. Of course, the fabric would have to be fetched from one of the royal couture houses and we would have to pay the women because I really don’t want to presume on my future—”
He nodded, pride shining in his eyes. “It will be done.”
“Thank you.”
On an impulse, Amira touched her mouth to his cheek. And held onto him when he would have left.
She could have left their meeting on that peaceful note.
He had granted her more than she had ever hoped from him in that small gesture about the dress. And yet something in her couldn’t forget the enormity of what he had told her about his mother, couldn’t stop thinking of what had brought him into her life.
“Adir...this thing with Prince Zufar...what did you ask of him?”
“That I be acknowledged as Queen Namani’s son, as part of the Khalian lineage.”
“What did he say?”
“He called me a dirty stain on the royal house.”
And so he had not only seduced her but stolen her away on the morning of her wedding to Zufar. Amira struggled to keep her distress out of her face. Their truce was tentative, fragile. For all his kisses and generosity, she was aware of the fragile position he gave her in his life. In his personal one, at least. But she couldn’t leave it alone. She couldn’t shelve it when it was the basis of their entire relationship.
“It is done now, though, right? I mean, you have taken something away from Zufar, because he took something that was yours. Isn’t that what you said?”
“Have I been granted my rightful place, Amira?”
And just like that, Amira’s heart sank. She shook her head, no words coming to her lips.
His hand behind him, his face stony, he said, “Then no. It is not done. I will not rest until I have what is mine.”
Amira sank to her bed, knowing that while everything had changed for her, nothing had changed for him in the last few weeks.
And nothing—not their child, not this wedding—would change Adir’s mind.
She could not forget that. She could not forget that if she let it, Adir’s inability and unwillingness to see her as anything more than a convenient wife could hurt her far more than Zufar’s indifference could have done.
In fact, if she let it, it would shred her into pieces.
* * *
Their wedding day dawned with an explosion of oranges and pinks over the gorge and the valley.
Amira had bathed in a huge tub of water placed next to a roaring fire pit, her thick, long hair scented with rose attar; her skin massaged and scrubbed and polished until it gleamed golden.
On the women’s side of the tent, Amira—having been attended and dressed just as elaborately as she had been on her wedding day to Zufar by no fewer than twelve women, all of whom Zara had informed her with a reverent tone considered it a privilege and honor to ready the bride of their ruling sheikh—was joined by at least twenty women, all dressed in simple, yet elegant silk dresses.
For once, she’d been grateful for Humera’s authority, for the old midwife had ushered everyone out—even Zara—while Amira donned the lace petticoats that had to go under the dress. Amira didn’t even question how Humera knew. The old woman knew everything.
Her slender stature meant she wasn’t quite showing in cleverly cut clothes, though naked, the swell of her belly was becoming more and more noticeable.
It was something that made her nervous about her wedding night.
Amidst the colorful rugs that adorned the floor and the walls and the fluttering of bright emerald and deep reds of the women’s dresses, Amira’s breath had been stuck in her throat when she had been brought to the “bridal tent” as Humera had called it.
All these women and their families were so utterly loyal to Adir, so delighted to welcome Amira into their small sphere of lives. Their respect was so automatically given because they trusted Adir’s choice, because they thought she had captured their lonely sheikh’s heart after all these years.
Three women played local tunes amidst laughter and a lot of oohing and aahing over each other’s jewelry and clothes.
Her hands and feet had been decorated with henna in intricate swirls. Since Amira had literally run away with him with empty hands, Zara, who Amira had learned to her surprise rode the bus every day to work at Adir’s IT company, had been dispatched to buy makeup from one of the luxurious high-end malls that had been built in the nearest city.
After an initial protest, Amira had given in while Zara wielded the makeup brushes with infinite delight.
Every new face that greeted her and congratulated her, every teasing glance from unmarried women like Zara and Nusrat and hushed whispers followed by a blush from one of the married women, every warm hug and genuine smile that was bestowed on her slowly released the grip of the worry that had her in its hold.
Except for Galila’s friendship, which had possessed its own restrictions since Amira had been betrothed to her brother, she had been deprived of any woman’s company since her mother’s death.
Suddenly, it felt like she had been dropped in the middle of a warm, albeit noisy family, full of sisters and cousins and friends as she’d always hoped for. As their sheikha, she knew she couldn’t share her doubts about her and Adir, but it was nice to be seen, to have the warmth that had always been lacking in her life before.
When a pregnant woman had complained about being afraid of waiting for the mobile clinic to arrive when she got close to her due date, Amira, to Humera’s disapproving glance, had immediately offered to deliver the baby.
Between tears and smiles, the woman had thanked and hugged Amira and soon word spread that she was a registered obstetric nurse. It had taken a strict command from Humera asking the women not to forget that this was their future sheikha and not just any tribeswoman and that it was uncertain if their sheikh would give his wife permission to attend to the tribeswomen like a normal employee.
There had been no censure but a warning in Humera’s gaze as she had looked at Amira. A gentle reminder perhaps that she had a ruthless overlord and she wasn’t free to give her word in this matter.
But even Humera’s warning couldn’t douse her enthusiasm. There was a need here and she would do everything to see that she filled that need. This was the whole reason she had studied nursing against all odds. This was what she had envisioned her future to be in her wildest dreams.
Amira winked at one of the women who caught her gaze. If she
could help out when she was needed, if she could carve a place for herself and her work amongst the tribes... For the first time in months, Amira felt hope for the future.
She could have a fulfilling life here. She would have Adir’s respect, she would have her baby and she would have her work. This new life could be better than anything she’d ever hoped for.
No need for love and all the foolishness and trouble it brought.
No need to worry about keeping her emotional distance from a man who could touch her soul with one searing kiss.
Soon it was time to don her wedding dress.
A slithery gold silk—a color that was cause for celebration—with simple beading and embroidery work that the tribeswomen had toiled over during long cold nights around a huge fire pit in one of the tents that had been arranged just for the purpose.
Time to walk, flanked by all the women, toward the huge tent that had been set up with large fire pits warming it in all four corners.
Time to meet the eyes of the man waiting for her.
Dressed in traditional robes, his dark eyes rimmed with the slightest kohl, he was every forbidden dream Amira had ever had. The slight flare of his nostrils, the wicked gleam in his eyes that she was sure only she saw, told Amira what he thought of her dress. What he thought of her as she looked back at him with a suddenly bashful smile.
Right or wrong, foolish or smart, her own choices had brought her to this point in life, to this man.
And now it was truly up to her to make the best of this marriage.
She would, she promised herself fiercely. She would prove to him that she was the best thing that had happened to him. She would make their home a loving place for this child and any more they might have.
Outwardly, she bowed her head in prayer and promised obedience and love to her husband.
CHAPTER SEVEN
IT TOOK ADIR the better part of the night to extricate himself from the celebrations that continued after the wedding ceremony. He rarely, if ever, drank when he was around the encampment, respecting the elders’ tradition of abstaining from alcohol, but tonight he needed a stiff drink.
Tonight, he would give anything to forget the long series of duties that rested on his shoulders, this constant...need he felt to prove himself over and over again, to the tribes, to the world. And more than anything, to himself.
It wasn’t confidence he lacked. The quarterlies from his company were enough to proclaim his material wealth in his own mind.
No, it was the void he felt inside himself. A void he had felt all his life. A void that had been dug deeper and deeper by his mother’s letters, instead of giving him solace.
A void that he fueled his ambition, his need for power and for something even more intangible.
At least the wedding had been a happy celebration for his own tribes and the choice of his sheikha lauded again and again.
It seemed in that matter no one could find fault with him.
Heads from four different tribes had attended the wedding, had come to give their blessing to his marriage—to openly show their support to him and maybe to thumb their nose at governments that were always trying to absorb their lands by way of some treaty or such.
His reputation and the results he had achieved with Dawab and Peshani were also constant draws. And that he had petitioned the sheikh of their neighboring country, Zyria, to enter the council of local governments had already reached certain ears.
Whether he could draw Sheikh Karim of Zyria into the council and convince him to sign the treaty that Adir had so far negotiated for two countries to sign about not encroaching the tribes’ land—land that had been claimed for centuries—was another matter. Yet every tribal chief at his table wanted to know the outcome.
Every tribal chief was vested in that outcome.
They thought Adir meant to amass more power, more connections. As a businessman, it was partly that. But he also wanted peace for the land that had reared him. He wanted to put a stop to the constant skirmishes between the countries that bordered the desert land. He wanted the tribes to thrive.
Is it a legacy that you want to create? Amira had asked him when he had explained his reason for starting the council almost a decade ago. They had been having dinner together because he had wanted to see her before he was denied the sight of her for three whole days before the wedding, according to tradition. He had wanted to lose himself in the languid heat of her mouth, to feel her lithe body in his hands before he went to his bed alone and finished himself off.
But of course, nothing was uneventful or simply relaxing when it came to Amira.
She prodded at him, poked at him until he answered. And his answers when she pushed him, he was beginning to realize, contained truths even he wasn’t even aware of.
Like her perceptive question three nights ago.
Why couldn’t the blasted woman just accept his answer when he had said that peace in the area was good for his business? That it invited foreign investors, that it brought money into the area—money and wealth that the tribes could really use?
But she wouldn’t. When he had glared at her, she had ignored his dictates and come up with her own conclusion.
That it went beyond being a good ruler. That he wanted to make his name, that he wanted to leave a legacy.
And since he had had no good rebuttal for her infuriatingly close-to-truth conclusions, he had simply walked out on her and the dinner. Like a schoolboy who couldn’t control his temper.
Why he wanted to leave a legacy had become more than evident today. It was a hard truth he still couldn’t swallow.
Suddenly, the path he had set himself felt less like victory and more an eternally unreachable conclusion. When his mother had fueled his fire, had Queen Namani thought of the toll it would take on him, or what it would cost him? Had she ever considered that her words could become an unbearable burden?
Quite without a conscious decision, he had become the figurehead of the movement to keep the tribes separate from state, to preserve their way of living. So other tribes were now curious to see the impact on living and work opportunities brought by the bridges he had built between the traditionally nomadic peoples.
The chiefs of three tribes that Adir didn’t rule over had a hundred questions for him. They were testing him, he knew, wondering if he truly believed in their way of life or if he was a sellout.
There had been questions about the eco-adventure tourism company he had built, loud assent when he had said that if the whole world wanted to experience the Bedouin way of life, then the tribes should at least get paid for it. They hadn’t even touched the topic of oil rights in tracts of land that the tribes had lived on for several centuries.
It would mean more responsibility for him. Two other tribes ready to pick him to represent their rights when he met government officials in the neighboring countries the following year.
Except one tribal sheikh.
One tribal sheikh who had raised the question to which Adir didn’t have the answer. Would never have.
And who reminded Adir that however far he came, there was something he would never have.
* * *
“You didn’t come to bed.”
Adir looked up from his rumination at the husky voice. His bride stood at the partition between the lounging area and the huge bed, her golden-brown hair a mass of silky tangles around her small face.
The light golden hue of the dress—so close to her own skin color that it looked like the material had been poured over her curves—had stolen his breath when she had appeared in front of him earlier that evening.
It did so again.
How had he forgotten what had been awaiting him?
The silk whispered sinuously as she moved—hovering on the edge of the space he occupied—the fabric just as expensive and lush as the wedding dress she had worn for
Zufar.
But where that dress had been designed very clearly to draw attention, to advertise and court publicity, this was so simplistic in design that it showed off to perfection the beautiful woman who wore it.
More than ten women from the tribes had worked on the bodice’s intricate threadwork for seven days, and Adir had seen the privilege and satisfaction in their eyes as Amira had walked in tonight.
She fought him on what she called his highhanded manner of assigning roles to her, but being a sheikha came to her naturally. Even before the wedding, she had found a way to include the women in the celebration. He had seen it during and after the ceremony—gathering people to her, getting to know them—it was in her very blood.
No training could have created that genuine interest in her eyes as she asked Humera about the tribes or one of the women about her job in his IT company. About mobile medical clinics and goat herding in the same question.
Even he hadn’t realized what an absolute gem he had been stealing from Zufar. Had Zufar? Clearly not or his half brother would have treated her with more than indifference.
The dark shadows under those big eyes pricked his guilt. Was Adir doing any better, though? “I didn’t realize you’d still be awake. You were weaving by the time we went in to eat.”
Surprise lit up her eyes. Did she think him such a beast that he wouldn’t notice his pregnant bride struggling to keep a smile but valiantly trying to greet each and every member attending the wedding? How she’d complimented the cooks who’d prepared the food; how she’d drawn her chin up and proudly answered the wife of one of the tribal chiefs about her knowledge of old traditions?
If he was a man constantly straddling tradition and progress, she was a woman who seamlessly resided in both with her education and her respect for the old. It was a remarkably complex feat that she achieved with a very simple approach—by being open and nonjudgmental of the people he ruled, whatever her personal views.
Not that she was a doormat of any kind.
