by Tara Pammi
She hadn’t even blushed when he had pushed her onto her hands and knees in front of the fireplace one evening and entered her from behind, one hand in her hair, one tweaking her clitoris, while he whispered that making love to her like that was his every fantasy come true.
How could she feel anything but glorious pleasure when he was so deeply embedded inside her that he felt as if he were a part of her?
She had only pushed back into him when he had stripped her clothes in front of the huge floor to ceiling glass windows that provided a spectacular view of the jewel of a city.
Until she was bare naked. He had cupped her sensitive breasts, driven her to the edge of orgasm with his fingers and when she had begged him to come inside her, he had taken her over the edge. The cold glass pressing into her breasts and the entire world a panorama of lights and sounds in front of her, Amira’s climax had rippled through her.
If he made love to her like a man possessed, then he took such tender care of her after. In the languor that came after sex, he held her in the cocoon of his arms. They talked about their future, about the children she wanted to have, where they would live during summer and winter. He even shared his concerns about the tribes, about the political climate.
Except his past.
It stayed like an ocean-wide divide between them, somehow swallowing up every other good thing.
The days and nights he had exclusively dedicated to her—just the two of them cut off from the tribes, from the outside word—should have been paradise.
They were.
Even as the words rose to her lips again and again, Amira couldn’t bring herself to say it. Already, she felt as if she had bared her soul to him. In those breathless moments, when he studied her, she knew he was waiting for her to say it again.
It was as if he was trying to lavish the world and its gifts on her, trying to make up for the one thing he could not give her.
It was not the same. Not at all.
But Amira pretended that it was. With the hope that pretending would make it feel real.
To think otherwise was to torture herself for years to come.
And as a woman who had always counted her blessings rather than drowned in her sorrows, Amira couldn’t allow that.
She couldn’t let her love for Adir destroy her and their marriage.
* * *
The last three days of the conference, Amira had been informed by Adir’s secretary, would be the busiest. More than five nations were sitting down to discuss a treaty and oil rights, and Adir had been invited to represent the tribes.
Because of his relentless efforts to protect the tribes from each other and the encroaching governments who would see them stripped of land and settled in huts on small parcels of land they would deign to give, a seat had been created on the council for a representative of the tribes.
“Most of the deals are brokered during those casual evenings,” Adir had informed her one night. Obvious pride filled his voice as he ran his fingers though her hair. “This is the first time I’m attending it with my sheikha. There will be a certain curiosity about you. Since some attending members are aware that you were...his betrothed.”
Amira had frowned.
Instantly, he had kissed her temple. “I have no doubt you will be a rousing success.”
Amira had waited eagerly the first evening for reports on how it had gone. Each night, there was a casual dinner set up in the reception hall where the guests and their parties were invited to mingle.
Also, because it was the first time she was meeting the world as his sheikha, for the first time in her life, she was grateful for all the hours of rigorous training in protocol and local politics she had endured from her father’s aides and teachers.
Because it was going to come in handy in making Adir proud. This time, it was a role she heartily accepted, for being Adir’s wife meant being his partner in everything. He had a complex mind and he readily shared his thoughts with her—whether business or politics. And that was, she realized with a quiet joy, because she had his respect.
But tonight, when the world saw her at his side, she wanted them to see her pride in her husband.
She had chosen an elegant, sea green evening gown in a light, shimmering silk that created a long, chic silhouette without overtly hugging her growing belly. Her hair she had the luxury hotel’s stylist set into long silky waves, even though she knew her stubborn locks would straighten out in a matter of hours.
Since she had taken extra caution about her food and water, she had already lost the gauntness around her cheeks. She skipped the bronzer and the blush, settling for some powder and a quick swab of pink lipstick.
Her one big ornamentation was, however, the delicate diamond necklace Adir had given her just this morning.
The door to their private bedroom opened just as she had finished the last brush stroke.
Adir stood behind her, his gaze on her neck reflected in the mirror. Full of warmth and wicked humor.
Tonight, he was dressed in a simple black, three-piece suit, the white of his shirt a stark contrast to his dark olive skin.
He looked breathtaking, sophisticated, a man as easy in a suit among this crowd as he was in his robes among the tribespeople.
Even if that tribal chief had expressed doubts about Adir’s parentage in the beginning, it was clear that his trust in Adir was absolute.
Whoever his father had been, whatever his blood, he was a born leader.
Why didn’t Adir see that?
“You should have let me buy the other necklace.”
They had argued for over twenty minutes about a necklace they had seen at a famed jeweler. Glittering and ostentatious, it had not been to Amira’s taste at all.
She took his hand and kissed his palm, the aqua scent of his cologne combined with his own making her belly clench with deep longing. “I like this one. I love that you picked this one.” She met his gaze in the mirror and smiled. “It shows that you...” She let the words trail off, wary of seeing his retreat.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
He pushed her carefully styled hair away from her neck and kissed her nape. His fingers lingered on her midriff. Amira’s breath caught in her throat as he trailed soft kisses up her jaw and to her cheek. Yet there was nothing sexual about the kisses or the way he held her.
He didn’t know his strength for his grip was tight as he clutched her to his chest. He rubbed his nose against her cheek, and pressed another kiss to his neck. “Tell me anyway.”
Amira sank her fingers into his hair and arched into his embrace. “That you picked this particular piece says that you know me, Adir. It means more to me than the biggest diamond in the world.”
He didn’t exactly startle. But that stillness came upon him.
Amira braced herself.
With another swift kiss against her lips, he straightened and let her hair fall back into place.
Just a nod in her direction in acknowledgment of what she said.
A little smile played around his lips as she turned in his arms. “You have that glow. The one they say pregnant women have.” He carefully placed his hands around her belly again, as if to measure her. “You’re growing bigger.”
Amira scrunched her face and hit him with her clutch.
“Hey, it is not a complaint.” When she didn’t quite believe him, he pulled her to him, his hands cradled at her back. “Amira...you could get as fat as you possibly could, and I would still think you beautiful.”
She tucked her arm through his. “I would say the glow might be from all the orgasms you bestow.”
When he laughed again, she hugged the sound to herself. “Then I shall have to keep bestowing them. Are you ready, Sheikha?”
Amira nodded, her heart bursting to full.
* * *
The
evening dinner was in the famed courtyard of the luxury hotel. Soft lavender lights illuminated lovely gardens and walkways while a buffet was laid out under a canopy.
Women glittered in long designer gowns and jewelry. While Adir introduced her to a number of people, Amira stood her ground.
More than once, she steered the conversation smoothly away from her husband’s involvement in the tribes. It didn’t take her more than ten minutes to realize that Adir was looked upon as a fierce, smart leader, a man who had brought warring tribes to form a cohesive faction, at least in terms of facing the neighboring nations that wanted to control them.
Since she had had a heavy snack, she mostly just tried finger food. At Adir’s raised brow—the man watched her like a hawk—she sipped on fresh juice.
For almost two and a half hours, he circulated among the guests, and Amira dutifully followed him.
“You’re tired,” he whispered at her ear during a lull in the conversation around them. When she reluctantly nodded, he added, “Ten minutes. We will take our leave then. Although he was absent from this morning’s council, I have heard that Sheikh Karim intends to show his face here. I want to make his acquaintance.”
“Of Zyria?” Amira asked.
A smile of full appreciation, he nodded. “Zyria has not been a member of the council before. I have heard that Karim pushed for a seat and made it sweeter by offering to host this year’s convention.”
Amira nodded and surreptitiously leaned into him for support.
Not a moment later, a uniformed guard neared them. “His Highness Sheikh Karim wishes to meet you in his private office.”
Adir nodded. “Tell him I will walk my wife back to our room and meet him in fifteen minutes.”
More than relieved that she wouldn’t have to fake a smile anymore—for she was really tired—Amira let Adir guide her through the thinning crowd toward a different bank of lifts.
“You don’t have to see me upstairs. I would rather you finish this meeting and come to bed.”
She could see his reluctance, but just before he was about to speak, they turned into a vast, gleaming corridor with life-size pictures on each side. At the other end was the lift.
A dated history and timeline of grand events lined the two walls. Amira didn’t even realize Adir had stilled until she swayed on her feet and realized he wasn’t supporting her.
She turned and whatever she had been about to say floated away.
His skin was pale under the olive tone, a tremendous stillness in him. As if he was standing in a space separated from everything and everyone around him. The strange fear that she could never reach him again skated up and down her spine.
Heart beating a rapid tattoo, Amira studied him. “Adir?”
He didn’t even stir.
Fear coating her throat, she turned toward whatever had stunned him so thoroughly.
It was a life-size picture of two men on the wall—one older and one younger, clearly father and son for anyone to see. The late King Jamil Avari of Zyria and his son, the current King Sheikh Karim.
The man Adir had been waiting to meet. Although he was a teenage boy in the picture.
But even then, the resemblance was riveting.
With a gasp, Amira looked at the next picture—this one taken recently of Sheikh Karim. She stared back at Adir and the picture, as if mesmerized.
It wasn’t so much that they were alike as that they had the same bearing. The same tilt of their heads. The same arrogant nose. The same penetrating stare.
No one who would see the two men together would fail to make the connection.
The older man...he had to have been Queen Namani’s illicit lover. The late King Jamil must have been Adir’s father. Sheikh Karim was his half brother. Another sibling Arif didn’t know.
Another chance at a family missed.
Another connection lost to him.
Had King Jamil even known that Queen Namani had given birth to his son?
What a twisted, heartbreaking tale...and in all of it, it was Adir who had suffered. Abandoned by both mother and father.
Born to a king and a queen, was it any wonder he was such a natural leader? That even as he had been orphaned and discarded to the vagaries of desert life, he had emerged as a leader who had done the unthinkable.
Amira bit back on the rage that swirled through her on his behalf.
He had been cheated of so much in life. Fear unlike she had ever known gripped her.
What would this do to Adir?
To them? To their marriage?
Panic poured through her and suddenly Amira couldn’t breathe.
“Adir! Adir!”
* * *
Amira’s cry roused Adir from the state of extreme shock he seemed to have fallen into. He caught her mere seconds before she would have hit the marble floor.
Her golden skin was so pale that his heart jumped into his throat. Just as before, a coldness seemed to trickle down his spine as he lifted her in his arms.
If anything happened to her because of his inattention...
He barked out an order to a nearby guard to carry a message to the waiting sheikh. Within minutes, he was laying Amira down on their bed.
But the stubborn woman refused to stay lying down. She scooted up on the bed and drank the water he brought her.
He sat on the edge of the bed, his attention split. And a deafening thunder in his ears. The last piece of the puzzle. The bastard son of a king and a queen—a dirty stain banished to the desert. Prince Zufar couldn’t have known how close to the truth he was.
He should have had everything—a mother and a father and siblings—and yet he had nothing, no one to call his own growing up.
And now...now to learn that he had another brother! A man waiting to see him a few floors down. Mere minutes away. A man who would have information about his father. Information he had wanted his entire life.
“Adir?”
The fear in Amira’s voice pulled him back to the now again.
Words came and fell away to Amira’s lips.
“You...do you hurt anywhere?” he asked. “I will have the doctor summoned.”
Amira kept her fingers stapled over her belly, more as an anchor than any real pain. “No. I’m...fine. For a minute there, I just couldn’t breathe. I...” Tears fell away onto her cheeks and she couldn’t stop them this time.
She took his hand in hers, willing him to lean on her. Willing him to share the tumult she could see in his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Adir.”
He ran a hand through his hair, the only sign that betrayed his inner turmoil. “So I’m not the only one who sees it? Who imagines a connection?”
“No. You...you have too many similarities to miss. You have never met him?”
“No.” He pushed away from the bed, her outstretched hand left in thin air.
And just like that, Amira knew she was losing him.
“I have to go out. Will you be all right?”
“Will you confront him?”
“Yes. Maybe. I have to talk to him at the least. I owe it to myself.”
“Adir, please, all you will do is bring more pain to yourself. And I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t bear to see you struggle with this. Let it go, Adir. Let her go. Let the past rest. Let our future have a chance.”
A growl fell from his mouth—a sound so utterly wretched that Amira’s tears fell away like rivulets. Tight grooves dug near his mouth.
“I can’t, Amira. I can’t.”
Fear gave way to fury and Amira got off the bed. “What has it brought you until now? Except diminishing the value of what you do have. Except making you wonder what could have been when you are already an honorable leader, a wonderful husband.
“Queen Namani would have done better to leave you alone. To let you believe that you had been
completely abandoned. To let you think yourself a true orphan than this...this purgatory she left you in.”
“How dare you say that? She loved me. How would you feel if you were forced to give up our child?”
“I would not give up this child for anything. Do you hear me? I feel sorry for her, I do. To fall in love with a man so completely unsuitable; to have to give up the child to protect her reputation, her other children. To be filled with such resentment and poison that she hated everyone else around her... I feel pity for her.
“What I would never agree with is this...perception you have that she was a great mother. She was not. When she wrote those letters to you every year, was she truly thinking of you, Adir? When she never took a risk to see you but poured everything she felt into her letters to you? Or was it her own foolish rebellion against her circumstances? She was a weak, selfish woman.”
Rage filled his eyes and yet, unlike her father, he only seemed to retreat under it rather than lash out. “I will not hear a word against her.”
“And I will not keep quiet anymore. Because I’m afraid that you will hate me for it. Because I’m afraid that you will never love me if I speak ill of her. Have you wondered why Zufar or Malak or Galila were so shocked by your appearance? So ready to reject you, resent you?
“I do not agree with what he said to you. But, Adir, she was not a good mother to any of them. Believe me, I know of Galila’s childhood and her growing up. Your mother was at the very least indifferent to Zufar and Malak. But to Galila, as long as Galila was but a girl, the queen was all love and sweetness. But when Galila transformed into a beautiful young woman, a competitor to even your mother in beauty, your mother took away her love just as easily as one would remove food from a child.
“Maybe she loved you, maybe it broke her to be parted from her lover and then you. Maybe she was never right again. But when she wrote those letters to you, when she fired that resentment in you for them and fueled it all these years, stoking the fire at every opportunity, she was not thinking of you.
“She filled you with her own poison, she made you into a hard man and I hate her for it. I hate that if not for her, you would give us a chance. You would give happiness a chance.”
