She slipped past carefully and he didn’t try to touch her.
She positioned herself in the middle of the lounge area, creating as much space as she could from anything that could hem her in. She saw by his face that he knew what she was doing.
The silence wasn’t comfortable. ‘Where’s your staff?’
‘I came on my own.’ He smiled and the warmth in his eyes almost blinded her. ‘Except for Yusuf, who is downstairs in the car. He does not dislike you any more.’
‘Should you be here without protection? Are you safe?’
He shrugged. ‘Yes, we are all safe. At last my country will have peace.’ His eyes bored into hers. ‘Alone is best for this goal I seek.’
She frowned. ‘And what is your personal goal?’
He took a step closer. ‘I believe you know.’
‘No idea.’ She crossed her arms protectively across her stomach and he stopped. ‘But I do have a plane to catch.’
He spread his hands. ‘Your flat was empty. Moved from. I was too late.’
‘For what?’ She was so distant. Yet incredibly beautiful. How could he have forgotten the way she twisted his chest until it hurt? He wanted to pull her into his arms and bury his face in her hair. Breathe her in. Tell her that his fears had overcome him, so afraid he could not save her. Yet she had been the one to risk all by his side so they could all be safe.
He smiled at her. ‘I’m sorry I bundled you out of Zandorro.’
‘You bundled me out of a speeding car.’
His chest shook with silent laughter at her indignation. ‘Because I discovered a plan to use you against me. I thought you were not safe.’
‘And would their plan have worked?’
He took a step closer. ‘Because of that? Like a shot.’
‘Don’t talk about shooting.’ She shuddered. ‘Why are you here? It’s a long way to come to say you’re sorry.’
Just what was he asking? For her to make a bigger fool of herself? ‘I need to leave here and decide on my future.’
‘I have no quarrel with that.’
She blinked. Then he came closer until he was right beside her. Until his warmth seeped across the tiny gap of air between them. If she wasn’t careful, he’d thaw her protection. ‘I would like you to leave here and come back to my country. Then decide on your future.’
‘I’m not going back to Zandorro.’
‘You must. I wish to show you my desert.’ He took her hand, and she tried very hard not to shake. ‘Most especially the desert. We spoke once before about the desert but still we haven’t slept there.’
The desert. ‘I tasted the desert. When the sand flew into my mouth after…’
‘Yes, I know. I threw you out of the car. Tsk tsk. So unforgiving. Where is that famous sense of humour?’
He was rubbing her neck. Smiling into her eyes, and the warmth was melting her heart. She stepped back.
‘You’re doing it again.’
‘What?’
‘Playing me.’
‘Come play in the desert with me.’
‘You come to the desert with me. I’m due in Central Australia this afternoon.’ Sure now that he wouldn’t.
She’d love to see his desert. Properly. With him. But she wasn’t that much of a fool. ‘Better yet. Don’t.’ She needed to get away. Just standing here talking to him was killing her.
‘Is it too much to ask that I at least try to leave you with good memories of my country? Of me?’
She had to get away. Even if she had to lie. ‘I have no wish to see the desert with you. I just want you to go.’
He stared at her, narrowed-eyed, and she remembered how he’d measured her when they’d first met. In the hotel. As if he was looking under her skin, into her brain. She tried not to fidget as she forced herself to hold his gaze.
Then he nodded. ‘I see.’ He glanced at the window and the brightness outside. ‘Then at least let me drive you to the airport. I will place my jet at your disposal to fly you to your central Australia.’
‘I have my own ticket. Thank you.’ So he wasn’t going to fight for her.
It was over. Her shoulders dropped. It was relief. Honest. She blinked away sudden dampness in her eyes and chewed on her lip. She wasn’t sure why she’d thought he would stop her, and she certainly hadn’t wanted him to. Had she? He’d only come to apologise.
‘I insist. Change the ticket you have for another day. Cash it in. I don’t care.’
‘Thank you.’ She wouldn’t but he could think what he liked.
Zafar watched her. This was not what she wanted. This woman who had walked unaided from an ambush. Who had helped him save his man. Had he discovered his amazing Carmen’s only fear—that he might not love her enough?
Ungrounded fear. He would give up his life for her.
He did not know why she had decided she wasn’t going to give him time to woo her. Then, perhaps, she would have to do without the wooing. He wanted her. Badly. More desperately than he could remember wanting any woman. And he knew she wanted him. He prayed she did.
Ridiculous to be so obsessed with her, with the dream, Carmen with him always. The life he wanted, return to his real work, for the rest of his life. But life would be nothing without his Carmen. He needed her by his side.
‘Or you could come back with me.’
‘Why? So you can send me away again when you’ve satisfied yourself? Or when you decide it’s too dangerous for me?’
‘I would not send you away again. This time I will go where you go.’ His fear had almost cost him that. She needed less protection than he’d anticipated. He would always protect her. His lips twitched, and he supposed if needed she could protect him. He did not like the thought but she was no fragile flower. His brave Carmen.
‘I know it is different for you in Zandorro. As it was for me when I lived in Australia. There are good facets of all cultures and the world will be a better place when we learn to meld and bring the best out of both worlds.’
She looked back at him. ‘Do you think that will ever happen?’
‘Slowly, but surely.’ He smiled and it wasn’t fair. He melted her with those smiles. The chameleon. ‘When people work together, miracles happen.’
The more he talked the more he wore the persona of the man who had attracted her so much here at Coogee beach.
The smiling god in the water.
The man after the storm with his head thrown back and his eyes filled with laughter.
Seeing him today had been worth it to leave her with these memories because those glimpses were lost in the prince. They were the dream man, not the reality. The reality had driven away from her in an armoured car. Sent her home. Gave her no choice.
‘I did not have a voice,’ she said. ‘I can never live like that.’
‘I know. I understand more than you can guess. I’m sorry you felt excluded. Forgive me?’
‘No.’
He sighed but wasn’t as downhearted as she’d thought he’d be. Typical. It was all probably a ruse to seduce her anyway.
‘If that is your last word then I will drive you to the airport.’
She frowned. He was up to something.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
YUSUF held the car door open for her, and this time he bowed low to her. His face was still inscrutable but his body language was different. She touched his shoulder as she passed. ‘Good to see you are well, Yusuf.’
‘Madam.’
She slid in and Zafar slid in behind her. The leather smelt familiar, the tinted windows reminded her of another limousine, and how she’d thought Yusuf would die. How Zafar could have. Her pride was nothing to that fear.
He took her hand and kissed
the inside of her wrist. Her skin remembered. It felt ridiculously right to feel her hand covered by his. She was hopeless. With his other he gestured to the space around them. ‘Now we are alone.’
‘Really? Must be a remote-controlled car.’ She raised her brows and glanced at their driver.
‘But that is Yusuf. He is with me always.’
‘I noticed.’
He shrugged. ‘I have decided to accompany you on your flight.’
She struggled to keep the shock from her face. Now more than ever he mustn’t know her thoughts. ‘When did you decide that?’
‘When I said I would accompany you to the airport.’
It had seemed too easy. ‘Why am I not surprised? It seems my instincts to run from you are better than I believed.’
He was amused. Nice. ‘Then why did you get in the car with me?’
Stoke up that anger. It was a good defence against the urge to put her head on his shoulder. ‘What choice did I have?’
Now he was openly smiling. ‘True. None.’
Too handsome. Too charismatic. Too close to her heart. ‘So where are we going?’
He lifted his head and though he wasn’t smiling she could sense his deep love of the destination. ‘I had planned to propose to you in the desert but cannot force you to leave the country with me. So we go to your oasis. Your desert camp instead of mine. I believe they have luxury tents in the desert that watch over the ancient rock of yours. There I will woo you until you have agreed to be with me for ever.’
‘As what?’ She raised her brows. Fighting back the excitement as she drummed up some form of defence. ‘Am I to be your concubine? Your midwife for nieces and nephews?’ His bride? She was fighting a losing battle and she wasn’t losing it with him but with herself. She loved him, had from the first, and she suspected she always would, even if she never saw him again.
She tried again. ‘I have to work.’
He shook his head. ‘Not for a few days yet. I wish to share the desert with you. At night. To show you the stars.’
She raised her brows. ‘Is that all you want to show me?’
His strong hand stroked her wrist. ‘What can you possibly mean?’
The conversation like foreplay. Like a teasing breathe on her cheek. Like the squeeze of his fingers against hers. ‘Are you sure you’re not going to try to seduce me again?’
He leaned closer. ‘I certainly hope so. But you would still have the option of refusal. Or you will have agreed to be my bride.’
His bride?
The word hung. Loaded with meaning. Loaded with promise.
So belovedly arrogant. ‘You have tickets on yourself.’
‘Ah. Colloquialisms. We must teach our children.’
She laughed. Gave up. Leant across and kissed him, and he drew her into his arms. She was home. ‘Let’s not go to the desert here. I will see your desert first and another day I can show you mine.’
He leaned forward and pressed the button to lower the window between them and Yusuf.
‘Stop the car.’
The limousine glided to a stop beside a children’s playground. A little like the park where their unexpected baby was born all those weeks ago. Swings, a slippery slide, two little girls and their mother on a park bench.
The door opened and he stepped past Yusaf and held his hand in to her. ‘Come. This is what I wish to show you.’
His hand closed over hers and she gave it and herself into his keeping. She had no idea what he was doing but she would follow this man anywhere. Anytime. And that was the measure of it.
He crossed the little park to the play pit. A small boxed area with white sand and a fogotten plastic spade. He drew her into the square and she glanced around, saw the bemused interest on the mother and the two little girls until she turned back to him and fogot everything else.
He went down on one knee. Her mouth opened to tell him to get up but she shut it again. The love that shone from his face, the way he held her gaze, the unwavering strength as his hand held hers ordered her to listen, ignore distraction, and hear his need.
‘In this bed of sand, that symbolises my heartland in some tiny way, I, Zafar Aasim Al Zamid request your answer.’
He paused and the sun beat down up on her hair, his eyes smiled, though his mouth was firm and solemn, and she could feel the trickle of sand as it filled her shoes, and crazily, never had there been anywhere as romantic as this.
‘Will you, Carmen O’Shannessy, be my soulmate, my lover and my wife, be by my side, bear my children, and love me until the day we close our eyes together for the last time?’
Her eyes stung and she blinked away anything that could spoil this moment. What miracle had brought them to this? Him to this? This arrogant, generous, tender, tyrannical, amazing man she’d been destined to meet.
‘Of course.’ It came out less definite than she intended.
He deserved more than that. And more strongly so that it carried across the sand in a wave of truth like an arrow to his heart—like he had pierced hers. ‘I will. Of course I will.’
She loved him. He knew it. Zafar watched her breathe in and moisten her lips.
‘I love you, Zafar, have done for weeks now, and offer you all of my heart, all of my soul, and if we are blessed, my dearest wish is to hold your babies in my arms.’
His heart surged in his chest and he rose, brushing the sand from his knees. ‘My love.’ He needed her in his arms.
His lips met hers as they stood in a square box of sand and the giggle of children drifted in the breeze until they both pulled back with smiles.
‘Come.’ He grinned down at her with the giggles of children warm between them. ‘Now let us begin our life together.’ They strolled arm in arm back to the car where Yosuf held the door open.
‘Return to the hotel.’
Zafar handed her in and slid in after her. The car started and she caught Yusaf’s smile in the rear vision mirror.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THEY married quietly in the presidential suite of the baby hotel. Tilly and Marcus acted as witnesses and then they flew back to Zandorro with barely two hours to celebrate.
They stopped overnight for the formal part of the Zandorran wedding, a civil ceremony attended by dignitaries and the King, but finally Zaraf could carry his bride into the desert. It took an hour to reach the oasis in his helicopter.
Late afternoon saw them come upon a circle of tents on the sand beside a stand of tall palm trees, ridiculously like a movie set with shaded pool and tethered camels. An outsized tent sprawled in the centre of the oasis as large as a six-room house, and Carmen couldn’t keep the smile from her face.
‘You did tell me?
He frowned. ‘When?’
‘In Coogee.’
He smiled as he remembered. ‘Before the birth in the park.’ He nodded. ‘That is when I fell in love with you.’
He stroked her cheek. ‘Tonight I hoped we could share a traditional wedding night Bedouin style. Our official Zandorron wedding will take place in a month, when I can introduce you as a married woman. This night is just for us.’
A woman approached, vaguely familiar, bowed to Carmen and more deeply to Zafar. ‘I am Kiri’s mother. And Yusuf’s wife. My allegiance is yours.’
Zafar smiled at Carmen’s shock. ‘See, others love you as I do.’
He took Carmen’s hand, turned her wrist and kissed her as if the caress belonged only to them. ‘We will meet again an hour before sunset. Sheba will help prepare your bath.’
Bath? She shivered. More delay. Rituals and traditions that she must now learn. Lessons for t
he future. She nodded, glad that she had spent some time with the Zandorran women and had an idea of what was ahead, but inside she held a little trepidation. She wasn’t good at being pampered and by the smile in Zafar’s eyes he knew it.
She gazed at her husband, a man she had already wed twice, and still he hadn’t taken her to bed.
‘Patience,’ he said.
Patience would kill them both. But she had to smile. She loved him, would always do so, and she knew, without the shadow of a doubt, he would always love her. But after tonight they would live, wonderfully, she hoped prolifically, between their two countries, and his strong face framed that light in his eyes as he watched her go. Dark eyes that promised the wait would be worth it.
In the two hours that followed she discovered she could learn to cope with the hardship of luxury but the slowness of it would take some getting used to.
Kiri’s mother, Sheba, took her robe and helped her settle into a claw-footed bath strewn with rose petals and scented with oils that seemed to shimmer in the water. When she left there she was gently massaged with more aromatic oils and her toes and fingernails painted with colourless shimmer. Her ankles and wrists were traced with henna-coloured flowers and her hair dried and dressed in a coil on top of her head.
Then came the veils. Layer after layer, promise after promise to lie waiting for her husband to remove. Even the one that covered her face and left just her kohled eyes to stare back at herself, this stranger, this Eastern princess she had never planned to be but could never regret. Enough. She just wanted Zafar.
Memories of the caresses from their one time together, the promise of a night in his arms with nowhere to rush off to. She could feel awareness gathering in her belly and finally it was time to go through to Zafar’s rooms. The impatience grew until it consumed her and she tried to slow her steps, but too long she’d been a doer, used to being busy. This had all taken so long when she knew where she wanted to be.
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