Stolen by the Desert King

by Clare Connelly

  “Step away, Kylie.”

  But she was frozen to the spot, whispers of overheard conversations slamming through her mind like shards of glass she couldn’t quite catch. An ancient feud. Bloodlines. The importance of their family’s history. Alliance.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, cursing her idiocy and naivety. Why hadn’t she asked more questions? Why hadn’t she been more inquisitive?

  Because you didn’t want to know.

  The answer was simple and devastating.

  Had she shielded herself from investigating the truth of this situation merely because she knew the answers would only lead to more questions, and eventually, to a decision she wasn’t prepared to make?

  She swept her eyes shut at the same moment a pair of strong hands closed over her shoulders, pulling her away from the window, out of view of the curious photographers and spectators below.

  “So when you came to Sydney…” She twisted in his arms so that she could see him; nothing in his face offered comfort. “You were always going to … we were always going to…”

  “Leave us. Make preparations.” The servants bowed out of the room but Kylie was shaking now.

  “No!” She cried the word out on a sob, her eyes sweeping shut. “I can’t marry you.”

  “You must.” He lifted a hand and ran it through her hair, so gentle after Fayez’s touch. “If you don’t, the Haddad family will never let you be.”

  “But they won’t… want me now.” Her cheeks flushed at the hint of what she wasn’t saying – that they wouldn’t want her because they’d slept together.

  “You’re mistaken. They will want you all the more now. Do you want to be tied to people like that?”

  A frown spread across her face.

  “My parents…”

  His voice wasn’t raised, but when he spoke, it was though he was dragging the words over her, lashing her with a whip. “Your parents were mercenaries who sold their only child for a profit, trading on the fact that a long time ago you were the Maha Ishan not the Mathisons.”

  Maha Ishan. The ancient words throbbed in her belly. How long it had been since she’d heard that? The name her family had once been known by, generations and generations into the past.

  But Khalifa was speaking, not letting her brain dwell on the title she had long since forgotten. “And make no mistakes, azeezi, they did sell you. This was not an act of kindness or love, it was an act of greedy desperation and profiteering. You think you can trust them and their choices? Believe me when I tell you how disastrous your marriage would have been.”

  She gasped, her eyes clouding over. “I don’t believe you. They loved me. They wouldn’t … they wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. They wanted me to be looked after. They… I don’t believe you.” Full-blown tears were not far away. She felt them cloying at her already sore-throat and bit down, hard, on her lip.

  He stared at her for a long second, the truth he would never divulge looming in his mind like a shadow in the distance. “You have two choices. You can marry me, and come under my protection. Or you can take your chances with them.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  KYLIE DIDN’T REALISE HOW badly she was shaking until he frowned.

  “I want to go home.” The words, though defiant, came out like tremulous little whispers. She groaned. What was happening to her. “I’ve been so stupid. How could I have ever gone along with this?”

  She thought, for a moment, there was sympathy in his expression, but it was gone too quickly to be sure. A flash of emotion and then nothing. Cold, implacable, unreadable power.

  “Trusting your parents was stupid,” he agreed after a moment. “But understandable.”

  “Gee, thanks.” She spun away from him, moving quickly through the room. But it was all odd. Unfamiliar. Breathing was difficult and she pressed her hands to her flat stomach in the hope it would bring relief. It didn’t. She sucked in a deep breath; no help there. Her lungs burned; her throat ached.

  “Sit down,” he commanded, his shoulders squared.

  She didn’t hear. There was a ringing in her ears, and a swirling in her gut. Her brain was fogged and the air around her seemed thick; impossible to wade through.

  He said something low and harsh in his own language and crossed to her, his hands on her shoulders confident and controlling as he guided her to a tapestried chaise. “Sit.”

  But he was gentle as he guided her down, insistently placing her on the sofa and crouching before her. “Put your head down.”

  Tears stung in her eyes but she did as he said, resting her head forward. He nudged it deeper, so that she was doubled over, her head between her legs. And he spoke quietly in his own language, low and soft, words that were thick with the desert and the stars, the heaviness of the world that surrounded them, these ancient lands so proud and exquisite. He spoke rhythmically, his words distracting her, hypnotising her, as her breath burned and her body quaked.

  He continued to speak and she listened, and finally the breath that had been impossible to find settled in her body, in and out, ebbs and flows, reminding her that she was alive and this was life. Just another hurdle in life – one she would navigate as she’d navigated all others.

  In, out. In, out. Steady and slow.

  “You could not marry that man,” Khalifa said after several moments, when the panic attack – for surely it had been? – had passed. “He would have made you miserable.”

  “As opposed to you?” She muttered, her head still pressed between her legs.

  He gripped her shoulders gently, lifting her higher, and then, with a look she couldn’t comprehend, he lifted his hands to her throat, touching the markings Fayez had inflicted. “I will never hurt you.”

  The words were strange. Sweet and kind and yet she shook her head. “Not hurting me isn’t exactly a particularly high benchmark to aim for.” She whispered her response and something like magic wrapped around them. A spell she didn’t comprehend.

  “Why do you want to marry me, anyway?” She bit down on her lip, and her heart stretched, waiting, paused, needing something. She couldn’t have said what.

  He practically grimaced. “I told you. If I don’t marry you, they will find you. And your life will be … miserable.”

  A shudder ran down her spine like ice and nails. “Why?”

  “Because you betrayed them – with me. And they hate me more than you can imagine.” He stood, putting some space between them. The desolation was instant. A fog of coldness spread over her.

  “There are many people who know the history of your family. The power is still heavy in our society. Marry me and they will be appeased. It will end, once and for all, the Haddad family’s meddling.”

  Kylie nodded, but it was the smallest movement. More of a shudder. “I didn’t think this through. I don’t know why. It sounds crazy now, sitting here with you…”

  “Yes.” His eyes narrowed speculatively. “It does. And yet we spoke in Sydney, a month ago, and I asked you why you would do something as outmoded as partake in an arranged marriage. You had every opportunity to back out…”

  “I couldn’t.” Her eyes were huge and she shut them to hide the swirling emotions that would surely be obvious to him. Because once she’d met the man she thought to be her intended groom, she hadn’t wanted to back out of the wedding. It had made her more determined than ever to go ahead with it.

  Argument communicated itself in every line of his body but he didn’t say anything for several long beats. Silence throbbed around them.

  “The official will marry us now. Do you need a moment to freshen up?”

  It was a tornado spinning wildly around her, sucking everything she thought she’d known about herself and her life into a strange and confusing vortex. How must she look? Did she even care?

  She stood unevenly, her legs shaking, and moved towards the mirror opposite. Her neck was dark from Fayez’s touch and her hair was messed. Her makeup had run – tears? She didn’t remember crying. She turned to
face Khalifa, her eyes not quite meeting his.

  “I don’t want to marry you today.”

  He let the words digest and then shook his head. “Marriage is the only way.”

  “I’m not saying I won’t marry you,” she whispered, digging her nails into her palms. “Only that … not today.”

  “It is just a day.”

  “It’s the day I was attacked. And the day I realised the man I lost my virginity to was lying to me – was using me.” She gripped the wall behind her for support, hating herself for showing this weakness to him but needing him to understand. “I can’t marry you today.”

  “It must be.” He sighed heavily, and for a moment she wondered if he was feeling her same regret, wishing things were different. “The Haddad family will waste no time putting this into the press. If you do not marry me, if you are not my wife, you will only be my mistress – and your place in the palace will never be accepted. Those people out there,” he nodded towards the window, “are here because word has spread that I am here. That I am to marry.”

  “My God.” She spun away from him, lifting shaking fingers to her temple. “It’s absurd.”

  “Your parents must have known they were playing with fire to involve you with that family.” The words were a grim condemnation. “We will marry now, and my officials will announce the wedding, removing any ability the Haddad family has to make trouble.”

  She swore softly, the harsh word surprising Khalifa. He didn’t know how, but he just knew she was someone who didn’t use bad language often. He understood her pain and desperation but he was powerless to remove it.

  And he didn’t blame himself for that.

  She had been made a pawn by her parents.

  It was her place in life now to fulfil that destiny. He compressed his lips.

  “You may have an hour.”

  “An hour?” She shuddered, turning her back to him and wrapping her arms around her slender waist. Sixty minutes.

  He studied her for a moment, the fragility of her body, the surrender conveyed by the lines of her frame as her shoulders curved and her head dipped forward. And he hardened his heart. “I’ll send Aïna in to attend to you.”

  “Who’s Aïna?”

  “She will be your Mistress.”

  “My mistress?” Kylie spun around, her face pale. “What?”

  “You will have dozens of servants responsible for your care. She is the primary; the one who you will speak to. The others report to her. You need only concern yourself with Aïna. Anything you want, she will arrange. Clothes. Food. Entertainment. She is your liaison.”

  Kylie swallowed and nodded. She had been briefed on the hierarchical structure of life in Argenon. Even as a member of the Haddad family, as she’d expected to become, she’d been told there would be several servants at her disposal. But dozens?

  “It seems a bit excessive.”

  He walked towards her, lifting a hand to cup her cheek. His touch, his exotic fragrance, him. Her heart thundered through her, her blood was a tsunami dousing her with awareness from the inside out.

  “Choose which battles you want to fight, lanaria.”

  He stroked her cheek with the pad of his thumb and she sucked in a sharp breath, her eyes latching to his, looking for reassurance, for hope, for familiarity. Looking for a hint of the passion and need that had laced through him in Sydney. Looking for the man she’d fallen into bed with and, as she’d thought at the time, anyway, maybe even a little bit in love with.

  His thumb moved slowly over her flesh and desire zipped through her. As surprising as it was unwanted, given the events of the preceding hour. She swallowed, powerless to step away, unwilling to put any space between them. Her body swayed slightly, against her will, against her knowledge, bringing her closer to him and she felt him stiffen, felt his body acknowledge her nearness. Just a little closer and they’d be welded together. Closer still, and her lips would find his. Her eyes fluttered shut. She needed that. To kiss him. To be kissed by him. She needed him to obliterate the heaviness of all of this and to remind her of what made sense.

  Strangely, that was them.

  Not like this, but as they’d been in Sydney.

  But her cheek was suddenly bare and her body alone. He stepped backwards, and her eyes flew open. His expression was as hard as stone when she looked to his face.

  No hint of the passion that had weakened her and filled her with memories.

  “Aïna will be right in.”

  He was gone then, in a flurry of robes and thwarted desire.

  *

  “So that’s it?”

  She stared out at the passing city, her mind numb, the ring he’d placed on her hand heavier than lead.

  “What were you expecting?” He asked, amusement lifting the words but not her heart.

  “I was told the ceremony would take hours.”

  “Ordinarily, yes. That’s true.”

  She cast a sidelong glance at her husband. The evening had wrapped around them, but the back of the car – she didn’t even know what make or model it was, just that it was big – had a row of pale lights in the door handles that cast him in a golden glow. He was unreadable. A very handsome, very closed-off man.

  Her husband.

  She was alone.

  In a foreign country.

  She wished like hell that she’d let Mel come, instead of telling her to wait, to come in a few months when the dust had settled. What she wouldn’t do for a heart to heart with her best friend in that moment. Mel always knew what to say to make it better!

  But there was no Mel close at hand.

  She sunk back in her seat, staring broodingly out of the window. She wasn’t aware of the way Khalifa turned to study her, the way his eyes lingered on the set of her face, the blonde tangle of her hair or the body that was visible to his inspection. The dress was barely a sheathe.

  He balled his hands into fists where they sat beside him, his fury something he was struggling to contain. It had nothing to do with Kylie – or so he told himself. He wasn’t sure he cared what happened to her. She’d had every chance to escape this marriage and she’d walked into it with open eyes, open arms.

  She was lucky he’d swooped in at the last minute and put the thing off. What would she have done if he hadn’t arrived when he did? Would she have married Fayez regardless of the realisation that he wasn’t Khalifa?

  Would she have married him? Let him make love to her? Would she have pretended it was her first time?

  Anger surged.

  And out of nowhere, he pictured her.

  Not Kylie, but Selena. Beautiful, brave, and ultimately broken. A woman who’d been foolish enough to fall in love with Fayez, to buy his lies, to love him and let him make love to her. Who’d lived – barely – to regret ever having met him.

  He hadn’t rescued Kylie because he cared about her. He’d rescued her because he wouldn’t let Fayez Haddad do to another woman what he’d done to Selena.

  No one deserved that.

  And yet … his eyes dropped to his bride – no, his wife – and something dark churned his gut. She’d been willing.

  How little she must value herself and her life to fall in with such bizarre plans.

  “So what now?”

  The question came from a long way away. Her voice was tiny and he was distracted by the past, by unpalatable thoughts and memories.

  But he understood her query instantly. She was wondering about what their married life would entail.

  His lips were a grim slash in his face.

  “You will live in the palace, with me.”

  “With you?” Her head spun around so fast that her hair whipped a little against the backseat of the car. “With you?” She repeated softly, her eyes not quite holding his.

  “Yes, azeezi. Though you will have your own apartment, at night, you will come to my bed.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  KYLIE WAS TREMBLING like a leaf in the breeze. She stared straight ahead as seve
n attendants – seven! – moved around her body. Apparently the preparations that had been made for her to marry Fayez Hadded were not sufficient for this.

  Her marriage to Khalifa.

  No, no. Not Khalifa. Sheikh Sultan Khalifa Al Asouri. Or Sheikh, as Aïna had softly advised Kylie she should refer to her husband while in public. Sheikh!

  “And what will he call me?” She asked with obvious umbrage.

  “Whatever he likes.” Aïna’s amusement was obvious. “But usually this would be by your title too.”

  Kylie had bit back another retort. None of this was Aïna’s fault.

  She lifted her arms as one of the servants rubbed the orange scented oil into the flesh beneath her breasts, and she shivered.

  Her body had been massaged and moisturised all over so that she practically glistened. Her hair had been redone, removing any sign of the mess Fayez had made of it. It was plaited now into a single long braid that had been wound around her head like a crown, and a fine rope of diamonds had been threaded through it, so that her hair shone as well. She lifted a finger to it and felt the little lumps with disbelief.

  The overt wealth was something she wasn’t sure she could ever accept.

  “And here?” She heard one of the servants ask Aïna in their native tongue.

  Kylie frowned. “The bruise,” she murmured. She’d forgotten all about it.

  The servant’s cheeks darkened to a mulberry stain and Aïna tsk-ed. “You speak to me,” she said softly. “Protocol prevents you from talking to any other domestic.”

  “What? That’s stupid. These people are … have seen me naked.” Her own cheeks bloomed with colour. “But I’m not allowed to talk to them?”

  “It’s an ancient custom,” Aïna sympathised. “Dating back hundreds of years when servants could be put in prison for talking to the royal family.”

  “I’m not going to have anyone thrown in jail,” Kylie said with a shake of her head. “And I doubt Khalifa will either.”

  The servants visibly reacted to Kylie’s use of his name and she winced. God. This was going to be a nightmare.