She would make a difference, Antonia determined, idly swishing her hands in the water to keep her afloat. Turning towards Ra’id’s beautiful pavilion, she started swimming towards it. This was a scene that belonged in one of her fantasies, but if it had been she could have engineered a happy ending rather than this travesty: Ra’id and Antonia trapped in the middle of a drama of their own making, a drama that should have ended well before they made love…
But thank goodness it hadn’t ended, Antonia reflected, caressing the still-flat planes of her stomach as she waded out of the water.
He watched Antonia until she was safely out of the water and dressed again, and then, without her seeing him, he returned to the campfire he had lit earlier. Should he show her what he had found in her mother’s room? Was she ready for it, or had she suffered enough emotional upheaval for one day? Would it be better to throw it on the fire? While Antonia had been scooping something off the floor, he’d been too—something that had dropped off her mother’s dressing table, another pathetic, hand-scribbled note.
‘Ra’id!’ Antonia exclaimed, drying her hair with a towel he’d laid out ready for her. ‘You’re cooking fish again.’
‘In anticipation that you will fillet it for me again.’
‘I might,’ she said, her lips curving at the memory, though she hunkered down a good distance away from him. ‘Of course I will!’ she exclaimed now, as if some thought had suddenly occurred to her. ‘If you promise I can have that water.’
‘A filleted fish in exchange for my precious water-supply? Do you think I’m mad?’ He might as well have added ‘Do you never give up?’ But he knew the answer to that already.
‘Shake on it?’ she said boldly.
He looked at the tiny hand stretched out to him, and just in time remembered how the desert affected him. It was another magical setting, where they could be anyone they wanted to be while they were here—the only difference now was they both knew there were consequences to embracing that freedom.
‘You’re smiling,’ she said as he ate the morsels of fish she had prepared.
‘Am I?’ He frowned.
‘What’s wrong, Ra’id?’
He wasn’t about to share his thoughts with her. He had concluded that the enemy to duty wasn’t self-indulgence, but love. He wasn’t sure he had the weapons to fight that enemy off. ‘Why don’t we have a swim?’ he said, badly in need of a change of scene.
‘It’s too soon,’ she cautioned him.
‘Then we can stroll round the oasis, and when I judge the time is right I’ll throw you in.’
She was off like a hare from the traps. ‘Not if I see you first,’ she called back to him, laughing.
They didn’t make it to the water. The restrictions of the real world had been lifted again and nothing stood in their way.
She was young, seductive and he wanted her.
She was fine until Ra’id brushed against her. He’d kicked sand over the fire and helped her clear everything away. She had identified the thick, nobbly palm-trunk behind which she intended to leave her clothes, and he was at the water’s edge when something frightened her, a crawling thing…
A harmless lizard, Ra’id reassured her as it scuttled away.
‘Okay, so I’ll get used to them,’ she said determinedly.
‘If you intend staying in the desert, I’d definitely advise it.’
There was humour in Ra’id’s voice and warmth in his eyes. She didn’t imagine it. She had been hanging on for a sign that he would mellow so they could discuss the future together, and it turned out the desert had cast its spell over him again. In the capital he was the undisputed king, but the wilderness was a leveller that stripped everyone’s position in life away. And Ra’id came out of that well…
Very well, Antonia reflected, feeling increasingly aroused as he continued to stare at her. There was so much strength in his dark gaze, so much wisdom and understanding of her needs.
‘You’re aroused,’ he murmured.
‘Am I?’ she whispered, making it sound like a challenge.
‘So aroused, if I touch you you’ll come.’
She was too shocked to answer, by which time she was in his arms. He carried her into the pavilion and laid her down on the freshly laundered cushions. She was enveloped in the scent of sandalwood and sunlight as she sank into their scented folds. Moments later she was naked, and so was Ra’id; he had judged her level of arousal perfectly.
‘You greedy girl,’ he murmured as she abandoned herself to the onslaught of pleasure.
She was whimpering, open-mouthed in surprise that such levels of sensation were possible when he eased her legs over his shoulders. Being back with him was like a miracle, and so was the speed with which he could coax her into readiness again.
‘Let me ride you!’ she demanded, desperate to feel him deep inside her.
‘You set the pace,’ Ra’id agreed, settling back on the cushions.
She lowered herself cautiously. Ra’id was huge, and she had to take him in gradual stages. His touch was tantalisingly light on her hips as she sank slowly down. Then he was touching her, delicately, skilfully with one fingertip, and she was moving faster, with more confidence…wildly, and with abandon.
He turned her so fast she had no chance to protest—and why would she, when he was giving her exactly what she needed firm and fast?
Ra’id climaxed violently with her, and they clung to each other for minutes that turned into drowsy hours; two people, so close they were one.
‘Do you ever tire?’ she asked him a long time later.
‘With you?’ Ra’id gave her an amused glance. ‘Never.’
This time he made love to her tenderly, as if he cherished her above all things. She wouldn’t allow herself to believe that, of course. She knew it was some primal instinct at work that prompted a man to feel that way about the mother of his child. If she allowed herself to believe in his feelings for her, Ra’id really would possess the means to break her heart.
But he didn’t make it easy for her. Brushing her hair back from her face, he moved slowly and deeply, kissing her eyelids, her lips and her neck, making love as if they had all the time in the world and he rejoiced in that as much as she did.
Dawn was busily brushing away the clouds of night when she woke in his arms. Would she ever become used to Ra’id’s strength, or his beautiful body? Antonia wondered, snuggling close, determined to make the most of whatever time they had.
‘So, you’re awake,’ he murmured.
‘Just,’ she admitted, loath to be the first one to break the spell.
‘It can be like this always, Antonia. For you and me.’
‘What do you mean?’ She turned to look at him.
‘We can be together,’ Ra’id said, as if that were obvious.
‘And the baby?’
‘Of course the baby,’ he exclaimed softly. ‘We would be a family.’
She rested against him, thinking how wonderful that would be—how perfect. But life was never perfect. Ra’id was a king, and whatever plan he had brewing in his head she wanted to hear it before she agreed. ‘Tell me more,’ she said.
‘Not now.’ He smiled a slow, sexy smile. ‘It will be a surprise.’
When had she learned to be such a pessimist? Antonia wondered, moving away. How much more did she want than this? Coming back to rest her head against Ra’id’s naked chest, she inhaled his familiar scent, telling herself that nothing could be more perfect than this. She should be happy. She should be optimistic about the future.
So why wasn’t she?
Because this was all an illusion, Antonia admitted; this wasn’t right. Or, rather, she wasn’t right for this. She wasn’t her mother, and she wanted more than to be hidden away—the sheikh’s plaything. She wanted a family. She wanted to work. She wanted to make a difference.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
HE SENSED the change in Antonia and knew he would have to work hard to reassure her that his plan for h
er would work. His father had blanked out a son and had dumped his discarded mistress in the desert, but he would never do that. Freedom was as important to him as it was to Antonia, and was the bedrock of the constitution he had installed in Sinnebar. ‘I’m going to take another swim,’ he told her, ‘While you can have your own private stream to yourself.’ She smiled at him as he glanced towards the back of the tent where the luxurious bath-house was situated.
His life was nothing without Antonia’s bright flame in it, Ra’id realised as he grabbed a towel and strode away. She consumed his every waking moment and invaded his dreams at night, filling him with hunger for her, as well as the absolute determination to keep her at his side.
She found what looked like a page from a diary underneath the robe Ra’id had worn the day before. She guessed he had found it in her mother’s room at the fort and the sheet of paper must have fallen out of his pocket. Backing deeper into the pavilion, she began to read it.
She’d never tidy up again, Antonia determined, biting back tears. Like so many things at the fort, it must have been churned up, passed over and forgotten. She handled the single sheet of paper carefully, sniffing it, studying it, imagining her mother writing it, knowing it had been written in despair, and in hope that one day someone would read it.
I wanted everyone to know how I had to live in the last few years, so you would understand why I went to Rome.
It was a scrawled page that told of unbearable loneliness—of no one for Helena to talk to, or to share her fears with, and a child stolen away from her, a blow that no deed of land could ever soften.
Money, land and jewels, in however much abundance, had done nothing to ease a young girl’s desolation, Antonia could see, and for a moment she felt numb. Then Antonia realised her main reaction to this page from her mother’s diary was frustration, because it was too late for her to sort out her mother’s life. She could only be glad her father had found Helena, and that they had been able to share a few months of happiness together before her mother’s untimely death.
Realising she had scrunched the piece of paper in her hand, she carefully straightened it out again and put it with the other treasure she had found at the fort—the broken chain, with the tiny, diamond-studded heart. She would rather have these small things than all the riches in Ra’id’s treasury, Antonia mused, because the broken heart and the note scrawled in the childish hand were in many ways her mother’s true legacy. And if she didn’t learn from them, she really would let her mother down, and the note would have been written for nothing.
Ra’id was with the horses when she came out of the tent with the intention of confronting him about her discovery. ‘You’ve saddled up,’ she said with surprise.
‘I have something to do—for your benefit,’ he assured her.
Ra’id was smiling, but she sensed that once again he was the autocratic ruler who had made some plan without consulting her. ‘Don’t I have any say in this?’
‘You’ll be quite safe here. Though you can’t see them, there are security guards everywhere.’
‘Oh, good…’ That was supposed to make her feel reassured?
‘Trust me—I’ll be back within the hour.’
The gap between her belief they had grown closer and the true situation had just widened into a gulf, Antonia realised. She loved Ra’id and could never say no to him, but as she watched him ride away she thought that perhaps the time had come to do that.
No? Antonia had said no to his suggestions for her immediate future? They were in the pavilion, facing each other, and the atmosphere between them was as tense as it had ever been. He had offered her the sun, the earth and the moon, and Antonia had turned him down. ‘I don’t think you heard me,’ he said as she stood with her back turned to him. ‘I will have the fortress repaired and refurbished to your specifications. You will have your own palace in the capital, and I’ll open a bank account for you with more money in it than you could ever spend. And you can spend that money on anything you want.’
‘Subject to your approval?’
‘Well, obviously I’ll have a say in it!’ he exclaimed impatiently.
‘A say in it?’ she echoed, spinning round. ‘You’ll choose. You’ll pay. You’ll install me in one of your fabulous palaces and visit me as and when you wish?’
There was no mention of their child, Antonia realised, hoping the terror didn’t show in her eyes.
‘I thought you wanted that?’
She did want to be with Ra’id, more than anything on earth, but not like this. If she agreed to his terms she was effectively giving over her life for Ra’id to control. He would hold the purse strings, the decision strings, and as he already held the strings to her heart that was one string too many. But how easy it would be to become dependent on him, a man so compelling and powerful; he exerted some hypnotic spell over her. It would be madness for her to fall under that spell, however much she wanted to. She must remain free to make her own decisions, even if sometimes she got it wrong. First off, she had to know his intentions regarding their baby so she could counter them if she had to. ‘What about our child, Ra’id? Where will our baby live?’
For the first time since she’d known him, Ra’id’s gaze flickered.
‘No,’ she repeated firmly, closing her fingers around her mother’s note.
‘You’re being unreasonable, Antonia.’
‘If it’s unreasonable to defend my unborn child, then I am unreasonable,’ she agreed.
‘Defend the baby against me—its father?’ he demanded incredulously.
‘No, Ra’id, I’m defending our child against the past—a past that still seems to rule us both.’
‘What are you saying, Antonia?’
‘When were you going to show me this?’ She produced the single sheet of handwritten despair that she had found by his robe-pocket and had the small satisfaction of seeing Ra’id reach inside his robe to check that it had gone.
‘You took that from my pocket,’ he accused her.
‘No. It must have dropped out.’
Dragging off his howlis, he tossed it aside. ‘I picked it up at the fort and intended waiting until you had recovered before showing it to you.’
‘Recovered?’ she said with only the smallest shake in her voice to betray her feelings. ‘Let me assure you, I have recovered.’
‘I was trying to protect you, Antonia.’
‘I don’t need that sort of protection, Ra’id. I need to face life, however ugly it is.’ And it was ugly sometimes, Antonia thought, as an image of her mother as a very young girl, writing down her deepest thoughts and fears because she had no one to confide in, appeared to be.
‘I have your best interests at heart.’
‘And thought you could woo me with expensive trinkets and the promise of more money than I could spend? Do you really think you can buy me, Ra’id?’
‘I’m doing everything I can think of to reassure you.’
‘To reassure me that it will be cosy in my gilded cage?’ Antonia’s voice broke as she shook her head in despair. ‘You really don’t know me.’ Would Ra’id never be Saif again? Would he never hear her again?
‘I’m prepared to give you everything I thought you wanted,’ he said.
In fairness, that was exactly the type of girl she’d been, Antonia reflected. How long had her journey been? And how short was Ra’id’s? Very short, she concluded. Nothing about the all-powerful ruler of Sinnebar had changed. What was he thinking now? She could usually read him, but today that famous connection of theirs had interference on the line. Something big was brewing. Ra’id would never have left her side for a minute if it had not been to make some special plan.
‘I want nothing but the best for you.’
‘And the best is to be your prisoner, because I’m carrying the heir to the throne?’ Ra’id’s expression stopped her. She had come here with him willingly, and in doing had crossed into dangerous, uncharted territory—to take on a man who was accustomed to
his every word being law. Ra’id frightened her, but her fierce maternal instinct turned out to be stronger. Brandishing her mother’s note at him, she demanded, ‘Have we learned nothing from this, Ra’id? Am I to be kept in a palace as my mother was—another bird in a gilded cage, awaiting the sheikh’s pleasure, while you carry on as normal?’ Shaking her head decisively, she exclaimed, ‘I won’t do it!’
‘Think, Antonia.’
‘Oh, believe me, I’ve thought about this. Why would I agree to your plan when my only purpose in life would be to perfect the art of becoming invisible? I’d spend every day waiting for you, never knowing if you would turn up.’
‘You’re growing hysterical. You will have the charity to occupy your time, and very soon your child.’
‘A child to occupy me?’ Antonia protested in outrage. ‘Looking after my baby will be a privilege. Yes, I’m expecting motherhood to be demanding, but never a chore—never something to fill in my time. A child is far too precious for that, Ra’id—something I don’t expect you to understand.’
‘I understand more than you know.’
Something about the way he spoke sent a flash of guilt through her, and then she realised he was thinking about Razi, the half-brother Ra’id had brought up when his mother had been driven away and his father had cared for no one but himself. ‘I’m sorry. I should never have said that. I’m just—’
‘Frightened of taking a step into the unknown?’ Ra’id suggested. ‘Your life doesn’t have to be a repeat of the past, Antonia.’ He glanced at the sheet of paper she was still holding clenched in her hand. ‘The path you decide to take from here is up to you, and not some letter written years ago.’
‘You would allow me to choose that path?’
‘Why are you so certain I want to crush you?’
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