“Which makes us family?” She said with a roll of her eyes. “That’s corny.”
“It also happens to be true,” he said gently. “Tell me what’s happened.”
“I’ve already answered that.”
“But …”
“No!” She cut him off forcefully, her body language perfectly mirroring that of a cornered animal, being hunted by a far more powerful prey. The sense of fear was alive in the air; he could taste it. “I need a minute.” Her eyes were fevered. “I have done everything that’s been asked of me and now I just need … to be alone. For a bit. Please.”
“Okay, okay.” He lifted his hands, his smile kind and his manner deliberately reassuring. “I apologise for intruding. Can I at least get you something? A tea? Coffee? Wine?”
She was on the verge of declining him when she nodded instead. “A tea. A tea would be lovely.”
“A tea.” He walked away quickly, his mind running through all the possibilities of what might have caused her distress. And she was distressed; it was patently obvious.
The party was in full swing. Champagne had been circulating readily and the music was getting louder. He had been enjoying the event until Malakhi had alerted him to a potential problem.
“Well?” The Sheikh broke away from his conversation with the Prime Minister and Trade Minister as soon as Fayaz approached.
Fayaz couldn’t decide how to handle the situation. Evie had been adamant that she didn’t want to be disturbed. Relaying this message to Malakhi would have the exact opposite effect. Yet to lie to his ruler would be breaking a lifetime of habits.
“You’re right,” he said in their own language, his voice lowered. “She’s troubled.”
Malakhi rubbed a hand across his chin, his expression giving little away.
“Where is she?”
Fayaz hesitated. “She doesn’t want to be disturbed. I told her I would take a cup of tea …”
“I will take it,” Malakhi responded curtly.
Fayaz nodded. “She’s through those doors. In the corridor that leads to the banquet hall.”
“Good.” Malakhi cast one more glance towards the Prime Minister. “Would you send for a tea?”
Fayaz nodded. “Of course.” He hesitated for a moment and Malakhi waited with burning impatience. “I have no indication of what has upset her, but I do believe something is very wrong.”
Malakhi stood impatiently on the fringes of the party, his eyes disconnected from the festivity, his body language forbidding interruption. And such was the power of his personality and position that no one came near him, until a servant approached cautiously, holding a small silver tray.
“Sir,” he bowed obsequiously, pushing the tray forward.
Malakhi took the cup by the handle and stalked away without offering a word of thanks. It was not his intention to be rude; but his mind was absorbed by the problem of his missing wife.
When he stepped into the corridor, she looked regal and serene, but utterly untouchable.
“My tea,” she murmured, her smile faultless yet obviously false. “Thank you.”
Her eyes shifted to his for the briefest of moments before dropping to the tea.
She wrapped her fingers around the cup uncaring for the heat that scorched her instantly. She lifted it to her lips and sipped the scalding liquid.
“What is it?” He asked, putting a hand on her hip and stroking her through the fabric of the dress.
With great effort, she stayed where she was. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to do; nor did she know how to handle the situation. But revealing to him what she knew was a sure-fire way to sever her options. They were married now.
What she could have done three days ago was not necessarily an option to her any longer.
Three days ago she had an unquestionable legal right over Kalem. Now? They were husband and wife; King and Queen. Did it instantly confer those rights upon him also? And what would Sabra have wanted?
She had accepted his proposal because she had then believed that her sister in law and brother would have wished for them to raise Kalem as a family. Had that changed? Did his dishonesty render her belief mute somehow?
“Are you enjoying yourself?” His words were like caramel on her fraught nerves. If she didn’t take a great deal of care, they would soothe her and she might forget again.
“A great deal,” she said with forced cheer. “Your people are beautiful.”
“Our people,” he corrected without thought.
“Yes. Speaking of our people,” she sipped her tea once more to flush her dry mouth with liquid. “I should like to check on Kalem.”
“Fatima is with him,” he said, his voice deep.
“I know that, but I’ve hardly seen him this weekend.”
“It is your wedding night,” he teased, and now her spine tingled with anticipation that was as delicious as it was frustrating, for she knew she could not easily give in to her body’s desires. Not knowing what she now did.
“But this isn’t a real wedding,” she said, surprised by how calm she was able to keep her voice.
Silence throbbed around them; the space seemed to carry the weight of the world in its thready presence.
“Meaning?”
“We married for Kalem.” She sipped her tea once more. “Didn’t we?” Her eyes were focussed on his face, looking for any indications that she should have discovered earlier.
“That makes it no less real,” he said softly, finally.
“Yet you can’t be surprised that I would rather check on him than indulge this farce for a moment longer.”
“Farce?” He took a step back, his face impossible to read.
“You know what I mean.” She waved a hand through the air, her manner dismissive. “It’s lovely, but it’s just a show. For their benefit.” Her smile hid a pervasive grief. “Between us, we can speak plainly.”
“Yes.” His eyes glittered in his dark face.
“He’ll probably be asleep,” Evie said. “I won’t be long.”
Malakhi didn’t say anything, but as Evie brushed past him – careful not to touch him – he started to move. He walked just a step behind and when Evie emerged back in the ballroom and made to turn left, he put a hand gently on her elbow. “This way is more direct.”
“Oh.” She nodded, rallying her features into an expression of calm.
“You do not have your little pocket map?” He said with a smile, attempting to draw her out, walking beside her through the crowd.
“No room for it in the dress.”
“Ah! Yes. I see that.” And his hand ran the length of her back, stroking her and sending little arrows of desire shooting pleasure beneath her skin. What exactly did that make her? What kind of fool? How could she still want him?
Because sex is all this is! Of course it was. She had thought herself in love but surely that was just a foolish, naïve idea. Something she’d told herself to make sense of the maelstrom of her desire. Lust was far more likely.
At the doors to the event, she turned to thank him, but he was so close that her face brushed the fabric of his robe. She stepped back so quickly she almost gave herself whiplash.
And he saw it. He noticed the panic. And a thousand questions slammed against him. But he asked none of them. His mouth was a grim slash of determination. “I will come with you.”
“No!” Too fast. He heard that too.
She lifted her teacup between them like a talisman. “I’ve got my tea for company. Besides. Think of the rumour we’d start if we disappeared from the wedding.”
He shook his head dismissively. “I care not for rumours.”
“Sure you don’t,” she murmured in disbelief. “You stay. I won’t be long.”
He watched her go with a growing sense of annoyance. Soon, she would return, and they would leave immediately.
In the privacy of their suite of rooms, she would be herself once more. In their bed she would be his Evie. The Evie who was incapable of denying her pleasure.
The Evie who fell apart when he touched her.
Relief was palpable as, with that thought in mind, he turned his attention back on their guests.
* * *
“He is asleep.” Fatima’s eyes showed that she, too, had been dozing.
“Oh!” Evie nodded, her heart pounding in her chest. She placed the now-empty teacup down on a side table and smiled apologetically at the nanny. “I should have come sooner.”
“He was very tired tonight.”
Evie spun warily. “Why? Is he okay?”
“Yes, yes,” Fatima nodded. She made big gestures with her hands, while searching for the right words. “We do the sunshine and the swim. And the food. A lot of the food. ‘E growing boy, eh?”
“Yes.” Evie nodded, moving softly towards his crib. She put her hands on the timber rail, studying his sleeping body with a clutch in her heart. One little arm was thrown over his head and the other was out to his side. His face was angled towards an edge of the crib and his full lips were parted in repose. He breathed noisily – it was approaching a snore –and she smiled remembering the first time she’d slept in the same room as Sabra. The beautiful princess had snored like a freight train. Odd, for someone so otherwise graceful.
It had bonded Evie to the her sister-in-law even more.
“You know what I love?” Fatima was the only other person in the room and so Evie must have been talking to her; though in truth, she simply had words that needed to get out. “His arms. Look at the size of them. Even stretched as high as they go, they barely reach above his head.”
Unable to help herself, she reached down and placed a finger in his palm. He curled his hand around it, his breathing turning, briefly, into a sigh.
“Is he happy?” She whispered, pulling her finger away and lifting it to her lips.
“Yes.” Fatima came and stood beside Evie, surprising her by putting an arm around her shoulders. “You do goodness here. You and His Highness. I … the words hard for me. To marry, for a child, he do no wrong, he, how you say? He innocent. And you marry for him is goodness.”
“Yes,” Evie smiled unevenly. “I’d do anything for Kalem.”
Fatima hesitated and then, as colour blossomed in her cheeks. “I say not good things to you. That day. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t,” Evie turned and cupped Fatima’s hands in hers. “You were grieving too. None of us was at our best right after their deaths.”
“I know Sabbie since she baby like this.” Fatima nodded towards Kalem’s sleeping figure. “She was just the same. This how she sleeps.”
“Yeah,” Evie nodded. “Except she snored.”
Fatima laughed, throwing her head back. “It’s true. Even like this, she did that.”
“I didn’t know that you were her nanny.”
“Oh.” Fatima nodded, her eyes shining. “I was just young. Like Amina. I knew nothing.” She pressed her hand into the valley formed by her generous breasts. “But I know love. I feel the love.”
“I know.”
“You know their parents die young too.” She clucked, shaking her head in sympathy. “Such shame.”
“I know.” And Evie had known, for she’d talked about it at length with Sabra. But never Malakhi. At the thought of her husband, her wedding ring started to feel heavy and uncomfortable.
She was married. She was his wife. Whatever she decided to do, she had to do something. She couldn’t simply hide out in Kalem’s nursery.
There was the honeymoon, too.
The honeymoon.
She almost groaned aloud.
The thought of spending weeks alone with him, travelling, posing for photographs, pretending to be a happy newlywed? She shivered. The idea of all the lying was impossible to tolerate.
But what else could she do? She’d made her bed, and now she had to lie in it.
And he’d lie with her.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Mal!” It was almost two o’clock in the morning and all he wanted was to leave the wedding.
Evie stood beside him smiling, like a statue. She was ice-cold, and he had a blood-boiling need to bring her back to life in his arms.
Only a concern for her welfare kept a lid on the desire that was raging through him.
He turned at the approach of his old friend Nilam. The brother of Leilani was nothing like her in looks. Where she was tall and slender, with legs that seemed to go on forever, Nilam was short and balding, his cheeks round and his lips thin. And they were frowning in that moment.
Malakhi didn’t like the way Nilam looked at Evie. His eyes seemed resentful; dark. Instinctively, Malakhi brought her closer to him and kept a hand possessively about her waist.
“Nilam, you have not met Her Highness?”
“No, I have not had that pleasure,” he said, flicking her only a cursory glance before returning his focus to the Sheikh. “I must speak to you urgently.”
“Evie, this is Nilam. He is one of my oldest friends.”
“How do you do?” She murmured, her smile polite. Did she know the connection to Leilani? Nothing was obvious from her features.
“Mal?”
Malakhi’s eyes narrowed. His friend’s lack of courtesy was not something he would tolerate.
“This is not the time,” he said.
“It’s important,” Nilam hissed. Obviously reluctant to speak in front of Evie, his whispered, “It’s about Leilani.”
But Evie heard and immediately her manner shifted. “Is she better now?” She asked, her face a study in calm concern.
“Better?” Nilam shifted a little, moving his weight from one foot to the other.
“Yes,” Evie murmured. “I saw her a little while ago. She had a migraine. She told me she was leaving the palace immediately.”
Nilam’s confusion was obvious. “Migraine?”
“I don’t know the word in Ishalan, I’m sorry. A severe headache. I told her I’d make her apologies to my husband. She agreed it was better not to disturb the event.”
“I see,” Nilam was still not reassured, but he was no longer making demands.
“Will it wait until tomorrow?” Malakhi asked his friend, his mind ticking over this interesting turn of events. Had Leilani had a hand in Evie’s apparent distress?
Nilam nodded, his smile genuine. “Tomorrow. Yes. Tomorrow’s fine.”
After only a few more farewells to the last of the guests, Malakhi put a hand beneath Evie’s elbow and guided her from the imposing room.
They didn’t speak the entire walk back to their aparmtent, but it was far from a companionable silence. Evie imagined little sparks of electricity zapping across her breast, shooting pain and discomfort through her whole body.
When finally they appeared at the royal suite and stepped inside, Evie saw that it had undergone a total transformation. Enormous arrangements of flowers covered every surface so that the air was weighted with the sweet, sultry fragrance of desert blooms. The bed was covered in petals: not of a rose, but of something far more beautiful and sweeter-smelling. She took a step closer, curiosity temporarily over-riding every other sensation.
She lifted one to her nose, rubbing her fingertips along its soft petals.
“It is the flower of our house.” He came to stand beside her. She was so on edge that she flinched even at his proximity.
“Is it?” The words were whispered, he wasn’t sure he caught them properly.
“It was brought across the ocean from Spain. It has long since died out in Europe. It grows only here, on the coastal edge of our country.” He reached for a bloom. “You might have noticed it at the funeral.”
Evie shook her head. “I didn’t. I confess, I didn’t notice anything really.”
“No. Of course.” His broad chest lifted as he expelled a soft sigh. “It is traditionally used at funerals, weddings – the birth of children. When Kalem arrived, even though Sabra was far from home, the streets were lined with bouquets of it.”
Evie’s skin prickled with goose b
umps, just imagining the sight he described. “What’s it called?”
“Rinathi Da Ikta. There is no easy translation, but it means something like Kissed from the Heavens and Blessed on Earth.”
“That’s lovely,” she said seriously.
He nodded slowly. “It is believed that making love on the blossoms of the flower will lead to the conception of a royal heir.”
She jerked her head to his, her mouth suddenly dry.
It was a moment of truth.
Could she sleep with him?
Knowing what she did now?
“You are tired,” he said softly, forestalling her objection. “This weekend has been long. You should sleep.” His eyes studied hers and he hesitated, perhaps hoping, for a moment, that she might object.
But she didn’t. Telling herself she was grateful for at least a little more time to consider her position, she nodded, and even summoned a smile up from the depths of her soul. “I am tired,” she agreed, dropping her gaze to the floor. It too was kissed by the glorious flowers.
And the moment she said it, she knew she’d made the wrong decision. Every single fibre of her body was screeching. She wanted him – no. She needed him.
None of this made sense, except the way she felt when they were together.
She blinked away tears of frustration as she forced herself to face him, unafraid of the connection they shared. He was studying her, and she felt as though he could see the filaments of her soul.
“I …”
He cupped her cheeks and kissed her. Not hungrily; not desperately. He kissed her sweetly, slowly, as though he could understand her through the touch of their lips. He tasted her too; her hesitations, her fears, her doubts.
“You should sleep,” he murmured, breaking the kiss and gently disentangling her arms from around his waist.
Why? Why did she feel such a dependency on him? On his body and his touch?
“What if I don’t want to sleep?” She said, so wistfully that his heart flipped in his chest.
“Evelyn …”
“Just …” she lifted a finger to his lips. “Don’t talk.”
His eyes flared with silent challenge.
Her fingers moved to the zip on the side of her dress. She pinched it together, dragging it slowly down her body, her eyes not leaving his face. With every movement she dared him to stop her. To resist what was about to happen. He could only watch, transfixed.
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