“Leilani told me what she said to you: that she knew of your innocence,” he said, coming to sit beside her once more. He placed his hand gently on her leg, his fingers stroking her through the fabric of her dress.
“Yes.” Evie’s cheeks flushed. That night when she’d found the other woman in his room … She’d forgotten about that.
“That night you and I were first together, I ended it with her. That’s why she was here, in this room. I didn’t tell her about your inexperience but I must have said enough. I was in a state of shock. I don’t recall what I said, to be completely honest. For almost the first time in my life I had the sense that I had broken something beautiful. I had bulldozed past your objections and I had bullied you into my bed…”
Evie pushed forward, ignoring the sharp stab of pain from her foot as she moved. She put her hands on his shoulders, and brought her mouth to his. He closed the distance.
“I would never have slept with you if I didn’t want to.” She kissed him, her hands soft on his shoulders, her body ever-after his. “I wanted you. I loved you. And I wanted this.”
“When we went to the Ruins of Fash’allam, I had to fight against an instinct to tell you how I felt. I literally had to clamp my lips shut to stop the words from coming out.”
“Why?” She asked, wonderment drifting over her.
“Because I had already proposed and you’d seemed so nonplussed.” His smile was loaded with self-deprecation. “It was obvious that you didn’t share my feelings.”
“Oh, but I did!” She shook her head, her mind moving back to his proposition. “But you told me nothing would change between us. The idea of being married to you and not having your affection or respect, of only being a body you sought … it terrified me.”
“Can you really have thought that’s what you were to me?”
Evie sent him a look of mocking derision. “Do I need to remind you of the things you said the night we became lovers?”
“Please, never again remind me of that.” He pressed his forehead to hers. “If atonement is possible, I will spend my lifetime searching for it.”
Evie’s eyes sparked as they met his. “A lifetime?”
He linked his fingers with hers. “Our lifetimes. You are my other half. I believe we were created to find one another, to live together, to make a life together. I believe you were designed to sit with me here in this palace, sharing the responsibilities of ruling this country with me. I believe we were meant to live, raising Kalem together. And I believe my sister and your brother would smile to see this.”
Tears sparkled on Evie’s eyelashes. “I think so too.”
“When you left here, and married Nick, I knew true pain. My heart died and darkness only remained. I became a bitter man, Evie. I had known perfect love for the smallest amount of time and you had chosen not to feel it. You had walked away from me and the feelings we shared.”
Guilt flipped her gut. “I was torn in half by the decision,” she assured him. “But it was so complicated.”
“Of course it was,” he agreed gently. “Now that you are my wife and I know we shall be together I can be magnanimous.”
She laughed. “It was surreal. Dressing for my wedding, knowing it was the last thing I wanted to do. But everyone else was so happy.”
Malakhi didn’t care for the details, but curiosity led him to say: “He must have been offended that you wouldn’t sleep with him.”
“Sleep with him? I couldn’t bear to be touched by him.” She squeezed her eyes shut with regret. “Marrying him was spectacularly unfair – to you, to me, and to him most of all.”
“How long did it last?”
“We honeymooned together,” she said with a wistful smile. “But I told him on the plane there that I couldn’t do it. We spent two weeks on a beautiful island, shell-shocked but remembering all the reasons we had to be friends.”
“That sounds very mature.”
“I think it was,” she laughed, shaking her head. “No one was happier than I when he got engaged again. It absolved me of a degree of guilt that I shall always feel.”
“That was my fault too,” he said thickly. “When I found out you were engaged I made it impossible for you to see me as a viable option. I shut down every avenue we had for happiness again and again, and it is only through your goodness and grace that we are here now.”
“And your courage,” she whispered. “You told me you loved me when you had no idea how I felt. I wasn’t brave enough to do that.”
“Your love is obvious in everything you do,” he said softly. “I have never known anyone as kind and compassionate as you.”
She bit down on her lip. “I woke up this morning so miserable and I am now almost euphorically happy. How can I feel like this? On today of all days?”
“Perhaps your brother is pulling strings?” He said softly.
Evie sighed. “That’s highly possible.”
He pressed a kiss to his wife’s forehead and sighed with the relief of a man who had loved, lost and craved for a very long time. Finally, he had her, and he knew that theirs was a love that would endure all trials.
EPILOGUE
One year later, to the day.
Evie’s eyes lit up as she looked at her husband. Even in this most mundane of settings, he was so powerfully in-control.
“She is vomiting,” he said, as though it was not obvious to everyone in the room that the Sheikha of Ishala had just lost her lunch. Or lack thereof.
“That’s normal, sir.”
Evie, a little fogged by drugs, smiled at Malakhi. “You’re wearing a shower cap.”
He laughed. “Yes. I am.”
“Truly, sir, you’re best to sit down,” the doctor murmured, nodding towards a seat beside Evie’s head.
He groaned and took the seat, reaching out for Evie’s hand. There were tubes and needles everywhere. The sight of her like this was almost enough to swear off sex forever.
“How much longer?” He asked.
“Wait,” the surgeon commanded and Malakhi’s eyebrows shot up at the curt command.
“Relax,” Evie said, her smile not faltering.
“Easy for you to say. You are hooked up to a virtual drug smorgasboard, Jamila.”
There was more activity and suddenly a tiny little human was lifted from Evie’s abdomen and held above the surgical curtain that separated them from the medical team.
“A son,” Evie said thickly, watching as a nurse wiped the infant. He began to cry, a robust sound that filled the room. Malakhi moved closer and was handed a pair of scissors with which to cut the umbilical cord. Emotions reverberated through him as he looked down on another beautiful little person to enrich their homes and their lives.
“He’s perfect,” he said thickly, taking the baby and bringing him to Evie’s chest. She cradled him there, ignoring the rolling waves of nausea and exhaustion. “What shall we call him?”
Malakhi kissed her forehead. “That decision is yours.” He ran a hand over the baby’s head. “But if I had a choice, I would say that a baby born on your brother’s birthday to a couple who would not have met were it not for him? Surely it has to be David.”
“David?” Her heart turned over. Love, sorrow and completion throbbed inside of her.
“Or the Ishalan version: Davyrd.”
“Oh, I like that.”
“Kalem and Davyrd,” he murmured.
“And Malakhi and Evie. Our family.”
“Our hearts.” He kissed his wife and then his baby and all was right in the world, for now and all time.
Happiness was restored to the Kingdom and its King was happiest of all.
THE END
THE SHEIKH’S
ARRANGED MARRIAGE
CHAPTER ONE
Sex with a stranger.
Well, not technically a stranger, if you bought into semantics. But near enough.
As of four hours ago, His Royal Highness Tariq Kassis Amari, Emir of Assan was her husband. Althoug
h they’d spent less than a day in each other’s company, they were now married, for better or worse.
Despite their legal intimacy, Rebecca couldn’t quell the army of butterflies that was battering her insides furiously. The time had come to cement their union, and instead of feeling shy or nervous, she was strangely excited.
One of the six attendants she’d been staffed with had shown her the concealed doorway, discretely tucked behind a Renaissance masterpiece. It had sprung open silently when touched in just the right spot to reveal a wide, carpeted corridor, lined with lamps on either side. Though the lamps were now powered by electric bulbs, they looked ancient, and it wasn’t hard to imagine they’d been there since the Royal Palace had been built three hundred years earlier.
Rebecca took in a shaky breath. At the other end of the straight hallway was another door. One that would open into a matching bedroom; that of Tariq, the Sheikh, her husband.
Her attendants had been dismissed. After a long day that had started with the traditional Katb el Kitab and finished with an elaborate wedding reception, they were almost as exhausted as she.
Despite the tiredness that sapped through her body, there was a force of adrenalin, too. She had not expected to be attracted to her husband. But she was. Desperately. One look from the Sheikh had the ability to turn her bones to water; to fill her soul with longing. No one had been more surprised by the force of her desire than Rebecca.
At twenty four, she remained a virgin. Not for lack of opportunity. But while her girlfriends had been indulging in one night stands, and impassioned holiday romances that burned out as quickly as they had shone brightly, Rebecca had been immune. She had come to believe she simply lacked the ‘sex’ gene. Then, twenty four hours ago, at their official engagement ceremony, the reading of the Fatiha, Tariq had walked into the room and stomped all over that idea.
Dressed in long, flowing white robes that made his olive skin look sinfully rich, he was tall, at least six feet five inches, and broad shouldered. Muscular. Strong. His eyes were what had done it though. Almond shaped and thickly rimmed with black, curling lashes, they were a golden honey colour, flecked with green and brown, and they seemed to glow with secrets and mysteries.
Only, he had seemed determined to barely acknowledge her, as though her very presence was a minor inconvenience in his regally blessed life.
She had known this arranged marriage was at the will of his parents, the previous Sheikh of Assan, Fatih, and his Queen Consort Aliyah. Through the tension in his body, the coldness in his face, Tariq had made it clear that he was there as a dutiful son and Prince. Against his own desires and wishes, that would have dictated his right to select his own bride. He had no expectations of anything from his bride besides the requisite procreation of his noble line. Eight hundred years of Kassis Amari Kings had ruled Assan, turning it into one of the most prosperous Kingdoms of the Arab world. And the burden of delivering the next in line rested on the newlyweds.
When her father had signed the contract of marriage, twenty four years ago, could he have known that he would be foisting his daughter on such an unwilling groom? She didn’t know, and she couldn’t ask him. Fourteen years ago, her parents had been killed in a motorway pileup, and any knowledge of the marriage contract had died with them. Her grandfather too had passed away, leaving her more or less alone on earth. Only her adopted parents remained, and they had been as surprised as anyone to discover that their disappointing adopted daughter had been hand selected to marry into one of the oldest royal families in the world. And as scary as the prospect was of marriage to a man she’d never met, she didn’t hesitate for even an instant in saying ‘yes’. Fourteen years of being ruled by her adopted parents’ cruel and unkind manner had finally ended. She was free.
Or was she? Had she simply jumped from one prison to another? Admittedly a far, far more gilded cage, she thought, running a hand down the raw silk gown she had been carefully wrapped in. Her attendants had spent the better part of the evening preparing her for this moment. She’d been bathed, massaged, oiled. Her long blonde hair had been brushed until it shone, while every other hair on her body had been painstakingly removed. Finally, the luminescent turquoise robe had been fitted to her slim frame. It was slightly sheer, and in the right light, there was no disguising the fact that beneath it, she was naked. On top of her head, an elaborate black diamond and gold headpiece had been placed. She hated to think what such baubles would be worth. Undoubtedly more than she earned in five years at her job as a Special Education teacher in an outer suburb of London.
Her hand stilled on the solid mahogany door. Should she knock? Or walk in? This was an established Assanian tradition, and yet she felt besieged by uncertainty. And anticipation... What would it be like to be made love to by a man such as Tariq? For he was so very masculine, so totally desirable.
In spite of the emotional abuse she’d suffered at the hands of Winona and Greg, or perhaps because of it, Rebecca had become adept at shielding her indecision. She employed that skill now, arranging her face to reflect calm and control. She was now Queen of Assan and this was her husband’s room. She pushed the wooden surface in the same carved space that was mirrored on her own door, and it sprung open, just as quietly, just as readily.
The Emir was standing at the Mashrabiya, the ornately screened window that overlooked his private swimming pool. She could only see his profile, the aquiline nose, lips that were slashed into his face, cheekbones that looked made of steel. Unlike many men in Assan, his face was clean shaven, but there was a hint of a five o’clock shadow on his square jawline now. His eyes, those eyes that must be filled with Bedouin charms, that had bewitched her instantly, were hooded.
A sliver of pale moonlight bathed across him, and he looked so magnificent, that she couldn’t help her soft intake of breath.
He spun, instantly, his face expressionless as he took in her appearance.
Winona and Greg had gone to great lengths to make sure Rebecca had no vanity. If she had ever thought herself passably pretty, they had well and truly disabused her of such a notion. Her blue eyes were so blue they looked fake; her lips too full and pouty, ‘sluttish’, Winona had told her repeatedly; her nose too snub at its tip; her blonde hair, naturally as fair as sunshine, looked cheap and tawdry. Rebecca knew her figure was her only redeeming feature. She was tall, six foot without shoes, and naturally slender. Though even her body had not escaped Winona’s rapier sharp cruelty. Her legs were too coltish, her breasts non-existent, her pale skin ghost-like. “Nothing attractive about a tall skeleton draped in a sheet,” Winona had told her repeatedly, with a shake of her head as she drew her tiny little eyes up and down Rebecca’s developing body.
The silk gown she’d been draped in was stunning, and under the gaze of this impossibly handsome Sheikh, Rebecca felt every single insecurity bubble back to the surface. It didn’t matter how many friends had told her she was beautiful. Standing there, across a bedroom that suddenly seemed to chasm before her, Rebecca felt unmistakably unworthy. She dropped her gaze away first. That was a mistake. When she turned from him, her eyes unintentionally landed on the palatial bed at the heart of the room. It was enormous. At least twice the size of a normal double bed with four posts that rode to the ceiling and gauzy curtains suspended on each side.
Rebecca gulped and looked back to her groom, with no idea how innocent she looked.
Tariq hardened his resolve. “My sacrificial bride,” he murmured, and his voice was warm and thick, like the Arabian winds that blew through the dessert beyond the palace walls. His stride was long and he crossed the room, so that he was standing just in front of her.
“Sacrificial bride?” She repeated, her eyes held prisoner by his darkly intense stare.
“How else would you describe this ritual?” He muttered, and she thought she detected distaste in his voice. Truthfully, Rebecca had thought it all sounded very romantic when she’d first learned of it. Of course, that had been before she’d met the man in que
stion.
“You don’t approve of the final stage of a royal wedding?” She hedged, struggling to keep her face impassive and her voice calm.
“Not in this instance,” he answered immediately, and his eyes were at once amber and green. She felt her heart quicken at what he was suggesting. He was only saying what she already knew. She was not pretty enough for him. His reputation as a playboy preceded him. He had dated models, supermodels, actresses, royalty. All of them beautiful and glamorous. Rebecca Beaumont from Bourton-on-Water was none of those things.
If she were the kind of girl to blush, she knew her cheeks would have glowed pink. Instead, the only tell-tale sign that his words had upset her was the way the thumb of her left hand rubbed compulsively against her right index finger.
“I... I’m sorry if I’m not what you were expecting.” She said quietly. And she was. Sorry for both of them. He fulfilled every single one of her fantasies and she was clearly a let-down. It was disheartening, to say the least.
“You are just what I was expecting,” he corrected, his tone harsh, his eyes bitter. “Beautiful. Graceful. Poised. Demure. Virginal,” As he listed each virtue his voice rang with more and more offense. “My father chose well.”
“But you resent anyone making you do anything,” she surmised.
A muscle flexed in his jaw. “I was born to this position. I have always known what my responsibilities would entail.” He spoke the words automatically, and something about his delivery made Rebecca certain that he was lying.
“But you don’t agree with arranged marriages,” she pushed, certain there was a cause for his frustration, beyond her disappointing looks.
“My parents are happily married; theirs was an arranged marriage. It is not the marriage so much as...”
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