Demanding His Desert Queen Page 14

  His mouth twisted in distaste. His parents. He didn’t know who his father was. His mother had died when he was young and her lover had never lifted a finger to contact Karim.

  Maybe that was it. Apart from Ashraf, Karim was alone. Maybe his determination to build a family unit wasn’t just for Tarek’s sake, but his own.

  He scowled. The notion was absurd. He had a plan and he was determined to make it work. That was all. The throb of anticipation now, as he joined Safiyah and Tarek, simply meant he was pleased at his progress so far. No more than that.

  Yet a couple of hours later Karim had ceased to think in terms of plans and progress. Relaxed and replete, he found himself enjoying Tarek’s amusing chatter and Safiyah’s company. Their easy conversation seemed the most natural thing in the world.

  How long since he’d done something as simple and fine as enjoying a picnic?

  The answer was easy. Never.

  His early life had been filled with royal responsibilities. There’d been no lazy afternoons. And since he’d left Za’daq he’d thrown himself into his investment business, needing to fill the huge gap in his world where duty had once been.

  Now he stood in the centre of the clearing, one hand on Tarek’s shoulder as the boy leaned into him, his head flung back to watch the red kite bobbing above them.

  ‘Look, Karim! Look, Mama! It’s flying.’

  ‘I’m looking, sweetie. It’s wonderful.’

  ‘Karim can teach you too.’ The boy twisted to look up at Karim. ‘Can’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  The boy relinquished the kite’s string and scampered across to his mother, dragging her back to Karim. ‘Here.’

  Ignoring Safiyah’s rueful smile, Karim stepped closer. Immediately the light perfume of her skin teased him. So instead of merely handing the kite to her he moved behind her, wrapping his arm around her waist. He felt her sudden intake of breath and the silk of her hair against his mouth as he brought his hand to hers, offering her the kite.

  For a moment she stood stiffly. Then the wind jerked the kite and she gave an exclamation of surprise and delight.

  ‘Careful. Watch it doesn’t dip too low,’ he warned.

  She tugged, and together they moved to catch the up-draught. It took some manoeuvring, and a near miss, but soon they had it flying high again.

  ‘Thanks. I’ve never done this before. I didn’t know it was so thrilling.’

  She smiled up at him over her shoulder and the glow of her pleasure drenched him like sunlight banishing the night’s shadows. Gone was the reserve she usually maintained when they weren’t having sex.

  Karim’s chest expanded as pleasure filled him. ‘I haven’t either. That makes us all novices.’

  ‘You haven’t?’ She looked astonished. ‘I thought you must have learned as a boy.’

  Karim shook his head. He was about to explain that there’d been little time for childish pursuits in the Za’daqi royal court when someone entered the clearing. His secretary—looking grim.

  ‘Your Majesty... Madam.’

  He bowed deep and Karim saw his shoulders rise as if he were catching his breath. Karim’s smile froze. Such an interruption could only mean serious news.

  ‘Sir, may we speak in private?’

  Karim felt Safiyah tense and tightened his hold on her. ‘You may speak in front of the Sheikha.’

  This was more than some scheduling problem. With his staring eyes, the man looked to be in shock. Karim braced himself. Not Ashraf. Not his brother...

  ‘Very well, Your Majesty.’ He hesitated, then abruptly blurted out, ‘There’s a report in the media about your...background. Claiming that your father was—’

  He stopped, and Karim came to his rescue. ‘Not my father?’ Weariness mingled with relief that there hadn’t been a tragedy. But clearly there was no escaping some secrets.

  ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’ The man stepped forward and proffered a tablet.

  Karim took it, reading swiftly. The news piece was carefully worded, but it noted that if Karim’s father hadn’t been the Sheikh of Zad’aq Karim had no claim to the title of Prince. The implication being that without that the Assaran Royal Council wouldn’t have considered him a contender for its throne.

  Regret surfaced that today’s pleasure should be blighted by an old scandal that he’d thought dead and buried. But then Karim squared his shoulders and concentrated on what needed to be done.

  * * *

  Safiyah read the headline and froze. When Karim dropped his arm from her waist, moving away with his secretary, Safiyah took the tablet from him with numb fingers.

  She felt blank inside...except for a creeping chill where Karim’s body warmth had been.

  ‘Mama! Look out!’

  Safiyah’s head jerked up. The line of the kite was slipping and she tightened her grip on it. With an effort she conjured a smile for Tarek, even as her mind whirled at the news story and Karim’s matter-of-fact response to it.

  It couldn’t be true. The very idea was preposterous.

  ‘Here.’ She passed Tarek the kite. ‘You can have it, but you must stay here where I can see you.’

  A glance revealed Karim and his secretary deep in discussion. Karim was showing none of the outrage she’d have expected if the story were false. Her husband looked stern but calm.

  Her husband.

  But who was he if he wasn’t the son of the Sheikh of Za’daq?

  It felt as if the ground beneath her feet had buckled.

  Slowly she moved into the shade of one of the trees fringing the clearing. Intent on answers, yet excluded from the terse conversation going on metres away, she turned back to the article. Reaching the end, she went back to the beginning and read it again, astounded.

  It was an outrageous allegation, and no definitive proof was provided, though there was mention of a medical technician willing to swear to it. The story claimed Karim’s mother had been unfaithful to her husband before deserting him and that the old Sheikh had only learned Karim wasn’t his just before his death.

  The report insinuated that Karim had then been banished by his younger half-brother, Ashraf, who’d threatened to proclaim the truth if he didn’t renounce his claim to the Za’daqi throne. Yet when Safiyah had seen Karim and Ashraf together at the coronation they’d seemed on the best of terms. And Karim had been full of smiles for his sister-in-law, Tori.

  ‘Seen enough?’

  Karim stood before her, eyes narrowed to gleaming slits, hands clenched at his sides, in a wide stance that was pure male challenge. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the secretary hurry back towards the palace. Tarek scampered around, ignoring them all, watching the kite.

  ‘Is it true?’ Her voice sounded unfamiliar.

  Karim’s mouth tightened, his jaw jutting aggressively. ‘Don’t play games, Safiyah. You know it is.’

  ‘How could I?’ She frowned up at him. ‘You’re saying this...’ she gestured to the article ‘...isn’t a hoax?’

  * * *

  Karim surveyed his wife, his annoyance giving way to dawning disbelief. Her skin had paled as if she’d received a shock. That, surely, wasn’t something she could feign.

  Gently he took the tablet and put it down.

  ‘Karim? What’s going on? Why would anyone print such a story?’

  He watched the throb of Safiyah’s pulse in her throat. Surely only a consummate actress could pretend to be so stunned? Yet this couldn’t be a surprise to her.

  ‘You know it’s the truth. You heard it five years ago.’

  ‘Five years ago?’ She frowned.

  ‘When you came to meet me in the palace courtyard that night.’

  The night he’d been torn between lust and the determination to do no more than kiss her lest he take advantage of an innocent under his roof.

  She
blinked, her eyes round. ‘I didn’t go to the courtyard. That was the evening we heard Rana was sick. Father and I packed up and went home that same night. He left a formal apology and I wrote you a note.’

  Karim’s lips curled. ‘A note that said only that you were sorry you’d had to leave so quickly. That something urgent had come up.’ A brush-off, in fact.

  Safiyah shook her head like someone surfacing from deep water. ‘I thought I’d have a chance to explain the details later, in person.’

  When he didn’t respond, she switched back to the news story. ‘You’re saying your father wasn’t the Sheikh of Za’daq? Really?’

  Karim stared into those velvet-brown eyes he knew so well and felt the earth tilt off its axis.

  She hadn’t known. She really hadn’t known.

  All this time he’d believed Safiyah had snubbed him when she’d discovered the truth of his birth. For one golden illuminated second joy rose. She hadn’t spurned him after all.

  But she would now. Nothing surer. She’d be horrified at the scandal. And then there was the way he’d treated her. Believing she’d dumped him, he’d refused to take her calls, deleted her messages. And, more recently, he’d forced her into marriage.

  Karim reeled as the truth sank in.

  He’d thought she’d understood who she was marrying.

  This news threatened both his crown and the relationship he and Safiyah were building. It could yank both from his grasp.

  He looked at his wife and a wave of regret crashed through him.

  Suddenly Karim knew fear. Bonedeep fear.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘WHO WAS YOUR FATHER, then?’ Safiyah could barely take it in.

  Karim shrugged wide shoulders. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Don’t know?’

  Karim wasn’t a man to live with doubt.

  ‘Presumably the man my mother ran off with.’ His voice was bitter. ‘Though that’s pure assumption. Maybe she had several lovers.’

  ‘You didn’t ask her?’ It didn’t seem possible that he hadn’t pressed to find out.

  ‘She died of pneumonia when I was a child. There was no one else to ask.’

  Except her lover—the man who might be his father.

  What must it be like, not knowing who your parent was?

  She frowned. It would be worse for Karim, since his mother hadn’t been around for much of his childhood. The only parent he’d had was the irascible old Sheikh—a man she’d found daunting and her father had described as arrogant with a mean streak.

  ‘I’m sorry, Karim.’

  Another tiny lift of the shoulders but his expression didn’t lighten. Instead his gaze drilled into her.

  ‘Surely the rest isn’t true? You and your brother seem to be good friends. He didn’t really banish you?’

  Karim snorted. ‘That’s nonsense. I decided to step aside from the crown. I actually had to persuade Ashraf to take it.’

  ‘So,’ she said slowly, ‘it was your decision to leave Za’daq?’

  He nodded. ‘The last thing my brother needs is me hanging around. He’s a good man—a fine leader. But there are conservative elements in Za’daq who’d prefer me to be on the throne because I’m the elder.’ He laughed, but the sound was devoid of amusement. ‘Though they won’t feel that way now the truth is out.’

  Safiyah disagreed. From what she could tell, most of the support for Karim had been because, while supporting his father, he’d proved himself an able statesman, fair and honest. He’d worked hard and achieved respect. The truth of his birth would be a shock, but it didn’t change his record.

  Safiyah wrapped her arms around her middle, torn between sympathy for Karim and hurt that he hadn’t trusted her enough to tell her this before. But why would he? They didn’t have that kind of relationship. Their closeness was only in bed.

  She looked up to find his gaze fixed on her so intently she almost felt it scrape past her flesh to her innermost self. She looked away. That was nonsense—a product of sexual intimacy. But more and more she found herself stunned by how close she felt to Karim. As if with a little effort all those romantic dreams she’d once held could come true.

  Except when reality intervened, reminding her they didn’t have that sort of relationship.

  ‘You thought I knew all this?’

  Karim’s expression was hard to read, yet she could have sworn he looked uncomfortable.

  ‘That evening we were supposed to meet...’

  He paused, giving her time to recall her excitement and trepidation at the plan to meet him alone. She’d been so in love, so sure of his affection—though he’d never come right out and said the words—that she’d been persuaded to break every rule.

  She’d thought the night would end in his bed. Instead it had ended with her romantic daydreams smashed.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I was waiting for you when Ashraf arrived instead. He had the results of some medical tests. We’d been looking for bone marrow donors to extend the Sheikh’s life.’ Karim’s mouth twisted. ‘The old man had always believed Ashraf wasn’t his son, but Ashraf was tested anyway—out of sheer bravado, I think. One test led to another and the results proved just the opposite. I was the illegitimate one—not Ashraf.’

  Safiyah wondered how she’d been so blithely unaware of the undercurrents at the Za’daqi court. But then she’d been lost in the romance of first love—only love.

  ‘I still don’t see how—’

  ‘Later I discovered you and your father had disappeared in the night with an excuse about a family problem. I assumed you’d overheard our conversation since it took place where we were supposed to meet.’ His chin lifted as if challenging her to deny it.

  Reading the pride in that harshly beautiful face, Safiyah guessed what a blow the news of his birth had been to a man raised as a royal, with every expectation of inheriting a throne. She breathed deep, imagining what it was like to have your world turned on its head.

  She didn’t have to imagine too hard. She’d had her life snatched off course not once but twice, her own hopes and goals destroyed when she’d been forced into marriages she didn’t want.

  ‘I see,’ she said, when she finally found her voice. ‘You thought I hid in the shadows and eavesdropped.’ Safiyah felt something heavy in her chest—pressure building behind her ribs and rising up towards her throat. ‘Then persuaded my father to make up some excuse to leave? As if he wasn’t a man who prided himself on his honesty?’

  She’d hated the subsequent marriage her father had pushed her into but he’d done it for what he’d believed to be good reasons. He’d been a proud, decent man.

  ‘As if I...’

  The stifling sensation intensified, threatening to choke her breathing. She forced herself to continue, her chin hiking higher so she could fix Karim with a laser stare.

  ‘You thought I abandoned you when I discovered you weren’t going to be Sheikh. That all I cared about was marrying a king? That I didn’t have the decency to meet you and tell you to your face?’

  Safiyah choked on a tangle of emotions. Disappointment, pain, distress. How could he have believed it of her? He knew nothing about her at all! She’d been in love, willing to risk everything for a night alone with him, and he’d believed that of her.

  She swung away, fighting for breath. Through a haze she saw Tarek, running in circles, trailing his precious kite.

  ‘You have to admit the timing fitted,’ said Karim.

  Yes, the timing fitted. Drearily, Safiyah thought of how fate had yanked happiness away from her. But Karim hadn’t loved her. If he had, he’d have at least stopped to question his awful assumptions.

  She turned to him, seeing not the man she’d once adored, nor the passionate lover who’d introduced her to a world of pleasure. Instead she viewed the man who’d thought the worst of he
r—and her family. Who’d refused to give them the benefit of the doubt, treated them with contempt.

  No wonder he hadn’t returned any of the increasingly desperate messages she’d left all those years ago. He’d excised her from his life with ruthless precision.

  The choking sensation evaporated and Safiyah dragged in lungsful of clean sea air. They felt like the first full breaths she’d taken in years. For too long she’d lived with regret over the past. She’d hidden it away, pretended the pain wasn’t there while she tried to make the best of life. Now, like glass shattering, regret fell away. With clear eyes she faced the man who’d overshadowed her emotions for too long.

  ‘Yes, it was a coincidence. But, believe it or not, the world doesn’t revolve solely around you and the Za’daqi royal family.’

  ‘Safiyah, I—’

  She raised her hand and, remarkably, he stopped. It was as if he sensed the change in her. The tide not of regret and hurt, but of cold, cleansing disdain. For the first time she could remember Safiyah looked at Karim and felt no yearning, felt nothing except profound disappointment.

  ‘The night you heard you were illegitimate my father and I discovered Rana needed us.’ A quiver of ancient emotion coursed through her, that dreadful fear that had stalked her too long. ‘She’d tried to kill herself.’

  ‘Safiyah!’

  Karim stepped closer, as if to put his arms around her, but she moved back and he halted. Deep grooves bracketed his mouth and furrowed his brow and Safiyah read genuine concern.

  ‘I had no idea.’

  ‘No—because you never gave me a chance to explain.’

  He recoiled as if slapped, his face leached of colour. Strange that Safiyah felt no satisfaction.

  ‘Tell me?’ he said eventually.

  ‘Rana was living in the city, studying to become a vet. But university life didn’t suit her, and she found the city challenging after being brought up in the country. Plus, although we didn’t know at the time, she was being stalked by another student. There had been harassment and she felt isolated, afraid to go out. She became anxious and depressed. I knew something wasn’t right, but on the phone she sounded...’ Safiyah swallowed. ‘She overdosed on tablets.’