Demanding His Desert Queen Page 17
Yet his stomach hollowed. He felt gutted, and a dreadful tight ache seared through his belly as her words penetrated.
He’d felt bereft the night he’d learned of his parentage. But this was worse. This was Safiyah—his Safiyah—saying that what they had wasn’t enough.
The edges of his vision blackened. This time it was Safiyah who grabbed his hand, steadying him. So much for his careful plan to give her time to grow accustomed to them as a couple.
‘Don’t talk like that!’
‘Why not? It’s the truth.’ She breathed deeply, as if marshalling her thoughts. ‘You’re a good man, Karim. A fine ruler. And you’ve been wonderful with Tarek. Better than I dared hope for. Don’t worry. I’ll accustom myself in time.’
Accustom herself! As if it were a state of affairs she couldn’t avoid. A royal obligation.
Which it was.
Safiyah had married him for Tarek’s sake and to save her nation. She’d married dutifully and at first that had suited Karim completely.
But not now.
Karim exploded to his feet on a surge of restive energy. He marched the length of the room, spun on his heel and marched back.
Initially he’d told himself that Safiyah deserved no better. Then, later, when he’d understood the truth about her, he’d believed that if he worked hard enough he could make her care for him again as she once had, despite his mistakes. Yet it was only now, as he looked into her wan face and set features, that the full realisation of her sacrifice slammed into him.
Karim couldn’t bear that she saw what they had as a necessity rather than a gift. Not when to him it was so much more.
He skidded to his knees before her, gathering her hands and drawing them against his thudding heart. He couldn’t simply ignore her words about an arranged marriage, let them hang as if they meant nothing. Even if the alternative meant risking everything.
It would be the biggest gamble of his life, but he refused to imagine failing. Besides, he’d only held back because he hadn’t wanted to put pressure on her.
‘Our marriage is much more than that, Safiyah.’
She nodded, firming her mouth. Yet still she didn’t meet his gaze. ‘Yes, it’s for the best. For Tarek and—’
‘Much as I care for Tarek,’ he murmured, ‘this isn’t about him. Or even about the little one you’re carrying now.’
Karim felt a fillip of excitement, just speaking of their unborn baby, yet he couldn’t allow himself to be distracted.
‘Yes, there’s also Assara. You’re doing a wonderful job—’
‘Not Assara, either.’
At his words her head jerked up, wide eyes catching his. How often he’d watched those velvety eyes haze with delight as he took her to rapture. How often he’d watched them dance with pleasure as they rode, or when they played with Tarek.
Karim turned her hands, pressing her palms to his chest where his heart thundered, letting her feel how she affected him.
‘I want this marriage, Safiyah. I want you. I always have. Even when I pretended I didn’t.’
Now the moment of truth was here Karim found it easier than he’d believed possible. He’d been taught to avoid discussing emotions, as if the mere mention of them would weaken his masculinity. What a crock that was. He’d never felt stronger or more determined.
Clamping her palms with one hand, he lifted the other to her face, feeling the dewy softness of her delicate flesh. ‘I love you, Safiyah. I love you with every fibre of my being, with every thought and every breath I take.’
He paused and hefted air into his overworked lungs, watching emotions flicker across her features.
‘Don’t! Please don’t!’
Safiyah tried to free her hands but he held them fast.
She looked up at him with over-bright eyes. ‘I’d rather you were honest with me than have you say what you think I want to hear.’
Her mouth crumpled, and with it something inside Karim’s chest. He couldn’t bear to see her hurting so.
It took a moment only for him to slide his arms around her and lift her high against his chest as he rose to his feet. From this angle he could see the wild throb of her pulse in her throat and her convulsive swallow.
Because he’d hurt her. Not just today but over years.
‘I am being honest, Safiyah. For the first time ever I’m sharing how I really feel.’ He paused, willing her to believe him. ‘I don’t know if I can ever make up for the mess I’ve made of things. When I believed the worst of you. When I never even followed up to make sure you were okay all those years ago.’
He strode to the long sofa and sank there, cradling her on his lap. It felt right, holding her like this, soft and warm in his arms. He never wanted to let her go. Surely it was a good sign that she didn’t struggle to get away?
‘I was hurting so much, Safiyah, because I loved you even though I hadn’t admitted it to myself. But that’s no excuse. You needed me and I turned my back on you.’
His voice cracked as he thought of her, scared for her sister, grieving for her father, faced with the prospect of marrying a stranger.
Dark eyes locked on his as she tipped her head back, and for once Karim didn’t try to mask his feelings as he’d been trained to. His love for her swelled and filled him till he thought he might burst.
‘Karim...?’
Her eyes, pansy-dark yet flecked with amber, held his so intently he felt raw inside, with everything he felt, every secret, laid bare. It was like facing his conscience.
‘It’s true, my love.’
He lifted her palm and pressed his mouth to it, scattering fervent kisses there. But not for long. This had to be said.
He held her wondering eyes. ‘I was a proud, arrogant prince, used to attracting women, used to people pandering to my whims. I saw that you cared for me and I took that as my due, never bothering to question my own feelings. If I had I’d have realised that what I felt for you was unique. I’d never cared for any other woman the way I cared for you, Safiyah. After you’d gone I felt like I’d been torn in two, but I blamed that on my changed circumstances.’
He shook his head, amazed at his obtuseness.
‘I couldn’t bear to think of you—especially when I heard you were to marry Abbas. Because it hurt too much. I pretended it was fury I felt, hurt pride that you’d duped me into believing you cared.’
‘I did care, Karim.’
Her hand curled around his, the first tiny positive sign from her. It made his heart contract. She’d cared for him once. But now...?
‘When you came to me in Switzerland I behaved like a spoiled brat, trying to hurt you.’
‘You succeeded.’ Her mouth twisted, but her voice was stronger and her eyes shone. Hope rose.
‘I’ve been so blind, my love.’ He shook his head. ‘So slow to realise you were the reason I came to Assara. Not because I wanted the crown but because I wanted to be with you. Become your husband.’
His words ran out and Karim was left listening to the sound of his heart throbbing out a frenetic pulse, looking for some sign he wasn’t alone in this.
‘You came here because of me?’
He nodded. The words had poured out of him—a torrent smashed free from a dam wall. Now he was spent. The rest was up to her. Would she believe him?
‘Because you loved me?’
‘Love. I love you.’
As Karim watched, her eyes filled with tears that spilled down pale cheeks.
‘Ah, habibti. Please don’t. I can’t bear to see you so sad.’
He wiped her tears with his thumb but they kept falling. The sight broke him. Was it possible he’d destroyed all the feelings she’d once had for him?
A soft hand cupped his jaw. ‘Silly man. I’m crying because I’m happy.’
‘Happy?’ Karim stared into her lovely f
ace and saw that crooked mouth curve up in a smile that made his heart lift.
‘Yes, happy.’ Her smile widened. ‘You really do have a lot to learn about women.’
Karim didn’t argue. He was the first to admit his previous experience had been limited to casual encounters. Nothing that compared to this.
‘Tell me,’ he demanded, capturing her hand and kissing it.
‘That I’m happy?’
Mischief danced in Safiyah’s eyes, and for the first time the band constricting Karim’s chest eased. He grazed his teeth along the fleshy part of her palm and she jumped, then leaned closer.
Her expression grew serious. ‘I loved you all those years ago, Karim, and I never stopped.’
She swallowed hard and he felt the shadow of her pain.
‘And now?’ He didn’t deserve her love, but he needed it. He’d never needed anything more. ‘I can live without a crown, Safiyah. Without courtiers and honours. But I can’t live without you.’
‘Hush.’ Her fingers pressed his lips. ‘You don’t need to. We have each other now.’ She leaned close, wrapping her arms around his neck. ‘I love you. Always have and always will.’
Karim opened his mouth to reply. To say something meaningful and memorable. But for the first time ever words failed him. He drew his beloved wife up into his arms and kissed her with a tender ardour that told her better than words how he felt.
He vowed he’d show her every day of their lives together exactly how much she meant to him.
EPILOGUE
SAFIYAH STEPPED INTO the room and pulled up abruptly, seeing Karim alone by the window. It had been a risk, arranging this meeting, but one she’d believed worth taking.
Karim was a changed man—happy and positive and oh-so-loving, unafraid to express his emotions. Especially since their daughter Amira’s birth. He doted on their little girl, while his relationship with Tarek grew stronger by the day. And with Safiyah he was everything she’d ever longed for.
But she knew the past cast long shadows. She couldn’t change Karim’s loveless childhood, but she hoped at least to ease the pain of his not knowing his parents. Which was why she’d tracked down the man Karim’s mother had run away to. The man who might be Karim’s father.
Seeing her husband’s preternatural stillness, the air of barely contained energy vibrating from those broad shoulders, she guessed the meeting hadn’t gone well.
Her hopes nosedived.
‘You’re alone?’
He swung to face her and her heart rocked against her ribcage when she read his expression. In a rush she closed in on him, wrapping her arms tight around his powerful frame.
‘I’m sorry, Karim. I thought—’
‘I know what you thought, habibti.’ His mouth crooked up at one corner in a tight smile. ‘That it was time I made peace with the man who might be my father. And you were right.’
He gathered her in, then turned to look out the window. There, just emerging from the palace, was a rangy figure, shoulders straight and gait familiar. He paused, as if sensing their regard, and looked over his shoulder. Karim inclined his head and the man reciprocated, then walked away.
‘Yet he’s leaving?’
Was it crazy to have hoped the two might begin to build a tenuous relationship?
‘No, just stretching his legs. We both need a little time to process things. He’s accepted my offer to stay in the palace for a visit. To meet the family.’
No mistaking the pride in Karim’s voice.
‘He has?’ Safiyah stared up at her husband, stunned.
His half-smile broadened into a grin that made her heart flutter. ‘What you mean is you’re stunned I invited him to stay. But then he is my father.’
‘Oh, I knew it! You have the same walk...and the angle of your jaw...’ She paused, searching his face. ‘And you’re all right with that?’
* * *
Karim raked a hand through his hair. ‘They didn’t know about me.’
‘Sorry?’
Safiyah looked up at him with those lustrous eyes and he pulled her even closer. It had been a morning of revelations and powerful emotion. He found he needed the concrete reality of his darling wife to anchor him.
‘When my mother ran away with him she had no idea that I was his son. He swears that if they’d realised she’d never have left me with the Sheikh.’
Karim believed him. His father wasn’t what he’d expected. A proud yet gentle man, he was a schoolteacher in a remote mountain valley, devoted to the children he looked on as his own, never knowing till recently he had a son.
‘He and my mother were deeply in love, but her family ignored that and arranged her marriage with the Sheikh. A lowly trainee schoolteacher wasn’t considered good enough for her. They were only together once before the wedding—one night of secret passion before a loveless marriage.’
Karim’s thoughts strayed inevitably to Safiyah’s dutiful marriage to Abbas. How desperate must she have felt, knowing there was no escape, giving herself as a convenient wife?
Safiyah had given him a whole new perspective on his mother. A new sympathy for a woman caught in an unwanted, unhappy marriage.
‘When I was born my mother believed I was the Sheikh’s son.’ Karim drew a slow breath. ‘According to my father...’ He paused on the word, testing its newness but liking it. ‘She finally left the Sheikh because her marriage broke down. Emotional abuse turned into physical abuse and she feared for her safety. But she always believed he wouldn’t lay a hand on me or Ashraf as his precious heirs.’
‘Oh, Karim...’ Safiyah gripped him tight.
‘My father didn’t even know she’d run away from the palace till she came to him and they fled together over the border. They only had a year together before she died.’
‘That’s so sad.’
He looked down into her soft eyes. ‘At least they had that.’
‘You’re turning into a romantic, Karim.’
He smiled, and looked at Safiyah as the shadows inside eased. ‘How could I not be when I have you, habibti? It’s all your influence.’
‘And in all those years he never took another wife?’
Karim shook his head. ‘Another thing my father and I have in common. It appears we’re one-woman men.’
‘Sweet talker.’
He pulled his beloved close and stroked his hands over the gossamer-fine silk of her dress. It shimmered, indigo blue, over her delectable curves. Inevitably he felt the familiar tug of desire and satisfaction. This woman was his life, his home—everything he wanted.
‘Just stating the truth.’ He moved his hands more purposefully and heard Safiyah’s breath snare. Anticipation quickened his pulse. ‘But they say actions speak louder than words. Perhaps I should demonstrate my feelings.’
He backed her towards the long divan by the window.
‘We’ve got an official lunch in half an hour and—’
‘Some things are more important than royal duty, my love.’
Safiyah shook her head, but she was laughing as he lowered her onto the cushions. ‘You’re right, Karim. Some things are.’
Then she reached for him, using those supple, clever hands so effectively that Karim forgot everything but the need to show his wife just how he felt about her.
* * *
If you enjoyed
Demanding His Desert Queen
by Annie West
look out for the first installment
in her Royal Brides for Desert Brothers duet:
Sheikh’s Royal Baby Revelation
Available now!
And why not explore these other
Annie West stories?
Inherited for the Royal Bed
Her Forgotten Lover’s Heir
The Greek’s Forbidden Innocent
Wedding Night Reuni
on in Greece
Available now!
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CHAPTER ONE
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Nico Caruso did not look up from his computer as Marianna, his PA, walked into his opulent Rome office. Instead he frowned.
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