The Sheikh Crowns His Virgin

And Raj told him with a succinctness that shook both of them before he powered back into his meeting to apologise and explain that a family crisis demanded his immediate attention. He contacted an investigation firm, who had done excellent work for him in the past, to request an immediate file on his uncle’s putative bride. He needed information and he needed it fast yet he was aware that he was struggling to concentrate.

Why?

For the first time in eight years, Raj would be returning to the country of his birth and, although anger was driving him at the prospect of being forced to deal with another unscrupulous and mercenary woman, on another much more basic level he was quietly exhilarated at the prospect of seeing his homeland again...

* * *

Zoe surfaced from an uneasy, woozy dream to find someone helping her to lift a glass of water to her lips. Her eyes refused to focus and her body felt limp but she knew she needed the bathroom and said so. Someone helped her rise and supported her—more than one someone, she registered dimly, because her limbs were too weak to carry her. She tried to scan her surroundings but the walls being weirdly bendy spooked her and momentarily she shut her eyes as she was helped back to bed. She had been drugged, taken somewhere, she registered fearfully, fighting without success to stay conscious and focus. She had to protect herself, had to protect herself! That self-saving litany rang through her brain like a wake-up call...but even that panic couldn’t prevent her from sliding down into oblivion again.

* * *

When Raj received the info on Zoe Mardas, he was forced to rapidly rearrange his expectations. Why on earth would such a woman be willing to marry a man almost as old as her grandfather? Clearly, financial greed would be a most unlikely motive for a woman with the billionaire Stamboulas Fotakis at her back. Fotakis was her grandfather and, by all accounts, an extremely protective relative. Other more stressful concerns then started dawning on Raj. The Greek tycoon would scarcely take the kidnapping of his granddaughter lying down. He would not allow it to be hushed up either. Yet, even more strangely, it did look as though Fotakis had been the prime mover and shaker behind the proposed marriage between Hakem and Zoe. What was Stam Fotakis getting out of it? Some lucrative business deal? Or a title for his granddaughter? Raj pondered those unknowns and decided to contact Fotakis direct...

* * *

Someone was brushing Zoe’s hair when she next woke up, someone murmuring softly in a foreign language. She opened her eyes and saw an older woman, who smiled down at her from her kneeling stance by her side while she brushed Zoe’s long mane of pale blonde hair with admiring care. She did not seem hostile or threatening in any way and Zoe forced a smile, her innate survival instincts kicking in. Until she knew what was happening she would be a good little prisoner, playing along until such time as her grandfather came to rescue her; because one thing she did know: Stamboulas Fotakis would not be long in putting in an appearance. He would create a huge fuss the instant he realised that Zoe had gone missing and no rock would be left unturned in his search for her, she reflected with a strong sense of relief.

Gently detaching her hair from the woman’s light hold, she sat up and the woman stood up and helpfully showed her straight to the bathroom. Even by that stage, Zoe was recognising that she had not been disorientated the night before when she had thought the walls surrounding her looked rather odd. Evidently, she was no longer at the villa in the palace complex, she was in a tent, a very large and very luxurious tent decorated with rich hangings and opulent seating but, when all was said and done, it was still a tent! And the connecting bathroom was also under canvas. Zoe felt hot and sweaty and looked longingly at the shower, but she didn’t want to risk the vulnerability of getting naked. She freshened up with cold water, dried her face and frowned down at the unfamiliar long white fine cotton shift she now wore in place of the skirt and top she had travelled in. That creepy nervous doctor and his sidekick, she thought in disgust. She would never trust a doctor again!

Why had she been taken from Prince Hakem’s villa? Although no one had ever told her that it was his villa, she had simply assumed it was. Presumably somebody didn’t want this marriage of his to take place, she reasoned reflectively. No problem, she thought ruefully, there had been no need to assault her with a syringe, send her to sleep and ship her out to a tent because she would quite happily go home again without any argument. Furthermore, she rather thought that would be her grandfather’s reaction as well because he had demanded very strong assurances from her bridegroom-to-be that she would be safe and secure in Maraban and he would be appalled at what had happened to her. Surely her becoming a princess to follow in the footsteps of her formerly royal grandmother, Princess Azra, would not still be so important to Stam Fotakis that he would expect his granddaughter to risk life and limb in the process?

Two women were setting out a meal when she returned to the main tent and she roamed as casually as she could in the direction of the doorway that had been left uncovered. What she glimpsed froze her in her tracks in instant denial. She saw a circle of tents and beyond them sand dunes that ran off into the horizon. She was in the desert, so escaping would be more of a challenge than she felt equal to because she would need transport and a map at the very least for such a venture. The discovery that she had been plunged into such an alien environment sent her nervous tension climbing higher and she swallowed hard. Where else had she expected a tent to be pitched but in the desert? she asked herself irritably.

Above one of the tents she espied the rotor blades of a helicopter. Was that how she had arrived? Had she been flown in? She shuddered as another far more frightening thought suddenly occurred to her.

Why was she assuming that she had been kidnapped to prevent the wedding taking place in forty-eight hours? Her grandfather was an extremely rich man. It was equally possible that she had been taken so that a ransom demand could be made for her release. That scenario meant that someone laying violent hands on her was a much more likely development, she decided sickly, her tummy hollowing out. As one of the women carefully threaded her stiff arms into a concealing wrap and even tied it for her, Zoe could feel all the hallmarks of an impending panic attack assailing her and she was already zoning out as her thoughts raged out of her control.

She saw a mental image of herself beaten up in a photo for her grandfather’s benefit. Her heart raced and she turned rapidly away from the view of the encampment, incapable of even noticing that the two women with her were hastily bowing and backing out of the tent again or that a male figure now stood silhouetted in the doorway. Her throat was tight, making it hard for her to catch her breath. She was shivering in spite of the heat, cold, then hot, dizziness making her sway as panic threatened.

I’m fine, I’m strong, I can cope, she chanted inwardly. But the mantra that usually worked to steady her failed because for several unbearable seconds she was simply overpowered by fear.

A male voice sounded directly behind her and a hand brushed her shoulder. Startled, terrified, Zoe reacted automatically with the self-defence tactics she had spent months learning so that she had the skills she needed to ensure her personal safety.

She spun at speed, her elbow travelling up for a chest blow and her clenched fist heading for a throat strike while her knee lifted to aim at the groin. Raj was so disconcerted by a woman the size of a child attacking him that he almost fell over in sheer shock and then his own training kicked in and, light as dancer on his feet, he twisted and blocked her before bringing her down on the rug beneath their feet with careful hands.

‘Let go of me, you bastard!’ she railed at him, clawing, biting and scratching and in the act contriving to dislodge the white keffiyeh that covered his head.

Still reeling with disconcertion, Raj backed off several steps because he couldn’t subdue her without hurting her and he refused to take that risk. She squirmed frantically away and the sheer terror in her face savaged his view of himself. Her eyes were glassy, her face white as snow.

‘You are quite safe here. Nobody is going to hurt you.’ Raj crouched down to her level while she wriggled back against a carved wooden chest like a trapped animal and hugged her knees, rocking back and forth. She was tiny and his every instinct was to protect her. ‘On my honour, I swear that you are safe...’ he intoned with as much conviction as he could get into the assurance, because she wasn’t listening to him and she wasn’t looking at him.

He was annoyed that his cousin had not sent his English-speaking wife, Farida, in to Zoe immediately to explain that there was no threat of any kind against her. But most of all, he cursed his father and the omnipotence he wielded in Maraban, for Raj was convinced that his wily father had ordered the kidnapping of Hakem’s youthful bride-to-be. Would his father have counted the cost to the woman involved? Would he even have foreseen that he was unleashing the kind of explosively damaging scandal that no self-respecting country could withstand? No, his father, Tahir, would not have looked at that bigger picture of cause and effect. He would simply have set out to ensure that his ambitious brother’s plot to raise his status was foiled while steadfastly refusing to acknowledge the likelihood of unexpected consequences.

In a fierce temper at that frustrating knowledge, Raj sank down beside Zoe Mardas on his knees and began to coax her into attempting a breathing exercise, aimed at calming her down. Extraordinary green eyes, clear as emeralds, skimmed over him and she blinked, long feathery lashes dipping. For a split second he was frozen in place by her ice-cool Scandinavian beauty. He coached her in breathing in, holding her breath and then very slowly breathing out again. She did so and then shot him an exasperated look, not the kind of look Raj was accustomed to receiving from young women.

‘Yes, I do know how to do that for myself!’ Zoe told him sharply as soon as she was breathing normally again. ‘Why do you know how?’

‘For a while in my teens, I suffered similar episodes,’ Raj admitted, startling himself with that candour as much as he startled her; for the severe bullying he had endured at military school had for years afterwards left him damaged. He could only think his candour had been unwisely drawn from him by his glimpse of her at her most vulnerable and a natural need to put her at her ease.

In receipt of that surprising admission, Zoe stared back at him in wonderment because in her experience men were much less willing to admit to suffering such a condition. But before she could question him further to satisfy her curiosity, he vaulted gracefully upright again. She watched him smooth down his rumpled white buttoned tunic and snatch up the white head cloth she had dislodged in their tussle. And then, strikingly, for the first time in her life Zoe looked at a man with interest because there was no denying it: whoever he was, he was without question the most beautiful creature she had ever seen. Dense silky blue-black curls covered his well-shaped skull while high cheekbones and hollows fed into a truly spectacular bone structure sheathed in olive skin. Dark-as-the-devil eyes glittered below straight ebony brows. A faint shadow of stubble surrounded his wide sensual mouth, his full soft lower lip tensing as he noticed her lingering scrutiny.

Turning pink, Zoe hurriedly glanced away while scolding herself for staring but, really, with looks of that quality, he had to be accustomed to being stared at by women, she reasoned defensively, uneasy with her speeded-up heartbeat and the sudden tightening of her nipples.

She wasn’t that sort of woman, she reminded herself resolutely. Sex didn’t interest her. Basically, men didn’t interest her. She had been thrown off the path of normal development at the age of twelve when an attempted rape had devastated her. Ever since then she had held herself apart, avoiding mixed company unless it was family-orientated. She was perfectly happy around her brothers-in-law, Eros and Raffaele, and she hadn’t been nervous either when dealing with the male parents at the childcare nursery where she had worked for months immediately after her recovery from her breakdown. Back then a full-time job in her own field of botany had seemed too challenging as a first step back into the real world.

‘Who are you?’ she asked baldly.

‘You may call me Raj. I am no one of importance here,’ he intoned in smooth dismissal, for he intended to fly back out of Maraban within the hour because he could not risk discovery and possible arrest. ‘But this nomadic base camp is where my cousin, Sheikh Omar, lives at this time of year.’

Zoe bridled as she scrambled upright, wishing for about the thousandth time that she was even a few inches taller, for being only four feet eleven inches tall was not an advantage when it came to persuading people to take her seriously. Unsurprisingly, Raj towered over her but he wasn’t quite as tall as her brothers-in-law, both of whom put her in mind of giants when she was around them. ‘Is he the man responsible for bringing me here...against my will?’ she stressed acidly.

‘No, he is not,’ Raj told her emphatically. ‘Nor would he harm a hair on your head but he has kept his distance because he does not speak English.’

‘Then who is responsible for bringing me here?’ Zoe demanded, standing her ground, tensing her spine to keep her back and shoulders straight and her head high. Her favourite self-help book urged that even if you didn’t feel confident, it was still possible to fake confidence and by so doing actually acquire it.

‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that,’ Raj countered flatly.

Zoe’s green eyes flared as if he had slapped her. ‘Why not?’ she demanded.

‘It would serve no useful purpose.’

Zoe breathed in very deeply to contain the temper she hadn’t known she had until that moment. He was so incredibly patronising, so superior and his attitude affected her like a chalk scraping down a blackboard, setting her teeth on edge. ‘That’s my decision to make, not yours,’ she said succinctly.

Engaged in replacing his keffiyeh, Raj looked heavenward, involuntarily amused by that argument. She was like a doll with that tiny stature of hers and her phenomenally long blonde hair and she barely reached his chest.

‘You’re not taking me seriously,’ she condemned.

‘I’m afraid not,’ Raj conceded grudgingly. ‘I arrived here to sort this unfortunate mess out and that is what I intend to do.’

‘Is it indeed?’ Zoe snapped, incredulous that he had simply admitted his inability to treat her like an intelligent individual because, in her experience, most people lied on that score, denying that her diminutive size coloured their attitude towards her.

Raj paced several steps away from her, having discovered that proximity was unwise. His attention kept on dropping to that soft full pink mouth, that shimmering fall of pale hair, the barely noticeable little feminine curves hinting at her physical shape beneath the robe. He shifted, a kick of lust at his groin exasperating him for it was inappropriate and Raj was always very appropriate in his reactions to women. He controlled his responses, he did not allow them to control him and he had never understood the intoxicating lust that he had heard other men talk about, because only one woman had ever tested his control and, even then, it had not overwhelmed him.

‘I intend to have you conveyed home as soon as it is possible...unless you are unwilling to give up the possibility of marrying my uncle, Prince Hakem, and becoming a princess,’ Raj murmured bluntly. ‘I suspect my aunt, his wife of many years, whom he recently divorced, would be relieved to have the ingrate back by default, little though he deserves her forgiveness and understanding...’

CHAPTER TWO

‘ARE YOU TELLING me that Prince Hakem was already married at the time he agreed to marry me?’ Zoe gasped in astonished disbelief, her triangular face tightening and losing colour at that horrendous concept.

‘Of course, you were already aware of that reality,’ Raj informed her with considerable scorn in his tone. ‘After all, he has been married for many years. He has four children and a very large number of grandchildren... However, I assume that your grandfather was unwilling to accept a polygamous marriage, so my uncle had to divorce his wife before he could be allowed to marry you...’

Zoe was stunned by what she was learning. She wondered if her grandfather had been aware of those same unpleasant facts and then she told herself off for shying away from the unlovely truth that Stam Fotakis had wanted his granddaughter to become a princess regardless of what it would take to achieve that end. Prince Hakem had had to divorce his wife to take Princess Azra’s granddaughter as a bride! Zoe was appalled and mortified and guilt-stricken, feeling that she should’ve done her homework better and shouldn’t be in the position of finding out such a crucial fact when it was too late to change anything. Hakem’s poor wife! Raj was definitely correct in his conviction that her grandfather would never have accepted a polygamous marriage and would only ever have settled for his grandchild becoming the Prince’s sole wife.

‘I didn’t know... I swear I didn’t know that he was a married man!’ Zoe protested vehemently, a guilty flush driving off her previous pallor. ‘In spite of what you seem to think, I would never have agreed if I had known that he was getting rid of his real wife just to marry me for a few months.’

Raj had no idea why she was bothering to defend her behaviour by pleading ignorance of the reality that his uncle had been a perfectly happy married man before her availability had ignited his ambition. Zoe Mardas might look convincingly like a storybook princess or a heavenly angel, but Raj had an innate distrust of that level of physical beauty and a cynical view of humanity. Beautiful on the outside but what less than presentable motives were she striving to conceal from him? He had discovered for himself that beautiful on the outside too often meant ugly on the inside.

In any case, Zoe could not possibly be as naïve as she was pretending to be. She had to know her own worth in Marabanian terms. Thousands of delighted Banians would flood the streets to celebrate an alliance between a royal Prince and Princess Azra’s grandchild. His uncle had come very close to pulling off a spectacular coup in the popularity stakes.

‘I assume you are willing to go home now?’ Raj queried, marvelling at his own restraint in asking her that question because, frankly, he was determined to get her out of Maraban by any means within his power.

‘Of course, I’m willing to go home!’ Zoe shot back at him in reproach. ‘Good grief, I’m not wanting to marry a man I’ve never even met, who divorced his wife just to become my bridegroom! Do I look that desperate?’

‘I don’t know you. I have no idea what your motivations are or, indeed, were,’ Raj parried with the intrinsic hauteur that came as naturally to him as breathing, his exotically high cheekbones taut, his arrogant nose lifted, his hard jaw clenched.

Zoe’s colour heightened, her eyes brightening with anger, for in a couple of sentences, he had cut her down to size, enforcing the distance between them while also underlining his indifference to her feelings about anything. He looked different with that headdress covering his riot of coal-black curls. While the keffiyeh framed and accentuated his superb bone structure and those dark deep-set eyes set below slashing ebony brows, it also made him look older and off-puttingly sombre.

‘I confess that I am surprised, however, that you have not even met Prince Hakem. While such traditional matches still occasionally occur in Maraban, they are no longer the norm and I would not have thought a woman from your background would have been prepared to accept a husband sight unseen,’ he admitted smoothly, dark eyes glittering back at her in cool challenge.

A wild surge of temper rocked Zoe where she stood, thoroughly disconcerting her, and her small hands coiled into tight fists by her side. The derision lacing his intonation and his appraisal was like a slap in the face. He might say that he didn’t know her but she could see that, regardless of that reality, he had still made unsavoury assumptions about her character.

‘Who the hell do you think you are to talk to me like this?’ Zoe suddenly hissed at him, out of all patience and restraint because the way he was looking at her, as though she were some sort of lesser being, infuriated her. ‘I came to this wretched country in good faith and my trust has been betrayed. I was drugged, kidnapped and subjected to a terrifying experience! Now you start judging me even though you don’t know the facts.’

‘I agree that I don’t know the facts, nor do I need to know them,’ Raj countered, disconcerted by the passion etched in her heart-shaped face as she answered him back. He wasn’t used to that—he wasn’t used to that kind of treatment at all.

He had been reserved from childhood, discouraged from letting his guard down with anyone, continually reminded about who he was and what he was and exactly what his rank demanded. After his mother’s tragic death, he had had to learn to conceal his feelings and his insecurities, had had to accept that such personal responses were out of step with his status. An accident of birth had imprisoned him in a separate category, denying him the relaxation of true friends or freedom. When he had finally broken out of that prison, he had discovered to his consternation that that often icy reserve of his, which kept people at a distance, was as much a natural part of him as his face.

‘Well, you’re going to hear the facts, whether you want to or not!’ Zoe snapped back at him curtly. ‘Prince Hakem approached my grandfather to suggest the marriage, not the other way round. I didn’t meet him beforehand because there was no need for me to meet him when it was never intended to be a normal marriage. I was to go through the ceremony and live quietly afterwards in the Prince’s home. He swore that he would treat me like a daughter and that no demands would be made of me. Then after several months I was to go home and get a divorce...’

Raj’s spectacular eyes gleamed as darkly bright as polar stars while he absorbed that surprising information. He understood now why his aunt had agreed to the divorce without making a fuss. Hakem must have promised to remarry her once he was free again and, in support of her husband’s royal ambitions, Raj’s aunt had been willing to make that sacrifice. ‘But what was in this peculiar arrangement for you?’ Raj persisted with a frown of bewilderment. ‘It cannot surely have been enriching yourself when your grandfather is such a wealthy man...’

‘Status!’ Zoe almost spat out the word as if it physically hurt her and, indeed, it did. ‘I would’ve become a princess and, while that doesn’t matter much to me, it means a great deal to my grandfather and I wanted to please him. He’s done a lot for me and my sisters.’

‘Being a princess wouldn’t have been much of a consolation while you were living in Hakem’s home,’ Raj informed her very drily. ‘Hakem’s wife and children are well known and well liked and everyone who knew them would have been ready to loathe you on sight.’

‘Well, the marriage is not going to take place now, is it?’ Zoe cut in thinly, turning away from him to wander across to the far side of the tent. ‘After all that’s happened, nothing short of handcuffs and chains would persuade me to stay in Maraban!’