Marriage Behind the Façade

He speared her with a long look. A pitying look?

By the time he spoke, her nerves were at the snapping point.

“We must go to Jahfar—”

“What?”

“And we must live as man and wife for a period of forty days …”

Dying. She was dying inside. And he was so controlled, as always. “No,” she whispered, but he didn’t hear—or he didn’t care. His eyes were flat, unfeeling.

“Only then can we apply to my brother the king for a divorce.”

CHAPTER TWO

SYDNEY slipped out the door and sank heavily onto a nearby deck chair. Beyond, the Pacific Ocean rolled relentlessly to shore. The surf roiled and foamed, the sound a muted roar as the power of the water hit the beach.

That was Malik’s power, she thought wildly. The power to rush over her, to drag her with him, to obliterate what she wanted. That had been part of the reason she’d left, because she’d somehow let her sense of self be pulled under the wave that was Malik. It had frightened her.

That and hearing what his true feelings for her had been. Sydney shuddered.

Finally, she pulled her gaze from the water, which was now turning orange with the sun’s setting rays. Malik stood beside her chair. His jaw seemed hard in the waning light, as if he, too, were trapped and trying to make the best of it.

“Tell me it’s a joke,” she finally said, squeezing her hands together over her stomach.

His gaze flickered to her. His handsome face was so serious, so stark. Even now she felt a twinge of something, some deep feeling, as she looked at him. She refused to examine what that feeling might be; she simply didn’t want to know. She wanted to be done with him, finished.

Forever.

“It is not a joke. I am bound by Jahfaran law.”

“But we weren’t married there!” She laughed wildly. “I’ve never even seen Jahfar, except on a map. How can I possibly be bound by some crazy foreign law?”

He stiffened, but she didn’t really care if she’d insulted him. How dare he show up here after all this time and tell her they would remain married until she lived with him for forty days—in the desert, no less! It was like something only Hollywood could think up.

The irony made her laugh. Malik looked at her curiously, but didn’t seem to mistake the laugh for real humor. At least he could tell that much. Maybe forty days wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Who was she kidding?

“I won’t do it,” she said, drawing in a deep breath heavy with salt and sea. “I’m not bound by Jahfaran law. Sign the papers and as far as I’m concerned, we’re through.”

He shifted beside her chair. “You might think it’s that easy, but I assure you it is not. You married a foreign prince, habibti.”

“We were married in Paris.” Quickly, by an official at the Jahfaran embassy. As if Malik were afraid he might change his mind if it didn’t happen fast. Bitterness ate at her.

That was precisely what he’d been thinking.

“Where we were married matters not,” Malik said in that smooth, deep voice of his that still had the power to make her shudder deep inside. “But it does matter by whom. We were married under Jahfaran law, Sydney. If you ever wish to be free of me, you will come to Jahfar and follow the protocol.”

Sydney tilted her head up to look at him. He was gazing down at her, his expression indecipherable. Anger surged in her veins. “Surely we can find a way to fake it. Your brother is the king!”

“Which is precisely why we cannot fake it, as you so charmingly say. My brother takes his duty as king very seriously. He will hold me to the letter of the law. If you wish to be divorced, you will do this.”

Sydney closed her eyes and leaned back against the cushion. Dear God. It was a nightmare. A giant, ironic joke from the cosmos. She’d married Malik hurriedly, secretly. There’d been no royal wedding, no fairy tale day with music and beautiful clothes and pageantry.

There’d been the two of them in a registry office at the embassy. A fawning official who called Malik Your Royal Highness and bowed a lot. A wide-eyed woman, Sydney remembered, who’d registered the marriage and asked them to sign.

She’d almost felt as if it weren’t real, but then the newspapers had picked up on it and suddenly she and Malik were splashed across the tabloids. The attention hadn’t died by the time she’d left. And then it followed her back to L.A., finally disappearing a few weeks later when she’d refused to talk to anyone.

Oh, she knew her picture had appeared a few times over the last year, but the paparazzi were far more interested in Malik than they were in her. He was the news. She was a casualty.

And not even a very interesting one.

The last thing she wanted was to remain tied to him, to have the media take a renewed interest in her down the road because Malik caused an international stir of some sort and they wanted to know how his poor wife was handling it. Or, worse, what happened when Malik found someone else he wanted to marry, and he needed her to go to Jahfar for a divorce when he had a current lover in tow?

No. Way. In. Hell.

“Fine,” Sydney sniffed. “If that’s what it takes, I’ll go.”

A shiver dripped into her veins. She could get through forty days, if that’s what it took to officially end this. Because there was nothing left between them, no danger to her heart any longer. The damage had already been done. There was an iron cage where her heart had once been.

“We can leave tonight. My plane is ready.”

Goose bumps crawled across her skin. What had she just agreed to? Panic spread inside until she was quivering with it. “I can’t be ready that fast. I need time to put things in order.”

The last time she’d dashed off with Malik she’d left her life in disarray. This time, she was putting everything in order before going anywhere. Because this time she would be stepping back into her life without the pain and disorientation of last time.

She’d gone without much thought, because he’d asked her to, and then when he’d asked her to stay, to marry him, she’d impulsively agreed. She’d given no thought to her life back in Los Angeles. A fact that her family never mentioned, but that she knew was very much on their minds whenever they looked at her. She was the impulsive one, the artistic one—the one who could leap without looking but then paid the price later.

And what a price it had been. She’d been a wreck. She’d asked herself in the early days after her return home if she’d been too hasty, if she should have stayed and confronted him, but she always came back to the same thing: Malik regretted marrying her. He’d said so. What was there left to say after that?

She might have loved him, but she would not be anyone’s cross to bear. And she’d definitely felt like a burden in the week after his confession. He’d changed, and she simply hadn’t been able to take it anymore. She’d never thought a year would pass without any contact between them, but that had only proven he did not want her in his life any longer.

“How much time do you need?” he asked, his voice tight.

“At least a week,” she answered automatically, though in fact she knew no such thing. But she wanted to be in control this time. Needed to be in control. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

“Impossible. Two days.”

Sydney bristled. “Really? Is there a timeline, Malik? A celestial clock somewhere that insists we must do this on a specific timetable? I need a week. I have to make arrangements at work.”

And she had to check with her lawyer, just in case she could find some sort of legal loophole that would change everything.

Malik gazed down at her, his dark eyes gleaming hotly. Intensely. She waited almost breathlessly for his answer. Malik was proud, haughty. Aristocratic and used to getting his way. If only she’d told him no when he’d suggested she marry him—but it had never crossed her mind. She’d been too awestruck, and far too much in love with the man she’d thought he was.

Though it was a little late, she would not blindly accept his decrees ever again.

“Fine,” he said, his voice clipped. “One week.”

Sydney nodded her agreement, her heart pounding as if she’d just run a marathon. “Very well. One week then.”

He turned to gaze out at the ocean again. Then he nodded. “I’ll take it.”

She blinked. “Take what?”

“The house.”

“You haven’t really seen it,” she exclaimed. It was a gorgeous house, one that she only wished she could afford in her wildest dreams, with spacious rooms and breathtaking ocean views. It was the kind of house where she could be inspired to paint, she thought wistfully.

But Malik had only seen the exterior, the main living space, and this terrace. For all he knew, the bedrooms were tiny closets, the bathrooms a 1970s throwback with mustard and orange tiles and psychedelic black fixtures.

Malik shrugged. “It is a house. With a view. It will do.”

Inexplicably, a current of anger uncoiled inside her. He was careless when he wanted something. Accustomed to getting whatever he wanted when he wanted it.

Like her.

In Malik’s world, there were no consequences. No price to be paid when things didn’t work out the way you expected. There was only the next house, the next deal.

The next woman.

Dark anger pumped into her. “I’m afraid that’s impossible,” she said. “There’s already an offer.”

Malik was unfazed. “Add twenty-five percent. The owner will not turn that kind of money down.”

“I think they’ve already accepted the offer,” she said primly. But guilt swelled inside her as soon as she voiced the lie. The owners were entitled to the sale. Her anger at Malik was no excuse to deprive them of it. “But if you’ll give me a moment, I can call and see if there’s a chance.”

Malik’s dark eyes burned into her. “Do it.”

Sydney turned away and walked across the terrace. She called the listing broker just to make sure there were no offers, and then strolled back to Malik when she finished. “Good news,” she said, though it galled her to do so. “If you can come up half a million, the property is yours.”

Because he was too smug, too careless, and she couldn’t let him ride roughshod over her. It was a rebellion of a sort to jack up the price. She refused to feel guilty. In fact, she would donate her portion of the commission to charity. At least Malik’s money could do someone some good.

“Fine,” he murmured. “Whatever it requires.”

Bitterness swelled in her veins. “And will you be happy here, Malik? Or will you regret this purchase, too?”

She didn’t say what she was really thinking—that he regretted her—but it was implied.

“I never regret my actions, habibti. If I change my mind later, I will simply get rid of the property.”

“Of course,” she said stiffly, shame pounding through her. “Because that is easiest.”

Malik could discard whatever he wanted, whatever he no longer needed or desired. He’d spent a lifetime doing so.

His expression didn’t change. He looked so haughty, so superior. “Precisely. You will write up the papers, yes?”

“Of course.”

“Get them now and I will sign them.”

“You don’t want to read them first?”

He shrugged. “Why?”

“What if I increase the price another million?”

“Then I would pay it,” he said.

Sydney opened her briefcase and jerked a blank offer form from inside. As much as she despised him in that moment, as much as she despised his arrogance and nonchalance, she couldn’t succumb to the temptation to take him for a spectacular ride. She quickly wrote in the price, and then shoved the papers at him.

“Sign here,” she said, pointing.

He did so without hesitation. She couldn’t decide if he was simply arrogant and uncaring or stupidly trusting. A split second later he looked up at her, his eyes sharp and hard, and she knew that stupidly trusting was not the correct choice.

This man not only knew what the fair market price of the property was, he also knew that she’d inflated the price—and he was willing to pay it.

“One week, Sydney,” he said, his voice sending a shiver through her body. “And then you are mine.”

“Hardly, Your Highness,” she said, though her voice shook in spite of her determination not to let it. “It’s simply another business arrangement. Forty days in Jahfar in exchange for a lifetime of freedom.”

He bowed his head in acknowledgment. “Of course,” he said. “You are quite correct.”

And yet, as he walked out and left her standing alone with the ocean crashing in the background, she had the sinking feeling that everything about this arrangement was going to be far more complicated than she wanted it to be.

At least for her.

CHAPTER THREE

IT took a week and half to get her life organized, and then to board a flight for Jahfar. Malik was not happy, as his messages indicated more than once, but Sydney refused to feel a moment’s worry about it. After he’d left her in the Malibu home—his Malibu home now—she’d quickly phoned her lawyer.

Jillian had tried to help, but in the end there was nothing she could do. An American divorce wouldn’t do the trick. When she’d originally drawn up the papers, she’d warned Sydney it might not be enough. Sydney had just hoped against hope that it would be. Even if it hadn’t been, she hadn’t expected an archaic law like the one mandating she live with Malik in Jahfar for forty days.

Forty days. My God.

Sydney sipped the champagne a flight attendant had brought for her. Her first class seat was comfortable, though the flight was full and she certainly wasn’t alone. She could have flown on Malik’s private plane, but she’d chosen to fly commercial instead. He’d been furious, but she’d held fast to her determination to do so. In the end, he’d gone to Jahfar a few days ahead of her.

Her stomach tightened nervously, and she took another sip of the champagne.

Jahfar. What would she find when she arrived? What would she feel?

It was Malik’s home, and she would in some ways be at his mercy. But she was determined to maintain as much control over her life as possible, which was why she’d insisted on making her own arrangements. Yes, it would have been easier to fly with Malik and let him take care of everything.

But she refused to give him that much control.

The plane touched down in Jahfar a couple of hours after dawn. The moment they taxied to the gate, Sydney realized how foolish her thoughts had been. Because nothing was under her control any longer. A flight attendant hurried to her side, hands clutched together in front of her body. The woman seemed nervous, afraid. And then she bowed deeply.

A heavy feeling settled in the pit of Sydney’s stomach.

“Princess Al Dhakir, please forgive us for not realizing you were aboard.”

“I …” Sydney blinked, her skin heating with embarrassment. “No, that’s fine,” she said, recovering herself though her heart throbbed painfully. “I didn’t wish it to be known.”

She felt so pretentious, but what else could she say? There was no explaining, no telling these people not to refer to her as a princess. They wouldn’t understand.

The woman bowed again before a man came forward and collected Sydney’s carry-on bag from the overhead compartment. Everyone else remained seated as she exited the plane first, her cheeks burning hot. She had an overwhelming urge to strangle Malik when next she saw him.

Which proved to be far sooner than she expected.

The international airport in Port Jahfar teemed with people clothed in both Jahfaran and Western dress, but they fell away like water from a ship’s bow as a man and his entourage cleaved through them. The man was tall, dressed in the flowing white dishdasha and traditional headdress of Jahfar. At his waist was a curved dagger with a jeweled hilt—surprising in an airport, and yet not so much considering where they were.

And who he was. She realized with a shock that the magnificent man in traditional clothing was actually her husband. Heat softened her bones, flooded her core. She’d never seen Malik in Jahfaran clothing. The effect was … extraordinary.

He was every inch a sheikh. Exotic, dark, handsome.

Magnificent.

Malik strode toward her with that arrogant gait of his, his dark eyes burning into her from afar so that she felt the urge to shrink inside herself and disappear. She looked like hell—felt like hell—after so many hours in the air.

And he was like something out of a fairy tale.

Oh, if only she could turn time back an hour or so and change clothes, fix her hair, her makeup.

Why, Sydney? What would be the point in that?

Malik might have made love to her again and again over the two months they were together, but he’d clearly been slumming for his own purposes. Supermodels and beauty queens were more to his taste.

Sydney thrust her chin out. She would not cower or hide. She would not be ashamed.

There was nothing to be ashamed of.

Malik came to a halt before her, his entourage carefully surrounding them both, protecting them, without coming too close.

Her throat felt as dry as sand as his gaze slid over her. “Here I am,” she said somewhat inanely. “As promised.”

Immediately, she wished she hadn’t been the first to speak. It was as if she’d given away some slice of invisible ground in their war with each other, as if she’d arrayed her forces on this particular field of battle and then failed because of something so obvious such as not arming them with weapons.

But it was because of him, because he was making her nervous as he studied her. No doubt he was regretting his impulse to inform anyone she was his wife. She was too casual in her white cotton tank, navy jacket, jeans and ballet flats. A princess should look more polished, like a movie star. She should be sporting Louboutins on her feet, carrying an Yves St. Laurent handbag and wearing the latest Milan fashions.

Well, she wasn’t truly a princess and there was little point in pretending to be one for the next month and ten days.

One dark eyebrow arched as he studied her. “Yes, here you are.”

Sydney’s heart skipped several beats at once, making her feel momentarily light-headed. She splayed her hand over her chest, breathing deeply to regulate the rhythm.

Malik looked alarmed. “What is wrong? Do you need a doctor?”

She shook her head. “No, I’m fine. Just a few skips. Happens sometimes, usually when I’m tired. It’s nothing.”

Before she had time to do more than squeak a protest, he swept her off her feet and into his arms, cradling her against his chest as he turned and barked orders to the men surrounding them.

“Malik, for God’s sake, put me down! I’m not hurt,” she cried.

He didn’t listen. She considered kicking her legs and fighting, showing him just how strong she was, but decided that bringing them both to the ground with a struggle was counterproductive.

“Please put me down,” she begged as he began to move. “This is embarrassing.”

People were staring at them, pointing, whispering. Malik seemed not to care. It was stunning to be held against him after so much time. Like plunging into a swimming pool with all your clothes on. He was hard, strong, and the heat of his body reminded her of another kind of heat they’d once shared.

He glanced down at her, his handsome features stark against the dark red background of the headdress framing his face. No one would ever mistake this man for anything other than a prince, she thought wildly. He was so sure of himself, so full of life and heat and passion.

She’d missed that.

No.

No, she was not going there. She didn’t miss Malik. She didn’t miss a single thing about him.

“We are not going far,” he said. “I will put you down as soon as we are somewhere quiet, so you may rest.”

She turned her head away as his long strides ate up the distance. The entourage hurried along with them, in front of them, their passage through the airport like the ripple of a giant wave. Soon, they were passing between sliding glass doors and into a quiet suite with plush chairs, tables and a bar at one end. Soft music played to the empty room. The lights in here were low, the air cool against her heated skin.

Malik set her down in one of the chairs. A glass of cold fizzy water appeared before she’d even blinked.

“Drink,” he ordered, settling into the chair beside her and picking up the glass.

“I’ve had plenty to drink,” she said, pushing his hand away. “Anything else, and I’ll explode.”

He looked doubtful. “Jahfar is hot, habibti. It can sneak up on you before you realize it.”

“Water is not my problem, Malik,” she insisted. “I’ve just flown all the way from L.A. I’m tired. I’m stressed. I want a bed and six hours of uninterrupted sleep.”

She’d slept a little on the plane, but not enough. She’d been too nervous.

And with good reason. The man staring back at her now, this hard, hawklike being who seemed so remote and unapproachable—so regal—could make a lion nervous. Were they really married? Had she ever shared a tender moment with this intimidating man?

“Then you shall have it,” he said. He nodded to a man who turned and disappeared through another door. A few minutes later, he took her hand—as she tried desperately to block the prickling heat of skin on skin—and led her out the same door and into an elevator. Then they were exiting the airport through a private entrance and climbing into a Mercedes limousine.

It was almost like the past, only Malik was dressed in white robes and a headdress instead of a tuxedo. He looked so cool and exotic while she felt frumpy and hot. She tugged at her jacket, drawing it off and laying it on the seat beside her.

Malik’s eyes dropped to her chest, lingered. She felt his gaze as a caress, felt her body responding, her nipples tightening inside her bra. Lightning sizzled in her core. She crossed her arms and turned to look out the window.

“Where are we going?” she asked as the limo slid into traffic. In front of them, a police car with whirling lights blazed a trail. The windows were tinted dark, but the light outside them was still so bright. It would be blinding, she realized, were she out in it. And hot, as he’d said.

“I have a home in Port Jahfar. It is only a few minutes away, on the coast. You will like it.”

Sydney leaned her head against the window. It was odd to be here, and exciting in a way she hadn’t anticipated. In the distance, stark sandstone mountains rose against the backdrop of the brilliant sky. Date palms dotted the landscape as they rode into the sprawling city. The buildings were a mix of modern concrete, glass and sandstone.

She realized that the hills in the opposite direction weren’t actually hills, but sand dunes. Undulating red sand dunes. Along their base, a camel train trod single file toward the city. It was the most singularly foreign moment she’d ever experienced.

The car soon left the stark landscape behind as they passed deeper into the city. Eventually they turned—and suddenly the sea was there, on her right. They rode a short distance along the coast, with the turquoise water sparkling like diamonds in the sun, and then they were turning into a gated complex.

Malik helped her from the car and ushered her inside a courtyard cooled with tiny jets spraying mist that evaporated before it hit her skin. The air was thick, hot. It wasn’t unexpected, or even anything she’d never experienced before—and yet it was different in its own way.

Or maybe she was just too tired.

A woman in a cotton abaya appeared, bowing and speaking to Malik in Arabic. And then he was turning to her as the woman melted back into the shadows from whence she’d come.

“Hala says that your room is prepared, habibti. You may sleep as long as you wish.”