Marriage Behind the Façade

She’d expected that a servant would show her the way, but Malik took her elbow—no matter how lightly he touched her, she still burned—and guided her into a huge sunken living area and down a hallway that led to a small suite. The outer room had cushions arrayed around a central table, a rosewood desk in one corner and two low-slung couches that faced each other across a fluffy white goat-hair rug. The bedroom featured a tall bed covered in crisp white cotton linens that beckoned seductively.

“I need my bags,” she said, realizing suddenly that she had nothing to change into. They’d left the airport without collecting her luggage.

“They are on the way. In the meantime, you will find all you need in the bathing room.” He gestured to another door. Sydney walked into the spacious bath, marveling at the sunken tub, a shaft of sunlight coming from high up in the ceiling and illuminating the marble. The light picked out the red and gold veins of the stone, sparkled in the glass mosaic tiles surrounding the tub.

“I trust it meets with your approval.”

Sydney whirled, his voice startling her, though it shouldn’t have. She’d known he was behind her, watching her from the door.

“It’s lovely,” she said, swallowing hard. Why did it feel so surreal to be here like this? She’d agreed to come, known it was necessary, and yet she felt off balance, out of her element in a way she hadn’t expected.

And why not? This is Jahfar, not Paris, she told herself. Not Los Angeles.

Malik crossed to her, cupped her face in his hands while her heart thundered in her ears.

She meant to protest, she really did, but her voice froze in her throat.

“There is nothing to fear, Sydney,” he said. “We will get through this.”

When he lowered his head, her eyelids fluttered closed automatically. Because she was tired, of course. No other reason.

He chuckled softly, his lips brushing her forehead while her pulse throbbed. The sound speared into her heart, reminded her of a different time when she still believed in a fairy tale ending with the handsome prince.

“Don’t,” she choked out as his lips moved to her temple.

An instant later, he released her and took a step backward. “Of course,” he said, his voice thicker than it had been only a moment ago. “As you wish.”

Sydney put a shaking hand to her throat, dropping it again when she realized how frightened and helpless it made her seem. She was neither of those things, though she was most definitely nervous. She’d loved him. She’d been through hell because of him. This situation was strange, unnatural.

For them both, she thought. He would probably prefer to be with his current mistress instead of her, the wife he’d thought he was rid of.

“I think it’s best if we don’t … touch,” she said.

He arched an elegant brow. “You are afraid of a little touch, Sydney? And here I thought I was resistible.”

He was mocking her. Naturally. She lifted her head. “There is no purpose to our touching, Malik. We aren’t happily married. We are nothing to each other. Not anymore. I realize I’m an inconvenience to you, but I just want to get this over with. You don’t have to pretend otherwise to make me feel more comfortable.”

His dark eyes flashed with emotion. “I see. How wise you have grown, Sydney. How very jaded.”

“I always thought you liked jaded women,” she retorted—and felt instantly contrite. If she were trying to make him believe they could behave with cool civility for forty days, she’d just failed abominably.

He leaned against the door frame, but she didn’t make the mistake of thinking him relaxed. No, he was carefully—and tightly—controlled. It had been one of the things that had driven her the most insane about him, that ability to shut down his emotions and rein them in so hard that he was nearly inhuman.

“I did not realize you cared,” he said softly. Mockingly, still.

Sydney flicked her hand as if brushing away a fly. “I don’t.”

He straightened to his full height. “Let us not descend into games, habibti. You have had a long night of travel. Bathe, rest. I will see you when you are prepared to be reasonable.”

Her temper spiked at the condescension in his tone. “I’m not playing games, Malik. I came, didn’t I? I’m here because I want this over with. Because I want to be free of you forever.” She flung the last at him, unable to stop herself from saying the words.

His jaw hardened, his eyes flashing hot once more. “You will get your wish,” he growled. “But first I will get mine.”

Her stomach flipped. “Wh-what do you mean?”

He looked so menacing. “Scared, Sydney? Afraid of what I will exact from you now that you are here?”

She swallowed, her throat thick with emotion. “Of course not.”

His gaze slid down her body, back up, his eyes hot on hers. His voice came out as a sensual drawl that made heat flare in her core. “Then perhaps you should be.”

CHAPTER FOUR

MALIK was in a bad mood. He sat in his study, working on minute details that were mind-numbing and boring and meant to distract him. They did not.

He shoved back from the computer and turned his head until he could see the sparkle of the sea beyond the windows.

She was here. His errant wife. The one woman he’d thought might be different, might make him happy—but who, instead, had run away from him. He was not accustomed to women running away from him.

It had been a singular moment when he’d realized she’d truly gone.

He’d raged. He’d made plans. He’d sworn to go after her and drag her back by force if necessary.

And then he’d thought, no.

She’d walked out. Let her be the one to come back. Instead, she’d started divorce proceedings.

Yet he still wanted her. His body desired hers, regardless of his wishing otherwise. From the moment she’d opened the door to the house in Malibu, he’d wanted her with a fierceness that surprised him after so much time.

Especially considering how very angry he still was with her.

But she’d looked so virginal, so pure, in her white jacket and pale pink dress. Her long legs had been displayed to perfection, enhanced by the nude-colored high heels she’d worn. He’d imagined those legs wrapped around him as he thrust into her body.

It had taken every ounce of control he’d possessed not to press her. Because he’d known that she still wanted him every bit as much as he wanted her.

Her body wanted him, but her heart did not. And that was what had stopped him, both then and today.

He squeezed the pen he held until it cracked, its jagged edge slicing into his finger. A drop of blood welled on the tip. He grabbed a tissue from the box sitting on his desk and swiped the blood away.

Sydney Reed—Sydney Al Dhakir, he corrected—was so beautiful, so very luscious, so bad for his control. From the first minute he’d seen her, he’d wanted her. She’d been aloof … but only at first. When he’d finally gotten her into his arms, she’d burned so hot he’d known that once with her wasn’t enough.

She probably wasn’t the most beautiful woman he’d ever known, but he couldn’t actually remember another being more compelling to him. Her skin was as pale as milk, her hair the color of the red dunes of the Jahfaran desert. Her eyes were like a rain-gray sky, the kind of sky one often found hanging over Paris in winter.

While others might find rain depressing, he found it unbearably lovely.

Especially when it was reflected in her eyes.

Malik swore softly. He’d known, when he’d impulsively married her, that it could not last. Because he’d married her for all the wrong reasons, not least the utter dismay it would cause his family. That, and he’d wanted her with a fierceness that had shocked him.

The phone clanged into the stillness, making him jump. Though he could let his secretary get it, he preferred the distraction to his chaotic thoughts.

“Yes?” he barked into the receiver.

“I hear that your wife arrived today,” his brother Adan said.

“That’s correct,” Malik replied somewhat stiffly. “She is here.”

He’d kept her away from Jahfar for a reason. Now that she was here, he had no choice but to share her with his family. Though he’d thought there might be a bit more time before that happened. Malik frowned. His brothers would be polite, but his mother certainly would not.

“And do you plan on bringing her to the palace?”

Malik ground his teeth. He hadn’t told Adan why Sydney was here. He hadn’t told anyone. “Perhaps in a few days. Or not. I have business in Al Na’ir.”

“Surely you can spare an evening. I wish to meet her, Malik.”

“Is that a command?”

There was no pause whatsoever. “It is.”

How very easily Adan had slipped into power. He hadn’t been the heir to the throne, just as Malik had not been a part of the ruling family, until their cousin had died in a boating accident and Adan suddenly found himself the heir to their uncle. When their uncle died a year later, Adan had ascended the throne as king.

He’d been a good king. A just king.

“Then I will bring her. Though not today. She is tired from the journey.”

“Of course,” Adan replied. “We will see you for dinner tomorrow night. Isabella looks forward to it.”

“Tomorrow night then.”

Their goodbyes were stiff, formal, but Malik had expected nothing different. They’d had such a barren childhood, with nannies and a kind of rigid formality that was not conducive to warmth between them. Oh, Malik loved his brothers—and his sister—but theirs was not an easy relationship.

He wasn’t quite sure why. There’d been no huge trauma, no major falling out. Just a quiet distance that seemed impossible to breech. The more time moved on, the wider the chasm.

Perhaps that was why he’d been so drawn to Sydney. She’d made him feel less alone, and he’d been addicted to that feeling. But that was before she’d betrayed him, before she’d proven she was no different than anyone else in his life.

Malik checked his watch. It had been over six hours since he’d brought her here. He debated calling Hala to check on her, but decided he would do so instead. He would not hide from her, would not shrink from the raw emotions still rolling between them like a storm-tossed sea.

He found her on the small terrace off her room, her long hair loose and flowing down her back, the wind from the sea ruffling the auburn strands. She’d put on a fluid cream-colored dress that skimmed her form. It was slightly darker than the milk of her skin, but it made her look ethereal. Like an angel.

She turned her head as he approached, setting down the coffee she’d been cupping in both hands. Her expression went carefully blank, but not before he saw the yearning there.

It gutted him, that yearning.

“Are you feeling refreshed?” he asked.

“I am, thank you,” she replied, glancing away again.

He pulled out the chair opposite her, setting it at an angle so he could view the sea and her face at once if he so chose. “Your luggage is intact, I take it?”

“Yes. Everything arrived.”

She picked up the coffee again, her long fingers shaking as she threaded them on either side of the cup. He did that to her, he realized. Made her as skittish as a newborn foal.

It reminded him of the first time they’d made love. She hadn’t been a virgin, but she hadn’t been terribly experienced, either. Everything he did to her had been a revelation. Soon, she’d been bold and eager for more.

His body hardened instantly.

This was the problem, he thought, with no small measure of anger. This need that flared every time he was with her. He’d ceased trying to understand it long ago. He’d never been the sort of man to be ruled by his penis—until Sydney came along and turned everything upside down.

He blew out a disgusted breath and turned to stare at the container ship gliding into port in the distance. It wasn’t simply the physical that drew him to her.

No, he’d been dissolute long before Sydney came along. He’d indulged every appetite, every whim. It had been great fun.

At first.

But in the last couple of years, the more he’d pushed the envelope, the emptier he’d felt.

And she seemed to fill that emptiness somehow.

“I’m going to need internet access,” she said, cutting through his thoughts. “I have work to do while I’m here.”

“There is Wi-Fi,” he told her. “I will have someone give you the password.”

“Thank you.” Her fingers drummed against the side of the cup. He heard her draw breath, as if she was planning to speak, but she said nothing. Several more times she tried, until he finally speared her with a look, pinning her into place.

“Say it, habibti.”

She was looking at him with those big grey eyes, her long lashes sweeping to her cheeks and back up again as she let her doubts war with her desire to speak.

Then she bit her lip, and he forced himself not to turn away. Forced himself to deal with the slice of pain that shafted into him, the flood of desire that pooled low in his groin.

He would conquer this ridiculous need.

She was a woman, like any other. She was not special, or different. She possessed nothing that he couldn’t obtain elsewhere. Whatever pull she had on him, whatever imagined void she seemed to fill … she was not irreplaceable. No woman was. He knew that better than most.

Her expression changed by degrees, turned fierce, and he knew she’d made up her mind. He relished her fierceness. It was far better than wide-eyed defeat.

“I want to know why you never brought me here,” she burst out, gesturing at him, her hand encompassing his entire body as she swept it up and down. “This is who you are—the clothes, the desert—but you never let me see it.”

She leaned toward him then, her eyes stormy. “Did I embarrass you that much?”

There, she’d said it. She’d finally put voice to the pain that had been nagging her since the moment she’d arrived and seen him dressed in traditional clothing. This was who he was. This was his life, his heritage, and he’d never allowed her to be a part of it.

She knew why, but she wanted to hear him say it. She wanted him to admit to her that he’d regretted taking her for his wife. Her heart thundered, her pulse throbbed and her breath razored in and out of her chest. She needed to hear him say it.

To her face this time.

Not that she was in any danger of forgetting, of succumbing to his considerable charm, but she wanted the pain front and center so long as she was here. If she kept it there, it would act as a shield.

He’d removed the headdress between the time she’d seen him earlier and now. His dark hair was wavy, thick, and she remembered threading her hands into it, pulling his mouth down to hers as she lay beneath him in their bed.

Her heart turned over at the thought. Warmth gathered in her belly. A knot of something she dared not name tightened in her core.

No. Those memories had nothing to do with now.

“You did not embarrass me.” Malik’s handsome face was carefully blank, and though the words were what she wanted to hear, she did not believe them. He was too stoic, too detached. “We would have come here eventually.”

“Eventually,” she repeated, unable to keep the bitterness from her voice. He would not tell her the truth, even now. Had she truly expected it?

“What do you wish me to say, Sydney?” he demanded. “It was not foremost on my mind, I have to admit. I was more concerned with how long I had to wait until the next time I could get you naked.”

Sydney set the coffee cup down, grateful that she didn’t clang it into the saucer. “Why can’t you just admit the truth?”

His dark eyes flashed, his expression hardening. “Why don’t you tell me what this truth is and stop beating around the bush, as you Americans say?”

“You know what it is. You just won’t say it.”

He got to his feet, gazed down at her with that cool disdain she’d come to hate. He’d always shut down whenever she’d pressed him about anything. And she’d been so blinded by love that she hadn’t seen it for the warning sign it was.

“If this is how you plan to spend the next forty days, we will never be divorced,” he said.

She lifted her chin. She’d never really confronted him about anything. They hadn’t been together long enough to truly argue, and she wasn’t a confrontational person. But she was feeling so frustrated, so disoriented being here with him now, and she was fed up. Fed up with hiding behind a mask, with worrying that she didn’t fit in or that she was embarrassing to those she cared about. She’d been trying to fit in since she was a child, and she was suddenly unwilling to do it with him for even a moment longer.

“Why is it suddenly my fault? Why am I the one causing the problem? You’re the one who can’t admit to the truth.”

“I don’t do drama, Sydney,” he growled. “Either say what you so desperately want to say, or be quiet.”

Fury roiled in her belly like a living thing. She pushed her chair back and stood, unwilling to allow him to stare down at her. Or to stare down at her from so great a height, she amended, since he was still taller than she was.

Fine, he wanted to hear it, she was not holding back a moment longer. She’d already held back for far too long. Time hadn’t eased the pain, but it had at least allowed her to come to terms with it.

“I think you were ashamed of me,” she accused him. “And I think you didn’t want to bring me here because you regretted marrying me.”

His laugh was bitter. “And this is why you left me? Why you walked out in the middle of the night? Because of your own insecurities?”

“I left a note,” she said, and felt suddenly ridiculous. A note? She’d packed her suitcase and fled because she’d been hurt, confused and suddenly so unsure of herself. She’d needed time to think, time to process everything. She’d never thought, never believed for a moment, that an entire year would pass without any communication from him. She’d been impulsive, reckless.

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