Midnight in the Desert

The service at the cathedral late that afternoon required nothing more from Ruby than her presence. Police stood outside the historic building with linked arms to hold back the crowds struggling to catch a glimpse of the new princess. The evening reception was a great deal more taxing, however, for while she was perfectly able to make small talk she was embarrassed several times by more probing questions concerning her background than she wished to answer. People were extremely curious about her and as yet she did not have the skill to deflect unwelcome queries. Later she would register that she had known the exact moment when Raja entered the big reception room for a flutter of excitement seemed to run through the gathered cliques. With a muttered apology, Wajid left her side and heads turned away from her, eyes swerving towards the door while a low buzz of comment sounded.

‘Real royalty,’ someone whispered appreciatively within Ruby’s hearing. ‘And you can definitely tell the difference.’

Mortified heat burnished Ruby’s fair complexion. Real royalty? Had she performed her role so badly? But then she knew that she could only be a pretend princess by virtue of her birth. How could she be anything else when she had spent all her life to date living as an ordinary person? But she was trying, she was trying very hard to be polite, reserved and dignified as Wajid had advised her she must be at all times while carefully avoiding controversial subjects. It was tough advice for a bubbly and naturally outspoken young woman to follow. To Ruby it also felt like trying to be something she was not while putting on airs and graces that went against the grain.

His tall powerful physique sheathed in a dove-grey suit, her husband looked devastatingly handsome. Her husband? Why was she thinking of Raja in such terms? He wasn’t her husband, not really, she told herself angrily, irritated by the mental mistake. A woman chose her husband with her heart but she had not. Guilty colour mantling her face, Ruby studied that lean, strong, wondrously handsome face and she steeled herself to feel nothing, absolutely nothing. She watched Raja work the room like a professional, smooth and practised and yet charming as well with a word here, a greeting there, for some a smile, for others a more serious aspect. He was a class act socially, everything she was not. Hovering at his elbow, Wajid Sulieman looked as though all his Christmases had come at once.

When refreshments were served, Raja was finally free to join Ruby. Lustrous dark eyes gleaming like polished amber flared down into hers while he rested a light hand at her spine. She went rigid, rejecting the temptation of even that much familiarity while recalling Bariah, who would never have been ill-at-ease in such a social gathering.

‘My family were very disappointed not to meet you today,’ the prince told her quietly.

‘Whereas here everyone is disappointed that I’m not you—you carry the accolade of being real royalty, unlike me,’ Ruby retorted, only to bite her lip a few seconds after that hot rejoinder had escaped her for she would have preferred to keep that particular thought to herself.

‘You are imagining that. A beautiful woman in fashionable apparel is almost always more welcome than a man,’ Raja fielded without skipping a beat.

Wajid introduced them to an older couple, who represented a charity that ran an orphanage just outside Simis, which Ruby, apparently, would be visiting the next day. In the wake of that casual announcement, which was news to Ruby, she appreciated how little freedom she now had when it came to how she might choose to spend her time. Her time evidently now belonged to an ever-growing list of duties, engagements and activities, not least of which was her need to learn the language so that a translator did not have to dog her every footstep.

‘You’re very quiet. What’s wrong?’ Raja enquired as Ruby mounted the stairs that led back to her suite.

‘It’s not important.’ Ruby pushed open the door and sped through to the bedroom to change into something more comfortable. A maid was engaged in hanging clothes in a closet there, male clothes. Her soft full mouth compressing as she recognised that fact, Ruby walked back into the main reception room where Raja was poised by the window.

‘You’re staying in this suite with me?’

‘Married couples usually share the same accommodation,’ Raja pointed out evenly.

Temper roused by that tranquil response skittered up through Ruby in an uneasy rush. He made it sound so simple but their relationship was anything but simple. ‘I didn’t realise that but for that plane crash you would have married my cousin Bariah,’ she admitted. ‘I hadn’t worked that out yet.’

‘A marriage would hardly have been included in the peace accord if the royal families did not have a bride and a groom in mind.’

As usual what Raja said made perfect sense and her teeth gritted in frustration. ‘I’m sure you would have preferred a proper Ashuri princess!’

Face deadpan, Raja gazed steadily back at her, patently refusing to be drawn on that touchy topic.

Tension roared through Ruby’s rigid stance like a hurricane seeking an outlet. ‘I said—’

‘I am not deaf,’ Raja cut in very drily. ‘But I do wonder what you expect me to say in reply to such an assumption.’

Flushed and furious, Ruby surveyed him. ‘Is an honest answer too much for me to ask for?’

‘Not at all, but I will not insult either you or your late cousin with the suggestion that I might compare two completely different women and voice a preference for either,’ Raja advanced, eyes cool while his strong jaw-line set hard as iron. ‘That is not a reasonable request.’

‘Well, as far as I’m concerned, it’s perfectly reasonable!’ Ruby slung back heatedly.

‘But to answer you would be disrespectful.’

‘Unlike you I’m only human. Naturally I want to know although I don’t know why I’m bothering to ask. Bariah was a real princess and would’ve had much more in common with you than I have.’

‘No comment,’ the prince pronounced stonily and with much bowing and scraping the little maid emerged from the bedroom and left the suite.

‘Bariah spoke the language, knew this country.’ Ruby’s statement was pained for after spending only hours in the Ashuri palace she was all too conscious of her deficiencies.

‘Given time and patience you will learn,’ Raja murmured quietly, his lack of tension merely increasing the adrenalin surge ready to charge through Ruby’s veins.

Ruby was in no mood to be comforted. ‘My cousin would have known automatically how to behave in every situation—’

‘Wajid already thinks you’re doing a marvellous job,’ Raja imparted gently.

As she stiffened defensively her eyes flared bright as topaz gemstones. ‘Don’t patronise me!’

‘I’m going for a shower,’ Raja breathed, casting his jacket down on a chair and striding into the bedroom.

Ruby stilled in her restive stalk round the spacious room and shot a startled glance in his direction as she followed him into the bedroom. ‘You’re actually planning to sleep in here with me?’

In the act of unbuttoning his shirt, Raja dealt her an impatient glance and said nothing.

For a timeless moment Ruby watched a wedge of masculine torso appear between the parted edges of the shirt. ‘There are two big sofas in the room next door,’ she pointed out, in case he had not yet noticed the possibility of that option.

Raja treated that reminder to the contempt he evidently felt it deserved. His eyes burned hot gold below his black, spiky lashes, his jaw squared, giving his face a dangerous edge.

‘All right … I’ll take a sofa,’ Ruby pronounced, determined to stick to her guns. It was her belief that if she reinforced their separation they would both soon forget those boundaries they had unwisely crossed and return to their original agreement.

Raja elevated a deeply unimpressed and sardonic black brow and stripped off his boxers to walk fluidly into the bathroom. As nude exits went it scored an impressive ten in the cooler-than-cool stakes. While the shower was running, Ruby made up a bed on a sofa for herself, donned her pyjamas, doused the lights and climbed in. Hermione snuggled in next to her feet.

A little while later, a wild burst of barking drove her from the brink of slumber.

‘Call off the dog or I will put her out to the kennels,’ Raja growled, his face grim in the light spilling from the bedroom.

Ruby leapt off the sofa, snatched the snarling Hermione up into her arms and attempted to soothe her overexcited pet. ‘What are you doing in here?’

‘Retrieving my wife,’ Raja traded in a wrathful tone of warning.

‘I’m not your wife, not your proper wife!’ Ruby launched furiously back at him, inflamed by that insistence and the label.

‘So you’re not a real princess or a proper wife. Then what are you?’ Raja challenged impatiently, bending down from his considerable height to haul her up into his arms while she clutched Hermione frantically to her chest. ‘My sex buddy? A friend with benefits?’

He then went on to employ a third term of description, which was crude enough to make Ruby’s soft, full lips fall open in shock and her big, brown eyes flame. ‘How dare you?’

Raja settled her down on the bed with a good deal more care than she had grounds to expect from an angry man. Hermione tried to bite him. Composed in the face of that attempted attack, he scooped up the animal and put Ruby’s pet out of the room. From the other side of the door Hermione whined and scraped the wood.

‘Are you planning to do the same to me if I stand up to you?’ Ruby enquired furiously. ‘I am not sleeping with you again—’

‘I’m not very interested in sleeping right now either.’ At least six feet three inches tall and magnificently male, Raja threw back the sheet and slid into bed beside her.

‘I am not your sex buddy or that other thing you mentioned!’ Ruby proclaimed in a rage.

‘No, you’re my wife,’ Raja repeated again, immovably stubborn on that point.

Ruby was taken aback when he got out of bed again and crossed the room to reach for his jacket and retrieve something from a pocket. He returned to bed and reached for her hand.

‘What are you doing?’ she demanded apprehensively.

‘I’m replacing your wedding ring.’ And this time the ring on her finger was a perfect fit as well as being very different from its predecessor. The first ring had been a plain gold band but the second struck her as a good deal more personalised for it was a slender platinum ring chased with ornate decoration.

‘Don’t call me your wife again,’ Ruby muttered helplessly, twirling the ring round her finger with a restless hand. ‘It makes me feel trapped.’

This time Raja did not hide his anger. His nostrils flared and his dark golden eyes scorched hers like burning arrows, leaving her feeling alarmingly short of breath. ‘You should be proud to be my wife,’ he told her without hesitation.

Her breath rattled in her tight throat. She had not meant to insult or offend. Without warning things had become terrifyingly personal. ‘I’m sure I would be proud if I loved you,’ she whispered in a response intended to soothe.

‘Love!’ Raja loosed a derisive laugh of disagreement. ‘What need have we of that with the fire that burns between us?’

Well, so much for the emotional angle, she was thinking irately, for clearly she had not married a romantic guy, when sure fingers trailed across her cheekbone and captured her chin. His other hand curving to her waist, Raja lowered his proud, dark head and claimed her full, pink mouth hungrily with his. There was a split second when she might have pushed him away and her slim body braced and her hands rose in protest against his broad shoulders to do exactly that. But the moist slide of his tongue between her lips and the hand rising below her pyjama top to curve to the plump swell of her breast sent a flood of damp heat to the tender flesh between her thighs and a surge of such hunger that she shivered in shock. The dark force of desire took her by storm, every fibre of her being sitting up, begging and clawing for more.

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘WE SHOULDN’T do this!’ Ruby gasped in a last-ditch attempt to reclaim control of the situation while she mustered sufficient self-discipline to drag her tingling mouth from the unadulterated magnetic allure of his.

Having already whisked her free of her pyjama bottoms, Raja threw back his tousled dark head and angled his lean hips to let her feel the hard evidence of his erection against her stomach. She quivered, fighting her desire for him with all her might, for at that instant desire had as much of a hold on her as a powerful addiction in her bloodstream.

‘You mustn’t get me pregnant!’ Ruby exclaimed in a sudden panic, anxiety gripping her at the thought of suffering such a far-reaching and serious consequence. Just for a moment she could barely credit that she had ever been stupid enough to run that level of risk.

A hand spread below her hips to raise her to him. ‘We took no precautions in the desert,’ Raja reminded her with a frown.

‘But we don’t need to run that risk now. I take contraceptive pills but I missed some when we were there so for the rest of the month I need to take extra precautions.’

Raja found it deeply ironic that the potential pregnancy from which she was so keen to protect herself would have been a source of much rejoicing in both their countries. He suppressed that knowledge, for once uninterested in the bigger picture and concentrating on his own reactions for a change. As he studied her stunning oval face with burnished golden eyes of anticipation, he was startled to discover that he was willing to want whatever would make her happy. ‘It’s OK. Don’t worry about it. I will protect you—’

‘We can’t be sex buddies … it’s indecent—’

‘I like indecent,’ Raja confided huskily, trailing provocative fingertips very gently along the tender skin of her thigh so that she became even more painfully aware of the awesome strength of her own craving. ‘In fact I could live beautifully with indecent.’

To silence the argument he sensed brimming on her lips he tasted her sultry pink mouth with the lingering eroticism that came so naturally to him, sensually teasing the soft fullness of her lower lip before penetrating her mouth in a smooth, explicit thrust. And while he kissed her he was skimming the ball of his thumb against the most sensitive spot on her entire body with a shocking expertise that made her stifle a scream while she writhed and gasped her response.

Before she could catch her breath from that onslaught, Raja leant back from her to rip open a foil packet and make use of a condom. Her heart thudded violently up tempo. She would not let herself think about what she was doing. She was rebelling against everything she knew because she had never wanted anything so much as she wanted him in that moment. And without a doubt she was ashamed of it, ashamed of the wild seething longing that controlled her, befuddling her brain and enslaving her body.

Raja sank into her in a long, slow surge, stroking her tender flesh with his. It felt so indescribably good that she cried out and her inner muscles clenched and convulsed around him. In the throes of extreme pleasure, he shuddered violently, as entrapped in that hunger as she was. ‘It’s never been like this for me before …’ he confided.

Or for her, her brain echoed but speech was beyond her. Her whole body was attuned to every movement of his. With every subtle shift of that lean, powerful physique of his the dark pleasure rose in a sweet suffocating tide. He withdrew and then delved deep, moving faster and faster and her spine arched and she moaned in frantic excitement, defenceless against the feverish beat of exquisite sensation. Her climax finally rippled through her in an unstoppable force and she flamed into countless burning pieces before she dropped back to planet earth again. Another cry was dragged from her as the violent tremors of his final pleasure rocked her slight body with renewed sensitivity and sensation.

Raja eased back from her to study her with appreciation. He bent his head to press a kiss to her cheekbone. ‘You’re amazing,’ he told her breathlessly.

‘What have we done?’ Ruby lamented out loud, already gritting her teeth, aware that in yielding to her hunger for him she had given way to weakness for the first time in her life. And that acknowledgement hurt her pride, really hurt.

Laughing, Raja described what they had done in the most graphic terms and she curled a hand into a fist and struck his shoulder in reproach. ‘This is not a joke.’

‘You’re my wife. We had sex. Our desire was mutual and natural and the slaking of it rather wonderful. Why the fuss?’ Raja enquired with a slumberous smile of satisfaction while he marvelled at the unfathomable way in which she drew out the lighter side of his nature.

Ruby was jolted by the reality that he was in a totally different frame of mind and mood. He was celebrating while she was filled with regrets. ‘It’s not that simple—you know it’s not. We made an agreement—’

‘A foolish agreement destined to be broken from the outset,’ Raja countered without an ounce of uneasiness. ‘How could we marry and live in such proximity and not surrender to the attraction between us?’

In rejection of that stance, Ruby twisted free of his arms and rolled away to the far side of the bed. ‘That’s not what you said to me at the time.’

At that precise reminder, an impatient look skimmed across Raja’s face. ‘Choice didn’t come into it—I had to win your agreement to marry me—’

‘Had to?’ Ruby prompted stiffly, her whole attention lodged to him with unwavering force.

Far from impervious to the threat of the drama waiting in the wings, Raja raked his fingers through the black hair falling into curls at his brow and sent her a look of reproach. ‘You are not that naive, Ruby. With this marriage we brought the end to a war and created a framework for a peaceful future for both our countries. There is nothing more important than that and I never pretended otherwise. We sacrificed personal freedom for the greater good.’

That grim little speech, voiced without sentiment, froze Ruby to the marrow and felt like an ice spear thrust through her heart. He had torn any possibility of fluffy illusion from their relationship to insist on showing it to her as it truly was. But had she ever been in doubt of what their relationship entailed? A marriage that was part of a peace treaty between warring countries? A royal husband, who had married her because it was his duty to do so? Exactly when had she begun to imagine that finer feelings might be incorporated in that logical and unemotional package?

Scrambling out of bed because she was hugely uncomfortable with any physical reminder of what had just taken place there, Ruby pulled on her wrap and folded her arms. She would be reasonable, totally reasonable and practical just as he was, she told herself urgently. ‘You said that we made a foolish agreement. On what grounds do you base that charge?’

‘When we made that agreement, we were already strongly attracted to each other.’

‘But you didn’t argue that at the time,’ Ruby protested.

‘Sometimes you can be very naive.’ Raja sighed, expelling his breath in a measured hiss and stretching back against the tumbled pillows, a gloriously uninhibited vision of male magnificence. ‘Why do you think I went to the UK to meet you? My job was to persuade you to marry me as quickly as possible and assume your rightful place as a royal here in Ashur.’

Ruby lost colour as he made that explanation. ‘Your … job?’

‘There is nothing warm and fuzzy about that peace treaty, Ruby, or the stability that rests on the terms being upheld to the letter of the law. Obviously I was prepared to do pretty much whatever it took to win your agreement,’ Raja admitted tautly.

‘Obviously,’ Ruby repeated, feeling horribly hollow inside as if she had been gutted with a fish knife. ‘So, are you saying that you deliberately set out to get me into bed in the desert?’

‘I desired you greatly.’ Brilliant dark eyes struck challenging sparks off her critical and suspicious scrutiny.

‘That’s not what I asked you,’ Ruby declared. ‘I asked you if I was seduced to order, another box to be ticked on your list of duties.’

His clever brow furrowed, his darkly handsome features still and uninformative. ‘To order?’ he queried huskily.

‘Your English is as good as mine, possibly even better!’ Ruby snapped, her temper hanging by a fingernail to a cliff edge as she forced herself to seek a clarification that stung her shrinking self like acid. ‘Stop faking incomprehension to play for time when I ask an awkward question!’

Unmoved by that indictment, Raja stretched, hard muscle rippling across his broad shoulders and abdomen as he shifted position with the fluidity and grace of a tiger about to spring. ‘Is that what I’m doing?’ he traded with an indolence she suspected to be entirely deceptive.

Being stonewalled merely aggravated Ruby more and her chin came up, eyes bright with antagonism and resentment now. ‘Let me bring this down to the simplest level. Did you or did you not take off your boxers and lie down with me that night for the sake of your precious country?’

Raja very nearly laughed out loud at that demand but restrained the urge, aware it would go down like a lead balloon. ‘I am willing to confess that I never had any true intention of allowing our marriage to be a fake. I hoped to make our marriage real from the day of our wedding.’

The barefaced cool with which he made that shattering admission shook Ruby, whose nature was the direct opposite of calculating, to her very depths. ‘So, you deceived me.’

‘You put me in a position where I could do little else. A divorce between us would be a political and economic disaster. Any goodwill gained by our marriage would be destroyed and offence and enmity would take its place. And how could I continue to rule this country without an Ashuri princess by my side?’ he demanded bluntly. ‘Your people would not accept me in such a role.’

Unfortunately for him, Ruby was in no mood to recognise the difficulties of his position or to make allowances. Deep hurt allied with a stark sense of humiliation were washing through her slight body in poisonous waves. ‘You deceived me,’ she said again, her voice brittle with angry bitter condemnation. ‘I gave you my trust and you deceived me.’

‘I always intended to do whatever it takes to make you happy in our marriage,’ Raja breathed in a driven undertone, his dark eyes alight with annoyance and discomfiture, for he was well aware that he had been less than honest with her and that went against the grain with him, as well. ‘That is the only justification I can offer you for my behaviour.’

‘But if it takes a divorce to make me happy you’re going to make it difficult,’ Ruby guessed, her face pale and tight with the self-control she was exerting as she turned on her heel. ‘I’m sleeping on the sofa tonight.’

As the door eased shut on her quiet exit Raja swore, jolted by a powerful wave of dissatisfaction more biting than any he had ever known. He had wounded her and he had never wanted to do that. Although it would have been very much out of character he badly wanted to unleash his temper and punch walls and shout. But the discipline of a lifetime held, forcing him to stop, think and reason. Pursuing her to continue the altercation in the state of mind she was in would only exacerbate the situation. He had chosen honesty and maybe he should have lied but he believed that the woman he had married deserved the truth from him.

Ironically, Raja believed that he knew what his wife wanted from him. After all, almost every decent woman he had ever spent time with had wanted the same thing from him: eternal devotion and commitment and all the empty words and promises that went along with them. At a young age Raja had learned to avoid getting involved with that kind of woman. His mistress Chloe’s unconcealed greed was a great deal easier to satisfy and the main reason why Raja much preferred relationships based on practicality and mutual convenience.