The Sheikh's Wife

“Good. Then we both have adjustments to make. I’m not the man you married, either.” He smiled without humor, his gaze never wavering from her face. “And you have changed. You’ve grown more beautiful.”

“Don’t flatter me.”

“I’m not flattering you. I’ve met a lot of women in my life, but I’ve never met another woman like you. No one with your sweetness, softness—”

“Stop.”

“Your pale, flawless skin. Your eyes, the dark blue of precious sapphires. Your mouth softer than a rose.”

Her spine tingled, her skin prickling. Don’t listen to this. Don’t let him get under your skin. You’ve survived him once. You can do it again. “You only want me because you can’t have me.”

His fingers opened, freeing her, and his smile remained the same. But his eyes looked harder, the glints brighter. “I can have you. I just haven’t been aggressive.”

No, he’d never been aggressive with her before tonight, but she suddenly knew he could be extremely ruthless, correctly reading the menace in his hard features, and danger in the crooked curve of his mouth.

His smile faded. “Does Stan know you’re a flighty little wife?”

Oh, low blow. “He knows I left you.”

“Did you tell him you left without leaving a note? Or giving me a kiss goodbye? He knows you just took your purse, your passport and walked?”

“He knows I took my purse and ran.” Her gaze locked with his. If he wanted to make it tough, she could play tough. That’s all she’d been doing since leaving Zwar anyway. Cutting coupons to buy breakfast cereal. Shopping for clothes from a secondhand store. Working double shifts at the insurance agency. She’d shouldered parenthood on her own, and succeeded.

“Did Stan ever ask why you left me?”

“He knew I was unhappy, and that was enough for him.”

Kahlil lifted his wine goblet, swirled the glass, ruby-red wine shimmering in the candlelight. “What an understanding man. Will he be so understanding when you toss him away, tired of that marriage, too?”

His sarcasm was as sharp as razor blades and cut deep. If she thought she could get away with it, she’d run. But she wouldn’t get away from Kahlil, not like that, not this time. “I never tossed you away.”

“No? It felt that way. It looked that way, too. The palace was wild with gossip. The scandal affected the entire kingdom. I didn’t just lose face. My people lost face.”

“What scandal?”

“Rumor has it you were…unfaithful.”

CHAPTER TWO

“NEVER.” Color suffused her cheeks, embarrassment and surprise. How could he think such a thing? How could he think the worst?

The realization that he did, hurt far more than she’d expected.

Early on she’d hoped he’d come looking for her. She’d also hoped he’d discover Amin’s treachery. Instead Kahlil accepted her betrayal, accepted her failure, accepted that she’d been unfaithful. Apparently it hadn’t crossed his mind to even think otherwise.

Then he’d failed her, too. Twice.

Tears burned in her throat, unshed tears she’d never let fall.

Leaving him had nearly destroyed her. It had been the hardest thing she ever had to do. She’d nearly shattered all over again when back in Texas, she discovered she was pregnant.

It was a baby Kahlil wanted. It was a baby he’d never know. The guilt had nearly eaten her alive. Thank God for poverty. It forced her out of bed every morning, forced her to work until she dropped into bed at night, dead with fatigue.

Kahlil might mock Stan and his insurance agency, but working as a secretary at the agency probably saved her life. “Why don’t you just divorce me and get this over with?” she said hoarsely.

“Can’t do that.”

“Why not?” Lifting her gaze, she looked at Kahlil, noting the firm set of his mouth, the intelligence in his warm golden gaze and saw her son there, the same eyes, the same nose, the same mouth. Why hadn’t she ever seen it before? Ben was Kahlil in miniature.

And like that, she saw the awful truth. She and Kahlil weren’t completely strangers. They did have something in common, one precious little person. Ben.

“Too easy,” he answered curtly. “Divorce might be the easiest thing, but I’ve never taken the easy way out.”

She knew what he was talking about, knew the reference to their marriage. He’d warned her ahead of time that their marriage would create an uproar, predicted his family’s reaction, including his father’s harsh disapproval. Kahlil had said there would be hell to pay and she’d shrugged it off, kissing Kahlil’s lovely mouth, his cheekbone, his jaw. She’d been confident she could win his family over, so certain that Kahlil’s love and approval would be enough.

And she was wrong. Very wrong.

Knots balled along her shoulder blades, her back rigid, her neck stiff. Her gaze settled on his hard profile. Once she’d love to kiss the strong angles and planes of his face. She remembered how she lavished extra kisses on the small scar near the bridge of his nose.

She could feel the heartbreak again, thick and sharp. She had loved him. Once. She’d wanted nothing but to be with him. She loved him to distraction, needed the assurance he felt the same. Instead he withdrew, his warmth disappearing behind an impersonal mask. Duty, country, business. Their worlds no longer connected, their lives ceased to touch.

“How badly do you want a divorce?”

His question sent small shock waves rippling through her middle. He was toying with her the same cruel way a cat played with a mouse just before the mouse became a feline supper.

Her spine stiff, her shoulders squared, she lifted her chin, wanting to defy him. She wouldn’t dignify his games with an answer. Let him speak first. Let him be the one to grope for explanations.

But her righteous anger collapsed on itself, even as she confronted the enormity of her problem. This wasn’t a small matter. Ben’s whole future was at stake. Rather than provoking Kahlil, she needed to work with him, humor him. The baby-sitter, Mrs. Taylor, would be dropping Ben off at eleven, less than three hours from now. She needed to be home by then, and she had to be rid of Kahlil by then. “Badly,” she choked.

“Badly enough to risk everything?”

“What do you mean by everything?”

“You’d become mine for the weekend.”

She reached for her water glass, lifted it to her mouth. The rim of the chilled glass clicked against her teeth, icy water sloshing against her lips.

He leaned forward. “I want you for a weekend.”

“That’s your proposal?”

“I’m giving you an opportunity to take control of your life.”

“I spend a weekend with you, and you’d grant me a divorce?”

“If my terms were met.”

He made it sound so easy. Bryn stared at the water drops darkening the white cloth, her mind strangely blank. No words, no sound, no light filtering through her brain. “And those terms…?”

“I want a long weekend with you. Four days. Three nights. City of my choosing.”

She touched one of the damp drops on the tablecloth with her finger. “You want me to be your wife.”

“I want you to be my lover.”

Her head lifted, gaze meeting his. He smiled without a hint of warmth in the eyes. “I want to possess you, enjoy you at my leisure, and make you mine—completely mine—again.”

Something inside her stirred, hunger, awareness. He knew how she responded to him. He knew he could seduce her at the drop of the hat. “You don’t think I have the strength to walk away from you a second time.”

He shrugged. “Did I say that?”

“You don’t have to. I know you.”

“If you please me, I shall process the divorce papers in Zwar. If you cannot fulfill the required duties to my satisfaction, you shall return to Zwar with me and take lessons from the palace concubines.”

“Either way, you win.”

He ignored that. “You’d only sacrifice four days of your life, and surely, Stan’s love is worth at least that?”

Stan’s love was worth more, but Kahlil’s price…

Four days in his bed. Four days making love. A vision of tangled limbs, warm bodies, damp skin flashed before her and she felt blood race to her cheeks. “It’s a humiliating proposition.”

“But it gives you possibilities. Hopes for the future.”

Hopes for the future. Ben’s future.

Bryn draw a deep breath, and actually considered his offer. Just for a moment. Alone, naked, weak. He’d reduce her to hunger and fire all over again and she would need him too much, want him too much. Like before.

It was too risky. For herself, and for Ben. She felt raw, exposed, Kahlil’s proposal peeling off needed protective layers that shielded her heart from the past, and the danger Kahlil still posed.

Something wonderful and awful happened when they were together. She felt more alive, more physical, more aware, but that acute awareness came at a terrible price. Kahlil made her feel emotions and desires that she couldn’t control. It hurt then, it hurt now, and this feeling couldn’t be natural or normal. Emotions shouldn’t run so deep.

“I can’t,” she gasped, dying inside. “There’s just no way.”

His mouth curved, a crooked smile. “You don’t have to give me your answer yet. You might want to think it over a little longer. Take an hour. Take two. After all, it is your future.”

Dinner finished, Kahlil tossed a handful of bills on the table—several hundred dollars, Bryn noted woodenly, chump change to Kahlil and a small fortune to herself. Money like that would pay for new shoes for Ben. A rib roast for Sunday supper. Maybe even a night on the Gulf Coast.

Resentful tears pricked the back of her eyes as Kahlil steered her to his waiting limousine. He had no idea what it was like to struggle and worry about every purchase, every trip to the grocery store, every new month because it meant starting the vicious cycle over again—rent, gas, electric bill, car payment, and on and on until Bryn wanted to scream. It hadn’t helped that Stan was always offering to ease her load, make payments for her, pick up expenses. She’d been sorely tempted but had never accepted his offers, never accepted his frequent marriage proposals, either—not until last Christmas.

She’d finally worn down resisting, reluctantly accepting that bald, bespectacled Stanley would be the right thing. Not for her. But for Ben.

Numbly Bryn slid into the back of the limousine and buckled her seat belt across her lap.

Kahlil directed the driver back to her house.

Bryn’s fog of misery lifted, recognizing the peril of letting Kahlil close to her home. Ben’s toys and bedroom had been packed for the move but there could be knickknacks around the house, photos or artwork she’d overlooked. “Why don’t we go for a drive?”

“A drive?”

She ignored Kahlil’s incredulity. “Or a walk. It’s a beautiful night. Not too humid for the first time in weeks.”

Kahlil viewed her through narrowed lashes, his expression speculative. “Who are we hiding from?”

The fact that he could read her so easily reinforced her fear, as well as her determination to be rid of him as soon as possible. Already she felt as though she was drowning, the water rising, destruction imminent. She had the agonizing suspicion that she might not be able to pull this off. Kahlil was so clever, too clever, and also too angry.

No sooner had she swallowed the sour taste of panic than she pictured Ben as he’d run out of the house earlier, eager to go with Mrs. Taylor. His small white sneakers had slapped the sidewalk, his miniature jeans rolled up at the ankle. She always bought his clothes big, trying to make them last two seasons, maybe even three.

He’d stopped at Mrs. Taylor’s truck, turned around to wave and he blew her an enormous kiss. “I love you, Mommy!”

His zest brought tears to her eyes and laughing, she’d blown him a kiss back. She’d felt a spike of worry then, the kind of worry she felt every time she kissed him good-night, what if something happened? What if there was an accident? What if she lost him? What if…

The what-ifs could drive her crazy.

Fierce love rose up within her, love, determination and conviction. She wouldn’t fail Ben. She’d fight tooth and nail to protect him. He was the one perfect and true thing she’d ever known.

Bryn looked at Kahlil, gaze level, mouth smiling faintly. “Is there something criminal in wanting to walk?”

“You never liked to walk before.”

“Of course not. I was eighteen. I preferred motorbikes and race cars and anything else that jolted my heart.” Like you, she thought cynically. You jolted my heart a thousand times a day.

Kahlil gave the driver directions to a popular downtown park, the night quiet, the streets nearly deserted. The limousine pulled over to the curb and Kahlil and Bryn got out, to stoically circle the square.

The evening, balmy for late September, smelled sweeter than usual, the peculiar ripe fragrance of turning leaves as summer slipped away, fading into fall.

He didn’t speak. She didn’t try, chewing her lower lip, struggling to come up with an alternative to Kahlil’s proposal, one that might meet his need for vengeance without endangering Ben. But no solutions came to mind, immediately dismissing lawsuits and threats, as well as fleeing with Ben. This time Kahlil wouldn’t let her go. He’d find her, and he’d really want blood then.

They passed the fountain and large bronze statue twice with Bryn still overwhelmed with worry.

Kahlil thrust his hands into his trouser pockets. “There’s no way out,” he said mildly, casting a curious side glance her way. “You’re not going to escape without settling the score.”

A flurry of nerves made her prickle from head to toe. How could he know exactly what she was thinking? “Score. Proposition. You’re trying to humiliate me.”

“Clever girl.” He stopped walking, facing her, his dark features mocking. “You humiliated me before my family and my people. You’re fortunate that your humiliation will be much more…private.”

“What makes you think I’d agree to this plan?”

“You were once quite daring. You hungered for adventure, for travel and the unknown. Is the great unknown no longer appealing?”

No. Not since becoming a mother. She worried constantly about Ben. His safety, his security, his future. And since becoming a mother, she wondered how her own parents could have dragged her through the Middle East as a small child, living out of tents and the camper van, sleeping at desolate spots along the road. They’d led a precarious life and it had cost them all. Dearly.

Pain suffused her, time and grief blurring her parents’ faces. She remembered them better by photograph than be special memories. “I prefer things simple now,” she answered faintly. “My relationships uncomplicated.”

“Like Stan?”

Her eyes flashed warning. “Leave him out of this.”

“How can I? He’s the enemy.”

“Stan is not the enemy. You’re the enemy.”

He laughed, the husky sound carrying in the darkness. “Four days. Four days and you’d be free. You could marry Stan. Have a family. Get on with your life.”

Oh, how like Kahlil, how clever, how manipulative. Trust the devil to suggest temptation.

But the devil knew her, she acknowledged weakly. He knew how she’d reached for him, again and again, undone by the pleasure of their bodies, so inexperienced that she couldn’t be satiated, her untutored desires wanting more.

But that wasn’t the kind of relationship she had with Stan. Her fault, she knew, but despite her gratitude to Stan, she didn’t enjoy it when he touched her. She told herself that her feelings would change after their wedding, but would they? Could they?

Warily she glanced at Kahlil. Moonlight illuminated his profile. If she did go with him, if she did all that he asked, would he really set her free? Could she trust him to honor his word?

“You can’t pick the city,” she said, feeling trapped, the air squeezing out of her lungs. She wouldn’t breathe until she was free of him. “Four days, three nights. I pick the place, the city and the hotel.”

“The city and the hotel? Now you’re sounding paranoid.”

She refused to be baited, too busy examining the proposal from every angle. A couple of nights with him in New York. How bad could it be? She’d do what he asked and then she’d have her divorce. “New York,” she said. “The Ritz-Carlton Hotel.”

“Paris. The Ritz-Carlton.”

“I won’t leave the States.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“No.” She lifted her chin. “As it is you act as judge, jury and executioner. It hardly seems fair.”

He laughed without kindness. “I guess you’d have to work very very hard at pleasing me.”

Seething, she returned to the limousine, realizing she was only wasting time—his, hers and Ben’s. Kahlil might look like a modern man with his expensive clothes and gorgeous face, but his thinking was still feudal.

The limousine drew to a stop before her house and Kahlil’s driver opened the back door. But before she could move, Kahlil clasped her elbow.

“It might not be safe going with me,” he said softly, “but it might also be the smartest thing you’ve ever done. Everything in life is a risk. Even your freedom.”

She didn’t speak. She couldn’t.

Lightly he stroked her bare arm, his touch sending shock waves through her body. “The weekend wouldn’t be without its rewards,” he continued. “You burn for me. You’re on fire now.”

She stared at her arm in mute fascination. She did feel feverish, her skin blazing, her body melting, everything in her coming alive in response to him. He’d always made her feel like this, crazy with need. Right now her nerves throbbed, her pulse racing. He was a drug, sweetly addictive, dangerously destructive, utterly transforming. In his bed, in his arms, she would do anything for him.

Leave her home, change her name, worship at his feet. She lost control when it came to him and that loss of control completely shamed her.

She breathed deeply, dizzy, torn between wildly opposing desires. Run. Stay. Scream. Kiss.

If she went with him, she’d enjoy Kahlil’s revenge. She’d welcome the humiliation as it would be at his hands, in his hands, with his body.

A woman should have more self-respect. She had none.

She could feel the press of his thigh against hers, his hips close, his warmth stealing into her. He promised intense sensual pleasure, a pleasure she’d only ever known with him.

Color banded in high hot waves across her cheekbones. Closing her eyes, she swayed, drawn to him.

He held her in his power again.

Stop it.

Wake up. You can’t do this. Think about Ben. Think about the dangers in the palace. At the very least, think about Amin.

Her eyes opened, her lips parted, and reality returned. “I can’t do it, Kahlil. I won’t. We need to make a clean break of it.” Was that her voice? High? Thin? Panicked?”

“Clean break,” he mocked. “Hardly, darling. You’d remain my wife.”

“That’s not fair!”

“Life’s not fair.”

She averted her face, struggling to hide the tumultuous emotions from him. She was angry, aroused, torn. If she didn’t go away with him, Kahlil would discover Ben. But spending a weekend with Kahlil was like throwing herself in the mouth of a volcano.

It was Ben’s future, or hers.

Ben’s or hers.

Ben won. “No other man would force a woman to submit,” she said bitterly, unable to hide her anger or despair. He’d never planned on releasing her from their marriage vows. He’d given her time but not forgiveness. Space but not freedom. And without a divorce she could permanently lose Ben.

Kahlil didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. They both knew he wasn’t just any man. He was a sheikh, his word in his country was law.

Eyes gritty and hot, she drew a short breath. “God, I hate you.”

“I don’t care. I want what’s mine. And you, wife, are mine.”

He was going to kiss her. She knew it, felt it, just before his head dropped. Alarm shrieked through her, alarm because in his arms she was weak, so weak, it made her sick.

She tried to slip away but Kahlil moved even faster. He blocked the door and leveraged her backward, her spine pressed to the leather seat. “You can’t escape me,” he murmured, his voice husky as his palm slid down her throat, spanning the column, forming a collar with his hand. “But then, I don’t think you really want to.” And with that, his head dropped, his mouth covering hers.

His warmth caught her unawares, his skin fragrant, a soft subtle sweet spice she couldn’t place, but a fragrance that had been part of him as long as she’d known him. The very first time they’d touched she’d breathed him in, again and again, heart racing, spectacular colors and visions filling her head. She saw the full white moon above the bleached ivory sands, the grove of orange trees planted within the village walls, the warmth of the night in the darkest hour…

Kahlil.

Her lashes closed, lips parting beneath the pressure of his, welcoming him, the sweetness and the strength, the memory of their lives. She’d loved him, oh God, she’d loved him, and he’d filled her, capturing her heart and mind and soul.

Kahlil.

His tongue traced the inside of her lip, sending rivulets of feeling in her mouth, her belly, between her thighs. She tensed at the quicksilver sensation, the warmth, first hot then turning icy as he flicked his tongue across her lip again.

Helplessly she clasped his shirt, holding on to him tightly as shudders coursed down her spine. He felt so familiar, wonderfully warm, hard, real. For months she’d wept at night missing him, missing his skin, his scent, his passion for her, for their brief bittersweet year together.

The shiny green leaf of citrus, the spice of cardamom, the tangy essence of lemon…Kahlil…and her body warmed, softening for him, responding, ignoring the revolt of her mind, refusing to remember anyone or anything but the pleasure of being in his arms.

His hand slid from her throat to her breast, his touch igniting fire beneath her skin. Shuddering, she curved more closely against him, seeking more contact, more of his strength.

“Tell me,” his voice rasped, “is this how you respond to Stan, too?”

Bryn felt ice invade her limbs. Stiffening in horror, she pushed frantically at his chest, desperate to escape.

Kahlil laughed deep in his throat. “Oh, don’t stop making love to me, darling. I’m really rather aroused.”

Disgust, remorse, hurt shot through her like sharp arrows, piercing her conscience, reminding her who Kahlil really was. A savage. A savage from a savage land. Hurt turned to anger, the emotion blistering, and her arm swung up, fingers flexing, palm wide. She caught him square on the cheek, the slap echoing shockingly loud in the silent car.

He didn’t move, but she could hear the ring of her hand against his cheek, hear it play again and again in her head. My God, what had she done? How could she have hit him of all people? “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t speak and she sat frozen on the seat, fingers pressed to her mouth, eyes wide with shock. Sick at heart, she stared at his cheek, seeing through the shadows the reddened area of his skin.

“Twice tonight you’ve lifted your hand against me, once you actually made contact.” He spoke without a hint of emotion in his husky voice. “This is not a good habit.”

She ought to apologize again but couldn’t speak, too many powerful emotions swirling within her. She wanted him and hated him. Craved his touch yet longed to wound him. It was madness. Being near him was madness. How could she ever escape him again?

“This habit must be quickly broken. Do you understand, Princess al-Assad?”

“Don’t call me Princess. I’m not a princess.”

“But you are. And as long as you are my wife, you are entitled to my name, my fortune, my protection.”

“No—”

“You can’t escape it. Marrying me has changed your life.” His gaze found hers, light and shadow playing across his granitelike features, even as he stepped from the car, and taking her hand in his, drew her out after him. “Forever.”