The Desert Bride of Al Zayed / Best Man's Conquest: The Desert Bride of Al Zayed / Best Man's Conquest

“My father wouldn’t want this disagreement to flare out of control. We can’t afford to be at war with Bashir. He will understand.”

“Why can’t Ali and Mahood understand that you’re needed here?”

He looked at her. “No one understands that. Only you. To every one else my duty to Zayed must come before all else—even my father. And now you must excuse me, nuur il-en, I must claim my seat at the head of the table before Ali usurps it.”

Ali was sitting in the vacant chair at the top of the table, his head close to the man on his right, conspiring no doubt. Jayne shifted her attention to Tariq, watched him rise from beside her, his traditional robes swirling around him, the white ghutra over his head secured by the doubled black cord that made him look more formidable than ever. She pitied Ali and Mahood if they unleashed his full ire.

She picked at her food until she sensed someone seating themselves in the place Tariq had vacated, and turned her head. The welcoming smile she’d prepared shrivelled as she met the frigid gaze of Sheikh Ali.

The dinner dragged on and Tariq found it difficult to concentrate on the conversation swirling around him. His attention was riveted on his wife. He watched as she said something to Ali. But the response caused her to sag. What had Ali said to make her skin grow so pale?

As the meal progressed his attention kept straying back. Most of the time Jayne spent chatting to the woman on her left, Dr. Farrah Jirah was a nice enough woman and he’d hoped she might befriend Jayne. He relaxed as he saw Jayne smile. But then stiffened again when he noted that the few times she attempted to talk to Ali her attempts were rebuffed. Ali was flouting the social norms of Zayedi politeness at a meal table. As host, Tariq was within his rights to request Ali to leave. Tariq’s frown grew more and more thunderous, until his dinner partners started to regard him with increasing wariness.

Ali said something to Jayne. She glanced down, and Tariq saw the wash of colour high on her ivory cheeks. He started to rise. But Jayne beat him to it. Pushing back her chair, she was on her feet before he could move. By the time he reached the elaborate carved doors flanked by two palace guards, she was already gone.

He charged into the corridor, saw her disappearing into the study he’d had an aide show her to earlier in the day. With long raking strides he set off after her.

Jayne collapsed into the leather chair behind Tariq’s desk. Her first reaction was to hop onto the Internet, to see if Helen was still awake. She felt lonely and isolated and incredibly homesick. She wanted her family, she wanted to go home, to leave this inhospitable country that had never brought her anything but pain.

The soft sound of the door closing brought the first hint that she was no longer alone.

“What did Ali say to make you leave?” An implacable anger glowed in Tariq’s eyes.

“It doesn’t matter.” Ali had been his usual obnoxious self. He’d taunted her by saying that had his daughter married Tariq, she would have done her duty, borne him fine sons and done him proud as a hostess. She’d been stupid to let Ali get to her. Jayne shook her head, suddenly overwhelmingly aware of the heat of Tariq’s body behind her, the soft hiss of his breath beside her ear as he leaned forward. Instantly, nerves started to churn in her belly. She lifted her hand from the mouse and spun the leather office chair around. Only to find herself face-to-face with Tariq. This close his eyes had the appearance of molten gold. Ensnaring her. Trapping her in the rich heat.

“It matters. You are my wife.”

She held his knee-weakening gaze. “Not for long.”

“For at least a month. And for that month I expect my countrymen to treat you with the respect that you deserve.”

“The respect I deserve because I am your woman? Or the respect that I deserve in my own right?”

“Is there a difference?” He lifted his hand to touch her cheek. “I touch this skin. It belongs to my wife and it belongs to Jayne, too. They are one and the same.”

“Jayne Jones is not your possession.”

He didn’t answer. His finger trailed down, across her lips, sensitising the soft skin.

“I should go,” she whispered against his finger.

“I don’t think so.”

She stared at him, her breathing quickening, tingles of apprehension mingled with excitement shivered down her spine. Trouble.

“You’re aware of me. Your body recognizes me.”

“That doesn’t mean you own me.”

“My body responds to you, too. Even though I resist it. You own me every bit as much as I own you.” Taking her hands, he pulled her out of the chair, against the hard, muscled length of his body. Instantly, she felt the hardness of his arousal against her stomach.

“I am leaving.”

“Too late.” His head swooped down, his mouth slanting across hers.

Heat and light and emotion scorched Jayne as his mouth met hers. All rational thought left Jayne as she parted her lips and started to kiss her husband back.

Four

All thoughts of her family, her sister, her nieces, flew away as Tariq’s mouth plundered hers. His kiss was uncompromising and the flare of heat that started deep in her stomach took her by surprise.

It had been a long time.

Too long, since she’d last felt this intensity of emotion.

As his hand threaded through her hair at the back of her neck, his fingers brushed the sensitive skin of her nape and a frisson of delight ran through her. Tariq knew exactly where to touch…to arouse her, to turn her. The fingertips now moving in little circles sent shivers through her and his lips demanded a response.

Jayne gave a little gasp, taken aback by the pent up passion that Tariq had unleashed. Instantly he pressed closer, his tongue stroking into her mouth, tasting her, slower now, languidly, as if he could never get enough.

With a groan she reached up, locking her arms around his neck, conscious of her breasts growing taut and tender as her body melted against him. She felt like a flower blooming, unfurling, under the heat of the sun. Tariq’s hands shifted against the back of her head, cradling her, bringing her closer still. She was sharply, disconcertingly aware of the tips of her breasts hardening under the loose fabric of the caftan, of the brush of his chest against the taut mounds.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the kiss was over.

The chill that followed the wave of heat shocked her. Jayne shivered with regret. Until those drive-me-crazy hands moved again, tilting her head, and his lips landed on the soft, exposed skin of her neck. A guttural sound exploded from her. She closed her eyes and let her head fall back, giving herself up to his touch, to the sheer indescribable delight. The fingers spearing through her hair released a fresh wave of shivers. And her body felt soft and pliable, boneless with want.

His teeth scraped her skin, his tongue followed, and Jayne gasped again. His mouth closed on the sensitive area beneath her ear…a trail of hot kisses, then a long stroke of his tongue set her on edge. Jayne waited…every nerve ending quivering… eager for what would come next.

In some distant space of her mind, she was half-aware of his hands leaving her hair, sliding over her shoulders, down her back, and she arched like a cat about to be stroked.

But when she felt his fingers stop, linger, and her bra strap give under the fabric of the caftan, she tensed, jolted by reality.

What was she doing?

She should not be allowing Tariq to kiss her like this. Ali’s words echoed hollowly in her head. Tariq needed a wife who would do her duty…and that woman was not her. So what on earth was she doing responding to her soon-to-be-ex like this? She couldn’t jeopardise her newly planned life simply because Tariq still turned her on.

She’d almost left it too late. Jenna heard the rasp of a zipper, felt the caftan give.

“No!”

Tariq’s hands stilled. “What do you mean ‘No’? You are my wife!”

“No!” She shuddered. She couldn’t survive the half world, the dry wasteland that had been her marriage. “I’ll never be your wife again, Tariq. Our marriage is over.” She wanted a divorce, to put Tariq and her marriage behind her and move on.

She tore out of his arms, ducked under his arm, and put half the length of the room between them. “I don’t want this.”

“Liar.” His voice was flat, his face expressionless. The light in the golden eyes had been extinguished. “You responded to me.”

He was right. She’d been far too…engaged. But she couldn’t afford to let him know that. So she looked away. “Maybe I’d have responded to any attractive man.”

“Any man?” It was a soft snarl, dangerous. “Not only me? So where does that leave the blond man who waits for you back home in Auckland, my faithless, lying wife?”

She stared at him blankly.

“Neil Woodruffe,” he said silkily. “Or had you forgotten all about the poor bastard you are holding on a string?”

“How do you know about Neil?” Neil had asked her out several times over the past months. Lately he’d taken to visiting her apartment on flimsy excuses. She’d humoured him, inviting him in. But how did Tariq know about Neil? A sick tightness gripped Jayne. One glance at Tariq’s face con firmed her suspicious. “You’re having me watched.”

He didn’t deny it.

“That’s disgusting.” The words burst from her. She hated the thought that he was spying on her. “Does it make you feel powerful to follow the details of my life? That’s sick!”

“I employed a detective when you initiated contact. You should remember that I have always believed information is key to any negotiation.” He gave her a tight smile.

Jayne’s heart thumped in her chest, so loudly that she feared he might hear. “Your lack of trust is the reason why I don’t want to be married to you anymore.”

“Do you blame me?” His mouth tightened. “No, don’t answer that, there’s no point in rehashing the past. Our marriage is over. In a month you will have your divorce, maybe sooner.”

The next day Tariq stormed down the corridor to his father’s apartments, his white thobe billowing behind him, still seething about how Jayne had managed to put him on the back foot the night before. Why was he thinking about her, when he had this whole disaster with Mahood and Ali to worry about…and he’d just been summoned to his father’s side. Had the end come?

With his father dead, Jayne would get her divorce sooner than she’d hoped.

There would be no reason to keep her in Zayed.

The palace guard leapt to attention as he swept past. “His Excellency is awake?” he asked the male nurse who was filling out a clipboard in the antechamber.

“Not only am I awake—I’m refusing to take the drugs, which is why they have called you.” The voice was thin and thready, but the eyes that met Tariq’s as he rushed into the bedchamber, with the nurse at his heels, held a hint of the old fire.

“Leave us,” Tariq commanded the nurse. Retreating with a respectful bow, the nurse closed the door.

“Father.” Tariq sank to one knee beside the bed. “You must take the morphine, it will help the pain.”

“I am feeling much better. The confusion and dizzy head is less now that I abandon the medicine.” His father’s hand rested on top of Tariq’s head. Gone was the solid weight that had stroked his hair as a child. No longer the hand of a ruler feared and revered by his subjects, but the wavering touch of a dying man. Tariq swallowed the hot thickness in his throat.

“Hadi al Ebrahim has been to see me.” Tariq’s head rose as his father spoke. “He tells me the sheikhah has returned.”

Hadi was one of his father’s most trusted aides. Tariq nodded. “She came to see you but you were—” drugged “—sleeping.” He watched his father carefully, unsure of what to say next. A couple of months ago, soon after the terrible diagnosis, Tariq had heard rumours that his father had sent Hadi on a mission to Sheikh Karim—a mission that he was not prepared to confront his father about now that he was dying. Instead he’d obliquely mentioned to his father that in terms of his marriage contract with Jayne he could take only one wife at a time. His father had looked fit to burst, calling Tariq a foolish monkey. Tariq certainly hadn’t expected his father to be overjoyed by Jayne’s return. But, for his father to die in peace, he needed to convince his father that marriage to Jayne was what he, Tariq, wanted more than anything on earth….

“Good. It is time that your wife resumes her position at your side.”

Tariq’s mouth fell open. While he was aware that his father wanted him contently married before he died, he’d anticipated a little more resistance. Especially as his father had evidently had other plans.

“Hadi is worried,” the Emir said. “He says that Ali and Mahood can make a lot of trouble for Karim—and for you.”

Tariq shrugged. “I’m sorry to say this, Father, but their trouble causing is not new.” And if Hadi had been acting as a go-between to broker a marriage between Tariq and Sheikh Karim’s half sister, then Hadi would have even more cause for concern.

“But this time they have angered Karim, you need to placate him, we cannot afford to have an angry neighbouring ruler—especially not one as powerful as the sheikh of Bashir. What will happen to our oil interests in Bashir if we are in conflict with each other?”

“I know. I have been in touch.” Sheikh Karim had laid the blame squarely at Ali and Mahood’s feet, saying they illicitly grazed herds of livestock over the border and had appropriated animals that did not belong to them. Karim had confiscated the whole herd the next time the animals had returned and impounded them.

Tariq gave a sharp sigh. “I will go—” He broke off and closed his eyes. What if his father died while he was gone? What if he missed these precious last days because of the stupidity and stubbornness of Ali and Mahood?

“When? You cannot wait.”

Tormented, Tariq opened his eyes and looked into the dark orbs close to his own. Eyes that in the past had been filled with love…anger…disappointment…and now held only a stoic acceptance.

No, he wanted to yell. Fight it. Don’t die.

Don’t leave me.

Alone.

“You can’t wait, my son. You must go. Now.”

Silently Tariq shook his head. His father’s hands were thin, the purple veins showing through the wrinkled skin. The skin that hung over his face showed a waxen cast…like a death mask, the eyes deeply sunken in the sockets.

“I order you.” It was a command, gasped out by a man used to being obeyed.

Tariq stiffened. He knew that his father would read his refusal in his eyes. He would not go. He could not leave his father. Not so near the end.

“Please.”

This time it was a plea. Tariq stared at the man who had never begged for anything in his life. The man that no one disobeyed.

“What if…” Tariq swallowed the words, unable to finish the thought.

But his father knew. “What if I die? Inshallah. It will not happen yet, I am feeling a lot better. But you cannot hover around waiting for that hour like a vulture in the noonday sky. You have a destiny…and Zayed needs you.”

Tariq started to answer back.

“Do not argue with your father. I am an old, sick man.” The bloodless lips curved into a ghost of a smile. “And by Allah, this will be the last task I ask of you, I promise that. Make peace with Karim and I will ask no more.”

“He will expect an apology.”

His father nodded.

“I will have to put something in it for him…land or oil leases.”

His father nodded again.

“I will go tomorrow.”

“Take your wife with you.”

“What?” On his way to the door, Tariq stopped and stared at his father in disbelief. He’d already planned to take Jayne with him, in order to make it doubly clear to Karim that he was not in the market for a wife. Not even for Karim’s ever-so-suitable half sister. But he’d never expected his father to suggest the same. He’d thought his father wanted the…merger… with Karim. It would’ve been convenient for all concerned. And for the two oil-rich desert countries.

“He needs to accept your wife…as I have. To know there will be no marriage between you and his sister.”

There, it was out in the open.

So the rumours were true. His father had tried to broker a new marriage for him. But hearing that Tariq could only take one wife—a wife he had not chosen to divorce—must have dissuaded him from meddling further.

A gnarled hand reached out from the bed. “My son, do not repeat my mistakes with your own wife.”

Crossing the room in one stride, Tariq closed his hands around the thin bones. “What do you mean, Father?”

For a while the Emir did not answer. Finally he said. “I am tired. Never forget, I am proud of you, my son. Now I need the morphine.”

Tariq’s hand went to the bell. The nurse arrived in a rush. The drug was administered, and his father’s eyes closed.

Tariq lingered a few minutes, a deep sense of loss swarming through him. What had his father been about to reveal? Finally he leant over to kiss the wrinkled brow. In his heart he feared this was the last time he might see his father alive.

The notion shook him to his soul.

* * *

Jayne was sitting at the stone table in the walled arbour beside the fountain, catching a little morning sun and writing out postcards to Samantha and Amy when the sound of Tariq’s footsteps clattered on the stone stairs.

“I have been to see my father,” Tariq announced, his eyes unreadable.

He dominated the comforting enclosed space of the arbour. His height, his presence, the scent of the citrusy cologne that clung to his skin all overwhelmed Jayne. She set her pen down. “You talked about your mother?”

“No!” His answer was uncompromising. “You may have heard that there is trouble brewing between Ali and Mahood and Sheikh Karim al Bashir?”

She nodded. It would’ve been difficult not to have heard the rumours that flew around the palace, or the speculation about how Tariq would react. The Emir was dying. Would he placate his father’s oldest friends? Or would he make amends to the furious Karim?

“Zayed must avoid a war with Sheikh Karim at all costs.”

Her brow creased, trying to remember what she’d heard. “He’s the ruler of a neighbouring sheikhdom, right?”

“Yes. We have many alliances—particularly over oil. We can’t afford to antagonise him.”

“Ali and Mahood are more trouble than they are worth,” she said daringly.

“Mahood and Ali are my father’s closest friends. Like brothers to him. I have to respect that bond.”

Jayne said nothing. His reply left no room for argument. He would put up with Mahood and Ali and all their guile for his love of his father.

“The trip to the desert town of Aziz should take no longer than three days. I plan to travel swiftly.”

He must fear that his father would die in his absence. Her heart squeezed at the sight of the pain etched into his features as he towered over her.

“What about—” His father. She broke off, her heart going out to Tariq. What if his father did die while he was gone? What if he left to sort out Ali and Mahood’s skirmishes and never saw his father again? As much as she loathed Sheik Rashid, Tariq loved his father.

“What about you? Or what about the divorce that you desire so highly?” His mouth curled into an unpleasant smile. “Your first thought is about yourself.”

It was so unfair! But her heart sank at the derision in his eyes, and for the first time she felt relief that she would be staying in the palace. Being surrounded by hostile aides was better than accompanying Tariq in this mood. “I have to think about me,” she fired back. “No one else does. You’ve brought me all the way across the world to cool my heels and await your return and twiddle my thumbs. To waste my time. I have things I want to do.” Like start her new course…and have a date with Neil…and start a new life, out from under Tariq’s shadow. “What if there are delays and this all takes more than three days? Does that mean you will expect me to stay longer?”

The bubbling of the water in the fountain was the only sound that broke the silence. But the soothing sound did nothing to comfort her as she waited for his reply.

At last he spoke and his eyes were hard. “I won’t leave my father for as long as a week. Not when he is so near the end. Nor will I be leaving you to cool your heels, habiibtii. You will be coming with me. Be ready to leave by daybreak.”

* * *

The courtyard behind the palace was already bustling when Jayne got there the following morning.

Tariq was waiting beside a lone white SUV, clad in a thobe with a ghutra tied with two rounds of black cord around his head. The SUV had already been packed high with provisions. In the back, beside their bags, Jayne spotted a kafas, a cage with holes to allow circulation, holding Noor along with large storage bottles of water—a sobering reminder of exactly how remote their destination was.

Jayne slowed to a halt in front of Tariq. “Is this it?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You were expecting camels?”

Not camels. Anyway, the white SUV was the modern equivalent of the white stallion for a desert traveller. But she’d expected some sort of entourage. Tariq never went anywhere alone. Bodyguards. Aides. A veritable army accompanied him. “When we travelled before—”

“Last time I organised camels because that’s what you wanted.”

She gave up. They were talking at cross purposes. He was referring to the trip they’d made in the first few months after their return to Zayed not long after their marriage in London. He’d taken her into the desert—by camel. They’d camped out under velvet skies studded with stars as bright as diamonds.

“You expected the fantasy,” he was saying, his eyes intent. “A desert romance. That excursion was supposed to be romantic—to make up for the honeymoon I’d never given you.”

She clambered into the vehicle and muttered dismissively, “Another mirage.”

“What do you mean?” He leaned in through the doorway, his brows fierce.

She shrugged, reluctant to get into a skirmish, and stared through the windshield determined not to look at him. “Don’t worry about it. It’s nothing.”

“When a woman says ‘It’s nothing’ only a fool believes her.”

Jayne remained mute, pressing her lips firmly together.

She sensed him watching her. After a long moment he sighed and shut the door before walking around the front of the vehicle to hop in beside her. A flick of his wrist and the vehicle roared to life. Jayne put her head back on the headrest and closed her eyes.

Their desert romance had been nothing more than a mirage. Even that belated honeymoon had been cut short. After only two days a helicopter had landed where they were camped. Tariq had been summoned back to the palace. During the flight back he’d apologised. Promised that there’d be other times.

And Jayne had been left wondering if it had been another instance of the long hand of the Emir acting to destroy their marriage.

When she’d been taken ill with a violent stomach bug the next day, she hated everything in the desert…and Zayed.

But that was in the past.

In the end, the Emir had won.

Their entire marriage had been a mirage.

Now she’d finally made herself a new life. A real life. And she was ready to move on. Find an ordinary man with whom to create a real marriage with real children.

Turning her head, Jayne focused on the passing landscape. The morning was lovely. A smattering of clouds meant that the heat had lost the edge common even in the winter months.

“It’s hot,” she said a while later, more to break the throbbing silence than because the heat worried her.

“Tonight will be cool in the desert.” His hand flicked a dial, and a blast of cold air swirled around her. “Better?”