Kate Walker – One Desert Night: Destined for the Desert King / Hidden in the Sheikh's Harem / Claimed by the Sheikh (страница 9)

‘No?’

Clearly Omar thought he had lost his mind—or at least come close to it. But the truth was that he felt more clearer-headed than he had in a long time.

‘But, sire—the treaty...’

He didn’t need reminding about the importance of the treaty, but now, remembering the time he had spent in Farouk’s home when he’d been twelve, he also knew why, unconsciously, he had been avoiding all contact with the man’s older daughter. Told that he was spending some time with an important family, his mind had caught on the word family, hoping that there might be someone who might become a friend. Or that the El Afarims could at least show him something of what a family life might mean.

Instead, it had been plain that the visit was more one of diplomacy and state. Even then, there’d been obviously plenty of scheming going on in the background, as the way that Jamalia had been pushed forward from the start had made plain. He had never taken to the elder El Afarim daughter but...

‘There is a younger sister, isn’t there?’

He had no idea where the memory had come from but suddenly it was clear in his mind. The image of a small, shy child who had peered out at him from behind her mother’s skirts, a soft giggle escaping her curved lips. A little girl so much shorter and more rounded than her older sister with the smile of an angel that had made him feel welcome in a moment. A girl who had cared for a bundle of orphaned kittens as if they were precious to her, feeding them from a dropper with infinite patience, and who, young as she had been, had had a magic touch with a crying baby cousin, soothing him to sleep in just moments. If he had to make an arranged marriage to provide heirs for the sake of his country’s future then the least he could do was to give those heirs a mother who would give them more than he had ever had.

‘If the treaty is to go ahead, then all it needs is that I marry one of the El Afarim girls?’

‘Indeed, but...’

‘But nothing.’ Nabil’s hand came up to cut off any further conversation with a slicing gesture. ‘Enough. If the treaty still stands, then that’s the way it will be. If I have to have an arranged wife, then I’ll take the younger sister. Let it be done.’

CHAPTER FIVE

HOW COULD YOUR life turn inside out in the space of just a few days, not even a month? Aziza wondered to herself as she stood, waiting for the door of the banqueting hall to open, and for her walk—surely the longest walk on earth—to begin. She had barely been aware of each day that had passed, all of them filled with frantic organisation, fittings, meetings, all the arrangements that were needed to turn her into the Sheikh’s chosen bride.

The Sheikh’s chosen bride.

There they were, the four words that had taken her life as she’d known it and shattered it into a million tiny fragments that could never be made whole again. The words were so shocking, so unbelievable, that they made her grab hold of her father’s arm, holding on tightly for fear that her legs might give way beneath her.

The rich golden silk of her ceremonial robes, heavy with embroidery, weighed down on her, making her feel as if she was carrying a burden on her shoulders, and the layers of the veil she wore clung around her face until it was almost impossible to breathe, obscuring her sight so that she had to rely on her father’s support to move forward and walk straight to the right place.

‘Steady...’ her father urged as she swayed slightly, hesitating nervously.

If anything brought home the change in her situation, it was that. The fact that her father had spoken to soothe her, instead of the sharp reproach she would have expected in the past. She was someone new now, and Farouk’s attitude had had to change along with her life.

‘Remember, he chose you.’

He chose you. She still couldn’t believe that those words were true. That they had actually been said in the moment that her father had come to find her and Jamalia in the room where they had been waiting, all day it seemed, for some sort of announcement on Sheikh Nabil’s selection of a bride. They had known that something had happened when Farouk had arrived, his mouth seemingly clamped tight on the news he had to deliver and his dark eyes burning with a suppressed excitement until he’d been free to speak openly.

‘Sheikh Nabil has made his decision,’ he had said and immediately Aziza’s eyes had gone to her sister who had pushed herself out of her chair, hectic colour flooding her cheeks. The ‘diadem’ she had created out of her necklace still glittered on her forehead like an omen.

But it was towards his younger daughter that Farouk had turned, his own smile slightly uneven. He had not been able to suppress his delight that one of his daughters was to become the Sheikh’s bride, but was bemused that it was Aziza and not his ‘jewel’, her elder sister.

‘He chose you.’

Aziza struggled to breathe naturally, making herself draw in air, then let it out again, fighting to steady the way that her feet hit the ground as she moved forward again. The marble floor felt disturbingly uneven beneath the soles of her silk slippers and she could barely focus through the layer upon layer of golden gauze that formed her veil to see the man standing at the far end of the hall.

Nabil—her husband-to-be!—was just a blur of white in his full ceremonial robes, the gutra on his head, bound, with a gold igal, acting like a blind, hiding his face from her.

But that was how it was supposed to be in this ceremony. Aziza knew that both she and Nabil were meant to be just symbols—the ruler and his consort. Not a man and a woman. Because this arranged marriage was for the sake of the country.

That was one of the reasons why she had not been able to refuse to go through with this. For the sake of the country had been drilled into her from the moment she had been told that she was Nabil’s choice. The vital treaties that had been built around their proposed union could be destroyed if she tried to back out. She was not supposed to be a person, just a bargaining tool. No one thought of her hopes, her dreams, her feelings. Anything like that was supposed to be buried under the overwhelming pride of being the Sheikh’s prospective bride. That was why she had this new-found approval from her father. She was the chosen one.

He chose you.

No one—not even Aziza herself—had reckoned with the memories she carried from her childhood, the ardent crush she had had on Nabil from a very early age. That had grown as she’d watched him leave youth behind and turn into a man who had endured loss and betrayal and now had put them behind him.

But who was Nabil now? Were her memories of him just the fantasies of a child, or did they have any foundation in the truth? In her dreams he had always been the man she would marry—but those dreams were just fantasy. She had never dreamed of the hard, cold man she had met that night on the balcony.

And yet it seemed she couldn’t let go of the girlhood yearnings. She had wept for her disillusionment that night, but in the moment that her father had told her that she was the Sheikh’s chosen bride all those dreams had come rushing back, bringing with them new hopes, new hungers, that her younger self would never even have been able to imagine.

She wanted to be the chosen one. Whether she was Zia the maid, or Aziza the second-best daughter, she longed to be special to someone. And Nabil had seen her; in that room with the two-way mirror, he had seen her with Jamalia and he had chosen her.

She was at Nabil’s side now, her right hand lifted from her father’s arm and placed into his, her small fingers almost swallowed up in the length and strength of his palm.

And there it was again. That stinging, fizzing, burning rage of response that his touch stirred, making her snatch in a breath, unable to control the race of her heart.

It was how it had happened on the balcony, the night of the anniversary celebrations.

Now, just being so close to him, had brought back all the feelings that had threatened to burn her alive that night on the balcony. Even through the concealing folds of the veils, his black gaze burned into her skin, branding her, marking her as his.

She wanted that. She wanted this man as she had never wanted any other human being in her life. She wanted those childhood reveries to come true. Oh, she knew that there was no way the dreams of Nabil she had had then could ever become reality. The adult male Nabil she had met on the balcony was light years away from her childhood hero. She knew that he was harsh now. A hard man, devoid of any warm emotion. She blushed to remember his refusal to kiss her that night. She should resist this union. But her foolish heart wouldn’t listen to reason.

Somehow she got through the ceremony, led into the responses, the words she needed to say, guided by the celebrant. She accepted the ring that Nabil pushed on to her finger and then turned, her hand on her husband’s arm, and made her way back down the room. There was a huge change in the atmosphere, in the attitude of everyone present. She was no longer even the chosen one but actually the Sheikh’s wife.