‘Not if they are a complete fabrication!’ he snapped.
‘Well, how about a few answers, then?’
He controlled his breathing with difficulty. ‘You really think that I’ve spent the evening making love to Chantal?’ he questioned incredulously.
‘Don’t ever speak her name in front of me!’ She shot him a blistering look, conveniently forgetting that
she
had been the one to bring the woman’s name up. ‘Were you?’
‘Of course I was not. I told you—I’ve been at the damned embassy!’
‘There’s no “of course” about it, Rashid. You haven’t spent the last two days at the embassy, have you? What else am I to think? You could easily have made love to her! And don’t try to tell me that she wouldn’t still want you to—because what woman wouldn’t?’
He very nearly thanked her for the compliment, but resisted. He had never seen her in such a rage! ‘But
you
are the woman I make love to.
You
are my wife, Jenna,’ he stated softly.
‘Except that I’m not—not really. Am I?’ she finished in a small, broken question.
He saw all the fight and the anger leave her, to be replaced by a sadness which smote him like a blow from a sword. ‘You want the truth?’ he questioned huskily.
She shook her head. ‘I
don’t know
!’
‘Well, whether you want it or not—you
need
to know it, Jenna.’
‘Rashid—’
‘The day after I asked you to marry me, yes, I
did
come to Paris—’
‘Don’t!’ She shuddered, but he did not heed her plea.
‘I told Chantal that it was over, that you were to be my bride and yes, she wanted me to make love to her—’
‘Oh,
don’t
!’ she begged again, but he shook his dark head resolutely.
‘I told her no,’ he continued inexorably. ‘I have not spoken to her since and I have no intention of doing so.’
Her eyes opened very wide. ‘Really?’
‘Really.’ His voice softened. ‘Jenna, what makes you think that I would betray you? Do you think that the vows I made on our wedding day were meaningless?’
She shook her head. ‘How do I know
what
you would do,’ she asked in frustration, ‘when you won’t let me near you?’
He frowned. ‘But we share a room each night—’
‘When you’re
there
!’ she argued. ‘And I’m not talking about physically, anyway, Rashid—I’m talking about emotionally!’
‘Emotionally?’ he echoed, as if he was unfamiliar with the word.
‘Yes, emotionally,’ she said tiredly. ‘Apart from on our honeymoon, I feel as though I might as well be living with a robot!’
‘You have many, many insults for me this evening, don’t you, Jenna?’ he observed quietly.
‘I don’t mean to insult you—I’m just telling you how I feel. And don’t glower at me like that, Rashid! I know you’ve had a lifetime of people revering you and only ever speaking to you when you initiate the conversation! But what is the point of being married if we aren’t going to be close to one another?’
The black eyes glittered. ‘You have complaints about our marriage, Jenna?’
‘Yes, I do!’ She drew a deep breath, knowing that she might never have another chance to say this. ‘You never
talk
to me, do you? You never tell me about your day! Half the time you won’t say where you’re going, or what you’re doing—or who with—so of course my imagination works overtime! And you never seem to stop working, either! When was the last time we spent some quality time together that wasn’t in bed? I’ll tell you when—on our honeymoon, and that was six months ago!’
He stared at her with eyes which were filled with a sudden, dawning comprehension. ‘I once told you that I had a problem with delegation,’ he mused slowly. ‘And now it seems that this is a skill which I must embrace more wholeheartedly.’ He sighed. ‘No, I do not confide affairs of state to you, it is true,’ he agreed. ‘But do you not know that knowledge can be a dangerous weapon, Jenna? That if you were aware of all the ramifications of what goes on in Quador I would be putting you at risk?’
‘How?’
His black eyes were very sombre. ‘Do you not know, my sweet, that there are still factions in the country who would wish to overthrow your Sheikh? When you asked if you could accompany me to the Eastern region the other day, I said no. I didn’t say why—that there were very real dangers at play at that time.’
‘Then why didn’t you just
tell
me that?’
‘Would you not have worried about me?’
‘Of course I would!’
‘Well, then.’
‘It isn’t just about the not confiding, Rashid—you never…’
She had her pride, but pride itself could be dangerous if it prevented you from discovering the truth, and she had to know. She
had
to.
‘I never what?’ he prompted softly, for her mouth had taken on a tremulous shape that made him want to kiss it.
‘You never tell me how you feel.’
‘About what?’
‘About
me
!’ she burst out. ‘You never tell me that you love me, which can only lead me to assume that you don’t! And if you don’t love me, then it’s obvious that you will stray eventually.’
His mouth hardened. ‘What right do I have to speak of love to you?’ he questioned bitterly. ‘When I took your innocence so brutally and then forced you into marrying me?’
‘You didn’t rape me, Rashid,’ she pointed out.
‘But I might as well have done!’ he raged. ‘I showed no restraint! No control! I have never behaved like that in my life before!’
‘And neither have I! We both got carried away in the heat of the moment—it wasn’t anybody’s
fault
!’
‘But
I
was the experienced one,’ he asserted harshly. ‘I should have stopped in time. And I couldn’t,’ he finished harshly. ‘I just couldn’t.’
‘So what? Is it such a major crime that just for once in your life you failed to live up to your own exacting standards?’ she demanded. ‘If you really want to know—I feel quite powerful that I should have been the one to make you lose control like that. If it’s forgiveness you want, then I’ve forgiven you, Rashid—if only you could forgive yourself.’
He stared at her for a long moment. ‘But I still forced you to marry me, didn’t I, Jenna?’ he said slowly. ‘When the idea was clearly so abhorrent to you.’
‘And don’t you know why?’
He shook his head. ‘Because your feelings for me had died?’
‘They never died, Rashid,’ she said, and a small, rueful smile broke through. ‘Even though I tried like anything to kill them off.’
He reached out a fingertip and smoothed it down the smooth surface of her cheek. ‘And why would you do that?’
‘Because I kept reading about all your lovers in the newspapers,’ she admitted brokenly. ‘And I was as jealous as hell of them.’
He gave up trying to keep her at arm’s length and pulled her into his arms, staring deep into her amber eyes. All along he had tried to protect her, but he saw now that by doing so he had only succeeded in making her insecure.
‘There have been lovers, yes,’ he said quietly, and he saw her flinch. ‘But not nearly so many as the newspapers reported.’
She flinched. One would be too many! ‘Why any?’ she whispered. ‘Why not just me?’
He shook his head and tried to explain. ‘Jenna, my father’s marriage was not one I intended to replicate—but I am a pragmatist, and a realist. I knew that when I married you I intended to be utterly faithful, but I was unable to offer you my fidelity until then. We couldn’t marry before you left—I had only recently come into the Sheikhdom, and I needed to give myself wholeheartedly to my country.’
He stared at her, and his voice grew quiet and serious. ‘I needed to live a little, to experience something of the world—to give in to some of the temptations of the flesh so that those temptations would not haunt me for the rest of my life. Does that sound incredibly selfish?’
She thought about it. ‘Yes, I suppose it does,’ she said honestly. Jenna had a pragmatic streak herself, and she was now beginning to see why Rashid had acted as he had. She might not like it, but she could understand it. Not that she was going to let him know that. Not yet. ‘Particularly as you would have gone berserk if I had done the same thing.’
‘This much is true,’ he admitted, and his eyes were rueful as he touched the tips of her fingers to his lips. ‘You think it unfair?’ he questioned.
‘I don’t
think
it’s unfair, I
know
it’s unfair!’ she retorted, knowing in her heart that it had not seemed that way to her.
But then, she had never really wanted any other man in the way that she wanted her Sheikh.
He nodded. ‘Yes. As in so much of life, sweet Jenna mine.’ He looked down into her upturned face and saw the question in her beautiful eyes.
Say it, she thought, unable to look away from his glittering ebony gaze. Please just say it. Tell me that all these years I haven’t cherished false hopes. Tell me what I felt on our honeymoon was real. Even if it is incomplete, tell me that there is something between us which could grow and grow.
‘I love you, Jenna,’ he said simply, but she heard the unfamiliar tremble of emotion in his voice.
Tears brightened her eyes and then his voice became urgent. ‘Don’t you know that, my own sweet love? Believe me when I tell you that I have always loved you.
Always
,’ he breathed, but his face tightened with a fleeting look of regret. ‘I thought I needed to find out what I was missing,’ he sighed. ‘Only now I realise that I wasn’t missing anything at all.’
‘But you let me go away to America,’ she accused, though as accusations went it was pretty much on the gentle side.
‘Don’t you know why?’ he demanded. ‘I had just inherited a country in turmoil—so how in heaven’s name could I have taken on a wife at the same time?’
‘And if I’d stayed then you couldn’t have gone on having all your other women, could you?’ she asked jealously.
‘If you’d stayed I would have been unable to think or eat or sleep or breathe with the frustration of wanting you,’ he admitted heatedly. ‘Your beauty exploded into life like a flower, my sweet Jenna, and it so captured me with its sweet perfume that I was unable to think of anything else. And certainly not about Quador.’ He bent his face close to hers. ‘Oh, Jenna—can you still find it in your heart to love me, my wife?’
For the first time in her life she saw vulnerability written on the proud, cold face of a man whom she had always considered to be invulnerable.
But beneath the magnificent body and the heavy weight of his destiny he was reaching out for her in a way she had always dreamed of. Stripping away the proud and arrogant
exterior to show her, and only her, the heart of the man which lay beneath.
‘Can you?’ he repeated huskily. ‘Love me?’
She felt filled with a new and heady kind of power, and she curved her lips into a thoughtful smile.
‘I can,’ she agreed serenely.
He briefly closed his eyes and expelled a long, shuddering breath, unaware that he had been holding it. ‘And I will spend the rest of my life showing you how much I love you,’ he promised shakily.
It was time to test out her new power! ‘I shall look forward to that,’ she purred, but shook her head as he lowered his mouth to claim hers in a kiss. ‘On two conditions, Rashid.’
‘Conditions?’ He frowned the frown of a man who was unused to making concessions of any kind. ‘What kind of conditions?’ he asked suspiciously. ‘And how many?’
‘Only two,’ she answered demurely.
‘Then name them!’
‘Firstly, I want to use my law training to help negotiate the freedom of the Quador press.’
‘A free press?’ Rashid demanded. ‘It is unheard of!’
‘In the past, yes. But the internet has made news so accessible,’ she argued. ‘You know it has! So why must we be dragged kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century, my love? Why not embrace change willingly?’
He frowned, unable to fault her logic. ‘And the second condition?’ he growled.
‘I want you to persuade my father to allow my sister to marry the man she loves.’
T
HE
band was playing as Rashid smiled down into his wife’s eyes. ‘A very different wedding from our own,’ he observed softly.
She smiled back at him. These days she never seemed to stop smiling! ‘Outwardly, very different indeed,’ she agreed, her voice low. ‘But you were the one who once told me that a wedding is a wedding is a wedding. And the emotion is the same for everyone, surely?’
He shook his head. ‘No man could love a woman as much as I love you, Jenna,’ he declared.
Well, she certainly wasn’t going to argue with
that
!
They were gathered at one of Long Island’s most glittering hotels, waiting for the wedding of her sister Nadia to Brad Toulmin, a ceremony made possible by the intervention of her Sheikh.
Jenna had told Rashid all about Nadia and Brad’s forbidden love affair, and his calm and accepting reaction had both surprised and delighted her.
‘The ways of the heart are mysterious,’ he had commented thoughtfully. ‘What use will it serve if they are forced to part and Nadia comes home to marry a Quadorian if she is not happy? No use at all!’ he had finished passionately.
It had been Rashid himself who had broken the news to her father.
‘Two such different cultures!’ her father had protested. ‘It is rare for such a union to last!’
‘But you married an American yourself, Bulent,’ Rashid had pointed out softly. ‘Why should your daughter not do the same?’
It was unarguable logic and the older man had caved in immediately.
And of course, as Jenna had gleefully told Nadia afterwards, how could their father possibly refuse Rashid anything? He
was
the Sheikh!
The wedding was to be held in the extravagant flower-laden gardens of the hotel, and Jenna was brimming over with excitement. And with love. It seemed scarcely credible that it was over a year since their own wedding. The last six months had whizzed by like six seconds, and they had been so very happy together. She looked up to find her husband watching her closely.
‘What is it?’ she questioned.
He smiled. Sometimes he felt as though she could read his mind! Come to think of it, she probably could! She could certainly twist him with great ease around her little finger. He had made many concessions to his fiery wife to improve the quality of their life together—and had actually discovered that he enjoyed making them, much to his surprise. He had begun to delegate more, and to trust her with his confidences. And every week they spent a whole day and night together which were set aside just for the two of them.
But Jenna was busy herself these days, helping to free the Quador Press—to the complete astonishment of the world at large.
‘You know that such a move will boost your international standing, Rashid,’ she had told her husband winningly.
And of course she had been right.
He sighed with a tender indulgence. When was she ever wrong?
‘Do you grow more beautiful with each day that passes?’ he questioned softly, thinking how radiant she looked today.
‘Well, I certainly hope so,’ she said demurely, and then looked up at him. ‘Do you still want to give me a baby, darling?’
He nodded and traced the outline of her lip with the tip of his finger. ‘Yes, I do—but I’m not sure that I can bear to share you with anyone just yet,’ he admitted slowly. ‘Imagine what my people would say if they knew that!’
She hid a smile. The Rashid of old would never have put
his feelings on the line like that! But she had taught him that communication was vital in a happy marriage. And that love and showing your feelings never equalled weakness. ‘Then we’ll wait a little longer, shall we?’
‘You don’t mind?’
She shook her head. ‘The only thing I would ever mind would be if I didn’t have you,’ she said seriously.
‘Then only death shall part us, my sweet.’ And he brushed his lips against hers, feeling her shiver beneath him, loving her instant responsiveness. ‘I wish I could take you to bed right now,’ he said huskily.
The band began to strike up the ‘Wedding March’, and Jenna slipped her hand into his.
‘You’ll have to wait for that too, my Sheikh.’
‘Not for too long,’ he growled, sizzling her a look of hungry intent which set her heart racing.
‘N-no, not for too long,’ she agreed unsteadily, and with a harmony of body language which reflected their closeness more than words ever could they both turned round to watch the marriage service begin.