The Sheikh's Jewel (15 page)

‘Ask yourself,’ she retorted in a voice that shook just a little.

‘Ah, thank you,
mee johara.
That means I did.’ He grinned at her as her eyes smoked with fury. ‘Ah, of course…you still want to know what I think a wife is?’

Her chin lifted.

‘You,’ he answered, trying to douse the flames in her heart. ‘That’s all. When I think of “a wife”, I think of you. Just as you are.’

‘Don’t,’ she snarled without warning. ‘Don’t worm your way in with pretty words and compliments. I thought you were dead—that—that they’d killed you. Or that you were never coming back. Why else would you not contact me once? What did I do to—to…?’ She pulled at his hands until he released her. She’d startled him right out of his cocky assurance, and his belief that he’d win. She faced him, panting, her eyes shimmering with pain. ‘I
loved
you. I loved you with all of me, I gave you everything I had, and you just left. You left me for the sake of the brother who’d abandoned and betrayed you. Do you have any idea what that did to me?’

Bewildered, he spoke from depths he hadn’t known were in him. ‘But he’s my family, Amber. I had no choice. It was my duty.’

‘What about me?’ she cried. ‘Was it your
duty
to seduce and then abandon me, to hurt me the way Alim hurt you? Do I have to run off like he did to make you see I’m alive and that I
hurt?
’ She held up a hand when he would have spoken. ‘I—I can’t do this any more. I tried, Harun, I tried to make things work with you for three years. I tried to show you that love isn’t manipulation and emotional blackmail, but you won’t see it. I’m tired of hitting my head against a wall. Believe Fadi and not me, and spend your life alone!’

She ran for the balcony doors.

Love isn’t manipulation and emotional blackmail…believe Fadi…

That was what Fadi had done to him since childhood, and he’d never known it until now. But she had. She’d seen that he’d gained Fadi’s love and approval by doing anything asked of him, no matter what it cost him personally. Fadi hadn’t known any better, but followed the example set by their parents. Alim had found a way to escape from it, and somehow, somewhere in his worldwide travels, had learned how to love. But he, Harun, had stayed like a whipped dog, always saying yes, because he accepted the manipulation—because he didn’t know any better.

In three long years, Amber had asked only one thing of him—and he hadn’t even given her that, because she didn’t manipulate or blackmail him into it.

If someone loves you, they ask the impossible over and over…
and he’d believed it was normal, even right; his duty.

Amber hadn’t asked him to change, or to slay dragons for her. So he’d never believed she loved him. Not until now, when she’d stripped his lifelong beliefs in a moment, left him bare and bleeding, and she was leaving him.

He couldn’t stand it, couldn’t take losing her. This time would be for ever—

‘I love you.’ Three raw, desperate words.
God, let them be enough, let her stay. Come back to me, Amber…

Her hand on the door handle, she turned, and hope soared—

She made a small, choking sound, the one she made when she was about to cry. ‘I can’t believe you’d be so cruel, after what they did to you. Don’t ever use those words against me again.’

Then she was gone. Harun stood by the balcony rail, exposed to the bone, the world’s greatest fool.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I
T
was 3 a.m. and Harun was pounding the road, gasping with each breath and pushing himself still harder. At least ten miles from the palace, his guards were running behind him and finding it hard to keep up. It had been hours since he’d seen Alim and Hana to their bridal chamber. He’d shepherded all of the guests downstairs, made sure the food and drink still overflowed for anyone who wanted it. He’d chatted amiably with heads of state he’d known for years, had quietly warned their friendlier neighbours against trusting certain people among the nations surrounding them, and in general played the perfect host.

The perfect host, the perfect brother,
he thought now, with an inner wryness that never made it to his expression.
Why can’t I be the perfect husband?

He wished he knew how to be everything Amber wanted…

What does she want?
an imp in his mind prodded.
All she ever wanted was you. But you pushed her away and abandoned her until it was too late. What does she want now
—
the freedom from you she’d asked for months ago?

Her words replayed over and over in his brain.
I thought you were dead. Or that you were never coming back. Love isn’t manipulation and emotional blackmail.

He was missing something. It wasn’t in Amber’s nature to hurt him without a reason; he knew that now. Everything she’d said taught him what love wasn’t.

So what the hell
was
it, then? It seemed she had the secret, but he’d been deaf and blind the whole time she was trying to tell or show him.

He thought she’d
wanted
to hear he loved her. So what had gone so wrong?

At four a.m., he came to the inescapable conclusion: there was only one way to find out. He wheeled around and ran back for the palace, much to the relief of his stitching, gasping guards.

Five a.m.

‘My Lord, it’s written in the law! You cannot come into this place!’

‘Unless you are the ruling sheikh—or the woman in question is your wife. I know the law. Is there any woman in here but my wife?’

‘There is the maid, My Lord!’

‘Then I suggest you send her out immediately. I will give you three minutes, then I am coming in no matter what—and I suggest you don’t argue with me. I doubt you possess the skills to stop me.’

‘Your wife is sleeping. Would you wake her?’

‘No, she’s not. She’s behind the door, listening, as she has been since about a minute after I began yelling for her. I knew she’d be awake, or I wouldn’t have come.’

The tone was more grim than amused. Even with her throat and eyes on fire, Amber smiled a bit. The door had no glass; he’d just known she’d be waiting for him.

‘Let him in, Tahir,’ she called, opening the door. ‘I’ll send Sabetha out.’

The maid, wakened by Harun’s first roar for Amber, scuttled past her. Harun shouldered past the guard, snarling, ‘No listening. If there’s any gossip about this, you both lose your positions.’

‘We love the lady Amber, My Lord,’ little, delicate Sabetha said, with gentle dignity.

His face softened at that. ‘I’m grateful for your loyalty to the lady Amber. I beg your pardon for insulting you.’

Sabetha smiled up at him, not with infatuation but instant affection. Tahir smiled also, but with a manly kind of understanding; he’d forgiven his lord.

Harun seemed to have the knack of making people care. She just wished he knew how to care in return.

In softer mode now, he walked into the room and closed the door. But instead of talking, he just looked at her until she wanted to squirm. ‘Well?’ she demanded, or tried to. It sounded breathless, hopeful.

Would she ever stop being a fool over this man?

‘You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen or will ever see,’ he said, with a quiet sincerity that made her breath take up unmoving lodgings in her throat. ‘I thought that the first time I saw you, and I still think it now.’

She lifted her chin, letting him see her devastated face clearly, her tangled hair and the salt tracks lining her cheeks. ‘I’ve spent the past six hours crying and hating you, so it might be best if you use less practised lines. You have five minutes to give me a compelling reason to let you stay here any longer.’

‘That you’ve cried over me only makes you more beautiful in my eyes.’

‘That’s nice.’ Tapping her foot, she looked at her watch. ‘Four minutes forty-five seconds.’

He closed his eyes. ‘I don’t know how to love any other way but through doing what I perceived as my duty. I thought it was all I had to give.’ Taking her by the shoulders, he opened his eyes, looked at her as if she was his path to salvation and rushed the words out, as if he didn’t say everything now, he never would. ‘Those two days we were together, I felt like I was flying. Now it’s gone, and the past few months I felt like I was starving to death. I’m suffocating under duty, lost and wandering and alone, and nothing works. I need you, Amber, by God I need you. Please, can you teach me how to make you happy—because without you, I never will be. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, can’t think about anything but touching you, being with you again.’ He dragged her against him, and she didn’t have the heart or will to pull away. ‘Don’t deny me, Amber, because I won’t go, not tonight, not any night. Teach me the words you want to hear. I’ll say whatever you need, do whatever it takes, because right now I need you more than my next breath. I can’t let you keep shutting me out, not when you’re everything to me.’

Ouch
—it hurt to try to gulp with her mouth still open. How did he turn up just when she’d given up hope, and say the words she needed to hear more than life?

With a tiny noise, she buried her face in his neck. ‘Me too, oh, me too, I need you so much,’ she whispered as she cannoned into him, her fingers winding in his hair to pull him down to her. ‘You just said everything I needed to know.’

‘Except one thing,’ he muttered hoarsely between kisses. ‘I love you, Amber. I have from the day we met. I just never knew how to say it, or how to believe you could ever love me in return.’

‘Do you believe it now?’ she whispered, pulling back a little. This was something she had to know now.

He smiled down at her. ‘I knew it the day you yelled at Alim, my jewel. It’s why I came back today so full of confidence. I’d hoped missing me would have softened you. But you taught me a valuable lesson tonight—that I have to trust in our love, and talk to you.’ He nuzzled her lips. ‘I’ll never put you last again. From now on, you’re my family, my first duty. My desire, my passion. My precious jewel.’

‘I’m so happy,’ she cried, kissing him. ‘But though your words are wonderful, I want you to show me the desire and passion. I’ve missed you so much!’

He didn’t need to be told twice. Devouring each other in desperate kisses, mumbling more words of desire and need, they staggered together back to the bed.

Later that morning

The sun was well up when Harun began to stir.

Amber was curled against him like a contented cat, her head on his chest, her body wound around his, one leg and arm holding him to her. He smiled, and kissed the top of her head. Her hair was splayed across his body; her breaths warmed his skin.

Unable to make the mat to give his morning prayer, he gave his thanks in silence, deep and heartfelt.
Thank you for helping me find the way back to her again.

They’d made love twice, first in a frenzy and then slow and ecstatic. They’d said words of need and pleasure and love during the past four hours.

Now it was time for the next step.

‘Amber.’ He bent his head to kiss the top of her head. ‘Love, we need to talk. No, I said
talk,
my jewel.’ He laughed as she kissed his chest, slow and sensuous. ‘I’ve made some arrangements for us I hope you’ll like.’

‘Mmm-hmm,’ she mumbled through kisses. ‘Tell me.’

‘Are you listening?’ He laughed again. She was peppering his torso with kisses and caresses, and he was getting distracted.

‘Uh-huh, I always listen to you. Mmm…’ More kisses. ‘Hurry,
habibi,
it’s been at least two hours since we made love. I need you.’

‘I’ve secured us two part-time, unpaid places on a dig only half an hour’s drive from the University of Araba Numara…and while I do my doctorate, you’ll be finishing your course face to face.’

That stopped her. Completely. She gaped up at him. ‘You know about my course?’

‘Why do you think I applied for positions near that university? I’ve known everything you’ve been doing the past four months—and it made me so proud of you.’

‘You—you don’t mind?’ she asked, half shyly. ‘About being a woman and getting all high distinctions, I mean?’

‘No, of course not—I’ve heard you’ve got lots of distinctions—I’m so proud of you. I’ve never felt threatened by your intelligence, Amber,’ he said quietly. ‘And I trust you completely. As I said, your success has made me so proud of you,
mee johara.
I married a woman of great intellect as well as good taste—in loving history and her husband.’ He winked at her. ‘Do my arrangements meet with your approval?’

‘Approval? Oh, you have no idea! I love you, I love you!’

‘We’ll be living in the same tents as everyone else, I warn you,’ he put in with mock-sternness, but was turning to fire again at her touch. ‘And it will mean no babies until you’re done with your course.’

Again she looked up at him, almost in wonder. ‘You don’t mind waiting for children?’

‘I’ve waited all this time for you,’ he murmured, with the utmost tenderness. ‘I can wait a little more for our family to start.’

‘I love you,’ she whispered again, with all the vivid intensity of her nature, and pulled him down on top of her.

Strange how falling down actually felt like flying…

EPILOGUE

Eight years later

‘I
T’S
a girl!’

In the sorting tent, deep in diagnosis of the siftings he’d just dug up, Harun frowned vaguely at his wife’s excited voice coming from behind him. ‘Hmm? What was that?’

‘Harun, we have a new niece. Hana had a girl about an hour ago.’

‘That’s great. Look at this piece I found,
mee johara.
Is this beer jug belly Sumerian, do you think?’

‘Harun, look at me.’ Gently he was turned around. He knew, having finished her archaeology degree last year, as excited by the past as he could ever hope for, Amber wouldn’t risk disturbing his findings. But, as she always said,
without families there wouldn’t be history to discover.
‘Hana had a girl an hour ago. They named her Johara.’

The look in Amber’s eyes warned him to return to the present. He blinked, focusing on what he’d only half-heard, and slowly grinned. ‘That’s wonderful! We have a niece at last. Kalila will be thrilled.’

Their five-year-old daughter always felt left out of her boy cousins’ rowdy play. She was a girly-girl, and even though she was as enthusiastic as her parents on the digs, she somehow managed to stay clean. The only time she had someone as fastidious as her on the digs was when Naima stayed for the school breaks. Kalila adored her cousin, and followed her around like a puppy.

At not yet four, their son Tarif fitted in splendidly with his male cousins, rolling around as happily on the palace floors, indulging in masculine play with his father and uncle. But when on the dig, he confined his rougher antics to the hours Harun kept sacred for play with his son. He knew better than to disturb any promising-looking holes in the ground, though Harun swore their son was a genius from the day he’d inadvertently found the site of an ancient temple’s foundations when he was trying to poke in a snake hole. ‘Abi, Abi, pretty rocks over there,’ he’d said, growing distressed until Harun followed his little son to the other side of the
tell,
where they hadn’t yet sectioned off the ground to look.

Amber grinned. ‘I’ve booked the jet for Monday. I can’t fly after that, as you know—’ the slight stress on
know
told him if he didn’t remember she was twenty-seven weeks pregnant, he’d better catch up with real life and fast ‘—and I want to see my…well, my sort-of namesake.’

‘Oh, of course she is.’ Harun grinned again. ‘I’m sure they named her for you, my jewel,’ he assured her with mock-gravity.

Laughing, she swatted him with her fingers. ‘You could at least pretend to believe it. You know I’m in a very delicate state right now.’

Both brows lifted with that one. ‘Um, yes, very delicate,’ he agreed. ‘Remind me again how your delicate condition meant you had to crawl ahead of me five days ago into an unstable subterranean chamber?’ Not to mention that, at night, she was the one to instigate loving as often as he did. They’d have at least six children by now, if they hadn’t planned their family carefully around Amber’s studies.

Finding no answer for his teasing, Amber put her nose in the air; then she looked at the small piece he’d found. ‘Oh, I do concur, it is part of a beer jug, and it definitely looks the right period. It’s a shame it isn’t Amalekite. We’re still not there,’ she teased, backing off as he mock waved his fist at her. ‘It’s a very good piece. But you might want to call the family and congratulate them before you get lost in the Sumerian period again,’ she suggested, turning his face back to her as her opinion distracted him. ‘One more,’ she murmured, kissing him again, deepening it to keep him in the here and now.

‘One more kiss like that and I’ll forget the Sumerian artefact as well as our new niece,’ he mock threatened as his body awoke.

‘Not you, my love,’ she retorted, laughing. ‘And anyway, there’s always tonight.’

As if on cue, the baby kicked its father, squirming around as if to say,
Not again, you two!
It was a chant almost everyone on any dig said to them, sooner or later. Whether it was over their almost scary connection over their love of ancient history or their knowledge of ancient finds, or their touching and kissing so often when they were together, the protest was as loud as it was meant in fun.
I wish I could find what you two have,
was the lament of so many people on the digs, when another relationship failed with someone who could never understand the archaeologist’s absorbing passion for the past.

‘Okay, little one, okay,’ he said softly, caressing Amber’s belly, leaning down to kiss his child. ‘I think you’re being told to rest, my jewel.’

‘I think I am.’ She smothered a yawn. ‘Tarif will wake in about an hour, so I’d better get there.’ She gave him one final kiss. ‘But I want to hear all about the jug later—and don’t think the other part of tonight’s forgotten, either.’

‘Never,’ he assured her with a wink. ‘Both have been duly noted.’

‘And call Alim,’ she reminded him a final time, at the tent flap. ‘Don’t forget to call Naima too. Tell her the car will pick her up the day we arrive, if Buhjah doesn’t have anything else planned for her.’

Grinning, he waved in acceptance. Amber returned to their family tent where Tarif still slept in a partitioned-off section, and at the other end Kalila endured her long-suffering tutor’s lessons on mathematics.

Harun, smiling as he always did when Amber had been with him or when he thought of his family, pulled out his phone to call his niece. Naima was thrilled she had a new girl cousin, and, after consulting with Buhjah, told him she could join in the family celebrations. He chatted with her for a few minutes longer, hearing all about her studies and her other family, the antics of her younger half-brothers at home, before hanging up with a smile.

Then he called the palace to congratulate Alim and Hana, and to hear about his new niece. The bubbling joy in his brother’s voice when he spoke of their new ‘little jewel’ made Harun’s cup run over.

He was a blessed man.

* * * * *