The Sultan's Choice (15 page)

Just then her door opened and Sadiq filled the space, broad shoulders blocking out the light. Samia felt that awful rush of emotion and dampened it down. She was still angry with him. She had wanted to be able to turn her back on him when he’d come to bed the previous nights, but with awful predictability within seconds she’d been incapable of remembering her name, never mind saying no to Sadiq.

Conversation had been nil, but Samia had woken up during the night and found herself wrapped tightly in Sadiq’s embrace. She’d stayed awake for a long time, relishing the contact she knew he’d break free of as soon as he woke.

She strove for cool uninterest now. ‘Can I help you?’

Sadiq’s mouth twitched ever so slightly and Samia flushed. Even now he was laughing at her. But then he strode in and her mind blanked. He plucked the sheet of paper she’d been studying out of her hands and perused it, before calmly tearing it in two.

Samia looked open-mouthed from it to Sadiq. ‘What did you do that for?’

‘Because your secretary is going to draw you up a new schedule and it’ll consist only of the events that you wish to go to.’

Samia repeated stupidly, ‘Secretary? I don’t have a secretary.’

Sadiq indicated for Samia to get up and follow him, and said, ‘You do now. It sounds like you’re going to be busy enough to need one.’

Struck dumb, Samia followed Sadiq out of the room and into another one, much bigger, just down the hall. It was bright and airy, and the castle workmen who were busy putting up shelves stopped working and bowed deferentially.

Sadiq said brusquely, ‘Leave us, please, for a moment.’

The men filed out and Samia turned around. There was a huge desk, complete with computer, printer, fax machine. A small anteroom was obviously the secretary’s office.

She was almost too scared to look at Sadiq—afraid of what he might see on her face. ‘What is this …? Why have you done this?’

He sighed and she looked up. His face was unreadable. ‘The truth is that I did have a preconceived notion of the role my wife would fulfil, and was quite happy to acknowledge
that it wouldn’t impinge on my own role at all. Merely enhance it.’ He smiled tightly. ‘I should have known that you wouldn’t be happy with that. I like your ideas. And I’m sorry for doubting your ability to start them and finish them. I watched my father do that for years—when he died and I took over he’d left behind him a trail of destruction and half finished projects. I vowed not to let that happen again. I’ve wielded control for so long that it’s challenging to allow myself to hand some of it over now.’

More moved than she wanted to show, Samia said quietly, ‘I thought this marriage would be a partnership … apart from everything else.’

‘It is, Samia. I want you to be happy here.’

Samia’s heart ached at his gesture, and ached in a different way at his impersonal words. She wouldn’t be truly happy here unless a miracle happened and the block of ice in Sadiq’s chest melted. But this was a start. She smiled, and her heart thumped when she saw his eyes flare. They had chemistry too, and that was something to build on.

Feeling optimistic for the first time in days, Samia said simply, ‘Thank you. I appreciate this, and I won’t let you down.’

Sadiq felt a physical pain somewhere in the region of his chest at the sheer happiness in Samia’s face. And he felt better than he had in days. A black mood had pervaded his whole being ever since their last exchange, and his conscience hadn’t allowed him to continue functioning until he’d rectified the situation.

Before Samia could see how her happiness seemed to be having a disturbing effect on him, he grabbed the two hard hats he’d left on the desk earlier and handed one to her. ‘Come on. I’ve something else to show you.’

A few minutes later Samia couldn’t stop the tears from stinging her eyes. Sadiq had brought her to the back of the
castle, where construction work was already starting on a crèche and playground. That potent image of Sadiq and a little toddler rose up again and wouldn’t leave her alone. It was like a taunt.

When Sadiq turned and saw her glistening eyes, and asked sharply, ‘What is it?’ Samia panicked and muttered something about grit getting in her eye.

To her utter surprise Sadiq immediately picked her up into his arms and, despite her heated remonstrations that she was fine, took her straight to the castle’s full-time nurse. Samia was brick-red with mortification, absolutely certain that the nurse would see full well that she’d just been crying and had lied shamefully. But to her abject relief Sadiq said he had to go to a meeting and left her saying something about working late. Samia was too distracted to care.

It was only when she lay in bed alone that night that she frowned slightly, trying to remember that Sadiq had said. A little dart of emotion made her breath hitch. The fact was he’d done a great thing today, and changed the anatomy of their marriage and Samia’s role within it in one fell swoop. But apart from that, the distance between them was as great as ever.

Sadiq didn’t seem remotely interested in involving Samia in any aspect of his life that wasn’t about sex or official duties. There was no suggestion of dinner, or meeting for lunch. No suggestion of a
relationship.
And why should there be? she remonstrated with herself. She was the one yearning for more, not him. He’d got exactly what he wanted from this marriage, even if she was demanding a bigger role than he would have expected or liked.

But she couldn’t help thinking back to those few days of the honeymoon, when it had felt as if they’d really been getting to know one another. Samia had enjoyed spending time with him. They’d talked. But she didn’t need to be reminded
that their conversation over dinner when he’d told her about his father had been their last conversation of any depth or substance. Clearly that had been an aberration that Sadiq had no intention of repeating.

Samia finally fell asleep, and tried not to mind very much that she had no idea where Sadiq was.

T
HREE
weeks later Sadiq was sitting in his study with a glass of whisky in his hand. He grimaced at himself. This was becoming a habit. Work until his vision blurred, wait around, and then go to bed. Invariably when Samia was already asleep or half asleep.

Each night he told himself he would be strong enough to resist her lure, that he wasn’t some animal, a slave to his base instincts, but when he pulled back the covers and saw those delicate curves … that long hair … fire consumed him and he jumped into the pit. Every night. And she gave with the wild abandon he’d grown addicted to every night.

He grimaced again. Since when had his shy wife grown so un-shy that she felt comfortable sleeping naked? The thought of her now, naked in the bed, made him grip the glass so tight that it cracked in his palm. Sadiq saw the trickle of blood fall on his robe, and for a moment pain blocked out the ever-present awareness, and he had an insight into why people might seek pain as a sort of anaesthetic.

He smiled at his own bleak humour and got up to tend to his cut. The good mood he’d been in for days after showing Samia her new office, telling her that she had
carte blanche
to do pretty much whatever she liked, was wearing off and being replaced with something much darker and more insidious.

It didn’t help that he was well aware that he was doing his utmost to avoid spending any time with his wife. Because whenever he was alone with her he couldn’t think straight. All rational thought went out of the window and he found himself filled with bizarre longings that had nothing to do with lust—although that was ever-present—and more to do with something more intangible. Like the urge he’d had in Nazirat to take Samia deep into the desert.

It was too reminiscent of the moods he’d seen grip his father. What more evidence did he need than the fact he was breaking glasses in his hand just thinking of Samia? She was dangerous.

Sadiq patched up his hand and caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror. His eyes were glittering as if he had a fever. His jaw was stubbled with a day’s growth of beard. He looked a little wild. He suddenly realised that this situation was untenable, and a surge of anger at Samia and her innocently sleeping presence made him switch off the light and stride from his study.

The following evening Samia was looking at her pink face in the steamed-up bathroom mirror. She knew it was crazy to feel disappointed—the chasm that currently existed between her and Sadiq was no place to be bringing a baby. If she’d thought that his
volte-face
about her involvement in their marriage had signified a change, then she’d been mistaken. If anything, Sadiq was growing even more distant. She put her hand to her flat belly and bit her lip. She’d just seen the spotting which signified that she wasn’t pregnant.

She heard him moving in the bedroom outside and tensed. They were going to a function being held in the castle that evening—an acknowledgement of Sadiq’s fundraising for charities. Taking a deep breath, she tightened the robe around
her body and went out. Sadiq was stripping off his shirt and immediately Samia’s pulse went into overdrive.

He caught her look and his mouth curled. ‘Don’t look at me like that,
habiba.
We don’t have time to make something of it.’

Samia flushed, and flushed even harder when she thought of how their lovemaking last night had been imbued with something almost desperate. She’d only noticed the makeshift bandage on Sadiq’s hand afterwards, and the red stain of blood. Her heart clenching, she’d asked, ‘What happened?’

He’d taken his hand back and said brusquely, ‘Nothing. Just a glass that broke.’

And, practically jackknifing off the bed, he’d then informed her that he’d just remembered a speech he had to work on, and pulled on some clothes and gone back to his office. Samia knew he’d only returned to their bedroom to shower that morning. So he must have slept in his office.

She thought of that now, and wanted to feel relief as she said, ‘There’s something I should tell you.’

He looked at her, naked now apart from form-fitting boxers that held a distinctive bulge.

Samia swallowed. She had to get sex off her brain. ‘I’m not pregnant.’

For a long moment Sadiq was silent. She couldn’t read his reaction. And then he just calmly pulled on his pants and said, ‘Good. That’s good. Thank you for letting me know.’ His eyes flicked her up and down and she felt it like the lash of a whip. ‘We’re leaving in twenty minutes.’

Chin hitched up, Samia said, ‘I’ll be ready.’

And she was—with not a hint of her reaction on her face to his emotionless response to the news that she wasn’t pregnant.

An hour later Sadiq was still coming to grips with the fact that he’d felt disappointed to hear that Samia wasn’t
pregnant—as if something elusive had slipped out of his grasp. He’d had an almost primal urge to make love to her when she’d said that, as if to ensure that she
did
get pregnant when she’d expressly told him she didn’t want that.

He felt weak, at the mercy of something he had no control over. She’d taken his injured hand in hers last night, and the feel of those small cool hands had provoked an urge to put his head on Samia’s breast and have her hold him. It had been strong enough to make him run. And he’d spent the night on the couch in his office, waking with a dry mouth and in a foul humour that was getting fouler by the minute.

Especially when he saw Samia across the room, laughing up into the face of a handsome man whom Sadiq recognised as one of his scientists involved in environmental research. He knew Samia had been having meetings with them last week, and to think she was cultivating a relationship—no matter how innocent—with this man was enough to propel him across the room in seconds. He took Samia’s arm in his hand, relishing the feel of the delicate muscles. She was his. The other man backed away hurriedly, as if Sadiq had just snarled at him like an animal.

He heard Samia’s husky voice. ‘Sadiq? Is everything okay?’

He looked down at her and something solidified inside him. ‘No,’ he bit out grimly. ‘Everything is not okay.’

Samia watched him locking the door behind them. He’d all but marched her into an empty anteroom, and the fierce look on his face scared her slightly. ‘What’s going on, Sadiq?’

‘What’s going on is that I leave your side for two minutes and you’re flirting with another man.’

She gaped at him. ‘Flirting? I can assure you that I was
not flirting. Hamad was telling me about his two-year-old son, if you must know.’

Sadiq rocked back on his heels, hands in his pockets. He said almost musingly, but with a dangerous undercurrent, ‘When we first met you would have had me believe that you’d be quaking in your shoes in a situation like that, and yet you’re remarkably eager to leave my side and talk to relative strangers.’

Hurt scored Samia’s insides. She wasn’t about to let him know how vulnerable she still felt in those situations, or why the only reason she felt she could deal with them was because he was by her side, or nearby. Even just to see him across a room was enough.

She tossed her head, knowing she was playing with fire. ‘Are you accusing me of lying, Sadiq? Pretending that I was shy and insecure? And am I not
meant
to leave your side? I thought part of my brief as your queen of convenience was to
work.’

She couldn’t stop now. ‘Because that’s what this marriage is, isn’t it, Sadiq? It’s just a job, with a bit of sex thrown in. You can’t even be bothered to pretend it’s anything else and have
one
evening meal with me. We have nothing to discuss.’

Sadiq moved fast enough to shock Samia. He was right in front of her, saying harshly, ‘You’ve certainly shown me intriguing facets to your personality that weren’t in evidence when we first met.’ His eyes were bright with a feral glitter as they dropped down and took in where her cleavage was revealed in the silk of the simple dress. ‘And there’s
plenty
we could discuss, Samia.’

She took a step back, railing against the evidence that he resented the aspects of her that had started to emerge as if from a long hibernation, and fought the dismayingly familiar lure to merge with this man. ‘I’m not talking about sex,
Sadiq. I’m talking about the fact that you want an identikit wife and that’s not what I am.’

Her voice was bitter. ‘Obviously you’d prefer it if I’d stayed shy and gauche, but you’re the one who has been encouraging me to overcome that shyness. You can’t have it both ways, Sadiq. Perhaps there’s no point to this marriage if you can’t see that?’

He went very still. ‘What are you saying? That you want out?’

Samia blinked. It felt as if they had jumped about three levels up from where she’d thought they were. For the first time in years she stuttered. ‘N-no. I mean, I d-don’t know. I didn’t mean that. I just mean that we don’t seem to have anything—’ she blushed ‘—but the sex.’

The stutter got him right in the gut. That glaring sign of vulnerability underneath the thin veneer of bravado made something break inside Sadiq. His anger was defused and he saw in an instant how hard she was trying. He also recognised that she was all of the things she’d been that first day she’d met him and yet was also the emerging strong woman who had been repressed for so long.

She was the woman who still clung on to his hand with a death grip for the first few minutes in a crowded room until she was comfortable enough to leave his side. She was the woman with the tattoo above her buttocks, who could dune-drive and throw herself into the building of a crèche with so much enthusiasm that only last week he’d found her in dusty overalls, making sweet tea for the workers and laughing with them.

And she was the only woman he’d ever wanted to take deep into the desert and seduce in a bedouin tent erected just for her.

Panic and a feeling of constriction so strong that Sadiq had to stop himself undoing his bowtie forced him to speak
the words that had just formed in his head from somewhere deep and dark inside him. ‘If you want to leave this marriage, I’ll give you a divorce.’

Samia looked at Sadiq, shock numbing her from the inside out. ‘If
I
want to leave, you’ll give me a divorce?’

He nodded, his face once again a mask of inscrutability.

Samia had the urge to slap him—hard. Feeling slightly desperate, she said, ‘But I’ve committed to this marriage, to you. I’m learning to find my feet … I’m happy here.’

A voice mocked her.
Really? You’re happy to be in this relationship with a man who doesn’t love you and never will?

Suddenly insecure in a way she hadn’t felt for some weeks now, Samia looked at Sadiq, even though it was hard. ‘You want to divorce
me.’

He shook his head. ‘That’s not what I’m saying. I’m offering you the choice. I’d be quite happy to stay married, but I don’t think you’re happy.’
Liar,
a voice mocked him.
You’re going slowly insane.

Samia wanted to sit down. ‘Why?’ she asked.

Sadiq sighed deeply and ran a hand through his hair, leaving it dishevelled. The muted chink of glasses and the hum of conversation from outside went unnoticed. ‘Because you never wanted this marriage, and because I all but railroaded you into it. I don’t relish the prospect of a wife who is going to feel she’s in a situation she can’t leave and grow to resent the feeling of being trapped. I watched my mother go through that and I won’t be responsible for the same thing. I don’t want to bring a child into that environment. Needless to say, if you do want to leave it won’t affect my relationship with Burquat.’

‘You’ve thought about this,’ Samia said dully, the pain of that making her want to curl up somewhere.

Sadiq curbed the urge to contradict her. It seemed to be
a very simple equation in his head—hand Samia every tool or reason she might need to leave and she would leave. And he would feel sane again.

‘What if I don’t want to leave?’

There was something slightly defiant in her tone, and it made Sadiq alternately panicked and euphoric. Angry at the fact that she was once again confounding his expectations, he said, ‘You’ll have to come to terms with what this marriage is, Samia. Unless things have changed for you this is still an arranged marriage, and we are together for many reasons—none of which is about love. So I can’t guarantee to be more invested than I already am.’

Every word landed on Samia like a little bomb. It was as if she’d asked silently for him to really spell it out, because she wasn’t quite sure what he meant. To save herself from the final humiliation, she said coolly, ‘I know what the parameters of this marriage are, Sadiq, but I’d hoped that within that we could find some balance where we at least communicated beyond the bedroom.’

Sadiq gritted out, ‘We’re communicating now.’

‘Yes, and it’s very clear. Can I have some time to think about this?’

Sadiq felt unsteady for a moment, unsettled by Samia’s composure. ‘Of course. This isn’t something that has to be decided any time soon.’

‘It’s good to know there’s no pressure.’

Sadiq heard the sarcasm dripping from her voice, and watched as his wife walked straight-backed to the door, turned the key and went back outside. He felt all at once light-headed, panicky and as if something incredibly precious was slipping away.

When he got back to the main ballroom, though, and saw Samia standing talking to the same man he’d seen her with
before, Sadiq cursed himself for giving her an option to leave at all. He should be divorcing her point-blank—because that was the only solution to this madness.