Forbidden: The Sheikh's Virgin Page 17

  Again came the quiet, chillingly flat voice. ‘I had a kitten he had given me as a wedding present—a perfect Persian kitten, as white as snow. The first time I tried to say no he took it from my hands. He was so angry. I thought he just wanted to get it out of my hands so he could hit me. But he didn’t hit me. He didn’t need to. One minute he was gently stroking the kitten’s fur. The next he had snapped its neck.’ She squeezed her eyes shut, her teeth savaging her lip. ‘He told me it could just as easily be someone I loved, a friend or one of my family, and I believed him. And then he gave me another kitten the next day.’ She looked up at him. ‘I tried to save it, Rafiq, I tried to protect it. Believe me, I tried.’

  He curled his arms more tightly around her, feeling sick to his stomach. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I found it on my pillow, the day Hussein discovered one of the security guards had secretly given me driving lessons. The guard was taken to hospital, bashed senseless. Two lessons! Only two, and that innocent man suffered so much. But Hussein never gave me another kitten after that. He didn’t need to.’

  Tears flooded her beautiful eyes and he held her close and rocked her, not knowing what else to do, what else to say, until she pushed herself up, swiping tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. She took a deep breath and then sighed it out.

  ‘And even though Hussein’s gone, that’s why you can never marry me now. Because as King you will be expected to entertain some of the same people Hussein met, whether it’s the ambassador of Karakhistar or any one of a hundred other dignitaries who saw me being offered in exchange for deals and favours. How can they be expected to meet me? For even if they refused, why would they not believe that someone, some time, would have taken advantage of Hussein’s generous offer? How could such a woman ever be Queen? People will talk. And sooner or later the story will get out. The tabloids would love it. Qusay’s Queen, no more than a harlot. The monarchy would become a joke.’

  And he pulled her to him, crushing her head to his chest, pressing his lips to her hair, wanting to tell her that she was wrong, wanting to tell her that there was a way out, but finding nothing he could say, nothing he could do.

  Because she was right.

  The gossip rags would have a field-day.

  Damn his brother! For, as much as he had a grudging respect for the strength of character that had seen him choose the woman he loved over a responsibility borne of blood, in doing so his brother had ruined Rafiq’s own chance of love.

  If Kareef hadn’t abdicated they could even now have slipped away to Sydney to live in relative anonymity. But as the Queen Sera would be forced to move in the same social circles as she had with Hussein. It was inevitable that she would run across some of the same men Hussein had offered her to. And, as much as he wanted her as his wife, he had seen her reaction today at the ceremony, and he could not do that to her. And, similarly, he could not expose the monarchy to such scandal.

  It would be unworkable. Their marriage would be unworkable. Sera was right. There was no way he could become King, as was his duty, and take Sera for his wife.

  It didn’t stop him trying to work out a way. Lap after lap that evening his swinging arms and kicking legs ate up the pool. Ten laps, then twenty, then thirty, until he had lost count, wanting the pain in his muscles and lungs to overtake the pain in his heart, finally emerging from the pool weak-limbed, with lungs bursting and his mind going over and over the possibilities.

  Qusay needed a king to rule over it.

  Sera needed a man to love her.

  Qusay deserved a king after the hell of the last few weeks.

  Sera deserved a lover who could make her forget the hell of her previous marriage.

  He fell onto a lounger and dropped his face into a towel. How could he be both lover to Sera and King to Qusay?

  And the answer came back in his own fractured heartbeat.

  He could not.

  But neither was he afforded the ultimate choice Kareef had decided upon: to give up the throne for the woman he loved. With no sign of Tahir, no sightings of his helicopter after days of fruitless searching in the seas around Qusay, he had no option to walk away. He was duty-bound to assume the mantle Kareef had flung in his direction.

  This was no mere game of last man standing or pass the parcel. This was about duty and responsibility. The future of a kingdom was at stake and he had no choice.

  But why did it have to come at such a cost? Why should he have to give up Sera?

  Akmal called for him after a restless night during which he had tossed and turned alone until the early hours, before finally sinking into a fitful sleep. He was being asked for at the hospital, came the message, and, knowing who would be making such an enquiry, Rafiq reluctantly dragged himself from bed and towards the shower.

  Sera had refused to sleep with him now that there was no chance they could be together. The sooner they parted, she’d said, the better chance he had to find someone new, someone befitting the title of Sheikha. She would not even accompany him to the hospital. He appreciated her logic even while he doubted it, resenting the thought of having to find another woman when he had her. When he’d thought he had her. How exactly was he supposed to sleep with another woman? How could he give that woman children when it was Sera he wanted in his bed, Sera he hungered to see ripe with his child?

  ‘Any news of Tahir?’ he asked Akmal as they climbed into the waiting limousine, but Akmal merely shook his head. There was no need for words. Each passing day made the likelihood of his younger brother showing up even slimmer. Rafiq felt the noose tighten ever so slightly around his neck.

  Her eyes were closed as he entered her hospital room, but he had the uncanny feeling that even so she missed nothing.

  ‘Prince Rafiq.’ It was a surprisingly clear gaze that met his, the curtains gone from her eyes—eyes that shone a startling green, the colour of the very emeralds the women of Marrash worked wonders with. Set amidst her deeply creviced face, they made her look years younger.

  ‘Abizah. It’s good to see you again.’ He took her gnarled hand. ‘Did the operation go well?’

  ‘Thank you so much,’ she said, with grateful tears in her eyes, clutching his hand between her own papery-skinned fingers. ‘I was hoping you would come, so I could thank you for your generosity. I cannot tell you how wonderful it is for an old woman to see colours and shapes and the beauty of her surroundings.’ She looked around, saw only Akmal standing by the door. ‘But where is your lovely wife?’

  Rafiq drew a sharp breath. Tossed a look at the poker-faced Akmal and wished he’d been in the mountains with them, to hear what Suleman had said about some people thinking she spoke rubbish so that he might understand and not think them both crazy.

  ‘Sera… Sera will visit you later.’

  Abizah looked at him with her unclouded eyes, and Rafiq got the impression she could see all the way into his very soul. ‘I am sorry. I have caused you sadness by asking when I merely wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your kind gesture.’

  ‘My mother loved your gift,’ he said, deflecting the conversation, and at this she smiled.

  ‘Your mother is a fine Sheikha,’ she said with a decisive nod, ‘as will be our next Queen.’

  He turned away. Coming here was pointless. He didn’t want to hear about the next queen, no matter how fine she might be, not when it could not be the woman he loved.

  ‘Prince Rafiq, before you go…’ He stopped and looked back to the woman on the bed. ‘Do not give up hope. Believe. Have faith. There is always an answer.’

  Breath whooshed into his lungs as he took a step forward, his insides flushed with sensation. ‘How…? How is it that you see the things you see?’

  And she smiled at him, a lifetime of wisdom shining forth from her green eyes. ‘Sometimes we look with our eyes and we see only that which is in front of us. Some people have perfect vision but will never see.’ She folded her arms and patted her chest. ‘For sometimes we must look beyond t
he pictures our mind presents as fact. Sometimes we need to see what is in our hearts. Only then do we see what is really true.’

  He wasn’t sure it answered his question. He wasn’t sure he understood—but he held onto her words as they made their way back to the palace.

  ‘Sometimes we have to see what is in our hearts.’

  Was that what Kareef had done? Listened to his heart and not to his brain? Believed what he felt, rather than what he saw as his duty?

  He knew what his brain told him he must do. It was his duty, his responsibility. A king for Qusay.

  And yet he knew too what his heart wanted. A black-haired woman with dark eyes and golden skin. The woman who possessed his heart.

  Sera.

  He had loved and lost her once before. Why should he lose her again?

  But who would be king? Who would rule Qusay?

  ‘Believe,’ Abizah had said. ‘Have faith.’

  He pushed back into the buttery leather upholstery and took a deep breath. The old woman was right. By the time the car pulled up outside the glistening palace he knew what he had to do.

  ‘Akmal,’ he said, stopping the vizier from alighting with a hand to his arm. ‘There’s been a change of plans.’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  HE RAN through the palace, along the long cloistered walkways fragrant with citrus and frangipani and a thousand exotic flowers whose heady scent perfumed the air. He ran up the steps to the wing that housed his mother’s apartment, scattering cooing pigeons in a flurry of feathers and flapping wings.

  ‘Sera!’ he called, banging on the door. ‘Sera. I need to talk to you.’

  And then the door opened and she was there, her eyes confused, still puffy. ‘What’s happened, Rafiq? What’s wrong?’

  He spun her in his arms. ‘Nothing is wrong. Everything is wonderfully, perfectly right.’

  She laughed uncertainly. ‘What are you talking about? Have they found Tahir?’ For a moment he faltered, but only for a moment. ‘They will,’ he said, believing it in his heart, ‘but this isn’t about him. This is about you and me. We’re getting married.’

  ‘But, Rafiq, we can’t. You know we can’t. There is no way—’

  ‘There is a way, Sera. There is one way, and I am taking it.’

  Shock transformed her face. ‘You can’t renounce the crown! Not after Kareef. You would be denying your very birthright.’

  ‘Is it my birthright? I have never once in my life thought about taking over the reins of Qusay. It was a thought as foreign to me as this very land became when I adopted another as my home. And now, to find that circumstances have thrust me into this position—how is that a birthright?’

  ‘But, Rafiq, you would be throwing away your future.’

  ‘No, Sera, I would be reclaiming it. For you are my future and always have been. Because from the moment we met we were meant to be together—as surely as the sand belongs to the desert and the mountain peaks to the sky. We are part of each other and always will be.’

  ‘Rafiq, think of what you are doing…’

  ‘I know exactly what I am doing. I lost you once before and I will not lose you again.’ He went down on one knee before her. ‘I love you, Sera. Marry me. Be my wife. Live my future alongside me.’

  Tears welled in her beautiful dark eyes, but there was love there too, love that swelled his heart and gave him hope. For if she denied him he would be a broken man. A king with no queen. Adrift and alone.

  ‘Oh, Rafiq, I love you so much. You have given my life colour again when I thought there would be none. You have given me back my heart.’

  ‘Then you’ll marry me?’

  And she nodded, her lips tightly pressed. ‘Yes, Rafiq—oh, yes, I’ll marry you!’

  He was still kissing her when his mother bustled in, calling for Sera. She stopped, wide-eyed, when she found them, the excitement in her eyes masked by questions for no more than a second. ‘You’re both here, how wonderful. Have you heard the news? A helicopter’s been found in the desert. Akmal’s gone straight there. They think it might be Tahir’s!’ She wrung her hands nervously in front of her. ‘And to think that all this time we thought he just hadn’t bothered to come. Do you think…? Is there any chance…?’

  And Rafiq wondered if this day could get any better as he put an arm around her shoulders and brought her into his embrace—the two women he loved most in the world held within the circle of his arms. ‘Believe,’ he told her, remembering the words of the wise woman, the woman their firstborn daughter would be named for. ‘Have faith.’

  EPILOGUE

  SYDNEY society had seen nothing like it. The dress was made of a spun gold fabric laden with emerald chips, the best the craftswomen of Marrash had to offer, and the design an ancient Qusani pattern that meant, so Rafiq had been assured, prosperity, long life, and—most important apparently—fertility. Fitted to the waist, it fell in skilfully constructed folds to the ground. The gown was both elegant and timeless, a blend of the best of the east and the west, and with a veil of gold over her black hair she looked like a gift from the gods.

  His gift from the gods.

  Rafiq tried to contain his joy as she neared. Others could not. The group of tribespeople flown in especially from Marrash to one side, Abizah among them, called blessings as she passed, remarking on her beauty, sending their good wishes in voices that sounded in this place of worship like song.

  Other guests, thinking this some quaint Qusani custom, joined in, so that Sera joined his side not to the sound of organ music but to the sound of a thousand blessings ringing out through the chapel.

  It was a wedding the likes of which Sydney had never seen before, he thought, and nor was it likely to see again. It was a wedding where the guests responded spontaneously and the whole world rejoiced as it was transmitted around the globe. The guest list had been carefully handpicked, so there could be no embarrassment, no humiliation on either side.

  It was the wedding, as far as he was concerned, to end all weddings.

  Rafiq smiled down at her as she drew near, curled her hand in his, and she beamed up at him with what looked like her whole heart.

  ‘I love you,’ he said, knowing those words were more true in this very moment than ever before.

  His black-haired beauty looked up at him, nothing but love shining out at him from her dark eyes. ‘As I love you, Rafiq. Forever.’

  And his heart swelled. Who needed to be king, he wondered, when you already had your queen?

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-5629-7

  FORBIDDEN: THE SHEIKH’S VIRGIN

  First North American Publication 2010.

  Copyright © 2010 by Harlequin Books S.A.

  Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Trish Morey for her contribution to the DARK-HEARTED DESERT MEN series.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario M3B 3K9, Canada.

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