Shackled to the Sheikh Read online

  He shook his head. He didn’t do family. The closest he had ever come to having family was his three friends, his desert brothers, Zoltan, Bahir and Kadar, their friendship forged at university in the crucible of shared proximity and initial animosity, all of them outcasts, all of them thrust together as a kind of sick joke—the four had hated each other on sight—only for the joke to backfire when the four became friends and the ‘Sheikhs’ Caïque’, as their rowing four was nicknamed, won every race they ran.

  And even though his three desert brothers had found matches and were starting their own broods of children, it didn’t mean he had to follow suit.

  He had no desire for family. Even less now given he’d learned his father had lived all those years and hadn’t bothered to let him know—his own son!

  And what was a nation but the worst kind of family, large, potentially unruly and dependent.

  He turned suddenly. Faced the man who had brought him this horror. ‘Why should I do this? Why should I take this on?’

  Kareem nodded. ‘I have read widely of you and seen your long list of achievements and your powers of negotiation when dealing with disparate parties. You would come eminently qualified to the task of Emir.’

  Rashid shook his head, and the older man held up one broad hand. ‘But yes, this is no job application. This goes beyond mere qualifications. Your father was the chosen Emir before circumstances forced him into exile. You are his heir. It is therefore your duty.’

  Rashid’s blood ran cold. ‘My duty? I thought you said I had a choice.’

  And Kareem looked hard into his eyes. ‘The choice is not mine to give. I am saying you have this duty. Your choice is whether you accept it.’

  Duty.

  He was not unfamiliar with the concept. His best friends were no strangers to duty. He had seen Zoltan take on the quest for the throne of Al-Jirad. Rashid had done his brotherly duty and had ridden together with him and Bahir and Kadar across the desert to rescue Princess Aisha, and later to snatch her sister, Princess Marina, from the clutches of Mustafa. He had always done his duty.

  But never had he imagined that duty would be so life-changing—so unpalatable—for himself. Because if he did this thing, his life would undergo a seismic shift. He would never be truly free again. And if he didn’t, he would be failing in his duty.

  Duty. Right now the most cursed of four-letter words.

  ‘What I tell you is not easy for a man to absorb or accept,’ Kareem said. ‘I can only ask that you will come and see the country for yourself. Bring Atiyah, for it is her heritage and birthright too.’

  ‘You want me to willingly turn up on the doorstep of a place that was so happy to see my father and me dead? You expect me to take an infant into that environment?’

  ‘Malik is gone. You have nothing to fear from him or his supporters now. Please, you must come, Rashid. Come and feel the ancient sand of our country between your toes and let it run through your fingers. See the sunrise and sunset over the desert and maybe then you will feel the heart of Qajaran beating in your soul.’

  ‘I’ll come,’ Rashid said, his head knowing what he had to do, his gut twisting tighter than steel cable in spite of it. ‘For now that is all I am promising.’

  The vizier nodded. ‘For now, it is enough. Let me call the lawyer back in and we will make the arrangements.’

  * * *

  ‘What can they be doing in there?’ Tora said as she gave up pacing the lawyer’s waiting room and sat down in the chair alongside her boss. She had to pace because every now and then her lack of sleep would catch up with her and she’d find herself yawning. ‘Whatever can be taking so long?’ she said, trying not to sound too irate so that she didn’t disturb the infant in the capsule alongside. She’d had barely enough time to get home to shower and change and pack her things, before she’d met Sally at Flight Nanny’s office and they’d headed off together to pick up the baby from the foster home where she’d been looked after for the last few days, only for them to have been kept sitting and waiting so long that the baby would soon need another feed.

  Her boss twisted her watch around her wrist. ‘I don’t know, but I can’t stay much longer. I’ve got a meeting with Steve’s doctors in less than an hour.’

  ‘I’m sure it won’t be too long now,’ the middle-aged receptionist assured them when Sally asked how long it would be, before disappearing to fetch refreshments.

  The baby started fussing then and Tora reached down to soothe her. She was a cherub. With black curls and dark eyes with long sooty lashes and a tiny Cupid’s-bow mouth, it was obvious that she’d grow up to be a beauty. But right now she was a tiny vulnerable infant without a mother or a father—or anyone who seemed to care what happened to her.

  The baby wasn’t about to be placated and became more restless, her little fisted hands protesting, and Tora plucked her out of the capsule to prop against her shoulder so she could rub her back, swaying from side to side in her seat as she did so.

  She smiled as she cuddled the infant close, enjoying the near new baby smell. It was unusual to have such a young infant to take care of. Most of Flight Nanny’s charges were small children who needed to be ferried interstate or overseas between divorced parents who were either too busy with their careers to travel with their children, or who simply preferred to avoid any contact with the other party, even if only to hand the children over. Those cases could be sad enough.

  But an infant who’d been left orphaned, that was beyond tragic. That was cruel.

  ‘You poor sweetheart,’ she said as she rocked the tiny bundle in her arms, her heart breaking a little at the injustice of it all.

  Sally shifted in her seat and Tora could feel the tension emanating from her friend and colleague. Something was seriously wrong. ‘How is Steve?’ she ventured, once the baby had settled a little, scared to ask, even more scared for the answer.

  Her boss grimaced and it occurred to Tora that Sally had aged ten years in the last couple of weeks. ‘He’s struggling. There’s a chance they won’t be able get his condition stabilised enough for the flight to Germany.’ She looked up then and Tora saw the desperation in her eyes, desperation laced with a flash of hope. ‘Look, Tora, I didn’t want to ask—I really wanted to wait for you to say something—but how did you get on with your cousin last night? Did he give you any idea when the estate might be finalised and that settlement might come through?’

  And Tora’s heart plunged to the floor. There was damned good reason she hadn’t wanted to come to work today and it wasn’t just that she’d hardly had any sleep. Without the funds from her parents’ estate, she’d have nothing to lend to Sally and Steve, funds they’d been counting on to pay for his medical transport and his treatment overseas. And she’d really wanted some time to explore any other ways of raising the money before she had to come clean on the fact that the promised funds were never going to materialise—not from that particular source. ‘Ah,’ she said with false brightness, as if she’d only just remembered, ‘I wanted to talk to you about that.’

  Sally crossed her arms and Tora could see her fingernails clawing into her arms. ‘Damn. I knew I shouldn’t have asked you that. I don’t think I could bear to hear bad news today.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Tora lied, doing her utmost to smile. ‘Nothing like that. Just paperwork and more paperwork.’ She shrugged. ‘You know how it goes with these things. I’m really hoping it gets resolved soon.’

  Sally glanced at her watch. ‘Well, sorry, but I’m going to have to leave you with some more paperwork if I’m going to make this appointment.’ She reached into her satchel and pulled out a folder that she left on the seat behind her as she rose. ‘I’m really sorry to leave you like this when we still don’t know all the details. Will you be okay to handle everything yourself?’

  ‘Hey, I’ll be fine. If you’re going to be disappearing
offshore soon,’ she said, trying to stay positive and not wanting to dwell on how big that ‘if’ was right now if she couldn’t secure the funds to make it happen, ‘we’re all going to have to get used to doing more paperwork here at home. Don’t worry, I’ll email you when I know where this baby is going and scan all the documentation for you before we go anywhere. You just worry about you and Steve right now.’

  Sally smiled, giving Tora a kiss on the cheek as she bent down to pick up her bag. ‘Thanks.’ She curled a fingertip under the baby’s tiny hand. ‘Look after this little poppet, okay?’

  ‘You bet. Now get going. And give my love to Steve.’

  Sally was gone by the time the receptionist returned with her iced tea, and Tora’s was half drunk when the door to the office opened then, and an older gent with bushy eyebrows and a shock of white hair peeked out. ‘Ah, Joan,’ he said. ‘We’re ready for our guests now.’ He looked at Tora and the bundle perched over her shoulder.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but Sally Barnes couldn’t stay.’

  ‘I quite understand,’ he said kindly. ‘This has all taken rather longer than we expected. Thank you for being so patient, Ms Burgess. Do come in. It’s time for the little one to meet her guardian.’

  She stood up with the baby in her arms, and the lawyer surprised her by shoving the folder Sally had left under his arm, before picking up both the baby capsule and baby bag.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said as he shouldered open the door and ushered her into the room, ‘here is Atiyah at last, along with Ms Victoria Burgess, who comes to us highly qualified from Flight Nanny, the number one Australian business that transports unaccompanied children all around the world. Victoria will be caring for Atiyah and accompanying you both to Qajaran.’

  Tora raised her eyebrows as she digested the news. So that was where she was headed? That would be a first. She’d been to many ports in Europe and Asia but so far she’d never had an assignment that took her to the smaller Middle East states. A tall, gentle-looking man wearing Arabic robes came towards her, a warm smile on his creased face as he looked benevolently down upon the child in her arms. He reached a finger to her downy cheek and uttered something in Arabic that sounded very much like a blessing to Tora. If this man was the tiny Atiyah’s guardian, she was sure she would be in good hands.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said with a bow. ‘I will inform the pilot we will be on standby.’ And with a swish of his robes, he left the room.

  ‘Victoria,’ someone else said from a chair in the corner of the room behind her, in a voice as dry and flat as a desert in summer—a voice she recognised as one that had vibrated its way into her bones last night with desire but that now set off electric shocks up and down her spine with fear. ‘Most people would shorten that to Tori, wouldn’t they?’

  Please, God, no, she prayed, but when she looked around, it was him all right. He rose from his chair then, the man she’d spent the many dark hours of last night with naked, the man now looking at her with storm-swept eyes. Her heart lurched and she clutched the baby in her arms tighter, just to be sure she didn’t drop her.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, trying and not sure she was succeeding in keeping the tremor from her voice. ‘Is it relevant?’

  The lawyer looked strangely at Rashid, questions clear in his eyes. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘what does it matter? Come, Rashid, and see your sister and your new charge.’

  His sister? Surely that didn’t mean what she thought it meant? And Tora felt the cold tea in her stomach turn to sludge.

  * * *

  He hadn’t been in a rush to get up—he might have agreed to go to Qajaran and take the child with him, but he was in no desperate hurry to meet her. He was glad he’d hung back in his chair now, glad of the time to let incredulity settle into cold, indisputable truth.

  Because it was her.

  The woman who’d stolen away from his bed like a thief in the night.

  The woman he’d never expected to see again.

  She looked almost the same as she had last night in the bar, in a beige short-sleeved shirt and hair that he now knew fell heavy like a curtain of silk when pulled out of that damned abomination of a bun, but with black trousers this time, covering legs he could still feel knotted around his back as he drove into her.

  She looked almost the same in that bland mouse-like uniform she wore that he knew hid a firebrand underneath.

  And it seemed that twenty-four hours of being blindsided didn’t show any signs of letting up yet.

  ‘Rashid?’ the lawyer prompted. ‘Don’t you want to meet your sister?’

  Not particularly, he thought, and least of all now when she was being cradled in the arms of a woman he hadn’t begun to forget, though he supposed he should look interested enough to take a look.

  He rose to his feet. Was it his imagination or did the woman appear to shift backwards? No, he realised, it wasn’t his imagination. There was fear in her eyes even though the angle of her chin remained defiant. She was scared of him and trying not to show it. Scared because he knew what the nanny got up to in the night time.

  She should be worried.

  In spite of himself, he got closer. Close enough that the scent of the woman he’d spent the last night with curled into his senses, threatening to undo the control he was so desperately trying to hang onto. Didn’t he have enough to contend with right now—a father who’d removed himself from Rashid’s life, only to leave him this tiny legacy, a country that was floundering where he was expected to take up the reins—without a woman who had the power to short his senses and make him forget? He needed his wits about him now, more than ever, not this siren whose body even now seemed to call to him.

  He shifted his head back out of range, and concentrated instead on the squirming bundle in her arms. Black hair and chubby arms and a screwed-up face. Definitely a baby. He didn’t know a lot about babies, but then he’d never expected to need to.

  ‘Would you like to hold her?’ the woman he knew as Tora ventured, her voice tight, as if she was having trouble getting the words out.

  It was his turn to take a step back. ‘No.’

  ‘She won’t break.’

  ‘I said no.’ And neither, when he thought about it, did he want this woman holding her, let alone accompanying them to Qajaran. Not that he was about to take the child himself. He turned to the lawyer. ‘Is there no one else you could have found for this role?’

  The woman blinked up at him, her brown eyes as cold as marble. Too bad. Did she expect him to greet her like a long-lost friend? Not likely.

  ‘Excuse me?’ the lawyer asked.

  ‘Someone more suitable to take care of Atiyah. Couldn’t you find someone better to take care of my sister?’

  ‘Ms Burgess comes to us highly qualified. She has an exemplary record with Flight Nanny. Would you like to see her credentials?’

  ‘That’s not necessary.’ He’d already seen her credentials, in glorious satin-skinned detail, and they qualified her for a different type of position entirely from the one she was required for now.

  ‘If you have some kind of problem—’ she started.

  ‘Yes, I have “some kind of problem”, Ms Burgess. Perhaps we should discuss this in private and I’ll spell it out for you?’

  The lawyer looked at them nervously. ‘If you excuse me, a moment, I’ll see how Kareem is going,’ and he too was gone.

  Rashid took a deep breath as he strode back towards the wall of windows.

  ‘What are you doing here? How did you find me?’

  ‘What? I didn’t find you. I was asked by my boss to take this job on. I didn’t know you had anything to do with Atiyah.’

  ‘You expect me to believe it’s some kind of coincidence?’

  ‘You can believe what you like. I was retained to care for Atiyah on her journey
to wherever it is that she is going. Frankly, I’d forgotten all about you already.’

  His teeth ground together. Forgotten about him already? In his world, women had always been temporary, but he’d been the one to decide when he’d had enough. He’d been the one to forget, and it grated...

  ‘So you’re a qualified child-care worker?’

  ‘That’s my primary qualification, yes, though I have diplomas in school-aged education and childhood health care along with some language skills as well.’

  ‘You are forgetting about your other skills,’ he growled, his lip curling as he looked out of the window, still resentful at a world going on about its business while his life didn’t resemble a train that had merely changed direction, his life was on a train that had jumped tracks, and he wasn’t sure he liked where it was headed.

  ‘They’re hardly relevant,’ she said behind him, and around and between her words he could hear the sounds of the baby, staccato bursts of cackles and cries, and then a zipper being undone.

  He spun around, angry that she seemed oblivious to the impossibility of the situation, to see her sitting down, the baby in her lap as she dripped milk from a small bottle onto her upturned wrist before putting the bottle to the baby’s mouth, looking every part the quintessential mother with child.

  That was a laugh. She was no Madonna. It didn’t matter what she was wearing or what she was doing, he could still see her naked. He could still remember the way she’d bucked beneath him as she’d come apart in his arms.

  ‘Impossible!’ he said, and even the baby was startled, her big eyes open wide, her little hands jerking upwards, fingers splayed. ‘This cannot work.’

  ‘Hold it down,’ she said, rocking the child in her arms. ‘Do you think I like the situation any more than you do?’

  ‘I want another carer.’