Shackled to the Sheikh Read online

  ‘Of course,’ Rashid said, frowning for added gravitas, while absolutely determined now that Kareem would have no part of choosing him a wife. Someone to escort him to official functions was one thing, but someone to take to his bed—only he decided who that would be. ‘That is how it should be.’

  ‘So you would like me to arrange a wife?’

  ‘No. That won’t be necessary. I’ve got a better idea.’ One that would show a certain woman that when he said he did not want her for his sister’s carer she should pay heed, that she was far better off agreeing with him and vanishing from his life just as silently as she had done from his bed this morning, or he might just think they had unfinished business.

  A temporary wife to populate his bed could be some kind of compensation for this whole crazy scenario.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Kareem prompted, ‘you would care to share this better idea?’

  Rashid suddenly swung his head around and caught Tora watching him and he smiled.

  Because although it seemed the train his life was on hadn’t just changed tracks, it had changed planets, for the first time in a mad day he felt as if he was back in the driver’s seat.

  ‘I’m going to marry Victoria.’

  ‘Ms Burgess?’ Kareem forgot how to be serene and fairly spluttered. ‘When you were so against her caring for Atiyah?’

  ‘I know,’ he said, unable to explain because the reason he was against her coming was the reason that made her most qualified to be his temporary wife. ‘It’s perfect.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘TIRED, MS BURGESS?’

  Tora came to with a start to see Rashid leaning down before her, as attentive and seemingly caring as any of the flight attendants as he held what looked like a pot of coffee in one hand and a cup in the other, and it wasn’t the coffee she could smell. He hadn’t bothered to exchange two words to her since she’d walked out of that lawyer’s office in Sydney. Something was definitely up.

  ‘I must have dozed off,’ she said warily, sitting up straighter and checking her watch. No, she’d only been asleep a few minutes and one glance towards the bassinet beside her was enough to tell her that Atiyah was still sleeping, her little arms flung back either side of her head.

  ‘Anyone would think you’ve been working too hard.’

  Her eyes snapped back to his. There was a cunning gleam there that had her on alert. ‘Anyone except you, you mean.’

  ‘Come, come, Ms Burgess,’ he said as he put the coffee down on a small table. ‘I brought you coffee.’

  She looked around the cabin but it was deserted, the cabin crew all discreetly tucked away wherever it was they waited between being called upon. Even Kareem had disappeared somewhere. ‘Yes, I can see. What’s with that? Did you sack all the flight attendants or something?’

  He smiled as he swivelled the chair in front of her around and sat down, though she sensed danger in the curve of his lips. She tucked her feet under her chair. Even with the room between the seats his long legs ventured way too far into her space for her liking. ‘I have something I need to discuss with you, something that might work to our mutual benefit.’

  Her eyes shuttered down. Yeah, right. ‘I told you I wasn’t here for you. I am here for Atiyah, nothing more.’

  ‘You have a suspicious mind.’

  ‘You have a transparent one.’

  He shook his head. ‘This is not about bedding you.’ He hesitated there, and she wondered what had gone unsaid. ‘This concerns Atiyah.’

  ‘How?’

  He leaned forward. ‘For reasons you don’t need to know about, I need to adopt Atiyah.’

  She looked across at him blankly. ‘And how does that concern me?’

  ‘In order to adopt, under some quaint Qajarese law, I must be married.’

  She swallowed down on a lurch in her stomach because this could in no way mean what crazy idea ventured first into her mind. ‘I repeat,’ she said, schooling her voice to level and wishing her heart rate would also take heed, ‘how does that concern me?’

  ‘It’s not for long, it’s just a temporary thing. A mere formality, really, and then in a matter of months we can be divorced.’

  There was that lurch again, but this time there was no misreading his words. ‘We?’

  ‘Well, you and me.’

  She blinked, hoping it covered the jolt to her senses that came with his answer. ‘There is no you and me.’

  ‘There doesn’t have to be, not in any real sense. All I need is a wife. Someone to play the role of Atiyah’s mother temporarily. Kareem tells me the marriage must last twelve months to ensure the adoption satisfies the laws of Qajaran, but that’s only if I decide to stay. Otherwise, it might be over within a week.’ He smiled, as if he were asking her nothing more than the time of day. ‘Like I said, it’s just a formality.’

  ‘But a year! There’s a chance I have to be married to you for an entire year!’

  ‘If it happens. But you would not need to stay in Qajaran all that time. Once the formalities were over, you could go home.’

  She looked at the coffee he had poured for her. She liked coffee, but right now she felt the need for something a whole lot stronger.

  She licked her lips. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I told you. My name is Rashid.’

  She shook her head. ‘No. I met someone called Rashid in a hotel bar. He was just a man. An angry man wanting to let off steam the way men do. But you—’ She looked around. ‘You fly in a plane with a golden crown for a crest, you have staff that bow and scrape and seem to wait on your every word and call you Excellency. So, Rashid, who are you, that you think it is perfectly reasonable to ask a near stranger to marry you so you can divorce them when it suits?’

  His eyes left her face, to wander a scorching trail down her body, lingering on her breasts before venturing lower. He smiled. ‘Near stranger?’ he questioned, his voice husky around the edges, rasping against her very soul. ‘We are hardly strangers.’

  She crossed her arms and legs to stop the tingling under her skin, relieved when his gaze once again found her face. ‘You don’t know me and I sure as hell don’t know anything about you.’

  ‘I am not asking the world, merely for a few weeks of your time and then you can go home.’

  ‘I said I wouldn’t sleep with you again and I sure as hell won’t marry you.’

  ‘Nobody said anything about sleeping with me. You served a purpose last night, but now I’m looking for something else.’

  She laughed, not sure whether to be offended or not. It was so mad, she had no other option but to laugh. ‘Well, as attractive as you make your proposal sound, that I pretend to be your wife, no thank you.’ She glanced at the baby and assured herself she would be all right for a minute or two more, before she pushed herself up to stand. Maybe if she headed for the bathroom, it might put a stop to this ridiculous conversation. But Rashid rose too, stepping sideways and blocking her path. ‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘I need to use the bathroom.’

  ‘Not yet. You haven’t heard what I’m offering in return.’

  ‘I don’t need to, to say no. You made it very clear when we were in Sydney that you didn’t want me to be here at all. You made it clear that you wanted nothing more to do with me and that’s fine, because I don’t plan on sticking around any longer than I have to in order to do this job. As soon as I hand this child over to whoever is going to be her carer in Qajaran—because I assume from your lack of interest it won’t be you—I’ll be heading home.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘Come now, Ms Burgess, how can you say no when there is so much on offer?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like an all-expenses-paid holiday in Qajaran, complete with a bird’s-eye view of a possible coronation and all the festivities surrounding it, along with a return
flight home in the royal jet.’

  A shiver ran down her spine. ‘Whose coronation?’

  ‘Mine.’

  Ri—ight. So that was it. She did her best not to sway on her feet. Did her best not to look stunned. ‘So you’re kind of king-in-waiting, then?’

  He nodded. ‘You could put it that way. Qajaran is currently without an Emir. Apparently I am next in line to the throne, if I agree to take the role on.’

  A kind of king. Well, that was kind of funny when she’d thought he’d looked like a god on the bed only this morning. A demotion almost, and that thought almost brought a smile to her face when there should be none.

  She shook her head. ‘Sorry, not interested.’

  ‘How much, then?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘How much would it take? Everyone has their price—name it.’

  She shook her head. She must be dreaming. That or she’d woken up on some bizarre television game show. Any minute now and they’d be cutting to a commercial break for disposable nappies or dishwashing liquid. ‘I told you, I’m not interested.’

  ‘Name it!’

  She sucked in air. She didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want to spend a moment longer in this man’s company than she had to. The night she’d spent with him was too fresh, too raw in her mind, the passions he’d unleashed in her still making her senses hum at his proximity as if his mere presence was enough to switch them on—but then she thought about the amount her cousin had stolen from her and the money she had assured Sally she would find...

  He wouldn’t say yes, she told herself, there was no way he’d say yes, but if he really wanted a figure—if he really wanted to know how much it would take for her to agree to this crazy plan... ‘All right, you asked—two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That’s my price.’

  And his eyes might have damned her to hell and back, but he smiled—he actually smiled—and her stomach dropped to the floor like a brick even before he said his next word.

  ‘Done.’ He turned and yelled for Kareem. ‘Prepare for the ceremony.’

  Tora was reeling. ‘But—’

  ‘But nothing,’ he said, smiling like the cat that had the cream. ‘You named your price. I agreed. The deal is done.’

  * * *

  Kareem married them, neatly fitting the ceremony in between Tora feeding Atiyah her bottle and changing the infant’s nappy, the bride’s gown nothing more than black trousers and a fawn-coloured shirt with smudges of baby milk on the shoulder.

  It wasn’t a ceremony as such. There was nothing more to it than for the two of them to stand before Kareem in his white robes and with her hand on Rashid’s, and for Kareem to utter a few words, before Rashid dropped his hand, jettisoning hers in the process, and saying, ‘Right, that’s that out of the way. Let’s get this adoption signed off, shall we?’

  Out of the way? thought Tora, feeling stunned as she returned to her seat and changed Atiyah. So that was it, then. No You may kiss the bride. No congratulations or champagne or even a pretence of celebration. She was married to Rashid, according to Qajarese law, and it felt—hollow.

  Marriage wasn’t supposed to feel hollow, she was sure. She’d always imagined getting married would be one of the happiest days of her life, with her father to walk her down the aisle and her mother proudly and no doubt tearfully looking on. Sure, that was before the glider accident that had killed them, but even now she would have liked to think of them somewhere up there looking down on her approvingly on her big day...

  She gulped down on that bubble of disappointment before it could become something more.

  This was hardly her big day though.

  This was a means to an end for her, exactly as it was to him, the opportunity for her to obtain the funds she’d promised Sally, a formality in order for him to adopt Atiyah. After all, it wasn’t as if she wanted to be married to Rashid, even if he made her feel like no more than an adjunct to the process, like a box that had been ticked or a task on a to-do list that had been crossed off.

  He’d dropped her hand as if he couldn’t bear to touch her. My God, what a difference, when last night he hadn’t been able to stop touching her.

  Then again, what had she expected? Last night might as well have been a lifetime ago. Rashid had been a different man—attentive, creative and infinitely attuned to her pleasure—and she’d been someone she didn’t even recognise. Impulsive, reckless and brazen in bed. She’d behaved like a wanton.

  She dragged in a breath, trying to find calm in a world that was teetering off balance. She’d shocked herself last night at just how shameless she’d been, as if the frustrations of Matt’s betrayal and the despair of letting Sally and Steve down had spilled over on an effervescent tidal wave of passion that had washed away her moral values. Last night there’d been no off switch, no holding back. Talk about out of character for a girl who normally wouldn’t kiss a guy until at least the second date.

  Memories of that night should have been her secret thrill, something to smile privately about and wonder at her bravado and total abandonment. Not something to be constantly reminded of every minute of the day by being confronted with the star performer of her night of the pleasures of the flesh. The last thing she’d wanted was to learn that the man at the centre of her night of nights was Flight Nanny’s and her very next client.

  No, she wouldn’t want her parents around to witness this. One day she’d marry for real. One day she’d find a man she loved and who loved her more than anything, and they’d be married under a brilliant blue sky and her parents could look down upon her and smile.

  One day.

  She slipped Atiyah’s legs back into her sleep suit and did up the snaps. Think of the money, she told herself. Think of Sally and Steve and the quarter of a million dollars, merely for marrying Rashid for however long it took. Even if nothing else, now she’d have the money to complete this deal, without having to beg from the banks. Now there’d be nothing stopping Sally and Steve heading for Germany and the radical new treatment that might save him. Just as soon as she managed to give Rashid the bank account details for the transfer of the promised funds.

  No wonder she felt a little hollowness in her gut.

  The pilot came back then, smiling as he advised them personally they would be beginning their descent soon, and to assure them all would be well.

  All would be well? She held Atiyah in her arms and softly sang her a favourite nursery rhyme, wanting to cuddle the baby for as long as she could before she’d have to be strapped into her capsule on the seat for landing.

  After a night with Rashid and a mad on-paper marriage, she wasn’t sure things would ever be well again.

  * * *

  It was done.

  Kareem had completed the paperwork on both the marriage and then the adoption in short order.

  His faux wife was installed and Atiyah was adopted and for now he could take a deep breath. That was one crisis averted.

  His friends would laugh. Rashid married, just as they had warned him. Well, he would let them laugh. It wasn’t as though it was a real marriage. It wasn’t as though he was in love as Bahir and Kadar had attested to be, and it wasn’t that he had to marry and impregnate a wife before he could be crowned Emir, as Zoltan had been required to do by the ancient texts of Al-Jirad when he had married the Princess Aisha.

  He grunted. Though if that had been a requirement, he’d already well and truly ticked that box. Memories of last night’s passion rolled through him like replays of a movie, except this was a movie in which he’d had a starring role. He’d only needed to touch her hand to be reminded of the satin smoothness of her skin, and to remember the sleek feminine beauty of the curve of her hip, the dip to the gentle round of her belly and all the places above and below that his fingers, and then his lips, had traversed.

 
He hadn’t held her hand a second longer than he’d needed to, and yet the mere touch of her had fired his memories and kindled a need that burned like coals inside him.

  There was too much going on in his life without complicating it with a woman that had blown his world apart.

  He looked over his shoulder, through the gap in the seats, and saw her holding the child as if she were her own, the baby all dark-eyed innocence staring up at her as she spoke words he could not make out. What was with that? Atiyah was nothing to do with her.

  So why did she seem to care so much?

  Atiyah was supposed to be his sister, after all, even if the sister he’d never asked for or wanted.

  And the wrongness of it all got to him and something inside him snapped.

  He got out of his seat, determined to tell her so, but as he drew closer he realised she wasn’t talking to the child, she was singing to it, some kind of lullaby, and she was looking down at the baby so intently, she didn’t hear his approach.

  He didn’t interrupt at first—for a moment he couldn’t because he was rooted to the spot—because for some reason he recognised the music. The notes were buried, but they were there and they were true, and each note she sang was like a shovel in his gut, exposing more.

  ‘What are you singing?’ he growled, when he could wait no longer, because he had to know.

  Her singing stopped, and she looked up, suspicious, her eyes wide at finding him so close. ‘Just a lullaby. I think it’s Persian. Why?’ she said, and suspicion turned to concern as she scanned his features. ‘Is something wrong?’

  He didn’t know. All he knew was that there was something churning in his gut that brought him out in a cold sweat and made his skin crawl. How would he know the tune to a lullaby he was sure he’d never heard before?

  But the way she was looking at him, as if he were mad, or worse... He looked for something that he could talk about to cover his confusion. His eyes fell on the infant. ‘How is she?’ he forced out, his mind clamouring to remember why he was here. ‘I thought babies were supposed to scream through flights.’