Kitabı oku: «The Sheikh's Collection», sayfa 9
CHAPTER NINE
THE ROYAL PALACE was a vast building dating back hundreds of years and extended and renovated by every successive generation of Zahir’s family. Even from the outside Saffy could see changes everywhere she looked because the massive courtyard fronting the palace entrance, once a parking area for military vehicles and limousines, had been transformed into beautiful gardens full of graceful trees being industriously watered to keep them healthy in the heat. Glorious flowering shrubs bloomed in every direction and fountains fanned water to cool the air in terraced seating areas. The gardeners at work fell still and lowered their heads respectfully as the limo passed by. When the late King Fareed had driven past, everyone had fallen down on their knees at his insistence and she was relieved that Zahir had clearly brought an end to that kind of exaggerated subservience.
‘It looks so different,’ she commented as the limo drew up outside the huge arched entrance. ‘Much more welcoming.’
‘It’s so big we initially thought of knocking it down and constructing something more fit for purpose. After all, I don’t live like my father with hundreds of servants and guards, but it is an historic building and, since the family only requires part of it to actually live in, the government uses one wing and official events are staged here. We will still have total privacy though,’ he asserted. ‘Don’t worry about that. And, of course, you’ll be free to redecorate and do anything you like with our wing of the palace. I want you to feel at home here this time.’
Saffy decided that she would pretty much come to like and accept any place Zahir called home. Besides, their baby had been conceived in a tent. A palatial tent, to be sure, but a tent nonetheless. Her lush mouth quirked at the recollection. That was a secret that would probably never be shared.
The domestic staff greeted them at the end of the long hall and she was given more flowers, which were in turn taken from her as if she could not be expected to carry anything for herself. Zahir closed a relaxed hand round hers and walked her into a big reception room where a man and a woman awaited them.
‘Hayat…’ Saffy greeted his sister, several years his senior, warmly, registering that the delicate youthful brunette she had once met was now a more rounded woman in her thirties, but she still had the same warm, friendly smile. Hayat was quick to kiss her on both cheeks and offer good wishes. Saffy had never got to know the older woman that well because when she had first been married to Zahir, Hayat and her husband had been living in Switzerland.
‘And since he was only a boy when you last met him, this is my younger brother Akram.’
She would have known Zahir’s brother immediately by his close resemblance to her husband, but she was not impervious to the look of hostility in his rather set face as he murmured a strictly polite welcome that was neither sociable nor encouraging. But Saffy kept the smile on her face, reminding herself that it was early days and that, after the divorce five years earlier, Akram might consider her a particularly bad match for his brother, the king. Or maybe Akram was less than impressed by the fact that she was already pregnant, although if that was the case he ought to remember that conception took two people, not one, she thought ruefully.
Zahir carried her off again, one hand closed round hers as if he was keen to retain physical contact and, certainly, she had no objection retaining that connection. She had never been in the wing of the palace he took her to, was happy to be invited to explore and was pleasantly surprised by how contemporary the décor was there. Back in the old dark days of King Fareed’s occupation, the parts of the palace she had known had rejoiced in a preponderance of over-gilded furniture, brightly coloured wallpaper, fussy drapes and half-naked statues. But now all that was tasteless and garish had been swept away as though it had never been.
‘Did your father ever live here?’ she asked awkwardly.
‘No,’ Zahir said succinctly. ‘I didn’t want to occupy his wing at the front…too many bad memories. It’s government offices now.’
‘This is beautiful,’ Saffy confided, brushing back filmy drapes and opening French windows that led out into a spacious garden courtyard full of lush colourful plants. ‘It will be perfect for the baby to play in.’
‘One last place to show you,’ Zahir murmured, tugging her impatiently back indoors to walk her down the corridor, while she tried to compute the sheer number of rooms that she now had the right to regard as part of her new home. He flung open the double doors at the foot like a showman. ‘Our room. I had it freshly decorated.’
Our room, she repeated inwardly, thinking that phrase, which once had unnerved her, now had a good, solid, reassuring sound to it. The big room was breathtaking in the morning sunshine, furnished with a simply huge bed dressed in white and covered with more pillows and cushions than anyone would ever want to move before slipping between the sheets. Masses of white flowers filled several vases and perfumed the air with their abundance. The effect was light, bright and designer chic. Twin bathrooms led off the bedroom, one with a family-sized Jacuzzi in the corner.
‘I’m already picturing you in there,’ Zahir muttered huskily from behind her, his breath warming her cheek as he settled his lean hands on her rounded hips.
‘Are you indeed?’ Sliding round to look up at him, Saffy lifted her hands to his face and curved them to his exotic cheekbones. Dear heaven, those eyes of his got to her every time, she conceded dizzily as he bent his handsome dark head and circled her lush mouth slowly, teasingly with his own and her heart skipped a beat. ‘I’ll only get in with company.’
His cell phone hummed and Zahir winced. ‘Hold that thought,’ he urged, digging it out of his pocket to speak in his own language.
And that fast the moment of intimacy was over. He inclined his head at an apologetic angle and told her that something needed his attention and he would see her later. Saffy suppressed her disappointment, conceding that their lives would often be interrupted by his duties and knowing she would have to get used to the fact. She returned to exploring their wing of the palace. A manservant brought her luggage. There was a complete dream of a clothing closet installed in the room next door and she smiled, smoothing shoe shelves and glancing into what could only be custom-built units. Knowing Zahir must have ensured that so much was prepared for her in advance gave her a warm feeling deep down inside.
A maid brought her tea and tiny cakes and she sat out in the tranquil courtyard garden below the shade of the palm trees, enjoying the fading afternoon heat and the play of shadows through the palm fronds. For the first time in a long time she felt at peace. Acknowledging her feelings for Zahir had eased her worst insecurities and put paid to her frantic changes of mood because now she knew what lay behind her reactions. They were husband and wife and she was carrying their first child and she was happy. Happy, she thought wryly, unable to recall when she had last felt so happy or indeed an intensity of any emotion: only around Zahir. Had she always still loved him? Had it been his haunting image that prevented her from ever experiencing a strong attraction to another man? Regardless of what had happened between them, she had retained past memories of Zahir that were still clear as day in her mind. He had referred to her once as his ‘first love’ and she knew she wanted to be his first and only love, but the clock still couldn’t be turned back. And nor in many ways would Saffy have wanted to achieve that impossibility, not if it meant returning to the uninformed, bewildered teenager she had been, incapable of consummating her marriage and having to live within the confines of the repressive regime of the late King Fareed.
Zahir phoned her full of apologies to say that he could not join her before dinner. He reappeared, vital and startlingly handsome, to study her where she sat reading on the terrace. She smiled at him, blue eyes sparkling, and his winged brows pleated in surprise. ‘I thought you’d be furious with me for leaving you alone all afternoon,’ he admitted ruefully.
And Saffy laughed. ‘I’m not eighteen any more,’ she reminded him gently. ‘And I understand that you have responsibilities you can’t escape.’
‘But not the very first day you arrive. In that spirit, I have blocked off two weeks at the end of the month purely for us,’ Zahir told her, his features suddenly very serious in cast. ‘We can travel, stay here, do whatever you like, but there will no other demands on our time.’
Saffy was impressed that he had already foreseen the necessity for them to formally make space in their schedules to spend time together as a couple. It was an effort and an opportunity he had not tried to organise five years earlier and she appreciated it. A pretty fabulous three-course meal was served to them in the dining room. There was evidently a chef in charge of the kitchens and one out to impress. While they ate, Zahir shared his ambition to promote Maraban as a tourist destination and he asked her if she would be interested in helping to put together a public relations film to show off some of Maraban’s main attractions.
‘We have beaches, archaeological sites, mountains,’ Zahir told her persuasively. ‘You could present it. You’re accustomed to being in front of the cameras.’
‘Not in a speaking role, at least only occasionally.’ But Saffy was pleased to be offered the chance to do something useful. ‘I haven’t been to any of those places though.’
Zahir frowned at the unspoken reminder that his father’s determination to conceal their marriage had left her virtually imprisoned within the palace walls. ‘Your eyes will be fresh then, your observations and expectations more realistic. We have a lot to learn about what tourists want. We don’t have many marketing people here,’ he confided. ‘In fact Maraban would still be floundering and trapped in past mistakes if thousands of our former citizens hadn’t responded to my appeal to come home after my father’s regime fell. Many professionals returned from abroad to enable us to tackle the challenge of bringing our country into the twenty-first century.’
‘It’s wonderful that people chose to come back and help,’ Saffy murmured, loving the gravity of his lean strong face, the warmth and concern he could not hide when he spoke about the country of his birth.
‘But not half as wonderful as having you here with me again,’ Zahir countered, dark golden eyes welded to her as he rose from his chair. ‘Will you come to bed with me now, Your Majesty?’
‘Call me Queenie—I’m never going to get used to the other. In answer to your question, I don’t know…’ Saffy angled her head to one side, pretending to think it over even though her heart was racing like a marathon runner’s. ‘Last night you were a no-show.’
Faint colour darkened his cheekbones. ‘On board our flight, I didn’t think I’d be welcome.’
‘Put it this way—I wouldn’t have kicked you out of bed,’ Saffy confided, turning pink.
With a flashing smile of satisfaction, Zahir crossed the room and snatched her bodily up off the carpet into his arms to carry her down the corridor, a process accompanied by much giggling from Saffy. Halfway towards their bedroom he started kissing her and an arrow of sweet, piercing heat slivered between her thighs, smothering her amusement and awakening her body to desire.
‘Being alone with you is all I’ve thought about all day,’ Zahir admitted, settling her down on the gigantic bed, which she noted was already clear of cushions and turned down in readiness for their occupation. Evidently the staff might be well acquainted with the habits of newly married couples.
As he cast off his robes and she kicked off her shoes Saffy smiled at his honesty. ‘One-track mind.’
‘Always…with you.’ Zahir nuzzled against her slender throat, kissing and licking a sensitive spot below her ear that made her quiver and tightened her sensitive nipples. Then he groaned. ‘I need a shave—’
Saffy grabbed him before he could spring back off the bed. ‘Not right now,’ she told him squarely.
Zahir laughed. ‘I don’t want to scratch you.’
‘Face facts. I won’t agree to you going anywhere right at this minute,’ Saffy told him, smoothing appreciative palms up over his broad muscular chest and then down very, very slowly and appreciatively over his six-pack abs. ‘This is my time and I’m holding on tight to you.’
In the moonlight, Zahir’s lean features were taut. ‘You mean that?’
Saffy’s fingers trailed daringly lower and closed around his bold erection.
With a roughened groan of satisfaction, Zahir flung himself back against the pillows. ‘You’re absolutely right. Nothing would move me right now.’
Saffy leant over him, her mane of hair trailing across his abdomen. He said something in Arabic. She pressed her lips to the tiny brown disc of a male nipple and moved in a southerly direction, taking her time as she kissed and stroked her way down his beautiful bronzed body.
‘This is our wedding night…’ Zahir muttered thickly. ‘I should be doing this to you.’
‘My turn later…right now, I’m in charge,’ Saffy whispered just before she found him with her mouth and his hands lodged firmly into her hair, his hips rising to assist her, and an exclamation of intense pleasure was wrenched from him. Proud of her own boldness, no longer ashamed of the desire he roused in her, Saffy was thoroughly enjoying herself.
She loved having him in her power, revelled in every response he couldn’t control and experienced a deep sense of achievement when he could no longer stand her teasing caresses and he dragged her up to him and flipped her over to ravage her lush lips with an almost savage kiss.
Making love to Zahir turned her on and no sooner had he registered that fact than he rose over her, all masculine, dominant power and energy, and thrust his engorged shaft into the silky wet tightness of her inner channel. She cried out in delight and then he was moving and stretching her, ramping up her level of excitement to an almost unbearable degree. It had never occurred to her that slow and deep could be as thrilling as fast and hard, but he wouldn’t let her urge him on and control the pace.
‘No, this we do my way,’ Zahir growled, flexing his hips, sending a shiver of exquisite sensitivity over her entire skin surface, her nipples straining as he shifted position and angle to torture her more.
He kept her straining on the edge of climax for a long time and the ripples of growing excitement were engulfing her like a flood when, in receipt of one final driving thrust, she found a wild, scorching release that shattered her into shaking, sobbing weightlessness, utterly drained by the joy of the experience. She lay there for a long time afterwards, wrapped in his arms, steeped in pure pleasure, marvelling that they were together again.
‘Now perhaps you’ll consider telling me what or who transformed you in the bedroom from the terrified girl I remember into the woman you are now,’ Zahir urged in a roughened undertone that nonetheless shockwaved through her like a sudden clap of thunder.
In receipt of that request, a little shudder of repulsion travelled through Saffy’s suddenly ferociously tense body. No, she could not do that; no, she could not risk sharing what had happened to her lest it destroy the new bonds they had created. She could feel him waiting for her to speak, literally willing her to speak in that dreadful expectant silence. As the silence continued and she failed to respond the strong, protective arms wrapped round her tensed, loosened and then carefully withdrew and he shifted his lean, powerful body away from hers, forging a separation between them that she could feel aching through every fibre she possessed.
Zahir wasn’t giving her a choice and he wasn’t about to conveniently drop the subject for the sake of peace either, she recognised wretchedly. He wanted to know; he was determined to know and he had a will of iron that would chip away at her obstinacy day after day. He wouldn’t let it go and the distance that would create between them would provide fertile ground in which suspicion might well fester. Would he then start to doubt that he was truly her baby’s father? Would he wonder if he had really been her only lover?
Stinging tears stung Saffy’s eyes and trickled down her cheeks in the darkness. He was always so honest; he never seemed afraid of anything, never seemed to worry about how other people saw him. Why couldn’t she be the same? Why couldn’t she just spill it all out and stop worrying about how it might damage his view of her? But Saffy couldn’t find an answer to the never-tell-anyone barrier that existed inside her mind. The therapist had had a lot of trouble getting her to talk and finally she had had hypnotherapy to overcome what she was too afraid and ashamed to remember, and only then, in possession of full knowledge, had she found it possible to move forward…
CHAPTER TEN
BREAKFAST FOR SAFFY and Zahir the following morning was an almost silent affair. Zahir, being Zahir of course, was scrupulously polite and yet in every glance, every intonation Saffy imagined she heard condemnation, suspicion, doubt that she could be trusted as he believed he should be able to trust his wife. Nausea stirred in her stomach as she contemplated the piece of toast clasped between her fingers and with a stifled apology she fled for the nearest bathroom to lose what little she had eaten.
Afterwards, weak and with hot, perspiring skin she lay down on the bed, relishing the restorative coolness of the air conditioning wafting over her.
Zahir strode through the bedroom door, stunning dark golden eyes intent on the picture she presented. ‘With all the flowers surrounding you here you look like the Sleeping Beauty…’
Saffy parted pink lips. ‘But this doesn’t feel like a fairy tale,’ she whispered apologetically because if there had ever been a romantic male, it was Zahir. And how on earth could a romantic male ever come to terms with something as ugly as her biggest secret?
‘I’ve phoned Hayat’s obstetrician.’
‘Why the heck did you do that?’
‘You’re sick. You need medical attention,’ Zahir informed her with a stubborn angle to his jaw line.
‘Being sick in early pregnancy is very common and not something to make a fuss about,’ Saffy countered steadily.
‘I shouldn’t have tired you out last night,’ Zahir responded tight-mouthed, his beautiful eyes shaded by his outrageously lush black lashes.
Saffy thrust her hands down onto the mattress to lift herself up into sitting position. ‘That’s got nothing to do with this—this is only my body struggling to adapt to being newly pregnant and it’s normal.’
‘I will stop worrying only when the doctor tells me to do so. I’m responsible for looking after you,’ Zahir asserted, unimpressed by her argument. ‘And while I realise that you’re not feeling like it, you must make an effort to eat some breakfast to keep your strength up.’
And the boss has spoken, Saffy tagged on in silence to that speech as Zahir stalked out of the door again. He did care that she wasn’t feeling well, she assured herself ruefully. It wasn’t love but it was concern, but for how long would she even retain that hold on him if she continued to keep her secrets? Naturally he was curious, naturally sooner or later he would need to know the truth about her past. For the first time she accepted that telling Zahir the truth was unavoidable and a bridge she would eventually have to cross.
Zahir’s sister, Hayat, accompanied the consultant, who had tended her through her pregnancies. A well-built older man with a studious manner, he was calm and practical and exactly what Saffy needed to reinforce her belief that a little nausea was not serious cause for concern.
‘The baby’s father is very worried about your health,’ the doctor declared. ‘It is a challenge of civility to tell a king he must not worry unduly.’
Hayat was waiting outside to ask Saffy to join her for tea. Dressed in a light summer dress in shades of blue, Saffy accompanied her sister-in-law to the rear of the palace complex where she and her husband and children lived. Her husband, Rahim, was a senior doctor at the city hospital and their three little girls occupied much of Hayat and Saffy’s conversation until a maid arrived to take the children out to the gardens to play.
Tea with tiny sweet cakes was served on a shaded balcony.
‘My brother needs to learn to say no,’ Hayat told Saffy firmly. ‘The same day he brings you home a bride he was immediately dragged into some government squabble about security concerns and forced to abandon you. You will quickly discover that Zahir doesn’t know how to say no to the demands made on his time.’
Saffy simply smiled, warmed by the frank tongue that Hayat appeared to share with her brother. ‘Zahir was always very conscientious. Thank you for being so welcoming, Hayat. I appreciate it.’
‘I know how much you and Zahir went through when you were married five years ago and our people now have a very good idea as well,’ Hayat commented, her brown eyes level and serious. ‘Zahir was wise when he chose to issue a public statement, admitting that he was remarrying the woman whom his father once forced him to divorce.’
Saffy stiffened in surprise at that revelation. ‘I had no idea there had been any statement made about our marriage!’ she exclaimed.
‘Or that now my brother, the king, is forced to tell lies in public to protect you?’ another louder voice interposed from the doorway behind them and both women’s heads whipped around in astonishment at the interruption.
‘Akram!’ Hayat snapped in a warning tone at her youngest brother before turning back to Saffy with her face flushed and her expression uneasy to say, ‘Please excuse me for a moment.’
But Zahir’s volatile kid brother had worked up too much of a head of steam to be denied the confrontation with his brother’s wife that his temper clearly craved. He concentrated his attention on Saffy, who was already starting to rise from her chair in dismay. ‘You walked out on my brother—you deserted him after all he had endured to keep you as a wife against our father’s wishes!’ he accused with loathing. ‘Zahir was imprisoned, tortured and beaten for your benefit and then you threw your marriage away by divorcing him when he needed your loyalty most!’
Her expression distraught, Hayat was pleading with her angry brother to keep quiet while simultaneously yanking on his arm in an unsuccessful effort to physically drag him away.
Saffy could barely part her numb lips. She was in serious shock from Akram’s ringing condemnation of her behaviour. And what on earth was he talking about? Imprisoned, tortured, beaten? Zahir?
‘I will deal with this…’ and another more familiar voice intervened, cutting across the row going on between Hayat and Akram with commanding force.
Trembling, Saffy focused on Zahir where he stood like a bronzed statue in the centre of the light, airy reception room, coldly surveying his squabbling siblings. He spoke in his own language at length to Akram and Hayat backed off, dropping her head apologetically. Whatever Zahir told his brother, Akram turned his head in consternation to stare back at Saffy with frowning disbelief. He took a half-step towards her and muttered uncomfortably, ‘I am very sorry. It seems I got everything wrong.’
‘Yes, Zahir divorced me,’ Saffy pointed out ruefully.
‘Even so, I should never have spoken to you in that way or approached you in a temper. It was not my business,’ Akram mumbled, his face very flushed, his discomfiture in Zahir’s thunderous presence pronounced. ‘Over the years it seems I reached the wrong conclusions and, as my brother has reminded me, I was never party to the true facts of what happened between you.’
An uneasy silence fell. Zahir was still glaring angrily at his kid brother.
‘No harm done,’ Saffy said awkwardly, keen to dispel the tension. ‘I assume that Zahir has told you what really happened and that you no longer think so badly of me. Now, if you would all excuse me…’
‘Where are you going?’ Zahir demanded.
‘Only for a walk. I’d like to be alone for a while,’ she muttered tightly.
‘I will accompany you,’ Zahir pronounced.
‘No…I only want a minute alone,’ Saffy whispered pleadingly, because she was thinking about what Akram had hurled at her and reaching the worst possible conclusions. Zahir had been punished by his father for defying him by marrying her? Why had that possibility never occurred to her before? Why had she been so wrapped up in her own misery that it had never occurred to her that Zahir might be dealing with bad things too? But, imprisoned, tortured, beaten…surely not? Was that possible? Would his father have subjected his son to such brutal intimidation? According to his reputation, King Fareed had been responsible for many atrocities. She thought of Zahir’s appallingly scarred back and a sense of cold fear of the unknown and of such cruelty infiltrated her. But if Zahir had suffered like that, why hadn’t he told her?
When Saffy actually focused enough to recognise where her wandering feet had carried her, she realised that she was back in the old part of the palace where she had once lived. She walked down a dim corridor and cast open the door of the room that had once been theirs. It shook her that it was still furnished the same, untouched by time or alteration, and she walked in with a compulsive shiver of remembrance of the past.
A thousand images engulfed her all at once and she reeled from memories of Zahir watching her with wary eyes, his silences, sudden absences and his refusal to answer questions. Had he been hiding stuff from her that she should have guessed? Was Akram telling the truth? She couldn’t bear that suspicion, wasn’t sure she could ever live with any discovery that painful…
‘I should have had this place cleared…’ Zahir murmured from behind her. ‘But I used to come here to think about you.’
Saffy turned round, her face pale as milk, her eyes nakedly vulnerable. ‘When? After the divorce? I think you need to start talking, Zahir…and maybe I do too,’ she acknowledged unevenly.
‘After I married you, my brother Omar asked me if I was insane to challenge our father to that extent,’ Zahir admitted with curt reluctance. ‘But at first I genuinely had no idea what I was dealing with: Omar had protected me too much. He kept a lot of secrets. I was the younger son, the junior army officer, and I wasn’t part of the inner circle of people who knew what a monster my father had become on a diet of unfettered power.’
‘So, you must have regretted marrying me rather quickly,’ Saffy assumed, searching the lean strong features she loved for every passing nuance of expression and sinking down on the edge of the bed where she had often cried her heart out with loneliness.
His handsome mouth hardened. ‘I only ever regretted the unnatural lifestyle which our marriage inflicted on you. I had no regrets on my own behalf.’
‘That’s a kind thing to say but it can’t be the way you really felt.’
‘I loved you more than life,’ Zahir breathed starkly. ‘My mistake was in rebelling against my father and bringing you back here to become the equivalent of a hostage. I should have married you and left you in London where you would be safe, but I was too selfish to do that.’
Loved you more than life. The declaration rippled through her like an unexpected benediction, steadying her nerves. ‘I loved you too. You weren’t selfish. I wouldn’t have agreed to being left behind in London.’
‘But you didn’t know what you were getting into here any more than I did.’ Face grave, Zahir compressed his lips. ‘Omar had been married five years and he still had no child. Our father was impatient to see the next generation in the family born.’
‘That must have put a lot of pressure on Omar and Azel.’
‘More on Omar for the lack of fertility was his, not hers but I didn’t learn that until shortly before Omar…died.’ He spoke that last word with curious emphasis. ‘My older brother’s secret was that he had discovered he was unable to father a child and he was afraid to tell our father lest he was passed over in the succession stakes in favour of me. Omar was always the ambitious one,’ Zahir told her heavily. ‘Unfortunately for him, our father had run out of patience. He demanded that Omar either set Azel aside or take a second wife.’
Saffy was shocked. ‘And that was the background to our marriage?’
‘Our father was doubly enraged when I married you without permission because my marriage to a suitable woman would have been the next step on his agenda.’
‘And of course I got in the way of his plans,’ Saffy completed. ‘Yet you thought he would eventually accept me.’
‘I was wrong,’ Zahir admitted grittily. ‘I was much more naïve than I thought I was about what our father was really like. I never dreamt he would be as vicious with his sons as he was to some of our people. How adolescent was such innocence in a grown man?’
‘Everybody wants to think the best of their parents,’ Saffy told him with rueful understanding. ‘I don’t blame you for getting it wrong.’
‘The year we were married was the year my father went over the edge. Although I was unaware of it, he had become a regular drug user and suffered from violent rages. From the first day you arrived he wanted me to divorce you…and the sensible act would have been to surrender to greater force, but I was never sensible about you.’
