Demanding His Desert Queen

He shook his head. ‘That was a long time ago.’

‘Your qualities and experience will stand you in good stead no matter how long it’s been. And it’s only been a few years.’

Years since he’d left his homeland and turned his back on everything he’d known. He was only now beginning to feel that he’d settled into his new life.

Safiyah leaned forward, and he felt for the first time since she’d arrived that she wasn’t conscious of her body language. Earlier she’d seemed very self-aware. Now she was too caught up in their discussion to be guarded. He read animation in her brown eyes and knew, whatever her real reason for being here, that she meant what she said.

Karim canted closer, drawn to her in spite of himself.

‘It’s what you were born to do and you’d excel at it.’

Abruptly Karim sank back in his seat. Her words had unravelled the spell she’d woven. The moment of connection broke, shattered by a wave of revulsion.

‘It doesn’t matter what I was born to do.’ His nostrils flared as he swallowed rising acid. ‘I’ve renounced all that.’

Because he wasn’t the man the world thought him. He was the bastard son of an unfaithful queen and her shadowy lover.

‘Of course it matters!’ Her clasped hands trembled as if with the force of her emotion. ‘Assara desperately needs a ruler who can keep the country together—especially now, when rival clans are stirring dissension and jealousy. Each wants their own man on the throne.’

Karim shrugged. ‘Why should I bother? One of them will be elected and the others will have to put up with it. Maybe there’ll be unrest for a bit, but it will die down.’

‘You don’t see…’

She paused and looked down at her hands. Karim saw a tiny cleft appear in her cheek and then vanish. She was biting the inside of her mouth again. Absurdly, the sight moved him.

‘What aren’t you saying, Safiyah?’

It was the first time he’d spoken her name aloud in years. Her chin jerked up and for a moment her gaze clung to his. But he wasn’t foolish enough to be beguiled by that haunted look.

See? Already it was gone, replaced by a smooth, composed mask.

‘You’re the best man for the role, Karim—far better than any of the other contenders. You’d make a real difference in Assara. The country needs a strong, honest leader who’ll work for all his people.’

Karim digested that. Was she implying that her dead husband hadn’t been a good ruler? The idea intrigued him. Or was she just referring to unrest now?

To his annoyance her expression gave little away. The Safiyah he’d once known, or thought he’d known, had been far easier to read. Even more annoying was the fact his interest was aroused by the idea of doing something intrinsically worthwhile. Something more meaningful than merely building his own wealth.

Karim frowned. How had Safiyah guessed such an appeal would tempt him?

He enjoyed the challenge of expanding his business interests. The cut and thrust of negotiation, of locating opportunities ripe for development and capitalising on them. That took skill, dedication and a fine sense of timing. Yet was it as satisfying as the work he’d been trained to do—using his skills to rule a nation?

The thought of Safiyah knowing him so well—better, it seemed, than he knew himself—infuriated him. This was the woman who’d spurned him when she discovered the secret taint of his illegitimacy. He’d believed in her, yet she’d turned her back on him without even the pretence of regret, much less a farewell. It galled him that anything she said could make him doubt even for a second his chosen course.

What was wrong with concentrating on his own life, his own needs? Let others devote themselves to public service. He’d done his bit. Assara wasn’t even his country.

Karim leaned back in his seat, raising his eyebrows. ‘But I’m not a contender. I have already made that clear.’

He almost stood then, signifying the interview was over. But something prevented him. Something not at all fine or statesmanlike. An impulse grounded in the hurt he’d felt when she’d abandoned him.

‘Unless…’

Satisfaction rose as she leaned closer, avid to hear more, her lush, cherry-red lips parted.

Karim had a sudden disconcerting memory of those lips pressed against his. They’d been devoid of lipstick and petal-soft. Her ardent, slightly clumsy kiss had enchanted and worried him. For, much as he’d wanted her, he had known he shouldn’t seduce an innocent, even if they were on the verge of marriage. Especially an innocent who, with her father, was a guest in the royal palace.

Safiyah had been all the things Karim hadn’t even known he wanted in a wife: generous, bright, shyly engaging and incredibly sexy. She’d been the reason he’d finally decided to give in to his father’s demand that he marry.

‘Unless?’ Her voice was like honey.

‘Unless there was more to the deal…an inducement.’

He leaned forward, and for a moment the space between them was negligible. He was close enough to see the tiny amber flecks in her brown eyes, to reacquaint himself with the creamy perfection of her skin and inhale a teasing drift of scent. A delicate floral perfume, with a warm, enticing undertone, that was unique to Safiyah.

That hint of fragrance hit him like a body-blow, sweeping him back to a time when he’d had everything. He’d been a prince, secure in his position, his place in the world and his family. He’d enjoyed his work, helping his father run Za’daq. He hadn’t even regretted giving up his sexual freedom because Safiyah had turned the prospect of marriage from a duty to a pleasure.

‘What sort of inducement?’ Her voice was steady but her eyes were wary.

Karim told himself to leave it. To walk away. He had no intention of taking this further.

Then he heard his own voice saying, ‘Marriage.’

He couldn’t mean it.

He wasn’t talking about marriage to her. Yet a strange shivery feeling rippled down her spine and curled into her belly like large fingers digging deep. Her skin prickled all over and heat eddied in disturbing places.

‘I’m sure that will be no problem.’ She forced a smile. ‘You’ll have your pick of eligible women.’

And Karim didn’t need a crown or wealth to attract them. He was handsome, urbane and, she knew to her cost, charming. He could coax the birds from the trees if he set his mind to it. No wonder she, so unworldly and inexperienced at twenty-two, had been taken in, thinking his attentions meant something special.

‘I don’t need to pick when there’s one obvious choice.’

His crystalline gaze locked on hers and his voice deepened to a baritone note she felt vibrate through her bones.

‘The Queen of Assara.’

His words were clear. Safiyah heard them, and yet she told herself Karim had said something else. He couldn’t really mean—

‘You, Safiyah.’

‘Me?’ Her voice rose to a wobbly high note.

Once she’d believed he wanted to marry her, that he cared for her. Her father had been sure too. And so had Karim’s father. He’d permitted her and her father to stay at the Za’daqi palace even while, as they’d discovered later, he was in the final stages of terminal illness.

But when a family emergency had dragged her and her father back to Assara everything had fallen apart. Karim hadn’t farewelled them. Nor had he responded to the note she’d left him. A note she’d written and rewritten. There’d been no attempt to contact her since. Just…nothing. Not a single word. When she’d tried to contact him at the palace she’d been fobbed off.

Then had come the news that Karim’s father had died. To everyone’s amazement Karim had renounced the throne and left Za’daq. Even then she’d waited, refusing to believe he’d really abandoned her. Days had turned into weeks. Weeks to months. And still no word. And over those months her faith in him had shrivelled and turned into hurt, disbelief and finally anger.

Even at the last moment, when she’d been cornered in a situation she’d never wanted, a small, irrepressible part of her had hoped he’d step in and stop—