Destined For The Desert King

He was so instantly recognisable—apart from the black beard that shaded his angular jaw—she would have known who he was immediately. But there was something deeply personal that held her back from giving him her name. What if he didn’t remember her? If he stared at her blankly, unable to recall any Aziza from so long ago? Her father would have laughed at the thought that he might recall her, and it was foolish to let herself be hurt by the possibility—the probability—that he would not remember her as she did him. But something small and hidden deep inside her shrank from even taking the risk.

‘If you will forgive me...’

She had turned towards the doors into the main palace when he stirred again and his voice came from behind her.

‘Don’t go!’

Nabil had no idea what made him say it. Why the hell should he want anyone to stay with him when at last he had found the solitude and silence of the balcony that should have been balm to his barren soul? But, now that this slip of a woman was so obviously intent on hurrying away and leaving him there, he knew a sudden new rush of emptiness piled on emptiness that had always been there, and the words had escaped him without thought.

‘Highness?’

She hadn’t been expecting them either. It was obvious from the way that she started as if she’d been hit, froze, then whirled back to face him. In the moonlight her eyes were wide and dark.

‘Don’t go. Stay a while.’

He pitched it as a command, not a request, and saw the change in her expression as he did so. For a second her clouded gaze slid to the open door, where the light from the ballroom spilled out on to the balcony, the hum of voices and clink of glasses drifting out to them on the night air. But then she obviously decided on the wisdom of obeying him and she dipped once more into a deferential curtsey.

‘And stop doing that,’ Nabil growled. It wasn’t subservience or submissiveness he wanted now. What he wanted was...

What?

Damnation, if he couldn’t answer that himself then what could he ask from her?

‘Sir’ was all she said, but there was a new light in her eyes and an unexpected tilt to the pretty chin as she looked up at him. Not defiance, quite, but there was something very different there. Something that tugged on a sliver of memory that flickered for a moment in his thoughts and then went out again.

She kept her distance now, deliberately leaving several paces between them. But it was not enough to prevent the swirl of her perfume reaching out to him. The richness of sandalwood and jasmine tantalised his nostrils, stirring his senses in a way he hadn’t experienced in years. The kick of his heart and sudden heating of his blood was a shock to his system, making his pulse pound in unexpected response. It was so long since he had felt this way that the rush of sexual hunger made his senses spin. For years the most beautiful, sensual women had tried to create this effect in him and failed, and now some small, insignificant female had set his libido smouldering in a way he had almost forgotten could happen.

‘Should I fetch you a drink?’

She had seen the way his tongue had slipped out, moistening unexpectedly dry lips, and had misread the gesture. It jolted him to think that she had been watching him so closely.

‘No—I’m fine.’

What was she? A maid? ‘I’m with Jamalia,’ she had said, and she must mean the eldest daughter of the El Afarim family.

He knew a scowl had darkened his face but he made no effort to hold it back. The thought of Farouk El Afarim and his family, the reasons why they were parading the beautiful Jamalia before him, brought with it a scratch of discomfort that scraped over his nerves. He had wanted to forget for tonight—needed no reminders of the unrest that was threatening again, the importance of ensuring El Afarim’s loyalty with a valuable treaty to stop him defecting to the rebels’ side.

‘Just stay—and talk.’

‘About what?’

‘Anything. For example...’ He waved a hand to draw her eyes away from the balcony on which they stood, towards the lights of the city and beyond, to the horizon where the mountains lifted towards the sky. ‘What do you see out there?’

‘What do I see?’ Another questioning glance but she still turned from him, taking several steps towards the parapet, leaning against it as she gazed out at the scene spread below them. ‘Why do you ask?’

Another question he couldn’t answer. He had to admit that he wanted to see that view—and all it represented—through her eyes. If it was the price of everything that was to come, then he wanted to know he was not the only one who valued it. That it was worth the decision he had made.

‘Humour me.’

The truth was that he wanted to keep her with him a while longer. To talk with someone who was not connected with the demands and debates, the treaties and the dissensions that had filled his life these past months. Someone who didn’t need to be treated diplomatically all the time, or who made him watch his tongue so carefully that it felt almost bitten through with the times he’d had to hold back impatient words.

To spend more time with someone who stirred his senses in a way that no one had in the time that he could remember. It was like coming alive again and he wanted more of it.

For a moment he seriously considered making a move on her. She was up for it; there was no doubt about that. He could see it in her face, hear it in her voice, in that little breathless hiccup that shaded each word. If he did try to take things further, she would not resist.

He let those seconds linger, tasted them on his tongue, in his blood. He savoured the feelings that had been almost dead to him for so long, welcoming them, relishing them. Then, slowly and reluctantly, he let them go, throwing them aside as no longer for him. If there was one thing that the past ten years had taught him, it was that that sort of empty relationship, the connection that blinded him for a few hours, driving away the darkness for a night, in the end had nothing that was a real result. The darkness was still there when he woke and it always felt so much the worse in the cold light of day after having been hidden behind the intoxication of wild and mindless sex in a heated bed for the night.

He should let her go. He should turn and walk away but his senses held him captive. And when she spoke again just the sound of her voice was like a signal, beckoning him closer.

‘What I see...’

Aziza was both glad and reluctant to turn her eyes away from the man before her and focus them on the scene below. It wasn’t easy. In the moment that she had turned away he must have moved closer so that she heard the soft whisper of his robes drifting over the stone. She could almost feel the heat of his body touching her, and the scent of musk and clean skin that swirled around her like perfumed smoke made her senses swim. It dried her lips, tightened her throat so that she snatched in a raw breath to ease the feeling.

‘You must know what there is there now—even if you can’t actually see it. You must look out at it every day and see the sea to the right—Alazar over towards the mountain—and here...’

Her voice cracked, breath shortening as the arm she used to gesture with caught on the fine material of his robe, bringing home to her just how close he was now.

‘And here...?’

Was that stiffness in his tone created by anything like the way her own tongue felt as she struggled to speak? Was it possible that he had actually come closer because he too recognised the darkly sensual tug of attraction that she had known from the moment she had looked up into his face, focusing on the dark depths of his eyes, the rich sensuality of his beautifully shaped mouth in the black shadow of his beard? This was nothing of the childish, immature hero-worship of the five-year-old who had first met Nabil and given her heart to him. It wasn’t even anything like the ardent crush that hero-worship had developed into as she had discovered the passionate feelings of adolescence.

No, this was the response of a grown woman to a mature and powerful man. A man who roused all that was feminine in her. But a man she must keep her distance from, keeping in mind just why she and her family were here. It was Jamalia he was supposed to notice, not her.

‘You know what I see here, sire. Out there is Hazibah—the capital—your capital. And there...’

Her voice faltered for a moment then picked up strength as she acknowledged that she could at least speak the truth on this. Here she had nothing to hide.

‘There are hundreds of people out there—thousands. Husbands and wives, families and children, all of whom are enjoying the evening—the peace—because of you.’

‘Because of me—do you truly think it?’

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_49f37ae0-6a91-5ca3-a364-689d55507d5a)

THE SOUND HE made was one of obvious scepticism, low and rough in his throat, and it brought her whirling round to face him once again.

‘It’s true! How can you even doubt it?’

Dear heaven how had he come to be so close? She had barely noticed him move and yet all her senses had been on such high alert that she should have caught even the tiniest movement. But now she was staring him right in the face, eyes burning into eyes, their breaths almost seeming to mingle in the cool of the evening air.

‘After all that happened—all you endured...’

She wasn’t getting through to him. She might as well be throwing her words at a stone wall for all the impact they made. But she had lived through those times and she knew of the fear that had gripped the country when a rebel group had turned against the young Crown Prince and tried to stage an uprising.

‘All that I endured?’ How could he lace a single syllable with such black cynicism? ‘What do you know of it?’

‘Doesn’t everyone know?’

Even at just thirteen, she had been starkly aware of those shocking television images. The crack of gunfire, the way that everyone had frozen just for a moment. Then security men had rushed forward, some towards the steps of the library where Nabil and his young Queen had been standing, others in the opposite direction in search of the would-be assassin. How could anyone ever forget the image of Nabil sinking to the ground, ignoring the blood streaming from the wound on his left cheek, as he cradled his mortally wounded Queen in protective arms?