One Desert Night: Destined for the Desert King / Hidden in the Sheikh's Harem / Claimed by the Sheikh

‘Steady...’ her father urged as she swayed slightly, hesitating nervously.

If anything brought home the change in her situation, it was that. The fact that her father had spoken to soothe her, instead of the sharp reproach she would have expected in the past. She was someone new now, and Farouk’s attitude had had to change along with her life.

‘Remember, he chose you.’

He chose you. She still couldn’t believe that those words were true. That they had actually been said in the moment that her father had come to find her and Jamalia in the room where they had been waiting, all day it seemed, for some sort of announcement on Sheikh Nabil’s selection of a bride. They had known that something had happened when Farouk had arrived, his mouth seemingly clamped tight on the news he had to deliver and his dark eyes burning with a suppressed excitement until he’d been free to speak openly.

‘Sheikh Nabil has made his decision,’ he had said and immediately Aziza’s eyes had gone to her sister who had pushed herself out of her chair, hectic colour flooding her cheeks. The ‘diadem’ she had created out of her necklace still glittered on her forehead like an omen.

But it was towards his younger daughter that Farouk had turned, his own smile slightly uneven. He had not been able to suppress his delight that one of his daughters was to become the Sheikh’s bride, but was bemused that it was Aziza and not his ‘jewel’, her elder sister.

‘He chose you.’

Aziza struggled to breathe naturally, making herself draw in air, then let it out again, fighting to steady the way that her feet hit the ground as she moved forward again. The marble floor felt disturbingly uneven beneath the soles of her silk slippers and she could barely focus through the layer upon layer of golden gauze that formed her veil to see the man standing at the far end of the hall.

Nabil—her husband-to-be!—was just a blur of white in his full ceremonial robes, the gutra on his head, bound, with a gold igal, acting like a blind, hiding his face from her.

But that was how it was supposed to be in this ceremony. Aziza knew that both she and Nabil were meant to be just symbols—the ruler and his consort. Not a man and a woman. Because this arranged marriage was for the sake of the country.

That was one of the reasons why she had not been able to refuse to go through with this. For the sake of the country had been drilled into her from the moment she had been told that she was Nabil’s choice. The vital treaties that had been built around their proposed union could be destroyed if she tried to back out. She was not supposed to be a person, just a bargaining tool. No one thought of her hopes, her dreams, her feelings. Anything like that was supposed to be buried under the overwhelming pride of being the Sheikh’s prospective bride. That was why she had this new-found approval from her father. She was the chosen one.

He chose you.

No one—not even Aziza herself—had reckoned with the memories she carried from her childhood, the ardent crush she had had on Nabil from a very early age. That had grown as she’d watched him leave youth behind and turn into a man who had endured loss and betrayal and now had put them behind him.

But who was Nabil now? Were her memories of him just the fantasies of a child, or did they have any foundation in the truth? In her dreams he had always been the man she would marry—but those dreams were just fantasy. She had never dreamed of the hard, cold man she had met that night on the balcony.

And yet it seemed she couldn’t let go of the girlhood yearnings. She had wept for her disillusionment that night, but in the moment that her father had told her that she was the Sheikh’s chosen bride all those dreams had come rushing back, bringing with them new hopes, new hungers, that her younger self would never even have been able to imagine.

She wanted to be the chosen one. Whether she was Zia the maid, or Aziza the second-best daughter, she longed to be special to someone. And Nabil had seen her; in that room with the two-way mirror, he had seen her with Jamalia and he had chosen her.

She was at Nabil’s side now, her right hand lifted from her father’s arm and placed into his, her small fingers almost swallowed up in the length and strength of his palm.

And there it was again. That stinging, fizzing, burning rage of response that his touch stirred, making her snatch in a breath, unable to control the race of her heart.

It was how it had happened on the balcony, the night of the anniversary celebrations.

Now, just being so close to him, had brought back all the feelings that had threatened to burn her alive that night on the balcony. Even through the concealing folds of the veils, his black gaze burned into her skin, branding her, marking her as his.

She wanted that. She wanted this man as she had never wanted any other human being in her life. She wanted those childhood reveries to come true. Oh, she knew that there was no way the dreams of Nabil she had had then could ever become reality. The adult male Nabil she had met on the balcony was light years away from her childhood hero. She knew that he was harsh now. A hard man, devoid of any warm emotion. She blushed to remember his refusal to kiss her that night. She should resist this union. But her foolish heart wouldn’t listen to reason.

Somehow she got through the ceremony, led into the responses, the words she needed to say, guided by the celebrant. She accepted the ring that Nabil pushed on to her finger and then turned, her hand on her husband’s arm, and made her way back down the room. There was a huge change in the atmosphere, in the attitude of everyone present. She was no longer even the chosen one but actually the Sheikh’s wife.

The greatest shock came when she saw her mother sweep into a low curtsey and her father—her father!—bow respectfully as she passed. It was then that it hit home to her that this marriage had changed so much for her personally as well as for the country.

She was no longer second to anyone—except of course Nabil, her husband. Her days of being the ‘other daughter’, the one who was usually kept in the background, were over. Most of all she no longer had to obey her father, subject everything she did to his scrutiny. She was free.

Or was she? She had put her life and her future—her body too—into the hands of the man who was walking beside her. That grip on her fingers was very firm, his skin warm and hard against her own. It made her shiver inside to feel it and the twist of nerves low down in her body forced her to think of what it might be like to have those hands on other more intimate parts of her body. She had blundered into this in a blind bewilderment, half-influenced by the yearning she had felt as a child, half-reaching for the freedom she thought this marriage would offer, clinging on to the knowledge that Nabil was a reformer, had taken an interest in improving the lives of women in his country. So different from her father’s oppressive and traditional views on women. But was that freedom possible at all or had she just exchanged one form of slavery for another?

She drifted through the feasting and celebrations that followed the wedding as if in some sort of delirium, a feeling that was only increased by being hidden behind the concealing curtain of her veils. If she wanted to eat, she would have to slip the food under those curtains in order to reach her mouth.

But the reality was that she couldn’t eat a thing, just pushed the rich, spicy food around on the gold surface of her plate, unable to think of swallowing a morsel. Beside her Nabil sat, his hand resting on the arms of his chair, his long body seeming relaxed in his seat. But this close to him she couldn’t be unaware of the way that those deep, dark eyes watched the room, noting every movement. The wary alertness bothered her.

‘Sire...’

Her voice, dry with apprehension, croaked slightly as the sound pulled his head round, black eyes seeming to sear through the concealing veil and on to her face.

‘My name is Nabil,’ he said softly enough but with an edge to his own name that brought her up sharp. Her eyes drawn to the sudden movement of one long, bronzed hand, she saw how those strong fingers had clenched over the gold fork that lay beside his plate. A plate that he had barely touched either. Suddenly she was stingingly aware of the fact that his given name was one so very few people had the right to use. In his position as the head of government, the ruler of Rhastaan, he was the Sheikh, the King, His Highness—but how few people could call him just Nabil.

And suddenly, from the mists of bitter memory, she had an unwanted recollection of the shocking scenes played out on the televisions sets of the country ten years before. In the deafening silence of the aftermath of the assassination attempt, Nabil, his own face marked with the blood of the glancing wound he had suffered, had bent over the fallen body of Sharmila, his pregnant Queen. As he’d lowered his head to hers, it had been possible to see how her lips had moved to silently form one word: Nabil.

‘N-Nabil...’ she tried hesitantly, wanting to reach out and touch her fingers to that hand so tightly clamped around his fork. But it seemed as if a force field of distance, of rejection, shimmered around him, and instead she clenched her own hands in her lap, fearful of shattering the atmosphere with a dangerous move.

Nabil made his fingers ease their hold on the fork he held. Now was not the time to think of how many years it had been since he had heard a woman—other than Clementina—use his name in that way. Nor to recognise how those damned veils muffled everything about her voice so that it could come from any female, old or young. It seemed so strange that the only image he had of the woman who was now his wife was the image of her as a girl that had pushed him into a decision that might just turn out to be as foolish and rash as the one that had made him take Sharmila as his first wife. But at least this decision had been made with his head, not the rush of desire and loneliness that had pushed him into Sharmila’s arms.

Or the one that had had him actually considering taking Aziza’s sister’s maid to bed.

Damn it, no! He had let Zia creep into his mind at exactly the point he should not be thinking of her. His focus should be on his bride—on Aziza.

An Aziza who was obviously no longer a child. She had blossomed—physically at least. That slender body was still all woman, high, firm breasts and gently curving hips, but her face was totally concealed behind the veils that tradition demanded, frustrating any attempt to actually see what she looked like. He knew her sister was the reputed beauty but surely Aziza couldn’t have lost all the angelic prettiness that he remembered? All those years ago, she had been the one who had treated him like a person, not as a potential king, marked out by the role that was all Jamalia and her parents seemed to see. She had giggled when he’d spotted her stealing sweetmeats, pressed a finger to her lips to warn him not to betray her. And that smile...

Silently Nabil cursed the tradition of the golden bridal veil. If only he could see through that damned gauze—see his wife!

Burning with frustration, he gave up trying to penetrate the material that concealed Aziza’s face and let his gaze drop abruptly to look down at her still full dish.

‘You are not eating.’

To Aziza’s ears it sounded like an accusation, a reproof.

‘I—I’m not hungry.’

To her amazement a corner of Nabil’s mouth quirked up into a sudden and unexpected smile at her response.

‘That is not like the Aziza I remember.’

‘You—remember?’ It hit her hard in her stomach, her mind reeling in shock to think that he recalled her at all.

‘You stole the candied fruits from the table,’ he told her. ‘I remember wondering how you could get away with that when you were barely tall enough to see over the top of it.’

‘I took them for my nurse!’ Aziza answered sharply, discomforted at the thought that he recalled her as only a greedy little girl. She wanted him to think of her as a woman. The woman he had chosen. The woman he wanted.

‘Of course you did.’

When he laughed like that she felt that she might melt, slipping from her chair to lie in a pool at his feet. It seemed impossible to believe that this gorgeous, sexy male could be interested in her at all. And yet he’d had the chance to marry her sister...

Realisation was like a shock to her heart, snatching away her breath so that she was grateful for the fact that the veil hid so much from those burning black eyes. If he had seen her and Jamalia together, then he must know that she was the Zia who had claimed to be only his sister’s maid. He’d seen her, recognised her and still chosen her. It made her head spin to think of it and more than ever before she cursed the masking of the veil that meant she had no hope of reading what was really in those glittering dark eyes.

‘Do you still like sweetmeats?’