Sheikh's Forbidden Queen: Zarif's Convenient Queen / Gambling with the Crown

In growing dismay, Ella was studying a more colourful image of herself, racily dressed in a short black leather skirt and a low-necked lace top with fake black wings attached. It had been taken at a Halloween fancy-dress party the previous year. Cathy by her side, the two girls were giggling and slightly the worse for wear. As well as a large photo of Zarif looking very forbidding there was one of a man she didn’t recognise and that snapshot was labelled ‘Ex-boyfriend, Matt Barton’. Who on earth was Matt Barton? Ella finally took in the headline: THE SEX EXPLOITS OF A FUTURE QUEEN.

Exploits? What exploits? Her tummy executing a sick somersault, Ella thrust back a chair and began to read. The salacious content of the article sent shock reeling through her in waves. This Matt Barton claimed she had attended sex parties with him and he called her ‘an adventurous woman with a voracious appetite for sex and new experiences.’ She was gobsmacked.

‘Is it all lies?’ her father queried darkly. ‘I mean, who’s this Matt Barton chap? Why have we never heard of him before?’

‘Probably because I’ve never heard of him either...in fact I’ve never seen him before and I’ve certainly never gone out with him,’ Ella declared between compressed lips as she read. ‘Apparently he owns some London nightclub that’s just closed down... I do hope Zarif doesn’t take this newspaper,’ she concluded weakly.

But that was a hope destined to end in instant disappointment when a large dark man in a suit knocked loudly on the back door for entry. As her father lurched forward to deal angrily with what he assumed to be another reporter Ella glanced out, only to be totally transfixed by the sight of Zarif poised squarely in the middle of their large back lawn, clearly having used the back entrance to avoid the photographers on the doorstep. ‘It’s Zarif,’ she framed warningly.

‘Oh, well, the more the merrier...but the bridegroom is not supposed to see the bride before the wedding.’ Her mother twittered in consternation while she unlocked the back door.

Five men as big and bulky as army tanks and clearly bodyguards ringed Zarif. Immaculate in an exquisitely tailored grey pinstripe suit cut to enhance every line of his tall, broad-shouldered, lean-hipped body, he settled grim dark golden eyes on her. He still looked unutterably gorgeous. She had realised that his mood made little impression on his heartbreaking good looks the day he first proposed and stood there silently seething at her rejection without losing a single ounce of his charismatic attraction. He stalked into the kitchen, uttering a strained but polite acknowledgement of her parents’ presence while her father noisily bundled up the offending newspaper and thrust it into the bin. His real attention, however, was locked to Ella.

Ella reddened, caught barefoot in her comfy tartan pyjamas and ancient fleece dressing gown without a scrap of make-up to hide behind. Damn him for not phoning first, she thought initially, because though the landline might be off the hook he had her cell number and he had chosen not to make use of it. Had he deliberately chosen that element of surprise? Sex parties? After reading that ludicrous claim, Ella was convinced that nothing in life would ever surprise her again. She had not the slightest doubt that Zarif had read the same newspaper. Was he now planning to call off the wedding? Consternation filled her, teaching her that, without even knowing it, she had become accustomed to the idea of becoming his wife.

‘Ella...may we talk?’ Zarif breathed grittily, running eyes as bright as polished black jet over her somewhat bedraggled appearance. Her golden mane fell untidily round her shoulders, framing the luminous oval of her face and somehow magically highlighting her beautiful eyes.

Sex parties, he thought with a rage beyond anything he had ever experienced—a rage that was only held in restraint by a lifetime of iron discipline. The very thought of other men seeing her naked, not to mention the image of her lying beneath another man, sent an energising charge of pure violence roaring through Zarif’s tall powerful frame. He wanted to beat someone up, shoot something, smash his fists into walls and shed blood. The idea that there could have been a whole legion of men already well acquainted with the leggy perfection of her slender, curvaceous body sent Zarif into a towering rage.

Ella rose from her seat and led the way into the little-used dining room, turning only when she reached the head of the table to look back at him, her chin set at a mutinous angle as he thrust the door firmly shut behind him. He was going to do it; she knew he was going to do it. He was going to ask the one unforgivable question.

Zarif released his breath on a slow hiss. ‘Is it true?’

There he was, bang on target, she thought crazily, almost drunk with the sudden rush of anger and disappointment that he could, for even one moment, credit such wild and fantastic stories about her. ‘Which bit? The insatiable desire for sex and the latest kink? Or the sex parties?’ she questioned tightly. ‘Choose your answer...it’s all the same to me.’

Taken aback by her boldness, Zarif shot her an incredulous appraisal, his strong jawline hardening. ‘Don’t take that attitude with me. I have the right to ask.’

‘No, you don’t have any rights over me. I’m not married to you yet. You didn’t question my past when you had the opportunity and I didn’t question you about yours either... It’s a little late in the day to start changing your mind now.’

His ridiculously long black lashes screened his gaze and a dark flush rose to accentuate the exotic line of his high cheekbones. Something she had said had really hit home hard with him but unfortunately she didn’t know which part of her brave speech had struck him like an arrow hitting a bullseye. Indeed she only grasped that she had, for once, inexplicably achieved the feat of putting Zarif out of countenance.

‘Unhappily I do not have the freedom to overlook a wife’s colourful past. I have too many other considerations to take into account, not least the royal status I would be granting you,’ Zarif bit out, lean tanned hands clenching into fists by his side. He could give her up; of course he could give her up if he had to. He could revisit the idea of putting her in the Dubai apartment though, couldn’t he? The choking tightness banding his chest receded just a little, comforted by that reflection.

What was she playing at? What the heck was she playing at? Ella asked herself in sudden disconcertion because with a few defiant, well-chosen words she could easily blow her parents’ rescue plan right out of the water and she had no wish to do that. But Zarif had disappointed her expectations, demeaning and offending her by asking her that inexcusable question.

Is it true?

But she could see his point; she could really see and understand his point. Vashir was a conservative country and a scandal-besmirched queen would be about as welcome there as snow in the desert. Jason had played a blinder, she thought painfully, for how could she possibly defend herself against such accusations? Didn’t mud always cling to such victims? But, hell roast it, she was nobody’s victim and certainly not her greedy brother’s!

‘Surely you had my lifestyle checked out before you proposed?’ Ella prompted, because it would have struck her as incredibly reckless of him to have proposed without first assuring himself of her continuing suitability and she refused to believe that Zarif had a single reckless bone in his body. ‘Surely you already know the answer to your own question?’

‘Regrettably not. I had no thought of marriage in mind when we met at the hotel,’ Zarif admitted stonily, furious that she wasn’t giving him a straight answer.

‘My goodness, that was very irresponsible and quite unlike you,’ Ella told him in dulcet surprise, her golden head tilting to one side as if she was taking special note of that fact.

His dark-as-molasses eyes flamed tawny gold, his outrage at her mockery unconcealed. ‘Answer me!’ he instructed her rawly, his tone cracking like a whip in the smouldering silence.

‘Exactly what sort of a past did you think I might have?’ Ella enquired in a brittle voice, striving not to yield an inch at the intimidating mien of granite-hard purpose and authority that had hardened his darkly handsome face. He could be tough but she could be tough too when it came to self-defence.

‘Nothing out of the ordinary. Obviously I’m not expecting you to be a virgin. I assume you’ve had the usual adult experiences and I have no desire to pry any more intimately than that into your past. But that,’ Zarif breathed with harsh emphasis, ‘would be my personal outlook. In my public role I have to take into account my people and what they expect from their royal family. We are an old-fashioned people and my family is expected to set high standards. I would also like to know how all this got into the hands of the press.’

‘Family photos appeared in that article... Mum and I think that Jason sold the story.’

Zarif frowned in disbelief. ‘Jason has done this to you?’

‘You seem surprised. But Jason is burning with resentment and bitterness right now. He’s not going to profit in any way from our marriage and that has enraged him.’

‘I had assumed he would take the benefits to your parents into account.’

Ella rolled her eyes at that principled view. ‘My brother has a vengeful streak. Since you’re cut from the same cloth, you should understand that.’

Fresh outrage roared through Zarif. ‘In no way can you compare me to your brother!’

‘Blackmailing me into marrying you to get me into bed is revenge,’ Ella informed him shortly. ‘Maybe you still think it’s a big thrill and an honour for me but I don’t feel the same way.’

‘You still haven’t answered my question about the veracity of that newspaper story,’ Zarif reminded her with stubborn grit, furious that she had labelled his generosity as blackmail when he saw it as something else entirely.

‘Because...really, you don’t deserve an answer,’ Ella condemned with an angry bitterness she couldn’t hide. ‘And you should be ashamed that you even asked. You knew me three years ago. Can you really credit that I’ve changed that much?’

A forbidding edge hardened Zarif’s jawline. ‘I have lived long enough to accept that people do change in unexpected ways. Events can make people act out of character,’ he pointed out flatly, refusing to yield an inch on that score for he himself had once behaved in such a way.

‘I bow to your superior knowledge, but choosing not to marry you three years ago didn’t push me into trying out the lifestyle of a porn queen,’ Ella declared with licking scorn, blue eyes mutinously bright. ‘I’ve never heard of Matt Barton before, never even met him. I suspect he’s someone Jason paid to malign me as, being my brother, it would be odd for Jason to have made sexual allegations against me and it would also have meant exposing the fact that he sold me down the river in the first place.’

A small tithe of the tension holding Zarif rigid eased. ‘You’ve never even met the man who is referred to as your ex-boyfriend?’ he pressed. ‘You’re saying the whole story is a lie? Don’t tell me that just to impress me because I will investigate this matter further.’

‘Right at this moment,’ Ella proclaimed, tossing back her head so that rumpled golden hair tumbled in glossy disarray round her shoulders, ‘I haven’t the smallest desire to impress you.’

‘But you do need to ensure that our wedding goes ahead,’ Zarif reminded her in a roughened undertone because he was noticing that the well-washed cotton of her pyjama jacket was snagging on her pointed nipples, vaguely delineating the firm, full curves of the breasts he longed to explore. He swallowed back a curse, infuriated by his loss of focus and the suspicion that he was behaving like a sex-starved teenage boy.

Zarif’s reminder was unnecessary because Ella was painfully aware that her parents’ future security was reliant on what she did next. He had gravely offended her but he was the one in the position of power, not she, and, while she refused to grovel, she also saw that she had to fully defend herself to clear her name. ‘I’m telling you the truth. I’m not guilty of any of it. I would never go to a sex party. I’ve been set up for a fall and horribly slandered in newsprint.’

‘If you are certain that this is the case, I will sue,’ Zarif asserted, dark golden eyes welded to her flushed and indignant face with satisfaction. ‘But be warned, if I do sue any intimate secrets you have in that line will inevitably be exposed by the proceedings.’

‘I have no such secrets,’ Ella parried curtly, sucking in a deep sustaining breath. ‘My conscience is clean as a whistle. You go ahead and sue.’

‘Should I be prepared for genuine disclosures to emerge from any of your former lovers?’ Zarif enquired between visibly gritted teeth.

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_a25ec990-66ef-5018-bfa1-0948389eff69)

ELLA’S EYES GLINTED. Of course she could have told Zarif the truth that she had yet to have a lover but he didn’t deserve that revelation. Her eyelids lowered secretively while a smile that was amused, but came across as saucy, unexpectedly curved her lips. ‘No. In that line you’re safe. I’ve always been cautious about who I choose to date.’

Zarif’s gaze burned gold when he saw that smile because he was convinced that she was fondly recalling one of her lovers. He breathed in slow and deep. He was not the jealous, possessive type—what was the matter with him? Other men had slept with her, discovered the secrets of that slim, curvaceous body, listened to her cries of pleasure... Get over it, he told himself impatiently, fighting the tide of destructive X-rated imagery threatening to engulf him. ‘This has been a most unlucky start to our wedding day.’

‘Yes—’ Ella shrugged a careless shoulder ‘—but let’s not pretend it’s a real wedding day or that we’re people who care about each other like a normal bride and groom.’

His nostrils flared. ‘I can assure you that it will be a real wedding and that I do care about your well-being.’

‘Not convinced...sorry about that.’ Beneath his disconcerted gaze, Ella lifted a slender hand and screened an uninterested yawn in a disdainful gesture as she moved towards him, keen to show him out of the house. ‘If you’d cared, you would have offered me support and felt angry on my behalf.’