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

Even less accustomed to censure than he was to scorn, Zarif squared his sculpted jaw. ‘That is unjust. How would I know whether it was the truth or not when I haven’t had any contact with you for years?’

Unimpressed, Ella raised a delicate honey-coloured brow. ‘Do you think you could leave now so that I can have breakfast and go do the bridal stuff?’ she asked sweetly.

Zarif shot out a lean brown hand and closed it round her wrist to stop her in her tracks. ‘You will not speak to me like that or try to dismiss me like a servant,’ he told her angrily.

‘Does that really matter as long as I go to bed with you?’ Ella asked in a brittle voice. ‘Do you honestly also expect me to be servile like some sort of medieval sex slave?’

Zarif glowered down at her in seething frustration. She was being childish, her immaturity spelt out in cheap gibes and he was tempted to shake her. ‘Stop it.’

He towered over her, so close that she could smell the faint spicy tang of designer cologne that was achingly familiar to her. Suddenly tears stung the backs of her eyelids as a tide of almost forgotten memories threatened to drown her: deceptively romantic moments three years earlier when he had held her hand, given her thoughtful little gifts, listened carefully to her concerns, acted in a way that was protective and caring. And it had all been a lie, she reminded herself bitterly, because his true feelings for her had gone no deeper than a lusty desire to take her to bed and ensure that she became conveniently pregnant with the required son and heir.

‘Eleonora...’ Zarif chided huskily, running his finger down her cheek to trace the path of an escaped tear. ‘You’re upset, angry.’

Ella looked up at him, involuntarily enthralled by the beauty of his dark fallen-angel features, the sheer richness of his stunning amber-gold gaze framed by luxuriant ebony lashes. She shivered, inordinately aware of the brush of his finger across her cheek. ‘Don’t—’

‘I must,’ Zarif growled hoarsely, his hand dropping to her chin to push it up to enable his mouth to come down with hungry driving dominance on hers. Taken by surprise, Ella reeled dizzily, mouth opening to receive the erotic plunge of his tongue. He tasted so wonderfully good, a knot tightened in her pelvis and she gasped, feeling the scandalous dampness of desire surge between her taut thighs in treacherous contrast to her anger with him. The comparison shocked her and broke through the mesmeric power of his mouth on hers.

‘No, don’t,’ Ella protested, squirming against his lean, powerful frame in a manner that only stretched his control thinner than ever.

‘Tonight you’ll be mine,’ Zarif pronounced with unashamed satisfaction, lifting her up against him as though she were a doll and planting her on the edge of the table, pushing her knees apart to stand between them, leaning forward to thrust his aroused body into the apex of her thighs.

Tingling awareness bubbled like a volcano low in her body. Her bright blue eyes widened, pupils dilated as she stared back at him because for once they were on a level. He had sinfully sexy eyes. Her top felt scratchy and uncomfortable against her tender breasts and her breath was catching in her throat. A voice was screaming in the back of her mind, telling her to get a grip, but what kept her still was the warm liquid melting sensation steadily spreading through her lower limbs and most pressing of all, at its pinnacle, a downright unbearable physical ache for the fulfilment she had never known. ‘And you’ll love every moment of what I do to you,’ Zarif forecast hoarsely.

Ella heard his voice through the wall of sensation caused by the outrageous stroke of the long, lean fingers encircling her hips just below her top, the touch of his fingertips across her skin alerting her to an innate sensuality she had not had the chance to experience with him before. She could feel his erection through the fine barrier of his pants and the knowledge that she aroused him even in her pjs and without make-up was ridiculously empowering. She struggled to draw another breath past her tight throat as he pressed his mouth hungrily against the tender skin between her neck and her shoulder and her head fell back without her volition, a tiny gasp escaping her parted lips.

His hands slid up beneath her top and cupped the full globes of her breasts and excitement sent her heart racing so fast she felt light-headed. The surge of heat and wetness between her thighs as he tugged at her straining nipples sent shockwaves through her as his mouth found hers again with a raw passion that thrilled her. Her hands clutched at his arms, nails biting into his sleeves, frustration hurtling through her that she couldn’t touch him the way he was touching her.

‘Oh, I’m so sorry...!’ The sound of her mother’s voice and the door opening and closing again in fast succession roused Ella from her sexual stupor as nothing else could have done. She opened her eyes, not even recalling when she had closed them.

Infuriatingly, Zarif had regained control first and had already stepped back from her. She clashed with burning golden eyes and snatched in a shuddering breath, her face crimson as she acknowledged what she had allowed to happen between them. And when she was furious with him too? That was the most galling admission of all: that Zarif could touch her and every other consideration could simply melt away.

‘I will see you later, habibti,’ Zarif murmured tautly, a flush lining his hard cheekbones.

Ella slid off the table like an electrified eel and hauled open the door. Her mother beamed at her from the hall. ‘The beautician’s here and you haven’t had breakfast yet,’ she fussed. ‘Will Zarif be staying?’

‘No...’ From behind her, Zarif took over the conversation with effortless ease and not the smallest hint of discomfiture.

* * *

Zarif watched his bride exchanging greetings with the children of some of the guests. She was good with little ones, he recognised, watching her animated face and her sparkling eyes as she laughed and chatted, displaying the first warmth she had shown since he saw her at the church. She was so naturally beautiful in her simple elegant gown he had found it a challenge to look away. She had played the bridal role with a shuttered look in her gaze though, polite and smiling but with all true feeling edited out of the show. His wife. The designation still felt like a shock—almost as much of a shock as it had been to his uncle Halim when he phoned him three weeks earlier to break the news.

‘Of course, it is past time for you to take a wife,’ Halim has declared valiantly, holding back on the word, ‘again’, diplomatic and generous to the end. ‘And British like your grandmother? She will be a popular choice with those who wish us to look West rather than East as we move into the future. I shall look forward to meeting her.’

And for an instant Zarif had felt a piercing shame that he was about to foist such a sham on the old man, who had watched his only child, Azel, become Zarif’s first wife, queen and mother before the heart-rending car crash took both her life and that of their son. Devastated, Halim had taken refuge in his academic books, finally requesting permission to leave palace politics and return to his professorship at the university where lectures and students had, at least, distracted him from his grief.

Times without number, Zarif had crushed the futile wish that he too could find such an outlet to escape his memories because the only change in his daily life had been a constant shadow of indescribable loss. Even so, Zarif was well aware that his remarriage, his doing what had to be done and before Halim died, would be a comfort to the older man. After all, Halim had raised his nephew to believe that the stability of Vashir came first and last, before personal feelings, before everything else. And now, for the first time in his life, Zarif was suddenly shockingly conscious that he was guilty of betraying his duty because he had allowed his desire to possess Ella Gilchrist to suppress every other consideration.

Across the room, a little girl was examining Ella’s shiny new platinum wedding band and complaining mournfully that it didn’t sparkle and Ella was explaining the difference between wedding and engagement rings, a clarification that ran out of steam when she was asked why she didn’t have an engagement ring.

Rising to her feet with a rather stilted laugh, Ella abandoned the challenge, her attention roaming to Zarif, tall, dark and extraordinarily handsome in a tailored morning suit teamed with a grey striped silk cravat, where he was chatting to her parents. He was so damned smooth and polished in his every move that she wanted to scream. Nobody would ever have guessed that the wedding was a charade that cast a respectable veil over the most basic transaction possible between a man and a woman. Inside herself she shrank, thinking there could be little difference between her and any other woman who sold her body for money, for wasn’t that exactly what she was doing?

And worst of all, with a male who felt absolutely nothing for her, she reflected wretchedly, for while Zarif’s outer façade of cool might have convinced their small select band of guests that he was a joyful bridegroom, it had not fooled Ella. That rare flashing smile of his had not been in evidence once. She just knew he was thinking about Azel because she could feel the distance and reserve in him, see the haunting darkness in his eyes. The one and only time he had discussed his first wife with her had been the day he proposed marriage to Ella three years earlier and his words then were still branded into her soul like unhealed wounds.

He had referred to Azel as irreplaceable while assuring Ella that he was not asking her to supplant his first wife in her role as that would, apparently, have been an impossible task.

And when she had asked Zarif if he loved her in surely the most poignant question a young woman in love could ask?

‘I will always hold Azel in my heart. I cannot pretend otherwise.’

And yet after that little speech, the living proof that some men wouldn’t understand or recognise emotion unless it was tipped over their heads like boiling oil, Zarif had been stunned when Ella turned his proposal down. Even madly in love and at only twenty-one years of age, Ella had foreseen what a disaster it would have been for her to have even tried to follow in Azel’s perfect footsteps. Zarif, whether he had known it or not, hadn’t been ready or able to put another woman in Azel’s place. Ella, heartbroken, had backed off from such an impossible and thankless challenge.

Accordingly, there Zarif was now mere hours after marrying Ella, no doubt looking back with regret to his first wedding day when he had had the joy of wedding a woman he loved with all his heart and his soul. The very thought hurt, just as it had hurt like an acid burn all those years ago when Ella had been forced to accept that, although she adored Zarif and longed for him with every cell in her body, he would have sacrificed her in a moment if, by some miracle, he could have brought Azel back to life.

He wouldn’t have wanted Azel purely for sex, Ella acknowledged unhappily. He had loved and respected Azel and Ella was challenged to understand what she herself had done to rouse such hostility in Zarif that would incur such a devastating revenge. Three years ago, she had said no and her excuses had gone down like a brick on glass but even though she had been in an agony of pain at his virtual rejection of her she had certainly not intended to cause offence.

Of course, rejection had to have been something entirely new to Zarif, she acknowledged ruefully. All women noticed his stunning dark good looks, automatically turning to take a second glance when he was nearby. Those brief weeks she had dated him it had been like going out with a movie star, for everywhere they went women had watched, giggled flirtatiously and tried to catch his eye. He had seemed sublimely unconscious of the effect he had on her sex. He seemed not to have an ounce of vanity but how reliable a character witness was she?

After all, it would never have occurred to Ella three years ago that Zarif would sink to the level of literally paying her to share his bed. As soon as she thought that, Ella frowned, reminding herself that she had agreed to his terms for the sake of the parents she loved. Her choice, then, and even if she couldn’t quite manage to be grateful that he had given her that choice, she knew it would be unjust to blame Zarif for how she felt now that she had accepted the role of mistress within marriage from him. Unhappily, the ‘sex and nothing but sex’ label made her feel worthless and degraded.

There could be no denying that Zarif had changed and much more than she could ever have expected. The man she remembered had been so upright and so straight in every way and it was ironic that only now when she no longer loved him was she learning that he had a much darker, more complex side to his character and that could only make her fear for her future.

* * *

Ella stared wide-eyed at the opulence of the private jet with its cream leather sofas and luxurious fittings, not to mention the four uniformed cabin staff bowing and scraping respectfully in their presence. She finally sat down, nerves bubbling in her tummy at the knowledge that once the craft was airborne she was leaving home and everything familiar behind. Who knew when she might return?

Already it felt as if the day, which had begun with such drama, was turning into the longest day in existence. They were flying to Vashir and tomorrow would undergo a second wedding ceremony in the presence of Zarif’s ailing uncle Halim and the local VIPs. Just then it felt as if she were facing another endurance test in how to please everyone other than herself.

Zarif studied his bride with barely repressed hunger burning in his veiled gaze. Her delicate profile was as taut as her slender body and his attention lingered on the flutter of her lashes, the slim, elegant hand resting on her lap and, more potently, on the thrust of the luscious breasts he had stroked. The hem of her royal-blue dress exposed long shapely legs and he breathed in slow and deep, disturbed by the force of desire gripping him and unaccustomed to such a challenge to his self-control.

No other woman did this to him. He didn’t know what it was about Ella but he had barely to look at her to get hard and he shifted in his seat because the tight heaviness at his groin was uncomfortable. Temptation lurked in the existence of the sleeping compartment at the back of the main cabin but it was cramped and time would be short. He didn’t want a quick snack, he wanted a feast, a consummation worthy of the time he had waited for her. His, at last, he savoured, in name if not yet in action.

Ella leafed through a glossy fashion magazine with blank eyes, her tension rising in the silence rather than abating. ‘I was surprised your brothers weren’t on the guest list today,’ she said abruptly.

‘They will be attending our wedding tomorrow,’ Zarif proffered. ‘I imagine you will be glad of Betsy and Belle’s company.’

‘I hardly know them, but I suppose so,’ Ella conceded in such a limp voice that Zarif wanted to shake her.

Anyone could be forgiven for thinking that marrying him and becoming a queen was a cruel and unusual punishment, Zarif reflected in exasperation. Of course, it was only for a year, he recalled absently, wondering why he hadn’t demanded two years or even three until he remembered that sooner rather than later he had to marry for real and reproduce and he marvelled that he could even have momentarily forgotten that salient fact.

‘Why didn’t you tell me that your mother had had a heart attack and your father a breakdown?’ Zarif demanded without warning. ‘Your father’s friend, Jonathan, spoke to me at the reception and clearly assumed that I already knew.’

Ella compressed her lips. ‘I didn’t think that plucking a thousand violin strings would cut any ice with you.’

‘Telling me would not have been plucking strings,’ Zarif censured. ‘It would have been giving me relevant facts and it would have changed my outlook.’

Ella shot him a dark look. ‘I doubt that very much. I didn’t sense any compassion in the room.’

Zarif gritted his teeth, exasperated that she could think him that cruel. Her parents were good, decent people, who had been kind and welcoming to him for several years without any hope of reward or profit. ‘You have a seven-hour flight during which I expect you to get over your sulk and accept your new status,’ he delivered grimly once the jet was in the air.