Midnight on the Sands: Hajar's Hidden Legacy / To Touch a Sheikh / Her Sheikh Protector

Her own personal pity party wasn’t the important thing here anyway. What did matter was what that had cost Zahir.

“I’m sorry,” she said to the empty space, her throat tightening over the words.

He didn’t want to hear it from her, she knew that. He walked with a slight limp, one he did his best to mask, but she had noticed it. And she knew that something like this, something that forced him to acknowledge a weakness, a limitation, was the worst of nightmares. It was his pride that had suffered worst of all.

She just knew it, deep in her bones, as sure as she knew anything about herself.

She’d caused a problem, made a mistake, and now she was going to fix it.

* * *

Zahir took his fury, his humiliation, out on the pool in his gym. At least in the water his movements were smooth. He knew the length, knew just how many strokes it took to get to the end. Here there was no limp, his sight didn’t matter.

He stopped and gripped the edge of the pool cursing loudly, dragging his hand and droplets of water down his face, his palm burning where his flesh had been left raw and cut by the broken vase. But he welcomed that pain. Physical pain meant little to him. He’d survived more of it than any man should be able to.

But making such a fool of himself, showing such weakness, that was a true blow. He never did that. Now he had done it twice with her.

He looked up and saw pale, delicate ankles, then up farther to a set of shapely legs. Had she been any closer to the edge of the pool, he would have been treated to a lot more.

The woman had no sense of boundaries. “What is it you want, latifa?”

He tightened his jaw, grinding his teeth. His towel was across the gym, and she was there, standing, staring. Another chance to shock herself with his ravaged body? She hadn’t run the first time, but he did not go out of his way to show the scars that marred his body. Not out of vanity. But because they shamed him. Reminded him, every day, in every way, that he was less than he had been. That he shouldn’t be here.

Survivor’s guilt, his first doctor had called it. Naming it didn’t change anything. How else was he supposed to feel? Should he forget? Move on from the event that had taken everyone? If he forgot, who would remember? Who would carry it with them? He felt as though he was keeping them here. Anchoring them to this world.

Impossible, he knew. And yet the feelings remained.

“What does that mean?” she asked.

He placed his palms flat on the rough cement surrounding the pool, welcoming the pain it brought, the distraction, as he hauled himself out of the water in one fluid motion, bracing himself for the less than agile feeling that came with having his own two feet beneath him. Putting weight on legs that didn’t feel like they belonged to him.

Her eyes were glued to his torso and he fought the urge to cover himself. A strange, weak response. It should not concern him, what she thought of his body, of the scars that marked his skin, the deep groove that showed the loss of muscle and strength in his thigh.

He simply stood for a moment, daring her to look away. She didn’t. But then, she never did anything he expected—why should she start now? He would almost be disappointed if she descended into predictability. Almost.

He reached over to the nearby towel rack to pull off a black towel, dragging it over his chest, then around to his back. She watched him the whole time, and he felt his body responding to the open, female appraisal. It had been so long since he had felt a woman’s hands on his skin, and just as long since one had looked at him as though he were a man.

No one, other than his physician, had ever seen his body uncovered since the wounds had healed. Amarah had seen him when they were fresh. When there had been a hope of healing. They had been too much for her to handle then. Or, perhaps she could have handled the scars if the attack had only stolen his physical attraction. If it had not taken the very soul of who he was. Good that she’d run early so he hadn’t had the chance to bring her down with him.

Of course, unlike his ex, Katharine wouldn’t be running.

“It means beauty,” he said, discarding the towel, crossing his arms over his chest.

She looked slightly surprised to hear the translation. “Oh. Well, I thought it might mean ‘pain in the rear’ or something.”

A sharp twinge of amusement forced a laugh to climb his throat. “Not quite.”

Full, pink lips curved into a smile and cut through the defense he’d put up between them. She appealed to his body, as a woman did to a man. A whole man. And for a brief moment, he felt as though he were.

It only took a sharp, shooting pain from his diminished thigh muscle to remind him that wasn’t the case. Just like the desert would wilt a rose, he would wither Katharine, would steal the life from her.

Her pretty face contorted. “Oh, no, that’s from the table, isn’t it?”

He jerked his head back. “What?”

“The bruise on your leg and …” She moved toward him and he took a step away. “Your hands.”

“What?”

She moved forward another step. “Let me see them.” She reached out and took one of his hands in hers, palm up, examining the torn skin, moving the tip of her finger around one of his injuries. “Painful?” She was so soft. So warm. Alive.

It made him want to ask why she was touching a dead man. A man who was dead in all the ways that counted.

“Not in the least.” He pulled his hand back, the burn of her touch lingering. “I have endured worse. This is nothing.”

“It wasn’t nothing earlier.”

“I was angry.”

“I know. At me. And my flowers had to die a horrible death because of it. Not that I really blame you. I didn’t think, and I’m … I’m very, very sorry.”

He held his hand up. “This? This will heal.” Unlike the rest of him. That was the unspoken portion of that statement, hanging in the air between them.

He stood before her now, defiant, daring her to look away, she was certain. But she couldn’t. He held her captive. He turned away first. “What is it you want?”

“I have … I want you to have dinner with me.” For the first time, she faltered, showed a hint of true nerves and vulnerability. His first instinct, one so long suppressed, was to reassure. And yet he couldn’t figure out a way to do it, couldn’t find it in him.

She pressed on. “I had your chef prepare some of your favorite foods. And some of mine. I thought we might … get to know each other a bit better.”

The last thing he wanted. He needed her life and his life to remain separate, for his routine to be uninterrupted. He needed to keep his control, his order. He didn’t need her making him want to … comfort. Because when the heat spread through him, his control slipped. And when his control slipped …

“How much money will be saved annually by the trade agreements our marriage will enact?”

Confusion flashed through her eyes. And he felt nothing. He embraced that. Embraced the void and the security it offered.

“Ten billion, conservatively.”

He chose his next words carefully, designed to keep distance. Designed to make her as disgusted with him as she should have been from the start. “That is all I need to know about you.”

She looked at him for a moment, eyes glittering, a determined set to her jaw, arms crossed beneath full breasts. “I’ll be there. In the dining hall in half an hour.”

Zahir cursed himself as he buttoned his shirt midstride, making his way through the maze of corridors toward the dining hall. What had happened to routine? And distance?

He cursed again.

He rarely ate in the formal dining area. Only if he was forced to entertain visiting dignitaries. Even then, he tried to send his advisor in his place. He wasn’t the best face to put forward for Hajar. Most of his people—at least those in control of the media—would attest to that. He was no diplomat, no master of fine negotiations. He was a strategist, a planner. He had built up his nation’s economy from behind the doors of his father’s office. But when it came to physical meetings …

He was not the man to handle things in person.