Claimed by the Sheikh

‘Do your family know you are living like this?’ The door had barely clicked closed behind the babysitter before his words were out, sharp and insistent.

His anger seemed to make him grow taller, his shoulders broader, much more intimidating. An impatient sigh escaped him as his mouth set in a stern line and he folded his arms across his chest.

She would not let his regal show of power unnerve her, and met his gaze for a second or two. It felt like an eternity as his eyes bored into hers.

‘Quietly—Claude’s sleeping,’ Amber said softly in an attempt to defuse the increasing tension and walked into the kitchen, dropping her bag in the usual place. She turned and looked up into Kazim’s face, wild and thunderous as he stood in the doorway, realising she hadn’t acknowledged his question, let alone answered it.

‘I’m not asking about the child.’ His words came out in a gravelly attempt at a whisper, the heady scent of male wrapping itself around her.

‘Where I live has nothing to do with you, Kazim.’ She stood firm, refusing to be intimidated.

He took another step closer and she couldn’t help but move back against the kitchen cupboards, the small room totally dominated by him. He was too close and she couldn’t think straight, not when his intoxicating maleness invaded every pore in her body, making her want something she could never have. Something she should never have allowed herself to imagine.

‘Keep your voice down,’ she whispered harshly, hoping it would hide the colour creeping across her face. Would he guess her thoughts, know just how much he affected her?

‘How can you have turned your back so easily on your family? Your country?’ Anger sparked in Kazim’s eyes and she wanted to look away, but couldn’t. She had to be strong, had to face him head-on.

‘You dare to ask that when you sent me away just hours after we were married?’ Indignation rose up, fuelling her anger until it matched his. Had he any idea how humiliating it had been to go back to her parents because he didn’t want her?

She pushed aside those raw emotions, unable to deal with them right now. He’d dismissed her as a wife and as a woman and she should hate him for that. She did, but she couldn’t stem the sizzle of awareness that raced between them, stronger now than it had ever been.

‘But to live here, in a place like this, with a woman and her child? I’m assuming your friend is not married.’ The disgust on his face mirrored that which she’d seen on her wedding night as she’d tried to be anything but a naïve virgin.

‘You assume right,’ she said, glaring up at him.

Amber thought of little Claude, always with a sunny smile despite his continued health problems. He’d captured her heart from the moment she had first met him, much like Kazim had done, but she couldn’t allow her thoughts to wander there again. She had to stay completely focused on this moment and the brooding and overpowering presence of the man she’d married out of duty to her family.

She couldn’t drag her gaze away as Kazim looked at his watch, his jacket sleeve pulling up to reveal a tanned wrist, dusted with dark hair. Amber’s stomach fluttered and she practically had to force herself to think clearly. After all he’d done, all he’d said on their wedding day, she couldn’t believe he was still able to give her butterflies and make her head light.

She’d never wanted any man the way she wanted Kazim, and that had to change if she was going to be able to move on in life. But while Kazim still held her foolish heart she’d never be able to look at another man and feel this sizzle of hot desire.

‘Where does the child’s mother work? At this hour?’ He raised a brow at her and she wished he would step back, give her space to think, because having him so close was making that impossible right now. If she closed her eyes for just a moment, she was sure his musky aftershave alone would transport her back to the desert. A place she’d turned her back on for good.

‘At the club.’ Amber knew it was nearly time for Annie to come home and part of her wanted that to happen right now, but another, more rebellious, side wanted to keep that moment at bay for as long as possible. But if Annie did come home, at least then she could go somewhere else to talk with this man, somewhere bigger, a place that didn’t heighten his power and command so dramatically.

‘She is a stripper?’ His accent deepened and the hard angles of his face furrowed into a scowl as once more he jumped to conclusions.

‘They are dancers, Kazim; they dance, they don’t strip.’ She flew instantly to Annie’s defence, using the exact same words her manager had used as he’d tried to lure her to dance, insisting her pay would increase substantially.

‘So your little stunt on our wedding night was a dance?’ His voice had deepened and turned husky, making her stomach flutter uncontrollably as he reminded her once again of that night. He stepped closer, invading her mind, her body and her soul.

She looked up at him and saw that the black depths of his eyes had changed, swirling with something new, something undefinable. She was mesmerised, unable to think at all, stunned into silence.

‘Do you remember?’ he asked, his voice softer than she’d ever heard it as he lifted her chin, forcing her to look into his eyes. She became swallowed up by the fire she now saw there. ‘You danced then.’

This couldn’t be happening. She didn’t want it to happen; she couldn’t let it happen. What she needed was to be free of him and letting him touch her, letting him look into her eyes with such potent need, eroded every last bit of determination she had.

‘I did not dance or strip,’ she flung at him, infuriated by the way her body reacted to his touch. But at the same time she didn’t want him to stop. Attack, she decided, was the best form of defence. ‘I was doing what I thought was right, what I thought a man of your reputation would want.’

‘A man of my reputation?’ He said the words slowly and suspiciously, as if he couldn’t believe she was using such a thing against him.

‘I was sure an innocent woman was not what you were used to.’ She looked right into the depths of his eyes, boldly challenging him to deny what she said. ‘I was certain you wouldn’t have wanted me—a virgin bride—and I was right.’

She saw his face harden, saw his jaw clench. She was right—he hadn’t wanted her, an innocent bride, but neither had he wanted her when she’d hidden behind her attempt at seduction.

‘Or is it that I just didn’t fit into your world?’ She threw the question at him. ‘Is it because I have English blood in my veins?’

His silence spoke volumes, but she ploughed on, trying to ignore the intensity in his eyes.

‘My mother may be English but she has adopted the ways of the desert to the extent that she wanted our marriage as much as our fathers did.’

* * *

Kazim looked into Amber’s beautiful face, imagining how her soft skin would feel on his fingertips, and wondered how she could think that, let alone say it. For the entire duration of his wedding day he’d been consumed by need for his young bride; her innocence had been so beguiling. It was as if she’d cast a spell on him, but a spell he had no intention of slipping under. He didn’t dare.

He’d fought her magic so well that, by the time they were alone, he was once more the totally in control desert prince who took only what he needed. It wasn’t until she’d dropped her act of purity, throwing herself at him, flaunting her body so brazenly that he knew he couldn’t live a lie, and that the rumours of her time in boarding school must have been true.

What if he was like his father? Anger had surfaced, threatening to break out like a captured wild animal. Alarm bells had gone off. She’d already roused his passion with her dance and it had mixed potently with anger at her deception.

The marriage had been a mistake—one he was certain his father was well aware of and had forced him into, testing his loyalty to family and country. All he’d been able to think of was that he didn’t want to be responsible for breaking such spirit. He didn’t want to replicate what he’d witnessed as a young boy.

In a desperate attempt to make Amber see reason, Kazim’s words had been harsher than he’d intended. He had used her alluring dance and attempts to seduce him as an excuse. To make her believe that he was sending her back to her family because she wasn’t the meek and biddable bride he’d thought she had been.

Amber hadn’t shown any shock as he’d told her their duty was done, that she must return to her homeland. In fact she hadn’t shown any emotion at all, had shut him out. Had she been relieved she didn’t have to stay in Barazbin?

If he closed his eyes long enough, he could still picture her, seductively removing the silk that had clung so temptingly to her body, as if it was something she was used to doing. Didn’t her present job confirm that?

He’d been unable to move, unable to stop her, telling himself that her actions would help. They had both needed the marriage as much as the other and consummation wasn’t optional. But still he hadn’t been able to touch her, let alone make her his. He was the son of a cruel, hard sheikh and he had no intention of crushing her beautiful spirit as savagely as his mother’s had been. It was why he would never allow himself to love or be loved.

‘You most definitely danced,’ Kazim said, his voice deep and husky with the memory of that night, but not completely caught up in the moment. ‘Piece by piece, you removed the silk that covered your body.’

‘It was not a dance, Kazim, merely a necessary smokescreen. I tried to be something I wasn’t. I tried to tempt you.’ She looked up into his eyes, her almond-shaped ones searching his, and he had the urge to touch her face, feel her skin beneath his fingertips. ‘But you made it clear that the idea of such an act repulsed you.’

‘Repulsed me?’ He lowered his hand before temptation got the better of him, and looked into her eyes. How on earth could she think that? Hanging onto his control that night had been the hardest thing he’d ever done, but necessary. He’d wanted her so much but was stunned to realise the palace gossips had been right. A virgin bride would never know how to act so enticingly. ‘I never expected such a show of...knowledge.’

‘I made one mistake, Kazim, and because of that you didn’t want me. You just wanted me for who I was, for the benefits to your kingdom the marriage brought.’ Her eyes held an accusing light as she narrowed them slightly. ‘Were you secretly glad you could banish me from your life?’

If only she knew. He’d wanted her with a carnal need that had beat like a drum inside him, demanding satisfaction, but he’d restrained himself. To protect her.

He could still see clearly the image of her slender body, almost naked, as she’d tossed the silks of her wedding veils across the floor. Transfixed, he’d watched while she’d pulled too hard at the final piece, the silk tearing. She’d thrown it aside, a teasing look on her face as their eyes met. He’d demanded she stop with a harshness he was unaccustomed to and, from the wounded look on her face, neither was she. He’d sounded cruel and hard, exactly like his father.

She had disappeared into the bathroom. When she came out, her glorious body wrapped in a towelling robe, his passion, aroused by her dance, hadn’t needed any further invitation. Again he’d resisted, using his anger as a shield. Whatever the reason for her behaviour, he couldn’t take advantage of her. If they came together as man and wife, it would be because they both wanted to provide Barazbin with future heirs. Passion and desire didn’t have any place in their marriage.

As dawn had crept across the sky he’d abandoned the idea of sleeping in the chair and stood beside the bed, watching the woman he’d married, one he’d wanted but couldn’t have. He’d savoured the soft sighs she’d made in her sleep, the sweetness of her face, because they would never be his. He’d done his duty. He’d married her, but he couldn’t stay with a woman who deceived him, hid her past. Not when she could provoke him so easily. For her sake, she must leave.

‘The validity of our marriage was never questioned, even after you left,’ he said, dragging his mind back. He stepped away from her before he gave into the urge to kiss her. He’d never tasted her lips, never felt them burn with passion beneath his and right now it was all he could think about. ‘What you did that night, your discarded clothes, it worked. Nobody has ever challenged the marriage.’

‘I wish it hadn’t.’ She tossed the words at him as she moved out of the kitchen, her arm brushing against his in the small space. In the dim light of the hallway he watched her take off her coat and hang it up, drawn to the way the denim of her jeans clung to her long legs. ‘I will admit what I did. Explain exactly what happened then you can annul the marriage.’