The Sheikh's Wayward Wife

She nodded.

“Have you agreed that it should happen?”

“She does not need to—”

“My father, the sultan, tells me that you have agreed. Is that so?”

Did her mouth tremble? Omar stepped forward. She flinched, and Khalil gave the man a look that made him turn pale.

“I am speaking to your daughter.”

“I only wish to remind her to show respect to you, my lord.”

“Move away, Omar al Assad. I do not want you standing next to me.” The man’s mouth thinned but he did as commanded. Khalil knelt before Layla. He heard the gasps of those around him but he ignored them. “Answer me,” he said quietly. “Have you agreed to this wedding?”

There was a long, long silence. He watched the tip of her tongue sweep across her lips. It was a very pink tongue, a delicate one, and he almost groaned at the unconscious sexuality of the simple gesture.

“Speak freely, Layla. You are safe here.”

Again, the tip of her tongue swept across her lips. “Na’am,” she said quietly.

Yes, she’d said…and there it was again, the accent he’d noticed last night. For some reason it troubled him. So did her answer. It more than troubled him. It disappointed him, but why?

She had been raised in the old ways. She believed in them. And, as his father had pointed out, there was the promise of riches, of status.

Khalil rose to his feet.

The sultan was right. He had no role in any of this except as crown prince. He had obligations to meet and, in meeting them, he could at least ensure that this woman reached Kasmir safely. His father wished it. The council wished it. Omar wished it.

And so did she.

He turned his back on her, spoke directly to the little group gathered around them.

“I will escort her to Kasmir.”

His father beamed his approval. So did her father. The two men began talking, but Khalil couldn’t take his eyes from Layla.

Her posture was one of supplication but when she looked up, her eyes told a different story. As before, they glittered. With defiance, with anger…

With an unspoken plea?

He hesitated. Then he held out his hand. She took it, started to her feet—and stumbled. He caught her by the shoulders to steady her but she fell against him anyway. He felt the quick brush of her body and then she was on her toes and her lips were at his ear.

“For God’s sake,” she hissed, “are you blind? They’re lying. Your father. My father. Damn it, can’t you tell that I’ve been forced into this?”

Khalil blinked. She was steady on her feet now, standing with her head bowed, making no protest as Omar stepped forward, cupped her elbow and marched her away. It was almost as if nothing had happened.

But something definitely had.

Her whispered words had not been spoken in Arabic.

They had been spoken in flawless American English.

CHAPTER THREE

LAYLA’S keepers—it was the only way to describe them—led her away. The thug first, then Layla with one woman on either side, then Omar, bringing up the rear.

Khalil stood staring after the little procession.

Had he really heard what he thought he’d heard?

No. It was impossible. The woman could not have spoken in English. Perfect American English. No accent, no stress on any but the correct syllables. And what she’d said, what he thought she’d said, was even more impossible.

“Khalil?”

Lies? Lies, told him by his father? That Omar would lie was no surprise. The man had a reputation for craftiness and there were times the word was nothing but a synonym for dishonesty.

But his own father… Would he lie?

“Khalil? I’m talking to you!”

The bitter possibility of duplicity crept into his bones.

His father might lie. He might do whatever he thought necessary for the good of Al Ankhara. Or the lies—if they were lies—might have begun with his ministers. Khalil suspected that Jal and his allies would not be above twisting facts when it served their purpose.

He’d tried telling that to his father more than a year ago but the sultan had refused to hear it.

His ministers’ sole concern was protection of the throne, he always said. Khalil saw their actions as an attempt to maintain the status quo. It was why he had rejected much of the so-called advice they’d given him over the years.

He’d chosen Harvard over the smaller universities they had recommended, studied finance rather than foreign affairs, opted to remain in the States to run his family’s investment conglomerate instead of returning home and taking the position of liaison the ministers had wanted to create for him.

“Liaison,” he was certain, would have meant becoming their puppet. He’d long ago made up his mind not to be used by them.

Was he being used now?

“Khalil!” His father clasped his shoulder. “Pay attention when I speak to you.”

Khalil took a breath and did his best to put a noncommittal look on his face.

“Sorry, Father. I was, ah, I was—”

“You were thinking about the woman.” His father smiled. “I understand. She is beautiful. You would not be a man if you did not notice.”

“She is beautiful, yes, but—” But why does she speak like an American? Why does she say you lied to me?

The words were on the tip of his tongue. Somehow he managed to keep them there and to match the sultan’s knowing smile with one of his own.

“But she is not quite what she seems, Khalil. Perhaps you should be aware of that.”