At the Sheikh's Bidding(39)

‘What … are you doing here?' Her voice didn't seem to be working properly, and emerged as a croaky whisper.

He  shrugged laconically and strolled over to the bench, dropped down   next  to her and stretched his long legs out in front of him. Erin   tensed and  her heart jerked painfully in her chest. The tantalising   musk of his  cologne mingled with the warm male heat of his body made   her feel dizzy  with longing after a month when she had been starved of   him, and when  she dared to glance at him she was startled by the   answering flare of  hunger in his eyes. The sexual chemistry between   them had always been  overpowering, and she was shocked to realise that   despite everything it  hadn't faded.

‘If you're here to offer me another disgusting  cheque, you're risking   serious injury with a garden spade,' she told him  fiercely, glancing   towards the heavy metal tool propped up against the  bench.

‘No, kalila,' he assured her, his voice so grave that her  eyes flew to   his face. ‘I am here because you are here-' He broke off,  as if he was   struggling to find the right words, and Erin suddenly  realised that   beneath his relaxed air he was tense, and-incredibly for a  man whose   arrogance was legendary-unsure of himself. ‘You are my wife,'  he said   in a low tone, ‘and I have discovered that wherever you are is  the only   place I want to be.'

The still silence in the garden  that followed his astounding statement   was broken by the piercingly  sweet song of a blackbird. Erin licked  her  suddenly dry lips, her heart  beating so fast she was sure it would   explode. ‘I don't understand.'

‘It's  quite simple.' He sounded impatient and stared at her haughtily.   But to  her amazement streaks of dull colour highlighted his  cheekbones,  and  his eyes veered from hers as if he was afraid to meet  her gaze. ‘I  love  you, Erin.'                       
       
           



       


Her rebuttal was fierce and immediate. ‘No, you don't.'

‘I should have known you would want to argue about it, kalila.' A little of his tension left him and his smile stole her breath.

‘You  don't love me,' she said again. It was probably some cruel trick,   and  she had more sense than to be fooled. ‘You married me for Kazim.   You  love Maryam. Jahmela said so.'

‘Jahmela said a lot of things, most of them untrue.' Zahir's voice was suddenly harsh.

‘But  not the things she said about me,' Erin said thickly. ‘My mother   was a  prostitute and I assume that my father was one of her clients. I   wasn't  conceived from an act of love, but in some dark alley with a   stranger  who paid for sex. My mother sold her body and spent the money   she earned  on her drug habit.' She stared down at her hands, not   wanting to see  the disgust in his eyes. ‘We come from vastly different   worlds, Zahir,  and mine wasn't a nice one. When I was fourteen I  joined  a street gang  and was drawn into a life of crime. I was  successfully  prosecuted for  shoplifting, and it was only because it  was my first  known offence that I  wasn't sent to a juvenile detention  centre.'

Zahir's reaction  was not what she had expected, and his calm, ‘Yes, I   heard about that,'  brought her head up, her eyes widening at the gentle   understanding in  his. ‘You would have been exonerated if you had   explained to the court  that you stole those things to protect a younger   girl who had been  threatened with dire retribution from the gang if   she refused to join  them.'

‘How do you know that?' Erin mumbled, stunned that he seemed to know so much about her.

‘I  had you investigated immediately after I took you to Qubbah,' he    replied, ignoring her gasp. ‘My private detective reported back a month    or so after we married. I'm afraid Jahmela's party piece did not have    the effect she was hoping for, and she has been banished from the    palace,' he revealed grimly. ‘My father was almost as furious with her    for upsetting you as I was, and unfortunately the sudden stress  affected   his heart. His doctors had to be called to give him oxygen.  By the  time  I was able to leave him, you had gone.' His face  tightened. ‘Omran  had  made sure of that.'

‘He believes you should marry Jahmela,' Erin  said quietly. ‘And he's   right. She is beautiful and educated and has all  the attributes   necessary for the wife of the next ruler of Qubbah.'

‘Attributes  like selflessness and compassion, you mean?' Zahir   suggested softly.  ‘Both those qualities are starkly absent in Jahmela.   And yet you-who  grew up in dire circumstances, alone and unloved-you   have them in  abundance.'

‘You accused me of marrying Faisal and adopting Kazim  simply so that I   could inherit Ingledean,' Erin whispered, unable to  tear her eyes from   the velvet softness of his.

‘I could not  believe that your love for Kazim was genuine when my own   mother had not  loved me enough to stick around for my childhood,' Zahir   admitted  harshly. ‘But deep down I knew within days of meeting   you-certainly by  the time we married-that you were not the gold-digger I   had first  thought. You were feisty and hot-tempered, and you fought  me  constantly,  but everything you did was for Kazim. You married  Faisal  knowing that  within months you would be solely responsible for a  young  child, but you  willingly sacrificed your youth and freedom  because you  were determined  to give him the loving childhood you never  had.

‘But then I  forced you to marry me,' he continued, looking away from   her again, as  if he could not bring himself to meet her gaze. ‘And you   went along with  it because you would have done anything rather than be   separated from  Kazim. And I, who had spent hours torturing myself  with  images of you  and my brother, burning up with jealousy over your   relationship with  him, discovered too late that you were a virgin. I   had to accept that  all my preconceived ideas about you were wrong. I   stole your innocence,  kalila, and I was so angry with myself for   spoiling something that  should have been special for you that I was   unnecessarily brutal. You  don't know how much I have regretted my   treatment of you,' he confessed,  in a low tone that was so unlike his   usual assured self-confidence.  ‘I'm not surprised you hate me, Erin,   and I deserve it-especially after I  sent you that last cheque. It was   another test, of course,' he  explained, dark colour scorching his   cheekbones again. ‘Even then I was  still frantically trying to prove to   myself that you were not worthy of  my love.'                       
       
           



       


Almost as if he could not help himself, he reached  out and stroked her   hair, winding a silky red curl around his fingers.  ‘I did not want to   love you, kalila and I fought hard against it. It's  true that I cared   for Maryam; she was sweet-natured and gentle and I  believed she would   make me a good wife. When she eloped with Faisal I  was bitterly angry.   But it was dented pride rather than a broken heart.  Because of that   stupid pride I refused to be reunited with my brother,  and now it is   too late. I won't make the same mistake again.'

He  moved suddenly, turned to her and gripped her arms, and she glimpsed   the  desperation in his eyes as he dragged her against his chest. ‘I   will do  whatever it takes to win you back, kalila. You are my wife, the   love of  my life, and I won't let you go.' He pressed his lips to her   temple,  his warm breath fanning the curls that framed her face, his   eyes closing  briefly as if he was in pain. ‘I have told my father to   name his  brother Sulim as the interim ruler of Qubbah in the event of   his dying  before Kazim comes of age.'