Darker Side of Desire & the Sheikh's Pregnant Prisoner(47)
Zafir stood to leave. Pausing at the entrance to the tent, he looked back at her. “I will send a maid. You can wash in the oasis and rest. Is there anything you need?”
The moment she shook her head, he was gone.
* * *
Zafir heard the splash around the oasis while he walked the perimeter, like he had done since Rashid had brought him here a long time ago.
Once he had discovered his father’s duplicity, he had not come here again. Loathed to mar this place with bitter reality, he realized now.
He had always felt great pride when he had visited here, pride that the High Sheikh had seen something in him to educate him alongside his son, that he trusted him, an orphan, with state affairs.
He felt no such pride today and thanks to the woman splashing in the pool, no peace either. All he needed to do was close his eyes and he could imagine her slender shoulders dipping into the cool waters, could imagine her hands pushing away that inky dark hair, could imagine her lithe legs kicking through the water.
A moment’s fear stilled him at the deceptive depth of the oasis on one side. Did she know how to swim?
Cocking his head to a side, he listened but only heard the smooth swish of water and her clean strokes.
The sand shifted under him, but he pressed on, knowing the path very well. The sky was lit orange with the setting sun, but until the orange orb set, the heat would not relent.
Neither would the knot in his stomach.
He’d had the perfect moment to ensnare her earlier. There had been such desperate longing, such a raw need in her gaze before she had shied it away from him.
It was a vulnerability he had never seen in Lauren, not after that first day in the situation room. He realized he preferred her glaring at him, questioning him, rather than that shattered light in those eyes.
Because, somehow, it had made him feel responsible for her. And not just her physical well-being. He had wanted to crush her in his arms, he had wanted to tell her that he would do everything and more that Bashir had done for Salma. That he couldn’t wait to see his child suckle at her breast.
Anything, he would have done anything to bring back the smile to her mouth.
And it was the very force of that need that had stayed his hand.
When he knew he couldn’t have her as his wife, it was all he’d been able to think about.
And now, now that marriage to her offered him the reins of Behraat, the advantage he needed over the High Council, now he was hesitating.
Why?
He withdrew his sat phone from his jeans pocket and made a call, leaving himself no room to back out.
* * *
“Tell me how the Dahab treated you.”
Lauren had just finished her dinner when Zafir came back into the tent.
One glimpse into his face told her he was serious. “I was brought meals and snacks at regular intervals, called when Salma needed attention.”
“Did you agree to accompany them?”
“Yes. Salma…lost a lot of blood. Ahmed refused to leave my side so I said okay.” His frown deepened and fresh anxiety trickled in to her veins. “I’ve been thinking about that. Didn’t Farrah get their message?”
His jaw set like concrete, he shook his head. “There was no message. You vanished and there was nothing.”
“Wait, why wouldn’t they—” She paled. If they hadn’t relayed her message, that means Farrah or Arif or Zafir hadn’t known where she was. “Why wouldn’t they tell you?”
“The Dahab hate me, Lauren. And what Dahab believes, the other tribes follow. They figured out who you were and brought you along to send a message to me.”
Fear fisted her throat but she spoke through it. “They were nothing but courteous to me.” Shaking inside, she realized why he’d been so angry back in the tent, why he had held her like that… He’d been worried about her?
No, she couldn’t be foolish enough to think he’d been worried about her.
His unborn child was a different matter. “They hate you…why?”
“I represent their disgrace, their shame.” He clutched his nape, a show of vulnerability she didn’t think he was aware of. “My mother was from this very tribe. She defied their rules and lived with my father while he was married, became his mistress and bore me out of wedlock. Which turned all the tribes against the state.
“I spent the first twenty years of my life thinking I was a mutt the sheikh took pity on. Suddenly, Crown Prince Tariq, who had been my friend for as long as I could remember, hated the very sight of me.”
“He’d discovered the truth?” she added, her chest aching. He sounded matter-of-fact yet she knew the scars were bone deep.
“Yes. But it took my brother’s abuse of power, utter ruin of tradition and duty that finally forced the sheikh’s hand.” Bitterness carved lines into his beautiful face.
“Rashid, the sheikh, very cleverly, reared me into a faithful, dutiful pawn of his and there I was, to the shock of the nation, the new heir, blood of my father.”
“Then why were you in New York?” She understood the truth the moment she asked. Finally understood his anguished wait.
“Because Tariq didn’t like all the power being snatched away from him. He put Rashid in a coma, bought off half the High Council and exiled me under penalty of death. Attacked the Dahab again and again, making their very mode of life untenable. Threw the nation into civil war and riots.
“I was waiting for the right moment to take back control of the city.”
“Your mother…did you know her?”
He shrugged, a hardness that she hated settling into those angles. His answer when it came sent a painful exhale through her, so unexpected it was. “I don’t remember her, if I ever knew her. Apparently, she was weakened after I was born and died soon after.
“The Dahab didn’t want me and my father, for reasons of his own, had Arif put it out that I was an orphan he picked up off the streets.
“And you…” He uttered something raw in Arabic. “You got in the middle of it all.”
“All I did was…” Lauren searched for the right words, “do my duty. I might not be the ruler of a nation, but I owe it to anyone who needs medical attention.”
The words came automatically, as the horrific reality of her actions dawned on her. He hadn’t known his mother or father growing up and she had hidden the knowledge of his child from him.
Suddenly, Lauren could see beneath the power and duty that he wore like a second skin, to the loneliness, the dark anger, the self-imposed isolation around him. And the hard man he had become to overcome everything his childhood had imposed on him.
Would he ever forgive her?
She’d betrayed him at the deepest level with her ignorant actions. And that guilt made her raw, defensive, unbalanced. “How would I know, Zafir? How would I know what I’m stepping into if you treat me like a prisoner, a mistress, and now a brood horse? Unless you accept that I have a role in your life, as much as you’d like to put me in a box and lock me there?”
His gaze stayed on her, thoughtful, almost open.
She pressed on, feeling as if she was taking a step into some unknown, without seeing a way forward.
Her relationship with her parents had always been transactions. If Lauren was a good girl for the summer at her aunt’s, they would let her visit them in Morocco. If Lauren got good grades, then she could spend Christmas break with them in Paris.
Even the friends she’d made at the hospital, she’d always kept them at a wary distance, afraid of letting anyone close. But now…one of them had to take that first step. One of them had to clean the slate and start over.
“Can we try to be friends, Zafir? For the sake of our child?”
Silence beat in tune with the thud of her heart.
Slow amusement dawned in those golden depths, sending her system into stunned shock. One tip of that sensuous mouth tipped up, carving a crease in his cheek. “Brood horse, Lauren?”
A strange sound—a combination of a horrified squeak and an outraged gasp fell from her lips. “That’s what you get out of the whole speech I just gave you?”
“So do we have a breeding program in place after you deliver this one?”
“You did not just call…you’ve gone mad,” she flushed as he folded his hands in exaggerated patience, his mouth twitching. “A breeding program? Really?”
His jaw was rough with stubble, there was tiredness in the lines of his face. All she wanted to do was wrap her arms around him, to tell him that she understood him a little better now, that she understood the pain he hid so very well. But he wouldn’t welcome her sympathy or her gesture of affection.
All he’d ever wanted, could ever want, from her was only one thing.
“If you’re the brood horse, that makes me what? Your stud?”
The twitch of his mouth was infectious, the light in his eyes irresistible. “My very own Arabian stallion?” she said. He raised a brow in that infuriating way that he did.
His mouth finally curved into a full, breathtaking smile while her nerves thrummed at the sudden change in his demeanor. She understood why he had been worried and angry even, but now he was joking…
No, he was flirting with her. How? Why? Was he seducing her with that smile and those awful puns?
“I asked for that, yes?”
She exhaled long. “I seem to cause you—”