Hidden in the Sheikh's Harem: Christmas at the Castello(32)

Blindly she did so and handed it back. 'Congratulations,' he said, 'you  can be the first woman in Bakaan to obtain a divorce. I'm sure you'll  enjoy that.'

What she would enjoy would be if she had the freedom to go up to him,  throw herself into his arms and kiss him. What she would enjoy would be  for him to crush her to his hard length as he had done so many times  before and tell her that he loved her...that he couldn't live without  her.

She thought about her mother and the brother she had never known. She  thought about her father who had desperately pined for them both and had  held on to anger and bitterness when they had been ripped from him so  unfairly. And then she thought about Zach who had wanted to marry for  love and got her instead and she knew she was doing the honourable  thing, the only thing, in walking away. 'So I think... I think I'd like  to go home. If you don't mind.' Did she have to sound like such a wimp?  'To Al-Hajjar.'

She heard a loud crack in the quiet room and saw particles of the pen  she had just held fall to the ground. 'I'm well aware that you have  never considered the palace home, Farah,' Zach rasped. 'But unlike a  mythical genie I can't rub a magic lamp and make it happen  instantaneously.'

'I know that, Zach,' she said, struggling to keep the tremors out of  her voice. 'I didn't mean...' Her explanation tapered off when she  realised how close he was to her, how fiercely he was looking at her.

Kiss me, she urged silently. Please.

'I'll have Staph organise your transportation,' he said.                       
       
           



       

Farah pulled herself together. She smiled at him one last time and then, before her pride deserted her altogether, she left.





      CHAPTER FIFTEEN

WHY DIDN'T ANYTHING work out the way you hoped it would? Zach growled  under his breath as he wrestled with the cufflink he was currently  trying to force back through his shirt sleeve.

'Would you stop fiddling?' Nadir berated out of the side of his mouth. 'You look like a schoolboy.'

Zach wanted to tell him in no uncertain terms where to go but they were  at a formal gathering, waiting for the king of a neighbouring country  to take his seat before they all could.

'And where's Farah? You said she'd be here. We don't want to insult  this crusty old demon before he's signed the new business treaty.'

'I told you she's gone home,' Zach said.

Nadir frowned at him. 'That was a week ago. How long will she be gone?'

'How the hell do I know?' Finally the gold pin made it through the  other side and, just when he went to twist the back into position, the  damned thing fell out again. Zach swore just as the room held its breath  for the old king to sit down.

All eyes turned his way. Nadir smiled. 'If you'll excuse us.' He nodded  at Imogen and gave her a pointed look. Zach rolled his eye and went to  take his seat when his brother cupped his elbow. 'You, outside.'

Zach nearly laughed as Nadir propelled him out of the room. 'Hell, I  haven't been treated like a recalcitrant schoolboy since...well, since I  was one.'

Nadir dismissed the nearby guards and walked ahead of him into an  antechamber. 'What do you mean you don't know when Farah is due back?  Didn't you ask her?'

No, he hadn't. He hadn't needed to ask to know that the answer was  never. Instead he'd tried to forget about her and get on with his life.

Yeah, and wasn't that working out well?

He let his head drop back and started counting the small fretwork  panels that decorated the ornate ceiling. He hadn't done that since he'd  been a recalcitrant schoolboy either. 'She's on sabbatical.'

'Zach,' his brother said in that tone.

Zach blew out a breath. 'Do we really need to have this conversation  now?' Because he was starving and a seven-course dinner was about to be  served in the banquet hall.

His brother eyed him uncomfortably. 'I don't know. Do we?'

'Not in my mind.'

'Fine. But first tell me why you look worse than you did when you returned from your kidnapping in the desert.'

'I don't know. Perhaps I'm not getting my beauty sleep,' he quipped, deadpan.

Unfortunately Nadir didn't laugh. 'She left you, didn't she?'

'Who?'

'Damn it, Zach, I'm about-'

'Yes, she left me,' Zach grated. 'Happy?'

He stalked away from his brother and vaguely considered hurling an  eighteenth-century Persian vase against the wall. It would probably  shatter in a very satisfying manner.

'Want a drink?'

He hadn't heard Nadir go to the drinks cabinet and he stared down at  the two tumblers in his hand. 'No.' He didn't want a drink. He didn't  want much of anything. The feeling of hollowness he'd experienced just  after their father had died had returned tenfold.

'Fine. I'll have them both.'

Zach nearly laughed. His brother was trying to stage an intervention,  and he loved him for it, but he was absolutely hopeless at the task.

Throwing himself into an armchair that was about as comfortable as a  wooden plank, he regarded Nadir moodily. 'You probably should have told  Imogen to come and talk to me instead.'

'Don't be an ass.' His brother took the other plank. 'So, what are you going to do about it?'

Zach looked at him bleakly. 'Nothing.'

'Well, that's healthy.'

'Listen, brother, I appreciate this, don't get me wrong-especially  since you've ditched the King of Ormond for me-but my situation isn't  like yours and Imogen's.'

'I don't know about that but what I do know is that you've finally found a woman you love and you're just going to let her go.'

Did he love her? This last week he'd convinced himself he didn't but  that wasn't working out that well for him, either. 'I promised her I  would.'

'Promised her what?'

'If you love something, you let it go. If it comes back, it was meant to be. If it doesn't, it never was.'                       
       
           



       

Nadir looked like he wanted to crack him over the head with one of the  tumblers in his hand. 'If you love something you let it go...? That kind  of drivel belongs in fairy tales and greeting cards, not in real life.'

'It was her decision. I'm not going to be like our father and chase her.'

Nadir sat forward and tilted a glass in his direction. 'I tell you, if  you don't go to her and tell her how miserable you are without her, I  will, because there's no way I'm losing one of the best regional  ambassadors I'll probably ever have because you're too screwed up to  tell her how you feel.'

'I'm not screwed up.'

But wasn't he?

A long buried memory rose up to taunt him as if it had happened  yesterday. It was the day Nadir had argued with his father and left  Bakaan for good. Being an eager-to-please thirteen-year-old on the cusp  of manhood, Zach had wanted to make things right and had gone to his  father and offered himself up as a replacement for Nadir. His father had  stared at him for what had seemed like an eternity and then he'd  started laughing. And he hadn't stopped until tears had rolled down his  hollow cheeks and onto his white robe. Zach couldn't remember much of  anything after that. The only thing he could remember was the hot ball  of shame in his stomach as he'd stood before his father rooted to the  spot.

Hell. He rubbed his hands over his face. He was so madly in love with  Farah it had been easier to let her go than to open himself up to that  kind of ridicule again. He looked back at his brother. 'Do you need the  helicopter?'

'No.' Nadir shook his head. 'But take backup this time, will you? If  her father doesn't shoot you out of the sky, your wife might, and with  all the changes we're making we can't afford to replace it.'

* * *

Farah was tossing and turning in bed when she heard the distant sound of thunder.

Great. A storm was coming. At least she was home in her bed this time,  her small, narrow bed that didn't seem to fit her any more. But then  what would after the opulence of the Shomas Palace? Not that she missed  the palace, exactly, but right now, when she could feel the coldness  seeping in from outside, she missed the prince inside the palace. The  prince she wasn't thinking about any more.

Slowly she became aware of voices outside her hut and the thunder that  seemed to grow exponentially louder with every passing second. Thunder  that was so loud it didn't sound like thunder at all.

Quickly climbing out of bed, she felt around on her chest of drawers  for her trousers and tunic and slapped her boots against the floor  before shoving her feet into them. Hopefully she wouldn't need socks  because she didn't have time to look for any.

As soon as she stepped outside she had to put her hand up to shield her  face from the circles of light surrounding their village-or what she  realised were helicopters dropping from the sky like huge, black alien  spaceships.

There was a sense of chaos amongst those who had been woken by the  noise and Farah could see her father's men rallying to ward off any  attack.

'Wait!' She rushed forward and shoved her way to the front of the  gathering group. Her father was nowhere in sight but Amir looked set to  kill.