Hidden in the Sheikh's Harem: Christmas at the Castello(33)

She put her hand on his arm to stay him. They'd had a talk when she'd  returned to the village a week ago and had fallen into an uneasy  friendship, which basically meant that he avoided her at all costs.  Something she completely understood.

What she didn't understand was why Zach was striding toward her,  backlit by the now silent helicopters, his security team lined up behind  him.

'Hello, Farah.'

Hello?

He invaded her village with an army and said hello? 'Zach? What are you doing here? Are you trying to start a war?'

'Not quite.' He stepped forward directly in front of her. 'I've come to talk to you.'

'At this time of the night?' Her heart was racing at the sight of him  and she gave up trying to steady it. 'What could be so important it  couldn't wait till morning?'

'Us. The future.'

The divorce. He was here about the divorce. Feeling completely stupid  she took a moment to compose herself. 'Look,' she began haltingly, 'I  haven't put the divorce petition into the court yet, but I will, I'm  just-'

Zach took hold of her hands and she was embarrassed to feel them  shaking. 'I'm not here about the divorce, habiba.' He squeezed her icy  fingers. 'But what I have come to discuss I'd prefer to do so without an  audience-or a line of guns trained on me. Is there somewhere private we  can go?'                       
       
           



       

Wishing he had just sent a letter-or an emissary-to do his bidding she  pulled out of his reach and glanced behind him. 'If you wanted private  you shouldn't have brought a thousand men.'

'Only fifty.' He smiled ruefully. 'Nadir insisted on it.'

'What the blazes is this about, Darkhan?' Her father's sleep-roughened  voice bellowed from behind them. Farah sighed as he pushed through the  growing pack of villagers. So much for hoping her father might sleep  through her final humiliation. He stopped in front of the prince. 'You  have some nerve turning up like this.'

'Yes, sir. I've come for your daughter.'

Farah blinked, wondering if she had heard right.

'A man should know how to make his wife happy,' her father said. 'I  made a promise to her mother many years ago that I would make sure she  married well.'

Farah turned to him. 'You did?'

'Your mother said it would take a strong man to handle you. She was  right. I never could.' He looked at Zach. 'That night in your shiny  palace I saw something in your face when you looked at my daughter. Was I  wrong?'

'No, sir. I love her.'

A murmur rippled through the crowd huddling together against the cold.  Farah couldn't feel it. Heat was racing through her on a wave of  embarrassment. 'By Allah.' She turned to her father. 'He doesn't love  me. He's just saying that because-' She frowned, turning back to Zach.  'Why are you saying that?'

He smiled. 'Because it's true.'

'You love me?'

'With all my heart.'

'But...you were forced to marry me. My father-'

'Thinks you need to take this inside,' he said gruffly, directing them  both towards the hut. 'And perhaps you should come and see me  afterwards, Your Highness,' her father hesitated, 'about that other  business.'

Did he mean the kidnapping?

'No, need sir. And the name's Zach.'

Her father nodded once. 'Mohamed.'

Shaking with the rush of emotions surging through her, Farah let Zach  lead her inside her home, part of her desperate to play it safe and send  him away and part of her aching to believe him.

'Our marriage was forced on the both of us, Farah, but there is nothing  forced about the way I feel about you or how miserable I've been since  you left.' He cupped her face in his hands and bent to kiss her with  such tenderness it made her heart catch. 'I love you, habiba. I was just  too much of a coward to tell you. And I have to believe that after the  way you gave yourself to me, after everything that we shared together,  that you have feelings for me, too. That you'll come back to me and give  our marriage another chance.'

'Oh, Zach.' A lump formed in her throat as she looked up at him. She  had tried to avoid the pain of love her whole life, yet that was all she  had felt since she had walked away from him. Deep down she knew that if  she didn't take this leap of faith, that if she didn't fight the  insecurities that had made her feel less than her whole life she would  never know the joy of truly living. 'I love you, too. I love you so much  I can't believe it. I can't-' She stopped talking and kissed him until  they were both breathless and dizzy.

'I love you, Farah. I didn't know it was possible to love someone this much.'

'But you let me go.'

'You asked me to and I had given you my word that if you ever wanted to leave then I would not come after you.'

Farah groaned. 'That would be one of the only times you've ever done what I asked.'

'Not true. In Ibiza I did everything you asked. I watched cheesy movies for you.'

'But why were you so distant these past few weeks? I thought it was  because you wanted a way out of our marriage. That you were starting to  resent it. To resent me.'

He gathered her close and kissed her again, kissed her until she  couldn't think. 'I didn't resent you but I could tell you were holding  something back and I didn't know how to reach out to you.' He sighed and  stroked his thumbs across her cheekbones. 'The truth is, I wanted you  so badly I started to doubt myself.'

'You?'

'Yes, me.' He gave her a wry smile. 'Love, I have learned, is not the  comfortable, easy emotion I had once envisioned. It's hot and powerful  and it brought me to my knees. You brought me to my knees.'

Farah stroked her hand over his stubble, revelling in the fact that she  could touch him freely. 'You know, when we first met you annoyed me so  much I wanted to do exactly that.'                       
       
           



       

He smiled. 'Is that a fact? You should be careful what you wish for, habiba...'

'Because you just might get it.' She laughed. 'I'm so happy, Zach. I never thought I would feel like this with a man.'

He pulled her in tighter against him. 'You don't feel like this with a man. You feel like this with me.'

A secret smile formed on her lips. 'So that self-doubt you were talking about...?'

'A blip on the radar. A blip that you have eradicated.'

'I'm glad,' she said, suddenly serious. 'And I'm glad you changed your  mind about coming after me. Because without you...without you...'

Tears formed on the ends of her lashes and he used his thumbs to wipe  them away. 'You are my destiny, Farah.' He leaned back to look down at  her. 'You're the reason I returned to Bakaan five years ago and you're  the reason I no longer want to leave. You light up my life, habiba, in a  way I've been looking for my whole life and never thought I'd find.'

'Oh, Zach, take me home,' she whispered.

'To the palace?'

'To wherever you are.' She curled her hands around his neck. 'I never want to be parted from you again.'

'Good. Because I never plan to let you go again.'

He sealed his promise with a soul deep kiss that was filled with joy  and the promise of a wonderful future, and Farah knew that her mighty  prince was truly a man she could rely on for the rest of her life.

* * * * *

Keep reading for a bonus novella by Amanda Cinelli, CHRISTMAS AT THE CASTELLO!





'THERE'S STILL SOMETHING MISSING.'

Dara stood poised at the top of the staircase, looking over the Winter  Wonderland theme that had transformed the opulent grand ballroom below  her. Her assistant, Mia, waited patiently by her side. The younger woman  had long ago got used to her boss's obsessive eye for detail. Devlin  Events was about creating perfect Sicilian weddings for their  high-profile clients. Over the past three years Dara had gained an army  of the industry's most talented people and put them onto her payroll,  but she still liked to oversee the final run-throughs at their most  prominent venues. There was no one in the industry who could spot the  little things better than she. And right now something was off.

Sweeping yet another glance around the room, she mentally checked off  twenty-five tables, each adorned with a glittering crystal tree  centrepiece. The overall effect was like a winter forest, with white and  blue lighting completing the wintry theme. Her bride, a famous opera  singer, had expressly forbidden any real flower arrangements on the  tables. She had instead ordered hundreds of spherical arrangements of  fresh white and pink roses, to be suspended from the ceiling in  intricately symmetrical clusters.

Dara counted across the floating flower bombs-as she had so lovingly  named them. She got as far as the third row before she noticed the  problem.

She sighed. 'They've doubled up on the colours.'

Mia's head snapped up. 'Are you sure?'

'Right over here.'

She walked down the marble staircase, the click of her heels echoing on  the hard surface. She came to a stop underneath the offending  decoration. It wasn't a major issue, but it was damned irritating now  she'd noticed it. Mia's quiet voice came from behind her.