Shackled to the Sheikh(10)

‘She would have to perform as your wife in the public arena. She would have to be by your side during the coronation, if you go through with it, of course. Similarly at any public appearances where a mixed audience is in attendance—’

‘And night times, Kareem. What would she be expected to do then?’

And for the first time Kareem looked somewhere approaching nonplussed. ‘A wife populates her husband’s bed at night. What else would you expect of her?’

‘Of course,’ Rashid said, frowning for added gravitas, while absolutely determined now that Kareem would have no part of choosing him a wife. Someone to escort him to official functions was one thing, but someone to take to his bed—only he decided who that would be. ‘That is how it should be.’

‘So you would like me to arrange a wife?’

‘No. That won’t be necessary. I’ve got a better idea.’ One that would show a certain woman that when he said he did not want her for his sister’s carer she should pay heed, that she was far better off agreeing with him and vanishing from his life just as silently as she had done from his bed this morning, or he might just think they had unfinished business.

A temporary wife to populate his bed could be some kind of compensation for this whole crazy scenario.

‘Perhaps,’ Kareem prompted, ‘you would care to share this better idea?’

Rashid suddenly swung his head around and caught Tora watching him and he smiled.

Because although it seemed the train his life was on hadn’t just changed tracks, it had changed planets, for the first time in a mad day he felt as if he was back in the driver’s seat.

‘I’m going to marry Victoria.’

‘Ms Burgess?’ Kareem forgot how to be serene and fairly spluttered. ‘When you were so against her caring for Atiyah?’

‘I know,’ he said, unable to explain because the reason he was against her coming was the reason that made her most qualified to be his temporary wife. ‘It’s perfect.’





CHAPTER SEVEN

‘TIRED, MS BURGESS?’

Tora came to with a start to see Rashid leaning down before her, as attentive and seemingly caring as any of the flight attendants as he held what looked like a pot of coffee in one hand and a cup in the other, and it wasn’t the coffee she could smell. He hadn’t bothered to exchange two words to her since she’d walked out of that lawyer’s office in Sydney. Something was definitely up.

‘I must have dozed off,’ she said warily, sitting up straighter and checking her watch. No, she’d only been asleep a few minutes and one glance towards the bassinet beside her was enough to tell her that Atiyah was still sleeping, her little arms flung back either side of her head.

‘Anyone would think you’ve been working too hard.’

Her eyes snapped back to his. There was a cunning gleam there that had her on alert. ‘Anyone except you, you mean.’

‘Come, come, Ms Burgess,’ he said as he put the coffee down on a small table. ‘I brought you coffee.’

She looked around the cabin but it was deserted, the cabin crew all discreetly tucked away wherever it was they waited between being called upon. Even Kareem had disappeared somewhere. ‘Yes, I can see. What’s with that? Did you sack all the flight attendants or something?’

He smiled as he swivelled the chair in front of her around and sat down, though she sensed danger in the curve of his lips. She tucked her feet under her chair. Even with the room between the seats his long legs ventured way too far into her space for her liking. ‘I have something I need to discuss with you, something that might work to our mutual benefit.’

Her eyes shuttered down. Yeah, right. ‘I told you I wasn’t here for you. I am here for Atiyah, nothing more.’

‘You have a suspicious mind.’

‘You have a transparent one.’

He shook his head. ‘This is not about bedding you.’ He hesitated there, and she wondered what had gone unsaid. ‘This concerns Atiyah.’

‘How?’

He leaned forward. ‘For reasons you don’t need to know about, I need to adopt Atiyah.’

She looked across at him blankly. ‘And how does that concern me?’

‘In order to adopt, under some quaint Qajarese law, I must be married.’

She swallowed down on a lurch in her stomach because this could in no way mean what crazy idea ventured first into her mind. ‘I repeat,’ she said, schooling her voice to level and wishing her heart rate would also take heed, ‘how does that concern me?’

‘It’s not for long, it’s just a temporary thing. A mere formality, really, and then in a matter of months we can be divorced.’

There was that lurch again, but this time there was no misreading his words. ‘We?’

‘Well, you and me.’

She blinked, hoping it covered the jolt to her senses that came with his answer. ‘There is no you and me.’

‘There doesn’t have to be, not in any real sense. All I need is a wife. Someone to play the role of Atiyah’s mother temporarily. Kareem tells me the marriage must last twelve months to ensure the adoption satisfies the laws of Qajaran, but that’s only if I decide to stay. Otherwise, it might be over within a week.’ He smiled, as if he were asking her nothing more than the time of day. ‘Like I said, it’s just a formality.’

‘But a year! There’s a chance I have to be married to you for an entire year!’

‘If it happens. But you would not need to stay in Qajaran all that time. Once the formalities were over, you could go home.’

She looked at the coffee he had poured for her. She liked coffee, but right now she felt the need for something a whole lot stronger.

She licked her lips. ‘Who are you?’

‘I told you. My name is Rashid.’

She shook her head. ‘No. I met someone called Rashid in a hotel bar. He was just a man. An angry man wanting to let off steam the way men do. But you—’ She looked around. ‘You fly in a plane with a golden crown for a crest, you have staff that bow and scrape and seem to wait on your every word and call you Excellency. So, Rashid, who are you, that you think it is perfectly reasonable to ask a near stranger to marry you so you can divorce them when it suits?’

His eyes left her face, to wander a scorching trail down her body, lingering on her breasts before venturing lower. He smiled. ‘Near stranger?’ he questioned, his voice husky around the edges, rasping against her very soul. ‘We are hardly strangers.’

She crossed her arms and legs to stop the tingling under her skin, relieved when his gaze once again found her face. ‘You don’t know me and I sure as hell don’t know anything about you.’

‘I am not asking the world, merely for a few weeks of your time and then you can go home.’

‘I said I wouldn’t sleep with you again and I sure as hell won’t marry you.’

‘Nobody said anything about sleeping with me. You served a purpose last night, but now I’m looking for something else.’

She laughed, not sure whether to be offended or not. It was so mad, she had no other option but to laugh. ‘Well, as attractive as you make your proposal sound, that I pretend to be your wife, no thank you.’ She glanced at the baby and assured herself she would be all right for a minute or two more, before she pushed herself up to stand. Maybe if she headed for the bathroom, it might put a stop to this ridiculous conversation. But Rashid rose too, stepping sideways and blocking her path. ‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘I need to use the bathroom.’

‘Not yet. You haven’t heard what I’m offering in return.’

‘I don’t need to, to say no. You made it very clear when we were in Sydney that you didn’t want me to be here at all. You made it clear that you wanted nothing more to do with me and that’s fine, because I don’t plan on sticking around any longer than I have to in order to do this job. As soon as I hand this child over to whoever is going to be her carer in Qajaran—because I assume from your lack of interest it won’t be you—I’ll be heading home.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘Come now, Ms Burgess, how can you say no when there is so much on offer?’

‘Like what?’

‘Like an all-expenses-paid holiday in Qajaran, complete with a bird’s-eye view of a possible coronation and all the festivities surrounding it, along with a return flight home in the royal jet.’

A shiver ran down her spine. ‘Whose coronation?’

‘Mine.’

Ri—ight. So that was it. She did her best not to sway on her feet. Did her best not to look stunned. ‘So you’re kind of king-in-waiting, then?’

He nodded. ‘You could put it that way. Qajaran is currently without an Emir. Apparently I am next in line to the throne, if I agree to take the role on.’

A kind of king. Well, that was kind of funny when she’d thought he’d looked like a god on the bed only this morning. A demotion almost, and that thought almost brought a smile to her face when there should be none.

She shook her head. ‘Sorry, not interested.’

‘How much, then?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘How much would it take? Everyone has their price—name it.’