Sheikh's Princess of Convenience(8)

Things had changed, however. Her stupid brother had put her at the mercy of this wretched man and Karim didn’t strike her as the indulgent sort, his mother’s remarks notwithstanding. In fact, the longer she watched him, the more her uneasiness grew.

He swore, sudden and sharp as a gunshot, loud enough to make her jump because it came into her head through the earmuffs, crystal clear. For one second, she thought the curse had been aimed at her, then he made a sudden veering motion that tilted them as he avoided something.

She looked forward where visibility had become severely reduced. Despite his efforts, the storm was wrapping around them, buffeting the helicopter. They were running out of time. And options.

He went lower, searching for a safe place to land, but the rotor wash kicked up more dust, making it nearly impossible to see what was on the ground.

“There!” she said as she saw a flash of blue and green, black and yellow—colors and symmetries that didn’t belong in the rust-red of the desert. It was a Bedouin camp, men running around securing tents and corralling the camels.

Karim set down on the nearest flat piece of land and turned off the engine, but the rotors continued to turn and whine.

“I have to tie down. Wait here.” He leaped from the helicopter.

One of the Bedouins clutched his head-covering and ran to greet him. She saw the shock and flash of a wide smile of recognition before the man hurried to help, shouting at one of his fellow tribesmen that their sheikh was among them.

“Tell the women,” she heard him shout. To prepare food and suitable lodging, Galila surmised.

She pulled off her headphones and drew the scarf from around her neck to drape it over her head and prepare to wrap it across her face. Zyria wasn’t a country where face covering was demanded, but she would have to protect herself from the blast of dust.

That was when she realized her purse was in the car and she didn’t have her sunglasses. Her toothbrush was with her luggage, though.

She went through to the passenger cabin, having to catch her balance twice because the wind was trying so hard to knock the helicopter off its footings. The luggage compartment was easily accessed and she quickly retrieved her necessities along with stealing the shaving kit out of Karim’s case. Such things were always the last into the luggage so it was right on top.

Then she shamelessly dumped his laptop bag onto an empty seat. She began filling it with the contents of the onboard pantry—coffee and tea, fresh oranges and bananas, nuts and dried figs, cheese and crackers, chocolates and Turkish delight. Caviar? Sure. Why not?

“What the hell are you doing?” he bit out as he came through from the cockpit.

“Food.” She showed him the bag, swollen with his travel larder. “Our toothbrushes are in here, too. Time to run?” She buttoned her jacket and drew her scarf across her face.

He clearly hadn’t expected this. He glanced at her heeled shoes. Yes, well, she hadn’t made a priority of digging out her pool sandals. She’d been too busy making herself useful.

The helicopter jerked again. They couldn’t stay here. The very thing that kept this bird aloft was liable to topple it in the wind. The Bedouins had spent centuries learning how to wait out these types of storms, however. She and Karim would be safer in one of their tents.

Karim leaped out the side door, not bothering with the steps. He reached back to take her by the hips and lift her to the ground while one of the Bedouins stood by and slammed the door behind her.

She dragged her scarf up to peer through the layer of silk, relying more on Karim’s hard arms around her to guide her than the ability to actually see. She had only ever watched a storm through a window. It was terrifying to be in it, making her anxious when Karim pressed her into a tent and left her there.

A handful of women were moving around inside it, efficiently smoothing bright blue sheets and plumping cushions on a low bed, setting out a battery-operated lantern on a small dining rug and urging her to sit at a washing basin.

The walls and roof of the tent fluttered while the wind howled and sand peppered the exterior. She removed her scarf and jacket, grateful to wipe away the worst of the dust with a damp cloth. She wound up changing into the silk nightgown she had thrown into the bag since all of her clothes felt so gritty. It wasn’t cold in here, not with the sunbaked earth still radiating heat and so many warm bodies in here, but she accepted the delicate shawl one woman handed her.

The entire camp had been informed that the sheikh’s intended bride, the Princess of Khalia, was among them. They were pulling out all the stops, eager to praise her choice of husband.

Choice? Ha!

But they wanted to make her comfortable so Galila bit her tongue. She had done enough work with the underprivileged to understand that her problems were not the sort that most people identified with. These women had chapped hands and tired smiles. Everything they owned, they carried.

She let them fuss over her, rather appreciating the motherly kindness of the old woman who wanted to brush her hair. After she had washed her face and hands, she gave her moisturizer to the old woman. The woman laughed and said nothing could erase her wrinkles, but she was pleased all the same.

The other women were excited by the fresh fruit and other treats, insisting on adding a selection from the bag to Galila’s meal of stew and lentils.

That was when Galila realized the dining mat was set for two.

What had Karim told them? They couldn’t share this tent! They weren’t married.

Karim was their sheikh, however. When he entered the tent, the women scattered with gasps and giggles, not a single protest for Galila’s honor.

It was fully dark outside by then, despite the still early hour. The tent was lit only by the small lantern over the meal they would share. The wind howled so loudly, she couldn’t hear any voices in the neighboring tents.

Now she realized why the women had been so admiring of this silly nightgown, intent on ensuring her hair was shiny and tangle-free as it flowed around her bare shoulders and fell just so across the lace on her back. That was why they had praised him and called him lucky and said she would make him a good and dutiful wife.

They thought she was consummating her wedding night!

She hugged the delicate shawl more closely around her. Her pulse throbbed in the pit of her belly. She curled her toes into the silk nap of the rug beneath her feet, clammy and hot at the same time. Her mind trailed to the way he’d made her feel last night, kissing her so passionately, while the rest of her fluttered with nerves.

He took a long, leisurely perusal from her loose hair to the hem of her ivory nightgown.

Without a word, he removed his robe and scraped his headwear off, tossing the dust-covered garments aside without regard. He wore a white tunic beneath that he also peeled off, leaving him bare-chested in loose white pants that hung low across his hips. He stepped out of his sandals.

She swallowed.

His mouth might have twitched, but he only turned and knelt with splayed thighs on the bathing mat, using the same cloth she had run down her throat and under her breasts to wash his face and behind his neck.

She shouldn’t be watching him. Her pulse raced with a taboo excitement as she gazed on the burnished skin that flexed across his shoulders. Her ears picked up the sound of water being wrung from the cloth, and his quiet sigh of relief. Those sounds did things to her. Her skin tightened and her intimate regions throbbed.

She imagined replacing that cloth with her hands, smoothing soap along the strong arm he raised, running slippery palms up his biceps, over his broad shoulders, down to his chest and rib cage. If she snaked her touch beneath his arm to his navel, would she be able to trace the narrow line of hair she had glimpsed, the one that disappeared into the waistband of his trousers?

What would he look like completely naked? What would he feel like?

As wildness threatened to take her over completely, she tried to forestall it by blurting, “You shouldn’t be in here.”

“Worried about your reputation? We’re married.” He stayed on the mat with his back to her, continuing to stroke the cloth along his upraised arms and across his chest.

“I don’t know how to say this more clearly, but—”

“They have already given up one much-needed tent for me,” he interjected, pausing in his bath to speak over her. “I won’t ask them to prepare one for you as well. We share this one. Therefore, we must be married. We are.”

“Just like that?” she choked. “The sheikh has spoken and thus it is so?”

“Exactly.”

She didn’t even have words for the weakness that went through her. She told herself it was the deflation of watching her childhood dreams of a royal wedding disappear in a poof, but it was the way her life had changed in the time it took for him to make a declaration.

“You can’t.” She spoke so faintly she was surprised he heard her.

“It is done, Galila. Accept it.” He rinsed the cloth and gave it a hard wring.

“I can’t.”

She had avoided marriage for many reasons, one of the biggest ones being that she wanted a choice in how she lived her life. At no time had she been satisfied with the idea of putting her fate into the hands of any man—particularly one who didn’t love her and didn’t seem to even like her. She barely knew him!

What she did know was that he was strong and powerful in every way. No one would come to her aid here even if they heard her scream over the wailing wind. In a matter of a few words, he had stripped away all the shields she possessed—her family name, her station as Khalia’s only princess, even the composure she had taken years to construct. There was no affection or admiration or infatuation to leverage here. This was all about expediency. About what he wanted.