The Sheikh’s Bargain Bride(48)

Sleeping on her front, her hair over her flushed cheek, one hand flat against the bed, still warm from his body. The covers were pushed down revealing the pale curves of her shoulder blades and her spine dipping down into the small of her back. Her face wasn’t peaceful in this sleep. Her eyelids flickered as she watched unknown scenes unfold inside her head—scenes that he would never know, but could guess at. He turned from her face, needing respite from the regret that ate him up, and looked out the window down which rain ran in trickles, distorting the world; turning it into a place that was crazed, cracked, like the egg-shell varnish on a masterpiece painting. His need for control had always tainted everything he’d done and everything he’d said. But now nothing was under control; nothing was whole.

He’d seen Anna as someone who threatened to fracture his world and so dealt with her in the only way he could: took her and made her his. Except it hadn’t worked. Instead she’d shattered his control from the inside.

He gently pushed her hair back from her face. She stirred slightly, then settled and went back to sleep.

He felt warmth flood him and he reached out for her, but he stopped himself before he could touch her. It was a warmth that filled him and obliterated any need for control: it controlled him and he didn’t care any more. There was a sense of relief, a shaking out of priorities. Things suddenly seemed extremely simple.

He moved away from her.

So simple now. There was nothing more important than her and what she needed and wanted. And he knew what that was. She’d never made any attempt to hide it. She’d always wanted her freedom: to be who she could be, not who everyone expected her to be.

There was only one thing he could give her now, and that was her independence.

He lay waiting for her to awake. His eyes felt hot from watching, imprinting into his mind her beauty, imprinting into his mind the woman he loved.

Hours drifted past while his mind raced and he listened to her twist and turn; the times when her breathing was disturbed followed swiftly by the deep breathing of sleep. It was only when dawn was beginning that he felt her hand move across the cold divide between them and her knuckles gently stroke his cheek, stopping suddenly short of his eyes.

“You’re crying.” Her surprise made the words light and hazy.

He pressed his eyes tight close. “No. I’m not.”

“Then what do you call water that falls from the eyes. Not Ma-ush-shafa, not healing water?”

“No. The opposite.”

Through closed eyes he felt her lips kiss first one eye and then the other with a tenderness that made his heart ache.

“Open your eyes.”

He didn’t immediately. But when he did, he covered her hand with his and pulled it down from his face.

“What is it?”

He shook his head and rolled out of bed, his head in his hands for a few seconds before he rose and began to dress.

“It’s early. Where are you going?” Her voice was faint as if from miles away. The distance made it easier to do what he needed to do.

“Away. Back to Qawaran.”

“But I haven’t finished my work here. A few more days at least. And Matta?”

“I’m going alone. You stay. Matta can stay for another week and then he will need to return to me. He may return to you later.”

She threw off the bedclothes and leapt out of bed naked and seething. She gripped his shirt with a fist and shook her hand, her eyes blazing.

“So that’s it. You’ve had enough? Well what if I haven’t?”

He was pleased. He barely felt the anger of her spirit and the tumult of her emotions screaming at him. He could barely feel it because they were nothing beside the pain of his own.

“You will have what you’ve always wanted, your freedom.”

He didn’t turn around again. He couldn’t. It might have threatened his resolve. He needed to give her what she wanted. Without that she would always resent him. The door banged shut behind him closing off a part of him forever.





CHAPTER ELEVEN





The long days of willing the cellphone to ring had turned into weeks and then months where her only respite was her studies. But the pain hadn’t ebbed at all; it had grown if anything—this missing him, this aching.

From her desk she’d watched the green leaves of summer turn into the rich flood of autumn leaves. The summer semester had come and gone and Matta was returning from Qawaran in a week, to start his new school in Paris. And still no word directly from Zahir until now—until the papers that made legal his generosity had arrived—the same day she received confirmation of her exam results.

She looked down at the piece of paper that confirmed her results and felt—nothing. She wanted to share it with someone but there was no-one. Impulsively she dialed Zahir’s number on her cellphone but it reverted to his assistant immediately. It always did.