The Sheikh's Forbidden Virgin(25)

‘I don’t want to go,’ Aarif said in a low voice, and Kalila turned her head back to face him, wincing at the pain the sudden movement caused.

Aarif’s expression was one of both anguish and honesty, and it tore at her soul. He was admitting something both wonderful and terrible, and he knew it.

Smiling a little, the expression somehow sad, he reached forward and brushed a tendril of hair away from her face, his fingers trailing gently along her cheek. ‘I don’t want to go,’ he said again, his voice no more than a whisper.

Silently she reached her hand out to clasp his, still on her cheek, pressing his fingers against her face as he had done to her only the night before.

He returned the clasp, his fingers tightening on hers, and they remained like that, silent and touching, for a long time, as the shadows lengthened in the room and the day turned to dusk.



She left the next day. Aarif had spent the night next to her in his chair, although they had not spoken beyond the trivialities. Yet something had shifted, Kalila knew. Something had loosened, and she wondered if it was a good or a bad thing.

It felt good, she knew that. It felt wonderful. Aarif did not speak or even act in a way so different from how he had before, yet it felt different. He had acknowledged to himself what he felt for her—or so Kalila hoped—and it broke down the barricade he had erected as a defence between them.

Yet still, she reminded herself bleakly, it changed nothing. Still, in a week she would marry Zakari. She pushed the thought away, desperate to cling to the hope that somehow something could change, that even at the eleventh hour rescue would come.

Her knight in shining armour, she thought wryly, and knew the only knight—the only man—she wanted was Aarif.

He drove her back to the palace that morning and she spent the days mostly resting, regaining her strength for the celebrations and events that lay ahead.

There had still been no word from Zakari, and in a moment of bitterness Kalila remarked to Juhanah that he was like a phantom prince, never to arrive.

‘A king,’ Juhanah corrected her with surprising grimness, ‘and when he arrives, ya daanaya, you will know it.’

Three days after her accident Kalila ventured out to the pool. It was set amidst the luxuriant gardens, surrounded by tumbled rocks and a cascading waterfall so Kalila felt as if she’d stumbled on a bit of Eden, rather than a man-made enterprise. She stretched out on a chaise, fully intending to read the Agatha Christie Aarif had lent her, but it lay forgotten in her hand as she warmed her self and soul under the dry desert sun, lulled to a doze by the tinkling of the waterfall and the swaying of the palms above her.

‘You look much better.’

Kalila’s eyes flew open. She didn’t know how long she’d been lying there, half-asleep, but now she was most certainly wide awake, and aware of Aarif standing above her. He was dressed in crisp trousers and a polo shirt, and he looked clean and fresh. Even though her swimming costume was modest by Western standards, Kalila felt exposed under his bland gaze.

‘I feel better,’ she allowed.

Aarif was silent for a moment, his expression guarded, and then when he spoke his voice was abrupt. ‘I wondered if you’d like to leave the palace compound for a bit. I could show you where the diamonds are mined, as well as a few other of Calista’s sights.’

Kalila’s heart leapt at the thought. Away from the palace—with Aarif. It was tempting; it was dangerous. ‘Yes, that would be nice,’ she replied, her voice amazingly level and calm.

‘Good.’ Aarif nodded. ‘We can go after lunch if you like.’ Kalila nodded her agreement, and without another word he turned and left.

Her nerves were too highly strung even to consider lounging by the pool with a paperback, so Kalila returned to her room to shower and dress.

A few hours later she had eaten in her bedroom, as usual, and was waiting in the foyer of the palace, dressed in a sleeveless cotton blouse in pale lavender and loose trousers.

She heard footsteps and turned to see Aarif, keys in hand, coming down the stairs. He didn’t smile when he saw her, just nodded. ‘Good. You’re ready.’

He led her outside, and Kalila saw that an open-top Jeep had been driven round. Aarif opened the passenger door for her, and a few minutes later they were speeding away from the palace, away from the narrow, crowded streets of Serapolis, to the open stretch of desert.

They drove in silence, companionable enough, Kalila decided. She was content to simply enjoy the warm, dry breeze on her face, and the sight of the desert stretching away in graceful waves to a jewel-green sea.

‘We’ll drive to the river first,’ Aarif said after a few moments. ‘That’s where the diamond workshops are.’

Kalila nodded, pushing a strand of hair away from her eyes and wishing she’d brought a hat, or at least a hair clip.

Aarif saw the movement and gave her a sideways smile. ‘I’m used to seeing you a bit of a mess,’ he said, his voice low. ‘I suppose I like it.’

It wasn’t really a compliment, yet it still sent delight fizzing through her veins, filling up her head and heart with impossible hopes.

They didn’t speak again until the river, a winding stretch of muddy green, came into view, along with a few low, long sheds where Kalila assumed the diamonds were polished and honed.

Aarif parked the Jeep, and as they got out she saw where the diamonds were mined, a side of the rocky bank that was covered with a system of scaffolding and drainpipes.

‘The diamonds are difficult to access,’ Aarif told her, his hand under her elbow as he guided her along the uneven ground. ‘And at present they are mined only by skilled artisans. There is too much corruption in the world of diamond mining as it is.’ There was a hard note to his voice.

Kalila nodded, and Aarif led her past the river to the sheds. Aarif explained the process to her, how the diamonds had to be separated from the silt and gravel, then carefully polished and cut. He unlocked a case to show her a diamond in the rough—it looked no more than a piece of dirty glass, yet once honed it would, Aarif assured her, be quite spectacular.

‘I prefer them like this, sometimes,’ he said with a small, wry smile. ‘Nothing gaudy or showy. All the potential—the best—still to come. The hope.’

Kalila nodded, her throat suddenly tight, for she understood what he meant. There was so much more excitement and hope in possibility, rather than in the finished product, known, certain, dull. She handed him back the diamond. ‘Yes, I see what you mean.’

‘I’m boring you,’ Aarif said as he locked the case up again, and Kalila shook her head. ‘I forget sometimes that most people are not interested in this as I am.’

‘No, you’re not,’ Kalila said. ‘I like learning about the diamonds—about you.’ Aarif kept his face averted, and Kalila took a breath and continued. ‘What made you first interested in diamonds?’

Aarif shrugged. ‘Someone needed to do it.’

‘But you clearly have a passion for it,’ Kalila persisted. It had been obvious from his voice, the bright gleam in his eyes.

His hands stilled for a moment on the case, then he tucked the key back in his pocket and shrugged. ‘It is important to me,’ he said, his voice strangely cautious.

‘What did you study at Oxford?’ Kalila asked, genuinely curious.

He frowned, then replied, ‘Geology.’

It made sense if he were to go into the diamond trade, Kalila supposed, yet with the conversation she felt as if she’d touched something hidden, forbidden. Something Aarif didn’t want to talk about.

‘What about you?’ he asked. ‘What did you study at Cambridge? History, your father said, I think?’

Kalila nodded. ‘Yes, and then I started my MPhil in medieval social history.’ She smiled wryly. ‘Not very useful, but I enjoyed it, learning about people and the way they used to live.’

‘You started?’ Aarif repeated with a frown, and Kalila shrugged.

‘I would have finished around now, but—’

‘The wedding was delayed so many times,’ he murmured. ‘I suppose your father wanted you home.’

‘Yes.’

His gaze was distant, his hands still in his pockets. ‘And so you went.’

‘You’re not the only one with a sense of duty,’ Kalila said, trying to be rueful but sounding a bit sharp. Aarif sent her one swift, searching glance.

‘No,’ he agreed quietly, ‘I’m not.’ He moved towards the door. ‘There is a restaurant on the beach with a superlative view of the ocean. We can rest there.’

They drove in silence down the long, winding coast road, the sun starting its descent towards the sea, turning its surface to shimmering gold.

The restaurant was perched on a cliff top, with just a few rickety chairs and tables on a terrace, and the lone waiter, agog at serving royalty, nearly tripped over himself to provide them with glasses of orange sharbat and a plate of sticky sesame-coated buns, plump with raisins and sweetened with honey.

They ate and drank, chatting with comfortable ease that soon drifted into companionable silence. After a while, that silence became strained with unspoken tensions, memories, and thoughts. Strange, Kalila thought, how without a word spoken or a look given silence could become charged, dangerous, a palpable energy swirling around them.