The Sheikh's Stolen Bride(18)

Charlotte felt colour warming her cheeks as she thought of how she’d entertained him the morning before.

“Fine,” she shrugged, the word obviously dragged out against her will.

“Good,” Eloise nodded. Safe in the knowledge that her daughter was going to behave, she smiled at them both. “I’ll return to the palace then. Thank you for calling, Ashad.”

He bowed his head forward slightly. They watched her go, and once Charlotte was certain her mother was out of earshot, she hissed, “What are you doing here?”

He eyed her thoughtfully, and she noted, for the first time, that he had that same turquoise shopping bag with him. The Tiffany & Co. bag. He placed it on one of the white benches.

“We have unfinished business.”

“We are finished business,” she corrected, slamming her palm emphatically against her racquet.

“Charlotte?” He spoke softly yet she felt the strength of the word; enough to look at him sharply. “Play with me.”

She didn’t understand, for a moment, what he meant. But he nodded at her racquet and she nodded. “Fine.” She stalked back onto the court and retrieved a spare racquet from her bag. She handed it to him, careful to avoid allowing their fingers to connect.

He held it for a moment. “Why don’t we make this interesting?”

She arched a brow. “What do you suggest?”

“I lost you yesterday.”

She swallowed and looked away from him. “I wasn’t yours to lose.”

“Yes, you were. One minute you were there, with me, needing me, falling apart with me. And the next you were shaking like a leaf. I want to know what happened.”

Her eyes showed bleakness. “I came to my senses.”

“No. Something frightened you. You’re afraid. And I want to know what of.”

Her breathing was laboured. “So you can fix it?”

“Perhaps,” he said quietly. “I want to know your secrets.”

“Well, that’s tough. Because I don’t want to… I mean, I can’t… it’s …”

He lifted an imperious hand to silence her. “Play tennis with me. If I win the first game, you’ll tell me.”

Charlotte shook her head. “I’m very good. You won’t win.”

His laugh was liquid oil on her skin. “So make the bet.”

“Fine,” she shrugged. She had been trained by two former world number ones. Her game was professional level. “I’ll even let you serve.”

He bowed low. “How good of you.” He grinned as he sauntered to the opposite end of the court and picked up a single ball.

It passed her almost at the speed of the light; it was a blur of fluorescent colour in the periphery of her vision. She lifted her racquet to return it but the ball had already thudded to the ground behind her well before she could connect with it.

She sent him a look of exasperation. “Beginner’s luck,” she muttered, though she was a lot less confident about that now. Still, anyone could strike an ace from time to time.

She’d underestimated him; a mistake she wouldn’t make again. She moved to the other side of the court and this time she braced for speed. She moved her weight from one foot to the other, her eyes trained on the ball.

He tossed it hard and slammed it over the net. She startled at his precision but not his power – she knew his power intimately. Her racquet connected with it this time, sending it back with a spin that made it bounce awkwardly for him. He was there, though, and he volleyed it back, almost managing to send it over her shoulder. But she reached up and slammed it, landing it with satisfaction in the corner of the court. It was on the line and he tapped his hand against his racquet in a silent clap – acknowledgement of the finesse of her shot.

“Very good,” he said softly.

Her response was a tight smile.

She waited for him to serve and again she returned the ball but this time he was too quick. He sent it back over the net low and fast, and on the other side of the court, so that even Superman would have struggled to return the ground stroke.

“Thirty, fifteen,” he said, as though she couldn’t keep score.

She ground her teeth together and swapped to the other service square. His next serve was an ace and her mutinous glare forestalled him pointing out that it was game point.

He lifted the ball, then bounced it at his feet. He watched her for a moment and then dropped the ball. He walked towards the net slowly and she did likewise, curiosity spurring her forward.

“I’m going to win,” he said quietly.

She didn’t argue.

“I don’t want you to confide in me because of a bet.”

Charlotte swallowed. “So why did you suggest it?”

His smile was lopsided and he shrugged. “Will you tell me what happened?”

Her eyes were enormous. He lifted a hand and curled it over hers, where it rested on the top of the net. His thumb curved beneath her wrist and stroked her pulse point. “Tell me because we were about to make love. Because you wish we had. Tell me because you’ve come to care for me. Tell me because I’m asking you to. Please.”

Her heart was cracking. She stared into his eyes and felt aches and pains lodge in her chest cavity. She nodded jerkily, her eyes showing that the agreement was not an easy one to give.

“I got scared,” she whispered, unable to meet his eyes. The net stood between them, and Ashad could do little more than stroke her wrist, comforting her, silently imploring her to continue.

When Charlotte didn’t say anything else, he prompted, “But you told me you have experience…”

“Not good experience,” she said with the sense of shame that accompanied the confession. She had seen a psychologist afterwards, Dr Medusans, who had helped her come to terms with what had happened. But the shame had never dissipated.

Ashad studied her beautiful face with confusion. Had her lover not been skilled?

“You don’t enjoy sex?”

Her enormous eyes lifted to his. “We didn’t have sex,” she said, the words robotic.

“You said you’re not a virgin,” he responded.

“I’m not.” She swallowed. “We … he …” She closed her eyes, unable now to meet Ashad’s face. “I told you that I arrived at his house and saw that he had become obsessed with me.” She pushed back the memory; it was so fresh despite the fact it had happened years earlier.

“And that you had already been intimate.”

“No, we hadn’t.” She bit down on her lip. “I liked him, but part of what I liked was that he never pressured me. He knew that I couldn’t just sleep with my boyfriend. I thought he would wait – that he wanted to marry me, even.”

Ashad nodded, stroking her wrist gently, calmly, hoping she felt his heart’s truth through his fingertips.

“When I saw all those pictures and realised that I’d fallen into a trap, he knew it was over.”

Danger was ahead. Ashad felt it. A murderous rage was festering in his chest. “And?”

“He told me that if I wasn’t going to be with him, he’d make sure no else would ever want me. That no royal marriage would be arranged for a slut like me.” She didn’t realise she was crying until tears dropped from her eyes and landed on the back of her hand. She looked down, as if just noticing that his hand had curved over hers; that her tears had dribbled onto his flesh, too. She made to pull her hand away but he held it tight and lifted it to his lips, kissing her wrist gently, then chasing one of her tears with his tongue.

His anger was a raging tsunami but he didn’t indulge it. He wouldn’t. Because she needed him to support her, not to indulge his own emotions. “But you weren’t a slut,” he said softly.

She shut her eyes again, unable to see the disappointment she knew he would feel.

“I often wonder if I could have fought harder. The thing is, I was terrified. And I kept telling myself that I’d misunderstood. That somehow everything was going to be okay. I didn’t fight him.”

“He raped you,” Ashad said in a matter-of-fact voice.

“No. Yes. I mean, I hate that word because I think of rape as violent and something that happens in dark alleys, not … by your boyfriend, in his bed, with the flowers he’d bought for you sitting in a vase right near your head.”

“He raped you,” Ashad said softly, insistently. “And that’s not your fault.”

“I know that. It took me a long time to realise it though.”

“I scared you yesterday.”

“No!” She turned her hand and squeezed his fingers now. “It wasn’t you. It’s just that no one’s touched me since him, and I just found it overwhelming. The memories, even though you’re nothing like him, and I didn’t feel anything like that when he … when we… it was so different.”

“I’m sorry.” He lifted his hands to her shoulders and he gripped her tight. “I’m sorry.”

“What for?” She blinked at him, and strangely, having revealed this part of herself to him, she felt lighter. As though the guilt she’d carried for years had been dispersed momentarily.

“To have, even unknowingly, caused you pain. I would never have wanted you to relive those feelings and memories.” He lifted a hand higher, cupping her cheek. “I wonder, though, at the wisdom of your parents, in arranging your marriage. Syed is a good man; but what if he wasn’t? What if your husband to be turned out to be unpleasant or sexually aggressive?”