The Sheikh's Untamed Bride. Jackie Braun
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shook her head briefly. ‘And you didn’t think that was worth mentioning? You let me turn up here in my wedding dress and you didn’t even warn her or tell me who she was?’
‘When would I have had the opportunity to warn her? We were married only hours after you appeared unannounced at my desert camp. Then we arrived here and she came out of the tent before I had a chance to speak to her privately.’
‘It is no wonder she can barely look at me.’ Her words were barely audible. ‘It explains so much.’
‘It does not explain why she would leave Zahra unattended.’
‘Maybe it does. Maybe...’ She frowned slightly and then stared at the still surface of the oasis. ‘You should have told me. There is so much you should have told me.’
‘Why would I tell you?’
‘You really have to ask me that?’ Her head was turned towards him, pain and accusation in her eyes. ‘Because keeping secrets is doing nothing but harm. I understand that this is hard for you, I understand that you have to make love to me in the dark because touching me makes you think of your wife and that makes you feel guilty, and I understand that you don’t want to be here during the day because it’s like a slap every time you look at me. I understand that, given the way you feel about my family, you are reluctant to trust me with your child. I don’t blame you for that. But it wasn’t Nadia who comforted Zahra in the night, Your Highness. It wasn’t Nadia who read to her and played with her. For the past two days it hasn’t been Nadia who has cared for your daughter. It has been me.’
Raz was stunned into silence by her interpretation of the facts, but before he could respond she took a step closer to him.
‘Do you think I’m not a caring person? Is that what you think?’ Her voice vibrated with tension. ‘Do you think I would have crossed a desert I didn’t know, on a horse I had no idea how to ride, to find a man who hates me, if I weren’t a caring person? Just in case the facts don’t speak for themselves, let me tell you I’m a very caring person—and if you looked at the facts you’d be able to see that. And, yes, I was thinking of my sister and my future, but I also care about the people of Tazkhan. And before you dismiss that, based only on my bloodline, let me remind you that we can choose many things in life, but whom we are related to isn’t one of them. I chose to go to your daughter in the night because I couldn’t sit there and listen to her distress. And I chose to step over those horrible, scary dogs in order to comfort her. So never imply I’m not trustworthy enough to care for you daughter.’
The stillness of the baking desert heat intensified the silence.
Raz stood still, her words stinging as they sank into his flesh. ‘Why do you find the dogs scary?’
‘After everything I just said to you, that is the question you choose to ask?’ She gave a choked laugh—a sound loaded with disbelief—and he frowned.
‘Layla—’
‘No. Enough.’ Her voice was shaky as she backed away from him. ‘This conversation is going nowhere. You don’t want to come anywhere near me and you can’t bear it when I come anywhere near you, so just leave me alone.’
LAYLA PACED THE width of the tent and back again, so upset she didn’t know how to calm herself. Once again she was ripped apart by emotions new to her and she tried desperately to rationalise them.
Why would he trust her? He didn’t know her. Of course he’d be reluctant to allow her near his child—a child whose existence he’d taken great care to keep secret from her family. It was a sign of his love for his child, and she was the last person ever to criticise a father for loving his child.
So why did his attitude towards her hurt so badly?
And why couldn’t she share the same space with him and not think about sex?
Hyped up and unsettled, she picked up a ripe peach from the bowl on the table and then put it down again, knowing that she was already in possession of the answer. And the answer was that it hurt so badly because it felt as if he cared. When his mouth was on hers, when his hands were holding her face and his body was buried deep in hers, it felt as if he cared. And it felt incredible. So incredible she wanted more. And in wanting more she also wanted it to mean something.
The whole thing was turning her brain into a churning mess. She was used to using logic, but the feelings inside her defied logic.
With a murmur of frustration Layla turned and paced back again, trying to filter out the facts, but even the facts were confusing. To be so intimate in bed and so distant out of bed was muddling her brain. In bed, the signals were that he cared. Out of bed, it was clear he considered her on a level with the life forms occupying the bottom of the oasis.
Having admitted that to herself, it horrified her when he strode into the tent and closed the flap between them and the rest of the world.
‘Go away—’ Her voice cracked and she stepped back from him, still reeling from their conversation and feelings that were new to her. She wanted to turn them off and had no idea how. ‘Don’t say anything else. I can’t take any more right now. I got the message. If you really don’t want me near your daughter I won’t go near her, but please make sure that someone does because I can’t lie here listening to her screaming.’
‘And that is very much to your credit.’ His voice was low, his expression guarded as he watched her pace from one end of the tent to the other. ‘I came to tell you that you’re wrong.’
She couldn’t focus.
She couldn’t concentrate on the conversation because she wanted to look at him all the time. Not just because he was a man who naturally commanded attention, or even because he was sensationally good-looking—although that had to play a part—no, it was something so much more personal. It was because he knew her in a way no one had ever known her before. Whenever he was near she felt as if they were being pulled together. She had to fight the impulse to walk up to him and touch him. And because she had no experience of feeling that way she had no idea how to cure herself.
She’d never felt like this before and it was driving her mad. They had huge issues, but all she could think about was the feel of his hands on her and the way it felt to be kissed by him.
Layla pressed her fingers to her forehead, trying to clear her brain, trying to harness her old way of thinking. Trying to push out thoughts she didn’t want in her head. Her stress levels were running into the red, her grip on control so loose she was afraid the whole thing was going to slip from her grasp. She knew the only way to pull herself back together was not to be near him. She needed to be on her own so that she could rebalance herself.
‘I probably am wrong. You know Nadia much better than I do. I don’t have all the facts. If you think she’s the right person to care for your daughter, it’s not my place to disagree with you.’
‘I don’t mean that you’re wrong about Nadia. I mean that you’re wrong about the other things you said.’
She was so aware of him standing there that the whole conversation blurred in her head. ‘What things?’ Was this the ultimate in humiliation? To know a man could do those things to her and feel nothing and yet still her head could be full of nothing but him? Why couldn’t she detach the physical from the emotional as he evidently could?
The intimate atmosphere suffocated her, and the way he was looking at her made her feel as if he’d touched her skin with the flame of a candle.
‘I make love to you in the dark not because I am thinking of my wife, but because you are very shy and I am trying to be sensitive to your feelings. On that first night you would not even remove your robe to show me your bruises, so I assumed you would want to take that side of our relationship very slowly.’
Slowly?
Layla