The Desert Bride of Al Zayed / Best Man's Conquest: The Desert Bride of Al Zayed / Best Man's Conquest. Michelle Celmer

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СКАЧАТЬ first she thought the taxi driver had returned.

      She turned her head…and saw the youth who had fallen off the bicycle. Standing, he looked a whole lot bigger. And far more threatening with the gang of faces that loomed behind him. With no chickens and no bike, he suddenly didn’t look so young and vulnerable. In fact, he looked downright menacing.

      And then she saw the knife.

      Jayne screamed. The sound was cut off midutterance as the biggest youth moved with the speed of a striking snake and shoved her up against the rough plaster wall of the pension. Through the tinted glass door, Jayne glimpsed an elderly man inside the pension, behind the reception desk, he caught her eye and looked away.

      No help from that quarter.

      Fear set in like a bird fluttering frantically within her chest. “Please, don’t hurt—”

      A screech of brakes. A shout of a familiar voice in Arabic. Then she was free.

      Jayne heard the sound of feet rushing along the sunbaked sidewalk, caught a glimpse of khaki and red uniforms giving chase.

      “Jayne!”

      She knew that voice. Recalled it from her most shattering dreams…and her worst nightmares. She sagged against the rough plastered wall of the pension as Tariq leapt from the Mercedes, shutting her eyes, blocking him out. All of him. The lithe body that moved with the fluidity of a big cat, the hawklike features that had hardened with the passage of the years, the golden eyes that were molten with a terrible anger.

      “Get in.”

      “I want—”

      “I don’t care what you want.” The molten eyes turned to flame. “Get into the car.”

      To her astonishment, Jayne found herself obeying. The Mercedes smelled of leather, of wealth and a hint of the spicy aftershave that Tariq wore—had always worn. The scent wove memories of Tariq close to her, holding her, of his skin under her lips. She shrank into the corner and curled away from the unwelcome memories. Memories that she had come here to excise forever. By getting a divorce.

      “Look at me.”

      She turned her head. His face was set in stone. Hard. Bleak as the desert. Until she detected a tangle of swirling emotions in his eyes. Not all of which she could identify. There was anger. Frustration. And other emotions, too. Dark emotions that she’d hoped never to see again.

      Two

      “So, you decided to avoid the welcome I had planned for you.” As the Mercedes pulled away, Tariq delivered the statement in a flat, emotionless tone, despite the rage that seethed inside him at what had nearly happened to her.

      “Welcome?” Jayne laughed. It was not a happy sound. Annoyingly, she looked away from him again and he couldn’t read her eyes—the eyes that had always given away her every emotion. “You would be the last person I’d expect to welcome me anywhere.”

      “I am your husband. It is my duty to welcome you to Zayed.”

      Jayne didn’t respond.

      “Why did you run?” He didn’t like the fact that she had taken one look at him in the airport and fled. Whatever else lay between them in the past, Jayne had never feared him. Nor was he happy with the notion that the only reason she was in the car was because he was the lesser of two evils. The thought that she considered his company only a notch above that of the youths who had assaulted her turned his mouth sour.

      “I wasn’t dressed for the occasion.”

      Anger rose at her flippant response and he pressed his lips into a thin line. Was she so unmoved by the attack? He knew that it would prey on his mind for a long time to come. He had thought that he had no feeling left for his errant wife, that her actions had killed every feeling he’d ever nurtured for her. But the instant he had seen that young dog lay his hand on Jayne, rage—and something else—had rushed through him. He could rationalise the anger, the blind red mist of rage.

      She was his woman.

      No other man had any right to touch her. Ever.

      What he couldn’t understand was his concern for Jayne, the woman who had behaved so atrociously in the past. He couldn’t understand this urge to make such a woman feel safe, to assure her that what had happened out there in the back-streets of Jazirah wasn’t her fault. Even though it would never have happened if she had graciously accepted the welcome he’d arranged.

      Before he could work through the confusing threads, Jayne was speaking again, “I don’t intend to stay long. A big welcome like the one you arranged would give the wrong impression and suggest that I’ve returned to stay.” She shrugged. “I thought it for the best to leave.”

      “The best for whom? You? It certainly did me no good to be left standing there looking like a fool.”

      “You would never look like a fool. But I would’ve. I was ill prepared for the occasion. How do you think I would’ve looked…sounded…on national television?”

      Tariq swept his gaze over her, taking in the tension in every line of her body, the way the cheap clothes stuck to her in the heat, the dishevelled hair revealed under the scanty hijab that had fallen away and the white-knuckled hands clasped on her lap. Perhaps she wasn’t as composed as she sounded. Perhaps the attack had shaken her. In the old days she would’ve come apart, started to cry, she’d been so gentle, with her huge, adoring, doelike brown eyes. It had been her gentleness that had caused him to love her. There had been so little tenderness in his own life.

      “What are you looking at? I’m sorry if I’m not wearing haute couture. I’m sorry if you think I’m unfit for your company.”

      There was an unfamiliar note of annoyance in her voice, and resentment flashed in her eyes. Tariq blinked in astonishment. Where had this come from? Jayne had always been easygoing and eager to please, hero-worshipping him. “Unfit for my company?” he repeated. “I have never thought that. I married you, didn’t I?”

      She ran a hand over her face. “Look, I feel like I’ve been flying forever. I’m tired, cranky. The last thing I wanted was a welcome reception with TV cameras, for heaven’s sake.”

      “Your apology is accepted.”

      He waited and watched the wide brown eyes flash again. He almost smiled. Yes, he could get used to this.

      “It wasn’t an apology, it was an explanation why I am less civil than normal.” Her voice was curt. “You should not have sprung that surprise on me. And as for what’s best for me, yes, in the past our relationship was always about what you and your fa—family wanted. I didn’t need that circus back there at the airport. I came here for one reason only, to talk. With you. Alone. To get a divorce. I didn’t want to be welcomed back as your sheikhah. That would be a lie, because I have no intention of staying.”

      Tariq gave her a long, level glance. She wanted a divorce. Three months ago he’d have been too eager to grant her that, he would have been grateful to have the gentle, malleable wife, who he tried so hard never to think about, out of his life. But then everything had changed. His father was far from well. He needed her in Zayed at his side. And after his response to her attack and seeing the new flash of fire in her, he was СКАЧАТЬ