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 or your father again.”

      “You may just get your wish.” He drew a deep breath. “My father is dying.”

      Jayne heard his words from a distance; they didn’t sound quite real. Six years ago she’d wished that the old Emir could…simply disappear out of her life…out of Tariq’s life. Then, his death would have solved all her problems. Yet now she didn’t care.

      She felt numb. She told herself it was because she’d moved on. She had a life. And that life did not include Tariq. Not even if his father was dying.

      “What does that have to do with me?” She kept her voice expressionless. “I don’t care about your father. I don’t care if he’s dying.” She swallowed her pain and flicked him a look. A flash of raw emotion glittered in his eyes. It was quickly suppressed. Her throat closed, feeling hot and tight. “I have no desire to see your father. Not ever again. When you told me to leave five and a half years ago, I told you that.”

      “You said you never wanted to see me, either.” His mouth kinked into a mocking line. “Yet here you sit, in front of me. So, nuur il-en, never is a long time. Death has a finality that comes to us all. My father feels it is time for me to settle—he wants that reassurance before he dies.”

      He paused. The silence swelled darkly around them, coloured by the undercurrents between them.

      “So?”

      “Who better for me to settle with than my lawfully wedded wife?”

      Jayne gave an uncontrollable laugh. It was hard and grating. Alien. As alien as the notion that the Emir would ever accept her as the consort for his son. “That’s the last thing your father wants. He’d prefer to see me in hell.” She gave him a twisted smile. “What about Leila? Why not settle down with her? Your father would approve that match like a shot.”

      “Unfortunately, Leila is now married. I do not approve of bigamy.”

      Unexpectedly, Jayne’s heart lifted at the information. Then she quashed her exultation. It had nothing to do with her, who he married. “So divorce me and find another bride.”

      “There is no time. My father needs to be assured that I am married, happily reconciled with you. Now. And you are going to help me achieve that. As soon as he is dead you can leave. With this divorce you want so badly.”

      There was something savagely ironic at the idea that Tariq wanted her aid to deceive his father into thinking he was settled. But she had no intention of staying. She shook her head. “I want you to sign the consent to our divorce, then I want to leave.”

      “You never used to be this hard of heart—”

      “Me? Hard-hearted?”

      “You used to be gentle, loving.” Tariq continued.

      “Until you and your father got hold of me.”

      Tariq’s gaze turned dark with bitterness. “Don’t blame—”

      “Oh, what is the use?” She wasn’t going to get through to him. She gave a dismissive shrug. “I don’t care anymore what you think of me. I’ve grown up. I don’t need your approval anymore.”

      Tariq’s lips thinned into a hard line. “But you do want a divorce. And I’m not signing anything unless you stay. So unless you convince my father all is well between us before he dies, I will not consent to a divorce. Ever.”

      “I’ll sue for divorce from New Zealand.”

      “And I’ll oppose you. Even though our marriage was recorded at the New Zealand High Commission in London at the time, we were married according to the laws of Zayed and I am a citizen of that country. You need my consent. I have a lot of money to fight you with. And you know that I will succeed. Otherwise you would have applied for divorce in New Zealand. Not come all the way here to persuade me to give you this divorce.”

      He had her there. “Tariq, what you’re asking is impossible.”

      Tariq glanced at his wife and suppressed the tenderness that threatened to spill out. She looked bewildered, off balance for the first time since her arrival. Not even when she’d been faced by those young thugs had she looked as shattered. She’d remained calm, unflustered, sitting beside him with her long lashes lowered against the porcelain skin he’d always relished, while he’d simmered with rage that any one dared touch his woman.

      He’d wanted to arrest the youth, have him expelled from Zayed for touching Jayne. He’d fought the red, red rage for calm.

      And in that instant he’d known that he was going to make this divorce as difficult as he could. But none of the seething emotion was revealed when he said, “I am not asking the impossible. It is my wish, dearest beloved—”

      “Don’t call me that. I am no longer your dearest beloved.”

      “That is true. You are no longer my dearest beloved.” He knew she’d recognised his point by the way her body tensed against his. But he was not yet ready to open the wounds of the past. “Stay until my father dies. That is the last thing I ask of you, my wife—” he paused, waiting for her to respond to the subtle mockery, but her lashes again swept her cheeks “—before I grant you the divorce you seek so urgently.”

      He watched as she examined her nails. They were short, bare of polish. “How long?”

      At her question his head came up. He narrowed his gaze, searching her averted face for guile. “What do you mean, ‘How long’?”

      “How long…must I stay?”

      “Until my father dies.”

      “Yes…I know…but how long will that be?”

      Something constricted in his chest as she flouted the conventions that frowned on such directness. Tariq felt a burning sense of…frustration…that she so clearly wanted out of their marriage, that she was prepared to ask him to quantify how many days remained for his father in this realm. He shrugged. “How long is a piece of thread?”

      “That’s no answer.” At last she looked at him. “I want a time limit.”

      “I don’t know.” He stared at her, brooding. Hoped she didn’t see all the way to his soul to the dark, black well of sorrow and confusion that lay there. “The thread of his life is close to snapping. He is very weak and in much pain. The doctors say it could be a week or two weeks. They don’t give him longer than a month.”

      “A month!” She hesitated, her eyelashes lowered again. Her teeth closed on her bottom lip.

      He waited, giving her time. She was impatient. Tariq narrowed his gaze on her teeth, the endearing gap between them, and wondered what it was about this Neil that had her so enthralled that she’d come back to the country she’d sworn never to return to, to get her divorce. The pictures of the man, procured from the detective agency he’d hired immediately after her call to his father’s aide, showed an ordinary-looking man with a thatch of blond hair and an innocuous smile. Nothing pointed to Jayne having a sexual relationship with this man, this Neil.

      Yet.

      Right now that was the only thing СКАЧАТЬ