Innocent in the Desert: The Sheikh's Impatient Virgin / The Sheikh's Convenient Virgin / The Desert Lord's Bride. Trish Morey

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СКАЧАТЬ a baby … I can’t have you? No middle ground?’

      His reply was about as uncompromising as his expression. ‘No. You have to accept this is not an affair. This is marriage. I need to provide my country with an heir—therefore once you come to my bed there must be no one else.’

      ‘You mean, when I get bored with sex with you I’ll have to close my eyes and pretend you’re …’ Eva’s comeback faltered when she failed miserably to think of any man who did not look like a pale imitation when compared to the man she found herself married to.

      She expected her belated silly addition of, ‘Luke!’ to produce a scornful laugh, but it didn’t.

      The lick of pure molten white outrage she glimpsed in his eyes before he pointedly turned his back on her made her realise that the only predictable thing about Karim was her ability to make him furious.

      As she left the room his body language suggested he would not be following her any time soon.

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      HER grandfather stayed three days and during that time Eva was literally never alone with Karim.

      He spent his days at the hospital, returned in the evening and dined with her grandfather. She was there but she might as well have been invisible for all the notice the men took of her.

      The marriage seemed to have appeased her grandfather and the initial tension between the two men had rapidly thawed.

      The same could not be said of the tension between Karim and her, but then it wasn’t the same type of tension! Since that night in Amira’s hospital room Karim had not attempted to touch her … but it was the almost occasions that were driving her slowly out of her mind.

      Such as when he almost brushed her fingers with his when he passed her something, she got light-headed just anticipating the next time.

      Sometimes even thinking about him touching her sent electrical thrills of sensation through her hopelessly receptive body.

      The thought of what would happen when he did touch her for real scared her witless. He had put the ball in her court when he had spelt out what coming into his bed meant … it really was a ‘burning the bridges’ moment.

      There was no mistaking that there was chemistry, and Eva, while still finding it amazing Karim was attracted to her, found it almost as amazing that she could want a man in this all-consuming way and not be in love with him.

      The two had always been inextricably linked in her stubbornly romantic mind.

      So now he wanted her, but Eva was under no illusion that this would last, and what about when his visits to her bed were made from a sense of duty? Her blood turned to ice at the thought of passion turning to something clinical and cold.

      The whole thing seemed horribly inevitable.

      It was on the last night of her grandfather’s visit that it was announced that it had been decided she journey back with him and stay at the Palace in Azharim until Amira was fit enough to travel home with Karim.

      Eva, who had sat quietly through the meal and was rapidly tiring of her invisible status, allowed her gaze to travel from one man to the other and back again.

      ‘Decided by who exactly …? I didn’t decide anything.’

      King Hassan looked genuinely bewildered by the spiky comment. ‘Surely you can have no objection to seeing your family … your cousins …?’

      Eva forced herself to smile at her grandfather. ‘I would just like to be consulted.’

      ‘Consider yourself consulted,’ Karim said, sounding bored by the entire subject. Amira’s condition ought to be occupying his every waking moment, yet he was continually distracted by the hunger of his own body. Life would be simpler if the distraction was put out of temptations way for the moment at least.

      And it wasn’t just that it was the irrational guilt he was experiencing—he knew he had not trapped her into this marriage, that she had been equally culpable—but when he saw the dejected set of her shoulders he felt as though the responsibility was his.

      ‘We are only thinking of you, Eva.’

      That, Karim thought, keeping his eyes steadfastly on Eva’s grandfather, is the problem.

      ‘Karim has so much on his plate at the moment, with matters of state and Amira, he is worried that he will have no time to spend with you.’

      Worried my foot, Eva thought, struggling to control her temper. He wants me out of his hair so that he can pick up with whatever bimbo he’s sleeping with without worrying about his wife walking in.

      Recognising the stab of jealousy that spilled like poison through her body, Eva went stiff with shock. She responded with defensive aggression.

      ‘Surely Karim’s father can deal with matters of state.’

      It had crossed Eva’s mind a couple of times recently to ask about Karim’s father, but on each occasion she had been distracted, and now that she paused to think about it it seemed strange that he had never entered the equation.

      Her grandfather’s approval had been sought, but there had been no mention of what the King of Zuhaymi thought of his son’s marriage.

      An awkward silence followed her question.

      It was Karim who broke it. ‘My father no longer takes an active part in government.’ His lashes came downwards concealing his expression from her as he speared a piece of food onto his fork. Then, not lifting it, he moved it around his plate.

      ‘Why? He can’t be that old?’

      ‘Eva …’ King Hassan began in a warning tone.

      Karim lifted his head and said, ‘No, she should know.’

      ‘It may have escaped your notice, but actually I’m here in this room.’

      ‘My father is not old, but he was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s several years ago.’

      It was still difficult to speak of recalling the first signs; watching such a robust virile man lose a part of himself everyday had been agonising.

      ‘He does not appear in public any longer.’ It made him feel guilty to acknowledge it, but there were times when Karim almost felt envious for those who had lost loved ones. It was, he had learnt, harder to grieve for the loss when that person or at least the shell was still alive.

      ‘You mean, you locked him away when he became an embarrassment.’

      When Karim met her accusing stare she saw, not the guilt she had anticipated in his face, but cold condemnation.

      ‘When he was still able, he made it clear that once he was unable to function fully he wanted to retire from the public view. He lives today at a cottage beside the sea with a team of nurses to provide round-the-clock nursing. I see him but not as often as I would like because my presence sometimes agitates him.’ The occasional flashes of lucidity when his father recognised him made the entire situation harder in many СКАЧАТЬ