Australia: In Bed with a Sheikh!. Emma Darcy

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СКАЧАТЬ is ours,” Tom stated belligerently.

      “Sarah will always be yours,” Tareq answered, smiling his assurance. “She’s your sister and she loves you. Coming with me won’t make any difference to how she feels about her family.”

      “But I don’t want her to go away.”

      “Don’t be a baby, Tom,” Jessie cried in exasperation. “Sarah’s a grown-up and she hasn’t had any time for grown-up things with us. You’ve got to be fair.”

      Another one of Tareq’s ideas?

      “Do you want to go, Sarah?” Tim asked.

      “I do need to do something more with my life, Tim,” she answered, “though I’ve loved being here with you.”

      “Who’s going to tell us bedtime stories?” Tom demanded.

      “I will,” Susan said from the doorway. “And I think you should thank Sarah for giving you so much of her time instead of making her feel bad about leaving you.”

      “We didn’t mean to make you feel bad, Sarah,” Tim rushed out. “We want you to be happy.”

      “Well, she’ll be real happy with Tareq,” Jessie declared, giving her younger brothers a supremely smug look. “I went for a ride in the stretch limousine!”

      The boys instantly set up a clamour to be taken for a ride, too. Tareq good-humouredly agreed, inviting Jessie to lead them out to the car. She had a lovely time, playing Queen Bee, escorted by the sheikh who had apparently taken on the guise of fairy godfather.

      “Will you be happy with him, Sarah?” Susan asked, scanning her anxiously as they trailed after the limousine party.

      “I expect it will be an experience,” she returned dryly.

      Susan shook her head fretfully. “You’ve done so much for us. I don’t know what to say…except thank you.”

      “Try to keep Dad off the bottle, Susan.”

      “I think Tareq has taken care of that. Your father got caught up in doing things he really hated and now he’ll be free of it, thank God!”

      The passionate relief in Susan’s voice piqued Sarah’s curiosity. She stopped walking and stayed her stepmother from following the others off the veranda. “I’m not sure I understand,” she said, her eyes sharply questioning.

      Susan looked intensely discomfited. “Never mind. Better that you don’t. Drew needs to save some pride. He feels bad enough it was you who got Tareq to give him a fresh start. He won’t let you down on this, Sarah.”

      “It’s not just me. It’s the family,” Sarah retorted, frustrated by Susan’s evasion. There were some things more important than pride and she tried to press them home, given this was her last opportunity to do so. “I’d hate to see you and Dad break up.”

      She shook her head. “I’d never leave your father. We’ve been through so much. He stood by me when I was hopelessly incapacitated. I’d stand by him through anything, Sarah. Don’t worry about us. We’ll get over this hump and turn it all around.”

      Faced with such faith and determination, Sarah didn’t have the heart to question further. Marriage was a private business to the two people involved and nothing she said would make any difference anyway. It certainly hadn’t in the past.

      They remained on the veranda, watching Tareq directing the final show for the day. The limousine took off for another spin around the property, carrying three exuberant children and the man who held all their lives in his controlling hands for the next, testing year.

      “I’m sorry you were so messed around by the divorce, Sarah,” Susan said, apparently stirred into an awareness of where her stepdaughter was coming from in the previous conversation.

      “Not your fault,” Sarah replied dismissively. Sympathy had not been around when she’d needed it and hindsight sympathy only made the omission worse.

      “I could have offered to keep you here with us. But I didn’t,” came the regretful admission.

      Sarah had had a gutful of guilt from her father. She didn’t want it from Susan, too. “Water under the bridge,” she said curtly.

      “I want you to know you’ll always be welcome here. Any time. For as long as you want.”

      Too late, Sarah thought with rueful irony. A debt was owed now. People were uncomfortable with debts. It colored the flow of natural feelings. Though not with the children. They would never know. Nevertheless, it would lie between her and their parents, denying her the closeness she would have liked.

      “Thank you,” she said, acknowledging the offer which had been sincerely made, however unlikely it was to be taken up. Tareq was about to dominate her life for the next twelve months. Perhaps longer if…her heart clenched with a sense of ominous urgency as she turned to her stepmother. She’d almost forgotten the most critical thing of all!

      “Please tell Dad to do his best with Firefly, Susan. It’s important. Tell him from me it’s terribly important if he doesn’t want to let me down.”

      Tareq might have freed her father from his self-made stress, but Firely’s performance was her passport to freedom.

      “I’ll tell him,” Susan replied.

      “You won’t forget?” Sarah pressed.

      “I promise.”

      Promises…she’d had a gutful of them, too…broken ones.

      The limousine came back.

      Her time here was up.

      The children were happy to say goodbye…hugs and kisses and well wishes. Sarah settled on the plush seat beside Tareq. The chauffeur closed the door, the last separating act. She watched her family waving her off as the limousine moved away from them. There was no point in her waving. They couldn’t see her. She was behind tinted windows, cut off from them, enclosed in Tareq’s world.

      “Thank you for making it easy,” she said stiffly.

      “Was it easy?”

      She grimaced, her eyes drawn to his by the gentle probe for honesty. “Yes and no.”

      He nodded, understanding her ambivalence. There was both comfort and disquiet in his understanding so much. Recalling his skill at manipulating everyone today, Sarah was goaded into making one stand on principle.

      “I appreciate your…graciousness…in the circumstances. But if you’ve made promises to Jessie, please keep them, Tareq.”

      The blue eyes held hers, unperturbed, unwavering. “I never make promises I don’t intend to keep.”

      Sarah suddenly felt foolish for raising the matter. Everything he’d said today indicated he set a lot of store by trust. In his life it was probably as precious a commodity as it was in hers.

      “Then you will let me go if Firefly runs СКАЧАТЬ