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The contrast between his love for his daughter and her own barren childhood was so vividly accentuated that the breath caught in her throat. Wondering what was wrong with her that she could envy a child, Layla stepped away from him.
‘Thank you for the offer of riding lessons, but I don’t want to intrude on your time with Zahra.’
He curved an arm round her waist, trapping her. ‘You’re still upset?’
‘No.’ All she had around this man were uncomfortable feelings. Feelings about him. Feelings about herself. She’d arrived here thinking she knew herself well and had discovered she didn’t know herself at all. It was like being inside the body of a stranger. ‘I just don’t want to intrude on your relationship with your daughter.’
‘You were the one who pointed out that you should be part of my relationship with my daughter.’
Did it make her a bad person that it was almost too painful to watch? ‘You have a very special bond.’
‘A bond that will not be threatened or broken by the presence of another person.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘But that isn’t the issue, is it? Tell me what’s wrong.’
‘There is no issue. Nothing is wrong.’ She tried to walk away but he locked his arm tightly around her waist.
‘Your father wanted you to marry Hassan, so I assume from that your relationship with him was difficult. You don’t have to hide it from me. I want to know. All of it.’
‘Why? What difference does it make?’
‘As you just pointed out to me, keeping secrets isn’t going to do anything for the progression of our relationship.’
Did he see a progression? This was a man who had loved his wife totally and completely. A man who had vowed never to love again. What progression could there be? She could have asked, but she wasn’t sure she could cope with the answer. They were together now, and nothing could change that.
‘My relationship with my father wasn’t just difficult, it was non-existent. You’re so proud of Zahra and you want the best for her.’ She stared at a point in the middle of his chest, trying to contain her emotions and relate only the facts. ‘My father was never proud of me. His interest in us extended no further than how useful we could be to him. He met Yasmin just four times in his life.’
Shock flared in his eyes. ‘Four times? That is all?’
‘Five, if you count the day he died, when we were both hiding behind the curtain in his rooms.’ Layla was surprised by her sudden need to confide when she’d lived her life relying on no one.
There was a long, tense silence. ‘I had no idea. I assumed—’ He broke off and rubbed his fingers over his forehead, apparently struggling for words.
‘I cared for Yasmin. We’ve never been apart. She’s the only person in the world I’ve ever been close to until—’ She stopped, feeling her face burn. Feeling his eyes on her.
‘Until me.’
‘I know we’re not close in that sense,’ she said quickly. ‘I know what our relationship is.’
‘Do you?’ His voice was soft and his eyes didn’t shift from her face. Slowly his hand dropped. ‘Then you’re making more progress than I, because I truly have no clue what our relationship is.’
The air was thickened with a tension she’d never felt before.
Something changed when she was with this man. Something she couldn’t put a name too, and didn’t understand.
She wanted desperately to reach out to him, to touch him as he’d touched her, but she wasn’t sure he’d want that and didn’t have the confidence to risk being rejected.
‘You should go to Zahra.’
‘You will come too. It would please her if you were to join us.’
‘I really don’t—’
‘And it would please me, too. Get dressed and meet us outside. Zahra’s favourite treat is to have breakfast by the oasis, so we will do that and then fly the helicopter to Bohara—my home.’
‘You have a home?’ It was something else she hadn’t known about him. ‘All the rumours are that you live in the desert and move around for your own safety.’
‘I do live in the desert, and I do move around—because how else is a man expected to know his people if not by living among them? But I also have a place that is mine. A stud farm just inside the border with Zubran. On paper it is owned by the Sultan of that country, who just happens to be a friend of mine.’ When Layla stared at him he flashed her a smile. ‘I don’t spend all my nights in a tent. After the last few days I think you deserve a taste of luxury.’
* * *
‘Just practise everything I taught you. I will keep you on a leading rein so there is no way she can run away with you.’
‘That’s comforting to know.’ Layla sat rigid on the calm, placid mare and Raz hid a smile, oddly touched by her determination to ride even though she clearly found the whole experience uncomfortable and unnatural. So far she had fallen three times, but each time she’d insisted on getting back on the horse.
‘If you want to give up, just tell me.’
‘I don’t want to give up. I won’t give up.’ Her jaw was set, her wrists inflexible as she gripped the reins.
‘Relax,’ Raz said mildly. ‘If you relax you will not fall.’
‘We both know I am going to fall whatever I do.’
But still she got back up again. He wondered if that was a skill she’d developed during her loveless childhood. But it hadn’t been completely loveless, had it? She’d had her sister. The sister who was now missing.
He made a mental note to try again to contact Salem, even though he knew such persistence would irritate his brother. ‘Relax your wrists and lower your hands slightly.’
She did as he instructed. ‘At least it isn’t as far to fall as it is from your stallion.’
‘I promise I will not let you fall again. Don’t grip the reins so tightly—you’re pulling on her mouth.’
‘I am?’ Dismayed, she immediately loosened the reins and rubbed the mare’s neck by way of apology.
He watched, intrigued by her and wondering how such gentleness could come from so much evil.
In all the rumours that had oozed from the corrupt walls of the Citadel there had been little about the princesses and most hadn’t thought to question the detail of their existence.
‘You’re doing well.’
‘We both know I’m not doing well, but I will learn. Just as long as I don’t hurt an innocent horse in the process.’ She balanced herself carefully and then risked a glance at him. It was the first time she’d taken her eyes off the horse’s ears. ‘Thank you for being so patient.’
‘You are very easy to teach because you listen. Sit up straight. Sit down in the saddle. That’s good.’
Her jaw was rigid and he could see her concentrating, going through his instructions one by one. The mare walked forward without fuss, as accommodating as he’d known she would be.
‘She’s very pretty. Is she pure Arabian?’
‘Yes. She is brave, spirited and intelligent, like all of her breed. And very strong. She could carry you for days in the desert and not tire. It’s the reason we choose this breed for endurance racing.’ It occurred to him that she shared many of those qualities. ‘The Arab horse is surefooted and agile in difficult terrain and bred for stamina. It can withstand the daytime heat of the desert and the cold at night.’
‘You bred her?’
‘My father bred her. He gave her to me as a foal but I am too heavy for her now. She taught Zahra to ride.’
‘You mean you taught her.’
‘The horse did most of the teaching.’
‘Did your wife ride?’
She asked the question quietly and he realised how sensitive the situation must be for her.
‘She didn’t ride, but she was an artist and she loved to paint the horses. She spent hours studying equine anatomy and her attention to detail was astonishing. Her mother was an artist, too, and she always hoped that Zahra would be equally artistic. But Zahra only ever wanted to ride the horse, not immortalise its image on paper.’
‘The greatest gift a parent can give is to allow a child to be who they want to be.’
Her wistful tone caught his attention.
‘You have told me about your father, but nothing about your mother.’
‘My mother died just after I was born.’
‘So your sister—?’
‘Yasmin is my half sister. Her mother was a model who caught my father’s attention for a short time. She left when Yasmin was five and we haven’t seen her since.’
It was a brief delivery of the facts, devoid of emotion, but he could imagine how much emotion was simmering below the composure that seemed to be part of her. She’d learned to hold it all in, he thought. Learned to feel without expressing the feeling.
‘But you said you cared for your sister. How is that possible?’
She sat without moving, her gaze focused on the horse’s ears. ‘It’s possible.’
‘You were seven and she was five.’
‘We learned what we had to learn.’
The mare, perhaps sensing the sudden tension of her rider, threw up her head and he saw Layla’s fingers whiten on the reins.
‘She is the most reliable horse in my stables, but if you feel unsafe you can always grab a piece of her mane.’
‘It doesn’t seem fair to make her suffer just because I’m nervous.’ But her fingers closed gently and carefully around a hunk of the mare’s mane.
Watching her, Raz felt himself harden. His gaze focused on those slim fingers. Heat shot through him as he remembered how those fingers felt against his skin.
He lifted his gaze from her fingers to her face, studying the curve of her cheek and the sweep of her inky lashes, and she must have felt his scrutiny because she turned her head and her eyes met his.
Raz felt that look all the way through him.
‘Can she gallop yet?’ Zahra cantered up, disturbing the moment, glued to the back of her horse as if she’d been born in the saddle, Isis and Horus running by her side. ‘I want you to learn fast, Layla, so we can ride together. Isis and Horus can come with us too. They love it when we gallop.’
Layla had switched her attention from the horse to the dogs and Raz frowned.
‘The dogs make you nervous?’
‘I’m worried they might upset the horse.’
Her response made perfect sense, but he sensed something more and wondered if she’d been bitten as a child. That would certainly explain the fear he saw in her eyes whenever his dogs were nearby.
‘Did you keep Saluki as pets when you were young?’
‘No.’ Her lips were bloodless, her slim fingers clenched in the horse’s mane. ‘Not as pets.’
‘Layla...’ He rode closer to her, his knee brushing against hers. ‘If the dogs are a problem you must tell me.’
‘The dogs aren’t a problem. Zahra adores them and they adore her. They also guard her, which can only be a good thing.’
Her response was neutral and composed but he glimpsed something in her eyes—a shadow of something so dark and bleak he wasn’t sure he even wanted to explore it further. He wondered again what her life must have been like. What it would have taken to drive someone like her to cross the desert to seek out a stranger.
The more he knew her, the more he realised that such impulsive behaviour was completely out of character. She was a woman who thought everything through, who relied on evidence to make decisions, and yet she’d chosen to risk everything to find him. She’d known nothing about him, and yet she’d preferred to commit herself to the unknown than spend another day in her old life. So what did that say about her life?
‘When can we gallop?’ It was Zahra who asked the question, circling her pony like a polo player as she waited impatiently for her father.
‘Later,’ Raz told her. ‘I don’t want to leave Layla.’
‘Don’t worry about me. I think I might have had enough for one day and so has this poor horse.’
Apparently relieved to have an excuse to finish, she rode the mare to a halt the way he’d taught her.
‘You two gallop and I’ll go back. See you at the stables. But I think I’ll walk and lead her, if that’s all right.’
Before she could dismount, Raz reached out and covered her hand with his.
‘You are doing well.’
Her mouth twitched at the corners. ‘We both know I’m doing terribly,’ she said dryly, ‘but thank you for saying that.’
‘It’s always harder to learn as an adult than as a child because your awareness of danger is more sharply focused.’ And he suspected her awareness of danger was even more sharply focused than most. He watched her face, searching for clues, but her expression didn’t change and he released her hand. ‘Go and relax. Abdul will show you my library.’
‘You have a library?’ Her face brightened but Zahra shuddered.
‘Who wants books when they can have horses?’
CHAPTER EIGHT (#ulink_c19fcee4-a806-5136-9fe7-ba7f1aa00c76)
LAYLA SAT CURLED up on a low ottoman covered in rich red silk, a stack of books awaiting her attention and a chilled fruit juice on the table in front of her. Of all the rooms in Raz’s beautiful home—the home she hadn’t known existed—the library was predictably her favourite. Not just because of the walls lined with books, but because of the views. The doors opened over a courtyard with a central fountain that sent cooling water flowing over a majestic statue of a horse. And now, with the sun setting over the distant dunes, the courtyard was floodlit with a warm golden light.
It was the most beautiful place she’d ever seen.
On their arrival Raz had been called away, so it had been Zahra who had shown her round, predictably lingering in the stables and introducing Layla to every horse in the yard. The stables were beautiful, arranged around shady courtyards, and everywhere the sound of running water from fountains that offered a cool contrast to the parched desert.
After all the rumours about his Bedouin lifestyle she’d been surprised to discover that Raz owned a place like this, but what had really surprised her was the almost military efficiency with which it was run.
