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“Are you sure he isn’t up to something?” Helen fretted. “I don’t trust him one bit.”
“Hush, don’t work yourself up.” Jayne moved closer to her sister. Helen had never understood the attraction, the fascination that Tariq had held right from the moment that Jayne had walked into him in the Tate Gallery in London and landed ignominiously at his feet. How could she explain the untamed attraction Tariq had held? “There’s no reason to be suspicious. Tariq wouldn’t take me back if I came coated in twenty-four carat gold.”
Helen’s eyes sparked with indignation. In a low voice she murmured so that only Jayne could hear, “He never deserved you.”
Emotion surged through Jayne. She slung an arm around her sister’s shoulder and pulled her close. Helen smelled of talc and roses and the familiar comfort of home. “Thank you. And thank you for all the support you’ve given me. For everything.”
“I don’t want to see you in that state again.” Helen hugged her back fiercely. “Five and a half years ago you were a mess.”
“It won’t happen again,” Jayne vowed, suppressing the sudden stab of apprehension. “I’m no longer nineteen. I’m older now, able to take care of myself.”
“Famous last words. And it better not happen again, because this time I’ll tell Tariq what a—” Helen cast a glance at the girls and lowered her voice “—jerk he is.”
Her sister sounded so ferocious that Jayne couldn’t help the giggle that escaped her. For the first time in a week, the tension that had been winding up in her chest subsided. Her sister would always be there for her. Family. Sisters. A sacred bond.
“I suggest you don’t say that to Tariq’s face.” Just the thought of his freezing expression, the way he would look coldly down his elegant bladed nose, was enough to make Jayne chuckle again.
“You won’t be here for my first day of school.” Amy’s desolate wail cut into Jayne’s moment of good humour. Instantly all laughter dried up. Bending down, she swept Amy up until the little girl’s eyes were level with hers.
“But I’ll be thinking of you,” Jayne promised. “I’ll even know where you’ll be sitting. Remember? You, mom and I went together to check your new school out?”
“I s’pose,” Amy said reflectively. “And I’ll have the pencils you bought me.” She already sounded more cheerful. Jayne smiled at her sister over Amy’s head, her throat tight.
A hoot sounded.
“Daddy’s ready.” Amy wriggled out of Jayne’s arms.
Helen rushed over and then Jayne was wrapped in her sister’s warm arms. “Take care, Jayne.”
“I will.” Jayne held on for a moment. A kiss on her sister’s cheek and then she freed herself and picked up her bag. “I’d better not keep Nigel waiting. Look after yourself—and the girls. I’ll e-mail photos, I promise,” she called to Helen and Samantha as she hurried out the door. From beside the car, Jayne gave them a last wave before getting into the idling car where her brother-in-law waited to take her to the airport.
Finally Jayne let herself admit she wasn’t looking forward to the long flight that lay ahead. And she dreaded the coming confrontation with the man who waited for her at the journey’s end.
The chilly air-conditioning in the international airport at Jazirah, the capital of Zayed, took the edge off the searing heat that shimmered over the runways outside the terminal building. A deferential official took charge of Jayne the instant she presented her passport and whisked her through customs. He retrieved her luggage and showed her to a plush seat in a sheltered alcove off the arrivals concourse, murmuring that he’d be back shortly.
Jayne attempted to assure him that she was quite capable of organising her own transport, but he grew increasingly agitated. He was obviously concerned by the fact that she was travelling alone. Zayedi men could be extremely protective, to the point of being overbearing. So Jayne subsided with a shrug and watched him scurry away.
Pulling the white chiffon scarf out the side pocket of her handbag where she’d tucked it in before leaving Auckland, Jayne looped it around her neck. It wasn’t a hijab, but it would do. Zayed was more modern than its neighbouring states, some of the youth even wore jeans, but most women still adopted conservative dress. Jayne knew that the narrow black trousers and casual geometric patterns of the black and white shift dress she wore over them were acceptably modest…even if they were straight out of this season’s budget fashions in Auckland, a far cry from the traditional jilbab and colourful kaftans so many older married Zayedi women wore.
From where she sat, Jayne could see the long wall of glass that separated the airport from the drop-off zone outside. A fleet of shiny black Mercedeses were parked there, reminding her of the extent of the wealth in this desert sheikhdom.
A commotion a way down the concourse attracted her attention. Jayne rose to her feet to get a better look. A knot of uniformed men were causing a stir. Her gaze narrowed. She recognized those uniforms, they belonged to the Emir of Zayed’s palace guard. They held some very unpleasant associations. The last time she’d seen the red and khaki colours had been here, at this airport, when the men wearing them had been charged with making sure she left Zayed.
Behind them she caught a glimpse of a tall man in a dark suit. His sheer imposing height and the familiar tilt of his head caused her heart to leap. Tariq. Jayne froze, her muscles tight, and her head swam with the sudden light-headedness caused by the panic that swirled through her.
He was coming closer. Her pulse grew choppy, loud in her ears. His head turned and their eyes connected. The first thing that struck her was that his eyes were still the colour of pure, molten gold. The second was that they were not the least bit welcoming.
Tariq raked her from head to toe, and his lip curled. Instantly all the old insecurities crashed back. She was plain Jayne Jones, in the everyday chain-store shift dress that she’d worn over her most comfortable black trousers for the flight.
The antipathy directed at her caused Jayne to stumble backward. Nothing had changed. Her husband detested her. The earth rocked under her feet and she glanced away, disconcerted. And caught sight of the red carpet. Of the trio of little girls holding posies. But it took the black print on the brightly coloured banner two women were unfurling to jolt her into disbelief. Welcome Back Sheikhah, it read.
This dog-and-pony show was intended for her.
In a flash the reason for the official’s agitation became clear. Her first meeting with Tariq was going to be conducted under public scrutiny. Jayne’s palms grew clammy and her pulse started to race.
No.
She gave the gathering crowd a wild glance, took in the scaffolding with the mounted television cameras, clearly here to film her return. She was so not prepared for this hullabaloo. She’d come to meet Tariq, to talk in private about their divorce.
Tariq was walking with purpose. Backed by the squad of the palace guard, he looked dangerous, resolute. But Jayne knew that whatever the reason he’d demanded her return to Zayed, it had nothing to do with the love they had once shared.
She cast a frantic gaze around. People were milling forward, crowding around the red carpet, the guards and the powerful, commanding man in the heart of all the fuss. No, she hadn’t come to be part of this…circus.
She wanted to meet Tariq on her terms. In private. Without an audience.
Two cameramen with huge cameras mounted on their shoulders that sported the local TV network logo rushed ahead of Tariq to capture the moment for the news. They blocked Tariq from her view.
Cautiously Jayne edged forward. No one was looking in her direction. With a surreptitious movement, she hitched the sheer scarf off her shoulders and draped it across her hair, then hoisted up the Louis Vuitton bag, a legacy from her past life with Tariq. Keeping her head down, she made quickly for the double sliding doors that led out of the airport. They hissed open and she escaped through.
The heat hit her like a wall. Oppressive. An inferno compared to the coolness in the airport and the temperate weather she’d left behind in Auckland. Jayne thought she heard a shout. She didn’t look back. Instead she kept her head down and increased her pace. A taxi was parked behind the string of Mercedeses.
As she broke into a run a taxi driver straightened from the low railing he’d been leaning against and parted his lips into a smile that revealed stained yellow teeth separated with chunks of gold. “Taxi?” He opened the rear door and music blared out.
“Yes,” she gasped, deafened as she fell into the backseat. When she didn’t bother to haggle over the rate, his smile grew wider still. “Take me to the palace. Please.”
The smile withered and he shot her a lightning-fast once-over glance, before climbing into the driver’s seat and turning the radio down a notch.
“Hurry,” she said, peering anxiously out the window beside her.
The motor roared, drowning out the radio for a moment, and her unsuspecting rescuer swerved out onto the strip of concrete road.
Driven by an impulse she could not explain, Jayne turned back to stare through the rear window at the glass doors through which she’d escaped.
His tie flapping with his stride, Tariq strode through the glass doors. Behind him followed the pack of palace guards. Jayne shrank back into her seat. Even from this distance she could tell that Tariq did not look pleased. The angle of his broad shoulders, the set of his head, the impatience in his long stride all showed his fury.
Trepidation coursed through her. This was no longer the young man she’d fallen in love with. This was a different Tariq. Older. Regal. The only son of the Emir of Zayed. A man accustomed to having his orders obeyed.
Jayne closed her eyes in relief at having gotten away. The taxi rocked from side to side as the driver darted through the traffic. Afraid that the roller-coaster motion might make her queasy, Jayne opened her eyes.
“Hey, slow down.”
Jayne sighed in exasperation when her demand met no response, and leaned back into her seat to brace herself for the ride.
The airport was located a distance away from the city. On the left side of the car, the stony desert stretched away as far as the eye could see. On the other side, a narrow strip of land separated the six-lane highway from the azure sea. A couple of minutes later they passed the desalination plant that Jayne knew had cost millions to set up ten years ago.
The taxi driver swerved past a tourist camper van and cut across to the exit. Once away from the highway, they wove through the city streets between old historic buildings and modern glass skyscrapers.
“Are we being followed?” Clutching at the seat belt as they hurtled through an older section of the city between ancient mosques and colourful souqs, Jayne voiced her worst fear.
But the taxi driver didn’t answer. Could he even hear her with the radio blaring? Jayne wished she’d sat up front. But this was Zayed, not New Zealand. Women didn’t sit up front. Not unless they wanted the taxi driver to construe the move as flirtation. While Zayed was a safe country, a woman travelling alone had to take care not to attract unwelcome attention. She shouted the question more loudly.
The taxi driver glanced in the rear mirror. “No one is following.”
But Jayne’s apprehension didn’t ease and the knot in her stomach grew tighter. Tariq was going to be fit to be tied. She shivered, then reason set in.
It was his own fault. He should have warned her. He should never have sprung that spectacle back at the airport on her. She gave her casual outfit a quick once-over. At least then she would’ve had the chance to dress up a little. Make the best of the little she had. Not that clothes and a little bit of makeup could bridge the gulf between them. They were too far apart. In every way.
She tried to set the worry aside, tried to tell herself that the sooner she met with Tariq in private and got it over with the better. But even that didn’t help. Jayne’s fingernails bit into her palms. She’d explain. She’d tell him that—
The sudden swerve of the taxi threw Jayne against the door, and she gave a shriek of fright. The driver leapt out of the car and Jayne could hear shouting.
When she emerged from the back of the car, her heart pounding, a shocking sight met her eyes. A youth was sprawled on the road, his bicycle lying on its side. He was groaning.
“Oh, my heavens.” Jayne moved toward the victim but the taxi driver grabbed her arm.
“Wait, it could be a set-up…”
“How can it be a set-up? He’s hurt!”
The youth was screaming now. A basket, its lid off, lay on the road and a clutch of ginger chickens were clucking in terror.
“Is he okay?” Jayne’s first concern was for the youngster. “Did we hit him?”
“No, no. The idiot—”
The youth interrupted with a deluge in Arabic. Jayne held up her hand. “Is he hurt?”
The taxi driver rattled off and the boy muttered, shaking his head. Relieved Jayne said, “What about his bike?”
“No problem.”
A crowd had started to gather. Quickly Jayne peeled some notes out of her bag.
“U.S. dollars.” The youth’s eyes lit up as he reached for them.
The taxi driver started to protest, Jayne handed him the next set of notes. “You can leave me here.” She’d had enough of his driving.
“But the palace?” He looked suddenly nervous.
Jayne waved a hand. “Don’t worry about taking me to the palace.” She’d have a better chance of surviving on her own. Jayne looked left and right, hitched her handbag over her shoulder and grabbed the handle of her suitcase.
Down the street she could see the flower souq, the market where blooms were brought early each morning. Across the road a pension-style hotel attracted her eye. It looked modest and unassuming, the kind of place where a woman alone would be safe from unwelcome attention. She could stay there for the night. And tomorrow she’d be better prepared to face Tariq, rested and refreshed. She started to feel better.
A hand brushed her arm. Jayne tensed and spun around, then relaxed. The taxi driver thrust a grimy square of cardboard at her. Jayne glanced down. Mohammed al Dubarik and a scrawl of Arabic characters followed by some numbers that clearly belonged to his cell phone. With a final flash of yellowed teeth and bright gold, he departed in a roar of dust.
Jayne shoved the card into her bag and looked both ways then hefted up her bag to cross the street. The curious crowd, sensing the drama was played out, started to disperse. Pulling the chiffon scarf more securely over her head she made for the door of the pension. She’d almost reached it when a touch on her shoulder startled her.
At 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.
