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The next day Tariq stormed down the corridor to his father’s apartments, his white thobe billowing behind him, still seething about how Jayne had managed to put him on the back foot the night before. Why was he thinking about her, when he had this whole disaster with Mahood and Ali to worry about…and he’d just been summoned to his father’s side. Had the end come?
With his father dead, Jayne would get her divorce sooner than she’d hoped.
There would be no reason to keep her in Zayed.
The palace guard leapt to attention as he swept past. “His Excellency is awake?” he asked the male nurse who was filling out a clipboard in the antechamber.
“Not only am I awake—I’m refusing to take the drugs, which is why they have called you.” The voice was thin and thready, but the eyes that met Tariq’s as he rushed into the bedchamber, with the nurse at his heels, held a hint of the old fire.
“Leave us,” Tariq commanded the nurse. Retreating with a respectful bow, the nurse closed the door.
“Father.” Tariq sank to one knee beside the bed. “You must take the morphine, it will help the pain.”
“I am feeling much better. The confusion and dizzy head is less now that I abandon the medicine.” His father’s hand rested on top of Tariq’s head. Gone was the solid weight that had stroked his hair as a child. No longer the hand of a ruler feared and revered by his subjects, but the wavering touch of a dying man. Tariq swallowed the hot thickness in his throat.
“Hadi al Ebrahim has been to see me.” Tariq’s head rose as his father spoke. “He tells me the sheikhah has returned.”
Hadi was one of his father’s most trusted aides. Tariq nodded. “She came to see you but you were—” drugged “—sleeping.” He watched his father carefully, unsure of what to say next. A couple of months ago, soon after the terrible diagnosis, Tariq had heard rumours that his father had sent Hadi on a mission to Sheikh Karim—a mission that he was not prepared to confront his father about now that he was dying. Instead he’d obliquely mentioned to his father that in terms of his marriage contract with Jayne he could take only one wife at a time. His father had looked fit to burst, calling Tariq a foolish monkey. Tariq certainly hadn’t expected his father to be overjoyed by Jayne’s return. But, for his father to die in peace, he needed to convince his father that marriage to Jayne was what he, Tariq, wanted more than anything on earth….
“Good. It is time that your wife resumes her position at your side.”
Tariq’s mouth fell open. While he was aware that his father wanted him contently married before he died, he’d anticipated a little more resistance. Especially as his father had evidently had other plans.
“Hadi is worried,” the Emir said. “He says that Ali and Mahood can make a lot of trouble for Karim—and for you.”
Tariq shrugged. “I’m sorry to say this, Father, but their trouble causing is not new.” And if Hadi had been acting as a go-between to broker a marriage between Tariq and Sheikh Karim’s half sister, then Hadi would have even more cause for concern.
“But this time they have angered Karim, you need to placate him, we cannot afford to have an angry neighbouring ruler—especially not one as powerful as the sheikh of Bashir. What will happen to our oil interests in Bashir if we are in conflict with each other?”
“I know. I have been in touch.” Sheikh Karim had laid the blame squarely at Ali and Mahood’s feet, saying they illicitly grazed herds of livestock over the border and had appropriated animals that did not belong to them. Karim had confiscated the whole herd the next time the animals had returned and impounded them.
Tariq gave a sharp sigh. “I will go—” He broke off and closed his eyes. What if his father died while he was gone? What if he missed these precious last days because of the stupidity and stubbornness of Ali and Mahood?
“When? You cannot wait.”
Tormented, Tariq opened his eyes and looked into the dark orbs close to his own. Eyes that in the past had been filled with love…anger…disappointment…and now held only a stoic acceptance.
No, he wanted to yell. Fight it. Don’t die.
Don’t leave me.
Alone.
“You can’t wait, my son. You must go. Now.”
Silently Tariq shook his head. His father’s hands were thin, the purple veins showing through the wrinkled skin. The skin that hung over his face showed a waxen cast…like a death mask, the eyes deeply sunken in the sockets.
“I order you.” It was a command, gasped out by a man used to being obeyed.
Tariq stiffened. He knew that his father would read his refusal in his eyes. He would not go. He could not leave his father. Not so near the end.
“Please.”
This time it was a plea. Tariq stared at the man who had never begged for anything in his life. The man that no one disobeyed.
“What if…” Tariq swallowed the words, unable to finish the thought.
But his father knew. “What if I die? Inshallah. It will not happen yet, I am feeling a lot better. But you cannot hover around waiting for that hour like a vulture in the noonday sky. You have a destiny…and Zayed needs you.”
Tariq started to answer back.
“Do not argue with your father. I am an old, sick man.” The bloodless lips curved into a ghost of a smile. “And by Allah, this will be the last task I ask of you, I promise that. Make peace with Karim and I will ask no more.”
“He will expect an apology.”
His father nodded.
“I will have to put something in it for him…land or oil leases.”
His father nodded again.
“I will go tomorrow.”
“Take your wife with you.”
“What?” On his way to the door, Tariq stopped and stared at his father in disbelief. He’d already planned to take Jayne with him, in order to make it doubly clear to Karim that he was not in the market for a wife. Not even for Karim’s ever-so-suitable half sister. But he’d never expected his father to suggest the same. He’d thought his father wanted the…merger… with Karim. It would’ve been convenient for all concerned. And for the two oil-rich desert countries.
“He needs to accept your wife…as I have. To know there will be no marriage between you and his sister.”
There, it was out in the open.
So the rumours were true. His father had tried to broker a new marriage for him. But hearing that Tariq could only take one wife—a wife he had not chosen to divorce—must have dissuaded him from meddling further.
A gnarled hand reached out from the bed. “My son, do not repeat my mistakes with your own wife.”
Crossing the room in one stride, Tariq closed his hands around the thin bones. “What do you mean, Father?”
For a while the Emir did not answer. Finally he said. “I am tired. Never forget, I am proud of you, my son. Now I need the morphine.”
Tariq’s hand went to the bell. The nurse arrived in a rush. The drug was administered, and his father’s eyes closed.
Tariq lingered a few minutes, a deep sense of loss swarming through him. What had his father been about to reveal? Finally he leant over to kiss the wrinkled brow. In his heart he feared this was the last time he might see his father alive.
The notion shook him to his soul.
* * *
Jayne was sitting at the stone table in the walled arbour beside the fountain, catching a little morning sun and writing out postcards to Samantha and Amy when the sound of Tariq’s footsteps clattered on the stone stairs.
“I have been to see my father,” Tariq announced, his eyes unreadable.
He dominated the comforting enclosed space of the arbour. His height, his presence, the scent of the citrusy cologne that clung to his skin all overwhelmed Jayne. She set her pen down. “You talked about your mother?”
“No!” His answer was uncompromising. “You may have heard that there is trouble brewing between Ali and Mahood and Sheikh Karim al Bashir?”
She nodded. It would’ve been difficult not to have heard the rumours that flew around the palace, or the speculation about how Tariq would react. The Emir was dying. Would he placate his father’s oldest friends? Or would he make amends to the furious Karim?
“Zayed must avoid a war with Sheikh Karim at all costs.”
Her brow creased, trying to remember what she’d heard. “He’s the ruler of a neighbouring sheikhdom, right?”
“Yes. We have many alliances—particularly over oil. We can’t afford to antagonise him.”
“Ali and Mahood are more trouble than they are worth,” she said daringly.
“Mahood and Ali are my father’s closest friends. Like brothers to him. I have to respect that bond.”
Jayne said nothing. His reply left no room for argument. He would put up with Mahood and Ali and all their guile for his love of his father.
“The trip to the desert town of Aziz should take no longer than three days. I plan to travel swiftly.”
He must fear that his father would die in his absence. Her heart squeezed at the sight of the pain etched into his features as he towered over her.
“What about—” His father. She broke off, her heart going out to Tariq. What if his father did die while he was gone? What if he left to sort out Ali and Mahood’s skirmishes and never saw his father again? As much as she loathed Sheik Rashid, Tariq loved his father.
“What about you? Or what about the divorce that you desire so highly?” His mouth curled into an unpleasant smile. “Your first thought is about yourself.”
It was so unfair! But her heart sank at the derision in his eyes, and for the first time she felt relief that she would be staying in the palace. Being surrounded by hostile aides was better than accompanying Tariq in this mood. “I have to think about me,” she fired back. “No one else does. You’ve brought me all the way across the world to cool my heels and await your return and twiddle my thumbs. To waste my time. I have things I want to do.” Like start her new course…and have a date with Neil…and start a new life, out from under Tariq’s shadow. “What if there are delays and this all takes more than three days? Does that mean you will expect me to stay longer?”
The bubbling of the water in the fountain was the only sound that broke the silence. But the soothing sound did nothing to comfort her as she waited for his reply.
At last he spoke and his eyes were hard. “I won’t leave my father for as long as a week. Not when he is so near the end. Nor will I be leaving you to cool your heels, habiibtii. You will be coming with me. Be ready to leave by daybreak.”
* * *
The courtyard behind the palace was already bustling when Jayne got there the following morning.
Tariq was waiting beside a lone white SUV, clad in a thobe with a ghutra tied with two rounds of black cord around his head. The SUV had already been packed high with provisions. In the back, beside their bags, Jayne spotted a kafas, a cage with holes to allow circulation, holding Noor along with large storage bottles of water—a sobering reminder of exactly how remote their destination was.
Jayne slowed to a halt in front of Tariq. “Is this it?”
He raised an eyebrow. “You were expecting camels?”
Not camels. Anyway, the white SUV was the modern equivalent of the white stallion for a desert traveller. But she’d expected some sort of entourage. Tariq never went anywhere alone. Bodyguards. Aides. A veritable army accompanied him. “When we travelled before—”
“Last time I organised camels because that’s what you wanted.”
She gave up. They were talking at cross purposes. He was referring to the trip they’d made in the first few months after their return to Zayed not long after their marriage in London. He’d taken her into the desert—by camel. They’d camped out under velvet skies studded with stars as bright as diamonds.
“You expected the fantasy,” he was saying, his eyes intent. “A desert romance. That excursion was supposed to be romantic—to make up for the honeymoon I’d never given you.”
She clambered into the vehicle and muttered dismissively, “Another mirage.”
“What do you mean?” He leaned in through the doorway, his brows fierce.
She shrugged, reluctant to get into a skirmish, and stared through the windshield determined not to look at him. “Don’t worry about it. It’s nothing.”
“When a woman says ‘It’s nothing’ only a fool believes her.”
Jayne remained mute, pressing her lips firmly together.
She sensed him watching her. After a long moment he sighed and shut the door before walking around the front of the vehicle to hop in beside her. A flick of his wrist and the vehicle roared to life. Jayne put her head back on the headrest and closed her eyes.
Their desert romance had been nothing more than a mirage. Even that belated honeymoon had been cut short. After only two days a helicopter had landed where they were camped. Tariq had been summoned back to the palace. During the flight back he’d apologised. Promised that there’d be other times.
And Jayne had been left wondering if it had been another instance of the long hand of the Emir acting to destroy their marriage.
When she’d been taken ill with a violent stomach bug the next day, she hated everything in the desert…and Zayed.
But that was in the past.
In the end, the Emir had won.
Their entire marriage had been a mirage.
Now she’d finally made herself a new life. A real life. And she was ready to move on. Find an ordinary man with whom to create a real marriage with real children.
Turning her head, Jayne focused on the passing landscape. The morning was lovely. A smattering of clouds meant that the heat had lost the edge common even in the winter months.
“It’s hot,” she said a while later, more to break the throbbing silence than because the heat worried her.
“Tonight will be cool in the desert.” His hand flicked a dial, and a blast of cold air swirled around her. “Better?”
She stared at the lean hands on the steering wheel, and a bolt of emotion shot through her. No, it wasn’t better. The cold air did nothing to alleviate her inner tension. She swallowed. “Yes,” she said finally. “It’s cooler.”
A sideways glance revealed a hard, hawkish profile. The white ghutra should have softened his jagged profile; instead it added to the mystique and ruthlessness of the man. Her gaze lingered on the black agal—the cords that wound twice around his headdress and hung down his back. Beside his mouth, the deep, scored lines showed the strain he was under. Tariq must be terribly worried about his father…and then there was this situation that Ali and Mahood had created. She had to remember that if she felt tense, he was under infinitely more stress. Finally she turned her head away and tipped her head back again, closing her eyes, and tried to doze.
Jayne woke suddenly to find that several hours had passed and she was chilled. The desert sun had vanished and a white blanket of cloud stretched across the sky. The air-conditioning was chilly enough to have Jayne reaching into her bag for a lightweight merino cardigan.
“Cold?” Tariq fiddled with the air-conditioning controls, and the rush of cool air slowed.
“A little. Despite the heat that is probably out there.” She gestured to the desert that stretched out, bleak and inhospitable, in every direction.
“The cloud cover makes today cooler than normal.” Tariq dipped his head and glanced up through the windshield. “I don’t like the look of them, they’ve been gathering over the last hour.” He slowed and examined a gadget that had to be a GPS.
Four-wheel-drive. GPS. What was she worried about? This was the twenty-first century. The desert was not as alien and threatening as she imagined. She was overreacting, allowing her dislike and resentment of Zayed to get to her. Jayne laughed. “Rain? Little chance of that out here.”
“The desert does get storms, not often but they happen. They can be devastating because the desert does not absorb the water. So it gathers on the surface until there is sufficient for floods.”
