The Desert King's Blackmailed Bride Read online

  He had married a foreigner with a different set of values. A foreigner who had fired an erotic hunger in him that was stronger than anything he had ever expected or even wanted to feel. In such a situation, it was downright unnerving and absolutely outrageous to positively crave another opportunity to argue with her. Tearing his attention from the door between them, he ripped off his ceremonial robes and donned more comfortable clothing. He had stayed long enough out of view not to rouse household comment at his abandonment of his new bride, he reasoned grimly as he left the room and strode down to the stables.

  At least his horse wasn’t going to ask him unanswerable questions and pick up on his deficiencies, he reflected with bitter humour. He wasn’t sure of his ground with Polly, he acknowledged, furious at that demeaning reality. In truth his previous experience with Western women had been purely sexual and casual and nothing more than that. But he did have considerable experience of being denied sex. That Polly should do that to him when he recognised that she felt the same chemistry he did had enraged and frustrated him beyond bearing.

  What did she want from him? What the hell did she expect from him? So, he had acted weird?

  Possibly a bit stiff and silent, he interpreted as he directed his stallion, Raza, across the desert sands at a pace that his guards were stretched to match. But then Rashad had been born to the saddle and raised from the age of six within a nomadic tribe, who ranged freely across the vast desert landscape that spanned several countries and recognised no boundaries. That same innate yearning for complete freedom had been bred into his bones but the sleeker, more sophisticated man he had inevitably become wished he had paused to take a cold, invigorating shower before his departure.

  He didn’t get women, he reflected, recalling Rio once admitting the very same thing. And if Rio, an incurable playboy with vast experience of the opposite sex, didn’t understand women, how was Rashad ever to understand the woman he had married?

  Ironically he had been brought up to believe that he would own his wife’s body and soul much as he owned his horse. Maybe he should’ve thrown that at her to show how far he had travelled from the narrow-minded indoctrination of his youth. So backward had his ancestors been that they would have taken such a refusal as a justification for forcing the issue. He was fairly certain Polly would not have been impressed by that admission and he could not imagine ever wanting to physically hurt a woman. But there were other ways of harming and hurting a wife. Even by the tender age of six he had heard and seen enough in the palace of his childhood to grasp that his mother was pitied by some and blamed by others for his father’s relentless debauchery. That was why when Polly had banished him from the marital bed he had wanted to protect her reputation by waiting in the room next door.

  But, in spite of that concession, Rashad remained blazingly, scorchingly angry with his bride. What a way to embark on a new marriage! This was not what he had wanted. Separation was not a way forward and sex was not a reward for good behaviour. And what was Polly’s idea of good behaviour? Rashad hadn’t a clue. He was right back to where he had started out, utterly in the dark as to what way he had somehow contrived to fall short…

  *

  Eventually, and only once Polly had surrendered all hope that Rashad would reappear and discuss their quarrel, she removed her jewellery and undressed and got into the giant bed. She felt curiously overwhelmed and deflated by the reality that she was alone on her wedding night. She couldn’t even understand her own reaction, because she had asked him to leave her alone and now to feel dissatisfied on that score seemed perverse.

  In truth, she recognised ruefully, on some level inside herself she had expected Rashad to reason, persuade or even seduce her into changing her mind. But Rashad hadn’t done anything so predictable. Instead he had walked out on her. Angry? Bemused? Hurt? She discovered that she didn’t like to think that he was either hurt or confused by her behaviour. But she must have hurt his pride, she finally acknowledged unhappily, wondering why she had not foreseen that very obvious consequence.

  The next morning, she came awake with the sunlight. At some stage while she still slept her luggage had been unpacked. Her grandparents had insisted on equipping her with a new and more appropriate wardrobe to wear after the wedding. She had picked out styles she liked with a trio of Dharian designers and had been concerned by the likely cost of such exclusivity even after Hakim assured her that he was well able to afford such a generous gesture.

  Polly extracted a comfortable dress and smilingly dismissed the maid kneeling at the door ready to assist her into her clothing. The blue sundress was light and airy and, with canvas shoes on her feet, she sat down to breakfast on the terrace on the floor below, to enjoy the view of the sea while telling herself repeatedly that she was not one whit bothered by Rashad’s vanishing act. At some stage of the night that had passed, however, she had reached new conclusions about what she had done.

  When she had been getting so wound up before the wedding, Rashad had been completely absent and unable to answer or soothe any of her concerns. Her sister’s dire fear that she was making a mistake had encouraged her own insecurities, which in turn had exploded when Rashad had appeared to act differently throughout their wedding day. Had she imagined that he was different? Had she been looking for trouble, seeking a fatal flaw that would give her the excuse to step back and take stock of her new marriage? After all, what did she want from Rashad when she already knew that he didn’t love her?

  Honesty, respect, trust, caring, affection, she listed anxiously, her lovely face clouding as she acknowledged the unrealistic level of desired perfection inherent in making such a list about a man, particularly on the very first day of a brand-new marriage.

  When Rashad in person appeared out of seemingly nowhere and joined her without fanfare and with a seemingly relaxed smile to bid her a good morning, Polly was so disconcerted she almost fell off her chair in shock.

  ‘My goodness, I was wondering where you were!’ she exclaimed helplessly.

  Her attention involuntarily welded to the impressive physique outlined by a white tee shirt that hugged his muscular chest and biceps and faded jeans that outlined his narrow waist and long powerful thighs. In fact, although the sun hadn’t at so early an hour been bothering her, she heated up so much she began to perspire. ‘Last night—’

  ‘We will not discuss last night,’ Rashad broke in decisively. ‘We were both overtired after the wedding.’

  ‘Seriously…we’re sweeping the dust under the carpet?’ Polly muttered in astonishment.

  Rashad answered her in Arabic, and then with an affirmative yes, the sculpted full line of his eloquent mouth firming, his devastating dark eyes cloaked by his lashes.

  A fair brow lifted in growing disbelief. ‘And you think that’s all right?’

  ‘I think it is better than the alternative,’ Rashad told her truthfully, heaping sugar into his mint tea.

  Polly stared down blindly at her own tea. ‘What happened to the man who said dissension could be stimulating?’

  ‘He learned that that brand of stimulation can be treacherous,’ Rashad countered with level cool.

  And that fast, Polly wanted to scream at him again and so powerful was that urge that her teeth chattered together behind her murderously compressed lips. He could set off a seething emotional chain reaction inside her and make her madder than anyone else had ever done and it seriously unsettled her. She sipped at her tea with a stiff-fingered hold on the tiny glass cup and looked out to sea in angry silence, her mouth tightly compressed.

  ‘You see now we have nothing to talk about because you can’t gloss over a major row and simply pretend it never happened,’ she then pointed out, not feeling the smallest bit generous, especially not after having lain awake for half of the night wondering where he was, how he felt and what he was doing. Evidently if he simply moved on past the dissension without requiring any contribution from her, he had done no such wondering.

  ‘We did not ha
ve a row, we had different opinions.’ Rashad persisted in his peace-keeping mission much as he persisted against all odds to direct challenging meetings staged between enemies and rivals.

  Polly almost lunged across the table as she leant abruptly forward, silvery blonde hair rolling across her slim shoulders like a swathe of heavy silk. ‘I want a row!’

  Rashad levelled resolute dark eyes on her, raw tension gripping him because he only had to look at that rosy soft mouth of hers to want to back her down on the nearest horizontal surface. Hell, it didn’t even have to be horizontal, he acknowledged, his inventive mind rushing to supply every erotic possibility imaginable. His jeans uncomfortably tight around the groin, he flexed his broad shoulders. ‘You’re not getting one.’

  ‘Even if I say please?’ Polly pressed helplessly, because she genuinely believed that they had to discuss what had happened to move beyond it.

  ‘With regret…not even if you beg,’ Rashad spelt out a tinge more harshly. ‘Rows are divisive and risky and we will not have them—’

  ‘Says the King. But we still need to clear the air,’ she muttered, shaken by an increasing fear that he really did believe such an approach could work.

  ‘As far as I am concerned the air is already clear and further discussion would be overkill,’ Rashad concluded in a tone of finality as he began to peel a piece of fruit, waving away the manservant who immediately approached him in a keen attempt to save him from the labour of such a petty task.

  ‘Well, then you can listen,’ Polly told him in desperation.

  Rashad tensed at that seemingly new threat, dark eyes flashing gold below lush black velvet lashes as he focused on her. Why was she trying to destroy his calm and enrage him again? He had behaved honourably the night before. He had not argued. He had not threatened. He had walked away. This morning he had not uttered one word of reproach. If he had told her how he really felt about what she had done his anger would’ve blown the roof of the castle off and scared her. Whether he liked it or not, he was what he was, the heir to a ruthless lineage, and his belief that his wife belonged to him ran like a thread of steel through his every reaction even while his intelligence told him that life didn’t work like that any more.

  She looked so innocent and so very beautiful and yet she was totally off-the-wall crazy in Rio’s parlance, Rashad acknowledged ruefully. Yet why did he continue to find that strange trait so incredibly attractive? Why, when he was in the worst possible mood, did that trait make him want to smile? He concentrated on his tea, which was less likely to unnerve him than the odd thoughts assailing him without warning. He told himself that he didn’t want to listen, didn’t want further criticism or a greater burden of guilt. After all, he knew who was ultimately at fault. Somehow he had screwed up. If his brand-new bride wasn’t happy, he had to be to blame.

  ‘And perhaps now that you’ve eaten you could dismiss the staff?’ she added in a disturbing indication that she was likely to become loudly vocal once again.

  Rashad signalled the two hovering servants to dismiss them before springing upright with fluid agility and sitting back down on the low wall bounding the castle ramparts.

  Polly immediately froze in her seat. ‘No, don’t do that,’ she said anxiously, blue eyes fixed to him in dismay.

  ‘Don’t do…what?’

  ‘Don’t sit there with your back turned to a dangerous drop,’ Polly urged.

  Rashad studied her in disbelief and then glanced round in a sudden movement that made her gasp to scrutinise the dangerous drop she had complained about. A couple of hundred feet of scrub and rocks sloped gently down towards the beach and he had climbed it many times with a blindfold as a little boy on a dare.

  ‘Please get up and move away from it,’ Polly whispered unsteadily.

  Rashad studied her again, noticing how pale and stiff she had become. ‘It’s not a dangerous drop—’

  ‘Well, it is to me because I’m terrified of heights and just looking at you sitting there is making me feel sick!’ Polly launched at him at vastly raised volume with only a hint of a frightened squeak, her annoyance at his obstinacy having risen higher still.

  Rashad raised calming hands as though he were dealing with a fractious child and rose with exaggerated care to move to the castle wall. OK…point taken.’

  Polly flushed to the roots of her hair and slowly breathed again. ‘I just don’t like heights—’

  ‘I think I’ve got that,’ Rashad confided straight-faced.

  ‘So, you’re planning to listen now to me?’ Polly enquired stiffly.

  Impatience flashed through Rashad and no small amount of frustration at her persistence. Water dripping on stone had a lot in common with his new wife. But he was clever enough to know that listening was an important skill in negotiation and experienced enough to know that marriage encompassed an endless string of compromises and negotiations. ‘I’ll listen but not here. I’ll show you round the castle and you can talk…quietly,’ he added softly, but the dark-eyed imperious appraisal that accompanied it was a visual demand for that audible level. ‘No shouting, no crying, no dramatic gestures.’

  ‘I don’t do crying and dramatic gestures,’ Polly told him in exasperation.

  By nature, Rashad recognised the ironic fact that, of the two of them, he was more volatile and more likely to be dramatic and his handsome mouth quirked at that sardonic acknowledgement. The night before, Polly had been very understated but a rejection was a rejection, no matter how it was delivered, and not a pattern Rashad wanted to find in his wife. He looked at her; in truth he never tired of looking at her and the plea in her shadowed blue eyes would have softened the heart of a killer.

  ‘OK,’ he agreed grudgingly. ‘But if you embark on another argument—’

  ‘You’ll lock me up and throw away the key,’ Polly joked.

  ‘Considering that that is exactly what my ancestors did with their wives, you could be walking a dangerous line with that invitation,’ Rashad murmured, teasing on the surface but fleetingly appalled by how much that concept attracted him when it came to the woman smiling back at him.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘EVERYTHING HERE IS unfamiliar to me. Your lifestyle, the customs, the language,’ Polly murmured quietly as they walked along the battlements past stationed guards to take advantage of the aerial views. ‘When you add you and a new marriage into that, it can occasionally be overwhelming.’

  That made remarkably good sense to Rashad, who had been braced to receive a quiet emotional outpouring of regrets and accusations. Relief rising uppermost, he squared his broad shoulders and breathed in deep. ‘I can understand that.’

  ‘And I’ve barely seen you since the day I agreed to marry you. I realise that with your schedule you had no choice but it made me feel insecure.’

  Rashad was downright impressed by what he was hearing, it never having occurred to him that a woman in a relationship with him could speak her mind so plainly and unemotionally. In silence he jerked his chin in acknowledgement of the second point.

  ‘Yesterday was a very challenging day for both of us.’ Polly’s voice shook a little when Rashad settled an arm to her back to steady her on the uneven stones beneath their feet, long fingers spreading against her spine to send a ridiculous little frisson of physical awareness travelling through her all too susceptible body.

  ‘It was…’

  ‘I’ve never been in a serious relationship before…’

  Rashad stopped dead. ‘Never?’ he questioned in disbelief. ‘But you are twenty-five years old.’

  Polly explained about her grandmother’s long, slow decline into full-blown dementia and the heavy cost that had extracted from her freedom while her sister was away at university. ‘So, if I’m a little inexperienced in relationships, you’ll have to make allowances on that score,’ she told him tautly.

  A frown line was slowly building between Rashad’s ebony brows. His fingers smoothed lightly up and down her spine as if to encourage her to keep on
talking as he stared down at the top of her pale blonde head, far more engaged in what she was telling him than she would have believed.

  Polly could feel the heat of embarrassment rising into her cheeks in a wave. Gooseflesh was forming on her arms, the hairs at the back of her neck prickling while the warm hand at her spine had tensed and stilled. ‘And I think that may be why I sort of freaked out last night because I was a bit nervous…of course I was…and you hadn’t made me feel safe or special or anything really!’ Conscious her voice was rising in spite of her efforts to control it, Polly looked up at Rashad in dismay and discomfiture.

  And for the very first time, Rashad understood his bride without words and he felt like the biggest idiot ever born because he had been guilty of making sweeping assumptions without any grounds on which to do so. It had not once crossed his mind that Polly might be less experienced than he was. Indeed he had even worried just a little that he might not be adventurous enough or sophisticated enough to please her. With a sidewise glance at the guards studiously staring out at the desert and the beach, Rashad bent down, scooped his surprised bride up into his arms and carried her indoors. Doors were helpfully wrenched open ahead of him by the staff as he strode back to their bedroom.

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’ Polly exclaimed when he had finally tumbled her down in a heap on the giant bed in which she had slept alone the night before.

  ‘Giving us privacy,’ Rashad advanced with a sudden smile of amusement that sent her heart racing. ‘I don’t wish to offend you but I had made the assumption that you would have enjoyed at least a few lovers before me—’