Liz Fielding - The Sheik's Unsuitable Bride

Well, that explained the slap. Embarrassing his mother was the sin.

‘I will assure Kasim al-Attiyah, as I assure you,’ he replied, ‘that Miss Metcalfe is not my mistress. I have simply given her and her family temporary refuge…’

‘Her father is not the one you have to convince. He is a man and he knows that all men carry their brains between their legs.’

Having got that off her chest, her face softened and she laid the hand she’d struck him with against his cheek. ‘Shula al-Attiyah is a modern woman, Zahir. She is well-educated, travelled, as are all the young women I’ve chosen for you to meet. I sought a true match for you, my son. Someone who understands your world. Who will be the kind of life partner you would choose for yourself.’ She let her hand fall, turned away. ‘But this is the twenty-first century and no Ramal Hamrah girl worth her salt is going to ally herself with a man who’s photographed dancing in a London street with his-’

‘Mother,’ he warned.

‘With a woman who, even now, is living in your house with her child. A boy the gossips in the souk are saying is your son!’

‘What did you say?’

Zahir heard his mother’s words clearly enough but they made no sense. He reran them over and over…

Boy…

Son…

‘Is it true?’ she demanded, while he was still trying to come to terms with what she’d said.

He shook his head. It couldn’t be true…

And yet, almost like a movie running in his brain, he saw again the carrier with the books she’d bought. Saw himself opening it. Children’s books, she’d said. Children’s books. Plural. The fairy tale book had been for Ameerah. But the other one, the book of knots, that was the kind of gift you’d buy for a small boy…

She’d lied to him. No…

His gesture, pushing the thought away, was emphatic.

She had not lied.

He, in an offhand remark, had provided her with the excuse and she’d grabbed at it, using it to keep him at a distance. And it would have worked but for the photograph in The Courier -

‘You do not seem certain, my son.’

He was dragged back to the present, to the reality of what was rather than the might-have-been, by a suggestion of anxiety in his mother’s voice, sensing that beneath her aristocratic posture was a genuine fear that, even in this most basic duty-to make a marriage that would bring honour to his family-he was about to fail her.

‘You may rest assured that I met Miss Metcalfe for the first time this week,’ he said, and his heart tore at the unmistakable sag in her aristocratic posture as the tension left her.

It was recovered in a moment and, with a gracious nod, she dismissed him. ‘Very well. Call on me tomorrow at five and I will introduce you to Shula al-Attiyah.’

Z AHIR’Sfirst impulse on leaving his mother’s house was to drive straight to Nadira to demand answers. But not dressed like this. Not wearing the robes in which he’d just made a commitment to marriage, an alliance that would bring honour to his family.

This was not the man who’d kissed, danced in the streets as if his life were his own.

By the time he’d showered, changed and was racing out across the desert, however, common sense began to assert itself.

It would be the early hours of the morning before he reached Nadira and he’d already caused Diana enough grief with his foolishness.

He slowed, pulled off the road and, wrapping himself in a heavy camel-hair cloak, began to walk.

He’d sworn he’d stay away from Diana, for once do his duty. It was his cousin, Hanif-a man for whom duty was as life itself-who had warned him that marriage was a lifelong commitment. Not something to be entered into lightly, but wholeheartedly.

And he was right. There must be no looking back over his shoulder. No lingering sense of unfinished business.

With the memory of Diana doubled up in silent agony on the quay seared into his mind, he had no doubt that there was unfinished business here.

Why had she lied to him?

He stopped. No. That was wrong. She had not lied. But neither had she contradicted him when he’d offered his own insulting interpretation. But what was he to think when one moment she was lost to the world in his arms, the next minute on edge, untouchable, desperate to get back to London?

He’d seen her pain, but had written it off as her own guilty conscience troubling her. Had turned away, so blinded by hurt, by a sense of betrayal, that he’d been unable to accept what, deep down, he’d known. That the betrayal was his.

His future was written. He could offer her nothing, whereas Diana…

Yesterday she could have made a fortune selling her ‘story’ to the press. She wouldn’t even have had to sex things up. All she’d have had to do was tell it like it was and the entire world would have been enchanted.

As he was.

At first sight.

She hadn’t even considered it. Not for a minute. From the moment she’d been told what had happened she’d thought only of her son. Her family. Of him. Apologising to him as if this was in some way her fault.

She had a son!

How old was he? Did he look like her? Or his absent father? That he was absent he did not doubt. She’d told him that she lived with her parents. Knew that she worked hard to provide for him…

He knew so little.

And yet so much. He knew that she was a loving mother. He’s seen her face, tender as she’d spoken the boy’s name. It was a look that had torn his heart out.

It was a look he’d seen tonight on his own mother’s face as she’d lain her hand against his cheek.

Furious as she was, the unconditional love remained. All she cared about was his happiness, a fact she’d demonstrated in searching for a bride who would please him, rather than the daughter-in-law she must have hoped for-an educated, travelled career woman, rather than a stay-at-home girl whose only thought would be to provide her with grandchildren.

He walked until pre-dawn turned the sky grey, coming to terms with what he must do. His parting from Diana had been abrupt, painful. It had not been done well and, before he could move on, embrace the life that awaited him, he had to thank her for what she’d done. Show her that he honoured her.

Zahir let himself into the quiet house just as dawn was turning from pink to gold and, for a moment, he stood in the tranquil courtyard and let the peace of the place surround him.

He had an apartment in the city, but he’d made no secret of the fact that this house belonged to his heart. That it was his home. His future. The place where he would, eventually-when he had time-bring his bride, make a family.

It was hardly surprising the gossips were having a field day, he thought as he crossed to the steps that led down to the pavilion.

Someone had beaten him to it. Diana…?

He paused at the foot of the veranda steps, listening to the soft sigh of her breath. Had she slept amongst the cushions, as he did on warm nights?

One step would bring him to her side. Her hair, tumbled over the silk, would be his to touch. Her cheek, her lips…

The thought made the heat sing in his blood.

‘No…’ The word was wrenched from him but, as he turned away, a tousled head appeared from amongst the cushions. Eyes the colour of a spring hedgerow met his.

Blinked.

Like Diana’s. The same colour. The same shape, but not Diana’s eyes. This was her child? Her son…

How could he doubt it?

The boy’s hair was darker, but the curl matched hers. And his dimpled smile, like hers, went straight to his heart, capturing it in an instant as he sat up, yawned and said, ‘Hello.’ Then, ‘Who are you?’