Annie West - Royals Untamed!

‘It is no concern of yours.’ His eyes met hers briefly as the vehicle swayed endlessly across the barren gold landscape. The intensity of the angry sparks in the deep blackness of his eyes almost made her hold her tongue. But why should she?

‘It is, Kazim. It has implications for me—for us.’

He looked ahead again and she did the same, as if keeping her eyes from his handsome profile would help.

‘As I said at the polo match, I stood between my mother and father.’

His voice was hard and level. She could feel the control he was exerting, feel it in the tension that had suddenly filled the vehicle, and all she wanted to do was get out of it, but ahead of her was nothing but sand dunes, sculpted by the hand of Mother Nature.

Amber sighed in frustration, not just at the lengthy and incredibly hot journey but at his reluctance to talk to her. Obviously the hours in each other’s arms these last few nights meant nothing. He didn’t want her to get close, not emotionally. He had only been staking his claim on her, preventing her from returning to the life she’d made since leaving the desert.

Should she now tell him about the money her father had deceived him over? The money that Kazim had thought he was giving to her? What would he say when he found out her father was attacking Barazbin as a way of avenging the dishonour Kazim had brought upon her by discarding her after their wedding? Judging by the frown on her mother’s face yesterday morning, it was not what Kazim would have expected or wanted.

‘Kazim, I think we should talk,’ she said and looked again at his profile; it was stern and unapproachable. Her courage floundered instantly but she had to tell him.

* * *

Kazim wanted to close his eyes against the pain of that day, but he knew he had to explain. She was right—it had implications for both of them. She did have a right to know.

‘Very well,’ he said, refusing to look at her, keeping his eyes on the way ahead as if he was driving a precarious cliff road instead of the vast sands before them. ‘It was my fault.’

‘What?’ That one word almost squeaked from her lips, heightening his pain and guilt. She sounded shocked.

‘It was my fault. I lost my temper. I challenged my father and whilst youth was on my side, experience wasn’t.’

He hadn’t said so many words at once about that day, not even to his mother, and especially not to his father. Since the day he’d stood up to his father, Kazim and his mother had barely spoken. He’d disappointed her.

Instead of protecting his mother, as he’d done since he was a boy, he’d let her down. He’d become as bad as the man she’d married. Now, as he drove across the expanse of the desert with Amber at his side it was as if someone had unlocked a door, letting all the pain and guilt spill out from him.

‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ she said softly and touched his arm and his body stiffened. He didn’t deserve her sympathy.

He wanted to stop, to turn and give her his full attention. He wanted to tell her everything, but at the same time he didn’t want to see the pity that must be swimming in her eyes turn to shame and repulsion. Suddenly, for the first time ever, it mattered what she thought of him.

Instead, he fixed his eyes back on the sand, knowing that very soon they would reach the camp and the luxurious tent he’d instructed to be built in readiness for them. Then he would have to face whatever was in her eyes. Face it and deal with it.

‘After you left I wanted to leave too,’ he began as the tension built around them to almost explosive levels. He’d envied her the ability to turn and walk away. ‘I had no wish to be a prince in a palace, little more than an animal in a cage. I wanted freedom.’

She sat silently next to him and he sensed her shock, sensed the stiffening of her body as she pulled her hand back. In that moment he realised she’d been the same, a bird in a beautiful prison, manipulated by her parents and then harshly rejected by him.

He’d started the sorry tale now, so he had to finish. ‘My father and I quarrelled and, before he left, he accused me of neglecting my people. He told me the nomad tribes needed help. But I didn’t stay, didn’t listen to a word. I had my own duty, an oil company employing hundreds. I chose that, never imagining the palace without my father’s heavy hand ruling it.’

‘Then your father became ill.’ Her voice was barely a whisper and hardly audible above the hum of the engine.

‘Yes, and my life changed again. Like the dunes after a sandstorm, no trace of what was there before was left.’ He kept his eyes fixed on the way ahead.

* * *

Amber couldn’t comprehend what Kazim was telling her. ‘It still wasn’t your fault.’

‘True, but if I had not argued, refused to go back to the palace, he would never have had the heart attack.’

The four-wheel drive climbed up a large sand dune, taking all his concentration. She waited—for what, she didn’t know. Then, as they reached the top of the sand dune, she saw a camp below them, sheltered on all sides by other high dunes. Many tents spread out before her, people busily going about their daily tasks.

Kazim stopped the vehicle and turned to look at her. ‘The thing that hurts the most, after this episode—’ he touched his chest, where the scar lay concealed beneath his robes ‘—my last words to my mother were ones of anger. She refused to see me again and died alone. I destroyed her and never made my peace with her. I cannot forgive myself for that.’

‘Don’t blame yourself, Kazim. I don’t.’

‘You should do. Just as you should because I cannot offer you the freedom you crave. The freedom you deserve.’

‘I have always known that I would marry a man of my father’s choosing. I was never free, Kazim. Neither were you. As you said, it is our duty.’

A duty I do now, first and foremost because of what you can offer to Annie’s little boy.

That was her only motivation. It had been what had driven her to accept his hard bargain and now it was what kept her focused. She was here, doing this, for Annie and Claude.

She wanted to ask about them, wanted to know where they were, what they were doing, but now was not the time. Just as it wasn’t the time to tell him about the money her father had kept from her. But she would have to tell him.

‘Now you know what has happened I do not want to talk of it again.’ His words were firm and insistent and her heart wrenched at the pain evident within them. If silence on the subject was what he wanted, that was what she would give him.

‘Is this where we will camp?’ She injected as much lightness into her voice as she could. The tension swirling around them was almost impossible to bear.

He looked across at her, his eyes piercing into hers, and for a moment she thought she saw shards of raw pain. Then, as if night had fallen, the shutters came down and he was once more fully in command of his emotions, having locked them neatly away.

‘This is to be our home for the next week,’ he said and started driving towards the camp.

A tremor of panic tore down Amber’s spine. Was she really to be here with Kazim for a week? What had she let herself in for during her moment of weakness? A moment when she’d thought she had to be with him, as if the love she had for him could grow inside his heart too, until he couldn’t help but tell her he loved her.

Would she ever hear those words from his lips? She frowned at an unwanted childhood memory. She’d never heard those words from anyone other than her grandmother. Nobody else had ever told her they loved her. She’d thought her mother had hinted at it the last time they’d spoken. But she never displayed affection. Why should that change now?