Jane Porter - The Princess Brides

Malik continued to stare out the windows. The hills were giving way to steep red tinted mountains. ‘‘She’s going to go to New York for a while, spend time with her family there. She agrees with me that she needs a change—’’

‘‘And until then, we’re leaving her alone?’’

‘‘She won’t be alone. Her mother and sister are arriving from America this afternoon.’’

Nic assessed the situation, understanding suddenly that she was being sent away deliberately before Fatima’s mother arrived. ‘‘You didn’t want me to meet your aunt.’’

‘‘Fatima wanted to avoid any potential problems.’’

‘‘Meeting your aunt would have created problems?’’

He turned his head, met her gaze. ‘‘My aunt wished me to marry my cousin, and Fatima, wisely wanted to save you, and herself, from further embarrassment.’’

So that explained Fatima’s hostility. Nic exhaled slowly, thinking of the past week, all the time the two had been forced to spend together. Fatima must have felt hurt, and humiliated. ‘‘I didn’t know.’’

He made a rough sound, impatient, angry. ‘‘I didn’t, either.’’

Her lips parted in surprise but Malik’s pained expression stilled the words on her lips, leaving them unspoken. He looked staggered even now. Nicolette had never seen him so quiet, so closed. It was as if he’d gone inward and shut all his emotions down.

Something horrible must have happened last night…‘‘I’m sorry, Malik. I really am.’’

‘‘I am, too.’’

Nicolette suddenly wondered if perhaps she’d done something far worse by coming here than just masquerading as Chantal. Had she perhaps destroyed people’s futures…their lives? ‘‘Was there a reason you couldn’t marry?’’

His powerful shoulders shifted. ‘‘I didn’t choose her,’’ he said flatly, turning to look at Nicolette with a piercing gaze. He stared at her hard, staring at her as if he could see all the way through her. ‘‘I chose you.’’

Nicolette felt a wave of panic. Fatima loved Malik, she’d hoped to share her life with him, and all the while Nicolette was playing a part, biding her time before she could escape back to Melio.

How would Nic’s disappearance affect Malik…Fatima…the Nuri family?

She swayed on her seat, feeling dizzy, sick, scared of what she’d started. Her breezy words spoken to Chantal returned to haunt her, I’ll sneak in, sneak out, and be gone before the sultan even notices…

Wrong .

‘‘She’s going to be okay,’’ Malik said, sensing Nicolette’s panic, seeking to reassure her. ‘‘Don’t blame yourself. I chose you. You didn’t create this…problem.’’

Nicolette heard the emotion in Malik’s voice, felt his worry, his personal struggle. He blamed himself.

He cared about Fatima. He loved his family. He’d spent his life trying to protect those he cared about. And in that instant, Nic realized that all those European gossip magazines had gotten King Malik Roman Nuri wrong. He wasn’t a Casanova. It’d be impossible for him to take women to bed just to discard them later.

Malik cared about women. He didn’t take advantage of them.

She felt tears start to her eyes. ‘‘No wonder you enjoy your gadgets.’’ She covered his hand with hers. ‘‘You should be entitled to a few fun toys. It’s not easy being King.’’

He lifted her hand to his mouth, kissed the back of her fingers. He was trying hard to lighten his mood. ‘‘You will enjoy Zefd. It will be good for us to spend a few days in the mountains.’’

But Nic didn’t want him to put on a happy face for her sake. She searched his eyes. ‘‘Are you going to be okay?’’

Leaning forward, he brushed his mouth across her cheek, and then once more on her lips. ‘‘I’m glad you’re with me, laeela .’’

‘‘I’m glad I’m here, too.’’

They spent two hours traveling in and out of the rugged red and pink mountains, climbing slowly, steadily to the peak of one mountain, to descend on the other side, and then start climbing all over again.

Late afternoon they reached an open valley, the barren ground dotted here and there with oases of green. ‘‘Artificial lakes,’’ Malik said, ‘‘for commercial orchards of date trees.’’

On this side of the mountains the landscape looked brighter, clearer, and more unusual. It was the quality of light, Nic thought, the way the golden rays hit the rose and gold sand, reflecting off the pink and red granite cliffs.

Everything here seemed to come from the earth, to be made of the earth, and would eventually return to the earth. The driver approached a red sandstone fortress, the stark walls high, the parapet clearly etched against the brilliant blue sky. The fortress towered over the rest of the city and yet was still dwarfed by the snow-capped mountains behind.

‘‘So where are we?’’ Nic’s inquisitive gaze took in the magnificent mountains dusted in white and the weathered apricot and terracotta buildings before them.

‘‘This is Zefd. One of the oldest cities in Baraka. My father’s family came from here.’’

As Malik’s vehicle entered the walls of the city, people unexpectedly poured out, robed men and women and dozens of eager children. ‘‘Did they know you were coming?’’

Malik’s expression was ironic. ‘‘Someone must have alerted them.’’

The driver parked, but before he opened the door for them, palace guards appeared, forming a protective barrier between the sultan’s car and the crowd.

Malik climbed from the car and assisted Nicolette. On seeing the king, the people cheered, and Malik lifted a hand in acknowledgment.

Malik was surprised when Nicolette moved forward, toward the crowd, greeting his people. She spoke only a few Arabic words, but the sincere phrases coupled with her warm smiles appeared to charm everyone.

Standing at her side, Malik watched Nicolette work the crowd, and while ‘‘work’’ sounded cold, it was exactly what she was doing. She knew her job, he thought, seeing how gracefully she handled the press of people, the hands extended, the small children lifted for her to kiss. She knew how long to chat, how long to listen, and then how to gently break free to continue making her way along the edge of the crowd.

He’d known she was strong, intelligent, but he hadn’t expected this natural warmth and ease with his people. She was a true princess—regal, royal—and yet she identified with the common man. She would be good for his people.

And very good for him.

But he still hadn’t made much headway when it came to knowing her, openly speaking with her. She’d learned to hide herself quite well. She projected so much warmth and charm that one didn’t realize how neatly she sidestepped the personal until later.

Princess Nicolette did not wear her heart on her sleeve. Instead she kept her heart buried very deep. But it was her heart he wanted, and right now he wasn’t even sure he had that. She was attracted to him, and responded to him, but the fact that she continued to hide her true identity had begun to trouble him. What if she didn’t intend to go through with the wedding? What if she still intended to leave him at the altar, the jilted royal bridegroom?

The thought left him cold. His jaw gritted and he felt ice lodge in his chest, close to his heart. He wanted her. He needed her. He had no intention of losing her now.

His temper and emotions firmly in control, Malik moved forward, claimed Nicolette, drawing her with him into his desert home.

‘‘We call this house the Citadel,’’ he said, showing Nicolette around his Zefd desert home. ‘‘It was built as a fortress, and although the royal family has lived here off and on for the past two hundred years, it still serves as an important military outpost, one of our stronger defensive positions.’’