Heidi Rice - Claimed For The Desert Prince's Heir / A Shocking Proposal In Sicily

He frowned. Okay, she looked more than shocked now, she looked panicked.

‘A pregnancy is not the reason. Honour dictates it,’ he continued, his throat closing on that one crucial word.

Honour . The one thing his father hadn’t been able to steal from him. His honour had sustained him, through the loneliness, the pain, the starvation, the thirst, and the many other humiliations of being a boy without a people. Honour had ensured his survival. Had driven him to fight and fight until he had eventually triumphed. Not just finding a people, but becoming their Chief.

His honour meant everything to him and he could not compromise it. Not for anything. Or anyone. Not even himself.

‘I have taken your maidenhead,’ he added. ‘To maintain my honour, I must make you my wife and my consort.’

‘But that’s…’ Kasia pulled in a few precious breaths, trying to stop herself from hyperventilating, not easy when she was edging towards hysteria. ‘You can’t be serious.’

Raif stared at her, his frown only making him more handsome. But she was so over the ripples of awareness making her sex throb.

‘I am absolutely serious,’ he said. ‘We have no choice now.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. There’s always a choice.’

‘Kasia.’ He pressed his palm to her cheek, making the traitorous ripples worse. ‘You must calm down…you are breathing too fast.’

She jerked her head back. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t have a sensible conversation with him, especially not when he was looking at her with that pragmatic intensity.

She’d heard of the Law of Marriage of the Sheikhs. The ancient, archaic law was written into the country’s scrolls. Scrolls she had studied along with Cat, once upon a time. She had once whispered about the old law furtively with her school friends. How it was a dream come true, a way for nobodies like them to become queens.

But it wasn’t a dream any more, it was a nightmare.

The old law hadn’t even occurred to her when she’d neglected to mention her virginity to Raif. Because she’d been far too caught up in the moment to think about anything. Not even contraception!

Standing up, she grabbed her T-shirt and tugged it on. She couldn’t stay here and have this conversation. It took a while for her to find the armholes because she was shaking so hard.

Why hadn’t she given a lot more thought to the repercussions of sleeping with Raif? He was clearly autocratic and arrogant. But what had been so exciting and seductive before she’d slept with him seemed fraught with disaster now.

She didn’t want to be married to a stranger. She was supposed to be returning to Cambridge. This trip was to do preliminary research for a PhD in the eco-systems of the Narabian desert she was hoping to get funding for.

The intimacy of what they had shared would be tarnished for ever by his callous demand that she succumb to his will. And for what? To maintain his honour? What about hers? She was a person, an individual, with her own free will. He couldn’t ride roughshod over her future, her choices, because she’d been too caught up in the moment to warn him of her virginity.

She’d always promised herself that when she married, if she married, she would marry for love. She wanted the kind of fairy-tale romance Cat and Zane shared. She would never marry for duty or honour. And especially not to a man who didn’t seem to know the difference between honour and duty and love.

She tugged on her shorts, suddenly desperate to escape the stifling tent, and the scene of her downfall, the lingering scent of sex only emphasising her stupidity.

If you slept with a man you didn’t know, what the heck did you expect?

That had been her mistake. Not just trusting him, but trusting her own judgement. Because there was an element of what she’d done that made her remember her mother. The woman she hadn’t seen since she was a girl.

‘I can’t be your mother any more, Kasia. Your grandmother will take good care of you.’

Her mother had abandoned her—because she could no longer bear the shame of having a child out of wedlock. Of being ostracised, vilified, damned for her pregnancy when she was alone. But Kasia had paid a far greater price, forced to grow up without her mother and battle for years the insecurities her absence had wrought—and all because of customs that punished people for loving in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

She did up the buttons of her shorts with clumsy fingers.

But as she went to leave the tent, he grasped her elbow.

‘Where are you going?’ he demanded.

‘I need some air, and some time to think. And to wash.’

He’d put on his pants, thank goodness, but even so desire echoed in her sex as her gaze connected with his broad chest. She could see the red marks etched into the tattoo covering his shoulder where she had held him in the throes of passion.

What had she been thinking? Giving herself to him, without a thought to any of the consequences?

‘Kasia, you must not panic,’ he said. ‘This is frightening, I understand that. It is not a choice I would have made either,’ he added, and she heard it then, the brittle note of judgement. Of accusation. Because she had been the one to keep her virginity a secret. ‘But we are bound now.’

She could hear the steely determination in his voice.

But this was madness.

Why should they honour a code that had been set down hundreds of years before they were even born?

‘I need to be alone for a bit,’ she said. ‘To consider all this. It’s a lot to take in.’

He let his hand drop. Then he nodded. ‘Okay, go to the pond and bathe, I will pack up here. We must travel to the Golden Palace before nightfall. Speak to your relatives.’

What? Panic clawed at her throat. ‘But I don’t have any relatives. Not since my grandmother died. Maybe if we just don’t tell anyone about…’

‘We cannot lie, that would be an even greater breach of honour,’ he interrupted her, his frown deepening. ‘If you have no relatives, then I will make the request for your hand to my brother. He is your employer, yes?’

He was moving too fast. She didn’t want Zane and Cat to know what she’d done. She certainly didn’t want to put them in the middle of this situation. They would, of course, support her decision. They weren’t barbarians like Raif. But from the few times Prince Kasim had mentioned his half-brother it was obvious their relationship was problematic at best, and probably delicately balanced politically.

Good grief, her stupidity could start a new war.

The panic started to consume her.

Breathe—just breathe. And don’t add any more drama than you absolutely have to.

She forced her lungs to function. Struggled to think. ‘How far are we from the palace?’ she asked, as a plan began to form in her head.

‘A day’s ride, to the north,’ he said.

Oh, thank goodness.

‘Okay,’ she said as a strange calmness descended. ‘I won’t be too long.’

He grasped her arm. ‘Do not despair, Kasia,’ he said, his voice strained.

Her heart beat heavily against her ribs.

‘We will find a way to make this work,’ he said.

She nodded. Because she couldn’t bring herself to speak.

Arguing with him was pointless. And she’d never been very good at disguising her feelings. If he knew how frantic she was, and how determined not to go through with this madness, he might not let her leave. But as she left, she couldn’t resist glancing over her shoulder.

He stood, tall and proud and indomitable, trusting her to return.