Jackie Braun - The Sheikh's Untamed Bride - Lost to the Desert Warrior / Sheikh in the City / Her Ardent Sheikh

One of them had to make the first move.

‘I do know her well. I know her better than anyone.’ He had to push the words past his own natural reluctance to confide. ‘She’s my daughter.’

CHAPTER SIX

‘YOUR DAUGHTER?’ UNPREPARED for that revelation, Layla simply stared at him. ‘You have a daughter?’

‘She is six years old.’

He had a daughter.

She sank down onto the bed, her legs shaking, racking her brain for the information she had on him and discovering it to be depressingly sparse. ‘I—I didn’t know. I had no idea.’

She muttered the words to herself, examining this further piece of evidence to support her suspicion that it was possible to be intimate with someone and yet still know nothing about them.

It didn’t make any difference that she’d shared something with him she’d never shared with anyone else. He was still a stranger.

‘There are few who know, and those who do know better than to speak of it.’

His voice was flat and she looked at him blankly, shocked into silence and shaken by the enormity of it.

‘Why don’t people speak of it? Why would you hide the fact that you have a child?’

‘I lost my father. I lost my wife—’ He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to.

Layla knew her face matched the colour of his.

‘No.’ She shook her head in instinctive denial of that hypothesis. ‘That wouldn’t have happened.’

‘How can you be sure?’ His tone was raw. ‘You insist on having evidence for everything—show me the evidence that my daughter would have been safe. Did your father live by a code of honour? Did he have boundaries beyond which he wouldn’t go? If so, then please enlighten me, because I have seen nothing like that in my dealings with him.’

The shame of it covered her like a filthy, dark sludge. She wanted to dive into the oasis and scrub her skin clean. ‘I can’t show you evidence. I understand why you kept your daughter’s existence a secret. But when I suggested marriage I would have thought—’

‘What would you have thought? That I would have confided in you? You arrived in the desert out of nowhere. I married you because I saw the sense in what you proposed but let’s not pretend that this marriage is a union of trust.’

His words shook her because in her head she’d started to spin a different scenario. When she looked at him all she could see was the burning heat in his eyes and all she could think of was his body, hard and hot against hers. Out of bed they were strangers but in bed? In bed they were as close as it was possible for two people to be and what they did in bed had started to dominate her brain. The craving inside her had intensified to the point that she found herself wishing the daylight hours away because at night there was a chance they’d be together. She found herself hoping desperately for the dark because it was only in the dark that he came to her. Swept away by the darkness and the wildness of the passion she’d started to imagine that this was real but now she realised she’d been deluding herself.

‘That is all true, but I am your wife now and that also makes me—’

‘Do not say the words.’ His voice was thickened with emotion. ‘Do not even think of yourself as my daughter’s mother.’

The words slid under her ribs like a blade.

She tried to ignore the sharp pain that made it difficult to breathe. Used logic to remind herself that his response was understandable in the circumstances.

The fact that he would kiss her, touch her, didn’t mean he trusted her with his daughter.

And she really couldn’t blame him for that, could she?

Right now he was the powerful protector, ready to shield his daughter from any threat, and it was clear he considered that threat to be her.

Feeling his struggle to suppress the emotion that threatened to overwhelm him, Layla groped for the best way to handle the situation. ‘At least tell me her name.’

‘Her name is Zahra.’

‘That’s a pretty name. Does she know you have married me?’

‘No.’ He was brutally frank. Everything about him was designed to repel her gentle attempts to ease closer. ‘There is no easy way to tell a child I have married the daughter of the man responsible for the death of her mother.’

The knife in her ribs twisted. ‘Had I known you had a daughter I never would have suggested this marriage. I had no idea there was a child involved. It changes everything.’

‘It changes nothing. This marriage was never personal so what difference would it have made?’

‘I would not have sacrificed your daughter’s happiness for—’

‘For the future of Tazkhan? And what about your sister’s safety? What about your own marriage to Hassan? Because that’s why you came to me, isn’t it? You wanted my protection.’

‘Yes, that’s all true. I was honest about that right from the start. But I didn’t want those things at the expense of a little girl’s happiness. A little girl who has already suffered a major trauma in her life.’ Layla was shaking so badly she wasn’t sure her legs would hold her. ‘There is no way I would have foisted myself on her as a stranger. At the very least I would have suggested I take time to get to know her. To gain her trust.’

‘That would have created a delay we could not afford, and this was never about building a relationship. And you are assuming you would have gained her trust.’

‘I would certainly have worked hard to do that. I have experience with children. Give me the opportunity and I will prove it to you.’

The shutters came down on those eyes. ‘No. We will wait and see if the night terrors settle and then re-evaluate.’

‘Perhaps they would settle if she had someone she could bond with. Someone she is close to.’

He turned slowly, his eyes like ice. ‘My relationship with my daughter is very close.’

‘Yes, I can see that.’ She thought about the way he’d soothed the child. About the anxiety and love on his face and the patience he’d shown. It had warmed her because she’d never seen a man like that with a child. ‘But you’re away a great deal. You have your business interests—’

‘That is an inevitable part of life. When I can, I take her with me, and when I can’t I make sure I return here as quickly I can.’

‘But when you are away who looks after her?’

He didn’t answer immediately. ‘She is with Nadia, who loves her very much.’

Nadia?

Layla felt as if she were walking on eggshells. This wasn’t the time to point out that Nadia had seemed out of her depth at the moment of crisis. ‘How have you kept Zahra’s existence a secret?’

‘I have the support of many people.’

‘But I don’t.’

He glanced at her with a frown. ‘What does that mean?’

‘No one speaks to me. This marriage has not been welcomed by the people who love you.’ Suddenly she felt overwhelmed by it all. By the distance that couldn’t be closed by physical intimacy alone. ‘How can this possibly work even on the most basic level? If you don’t trust me, why would they?’

‘Because this union was never about trust.’ He towered over her, powerful and imposing. ‘Most of them understand why we did this. They know it is the right thing.’

But not all of them.

Layla thought about the hatred she sensed in Nadia and wondered again if the cause of it didn’t go deeper than dismay at seeing the Sheikh marry the daughter of his enemy.

‘So what happens now? You have a daughter. Are you saying you don’t want me to meet her?’

‘For the time being, no. She is already having night terrors. I don’t want to risk making those worse by introducing you to her.’

His belief that she might make it worse hurt more than she would have thought possible, but how could she, of all people, blame a man for wanting to protect his child?