Sharon Kendrik - The Desert King's Virgin Bride

She missed it all like mad—the apricot-soft dawns and the fiery sunsets, the stark beauty of the desert and the warm, scented air of the palace gardens. And didn’t she miss her exceptionally privileged lifestyle there, if she was being completely honest? Hadn’t she become rather too accustomed to servants who acceded to her every whim? To having her clothes laundered and her meals cooked and served to her? Why, by the time she had left Kharastan she had actually had her own aide!

Most of all she missed Malik. The sight of his beautiful mocking face at state banquets—the sound of his rich, resonant voice as he made a speech to welcome visiting dignitaries. She missed the expectation of bumping into him. The thought that at any moment he might suddenly appear—sweeping through the wide, marbled palace corridors with his silken robes swishing and a cluster of aides scurrying in his wake, because his long stride seemed to cover so much more distance than anyone else she knew.

But didn’t that speak volumes about how hopeless her longing for him was? If she analysed the actual substance of her relationship with him, it was nothing. A few daily snatched glimpses of him and being a member of an adoring audience as he delivered a speech was not a real relationship—hardly even a friendship. She sounded more like a starstruck fan than an equal. For she would never be his equal. Not now.

In the years before the bombshell had dropped that he was the true and rightful heir to the Sheikh there had been hope that he might love her back. But he never had and now he never would. Perhaps deep down Malik had always sensed the true magnitude of his destiny, and she had to accept hers. And hers was here. Now. And she must learn to adapt to this completely different way of living.

It was a shock to the system—but one that she needed if she was to achieve any degree of contentment, she decided, as she signed a cheque and handed it over to Julian.

He took it, folded it, and slid it in the back pocket of his jeans. ‘Well, if you need a job and you’re a linguist, then why don’t you try the Alternative Tourist Office?’ he questioned, and saw her puzzled look. ‘It specialises in places of interest which are off the beaten track—as well as the usual attractions—but they get loads of foreign tourists who don’t speak much English. They’ve got a crazy little office down the road on the seafront.’

‘And they’re looking for someone?’

Julian grinned. ‘They’re always looking for someone! They don’t pay great money—but the atmosphere’s pretty relaxed.’

It certainly seemed that way. The office was situated a mere shell’s throw from her apartment, sandwiched between a clothes shop and a wine bar. A few wilting plants sat on the windowsill, and there was free coffee and a pile of magazines with most of the advertisements cut out—plus music playing from a deck in one corner.

Sorrel was asked a fairly basic question in French and given the job on the spot—mornings only and every other Saturday. She would be working with Jane, who had just left university and couldn’t decide what to do, and a very good-looking male model called Charlie, who told her he was currently ‘resting’.

‘Oh, you’re always “resting”!’ accused Jane, with a giggle.

It was such a relief to be in a friendly atmosphere with people her own age that Sorrel found herself relaxing for the first time since her plane had taken off from Kumush Ay airport.

The job was also so easy that she felt she could have done it with her eyes shut, and when she wasn’t working she kept the plants watered and read everything there was to know about Brighton, because she was determined to do well.

And when Jane and Charlie asked she told them simply that she’d been working in the Middle East but had wanted a change—and that was the truth. It was a gentle shoe-in to the working world, yet Sorrel felt incredibly nervous—given that just a few months ago she had been rubbing shoulders with political leaders and queens. Where had that serene and unflappable Sorrel gone? She seemed to have left her behind.

She guessed that her anxiety stemmed from more than just setting out on her own in a land which was like a foreign country to her—it was as if she had to acquire a whole new identity to cope with her new life.

For a start, she had to go out and buy clothes which were suitable for her new appointment, and how strange that felt—not having to follow the strict dress-code of her adopted country which had become second nature to her.

Without her neck-to-ankle silk gowns she felt almost…exposed—even though she wasn’t, not really, and certainly not compared to everyone else. She bought a couple of floaty long skirts and a pair of jeans—but the jeans hung disturbingly low on her hips and the T-shirts she wore with both clung to her breasts in a way she was not used to.

But this is England, she reminded herself—not Kharastan.

In fact, the clothes she wore were very modest—especially considering that the weather was blisteringly hot, since England was having the kind of freak summer heat-wave which Sorrel would never have anticipated. Even though they left the front door wide open, the office was like an oven—and during the still nights when she lay in bed Sorrel found herself longing for the air-conditioned coolness of the palace at Kumush Ay.

‘Aren’t you baking, dressed like that?’ asked Jane one morning, as flung her handbag down onto one of the desks. ‘You’re not in the Middle East now, you know—and these little sundresses are much cooler!’

‘Yes, they look cooler,’ agreed Sorrel, with a slight longing in her voice as she glanced at Jane’s bare thighs. ‘But my legs are so pale. Not like yours.’

‘Didn’t you sunbathe in…Kharastan?’ asked Jane.

‘It wasn’t really encouraged,’ said Sorrel, with wry understatement.

‘Well, my tan isn’t real,’ confided Jane—and when she saw Sorrel’s blank look she burst out laughing and began rubbing her hands together. ‘Oh, yes!’ she breathed, with gleeful enthusiasm. ‘I’ve always wanted to do a real-live makeover on someone!’

It was an experience that Sorrel would never forget. First came the beauty salon—where fake tan was sprayed all over her. When she emerged, she shrieked with horror at the blotchy, muddy mess her skin presented—until she was assured that the colour would flatten out. Next she had her toenails and fingernails painted in an iridescent shade of rose-pink.

‘You’ve never had a pedicure before?’ shrieked Jane in amazement.

‘Never,’ agreed Sorrel, pushing away her nagging feeling of doubt as she tried to imagine what Malik would say if he could see her now, lying back on a leather couch as if she was awaiting a medical examination, while the nail polish dried. He probably wouldn’t even deign to comment. She had taken her chosen path and was now a Western woman who could do exactly as she pleased—no longer under his protection or control. And he had moved on, too, eradicating her from his life completely—which presumably was why he hadn’t even had the courtesy to reply to her.

Hot tears stung at her eyes and she blinked them away, willing it not to hurt—not wanting it to hurt.

But it did hurt—and Sorrel despised herself for feeling a pain that had no justification in reality. Because nothing had gone on between her and Malik—absolutely nothing—except within the fertile planes of her imagination. Not a nod or a glance, nor a snatched look—and certainly never a kiss or even a touch. Sorrel swallowed. That was true. Unless you counted the times when as a child she had been learning to ride and he had first lifted her onto a horse and gently put her feet into the stirrups, Malik had never even touched her!