Bride Behind The Desert Veil (The Marchetti Dynasty 3)

She didn’t feel like herself. But she could appreciate that Sharif wouldn’t want her to look as wild as she had at the oasis, or even on her wedding day—and, even though she mightn’t want to admit it, this new version of herself wasn’t entirely...unwelcome. In spite of her avowed tomboy tendencies, Liyah couldn’t help but feel...pretty. Maybe even a little beautiful.

The sparkling green of the small emeralds in her wedding ring caught her eye. She hadn’t taken it off since Sharif had put it on her finger and a prickle skated over her skin. At that moment she caught sight of him behind her, reflected in the window.

How long had he been there?

He was wearing a three-piece suit. And suddenly there didn’t seem to be enough air in the room. She was glad she wasn’t facing him directly, because her heart was practically jumping through her chest. It was so mortifying that he had this effect on her, when all she’d been to him was a random hook-up in a desert oasis before he had to commit to a convenient marriage.

‘Ready to go?’ he said from behind her.

Liyah steeled herself and turned around. ‘Yes.’

She had a sudden vision of how this marriage would play out—days spent on her own interspersed with sterile social events. Playing dress-up in haute couture. She clenched her hands into fists. Why did that suddenly bother her? When the thought of her imminent freedom and independence should be enough to see her through this short period?

She moved forward, very aware of Sharif’s eyes on her, coolly appraising. He held out a long camel coat and helped her into it. A classic design, it belted around her waist. She picked up her clutch bag.

In the back of the car a few minutes later, cocooned from the bitterly cold air outside, Liyah said, ‘I looked you up today.’

He turned, arched a brow.

Her face grew hot. ‘I mean I looked up your company. So, you basically own all the biggest luxury designer brands and labels in the world?’

Sharif inclined his head. ‘Along with the oldest and most exclusive champagne and Irish whiskey brands.’

‘You have a distillery in Ireland?’

He nodded.

‘Is that something you always wanted to do? Follow in your father’s footsteps?’

Sharif tensed visibly, his eyes widening, and then he made a sound that was half-laugh, half-growl. ‘Follow? I had no choice but to take over—or everything he’d built up would have been destroyed and all for nothing.’

Feeling her way, she said, ‘You weren’t close?’

She thought he wasn’t going to answer, but then he said, ‘Do you know when I saw snow for the first time?’

She shook her head.

‘In Scotland, at a boarding school so remote you needed a boat to get to the mainland. That’s where my beloved father put me after he’d had me kidnapped from my mother’s home in Al-Murja.’

‘Kidnapped?’ Liyah was shocked. She hadn’t seen anything about that in the stories she’d found online. ‘Why would he kidnap you?’

‘Because my mother wasn’t going to just hand me over. She knew what he was like. He’d seduced her and married her just to get her dowry and set himself up. He’d humiliated her and broken her heart. She knew he only wanted me as a pawn to use in the future. Someone he could mould into doing his bidding.’

His voice was hard. Cold. Liyah couldn’t push away the image of a young boy with dark hair, shivering against the forbidding backdrop of an icy country. The culture shock would have been traumatic. Especially coming from the desert. The very thought of it made her own heart ache.

‘How did your mother die?’

‘He killed her.’ Before Liyah could respond to that, Sharif added, ‘Or as good as. She got sick. She needed urgent expensive medical treatment in Europe. Her family didn’t have the necessary cash—it took years for them to recover financially from the loss of her dowry, and from the humiliation of her not fulfilling the agreement to marry your uncle—and my father refused to help. When he eventually did agree to fly her to Paris for an operation it was too late. She’d died.’

‘How old were you?’

‘I’d just turned nine. I hadn’t seen her in a year.’

A lump formed in Liyah’s throat. She forced it down, sensing that Sharif was not looking for sympathy or comfort. She just said, ‘That’s rough.’

Sharif shrugged. ‘It was what it was. It’s in the past now.’

But she sensed it was not forgotten. Not by a long shot.