The Sheikh's Bought Wife

Word had got out, of course, that the Sheikha was no longer in residence. Some of the western press had hinted that all was not well within the marriage and there had been several profile pieces carrying a distinctly disappointed tone that the unusual match hadn’t worked out, because the new Queen of the desert had proved to be a big hit in Washington and the rest of the world was eager to meet her.

Zayed’s phone had begun to ring—his private line buzzing with calls from ex-lovers casually suggesting hooking up. But their predatory intrusion had made his temper boil and he had instructed Hassan to change his number. Because he didn’t want an ex-lover and he didn’t want a new lover. He wanted Jane. He realised that when he’d ravished her on the divan he had—for the first time in his life—neglected to wear a condom. Could she be carrying his child? An heir to the throne of Al Zawba? His heart clenched. He had to find out.

But a London aide who was despatched to her home with an armful of flowers was informed that the Queen had moved out and, no, she hadn’t left any forwarding address. The news had both infuriated him and excited him, for there was nothing Zayed liked better than a chase. He tried ringing her but it seemed he wasn’t the only one who had changed their number. He contacted his embassy in London but nobody had seen or heard from her. He’d even rung a high-powered contact in the Foreign Office who was able to confirm that the Sheikha of Kafalah had not applied to enrol on the system’s fast-track channel.

And that was when it began to sink in that maybe he had been wrong. Wrong in so many ways. He had judged her by his own standards and done her a terrible disservice. He had treated her as his chattel. He was a brute. Purposefully, he lifted the phone to have one of his planes put on stand-by, planning to make it up to her, knowing there wasn’t a woman alive who could resist him when he set his mind to something. After a brief consultation with his aides, he put the journey into motion and within ten hours was touching down at a private airfield just outside London.

But tracking down his wife wasn’t as easy as it should have been and he was forced to accept that she didn’t want to be found. At least, not by him. It took a great deal of resourcefulness, not to mention a team of private detectives, to determine the whereabouts of Jane’s twin sister, Cleo, and when at last he found her, he was surprised. Contrary to what he was expecting, his wife’s twin sister was very different from the image he’d formed of her. Despite her dyed blonde hair and eyes the colour of emeralds, she looked a little like Jane. But she was not Jane, he reminded himself bitterly. She was not Jane.

And neither was she particularly friendly.

‘She doesn’t want to see you,’ had been her opening gambit.

‘I realise that.’

‘So what are you doing here?’

Biting back his instinctive retort that nobody should speak to a desert king in such a way, he sucked in a ragged breath instead, telling himself that never had diplomacy been more vital. ‘I must see her,’ he said simply.

She stared at him very hard for a moment and he didn’t know what made her change her mind but at last she grudgingly wrote down Jane’s address and phone number and handed it to him.

‘All I ask,’ said Zayed unsteadily as he glanced down at the information he’d been given, ‘is that you don’t tell her I’m on my way to see her.’

‘Because you know she’d make sure she was out.’

‘That’s right.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Yet you’re giving me access to her. Why?’

Cleo hesitated before glaring at him and in that moment he thought she looked very like her sister. ‘Because this is all such a mess and I don’t think she’s ever properly going to get over you until she sees you again.’

He nodded. It was not the answer he wanted but at least it was an honest one. ‘Thank you.’

Cleo leaned forward, her voice a soft whisper. ‘But if you ever hurt her—’

‘I promise never to knowingly hurt her,’ he said gravely. ‘Please believe me when I tell you that.’

His car was waiting in the road outside and he gave the address to the driver, who happened to be English.

‘North Wales, Your Royal Highness?’ The driver’s voice dipped in concern as he stared out at the dark sky. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to set out in the morning? It’s a fair old trip in this weather.’

‘Now,’ said Zayed tersely. ‘I want to go there now.’

He’d never been to Wales before, a country he knew was renowned for its beautiful mountains and above average rainfall. It was raining when they passed Birmingham and raining even harder when they drove through a little town called Bala, his bodyguards following at a discreet distance. Finding Jane’s cottage wasn’t easy because there seemed to be a shortage of signposts, no streetlights, and in the dark and moonless night several sheep suddenly loomed out of the gloom, fixing him with their unwavering stare.

He was wearing jeans, a sweater and a leather jacket and was glad he’d decided to blend in as much as possible, especially when he walked into a pub which was just closing and the room went silent and everyone stared at him as if he’d just descended from outer space.

He found her place eventually. A tiny cottage joined to several others—just a few yards away from the narrow winding road, with an upstairs window showing a square of golden light. He told the driver to park a little way up, pointing to a nearby layby where he could wait—who knew for how long? And then Zayed got out of the car, sucking in a breath full of cool, damp air as he walked towards the tiny cottage and rapped on the door.

After a couple of minutes, a light went on at the front of the house but he couldn’t hear the sound of footfall, only the unbolting of a lock before a pair of shadowed amber eyes peered out at him. In their widening he saw shock and then the glint of fire in their depths. Briefly he thought how immensely flattered any of his other lovers would have been to discover that he had just travelled halfway across the world in order to see them, but on Jane’s face there was nothing but hostility.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

FROM INSIDE THE tiny cottage, the knock had sounded authoritative and demanding. Perhaps that was why foreboding had shivered its way down Jane’s spine. Or maybe the seemingly habitual cold of her Welsh cottage had seeped beneath her skin and decided to stay there.

She’d tried to tell herself it couldn’t be Zayed bu

t who else would be banging on her door at this time of night? She’d been huddled up in bed, trying and failing to get warm while reading about the Kafalah-Hakabar war of 1863. Trying to stop Zayed’s hawkish face from swimming into her thoughts and wondering if Cleo had been right all along. That working on a book about his country would make it impossible to forget the current ruler.

Another knock.