The Sultan's Choice

He grimaced again. Since when had his shy wife grown so un-shy that she felt comfortable sleeping naked? The thought of her now, naked in the bed, made him grip the glass so tight that it cracked in his palm. Sadiq saw the trickle of blood fall on his robe, and for a moment pain blocked out the ever-present awareness, and he had an insight into why people might seek pain as a sort of anaesthetic.

He smiled at his own bleak humour and got up to tend to his cut. The good mood he’d been in for days after showing Samia her new office, telling her that she had carte blanche to do pretty much whatever she liked, was wearing off and being replaced with something much darker and more insidious.

It didn’t help that he was well aware that he was doing his utmost to avoid spending any time with his wife. Because whenever he was alone with her he couldn’t think straight. All rational thought went out of the window and he found himself filled with bizarre longings that had nothing to do with lust—although that was ever-present—and more to do with something more intangible. Like the urge he’d had in Nazirat to take Samia deep into the desert.

It was too reminiscent of the moods he’d seen grip his father. What more evidence did he need than the fact he was breaking glasses in his hand just thinking of Samia? She was dangerous.

Sadiq patched up his hand and caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror. His eyes were glittering as if he had a fever. His jaw was stubbled with a day’s growth of beard. He looked a little wild. He suddenly realised that this situation was untenable, and a surge of anger at Samia and her innocently sleeping presence made him switch off the light and stride from his study.

The following evening Samia was looking at her pink face in the steamed-up bathroom mirror. She knew it was crazy to feel disappointed—the chasm that currently existed between her and Sadiq was no place to be bringing a baby. If she’d thought that his volte-face about her involvement in their marriage had signified a change, then she’d been mistaken. If anything, Sadiq was growing even more distant. She put her hand to her flat belly and bit her lip. She’d just seen the spotting which signified that she wasn’t pregnant.

She heard him moving in the bedroom outside and tensed. They were going to a function being held in the castle that evening—an acknowledgement of Sadiq’s fundraising for charities. Taking a deep breath, she tightened the robe around her body and went out. Sadiq was stripping off his shirt and immediately Samia’s pulse went into overdrive.

He caught her look and his mouth curled. ‘Don’t look at me like that, habiba. We don’t have time to make something of it.’

Samia flushed, and flushed even harder when she thought of how their lovemaking last night had been imbued with something almost desperate. She’d only noticed the makeshift bandage on Sadiq’s hand afterwards, and the red stain of blood. Her heart clenching, she’d asked, ‘What happened?’

He’d taken his hand back and said brusquely, ‘Nothing. Just a glass that broke.’

And, practically jackknifing off the bed, he’d then informed her that he’d just remembered a speech he had to work on, and pulled on some clothes and gone back to his office. Samia knew he’d only returned to their bedroom to shower that morning. So he must have slept in his office.

She thought of that now, and wanted to feel relief as she said, ‘There’s something I should tell you.’

He looked at her, naked now apart from form-fitting boxers that held a distinctive bulge.

Samia swallowed. She had to get sex off her brain. ‘I’m not pregnant.’

For a long moment Sadiq was silent. She couldn’t read his reaction. And then he just calmly pulled on his pants and said, ‘Good. That’s good. Thank you for letting me know.’ His eyes flicked her up and down and she felt it like the lash of a whip. ‘We’re leaving in twenty minutes.’

Chin hitched up, Samia said, ‘I’ll be ready.’

And she was—with not a hint of her reaction on her face to his emotionless response to the news that she wasn’t pregnant.

An hour later Sadiq was still coming to grips with the fact that he’d felt disappointed to hear that Samia wasn’t pregnant—as if something elusive

had slipped out of his grasp. He’d had an almost primal urge to make love to her when she’d said that, as if to ensure that she did get pregnant when she’d expressly told him she didn’t want that.

He felt weak, at the mercy of something he had no control over. She’d taken his injured hand in hers last night, and the feel of those small cool hands had provoked an urge to put his head on Samia’s breast and have her hold him. It had been strong enough to make him run. And he’d spent the night on the couch in his office, waking with a dry mouth and in a foul humour that was getting fouler by the minute.

Especially when he saw Samia across the room, laughing up into the face of a handsome man whom Sadiq recognised as one of his scientists involved in environmental research. He knew Samia had been having meetings with them last week, and to think she was cultivating a relationship—no matter how innocent—with this man was enough to propel him across the room in seconds. He took Samia’s arm in his hand, relishing the feel of the delicate muscles. She was his. The other man backed away hurriedly, as if Sadiq had just snarled at him like an animal.

He heard Samia’s husky voice. ‘Sadiq? Is everything okay?’

He looked down at her and something solidified inside him. ‘No,’ he bit out grimly. ‘Everything is not okay.’

Samia watched him locking the door behind them. He’d all but marched her into an empty anteroom, and the fierce look on his face scared her slightly. ‘What’s going on, Sadiq?’

‘What’s going on is that I leave your side for two minutes and you’re flirting with another man.’

She gaped at him. ‘Flirting? I can assure you that I was not flirting. Hamad was telling me about his two-year-old son, if you must know.’

Sadiq rocked back on his heels, hands in his pockets. He said almost musingly, but with a dangerous undercurrent, ‘When we first met you would have had me believe that you’d be quaking in your shoes in a situation like that, and yet you’re remarkably eager to leave my side and talk to relative strangers.’

Hurt scored Samia’s insides. She wasn’t about to let him know how vulnerable she still felt in those situations, or why the only reason she felt she could deal with them was because he was by her side, or nearby. Even just to see him across a room was enough.

She tossed her head, knowing she was playing with fire. ‘Are you accusing me of lying, Sadiq? Pretending that I was shy and insecure? And am I not meant to leave your side? I thought part of my brief as your queen of convenience was to work.’

She couldn’t stop now. ‘Because that’s what this marriage is, isn’t it, Sadiq? It’s just a job, with a bit of sex thrown in. You can’t even be bothered to pretend it’s anything else and have one evening meal with me. We have nothing to discuss.’