Commanded by the sheikh

‘If you think,’ Olivia said in a shaky whisper, ‘That knowing all that about me will convince me to marry you, you’re dead wrong, Aziz.’

‘Because you don’t want to be known.’ He nodded, as if he’d expected as much, his gaze blazing and so very certain. ‘So you can’t use that as an argument, can you, Olivia? That I don’t know you. Because you don’t even want me to.’

Except she didn’t know what she wanted any more. She looked away from him, unable to bear the certainty she saw in his eyes. ‘So why,’ she demanded, ‘Would I want to marry you?’

‘I told you. Companionship. Attraction.’ He paused. ‘Sex.’ That one word seemed to sizzle in the air like hot grease on a griddle. ‘Closeness,’ Aziz continued, ‘But not too close.’ He leaned forward and reluctantly Olivia looked back at him. ‘That’s what we both want, isn’t it? Enough, but not too much?’

‘I’m not even sure what that means.’

‘Then let me enlighten you. It means I’ll let you keep your secrets, and I’ll keep mine. It means I’ll make love to you every night, but I won’t ask you questions or press you for answers. I won’t fall in love with you and I won’t break your heart.’

Olivia pressed one hand against her thundering heart. The words, she knew, were meant to comfort her, but they just sounded cold. Maybe it was more than the half-life she’d had, but would it be enough? Did she even dare to want—and try for—more? ‘And you assume I want that kind of—arrangement,’ she stated numbly.

Aziz arched an eyebrow. ‘By your own admission, you’re not looking for love. And neither am I.’

Disappointment was like a stone in her stomach. ‘Why aren’t you?’

He shrugged. ‘Same reason as you, I suppose, except I never got as far as actually loving someone.’

‘If you haven’t had your heart broken, why are you so afraid of getting hurt?’

‘A child’s heart, perhaps,’ he answered after a moment. ‘Not the same thing.’

‘You mean your father.’

‘My experience with him made me reluctant to love or trust anyone else.’

‘Was he—was he cruel to you?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he dismissed. ‘We’re talking about the future, Olivia. What we can gain from each other.’

She folded her arms. ‘And what if...?’ What if I told you I wanted more? No, she couldn’t ask that. Couldn’t reveal that much. ‘What if I told you I like my life the way it is?’

‘You could tell me, but I’m not sure I’d believe it.’

She opened her mouth to tell him off for his arrogance, but nothing came out. She was suddenly and utterly tired of the posturing. The pretence. The lies.

‘Fine. Maybe I’m missing something, but I’m not sure what you’re offering will fill that emptiness.’

‘You could try.’

‘And if it doesn’t work?’

‘Then you can go back to Paris and live the life you had before. You’ll be married to me, I admit, but I won’t trouble you.’

Which just made her feel sadder than ever. Sudden tears stung her eyes and she turned away, hiding her face from him, trying to hide all of herself, but she knew it was too late. He’d seen too much.

‘You’ve been hurt before, Olivia,’ Aziz said quietly. ‘I understand that and I respect it. I promise you, I won’t hurt you.’

‘You can’t make promises like that.’

‘To the very best of my ability.’

‘It’s not enough.’ She dragged a breath into her lungs. ‘You’ve got the wrong end of the stick anyway,’ she forced out. ‘I haven’t had my heart broken in the way you think, by some man.’

Aziz stilled, his expression turning watchful, alert. ‘Who was it, then?’

Olivia blinked back more tears, her gaze unfocused, her mind spinning. She remembered the last time she’d talked about Daniel, when her father had told her to forget him. For ever. Yet now, incredibly, she wanted to talk about him. She wanted to tell Aziz, to have him understand...

Madness.

‘Olivia,’ he said, and just the way he said her name made her feel he understood, or at least that he could understand if she let him. And she wanted to let him; she craved another person’s compassion.

‘His name was Daniel,’ she said clearly. She lifted her head to meet Aziz’s concerned gaze. ‘And he was my son.’

CHAPTER NINE

IT WASN’T WHAT he’d been expecting. A son. A child. Aziz stared at Olivia, at the grief he saw so clearly in her eyes, on her face, and thought, of course. Of course she hadn’t had some standard, run-of-the-mill love affair. Of course her pain was deeper than that.

He leaned forward and put his hand over hers; her skin was icy cold. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly, and she let out a sound that was close to a sob. Everything in Aziz ached. ‘Tell me?’ he said, a question, and she stared down at their hands, his skin brown and hers so pale. He thought she wouldn’t say anything but after a moment she began to speak.

‘I was seventeen.’ She took a deep breath and looked up at him, her eyes glassy with tears, her face pale. ‘I’ve never told anyone this,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Not one person.’

‘You can tell me, Olivia,’ he told her quietly. ‘If you want to. If you think it might help.’

‘I don’t know.’ She withdrew her hand from his and wrapped her arms around herself, as if she was cold. Aziz felt the sudden, fierce need to put his arms around her, to warm her and comfort her in a way that had nothing to do with desire but rather with compassion—or even some deeper emotion. ‘I don’t even like to think of Daniel,’ she whispered. ‘It hurts too much.’

‘What happened to him?’

He thought she wouldn’t answer. Her gaze had become distant and unfocused, her slender arms still wrapped around her body as if she were holding herself in; keeping herself together. ‘I gave him away,’ she whispered, and her voice broke on the last word. She bowed her head, her shoulders shaking, and Aziz didn’t even think then. He just acted.

He pulled her into his arms, felt her slender body shaking with sobs. She didn’t pull away; if anything, she pressed closer against him, needing him in a way that flooded Aziz with a longing to comfort and protect her.

When had someone needed him, wanted him, for anything other than a casual sexual encounter? He’d chosen things that way, had told himself he preferred it, but as he held Olivia close he began to grasp just how much he’d been missing.

And still would miss. The kind of marriage he’d suggested to Olivia wasn’t meant to be about this kind of intimacy: sharing secrets, offering each other comfort. Already they were both breaking the rules and Aziz knew that couldn’t lead to anywhere good.

‘It was an accident, of course,’ Olivia said after a moment, her voice muffled against his chest. He could feel the dampness of her tears through his shirt. ‘I didn’t even have a boyfriend at the time. I went to a party and had too much to drink. I didn’t normally drink at all, besides wine sometimes at a family dinner. But I was feeling grown up—I’d just been offered a place at university—and there was a boy there I’d always had a secret crush on. Maybe not so secret, though.’ She let out a laugh that held no humour and shook her head.

Aziz felt all his protective instincts rear up. ‘You’re saying this boy took advantage of you while you were drunk? That’s rape, Olivia.’

‘No, I wasn’t that drunk,’ she told him. ‘Honestly. I’d just had enough to feel prettier and funnier and more confident than I actually was. And when one thing led to another...’ She sighed, the sound heavy, even defeated. ‘I regretted it, of course, in the morning. Terribly. I never even thought about falling pregnant, though. Stupidly.’

‘And when you found out?’ Aziz asked in a low voice.

‘I didn’t find out. My mother did. She suspected before I did, at least. I was sick in the mornings, and I thought I just had stomach flu. She confronted me and my first thought was that I just couldn’t be. But, of course, I was.’

‘And what happened then?’

‘My mother was furious. We lived in South America then, and the country was conservative, the ex-pat community very small. She insisted I get a termination. She told me it was for the best, as I already had a university place, my whole life in front of me. And I convinced myself she was right.’

‘But you didn’t get a termination,’ Aziz stated quietly. ‘Did you? Because you said you gave him away.’

Olivia let out a shuddering breath and nodded, her hair brushing against his chest. ‘No, I didn’t, but I almost did. My mother had arranged it all. We had to go to New York, because terminations were illegal where we living. She made up this big story about a mother-daughter shopping trip. She didn’t want my father to know.’

‘Why not?’

‘She said it would kill him.’ Her voice choked. ‘Not literally, of course. But I was always a daddy’s girl. Spoiled, probably, but I—I loved my father so much. I couldn’t bear the thought of disappointing him, so I agreed not to tell him.’ She was quiet for a moment, so he could hear the soft draw and tear of her breaths. ‘He used to have me play piano whenever he was tired. He said my music always soothed him. My mother said he wouldn’t be able to bear hearing about what I’d done. And she wouldn’t let me tell Jeremy—the father—either. Not that he would have even cared, but...he should have known. I should have been strong enough to tell him.’