The Sultan's Harem Bride

Asim smiled humourlessly. ‘We had plenty, but they never lasted. Either my mother sacked them because she believed they were seducing our father, or he sacked them because he believed they were spying for her.’

Asim rolled his shoulders.

‘The details don’t matter. I just wanted you to understand that Samira has always been vulnerable. She was caught in the middle of our parents’ wrangling and she was distressed by it.

‘They were never happy for long and when they were apart they spent their energy trying to best the other. Eventually my mother decided to use Samira to help her cause.’ Asim breathed deep, ploughing his hand through his hair. He hated thinking of his parents.

‘I found her being quizzed by a “friend” of our mother. The woman was a journalist and she put words into Samira’s mouth, twisting innocent statements into appalling accusations about our father. Samira was thirteen and distraught, trying to set the record straight and horrified at the way everything she said was distorted.’

‘That’s awful! No wonder you don’t like reporters.’

Asim permitted himself a tiny smile. ‘Some more than others. I’ve learnt they’re not all tarred with the same brush.’

Jacqueline’s eyes met his and heat punched low in his belly. ‘What happened?’

‘Our father stopped the story, but years later rumours circulated. It was too late to worry about them. Our parents died suddenly in an accident and I had more urgent things to worry about than sourcing lies in gossip columns.’ Accession to the sultanate at twenty-five, in a country damaged by his father’s ineffectual rule, had been no picnic.

‘The point is Samira blamed herself.’

‘She was just a child! No decent journalist—’

Asim lifted his hand. ‘I know. But ever since then she’s had a horror of dealing with the press.’

‘That was why she was adamant about me being interviewed tonight instead of her.’ Jacqueline nodded slowly. ‘She said she usually managed with a smile and a “no comment”.’

‘That worked until Jackson Brent.’ Asim watched his hands clench into fists. This time he felt no remorse at the tide of loathing that filled him. If he didn’t know it would make things worse for his little sister, he’d enjoy taking the actor apart with his bare hands.

‘A smile and no comment is probably the best thing she could have done,’ Jacqueline said. ‘It lifted her above the rest of the players in that little drama. It showed she has class and integrity. She won a lot of sympathy.’

‘She shouldn’t have to win public sympathy!’ The words slid out between gritted teeth.

‘I know, Asim. I understand.’

He met Jacqueline’s eyes over the fire and there it was again, that arc of energy, that link between them, as real as if she’d touched him. He read her regret and somehow it calmed him.

‘What you don’t know is the full story. I spoke to Samira before I came here and she agreed to me telling you.’ He’d hated even asking.

‘I know enough.’ Jacqueline frowned. ‘Her boyfriend, her lover...’ she paused on the word and Asim wondered what she was thinking ‘...had an affair with his married co-star. Her husband caught them and is dragging his wife through an acrimonious divorce. Now the press are dragging up every detail of both their marriage and the relationship between Samira and Jackson Brent.’ She spread her hands. ‘Since Samira is gorgeous and talented, plus she’s a princess with wealth and an exotic background, it’s not surprising the press want her story.’

Asim inhaled slowly, a familiar weight crushing his chest. ‘But what they don’t know, what they must never know, is that Samira was pregnant at the time.’

‘Oh, Asim!’ Jacqueline’s eyes bulged, her face a mask of horror. ‘She didn’t...?’

He nodded, his gut clenching as he remembered his sister, parchment-white and dazed, her face marred by the salt tracks of tears, lying beneath a starched sheet, a nurse hovering. ‘She miscarried just after she arrived here. Whether from the stress or whether it was going to happen anyway, no one could say.’

Asim had never felt so helpless, so utterly useless, in his whole life.

‘I’d always done my best to look out for her. It went against every instinct to do nothing when she hooked up with Brent. But I told myself she had to grow up some time. She had to make her way in the world.’ He dropped his head, torn between shame that he hadn’t done better by Samira and frustration that she’d made him promise not to exact revenge on Brent.