Lost to the Desert Warrior

The truth lodged somewhere behind his ribs, Raz turned away and paced to the far side of the tent.

It occurred to him that their relationship was already turning into a minefield of things they didn’t talk about, issues they didn’t address. The complications were endless.

‘How did you stop it happening?’

‘I couldn’t stop it. I could only deal with it. And I tried to make her feel more secure so that she didn’t go to bed scared.’

‘She was scared?’

They were exploring two parallel lines of conversation and he was aware that she was avoiding his questions as skilfully as he was avoiding hers.

‘They say overstimulation of the central nervous system can cause it. The temptation is always to shake them awake, but it’s better if they can just go back to sleep.’

‘So there was nothing you could do?’

‘I tried very hard not to let anything frighten her.’

There are some aspects of our past neither one of us wishes to revisit.

He caught the bleak look in her eyes and realised just as there were layers to him she hadn’t even glimpsed, so there were layers to her. And they were dark layers.

How could it be otherwise, growing up with a man like her father?

Only now did it occur to him how little he knew about his new bride.

An uncomfortable feeling spread down his neck and across his shoulders. ‘Did she have reason to be frightened?’

‘I started sleeping in the room with her. Sometimes that helped.’

‘Layla, why was your sister frightened?’

It was only the second time he’d used her name and he saw her still.

Then she turned her back on him and picked up a robe, slipping it on and covering herself, shielding herself from him in every way. ‘If you want to deal with the night terrors, the best thing is to talk to her family and find out what is likely to be causing them.’ She fastened the robe around her waist. Her hair poured down her back, thick, shiny and as dark as a starless night. ‘That shouldn’t be a problem as you seem to know her well.’

Was that the second or third time she’d ignored his question about her life in the palace? Every time he raised it she deflected it. And suddenly he knew this relationship was going to be impossible if they shared nothing.

One of them had to make the first move.

‘I do know her well. I know her better than anyone.’ He had to push the words past his own natural reluctance to confide. ‘She’s my daughter.’

CHAPTER SIX

‘YOUR DAUGHTER?’ UNPREPARED for that revelation, Layla simply stared at him. ‘You have a daughter?’

‘She is six years old.’

He had a daughter.

She sank down onto the bed, her legs shaking, racking her brain for the information she had on him and discovering it to be depressingly sparse. ‘I—I didn’t know. I had no idea.’

She muttered the words to herself, examining this further piece of evidence to support her suspicion that it was possible to be intimate with someone and yet still know nothing about them.

It didn’t make any difference that she’d shared something with him she’d never shared with anyone else. He was still a stranger.

‘There are few who know, and those who do know better than to speak of it.’

His voice was flat and she looked at him blankly, shocked into silence and shaken by the enormity of it.

‘Why don’t people speak of it? Why would you hide the fact that you have a child?’

‘I lost my father. I lost my wife—’ He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to.

Layla knew her face matched the colour of his.

‘No.’ She shook her head in instinctive denial of that hypothesis. ‘That wouldn’t have happened.’

‘How can you be sure?’ His tone was raw. ‘You insist on having evidence for everything—show me the evidence that my daughter would have been safe. Did your father live by a code of honour? Did he have boundaries beyond which he wouldn’t go? If so, then please enlighten me, because I have seen nothing like that in my dealings with him.’

The shame of it covered her like a filthy, dark sludge. She wanted to dive into the oasis and scrub her skin clean. ‘I can’t show you evidence. I understand why you kept your daughter’s existence a secret. But when I suggested marriage I would have thought—’

‘What would you have thought? That I would have confided in you? You arrived in the desert out of nowhere. I married you because I saw the sense in what you proposed but let’s not pretend that this marriage is a union   of trust.’