The Desert Sheikh's Captive Wife

Tilda, who had only flown a couple of times in her entire life, relaxed her white-knuckled grip on the arms of her seat and opened her eyes. ‘What is wrong?’ she asked, shaking her pale blond head in bewilderment. ‘I’ve done nothing and I already feel like I’m on trial.’

Rashad surveyed her with lustrous dark eyes of suspicion. He could not recall when he had last come so close to losing his temper. Her luminous turquoise eyes rested on him in seemingly innocent enquiry. But the very fact that she had contrived to home in on his one oversight and take advantage of it convinced him that once again she was acting.

‘Why did you tip off the press about our travel plans?’

Tilda blinked, letting the ramifications of that far-reaching question sink in. Outrage flashed through her. ‘Now just you listen here,’ she gasped, struggling to undo her seat belt with furious hands.

Rashad crouched down on a level with her. ‘No, you listen,’ he urged soft and low and deadly in warning. ‘If you shout, you will be overheard and you will embarrass my staff. Impertinence and discourtesy are much disliked in Bakhar.’

Fit to be tied, Tilda trembled with rage and chagrin. ‘You’re the only person who makes me feel like this-’

Rashad undid the seat belt that had defeated her with a deft flick of one hand and subjected her to the full assault of his stunning dark golden eyes. ‘You are strong-willed. I’m the only person who stands up to you.’

Tilda scrambled up and took herself over to the other side of the cabin. Her oval face flushed, she spun round again before he could remind her that it was rude to turn her back on him. ‘You’re also the only person who continually makes me the target of unjust accusations. Surely that is some excuse for a loss of temper?’ she whispered back at him vehemently, her hands balled into fists of restraint by her side. ‘I’ve never had any contact with the press. I haven’t a clue about how to go about tipping them off, either.’

Rashad dealt her a sizzling appraisal. ‘I cannot accept that. Five years ago the paparazzi barely knew of my existence and my association with you was never revealed in print. But today, even though I have never yet appeared in public with you, the paparazzi were waiting for your arrival. They have already identified you and made reference to our past acquaintance. Who else could have whetted their appetite with such details?’

‘How would I know? It wasn’t me!’ Tilda protested.

‘Sooner or later, you will have to tell me the truth,’ Rashad delivered with hard resolve. ‘Lies are at all times unacceptable to me.’

Tilda ground her teeth together. ‘I’m not lying to you. Why would I tip off the press? Do you think I’m proud of the reason why I’m allowing myself to be flown out to your country?’

‘Enough,’ Rashad shot at her in a warning growl, marvelling at her ability to stand there looking so exquisitely beautiful while she went for him like a spitting, clawing tigress. But he meant every word that he had spoken. He would not settle for lies. She had strength and intelligence. He was convinced that if he was tough enough with her, those virtues would rise nearer the surface.

Tilda picked a seat as far away from him as she could. Silence fell, and it was a silence laden with angry tension. A sun of impotent rage was rising inside her. According to him, everything that went wrong was her fault and now she couldn’t even shout at him. Where was the justice in that? How dared he blame her for the level of press interest in his fast-lane life with models and actresses? From where did he get the brass neck to continually take the moral high ground? In comparison she lived a life of unblemished virtue. So, she wasn’t perfect? So what! Was he?

Temper still simmering, Tilda shot him a furious glance. ‘Do you really think that I have any wish to be publicly known as your trollop?’

Rashad had to dig deep into his reserves to maintain silence in the face of such unbridled provocation. His trollop? He set his perfect white teeth together and flexed long, shapely brown fingers. Once the jet landed, his staff reappeared to disembark and Rashad was approached by his current senior aide, Butrus. A professor of law and an excellent administrator, the older man made a rather strained enquiry as to what designation he should place on Tilda’s visa to enter Bakhar.

Rashad’s anger, all the more powerful for being denied utterance, was still intense. Wrathfully impatient of the bureaucracy of petty detail that the royal family had always been exempt from, Rashad responded in his own language and with an unashamed resolution that none would dare to question. ‘She is my woman. She does not require a visa.’

Butrus froze, then went straight into retreat and bowed very low. An electric silence enveloped them all, his entire staff falling still. An almost imperceptible hint of colour demarcating his high cheekbones, Rashad realised that for the first time in his life he had shown his stormy emotions in public. As quickly, he decided that his candour might have shocked but it had not been a mistake. He closed a fierce hand over Tilda’s pale, delicate fingers. He could not possibly keep her a secret from those closest to him and, although he had not planned to make such a dramatic announcement, at least, he reasoned, nobody was now in any doubt about her non-negotiable status in his life.

‘You’re hurting my hand,’ Tilda stretched up on tiptoe to snap.

Rashad immediately loosened his possessive hold, but he did not let her go. She was his now, he thought with satisfaction. She was in Bakhar with him. He smoothed her crushed digits between a caressing forefinger and thumb and retained her hand in his. Taken aback by that response to her waspish complaint, Tilda looked up at him. A slow-burning smile slashed his beautiful mouth. Engulfed in that unexpected warmth, she felt dizzy and breathless.

Across the cabin, Butrus watched that visual exchange of smiles in sincere wonderment before hastily averting his attention from the display. All of a sudden he finally understood why the Palace of the Lions was being prepared for occupation and he was appalled by his misinterpretation of his royal employer’s meaning. How could he have been so foolish as to credit that the Crown Prince might defy the conventions to the extent of importing a foreign mistress? Instead, Prince Rashad had taken a refreshingly traditional path to matrimony, which would bring great joy to his family and the entire country of Bakhar. A marriage by declaration. Was it not truly typical of their heroic and fiercely independent prince that he should choose a bride and bring her home without any of the usual fuss? As soon as his employer had left the plane, Butrus got on the phone to break the happy tidings to King Hazar’s closest advisor, Jasim, and ensure that scandalous rumours could gain no ground whatsoever in the royal household. He was little disappointed by the discovery that the happy tidings were not quite the surprise he had envisaged.

Tilda was quite unprepared for the roasting heat of Bakhar midafternoon and briefly forgot that she was demonstrating her supreme disdain for Rashad by not speaking to him. ‘Is it always this hot?’

Even this faintest hint of criticism of the Bakhari climate made Rashad square his broad shoulders. ‘It is a beautiful day. There are no gloomy grey skies here in early summer.’

An air-conditioned limo pulled up and whisked them past a very large new airport terminal. The vehicle carried them only a couple of hundred yards before setting them down again beside a large white-and-gold helicopter. Boarding, she sat down on a fitted cream sofa and tried not to gape at the space and comfort surrounding her.

The panoramic view soon stole her attention. The helicopter followed a craggy line of mountains and flew over green fertile valleys before reaching the desert interior. Her first glimpse of the great ochre-coloured sand dunes rolling towards the horizon enthralled her. Far below she saw a camel train trekking out into the great emptiness and, once or twice, encampments of black tents. Children chased the shadow of the helicopter and waved frantically, and still the desert stretched like a vast, endless golden ocean ahead of them.

‘How much farther?’ she was finally moved to ask.

‘Another ten minutes or so.’ Rashad had instructed the pilot to give them a scenic grand tour and the flight had been much longer than necessary. Although he usually found a fresh sight of the country he loved an energising experience, he had barely removed his keen dark gaze from Tilda’s delicate, feminine profile. His hunger to possess her was stabbing at him like a knife.

He had watched while she knelt laughing on the seat and waved back at the Bedouin children with youthful enthusiasm. Joie de vivre, the French called it, and that sparkling quality of joy had once had enormous appeal for a male who had grown from a solemn little boy into a very serious young man. The emotion Tilda showed so freely had been a powerful source of attraction. Exasperation made him suppress those memories. The present, he told himself bleakly, was more relevant. Yes, she was very desirable. But had he not bought her into his bed? Where was the appeal in that? Or in her lies?

Picking up on the dry note in his rich dark drawl, Tilda went pink. She smoothed down her dress and sat down in a more circumspect fashion. ‘Will I be able to shout at you when we arrive wherever we’re going?’

‘No. I tell you what I want and you strive to deliver,’ Rashad reminded her with immense cool.