Commanded by the sheikh

‘Do you think we made a little prince or princess already?’ he asked in a lazy murmur, and pressed a kiss to her navel.

Olivia’s insides jolted with surprise; she hadn’t even been thinking about babies since Aziz had first made love to her, which was a bit ridiculous, considering how she’d made it her main reason to marry him.

Not quite your main reason.

She might have presented it to him as her main reason, so she wouldn’t scare him off, but, cocooned in the intimacy of a sleepy afternoon’s love-making, Olivia knew she hadn’t agreed to marry Aziz just for the sake of a child, or for the promise of companionship or sex.

She’d married him because she’d been falling in love with him, had been falling in love with him since she’d first come to Kadar—or perhaps even before then.

Maybe she’d been fooling herself all along. Maybe Aziz had been waking her up slowly with his gentle teasing and easy smiles. It had taken coming to Kadar and moving right out of her comfort zone, out of herself, to bring her fully to life. To make her realise she loved him.

‘What are you thinking about?’ Aziz asked as he kissed his way up her belly. Olivia glanced down at his tousled ink-dark hair, saw his glinting eyes, his teasing smile. She knew he didn’t want to hear what she’d been really thinking about. He’d be horrified if he knew just how much she felt for him.

‘Nothing too serious,’ she said lightly and touched his hair.

‘You look awfully serious,’ Aziz answered. He pressed one last kiss to her stomach and then rolled onto his back, his hand linked loosely with hers.

Olivia gazed down at their joined hands and knew she couldn’t keep from pushing to know more about him, at least a little. ‘I was thinking about you, Aziz.’ She smiled, although it felt wobbly. ‘I was imagining you running through the halls of the palace, paper aeroplanes whizzing through the air.’

He gave her a small smile back, but Olivia saw his expression had turned wary.

‘Perhaps our son, or our daughter, for that matter, will do the same.’

Was he reminding her why she was here at all? Olivia wondered. For the sake of a child. Suddenly her admission that she was only marrying him so she could be a mother again seemed incredibly cold. She wanted to tell Aziz she didn’t feel that way any more, maybe had never even felt that way, but somehow the words wouldn’t come.

‘Maybe,’ she answered, even though it seemed no more than a distant dream. She could be pregnant, she reminded herself. They hadn’t used protection and her cycle was irregular. But she didn’t want to think about a baby just now. She wanted to think about Aziz.

‘You said you were close to your mother,’ she began, and Aziz rolled into a sitting position.

‘Why are you digging, Olivia?’ he asked as he reached for his shirt.

‘Digging? Is that what it feels like? I just want to know—’

‘Why? What difference does it make? It’s a little late for second thoughts.’

‘Second thoughts? I’m not having second thoughts.’

‘If you’re worried about what kind of father I’ll make,’ Aziz clarified with a shrug, as if this conversation was already boring him. Olivia watched him slip on his shorts. He raked a hand through his hair and reached for his watch.

‘Aziz,’ she said slowly, ‘This has nothing to do with what kind of father you’ll make. I want to know about you for your sake, and mine. Because you’re my husband and, regardless of what we agreed or signed, we’re married and we have a relationship that is meant to last a lifetime.’ She took a breath and ploughed on. ‘Are you going to push me away for ever?’

‘I wasn’t aware you wanted to get closer.’

Her heart seemed to still and then beat harder. ‘And if I did?’ she asked after a moment.

Aziz’s back was to her, so she couldn’t see his face—not that she’d be able to tell what he was thinking or feeling if she could see it. He was, Olivia knew, amazingly adept at hiding his feelings. Just as she’d once been.

* * *

Aziz remained with his back to Olivia. He didn’t know what to say to her, had no idea what she wanted from him. He’d been evading her questions all day, unwilling to open up, as she now seemed to want him to do. And for what? She’d made it clear what she wanted from him and this marriage.

A child. Nothing more.

‘I don’t really see the purpose of some kind of heart-to-heart,’ he finally said, his back still to her. ‘We agreed we didn’t really want to know each other that way.’

‘We also agreed that everything was up for discussion,’ Olivia reminded him. ‘Has that changed?’

‘No,’ Aziz answered after a moment. He turned around to see Olivia sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed, her hair, now almost back to its caramel colour, spilling over her shoulders. She had a sheet wrapped around her and her skin was creamy and flushed pink. She looked, Aziz thought, utterly beautiful and happier than he’d ever seen her before, despite the faint shadows in her eyes. Shadows he suspected he was putting there with his reticence.

He sat on the edge of the bed and stared down at the rumpled sheets.

‘My father,’ he said slowly, each word emerging from his tightened throat with effort, ‘Always resented me and the fact that he needed me as his heir.’

‘Because of Khalil?’ she asked softly.

His throat went tighter as he nodded. ‘He always loved him. Always preferred him.’

‘But he banished him.’

‘I know, and he hated that he’d had to do it. Khalil was his adored first son, the pet of the palace, of the whole damn country—’ He broke off, hearing how ragged his voice had sounded, feeling his heart start to thud, the old anger and bitterness rising up inside him in an unstoppable tide.

He hadn’t wanted to rake all this up, to remember it. Being back in Kadar was hard enough without trawling through all the awful memories of his childhood. Yet now that he’d started he found he couldn’t stop. He didn’t even want to stop.

He drew his hand away from Olivia’s and rose from the bed, his back to her. ‘You want to know about me, Olivia? Fine, here’s the unfiltered version: my father hated me. Hated me, from the moment I entered the palace, or maybe even before.’

He took a shuddering breath, let it out slowly. ‘Although, I suppose he didn’t care enough to hate me before he had to make me his heir. But when he did, he resented me for it. Resented the fact that he needed me, so he made my life a complete misery.’

He heard how his voice shook and self-loathing poured through him, as corrosive as acid. He hated remembering this. Talking about it was even worse and yet, even though he’d spent most of his life pretending his childhood hadn’t happened, hiding himself and all his fears and deficiencies from everyone, now he felt a compulsion to come clean.

It was like that impulse you had to throw yourself off a bridge or under a train, he thought darkly. The death instinct, Freud called it, and he was feeling it now.

Perversely, stupidly, he wanted to tell Olivia everything. He just didn’t think he could bear the look he’d see on her face when he did.

Right now, however, when he risked a glance towards her sitting there on the bed, she looked calm. ‘How old were you when you became the heir?’ she asked.

‘Four.’

‘Oh, Aziz.’ Her voice and face both softened with a sympathy he couldn’t stand. It felt like pity. ‘Tell me about it,’ she entreated, her voice so soft and sad it wound around him with its silken strands, made him trapped, furious and desperate.

‘You really want to know all the ugly, pathetic details? We were despised, my mother and I. Loathed and ridiculed from the moment we stepped through those hallowed doors—by my father, by the palace staff, by everyone. It just about killed my mother. She was a village girl, chosen to be the Sheikh’s mistress with no say in the matter. She’d never wanted to be queen.’

‘Aziz,’ Olivia whispered, but he barely heard her. Now that he’d started, he didn’t think he could stop, not until it was all out, every last, terrible detail.

‘At first it was just little things—forgetting to bow or give her the respect she deserved as queen. She ignored it, because it seemed easier. Safer. Then, encouraged by my father, people grew bold, taunting her and me. Tripping us as we walked by. Starting rumours in the palace, in the city bazaar. My father went along with it all.’ Aziz swallowed, the taste of acid on his tongue, churning in his stomach. ‘He made a mockery of us both. My mother stopped making any public appearances. She lived in her private rooms, terrified that she would be banished like Khalil. Just as I was terrified.’ He swallowed, his throat working, his breath coming in pants, before he calmed himself by sheer force of will.

When he spoke again, his voice was flat, dispassionate. ‘My father lived to show everyone how deficient I was in every respect. He’d drag me into his chambers, ridicule me in front of all his cabinet members.’ And still he’d tried to please him. He’d spent hours memorising anything his father might quiz him on: his times tables, facts about Kadaran history, every law of the Kadaran constitution. If he failed on one point, his father branded him a failure. Slapped his face and told him to get out.