Commanded by the sheikh

‘I think he felt he owed me that much, at least.’

‘Owed you?’

She shook her head and he could tell she regretted saying even that much. ‘It doesn’t matter. Ancient history.’

But he saw how her hands tightened in her lap, her features became pinched, her eyes darkened with remembered pain, and he knew it wasn’t that ancient. And it did matter.

She looked down at her plate, her expression clearing, Aziz suspected, by sheer force of will. ‘Anyway, we should be talking of the future, not the past,’ she said briskly. ‘Assuming you find Queen Elena in time, do you think you will come to love her?’

Aziz stiffened in surprise. No, never. Because he wasn’t interested in loving or being loved, didn’t want to open himself up to those messy emotions, needless complications. Look where it had got him; you loved someone and they let you down. They didn’t love you back or, worse, they hated you.

But he wasn’t, thank God, a needy, foolish boy any more. He was a man who knew what he wanted, understood what he had to do, and love didn’t come into it at all.

‘Queen Elena and I have discussed the nature of our marriage,’ he informed her. ‘We are both satisfied with the arrangement.’

‘That isn’t really an answer,’ Olivia replied, and Aziz smiled and spread his hands.

‘We barely know each other, Olivia. I’ve met Elena twice. I have no idea if I could love her or not.’ ‘Not’ being the operative word. ‘In any case, I’d rather talk about you. I’m sure you’re far more interesting than I am.’

She shook her head rather firmly. ‘I most certainly am not.’

‘You’re the daughter of a diplomat. You must have grown up in all sorts of places.’ She conceded the point with a nod and Aziz pressed, ‘Where would you call home?’

‘Paris.’

With a jolt he realised she meant his house. No wonder the job meant so much to her. It was probably the longest she’d lived anywhere.

‘Not just because of now,’ she explained. ‘I spent some time in Paris as a child—primary school years. I’ve always liked it there.’

‘And where did you spend your teenaged years?’

The slightest hesitation. ‘South America.’

‘That must have been interesting.’

A tiny shrug, the flattening of her tone. ‘It was a very small ex-pat community.’

Which was a strange response. She had secrets, Aziz thought. He thought of that rich laugh, the anguished piano music. She hid all her emotion, all her joy and pain—why?

Why did he hide his?

Because it hurt. It hurt to show your real self, to feel those deep emotions. They were both skimming the surface of life, he realised. They just did it in totally different ways.

‘And if I recall your CV, you only spent one year in university?’

‘One term,’ she corrected, her voice giving nothing away. Her face had gone completely blank, like a slate wiped clean. ‘I decided it wasn’t for me.’

Her knuckles were white as she held her fork, her body utterly rigid. And even though he was tempted to press, to know, Aziz decided to give her a break. For now. ‘I’m not sure if it was for me either,’ he told her with a shrug. ‘I barely scraped a two-two. Too busy partying, I suppose.’

He saw her relax, her fingers loosening on her fork. ‘A playboy even then?’

He shrugged. ‘It must be in my genes.’ And there could be some truth to that, considering how many women his father had had. But Aziz knew that, genetics aside, his decision to pursue the playboy life had been deliberate, even if it was empty. Especially because it was empty.

‘You’re clever, though,’ Olivia said after a moment. ‘You started your own consulting business.’

‘I’m fortunate that I have a way with numbers,’ he said dismissively with a shrug. In truth, he was rather fiercely proud of his own business. He hadn’t taken a penny from his father for it, although people assumed he had. In reality he hadn’t accepted any money from his father since he’d left university. Not that he went around telling people that, or about the percentage of his earnings that he donated back to Kadar to support charities and foundations that helped women and children, the vulnerable and the oppressed. He wasn’t going to brag about his accomplishments, or try to make people like him more.

Except, maybe he needed to, if he wanted to keep his throne.

‘What about you, Olivia? Did you ever want to be anything other than a housekeeper?’

Her eyes flashed ire. ‘There’s nothing wrong with being a housekeeper.’

‘Indeed not. But you’re young, intelligent, with the opportunity of education and advancement. The question, I believe, is fair.’ He waited, watching the play of emotions across her face: surprise. Uncertainty. Regret.

‘I intended to study music,’ she finally said, each word imparted with obvious reluctance. ‘But, as you know, I dropped out.’

He thought again of her playing the piano, the passion and hopelessness he’d seen on her face. ‘You never wanted to take it up again?’

She shook her head, decisive now. ‘There was no point.’

‘Why not?’

She pressed her lips together, her gaze turning distant. ‘The music had gone,’ she finally said. ‘The desire, along with the talent. I knew I couldn’t recapture it even if I tried, which I didn’t want to do.’ She sounded matter-of-fact but he felt her sadness like a palpable thing, like a cloak she was wearing that he’d just never seen before, never seen how it suffocated her.

For beneath that cool, remote exterior, Aziz knew there hid a beating heart bound by pain. A woman who had suffered...but what? And why?

He wanted to know but he kept himself from asking. She’d shared enough, and so had he. They both had secrets, and neither he nor Olivia wanted them brought to light. Yet he could not keep himself from wondering. He’d touched something dark and hidden in Olivia, something he shouldn’t let himself feel curious about, yet he was.

He wanted to know more about this woman.

* * *

Olivia shifted in her seat, avoiding Aziz’s penetrating stare, and focused on her salad. He was asking too many questions, questions that felt like scabs being picked off old wounds.

She’d put her memories in a box in her mind, sealed it shut and labelled it ‘Do Not Open. Ever’. Yet with his light questions, his curious tone, Aziz was prying off the lid.

She didn’t think about her dreaded term at university when she’d been like a sleepwalker, only half-alive, if that. She didn’t think about her music, although she’d surrendered to the desire and even the need to play a couple of times in the last few years. Playing the piano was like a blood-letting, all the emotions and agonies streaming out along with the notes.

She’d needed the release because the rest of the time she kept herself remote, distant, from everyone and everything, even her own feelings, her own heart.

Life was simpler, and certainly safer, that way. She’d fallen apart once, overwhelmed by emotion, by grief, guilt and pain, and she had no intention of letting it happen again. If she gave those dark feelings so much as a toe-in they’d take over everything. They’d swamp her soul. And she might never come up for air again.

So she stayed numb, safe. She kept a tight rein on her emotions, let herself be content with a half-life.

Yet in the few hours since she’d been with Aziz too many of those emotions had been stirred up. Grief. Joy. Guilt. Hope. Aziz stirred up everything inside her. He asked questions, he made her smile, he touched her with his teasing in a way she hadn’t expected and couldn’t let herself want.

She’d thought she was dead inside but when Aziz had kissed her she’d felt gloriously, painfully alive.

Out there on the balcony she’d almost responded to his barely there kiss and turned it into something else entirely. She’d felt as if she’d been teetering on a wonderful precipice and part of her had wanted to swan-dive into that chasm of feeling and see if she really could fly.

She would have dropped like a stone. That life, a life of wanting, feeling, loving, was over.

‘What will you do if you don’t find Queen Elena in time?’ Olivia asked. No more talking about herself.

‘Failure is not an option.’

‘And I assume Khalil feels the same way.’ She didn’t want to involve herself in complicated Kadaran politics, yet part of her was curious, intrigued by the sudden spike of bitterness she’d heard in Aziz’s voice, the surprising darkness she’d seen in his eyes when he’d spoken of Kadar or his father—or this illegitimate son who was now trying for the throne. ‘Did you ever meet him?’ she asked. ‘Khalil?’

Aziz smiled, but it belied the sudden coldness in his eyes. ‘Yes. Once.’

‘When?’

‘When I was a child. He was living at the palace, and I was the pretender then.’

‘You were? How?’

‘I was the son of my father’s mistress, an acknowledged bastard. My father legitimised me when he banished Khalil. It was not a terribly popular move, I’m afraid.’ He spoke as if it didn’t really matter, but Olivia knew it did. It had to.