The Sheikh's Disobedient Bride

“Can I swim?” she asked, laying an impulsive hand on Tair’s arm. “I don’t have a suit but it’s dark out and you won’t see—” She broke off, remembered herself. Remembered him. “Unless you have a suit for me?”

“Not readily, no.”

“So your lady friends don’t keep suits here?” she asked, knowing she was being arch and unable to help it. She was curious after all.

“No.” He closed the French doors, so that they were alone in his walled garden with the pool reflecting the very nearly full moon.

“They swim naked?” she persisted.

Tair moved toward her, took the outer robe in his hand and drew it off, over her head and dropped the dark fabric in a puddle at her feet. His gaze lowered, lingered, taking in the fullness of her curves beneath the thin silk of her aqua gown.

“They swim naked.”

Naked.

Tally sucked in air, heat flooding her limbs yet again.

The man had a way with words.

Trying to hide her flurry of nerves, Tally moved away from him, walking to the edge of the pool. She crouched at the side, reached in, touched the water. Not hot like a spa, nor cold. Just perfect.

Staring toward the bottom she tried to make out the depth of the pool and she couldn’t see the bottom, not easily. It wasn’t a shallow pool. And it wasn’t small. It was a pool one could swim in, exercise in.

Tally stood, dipped a toe into the water, the hem of her gown trailing in the water, too.

“You’re getting your robe wet,” he said, watching her from the shadows.

She smiled. “I don’t have a suit.”

“And so what are you going to do?”

Her smile stretched and she felt suddenly, surprisingly carefree. My God. She was here, she was okay, she was—and just like that, she dove into the pool, a shallow dive, not deep, just in case the pool was more shallow than she thought, but the water was perfect, so cool, so refreshing and Tally surfaced and turned over on her back and smiled up at the sky. She hadn’t felt so free ever before.

“Look at all the stars.” It was such a beautiful night. Stars and stars—galaxies of them.

Tair joined her at the pool, sat down on one of the low chairs at the pool’s edge. “Better?”

“Yes.” She turned over onto her stomach and kicked her feet to stay afloat. “This is bliss.”

“Bliss?” His black eyebrows arched. “You’re easily pleased.”

“No. But this is amazing, you have to admit.” She turned in a circle, gazed around the courtyard formed by mountain and castle, and the sole palm tree that arched above the pool in its small allotment of dirt. “You have a pool in the middle of a mountain.”

“A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.”

Tally laughed. Not a fake laugh, not one of her tense laughs, but a big belly laugh and the sound poured out, filling the moonlit, star filled night.

“I’ve never seen you so happy,” Tair said after a moment, watching Tally slowly swim one length of the pool and then another.

“I feel free,” she answered, turning easily onto her back to float, head back, eyes riveted on the indigo sky above, the heavens blue-black in places and fluorescent in others. So much sky. So many stars. So much life still ahead of her.

Her hands fluttered at her sides, small strokes to keep her floating.

As a kid in North Bend she used to sit in her backyard and stare up at the sky and make wishes and dream, and vow to get the life she’d never had, the life she’d always wanted, all the adventure, all the drama, all the great moments denied because she wasn’t pretty and wasn’t clever and her family was poor.

“When I was little I wanted to be a princess,” she said, water lapping at her ears, making her voice sound hollow and far away. “I used to count the stars and make promises to myself. Someday I’d be beautiful. And someday I’d be famous. And someday I’d be rich.” She sat up, her arms and legs circling, keeping her upright in the water. “I really thought if I could just be a princess—marry Prince Albert of Monaco or even one of Princess Diana’s sons—I’d be happy.”

Tair’s dark gaze followed her in the night. “And you still think becoming a princess would help?”

She laughed softly. “No. I don’t want to be a princess, but I still want a lot. I still want virtually everything.”

Tair sat in a chair at the side of the pool and watched Tally float, her skin pale, pearl-like in the light of the moon.