The Sheikh's Disobedient Bride

Her editors e-mailed her back promptly. They wanted to see the pictures. They were eager to see where she’d gone, what she’d been doing these past four months in Northern Africa and the Middle East.

Tally buried herself in work, finding solace in long hours and a devotion to her art. It was at night, and on the weekends, that the lost sensation returned, that feeling she’d been drawn and quartered. Disemboweled.

It was at night and on weekends she didn’t know what to do with herself, at night and weekends when she found it strange being home. After nearly a year on the road she realized she’d become a true nomad. She knew she’d had an apartment but forgot what it looked like, felt like, and for those first two months back in Seattle she felt like a stranger in her own place.

It wasn’t even Seattle that felt so strange. It was—and Tally couldn’t believe this—being alone.

Alone. She, the girl who’d decided she preferred being alone, didn’t like being alone anymore.

Tair had done this to her. Tair. But that didn’t mean she had to cry over him anymore. She was done crying, done grieving. She’d wasted too much time as it was on a man who didn’t love her. Wouldn’t love her.

Tally was just about to head out to photograph Alki Beach when a courier arrived with a package from Baraka. She sat on the bottom step of her staircase to open the brown padded envelope. And then the velvet box inside.

Emerald fire glinted at her. It was an emerald and diamond necklace, the kind of necklace only royalty and celebrities could wear. There was a small card nestled in the white satin lining. Tair.

Tair. Terrible, horrible hateful Tair.

Hands shaking, Tally snapped the lid down. Thanks, Tair, but no thanks. She wasn’t going to be keeping this.

There was just one problem. No one would take the necklace back. With its twelve plus carats of diamonds and emeralds and the delicate platinum setting, no insurance company wanted to touch a necklace that was valued at over a quarter million dollars. Especially as the Sheikh’s address was the middle of the Sahara desert.

And suddenly Tally was angry all over again. Instead of blocking out the memories, they all came rushing back, one after the other and they didn’t fade. She remembered it all, remembered everything. The kidnapping from town. The asthma attack. The sandstorm. The quicksand. The knife. The poison.

Then Bur Juman and the first night they made love.

Tally swallowed hard around the lump filling her throat. She wasn’t going to cry. She wouldn’t cry.

But oh those battles.

She’d thought in the beginning that she’d hate him forever, thought she’d never like him, much less understand him, but that had changed. How that had changed…

Tally sank into the cushions of her couch, the old suede sofa more comfortable than attractive and the cushions gave way, swallowing her up even as she brushed away a stray tear.

To hell with him. She didn’t need him. She didn’t need another person in her life that didn’t want her, or appreciate her. She’d spent way too many years throwing herself away, not valuing herself. She wouldn’t do it again. Not anymore. Which is why she wouldn’t cry for herself, or feel sorry for herself, or have one single regret much less one sad thought. He wasn’t worth it.

He wasn’t.

Not even if he was her husband and the horrible man she’d fallen in love with.

Tally grabbed a pillow and punched it and punched again.

If only he wasn’t so impossible.

And so good-looking.

And smart.

And amazing in bed.

Howling her frustration, Tally threw the pillow up, up at the industrial ceiling shot with massive metal trusses and beams. “I hate you, Tair,” she roared at the ceiling as the pillow came down at her. She caught it neatly and tossed it again. “I will hate you forever!”

Damn him.

They shouldn’t have ever had fun together. Much less really good sex. One could forget a man that was bad company, a man that was rude, crude, boorish. But sexy? Mysterious? Powerful? Interesting? Tender?

Stop thinking about him, she told herself. Stop thinking about the desert, and the starlit nights. Stop thinking about his smelly goatskin tents and the acrid smell of smoke and the fire burning late into the night. Put all thoughts of soft silk pillows and handwoven rugs and the perfume of roses and orange blossoms out of mind. Pretend you never slept curved against Tair’s side, his arm around you, your cheek against his chest. Pretend you never listened to his heartbeat. Pretend you don’t know every scar on his face and torso. Pretend you didn’t lie awake some nights and worry about him, worry about his foolish courage, his lack of fear, his inability to protect himself as long as someone else is in danger…