His Desert Bride By Demand

His black gaze intense beneath arched brows, he said, ‘That boy does not deserve love.’ And he didn’t. He hadn’t deserved it back when they were teenagers. And he did not deserve it now.

‘Why not?’

She shivered, and his every instinct told him to pull her against him, pull her into his arms and crush her to him. Warm her up. He didn’t.

‘Everybody deserves love,’ she said.

‘No, not him. Not Akeem Ali. And not the King. They will never be allies. They are too different. Too—’

‘Similar?’ she interrupted. ‘Because underneath all the noise they both want the same thing.’

‘What do they want?’

‘What we all want. To belong. To be a family.’

He reached down and collected her veil, held it out to her. ‘You will freeze,’ he told her, when she hesitated to accept it.

‘I’d rather freeze than never hear your truth.’

‘There is no truth, qalbi. There are only facts.’

‘Then tell me the facts.’

‘Love is never enough on its own—as my mother found out to her cost. Because love did not put food on the table. Love did not buy shoes for growing feet. Love did not pay for the car’s MOT. Her love did not save her. My love couldn’t save her.’

‘She died in a car crash, Akeem. It was an accident. It had nothing to do with love.’

‘I killed my mother,’ he said, his voice level. ‘The boy you are so determined to breathe life into killed her.’

‘You were five—’

‘I am the reason she is dead. That’s how he made me remember. My father...’ he breathed. ‘Every time I questioned his choices he reminded me of mine. The basic nature of my conception. He said no family wanted me. Not even my own. Because I was primitive. I ate when I was hungry, cried when I was sad, shouted when I was angry. I had no control over my impulses because I was a boy with basic instincts—’

‘Your father called you an animal?’

‘Exactly. No better than a feral household pet that should have been euthanised at conception. Because my breed was primitive. And he was right.’

‘He was wrong, Akeem. So very wrong.’

‘Was he?’ he asked. ‘My mother worked until her knuckles bled—until she was so tired from feeding a boy who ate and ate. She died behind the wheel because she shouldn’t have been driving.’

‘He hurt you, didn’t he? Your dad? I can feel it...’ She placed her hand on her chest. ‘In here.’

‘My father wanted his heir on the throne, but he did not want his son. He did not want angry Akeem. He beat his flesh to drive out everything he was.’

Appalled, she gasped. ‘He hurt you physically?’

‘No, not him. Not the King. But his men...’

Shame threatened to silence him, but he’d already said too much. And he was not ashamed that men twice the size of him with his eighteen-year-old body had hurt him. There had been too many to fend off.

It didn’t matter. He was bigger now. Stronger. They wouldn’t hurt him again.

He looked at her, at her too-big kind eyes. Pitying him. She couldn’t hurt him again, either.

No, you’re hurting yourself.

It wouldn’t hurt. He wouldn’t let it.

‘I showed my father exactly who I was when I arrived. Angry. I demanded to know why he’d let my mother die... In answer, he had my clothes stripped from my body the minute I raised my voice. Bigger men, stronger men, held me and beat the angry teenager from me in front of him.’

And he’d controlled his anger every day since...controlled his impulses. Until her. Until he’d forgotten himself.

Her hand flew to her mouth, her eyes brimming with unwanted tears. But he would not touch her. He swallowed down his instinct to soothe her.

‘I’m grateful my father had me beaten,’ he continued, ‘because he turned me into this. A prince. He taught me control. To bury my impulses. To smother my feelings and—’

Are you a Daddy’s boy now?

He was no one’s boy.

Mummy’s boy...

They’d called him that with every thump against his body the day he’d dared to question the King—dared to show him the angry teenager he was.

Mummy’s boy.

‘Your father taught you lies. Because all he taught you was to hate yourself,’ she said, her voice heavy. Broken. ‘Why didn’t you leave?’

‘Why didn’t you?’

‘Duty,’ she answered. ‘Duty to my dad.’ She shook her head. ‘Akeem...’ she sobbed. ‘Your dad was a villain too. But you didn’t hurt your mum by living. You didn’t kill her—that’s ridiculous.’

‘Yes,’ he corrected. ‘I did. If she hadn’t chosen me—if she hadn’t left Taliedaa—she would still be alive. She died so Akeem Ali could live. If I had left I would have been running away from my duty. I would have dishonoured my mother. Her people. They deserved more than my father was giving them.’

‘You deserved more, Akeem,’ she corrected. ‘Your father...’ She gasped—a sound he would not let deter him. She’d wanted this. But now she was stepping forward, arms outstretched.

‘Do not touch me,’ he said, because he could not have her hands on him. Her softness against his rough. Her kindness...

Her mouth grappled soundlessly with unspoken words. Then she closed her eyes, inhaled a deep breath.

Softly, she spoke. ‘He lied to you. He was selfish. He wanted what he wanted and made no allowances for anything else—anyone else. He wanted an heir. He didn’t deserve one. He didn’t deserve you, Akeem Ali.’

‘It is not that man—not Akeem Ali. I am the King my father taught me to be. With the new name he gave me. A new identity. I will carry my mother’s memory on the shoulders of a king—not a beast who ruts in the dark and follows a basic urge to survive. Not this primitive man you make me.’

‘There is nothing primitive or basic about you,’ she denied with venom, pursing her lips and wrinkling her brow. ‘You’re more than instinct, Akeem. But instinct got you here. Got you through the life that was handed to you. If you were only built to react, you never would have survived the children’s homes, the foster families, the social workers who talked about you in the third person. You should have broken, but you didn’t even bend.’

He had broken. Had bent to his father’s will. In order to forget everything that mattered.

The past matters, does it?