The Sheikh's Princess Bride

Samira stared up into a face hollowed by pain. For a heady second, she’d hoped he meant he felt love too. But that couldn’t be. The desolation in his eyes was too profound.

‘Tariq? I think you’d better explain.’

‘You married a man who didn’t believe he could love.’

Familiar pain smote her. ‘I know. Jasmin.’

‘Yes.’ His lips firmed. ‘But not the way you think.’ His sigh seemed dredged from the depths of his being.

‘You don’t have to tell me.’ Samira didn’t think she could bear hearing Tariq rhapsodise about his one true love. Not now when her heart lay cracked and bleeding.

But he wouldn’t let her hands go. And the tortured look in his eyes... How could she walk away from him?

‘That’s one thing I must do, habibti—tell you. If nothing else.’ Even that casual endearment tugged at her emotions.

He shifted on the sofa, his knees hard against her legs, and Samira forced herself to stay where she was because, whatever ailed Tariq, he needed her for this moment at least.

‘I did Jasmin a terrible disservice.’ His voice was rough gravel.

‘Because you couldn’t save her?’ Samira had heard enough, now and in Al Sarath, to realise Tariq blamed himself for his first wife’s death. ‘You did all you could. Everyone says so, even at the hospital. But some things are beyond our power. The medical team did all they could and they’re trained for such things.’

Yet there was no lightening of the shadows in his eyes.

‘She died because of me. Because I wanted heirs.’

Samira squeezed his hands, unable to bear his anguish.

‘She wouldn’t have blamed you, Tariq. She loved you.’ Samira spoke from the heart, knowing a kindred connection with Jasmin. If the other woman had felt even half of what she, Samira, did, she’d have absolved him.

‘She did love me.’ His voice was hollow. ‘But I didn’t love her.’

Samira started. He hadn’t loved Jasmin? She felt as if the world revolved too fast, tilting crazily around her.

‘Sorry?’

Tariq turned away, but whether he saw the view of Paris out of the window or something else she didn’t know.

‘I didn’t love her. I didn’t know how.’ He paused. ‘I wasn’t brought up to love anyone except, of course, my country. My uncle put all his energies into raising me and my cousins to be capable, strong and honest, men who would never shirk from duty or hardship in the right cause.’

‘So I gathered.’ Samira remembered the stern older man she’d met during one of Tariq’s visits to Jazeer. His smile hadn’t reached his eyes and, though he’d been polite to the little princess, it was clear he’d been far more interested in the display matches of fencing, wrestling and riding in which his nephew competed.

Tariq’s eyes met hers. ‘It was an all-male household. Love wasn’t a factor in our lives. We were trained in toughness and above all self-sufficiency. So when it came time to marry—’

‘You decided on an arranged marriage.’ She’d imagined Tariq swept off his feet by love for Jasmin when instead he’d done as generations of sheikhs before him had done and made a dynastic marriage.

‘Not quite immediately.’ Something flickered in his eyes, something bright and hot. Then he blinked and it was gone. ‘But you’re right. Jasmin was suitable in every way: charming, well-born, beautiful and...’ He paused. ‘A genuinely nice woman.’

Samira blinked. A genuinely nice woman. That, finally, convinced her Tariq hadn’t been in love with his first wife.

Did he think of Samira as a genuinely nice woman too? She didn’t think she could bear it.

‘And she loved you.’ Samira’s stomach plummeted in a sickening rush as she realised how much she had in common with Jasmin. Both of them had been in love with a man who didn’t return their feelings. How had Jasmin borne it?

‘Not initially, at least I believed not. I was absolutely honest about my reasons for marriage. I didn’t pretend to romance. But as time went by...’ He shook his head. ‘Jasmin loved me. She didn’t hide it, and she never reproached me for not returning her feelings, but I saw the hurt in her eyes.’

His hands tightened on Samira’s and she felt the tension in him.

‘She was a caring wife, a good queen. I tried to give her what she most wanted. I tried so hard but I just didn’t have it in me. I failed her.’