Chapter 8
CHAPTER 8
“ I need to see the vizier immediately,” said Sarah, trying to keep her anger suppressed but failing. She drew in a deep breath. She couldn’t muck this up. “Please,” she added as an afterthought. She listened to more excuses from the administrative office of the busy vizier, who apparently was the only man who could help her get what she needed—her passport—when the double doors behind them burst open and a wizened old man stepped forward. Although he was short and skinny, with a face ravaged by wrinkles, he walked with absolute authority, and his narrowed eyes were like bullets about to fire. She was left in no doubt as to his identity when the officers shrank away, leaving her standing alone, facing the king’s all-powerful vizier.
“Miss Albright,” he said in a surprisingly deep, cultured voice, with an impeccable English accent. Another Oxford-educated sheikh, she thought to herself. “What a pleasure to meet you.” He extended his hand to hers.
Her innate politeness saw her hand shoot out to greet his before she could stop it. He grasped it instantly, and she was taken aback by the way his skinny, muscular hand seemed to envelop hers and hold it for longer than was necessary. His eyes probed her in the same controlling way, as if he could read her mind. She steeled herself, hoping in this instance that he could. It would save her time.
“And to meet you at last, Sheikh Nabil. It hasn’t been easy to gain access to you.”
“Ah,” he said with a smile. “My staff protects my time.” He leaned in to her. “And I apologize for this. But I do hope we can make amends for our mistakes.”
She narrowed her eyes. “We?”
He smiled again and ushered her toward the open double doors. “Please, come into the office and we can discuss whatever it is you want to discuss.”
She had no choice but to agree, despite her heart plummeting as she saw the regal coat of arms, and other ceremonial pieces which signaled this wasn’t, in fact, the office of the vizier, but the office of…
She turned the corner and saw him, standing tall, hands behind his back, in front of the window, his eyes locked onto her. Yes, she’d just walked into her second trap of the day. This wasn’t the office of the vizier, but of the king.
She lifted her chin to meet Kadar’s gaze and to convey to him in that one moment, in that one gaze, what she thought of him.
“Sarah,” he said. His voice washed over her like a caress, before sinking into her skin, warming her. She cleared her throat. She didn’t want to be warmed or caressed.
“Your Highness,” she said with mock solemnity.
“I trust your rooms are to your liking?”
“No. They were locked, and I do not appreciate being incarcerated when I have done nothing wrong. For one thing, I hardly thought that would be how you treated your guests, and for another I’m sure it’s against the law. Even the law of a country such as yours.” Petty dig, but it made her feel better.
“I apologize for that. It must have been an error in communication. I do not wish for you to be incarcerated. I want you to enjoy your stay here.”
“Ah, there is where we differ. I do not wish to stay here. I wish to leave immediately.”
“But,” interrupted the vizier after a small cough, “there is, I believe, the small matter of your passport?”
She turned to the vizier. “I lost it. That is why I need to visit the British Consul.”
“And I apologize for that. The perpetrators of the crime will be punished accordingly.”
“They were kids.”
“They’ve been dealt with,” said Kadar. “Their local sheikh has taken it in hand.”
“Please,” continued the vizier, “allow me to take over the matter of your passport. I will speak directly with the consul himself to expedite it as quickly as possible for you.”
Despite her discomfort at being with Kadar and his vizier, Sarah felt a sense of relief that someone with authority would by-pass the usual consular bureaucracy and organize this for her.
“Really? Do you think you’ll be able to get it sorted quickly?”
The vizier pulled a face. “Unlikely, I’m afraid. These things do not work quickly and I know that the consul himself is out of the country at the moment. I believe he is the only one with authority to sanction such a thing.”
“But surely he has a deputy who can organize a replacement passport?”
“You would think so. But we do not receive so many international visitors to this country as you’d imagine.”
She shook her head. “But the tour bus I was on. It was full of international visitors.”
The vizier shrugged. “An anomaly.”
She looked at him doubtfully, wondering for the first time if she could trust him.
“But I will certainly do my best to expedite things swiftly for you,” the vizier said.
“And,” said Kadar, “in the meantime, please, make yourself at home in the palace.”
She chewed her lip as she considered her options. “I won’t be locked up again?”
“No, indeed. That was an oversight for which we apologize.”
She didn’t believe it, but was too grateful that she wasn’t being returned to a locked room and that the vizier was going to organize a replacement passport for her.
“Please,” said Kadar, stepping forward, “allow me to show you around the palace as a way of making amends.”
“No, it’s fine, thanks.” The last thing she wanted to do was to be in the company of the treacherous king.
“But I insist.”
“I’m sure you must have important work to do.”
“Indeed, His Majesty, does Miss Albright. But I’m here to support him and we are most anxious to make some kind of reparation for the treatment you’ve suffered since you’ve arrived here.”
She shot a knowing look at Kadar, but he didn’t have the decency to look abashed. Instead, he stepped forward and opened the door to the gardens. “Let me first show you around the gardens, Sarah. They are world famous, but few visitors get to see them.”
She hesitated, not wanting to be alone with him, but the alternative was to be lost in the maze of buildings. Then she looked into his eyes, which were softer than before, and saw in them a tenderness which touched her like nothing else could have. And she remembered the same tenderness he’d shown when they’d made love all night long. He might be the son of the man who’d ordered the murder of her parents, but she couldn’t imagine Kadar being able to do something like that in a million years. But still she hesitated.
“Please,” he added. “Apart from anything else, I feel I owe you an explanation.”
He certainly did. She gave a brief nod, exited the room through the open doors, and stepped out into another world.
“Wow,” she said involuntarily, as she took in the series of fountains of decreasing size, splitting the filtered sunlight from the trees overhead in layer upon layer of rainbows. Beneath the green canopy of leaves were exotic fruit trees and flowers from which divine fragrances wafted.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” said Kadar. “It was first created centuries ago for a favorite wife of one of my ancestors.”
“Favorite? How many did he have?” she murmured, still feasting on the sight before her. The gardens seemed to go on forever.
“There were many wives in the harem.”
She turned to see he wasn’t joking. “Well, I guess it gave the women a bit of free time if they were on a roster.”
His lips tweaked into that smile. “You do not approve.”
She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter if I approve or not. It’s an alien concept to me.”
“And yet you say your family is from this country.”
“Yes. But I know nothing about them.”
“Then maybe we can remedy that also while we await your passport.”
That softened her a little more. It would have been near impossible, without knowing Arabic or her way around Sirun’s bureaucracy, to find out who her family was.
“I’d like that.”
“Good.” He indicated the path. “Now, perhaps we can take the route which the sultan and his wife would have taken for their evening walk, far from the prying eyes of any non-royal men.”
A shiver went down her spine. “You mean this is quite private? No one comes here?”
“Only the royal family and their intimate guests are allowed here. And, at the moment, I am the only member of the royal family in residence.”
“Where are the others? You have a brother, I believe?”
“A younger brother, yes. He is overseas, working for our country. His skills are, shall we say, on the social side.”
She smiled. “That sounds as if there’s a story behind it.”
“Indeed. But isn’t there a story behind everything? And everyone?” He stopped walking, plucked a flower, and held it out for her.
She took it and inhaled the exotic scent. “It’s beautiful. I’ve never smelled anything like it.”
“That’s because it’s native to this country, and notoriously hard to cultivate. There’s a story behind that as well.”
She turned to him. “I’m more interested in the story behind you . What you were doing in the desert castle, and why you didn’t tell me you were the king? You should have told me, Kadar.”
“Why? Would it have made a difference?”
She pressed her lips together. She really didn’t want to tell him that yes, it would, because his family was responsible for the deaths of her parents. She didn’t want him to know that at all. Instead, she shrugged.
“I didn’t want to risk it, Sarah. I craved normality. I’d gone to the desert castle to be alone, as I used to do. It was an indulgence which I knew I wouldn’t be able to repeat in future. And I wanted it to be without complications. Simply a man and a woman who couldn’t resist each other.”
A delicious shiver ran through her as his words conjured up the pleasure they’d found in each other. But it was a pleasure tainted now by reality.
“I guess I see what you mean. Now I know who you are, and now you know who I am, what we had is impossible to re-create.”
“A few days ago, I would have agreed with you. But now? Now, I’m not so sure.”
“I am. There will be no repeat of the intimacy we shared in the desert. I’m staying here only because of my passport. As soon as I get that, I’m leaving Sirun.”
“Well, in that case,” he said. She hardly noticed that he hadn’t agreed with her. “We’d better get started on the tour.”
“Thank you for showing me around. I enjoyed it.”
Sarah turned her smiling face to his, and he was lost again.
“Myself, also.”
It was an understatement. Kadar had enjoyed the afternoon, and it had gone far more smoothly than he’d anticipated. There was an instant connection between them which couldn’t be denied and which they fell into almost as soon as they’d set off on their tour. The conversation was easy, and he seemed to understand her from the smallest expression on her face. No doubt the result of hours of watching her reactions during their lovemaking. She was an open book. And one he wanted to read from cover to cover and then begin at the beginning again. He suspected her story would never grow stale.
“I should go now. The light is fading,” she said. “And I’m sure you have more important things to do.”
He wanted to deny it. Because, at that moment, there was nothing more important to him than being here with her.
Instead, he inclined his head in an ambiguous gesture. He not only didn’t want to let her go, but there was still the small matter of further seduction to accomplish because as much as he might hate the way this was being done, sex and marriage to Sarah was not a hardship. In fact, with each passing moment, he felt that there had been nothing in his life so far which felt as right as being together with this woman.
It had to be that night.
“It would be my pleasure if you would dine with me tonight. Would you please?”
The world seemed held in a delicate balance, as the twilight faded a little more and the first star came out into an increasingly inky sky. Then the tension broke as she smiled again.
“Yes, I’d like that.”
“Good. So would I.”
He watched her enter her suite of rooms. Yes, he would seduce her again tonight, and he would definitely like it.