Sheikh's Castaway (15 page)

N
oor dressed carefully for his visit, in a neat navy linen suit with a pencil skirt that emphasized her slimmed-down figure, a white tank top under the smart jacket, bare legs and sling-back stilettos.

She was sitting at a table by the window, examining an engineering college course catalogue, when Bari was admitted by her maid. She pretended not to notice his entrance, turning a page noisily.

A dark hand entered her field of vision and closed on the page. A second later the book was ripped from her slackened grasp and sent flying across the room.

Noor's eyes swept up and hungrily took in the sight of him for the first time since they had left the island. The beard was gone, the dark hair neatly cut and curling. He was wearing casual Western dress—tan jeans, loafers and a black polo shirt that revealed his dark, muscled arms, his smooth throat.

She opened her mouth to complain, but Bari beat her to it.

“I don't have time for your games,” he warned. “You called me here. What do you want?”

He gripped her arms and drew her to her feet. In her high heels, her eyes on a level with his, she gazed into the black depths with expectant alarm.

Muttering an oath, he swept her into his embrace, and his mouth clamped itself to hers, firm and silky, hungry and hot. His arms imprisoned her, velvet-covered steel: at the same time hard, so that she couldn't escape, and soft, so that she didn't want to.

Her blood boiled up under his touch; her mouth felt swollen with pleasure and yearning. His tongue teased its way past her tingling lips with tender electricity that ran everywhere through her body. His arm clamped her waist, his other hand cupped her head, the fingers threading through her hair.

It wasn't, it just wasn't possible to resist him, Noor admitted helplessly. This might be their last kiss. Was it their last kiss? Was he going to marry someone else?

His kiss grew fiercer, more possessive, his arm sliding behind her head and locking her in the curve of his elbow, the other hand gripping her waist, then her hip, then wrapping right around her back under the jacket to clasp her tightly against him. Noor found herself tilted crazily backwards over his arm as he kissed her ruthlessly. She was half fainting from pleasure and the fact that the world was upside down.

Her arms encircled his neck in luxurious hunger, her breasts pressed against him. She moaned as his mouth left hers and trailed down her neck to the perfumed pulse in the base of her throat.

“At least I smell better than the last time you kissed me,” she said stupidly.

“Do you think I like perfume better than the scent of your body?” he growled, and his mouth moved up to smother hers again.

It was some time before she could ask him the questions she had summoned him to ask, and when she got around to it, she was on his lap, while he sat on the sofa. Her shoes were off, her skirt hiked up, his hand caressing her inner thigh, just above the knee, with a touch that melted her.

“It's no setup,” Bari said, shaking his head at her accusation. “Grandfather made a mistake. It was while the media were asking questions about us when we were missing, and he began to talk about his old friend, that he suddenly got the names straight in his mind. And he remembered that your grandfather wasn't his dear friend after all, but the one who had stolen his lady love, one of the al Jawadi princesses, and married her.”

“How could he make such a mistake? Didn't he have the details checked out?” Noor protested.

“He got the two names confused in his memory, that's all. It was a long time ago, and he's an old man. I have an idea that subconsciously he wanted me to marry the granddaughter of the woman he once loved. But now that he's realized the truth, he won't be acting on an unconscious motive any longer. And he's as determined as ever to run my life.”

She held her breath.

Bari drew her hand to his lips and kissed the knuckles, then the palm. “He forbids our marriage, Noor. In marrying you, I'll lose my birthright. I'll have little to offer you materially. What my father left me doesn't compare with what is in my grandfather's control. But
the task is still the same—to rebuild the country, with the tools that come to our hands.” He looked up into her face, his love written in his eyes. “Will you do that with me? Will you marry me?”

Noor bit her lip. “Why don't you just—marry that other man's granddaughter, the way your grandfather wants?”

“Because I love you,” he told her, giving her a little shake. “Because you are a woman without equal, and I want to be the father of your children. Because life is empty without you, Noor, and the palaces and lands and wealth I would inherit if I obeyed my grandfather could not fill the emptiness.”

Her heart kicked so hard her breast ached. How she wanted to believe him. But…

“Oh, Bari!” she whispered, her eyes troubled.

He breathed deep, as if she had struck him a blow over the heart. “I understand,” he said. “Will you listen while I try to explain, Noor? It isn't much of an explanation, but…I'm asking for your understanding—and forgiveness.”

She gazed at him wordlessly. His hand gently stroked her hip.

“I was very angry with you, Noor. It's no good trying to gloss it over. So angry that even when I was hiding at the back of the plane, and heard that the airport was socked in, a part of me was hoping the shock would teach you a lesson. Even at that point I was tempted to leave you in the dilemma for a while. So you see the idea was already in the back of my mind, that you should be allowed to lie in the bed you had made.”

He paused, gathering his thoughts. “I had forgotten that there was an EPIRB in the plane's grab bag. I suppose I didn't think of it because there wasn't much ur
gency about it. No one could have scrambled a helicopter during the storm even if we had been transmitting. Whereas what we were doing was immediately essential to our survival.”

“But when the storm was over, I asked you about an EPIRB. I remember.”

“And I remembered then, and lied about it. Almost instinctively. I thought—this situation is a learning opportunity, but the lesson hasn't hit home with her at all.”

She nodded ruefully. “I was just expecting that life would get right back to normal and I wouldn't have to adjust, so what was the point?”

He drew her hand to his mouth and kissed it thoughtfully. “I didn't get the whole picture at once. I just decided to see how you would react to a little more hardship. It wasn't until that night that…”

He paused.

“That night?”

“I want to tell you a part of my life that I haven't told you before,” Bari offered softly, and when she nodded intently, he began.

“My father died when I was fifteen. It had been the dream of his life to return to live in Bagestan one day. When he was dying, he asked me to promise that I would help to further the royal family's attempts to regain their throne, and one day, when it became possible, return and restore the family property and make my home here. He knew his father would leave me what would have been his own inheritance. I swore to him that I would do as he wished. I meant it. I became committed in that moment.”

Noor thought of her own parents' passion for their troubled country, a passion that had survived time and distance, and that, without her consciously realizing it, they had passed on to her.

“I know,” she said softly.

“It was always understood between my grandfather and me that, while I would certainly not inherit all the family property, I would undertake to reclaim and restore it on behalf of us all. And I would have the money to do it.

“After the Return, my grandfather suddenly made conditions. I proposed to you, Noor, believing that I had no choice. I owed it to my own hopes, to my father and the promise I had made him.

“But that night on the island, I began to consider whether I was prepared to sacrifice my hope of a happy marriage for the sake of that promise. Whether my father would have wanted me to make such a sacrifice. If I was going to make you change your mind again—”

“Oh, just like that?” Noor said dangerously.

He smiled unrepentantly and touched her cheek. “You'd changed it once already, remember. It was at least possible. But—should I make the attempt? That was the question. When I proposed to you, I had believed that in spite of everything you were someone with whom I could make a good marriage. When you ran from the wedding…”

Noor bit her lip. “You should hear my mother on the subject!”

“…I asked myself if that judgement had been mistaken, if we were too different in outlook to make the kind of partnership I envisaged happen. And it was while I was turning that over in my mind that I realized that—” he paused “—that I had been given an opportunity to find out who you truly were.”

“Not to make me love you?”

“That, too, if I could.” He stretched up and kissed her. “What I didn't realize was how much of an opportunity
it would be for me to learn about myself. And my own heart.”

They were quiet for a moment. “And so you…you just decided to keep me there till…what?”

“I didn't think that far ahead. I just went from day to day, and after a while I almost forgot about the EPIRB. It didn't seem relevant. Until the day we got the flotsam. I was out there in the water with my leg cut open, fighting to hold that rope, determined to get those crates, and I suddenly thought—what the hell am I doing? There could be sharks out here, and I'm risking that for a few crates of food when we can call for rescue any time?”

A laugh escaped her. “Why didn't you get the EPIRB then? You were badly hurt. Weren't you scared?”

He kissed her again. “Can't you guess? Because I couldn't walk to the hiding place! I'd have had to tell you about it, and I knew how you would react. How hurt you would be. I thought—I can never explain it. But even then I didn't understand that I couldn't hurt you because I loved you.”

His hands tightened on her, but Noor resisted. “But later, when you were walking again? It must have been uncomfortable. Why not then? Where was it hidden?”

“It wasn't far. But by then, Noor, you were in the middle of a metamorphosis. You were suddenly finding what you could really do. And I couldn't interrupt your journey.

“Now tell me your side of it,” he said.

Noor heaved a sigh. “I learned so much, Bari. You're right, it was a kind of metamorphosis. I hated a lot of it, but—I guess that was the price of change. And I can't be sorry it happened.”

“Do you forgive me, Noor?”

She smiled into his eyes. “How can I be grateful for
what happened and still blame the person who caused it? Yes, I forgive you. Can you forgive me?”

For answer, he wrapped her head with strong, possessive hands and lay back, drawing her down to his hungry kiss. When she lifted herself away from him again, he held her face and whispered, looking into her eyes, “And…do you love me? Will you marry me, Beloved?”

She closed her eyes against the thundering of her own heart, then opened them again.

“No answer?” he begged hoarsely.

“I love you, Bari.” The words seemed torn from her throat. “Yes, yes, how could I say no?”

The strength roared into him, and he kissed her with a rough and hungry passion that ignited her blood, burned her, melted her. They slipped down into the soft sofa, arms and legs entwining, wild hunger in their hearts and mouths.

After a moment, he drew his head away. “First things first,” he whispered, reaching into his pocket. When he lifted his hand, he was holding the beautiful diamond solitaire that had been her engagement ring.

Noor suddenly remembered the piercing, painful moment on her wedding day when she had torn it off her finger—a different woman, in another lifetime.

“Give me your hand,” Bari commanded in a gravel voice. Noor breathed deep, lifted her left hand and put it in his.

With a look of passionate possessiveness, the Sheikh slipped his ring back where it belonged.

 

A long time later, he murmured, “Do you remember the day I took you sailing down the coast?”

She was on the bed in the curve of Bari's arm, leaning over him on one elbow as he lay back against the
pillows, sweat-damp curls falling on his forehead, his eyes lazy with love.

She gave him a look. Remember?

“The house up above—do you remember it? It is a beautiful place, or it was once.”

“Oh!” Noor whispered. “And it's—your family's?”

“That particular property was left to me by my father. I meant to show it to you that day. But—we did other things.”

“Did we? I've forgotten,” Noor teased, and then fell down onto his warm chest and was thoroughly kissed for her pains.

“It will fall into the sea if repairs are not undertaken soon,” he said then. “Although of course we must have somewhere in the city, I would like to restore that as our home. Will you come with me now and look at it, and see if you would like to live there?”

“Yes, but what are we going to tell the media? They're all out there, and when they see us together…” Noor gabbled anxiously.

“We can't let them publish the truth,” he said.

She nodded in vigorous relief. “It would make me look like such an idiot. I mean, I
was
a fool, but do I have to be exposed as one in front of the world?”

Bari leaned up and kissed her. “Don't call my beloved names.”

“Not in public, anyway,” Noor agreed with a grin. “Is there some explanation we could make that would satisfy the media and put them off the scent?”

Bari's eyes glinted thoughtfully. “My grandfather's foolishness has had many uses,” he mused. “With his first decree, he found you for me, and with his second, he brought you back to me. And I really don't think he will have the right to complain if we make use of him again!”