Innocent in the Desert: The Sheikh's Impatient Virgin / The Sheikh's Convenient Virgin / The Desert Lord's Bride

CHAPTER EIGHT

HER grandfather stayed three days and during that time Eva was literally never alone with Karim.

He spent his days at the hospital, returned in the evening and dined with her grandfather. She was there but she might as well have been invisible for all the notice the men took of her.

The marriage seemed to have appeased her grandfather and the initial tension between the two men had rapidly thawed.

The same could not be said of the tension between Karim and her, but then it wasn’t the same type of tension! Since that night in Amira’s hospital room Karim had not attempted to touch her … but it was the almost occasions that were driving her slowly out of her mind.

Such as when he almost brushed her fingers with his when he passed her something, she got light-headed just anticipating the next time.

Sometimes even thinking about him touching her sent electrical thrills of sensation through her hopelessly receptive body.

The thought of what would happen when he did touch her for real scared her witless. He had put the ball in her court when he had spelt out what coming into his bed meant … it really was a ‘burning the bridges’ moment.

There was no mistaking that there was chemistry, and Eva, while still finding it amazing Karim was attracted to her, found it almost as amazing that she could want a man in this all-consuming way and not be in love with him.

The two had always been inextricably linked in her stubbornly romantic mind.

So now he wanted her, but Eva was under no illusion that this would last, and what about when his visits to her bed were made from a sense of duty? Her blood turned to ice at the thought of passion turning to something clinical and cold.

The whole thing seemed horribly inevitable.

It was on the last night of her grandfather’s visit that it was announced that it had been decided she journey back with him and stay at the Palace in Azharim until Amira was fit enough to travel home with Karim.

Eva, who had sat quietly through the meal and was rapidly tiring of her invisible status, allowed her gaze to travel from one man to the other and back again.

‘Decided by who exactly …? I didn’t decide anything.’

King Hassan looked genuinely bewildered by the spiky comment. ‘Surely you can have no objection to seeing your family … your cousins …?’

Eva forced herself to smile at her grandfather. ‘I would just like to be consulted.’

‘Consider yourself consulted,’ Karim said, sounding bored by the entire subject. Amira’s condition ought to be occupying his every waking moment, yet he was continually distracted by the hunger of his own body. Life would be simpler if the distraction was put out of temptations way for the moment at least.

And it wasn’t just that it was the irrational guilt he was experiencing—he knew he had not trapped her into this marriage, that she had been equally culpable—but when he saw the dejected set of her shoulders he felt as though the responsibility was his.

‘We are only thinking of you, Eva.’

That, Karim thought, keeping his eyes steadfastly on Eva’s grandfather, is the problem.

‘Karim has so much on his plate at the moment, with matters of state and Amira, he is worried that he will have no time to spend with you.’

Worried my foot, Eva thought, struggling to control her temper. He wants me out of his hair so that he can pick up with whatever bimbo he’s sleeping with without worrying about his wife walking in.

Recognising the stab of jealousy that spilled like poison through her body, Eva went stiff with shock. She responded with defensive aggression.

‘Surely Karim’s father can deal with matters of state.’

It had crossed Eva’s mind a couple of times recently to ask about Karim’s father, but on each occasion she had been distracted, and now that she paused to think about it it seemed strange that he had never entered the equation.

Her grandfather’s approval had been sought, but there had been no mention of what the King of Zuhaymi thought of his son’s marriage.

An awkward silence followed her question.

It was Karim who broke it. ‘My father no longer takes an active part in government.’ His lashes came downwards concealing his expression from her as he speared a piece of food onto his fork. Then, not lifting it, he moved it around his plate.

‘Why? He can’t be that old?’

‘Eva …’ King Hassan began in a warning tone.

Karim lifted his head and said, ‘No, she should know.’

‘It may have escaped your notice, but actually I’m here in this room.’

‘My father is not old, but he was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s several years ago.’

It was still difficult to speak of recalling the first signs; watching such a robust virile man lose a part of himself everyday had been agonising.

‘He does not appear in public any longer.’ It made him feel guilty to acknowledge it, but there were times when Karim almost felt envious for those who had lost loved ones. It was, he had learnt, harder to grieve for the loss when that person or at least the shell was still alive.

‘You mean, you locked him away when he became an embarrassment.’

When Karim met her accusing stare she saw, not the guilt she had anticipated in his face, but cold condemnation.

‘When he was still able, he made it clear that once he was unable to function fully he wanted to retire from the public view. He lives today at a cottage beside the sea with a team of nurses to provide round-the-clock nursing. I see him but not as often as I would like because my presence sometimes agitates him.’ The occasional flashes of lucidity when his father recognised him made the entire situation harder in many ways.

Eva could feel the heat of her grandfather’s disapproval. Not that it made her feel any more wretched than she already did—nothing could.

‘I’m sorry. That was a terrible thing to say to you and I’m very sorry about your father.’

Karim nodded his head and said, ‘Apology accepted.’ She wasn’t sure if he meant it or if he was just going through the motions, but she felt even more of an outsider than ever.

‘I’d like to go back to Azharim with you if the offer is still open.’

Her grandfather looked at her, concern in his eyes, and said, ‘Of course it is.’

‘Right,’ she said, pushing her chair away from the table. ‘I’ll just go and pack.’ She couldn’t wait to escape the room and Karim’s disapproval.

‘Someone can pack for you,’ her grandfather protested, throwing a look towards Karim.

Eva shook her head. ‘I like to feel as if I actually have a purpose in life,’ she said, thinking, Could I sound more self-pitying?

She just made it to the door before the tears began.

The flight the next morning was an early one to fit in with her grandfather’s schedule. Knowing King Hassan’s dislike of tardiness, she was packed and ready and feeling mad with herself because she minded that Karim had made no attempt to say goodbye or even wish her a safe journey.

The Brownie points she had gained from being early were lost when, on the point of leaving, Eva realised she had left her toiletry bag upstairs.

Her grandfather clicked his tongue in irritation as she flew up the stairs two at a time.

Typically, given the urgency, she could see it nowhere; having ransacked her bedroom and bathroom she suddenly remembered the dressing room!

It was actually a small antechamber lined with mirrors that joined her suite of rooms to Karim’s. It had not seen a lot of use recently, but she had gone in trying to see the back of her hair as she had attempted a swept-up style she had copied from a magazine that morning.

It had not made her look elegant; it had made her look about five!

Had she carried the bag in there with her?

She ran through the bathroom and into the corridor. She was inside before she realised that she was not alone.

Karim was standing there wearing nothing but a very small towel looped around his middle.

‘I … I …’ Losing the fight not to look, her eyes slid down his body. Things deep inside her tightened; he really was beautiful. A deep throb of longing slid through her. ‘I left my … This … I’m late.’

He was looking at her in a way that made her heart race. He cleared his throat and ran a hand across his stubble-covered jaw.

Eva thought about the stubble grazing her skin and the tactile image was so strong she had to grab the radiator to steady herself.

‘Have a safe journey.’

The anticlimax was intense. ‘You too,’ she heard herself babble stupidly. Then she improved on her impersonation of a total fool by clutching her head and groaning.

‘Are you ill?’

His voice, rough with concern, was close by; she knew all she had to do was turn around and she could lay her head on his chest.

She fought off the mad impulse and shook her head. ‘No, just …’ Her eyes brushed his. ‘Totally … totally … Goodbye.’ Eyes on the ground, she brushed past him and grabbed the offending item and then, like a scared rabbit, she thought, wincing every time she mentally replayed the scene later, she scuttled away, her heart pounding like a piston.

It was actually good to meet up with her new and bewilderingly large family when she arrived in Azharim; fielding comments on her marriage was less enjoyable. It was a veritable minefield of potential embarrassment. Keeping up the pretence in front of her clearly curious relatives—who only stopped asking direct questions in deference to an edict by her grandfather—gave her a permanent headache.

After the first couple of days time began to drag heavily and, as crazy as it seemed, she missed Karim—if the combination of the achy feeling lodged behind her breastbone, feeling restless, distracted and unable to concentrate constituted missing?

You chose to come here, she reminded herself.

And he didn’t try and stop you.

The necessary distraction came in the form of her neglected thesis. Instead of moping and soul-searching, Eva decided to put some serious work in on her almost-completed doctoral dissertation.

Never had she shown more enthusiasm for the boring detail of collating statistics, and, despite her initial scepticism on her ability to concentrate, the work did get done.

She was putting the finishing touches to her thesis, an occasion that only recently had been her total focus in life, when she received news that Karim and Amira had been allowed to fly home by the doctors.

The urgency to get the final draft printed and bound faded.

They hoped, so the message said, to see Eva very soon.

It was as impersonal as the rest of the communications she had received from Karim. While he had made contact regularly during the three weeks she had been here, there was nothing in the impersonal e-mails she had received that could not have been read by her grandfather.

But as she had asked herself—What else do you expect, Eva?

Her problem was she had lost the ability to separate expectations and fantasies.

He wasn’t likely to confide a yearning to hear her voice. Or indulge in a lot of gushing stuff about not being able to stop thinking about her.

They had not exactly parted on the best of terms and the man had a lot of things, more important things, on his mind.

But then maybe the things they needed to discuss were better spoken of face to face.

She tried to view the opportunity to do just that with hope rather than fear … and managed excitement and exhilaration that tipped over without warning into open gibbering panic.

As Eva arranged to leave on the next flight, she was on the excitement stomach-clenching stage, until, that was, a casual remark by one of her cousins revealed that Karim and his daughter had already been home a week.

Talk about being brought to earth with a bump!

Eva struggled to hide the sharp stab of hurt as the news drained away every last trace of her buoyant mood. She was too depressed to manage even gibbering panic.

It must have shown in her face because good-natured Ruhi added, ‘I expect he wanted to give the little one time to settle in before producing a new stepmother … That’s always tricky.’

‘I expect you’re right.’ And thank you, Ruhi, she thought, for giving me something else to worry about. She’d given so much time to the wife issue she’d not paused to consider the equally precarious role of stepmother.

Given this occurrence, it was hardly surprising that she was rather subdued when she arrived at the palace to meet her stepdaughter, trying hard as she did so not to think about Karim’s formal cold reception at the airport. Like a new over-hyped blockbuster, it had been a major anticlimax.

Even the incredible atrium with the mosaic ceiling of lapis lazuli failed to awaken her enthusiasm—she just kept seeing his expression when he had walked out to meet her on the tarmac.

Karim had looked at her as though she were a stranger, or at least someone he wished were a total stranger rather than the wife he had to take home to meet his daughter. Someone he was saddled with for the rest of his life.

The little girl, though, didn’t notice any atmosphere between the adults. She showed no sign of illness as she literally bounced with excitement when she saw Eva.

She immediately became entranced by the colour of Eva’s hair and announced she wanted her own hair to be that colour when it grew back, just like her new mama.

Eva had a lump in her throat when she told her that she had always wanted black hair and people rarely liked what they had. The little girl was allowed to have tea with them before she was ushered away for a nap by her nurse.

With a spontaneous display of affection she climbed on Eva’s knee and hugged her before her nurse dragged her away.

‘She’s lovely.’ Eva had been conscious of Karim’s silent presence, but while the child was there she had not been forced to actually look at him.

She did so now and she could do this. She wanted him, so why pretend? Even the scent of his skin from this distance was driving her totally crazy.

‘Yes, she’s a charmer.’

Obeying a compulsion he could not resist, his hooded glance slid over the soft contours of her face, greedily drinking in the details. Her skin was softer and even whiter than he remembered. The dimple in her cheek, though, was absent; she was not smiling.

She had not been smiling except for a faint tragic flicker when he had met her on the tarmac. The greeting had borne no resemblance to the one in his head, the one where she had flung herself into his arms.

It was ironic that what had displeased him would have pleased the small but vocal minority in the capital he had spent the last week identifying. After identifying them he had made a point of explaining that he would not look favourably on people who spread tales about his wife’s past. They had been suitably chastened, but the situation would bear watching. It would be hard enough for Eva to adapt without the moral majority who thought a virgin bride was the only suitable mate for a future King talking behind their hands.

They could think what they liked, but he made no bones about how vigorous his response would be if he heard them.

Conscious that if he touched Eva his ability to pull back was in doubt, Karim had ignored the cheek she offered him. He had also ignored the discussion of the weather.

He had had more trouble ignoring her warm mention of Luke, who apparently had let her know that her tutor was extremely pleased with the final draft of her thesis.

If the man had been within his grasp he would have taken more than a little pleasure from spoiling his pretty face.

For a man who had always prided himself on his control it was shocking to suddenly have none, though not in the same shocking league as the almost audible sound of the floodgates that had held back his emotions for years buckling when he had seen her standing there on the tarmac.

Looking so small and lost and vulnerable, her hair like a beacon.

He had never wanted a woman in a way that defied logic and reason—he did now.

He had spent the previous three weeks since they had last been together—it would have been two if he hadn’t arrived back and found more than a little bad feeling directed towards his new wife—alternating between feeling furious that he had allowed himself to be trapped for a second time into a marriage that was not convenient for him, and being furious with Eva for choosing to spend that time with her family and not with him and more specifically in his bed.

The fact he had made no attempt to stop her and had not disagreed with King Hassan’s suggestion only increased the level of Karim’s sense of impotent fury.

It was a lot of fury.

And at one level Karim was conscious that it was a lot easier to be angry than actually examine his feelings in any great depth. As they had driven in silence in the car with three feet and a wall of silence separating them he had repeated to himself like a mantra, This is just sex, this is just sex.