Rumours: The Billion-Dollar Brides

Wasn’t it even possible that her request to see him alone had given him the wrong impression? Polly winced at the suspicion that he might have believed she was deliberately inviting that kind of attention. But on another level, warmth was still pooling in her pelvis at the recollection. He was a very handsome, very sexy guy and, for Polly, it had been an educational experience to finally realise why other people made such a fuss about the act of sex. If a man just kissing your hand could make you feel that overheated... At that point, she broke off her wandering thoughts and buried them deep.

* * *

Her maid wakened her with breakfast at what appeared to be dawn the next morning and told her with eyes that danced with mischief that she was going on a trip. Polly was not told where she was going or why or whose company she would be in and she assumed that that was probably because the young woman’s small stock of English wasn’t up to that challenge. She wondered if Rashad had managed to contrive some discreet way of returning her to her holiday plans but, when she began packing, the maid’s confusion suggested that that was not the explanation. Had her kindly grandfather made some arrangement for her? Regardless, Polly was delighted by the prospect of seeing a little more of her father’s country because all she had so far seen were the city streets and the view from the palace rooftop.

The maid led her down a service staircase and through a long tracery of quiet corridors and courtyards that suggested they were taking a more than usually circuitous route through the sprawling palace. They finally emerged into a garage packed with opulent vehicles and with noticeable ceremony she was ushered into an SUV. As they filtered out through the palace gates she noted that another two cars were accompanying them.

She would phone Ellie later, she promised herself guiltily. In truth she didn’t want to hear any more of her sister’s dire predictions after Rashad had bluntly explained the status quo. She didn’t like the situation and neither did he, but there really wasn’t very much that could be done about it, was there? It wasn’t his fault or hers that his people had chosen to weave her into the legend of his great-grandmother and the fire-opal ring.

While the convoy of vehicles drove out into the desert, Polly settled back in the air-conditioned cool to enjoy her sightseeing. When they began to trundle up and down dunes, she told herself it was exciting although in reality the steep inclines and declines unnerved her. At one stage they passed by a long train of camels laden with goods and there was much hooting of car horns and shouted exchanges. When they descended the last dune she saw the oasis and her breath caught in her throat because that lush spread of green dotted by palm trees and a natural pool was so very beautiful and inviting in such an arid dusty landscape. The car came to a halt and the door was opened.

Without warning, Polly was engulfed in a whooping and chattering crowd of women. It unsettled her but the sociable smiles were a universal language of intent and she smiled as much as she could in response. That tolerance became a little more taxed when she was led into a tent and a long dress was presented to her with the evident hope that she would take off her trousers and tee shirt to put it on. Briefly, Polly froze while she wondered if trousers on a woman were a cultural no-no in such company and she decided to change for the sake of peace. Furthermore the dress, which was covered with blue embroidery, was really very pretty and she surrendered, not even objecting when her hair was unbraided and brushed out because it seemed to give her companions so much pleasure and satisfaction.

Ellie would tell her that she was much too busy being a people-pleaser to do as she liked but Polly loved to make those around her happy, she conceded guiltily as she was escorted between black capacious tents and taken into a very large one overlooking the pool. She sank down in the merciful shade and then Rashad strode in, as informally dressed in jeans and an open shirt as she was formally dressed.

‘Rashad...’ she murmured in sincere surprise, feeling her entire body heat as hot as the sun outside and her muscles pull taut in reaction to his sudden appearance. ‘I suppose I shouldn’t call you that. It’s too familiar. What do—?’

‘You call me Rashad,’ he interposed without hesitation. ‘How are you feeling after what Hakim told you last night?’

‘Still shocked but mainly...’ Polly considered thoughtfully ‘...incredibly happy to have discovered who I am even if I feel very sad that my father is no longer with us. I also like my grandfather.’

‘He is a fine man, fiercely loyal and wise.’ Rashad tilted his arrogant dark head to one side and lifted a broad shoulder and dropped it again in a sort of fluid fatalistic shrug that was as electrifyingly sexy as all his lithe physical movements. ‘When he finds you gone from the palace this morning, however, he will be ready to kill me—’

‘You arranged for me to be brought out here?’ Polly frowned. ‘Why?’

‘It was bring you here or jump balconies to visit you in your bedroom. The bedroom would have been the worst option of all,’ he told her with derisive amusement lancing through his stunning dark golden eyes.

In truth, very little amused Rashad in the sardonic and cynical mood he was in. He had spent most of the night thinking rather than sleeping, angrily confronting the issue that Polly’s arrival with the ring had created and coming to terms with his own position. And the truth of what he should be doing had soon faced him. There was no choice. She was the woman his people wished him to marry. No other woman could even hope to fit into a legend. In reality he did not wish to marry at all but that was his problem, scarcely the problem of the people he ruled. His sense of duty, moreover, was strong. He would not be a selfish ruler like his father; he would put his people first and foremost in his life. It would be a challenge to remarry even though he could see decided advantages to marrying Polly, whom he, at least, desired. He believed that choosing an unknown wife from a photograph, basing the decision on her heritage and what others with a vested interest said about her, would be much more likely to lead to a dissatisfactory marriage. After all, at least he had got to meet Polly and draw his own conclusions...

Rashad’s eyes were surrounded by the blackest, thickest, longest lashes she had ever seen on a man, Polly was acknowledging giddily, briefly wondering why every cutting edge in his lean dark features was set so hard, from his exotic cheekbones to his aggressive jawline, lending a tough, angry edge to his face. Assuming that that could only be a misapprehension on her part, she savoured the truth that he was still drop-dead beautiful in a way she had never known a man could be.

It was a serious challenge to drag her attention away from either his lean, darkly handsome features or his tall, powerfully muscled body. Indeed the sheer pull of Rashad’s erotic allure thoroughly unsettled Polly because she could now feel and recognise the desire he incited in her and it was like nothing she had ever felt in her life before. That physical hunger that she had tried and failed to feel with other men was much more powerful and all-consuming than she had expected.

‘I had you brought out here to the oasis so that I could ask you to marry me,’ Rashad informed her levelly.

‘But we’re strangers!’ Polly exclaimed in disbelief, totally unable to understand what he had just said and take it seriously.

‘No, we are not. I already know much more about you than I would know about a bride I chose from a photograph...which, by the way, is my only other option,’ Rashad admitted, choosing to tell her that unattractive truth. ‘An arranged marriage would be considered normal for a man in my position although the practice has died out in our society. I’ve already had one arranged marriage and I don’t want another—’

‘You’ve already had one? You’ve been married before?’ Polly whispered in wonderment, because she knew he was only thirty-one years old.

‘I was married at sixteen—’

‘I’m sorry but I think that’s...barbaric,’ she muttered helplessly. ‘You were far too young—’

‘We both were but those were more dangerous times and alliances had to be made and marriage was how it was done,’ Rashad explained. ‘I had no choice and I would very much prefer to have a choice this time.’

‘But you said you felt trapped by your people’s expectations,’ Polly reminded him, dancing round the whole topic of his proposal rather than actually getting to grips with it because she just couldn’t comprehend the enormity of what he was suggesting. ‘Now you say you want to meet those expectations—’

‘Why not? They chose you but I choose you too,’ Rashad murmured huskily, his dark eyes flashing gold over her intent and expressive face. ‘I want you.’

And his earthy appraisal left her in no doubt of what he was referring to. That hungry sensation surged and pulsed along her nerve endings and flipped her tummy over to leave her breathless. Her skin flushed, her body coming alive, and she shut her eyes because she could no longer withstand the intensity of his hot gaze.

‘And you want me,’ Rashad told her with maddening confidence.

Polly’s eyes opened and her hands knotted into fists. ‘I think you’ve—’

‘No, don’t fight me...it turns me on and if you do that I can’t promise to keep my hands off you as I should,’ Rashad framed in a roughened tone of warning.

‘It turns you on...’ Polly repeated in wonderment.

‘Because nobody ever fights or argues with me. You can have no idea how boring that becomes,’ Rashad admitted grimly.

In possession of a very sparky and forceful sister, Polly almost disagreed because she could not imagine finding pleasure in the apparently stimulating effect of dissension. Instead she said nothing, she simply shook her head. ‘Sexual attraction is not a good basis for marriage—’

‘It is for me,’ Rashad countered without hesitation. ‘I am convinced that you would make me the perfect wife.’

‘But nobody’s perfect!’

‘More perfect than flawed,’ Rashad qualified smoothly. ‘The discovery that you have Dharian blood in your veins only adds to your appeal. This is your world now as much as it is mine and you have a family who will love and support you here.’

Polly bent her head down to escape the temptation of his glittering dark eyes. It was a powerful argument to know that there was another world and another family for her to explore. Apart from her sister she had never had a caring family to lean on, which was why Hakim’s welcome had meant so much to her. She wanted to get to know that family and their culture, she wanted to spend time with them, which, with the cost of travel set against her low salary, would be very difficult once she returned home as scheduled at the end of the week.

‘There would be advantages and disadvantages to marrying me,’ Rashad outlined with dry practicality. ‘I do not believe you would be unduly influenced by my wealth but as my wife you would be very rich. On the other hand, you would lose the freedom to do and say exactly as you wish because royals are expected to behave according to protocol. Sometimes that protocol feels stifling but it is there for our protection.’

Polly flushed very pink because although he had said he hoped she would not be unduly influenced by his wealth, her mind had immediately flown to the good she could do with more money and she was mortified by that embarrassing moment of unwelcome self-truth. But poor Ellie was steeped in student debt and struggling and would be for many more years to come. Moreover, both sisters were desperately keen to trace their missing youngest sister, Penelope, and get to know her, but the hiring of a private detective was utterly beyond their financial means at present. She swallowed hard, ashamed of her thoughts and deciding that money had to be, in truth, the root of all evil and temptation.

‘What happened to your first wife?’ she asked him abruptly to escape those shameful thoughts of wealth and what she could do with it.

‘Ferah contracted blood poisoning from a snake bite and died five years ago,’ Rashad revealed in a harshened undertone. ‘She did not receive medical attention quickly enough.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured automatically because her mind was reeling under the burden of all that he had said and her own desperate confusion.

‘Do you have an answer for me?’ Rashad prompted with an air of expectancy on his lean, strong face.

‘Not yet,’ she admitted, matching his honesty.

Her brain had flatly rejected marrying him at first. They barely knew each other and it would be insane...and yet? She did want him, in fact she wanted him more than she had ever wanted any man and she was not an impressionable teenager any longer. In fact, what if she never met another man who made her feel the same way that Rashad did? That terrible fear held her still and turned her hollow inside because he made her feel alive and wanton and all sorts of things she had never felt before. And what was more, she was discovering that she liked the way he made her feel.

‘Perhaps I can help you to make up your mind,’ Rashad murmured with silken softness. ‘You will see it as a form of blackmail but in reality it is the only possible alternative if you do not wish to marry me—’

Polly’s head reared up, blue eyes wide and bright. ‘Blackmail?’ she exclaimed in dismay. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘If you don’t marry me, you will have to leave Dharia immediately. Only your departure will end this madness on the streets and in the media.’

Polly was aghast at that cold-blooded conclusion. ‘You’re willing to throw me out of the country?’

Hard dark eyes held hers. ‘If that is what it takes, yes...and naturally I would not wish you to return in the near future,’ he decreed harshly.

Polly was shaken by that solution because she had been planning to get to know her grandparents, her newly discovered Dharian family. She had no doubt that Hakim and his wife would be willing to visit her at least once in London but it would not be the same as staying on in Dharia and having the chance to explore her father’s heritage and culture for herself.

‘I cannot allow the current security situation to continue,’ Rashad informed her grimly and he went to the doorway of the tent to clap his hands. ‘We will have tea while you consider your options.’

Polly didn’t see how tea was going to be the answer to anything but the sheer amount of entertaining ritual involved in the brewing of tea by two robed men at least gave her something to watch while her brain struggled to deal with a rising tide of anxiety. He was using blackmail even if on one level she could understand his position. It was very unfair from her point of view, though, that she should have to suffer for something that was in no way her fault. In many ways by piling on that extra pressure of an immediate departure, he was taking her right to choose away from her.

‘Seriously...’ she began furiously, ‘you would actually force me to go home?’

‘When it comes to what is best for my country I will always do it,’ Rashad countered with a roughened edge to his dark deep drawl. ‘That is my duty.’

Polly compressed her taut lips, her hand clenching angrily round her cup. She knew he meant it. It was stamped in the resolve that had hardened his lean, darkly handsome face. Either she stayed on in Dharia and agreed to marry him or she went home again and stayed there. She didn’t need to be pregnant to be offered a shotgun marriage, she reflected angrily. That was what he was offering her with the crowds providing the firepower of pressure.

Yet when it came to marriage all that went with Rashad in terms of baggage and culture and his people’s expectations was simply huge. Even so, she quite understood why he was willing when his next-best option was a marriage to a complete stranger about whom he would essentially know nothing.

‘Of course, you’d get the ring back if you married me,’ she said with a flat lack of humour.

‘And gain a gorgeous blonde wife,’ Rashad traded with a sudden charismatic smile that lit up his bronzed face, illuminating the hard cheekbones and hollows that gave his features such strong definition.

Polly glanced across the fire pit at him and the knowledge that if she said no she would never see him again sliced into her like the sudden slash of a knife blade. That prospect, she registered in mortification, was not something she wanted to think about. No more easily could she imagine being forced to walk away from the new family she had found. Perspiration beaded her upper lip as she fretted.

Marrying Rashad would be like taking a huge blind leap in the dark and she wasn’t the sort of woman who took risks of that nature, was she? But if it worked, there would be much to gain, she reasoned ruefully. She would have her grandparents for support. She was already powerfully attracted by Rashad.

‘The answer is...yes. It’s insane but...yes,’ Polly muttered almost feverishly before she could lose her nerve.

Although relief slivered through Rashad at her agreement that relief was threaded with undeniable resentment over his predicament. After all, he had been backed into a corner and forced to marry again. This was his choice, he reminded himself sternly. She was his choice and far superior to a bride who would have been a complete stranger, but the stubborn streak of volatility Rashad always kept suppressed had flickered from a spark into a sudden burning flame, for it was impossible for him to forget how very much he had hated being married.

CHAPTER FIVE

‘IT’S NOT TOO late to change your mind,’ Ellie said with a hint of desperation while she watched the television to see the partying taking place in the streets of Kashan to celebrate Rashad and Polly’s wedding day. ‘Well, they probably do have you on the tea towels and you would need to be smuggled out of the country in disguise if you jilted him!’

‘Obviously, I’m not going to jilt him,’ Polly said quietly, wishing her sister would stop winding up her nerves with her dire forecasts.

Ellie had landed in Dharia forty-eight hours earlier and she had given her elder sister every conceivable lecture against marriage since her arrival.

‘Marry in haste, repent at leisure. Do you realise what you’re getting into? Are you even sure you will be his only wife? What if everything Rashad shows you on the surface is simply a front to persuade you to marry him? Look at those people partying at the announcement! He needs you more than you need him. That should make you suspicious. What if he has another woman hidden somewhere? A woman he really loves?’

Polly had dutifully listened to every possible argument but she had absorbed few of her sibling’s warnings for the simple reason that she suspected that she was falling in love with Rashad. Yes, she had finally worked that out all on her own. How else had she contrived to overlook his threat to throw her out of the country if she didn’t agree to marry him?

On her side of the fence, her reasons for marrying Rashad had become resolutely practical over the two short weeks that had passed since his proposal. One, her grandfather spoke very highly of his ruler, and she trusted Hakim and his wife Dursa because she was genuinely convinced that they would rate her need for happiness higher than any desire to see their grandchild wed their King. Two, Rashad had been honest with her. He had paid her no extravagant compliments and had made no mention of love and she had accepted that latter handicap with the strength of a patient, optimistic woman because she hoped that in time his feelings for her would change. Three, there was just something very powerful about Rashad that called to Polly on a very deep level and she couldn’t put it into words or explain it, so she had come to think of it as the start of love. She simply knew that she wasn’t capable of walking away from him.

And how did she know that? she asked herself as the cluster of chattering maids surrounding her twitched at the skirts of her elaborate wedding outfit and attached more jewellery to her, although she was already laden down with gold and precious gems because Rashad’s uncle had saved the family jewel collection along with his youngest nephew. How the fire-opal ring had become detached from that collection would probably never be known but Hakim believed that his son had very possibly taken it and given it to Polly’s mother, Annabel, for safekeeping during the chaos following the explosion that had claimed the lives of Rashad’s family. Her father, Zahir, had after all been the most senior soldier in the palace that awful day and had died himself within twenty-four hours.

She could never walk away from Rashad when her own family was so deeply involved with the country of Dharia. No, she knew that even if her marriage turned out to be a bad marriage she was very likely stuck with it until the day she died because her grandfather had spelt out to her that she had to think in terms of for ever when it came to marrying a ruling king. Rashad’s father had divorced twice before wedding Rashad’s mother and those matrimonial breakdowns had been interpreted as signs of his general instability and his lack of staying power and sense of duty as a monarch.

‘And even worse, you’ve hardly seen Rashad since you agreed to marry him,’ Ellie reminded her with anxious green eyes.

‘He’s had so many people to meet and so many arrangements to make,’ Polly responded quietly, for Rashad had spent the last fortnight travelling around Dharia. ‘He has to consult with others about everything he does to come up with a consensus. It’s the way he operates to keep everybody happy that they’ve had their say and Grandad says it works beautifully.’

Ellie stood back a step to examine her sister’s gorgeous appearance. Traditional red and gold embroidery and rich blues had been laid down on the finest cream silk fabric that flowed like liquid and screamed designer just like the matching shoes. Her head was bare, her hair loose, as was the norm in Dharia for a bride. A magnificent set of sapphires glittered at her ears, her throat, her neck and her wrists. Delicate henna swirls decorated her hands and her feet and beneath the dress she wore a chemise with a hundred buttons for her groom to undo on the wedding night. Ellie was more intimidated than she wanted to admit by the pomp and ceremony of Rashad and Polly’s wedding and the deep fear that she was losing her sister to another world and another family. She knew that Polly’s affections ran loyal and true but how could she possibly compete?

As for Rashad? Well, it went without saying that he was very, very nice to look at, very well spoken as well as educated and civilised but, like the buttons waiting to be undone beneath Polly’s dress, what was her future brother-in-law really like below the smooth polished façade? That was the main source of Ellie’s concern because in her one brief meeting with Rashad she had reckoned that a great deal more went on below that smooth surface than trusting, caring Polly was probably willing to recognise. A man traumatised as a boy by the loss of his entire family, forced into marriage at sixteen, widowed ten years later and then raised to a throne over a population who worshipped him like a god because he had rescued them from a dictator’s tyranny? That was quite a challenging life curve to have survived. How much did her sister genuinely know about the man she had agreed to marry?

‘Would you please stop worrying about me?’ Polly urged Ellie with troubled blue eyes. ‘I want this to be a happy day.’

‘I’m always happy if you’re happy,’ Ellie declared, giving her a gentle but fond hug of apology.

But Polly knew different. Ellie had always been a worrier, expecting the worst outcome in most situations. She refused to borrow that outlook, wanting to look forward with all the hope and optimism that her wonderful discovery of her loving grandparents had already fanned into enthusiasm. Why shouldn’t their marriage work out? She wasn’t expecting an easy ride. Of course there would be obstacles and surprises and disappointments but surely there would also be joys and unexpected benefits along the way?