TO DEFY A SHEIKH Read online

Samarah tugged him down the corridor and into a private sitting room, closing the doors behind them. “I don’t care if you’ve agreed. Here is my question. Do you know why I married you?”

  “To avoid prison. To secretly plot my death? To gain your position back as sheikha.”

  “The first moment I agreed, yes, it was to avoid prison. And after that? To plot your doom. Then when I let that go, to become a sheikha and have a future that wasn’t so bleak. But that was all why I was planning on marrying you weeks ago. Do you know why I married you today?” she asked.

  “I’m damn certain I don’t,” he said.

  “I didn’t, either. I thought…well, I used all of those reasons. Until this morning. I was getting ready and I realized how much I missed you. Not just the pleasure, and you do give me that, but you. You’re…grumpy, and you’re hard to talk to. But you also tried to make me smile. No one else ever has. I dance for you. For you and no one else, because you make me feel like I want to dance. You’ve given my life layers, a richness it never had before. And I figured out, as I was going to make vows to you, what that richness is.”

  “What is it?” he asked, his throat tight, his body tense.

  “I love you,” she said. “I do. I am…in love with you.”

  “Samarah, no.”

  “Yes. I am. And you can’t tell me no because it doesn’t make it less true.”

  “You don’t know what you’re saying,” he said.

  “I do. I married you today because you’re the man I want to be with. Because if you opened the palace doors and told me I could go anywhere, I would stay with you.”

  “And I married you not knowing you were going to say such a ridiculous thing. Did you not hear what I told you? I could end you, Samarah. What if I did? What if I lose control…”

  “My father is responsible for it. I’m not listening to this nonsense.”

  “You’re wrong, Samarah.”

  “Why are you so desperate to believe this?”

  “Because it is truth,” he said. “And I will never…I will never take the chance on failing like that again.”

  “Well, what does that have to do with me loving you?”

  “I don’t want your love. I can’t have it—do you understand?”

  “Too late.”

  “This was a mistake,” he said.

  “And it is also too late for you to have those concerns. We are married. And you know there is every possibility I could have a child. We’ve never taken precautions in all of our time together.”

  “I’m not divorcing you. Don’t be so dramatic.”

  “You’re rejecting my love and I haven’t threatened to kill you. Considering our past history I’m not being overdramatic. I’m not even being…dramatic.”

  He gritted his teeth, pain burning in his chest, a low, painful smolder. “I don’t want your love. I don’t love you, Samarah, and I won’t.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not loving anyone. Never again.”

  “But everything that we’ve… You wanted to see me smile.”

  “That’s not love, habibti. That’s a guilty conscience. I don’t have love, but I do have guilt in spades.”

  “What about our children?”

  Pain lanced at him, the smoldering ember catching fire and bursting into flame in his chest. “I don’t have it in me. What could I offer them? A father whose hands have stolen a life? A father who loses all humanity with his rage.”

  “Coward,” she said. “You’re right. You are weak, but not for the reasons you mean. You’re just hiding. You’re still just hiding.”

  “I stopped hiding. I took revenge, remember?”

  She shook her head. “No. Part of you stayed back there. Hidden. You’ve been out here fighting ever since, but you left your soul behind.”

  “For good reason. It’s too late for me. I’m sorry you want more than I can give.” He stepped forward, cupping her cheek. He swept his thumb over her silken skin, pain shooting through him. He had a feeling this would be the last time he touched her for a very long time. “This is never going to be a real marriage.”

  Samarah stumbled back. “Say it again,” she said.

  “I don’t love you.”

  A sob worked through her body, her hands shaking. “No. Of course not. No one ever has… Why should you be the first?”

  “Samarah…you do not love me. You’re a prisoner. You’ve had no one in your life, so you think you love me, but you’ve been fooled. I did put you in jail today. A life sentence. And because of the nature of things, going back now would be foolish.”

  “Do not tell me what I feel!”

  “You need to be told. If you think you can love a man like me? If you think this is what love is, offering you a life of captivity behind bars or captivity in my bed, then you need to be told!”

  “That isn’t what you’ve done. You’re just afraid. You’re afraid of—”

  “I do not fear you. I would have to care first.”

  She reeled back, her hands shaking. “I’m going to go,” she said.

  “We have a feast to get to.”

  “I don’t care. I’m going to…I need to go.”

  She needed some space. She needed to catch her breath. She’d been right the other day. She and Ferran could never have normal. They could never have happy.

  The blinding flash of joy she’d felt today when she’d realized she loved him was gone now. In that moment she’d believed that loving him would be enough. That if she loved him, regardless of what he thought about himself, it could work.

  But she’d been naive. She’d never loved anyone before, and she’d felt so powerful in the moment that she’d been convinced it could conquer everything. But it hadn’t. It wouldn’t.

  Looking back into Ferran’s blank, flat black eyes she knew it.

  He had chosen to hold on to the past. He had chosen to stay behind his walls. And as long as that was what he wanted, there would be no reaching him.

  “I can’t go to the wedding feast alone,” he said, his voice raw.

  “And I can’t sit next to a man who’s just rejected my love. I won’t. Don’t worry—I’m not going to kill you,” she said, turning away from him and heading to the door. “I’ll just leave you to wallow in your misery. And I do believe that eventually you’ll feel misery, even if it’s not now. We could have had something. We could have had a life. As it is, I’m going to try and have one. I’m not sure what you’re going to do.”

  She turned away from him, not wanting him to see her break. Loving always involved loss, and right now was no exception.

  She’d just spoken vows to stay with Ferran forever, and in almost the same moment, she’d lost any hope she had of forging a real bond with him.

  She was a married woman now, in a palace. With servants and beautiful gowns and a man who would share her bed. And she felt more alone than she ever had in her life.

  * * *

  Ferran hadn’t realized she’d meant she was leaving. Samarah wasn’t anywhere in the palace. She wasn’t in his chamber, she wasn’t in hers.

  Panic raged through him. Had she gone? She was his wife. She had nowhere else to go. He tore at the collar on his tunic, hardly able to breathe.

  He’d gone to the feast and made excuses for her being sick, and when everyone had gone, he’d discovered this.

  If she had gone, he should be pleased. He should not hold her to him. To a man who might destroy her. Not knowing she was here because of coercion, whatever she said now.

  And yet the thought of losing her…

  “Lydia!” He entered the servants’ quarters, shouting.

  Lydia appeared from the dining area, her eyes wide. “Yes, Your Highness?”

  “Where is my wife?”
r />   “You do not know?”

  “I don’t know or I would not have asked, obviously. Do not insult me,” he growled. He was being cruel, and he knew it. But he was desperate. Panicked. For a woman he did not love.

  Because of course he didn’t love her. He couldn’t love her.

  He didn’t deserve her.

  It was his life. No matter what he thought, no matter how controlled he was, he hurt the people in it. He saw that now. With blinding clarity.

  With all his prized control, he had held a woman captive. He had forced her into marriage.

  “Where is my wife?” he repeated.

  “She went to your oasis. I helped her pack. She said she needed some time away.” Lydia’s eyes were serious and slightly judging.

  He gritted his teeth. Damn that woman. “Thank you,” he bit out, turning and walking away.

  He paused in the doorway, his hand on his chest. He thought he might be dying. Or maybe that was just what it felt like when your heart tried to beat against a brick wall.

  He wasn’t sure what scared him more. That the wall would hold…or that it might finally break for good.

  * * *

  After two days away, Samarah’s head didn’t feel any clearer. She was just wandering through the tent, such as it was, thinking about Ferran. All he’d been through. The way her father had twisted his caring. The way he’d been made to feel responsible for an insane man’s secrets.

  She paused at the doorway of the bedroom, her fingers tracing the woodgrain on the door as she stared out the window at the water beyond.

  Had she ever offered to make Ferran smile?

  She didn’t think she had. He’d given her so much, and in the end, he’d been too afraid to give it all, but she could understand why. She turned into the doorway and rested her face in her hand, stifling the sob that rose in her throat.

  She hadn’t cried in so long before Ferran. But he made her want more. The wanting was complicated. It wasn’t all blind determination and a will to live. It was a deep, emotional need that she was sure at this point was overrated.

  She wanted him so much.

  She wanted him to love her.

  She wanted to make him smile.

  Samarah lifted her head. She shouldn’t be here, hiding from him. Seeking refuge from reality. From him.

  And she’d accused him of being a coward.

  She’d held on to her anger toward him for years. With no contribution from him. With no action from him. No confirmation that he even deserved it, and yet she’d been willing to commit the ultimate sin for that anger.

  Shouldn’t she love him just as much? Shouldn’t she love him no matter what he gave back? No matter if he loved her? Wasn’t that real love?

  Pain lanced her chest. Yes, she wanted him to love her back. But if she truly loved him—and she did—it didn’t matter what he said. She was no prisoner. He was behaving as though she was weak, and she was not weak.

  She had to tell him that.

  She had to go back.

  She pushed away from the door and turned around, immediately falling into a fighting stance when she saw the man in white standing there.

  She relaxed when she was able to focus on his face. “Ferran?”

  He took a step closer to her, the look on his face unsettled. “I came for you,” he said, his voice unsteady.

  “I’m sorry. I was about to come home.”

  “No. Do not apologize. I had to release the past’s hold on me before I could come to you. I think…I think that this was the best place for me to do this.”

  “To do what?” she asked.

  “I am afraid,” he said. “I told myself it was because I had held you captive. Because I am a monster and if I do not keep control I could easily make the same mistakes I had made before.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “I know,” he said. “And…I do not deserve your confidence.”

  “You do.”

  “You can leave,” he said. “I will release you from this marriage. From me. I will give you whatever you need to start a new life. All of your decisions are your own. You have options. Live life. Live it apart from me.”

  She stepped nearer to him, her heart pounding hard. “Don’t you understand? You’re the life I’ve chosen. You’re the one I’ve chosen.”

  “I can’t believe that,” he said, his dark eyes haunted. “At my core, I am a murderer.”

  “No,” she said, putting her hand on his face. “You’re a survivor. I recognize it. Because it is what I am, too. We have survived the unimaginable. And you know what? It would have broken other people. We aren’t broken.”

  “I am,” he said.

  “Only because you’re too afraid to put yourself back together.”

  “I am,” he said. “Because there is every chance it would reveal a monster.”

  “There are no monsters here,” she said, looking around the room. “Not anymore. And we don’t have to let them rule our life anymore. I am not my father. I am not my mother. I am Sheikha Samarah Bashar. My allegiance is to you.”

  “I don’t feel I can accept your allegiance,” he said.

  “Do not insult me by rejecting it. Not when you already insulted me by rejecting my love.”

  “I don’t seek to insult you. It is…this is the only way I know to love you,” he said. “And I find that I do. But I want to be sure that you want to be with me. That you have chosen it. Not because you are a captive. I want… If you choose to stay, I want to be able to trust I can give you passion. That I can give you everything. And you will want it. Not just feel trapped into it.”

  “Oh, Ferran.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him close, kissing him, deep and long. “I love you, too.”

  “I do not deserve it,” he said, his voice rough.

  “I tried to kill you. I don’t exactly deserve your love, either.”

  “Samarah…I don’t trust myself.”

  She stepped back, then reached down and took his hand in hers, lifting it to her throat. “I do,” she said. “I have witnessed your character. The way you treated your would-be assassin. I have heard the story of how you avenged your mother. How much you must have loved her to be so enraged. You are a man of great and beautiful passion.”

  “I have never seen passion as beautiful.”

  “Neither did I. Before you.” She pressed his hand more firmly against her neck. “Would you ever harm me?”

  “Never,” he said, his voice rough, his touch gentle. “Our children…”

  “I know you wouldn’t. And you will never harm our children. I know your hands have had blood on them. Blood from the avenging of those you love. Ferran, you would never harm your family. But you would kill for them if it ever came down to it. You would die for them. And there is no shame in that.”

  “I…I never saw it that way.”

  “I see it. Because I see you. You are a warrior. As am I. Together we can face whatever terrible things come.”

  “I’ve always been afraid that I was a terrible thing.”

  “There was a time when I thought you were, and I very nearly became terrible, too. But you saved me.”

  “We saved each other.”

  “There will always be ugliness in the world, Ferran, but loving you is the most beautiful thing that’s ever happened in my life. We have something beautiful for the first time.” A tear rolled down her cheek and splashed onto his hand. “Don’t fear your passion. I want it. I crave it.”

  “You make me treasure it,” he said. “Something I never imagined possible. You told me once that you found a passion for breathing when breathing was all you had. That your desire for revenge was a passion that kept you going. That’s what it felt like when you left. I breathed for y
ou. For the one thing that mattered. And then I knew. That this was love. That it was worth anything to claim. That you were worth anything. That I would have to give you the choice to leave even though I wanted you to stay. That I would have to expose myself even though I feared what was inside me. Every wall inside me is broken down, for you. I would rather stand here with you, exposed and vulnerable, than spend the rest of my life protected without you.”

  “Oh, Ferran…I’m so glad I chose you instead of prison.”

  He laughed and her heart lifted. “I’m glad, too. It’s nice to be preferable to a dungeon.”

  “You smiled,” she said.

  “So did you,” he said.

  “You give me so many reasons to smile.”

  “And I promise to continue to, every day.”

  EPILOGUE

  THERE WAS SOMETHING incredible about the fact that he and Samarah had created a life together. After so much loss, so much pain, they had brought something new into the world.

  Ferran looked down at his son, cradled in his mother’s arms, and he felt his heart expand. He reached down, running his fingers along Samarah’s flushed cheek. “I will never take for granted that I have you here,” he said. “Because I remember a moment when I thought I was touching you for the last time.”

  She looked up at him and smiled. “You have a lot of years of touching ahead of you,” she said.

  “And thank God for it. I would like to hold my son,” he said, his throat tightening as he looked at the baby in her arms.

  “Of course.”

  He bent down and took the swaddled bundle from her. He was so tiny, so fragile. And she was trusting him with him. Just as she trusted herself to him, and had done for the past year. “He is perfect,” Ferran said.

  “I know,” she said, smiling.

  “Who would have thought your revenge would end this way?” he asked. “The creation of a life, instead of the end of one.”

  “Two lives,” she said, smiling. “I feel like my life became so much more that day. It became life instead of survival.”

  “Three then,” he said, running his finger over his son’s cheek. “Because I was frozen in time until you came back to me. And now…now my life has truly begun.”