The Sheik's Unsuitable Bride

CHAPTER TEN

ZAHIR’S first impulse on leaving his mother’s house was to drive straight to Nadira to demand answers. But not dressed like this. Not wearing the robes in which he’d just made a commitment to marriage, an alliance that would bring honour to his family.

This was not the man who’d kissed, danced in the streets as if his life were his own.

By the time he’d showered, changed and was racing out across the desert, however, common sense began to assert itself.

It would be the early hours of the morning before he reached Nadira and he’d already caused Diana enough grief with his foolishness.

He slowed, pulled off the road and, wrapping himself in a heavy camel-hair cloak, began to walk.

He’d sworn he’d stay away from Diana, for once do his duty. It was his cousin, Hanif-a man for whom duty was as life itself-who had warned him that marriage was a lifelong commitment. Not something to be entered into lightly, but wholeheartedly.

And he was right. There must be no looking back over his shoulder. No lingering sense of unfinished business.

With the memory of Diana doubled up in silent agony on the quay seared into his mind, he had no doubt that there was unfinished business here.

Why had she lied to him?

He stopped. No. That was wrong. She had not lied. But neither had she contradicted him when he’d offered his own insulting interpretation. But what was he to think when one moment she was lost to the world in his arms, the next minute on edge, untouchable, desperate to get back to London?

He’d seen her pain, but had written it off as her own guilty conscience troubling her. Had turned away, so blinded by hurt, by a sense of betrayal, that he’d been unable to accept what, deep down, he’d known. That the betrayal was his.

His future was written. He could offer her nothing, whereas Diana…

Yesterday she could have made a fortune selling her ‘story’ to the press. She wouldn’t even have had to sex things up. All she’d have had to do was tell it like it was and the entire world would have been enchanted.

As he was.

At first sight.

She hadn’t even considered it. Not for a minute. From the moment she’d been told what had happened she’d thought only of her son. Her family. Of him. Apologising to him as if this was in some way her fault.

She had a son!

How old was he? Did he look like her? Or his absent father? That he was absent he did not doubt. She’d told him that she lived with her parents. Knew that she worked hard to provide for him…

He knew so little.

And yet so much. He knew that she was a loving mother. He’s seen her face, tender as she’d spoken the boy’s name. It was a look that had torn his heart out.

It was a look he’d seen tonight on his own mother’s face as she’d lain her hand against his cheek.

Furious as she was, the unconditional love remained. All she cared about was his happiness, a fact she’d demonstrated in searching for a bride who would please him, rather than the daughter-in-law she must have hoped for-an educated, travelled career woman, rather than a stay-at-home girl whose only thought would be to provide her with grandchildren.

He walked until pre-dawn turned the sky grey, coming to terms with what he must do. His parting from Diana had been abrupt, painful. It had not been done well and, before he could move on, embrace the life that awaited him, he had to thank her for what she’d done. Show her that he honoured her.

Zahir let himself into the quiet house just as dawn was turning from pink to gold and, for a moment, he stood in the tranquil courtyard and let the peace of the place surround him.

He had an apartment in the city, but he’d made no secret of the fact that this house belonged to his heart. That it was his home. His future. The place where he would, eventually-when he had time-bring his bride, make a family.

It was hardly surprising the gossips were having a field day, he thought as he crossed to the steps that led down to the pavilion.

Someone had beaten him to it. Diana…?

He paused at the foot of the veranda steps, listening to the soft sigh of her breath. Had she slept amongst the cushions, as he did on warm nights?

One step would bring him to her side. Her hair, tumbled over the silk, would be his to touch. Her cheek, her lips…

The thought made the heat sing in his blood.

‘No…’ The word was wrenched from him but, as he turned away, a tousled head appeared from amongst the cushions. Eyes the colour of a spring hedgerow met his.

Blinked.

Like Diana’s. The same colour. The same shape, but not Diana’s eyes. This was her child? Her son…

How could he doubt it?

The boy’s hair was darker, but the curl matched hers. And his dimpled smile, like hers, went straight to his heart, capturing it in an instant as he sat up, yawned and said, ‘Hello.’ Then, ‘Who are you?’

Zahir touched his hand to his heart, bowed formally. ‘My name is Zahir bin Ali bin Khatib al-Khatib.’ Then, when the boy giggled, he lowered himself to the veranda steps so that he was the same level as the child and said, ‘And you, ya habibi? What is your name?’

‘I’m Freddy.’ Then, as if realising that this came up short, he said, ‘I’m Frederick Trueman Metcalfe. I was named after Fiery Fred, the finest bowler who ever played cricket for Yorkshire and England.’ The words came out all in a rush, as if it was something he’d heard many times but did not quite understand. He suddenly looked less certain. ‘At least that’s what my grandpa says.’

‘It’s a fine name. And are you going to follow in Mr Trueman’s footsteps and play cricket for England?’

‘No. I’m going to be a footballer.’

Zahir managed to hide a smile. ‘We must all follow our own star, Freddy. Dream our own dreams.’

Live our own lives?

No! No…

Then, concerned, ‘Are you alone?’

‘I was looking for Mummy. She wasn’t in her room when I woke up so I came here. She was here yesterday.’

They had both come here looking for her…

‘Have you had breakfast?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Then maybe we should go and do something about that.’

‘I had pancakes yesterday. Mummy had a fig.’

‘Wouldn’t you like to try one?’ He indicated the tree above them. ‘You could pick your own if you like.’

The boy needed no second bidding, but leapt to his feet. Then, ‘I can’t, it’s too high!’

‘No problem,’ Zahir said, picking him up, but, as he hoisted him to his shoulder, they both turned as they heard Diana making her way up the steps from the beach. She was singing slightly breathless snatches of lyrics from a familiar song, filling in the missing words with the odd ‘la-la’ as she had when they’d danced.

‘La-la, la-la…La-la, la-la…’

She appeared on the path below them, for a moment totally unaware that she had an audience. Then, as Freddy giggled, she looked up, saw them together and stopped in mid ‘la’…

And his mouth dried.

She had been for an early morning dip and was wearing nothing but a simple one-piece bathing costume. Her creamy skin had dried on the walk up from the beach, but her hair was a mass of wet ringlets that dripped tiny rivulets of water on to her shoulders. Venus herself could not have been more beautiful, more enticing.

‘Zahir…’ She seemed as lost for words as he was. Then, recovering first, she said, ‘I see you’ve met Freddy.’

‘He’s rather younger than I imagined…’

‘I’m not young, I’m five!’ the boy declared.

‘But very big for five,’ Zahir added quickly.

And Diana smiled.

Stood there in his garden, bare legs, bare shoulders, every curve of her body brought into the sharpest focus by the clinging fabric of her wet bathing suit, smiling that sweet, tender smile that would have tempted a saint. And he was no saint.

But then neither, it appeared, was she.

‘I imagine he gets that from his father?’ he prompted and her smile, along with the flush of exertion from the walk up from the beach, disappeared like water poured on sand.

‘Freddy, I think we’d better go and find Grandma.’ She extended her hand. ‘Come on, she’ll be wondering where we are.’

‘I don’t think so,’ he said. Five years old and already resisting the tug of the apron strings.

‘Freddy!’

‘I looked. She’s asleep.’ The boy looked at him, a mute appeal for backup.

‘Freddy and I were about to pick some figs. I’d invite you to join us but, much as I regret the fact, I’m afraid that with your colouring, you need to cover up before the sun gets any higher.’

Cover up…

Diana felt the heat flood into her cheeks as she realised just how little she was wearing. Just an old bathing suit that had been purchased for respectability rather than glamour. Something to wear when she took Freddy to mother and child swimming classes.

She hadn’t even thought to take a towel with her, too locked into the idea of plunging into cold water to cool her overheated body.

Zahir was the last person she’d imagined meeting. Zahir looking at her as if she were Eve and it was the first morning…

‘Um…Good plan…’ she said, backing away in the direction of the house. ‘You two g-go and make a start, while I…’ she made a vague gesture to indicate her lack of covering, instantly regretting drawing further attention to the fact ‘…cover up.’

Then she turned and ran.

By the time she’d showered and gone through her entire wardrobe looking for something that would counteract the swimsuit look without looking as if she were hiding-cropped trousers, a long shirt with the sleeves rolled up-breakfast was well under way.

Zahir looked up, smiled, then continued talking to her father. Her mother passed her a cup of coffee without saying a word. Freddy looked up and said, ‘Z’hir’s taking Grandpa and me out on a boat. Do you want to come?’

She looked up, met Zahir’s eyes and they were both remembering another day, another boat…

‘My father keeps a small dhow here. For fishing. It’s pretty basic.’

‘Then I’ll pass, thanks.’

‘Do you want to talk about it?’

Diana and her mother were sitting on a rock above the beach, looking out over the water, watching the dhow set off down the creek.

‘There’s nothing to talk about,’ she said, tossing a pebble into the water.

‘I haven’t seen you this…’ she sought for the word. ‘…this lost since you were expecting Freddy.’

‘That was different,’ she said quickly. Then, when her mother just raised a brow, she shook her head. ‘I can’t explain it, but it’s different, okay?’

‘How different?’

But maybe not that different.

‘It’s easy to see how your sheikh might dazzle you,’ her mother said. ‘Sweep you off your feet. He’s a very good-looking man. And charming too-’

‘No.’ Then, ‘Well, yes. Obviously.’

The difference was that Pete O’Hanlon had dazzled her with his danger. Had tempted her for no other reason than because he could. Because it amused him to take something untouched and mark it as his own. He did not build things, cherish things or people. He destroyed them…

Zahir was nothing like that.

Her mother looked anxious.

‘He didn’t dazzle me.’ At least not intentionally.

All it had taken was one look and she’d lost it. All that painfully learned control, forgotten in an instant, gone in a look.

Okay. That was the same.

But she wasn’t an eighteen-year-old with her hormones on fire. She’d kept it together for Freddy. Just…

She turned to her mother. ‘How can one look change everything?’ she asked, needing someone older, wiser to tell her. ‘How can I feel this way about someone I met a couple of days ago?’

He’d looked at her as if she were the first woman and she hadn’t wanted to run and hide. She’d wanted to touch him. Had wanted him to touch her.

That was different.

She’d made him laugh.

He’d made her want to dance. Made her feel brand-new…

‘I don’t know,’ her mother replied. ‘How do you feel?’

‘As if…’As if he had been made just for her. ‘As if he’s a perfect fit,’ she said. ‘As if it’s…right.’

And that was different too.

She’d known from the moment he’d taken what he wanted that everything about Pete O’Hanlon was wrong. That she’d been an idiot. That the next day he wouldn’t even remember her name…

‘It’s a mystery. They say it’s just chemical attraction. Sexual attraction is nature’s way of keeping the species going. Marriage is society’s way of dealing with the consequences.’ She smiled. ‘Or it was.’ She shook her head, sighed. ‘It doesn’t explain how I knew your father was the one the minute he looked at me, though.’ Then, smiling, ‘Or maybe it does. Maybe it was no more than lust and I just got lucky.’

‘It’s more than that. You love each other.’

‘It takes a lot of love to hold a marriage together for twenty-five years. Not that falling-in-love kind of love, though. It’s the love you work at, that evolves, changes to match everything that life throws at the pair of you. But luck helps.’

When Diana didn’t respond, she said, ‘Maybe this is your time to get lucky. Does Zahir feel the same way about you?’

‘It doesn’t matter what he feels.’ Her voice was more emphatic than her feelings.

That he was feeling something she never doubted. That he desired her. That if she’d been a different kind of woman, one who didn’t have to live well one hundred per cent of the time just to make up for the one time she hadn’t, they might have had a brief, exciting fling.

But that was all it could ever be.

‘In this world, Zahir’s world, marriages are arranged. He will marry someone his family, his peers, deem a perfect match.’

Her mother frowned. ‘He told you that?’

‘We were discussing fairy tales. It came up…’

‘There’s no room for romance?’

‘Respect lasts longer,’ she said, managing a smile for her mother. Wanting to reassure her that this time she wasn’t going to fall apart. ‘We both agreed that fairy tales are for children.’

‘And meanwhile he can dance in the street with any girl who catches his eye?’

‘Nothing happened. Truly. If it hadn’t been for that photograph…’

If it hadn’t been for that photograph they’d be back in their own little worlds. She’d be back on the school minibus. He’d be doing whatever billionaire sheikhs did. ‘A couple of kisses, that idiotic dance…’

‘Sometimes that’s all it takes,’ her mother said, laying a hand gently over hers. ‘A look, a kiss, for the magic to change everything. How many men have you kissed? I mean kissed wanting more?’

‘Only one.’

‘Freddy’s father?’

Diana looked out across the water. Could see Zahir and her father laughing at something Freddy had said or done. It was the perfect image. A little boy with two strong men to keep him safe. Except that Zahir would be gone in an hour or two and, once they’d left this beautiful place, their worlds would not touch again.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Not Freddy’s father.’

‘Diana…’

She turned her hand to clasp her mother’s fingers. She’d never told. She’d protected Freddy. Had protected her family. Had protected everyone except herself.

It was a secret that had stood between her and her parents for nearly six years. When she’d put up that wall of silence, had refused to confide in them, had refused to cave into the threats of the Child Support Agency, telling them what to do with their money, something had been lost…

‘Don’t ask, Mum. If you knew, you’d look at him differently. You wouldn’t be able to help yourself.’

Instead of pressing her, her mother just squeezed her hand. ‘I’m proud of you, Diana. You’re a strong woman and Freddy’s a lucky boy…’

When the men returned, bearing their trophy fish, her mother took Freddy away to clean him up, her father went to take a nap, leaving her alone in the garden with Zahir.

‘We have had no time to talk,’ he said, ‘and now I have to go.’

‘Thank you for giving Freddy such a treat.’

‘It was a pleasure. He’s a lovely boy. But then he has a lovely mother. Walk with me to my car?’

She followed him up steps at the side of the house to a courtyard. It had been dark when they’d arrived, but now she could see that it commanded a view of the entire creek, and because she knew he was going to say something she didn’t want to hear, she said, ‘This is beautiful, Zahir. Has it always belonged to your family?’

‘No. I came across the house when I was out sailing one weekend. A storm blew up and I took shelter in the creek. The place was uninhabited, falling to rack and ruin, but it was love at first sight and I bought it. Restored it.’

‘You’ve done all this?’

‘I made a start, did the early clearance, but life intruded. My family needed me. Then I got involved with the travel business. The truth of the matter is that these days I speak and it is done.’

‘But the vision, the dream, is yours.’

‘A man needs dreams to sustain him,’ he said, turning abruptly away, opening the car door.

‘We all need dreams.’ Then, because the lie she had told hung between them and she wanted this over so that she could draw a line, begin to move on, she said, ‘About Freddy…’

He stopped. ‘You think that is why I came here today?’ he said, not turning. ‘To ask about your son?’

‘Didn’t you?’ Then, when he didn’t answer, ‘I let you think he was my lover so that you would walk away.’

He straightened. ‘Because you did not trust me.’

‘No! Because I did not trust myself…’

As he swung round to face her, she faltered. ‘Because once, when I was eighteen, I lost my head and hurt everyone who loved me…’

‘Is being a single mother such a big deal these days?’

‘No, but being a single mother and refusing to name the father is a very big deal.’

Zahir frowned. ‘Why would you protect a man from his responsibilities?’

‘I wasn’t protecting him, I was protecting Freddy. I didn’t want him tainted. Didn’t want anyone to look at him and say, “Like father, like son…” Always be looking for the first sign that he was going the same way.’

He reached out, caught her elbow, and somehow she was leaning against him, his arm around her, not in an embrace, but as support.

‘I was supposed to be the level-headed one in my year. The daughter every mother wanted…’ She gulped. ‘Maybe that was part of it. I was tired of being good. I just wanted to be like everyone else, part of the gang, but all those boys at school were so…ordinary.’

‘And it took extra-ordinary to make you bad?’ he said gently.

‘Pete O’Hanlon was different. Five years older. And so gloriously, perfectly dangerous.’

The words, his name, had spilled out before she was even aware she was thinking them. More than she’d told her mother. More than she’d told anyone.

‘He was the worst nightmare of every woman with an impressionable daughter. And boy, was I impressionable? He’d moved away, no one knew where he’d gone, what he was doing, but his cousin was in the same class at school as me and he came to her eighteenth birthday party. The air buzzed when he walked in. Every girl was suddenly taller, more alive. Every boy looked…dull.’

‘But he chose you…’

He’d waited until she was leaving. Had caught up with her, offered her a lift home.

‘There are more dangerous things than walking home alone in the dark,’ Zahir said when, finally, she stopped. ‘Where is he now?’

‘The morning after I got everything I deserved,’ she said. ‘He and three other men held up a bank. The police were waiting. He tried to shoot his way out and was killed.’ She shuddered. ‘I may be wrong, but I don’t believe that Sadie Redford would be so quick to invite Freddy over for a play-date with her little girl if she knew that.’

‘The sins of the father?’

The only sound was the air humming as the heat intensified. The high pitched note of cicadas stridulating below them in the garden. The blood pulsing in her ears as she waited for him to say something, anything.

‘You are his mother, Diana. Nothing else matters.’

‘No.’ Then, shaking her head, ‘Why did you come, Zahir?’

‘Because…’ He lifted his hand to her cheek. ‘Because I could not stop myself.’ He did not smile as he added, ‘It seems that I am not as strong as you.’

For a moment she thought he would kiss her, but he let his hand fall to his side.

‘You should get out of the sun now.’ Then, as he climbed into the car, ‘I promised Freddy that I would take him sailing tomorrow. I’ll be here at six.’

Zahir walked with Shula al-Attiyah in his mother’s garden, while their mothers gossiped and kept an eye on them. She was, just as his mother had promised, intelligent, well travelled, lively. Perfect in every respect but one. She was not Diana Metcalfe.

He sailed with Freddy the following morning and afterwards he ate a sumptuous mezza served by Hamid in the shade of the terrace with Diana and her family. Then he walked with Diana in the garden as he had walked with Shula.

He could not have said what they talked about. Only that being with her was right. That leaving her felt like tearing himself in half.

In the afternoon he met Adina al-Thani. She was the girl recommended by his sister for the beauty of her hair. It was a smooth ebony curtain of silk that hung to her waist and it was indeed beautiful.

If it had been chestnut. If curls had corkscrewed every which way, it would have been perfect.

Later, he had dinner with his father, who had just returned from the Sudan. They talked about politics. About the new airline. They did not talk about his marriage. Or the visitors occupying his house at Nadira.

But when he was leaving his father said, ‘I want you to know that I’m proud of you, my son. This country needs men like you. Men who can take the future and mould it to their own vision.’

And he wasn’t sure if that made him feel better, or worse.

The next day he was forced to remain in the capital, deal with the mountain of paperwork that was coming in from London. Have lunch with Leila al-Kassami-the one who was not beautiful but had a lovely smile-and her mother.

She, of all of them, came closest to his heart’s desire. Perhaps if the smile had been preceded by the fleeting appearance of a dimple, if she had caught her lip between her teeth to stop herself from saying the first thing that came into her head…

As they left, he saw his mother watching him with an expression close to desperation and knew that he was running out of time.

That evening he took Diana on a tour of his ‘vision’. Showed her the cottages, the central building that would provide everything a visitor could dream of. The chandlery, the marina. The island where the restaurant was nearing completion. The pavilion where people seeking somewhere different to hold a wedding could make their vows.

She stood beside him beneath the domed canopy looking up at the tiny lapis and gold tiles that looked like the sky in that moment before it went black and said, ‘It’s beautiful, Zahir.’ And then she looked at him. ‘Like something out of a fairy tale.’

‘Wait until you see the real thing…’

‘Oh, but I have…’

‘No. Tonight I’ll drive you far beyond the reach of manmade light-only there is it possible to see the heavens as God made them.’

Once darkness fell, he’d take her into the desert and, maybe, beneath the infinity of the heavens, she would be able to understand, he would be able to understand why, despite the fact that she had somehow taken possession of his heart, tomorrow he would have to redeem his promise to his mother. Do his duty as a son.

‘I will not be able to come here again during your visit,’ he said. ‘But I want to give you this gift.’

Diana heard the words. Heard more, perhaps, than he’d intended to say. Something that they had both agreed upon from the very first. That there were no fairy tales.