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‘Not as yet but he must marry,’ Hakim told her cheerfully. ‘It is a monarch’s duty to take a wife and have children to provide stability for the next generation.’
As far as Rashad was concerned, there was definitely a high price to be paid for all that bowing and scraping and luxurious privilege, Polly acknowledged ruefully. She remembered him saying that breaking the rules brought consequences and remembered how quickly Hakim’s censure had brought those consequences home. Rashad had known exactly what he was talking about. She had been naïve and thoughtless, she reckoned ruefully, and, if Rashad was never allowed to be alone with a woman, surely it was little wonder that he had got a little carried away with her hand?
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.
