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Particularly not when she saw him lift his left hand and rub at the white line of the scar on his face, fretting at it with obvious disquiet.
The ghost of tragic Sharmila must have surfaced in his thoughts, possibly even seeming to reprove him for marrying another bride, for sharing the heat of passion in their bed.
There was no way that Aziza wanted to take the risk of being told that Nabil regretted the passion they had shared when it revived memories of the bond he had enjoyed with his tragic young love. Silently, reluctantly, she turned and crept away, leaving Nabil to the darkness of his thoughts.
Perhaps one day she would learn how to handle the changeable moods that this new husband of hers displayed so openly. One moment he would be calm, attentive, considerate. He took her riding out along the mountain paths, or swam in the huge swimming pool, built indoors to hide them from the burning heat of the desert sun. But then in the space of a heartbeat he would change, his disposition becoming darker, withdrawn, and each time he had left her bed she had recognised how hard she found it to reach him.
Once the restraint between them had been stripped away on that first night, from then it had taken just a second to put a light to the hunger that they felt for each other, heating the blood in their veins until they were molten with passion. In the space of a heartbeat they would lose themselves in each other, obliterating reality in the heat they created between them.
But when the burn of passion ebbed, when they lay silent and sated on the cool sheets, as the throb of fulfilment slowly ebbed between Aziza’s legs, her pulse slowing to a heavy, lazy beat, she had felt Nabil stirring, raking long fingers through the black sleekness of his hair. It had taken an effort to turn to him, one day, fighting against the wash of exhaustion, the way that her eyes felt as if they were weighted down so that it was impossible to lift her heavy lids at all.
‘Where are you going?’
She’d had to make an effort to put no note of complaint into it and, although her hands itched to fasten around the long muscular arms that were now pushing himself up from the mattress, she clamped them tight down by her sides to keep them from reaching for him.
‘Things to do,’ he’d said, pulling on the trousers that had been discarded on the floor in the heat of their rush to the bed.
‘Such as? This is our...’ But no, the word ‘honeymoon’ was obviously going to be a mistake. A red rag to a bull if the swift, flashing glance he’d turned in her direction was anything to go by.
How did someone switch off so completely just like that? She’d been fighting hard against the sleep that had still threatened to overwhelm her, and all she’d wanted was to curl up close to him, to drift away on the warm sea of contentment into the peace of dreams.
Not Nabil. It seemed that, having appeased his appetite, he now no longer wanted to stay around.
She could let it hurt her. Darn it, it did hurt, but she had a choice of whether to show it or not. And showing the pain that was twisting in her heart would be to open herself up to him too much. To Nabil she was only his wife of convenience, the chosen one for this arranged marriage. So she would be a fool to expect the richness of love from this relationship.
‘You are the most inconsistent creature I’ve ever met,’ she’d teased when he had his face buried in the white T-shirt he was pulling over his head. The drowsiness of completion was ebbing from her now and she pulled the fine white sheet up around her, coiling into it as he turned to face her.
‘And why do you think that is?’ Nabil responded. ‘Have you considered what part you might play in making me like this?’
‘You mean you never were so unpredictable before?’
‘Not that anyone has told me.’
‘But would they actually tell you—hmm?’ Aziza couldn’t help coming back at him. ‘I mean you are the Sheikh, after all. Who would dare to risk their head by telling His Great High Majesty that his moods were...erratic?’
‘You might be describing my father,’ Nabil growled. ‘But I am not him.’
‘True,’ Aziza had to concede. ‘Sheikh Omar—was very much of the old school. Male power was dominant and women were very much second-class citizens. In his day, I certainly wouldn’t be able to have my driving licence.’
‘You can drive? Then you must pick out a car you would like and I’ll make sure it’s yours. That is unless you would prefer to have the royal chauffeur drive you everywhere.’
‘Oh, no—you’re mixing me up with Jamalia! She’d be happy to have a private chauffeur—but I’d feel trapped, imprisoned.’
