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But whatever happened, she would survive, because she had to.
For her children, as well as for herself.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
‘CHIEF KHAN, an outrider has arrived from the Golden Palace—the Sheikh’s party is coming.’
Raif straightened from his position—knee deep in mud—and threw down the shovel he had been using to dig a well with a group of his tribesmen.
The hard physical labour of setting up a new encampment had helped get him through the last few days. Ever since he had been forced to leave his wife sleeping in a hotel bed thousands of miles away.
The boy’s shout in Kholadi confused him, though. What was Zane doing, coming for an official visit to the new encampment without informing him first?
They had been in brief contact a week ago when Zane had sent a text to congratulate him on his marriage. And Kasia’s pregnancy. But that had been before their visit to the obstetrician in London. Before the fear for her safety had become so huge that Raif had struggled to contain it.
The shame had consumed him every day since, and the agony of loss, which he did not understand. How could you lose what you had never truly possessed? Kasia did not belong to him. She had married him out of duty, and kindness, would bear his children for him—and in return he had put her life in danger.
Was he really any different from his father? A man who had used women for his own pleasure and then discarded them?
Because of his hunger, his need, he had planted two babies inside her slim, fragile body. The doctor had said they were too big. He was a foot taller than her, it stood to reason his children would be too large.
He had killed his own mother, and now his children would kill theirs.
Rinsing his hair and chest in the bucket of water they kept next to the well, he picked up his shirt, annoyed at his brother’s unannounced visit. He’d be damned if he’d get dressed in anything more formal when he had not been given prior warning. Zane would just have to see him as he was.
But as he picked up the dirty shirt to put it on, a thought occurred to him—and panic tore at his insides.
What possible reason could Zane have to come all this way—unless there was something wrong?
>
With Kasia.
Did Zane have news of his wife? Had something happened to her, or the children he had planted inside her? Had they killed her already?
Dropping the shirt, he ran, his heart thundering, his ribs aching with the pain that had gripped him for days—and the longing that tangled in his stomach like a snake and would not let him sleep.
He’d left her in Cambridge so she would be safe. But how could she ever be safe when he had put her life in such grave danger?
At last he reached the front of the encampment, just in time to see the pack of about twenty horses gallop over the ridge.
He spotted Zane at the front of the party, sitting easily on his horse, Pegasus, but next to him was a woman, dressed in traditional Narabian style to protect her from the sun.
Catherine, it had to be. Zane had brought his queen with him. Kasia’s best friend. To give him the terrible news.
His whole body began to shake as he sent up frantic prayers—to any god that might listen.
Please let her be safe. I will never touch her again, I swear.
The longing and the desperation seemed to tear at his soul as the horses approached, picking their way down the rocky dune. The female rider arrived first, her smaller horse stopping a few feet away. But then she tugged away the headdress masking her face and her wild hair appeared like a cloud of black silk.
Her darker skin registered. That exquisite shade that smelled of jasmine and spice. Not Catherine. Kasia. His wife. His woman.
The woman he dreamed about every night. Was he dreaming still? Hallucinating? Was she a ghost? How could she be here? He had left her in Cambridge, to protect her. How could she be in the desert? Riding a horse?
He stared, unable to move, the longing he had tried to dismiss, to live with washing through him on a wave of emotion so strong he could do nothing to stop it as his hungry gaze devoured her beautiful face, the guarded expression, the round amber eyes, the lush lips now pressed into a determined line. But behind the determination he could see the same longing, the same compassion that was making his own breathing ragged.
Was he going mad? Was this the penance he would have to pay? For his many sins against her? To see her one last time, with love in her eyes, and know it could never be real? That he didn’t deserve it to be real?
