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He had to find her. The panic kicked his heart rate up another notch.
The Zafari desert was a dangerous place, especially at night. And there was less than two hours before sunset.
Orla was his wife now, and his Queen, in every way that mattered, which made her his responsibility—and the sooner she accepted that, the better.
Maybe he could never give her his heart… But she would always have his protection.
He had failed one woman once, and it had eventually destroyed her.
He would not fail another.
Orla huffed out a breath as the beautiful white mare crested the rocky edge of the dune and she spotted the shimmer of water in the valley below.
She tugged on the mare’s reins and the horse paused, waiting patiently for her next instruction despite the scent of the water making her nostrils flare.
‘Good girl, Sabella,’ she said, patting the horse’s sweaty neck.
The oasis was stunning, just as Ameera had described it when she had given her directions to it that morning. A grove of palm trees and desert scrubs surrounded a large rocky pool, formed by a waterfall seeping from the rocks.
Clucking her tongue and pressing her heels into the mare’s sides, she directed the horse down the rocky slope towards it, knowing she would have been just as relieved to see a puddle after three hours in the saddle.
She shouldn’t have left the palace, shouldn’t have taken the horse, or the risk that she might get lost in the desert. A desert that, she had soon discovered, was as harsh and inhospitable as Ameera had warned her. But she hadn’t been able to stay, had known she needed time and space and distance before she faced Karim again.
As Sabella reached the water, Orla climbed off the mare’s back and allowed the animal to stick her snout in the pool, while she tied the reins off on a rock. After taking the last sip from her water pouch, she set about removing the saddle bags filled with the gear she had packed for an overnight stay at the oasis. And then the saddle.
She took care of the horse first, preparing her feed pouch for later and brushing her coat, before tethering her to a cooler spot under the trees. Then she set about putting up the tent and making a campfire in the shade, the water still beckoning.
But with the tough ride now over, the chores failed to provide enough distraction to stop the painful thoughts that had been torturing her, ever since she had walked away from Karim that morning.
‘This is a real marriage now…’ His words shot through her mind again bringing with them that swift, painfully misguided burst of hope, which had been shattered less than a second later—before she’d even had a chance to acknowledge it, or the terrifying truth behind it—when he’d added, ‘You don’t have a choice, and neither do I.’
Somehow she had fallen in love with this hard, intractable, emotionally unavailable man. Who she was now very much afraid could never love her back.
What had happened with his mother…and his father…had scarred him in a way that had closed him off to even the possibility of love.
She couldn’t save him if he didn’t want to be saved. Trying to make him want her, to make him love her, was a pointless task. All she would end up doing was hurting herself more. She’d realised as much when Ameera had told her about the Law of Marriage of the Sheikhs, and she’d finally understood why he had demanded she stay married to him.
Something to do with her virginity. Nothing whatsoever to do with her, or the connection she’d thought had begun to develop between them.
She needed this time in the desert alone to find the strength, not just to defy him, but to leave him and return to Kildare.
After finally attaching the feed pouch to Sabella’s bridle so the horse could reg
ain the calories she’d lost during the arduous—and somewhat roundabout—trek to the oasis, Orla stripped off the dusty riding robes down to her panties and T-shirt.
She stepped into the cool water, aware of the ripple of sensation as she submerged herself, wanting to wash away the feel of his touch on her skin. The feel of him, hard and possessive and hers, inside her body. And yet at the same time not wanting to.
The sun was starting to sink towards the horizon at last, the heat still shimmering in a haze, but what should have been refreshing, rejuvenating, was anything but, the heated, painful memories still bombarding her and making her skin feel achingly sensitive, and her heart shattered.
She ducked her whole head beneath the water, scrubbed her aching body, the tender flesh between her legs that still yearned to feel him thick and firm inside her.
But as her breath got trapped in her lungs she was forced to lift up through the surface. The rushing sound of the waterfall covered the hasty beat of her heart, until she realised the pounding sound was getting louder and closer.
She turned, to see a magnificent black stallion gallop to a stop at the water’s edge, and the man astride it—dressed in flowing riding robes—his face marred by a thunderous frown, jump down in one fluid movement and declare in a low voice, husky with barely leashed fury: ‘Get out of there. Now!’
Karim.
She shuddered at the temper on his face, but kept her chin firm and her breath even—or as even as she could manage while the emotions she’d come here to suppress raged through her again—as she walked out of the water.
