She’d kicked herself for giving voice to the needy questions.
He’d frowned, perhaps feeling her intrusion was unwelcome. “Deep into the desert, to the south.” It was clear he was already mentally there. “I cannot say how long I will be away.”
And he’d turned and left, without any further goodbye. What had she expected? A passionate kiss or embrace in front of his staff and hers? A long, detailed conversation? An accounting for his time?
Addan and she had been best friends. When the tribes had flared up and required Addan’s attention, he’d talked to Sophia about it at length. He’d seen her as an asset to him, recognizing that the daughter to a US senator and a woman practically raised to be Sheikha, with a passion for the classics, knew more than a little bit about politics and human nature.
She wondered which of the tribes was calling Malik away, and for what reason.
And she reconciled herself to the fact Malik might not see their marriage as Addan had – he might not wish her to be a queen who involved herself on the political side.
Well, tough.
She wasn’t just window dressing. Addan had known her, he’d understood. Sophia wanted to make a difference in the world, to be an instrument of change. It was one of the main reasons she’d agreed to sacrifice personal privacy and take up this very visible, high-profile position within the Abu Fayan royal family.
There was no information forthcoming about Malik’s trip, nor if he was seeing success.
Frustration gnawed at her gut, but she quelled it. This was still the first week of their marriage. They were yet to find any kind of groove – he had no idea what she wanted and that was her fault. She hadn’t told him.
The year of their betrothal had seen them together on only a handful of occasions and his coldness to her had made any kind of conversation almost impossible, just as it had for the duration of their acquaintance.
But now, there was no coldness. Only white hot heat, and she had to get past the feeling that she was an unwanted bride and navigate their relationship – to get what she needed out of this royal life.
As soon as she arrived back at the palace, as dusk was curdling the sky pink and purple and gold was dipping down towards the distant oceans, Sophia made a beeline for the private residence.
She hadn’t moved into their bedroom.
The bedroom she was to share with Malik.
With him away immediately after the wedding, it hadn’t felt right somehow. Besides, she preferred it here, in her little sanctuary, the bedroom that was next to Addan’s, the suite they’d sat up in and talked about everything and anything until all hours of the morning.
This felt like home. She wasn’t ready to give it up yet.
She stripped naked and pulled a pair of bathers from the wardrobe, the white bikini a gift from some designer or other. Sophia donated most of the fashionable gifts she was sent – there were too many for her to ever wear and she knew that they were better being auctioned, the money going towards good causes.
For some reason, this pair of swimmers had avoided that fate.
The pool beyond her bedroom could only be accessed by the royal family, and only through their bedrooms. It was a completely private space, and she reveled in that – she reveled in knowing that here, at least, she could be unobserved. She could be herself.
There was no relief from the heat of the day, nor the fever in her blood.
She dove into the pool without preamble, smiling as the water enveloped her, as it cooled her flesh and relaxed her mind. She kicked hard underwater, swimming the length, pushing up only when she reached the opposite end.
Here, she paused a moment before diving back underwater and doing a summersault, and then another.
As a child, she’d harboured fantasies of joining the American synchronized swimming team and going to the Olympics. She’d outgrown the dream but not the love of playing in the water.
She laughed when she burst through the surface and then moved to the edge, bracing her arms against the sun-warmed coping, staring out at the sky. This time of day was like magic. As the sun waned to accommodate the moon, the blanket of stars darkening, coming closer, whispering secrets of the evening. She felt as though she was a celestial being, for those few moments where day and night were completely merged.
She spun around slowly in the water, chasing the sky, but an incongruous shape caught her attention and she jerked her head in that direction.
Only to feel like her heart had been exploded in her chest. Draped against the wall opposite, his dark eyes watching her with an intensity she couldn’t comprehend, was Malik.
Broad, big, wild Malik, dragged in from the deserts, his expression impossible to read, his eyes trained on her with an intensity that stole her breath. Even as she turned to face him, he continued to stare at her, and her lips parted of their own accord, breath still almost impossible to find.
So, he was back.
He looked… the least regal she’d ever seen him. Wearing the traditional white robes of Abu Faya, they were crinkled and dusted by sand. His hair was loose, around his shoulders, knotted and tangled. Despite this, he was more handsome than ever.