Malik’s stomach clenched. Fury slashed his insides. There was no going back, no changing the decisions he’d made and the way he’d handled his life.
“He loved you.”
“Stop.” His eyes swept shut for a moment. “Do not speak to me of Addan. At least, do not speak to me of his feelings for me. I know what we were to each other. I know how he felt.”
“He was proud of you,” she said simply.
“Stop,” he repeated, this time holding a hand in the air to silence her. “Respect me, respect my wishes, Sheikha.”
“Or what? You’ll have me flown back to the palace? Why won’t you talk to me about him? Does it occur to you that you’re the only other person who loved him as I did? Who I can share my grief with?”
Malik felt as though his chest had been cleaved wide open. “Get a therapist, Sophia, if you want to talk out your grief.”
“Jeez,” she whispered, spinning her face away from his, looking out the window. But not fast enough – he saw the tears that sparkled on her lashes and knew he’d done that to her. Guilt chewed at his heels.
“He loved you,” she whispered. “He hated that you and I… that we weren’t… he hated that we hated each other. He wanted us to be friends. But how can we be? How can we be anything other than this when you are determined to be so…”
He waited, his pulse like a volcano. “Yes?”
“So cold.” She finished, shaking her head. “Everywhere except bed.”
The words settled on his shoulders, and they felt right. They felt good, somehow, the limitations exactly what his relationship with his brother’s fiancé should have been.
“You chose this marriage,” he reminded her, surprising even himself with how arctic the words sounded. “Knowing what it
would be like.”
“I thought he’d been right about you. I thought if I got to know you better…”
“He was wrong. You were wrong. This is who I am, this is what I want from our marriage. I’m sorry to be pain you, naturally, but do not look to change me, Sheikha.”
She bit down on her lip and he suspected it was to stop a sob from emerging. “I won’t.” She stared straight ahead for the remainder of the flight.
Chapter 9
IT WAS HOTTER AND more unpleasant than anything she’d ever experienced, like being a turkey in the oven on Thanksgiving Day, no reprieve in sight. Even the breeze that occasionally rolled lackadaisically past was warm, offering no respite from the searing heat.
But she didn’t express, with words nor gesture, that she was even remotely uncomfortable.
The helicopter had set down hours earlier, followed by a second, which set up an enormous tent for her and Malik, a little away from the ramshackle group of Bedouin constructions. Theirs was sturdy and designed for comfort – even a small bathroom had been constructed – a rudimentary shower head and toilet meant the creature comforts she’d neglected to consider were of no concern.
There were more clothes for her too, and she was immensely glad, because none of what she’d brought was suitable. The singlet tops she’d planned to wear revealed far too much skin, for modesty but also sunburn. Instead, she changed into one of the long, flowing robes with sleeves that fell to her wrists, and which were made of a very fine linen weave, meaning what little breeze there was could pass through her.
She scooped her hair out of the pony-tail and opted for a bun instead, trying to maximize the places the stilted desert air could reach her.
Malik had disappeared the moment they’d touched down. He’d strode out of the helicopter without so much as a backwards glance and she’d fought an urge to pitch herself after him, to run at him and throw her fists against his chest and to shout at him to stop being such a dictatorial bastard and open up to her! Addan was their common ground. His death had affected them both. Why wouldn’t he talk to her about that?
She sipped the ice cold tea that had been prepared for her – several servants had been brought to the desert as well, though they were staying in the Bedouin tribe.
Sophia knew this wasn’t how Malik travelled, when he ventured into the desert. She’d learned from Addan that he slept under the stars as much as possible, occasionally setting up a simple tent for himself – usually only when one of the desert’s fiery sandstorms were expected, to save his skin from being sheared off.
So all of this, then, was for her.
And that infuriated her. She didn’t want special treatment. Okay, maybe she did. Maybe the toilet and the shower were a nice touch. But she didn’t want him to think she was some precious little wildflower that needed protecting. She was his wife – his equal – and he had to start treating her like that.
Or maybe she was just furious with him in general, frustrated by his insistence on keeping her at arm’s length even when they’d shared something so special, so meaningful. Because it was meaningful, wasn’t it? Sex was sex, sure. She got it.
But it hadn’t been ‘just sex’. Not even when he’d insisted as much. There was no way the passion that had burst between them was normal or routine. It had to be because of who they were. She had no experience, no point of comparison, and yet she felt it with complete certainty. So why wasn’t he admitting that?