Promised to a Sheik (16 page)

Within minutes he was telling his father everything—about the letters he had written and the ones he had received, letters he'd assumed had been from Fiona. He told his father about Cara's lie and how he had only realized the truth the week before, after the celebration dance. He repeated to Sheik Abdul what Cara had told him, about why she'd done it and why she hadn't told him the truth.

“So, what do you intend to do?” his father asked when he'd finished speaking. “Do you wish to divorce her?”

“No.” The answer sprang quickly to his lips. “We are married, and I have no intention of changing that fact.”

He frowned and eyed his father steadily. “Tell me about my mother.”

Pain darkened his father's eyes. “What does she have to do with any of this?”

“I'm curious, that's all. You never speak of her.”

“There is no point in speaking of her. She is gone.”

There was a tension in his father's voice, a whisper of pain that surprised Omar. “Father, I have always believed you are a wise man, and it was you who taught me that sheiks don't love with their hearts, that to love is a form of weakness. Did you love my mother?”

Sheik Abdul averted his gaze from Omar's and in
stead focused on some point in the distance. For a moment silence reigned between the two men. Omar waited patiently, knowing eventually his father would answer his question.

“Antonia was like no other woman I had ever met,” he finally said. “She was like the joyous birdsong of a new morning, a cool cloth on a fevered brow. Had I not been a sheik, she'd have made me feel like one. She gave me laughter and joy, friendship and passion.”

He looked at Omar again, his eyes radiating the emotion that was in his heart. “Did I love her? Aside from you, I have never loved anyone as profoundly, as deeply as I loved Antonia. When she died, she took with her any capacity I might have had to love another woman in that same way.”

So, this must have been what Cara had wanted him to hear, Omar thought. He recognized that his father's admission of loving his mother certainly belied what his father had tried to teach him about love.

“My son.” Sheik Abdul reached across the table and gripped Omar's hand firmly in his. “I have done you an enormous injustice in attempting to shield your heart from love. My only excuse is that I never wanted you to feel the kind of pain I felt when I lost your mother.”

He released Omar's hand, then leaned back in his chair. “You were so in love with this Fiona?”

“No,” Omar scoffed. “I only met her once, years ago. She was quite beautiful, but no more so than Cara. It was the letters I received that captured my
heart.”
Captured his heart.
His own words surprised him, and suddenly he realized why he was so angry with Cara.

He stood abruptly. “I must go,” he said. “I need to discuss some things with my wife.”

“Take care, son,” Sheik Abdul exclaimed. “A woman's heart is a fragile thing.”

Omar nodded. “I know. However, I have suddenly come to realize that in love, all hearts are created equal.” With these words, Omar left his father at the table and headed for his quarters—and Cara.

“Elizabeth…Cara,” he called the moment he walked into their quarters.

There was no reply. He walked down the hallway to the bedroom that she had been using since he'd banished her from the master suite.

The room was neat, the bed made, and everything in order. He turned to leave the room and nearly ran over one of the maids. “Ah, Sahira, where is my wife?” he asked.

“I don't know, Your Highness. She called for a car about an hour ago and left.”

“She didn't mention where she was going?” he asked.

“She did not say…but she had a suitcase with her.”

“A suitcase!” Shocked, he raced back into the bedroom and flung open the closet door. Most of the clothing she had brought with her was gone.

“Guards!” he yelled.

S
he would be home in plenty of time to shop for Christmas.

Cara stared out the glass windows of the Gaspar public airport, trying not to think of all she was leaving behind: the haunting beauty of Gaspar, the friendliness of the people and, most importantly, Omar.

She looked at her watch and frowned. Upon arriving, she had quickly discovered that the small Gaspar airport had only about twenty flights in and out daily, none of which was a direct flight to the United States.

With changing planes and layovers, it would be twenty hours or so before she got back to her little cottage in Mission Creek, Texas.

She turned away from the window when the landscape blurred from her ever-present tears. She picked up her suitcase and walked to a row of chairs, sinking down in the last one, nearest the gate where she would eventually board her plane.

Drawing a deep breath, she thought over the events of the night before. Her love for Omar hadn't changed. It burned in her heart, seared through her soul, but she'd realized after her argument with him that she couldn't remain with him.

She refused to play his love slave for another day, another minute. She loved him, but she loved herself too much to be satisfied with just his physical love and nothing more.

Funny, the Cara she had been before meeting him might have stayed, might have been desperate and willing to accept whatever crumbs he was willing to throw in her direction. But in his love she'd found her own strength—the strength to walk away from him and his unforgiving eyes.

Aside from Omar, there were many things she would miss, like the friendships she had made with his stepmothers. Hayfa, Jahara and Malika would always have a special place in her heart, but even their friendship couldn't make her stay another minute.

She would not be subservient to any man—not even Omar, who seemed to feel she owed it to him because of her deception. She had apologized and she had loved him and that should be enough for him, but of course it wasn't.

Again tears stung her eyes, and she closed them, willing the tears away. After leaving Omar in the kitchen the night before, she had cried enough tears to last two lifetimes.

Something good had survived despite the heartache. She no longer had any desire to be just like her sister. In the weeks that she had spent with Omar before he'd realized the truth, she had found herself. Maybe someday she would be able to thank him for that.

She consciously willed her thoughts away from
Omar and instead thought of her little cottage and the life she was returning to. Her life would be different there because
she
was different. She wasn't sure what the future held for her, but she would never again feel as if she were functioning in the shadow of her sister.

“Your Highness?” A deep voice spoke from behind her as a hand touched her shoulder.

She turned in her seat to see three uniformed palace guards. “Yes?”

“We are here to accompany you back to the palace,” the eldest of the three said.

“Thank you, but that isn't necessary,” she replied. “I have no intention of returning to the palace.”

The guard frowned, looking pained. “I'm afraid our orders are to take you back to the palace.” The other two guards stepped closer.

Cara stood and faced the three of them. “Well, I'm changing your orders,” she retorted.

“Your Highness, we take our orders from Sheik Al Abdar, and he has ordered us not to return without you.”

Cara watched in horror as one of the guards pulled out a pair of handcuffs. “You have got to be kidding me,” she exclaimed. She looked from one very serious face to the other.

“We can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way,” the guard explained. “It's entirely up to you.”

Cara had the wildest impulse to run for the ladies' room, but she had a feeling they would follow her in without a second thought. They were on a mission,
doing their sheik's work, and nothing was going to deter them.

“Oh, for heaven's sake,” she exclaimed with aggravation. She picked up her suitcase and looked at them expectantly. “Fine, take me back and let's get this over with.”

A car awaited them at the curb. She was placed in the back with a guard on either side, and she steeled herself for what was to come.

Apparently Omar wanted a final confrontation. Fine, he would have one. His high-handedness in sending guards for her only confirmed that he was a man without a heart, a man who had fooled her as completely as she had fooled him.

The ride to the palace was a silent one. The guards seemed uncomfortable, and she wondered how many times in the past they'd had to hunt down and bring back one of Omar's women.

Probably never, she thought. She would guess that women didn't leave Omar. Omar left women.

Well, he was about to experience a first. Her mind was made up. She would not stay and play his game of love.

Still, as the palace came into view, tears once again threatened, and her chest tightened with a suffocating ache. This was to have been her home, the place where she would have children and grow old with her husband.

Now the palace represented only the pain of dreams lost, of futures forsaken and love denied. She hoped he didn't intend to make this difficult on her.

It would be nice if her last impression of Omar was one of acquiescence and not one of pride and anger. She just wanted him to let her go.

“We are to escort you directly to the throne room,” the guard said as they exited the car.

The throne room.
So, he was to meet with her in a room where the aura of his power was almighty. He didn't want to meet with her as husband and wife, but as sheik and his property.

A surge of anger displaced her pain, and she wrapped that anger around her like a defensive suit of armor as she stalked toward the throne room.

He sat on the oversize, ornate chair that was his throne. He was in full sheik costume, wearing a long white silk robe with gold embroidery and a white turban trimmed in tiny gold beads. The white made the darkness of his eyes more profound and the hue of his skin richer and deeper.

She could tell even from a distance that he had an arrogant tilt to his head. His mouth was a harsh slash of displeasure as he eyed her. He looked every inch the powerful ruler, every inch the handsome man she loved.

“You would leave me?” His voice thundered in the otherwise empty, cavernous room.

She hesitated a moment, then replied. “You had already left me.” Her voice sounded small, tinny, and she cleared her throat self-consciously. “Did you know your guards were going to handcuff me to get me back here?”

“They had their orders to do whatever necessary to return you to where you belong.”

“I don't belong here,” she exclaimed, and fought against the thick emotion that tried to crawl up her throat.

“Come closer, dear wife. I want to look into your eyes when I speak with you.”

She remained in place. “We have nothing to talk about.”

He stood. “I have much to talk about.”

“You can talk, but that doesn't mean I'll listen,” she replied with a forced coolness in her tone.

Her heart fluttered with nervous tension as he stepped off the dais and approached where she stood. His eyes seemed to glitter like those of an animal, and he moved with an athletic grace.

“You had your say last night. Now it's my turn.” He stopped when he stood mere inches from her, his breath warm on her face, his body heat radiating outward as if to banish her coolness.

“You've had your say for the past week,” she replied, trying not to dwell on how handsome he looked, how much she wanted to reach out and touch him, throw her arms around him. “You had your say by avoiding me, refusing to share with me, expecting me to attend to your every need while giving me nothing in return.”

“Ah, but I seem to remember giving you something,” he replied, his voice as deep, as smooth as a caress.

Frustration rose inside her. “I'm not talking about
sex, Omar.” She took a step back from him, needing some distance. “A month ago perhaps I would have been satisfied with whatever you were willing to give to me. My self-esteem was low, and in my mind I was existing in Fiona's shadow. I just wanted something for my own.”

“And you don't want that anymore?” he asked.

“Of course I still want that,” she replied. “But I'm no longer the woman I was a month ago. I know I'm worth more than what you've given me this past week.”

She raised her chin. “And I'm not willing to settle anymore. I did a bad thing and I've apologized and tried to make it up to you, but you refuse to find any forgiveness in your heart.”

Emotion pressed thick and hot against her chest. “I deserve more, Omar. I deserve to be loved.”

“And now you will listen to me,” he said.

Once again he moved toward her, breaching the distance she'd placed between them. “I have finally realized the root of my anger with you.” His gaze bore into hers. “It isn't necessarily that you lied, but that you felt the
need
to lie.”

She frowned. “I don't understand.”

His nostrils thinned slightly and his eyes narrowed. Power radiated from him, a power and arrogance that was daunting. “My anger comes from the fact that you thought I was so shallow, so superficial, that I would want only the woman I'd met briefly six years before at a dance. My anger comes from the fact that you really believed that despite the letters we ex
changed, in spite of the time we spent together, I would choose Fiona over you.”

He reached out a hand and stroked a strand of her hair, his eyes less fierce than before. “When I traveled to Texas, I had every intention of marrying Elizabeth Fiona Carson because I believed she was the woman who had written those beautiful letters to me. Then we spent time together, and I fell in love with you. How could you think me so superficial as to negate everything we shared because of a name?”

Cara was confused and found it difficult to think with him lightly caressing her hair. Again she stepped back from him, trying to assess everything he had just said. Had he really said he'd fallen in love with her?

“Omar, I didn't underestimate you. Don't you see? I underestimated myself,” she said.

She gasped as he pulled her into his arms. “Then, we must see that you don't make that same mistake in the future,” he said.

“I'm going back home, Omar.” She struggled half-heartedly to get out of his embrace, but he held tight.

“You are home,” he replied.

The sweet timbre of his voice cascaded warmth through her, a warmth she'd been bereft of for the past week. She steeled herself against it, refusing to succumb to his macho charms.

“No, Omar. Home is where dreams are spun and lives are shared. Home is where love resides. Real love, not sexual love.” To her intense displeasure, tears trickled from her eyes. She reached up to wipe
them away, but he got there first and wiped them away with his thumbs.

“Then, you are truly home right now, Cara,” he said softly.

She looked at him and was surprised to see a depth of vulnerability in his eyes.

“When I realized you were gone, I also realized all that I was about to lose,” he said, and pulled her even closer against him.

“I've given much thought this morning to the concept of love,” he continued. “You were right. I was taught that love made a man weak, that the romantic kind of love women yearned for was fine for regular men, but taboo for a sheik.”

Again she tried to wriggle out of his embrace, but he held fast to her. The vulnerability in his eyes transformed to a shine of desperation.

“Cara, please listen to me. As I waited for my guards to return you to me, I thought of my life without your laughter, my life without your dreams. I thought of my life without you, and there was nothing in my heart but pain. I realized that it didn't matter what my father tried to teach me. I love you, Cara. I love you with all my heart, all my soul. Please, don't leave me.”

He'd never looked less like a sheik and more like a man than he did at that moment. His dark eyes shone with an intensity that momentarily stole her breath, as the impact of his words created a dizzying joy inside her.

“I don't want to leave you,” she said, her voice
trembling with emotion. The words were barely out of her mouth before he crushed his lips to hers, kissing her in a white-hot fever that spoke not just of passion, but of love.

“Stay and build dreams with me,” he said when they broke the kiss. “Stay and share my life with me. Share a future of love, and build a family with me.”

Her heart was joyous as she felt his love flowing from every pore in his body, filling her up with happiness. “No more love slave?” she asked.

He smiled, that wonderfully teasing smile that had captured her heart on the first day they had met. “Maybe just on our anniversaries,” he said. “We'll take turns. You'll be my love slave and I'll be yours.”

She smiled up at him. “I think you already owe me a turn.”

He gripped her to him, and she laid her head against his broad chest. She could hear his heartbeat, pounding the language of love.

“I am a sheik, Cara. I am wealthy and powerful and greatly esteemed by the people of my country. But I feel as if without you I would have nothing, I would be nobody.”

“Omar.” She placed a hand on his cheek. “With or without me you would be a wonderful man, but it's nice that you think I'm a necessity.”

“My love, you are,” he said fiercely. “Now and always.” With those words of promise, he captured her lips once again, this time in a gentle, giving kiss that made her very happy that she was not Fiona Carson, but Elizabeth Cara Al Abdar, beloved wife of Sheik Omar Al Abdar.