Strangers in the Desert (12 page)

“Good night, Adan,” she said. And then she went inside and closed the door.

Adan lay in his big, lonely bed and longed for Isabella. She’d seemed so tired, so fragile and worn-out, and he’d known he couldn’t ask anything of her. He’d thought of taking her to his bed and just holding her, but he hadn’t trusted himself to keep from doing anything else once he had her in his arms.

She’d had a lot to process this afternoon.

So had he.

He was still so angry with Hassan Maro that the man was lucky he wasn’t sitting in the bottom of Port Jahfar’s darkest prison cell at the moment. After he’d spoken with Maro, he’d gained access to the rest of Isabella’s medical records. The doctor he’d had talk to her upon
their arrival had examined everything and called him back immediately, confirming the findings.

Isabella had been suffering from postnatal depression, as he’d earlier thought, and she’d nearly died in the desert. Further, she’d chosen to block certain memories of her life as a coping mechanism for the emotions that had driven her out there in the first place.

Adan turned over and punched the pillow, his body aching. But his heart ached more. He’d thought back to the early days of their marriage and tried to remember what had happened between them. Not much, he had to admit. He’d taken her virginity, got her pregnant and left her to her own devices while he ran his businesses and waited for the birth of their child.

They had not been close.

She’d bored him, mostly. She’d done everything she was supposed to do as his wife, but she hadn’t challenged him or made him long to come home at the end of the day. She hadn’t even sung for him—and singing was such a part of her that she was constantly singing or humming something. How had he never realized that before?

Oddly enough, as much as she’d angered him when he’d found her again, she’d also electrified him. She’d made his blood hum with anticipation, and she hadn’t stopped since the moment he’d kissed her in the back room of that seedy little bar in Hawaii.

Guilt was his constant companion now. Was it his fault she’d been so miserable two years ago? Why hadn’t he paid her closer attention after Rafiq’s birth? Why hadn’t he known she was suffering?

Damn Hassan Maro for hiding it from him!

Had he caused her to feel so hopeless that she’d tried
to take her own life? The doctor had said it had nothing to do with him and everything to do with the hormones raging through her body, but why had she blocked her memories of him specifically?

He couldn’t figure it out. And he knew he wouldn’t figure it out even if he lay here for an entire month of sleepless nights. He would simply go round and round with feelings of guilt and anger and helplessness.

What he had to think about now was the future. Their future. He sighed heavily. Nothing was as he’d planned it.

He’d wanted to marry Jasmine because she was a friend, and because she was kind and gentle and would be a good mother to Rafiq and any other children they had.

But he couldn’t do it. As he’d lain in bed with Isabella the night of Kalila’s attack, he’d known the truth.

He couldn’t take another woman to his bed, couldn’t make love to her, when all he would be able to think about was Isabella. Somewhere over the past few days, Isabella had become vital to him. She made his blood sing, his heart pound and his body ache.

But it was more than that. She was so vibrant to him, so alive and beautiful, and she loved their son completely. He couldn’t imagine his life without her in it.

Was that love? He didn’t know, but he knew he wanted to find out. When he looked at Rafiq, he was overwhelmed with love—but it was different than what he felt when he looked at Isabella. What he felt for her was strong, but was it based on attraction or on something deeper?

He wasn’t sure. How could he be sure?

And now, on top of everything else, he was worried about her. Could he give her what she needed, or were they doomed to repeat this cycle again? Could he make her happy, or was he incapable of doing so?

He wanted to fix it, wanted to make everything right again, and yet he did not know how.

He was a king, with a nation to lead and people to govern, and he couldn’t even figure out his personal life. What did that say about him?

S
OMETHING
had changed between them. Isabella concentrated on the breakfast they’d been served beneath the Moorish arches of the inner courtyard, which adjoined the royal apartments. The food tasted like ash on her tongue.

She tried to read the same article in
Al-Arab Jahfar
for the twentieth time that morning, and for the twentieth time she couldn’t get past the first paragraph without her mind wandering.

Adan sat across from her, his attention firmly on the folder of papers that Mahmoud had brought to him as they’d sat down to eat. He’d barely spoken to her since.

Not that she was surprised. He was horrified, no doubt, by what her father had told him. And he was merely tolerating her until he could find someone he trusted to replace Kalila. Or until he could divorce her and marry the woman he’d been planning to wed when he’d found her in Hawaii.

The thought made her stomach cramp. How could he have made love to her so passionately only yesterday morning if he’d still been planning to marry someone else? Not only that, but what about the things they’d
shared with each other? It hadn’t been just about sex, she was certain.

For her, it was about love. Her heart hurt with all the love she felt for him. Had it been this way before? Was she getting a taste of what it had felt like to be with him before she’d walked into the desert? She very much feared she was. Not only that, but she was also getting a taste of what it was like to be the only one whose heart was on the line.

Last night, she’d asked him what happened next. She’d been tired and heartbroken and she’d wanted to know. Now, she was too scared to repeat the question.

He’d given her a reprieve last night. He’d pitied her, no doubt, and he’d wanted to spare her feelings.

But today? Today he would tell her the bald truth. And she just wasn’t ready to hear it.

Later, she would face facts, but for now she wanted to pretend everything was as it had been before. She wanted a few hours to remember what it had been like before her father had interjected the ugly truth of what had really happened to her.

She wanted to remember that she’d been building something precious with Adan and her son. Something she might never get back again.

“I am going to visit Kalila this morning,” Adan said, startling her with the sound of his voice after so much silence. “I will ask her for recommendations about a nanny.”

Isabella hooked her finger into her coffee cup, willing it not to tremble.

And so it began.

“That’s probably a good idea,” she said. “It will take time to find someone good.”

“Yes,” he said. “There is much to do in the coming weeks. It would be nice to have a new nanny in place to make everything go as smoothly as possible.”

Isabella was proud of herself that she took a sip of her coffee without spilling any. “You’re right. The sooner, the better.”

She thought he looked at her oddly, but it was gone so fast she wasn’t certain.

“What do you intend to do today, Isabella?” he asked. Clearly, he wanted to move on to small talk now that they’d gotten that out of the way.

She shrugged. “I was thinking of taking Rafiq to the pool.”

“That’s good,” Adan said. “Rafiq loves to swim.”

“And what about you?” she asked. “What will you do after you visit Kalila?”

His fingers drummed on the folder he’d laid on the table. He was so distant now, so polite, and it frustrated her. Where was the man who’d held her close in the night? The man who’d shared his darkest secrets with her?

“I have many things to attend to,” he said. He looked at her then, his dark eyes piercing to her soul. “I don’t know when I’ll be done this evening.”

Her heart sank a little. “So we should eat without you?”

He inclined his head. That dark, handsome head she wanted to cup between her hands while her fingers combed through his crisp curls.

“It would probably be best. In fact,” he said, rising, “I should go now or I will never get through the day’s tasks.”

Isabella waited, for what she didn’t know. Their eyes
met for a long minute, and her pulse kicked up higher and higher with each passing second.
Say something, Adan. Say you missed me last night. Say you want me tonight. Say it.

But he didn’t say anything. He simply turned and walked away.

Isabella took Rafiq to the kiddie pool where he splashed and played while she sat on the edge and watched him. The pool was partially shaded, but the weather was hot and she didn’t drink enough water, even though someone continually brought her a fresh glass whenever the ice melted. She knew she was spending too much time fretting about the past, the future—and the present—but she couldn’t seem to stop.

Two weeks ago, before Adan had crashed into her life again, she’d been happy enough—if a bit lonely and empty. She’d thought it was simply melancholy.

Today she had so much more to lose—and it terrified her. Which, in turn, made her angry. Since when had she reverted to the man-pleasing mind-set she’d grown up with? What did it matter if he didn’t want her? She didn’t have to let it control her life. Not everyone was lucky in love, after all.

People had their hearts broken all the time. People survived. She would, too.

When Rafiq started to get fussy, she took him back to his room and put him down for a nap. By then she had a headache, so she took some of the migraine medicine that Adan had got for her, closed the shutters to keep out the sun and lay on the bed in the darkened room, hoping the headache would soon abate.

She drifted in and out of sleep, her mind working on
so many things that at first she didn’t quite realize what the scenes and emotions trickling into her head were. It began as a memory here or there, a snippet of life, until finally she sat bolt upright with a gasp.

Her heart thundered in her ears: she’d remembered her life with Adan.

They weren’t the kind of memories where everything suddenly returned with such clarity and force that she could point to a moment in time and say, “This is when it happened. This is what caused it.”

Instead, it was a body of knowledge downloaded into her head almost randomly, but nonetheless completely—or as completely as it would ever be. It was the emotion that slammed into her first, the helpless knowledge of what it was like to be in love with a man who did not love you. Or, worse, respect you.

Humiliation beat down on her. She’d tried everything to be a good wife to him. But after he’d got her pregnant, he’d become uninterested. Politely uninterested, just like this morning. She’d rearranged everything for him, suppressed her likes and dislikes to make sure he was comfortable and happy.

They took meals together often at first, and then rarely. He stopped coming to her bed. He did not make it to doctor’s appointments, and he was often out of town.

She recalled growing big with child, recalled the sickness—the never-ending sickness that even now caused a pang of nausea to roll through her in sympathy—and her terror when the time came to give birth.

Adan had not been there. No one had been there, except for a servant. Her father was out of the country, and of course her mother was in America. Adan’s
mother was a stranger, a woman she’d met at the wedding and a handful of times since, who’d struck her as a cold, self-centered woman. She’d met his brothers, and his sister, but they were strangers to her, as well.

She’d given birth in a sterile hospital room, her closest friend the obstetrician who’d seen her through the pregnancy.

A drop of water splashed onto her breast, surprising her. She ran a hand across her cheeks, realized she was crying.

Of course she was crying. The memories were desolate, lonely. It’s no wonder she had forgotten.

She ran through Rafiq’s birth, remembering the agony of the contractions, the relief of the epidural and the moment when they’d handed her her child. She remembered feeling numb. She hadn’t known what to do, and she’d only wanted to cry when someone insisted she put the baby to her breast. She’d wanted to escape. She remembered that clearly.

Shame and guilt hammered into her. She remembered feeling so strange, so disconnected, and she remembered not wanting to hold her baby. She remembered resenting Rafiq for imprisoning her in a routine that required her to subordinate even more of her self than she already had. Yet another male demanding that she change for him, that she be the perfect ideal of what a wife and mother should be.

Sorrow pounded through her in waves.

Oh God, she was every bit as horrible as Adan had thought she was. She hadn’t wanted her baby. She’d wanted to escape, to be someone else.

She’d certainly tried to escape, hadn’t she? For a time, she’d succeeded.

Except that she’d given up the one thing that was the most important thing in the world to her: her son. She’d asked herself for the past two weeks how she could have done such a thing. Now she knew, and the knowledge crushed her soul.

Isabella buried her face in the pillow and cried. She screamed and punched the pillow and kicked the bed until she was spent, until she had no energy left. She was a terrible person. She was damaged and sick, and she didn’t deserve to be forgiven for anything.

She allowed herself to lie there wallowing in self-pity until the moment she heard a tiny cry on the monitor. Then she swung herself from the bed, sniffling, and took a deep breath to calm herself.

Whatever had happened in the past, she was Rafiq’s mother now. She loved him. She would do anything for him, including sacrifice her happiness for his. She would never be that helpless, sad creature she’d been two years ago ever again.

She went and got Rafiq from his crib, then combed her hair and fixed her face before changing into a dress and a pair of low heels. She wanted to see Adan, wanted to tell him that she’d remembered. She didn’t know why it was important, but it seemed as if she should tell him.

She picked Rafiq up, remembering to grab his favorite toy bear. A servant told her where to find the administrative wing as she left the royal apartments. She hummed to Rafiq on the way. He twisted a lock of her hair around his fingers, his bear clutched in the other hand.

Thinking of everything she’d remembered about his birth and the aftermath, she squeezed him a little too
tightly. He started to fuss so she eased her grip again and smiled as she sang a song about an octopus.

As she turned into the administrative wing of the palace, she thought she caught sight of Adan. He was strolling down the hallway with a woman. A tall, dark-haired woman who had her arm looped in his. The woman laughed at something he said. They stopped and turned to face each other, and her heart lodged in her throat.

It was definitely Adan. He was so handsome in his white
dishdasha,
so exotic. She would know him anywhere.

He lifted his hand to the woman’s face, stroked his fingers along her jaw while she smiled at him. And then he bent to kiss her on the cheek. Isabella’s breath stopped in her chest as she watched him move his mouth to the woman’s ear. Any second, he would kiss her on the mouth, whenever he ceased whispering whatever soft endearments he was whispering.

She couldn’t look. She simply couldn’t deal with having her heart ground beneath his custom loafers as she watched him kiss another woman, as she imagined him taking this woman to a bed with cool satin sheets and making love to her all afternoon long.

The way he’d made love to her not so long ago.

She’d been so stupid. So naive. She’d fallen for him. And, just like the last time, he didn’t care one bit. His interest in her was tied to his desire to bed her. Once that was gone, so was he. Isabella whirled and fled back the way she’d come.

Adan spent the day in meetings with his cabinet, in phone calls with other heads of state and in going over
the details for his coronation next week. He’d told Isabella he would be late, but he’d managed to finish earlier than he thought he would. Now he gathered the papers that Mahmoud had left for him and prepared to return to his private quarters.

He’d handled the situation badly this morning. But he hadn’t known what to say. He hadn’t known how to comfort her.

Everything he thought of saying sounded lame or trite. He was a man and a king, not a counselor. He understood action, not feelings. He understood how to make her body sing beneath his touch, but he didn’t know how to soothe her soul.

He had to learn, however. If they were going to make this work—and he was determined they would for Rafiq’s sake—he had to learn how to be a better husband.

The chef was preparing dinner when he arrived. He set the folder of papers down on a side table and followed the sound of voices to the courtyard. Rafiq was riding a toy car around the cobbled courtyard. Isabella sat at the table and clapped as he made his rounds.

She looked up as Adan stepped outside. The light in her eyes died—and then her gaze darted away. Inexplicably, a hard weight settled in his chest and refused to lift.

“We didn’t expect you so early,” she said.

“I didn’t have as much to do as I thought.”

“Of course,” she replied, waving a hand airily. “You are your own boss, after all. If you wished to take an entire afternoon off, who would stop you?”

“Too many afternoons off and nothing would get done,” he said mildly. “Though I expect things will settle
into a predictable routine once the initial difficulties of transferring power to a new king are completed. My uncle never seemed to lack for family time, after all.”

She pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. That glorious hair that he wanted to wrap his hands in as he made love to her in his bed.
Their
bed.

“And how was your day?” she asked. “Did anything interesting happen?”

“Interesting? Not especially.”

She still hadn’t looked at him. A tingle of alarm sounded in the back of his head.

She stood. “Well, I should take Rafiq for his bath.”

He caught her wrist as she started to walk away. Her gaze fixed on his fingers where they encircled her.

“I’m sorry I’m not better at this,” he said.