Read The Sheikh's Prize for Free Online Page B

her he would be back the following month to attend a course at Sandhurst. She remembered little romantic snapshot moments from that period: sitting in a park below a cloud of cherry blossom with Zahir brushing a petal out of her hair with gentle fingers; lingering over coffee holding hands; laughing together at mime artists in the street. From the outset, Zahir had had the magic key to winning her trust, for, unlike previous boyfriends he didn’t grab and grope and didn’t expect her to leap straight into bed with him. At the same time, though, he was chary of the part-time modelling she was already doing, even when assured that she didn’t do nude or underwear shots. She had recognised that he was old-fashioned in a way that had gone out of fashion in her country, but she had very much admired the seriousness of his quick clever mind and his unvarnished love for Maraban. Long before his course was over he asked her to marry him and he told her who he really was. And the news that he was a royal prince had merely added another intoxicating layer of sparkle to the fairy-tale fantasy she was already nourishing about their future together, Saffy conceded sadly.
    Zahir had married her in a brief ceremony at the Marabani embassy without any of his family present and without his father’s permission. With hindsight she knew how courageous he had been to wed her without his father’s consent and she knew he had done it because he had known that his parent would never agree to him taking a foreign bride. Reality, unfortunately, hadn’t entered their relationship until she landed in Maraban. Starting with the wedding night during which she panicked and threw up and ending with a daily life more like imprisonment than marriage, their relationship had hit the rocks fast. She hadn’t been able to give him sex and neither of them had been able to handle the fallout from that giant elephant in the room. Any sense of intimacy had died fast, leading to backbiting conversations and even more of Zahir’s constant absences.
    The pickup came to a sudden jolting halt. A door slammed and a burst of voices met her straining ears. As the voices receded she began to snake out from below the tarpaulin, only then appreciating that it was almost dark. That was not a possibility she had factored into her plans and, climbing out of the truck, she soon recognised the second big drawback. It had not occurred to her that the driver might be rendezvousing with his family at a huge multi-roofed tent right out in the desert. Consternation swallowed Saffy whole as she stared round her at what she could see in the fast-fading light. There was no sign of a village, a road or anything else for her to focus on as a means of working out where she was. Biting her lip with vexation, she was pushing her bottle of water into the front pocket of her jeans when a tall pale shape clad in beige desert robes moved out of the tent.
    ‘It’s cold,’ he said. ‘Come inside.’
    Disbelieving her ears, Saffy froze and gaped, her eyes straining to penetrate the growing darkness. ‘ Zahir? ’ she exclaimed incredulously. ‘What are you doing here?’
    With one hand he tugged off the headdress bound with a gold and black circlet of cord and straightened, black hair ruffling back against his lean strong face in the slight breeze, his dark eyes bright as stars in the low light. ‘I drove you here.’
    ‘You... what ?’ Saffy gasped in disbelief.
    ‘The security surveillance at the palace is the best money can buy,’ Zahir drawled. ‘I saw you climbing into the pickup on CCTV and I decided that if anyone was going to take you anywhere it should be me.’
    ‘I’ve been under that tarpaulin for more than an hour!’ Saffy launched at him in a rage of disbelief. ‘I was so thrown about under it I’m not convinced my bones are still connected!’
    Zahir shrugged without even a hint of sympathy. ‘Well, it was your chosen mode of travel.’
    ‘Don’t you give me