doubtful that her decision would have been different.
This was not what she had signed up for.
She had been so lost in her dark reflections that Eva had walked on several hundred yards before she realised she had run out of streetlamps.
With a sigh she turned and began to reluctantly retrace her footsteps, slowly now as the anger that had consumed her had burnt itself out.
As she walked she became aware that the buffeting wind had increased in strength and while it should be on her back now it was actually everywhere, hitting her from all sides.
She bent her head as the sand in the air stung her face.
She had not gone a few feet before she became aware that she was in trouble: the lights above were barely visible through the sand that stung and bit into every exposed inch of her skin. She couldn’t see where the road surface ended and the desert began and the tall turrets and gleaming spires of the royal palace were barely visible.
Mind-numbing panic running just beneath the surface of her paper-thin stoic calm, she refused to recognise it as she told herself that it was lucky she had not strayed from the highway or walked far.
All she had to do was walk in a straight line.
‘How difficult can that be?’
A few minutes later she was forced to acknowledge that her forced jovial comment had been a classic case of tempting fate. The surface she now stumbled over was not tarmac, it was uneven and rocky. Even if she had been able to lift her head there was no point—the visibility was nil, the world was black and the sand cut into every exposed inch of tender flesh without mercy.
She coughed, unable to breathe as she dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around herself in a futile attempt to protect her face.
There was nothing in her world but the noise of the storm, a roar all around … inside her head, everywhere. A strange sense of calm descended over her as she huddled there. Someone who was going to die ought not to feel so calm.
Eva began to lift her head … the expected sting on her face was not as bad as she had anticipated. Had the storm abated slightly? A tiny grain of hope took root and somewhere deep inside the instinct for survival stirred.
‘I can’t die! I don’t want to die!’
If she died Karim would marry Layla.
‘That’s not my plan, either.’
When he had first spotted what looked like a bundle of rags Karim had thought the worst, then as the bundle had moved and he’d heard her speak a surge of relief had flooded his body.
His relief was tempered by the realisation that if he had chosen another path he would never have found her. He might have passed within yards of her …
He was not normally a person who dwelt on what might have been, but he struggled not to dwell on the narrowly diverted disaster as he reminded himself that they were not home and dry yet.
Hearing things could not be a good sign; Eva lifted her head and forced her reluctant eyelids to part. The voice was not in her head, it was in her ear.
The storm had not abated; it was a man’s body and more precisely his chest, broad and incredibly comforting, that sheltered her from the extremes of the sandstorm.
Karim had found her.
‘Karim? You shouldn’t have come—now you’ll die too!’ she wailed.
The wind tugging and dragging at his white robes, he knelt before her, appearing immune as the rocks to the wind and sand. His eyes above the cloth that covered his lower face blazed like the stars that had been blotted by the sandstorm.
He bent his head close to hers like a lover, but there was nothing loverlike in the words he yelled in her ear. ‘Nobody is going to die. If the storm kills you it will deny me the pleasure of throttling you with my own hands!’
‘I—’
‘Shut up!’
Before Eva could respond to this autocratic decree she found herself drawn against his body. She gasped and stiffened, then sighed as a hand behind her head forced her face into his shoulder.
Karim, holding her, found himself caught between rage and tenderness.
Eva tried to lift her head but he pushed it back down. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m thinking.’
He was also stroking her hair in the middle of the raging storm; the small act of tenderness brought tears to her eyes. Eva closed her eyes, feeling his body heat and his strength slowly seep into her bones; for the first time she allowed herself to think that she stood a realistic chance of surviving this.
She was vaguely conscious of the sound of ripping cloth, but did not connect it with her own designer gown. Then as he rose she felt herself enfolded, not just by his arms, but by the flowing fabric of his robe, which he had wrapped around her. He placed a hand under her behind and without waiting to be instructed Eva automatically wrapped her legs around his middle, a voice in her head that clearly did not appreciate the seriousness of the situation saying she could get used to this.
‘Hold on!’
The instruction was unnecessary—she already was!
Having found it impossible to stay upright herself, Eva couldn’t believe that Karim could move forward with the additional burden of her weight. Above the sound of the storm that raged around them, with her head pressed into his shoulder, Eva was conscious of the heavy thud of his heartbeat.
She held tight, closed her ears, concentrated on the sound, felt the moisture leak from under her eyelids and as love for him filled her it was a relief to finally stop fighting the realisation.
What if she never had a chance to tell him how she felt? She felt the salty moisture leak from her eyes.
‘Not far now,’ Karim shouted in her ear. Fuelled by the adrenaline rushing through his veins and acting on nine parts instinct and one part sheer desperation, he hoped that he was telling the truth.
Eva wanted to ask, Not far from where? But she didn’t have the strength; it was all she could do to hang onto him. Her arms and legs were trembling with the effort of holding on.
How did he keep going? she wondered as Karim continued to make steady progress, not moving swiftly but with assurance; once or twice she could sense him testing his footing before he continued.
The almost animal screech of the whipping wind and whirling sand had filled her head and hurt her senses for so long that when it stopped abruptly it was disorientating.
She opened her eyes and there was nothing but inky, impenetrable blackness. She could still hear the keening cry of the wind but it was a background noise.
We’re safe … we’re safe, she thought, too relieved to wonder where they were or how he had found their sanctuary.
‘Wait here.’
Wait where? she
