ago, when he’d moved to America without a backward glance. She had filed him under “lesson learned.”
Zoe leaned back in her chair as if she didn’t have a care in the world. “Tell him what you want.”
Fatimah rested her hand on Zoe’s arm and leaned forward to whisper, “How can you say that, considering how close you were?”
Zoe felt the blood leaving her face as icy fear seeped in her veins. Fatimah knew. She saw it in the malicious glow of the woman’s eyes. Somehow Fatimah knew about her forbidden liaison with Musad. She was the one who’d started the rumors that were beginning to percolate in village gossip.
Zoe had to get away. She had to silence Fatimah. If she breathed a word of this to her family … to the Sheikh …
“Zoe?”
Zoe looked up to see her aunts and other female cousins. They were smiling. Real smiles. It was unlikely that they had heard Fatimah’s accusation. Zoe wanted to sag with relief.
“Come, Zoe.” One of her cousins unceremoniously pulled her from her chair and her female relatives surrounded her. “It’s time to prepare you for your wedding night.”
Her wedding night. Her stomach twisted sharply and she battled back nausea. Her aunts smiled and giggled as they swept her out of the courtyard and up to the honeymoon suite. She hunched her shoulders as corroding fear, thick and searing hot, bled through her body. It pooled under her skin, pressing harder and harder, threatening to burst through.
It suddenly sank into her. She belonged to the Sheikh. A man they called The Beast. She was married to him. Married.
Her married cousins were offering words of advice, telling her how to please her husband, but Zoe didn’t hear a word of it. There was a desperate energy among the women. Their laughter was a little shrill, their advice raw and uncoated.
Zoe didn’t resist as the women settled her in the center of the bed. She knelt on the mattress, her hands folded in front of her, her head bent down. She wanted to jump out of bed and run, but she knew these women would bring her back and guard the bedroom.
She closed her eyes and took a deep, jagged breath. She heard the women leaving the room, their laughter harsh as they tossed her more marital advice. She had always thought her wedding day would be different. In her daydreams it had been full of laughter and joy, not to mention love.
The reality was much bleaker. Zoe slowly opened her eyes. She was marrying because she was out of options and running out of luck. She was taking a leap of faith, believing she could use this marriage to her advantage. But she might have given up more than her freedom to a man who was a dangerous stranger.
What had she done?
Pure terror clamped her chest. She felt the room closing in on her as she tried to gulp in the hot air. Dark spots danced before her eyes.
“I can’t do this. I can’t sleep with him,” Zoe said aloud. She thought she was alone until Fatimah answered.
“He’s required to consummate the marriage,” her cousin said as she straightened Zoe’s skirt, making it a smooth circle on the bed. “Otherwise it’s not acknowledged.”
“Required?” Zoe’s stomach gave a sickening twist. That sounded so clinical. So unromantic.
Fatimah cast an annoyed look in her direction. “That’s why you have the last ceremony on the third day. It’s based on an ancient law to celebrate the consummation of the marriage.”
Zoe’s jaw dropped. “Are you kidding me?”
“And if you aren’t to his liking,” Fatimah said, giving her a sidelong look, “he can throw you back.”
Zoe frowned. “Throw me back? You mean back to your family? No, he can’t. Nice try, Fatimah, but I’m not falling for another one of your lies.”
“I’m not lying,” Fatimah swore, flattening her hand against her chest. “The Sheikh did that to his first wife.”
First wife? Zoe drew back her head and stared at her cousin as surprise tingled down her spine. What first wife? “What are you talking about?”
“Didn’t anyone tell you?” Fatimah’s face brightened when she realized she would get to reveal all. “Two years ago the Sheikh was married to the daughter of one of the finest families in the tribe. Yusra. You remember her?”
“Barely.” Yusra had been drop-dead gorgeous, ultra feminine and the perfect Jazaari girl. Zoe had privately thought Yusra was a spoiled brat and a bit of snob. She had been glad when her family left the village.
“It was a fabulous ceremony. Unlike any I’ve ever seen. Don’t you remember it? It was better than yours.”
“I probably wasn’t invited.” She was an outcast. She was either ignored or bullied. Any member of the tribe could publicly humiliate her without consequence. They all knew her uncle wouldn’t protect her. They had all witnessed the treatment she’d received under his cruel hand and followed his lead.
“Well, the third day of the ceremony had barely started when he tossed Yusra back to her parents.” Fatimah gave a flick of her wrist, the jangle of gold bracelets loud to Zoe’s ears. “In front of the entire tribe. He said she was not to his liking.”
If he’d had a problem with his first choice of a wife, he was definitely not going to be pleased with her. “He had sex with her and then dumped her? Can he do that?”
“It caused a huge scandal. How is it you don’t know any of this? You were living here when it happened.”
Zoe probably had heard about it but thought it one of those “bonfire stories.” She had heard plenty of folk tales that were designed to scare boys and girls into behaving properly.
She was in so much trouble. Her knees wobbled as a wave of fear crashed over her. If she didn’t have sex with the Sheikh he would send her back to her family. If she did have sex with him she might well have had the same problem. “So basically this ancient law is a return policy?”
“It’s rarely used. A man has to have a very good reason to invoke it. Unless you’re a sheikh, of course. Then no one will question your actions.”
“But—”
One of Zoe’s aunts peeked inside the room. “Fatimah, what are you still doing here?” the woman said in a fierce whisper. “The Sheikh is coming.”
“Good luck, Zoe,” Fatimah said with a sly smile as she slipped out of the room. “I hope you can satisfy the Sheikh better than his last bride.”
CHAPTER TWO
WHAT was she going to do? Zoe glanced wildly at the open windows and the colorful gauzy curtains fluttering in the breeze. No, she couldn’t escape that way.
Even if she got out safely she had no place to hide. She had learned that over the years, after her failed attempts to run away. No one would provide her with sanctuary and the desert was a deathtrap. She had barely survived the last time.
She was trapped and she
