future husband would have been a total stranger. At least this way I would have been the one making the decision. I would have been exerting my own free will, had some say in who I would marry.’
‘Even if your choice of future husband didn’t.’
He saw Nadia’s faint flinch as his barb hit its target but she recovered herself almost immediately, that chin tipped high, her full lips tightly closed as if she didn’t intend to dignify his remark with an answer.
‘And this man? The one you don’t want to marry. Who is he? What’s so bad about him?’
‘Everything.’
‘Presumably your family don’t think so?’
‘They see it as an advantageous match. That’s all they care about. Plus they just want to see me married off so I don’t cause them any more trouble.’
‘You, a troublemaker? Who would have thought it?’
The serious flash in Nadia’s lilac eyes withered his lighthearted comment. This was obviously no laughing matter. ‘I simply have opinions, a mind of my own. As a woman that is not considered acceptable. Something you wouldn’t understand.’
But Zayed did understand. His own mother, Latifa Al Afzal, had waited until the very last moment to have her say. But what she had revealed and the way she had chosen to reveal it had rocked the very foundations of the kingdom of Gazbiyaa. And irrevocably altered the path of Zayed’s life.
Secretly securing an interview on one of the state-controlled Gazbiyaan television channels, Sheikha Latifa Al Afzal had started by telling the stunned audience that she was suffering from terminal cancer. In a weak but steady voice she had explained that she was quite ready to meet her fate, but first she had an important announcement for the people of her kingdom.
In keeping with the tradition of the laws of the land, her husband’s reign as sheikh was shortly coming to an end. But he was to be succeeded not by his elder son, Azeed Al Afzal, but by the couple’s younger son, Zayed. For Azeed was not, in fact, her biological son, but the child of a woman with whom her husband had had a brief relationship. This woman had died giving birth to him and, even though Latifa had raised Azeed as her own, loved Azeed as her own, there was one vital fact that could not be kept secret any longer. His birth mother had come from Harith. Azeed was half Harithian.
The fallout from this disclosure had been truly terrible. Zayed’s father had exploded with fury that his wife had exposed the secret of Azeed’s parentage, especially in such a public way, but the news of her illness and his genuine despair that she was dying had diverted his rage to his sons, to his kingdom, to the world in general.
The kingdom of Gazbiyaa had been thrown into turmoil, shocked to the core that Prince Azeed, whom they had seen as their future ruler, shared his blood with their greatest enemy. Zayed’s father appeared to be dangerously close to losing control, and rioting in the streets was only prevented because his term of office was about to expire.
Azeed, meanwhile, had simply disappeared, storming out without a word to anyone. The shock of the news had presumably been so utterly devastating that he couldn’t bear to stay in the palace a moment longer. Which meant that all eyes had turned to the second son. Zayed, the playboy prince.
Three years younger than his brother, Zayed had led an untroubled and privileged life, educated first at Eton College in England, then at Columbia University, New York. In truth he had barely given a thought to his own country, far too absorbed with the buzz of expanding his business empire and distraction of his friends and the many beautiful women who crossed his path. Gazbiyaa had seemed a long way away, his brother’s inheritance his brother’s responsibility.
But his mother’s extraordinary declaration had changed everything.
Immediately leaving New York and the life he had made for himself there, Zayed had arrived at his mother’s bedside just in time to take her frail hand and listen to her halting explanation. With heartbreaking humility she had apologised for deceiving him, explaining that she had wanted him to grow up without the burden of the future blighting his early life. That even though she had always known that she would have to reveal that he, Zayed, must be crowned the next sheikh of Gazbiyaa, both because of his birthright but more important for the stability of the kingdom, she hoped he had enjoyed the freedom she had gifted him until now.
With her voice fading to little more than a whisper, Zayed had leaned in closer as his mother had begged him to talk to Azeed, to explain to him why she had had to do what she had done. For not only was Azeed temperamentally unsuited to the role of sheikh, but if he continued to threaten war against Harith he would inadvertently be inciting a conflict against a country whose blood ran in his veins.
As the last threads of life had slipped through his mother’s fingers, Zayed had promised to make her peace with Azeed, and she had allowed herself to slip into the oblivion of death, her voice finally heard.
Now Zayed stared at the spirited young woman before him. So very much alive, so vibrant; he could sense her determination, the strength of her will. He could see the way she was fighting to take control of her own destiny right now, to avoid the shadowy half-life his own mother had accepted. There was no way she was going to leave it until her deathbed to make her mark on this world.
And he admired Nadia for it. It showed guts, all right, and that, combined with her undoubted beauty, was a fascinating combination. A crazy idea was suddenly beginning to take hold. He forced himself to put the brakes on it.
‘So should I be flattered that this free will of yours has brought you to my door?’ He tipped back his head. ‘Or should I say my bed?’
Nadia wrinkled her small nose distastefully, as if by reminding her of her actions he was degrading himself. He had no idea how she did that.
‘You were certainly a better proposition.’
‘Well, that’s something, I suppose. In what way?’
‘I have only seen one photograph of my intended, but it showed him to be old and fat and bald.’
‘Right.’ Laughing now, Zayed leaned back and crossed one long leg over the other at the knee, gripping his ankle. ‘Careful, Nadia. You don’t want me to be getting big-headed.’
‘I suspect I am too late for that.’
Another swipe. Like a cat’s paw, haughty and elegant, but ultimately futile. Even though Zayed knew he could close her down in a second he still had to remind himself who was playing with whom here. He was surprised to find he was enjoying himself. Something about being around Nadia lifted his spirits, and there hadn’t been much to do that lately.
He had already been subjected to another of his father’s rants this morning. Apparently the palace was alive with gossip that the new sheikh had been discovered wrestling on the bed with an unknown beauty last night. With his playboy image preceding him, this was all the fodder they needed to confirm their suspicions that Sheikh Zayed was nothing more than a serial philanderer. That, unlike his brother Azeed, he would never be a strong ruler. That the kingdom of Gazbiyaa was going to descend into some kind of mire of debauched hedonism if this Westernised sheikh had his way.
Zayed hadn’t bothered to try to explain his innocence. Or point out that his father was hardly blame-free when it came to his relationships with women, bearing in mind the situation they were now in. He hadn’t even suggested
