of the delicate bones, making her shiver in response.
‘How did it happen?’
He’d been there when she’d been injured. But why would he remember?
‘It was so long ago. Fifteen years, at least. When you were visiting us.’
‘Fifteen years?’ Nabil frowned as he took his thoughts back. ‘You fell from your pony.’
He recalled the fuss when her small chestnut steed had reared in a panic at the sight of a snake and Aziza had tumbled from the saddle. They had been a long way out into the desert on that ride. It must have been a slow, painful journey back.
‘Your sister was trying to keep my focus on her.’
Jamalia had been playing for his attention so much that day. Even back then, with his father still alive, before he’d actually become the Sheikh, it had been obvious that Farouk had hoped that his elder daughter would catch his eye. It had been the blatant attempts of Farouk to interest him in Jamalia that had put him off, Nabil recalled. As a result, he’d been an open target for a later, much more subtle approach. He hadn’t seen Sharmila coming.
The flood of memories that thought brought made him scowl darkly and he watched the way his change of expression made her recoil against his arms.
‘You were very brave.’ That was what he remembered most. Her silence. Any other child would have cried; Aziza had clamped her mouth shut over whatever she’d been feeling.
‘That’s not what my father thought. He thought I was foolish—if I’d been a better rider then I’d never have fallen off. That’s why he had me taken home—fast.’
He supposed, when he thought of it, that he remembered that too. At the time it had seemed that her father had focused on sending his younger daughter home to have her injury tended. Instead, he had been determined to make sure that nothing intruded on the time Jamalia spent with the Sheikh’s son. But he remembered the poor, pinched little face of the injured child, and how she had put up with her injury without complaint. He’d been impressed at her courage and control. And he’d known a flash of anger at the way that her father had dismissed her distress, wanting to spend more time on the ride—more time bringing Jamalia to his attention.
‘He forbade me to ride again after that, for fear that I would do more harm to myself and become damaged goods—even less valuable as a bride.’
It was no wonder he’d never liked or trusted Farouk El Afarim, Nabil thought grimly. But he hadn’t realised that his memories went back that far.
Aziza had broken her finger and he had seen that same damage on Zia’s hand the night they’d met. So this was Zia—but she also had to be Aziza too.
‘It didn’t mend too well.’
Once more his touch smoothed over the damaged bones, making Aziza shiver. You were very brave. So had he accepted her story, believing in what she told him? Certainly he recalled the young Aziza, and the day of her fall. But it hadn’t done anything to reduce his tension. The long body against hers, the powerful arms that held her, were still taut with control.
‘So that night—on the balcony. Why tell me you were the maid?’
When he thought of how much he’d wanted her. How close he’d come to seducing her. The drum of his pulse that seemed to have quietened now started up again, pounding at his temples, at the feel and scent of her, warning him not to trust too easily. Not to forget.
With an inward snarl he drove it away. All he wanted to do was to forget. But now here was this woman bringing back so many memories he thought he had buried. Hell, that first night he’d even thought she was Sharmila.
‘Why call yourself Zia?’ he asked sharply. ‘Why not give me your real name?’
‘And have my father know that I had been wandering about the palace unchaperoned? That I’d left Jamalia to her own devices?’
She gave a tiny shiver at the thought. And, recalling how her father had so obviously put her sister first, Nabil thought he could understand why.
‘I gave that name because I knew I shouldn’t be there.’
‘So why “Zia”?’
The question changed something in her demeanour, made her expression close up, her eyes become shaded. She was hiding something there, he recognised. Each time it seemed that she had convinced him there was nothing shady behind her actions, she made a mistake, and that deep suspicion was back.
‘Tell me!’
‘It’s just a shortening of my name. One the family uses.’
‘And you expect me to believe all this?’
‘It’s the truth!’ she protested. ‘And you’d know it if you’d just listen.’
Her eyes lifted swiftly, golden gaze meeting his, and she gave an unexpected little smile straight into his watchful eyes.
‘I want to convince you, sire. There must be a way I can do that.’
‘LET ME CONVINCE YOU.’
It was half-plea, half-enticement.
Unexpectedly she lifted her arms—spread them out on either side of her, leaving her whole body open to him. The movement lifted those lush breasts high, putting temptation right there in front of him and forcing him into a brutal fight against his natural impulse to give in to that enticement without thinking.
‘I know you believe that I could be planning to harm you, but I swear I’m not. So why don’t you prove it—search me. Go on,’ she urged when he didn’t move. ‘Check me out—you’ll not find anything. I’m not carrying any weapon.’
Nothing except those wide, beseeching eyes, that rich, soft mouth, those glorious breasts... Did she know what it would do to him to touch her now when he was already so hot and hard in arousal just from having her against him?
She was Aziza—had to be Aziza—and so she brought with her everything he had looked for, everything he needed in this marriage. As Farouk’s younger daughter, she ensured the benefits of the peace treaty, the alliance with her father, the future that this union offered for the country. Did he need to do this?
‘Do it,’ Aziza said sharply when he still hesitated, fighting a grim and brutal battle with himself against the urge to do just as she asked—more than she asked. To do what she was inviting.
But the truth was that it was what she was inviting that made him hesitate. Wasn’t this the best way to distract him?
‘I need to prove that I’ve not come here to harm you.’
If he was honest, Nabil acknowledged, then he would be all sorts of a fool to leave things just as they were. He needed to prove that she was harmless, that the pretence that she had been Zia the maid when really she was a member of the El Afarim family had been just an accident, not part of some
