a repeat encounter or more carnal games.
* * *
Zarif came to an abrupt halt by the central fountain, which played its water in the shade of a clump of palm trees. A virgin. Ella had been a virgin and he had taken her with all the finesse of a rutting beast and naturally he had hurt her. He recalled how careful he had been as a newly married teenager with Azel in spite of his colossal ignorance and he recoiled in disgust at his lack of control with Ella. He had hurt her, wronged her... Was there to be no end to the mistakes he made with her?
In public life, Zarif had made very few mistakes. He was highly intelligent and naturally cautious and he had learned early how to think ahead and protect himself from missteps. A king couldn’t expect second chances, a king needed the support of his subjects and had to stay in touch with their prevailing mood to retain the right to rule. He knew for a fact in that instant that he was a better king than he was a husband.
But then, in truth, he had not been fit to touch an innocent woman in the first place and that inescapable awareness tormented him. She had stayed pure in a much more liberal culture than his own, setting a standard he had strikingly failed to follow. For so long he had blamed her for that reality because it had been her rejection that had sent him careening off the rails of restraint. Unbearable as it was to acknowledge, he had been weak where she had been strong. Shame drenched him like perspiration in the heat. He had tried to bring her down to his level by treating her like a sex object and he had failed. But why had she refused to take advantage of the escape clause he had offered her?
Ironically, he had never understood Ella and was indeed beginning to suspect that she was a complete and utter mystery to him. Yet he had often assumed that he did understand her and just as often read her entirely wrong, only to discover too late that he had made yet another miscalculation.
She seemed so deceptively open, he acknowledged broodingly. He had believed she was playing games with him three years earlier when she said no to his proposal. He had believed she wanted him to propose purely to relish the narcissistic charge of her power over him. Now he doubted that hypothesis and found it quite a challenge to fit an innocent young woman into such a scenario. Perhaps she had said no to marrying him for the very reasons she had stated...the same reasons he had arrogantly dismissed as offensive red herrings. Perhaps she had genuinely feared having to adapt to a culture and royal expectations so far removed from her own experience and he had said and done nothing to soothe her concerns.
But why was he looking back to the past when he had created so many more problems here in the present? He had essentially forced her to marry him and forced her into his bed because, loving her parents as she did, she had not had a choice. Possibly that was also why she had urged him to continue in bed, believing as she must have done that sooner or later she had to surrender her body to his to meet the terms he had demanded.
Zarif swore below his breath, recognising how complicated everything had become and knowing he had brought it down on himself with no help from anyone else. But then guilt had, for so long, been Zarif’s constant companion in life that he almost welcomed it back like an old friend. He was in the wrong. Once again he was in the wrong.
A hundred years ago, one of his ancestors would have dealt much more easily with such a situation, he reflected with sardonic humour. He would have kidnapped her, offered her family handsome compensation for the loss of her and hidden her in the harem, eventually offering her marriage as a reward for her acceptance. It would not have been considered dishonourable. That approach would have dealt practically with a man’s need for a woman he could not otherwise have. Zarif knew that his contemporary solution had crashed and burned at spectacular speed, particularly when all he could think about in spite of all that had gone wrong was climbing back into that bed with Ella again and proving that in some fields he could get it right.
* * *
Ella lowered her body into the bath of warm water and hugged her knees. Well, it was done, she had met the conditions of their agreement and he had no reasonable grounds for complaint now. Seemingly he had not enjoyed the sex as much as he had thought he would, but that was the essential flaw in male fantasy, Ella thought grimly. Fantasy wasn’t real. He’d had a fantasy about what she would be like and she had failed to live up to it, which wasn’t really surprising when one considered that she was simply an ordinary young woman and neither stunningly beautiful nor amazingly sexy.
The bedroom was filled with flowers when she finally emerged from a long soothing bath, wrapped in a towelling robe. Innumerable baskets of white roses sat on every surface and she frowned. Someone knocked on the door and she opened it. An envelope and a gift box were extended to her by a maid.
The envelope contained a plain white card. ‘Forgive me,’ it said and she compressed her lips into a rigid line. She would have been more inclined towards forgiveness had Zarif stayed around in the flesh to be forgiven. She unwrapped the jewellery box and flipped it open on a breathtaking bracelet shaped like a glittering white river of diamonds. She detached it, fastened it round her wrist and rolled her eyes at the extravagance of his apology. She was very much aware that everything Zarif and she herself did was the focus of all too many watchful eyes and wagging tongues amongst the palace staff. People would know he had given her a gift and she had to wear it.
The maid reappeared and opened the closets in the dressing room to withdraw a selection of outfits. Ella stared in surprise at the unfamiliar and obviously brand-new items sheathed in garment bags. Clearly they were for her. She pulled out her phone and called Zarif.
‘Did you buy me clothes?’ she asked bluntly.
‘Ella...how are you?’ Zarif enquired smoothly.
‘The clothes?’ she prompted impatiently.
‘Yes. I asked my mother, who is very much involved with the fashion world, to choose a new wardrobe for you.’
‘Your mother?’ Ella repeated, disconcerted, for the older woman had not even been present at their wedding the day before.
‘I assure you that she was happy to be of assistance.’
‘But I don’t need anything. I have my own clothes.’
‘I doubt very much that your present wardrobe will meet the standard of quality and formality which will now be required from you as my queen,’ Zarif informed her wryly.
Wandering round the spacious suite of rooms as she talked on the phone, Ella stiffened. ‘Is that so?’
‘I did not intend to offend you. I merely spoke the truth.’
Ella’s vexed gaze fell on a silver-framed photo sited on a corner table in the dining room where they had had breakfast at the start of the day. She stared in dismay at the photo of an attractive brunette with beautiful almond-shaped dark eyes smiling into the camera as she held her equally dark-eyed son.
‘Thank you for the flowers, the clothes and the bracelet,’ Ella said woodenly, still gaping at the photo of what could only be her predecessor.
‘I should have stayed to speak to you.’
‘No, saying it with flowers was better,’ Ella broke in. ‘We really don’t have much to say to each other.’
Not giving him the chance to respond, she tossed the phone down and lifted the photo of Azel and her infant son, Firas. Of course he kept a picture of his late wife and child in his private suite and why wouldn’t he? It was a perfectly normal thing to do. He wouldn’t want to forget them and he would want to show respect: of course, he had retained a photograph and
