Olivia sat down at the table and began to serve herself some of the traditional Arabic dishes. There was labneh yogurt with lemon juice, fava beans with mint and fresh cucumber, as well as dates flavoured with cardamom. It all looked delicious. There was also a little brass carafe of coffee that smelled wonderful.
‘A bride needs to eat,’ Suma added, smiling widely. She looked homely and happy, and even through her embarrassment Olivia’s heart went out to her. Did Suma not realise she wasn’t the Princess? That this marriage was a complete disaster? ‘Especially if there is a nunu.’
For a second Olivia didn’t know what she meant; the phrase was colloquial and beyond her understanding. Then she saw Suma pat her stomach meaningfully and realisation rushed through Olivia. A baby. Especially if there was a baby. If Zayed had got her pregnant.
She stared at Suma in ill-disguised horror, but the older woman merely took it as maidenly surprise and chortled happily before leaving the tent. Olivia stared down at the plate piled high with various dishes, her mouth dry, her appetite vanished. What if she was pregnant?
It was perfectly possible, she realised with a sick feeling. Her cycle was regular and she was right in the middle of it. Even she in her virginal—or not—innocence knew that this was a peak time for fertility. She could very well be pregnant with Prince Zayed’s baby.
Recrimination tore through her, worse than before. She felt like screaming, stomping her feet or, worse, sobbing. How could she have been such a besotted fool? Twenty-two years of living quietly, staying safe, and she’d risked it all in a single night with a stranger. It was as if, last night, she’d become someone else entirely.
The trouble was, she couldn’t stay as that person. She wasn’t that person. And now she was back to being plain Olivia Taylor, except she was married to a prince and she very well might be expecting his child. She would have laughed at the sheer lunacy of it, if there hadn’t been a lump the size of a golf ball in her throat.
Somehow she managed to choke down some of the breakfast. She needed to eat and drink, nunu or not. She’d half finished her plate when Suma returned with fresh clothes, thankfully modest. Olivia took the loose tunic and trousers with murmured thanks.
‘You wish to wash?’ Suma asked, miming washing. ‘The oasis has a private area. You go?’
Olivia nodded. She’d like to see something other than this tent, even if she inwardly quailed at the thought of facing a camp full of strangers. With some miming and basic directions, Suma instructed her how to get to a private inlet of the oasis.
Smiling and murmuring her thanks, Olivia took a deep breath and then ducked out of the tent.
* * *
‘My Prince?’
Zayed started from his ill-humoured reverie to see Jahmal at the entrance to his private tent, a respectful but inquisitive look on his face. Did he know of his mistake? From the guarded curiosity on his aide’s face, Zayed doubted it, but Jahmal could sense something was wrong.
‘It...went well?’ he asked cautiously.
Zayed almost laughed, except there was nothing remotely funny about this situation. Nothing at all. He’d spent the last hour pacing his tent and trying to figure a way out of this mess of his own making. Because it was of his own making, no matter what Olivia Taylor was in it for. If he’d kidnapped the right woman, he would not be here, cursing his fate as well as his own idiocy.
‘It went,’ he said tersely. He scrubbed his face with his hands, exhaustion crashing through him. He hadn’t slept for over twenty-four hours and he didn’t foresee much sleep in his future. He still had no idea what to do to fix this situation. Send an envoy to Hassan? How the hell could he explain?
‘The Princess is...happy?’ Jahmal ventured, his forehead creasing as his dark eyes searched Zayed’s fierce expression.
This time Zayed did laugh, because what else could he do? There were no walls to punch, no way to let out the fury he felt, directed solely at himself. For ten years failure had not been an option—and yet after all the war, all the bloodshed, all the loss, grief and pain, he wondered if the last decade had been nothing but failure. And now this.
‘I have no idea how the Princess feels,’ he told Jahmal, ‘because she’s not here.’
Jahmal’s frown deepened. ‘My Prince? I don’t understand...’
‘I took the wrong woman,’ Zayed explained, biting each word off and spitting it out. It was like some ridiculous farce. ‘I kidnapped the governess, not Princess Halina.’ Colour surged into his face just from stating it so baldly. How could he have been so stupid?
‘The wrong woman...’ Jahmal’s face drained of colour. ‘But...did she not say...?’
‘No, she didn’t say. She didn’t protest at the wedding, either.’ An hour of sitting here stewing had made suspicion solidify in Zayed. He might be to blame for taking the wrong woman, but why the hell hadn’t Olivia spoken up? There had been plenty of opportunity. Why hadn’t she asked who he was? He’d assumed she’d known, because she’d never said otherwise. Really, she’d been remarkably quiet, all things considered. And that made him wonder if she’d seen a good deal and decided to take it.
There was, he knew, only one way to find out. Not that it would make much difference to the outcome, but at least it would ease his conscience when he informed Olivia in no uncertain terms that he was divorcing her and marrying Halina at the earliest opportunity...and that she would help him to achieve that goal.
After Jahmal left, Zayed decided to go talk to Olivia. The sooner he could implement some damage control, the better. But when he went to the tent, it was empty, and Suma informed him that Olivia had gone down to the oasis to bathe. Fine. He would see her there.
The small camp was built around a verdant oasis, shaped like a kidney, so there were several private inlets. Olivia had gone to one of these, well out of sight of the camp, and Zayed strode down the palm-fringed path to the private cove to find her.
He paused as he crested a gently rolling dune; Olivia was hip-deep in water and wearing absolutely nothing. The breath rushed out of Zayed’s lungs as he took in her perfect slender form, the bright morning sunlight gilding her body in gold.
She held a cloth above her head, squeezing it so water dripped out, the droplets running down her shoulders and back. Desire surged through him, an irrepressible force. Zayed clenched his fists, willing it back. Lust for this woman had weakened him once. It would not do so again.
He came down the hill, the long grasses that fringed the oasis rustling as he moved, and Olivia turned, gasping as she caught sight of him. She rushed to cover herself and Zayed’s mouth twisted sardonically. Her maidenly outrage was just a little too melodramatic to be convincing, especially considering what they’d been doing together mere hours ago.
‘You don’t need to rush,’ he drawled as she waded out of the water and snatched a towel. ‘I’ve seen it all before.’
‘That doesn’t mean you need to see it again.’ She knotted the towel above her breasts, her hands shaking. Zayed folded his arms and surveyed her dispassionately. Never mind that she looked utterly lovely, with her dark, damp hair already starting to dry and curl in tendrils about her heart-shaped face. Never mind that her eyes looked huge and blue, and that those thick, sooty lashes drove him to distraction. Never mind.
‘As
