where are the herds?” she asked, as they approached a tent that stood off by itself.
It was near his home and where they had started and she knew they were close to the end of the tour. Inexplicably, she was not ready for her time with him to be over. She tried to convince herself that was because she wanted to know more about the Bedouin, but she’d never been very good at lying to herself.
Sheikh Asad bin Hanif Al’najid was every bit as fascinating to her as he had been when he was simply Asad Hanif. If she were honest with herself, he was even more so. She needed to get to work quickly and get her mind occupied elsewhere.
“Herds?” he asked, his tone curiously flat after the animation with which he’d described his home over the past two hours.
“The goats and things. I’d always read that Bedouins kept flocks.” Only the encampment had been surprisingly bereft of animals, except, surprisingly, some peacocks and peahens wandering between the tents, which she assumed they kept as a curiosity for the tourists.
From what she could tell, the birds had free rein of the encampment and were quite friendly. However, they’d been the only evidence of animals she’d seen. Unless others were kept in the courtyards, but there hadn’t been any in the one behind his tent.
“And you thought all Bedouins were goatherds?” he asked with a stark tension she did not understand.
“Don’t be ridiculous—no more than I think everyone living in the Midwest is a farmer, but isn’t herding part of the traditional Bedouin way of life?” Not only would it not make sense for the Sha’b Al’najid to get their meat and fleece elsewhere, considering how independent a people she’d already witnessed they were, but wouldn’t the tourists expect it?
“We do keep herds, rather a lot of them in fact, but they are grazed in the foothills. If they were not, the stench might be too much for our guests.”
“That makes sense.” Though somehow, she wasn’t sure how she felt about them pushing a traditional part of their lifestyle into the outskirts.
He lifted a sardonic brow. “I’m glad you think so.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you.” Wasn’t even sure how she had done so.
Asad shook his head. “You did not. It was an old argument I had with Badra. That is all.”
Surprised again by his candid comment about his deceased wife, Iris nevertheless asked, “Did she think it wrong to cater so carefully to the tourist’s preferences?”
Asad’s laughter sounded more like glass breaking. “Not at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. She could not stand the smell and would have preferred we got rid of the herds altogether.”
He’d already alluded to the fact his wife had not been faithful—an eventuality Iris simply could not comprehend. What woman would want another man when she had Asad in her bed? But this latest revelation pointed to only one conclusion: the perfect princess had been a perfect idiot.
Because the woman would have to be absolutely brainless not to realize how foolish it would be to give up the herds of a Bedouin tribe.
“Marrying the virginal princess did not turn out to be all it was cracked up to be, I guess.”
“If that odd English idiom means it was not what I expected it to be, you are correct. Does that please you?” he asked darkly.
“You probably won’t believe me, but no. Losing what I thought I had with you hurt more than I believed anything ever could, but I never wished you ill.” Her own honesty surprised her a little, but with only a couple of glaring exceptions, she’d always found it far too easy to reveal her deepest thoughts and emotions to Asad.
Perhaps because in the past, he’d proven himself a worthy and safe confidant. It was hard to change that viewpoint despite the pain he’d put her through, maybe because he’d walked away and she hadn’t had a chance to shore up her defenses against him in person.
Whenever she’d revealed a fear or disappointment in the past, he did his best to alleviate it. She’d told him she was worried about passing a difficult class and though it was not in his discipline, he’d helped her study and even write one of her papers. She’d admitted to feeling awkward in the way her body moved and he’d talked her into ballroom dancing lessons.
Asad stopped before they entered the strangely isolated tent and looked down at her. “You are a very different sort of woman, little flower.”
He’d used to call her that, too, a play on her name that was just silly enough to be endearing. Somehow, his using it again didn’t hurt with nearly the pain the betraying aziz had done.
“I don’t think so. When you love someone, you want them to be happy. Even when it’s not with you.” That truth had sustained her through some of the darkest nights of her soul.
He jolted as if she’d hit him with a cattle prod. “You love me?”
“I loved you,” she emphasized.
“And that prevented you from hating me?” he asked in a curious tone. “Even though you considered my leaving a betrayal.”
“It was a betrayal of my love. But no, I don’t hate you.”
She never had, even in her darkest moments of pain. A love as deep as the one she felt for him simply had not allowed for that emotion, no matter how devastated she’d been.
He went as if to touch her face, but then let his hand drop after a quick glance around. They were not alone, though no one was close enough to hear the subject of their conversation. It would not do for him to be seen taking such liberties with a single woman, even one from the West.
The tribe might be part of the small percentage of Bedouins that had not converted to Islam in the seventh century, but that did not mean that such behavior would be any more culturally acceptable in this place.
“Your love for me was true,” he said as if just realizing that.
“And you really didn’t love me. Life is peppered with little inconsistencies like that,” she said with a wry twist to her lips.
She was really proud of the insouciance of her tone and stance. Maybe seeing him again had been for the best. Perhaps once this assignment was over, Iris would be able to move forward with her life … and maybe even fall in love with someone who would return her feelings.
Though trusting someone else with her heart was not something she was sure she ever wanted to do again.
“So, what is this place?” she asked, indicating the isolated tent.
“Let me show you,” he said as he led her inside.
She gasped out in shock as they passed under the heavy tent flap that operated as the door.
The interior of this particular structure was nothing like the others. An undeniably modern office, either side of the main area, was taken up by two desks facing each other, all manned by people clearly at work. In the center, there was even a secretary/receptionist speaking into a headset while typing at a laptop on her desk.
No one sat on cushions on the
