CHAPTER ONE
Present day.
She had heard many stories of Mehran, but nothing had prepared Phoebe for the reality of the country. Its beauty, and it was beautiful, was nothing compared to its spice-scented heat. She fanned her face with her hand, absentmindedly noting that one of her nails had lost a chip of color somewhere on the flight over. She made a mental note to book an appointment with her manicurist upon her return to London.
Three months, she had agreed to spend in Mehran.
She grimaced, leaning forward and peering out of the heavily tinted windows. The sleek limousine bearing the crest of the ruling Sheikh moved slowly through downtown Karut, the capital of Mehran. There were shanty markets stalls erected from each building, and children ran from one to the other. Shabbily dressed children, and women clutching young babies to their chest.
Phoebe knew Mehran was a large, wealthy country; it was a surprise to be confronted with such evidence of poverty, only minutes from the shiny, clean airport. Then again, it seemed to support the image she’d developed of the man who ran the country.
Her face flickered briefly with a surge of emotions. She concealed them immediately.
Sheikh Hakim Al Meshuda had terrified her into compliance. She had done everything he’d asked of her, starting with her relocation to the painfully exclusive boarding school in Switzerland. She’d mentally armored herself at all times, in preparation for the fact he might arrive unexpectedly, to check on her progress. But he had not. She’d graduated school and been accepted into university, and still, no word from the man who had become her legal guardian.
Oh, she’d become technically unshackled from him on her eighteenth birthday, but still, he controlled her fortune. At twenty one, she would finally, once and for all, be free from all men. Free to live her life as she saw fit, not needing to meet the approval of anyone in order to receive her trust fund.
She expelled a sigh of relief. This was the last hoop she needed to jump through, and then, she could run away from it all.
Phoebe’s eyes followed a young child, a girl, with spiked black hair and eyes that were so dark in her face they were like pools of oil. She was slim. So slim Phoebe knew she mustn’t have eaten a proper meal for days.
“Stop, please,” she spoke to her driver. When he didn’t obey, she leaned forward and said, in her most authoritative voice, “I said stop. This instant.”
To her surprise, with a low whistle of annoyance, he did. She threw him a thin smile then opened her door. She had changed some of her money into Mehran dollars, and she reached for them now, holding them out to the young girl. Her eyes lit up and she said something in Mehranese. Before Phoebe knew it, there was a swarm of poor children with sad eyes staring up at her, holding their hands out, touching her, begging for money.
Terrified, she looked around, to see that her driver was watching with an ‘I told you so’ expression clear on his chubby features.
Phoebe calmed instantly. She would not give him the satisfaction of thinking she couldn’t control the situation. “Children!” She spoke loudly and clearly, and clapped her hands above her head to gain their attention. There were not so many of them after all, she realized, as the adrenalin subsided a little. “Stand back.”
They didn’t move, but at least they’d stopped reaching out to her.
She pointed towards a wall, waving her hand from left to right. The first child, the girl, walked to the wall and stood against it. One by one, the others followed suit.
Phoebe had the pleasure of seeing surprise in her driver’s face. To her chagrin, her fingers were shaking slightly. She clutched the strap of her handbag to disguise it while she walked behind them. Slowly, she took her purse from her bag and, keeping her eyes on the children, she removed ten crisp notes. One by one, she handed them to each child.
The girl, who had first caught her attention, smiled up at her, and it was a smile of such gratitude that Phoebe felt emotion catch in her throat. “Go,” she said, waving her hands in the direction of the alley many had emerged from. They scattered instantly, perhaps terrified that the beautiful western woman in the Sheikh’s car might change her mind and demand their loot back.
The driver stood, holding her door for her. “You should not encourage them to beg,” he criticized, as she slid into the luxurious vehicle.
Phoebe ignored him. Men like him were the problem with the world. Or, one of the problems. Men who saw and did nothing. Men who had blinkered vision and could easily drive past such suffering and poverty.
Several streets further, the signs of comfort increased, and bit by bit, the slums were left behind them. The highways were wide here, with several lanes apiece. The sun was high in the sky, and it made the thick, lush grass in the median strip appear to shimmer and shine in the haze created by its heat.
Bright flowers, Gaillardia perhaps, ran the length of the highway, on both sides. In the distance, enormous sand-covered mountains rose, as if out of nowhere, and kissed the sky. They glowed with the warmth of the day, some red, some brown, some gold like her hair. A country of contrasts, she thought, for its desert stretched for miles in one direction, and in the other, there was a water-logged community that thrived on the canals that had been created many centuries earlier, for the purpose of trade with the West.
Etienne had spoken often of the wonders of Mehran.
She shivered as she thought of her step-father. A man who she had tried her hardest to cut from her mind, he had been reappearing more often of late. Since she had agreed to the Sheikh’s request to visit Mehran, memories of Etienne had begun to reassert themselves. It was as if the acceptance of the Sheikh’s invitation had opened the floodgates to emotions she had left buried in the distant past.
It had not always been dreadful, with Etienne, though. When her mother had first married him, Phoebe had been seven. She had still held the vestiges of a magical childhood, and she saw the world through eyes all too willing to sparkle with wonderment.
In those days, his stories of the faraway Mehran, had entranced her immediately. He’d told her tale after tale of spice-trading pirates; and the mines to the west that were rich with gemstones, pocked by rivers of gold; and the oil that ran as veins beneath the surface skin of the sandy desert; and the Bedouin who lived in keeping with their heritage, travelling from area to area, with nothing but camels and their brightly colored canvas tents to support them. She had loved the country then, just as she’d loved everything that came out of Etienne’s mouth.
How quickly it had all changed.
She shook her head, pushing the thoughts away with a conscious effort.
He was gone. Long gone. And though she knew Sheikh Hakim Al Meshuda thought her step-father had been a saint, that mattered little to Phoebe Douglas. She did not need Hakim to know the truth. She didn’t even need him to like her. She simply needed to fulfill his last requirement so that she could grab her fortune with both hands. She had big plans for her money, and they all involved making Etienne roll over in his long-ago-dug grave.
A sad smile touched her lips as the car continued its stately progress along the highways. Several minutes later, she saw it. Surely, it had to be the palace, for it was a building more grand than she had ever seen in her life. In fact, it was a building more grand than she had known could possibly exist.
Phoebe gasped audibly as she took in the details of the royal residence of the Sheikh of Mehran. Strangely, there was no security fence, but spaced evenly along the wall, there were security guards with guns almost as long as their legs. She gulped. She abhorred violence, and was particularly opposed to guns.
The structure appeared to be made purely from marble, but surely that was not possible? She thought of the Taj Mahal, and realized that here, in Mehran, was a palace to rival it in terms of beauty and grandeur. A stately line of palm trees ran along the road to the palace, and the domed top seemed to loom larger and larger as they approached it.
Almost at the front of the palace, the driver took a sharp left, and nudged the car down a steep ramp, into what she saw was a secure underground parking facility.
“The Sheikh’s cars?” She asked, unable to keep the note of condemnation from her voice.
The driver did not answer.
Phoebe struggled to reconcile the image of a benevolent, caring King with the idea of a man who would have a palace sitting on millions of pounds worth of luxury vehicles, while beyond the palace, children struggled for food.
He cut the engine and moved, as swiftly as his portly figure would allow, to her door. “Come.” His tone was a command. She did not appreciate it, but she knew to refuse would be pure churlishness. Besides, she was simply transferring her dislike of Sheikh Hakim Al Meshuda onto his hapless servant; that was not fair.
A wave of tiredness hit Phoebe as she fell into step behind the man. She had been travelling for over twelve hours, so it was little wonder that she was beginning to show the signs of weariness. Even the luxury of the Sheikh’s private jet hadn’t eased her weariness, for hers was a tiredness of the mind. Since agreeing to journey to Mehran, she’d been filled with anxiety. It was an inexplicable, free-floating anxiety, almost impossible to pinpoint a reason for.
As they moved through the palace, Phoebe noticed several things. The incredible grandeur of her surroundings made her gasp in awe. Marble, highly polished, on the floors, walls with enormous hanging carpets – Persian in style – and gold gilt paint. There were flower arrangements everywhere, but not serene and calming like she enjoyed. These golden vases were filled with exotic, spiked flowers, each more colorful and oddly shaped than the next. There was a beautiful fragrance in the palace; a mix of spices and sweetness. The sweetness she attributed to the flowers. If her guide had not been walking at such a clipped pace, she might have indulged her desire and moved to a vase to breathe the scent more closely.
What she noticed most, though, was the way people stared at her. She bit down on her lower-lip, self-consciously, as those milling in the palace corridors stopped what they were doing to blatantly watch her arrival.
She had dressed modestly, aware that Mehran was a conservative principality. In the decade since Hakim had become Sheikh, she knew that it had moved towards a reputation as a progressive country, and its peacefulness was admired in the region. But the conservative roots ran deep.
Accordingly, she’d travelled in a pair of linen pants and a long sleeved cotton shirt. Her long blonde hair she wore loose about her face. Phoebe tried to tell herself she was imagining it, but it was clearly a lie.
She stared directly ahead, refusing to be cowered by the speculation. After what felt like miles and miles of palace corridors, they reached a small hallway with three golden doors, in the shape of onion domes.
“This is to be your suite,” the man spoke, not meeting her eyes.
Phoebe had been born to an aristocratic mother, and had been raised by Etienne much of her life. The Sheikh had sent her to the most exclusive private boarding house on Earth. Though she was somehow unfailingly egalitarian, Phoebe had no problems assuming an air of command now. “Show me my room,” she said firmly.
The man’s face didn’t express any emotion. He moved to the first door and opened it inwards, stepping back with great care not to touch her. She stood and cast her eyes about it. This was a bedroom. Large and opulently furnished, as she had expected.
“There is a washroom beyond the wall,” he indicated a large, blue mosaiced wall at the end of the room.
“And the other rooms?” She asked, stepping back into the hallway and looking at the doorways.
He seemed uncomfortable for a moment, and Phoebe, intent on asserting herself, did not waver. After all, she was to be there three months. She could not have men like this refusing to so much as look in her eyes.
“Dining room.” He pushed into the space, and moved across to a telephone. “This phone will put you directly in contact with the palace kitchen staff. You may order anything you like, at any time.”
She nodded, striving to look unimpressed.
“Fine. Thank you. And the third door?”
The man’s face didn’t color, but a fine bead of sweat broke out on his forehead.
“That is something you may wish to see privately, madam.”
She arched a brow, in a sign of impatience. “Please, show me.” It was not a request, and they both knew it.
The man shook his head. “I cannot, madam. Only you and the Sheikh are able to enter the seraglio.”
“Seraglio?” She queried, her curiosity piqued.
The man nodded. “Excuse me, madam.”
Perplexed, Phoebe watched him disappear quickly down the corridor and turn sharply, as soon as he could. She had grown up reading Nancy Drew adventure stories, and nothing excited Phoebe like the hint of mystery.
She counted to five, to be sure he wouldn’t return, and then strode toward the door. It opened inwards with the slightest touch.
At first, she couldn’t understand the man’s reluctance. This was simply another bed room. A far nicer, more luxurious room than her own. There was something magical about this space; as if the very air seemed to throb with emotion and mystery. She took another step inwards, feeling like a child stepping through the back of a wardrobe and entering Narnia.
A large, ancient bed stood in the middle of the room. It was carved from wood, and each poster was sculpted to resemble a fierce desert animal. The oriental influence was obvious. The bed had been covered in gold leaf, except for the eyes of the animals, which glittered with enormous gems. She ran her fingers over the cold black eyes of the panther, wondering if they were onyx or diamond.
A hook was in the panther’s back, which seemed odd. She looked, and each animal had the same detail. There were curtains that could be pull closed; a heavy, purple velvet. She followed the fabric to the top of the bed and saw the mirror. It made something strange lodge in her breast.
The only purpose a mirror had above a bed was a sexual one. Wasn’t it? Phoebe couldn’t be certain. She was regrettably inexperienced, but her girlfriends weren’t. She knew enough of their escapades to know a little about sexual exploration. She jumped away from the bed as though she’d been bitten.
She bumped into a chair. Not a normal chair, though. It had restraints on the arms, and foot holds that were spread far apart. She touched a lever on the back and it reclined immediately.
Her blue eyes jumped around the room now, taking in every detail. The magic she’d originally sensed gave way to a darker, more alluring power. A thrill of adrenalin spiked inside of her, and fear too, for this world that was so removed from her comfort zone. The artwork on the walls was provocative. Ancient tapestries depicting sexual orgies, dark wooden furniture with little bottles. She had no idea what was in them, and she didn’t want to know.
Shaking from head to toe, she crossed the room and pulled the door open. She emerged, her cheeks pink and her eyes shining. She told herself she felt scandalized. The outrage was the reason her heart was racing. With force, she shut the door, and looked longingly to the sanctuary of the now-perfect-seeming bedroom she had seen been shown to.
It was then that she saw him.
Hakim.
Unmistakable, for he had not changed since that first meeting, except, perhaps, that he now exuded an even greater air of authority.
She crossed her arms across her chest, and she could feel her chest shaking beneath her shirt.
“So,” he drawled slowly, his eyes glinting in his handsome face as he looked her up and down with slow derision, “you have arrived.”
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