CHAPTER ONE

 

 

“WHAT DID YOU just say?”

Melanie covered the mouthpiece of the apartment intercom, her eyes enormous. “Some man is downstairs claiming to be your fiancé.”

Kylie froze in her seat, her slender, tanned legs curled beneath her, her fingers splayed wide to let the turquoise nail polish she’d just laboriously applied dry. “What?”

“I said...”

“Oh, God. I heard what you said.” Kylie pressed her lips together. It didn’t help. Her throat was still as dry as dust. But hadn’t she known this was coming? The betrothal documents had specified she’d wed at twenty-two, and her birthday had been the week prior. She’d celebrated with her friends, enjoyed the bonhomie but this had been ever-present in her thoughts.

“Is this… the guy? From Argenon?”

Kylie squeezed her eyes shut on a wave of desperate comprehension. The fate that had been awaiting her now seemed too close – a destiny she wanted to escape. But could she? Legally, she was obliged to marry into the family who’d taken over her care and upkeep. They had been her legal guardians and they were now her obligation.

Her eyes travelled, of their own accord, around the luxurious apartment she called home. An apartment paid for by her betrothed’s family. A gift, one of many, in exchange for her hand in marriage.

She stood on legs that were wobbling like barely-set jelly and moved towards the sliding glass doors of the balcony. Beneath her, Sydney harbour glistened, the sun was shining and yes, there it was. A sleek black limousine across the street with two conspicuous men in suits on either side. Their dark glasses couldn’t hide the furtive way they were scanning the street.

Bodyguards.

Just what she’d expect for a man of her intended’s stature.

Not that she knew exactly who her intended was to be. The contracts were vague enough to be worrying – a suitable member of the Haddad family was all her lawyer had told her. She’d googled them, and found at least twelve men within ten years of her age.

She gnawed on her lip, her stomach flipping and twisting wildly.

Mel bit down on her lip, her own thoughts on the whole arranged marriage something she’d aired ad nauseum to her best friend. “Just pretend you don’t live here,” she said urgently. “He’ll go away eventually.”

“No, no.” Kylie stared straight ahead, remembering all the reasons she’d fallen in with this arrangement. Her parents. Her legal obligations. Her … fate. Yes, it was stupid and trite, but something about this moment felt so pre-ordained that she’d never dared question it. She lifted a finger, careful not to smudge the still-setting polish, and wiped her upper lip, removing the sheen of perspiration that had spotted across it.

“Kyles?”

She spun around, her long blonde hair whipping behind her like a sun-filled cloud. “Yes.” A croak. She cleared her throat and nodded now, but nothing could shake the trepidation from her features. “I… yes. Let him up.”

Melanie’s lips compressed with disapproval but she reached across and pushed the buzzer – a loud humming noise filled the apartment and, in the distance, four flights of stairs beneath them, the distant thud of the security door slamming shut sounded with a kerthunk.

“You’re crazy. You don’t have to do this!”

But Kylie was sinking back into the past. The truth that had unfolded around her from the moment her parents had died and she’d been taken into boarding school, told her new legal guardians were a family far, far away – on the other side of the world. That she’d never met them, but that one day she’d become part of them.

Her betrothal had been so much a part of that story that she’d barely stopped to question it. Even now, a young woman with a mathematics degree and a confidence she wore like a second skin, Kylie knew this marriage to be not only her obligation, but her birthright.

She ran trembling fingers over the cream dress she’d thrown on that morning. It was far skimpier than she would have ideally liked to wear for this introduction, but it had been hotter than hades in Sydney – a typical February day, long and stifling – and she’d opted for comfort over modesty. Nonetheless, she pulled at the hem then lifted her hands to her hair, spreading the lengths over her shoulders, covering the tanned expanse of flesh as quickly as she was able.

Nerves made her fidget; her fingers sought the three carat solitaire diamond she wore at her throat – a gift from her betrothed for her twenty first birthday.

And then she waited, heart in her throat, mind thick, eyes focussed on the door.

“Kylie?”

“I know I don’t have to. I … I want to,” Kylie murmured with a hint of apology in the words. And it was true. But how could Melanie ever understand? The idea of an arranged marriage would be anathema to her – as it would be to most women who’d grown up as they had, free and footloose in the urbane city centre of Sydney.

The knock at the door was nothing if not perfunctory.

Kylie’s heart was in her throat. She was torn between fainting and crying. She did neither. The deportment classes she’d attended had taught her well. She waited impassively, her features set in a mask of disaffectation, her eyes locked to the door frame.

“Kylie Clare Mathison, look at me.”

Kylie spun her face, her eyes linking with her best friend’s. “I know you don’t approve.”

“Don’t approve? You’ve never even met this man. You don’t even know his name!”

“I told you, it’s complicated.” Now, she began to move towards the door, not ignoring the fact that her destiny stood on the other side.

“What’s complicated about the fact you’re acting like you live two hundred years ago?”

Kylie’s smile was half-hearted. “I know. But it’s … bloodlines,” she said cryptically, as though it explained everything. And she wrenched the door inwards, prepared to meet her fate.

Only her fate… her fate was nothing like she’d imagined. For who could? Who could have foreseen a man like this as her groom-to-be?

Not Kylie, who had never imagined such a species of man existed.

Tall, sure. Broad and muscled. But this man went beyond simply tall and well-built. He was … huge. Broad shoulders, strong arms, tanned skin, eyes that were so dark they were almost black, a square jaw covered by dark stubble and black hair that was pulled into a messy sort of bun – not a fashion choice so much as, Kylie believed in that instant, laziness. He wore a suit, but he was far too wild to be contained by it – far too masculine. It looked wrong. She wasn’t sure how she would have imagined him – but not like this.

“Kylie Mathison?” His voice was thickly accented, his tone gruff. She could do nothing but stare at him. Stare at him until her neck developed a crick and her eyes crossed in the middle.

“Are you Kylie Mathison?” He demanded, and she noted, for the first time, the gold ring he wore on his finger, perhaps denoting his stature in Argenon society. She nodded jerkily and finally, her training came back to her.

“I am,” she stepped backwards, her calves bumping into the corner of an occasional table. Melanie was equally immovable, her green eyes locked onto the man who strode into their apartment as though he owned the place. Two men stood behind him, but they wore robes. She recognised them as traditional robes of her distant home, from the images she’d googled over the years. “And you are?”

His lips twisted, God, they were beautiful lips! Masculine and confident, her eyes dropped to them and clung to their severe lines. “You may call me Sheikh.”

“Sheikh?” She repeated, a frown causing a small line to form between her brows.

“For now.”

The words held a multitude of problems and promise; they spoke of a future she had known and accepted, and yet, that on some level, she had always doubted would come to fruition. They promised intimacy too, and closeness. An unspoken promise that at some point she would know him better – more than this. Enough to refer to him as something other than his title.

His eyes were rimmed by thick black lashes, so dark and luscious that Kylie might have been tempted to wonder if they’d been cosmetically enhanced in some fashion. But there was no vanity in this hulking beast of a man – his beauty came from his feral masculinity. It overpowered her completely.

“For now,” she repeated, simply because she was conscious of the fact she hadn’t spoken in a really long time. A movement to her side dragged her attention away; Melanie propped her hip against the bench, her arms crossed, her gaze flicking from The Sheikh to Kylie and back again, in obvious disapproval.

The Sheikh turned to Melanie also, her expression barely flickering. Kylie noticed the way he didn’t so much as acknowledge her friend’s presence with anything like a smile or nod, simply took in her existence and then returned his focus to Kylie’s flushed face.

“Come with me, now.”

Gradually, reality was shifting back into focus for Kylie and she shook her head slowly. “The betrothal documents say we aren’t to meet until the wedding. I’m not supposed to even know your name…”

Khalifa’s lips compressed as he bit back the retort that zipped through him. A wise move by the Haddad family to conceal the truth of this woman’s intended to the very last. Any woman with a grain of common sense would never consent to marry a man like Fayez.

“I do not intend to meet my bride for the first time on my wedding day. I have one night in Sydney. I suggest we use it to get to know one another.”

Kylie’s heart turned over in her chest, air burned inside her lungs, breathing was almost impossible. Perhaps her sense of being totally over-awed was written somehow on her features, because he leaned forward suddenly, his fingers gripping her chin, his mouth close to her ear and he said, huskily, “I do not bite. Much.”

Something rolled through her gut and it wasn’t anxiety. It was desire. Thick and unmistakable it throbbed inside of her. She pressed a hand against her stomach, hoping to quell the butterflies that had taken up a frantic type of residence. It didn’t work.

“Okay.” She nodded, and the side of her face grazed against his stubble. It was an unintentional touch but it sent her pulse skittering like a brumby on wheat plains.

“Mel?” She blinked, forcing herself to step away from this man’s magnetism and regain some of her senses. “I’m going out.”

“So I gather.” Melanie’s incredulity at the development was obvious. “Keep your phone on you.”

Kylie nodded. When they’d move in together three years earlier, they’d set their phones up with an app so they could trace one another’s movements. Two girls without family living alone in Sydney – it seemed like a wise precaution.

“I will.” Kylie moved quickly through the apartment, scooping up her handbag and lifting her sunglasses out. She perched them on the bridge of her nose, then slid her feet into a pair of strappy sandals. It really was disgustingly hot and sticky; she hoped he had plans that involved a first-rate airconditioner.

She turned back towards the door, pausing beside Melanie to press a kiss against her friend’s cheek. “I’ll see you later.”

“Keep in touch.” The words conveyed Melanie’s worry and Kylie felt a whisper of remorse at not having been more honest with her friend about this plan. They’d spoken, only weeks earlier, about Kylie’s lack of love life. Kylie had put it down to not meeting the right kind of guys and Melanie had been insistent that she wasn’t really looking.

And she hadn’t been.

A morality clause was part and parcel of the contract. She had to go to her wedding a virgin, or the wedding would be annulled. At the door, her intended groom but a hand in the small of her back and darts of long-suppressed lust fired through her. Feelings that her friends had probably experienced at fifteen were dancing in her veins – hormonal needs were tripping over themselves inside of Kylie.

She moved ahead of him, into the communal landing of her apartment, and was conscious of the two guards studying her thoughtfully, their faces carefully blanked of emotion. Only one of them had something in his eyes, a look of disdain, as he flicked a quick glance down her body. The dress, though short, was over-sized and her curves were hidden by the fabric. But his look made her feel naked and embarrassed.

She spun around, to speak to The Sheikh, only he was closer than she’d realised and her body connected hard with his. His eyes flared wide as a hand sprung out to steady her, wrapping around her waist.

Heat bubbled through her, pricking at her flesh. “I was just … should I … get changed?”

“Why?” A thick growl. Her stomach squeezed.

“I just … wasn’t sure if this …” she looked down – a mistake. All she could see was the meshing of their bodies and the width and strength of his overpowered her thought processes. “Should I get changed?” She finished lamely.

He studied her face, his expression unreadable, and finally shook his head. “What you are wearing will not matter, where we are going.”

“Where are we going?” She locked her wide blue eyes to his, even when the force of his returned gaze burned her completely.

He didn’t attempt to smile. “A surprise.” He released his grip on her waist and stepped aside slightly. “Are you ready?”

Was she? Even knowing this day would come, had she adequately prepared for it? It was strange that Kylie, a woman who’d always done as she was told, who’d always lived up to everyone’s expectations of her, should question that trait now. Something deep inside of her warned her, something resonated and told her to defy him. To rail against his commanding manner.

But there was a stronger instinct, one she couldn’t explain or make sense of. She trusted this man. Not because he was the betrothed her parents had wished her to marry, but because there was something inexplicable driving between them, making her body soft and her heart sure. She nodded, and when she spoke, the words were husky. “Yes. Let’s go.”

Khalifa expelled a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. Until that moment, he hadn’t been sure the small Australian woman would agree with his plans – and he needed her to. He had twenty four hours to put an end to her betrothal and he would use any means at his disposal. Looking at her hardened nipples peaking through the soft fabric of her barely-there dress, he was in no doubt as to what would be the most effective way to do just that.

But she was not at all what he’d expected.

A descendant of one of the most ancient and powerful tribes in his land – the Maha Ishan, as they’d been known generations ago, he had thought he would recognise at least a hint of Argenon blood in her features – there was none. She was quintessentially foreign, with her long hair, so fair it was almost white, pale skin that had honeyed tones only as a result of sun exposure, and big blue eyes. Her lips were pouty and pink, her body small and fine, except for her breasts which were paraded by the dress which would have been comfortably classified as a negligee.

He compressed his jaw and put a hand in the small of her back. She trembled beneath his touch as though she’d never known the feel of a man’s possession.

And she hadn’t. He was sure of it. The Haddad family was nothing if not old-fashioned. They would expect bridal purity. A smile fired through him from the inside out, so that when they reached the front of the apartment complex there was still a ghost of it on his chiselled features. Kylie caught it and something like relief snuggled in her chest. So he was human after all?

“Which way?” She quipped, for his limousine stood out like a sore thumb, even here in Rose Bay, one of Sydney’s more exclusive precincts.

He didn’t answer, simply strode across the street to the parked limousine and stood by a door. One of the guards rushed to it, pulling it open, presumably for the Sheikh.

“After you,” he said, the words dark and low.

“Thank you.” She slid into the car, the air-conditioning a welcome surge of cool in the face of the day’s heat. She had only seconds to settle herself in the corner before his large frame blocked the sun and he joined her. The limousine felt instantly smaller.

He took up too much real-estate and all the air.

Breathing was no longer something she could do without concentrating.

“I am glad,” she heard herself say, the words high-pitched. “That we have a chance to get to know one another.”

He said nothing, but the intensity of his gaze was a silent entreaty for her to continue.

“I mean, I’ve never questioned this whole… arrangement… as strange as that might seem. But I’ll admit the idea of turning up on my wedding day and marrying a man I know nothing about…” she shivered at the idea, and her breasts strained against her dress.

Khalifa’s eyes dropped deliberately to her chest, and Kylie felt as though she might as well have been naked. He stared at her long and slow, and every beat of time that passed made her awareness of him skyrocket. His gaze alone was enough, as though he were touching her with his hands and fingers and mouth, not just examining her from a distance.

The air in the limousine crackled with awareness and Kylie cursed her lack of sexual experience. While virginity had been demanded, surely she could have done at least some experimenting, to give herself a little more knowledge in situations like this?

Situations like this, her brain prompted with disbelief. As if this is anything that ever happens to anyone!

Self-consciously, she crossed her arms over her chest and she saw the flicker of his smile once more as he lifted his attention back to her face.

“It does seem strange.”

Kylie had no idea what he was talking about. She was lost, stranded in the middle of the desert, no clue which way was right or left. “What does?” A husky question as her brain tried to process what was happening to her body. Moist heat had flooded her abdomen and she could feel it between her legs now, a slick of arousal that was new and foreign and dangerous.

“That you have never questioned this arrangement. Even in Argenon, arranged marriages are no longer common.”

Conversation. Conversation was good. It was something she could do, to give her body time to process the overwhelming flood of awareness it was deluged by. She crossed her legs unconsciously, revealing much of her thigh to his scrutiny, but she was distracted now, and didn’t notice the way he raked his attention downwards.

“I know. But I’ve always known this would be my fate. My parents spoke about my destiny often, and when they died, my nannies took up the baton.” A frown tugged at her lips as she ran a finger over the upholstery of the luxurious car. Outside, Sydney passed in a darkly-tinted blur that she didn’t see. Her mind was in the past.

“I guess as a teenager, I went through a phase of wanting to rebel. But it was brief, and ultimately pointless.” She turned her focus back to the man opposite and her whole body lurched with undeniable awareness. His legs were wide – a classic case of man-spreading if ever she’d seen one! The kind of pose that would have made her furious on a bus was so unbelievably sexy on this man. He’d leaned forward a little, his fingers laced beneath his chin.

Out of nowhere, Kylie imagined crossing the distance and straddling him, sitting on his lap and kissing those hard, gorgeous lips. And almost burst out laughing. What would he say to that?

It was a relief to laugh, even if only inwardly. It centred her.

“Why pointless?”

“Our betrothal is set in stone,” Kylie reminded him with only a hint of acidity. “Even if I wanted to pull out of it, there’s no means for me to do so.”

His lips twisted and she couldn’t interpret the gesture, though she would have been tempted to call it disdain.

“You don’t believe me?” She challenged, surprising them both.

He lifted his shoulders infinitesimally. “I look around me and see a western city, where there are lawyers and opportunities and where you have lived your whole life. I wonder why a woman would marry a man she does not know, and move to the other side of the world, to a country that is so very different to this.”

His accent was thick, though his English impeccable.

Kylie nodded, the gesture gentle and considered, and she pulled her lower lip between her teeth, pressing it from side to side in a way Khalifa found utterly distracting. “It’s strange, I know.”

He didn’t answer, and the silence simply encouraged Kylie to keep talking.

“My parents wished it.” She bit down on her lip some more, as though that fully explained her view point.

“They died fifteen years ago.”

She winced at his clinical way of discussing their deaths, like it hadn’t ripped a hole in the middle of her chest that had never healed.

“The contracts were not contingent on their living,” Kylie muttered. “It’s legally somewhat irrelevant.”

He shifted slightly, his manner more focussed; more serious. “And if it weren’t? If there were a way to escape this betrothal? Would you take it?”

For a moment, the possibility launched into Kylie’s mind, exploding like fireworks, filling her with an endless array of possibilities. If she didn’t have to go through with this wedding? What would she do? As always, she sought to transform this into an equation but there was no answer to it. She didn’t know what she would do, for she had never expected to do anything other than this. Her fate in life had long since been determined and her job was simply to meet it unflinchingly.

She met his gaze with a strength that surprised him. “No.” Her attention shifted to the window beside her. “I made my peace with it a long time ago.”

“But it is not what you wish.”

Kylie considered that, sighing.  “It’s who I am.”

Khalifa rubbed a hand over his stubble as the car pulled to a stop. Kylie’s gaze, still held by the view beyond the window, caught a restaurant that she vaguely recognised. The water was on her right. She craned forward in her seat and her eyes landed on an enormous boat at the end of the wharf – the wharf utterly dwarfed by the size of this thing.

“Yours?” She turned to her betrothed, a brow lifted at the opulence of his boat.

“Yes.”

Though the car was stopped, the doors didn’t open.

“Isn’t this breaking the rules?” She said after a moment.

He shrugged. “Rules are made to be broken. I have no intention of marrying a woman I don’t know.” He closed the distance between them and she sucked a breath in, her eyes held by his as if by an invisible force. “Nor do I wish to marry a virgin.”