Hot Arabian Nights. Marguerite Kaye

do other things that sustained her climax beyond what she thought possible. He had taught her to take delight in her body.

      He was the perfect lover. If only she had been able to confine him to that role, but love was an insidious thing, like a desert flower lurking below the surface for years, waiting for the rains to give it life and make it bloom. How long had she been in love with Azhar without knowing it? She had known him less than a month. Was it possible to fall in love in such a short time? Apparently it was. She had known Daniel most of her life, her love for him had grown steadily and surely, but had she ever been passionately in love with him?

      ‘No,’ Julia said, ‘definitely not. Nothing compares to this.’

      And nothing could ever come of it. She knew that, as surely as she knew that she was in love with Azhar. Her freedom meant everything to her, and freedom most certainly did not encompass tying herself to a man again. She had no idea what she wanted to do with her life, but she wanted the freedom to decide for herself. To make and learn from her own mistakes as Azhar had done during the last ten years, and to celebrate her own successes as he had done. Perhaps she would travel. Perhaps she would find a way to earn her living with her landscapes. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was free to choose, while Azhar...

      Her heart contracted as it did every time she thought of his predicament. She longed to comfort him, but he had already locked her out of his life, already denied himself any solace. Daniel’s first love was his book. Azhar had made it clear that his one and only love must be Qaryma. Not even his wife, when he took one, would take precedence over his kingdom. Even were Julia considered suitable to be the wife of a king—which she most clearly was not—she would never want such a role.

      Not even if it meant being by Azhar’s side?

      ‘No,’ she said aloud, this time even more firmly than the last, ‘because I would not be by his side. Qaryma would be his, and I would be his, but neither Azhar nor Qaryma would ever be mine.’

      But dear heavens, how she loved him.

      * * *

      Azhar listened with one ear as his Council debated the exact route of the coronation procession, his mind racing ahead to consider the other equally tedious details to be discussed at the meeting, none of which he gave a camel’s hump about. He was resigned to going through the formality of a coronation, but the minutiae of the ceremony simply didn’t interest him.

      The two most pressing matters which did occupy his thoughts were for the moment in abeyance, awaiting the response of the two men concerned. He was a man of action, he’d told Julia once. Certainly, in the three days that had passed since he saw her he had made countless decisions, but he had also spent an inordinate amount of time trying not to act, not to do the one thing he wanted above all, which was to go to Julia and lose himself in her arms.

      He missed her. It would be easier when she was no longer resident in the palace, easier still when she had crossed Qaryma’s border en route to England, but for now, knowing that there were only a few walls separating them was making it ridiculously difficult to resist temptation.

      He missed the sound of her laughter, and the tone of her voice. He missed the almost guilty expression she wore when she was about to tell him something she thought he didn’t want to hear. He missed the frown of concentration that wrinkled her brow when she sketched and the way she pressed her lips together when she painted—to prevent herself nibbling on the end of her paintbrush, she had once confessed to him. He missed the silkiness of her hair strewn across his chest after lovemaking, and the way her mouth curved then too, into an unashamedly satisfied smile that made him unaccountably proud to have been the cause of it.

      This morning she would most likely be in the Fourth Court painting what she called the secret garden, since he had sent word that he would not be there. He would like to see how her work was progressing. Would she give him one of the paintings if he asked? He’d like to have something tangible to remember her by.

      The Council had moved on to the menus for the various feasts, which they were debating with some gusto. The coronation was to take place in three days’ time, almost four weeks exactly since he and Julia had made their agreement. The desire to see her was painful. He had known from the moment that he had decided to stay, how vital it was that Julia left, how deeply improper it would be for him to consort with her after his coronation.

      But would it really be such a sin for him to see her again before he was crowned? He had not informed her of the arrangements he was making on her behalf for her journey, and he ought to. In fact, his time would be far better spent doing that, than worrying about what people would eat on the day he handed his life over to his kingdom.

      He was not fooling himself. Azhar sighed in irritation. He did not need an excuse to spend time with Julia. He had not handed his life over just yet. He had the right to claim one more day of freedom, and to spend it with the woman who was about to leave him for ever, to claim freedom for herself!

      Azhar jumped to his feet, startling his Council into silence. ‘I have decided to entrust the final details of the ceremony to you,’ he said ‘In three days’ time I will dedicate my life to Qaryma. I require some time to prepare myself for this solemn undertaking, time to close the door on my old life, to ensure that when I begin this new life as your King, I come to you unburdened.’

      This last remark drew some murmurs of approval and knowing looks that reminded Azhar of Kadar’s warning. No one would dare question Julia’s presence here, but everyone would be speculating. Until he was formally crowned, Julia’s position in Azhar’s life was none of their business but after—surveying his Council, he could see the relief in some of the older faces.

      They wanted their King unburdened of the Englishwoman. Despite the fact that it merely confirmed what he already knew, it sickened him to be faced with this evidence of the silent pressure, the unspoken rules and traditions he would be forced to conform to in the future. It also fixed his resolve and decided him to grasp not one but every day he had left. ‘Until the eve of the coronation, my time will be exclusively my own. Any decisions to be made on anything other than the ceremony must be deferred.’

      He waited, but not a single man seemed inclined to suggest the most logical alternative, which was to hand matters over to Kamal. None had questioned his brother’s sudden absence from council meetings either, nor that of the Chief Overseer, though they must know that Kamal was under informal house arrest, that the Chief Overseer was confined to the Cage. They would no doubt speculate as to the reasons for this.

      He sighed. For the time being it would have to remain just that, idle speculation, until he was in a position to implement his planned solution. But that, and everything else, would have to wait. In three days’ time he would be King of Qaryma. Until then he would be simply Azhar.

      * * *

      It was dusk by the time they reached the oasis. ‘It is known as Little Zazim, not because it is close to the Zazim Oasis, but because it is...’

      ‘Almost a perfect replica, in miniature,’ Julia exclaimed, surveying the spot from her vantage point on the seat of her camel.

      The lagoon was small, elliptical in shape, the water had the same silver-green sheen she remembered from the oasis where they had first met. A belt of lush vegetation encircled the waters almost entirely, leaving only one end of the lagoon exposed where the soft desert sands met the waters in what looked like a small crescent-shaped bay. Julia stared around her in wonder. ‘There is no one else here. Did you...?’

      ‘I wanted to ensure our privacy. There are some advantages to being a member of the royal family,’ Azhar said drily.

      ‘But people will know that you are here with me. They will be talking, Azhar, and—and they will be wishing me gone. I had no idea until Aisha said...’

      ‘I wish that Aisha had kept her mouth closed.’ Azhar leaned across to press her hand. ‘We discussed this before we left. I do not deny that your remaining here in Qaryma after the coronation would be unacceptable to my people, Julia, but I am not theirs to command just yet. I am sacrificing everything in three days’ time,