Never Mine by Clare Connelly
Chapter 1
THE ROOM WAS FULL of guests, dripping in expensive jewels, wearing the brightly coloured fabrics this region of Ras el-Kida was known for. Dusky pinks, turquoise, purple and vibrant blue, and from the corner of the ornately decorated space, beautiful guitar music was filling the ‘golden room’ of the palace – so called because every wall was covered in gold paper, the floor was tiled in gold and the chandeliers had been cast of gold and bronze, with diamonds inlaid in the centre of each. Even without the glittering attendees, this room was spectacular, but now, it was like a living, thriving river of stars.
Every person who’d been invited seemed to be present. Except one.
Where the hell was his wife?
Sheikh Rafiq Al-Khalil’s eyes ran across the crowd, noting many familiar dignitaries and guests, the usual crowd at royal functions, and yet her royal highness was nowhere to be seen.
Impatience zipped at his gut. How long had it been since last they’d met? Several months, at least. Six? Could it be so many?
Something shifted inside of him – frustration. Six months since he’d called upon her to serve in her capacity as Sheikha and still she could not manage to arrive on time?
His lips compressed with impatience, his handsome face unknowingly stern, so that several people nearby had occasion to turn away, lest the ruler’s rage fall upon them.
He was not an unkind King, but he had great power, as had all the men who’d come before him, and there were some who feared how that power might manifest.
“Your highness.” The softly-voiced greeting, tinged with an American accent, came from behind him and he straightened his back, every fibre of his being tensing in alert of what he might see.
Six months.
Slowly, he spun around, his back straight, his broad shoulders squared, his jet-black eyes landing on his wife’s face with an air of sardonic disapproval.
He allowed his eyes to roam her face first, noting the combative set of her chin, cheeks that dimpled when she smiled – though it had been a long time since he’d seen that aimed at himself, full pink lips, shaped like cupid bows; eyes that looked as though they’d been cast from powdered bluebells and iris; hair that was the colour of the desert sands beyond the old city.
She’d dressed in a traditional Fas’r – the long, flowing robes princesses had worn for generations. Bright red with gold embellishments, it wrapped tightly around her, showing the curve of her breasts and the neatness of her stomach, but it flowed to the floor so he had to imagine how her bottom might look, and her legs, too.
“How kind of you to grace us with your presence,” he said eventually, the words cold, his smile a grim acknowledgement of civility rather than a genuine sign of welcome or affection.
“I know my duty, sir,” she said, batting her lashes in a way that made a mockery of the statement. “When you send a curt note beckoning me to the palace, heavens, I’d better come running.”
Raffa’s eyes sparked with something dangerously close to amusement. “And yet still you managed to be late.”
“Oh, don’t blow a gasket.” She rolled her eyes and then added, as a reluctant mark of deference, “Your highness.”
Now, Raffa did laugh, a short, but nonetheless melodious sound that was like sunshine on a winter’s morning.
“Not at all. I was just thinking of the disrespect you show our people with your tardiness.”
“Disrespect?” She glared at him. It was just like Raffa to insult her by implying she was anything less than devoted to this Kingdom of his. An irony indeed, given that she spent almost all her time and energy working towards its betterment. “I’ll have you know, I’ve been here almost an hour.”
“Where were you then?” He asked, his disbelief understandable. After all, not much happened within the walls of Qasr Alnujum, this ancient palace, without Raffa’s knowledge.
“With Malik,” she said softly, sweeping her eyes shut for a moment and angling her head away, so Raffa had a view of her elegant neck, her beautiful face unable to hide the grief she felt.
He knew it to be genuine. Her love and affection for his father was the one thing he knew about her – since she was a child, she’d adored Malik, and even now, when she avoided her husband like the plague, she made time for the dying King. “And how was my father?”
She swallowed; her slender neck moved visibly as she tried to bring moisture back to her mouth. But she turned to face him slowly, anguish thick in her expressive eyes. “He was… not good,” she said honestly. “Why didn’t you tell me?” The question was just a husk, and, damn it all to hell, tears sparkled on her lashes.
Real tears.
He hadn’t prepared for this. Seeing Chloe cry. A thrust of guilt – misplaced – dragged down his spine.
“It would not have made any difference,” Raffa said with a shrug, coldness his defense to feeling anything for his wife. “Unless you are secretly an oncologist or healer of another description?”
Chloe slashed him with the ice in her gaze. “I know you and Malik have issues,” she said with a shake of her head. “But I believe he would take comfort from my presence.” He could tell she was about to turn away from him, to walk in a different direction.
Raffa’s pulse ratcheted up a gear and all the intentions he’d had of speaking to her privately on this matter, of cajoling her gently, fled. “There are other ways to comfort a dying King,” he said silkily, reaching his hand out and curving his fingers around her wrist, holding her still lest she decide to flee.
“Such as?” There was barely concealed anger in the words. When had they decided to hate one another? Perhaps they were always doomed to feel it – two independent, spirited people who had been morally obligated to enter into this farce of an arranged marriage?
“The country needs an heir, Sheikha. And it rests on you to provide it.”
Chloe froze.The room swirled around her, people, princes, princesses, so much joy, and her ears were ringing with her husband’s pronouncement.
“An heir?” She whispered the words, so he was obliged to lean closer in order to hear.
Raffa compressed his lips in that way he had – the ease with which he could express his disapproval would have been a skill she admired were it not for the fact it was almost the only interaction they ever experienced. She couldn’t remember a time when he’d looked at her with something other than boredom or disdain.
“A child.”
“You mean, our child?” She felt all the warmth drain from her face.
Raffa’s disdain grew, icing Chloe’s heart. “Unless you can think of another way to beget an heir.”
Raffa was an only child, the sole son of the great Malik, and she, Chloe, was his wife – his only wife. It had been a long time since polygamy had been legal in this country, so there was no chance of suggesting he simply marry another woman with whom he could breed.
“We said we’d wait,” she reminded him urgently.
“We have waited.” He drew himself up to his full height, staring at her from darkly brooding eyes.
“But it’s only been a year. I thought you meant, we’d wait… several years.” She trailed off lamely before regrouping. “I don’t even live at the palace. We haven’t even…” the words tapered off once more, and all the blood that had fallen from her face rushed back, hard and fast, filling her cheeks with an innocent blush.
“Yes, Sheikha?” He prompted, the words droll, apparently determined to offer her no relief.
“Well, it’s not something that I’ve even thought about,” she concluded without meeting his eyes.
“Perhaps it’s time you started.”
“But Malik…”
“Needs to know the lineage is preserved. He is not well, Chloe. You’ve seen this for yourself. Do you not want to give an old man some peace of mind at the end of his life?”
Her eyes narrowed and when she spoke, the words were shaky. “You’re using my affection for your father to manipulate me.”
Her husband laughed, but it was a short, harsh sound. “Am I?”
“You know I’d do anything for Malik.” Even marry you, she thought bitterly, the words unspoken but not unheard. They both understood the truth of their union – a marriage brought about by her father and his, a marriage that had made so much sense at the outset and that was now a great source of pain for Chloe. At least, it was whenever she had occasion to see her husband.
For most of the time, living in the capital Qadim, in her own royal apartments, with her own maids and servants, she could focus on what she’d set out to achieve in acquiescing to this plan. She could pour her energy into charity work, championing the causes that were most important to her, instead of simply being Raffa’s Princess. And now, the royal-heir-provider.
His eyes held hers for several seconds. “Have your servants bring you to my apartment after this has concluded.”
Chloe’s mouth dropped open. “You can’t mean now. Tonight?” She gulped. “Don’t you think that’s too soon?”
“No, Chloe. I think it’s just soon enough.” There was a warning glint in his eyes, urging her to silence, but Chloe had never been the submissive wife she knew Raffa had banked on. Promises her father had made to seal the deal, no doubt. Or perhaps it had been her father’s truth. After all, to the Greek tycoon, she’d always been too in awe to speak her mind. Too afraid that the same criticisms he’d reserved for her mother might fall to her shoulders. So she’d been meek and respectful on the few occasions she’d seen him.
Raffa was not her father though, he was her husband, and Chloe wasn’t about to be dictated to.
“If you don’t wantto do it, then don’t. You are Sheikh of Ras el Kida. With or without a wife; with or without a child.”
Raffa stared at his oldest friend with a rueful shake of his head. “You’re trying to make me feel better about taking a woman who hates me to my bed – about seducing an innocent woman, almost ten years my junior – just so she can carry a baby I don’t even know she wants.”
Kalim’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “You mean to say, a baby you don’t know if you want.”
Raffa was uncharacteristically awkward. “I have always known my duty here, Kal. If I don’t have a child, an irrefutable heir to inherit the throne, Goran will act, and you know he has the power to tear at the fabric of this kingdom. For all my father has done, for all I’ve done, it is always banging on our doorstep. Don’t you hear that? The factions who wish to return to our old ways? To plunge Ras El Kida into what it once was? A disparate, fractured group of councils and tribes, with no single authority? Goran wants to drag us there; he is always stirring up dissent. And my father’s death, my lack of heir, these things will appeal to those who would foolishly follow him. I will not let that happen.”
Kalim lifted his broad shoulders. “Then you have no choice but to go through with this.”
Raffa compressed his lips and in the crowd, far below the mezzanine level on which they stood, sequestered from the goings on of the celebrations, he found her easily in the crowd. A single blonde head in the midst of so much colour. She was still, unmoving, like an ice sculpture in the centre of all the festivity.
A thick thud of guilt hefted in his gut.
“I know that.” He lifted his attention back to his friend’s kind eyes. “I just don’t know how I’ll live with myself afterwards.”
Chloe ruminatedon her plan of attack throughout the function, so that she was barely cognizant of proceedings. It was an effort to make conversation with other dignitaries and guests, when all of her mind was absorbed by Malik’s worsening condition and Raffa’s demands for an heir, so by the time she walked from the Gold room, she was already weary.
The problem was, she loved Malik. While her own father had ignored her, Malik had been there – bringing her to Ras el Kida, even as a small child, so she could spend exotic, wonderful vacations in this beautiful palace. She had fallen in love with this place then: perhaps it was because it was the first time in her life she’d known kindness and affection. She’d run through the corridors, picked the wild, heavily scented flowers from the gardens, and become addicted to the sun on her skin.
She loved Malik, and she loved this country. But her husband?
She sighed, focusing her mind on the moments ahead.
Her maids surrounded her instantly – six of them, anyway. Perhaps she could beg off with a headache? Tell them there was an emergency in the city and she had to leave at once?
But just as she opened her mouth to speak, her husband’s principal bodyguard appeared. Male servants weren’t allowed to look directly at Chloe – a fact that had always amused her, and made her feel like some kind of human solar eclipse. She had become used to it now, though, used to the way they dipped their heads forward as a mark of deference and addressed her through her primary maid, Aysha.
“The princess is to attend His Highness,” Fahir said in his own tongue.
Chloe cursed inwardly but didn’t reveal a hint of how the pronouncement affected her. She’d become excellent at hiding her inner-most thoughts behind a well-practiced mask of indifference. First with her father, then with her brother, and now with her husband. Life had been a series of dictatorial men for Chloe and Raffa was no different.
“Fine,” she said to Aysha. “But you need not accompany me. I know the way.”
Aysha looked confused but knew her place wasn’t to question the princess’s dictates.
“As you wish,” she said with a bow, that set off a Mexican-wave reaction amongst the other servants.
Chloe turned her back on them and stalked through the enormous corridor of the Qasr Alnujum palace. She was not tall, only five and a half feet, and yet she walked fast, so it only took her five minutes to reach the carved timber doors inlaid with gemstones that announced the Sheikh’s apartments.
She hovered on the threshold, barely seeing the four guards that stood sentry, dressed in traditional military attire. They were the highest rank, she knew, men who had served in war and fought for their country, now prepared to willingly die for their ruler.
“Open the doors,” she said, taking only a moment to quell the blood that was raging inside of her veins.
They did so without a word.
Chloe had only been in his apartments once before, on their wedding night. As was the expectation, they’d spent the night together – better to acquiesce to traditions rather than incur the gossip and scandal of the palace staff. No one needed to know that she’d slept in the bed while he’d slept on a rolled mattress on the floor. She’d protested then but he’d made her feel utterly foolish, pointing out that he’d slept in far less savory environments during his four years in the country’s military.
The Warrior King – that was what the American press loved to call him. It conjured images of a half-man, half-beast, and unfortunately, those images were very close to the truth. Raffa was some kind of primal, feral creature, caged by his palace, but no less vitally strong for the veneer of civilization he adopted as required.
His own suite of rooms was unlike anything she could have imagined before arriving at the palace. Through the thick, carved timber doors there was an atrium with a waterfall that Raffa had explained, on their wedding night, was naturally occurring. The palace had been built against a mountain range and this room had historically been the Sheikh’s.
The waterfall dropped into a pool – ‘my predecessors liked to watch their concubines swim,’ he’d said, with something in his eyes that had made it hard for Chloe to tell if he was joking. Teasing her, mocking her innocence. Trying to shock her?
It had worked.
She’d jerked her attention away from the waterfall sharply then, and she did so now. Bougainvillea had been trained to grow over the ceiling, and night-flowering jasmine intertwined with it, creating a heady fragrance and a stunning tangle of purple and white flowers.
Through the atrium, the suite was in stark contrast to such wild beauty. Everything in Raffa’s rooms was the finest money could buy. From the enormous bed in his room, to the polished marble dining table that was set with gold cutlery and crystal glasses, to the cinema sized screen that sat against one side of his living area. It was sumptuous, decadent and not even remotely what Chloe found the most remarkable thing in the room.
No, that honour was reserved for her husband.
He stood in the centre of the space, his robe removed so that he wore only a pair of loose pants, low on his waist. His feet were bare and the long, dark hair he’d worn in a messy bun at the event was down now, falling over his shoulders in thick, tumbling waves. His chest was bare, and her gaze couldn’t help but fall to it, taking in the muscular ridging, the hard lines, the hair that ran down his navel and into the waistband of his pants.
“Like what you see?” He enquired sardonically.
She blinked, grateful then for the years of practice she’d had in concealing her thoughts and feelings; grateful for the father, brother, mother who had all taught her to hide her inner-most feelings at all times.
“You wanted to talk,” she reminded him crisply, moving deeper into the room, towards the bar, where she poured herself a mineral water and scooped some pomegranate seeds from a small golden bucket.
“No. I want to sleep with you. You want to talk.”
Chloe’s fingers fumbled the ice tongs but she was calm when she met his eyes. “Oh, come on, Raffa. Don’t make it sound as though you want this. You want an heir. Sex you already have, surely, with any number of willing women?”
His eyes narrowed and something dark crossed his expression. “Careful, sheikha. That sounds a lot like you are questioning my integrity.”
“How? By stating a fact?”
“You think I have been sleeping with other women?”
She was on dangerous ground and yet she couldn’t retreat. “I haven’t thought about it at all,” she lied. “But, if I had to answer that, I would say, of course. This isn’t a real marriage, you’re…”
“Yes?” He prompted with a dangerous edge to the words.
“Well, you’re you. All virile and masculine and no doubt used to regularly being…”
An eyebrow lifted up, and embarrassment flicked at the edges of Chloe’s mind, making it impossible for her to finish the sentence.
“I am a married man,” he said with a shrug. “I am not interested in breaking the vows we made to one another.”
She had thought the ground was tilting beneath her moments ago, but now, it fairly shook! Was he actually saying that he’d been celibate this past year? That the virile and masculine specimen of royalty and hotness had gone without a partner – because of her? Because of their marriage?
“Fine,” she said, as though this revelation hadn’t made her pulse fire. “But if this is just about assuaging Malik’s worries, then why not simply tell him we’re trying for a baby? Surely that will do the same thing?”
Raffa’s eyes narrowed. “I hope, Chloe, that we can provide him with more than the thought of an heir, before he leaves this earth. His condition is worsening, but I have no reason to think he won’t survive long enough to meet his grandson.”
“Or granddaughter,” she pointed out, sipping her water, holding it tightly in one hand to hide the way her fingers were trembling.
“Or granddaughter,” The sheikh conceded with a nod. “The gender does not matter. The constitution will recognize either as my heir.”
Chloe tilted her head thoughtfully to one side. “You already have a son, do you not?”
It was the first time she’d played that card, the first time she’d spoken about the secret child, Amit, who was not so secret after all. Everybody knew of him. The twelve-year-old who was the product of a youthful indiscretion – rumoured to have been a love affair that was strictly forbidden by Raffa’s father.
“Leave Amit out of it. We are talking about my heir,” he recovered quickly, taking a step towards her, so that she fought an impulse to step backwards.
“Aren’t they one in the same thing?”
“He’s not my legitimate heir,” Raffa said with a shrug. “You are my bride. Only you can provide Qad’r with the child it requires.”
“You’re to be the King. Surely you can change the rules of succession?”
“Of course you would think ancient rules should be set aside when they become inconvenient. How very American of you.”
She ignored his condemnation. “I should think you find it inconvenient as well.”
His nostrils flared. “Amit will not inherit the throne, and he knows this. It has never entered his head that he would. He wouldn’t want the job, even if it were offered,” Raffa remarked with an affectionate smile.
A throb of jealousy robbed Chloe of breath. Raffa loved his son – that was natural. Why did that hurt? Why did she feel a sense of pain to see the way Raffa softened when thinking of another human? Because he would never soften towards her.
Not because he hated her – he didn’t. She would take his hatred – she would take any kind of emotion in preference to the coldness with which they treated one another.
Coldness, and disapproval. Yes, disapproval, because he disliked the necessity of this marriage as much as she. Because he’d thought he was getting a certain type of bride and instead he’d found himself married to a woman with her own ideas about where she wanted to live and what their lives would look like. They’d butted heads from day one, and that didn’t look like changing any time soon.
“You’re nervous.” The words were grim.
For a second, Chloe almost dropped her mask of unconcern. “Not at all,” she lied.
“You’re inexperienced.”
Chloe lifted a brow. “Employing euphemisms? For your comfort or mine?”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re a virgin,” he said simply.
Chloe refused to be intimidated. “I’ve never even been kissed,” she confirmed with apparent disregard. “Is that what you want to hear?”
Something like speculation grew in his eyes as he closed the distance between them, reaching for the glass in her hands.
He stared at her and despite her intentions to maintain her cool, his proximity and the promise of what was about to happen was over-charging her nerve endings. “You were twenty one when we married. You hadn’t dated?”
“No.” She tilted her head away, not wanting to be interrogated about her resolute commitment to being single.
“I find that hard to believe.”
That drew her attention back to his handsome face. “Believe it or not. That’s your choice.”
A muscle throbbed low in his jaw. “I know I should be gentle with you, and then you say things like that and I have to fight the urge to lift you over my shoulder and smack that delightful rear of yours.”
She drew in a gasp of surprise and stepped backwards, so that her hips jammed against the kitchen counter.
“You’d regret it,” she drawled, but the words were husky, the desire his words had sparked obvious in every syllable.
“Perhaps.” He closed the gap once more and she refused to be cowered, meeting his look without fear. “Did you marry me and believe we wouldn’t need to have an heir?”
“No. I always knew that one day we’d have to…” she couldn’t finish the sentence.
“I don’t want you to fear this, nor do I want you to feel forced.” A muscle jerked in his jaw. “You have choices here, Chloe.”
Her eyes met his, and a spark travelled from her to him, flaming the air. “I know that.”
His expression flashed with something like relief, for her words were the permission he sought.
“I will be gentle with you,” he promised, placing his hands on either side of her body, bracing his palms against the counter top and imprisoning her easily.
Chloe’s mouth was dry, her throat hoarse. She parted her lips to say something, but slammed them shut again when she realized she had been about to beg him, “Don’t be gentle.”
