The Sheik’s Expecting Bride by Erin Snihur

14

What is Kamran trying to play at?Hasna inwardly ponders as she stares out of the vehicle’s window at the glorious view of the approaching Jazah Mountains.

As the large all-terrain SUV rumbles up the rocky ground towards the mountains, Hasna cannot help but be nervous. Only a week left until their wedding and two days into their journey to her beautiful childhood home has forced Hasna to think up a multitude of questions. None of which she has voiced to her ruggedly handsome fiancé sitting next to her.

Kamran cannot be doing this for my benefit, a voice pipes up from the back of her mind.

Inwardly, she wonders if perhaps he is doing this to gain access to what remains of her lands and inheritances. Reminded of the magazine article where Kamran and Fikra had been photographed together only a week before their wedding, Hasna shakes her head slightly and bites her bottom lip with worry.

Clearly he wasn’t over that model-thin woman and intended to keep her as his mistress. Why string her along? Unless Kamran cares more about his heir than she originally thought.

What if, after the baby is born, he replaces her with Fikra?

Hasna’s gut curdles at the thought of being separated from her child and sent away to live a quiet, meaningless life, while another woman raises her child. Something many women in her situation had to deal with in their lives.

Glancing across the bench seating of the SUV, Hasna takes in Kamran’s intimidating frame. In the beginning of the journey, he attempted to make conversation with her, but eventually, he had to focus on his tablet and the business therein. He claimed matters still needed to be run, even while on a vacation, but Hasna knew the truth.

He’s trying to keep his distance.

Sometimes Kamran would even talk on the phone to his advisor and from those conversations she had been able to glean that Uncle Bandar didn’t approve of their travelling to the Jazah Mountains and was outraged at the thought of Hasna being anywhere near the place.

Once again, Kamran had seemed amused at that thought, and even smirked at her saying in that deep voice of his, It seems your uncle seems to think he knows what is best for you.

Hasna had only been able to turn up her nose and mutter, As all men think they know what is best for a woman.

The conversations that she had been able to listen in on informed her that Nashat is not in Jazah or Nilan. Instead, it seems he had been sent away, which had caused Hasna to grow even more confused.

Why would Kamran send his brother away?she had pondered.Eventually, things began to become clearer. Perhaps Kamran didn’t wish for her to become distracted by her brother and inwardly, she began to feel amused at Kamran’s insecurities.

While her childhood feelings for Nashat were frivolous and silly at the time, Hasna knew that they were merely puppy love and couldn’t compare to the night she had spent with Kamran, something she would treasure forever. Even if it meant he broke her heart every single time he took a mistress.

When Hasna dares a glance over to Kamran once more, she loses her breath when his dark eyes meet hers almost immediately.

Lips curling in a smirk, Kamran murmurs, “Didn’t your mother teach you not to stare?”

“I could say the same thing to you,” Hasna whispers back, aware of the guards in the front seats, separated from them by a glass partition.

Kamran chuckles immediately hearing her whispered words, and she flushes over the fact that he’d obviously heard her. As he leans back, Kamran sets the tablet aside for the first time since they began their two-day trek to the Jazah Mountains.

“When was the last time you were here?” Kamran asks, scanning the scenery outside of their private vehicle.

Glancing down at her wrist, Hasna fingers the many charms on her bracelet and mutters, “It was the day you brought me the bracelet back.”

Kamran scoffs then and turns in his seat to face her more fully. “Don’t you visit the Jazah Mountains after the memorial every year?”

Hasna snorts, “After the public memorial in what was Jazah’s capital city, we would have traveled back here to pray, but Bandar doesn’t believe that my parents’ real home was ever in these mountains or with the nomadic tribes that took us in.”

Kamran sighs and shakes his head. “That is awful. I’m so sorry that you haven’t been back to visit as often as you would have liked. I hope it won’t be too painful for you to visit now?”

Hasna shrugs slowly and then sighs. “I never wanted to leave in the first place. That was all Uncle Bandar’s decision.”

“Why didn’t you stop him? Why did you have to leave?”

Hasna shrugs again and scoffs, “What could I say to him, Kamran? I was a teenager. Uncle Bandar claimed the mountains were too volatile and my parents had just died in a flash flood. Can you blame him for wanting to keep me away from that kind of danger?”

Inwardly, Hasna knew her hysterical comments were false. The real reason her uncle wished to keep her close was so that he could have better access to her trusts and inheritances. According to what she had overheard from parents the few times that she’d eavesdropped on them while they thought she was asleep, Uncle Bandar had been begging her parents for money long before her father sold off the Crown and the Crown lands.

If only they could see him now, Hasna inwardly ponders. I wonder what they would think of him and of me?

“We are getting married.”Kamran interrupts her thoughts with a gentle smile and a brief touch to her shoulder. “Perhaps it is time that you visit more often.”

Hasna stares at him for a moment, judging his words, but her mind and heart prod her to respond. His words seem sincere, but that only causes her to stare at him with a mixture of curiosity and confusion.

Is he saying what I think he is saying?

“Of course, it is your childhood home and you will want the child to know his or her heritage,” Kamran hesitantly offers.

The child… Not our child. Hasna inwardly wilts at his words. He still thinks of the child as just my child and he would be right. It was my mistake, not his. How could it ever be his?

Fuming at the thought that he might be trying to tell her to leave him and live here in the Jazah Mountains, Hasna raises her chin and smiles as icily as she can manage so as not to show that her heart is breaking on the inside.

“Perhaps you are right, Your Majesty.”

Eyebrows raising at her use of the proper title, Kamran opens his mouth to speak, but Hasna stops him with her continued speech.

“Once we have arrived and visited with my familial tribe, perhaps I will stay and raise the child there. After all, it is my child.”

“But, Hasna…” Kamran argues.

“And my burden to bear. I don’t require a man to take care of me or my child.”

Don’t call the baby a burden!a part of her mind argues as Kamran stares at her, completely flustered and flabbergasted.

Good, that will show him.Twisting on the leather seats, Hasna turns her back to Kamran to stare out the windows.

Soon, we won’t be in the way of what you truly want, Sheik Kamran.