Forbidden: The Sheikh's Virgin by Trish Morey Read Free Book Online Page B

as she waved the mother and her children goodbye, smiling as she wished them well in spite of the tears in her eyes. She’d almostforgotten in the past few years how much she’d wanted children. She’d almost come to terms with the fact she might never have them.
    And right now that reawakened pain was almost more than she could bear.
    She turned and walked slowly towards the pool again, the sadness squeezing her heart until she was sure it would bleed tears.
    She sniffed down on her disappointment, willing it back into the box where she’d kept it locked away until now. They would be resuming their journey shortly; the drivers were already making their final checks of the vehicles and re-stowing their gear. Rafiq had thankfully kept his distance while the woman and her children were here, but soon she would have to put up with his thundercloud-dark presence again. She needed to get herself under control before then.
    Rafiq looked at the map one more time, trying to focus, trying to assimilate what the father of the small family, a local, had informed them—that the mountain track up to Marrash had suffered in recent landslips and that progress could be slower than they expected.
    It was news Rafiq hadn’t wanted to hear, for it meant that there was a chance they mightn’t make Marrash tonight. The local man had advised that it would be madness to try to negotiate the treacherous mountain road in the dark. Both drivers had agreed, suggesting that perhaps they should make use of the camp at the coast. The truck that had set out earlier would have prepared for their arrival, and the camp was even now being readied for them.
    But he didn’t want this trip taking any longer than one night, and if they stopped tonight and negotiations in Marrash took too much time they might well have to spend a second night at the camp, so he’d argued that if they cut their break short and pressed on now they could still be in Marrash by nightfall.
    He didn’t want to run the risk of having to spend two nights away from the palace.
    And it wasn’t only because he had to get back for the state banquet being held in Kareef’s honour.
    He gave up pretending to study the map and looked over to the pool, where the real source of his irritation sat at the edge, gazing fixedly at…
    He tried to follow her line of sight, but there was nothing but sand beyond the fringe of trees and nothing to see.
    He’d thought this trip would be so easy, that he would be the one irritating her, but her presence was akin to the rub of sandpaper against flesh, the continual abrasion stinging and ferocious on flesh raw and weeping, and he wondered about the sanity of making this journey at all. Would not his business survive without his hunting down a fabric made by some village high up in the mountains? And it could still be a wild goose chase. He didn’t even know at this stage if he was all that interested.
    It was bad enough that he would be forced to spend the next twenty-four hours with her. The last thing he needed was to spend more because of the parlous state of the roads. He would speak to Kareef about those. For all Qusay’s wealth from its emerald mines, and the wide highways leading out of the city, there remained plenty of places where money could be used. The roads in this part of the desert were definitely one of them.
    He growled his irritation and looked back at the map. Just as quickly he looked back again, frowning this time. For she looked sad again, her expression hauntingly beautiful, but sad all the same.
    He’d seen her smile when she’d been holding the child, and he’d even heard her laughing—or had he just imagined that? But she’d definitely smiled. He had seen her face light up, filled with love as she had rocked the sleeping baby in her arms.
    It had been hard to look away then, because for a moment,just a moment, he had seen the face of the girl he had fallen in love with.
    ‘She is not the girl you once