The Sultan's Virgin Bride: A story of lust, loyalty and passionate resentment. (10 page)

“I didn’t know you were there.”

“No,” he nodded, moving further into the room. “You were in your own world.”

She nodded, toying with the necklace she always wore. “I was enjoying the view.”

“So was I,” he remarked smoothly, his voice like a warm massage on her skin. “You know, I think you are incredibly beautiful.”

She shook her head, his compliment making her uneasy. “It’s just the two of us,” she said with an attempt at a smile. “No need to pretend for the moment.”

He scanned her face and then nodded. “I have spoken with the hospital. Your sister is ready to have guests.”

“Oh, thank you.” She lifted her eyes to his face. “Did they say how she is?”

“Sore. Weak. Tired. But otherwise she will be fine.” The desire to comfort his wife was strong. Only he had no idea how welcome that act would be. He settled for a sympathetic grimace. “I’ve ordered the limousine. It will be waiting downstairs when we are ready.”

“Oh.” She flushed apologetically. “I think it would be better if I went on my own.”

She could see that Aki was offended. That he disagreed. “And why is this?” He finally asked, his tone cool.

“You don’t know Michelle. She’s very proud and very loyal. She loved Jak fiercely, at one time. If he’s hurt her, she won’t find it easy to admit. And she would feel especially traitorous to tell you. I think I’m the only person she’ll confide in.”

“I see.” It made perfect sense, so why was he railing against it? “I will accompany you, and wait outside.”

“No,” she shook her head, her eyes almost as heavy as her heart. “That would be a waste of your time, and I feel that I’ve already inconvenienced you enough.”

The way they spoke to each other, as strangers, filled him with a sense of annoyance. “I will be coming. Do not argue, as it is just a waste of your efforts. Can you not see that what I’ve suggested is already a compromise for me?”

She opened her mouth to do precisely that, but one look at the determined set of his handsome features made her nod acceptingly. “Fine.”

“Excellent. Please let me know when you are ready, and we will depart.”

“I’m ready now.” She locked her shoulders in a determined posture of strength, but inside she was quaking. The uncertainty of what she would find, when she saw Michelle, was unfurling in her stomach like a big, messy ball of anxiety.

Aki nodded and put a hand in the small of her back.  It both amazed and frustrated Eleanor that even then, in the midst of such distress, she could feel a fierce force of need for her husband.

They’d kissed twice.

That was it. The sum total of their physical interaction. And yet one gentle, polite touch was enough to make her nipples stand erect; to make her breathing laboured, and her insides tremble with desire. It was not the time. She couldn’t think about it. At least, she couldn’t think about it much.

They rode the elevator in silence, and emerged into the frigid Manhattan afternoon as a burst of wind ran up Fifth. Eleanor didn’t react. Her emotions and feelings were already maxed out. The weather was simply an irrelevance she had no time for.

But Aki noticed. He felt. He shrugged out of his coat and wrapped it around his wife’s shoulders, wondering if it was possible that she’d lost weight in the brief time they’d been married. The thought gave him little pleasure. In fact, a strange sense of guilt and anger, directed at himself, flooded his body. “Did you eat today?”

She pulled a face as she slipped into the back seat of the sleek grey limousine. “What do you think? My stomach is in knots.”

“You must take care of yourself.”

“I can barely even drink water,” she said with a shake of her head. “Let alone eat.”

He studied her surreptitiously. Yes. Her face had definitely lost some of its sweet roundness, leaving a far more gaunt, sophisticated woman sitting opposite him. She had not really had weight to lose. She had been pleasingly curved in a way that had stirred his whole body. While she was still beautiful, he could now see her collarbone protruding from beneath the delicate skin at her neck and it added to the rabble of emotions that were sledging through him.

“Tonight, you will eat,” he said firmly.

She would have laughed, if not for the fact she was beyond overwrought. “Oh? Because you order me to do so?”

“Yes.” He said confidently, then furrowed his brows. “If that will do it.”

“It won’t,” she said. “I feel sick at the very thought of food.”

He looked out of the window, his face set in a line of quiet disappointment. Eleanor understood. She was failing him in every way. She was not the wife he’d wanted. And now that they were married, she was turning out to be a whole lot of trouble, too.

She dug her fingernails into her palms and told herself not to be such a wet drip. She was not a disappointment to anyone but herself. If she’d made a decision that was making herself, Aki, and anyone else miserable, then she, and only she, could remedy it.

“You have lost weight,” he said without looking at her.

She had. She knew it was true. Many of the clothes she’d been given after the wedding were now loose where once they’d fit perfectly. “I know.”

“Too much weight for it to be a reaction to your sister’s news.” He still didn’t look in her direction, but his voice was hoarse with emotion. “So it is a reaction to our marriage.”

A statement of fact. Not a question. Just an obvious explanation for the circumstance. So obvious that Eleanor didn’t feel it was necessary to respond. The limousine moved through uptown Manhattan as a fish through a stream, courtesy of the two police motorcycles who rode ahead, clearing the path of traffic for them.

The air within the confines of the luxury vehicle was thick with emotion and worry. Eleanor blamed herself. She had known that something was wrong when she’d last spoken to Michelle. It had been blatantly obvious to her that something had happened to ratchet up Michelle’s usual level of panic and fear. But she’d ignored it. Because her own life had been unravelling and she’d found it essential to focus her energy on that. She shook her head now, frustrated with herself for being so selfish.

How had one decision made such a mess of everything?

The car pulled to a gentle stop and Eleanor recognised the familiar entrance to Mount Sinai. She reached out and gripped Aki’s hand. Despite everything that seemed to stick between them, the touch helped to settle her nerves now. “I know I said for you to wait outside but… would you mind… I mean… I know it’s stupid…”

He nodded. “It is not stupid. If it will help ease your worry, I will walk with you.”

She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Thank you.”

Her fingers released his hand, and Eleanor was filled with a sense of foolishness for having sought comfort from the man who bore her so little affection. Aki might have been her husband, but theirs was not a real relationship. She pushed the thought from her mind as she stepped from the car. Again, the chill wind brushed past her, and she lifted her face heavenward, comforted by the bleak grey sky that was so familiar to her.

“Aki.” Eleanor turned to look up at her husband, and felt a throb of attraction. In a bespoke suit, he was every woman’s fantasy. But he shouldn’t be hers. There was nothing fantastic about what they were to one another. “There’s something else you should know.” She began to walk towards the hospital doors. “Jak works here. He’s a surgeon. It’s imperative that our conversation with Michelle happens away from any staff.”

A muscle flexed in his cheek. “Of course.”

For once, Eleanor found it impossible to resent the constant security presence in their lives. Aki turned and spoke a few sentences in Talinese to his senior agent and then nodded at Eleanor. “It will be arranged.”

“Thank you,” she nodded tersely, keeping her face locked in a forward direction.

And though she’d known her sister was not in a good way, Eleanor was still ill-prepared for the sight of Michelle. Lying against the crisp white hospital sheets, she was flatter, and whiter, and oh so slender. So fragile that one fierce gust of wind might break her in two.

“Shelly,” Eleanor said on a sob, moving quickly across the linoleum floor and lifting her sister’s hand.

“Ellie?” She blinked, disoriented and confused. “What are you doing here?”

“Papa told me you were in hospital,” she said gently.

Michelle’s eyes were squinting in the bright light. Aki moved to the bedside table and turned on a lamp, then hit the wall switch so that the room was plunged into a dim glow.

“Thanks.” Michelle’s voice was a husk.

“Would you like me to wait outside?” Aki asked, his gaze resting on Eleanor. She understood the compassion in his face and was grateful for it.

“For a moment,” she said with a nod.

Once he’d pulled the door softly shut behind himself, Eleanor propped herself on the side of the bed, and put a hand lightly on Michelle’s thigh. “What happened?”

Michelle’s eyes skittered across the room. “An… accident.”

“No.” Eleanor’s eyes moistened with tears. “Not now. You cannot protect him after this.”

Michelle bit down on her lower lip, as was her tendency when she was stressed. “I… what do you want me to say, Ellie? He’s my husband. I love him.”

“Do you?” She asked, leaning forward so that Michelle had no choice but to meet her enquiring stare. “Do you love him, or do you fear him?”

“You couldn’t possibly understand,” Michelle said. “No matter what he’s like, I still remember the kind, sweet man I first met.”

Eleanor bit back the temptation to point out that that man had probably never really existed. How easy it would have been for a man like Jak to fool a naïve, trusting teenager as Michelle had been. “Did he hit you?”

“No.” His voice wobbled over the angry denial.

“Did he hit you?”

Michelle and Eleanor had a bond that surpassed all others. Best friends, confidantes and sisters, their understanding of one another was unmistakable. Michelle dropped her gaze now, shying away from that intimate understanding. “He didn’t mean it.”

Eleanor had been prepared for this. Years earlier, when she’d realised how completely dictatorial Jak was, she’d gone to a night course on domestic violence. And all the years since, she’d been subconsciously bracing herself for this moment. Hoping against hope she wouldn’t need to use the information she’d gained, but knowing she probably would. “If I walk out of here now, you will go home to a man who appears repentant, until he loses control the next time. And each beating will be worse and worse, until you are dead. What do you want to do, Shell?”

“Stop it!” She squawked, her face pinched.

“No. Because he won’t stop, and so nor will I. You’re my sister, and I will not let him take you from me.”

The door pushed in at that moment, and Aki strode confidently in, ahead of a white-coated Jak. Beyond them, the security presence of Aki’s forces was reassuringly placed as flanks on either side of the room.

“Eleanor,” Jak said with a curt nod. “The nurse said Michelle had visitors. I didn’t realise it would be you and Aki. It seems like a lot of fuss over a simple concussion.”

Aki’s expression was filled with derision and disrespect. Eleanor shot him a warning look. This was her battle. Or, it was Michelle’s, but Eleanor was going in to bat on her behalf. She stood and unconsciously moved her body between her sister and brother-in-law.

“Why don’t you tell me what happened, Jak?”

His ice-cold eyes drifted to the pathetic picture of his injured wife. “An accident,” he said. His uncertainty was clear. How much did they know?

“Is that what you call it?” Eleanor spat derisively. “I would have thought a surgeon like you could come up with a better cover story. Isn’t it usually ‘fell down the stairs’? Or ‘walked into a doorknob’?”

Jak took a menacing step closer to Eleanor, and she felt Aki stiffen. To his credit, he didn’t move to protect her, though it was pretty obvious that he was struggling to stay out of the argument.

Eleanor lifted her chin, and the smile on her face was loaded with disdain. “What? You want to hit me, too? Isn’t that how you handle your frustrations, Jak? Pick on women?”

“Ellie,” Michelle’s voice was cracked with grief. “Stop it.”

“You heard your sister. You would be better to listen to her.”

“No. She is listening to me, whether she wants to or not. She will not be coming home to you.”

Jak rolled his eyes. “And how do you propose to arrange that?”

“I don’t care if I have to bind her and gag her, she will never be alone with you again.” Behind her, Michelle reached out and laced her fingers through Eleanor’s. She squeezed them. And because of their unique understanding, Eleanor knew. She knew that the squeeze conveyed gratitude and relief.

“Now get the hell out of here before I start screaming this hospital down. I will have no hesitation telling your superiors just what you’re capable of, you misogynistic, abusive bastard. Do you understand me?”

Jak stared at her for a good minute, weighing up his options. Finally, he turned toward the door. Before leaving though, he stopped and levelled one last cold stare at his sister-in-law. “This was a mistake, Eleanor. A mistake you made on behalf of yourself and your sister. I am sorry that you will live to regret it.”